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TESA DELLA NUOVISSIMA 105 / ARSENALE DI VENEZIA, JUNE 8TH - AUGUST 26TH OPENING JUNE 7TH 4PM& LE PRINTEMPS DE SEPTEMBRE – à TOULOUSE, SEPTEMBER 21ST - OCTOBER 14TH 2007

Idea: Fischer, West 2007 Published by Schlebrügge.Editor

Alison M. Gingeras

Flamboyant. Extravagant. Extro-verted. Eccentric. Meglomaniac.Alcoholic. Sexually obsessed.Manic-depressive. Bohemian—there are as many stereotypesas there are anecdotes aboutfamous artists. The inevitableentwinement of an artist’scolourful biography and aes-thetic genius has providedfodder for scholarly specula-tion, populist fascination aswell as plain, old-fashionedentertainment. Beyond themere sensationalism, howimportant is persona in under-standing an artist’s practice?It’s a question that has trou-bled art historians for a longtime. For many, the artist’spersona is like the pesky shrew

that is best chased away soas not to impede the histori-an’s or critic’s “serious” questfor facts and objective inter-pretation.

Yet this antagonistic shrewhas been an integral part ofart history. Giorgio Vasari’sLives of the Artists the six-teenth century classic, andrequired reading for all stu-dents of art history, denselyinterweaves detailed descrip-tions of the achievements ofthe great Renaissance artists(from Cimabue and Giotto toLeonardo da Vinci andMichelangelo) with biographi-cal anecdotes intended toreveal their inner characterand better illuminate their art.To say that Vasari was a goodstoryteller is like saying FrankSinatra could carry a tune. Hewas, as one critic put it, a“profoundly inventive fabulist”who not only embellishedtales about dead artists, butalso incorporated the self-propagated myths told to himby his contemporaries. Hiscollection of biographies freelyblended aesthetic theory, soci-ological description, fact, and

fiction. Five hundred yearsafter Vasari’s death, art histo-ry has become a much morestringent practice. By dismiss-ing Vasari’s factual errors andexaggerations, the currentacademic consensus contin-ues to discredit one of hismain contributions to the field- the idea that legend andmyth, as generated by theartists themselves, are insep-arable from understandingtheir art.

It is not only art historians thatare to blame. Artists havealways been granted a differ-ent status than the rest of thepopulace, and were, conse-quently, treated differently.They could speak to the gods.They were granted privileged

positions, disre-garding traditionalclass divisions. Asan inverted baro-meter for societalvalues, artists couldact out safely fan-tasies, break thetaboos, and enjoythe indulgences thatare shunned by themoral consensus.

The figure of the artist pos-sessed a unique duality, elicit-ing equal doses of fascinationand contempt, envy and dis-dain.

The invention of bohemianismin nineteenth-century Franceprovided an efficient means toprevent artists from ‘contami-nating’ everyone else. Derivedfrom the name of a region inthe Czech Republic known asRomany, an area inhabited bynomadic gypsies, the modernnotion of Bohemia designateda place where artists and dis-illusioned members of thebourgeoisie could interminglewith the poverty stricken, for-eigners, racial minorities,homosexuals, and anyoneelse on the margins of society.As the historical epicenter ofla vie de bohème, mid-nine-teenth-century Montmartreprovided as the basis of mostof the populist notions abouthow artists should live, be-

have, and look. From the imageof the young struggling artistin an unheated Williamsburgloft to the dj-cum-painter spin-ning in an Electroclash club informer East Berlin, the bohemi-an imaginary persists in shap-ing the contemporary expec-tations of what role artistsshould play in society.

Not all artists continue to takerefuge in bohemian or coun-tercultural ideals. Westernsociety has changed this,epitomized by the obsessionwith celebrity. The result hasbeen that avant-garde strate-gies have been absorbed intomainstream culture, suckedinto the allure of the ‘cultureindustry’. So, what is left atthe artist’s disposal? How,then, can artists resist the cul-ture industry? Should theyresist? Are they passive vic-tims or active proponents ofthis industry? What positionshould artists occupy in thiskind of society?

Many artists have consciouslycultivated their public per-sonas as a strategic, oftenantagonistic element in theirart practice. While there is nosingle moment of origin whenartists began to elevate theirown personas into somethingmore significant than simplebiographical interest, thereare those who have contributedto the transformation of per-sona into an autonomous fieldof artistic activity, as equal asany traditional artistic prac-tice.

This use of persona, however,should not be confused with atype of art practice thatemerged in the course of the1970s in which artists usedtheir own life as their primarysubject matter. Such figuresas Sophie Calle, ChristianBoltanski, Hanna Wilke, orEleanor Antin used art as apoetico-sociolgical vehicle forthe documentation of their

A Refuse Between Mind andMatter is a Mine of InformationChaos Used Creatively in Gelitin’sHumanely Conceptual Art

Midori Matsui

Gelitin’s art projects can be characterized as a humorousand humane interventionist practice that creates situa-tions for a lively communication and refreshed perceptionof the everyday phenomena, by providing a physicallyengaging space in which the participants are encouragedto reestablish their individual contact with the immanentworld.

Gelitin’s works obviously inherit the spirits and method-ologies of Fluxus, Situationists, and Land Art, emphasiz-ing audience participation rather than artist’s autonomy,process over a finished work. In this sense, they are inaffinity with relational art. But there is a differencebetween the relational art practiced by the generation ofRirkrit Tiravanija, and that of Gelitin. Although both ofthem encourage the audience participation, using suchbasic physical mediums of food and travel, Gelitin’s instal-lations and public performance are far more chaotic thanRirkrit’s. Inheriting conceptual structures from the six-ties’s and seventies’s avant-garde art, Gelitin executetheir performance with their comic (cosmic?) scatologythat mix serious reflection with childlike excess. Thephysical affects of heat, cold, wetness, closednesss orexpansion of space break down the participants’ sense ofdecorum, enabling them to accept the relatedness of theirmind to the “lowest” cycles of excrements and dischargesof bodily fluids. Theirs is a conceptual art made humanthrough the artists’ contact with contemporary life.Receiving art historical knowledge and children’s games

THE LIVES OF THE ARTISTSBeyond the Cult of Personality: The Emergence of Public Persona as an Artistic Medium

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Gelatin, 2001, untitled, drawing, 21,5 x 27,7 cmCourtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna

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with equal appreciation, they adopt them as equally significant elements toconstitute their art. In this, one may see a working of a “pop” sensibility, whichis not related to American pop art, but is informed by Gilles Deleuze’s idea ofa minoritarian art. It is a non-institutional positionality that provisionallyforms its codes of behavior by rearranging fragments accumulated throughvarious communicative processes and informational resources, using anadvantage of a dweller of a big city. Forced to function in a major culture witha limited access to the institutional body of knowledge, this “minor” and“pop”—”micropop”— sensibility inevitably makes deviations and gaps, creatinga new “language” to express and communicate with. Deleuze describes thismicro-pop positionality as one that can “find points of nonculture or underde-velopment, linguistic Third World zones by which a language can escape.” It isa creativity that breaks down the rigid and artificial boundaries betweenspecies. Indeed, in Gelitin’s installations, “an animal enters into things, assem-blage comes into play.”1 The “humanly conceptual” character of Gelitin’s artinherit conceptual directions from the public performance and sitespecific proj-ects of their precursors, including Fluxus, Robert Smithson, and Internationalsituationism, but produce a greater sense of freedom, fun, and release, withthe simplicity, exuberance, and primitive sensibility of children who perceivethe world through their affects on their body. The result is a generous and flex-ible art open to the realities of the human world frequently ignored orrepressed by the official categorization of a living space and the economy ofhuman body as governed by its functional efficiency. Among their works,Rabbit and Sweatwat especially present their rejuvenation of public interven-tion through a deliberate adoption of an absurd, gratuitous, and childlike

action that dissolves the sense of adult propriety.Rabbit demonstrates Gelitin’s reinstatement of a land artist’s visit to a

specific site, frequently to a defunct place to endow it with a sense ofmyth and magic. The project can be compared with Robert Smithson’sSpiral Jetty. With its gigantic spiralling monument, Smithson indicatedthe endlessness of time, the incommensurability of matter, and theuncertainty of the human perception of it, while evoking the primordialstate of creation through the “molecular lattice of crystals” that connect-ed the monument to its environment. The mixture of crystals with saltsenhanced the decay of the monument and its assimilation in the lake’sred water. In a more prankish way, Gelitin made the gigantic stuffed pinkrabbit sprawling on the hill overlooking a small village in Tyrol, forminga new site that encouraged people’s visit to a quiet village, causing a newtraffic of things and people. Although the appearance of their monumentswere different, one geometrical, and the other “pop,” both endowed a newsignificance to an obscure place, making it a site for a public assembly aswell as meditative contemplation. Smithson and Gelitin share certain con-ceptions of and attitude toward things. Describing the significance ofscale of Spiral Jetty, Smithson stated that “scale depend[ed] on one’scapacity to be conscious of the actualities of perception.” 3 For him, thelargeness of Spiral Jetty was important, because it placed the viewer inan uncertain relation to the thing, surpassing the limits of reason thatreduces matter to an object (“For me, scale operates by uncertainty”);that sense of uncertainty, encouraged also by the spiralling movementthat constantly shifted the viewpoint, gave the viewer a feeling of beingin a process, of a cyclical time in which the end led to a beginning.Gelitin’s pink rabbit with its intestines sprawling out of its side, with itsfading color and wearing skin indicating its gradual return to nature, alsoevokes a thought that decay is an inception of a new life. The interest inan amorphous matter also relates Gelitin to Smithson. Gelitin’s installa-tions frequently consist of a chaotic assembly of things, like a heap of fur-niture superimposed on one another, or an amalgam of junk-like frag-

1 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a MinorLiterature (1975), trans. Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1986), p. 27.3 Robert Smithson, The Collected Writings, ed. Jack Flam (Berkeley, LosAngeles, and London: University of California Press, 1996), p. 147.

