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Re Contruction Comparative Studies . . . . . . Hilfe |
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Dis CussionJohn: I found the wiki, it’s great. But I just want to understand a little better what sort of angles/approaches you imagine from the non-Berlin “researchers.” Are you more interested in their focus on Berlin/90s, on what they see and uncover as they research that context from afar? Or do you prefer something more local and personal from them, their own context, self-organization, etc, which would be curated into the KW show in a more comparative way. Who does the comparing: the artist or the KW? Or both. In other words, are you trying to assemble a sort of remote research team (whose assignment is Berlin/90s) or are you just looking for non-Berlin art that resonates in some way with the research you are doing over there? [...] There seems to be plenty of material and research on the wiki that could be taken up and responded to by us or others...could easily inspire art now for now from now. Or extended and elaborated into a reflection on immediate practice, art/city today. Stephan: I do not really want to give an answer to that. To do "berlin research" and to operate with the findings or to talk about the situation abroad and loosely attach it to the berlin theme. I think it is better if everybody (each group) defines or finds his/hers/its own approach to the topic and towards the methodology. However, the "berlin biennal" has opened recently and that throws a new light onto our project. The biennial was curated by Ute Meta Bauer and she has taken an approach that could very well be connected to ours - but in a way however that we never wanted to take: A lot of artists work on the subject "berlin" and especially berlin before and after the wall came down (80s and 90s). The biennale involved more than 50 artists and took place in three locations (the huge representative "temple" of the martin gropius bau, THE KUNSTWERKE and the movie theatre "Arsenal". Also to mention that the biennial invented the "HUB" i.e. points thematic focus. The 4 or 5 HU Bs? acted like investigative cornerstones or condensation points (urban conditions, sonic landscapes, fashion and scenes, migration)which injected a distinct reading into the artistic meat. These HU Bs? were efforts of investigation and visualisation, urban conditions being put together by Axel Wieder and Jesko Fetzer.
As a benevolent judgement one could say that it was -as much as all fullscale events- very mixed in quality and that here and there one could find something of interest. Seen more critical this biennale as much as all the others could not say anything... dead things lined up in a row! Problem with this gigantic emptiness was that certain issues and approaches were of political effort and could not communicate. Result: the political concerns were emptied out and made compatible with mainstream culture. Instead of asking the main question: Why is, on that level of representation, nothing interesting possible? Then asking of how to culturally/artistically cope with a "public" that is not a "public in the traditional sense anymore but (as I call it) a "corporate public". But instead artists were taking the chance of "reaching a public" and the biennale 1:1 seriously and the press, dissatisfied from the empty representation of what can not speak here, also did not question the problem of these events in general. Result: The whole (except of friendly taz) feuilleton bashes the show totally and mainly for the reason to be too dry and to be too "retro" in the sense of too sadly looking backwards onto the failed promises of berlin. They say: "we need something optimistic", "something that encourages us to looks ahead into the future"!!. "We are sick of being forced to take the reading glasses into a show" (there was no text piece anyway!!!), we are sick of the "documentary approach that was introduced into the art world by Catherine david and the documenta X" that is how it sounded... and and ... It is amazing how little the feuilleton was ready to be confronted with the "just passed" and continually wants optimistic entertainment. In the end, one could argue, that was the strength of the biennale and might be our strength to insist on "looking backwards" ... This might confront us with several problems: -good news is that "our" show has been done already by Ute Meta Bauer and Axel Wieder and Jesko Fetzer -however this was not really our approach anyway to invite artists and/or work which came out of the original context back then or artists who thematise berlin that way. ---Archaeology (as I understand Josef) is interested in digging out (or faking) art that was never considered art back then ---Comparative studies (as I understand myself) brings in the "outside production" as a parallel reading, by locating "oneself" somewhere between now-/-back then-/-berlin-/-not berlin. Resulting from the berlin biennale i see the biggest problem still on the level of representation of the show (there it has to fail) and in the problem of being somewhat interested in a historical view and a documentary / investigative methodology. It is clear that the feuilleton (which is not the professional art-press) will be not following this again - fuck them anyway! But of course one wants to mess with them a bit harder... well.... be creative!! |