terça-feira, 15 de dezembro de 2009

a cena artística de liubliana



O seguinte texto é resultado das entrevistas conduzidas com alguns dos protagonistas da vibrante cena de arte de Liubliana. A idea surgiu do encontro com Roman Uranjek, membro do grupo Irwin com qual já tinha trabalhado na exposição História reconstruída em Lisboa.
Algumas opiniões correspondem. É evidente que no sistema de arte faltam alguns elementos chave como o mercado de arte desenvolvido e transparente, a reflexão crítica e a educação adequada. No entanto, a grande maioria dos entrevistados acha que a cena artística de Liubliana é apesar do seu tamanho muito dinâmica e com grande visibilidade no contexto internacional.

A inexistência do mercado de arte


O mercado de arte na Eslovénia é subdesenvolvido e intransparente. As razões para isso são variadas e têm a ver com falta de outros elementos no sistema de arte.
Gregor Podnar é galerista que consegiu estabelecer-se rapidamente no contexto internacional. A galeria dele representa os artistas já estabelecidos da Europa de Leste que ainda não tinham a sua propria galeria o que é típico para leste europeu. Inclui os nomes como o grupo Irwin, Attila Csörgo e Vadim Fiskin, como também Tobias Putrih da geração mais nova.
O espaço central da galeria encontra-se em Berlim, enquanto o de Liubliana serve como uma espécie de project room, um espaço mais experimental.
Gregor optou por Berlim porque o mercado na Eslovénia não está desenvolvido e por ser um lugar para onde para além dos artistas recentamente mudaram também alguns coleccionadores internacionais.
Será que há ligação entre a inexistência do mercado de arte e socialismo? “ Não necessáriamente. “ diz Miran Mohar, o membro do grupo Irwin. “ Apesar de um mercado intransparente ser comum no todo o territorio da Europa de Leste a razão para isso não pode ser reduzida ao socialismo. Antes depende de varios factores. “ O Viktor Misiano disse que o problema na Russia é que os melhores artistas trabalham fora das instituições. Também na Eslovénia existe a dichotomia entre a produção artística e a actividade das instituições. O sistema de arte é fechado, o problema reside na política cultural. Uma solução será o estabelecimento das fundações, assim o ministério da cultura já não terá o controle total no financiamento da produção artística. A política deixava de ter a influência directa e será substituída por profissionais da área.
“ A arte na Eslovénia é financiada na grande medida pelo estado. Em relação a isso estamos ainda em transição. “ diz Igor Spanjol, curador da Moderna galerija, a principal instituição de arte contemporânea na Eslovénia. “ Quer dizer que os artistas levam vidas bastante comfortaveis, apesar do mercado ser subdesenvolvido e intransparente. “ Adiciona ainda que os preços das obras dalguns artistas locais como por exemplo os impressionistas cá atingem valores muito mais elevados do que no estrangeiro, o que é uma situação absurda.

A inexistência da reflexão crítica

A reflexão crítica na Eslovénia practicamente não existe. A unica revista dedicada à arte contemporânea editada por Moderna galerija, a Mars, foi cancelada logo depois de alguns números terem saído com successo. A razão disso não é conhecida.
Ao contrário dos outros, a Marina Grzinic, doutora em filosofia, artista e professora de arte na Faculdade de belas artes de Viena, acha a cena artística de Liubliana “ podre” . O território nacional chama “ um buraco burguês neoliberal” .
O que ela propõe é uma plataforma crítica que traz posições que na Eslovénia não existem. A Reartikulacija liga varias àreas do criticismo como a de-colonialidade, delinking, a prática crítica radical e também a cena lesbica à arte contemporânea. O journal bilingue é uma das coisas mais interessantes a acontecer em Liubliana de momento.
Tevz Logar, novo director do Skuc, um espaço not for profit, afirma que na cena não existe espaço para discurso, o que é segundo ele um problema da política cultural, que apoia apenas a produção e não a reflexão.