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Midori Matsui

A Refuse Between Mindand Matter is a Mine of Information

Chaos Used Creatively in Gelitin’sHumanely Conceptual Art

Gelatin, 2003, yuko, drawing, 32 x 24 cmCourtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna

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movement in an important way in Sweatwat and Chinese SyntheseLeberkase, respectively shown in London, in October, 2005, and Bregenz inApril and May, 2006. Such spectacles point to the idea of “sedimentation,”presented in 1968 by Smithson as a method of an art that indicates the undif-ferentiatedness of creative thought or natural process that surpasses theboundary of a classical art form. In his essay “A Sedimentation of the Mind:

ments and mud. They also demonstrates the change in the state of matterthrough a process of pulverization, that is, breaking down of the original con-stitution of things and emergence of a new system out of the amorphous par-ticles, “slump and debris.” Zaf de Pipi, shown in the 2005 Moscow Biennial,showed the process and the outcome of the freezing of bodily liquid extract-ed from liver into a crystallized icicle. Water and mud deregulate people’s

Gelatin, 2003, indianer, drawing, 21,5 x 28 cm, Courtesy Galerei Meyer Kainer, Vienna

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4 Ibid., p. 100.5 Ibid., p. 106; “By refusing tech-nological ‘miracles’ the artistbegins to know the corrodedmoments, the carboniferous statesof thought, the shrinkage of mentalmud, in the geological chaos—inthe strata of esthetic conscious-ness. The refuse between mindand matter is a mine of informa-tion” (107).6 Guy Debord, The Society of theSpectacle (1967), trans. DonaldNicholson-Smith (New York: ZoneBooks, 1995), p. 17; “Since thespectacle’s job is to cause a worldthat is no longer directly percepti-ble to be seen via different special-ized mediations, it is inevitable thatit should elevate the human senseof sight to the special place onceoccupied by touch; the mostabstract senses, and the mosteasily deceived, sight is naturallythe most readily adaptable to pres-ent-day society’s generalizedabstraction.”7 Ibid., p. 19.8 Guy Debord, “Report on theConstruction of Situations and onthe Terms of Organization andAction of the InternationalSituationist Tendency” (1957)trans. Tom McDonough and rpt. inGuy Debord and The SituationistInternational, ed. Tom McDonough,(Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press,2002), pp. 44-5; “Our central pur-pose is the construction of situa-tions, that is, the concrete con-struction of temporary settings oflife and their transformation into ahigher, passionate nature. Wemust develop an interventiondirected by the complicated lifeand the behaviors that it incitesand that overturns it” (44); “Ouraction on deportment...can bedefined summarily as the inventionof a new species of games. Themost general aim must be tobroaden the nonmediocreportionof life, to reduce its emptymoments as much as possible”(45).

Earth Projects, “ Smithson argued that the artist’s thoughts are like“geological miasma,” “ crush[ing] the landscape of logic under gracialreveries.” The “slump, debris, slides, avalanches” of impressions andphysical affects “take place within the cracking limits of the brain”;what seems as “solid consciousness” is constituted by “particles andfragments” active in “the cerebral sediment.”4 Smithson was opposedto the blind worship of modern technology which “organized thismess of corrosion into patterns, grids, and subdivisions.” He felt thatby excluding technological reduction from the making of art, artistsdiscovered “processes of more fundamental order,” which recapitulat-ed the process of thought, as well as the actual state of matter whichalways contained “caverns and fissures.” Believing that “solids areparticles built up around flux,” their forms being “illusions surround-ing grits,” Smithson thought that by integrating the four processesthat emulate natural sedimentation, including “oxidization, hydra-tion, carbonization, and solution,” in its method, art could contain thechaos as the source of imaginative creation.5 The use of water inSweatwat made the creation of such liberating chaos possible. Fillingthe inside of a gallery with stacked up pieces of furniture and watercoming from the penis of a big sculpted human figure, Gelitin createda situation that loosened participants’ inhibitions, making them cometogether in the shared enjoyment of physical pleasure and freedom ofbeing nothing but an acting body. Finally, I would like to point out thepolitical implications of Gelitin’s “spectacle.” Their spectacle isalways of tactile and experiential nature, opposed to the spectacle ofthe consumer age. The latter was criticized by Guy Debord for reduc-ing experience purely to that of vision, the most abstract of all sens-es, repressing touch.6 Debord argued in his 1967 book The Society ofthe Spectacle that the Spectacle, which was people’s euphoric relationto society encouraged through the social apparatus of public eventsand consumer products, was fundamentally controlled by the laws ofcapitalism and the intent of the ruling class; the latter planned toconfine the perception of people to that of false pleasure, enforcingthe acceptance and praise of the status quo.7 Debord hoped that situ-ationists’ public demonstrations will break down the people’s confine-

ment in the spectacle, devising “games and situations”that encouraged a different use of senses than the habit-ual, awakening the hidden potentiality of their creativity.8

Gelitin’s public performances, including Sweatwat andTantamounter, performed in New York, in December, 2006,set up such situations. In the former, the ubiquity andincrease of water in a room makes it difficult to walkstraight; the infiltration of water into your clothes, thesecond skin put on to present social propriety, makes youfeel helpless, as well as liberated from inhibitions. Ineither case the distance from the matter and other bodiesbreak down. In Tantamaounter, the human copy machinethat generously produces an art work in return to anyobject put into a box is an extremely generous act. ForGelitin, their confinement in a box, without any access tothe external world, via telephone, internet, or even thesight of a person interacting with them, created a situa-tion in which their senses were focused on the things infront of themselves, the limitation of information, time,and material, inducing the flashes of inspiration, callingforth the yet unrealized parts of their creativity. Withtheir playful disintegration of normal senses, whichreleases the participants and themselves from the hardshell of the parochial existence, Gelitin’s actions becomea micropolitical art responding to the negative effects ofglobalization, including the destruction of communitiesand flattening out of perception. In the similar manner tothat in which the sixties’ and seventies’ artists reactedagainst the rise of a postmodern age with its standardiz-ing of environment with an entropy of meaning, Gelitin’swork strives to cure contemporary minds of apathy andreification, by mixing conceptual strategies with thelaughter and innocence of the sensibility nurtured in thehybrid influences and disseminations of the micropopspirit.

Gelatin, 2001, untitled, drawing, 48,2 x 63,5 cm, Courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna

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Andy Warhol: The Wrong Person for the RightPart

“If I ever have to cast an acting role, I want thewrong person for the part (…) it’s more satisfying toget someone who’s perfectly wrong. Then you

know you’ve really got something.” Andy Warhol,“Fame,” The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A toB and Back Again), 1975

Andy Warhol wasn’t merely famous - he changedthe nature of fame, and this impact was not limitedto the world of art and artists. Warhol founded hisart practice on the careful choreography of his pub-lic persona. He harnessed the power of celebrity -his own, the celebrities he created, the culture’sgrowing thirst for celebrity as such - elevating to itto a different status. For Warhol, his persona wasan artistic medium, no different from the more con-ventional forms (film, painting, sculpture, photogra-phy) he used in his art.

Despite our current facility to merge the figure ofWarhol with today’s entertainment-obsessed socie-ty, there is little interpretation of the relationshipbetween Warhol’s construction of his persona andits direct impact on his art. The campaign to isolateand dismiss the importance of Warhol’s persona interms of his overall artistic contribution is muchmore systematic in recent academic writing.Scholarly publications such as October attempt to“fix” the persona problem by historicizing Warholinto two distinct periods: the Early Factory Years(1960–68) years and the Business Art Years(1969–87). Art historian and film theorist AnnetteMichelson has chosen the term “prelapsarian” tocharacterize the first period. This biblical allusionperfectly sums up the “evil” that caused Warhol’sexpulsion from the Garden of Eden. “After 1968”,she writes, “Warhol assumed the role of grand cou-turier, whose signature sells or licenses perfumes. .. . Warhol’s ‘Business art’ found its apogee in thecreation of a label that could be affixed.” While thepre-1968 Factory certainly flirted with celebrity andthe mainstream vehicles of fame, it did so undercritical auspices. For Michelson, the prelapsarianWarhol reflected the ills of mainstream culturethrough irony-soaked parody.

The shot fired from Valerie Solanas’s gun in 1968signaled the beginning of Warhol’s supposed“decline.” It is a commonly held truth that this trau-matic event soured Warhol, driving him towardmore cynical modes of art making. This event alsomarked a dramatic shift in the way Warhol con-sciously “used” his celebrity, marking perhaps theemergence of public persona as a legitimate andautonomous artistic medium.

At least on the surface, Warhol’s life and art in the“new” Factory carried on as before: he continued tomake films, paintings, and sculptures as well ashaving a hand in various cultural enterprises. Yet asthe delegation of Warhol’s artistic production slight-ly increased, Warhol made even more time for pub-lic appearances. During the 1970s and 1980s, hecontinued to travel around the world, documentinghis globetrotting through his Time Capsules. In NewYork, his social life epitomized the fashion of thetime, and peaked with the decadence of such myth-ical clubs such as Studio 54. Warhol behaved likeany other star. His overactive social life was relent-lessly photographed by the paparazzi, and heappeared regularly in the society and gossip pages.Michael Jackson, Bianca Jagger, Joan Collins, aswell as countless other stars, royalty, and societywomen—the list of Warhol’s companions on filmwas not only a barometer for who was hot in the1970s and 1980s, but also reflected his rolodex ofcelebrity clients for his booming portrait business.

Working for the Zoli modeling agency (available for“special bookings only”), Warhol sold his celebrity tovarious companies for product endorsements in tel-evision and print, giving a sense of inevitability tohis early Pop appropriations of such banal productsas Brillo scrubbing pads and Campbell’s soup.Whether he was modeling Levi’s blue jeans, adver-tising TDK videotapes, l.a.Eyeworks, or the ill-fatedDrexel Burnham Lambert junk bond trading firm, or

everyday lives or activities. Unlike these “LifeArtists”, the artists herein are uninterested in thedocumentary or narrative framing of their lives norare they invested in the veracity of the tales or reli-quary they used in their artworks. Instead they har-ness Western culture’s attraction and repulsion forthe cult of personality in order to intensify the antag-onistic power of their self-generated myths.

Francis Picabia: Sea, Sex and SunDadaist conspirator, enfant terrible of the Surrealistrevolution, friend and occasional collaborator ofAndré Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray andTristan Tzara, the French artist Francis Picabia[1879-1953] has an indisputable place within thepantheon of the historical avant-garde. As well ashis important contributions to some of the mostimportant art movement of the twentieth centuryPicabia had a ferociously unconventional persona.Echoing his fierce aesthetic independence, he didnot conform to the image or lifestyle of his avant-garde colleagues. Born to a cosmopolitan family,the son of a Cuban diplomat in Paris, Picabia neverdabbled in bohemianism. He was rich and had noqualms about flaunting his wealth in public. Moreplayboy than serious artist, Picabia and his wife,Olga, lived on a yacht in Cannes during the 1930s.While many of his fellow artists split their timebetween the Côte d’Azur and Paris, Picabia steeredclear of artistic circles when socializing in bothcities. His relentless pursuit of pleasure was notonly publicly acknowledged, but it surfaced in hiswork as well as in that of other artists. Picabia’s loveof fast cars, [Man Ray made several images of himin the 1920s], was surpassed only by his insatiabletaste for women. A self-portrait from 1940 depictinghim with windswept hair and framed by two femaletemptresses is the artist as an unapologetic wom-anizer (he often made aphoristic analogies betweenthe pursuit of art and the love of women).

