Projects(Day for Night)

In a time of global crisis, over-heated art market, when artworks are increasingly transformed into speculative objects I'm prosposing an exhibition through which various discourses, artistic positions and strategies flow freely like people and capital in global and networked world.
Day for Night takes the title from the work by William Kentridge that resembles a star galaxy, a central piece of this exhibition, to which other artworks establish invisible relations. Infact, the whole structure of the exhibition revolves around small, unexpected constellations of artworks, falling stars, that occassionaly, and for limited period of time, enter in contact.
Kentridge's piece is, in accordance with the statement 'contemporary art objects are frequently not what they seem', actually made by filming ants crossing sugar linen, which makes the pulsating movement on the screen seem very organic. Afterwards, the shot was turned into negative, in a smart twist of what is known as 'nuit américaine', a trick used in '70s B-movies, that means basically shooting night scenes during the day so that they would look like night, resulting in fake night scapes. Instead of that we get a reflection on the process of filmmaking and the magic moment of film projection, leading us back to the beginnings of cinema.
The selection of artworks is based on Ellipse collection that is particularily vibrant in terms of still and moving image of the last thirty years. Both photography and video were not considered art forms in the beginning and had hard time trying to enter (even if contemporary) art history. Photography took over a century to legitimise its existence, while in the case of video this process is still going on and some of the works in this exhibition could intervene fundamentally in this regard.
Similarily, the artists were selected in non-hierarchical way, coming from very different backgrounds, generations and media. The little known artists find themselves in the same space with the undervalued artists and big names. Further, artists from the global South, living in the recently affirming art capitals like Luanda, Jo'burg or Istanbul mix successfully with those lucky(or not) to come from the self-proclaimed capitals of modernism.
The discourses fluctuating thru Day for Night range from queer theory, post-colonial studies, art history, post-feminism, economy(of art), film studies, late capitalism, religion and political philosophy in order to re-articulate contemporary art in our present condition of global unrest.
Artworks on their turn share an aesthetic quality, a beauty that can be political and is normally associated with the 'Other'. And this 'Other' can be nowadays anyone not in possession of right passport. That is, everyone not coming from the forementioned 'centers of modernism' (which undoubtedly still remain the centers of artworld's financial transactions), or global North in general, as well as artists living outside their homeland for any reason. Obviously, this reaffirmation of aesthetics in the works of Kentridge, Pierson, Julien, Orozco or Gonzalez-Torres has nothing to do with aesthetic concerns of modernism or a retroactive cry for ' art for art's sake'.
Most of the videoworks in this exhibition tend towards spatiality and non-linear narrative structure, that becomes kind of a paradigm when observed through a wider scope, it can be noticed in the pieces by Sala, Ahtila, Julien, Yonamine and to certain extent also Kentridge and Atay.
Some of the chosen artworks (art is the question of choosing, afterall) share the performative aspects or are carefully staged as is the case with Sherman, Lucas, Julien, Moffat or Serrano, Breuning and McGuinley to name a few.
Lots of them are playful and engage with the world in humorous way (Orozco, Baldessari, Simmons, Schütte, Breuning, McGuinley, Kelley).
Though what links most of them is desire, as a theme, but also a driving force behind everything we do and inherent to artistic practice.
During the exhibition some artists reappear, we encounter them in different rooms and constellations (Pierson, Orozco, McGuinley and Gonzalez-Torres).
Day for Night shares a room with Anri Sala's double screen projection Blindfold, exhibiting two different angles on the same scene shot in Tirana, showing that what we see depends on our perspective, it is therefore conditioned. The fact that video is local specific locates it light years away from the 'liquid', 'neutral' videoworks from the past decades.