A educação inadequada

A educação na àrea de arte na Eslovénia não é adequada. Parece que ficou parada no tempo.
“ Os jovens artistas são bastante conservadores, “ diz Igor Spanjol “ conhecem mal a história de arte o que aponta para a incompetência do sitema de educação. “
Miran Mohar, professor na escola de arte visual A.V. A. em Liubliana acha que não há suficiente ênfase na teoria de arte contemporânea e que faltam os professores de fora que por razões birocraticas não têm a oportunidade de trabalhar na Eslovénia(uma das das condições para obter o visto de trabalho é conhecimento da lingua).


Uma cena hermética?

Há artistas e instituições reconhecidos no nivél internacional entre quais Irwin, Marjetica Potrc, Marko Peljhan, Tobias Putrih e Moderna galerija. Enquanto aos artistas, é por iniciativa propria, pois o estado não faz nada em relação a isso. Também a visibilidade duma instituição como a Moderna galerija não ajuda muito para os artistas se tornarem conhecidos lá fora. Ao contrário dum país como a Croacia, falta nós a tradição mais prolongada de vanguardas que na Eslovénia para além do grupo OHO dos anos sessenta e do movimento NSK(Neue Slowenische Kunst) dos anos oitenta não existe.
Alenka Gregoric, a recentamente apontada directora da Mestna galerija, está convencida que a cena artística de Liubliana é apesar do seu tamanho muito diversificada e movimentada. Ela tinha a oportunidade de conhecer as cenas de arte de Istambul, Tel-Avive, Berlim e Nova York que confirmam esta tese.
A cena tem os seus inicios nos anos oitenta com NSK, os anos noventa foram marcados pelos nomes como Vuk Cosic e Marko Peljhan, e agora estão-se a estabelecer jovens, artistas pós-conceptuais.
Igor Spanjol acha que os anos noventa foram mais interessantes do que agora, particularmente a segunda metade dos anos noventa tinha a sua dinâmica muito propria. O Vadim Fiskin chegou do Moscovo, estavam lá também Nika Span e Apolonija Sustersic. No ano 2000 aconteceu ainda a muito criticada Manifesta e à seguir as coisas acalmaram um pouco infelizmente.
Também Tadej Pogacar, director artístico do centro e galeria P74, o unico espaço de artista em Liubliana, acha que a cena foi melhor na segunda metade dos anos noventa, quando ao lado do P74 surgiram a galeria Kapelica, dedicada à performance e body art, Ljudmila(Ljubljana digital art lab) e Bunker.
Roman Uranjek, membro do grupo Irwin, pensa que a cena é apesar do seu tamanho(a Liubliana tem 350 000 habitantes) muito dinâmica. Existem sete espaços onde dá para ver exposições de arte contemporânea: galeria Alkatraz, P74, galeria Skuc, galeria Kapelica, galeria Kapsula, Moderna galerija e Mestna galerija. Na exposição que a Joanna Mytkowska está a comissariar para o Centre Georges Pompidou e inclui cinquenta artistas de quinze países da Europa de Leste, vão estar nada menos que três artistas eslovénos. O galerista eslovéno Gregor Podnar vai estar presente com seis artistas.
Para o reconhecimento internacional da cena foi muito importante a exposição da Moderna galerija Body and the East que tinha mostado que a arte de leste tinha a sua propria identidade e que não é apenas uma má cópia de arte ocidental.
Apesar disso não há profissionais de arte estrangeiros a trabalharem na Eslovénia. Não existe nenhum curador de fora, tampouco um director da instituição de arte.
Para comparação em Austria, o país vizinho, tinham directores das instituições de arte estrangeiros até quando estava no poder o partido nacionalista.