Picabia’s male bravado and unabashed decadencetakes on a more complex tone when read in paral-lel with his countless writings, letters, poems, andaphorisms. A devout Nietzschean since early adult-hood, Picabia firmly believed that self-generatedmyth was one of the essential elements in hisnihilistic program. When understood in these terms,his carefully groomed public persona was a part ofhis artistic strategy. As Carole Boulbes, a Picabiaspecialist, has written:

“[Like Friedrich Nietzsche,] Picabia inter-wove his writings with numerous aphorismsabout art, love, the family, glory and money.. . . When Picabia opts for skepticism andinsists that there is nothing to understand orwhen he prefers the critique of values tosuperfluous commentary on the works, thisis in fact the expression of a philosophy.Throughout his literary and visual works hecalls into question the founding oppositionsof Western aesthetic categories (beautiful/ugly,pure/impure, good/evil)”

The interpretation of Picabia’s art, writings, andlifestyle are all subject to these Nietzschean princi-ples of deformation and nihilism. When Picabiastrays from the orthodoxy of the avant-garde or cul-tivates a nonconformist, decadent persona, hisacknowledged affiliation with Nietzsche makes ithard to interpret his intentions only at face value. Inthis light, the superficial appearance of his “sea,sex, and sun” lifestyle on the Côte d’Azur in theearly 1940s seem antagonistic, particularly during atime of war.

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Left to right: David Galloway, Christian Meyer andFranz West in the artist's atelier, Vienna, January2007, Photo: Darsie Alexander

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guest starring on an episode of The Love Boat,these vulgar commercial activities were part of thelogical culmination of Warhol’s trajectory. “Businessart is the step that comes after Art. I started as acommercial artist, and I want to finish as a businessartist. After I did the thing called ‘art’ or whatever it’scalled, I wanted to be an art businessman or aBusiness Artist.”

Warhol refused to differentiate between “right” and“wrong” appearances in this Business Art phase ofhis life. What counted was translating his personainto its most extreme commercial potential. Yetwhile Warhol was trying to maximize the impact ofhis public persona in the spheres of art, popular cul-ture, and the market, he insisted on highlighting hisimperfections, his personal neuroses, and he claimto be “Nothingness Himself.” While this paradoxicalcoupling of extreme public exposure and sense ofinvisibility might be chalked up to some manifesta-tion of false modesty, as morally bankrupt as hisindiscriminate activities, it could also be attributedto the fulfillment of one of his crypto-critical philo-sophic maxims. When he describes himself as “put-ting his Warhol on,” he enumerates what he sees inthe mirror: “Nothing is missing. It’s all there. Theaffectless gaze. The diffracted grace. . . The boredlanguor, the wasted pallor… the chic freakiness, thebasically passive astonishment. . . . The glamour rootedin despair, the self-admiring carelessness, the per-fected otherness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguelysinister aura. . . . Nothing is missing. I’m everythingmy scrapbook says I am.”

Warhol worked very hard at being the wrong personfor the right part. His “wrongness” was documentedin his obsessive archival activities: the publicationof his Diary and his Philosophy (From A to B andBack Again); his scrapbooks and Time Capsules.More than any “artwork” or film he ever made,Warhol’s public persona became the most effectivedevice to record and reflect on contemporary life. Ifthe role of the artist today is search for “aura” in aworld of vacuity, Warhol was definitely the wrongperson for the right part.

Jeff Koons: The New Adam

Jeff Koons is one of the unmistakable icons of the1980s—as much through his affiliation with the“commodity art” scene that emerged out of the EastVillage as through his continuation of Warhol’s lega-cy. Koons consciously took up where Warhol’s“Business Art” left off by espousing mass media andthe market as the subject of his work while harness-ing their strategies in the promotion of himself.

In every interview that Koons gives about the con-tent of his work, he infused his otherwise “empty,”“vulgar,” “icy,” and “banal” oeuvre with more thanjust biographical details. His discourse is pepperedwith pseudo-revolutionary maxims, explaining thedesires that drive his art: “to communicate with themasses”; to provide “spiritual experience” through“manipulation and seduction”; to strive for higherstates of being promised by “the realms of theobjective and the new.” His professed love for themedia goes beyond its usefulness as a communica-tion tool: “I believe in advertisement and the mediacompletely. My art and my personal life are basedon it.”

During the 1988-1989 art season, Koons and hisgalleries put their money where their mouth was. Aseries of full-page advertisements was purchasedin the major trade magazines of the time: Artforum,Flash Art, Arts, and Art in America. In the centre ofeach highly theatrical tableau, Koons presided overthe scene smiling smugly at the camera, impecca-bly groomed, obviously airbrushed. Each of the fourads illustrated one of the derogatory aspects ofKoons’s persona as propagated by the press:Koons as a “breeder of banality” (pictured with twopigs), Koons as “corruptor of the future generation”(photographed in a schoolroom full of children withslogans such as “Exploit the Masses” and “Banality

as Savior” written on the blackboard behind him),Koons as gigolo (pictured in a Hugh Hefner–stylerobe in front of a boudoir-like tent), and Koons asfrivolous ladies’ man (posing with bikini-clad modelsand a braying pony). These self-satisfied imagesmarked the introduction of Koons own image intohis work while beating the critics to the punch. Hecalled himself a pig, an indoctrinator, a whore, anda narcissist before the guardians of “truth” and“authenticity” could even attack his next body ofwork—Made in Heaven.

By now, everyone knows the story. Koons met theEurotrash Pop singer/porn star/member of Italianparliament Ilona Staller [aka Cicciolina] in 1989after having based the sculpture Fait d’Hiver (fromthe Banality series, 1988) on a found image of herbody. Having initially solicited her involvement onhis new body of work to be titled Made in Heaven,their collaboration fast turned into a real-life loveaffair and marriage. The resulting works—anensemble of life-size sculptures in wood and plas-tic, paintings, glass figurines, as well as a billboardadvertising their unrealized porn film—graphicallydepicted acts of matrimonial consummation. Moralbacklash aside, this union of art and life pushed theperception of Koons over the edge—even in the artworld. In the end, sexual exploitation was a minorirritant in this story. The real taboo that Koons shat-tered can be located in the manner in which heused his very public relationship with Staller to chal-lenge the humanistic expectations of the role of theartist in contemporary society. As Sylvère Lotringerwrites, “[Koons] embraced the System as publiclyas he kissed Cicciolina’s ass. Ilona Staller becamehis best PR, using her genitalia, Koons said, to‘communicate a very precise language’. He neverhad to deny or ‘deconstruct’ anything to make hispoint. The culture industry was doing it for him.”

With this foray into sexploitation, Koons’s proclama-tions about Ilona and himself are most radical whentaken at face value. As the “contemporary Adamand Eve” [as Koons put it] they were far from takingthe position of passive victims of capitalism’s mali-cious impact on society and art. Twisting the biblicalreference to fit contemporary life, the Koons-Stallerunion embraced the supposed “sins” of the market,brazenly shattering the expectation that artistsshould operate in a higher moral realm; it removedthe money, power, and celebrity that corrupts therest of society. With this complicity, Koons fulfilledhis role as the new Adam, blissfully savouring theonce-forbidden fruit offered by the American way oflife, minus the cynicism or guilt that plagued hisartistic forbears.

“Every Artist Is a Person”: Kippenberger asSelbstdarsteller

Martin Kippenberger didn’t need to die prematurelyat age forty-three to become a cult figure in Europe.At the end of the 1970s, before deciding to becomea visual artist, Kippenberger’s main preoccupationwas self-invention. He went to Florence in 1976“looking like Helmut Berger on a good day” but wasnever discovered. He returned from Italy and tem-porarily moved to Paris to become a novelist (henever finished his novel, but continued writingthroughout his life). In 1978, he established theBüro Kippenberger in Berlin with Gisela Capitain;this marked his formal debut as a visual artist,although his office was more than a studio, as itblended all forms of artistic endeavour à la Warhol’sFactory. Shortly thereafter, Kippenberger becameco-owner and manager of the S.O. 36 in Kreuzberg,the centre of the punk and new wave scene. Tomark his twenty-fifth birthday that same year, heprinted a poster picturing himself with a hooker, withthe banner title, “A Quarter of a Century as one ofyou, among you, with you.” The self-designated epi-thets “show-off”, “hypervoyeur”, “pretender”, “informer”,“organizer,” “ringleader” “long-a-painter,” and “bigspender” surrounded his head like a halo. Duringthis early yet hyperactive phase in his life,Kippenberger’s indecision about his vocation pro-duced a maelstrom of creative activities. The only

thing that was constant was his tireless, systematicpromotion of his persona.

Kippenberger’s invention of Kippenberger was notlimited to his early career; it was an ongoingprocess. His nicknames and alter egos appearedeverywhere he worked: Kippy, Der Kippenberger,MK, Spiderman, a crucified Frog, or just plainMartin. He wore as many hats as he had names forhimself: painter, sculptor, architect, writer, poet, under-ground club manager, musician, promoter, exhibi-tion maker and director of his own museum(MOMAS, the Museum of Modern Art Syros). It wasimpossible to disentangle his self-promotion fromhis way of life.

The German language offers a perfectly tailoredword to designate Kippenberger’s programmaticdrive. Selbstdarsteller, as Diedrich Diederichsenwrites, is “often translated as ‘self-publicist’ or ‘self-promoter’ but literally means ‘self-performer.’” In histext on Kippenberger’s art and life between 1977and 1983, Diederichsen goes on to explain that incontemporary German parlance, the termSelbstdarsteller is most often used as an epithet inthe realm of politics, while in the arts takes on amore ambivalent tone. Kippenberger as Selbst-darsteller can be compared to equally self-promot-ing/self-performing artists, “poised somewherebetween Serge Gainsbourg and Klaus Kinski.” Yetthe nuance offered by the German term - its oscilla-tion between promotion/publicity and performanceof the self - raises an important distinction. Unlikethe purely cynical marketing strategies in the main-stream of the music business and the art world,Kippenberger’s Selbstdarstellung contained a com-plex economy of checks and balances, promotionand self-effacement, exuberance and humility, gut-splitting humor and profound melancholia.

“Every artist is a person,” Kippenberger said.Originally used to combat Joseph Beuys’s maxim“Everyone - each person - is an artist….The Re-volution is in us,” Kippenberger’s humble statementmight seem to contradict his own self-generatedmythology. Kippenberger’s first artwork - a cycle ofone hundred small-format paintings titled One ofYou, A German in Florence made out of frustrationwith his acting career in 1977 - might hold the keyto this seeming contradiction. One of You, AGerman in Florence offers a panoply of snippetsfrom Kippenberger’s everyday life in the modernRenaissance city, rendered in black and white oilpaint. This multipanelled work - deliberately remi-niscent of Gerhard Richter’s grisaille 48 Portraits ofImportant Men - is Kippenberger’s first attempt tocreate an open system of images, signs, language,high and low cultural references, and architecturalmotifs. From a typical hole-in-the-ground toilet to aneon sign of a local ice-cream parlor, “Perché no”,from a portrait of an Italian crooner to a neighbor-hood milk man and a copy of Sandro Botticelli’sPortrait of a Young Man with a Medallion(1470–75), this is more than a picture of the humancondition. Kippenberger always counted himselfamong us.

