Runa Islam, Untitled (After the Hunt), still, 16mm, 2008.
quarta-feira, 4 de dezembro de 2013
quarta-feira, 25 de setembro de 2013
segunda-feira, 12 de agosto de 2013
quarta-feira, 7 de agosto de 2013
terça-feira, 6 de agosto de 2013
segunda-feira, 5 de agosto de 2013
sexta-feira, 28 de junho de 2013
Free Agent Media
Courtesy Renée Green and Free Agent Media.
Read Renée Green's article Reflections: Seven Years Plus hERE
My Own Private Angkor
Simryn Gill, My Own Private Angkor #2, 2007-09.
Simryn Gill, Where to Draw the Line, 2011-012.
segunda-feira, 24 de junho de 2013
Jill Magid: Evidence Locker
As the artist wrote in 2007, “I seek intimate relationships with impersonal structures. The systems I choose to work with, such as police, secret services, CCTV and forensic identification, function at a distance, with a wide-angle perspective, equalizing everyone and erasing the individual. I seek the potential softness and intimacy of their technologies, the fallacy of their omniscient point of view, the ways in which they hold memory (yet often cease to remember), their engrained position in society (the cause of their invisibility), their authority, their apparent intangibility and, with all this, their potential reversibility.”
domingo, 23 de junho de 2013
On Desire and Power: A Conversation with Solange Freitas
: : : : : : : : :
:
Synopsis: Offside
is about desire and its relationship to power, about strategies to
escape the boredom, the crisis and the everyday. How long can you
hold your desire without letting it fade away?
What can we desire today? Can we desire to act? Can we
act? And do we have to be many or only a few? What measures do we
adopt when desire becomes too urgent and extreme, asking for a
radical action in an area greater than the individual, the scope of
their relationship with the other?
The presence of video puts into question and sharpens
the boundaries of desire, embodied or in a state of latency. How can
desire become conscious and how does it materialize? Through the
possibility of being said or materialized into an image? What are the
fictions produced by desire?
Performer and
theatre director Solange Freitas talks to curator-on-the-move Rosana
Sancin about her latest project Offside (Fora de Jogo, 2011)
. Desire and its relationship to power, agency and participation are
being questioned in this piece, which premiered at the Festival
Temps d'Images. The two engage in an e-mail conversation about the
economy of desire, tackle the uncanny situation in Performing Arts,
and touch upon the intermingling relationship between Visual and
Performing Arts as can be observed in the art-theatre hybrid Eleven
Rooms.
Solange is an artist
based in the cosmopolitan city on margins of Europe, surrounded by
the Atlantic Ocean, and connected to Africa and Americas through
infinite migrations. However, what is less known is that Lisboa is
also one of the most vibrating art capitals in the world.
She
entered the art sphere in the noughties after studying clinical
psychology and participating in numerous workshops by renown artists.
Since Here and There (Lá
e Cá, 2007) , a theatre trilogy that
was presented at major art institutions such as CCB
and Museu Serralves,
Solange works together with the performer and co-creator Catarina
Vieira. To this we might add an ongoing collaboration with the
filmmaker Carlos Conceição. Amongst their projects is also a
dyptich Temporary (Temporária, 2010) ,
a theatre piece and a video-installation that explores the
relationship between the individual and work as well as the
individual's (in)visibility in the city (temporary being the
condition of our times) , which might be presented in Ljubljana in
the near future... Demand it!
:::::::::::::::::::::
Rosana:
Solange, tell
me why
you do
what you
do and
how would
you define
your practice?
Solange:
I believe the main focus is set on the invisibility, or rather, to
procure and shed visibility of what apparently is hidden, camouflaged
or deemed unimportant that is reflected on the collective space. I
aim to reflect on the relationship of the individual with desire: his
own, the desire of the Other, or the mass to which it belongs to and
how this relationship is tense and unpredictable.
Various
types of materials such as plastics or texts serve as starting points
of the dramaturgy for the creations that are intersected by different
landscapes.
Rosana:
Fora
de
jogo
is a
piece about
desire, current
state of
affairs, agency
and to
certain extent
participation.
What is
the relationship
between desire
and power?
And what fictions desire produces?
Solange:
The performance reflects on the relationship between power and
desire: on the way desire manifests itself, hides away as a
consequence of a collective gaze. This signals another reality that
is hidden and which is materialized through negotiation with the
collective space.
These
questions imply necessarily a reflection on Power. According
to Zizek: When we are subject to
mechanisms of power, the subjection always leads by definition to a
libidinal investment [. . .]