O Futuro

A Moderna galerija estava fechada durante três anos por razões políticas e reabriu em novembro com a exposição do Zoran Music. Muitos dizem que a razão por expor um artista com tão pouco interesse foi outra vez política. A instituição planea para o futuro a divisão dos espaços na arte do século vinte que ocupará o antigo local na rua Tomsiceva e no museu da arte contemporânea que será no antigo complexo militar na Metelkova. A importante parte deste museu é a colecção Arteast 2000+ , que consiste em obras dos artistas da Europa de Leste e se formava durante vinte anos. É ao mesmo tempo a primeira colecção do género no nivél internacional.
O programa da Mestna galerija vai se basear no diálogo com a cidade de Liubliana e a cena internacional e será executado à partir dos convites aos curadores e instituições com quais vão se desenvolver os projectos em conjunto.
Algum espaço será dedicado também aos artistas emergentes dos recentamente formados países da antiga Yugoslavia, àtraves de colaborações com as respectivas instituições que atribuem premios na àrea de arte contemporânea.
No proximo ano o espaço do Skuc vai ser dividido entre a arte local e a presença do espaço internacional, uma das direcções vai também ser a especial atenção aos artistas emergentes. Uma parte importante do programa no futuro será como no caso da Mestna galerija o diálogo com curadores de fora.
A programação do P74 é virada para apresentação, estudo e promoção da arte contemporânea, performance, novos media e musica experimental. Apoio vai aos artistas e curadores emergentes, que têm a oportunidade de realizar as suas primeiras exposições lá. Ao mesmo tempo a juri internacional atribui premios do grupo OHO para jovens artistas.
Anualmente o espaço é dedicado também à exposição do livro do artista e à colaboração com os curadores e instituições do mesmo género de Berlim, Madrid e Viena.
Gregor Podnar encontra-se de momento a lidar com a questão como superar a crise que tem uma grande influência na venda.
A Reartikulacija lança em dezembro o projecto A lei da capital: histórias da opressão no Mestni muzej e leva para Liubliana teóricos e artistas de Viena, Barcelona, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Beograd, Australia e India.
O grupo Irwin acabou o seu último grande projecto East Art Map, a reconstrução da história de arte da Europa de Leste, que tinhamos a oportunidade de ver também em Lisboa. De momento encontram-se a preparar o congresso dos membros do estado NSK que será no proximo ano em Berlim.

domingo, 9 de agosto de 2009

Projects(Undying Love; or Love Dies)




The project evolves around the text Undying Love; or Love Dies by the thinker Jalal Toufic written after his wife left him, and is a close collaboration between an architect of lively spaces and night conversations from Lisbon and a writer/curator that spent eight years there to grow up in all senses (and spices), and now encountered herself suddenly in Slovenia (blown by the wind).



Some excerpts of the Jalal's text follow (though I recommend reading the book, which is sold out, or the excerpt that can be found on his webpage):


“All love affairs happen in the foreign cities.”


“Two of the greatest cinematic love stories [here I agree with Jalal whom I never met] Resnais/Duras Hiroshima mon amour and Marker's La Jettée take place against the backdrop of destruction of the city and possibly of the world. Every love of a man and a woman takes place in seclusion from the world: every love of a man and a woman has for horizon the destruction of the world since they can restart the human race (this is one of the ways love is linked to death).”

“Since they usually stayed up late, they called each other around midnight. She did not ask him:


“Did you dream of me last night?” He did not, with the provocation of seduction, tell her:


“Tonight, you'll dream of me.” But rather: “Have pleasant dreams.” He was relieved when she answered: “I don't remember my dreams.”

“While writing this tonight, am I not serving to advance some other persons desperate waiting for his beloved?”

“In waiting, time is for the most part not mine but others'.”



The project includes also two poems written in the year 900 by acclaimed japonese poetess Ono No Komachi that will be read at the finnisage.


First poem:

Is this love reality
or a dream?
I cannot know
when both reality and dreams
exist without truly existing.

Second poem:

Did she appear
because I fell asleep
thinking of her?
If only I'd known I was dreaming
I'd never have wakened.



The project is dedicated to long and envolving relationship between the two cities, Lisbon and NYC; related since the 2nd WW through massive migrations from “neutral” Portugal to the States that took one month by boat at the time. One of such passengers was Hannah Arendt, that found a refuge in Lisbon before departing to New York.

A live piano performance of Keith Jarret's Tokyo Encore will have a special space in this exhibition on impossible love, seclusion of lovers, spectres of a kind, and dreamstates with eyes wide shut. And above all exile.