As one critic noted: “Kippenberger staged his pub-lic life because he thought he could bear it better inits mythologized form. He demythologized art andthe conditions of its creation so that it would notlose its credibility.” Kippenberger’s contradictory yetpoignant use of self-performance/self-promotionwas one possible answer to the challenge of exist-ing in the contemporary cultural landscape.

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NOMADISIERENUrs Jaeggi

Es gibt nichts zu rechtfertigen. Dass Kunstmachende heuteoffensiver in das Warum und Wie der Kunst eingreifen, hatdamit zu tun, dass sie ungesicherter arbeiten als je zuvor. Kunst ist, was sie ist. Ein Kunstgebilde. Martin Heidegger schrieb:„Kunst ist nur ein Wort, das keiner Wirklichkeit entspricht.“ EineSeifenblase? Die Ästhetik, die Kunst zu erklären versucht, setzt Zeichen undwenn sie ehrlich ist, stellt sie Fragen.Meine paar Sätze drehensich, auch wenn sie weiter gehen, um das, was sie hier von mirsehen und hören werden. Der Raum ist das Bild. Das Bild derRaum: Wort und Ton. Eine Installation? Etwas Installiertes. Ich habe zwei Onkeln gehabt, dieInstallateure waren. Sie planten und setzten möglichst funktion-al etwas zusammen, das gebraucht wurde: Heizungsanlagen.Was nützlich, ja notwendig ist. Kunstmachende Installateuresind nicht notwendig, stellen wie alle Kunst Überflüssiges her.Wir sind Durcheinanderbringer, die das Durcheinander-gebrachteordnen oder weiter chaotisieren. Ähnlich wie Zeichnen undMalen, können Kinder das auch und zum Teil sehr gut. Manbraucht sich nur Kinderzimmer anzugucken: Objekte werdenzerlegt, neu zusammengesetzt. Berühren, spüren, sehen, dasFunktionieren ausprobieren, zerlegen, aufbauen, die Farbenfließen lassen, Töne und Geräusche suchen. Das ist, wenn auchnicht immer für die Eltern, wunderbar und genau so überflüssigwie Kunst, und kann genau so spannend sein, aufregen undUnruhe verbreiten. Samuel Beckett sagte, es gebe keine Malerei,es gebe nur Bilder, und da Bilder keine Würstchen sind, sind sieweder gut noch schlecht. Alles was man sagen könne: dahinterstecke ein absurdes, letztlich unerklärliches Drängen zum Bild,dem innere Spannungen entsprechen, und die den Betrachterinteressieren, aufregen oder gleichgültig lassen. Kunst?Man kann versuchen, zu den Werken die Meinungen und Urteileder Betrachter zu erfassen. Ein Teil der Kunstsoziologie be-schäftigt sich damit, womit aber die Werke nicht zu erklärensind. Man kann die Formen, Farben und die Ikonologie der Bilderzu erfassen versuchen; damit wird systematisiert, werden Unter-schiede aufgezeigt. Was nützlich ist und Teilerklärungen bringt,vor allem wenn man, hermeneutisch, sorgfältig und Zug um ZugWerke und ihren Kontext aufzuhellen versucht. Aber vor undnachher wissen wir: Kunstwerke existieren, weil wir sie alsKunstwerke erkennen und bezeichnen.Und wer ist „wir“?Einmal der Betrachter, vor allem aber eine Allianz vonSpezialisten, die von der Kunst-geschichte, der Philosophie usw.oder der Kunst selber herkommen und die das Phänomen„Kunst“ zu spezifizieren und funktionalisieren versuchen. Sieurteilen, bestimmen. Der Versuch ist meist auch das Urteil.Die Grenzen werden dabei immer offener, sagt man, alles istmöglich Aber da sind die er-wähnten Wärter, die Zellen bildenund überwachen. Fast jeder kennt fast jeden, Streit und Über-einkünfte blühen. Das Spannende, weil Ausbrüche nicht zu ver-hindern und notwendig sind, geschieht trotzdem auf der Flucht.Da, wo die Kulturen sich überschneiden und bekämpfen. Und imInnern, wo die Disziplinen brechen (Kunst, Poesie, Naturwissen-schaft, Musik, Geschichte und Philosophie) und die autoreferenziellen,geschlossenen Systeme nicht mehr greifen. Draussen, im Freien,ist die Luft allerdings schärfer und ungemütlicher, das Denkenschwieriger. Ein Grund vielleicht, warum der immer stärkergeforderte interdisziplinäre Diskurs prekär und verletzlich bleibtund, manchmal gegen die eigenen Forderungen, leicht diskred-itiert wird. Die Wunde bleibt oder nüchterner: die Notwendigkeit.

Die Kunstschaffenden selber fordern diesen Diskurs, beteiligensich an ihm, nicht immer mit den dafür notwendigen Kennt-nissen, um über das rein Ästhetische hinauszugelangen. Weilsie, wie die Philosophie, kein eigenes Terrain haben, bleibendie Arbeiten, ohne deswegen an Bedeutung zu verlieren, frag-il, zerbrechlich, immer häufiger auch ephemer. Um es wiederetwas pathetisch zu sagen: hier wird am deutlichsten, dasswichtige Werke immer auch riskant das Spiel zwischen Lebenund Tod inszenieren und austragen. Hier, über die Hinter-treppe, erscheint die conditio humana, die Angst, dasSchreckliche, das Grausame der Modernität, aber auch dasSchöne, Angenehme, Frivole, das Schockierende und Be-rührende. Dass das Inhumane und das Menschenwürdige dieKunstmachenden umtreibt, ist natürlich nicht neu, aber unver-meidlich in einer krisen- und kriegsdurchschüttelten Welt. Undpolitisiert. Nicht im direkten Engagement. Man kann Blumenmalen, Bäume oder was auch immer machen.. Es gibt keinAusweichen vor der Frage: warum Kunst machen in einerWelt, in der Millionen ums Überleben kämpfen und Hundert-tausende diesen Kampf verlieren? Es gibt keine Entschuldigung.Ich murmle: es ist seltsam und wunderbar, wie sich mitten inder Hölle etwas dagegenstemmt. Ein Wunder. Wie die Liebe.Vielleicht eines der Dinge, die uns vor dem Aufgeben und demSelbstmord schützen? Das ist wenig und viel.

Olivier Garbay, Roman Forest, 2005(from the series: l’importance d’aimer ou de l’indiference du papier)brushed/painted ink, Courtesy of the artist

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Olivier GarbayMonk with a bird in his ear, 2007ink drawing, Courtesy of the artist

The Cloud, 2007, ink drawingCourtesy of the artist

Ballade, 2007, black ink, Courtesy of the artist

Sans titre, 2007, Courtesy of the artist

Galaad, 2007, porcelain, Courtesy of the artist

HAMSTERWHEEL 9

am, based off Garrett Lane in the boroughof Wandsworth in south London was appar-ently the last brewery in the city to deliver

beer by horse and cart, a distant memory thatchimes with simpler and, some might say, bettertimes. To more metropolitan eyes, ‘heavy’ horsesare less familiar as a tool to be worked with on theland than a vehicle for crowd control on the streets,with their ability to mount pavements and to turn intheir own length, effective in a way that a motorisedvehicle could never be. Theirs is a kind of benignappearance that calms a situation before it gets outof hand.

The working ‘heavy’ or ‘shire’ horse was eulogisedin ceramic forms by potteries based in NorthernEngland, notably by H.A. Wain & Sons who manu-factured their Melba Ware at Longton, Stoke onTrent in Staffordshire. Most were sold from around1967-1984, when the company ceased trading.Many of these horses, sometimes made at 1/8thscale, were harnessed with miniature copies of thehorses’ brasses - cast brass ‘medals’ stitched to aleather backing often now found hanging at the sideof fireplaces, especially in village pubs – andleather fittings that would hang from their heavyyokes and from around their flanks. The ceramichorses would often come with their own little handmade wooden and brass carts.

Sarah Lucas’s Perceval (2006) is a replica of thesechina ornaments, many of which are still to befound on mantle pieces of a certain elder generationof the population’s homes throughout Britain. Itscales the heavy horse back up to life size, trans-formed into a 4550kg life size bronze. ThoughLucas has described Perceval as “a sculpture for thepure of heart”, this impressive simple beast impliesmany complex associated references: Perceval is aneight hundred year old Arthurian legend; has nod-ding references to 19th century pastoralism; andcarries the spirit of a peculiar 20th century Englishmodernism. The legend from which it borrows itsname has formed the basis for Jungian analysis ofmale adolescent development. And as a publicsculpture it exists in the context of the history of thehorse, mounted or not, as public monument whichcover the principle cities of Europe from Madrid toParis and, of course, Venice itself.

Lucas spends much of her time working inAldeburgh, Suffolk, not far from the site of JohnConstable’s painting The Haywain (1821), itselftitled after a type of horse-drawn cart, near Flatford

on the river Stour. In The Haywain a horse and cartstands in the river in the foreground of the paintingwhile across the meadows in the middle distance agroup of haymakers are at work. The cottage shownon the left of the painting was rented by a farmercalled Willy Lott and stands behind Flatford Mill.Today the cottage and river path are still much asthey were in Constable’s day. Everything else,unsurprisingly, has changed. But in fact the paintingwas an imitation too in a way, as it was as much amemory of a place, seeing as it actually created inConstable’s London studio in Camden from sketch-es made en plein air. Far from being acknowledgedas the icon we know it to be today, when it wasexhibited at the royal Academy in 1821 TheHaywain failed to attract any bidders. In fact he wasdespised in England for his paintings depicting ruraltoil and graft. But when exhibited in France,Charles X awarded Constable a gold medal for thepainting for his quintessentially English scene.

Perceval’s load in his accompanying cart, are twosomewhat unexpected giant outsized painted castconcrete courgettes, lying across one another in theback. While the horse is as complete a copy of a realminiature of a life size ‘heavy’ as it is possible tomake, the courgettes are as far removed from theiroriginal context as they could possibly be. And sug-gest a more lascivious beginning or end to its jour-ney They are the scale of bodies, cast as phalluses,their references also more innocently calling tomind the deliberately grown giant vegetables thatlie next to one another competing for rosettes incountry fairs. Such fairs are themselves most oftenassociated historically around key dates to do withancient fertility rites, such as the Mayday Maypoleor Harvest Festival.