This subjection is expressed
through a network of material bodily practices and thus we cannot
untangle ourselves from it by means of a simple intellectual
reflection – our
liberation must be staged through a type of bodily performance.”1.
There are a series of questions that trouble me but I believe that in
art we should not seek answers, they aren’t the fulcral point, but
search and raise questions. In what concerns this creation: What type
of power does mass have on an individual’s desire? In order to
accomplish certain desires, unions must be formed, groups, and on the
other hand there are desires that occur as a response to peer
pressure. Is there any point in talking about limits?
Rosana:
Ranciere has
a famous
thesis that
the political
in art
is what
brings to
the public
domain voices
that are
unheard, and
by that
opens-up the
society and
offers
potentially new
social practices.
What do
you think,
Solange?
Solange:
I am mostly attracted to the possibility of giving voice or
visibility. The tension between the individual
and the collective. The idea that something is imminent, latent or
potentially about to surface at any given moment.
Rosana:
Concerning the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) and the massive protests all
over the world including Lisbon and Ljubljana, what means agency
nowadays and how can we act off-stage? Can art be a catalyst for
social change?
Solange:
I think it is possible, especially when it disturbs us, makes us act,
question and reflect on our role and position as individuals that are
a part of society and are responsible for it.
Rosana:
Did someone say participate?
Solange:
Yes.
Rosana:
I'd like to know everything about the process of making the piece
together with Catarina Vieira. You once told me that you often
proceed from an image you spot somewhere and not from the text as it
is usual in the theatre. This opens up a new perspective on what
theatre might be and brings it closer to contemporary dance. What
image triggered the creative process in Fora
de jogo and how did the piece evolve
from that moment on?
Solange:
In general terms there is always an image that haunts us. In the case
of Temporary- Cookies and Cream
(2010), it was a photo by Izima
Kauro, Reika Hashimoto wears
Milk, in Offside,
it began through images of rallies, confrontations, revolt that
occurred throughout 2011 and then a few other plastic and textual
materials appeared for the creation.
Rosana:
Where did you meet Catarina and how you ended up working together?
Once I read somewhere that working in a duo it's like being a mirror
of each other.
Solange:
We studied in the same drama and cinema school and we wanted to work
together. In terms of working as a mirror of each other I do not
agree – in truth we never thought of things in those terms.
Rosana:
How does being a lisboeta
affect your practice? The city is bursting with creativity. That is
surprising due to the fact that the country was isolated for so long
[Portugal had dictatorship until '74] . Besides that, Catarina isn't
based in Lisbon and is always going back and forth. How does this
dynamic add to the creative process?
Solange:
The place where we live always affects the work process, just like
the space where a certain performance is rehearsed and created. The
fact that we are, we live, in different places contributes to
bringing new variables to the work.
Rosana:
In terms of theory, what we have here in Ljubljana is the so-called
Ljubljana Lacan School,
a pure fiction to tell you the truth, of which the most notorious
'export' is Slavoj Zizek. Let me quote the famous psychoanalyst:
“ To love
is to
give what
you haven't
got. “ In
a sense
to give
what you
lack and
not what
you are,
to become
rather than
offer luxury
gifts. What
are the
viable artistic
strategies
against the
current
socio-economic
paradigm? And what do you become
when you're in love?
Solange:
Desire is linked to what we do not have, to what we look for that is
missing. History tells us that in times of crisis artistic production
becomes edgy, fruitful, urgent and vital. One way or the other, one
always finds a way to produce. It is in these moments that we
position ourselves in the world.
Rosana: “ A
espetadora emancipada participa na performance a retrabalha-la à
maneira dela, evitando, por exemplo, a energia vital que este
supostamente deveria transmitir, e fazendo dela uma imagem pura para
associar depois essa imagem à história lida ou sonhada, vivida ou
inventada. “
Solange:
“The emancipated spectator” is
the result of the final montage, by using cinematographic language
the spectator is – at its limit – responsible for the final cut.
Rosana:
You say
in the
piece that
you feel
like a
zombie. In
turn, I
feel like
a homeless
woman. Aren't
they the
perfect subjects
of capitalism?
Do you
know Bruce
La Bruce's
film “L.A.
Zombie”
? In
this experimental
art film,
a zombie
comes out
of the
ocean and
wanders around
the city
in search
of corpses
in order to
fuck them
back to
life. However
strange it
may appear,
he seems
to be
looking for
love...
Solange:
I think that in a certain way that word occurs as a reaction against
the state of apathy.