Proposed artists:


- Walid Raad (The Atlas group), a close collaborator and friend of Toufic
- Wolfgang Tillmans, work Peaches (a very sensual photograph)
- Resnais/Duras: Hiroshima mon amour
- Chris Marker: La Jettée
- Emily Jouvet: One Night Stand (a feature film by a parisiene filmmaker)
- Sara G, the architect that gets carte blanché, main collaborator of mine that will deal with all spatial issues in the exhibition
- Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut (optional)


quarta-feira, 22 de julho de 2009

Stranger in the City

Isaac Julien, "Paradise Omeros" , 2002.


"Why are we afraid of globalization, that is the dissolving of the state frontiers monitored by armies of adequately equipped specialized police bodies? We are afraid of globalization because strangers will be constantly trespassing into our neighborhoods and lurking on our street-corners!

The next question then is: Why are we afraid of strangers? I am afraid of strangers because they might harm me. I am afraid to be assaulted and killed by strangers. This is why I feel safer with state-monitored frontiers.

And this leads to the third question: Were foreigners always considered dangerous and the well-guarded frontiers always necessary? Here we stumble on an intriguing diversity of attitudes: not all world civilizations consider strangers dangerous creatures. Where the 1930s Hollywood movie-makers put two pistols in the hands of the cowboy to make sure that the treacherous stranger who appeared at the frontier had no chance to escape death, the ninth century Baghdad story-tellers who crafted the Sindbad tales, made the Iraqi crowds love foreigners, because this hero gathered fabulous wealth by taking risky trips to India and China's faraway islands. "

Fatema Mernissi, Why Are We Afraid of Globalization


E-flux Video Rental

E-flux video rental is an ongoing work by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, comprising a free rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of over 850 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with more than 400 artists, curators and critics.
The art project initially presented at a storefront in NY Chinatown and made possible by Anton's and Julieta's large network of institutions and individuals gathered thru e-flux's (electronic flux corporation) newsletter and international biennials, came to Lisbon this summer after landing in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin, Budapest, Boston, Antwerp, Berlin, Miami and Lyon.
The setting for exact replica of NY store (missing only the water dripping air condition mounted in front) couldn't be more unsettling- EVR was placed in a foyeur of a powerful private foundation with public interest, relying on oil traffic, which still remains the primary in-flux of money for this 'national' institution of good reputation, funded by an armenian emigré in the times of turkish genocide, and exercing unquestioned influence and power in the local art context.
But that's yet another of inumerous contradictions of our present condition.
EVR is a poetic exploration of alternative processes of circulation and distribution, and it is structured to function like a typical video rental store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a new member fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and viewed at home.
It's a great idea to enable public access to around 800 video works, that even the art goers that 'operate' internationally would have little chance to see, and have to content themselves with occasional stills spotted in this or that magazine, this or that electronic portal, a newsletter, an exhibition(but these are almost exclusively dedicated to a single artist or historical works, with some exceptions).
As well an emphasis on circulation (here Anton referred to Marx and video art in its beginnings) and use of out-dated technology (VHS video tape) work as a concept, but when you're there in the screening room, choosing and playing one video after another in an attempt to watch all, in fact the bad quality of the image can become very irritating, especially when you know that most of the videos are part of the current art production, HD, and imagine that some elites actually have the opportunity to see them in better screening conditions. Why archives have always to be so boring?
However, this horrible tech makes you aware of the circulation and distribution, that is the idea behind the art project.
To propose my personal 'cut' on the film and video works, to write history in the present, I would destaque An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist by albanian Jakup Ferri, based on Mladen Stilinovic's conceptual work from the '70s. Here the artist appears talking to the camera in his studion in a kind of improvised creepy english, not articulated, repeating, with local sotaque, an outcast, impossible to understand, looking like he is trying his best to give meaning to this babbling, though in fact mocking with the artworld.
Letters à Francine consists of b&w stills, and a voice-over of a man, travelling in Istanbul who's dealing with uncurable disease attempting to comunicate his feelings and observations to beloved one, a woman called Francine. It evokes La Jetté.
Sunset at Corniche was repeatedly filmed by The Atlas Group, a project to investigate the contemporary history of Lebanon. I Only Wish That I Could Weep could be filmed as well in Lisbon or any other city by the sea, could it be? Sunset in Beirut looks so uncannily familiar.
Soviet illegal women in Turkey are the protagonists of Unawarded Performances by Gülsün Karamustafa. “When Soviet Union broke up, our families broke up.”
Another document, Khiam, provided by Hadjithomas&Joreige incitates the victims of torture perpetuated at Israeli detention camp to talk.
Oda Projesi Revisited documents the Istanbuli 'room projects', a socially oriented art practice engaging with the community, somewhat akin to esthetique relationelle, that was tested already by Claire Bishop in her widely discussed article Social turn: Aesthetics and Its Discontents in Artforum.
Hala Elkoussy's Candy Floss Stories are strange and poetic fictions about worker of wonders on a black and white Cairo beach accompanied by wicked elctronic beats and president's speech at the end.
This Day by Akram Zaatari is a feature, a political meditation about Bedouin and the Desert, employing documentary approach and tackling notions like space, nomadism, migration, perpetual movement and the reconstruction of history.
This autumn EVR is travelling to Colombia, Argentina and Brazil.
Having outlived the technology that made it possible, the project will be premanently archived at the Arab Image Foundation and Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, in 2009.