Being cast in bronze at this scale is not the moststraightforward procedure, both time-consumingand expensive to make. Lucas is known primarilyfor using comparatively ‘simple’ materials fromcigarettes to stockings but she has always been anartist to surprise. In fact although on first appear-ances Perceval is perhaps an unlikely subject,especially physically, for Sarah Lucas to have

addressed, in many ways it functions perfectly as acarrier of the dominant themes that run throughouther work of sex, death, Englishness and gender, notto mention a sense of misbehaviour, bravura andeven drinking. The name ‘heavy’, in Scotland, isalso the county’s generic term for its beer. Lucas’scountless references dovetail both distant points inhistory and also by implication our own personalexperiences.

The title Perceval is borrowed from the name of oneof King Arthur’s ‘Knights of the Round Table’ inthe legend of The Holy Grail, first written byChrétien de Troyes around the end of the 12th cen-tury. The legend exists in many versions, pagan andChristian, and originated in fertility rites celebratingthe passage of barren winter into fertile spring,often involving an element of human sacrifice.Perceval is character often portrayed as an innocentwho grew up deep in the Welsh forests after hisfather died while he was young, and uninitiated ‘inthe ways of men’, namely the influence of knights,swords, horses and, one assumes, sex. The story ofhis life charts the move away from his mother intothe wider world. Eventually, age 15 years old, he

meets a group of passing knights and determines tobecome like them, travelling to King Arthur’s court.After proving himself as a useful warrior, he isinvited to join the Knights of the Round Table. Itseems that his innate naivety may have contributedto his subsequent success in locating The HolyGrail.

The story was taken up in a group of stories knownas the Welsh Romances associated with a publica-tion called the Mabinogion. The hero in theMabinogion is Peredur, the Welsh for Perceval, sonof Efrawg (Efrawg is etymologically based on Yorkin the North of England and suggests his fatherruled there at some point). In the Mabinogion,Peredur has many more lasciviously orientatedadventures than his namesake in Chrétien deTroyes’ version, which includes a stay with the NineWitches of Gloucester and an extended foray offourteen years in Constantinople.

The Mabinogion was not widely read though untilits translation into English in 1849 by LadyCharlotte Guest, who gave it the title and whichcoincided with a revival in Welsh nationalism cele-brated through a festival known as the Eisteddfod,which still takes place today. The Eisteddfod can betraced back to 1176 when it is said that the firstEisteddfod was held, under the auspices of LordRhys, at his castle in Cardigan. There he held agrand gathering to which were invited poets andmusicians from all over the country. A speciallymade chair was awarded to the best poet and musi-cian, a tradition that prevails in the modern dayNational Eisteddfod.

What the two versions of Perceval share – and thereare many more - is the mistake the main protagonistmakes in not asking the right questions, simplybecause he was taught, when being brought up, tonot ask too many. Consequently he fails to ask thecrucial question of the King that would have result-ed in him being healed. The King had been injured,apparently, in his sexual organs, with the result thathis once fertile country was left barren, a wasteland.In later accounts the true Grail hero is Galahad,Lancelot’s son. But Perceval remained a major

character and was one of only two knights (the otherwas Sir Bors) who accompanied Galahad to theGrail castle and completed the quest. The overarch-ing need, it seems, was for the knights to be moti-vated by a desire to save the land and not to act outof personal gain – the suppression of ego for thegreater good of ‘mankind’.

This legend of Perceval underpins Jungian psycho-

Bruce Haines

R

Perceval and the Pure of Heart

analysis as it surfaces in literary and operatic workssuch as T.S Eliot’s poem The Wasteland andRichard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. The English mod-ernism described in Eliot’s The Wasteland has at itsheart mythic elements woven into naturalisticscenes, focussed on different areas of London andthe river Thames. Eliot manages to interject into hisotherwise rather gloomy poem a certain romanticbeauty. His wasteland is not a physical manifesta-tion environmentally though; it is the psychologicaleffect of being overcome with doubt and uncertainty.

For Wagner too the central theme is the departure ofyoung people from their parental home, a place ofapparent security that not only family but also insti-tutions can provide. The need to think for oneself, toform ones own ideas is liberating and painful. Sowhen Wagner’s Parsifal kills a swan with his arrow,his initial pride at his achievement is overcome withastonishment at the sight of the dead bird and therealisation of, and remorse for, what he has done.When Parsifal is reproached and asked what hisname is and where he is from, he can only name hismother, Herzeleide, or ‘Heart’s Sorrow’). Parsifal issubsequently told that his father was killed in battlewhile he was young and that Parsifal himself grewup in a remote forest away from the ills of theworld. He recalls though running after a group ofknights riding along the forest’s edge, though hewas unable to reach them. He thus embarks on thejourney to internalise what he sees and experiencesand to make it become a part of his consciousness inorder to become a better person. He realises he mustbreak with his past – his mother – in order to moveon. This will require passion but also discernment,the ability to see through what on the surface mightbe the most attractive option. The lesson of the‘parable’, such that it chimes with biblical refer-ences, is that a true knight must be able to withstand

temptation, to be able to control desire – thoughacknowledging that it is desire that drives us toaspire to greater things – but at the same time, lifemust be allowed to run its course.

Sarah Lucas’s Perceval occupies an equally cere-bral, though earth bound stance in relationship tothe kind of equine statuary gracing most city centresin Europe. Venice has its own ‘horse story’ in theprovenance of the four horses on the Basilica of StMark’s Cathedral. Their origins are also unclear.Once thought to be sculpted by Lysippos – the greatsculptor of the 4th century BC and the only sculptorthat Alexander the Great would allow to do his por-trait – they are now thought to be later 2nd centuryAD Roman, not Greek. The horses were originallywar booty from Greece, installed on the facade ofthe cathedral after they hand languished in theArsenale for fifty years, their metal in danger ofbeing turned into canon fodder during the attendanttroubles.

They remained above the cathedral entrance for 500years until the last five years of the 18th century,when Napoleon swept through the Italian peninsula.Despite initially being welcomed by the city ofVenice, he looted the horses along with many otherpriceless paintings and the city’s symbolic wingedlion accompanied by two winged ‘Victories’, whichhe shipped off to Paris at the end of 1797. Napoleonhad the horses set on top of the Arc du Carrousel,the triumphal arch on the Tuileries end of theChamps-Elysées, opposite the much bigger Arc deTriomphe at the other end. After Napoleon wasdefeated, the 1815 Congress of Vienna sent most ofNapoleon’s loot back to Venice, and the horses werereinstalled. They came down again 95 years later forrestoration and were remounted in 1902. Fifteenyears later, during World War 1, they were removedto Rome for safety before being returned when the

war had ended. The pattern recurred again in WorldWar II when they were dispatched to a Benedictineabbey at Praglia in 1942.

Despite their turbulent 2,400-year-old history, thehorses stayed in pretty good condition, and in theearly 1980s, a touring exhibition took them toMexico City, New York, London, Paris, Milan andBerlin. However, they did not return to the Basilicaof San Marco because they were being damaged toomuch by modern air pollution and so replicas werecreated which took the place of the originals. Nowyou can climb a steep stairway to where the replicasstand on the Basilica today for a top spot to view St.Mark’s Square and see the originals too, now keptinside a small museum on the same upper level ofthe cathedral. So, Perceval, in being brought toVenice, is somewhat of an antithesis to these beasts,a proletarian version, his feet firmly planted on theground.

It seems a strange gift now for a couple in their latetwenties to buy one another, but my mother boughtmy father a Melba Ware shire-horse and cart for hisbirthday nearly 30 years ago. The Staffordshirechina replica reminded her of growing up in SouthWest London where her own father, a miller, used tohave a horse and cart of his own. Now living in aprinciple market town in the heart of England as thewife of a market gardener, conversely she wasbrought up a metropolitan girl in post-war Aden andLondon. The Melba Ware horse and cart was per-haps symbolic of shared values across an otherwisecultural divide, both a sweet acknowledgement ofthe history of her husband’s profession as heavyhorses were the tractors of their day, and his fond-ness of recreational horses of the racing kind.Bringing Perceval back to life size with its atten-dant load has meant the ‘heavy’ on their G-plansideboard will never look the same again.

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Sarah Lucas, Perceval, 2006, bronze, concrete, paint, 230 x 183 x 548 cm, edition of 5, Copyright Sarah Lucas Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

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Sarah Lucas, Richard, 2004, polystyrene, jesmonite, paint, wax, 183 x 86 x 129 cm, Copyright Sarah Lucas Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

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Franz West, Wittgenstein at the Cool Books (Modell), 2007, Papiermaché, Holz, Plexiglas, 52,5 x 52,5 x 26 cm

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Douglas Gordon, Franz West, Studie zu Fingerfuck, 2007,

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Douglas Gordon, Franz West, Studie zu Fingerfuck, 2007,

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ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA – FRANZ WESTACHILLE BONITO OLIVA:Tu ti sei formato nel clima cul-turale dell’Azionismo Viennese,ma fin dall’inizio il tuo lavorosi è rivolto ad analizzare leconvenzioni stabilite tra l’o-pera d’arte e la sua fruizione.L’arte è un atto di trasgressioneche coinvolge artista e pubbli-co, oppure comunicazione diprincipi che la ispirano?

FRANZ WEST: Ambedue. Iocredo che se si vuole limitarel’arte a certe modalità si sbar-ra l’accesso (o gli accessi) a….alle cose forse non definitecon precisione o definite inmodo errato.

A.B.O.: Il tuo lavoro ha piùuna valenza concettuale ocomportamentale?

F.W.: Una valenza comporta-mentale….

A.B.O.: Nella tua opera misembra che esista una grandeattenzione per la fruizionedell’opera da parte del pubbli-co. L’arte per sua natura èinterattiva? Richiede la parte-cipazione del pubblico o lasemplice contemplazione?

F.W.: Ambedue. Da una partela funzione delle sculture inpaper maché è meramente unaconsiderazione contemplati-va, mentre gli „Passstuecke e i„Mobili“ chiaramente richie-dono la partecipazione delpubblico.Secondo la mia esperienza,non è possibile avere le duecose contemporaneamente,quindi perseguire solo uno deidue aspetti mi suscita un senso(o sarebbe per me) di mancan-za. Sarebbe anche stupido.(Se, nella ubriacatezza dellacontemplazione, questa stessavenisse trasferita in gesti, siarriverebbe probabilmente aforme espressive simili al

culto del corpo e alla danzaespressiva, come ad esempio(Rudolf) Steiner nella primametà del XX secolo). Questo èobsoleto - ridicolo. Significache di fronte alla cruda realtàci si espone al ridicolo, ci sitrova in uno stato inerme.Questo non vuole dire che laqualità che si prova nella con-templazione sia insignifican-te; al contrario, a me, chetendo ad una leggera depres-sione di fondo, è di aiuto, pro-voca un abbandono tale chel’asprezza e il lato poco appe-titoso della vita hanno l’effet-to di un apparato censorio dacui evadere.