Rosana:
“ All love
affairs happen
in foreign
cities” says
Jalal Toufic.
We go
to foreign
cities in
search of
sensuality and
we fall
in love
to turn
our cities
foreign. Why
do you
travel, Solange?
Solange:
When I travel I am appealed by the sense of leaving, of living other
experiences in other places.
Rosana:
I'm sure
you've seen
the film
“The
Wayward
Cloud”
(O
sabor
da
melancia)
. The watermelon
sequence in
Fora de
jogo
also recalls
another film:
“The
Roof
“ ,
by Emilie
Jouvet, where
two women
are on
the rooftop
taking photos
and filming
each other.
What does
a hommage
to photography
on a
Paris rooftop
have to
do with
watermelon scene
in a
theatre play?
It's the
way it
involves the
spectator, it
feels like
menage-à-trois
(two actresses
and the
spectator) .
The spectator
participates
without being
actually allowed
to participate,
which is
as we know the
necessary
unovercoming
condition of
the theatre.
Solange:
The scene is not related with the two movies you mention. Of course
there is a space for the spectator to envisage his links,
associations that lead him/her to other places.
Rosana:
In Butler,
yet another
ghostly presence animating this conversation (it's unavoidable) ,
desire and
gender are
perceived as
all flexible
and
free-floating.
What about
your practice
in general
and Fora
de
jogo
in particular?
Solange:
In Offside (Fora de Jogo) we
were interested in the way desire is manifested, how it hides or
masks itself as a consequence of a collective gaze and in which way
it can surface.
Rosana:
Tell our emancipated readers about
the uncanny
situation in
Performing Arts
in Portugal.
I mean especially concerning the funding-system (editor's demand) ,
how the financing is affected by the crisis and the times of 'zombie
economy' if at all, what kind of work gets money and what doesn't,
etc.
Solange:
The crisis has been affecting the artistic production. However, with
more or less funding – or none at all – we keep on struggling to
achieve creation, finding means and strategies to do it, never giving
up.
Rosana:We
just stayed without Ministry of Culture that was funding about
everything in Performing Arts. On the other hand, we have a new
Centre for Contemporary Dance. Where do you get funding for your
projects from and what are the alternative ways of funding when the
State ceases to support art?
Solange:
I do not know where we are going to due to the fact that it is
increasingly harder to find state funds – Portugal is currently
without a Ministry of Culture, more and more state funds are being
cut and this affects us all. We look for other institutions and
agencies to support our projects and this is what I have been doing.
Rosana:
Insofar desire is coproduced by economy, how do you see your work in
this regard?
Solange:
This is approached also in Offside but desire can also be rebellious,
wild and bursting and then it is in some way or the other organized
in various levels. The co-production
you mention can have its effect on the work just like in life.
Rosana:
In the end, art in the West has always had this ambiguous
relationship with power, at least since the Renessaince, while
theatre as far as I know had a more disruptive function (to turn down
the authorities, to overcome taboos existing in the society, etc. ) .
Solange:
In its origin theatre is intimately linked to that drive. If we look
at the Dionysian cult of ancient Greece, namely in the Euripides play
The Bacchae, the
hidden drive, the Eros and Thanatos, burst against the logus, the
order and the authority.
Rosana:
Can you
speak for
a while
about the
art-theatre
hybrid “Eleven
Rooms”
. Curated by HUO, it abruptly mixes visual
and performing arts, creating ephemeral situations where artists give
instructions to performers what to do. Perhaps this kind of mash-up
provides the answer of how to resist the hegemony of the art system?
Solange:
Eleven artists, eleven rooms in the Manchester City Art Gallery. The
artists aren’t present in the rooms but give instructions to the
performers. The rooms are small and most of the doors are shut. We
could knock on the doors before entering thus turning it into an
intimate experience.
Probably
yes, and as an example of this we have the works
of Tino Sehgal and Santiago Sierra. Santiago
Sierra placed a soldier in an empty room, facing a corner, without
answering or reacting to our presence. He
was there, relegated to a corner in order for us not to see his face.
In Tino
Sehgal’s room, we were face-to-face with a young girl of about 11
years of age, with make-up and knee-high socks. She would speak with
a robotic voice and tell us she is not real. She
said that her existence began as an animation but was then bought by
the artist which transformed her into a three-dimensional character.
Rosana:
What do you think about the work of Tino Sehgal? His pieces like "The
Kiss" , for example, performed at
Solomon R. Guggenheim, are not easy to sell or to turn into
commodities, as in the case of latter it consists of "constructed
situations" in artist's words, where two strangers, following
artist's instructions, kiss on the floor of the one of the most
powerful art institutions in the world.