segunda-feira, 13 de julho de 2009

Projects(Kusmi Tea Sweet Love)


Concept and Location:.
The project Kusmi Tea Sweet Love is a collaboration between a curator, lawyer, architect and a filmmaker based on the research conducted in Lisbon's multicultural and somewhat notorious neighbourhood Martim Moniz that reflects the shifts on global scale.
It adresses art and its markets by looking at the other, less familiar trading places and routes extending from Europe to Africa, Latin America and Orient.
Or is it the other way around?
The relations between contemporary art and theft, public space and speculation, artworld and black market, architecture and frontier, and micro-economy and immigration are being explored.
Set in an apartment rented on purpose in the same zone for one month and transformed into a temporary art space, it comprises of an art exhibition, lectures, screenings, discussions, a dinner take-away, a concert, documentation, a food store, tea service, etc.
The location shapes the project in unexpected ways.
We took a following text as a departure node:
In the midst of a black market, a town in town, a buissness spot with unlimited traffic, where micro economy based on exchange of all kind of goods except artworks, is performed daily by immigrants from India, Pakistan, China and Guiné Bissau. Thieves? Merchants? Speculators?
In the centre of Lisbon a small narrow street, where the red letters on ringbells are exclusively in chinese. Some of the apartments, however difficult to say which, host illegal chinese restaurants that differ little from common homes in order to hide their activity. The owners/cooks don't speak neither portuguese nor english and the clients choose from untranslated menus.
Located on the frontier with moorish and red light district, the zone is also known for delicious indian sweets of many colours.
Fiction?
Throughout the history and up to the present the site has been demolished many times, to be rebuild after according to the new ideology.
The huge square bears a monument to the conquest of the Arabs, over-shadowed by the totalitarian architecture of four-star Hotel Mundial, equally over-sized, or the unfinished construction plans on the side. The square serves as a resting area, unofficial market or a spot for encounters and socialising. In other words: unrestricted space, difficult to find in other european capitals and probably closer to the notion of public space in african cities.
The decadent four-storey “shopping centre” CCM (not to be mistaken with CCB- that's contemporary art centre) provides a wong kar wai-style corridors with neon lights where buissness keeps going on until late. The indian spices can be purchased along with sunglasses from Bangladesh and underwear from Brasil. There is a chinese restaurant with a view of 180 degrees and an african hairdresser, the best in town, to balsam your hair after visiting the music shop with the latest singles that could as well be in Kinshasa or Bamako.
The previous research conducted in the zone included a friendship with a young Pakistani buissness man who introduced me to the tricks of the market, a frequent lunch at chinese legal quiosque or a dinner from the clandestine menu, cutting hair at the african hairstudio, shopping Chai(the black tea with spices) at indian supermarket and take-away of the sweets form the restaurant around the corner, filming the square- men with turbans trading mobile phones and women walking down the square from CCM carrying enormous,black plastic bags on their heads. It involved also performing on the square dressed as a wealthy muslim woman(post 9/11), etc.
The collaboration is done together with a lawyer(who wishes to remain anonymous), a funder of the NGO dealing with the rights of the immigrants, foreigners and others, and immigrant herself. She is responsible for the legal questions, meaning that she will also do a lecture on the topic and provide free advisory for interested parties.
The architect of lively spaces and night conversations, and main cultural mover Sara G enters the project to deal with all spatial issues, including the exhibition design. She will also move the crowd gathering outside of her bar every night in direction Martim Moniz.
The capeverdian filmmaker Victoria Verrisímo will fly-in to produce a low-budget documentary film about the square and its notorious surroundings and document the event.