A.B.O.: Molteplici sono i lin-guaggi, i materiali, le tecnicheda te adoperati, tutti rivolti acreare una fusione tra arte evita. Ma esiste invece unasoglia tra il quotidiano e la suabanalità e invece l’atto creati-vo e la sua esemplarità?

F.W.: Per l’artista il quotidianoè esemplare, serve da modello,è soglia tra arte e vita; non sitratta di rimuovere il quotidia-no bensì di darne una visioneartistica.

A.B.O.: Ricordo la tua instal-lazione al MOMA di NewYork dove le sedie da te pro-gettate si confondevano conquelle di uso comune appar-tenenti al Museo; ricordoancora che nella tua mostraalla White Chapel di Londratu presentavi anche una spe-cie di grande sedile fosfores-cente che offriva al pubblicouna fruizione ludica del tuolavoro. Esiste uno spiritoFluxus nella tua opera?

F.W.: Certamente! In effettiio vedo le mie poltrone comegrafiche che possono essereusate. E’ questo il saltoimmaginario nel quotidiano.

L’arte scompare, ci si siedesopra, non la si vede più, marimane nella coscienza.

A.B.O.: Nell’opera il cui tito-lo è Invenzione tu proponiancora una volta una liberafuizione dell’opera. L’arte èanarchica disciplina, trasfor-mazione del mondo, o sempli-ce analisi di principi che rego-lano il sistema dell’arte?

F.W.: Vedrei la trasformazionedel mondo nel senso diWittgenstein che nel „Tractatus“sostiene: „Io sono il miomondo“. In questo modo com-prendo anche il resto. Non lopenso in modo solipsistico,ma forse monadico.

A.B.O.: Nella Certosa diPadula tu hai presentatoun’installazione che interagi-va con l’opera di TamunaSirbiladze nella quale haimesso in scena la quotidianitàe il banale arido della vita ditutti i giorni. Vuoi normalizza-re l’arte o resuscitare la vitadel quotidiano?

F.W.: Le due cose. Ma non insenso missionario. Provo a darvita ad eventuali disposizionie in maniera interattiva!

A.B.O.: Al contrario diDuchamp che ha realizzatouna metafisica del quotidianoattraverso il Ready Made, latua innovazione è sottile,silenziosa e concettuale. Vuoipromuovere il superamentogerarchico tra arte e vita, trapoesia e prosa e realizzare lademocrazia di una comunitàconcentrata che vive libera-mente e fuori da ogni conven-zione un nuovo rapporto congli eventi. Dove finisce ilruolo dell’artista creatore edove inizia quello del pubbli-co creativo?

F.W.: C’era una ChevroletMalibu, parcheggiata sulbordo della strada a Peekskill,nello Stato di New York. Unameteorite del peso di 12,6 kgla trafisse il 9 Ottobre 1992 ecreò un cratere sotto lamacchina.

A.B.O.: Tu accompagni semp-re la tua opera con performan-ce che sconfinano nella musi-ca o nel teatro. La multime-dialità favorisce la creazione?

F.W.: Gli elementi della multi-medialità si annodano letteral-mente dando vita ad un attocreativo che però non è distac-cato bensì mantiene la suarelazione con la natura delmio processo di invenzioneformale.

A.B.O.: Alcune volte hai pro-gettato tavoli e sedie, comeper il RAM, hai occupato lospazio dell’arte volutamentecon la banalità di oggetti quot-idiani. L’arte è soltanto analisidel suo sistema, trasgressione,destrutturazione, trasforma-zione, oppure liberazione daogni convenzionalità di pen-siero e di mercato? Ti conside-ri un indisciplinato interdisci-plinare?

F.W.: Certamente! Il tavolo cheè stato mandato a RAM adessosi chiama „Ramme“ (mazza-picchio) e io vorrei fare unvideo in cui 4-6 assistenti sfon-dono, anzi sfasciano una porta.Ecco l’ interazione disciplinareche costituisce l’argomento diquesta nostra conversazione.E’ lo scioglimento della cortec-cia che è parte integrante delnostro tessuto sostanziale.

Pho

to:

Dar

sie

Ale

xand

er

HAMSTERWHEEL 17

Franz West,Cool Books, 2007, aluminum laquered, 50 x 200 x 190 cm, Courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna and Gagosian Gallery, London

Franz West,Cool Books, 2007, aluminum laquered, 50 x 195 x 195 cm, Courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna and Gagosian Gallery, London

HAMSTERWHEEL18

and intensify, gives the process of defecation an addi-tional erotic dimension that is not only in morpholog-ical terms a neighbour of the genital allure: In theirfirst concepts of the sexual act children often imaginethis as anal penetration (see Freud’s “wolf man”), andin this process the excrement becomes both penis andalso the child that is pressed out of the mother’s belly– comparable to the primitive cloaca, where the anusand the reproductive organs have not yet been sepa-rated. In the mind of a child the lust zones have notyet been clearly differentiated one from the other, norcan they in any way be placed in categories of theirown yet whether morally or aesthetically. Hand inhand with the still marginal inducement to differen-tiate more clearly between the sexes or indeed toestablish a primacy of heterosexual relationships, theentire ensemble of the polymorphic perversity resultsfrom this, a situation characterising the sexuality ofthe child in its totality. The almost exclusive andseemingly self-evident representation of genital lustby the anal is shown later not only in the anal pleas-ures of the compulsive neurotic, but also makes areturn appearance in the regressive processes of oldage, when with the laming of the power of the loinslust often rather turns again ever more to eating,drinking – and by inference, to shitting.

All of this would possibly not have such a great and

sustained significance, when the gradual develop-ment of the child’s ability to control the anal process-es at will was not also predestined to be the first sys-tematic point of approach to satisfying the demandsof the Other. Auto-erotic lust is directed into the fieldof the inter-subjective by this means and it undergoesa conversion to a decisive medium of social regulationof the child. The demands of adults – whether thesebegin to be made at an earlier or later stage, in arigid or tolerant form –, their praise for the correctand rebuke for wrong giving and retaining in pottytraining, constantly turn the anal processes, as we allknow from the nursery, into a battleground of power,subjugation and resistance, turn excrement into thefirst tender gift of love offered by the child, or equal-ly into a weapon with which it literally seeks tothrow shit at another person. It is through thisprocess that the child first learns what it means torelinquish its own lust as a means of gaining the devo-tion of the Other. As a result of the regulation in thisexchange procedure of faeces for love, excrementassumes a natural position as the first universal cur-rency of mankind, the little pile becoming the firstheap of gold, the first possession and it is no surpriseat all when money and all the economic proceduresthat are linked with it can be understood with entirefreedom in terms of the logic of anal processes.Producing to sell, earning to save, to buy, to possess

Georg Gröller

A tramp knocks at a monastery door tobeg for something to eat. In the time hewaits – the nuns must finish their prayer,before they turn to worldly things – thepoor man is overcome by an inner need andhe relieves himself beside the convent door.At this very moment a nun opens the doorand sees the man crouching his offeringand shouts angrily “That is a bit thick!” Towhich the tramp replies “and what aboutthe length?”

Whenever psychoanalysis deals with a subject, itdirects a gaze inevitably and with all the faithfulnessof the metier to the “pre-Olympian world of the gods”in which giants and titans, born as monsters,unmanned their father and ate their own children; inwhich a goddess grew from a penis adrift on the seaand where goddesses could still be changed into treesby a curse - in other words it turns to the fantasticimaginary world of the child at that time when itbegins to constitute itself as a subject amid the hefti-est psychic thrusts and agitation, until it finally sub-mits to the symbolic order in the Oedipus complexadopting the laws of mathematics as the matrix of itsbeing in this world.2

So even by broaching the subject of the relationshipbetween art and shit the psychoanalyst under thesepremises does so, automatically and as a kind of pre-liminary spadework task, by examining the questionof the position the sphere of the anal takes in the uni-verse of the child. When we consider the disgust andcontempt society has poured out on excrement and allthose processes that have to do with it, (the simpleappearance, but still more the smell and touch - withthe exception albeit of a fascinated preoccupationwith one’s own excrement, but this in closeted secretof course), we gain a first hint of those forces that areat work here – since none of this aversion is yet to befound in the small child. Quite the contrary: proceed-ing from the initial pleasurable or painful devotion ofthe baby to his digestive processes to a general emer-gence of the capability to control the sphincter mus-culature, excrement advances the very first objectthat the child itself produces. The two to three yearold invests it as both a part and a product of its ownbody with the greatest curiosity, with all its pride andtenderness, with feelings representing the notion ithas of its own brilliance at this age – a warm andsmelling pile with its deliciously pasty, mouldableconsistency makes the act of shitting a first triumphof human creativity. Play with the excitation of the mucous membranes,which the child itself can either delay or accelerate

Andouillette AAA!!!1 A digest of the doctrine of the anal – And an account of the relationship between art and shit

Douglas Gordon, Franz West, Studie zu Fingerfuck, 2007

and be powerful, all of these lusts and coercions ofbusiness show us that any talk of shit capitalismbears more than a quantum of truth albeit uninten-tionally and quite apart from any indignation thephrase may provoke. That the field of the anal becomes a true precedencecase for the effect of the forbidden explains the pow-erful barriers of disgust, which the child begins toerect against the anal starting from this early age –showing us what drastic measures the child mustresort to, in order to enforce on its own this prohibi-tion imposed from without in its own inner life andconsciousness. And once again compulsive neurosiscan show us impressively in this context to what pointof life-stupor the ambivalences of love and of hatethat derive from these conflicts can bring us.

Space is not available here to describe the extraordi-nary richness of significance contained in the analand all its many variations. But the experience thatthe Oedipus complex retrospectively structures thefield of the anal, and the way it does that, should notgo unmentioned. The irrevocable fixation on the dif-ference between the sexes in the Oedipus complex andthe incisively radical experience of castration nowpermit excrement to appear as something that reallyseparates itself from the body and thus becomes atrue bodily model of a loss, stamping the soul with theseal of lack. In the dread of this existential experiencewe are unwilling to relinquish anything more – orput literally we shit ourselves, while triumphing overthis experience it is exactly the thing that is lost thatbecomes the object of desire and the motor of thatwhich we describe as “giving a form to existence”.