Solange:
The most interesting is the process itself and the necessary
mechanism to produce the final situation, or rather, the power of
persuasion, of seduction of the artist’s words in making people
that have never met each other before to follow his instructions.
Also, the fact that it is made on the floor of one of the most
powerful art institutions in the world.
Rosana: Back to Fora
de jogo. I
think one
of the
best moments
comes at
the end
of the
piece, when
the frontier
between fiction
and reality,
between staged
and live
experience, is
blurred. I'm
talking about
the drama,
the emotionally
invested part,
where besides
you two,
other
participants
(musician,
dramaturgy, light
boy, etc. )
come to
the stage
and it
is unclear
whether this
is part
of the
performance or
not, whether
it's time
to applaude
or remain
quiet. The
spectator has
to make
a decision.
And it's
dangerous or
risky at
least...
Solange:
I agree, the decision in that given moment is entirely of the
spectator precisely because of the fact that the frontier between
fiction and reality is so thin. In
Offside
(Fora de Jogo),
we explore the link between drama and video through the construction
of a binding dramaturgy of different materials and video. Through
archive historical images, of movies, video-clips, and also images
shot specifically for this creation, we created. The images as
psychic landscapes of unconscious tensions between Desire and Power.
We aimed for video to ‘invade’ the scene which was achieved with
the invasion of the stage by the performers that appear in the last
scene and that had already been present in the video – a sort of
materialization of the latent desire.
Rosana:
Tell me
about your
next project/s.
Solange:
The next Project will be titled O
Festim- Do Fim Das Coisas Nada Sabemos
which is a new creation.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
sábado, 22 de junho de 2013
One World in Relation
In 2009, the filmmaker Manthia Diawara joined the poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) on his journey across the Atlantic, while travelling from UK to Brooklyn and to Martinique, his native land. In long-lasting, inspiring and profound conversations, Glissant shares his thoughts and ideas, which are at the same time poetic and philosophical, while arguing for “one world in relation” , instead of using solid categories like identity, ethnicity or similar. Glissant is, no doubt, one of the most important thinkers of our times. His ideas, inspired by the condition of archipelagos (islands in relation) , take shape according to the poetics of multiplicity- a fragmentary theory of global relations. Glissant doesn't allow space for hegemonies to form. Instead, the ideas migrate and mix just like people, while respecting the cultures and their complexities. The differences between us are no longer irreconcilable; rather they permit us to relate to each other. And this suggests imense possibilities.
Although not strictly African, all of the artists have a strong relationship with the continent and live either in the self-proclaimed capitals of modernism (London, Paris, New York) or in the emerging art centers (Luanda, Jo'burg) .
Zarina Bhimji uses poetic imagery to explore history and memory, especially of postcolonial Africa, Asia, and Europe. For the film-installation "Waiting" she made an investigation of this portion of history, constructing a fragmentary narrative and connecting it to our present moment. Shot in a factory in Kenya, the resulting artwork is an abstraction that hovers somewhere between film and painting- a monochrome that combined with a soundtrack becomes immersive.
Neil Beloufa's "Kempinski" is a fiction-doc that features people in Mali revealing their hopes and dreams for the future. Emerging from an impenetrable dark background, the protagonists are filmed against the fluorescent lights, a detail that provides the surrounding jungle with a promise of an urban city. The "actors" recount in present tense how they envisage the future. Their imaginaries reflect (un)realizable utopias. And precisely there lies their potential. Since we arrived at a point in history- perhaps a major historical turning point, a rupture in space and time- where we cannot any longer continue to "move forward", putting the western fiction of progress into question.
Love as a Truth Procedure
Read the article about FORMER WEST and the rest below (in Portuguese):
A PROPÓSITO DE ‘FORMER WEST: Documents, Constellations, Prospects’ | ROSANA SANCIN | ARTECAPITAL.NET
sexta-feira, 14 de junho de 2013
Fantôme Créole
Isaac Julien, "Fantôme Créole", video-still, 2005.