Though we are aware of the social turn in contemporary art and the potential of this project, Kusmi Tea Sweet Love doesn't attempt to improve anything in society, serve the community or bring art back to life. It just brings the artworld face to face with the market of a different kind and hopes to make them think.
The label Kusmi Tea was founded 140years ago by P.M. Kousmichoff. St. Petersburg, London, Paris, Berlin. Kusmi Tea initially spread its influence in Europe before offering the whole world exclusive and high quality blends.
The Kusmi Tea Sweet Love is said to be an exquisite spicy blend that stimulates the senses.
Sweet Love is made of Black China tea, ginseng and liquorice roots, spices, guarana seeds and pink pepper.
Some of the proposed topics for discussion/lectures can be found here:
“ More intriguing to me, however, is how conceptual practices have migrated to the platforms of larger buissness models and proved them quite successful in that context. This suggest a different level of correspondence between art and commerce. ” Tim G(ArtForum)
“ Modernity and renewal by their nature are connected to ideas of a rational and ordered mode of thought, of a planned and effective kind of production, with ideas of a thoughtful use of space and resources, with ideas of a well organized and equitable society. “ Igor Zabel(Individual Systems)
Artists:.
Irwin group opens a passport office, issuing official documents of the NSK State in Time.
Sislej Xhafa does an exclusive performance on the notion of “clandestino”. The artist is known for subversive performance works, which adress the social, economical and political realities of tourism and geographical relations, and the complex forces that form modern global societies.
Sancho Silva stages a new project contaminating public space. Orange Works is an ongoing collaboration project, started in 2004, to build unauthorized temporary urban constructions camouflaged as in-process construction sites in order to probe existing spatial pressures, and reorganize public spaces to allow for new social uses.
DJ/Rupture(Brooklyn) does a live mix for the vernissage and in addition to performance his weekly radio show Mudd-Up! is broadcasted every wednesday at midnight local time.
“New bass and beats plus live guests(musicians, Djs, poets) and an ear for the global south. Cumbia. Dubstep. Gangsta synthetics. Sound-art. Maghrebi. International exclusives.”
MioStoj, an emergent artist and architect based in Frankfurt shares a video shot in a dance club called Robert Johnson, after a famous jazz musician, that was recorded during one year without having a permission. Weekend never dies.
Emily Jouvet pays a spicy hommage to photography from a Paris' rooftop. The soundtrack of this short and stimulating video is by Portishead. The artist became known for the feature film One Night Stand, a close-up of the casual erotic encounters between girls, for which Roof is a short excercise in style.
The art duo Piglet&Butcherboy, in a duel since 1996, have their take on Tate Modern. Uninvited, they decided to contaminate the gallery with a pig while Olafur Eliasson's Wheather Project was on. Meanwhile, the tourists were having their lunch from MacDonald's peacefully underneath the huge sun installation.
Two very young and unestablished local artists are being included in the exhibition. Filipa Almeida shows her portraits of the legendary jazz musicians performing live in Lisbon. While Catarina Pedroso installs a series of large scale photos, blow-ups of the mouth, at the same time dangerous and erotic, playing with prejudices, and referring to advertising, anthropology and feminism.
Budget:.
The total budget including curator's fee, the artists' fees and trips, the installation and equipment, apartment rent, dinner service, a small publication(can be on-line), posters announcing the event, a salary for the staff, etc. is 30 000 euros, provided by the NGO, Gulbenkian Foundation(production of the exhibitions, up to 10 000 euros), City Council(offering a space), foreign cultural institutes and embassies(covering rtists' travel and stay), sponsorship by the restaurants for the dinner, drinks from Baliza bar, plus european funds if applicable.
Publicity Plan:.
Posters all over the city, unusual for art events here. If the budget allows also appears on e-flux, in addition to local press.