Confronted with this fantastic wealth, which, coveredover as it may be by public contempt, links humanexperience with excrement, it will be no surprise thatthe anal is not only quite plainly a secret driving force

behind all social life, but also that it is encountered inart in every possible form of disguise or undress. Only a few of these should be considered here in orderto provide ourselves with a notion of what variedmechanisms art employs in fulfilling its real task,that of bringing into articulation that portion of liv-ing reality that is socially frowned upon – in our casethe anal.What characterises the material aspect in the tradi-tional work of the fine arts more than the kneadingof clay, pasting and plastering, the pressing of pig-ment sausages out of the tube and the pleasure ofapplying this to surfaces and bodies? These are nomore than the classic sublimatory satisfactions thatare already offered to the child as a comfort and asubstitute for its relinquishment of the anal. And intimes like ours, when the aesthetic is allowed to driftaway under pressure of circumstance and the empha-sis on an increasingly urgent and direct approach tothe point at issue, the painting of a Jackson Pollockor a Jean Fautrier shows how this act of sublimationof the anal is transformed into an explicit joy to cre-ate – owing much of its effect on the observer also tothis experience of joy.At the opposite pole of the possibilities of humanexpression, beyond any sublimated translation, wefind exemplarily in Artaud’s Abject a delirious state ofcollapse by means of which the organs of the body andtheir functions emerge in a state beyond any repre-sentation in the real, bringing about a catastrophictransfiguration of the world, in which perhapsArtaud himself with Christ is finally transformed intothat heap of shit that the Virgin Mary squeezes out, inArtaud’s Anus sitting, as the childish imagination mayhave conceived the process of birth. The assumption of this outrageous radicalisation ofexpression in public discourse is also quite possibly tobe thanked that a very direct and unveiled preoccupa-tion with excrement, partially under the collective

term abject art, assumed an important position in theart of the second half of the last century. This appearsas a revolt against the demand of society for cleanli-ness and order, under the cloak of disguise, or indeedas its essential despised supplement (?i?ek) as we canunderstand the wars, such as the battlefields of theSecond World War or the practices of the industrial

revolution from the mid 19th century up to this day:one gigantic anal scenario. Public outcry and thedemand for order are also to be understood in termsof this kind when artists such as the Viennese action-ists reveal the aggressiveness of these processes thatderives from the fixation of its anal origins in the sub-conscious – whreas precisely by giving a gestalt tothese processes, they alloy them once again with itsoriginal libidinous portions.

But the scene has changed. Not that preoccupationwith the sphere of the anal has disappeared from arttoday. But it would appear to have changed in charac-ter. This is shown generally neither as a deliriousscream nor as revolt, and even the process of sublima-tion frequently loses at least one of its most signifi-cant characteristics: the adaptation by means ofwhich the desired object is hidden as though by a veil.When we observe an installation such as Franz West’sFragile Cloaca we find ourselves almost in a garden inwhich two out-sized lengths of excrement (in metal)invite us to linger in an almost friendly and invitingmanner. It is a fact that scarcely any city would wishto display these sculptures in public, but in the con-text of cultural activities it no longer appears to havethe effect of a provocation – and even more impor-tant, it does not appear to be aiming at this objective.Far more it conveys us to a fairy tale or dream worldin which like Gulliver in the country of the giants, andthus very like a child, we pause in astonishmentbefore these enormous lumps of excrement and try to

imagine how huge and how powerful the beings mustbe who have produced them. It would be entirelysenseless, of course, to make use of real excrement inthis concept with all its odorous and tactile qualitiesas a means of artistic expression, although seen fromthe perspective of imagination it now seems that wecan dare to do anything, in a world without prohibi-tions. Better perhaps in a world either before or afterthe prohibitions.Since art is always a messenger of our hidden present,one in which we do indeed live, but which we still per-ceive and comprehend in terms of the past, art clear-ly shows us all that we owe to an ideology of glob-alised liberalism: - a world in which once again every-thing is possible as it was before the oedipal disillu-sionment with our omnipotence: one in which we joy-fully shit enormous heaps of excrement, available tous simultaneously in the form of penises and children,love tokens and weapons, and of the currency of ourwealth and by means of which the world lies at ourfeet once more. And moreover in which we forget howwe ourselves, like King Ubu in this gigantic manner,can also abruptly become powerless weaklings.How fortunate that in art this is all only a matter ofthe imagination. Its function in this respect is likethat of an andouillette sausage - the delight of thetaste of this speciality deriving exactly from the tastebeing so strikingly like that of faeces, although weknow well enough that these are not among the realingredients. The hope here is that the delight weobtain from the playful in this process will save usfrom ending in the maelstrom of a much less sublimelibidinous scenario –and thus truly landing in the shit.

English translation by Joseph Lancaster / Y plus

1 A n d o u i l l e t t e , f r o m W i k i p e d i a , t h e f r e e e n c y c l o p a e d i a .

A n d o u i l l e t t e i s a French sausage, a s p e c i a l t y o f Lyon, Troyes a n d

Cambrai.

Traditional andouillette is made from the colon and the stomach of pig. …It …is

an acquired taste and can be an interesting challenge even for adventurous

eaters. Many French eateries serve andouillette as a hot dish, and foreigners

have been disgusted by the aroma, to the point where they find it inedible .While

some find that hot andouillette smells of faeces, food safety requires that all

such matter is removed from the meat before cooking. Faeces-like aroma can be

attributed to the common use of the pig’s colon in this sausage, and stems from

the same compounds that give faeces some of its odours.2 This glimpse back to the “age before Oedipus” never reveals the true relations-

hips as they are at this time, of course, since we perceive childhood only from the

perspective of now, subsequently and as a portion of our present that we have

created and lost through the ruling order. To this extent it regularly appears to

us as either a lost paradise or as chaotic horror and death in the most vivid and

lively terms.

HAMSTERWHEEL 19

Franz West, Cool Books, 2007, aluminum laquered, 55 x 190 x 185 cm, Courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna and Gagosian Gallery, London

HAMSTER20

Jean-Marc Bustamante, Lava II, 2006, ink on plexiglas, galvanized steel, 1600 x 600 x 15 cm, Courtesy Gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Exhibition view at Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2006, © Photo: Markus Tretter, Courtesy Gallery

21TERWHEEL

, Courtesy Gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris

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Eine Ausstellung zu machen ist etwasanderes als Kunst zu machen. Für daseine gibt es die Künstler, für das anderedie Kuratoren. Manchmal verwechselndie Kuratoren dies und spielen selbstKünstler, weil sie das einmal gernegeworden wären. Manchmal aber insze-nieren die Künstler ihre Installationenwie Kuratoren, indem sie an der Wirksam-keit des Auftritts arbeiten. Im Begriffvon Ausstellung und Installation ist imDeutschen das Wort Stellen, Stellung undStall enthalten. Im Althochdeutschen istStall ein bedeckter Platz für stehendeTiere (altfriesisch stal = stehen). Deshalbsieht es manchmal in Ausstellungen auchwie im Saustall aus, etwa in denEnvironments von Allan Kaprow, DieterRoth oder Paul McCarthy, aber mitSystem. Ausstellen tut man auch Ur-kunden und Arbeiter aus Betrieben, undim Krieg geht man in Stellung. DieAusstellung ist also nicht nur eine Stelle,an der man ausstellt, sondern dasEreignis, bei dem etwas in Position aneinem bestimmten Ort gebracht wird,eine „Exposition“ eben. Im Deutschenkann man damit auch den Begriff Gestellin Verbindung bringen, ein Gerüst, eineStellage, noch keine Installation, die alsBehältnis oder Auflager für etwas ande-res dient, sonst wäre es eben nur einGestell. Im süddeutsch/schweizerischenSprachraum wird Gestell auch ofthumorvoll auf den Körper bezogen.Doch Martin Heidegger hat in seinenberühmten Essays „Die Frage nach derTechnik“ und „Die Kehre“ das Gestellzum Gesamtphänomen der technischenEntwicklung gemacht, in der es vomMenschen „be-stellt“ wird, auch wenn esdie Welt mehr und mehr zu- und verstellt.Heidegger hat nicht die Gesamtheit dertechnischen Produkte im Sinne, wenn ervom Gestell spricht, sondern er beziehtsich auf „das Versammelnde jenes

Stellens, das den Menschen stellt, d.h.herausfordert“, etwas das im Wesen dermodernen Technik selbst liegt. Und erspricht von der „Ge-fahr“, die darin liegt,als einem „rettenden“ Seinsmoment, dassich analog dem Movens des Ge-stellsereignet (M.H., Die Technik und dieKehre, Pfullingen 1992 (1962).Die ästhetische Frage nach der Triebkraftvon Kunst wird in Heideggers Essay nurganz am Rande gestellt. Aber sie istnatürlich mitenthalten, nicht nur, was dieInstallation betrifft, sondern auch dieGestellung der Ausstellung. Man kenntden Begriff des Gestellungsbefehls, wennman zum Militär eingezogen wird. DieGestellung im Kunstwesen ist die Aus-stellung, in der ein Künstler Stellung be-ziehen muss, wo sich also für ihn nichtnur eine Entscheidung anbahnt, sondern,wie Heidegger über das Ge-stell sagt,„eine geschickhafte Weise des Entbergens,nämlich das herausfordernde“. Die Kunstselbst entbirgt etwas, indem sie sich zeigt.In der Jägersprache ist ein Gestell auchein schneisenartig ausgehauenes Wald-stück, während der Burgstall ein zwarverlassener und ruinöser, aber doch nochin der Gemarkung sichtbarer Platz einerehemaligen Burg ist.Was sagt dies aber für das Verhältnis vonKurator und Künstler aus? Im deutschenSprachgebrauch sprach man eher beiläu-fig vom Zusammenstellen einer Aus-stellung, während heute nur noch kura-tiert wird. Man legt also auf das Überwa-chungssystem des Kunstzeigens mehrWert als früher. Es scheint sogar, als habeder Kurator dabei die Teilhabe amKünstlerischen ergriffen. Aber wie lässtsich diese wechselnde Herr-und-Knecht-Dialektik zwischen dem Kurator unddem Künstler entschärfen? Um aus demHamsterrad herauszukommen, mussman vielleicht Komponenten einbringen,die die Dialektik beim Ausstellungs-

werden auflösen oder wenigstens aufwei-chen. Um ans Ziel zu kommen, müssenvielleicht Personen zwischen dem Kuratorund Künstler eingeschleust werden, dieauf ihre Weise an der Mission einer gutenAusstellung beteiligt sind, die sozusagenmit ihren Botenstoffen als Transmitter andie künstlerische Zelle (wenn es dennein White Cube ist) andocken können,warum nicht mit Endorphinen?.In Vergessenheit geraten ist der deutscheBegriff Stallbruder (im Niederl. stal-bro-eder), mit dem man vor einigen hundertJahren einen Kameraden, Kumpanen undZechgenossen im Landsknechtjargonmeinte, wie das Wörterbuch von Jacobund Wilhelm Grimm ausführt. So heißtes in einem Gedicht von Hans Sachs:„besetz jen tisch mit brot und wein!Ich merck, das gut stallbrüder sein.“ Bekannt ist Kurosawas Film „Die SiebenSamurai“, bei dem es zwar nicht umKunst oder Künstler geht, sondern umKameradschaft. Der erfahrene SamuraiKambai, ein Künstler des Schwertes, heu-ert noch sechs weitere Samurai, danebenden Möchtegern-Samurai Kikuchiyo, an,um gemeinsam ein Dorf vor den immerwieder anrückenden Banditen zu schüt-zen. Am Ende gewinnen, wie man weiß,die von den Dörflern unterstützten undbezahlten Samurai, von denen vier ster-ben, zwei weiterziehen und einer im Dorfbleibt. Viele Abenteuerfilme, Road-movies, Kriegsfilme und Western lebenvon diesem Schema der zusammenge-würfelten Bande, in der es immer einenHelden gibt und einige unsicherenKandidaten, die oft abspringen, sterbenoder zu Verrätern werden. In „Herr derRinge“ ist es die Ringgemeinschaft vonHobbits, Elben und Zwergen, unterdenen Frodo die Hauptfigur bleibt,während andere wie Legolas und Gimlisich zwar nicht mögen, aber innerhalbder Gruppe und des Ziels funktionieren.