"Fantôme Créole is a four-screen installation which juxtaposes African and arctic spaces. The two actor-protagonists (Vanessa Myrie, who also appears in Baltimore 2002, and dancer Stephen Galloway) are not characters with dialogue and implied interiority, rather they serve to link scenes together between African city- and desert-scapes, and between the arctic north and the arid south. The lack of narrative connection signals an intellectual proposition concerning issues connecting these spaces, as well as Julien's interest in 'creolised' vision - to create new ideas from the movements and connections between spaces. The 'disjunctive juxtapositions' (in film parlance, 'parallel montage') put the spectator in the position of constructing meaning and, through a positioning of screens which forces the viewer to change position to grasp the totality of the presentation, challenge the fixed position that single-screen work entails." Mark Nash
quarta-feira, 5 de junho de 2013
sábado, 4 de maio de 2013
Dusica Drazic: New City
Dusica Drazic, "New City" , maquette of the new city, drawings, printed matter, 2013.
New City is a large maquette of a non-existing city. The buildings that this city consists of are chosen from projects that were actually built, but couldn’t reach their potential, missed their purpose and were eventually destroyed (the destruction was always intentional and organized and was never a consequence of war or natural catastrophes). The destruction of these structures was in itself the acknowledgement of their failure.
Find out more hERE
sábado, 27 de abril de 2013
Eisa Jocson: Death of a Pole Dancer
Eisa Jocson (Manila) performing "Death of a Pole Dancer" (2013) .
Eisa Jocson is a pole dancer and visual artist from Philippines. Her artistic work merges both backgrounds, investigating notions of gender, body politics, and power relationships. In her practice, sexuality and strenght, voyeurism and restraint, and vulnerability and violation all collide.
Eisa recently took part in Asia platform, curated by Tang Fu Kuen, for the performing arts festival Exodos in Ljubljana.
sexta-feira, 26 de abril de 2013
Relations
"Relations", shot on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Ljubljana's lesbian feminist group Skuc LL, by the art duo Grzinic-Smid, is a compelling visual document that contextualizes lesbian movement in former Yugoslavia. Comprising various generations of activists and dj's, it helps re-construct the history of this powerful movement, emphasizing its artistic and political potential as well as critical discourse and emacipatory politics. In short: Empowering.
It would be interesting, however, to see how the lgbtq movement positions itself in relation to other major social and political upheavals of the 20. and 21st centuries. But that's probably a matter of another film.
Watch Relations hERE
segunda-feira, 22 de abril de 2013
NOVO MUSEO TROPICAL
CENTRE FOR THE AESTHETIC REVOLUTION: NOVO MUSEO TROPICAL (SOMEWHERE WITHOUT WALLS): Novo Museo Tropical (Museu without walls) when museums and cultural centres outside of the hegemonic centres remain empty because they...
segunda-feira, 15 de abril de 2013
Cas je za novo drzavo
Time for a New State. Irwin group at Ljubljana protests in December 2012. Image courtesy: Irwin
Building Strategies: Marjetica Potrc
The structure is based on houses created by untrained architects for Barefoot College in Tilonia, India. Equipped with solar panels and able to harvest water, these houses make it possible for the settlement to generate its own energy. This combination of local knowledge, high technology, and the principle of self-sufficiency has won the Barefoot Architects international recognition. (source: www.potrc.org)
Archive Utopia: Project Brasília
Time for a New State
Irwin group is an (retro) avantgarde art collective based in Ljubljana (Slovenia) . Their most important projects are NSK State in Time (ongoing) and East Art Map (2000-2006) .
More hERE .
quarta-feira, 27 de março de 2013
quarta-feira, 20 de março de 2013
The Progress of Love
" Where contemporary African art is concerned, curatorial endeavours over the past two decades have focused extensively on interrogating recent political developments, primarily within the contexts of subjectivity and identity formation, citizenship, environmentalism and urbanism. These issues have been approached predominantly in the context of post-independence euphoria and its disillusionment, particularly in African countries that have experienced civil strife, voluntary and forced migration and even societal disintegration. While exhibition projects exploring these concerns do well in critically broaching many of the topical concerns and contemporary realities in various regions, they have also tended to result in skewed narratives that frequently, though inadvertently, result in “Afro-pessimism” or situations wherein the continent is positioned as an emblem of perennial crisis. What then might a critical engagement with the subject of love offer us as an intervention?
The Progress of Love at CCA, Lagos opens up a dialogue through presentations that challenge the audience to expand their positions, rethink their preconceptions and prejudices and engage in the multiple ways in which love affects their life. The growing visibility of the role of the performative in contemporary art is in itself akin to a political act. With a younger generation of local artists breaking free from the historical dependence on painting and sculpture, live art provides new possibilities and flexibility for transgressing media boundaries and opening up a space for articulating complex ideas about their experiences and daily realities—a space where art converges with life and impacting the way we critically engage and actively explore love today. " excerpt from e-flux announcement
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)