terça-feira, 30 de junho de 2009

Silvia Kolbowski: After Hiroshima Mon Amour



The video After Hiroshima Mon Amour by Silvia Kolbowski currently on view at Mala galerija in Ljubljana and based on Resnais/Duras masterpiece is a work about our inability to fully understand and represent the past and present catastrophes.
Originally, it is a story of a French woman and Japanese men who meet in japan twelve years after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and begin a one-night affair . They are an allegorical couple , standing for two different actors in the war- France and Japan- evoking challenging questions about disobedience, ethics and desire in a time of military conflict.
According to Jalal Toufic the most beautiful cinematic love stories take place against the backdrop of destruction of the city and possibly of the world, such as La jetté for example. Every love of a man and a woman takes place in seclusion from the world: every love of a man and a woman has for horizon the destruction of the world since they can restart the human race (this is one of the ways love is linked to death).
Rather than a reconstruction, this video uses repetition as a strategy where the diference is what matters. The story is re-enacted by ten different actors of ambigious ethnic origin and race, and unstable gender relations. It is contrasted by the found material that usually depicts violence and brutality, often from the point of view of the power.
As the video comes after the original it situates it in a contemporary political frame. We can observe the devastated streets of New Orleans after the hurricane Katrina, where the US government did nothing to secure the poorest population from the outcomes of the catastrophe. The shots problematize the relationship between the filmmaker and the viewer. We suddeenly burst into an apartment in Iraq along with american soldiers and face a man and an old woman screaming as they are confronted with machine guns. Also, we see a street, presumably in a Middle-Eastern city, from a viewpoint of a speeding driver and are placed on the side of watching the suffering of others. An uncomfortable position.
The texts that appear as titles are in fact a collage of Duras's original script for Hiroshima Mon Amour- fragmented and reassembled by Kolbowski- and Duras's written synopsis of the film. The narration oscillates between the third-person voiceover of the synopsis and a fascinating dialogue between the shifters “I” and “you”, which appear in the fragments appropriated from the film's script.
The dialogue between a French woman and Japanese man in the book Hiroshima Mon Amour beginns tellingly with:
“You have seen nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.”
“I've seen all. All.”
In the video, the text doesn't fit the image, while sound, silence and colours appear as active actors that give meaning to the material.
The artist became known for her project an inadequate history of conceptual art for which she invited various individuals to tell her their memories of an exhibition, performance or event of conceptual art without doing further research. She would record the audio and display it in a separate room from a video showing their hands while speaking.

segunda-feira, 1 de junho de 2009

Projects(Franchise)



In the midst of a black market, a town in town, a buissness spot with unlimited traffic, where micro economy based on exchange of all kind of goods except artworks, is performed daily by immigrants from India, Pakistan, China and Guiné Bissau. Thieves? Merchants? Speculators?
In the centre of Lisbon a small narrow street, where the red letters on ringbells are exclusively in chinese. Some of the apartments, however difficult to say which, host illegal chinese restaurants that differ little from common homes in order to hide their activity. The owners/cooks don't speak neither portuguese nor english and the clients choose from untranslated menus.
Located on the frontier with moorish and red light district, the zone is also known for delicious indian sweets of many colours.
To link this all and to check how global Lisbon art scene is, I propose a project called 'Franchise', set in an apartment rented on purpose on the same small street and showcasing ten international and local artists, with some projects specially commissioned for this show.
Irwin group opens a passport office. Sisley Xhafa does an exclusive performance on the notion of 'clandestino'. Sancho Silva stages a new project contaminating public space. While Dj/ Rupture streams radioshow live. Mio Stoj shares a video shot in a club 'Robert Johnson'. Emily Jouvet pays a spicy hommage to photography from a Paris' rooftop. And Piglet&Butcherboy take on Tate Modern...
Note: an immigrant will be contracted to staff during the show.