The constellation that follows is charged with desire. There is an untitled photo of purple-toned flowers by Fischli&Weiss; a colourful metamorphosis by Cindy Sherman who is known to use herself as a protagonist for most of the photos she does, adding performative aspect to her practice; a black and white self-portait obviously influenced by her by smoking Sarah Lucas; sexually intense Indian Corn and Pommegranate by Tillmans; blown-up Stardust by Pierson where queer theory enters; A History of Sex explained by Serrano, one of most disquieting artists of our time; an incredibly contemporary work by Baumgarten from '68 called Pupile; and, finally, Islamorada, a paradisiac photo of a palm tree taken from the bottom up that might as well have to do with cuban illegal immigration to the States via deep blue sea.
Next room proposes two video projections that apparently have very little in common, except the strong presence of women protagonists. Wind is part of the Eina Lisa Ahtila's project Love is a Treasure and is essentially about women, their complexities and relationships, for which she spend some time with the patients of psychiatrical institution. Julien's Fântome Afrique in its turn is a triple screen projection dealing with phantoms of the past, colonial history, cinema and love, shot in the african capital of cinema Ouaga. Its protagonists are two 'phantoms', a man and woman, who despite the proximity of their trajectories will never meet, because spectres are invisible even to each other. It is a tale about impossibility of love, and that would actually connect both videoworks, besides their decidedly spatial orientation and non-linear narration.
What follows is not yet titled sculpture of burning drums by Violette Banks, a work yet to come, forming a 'community' with Heroine by Pierson that refers to popular culture, queer world and the killing drug, completed with a post-colonial flavoured painting of sculls, Hula girls, by Ashley Bickerton from Barbados.
Further, the viewer encounters works by Yonamine and Fikret Atay, first being part of Luanda's young artists launched internationally through controversial Check-list: Luanda Pop exhibition at last Venice Biennial, which affirmed Luanda as an art capital to be watched on.
A humour and exuberance enters the exhibition, generally more inclined towards night visions through this stargate: Lemonspeed by Orozco and a 'carroty' Game for two players by Baldessari, through Dieter and Klaus by Schütte coupled with c-print jigsaw puzzles in plastic bag- Loverboy and Fainted by cubanico Gonzalez-Torres, and to close the room Tracey Moffat's latino flavoured knife on the table together with Lady G, that is, a naked blond princess on the horse, by Olaf Breuning; frivolous Jessy by McGuinley in all her beauty; and Mike Kelley's toy-like object The Way is I Am.
The red colour links the pieces from the constellation to come, from horrific video Charlotte by Steve McQueen, to the filtered Shinjuku cemetery by Thomas Struth, or equally terrifying woman from I don't live here anymore by Rondinone, to the teasing Three Red Petit Fours by Laurie Simmons to finish and digest the nightmare.
Day for Night, is coming closer to an end now, its flickering stars turning into stardust, and the last room is again dedicated to still images. Bathtub full of ecstatic youth; Foam on the street without providing a clear idea where it comes from, but nevertheless soon to be dissolved, recalls Sloterdijk; Nudes on the Bed, another joyful session of twenty-somethings, quite common these days; Double
Falling Sunset- a climax making the transition from day to night easier; infinitely triste Last Light; and untitled Cold Blue Snow and Key West dispersal, in an interplay of two artists- Ryan McGuinley and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
Curating, intended as 'statement in the space' would involve discussions with an architect, having 'nuit américaine' as departure node, and trying to avoid clichés of screening videoworks.
The project will be documented in a thin publication, relying on images of the exhibited artworks accompanied by detailed description of each work and a short intro by the curator.
The exhibition will be announced internationally via E-flux, in addition to usual adds in local press.
Day for Night is the first project in the series of three exhibitions appearing under the common title For the Love of God (present condition and contemporary art), that obviously appropriates the title of Hirst's diamond scull, an artwork known to be at the same time democratic and elitist. It will be followed by History of Violence that puts together Serrano's photo of a member of Ku-Klux clan with Wallstreet by Opie and mehrlicht by Abdelsemed, or for instance Ruff's Petra Grot with Soldiers by Dijkstra. The last being Eyes wide Shut, to close the cycle with yet another title taken from film history. The project is taking as its premise a concept by Slavoj Zizek known as parallax gap.