((GGeesstteelllluunnggssbbeeffeehhll)) SStteelllluunnggssnnaahhmmee uunntteerr SSttaallllbbrrüüddeerrnn

Veit Loers

HAMSTERWHEEL 23

Grotesk sind die Kumpanen in dem ame-rikanischen Märchen „Der Zauberer vonOz“ (1900), wo die Heldin, das MädchenDorothy, möglichst schwache, hilfloseund dumme Gestalten um sich sammelt,um das Land der Munchkins zu befreien.Dazu gehören der kleine Hund Toto, dieVogelscheuche, der Blechmann und derFeige Löwe. Und auch schon in denMärchen der Brüder Grimm sind dieÜberraschungseffekte von solchen Tölpeln,proletarischen oder bäuerlichen Banden,nicht zu übersehen: etwa in den „BremerStadtmusikanten“ oder in besonders lächer-licher Form bei den „Sieben Schwaben“.

Im Märchen der „Sechs Diener“ sind diegrotesken Kampfgefährten des Königs-sohns wahre Spezialisten. Der Dicketrinkt nicht nur Gewässer aus, sondernblockiert auch Eingänge, der Lange istschneller als die Feuerwehr und größerals der höchste Berg, der Scharfsichtigekann es mit jedem amerikanischenSpionageflugzeug aufnehmen, der Frostigefriert im Feuer und schwitzt im Eis, derHorcher ist für alle Lauschangriffe geeig-net und ein Sechster mit verbundenenAugen sprengt beim Abnehmen derBinde mit seinen Blicken Felsen undTruppenverbände auseinander. Dem von

der Obrigkeit ernannten Profi (König,Zauberin, General, Direktor) stehen alsosich lose sammelnde Gelegenheits-arbeiter (Stallbrüder, Vagabunden, Kopf-geldjäger, Bettler) mit erstaunlichenFähigkeiten gegenüber, die unter demDruck der Verhältnisse Verbrecher ent-larven, unterdrückte Siedler befreien,Alien-Invasionen zurückschlagen, aberauch Banken ausrauben oder als Guerilladem totalitären Staat zu schaffenmachen. Was sie nicht an Kraft undGeschick mitbringen, erledigen sie durch

Continues On Page 24

Una Szeemann, Love Story, 2006, video, 3min, Courtesy of the artist

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permanente Subversivität, List undUnerschrockenheit. Zuweilen hilft ihnenihre Naivität oder der Zufall. Es sind alsoeigentlich Antihelden, die im Erzähl-muster das langweilige Gut-Böse-Schemadurchbrechen, am Ende sind es Gestal-ten wie Jesus und seine Apostel, die zwarspäter als Martyrer mit ihrem Lebenbezahlen, aber als einfache Landarbeiter,Zöllner und Fischer in einer Kommunevon Underdogs und Outlaws das Christen-tum begründen.In der Kunstausstellung ist das Ziel dochetwas anderes, aber die unheilvolleBeziehung und gegenseitige Fixierungvon Akademiker und Bohemien, um esdrastisch auszudrücken, wird in der grup-pentherapeutischen Auseinandersetzungdurch eine gewisse Amateurhaftigkeit

und durch Improvisation aufgehoben.Zwar werden aus den Kuratoren keineKünstler und umgekehrt auch nicht ausKünstlern Kuratoren, aber die verschwo-rene Gemeinschaft aus Amateuren undSpezialisten, in denen Kritiker, Sekretär-innen oder Sammler beim Aufbau derAusstellung eingesetzt werden könnenoder Ehefrauen wie bei der jetzigendocumenta in Kassel mitkuratieren, dürf-te vielleicht dem Offiziellen, Einge-fahrenen, Routinierten der Kunstaus-stellung, also eigentlich dem Eklekti-zistischen, eine Wendung ins Spontane,Überraschende, Skurrile geben. Ein ver-soffener ehemaliger Zahnarzt wie DocHolliday kann dann genau so treffsichersein wie Wyatt Earp, und mancherGalerist schießt noch heute schärfer alsein Museumsdirektor (wenn er Zielwassergetrunken hat). Dies trifft auch auf dieKünstler selbst zu. Es hat noch nie eineAusstellung gegeben, in der alleTeilnehmer gleich gut waren. Es gibt das

Kriterium des Namedropping, das nochlange keine gute Show garantiert. Siehtman sich die Künstlerlisten vergangenerBiennalen und documentas an, stößt manauf ein Heer von uns unbekanntenKünstlern. Dies gilt ebenso für die legen-dären Galerie-Ausstellungen der Minimal-und Concept-Art. Aber entscheidend ist,dass sie von einem Spirit mitgetragenwurden, der für dieses Event galt undnicht ein Leben lang anhalten konnte. Alsich Martin Kippenberger bei seinem letz-ten Ausstellungsprojekt fragte, ob ernicht einige der schwächeren Bilder wie-der herausnehmen wollte, antwortete ermir, es sei eine alte Ausstellungsregel, injedem Raum auch ein paar schlechte undmäßige Arbeiten zu haben, dadurch wür-den die guten noch besser. Und miteinem Slogan aus Heideggers Essay kannman diese Stellungsnahme zurAusstellung abrunden: „Das Bestellendes Gestells stellt sich vor das Ding, läßtes als Ding ungewahrt, wahrlos.“

Continued From Page 23

((GGeesstteelllluunnggssbbeeffeehhll)) SStteelllluunnggssnnaahhmmee uunntteerr SSttaallllbbrrüüddeerrnnVVeeiitt LLooeerrss

Rachel Harrison, Your Score and Their Score, 2006, Mixed media, 124,5 x 128,3 x 174 cmCourtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery, New York

HAMSTERWHEEL 25

those inclined to regard the art scene itself as a lot of“monkey-business.”

The Lightbulb of Nimes

In February of 1973, when I first visited the old FineArts Museum in Nimes, artificial lighting for the entirebuilding consisted of a single unshaded bulb thatdangled from the ceiling above the cashier’s desk, toguide him in making change. Otherwise, the interiordepended on daylight filtering down through sky-lights. At first glance, this low-tech approach sug-gested neglect and even backwardness; only later didI come to cherish it for the insights into ways of see-ing that are now all but extinct. The original Nimesmuseum can be regarded as representative of therapid urbanization and the extraordinary flowering ofbourgeois culture in 19th century Europe and America.Writers like Balzac, George Sand or Henry James fre-quently make use of new urban locales like concerthalls, opera houses and museums to introduce char-acters, advance the action or provide insight into rela-tionships. The novels of Henry James would be virtu-ally unthinkable without the fine-arts museum as asetting. Indeed, the Louvre plays a central role inJames’ very first international novel, The American,whose good-natured but unsophisticated hero ordersseveral copies of paintings hanging there. Artists andtheir models people some of the author’s best shortfiction, as well. In what many regard as the Master’srichest creation, The Portrait of a Lady, the naïve andimpetuous Isabel Archer arrives at Gardencourt, theEnglish country home of her aunt and uncle, and onher very first evening in the Old World, she insists onviewing the paintings in the gallery of the house.Though she can only do so by candlelight, she after-wards believes that she has truly “seen” the pictures– in the Jamesian universe, a sure sign of her blind-ness to reality, for which she will later pay dearly.James’s heroes are figures like Lambert Strether inThe Ambassadors, whose misspent life is symbolizedby his failure to buy a small Lambinet landscape whenhe first visited Paris as a young man, but whose sen-sitivity is so developed in the course of the novel thateven the “pictures” composed by everyday life revealtheir secrets. Such subtleties are lost on many con-temporary readers, accustomed as they are to pic-tures experienced in a constant and uniform light.Imagine the difference between a Turner landscapeviewed with sunlight streaming down from above andthe same picture emerging faintly from deep shadow.Paintings once lived – breathed, one wants to insist –as they did on the artist’s easel. They were not flat-tened into cosmetic conformity by computer-con-trolled louvers and the glow of synthetic “daylight.”The true drama of viewing paintings as James andBalzac and their characters viewed them was theinvaluable lesson offered by Nimes’ “backward”museum and propagated today by a small but cher-ished handful of institutions, including the “art island”

Reflections on the Production, Dissemination andReception of the Work of Art in ContemporarySociety, Together with Speculations Pertaining to theDisappearance of the Light Bulb in Nimes and theHitherto Unheralded Ubiquitousness of the Manhole.

Van Gogh’s Ear

When Britney Spears cut off her golden tresses, heraction set off media shockwaves of the strength usu-ally associated with rumbles along the San AndreasFault. When Vincent van Gogh amputated an ear, theevent was not worth a one-liner in the local newspa-per. (There are those who insist the painter merelyslashed his ear and did not literally amputate, butmyths die hard.) Only the lessons of time will conclu-sively establish which of these events was of greaterconsequence for the collective culture of the Westernworld. Yet the parallels between these two events areclear: both were acts of desperation rooted in a majorprofessional crisis. According to my grandson Basil,whose adolescent lust was spawned by the then-teen-queen, Britney is in the process of discoveringher “dark side,” as Vincent (Vince?) had done beforeher. He had flung bright stars against the blue-blacksky, while she – a kind of Existentialist manqué -countered the dark with a harvest of gold. (SurelyMarilyn, Di and Nicole were all the while humming achorus of approval.) Perhaps Britney will emerge, atleast sporadically, from the darkness, flaunting herpain like Nina Simone or Janis Joplin, though theprobability seems remote. If so, she would offer sup-port to the widespread and regrettable populist viewthat true art can only come from suffering. This cliché

is rooted in the 19th century view of the mad genius,of the artist as a free-living, free-loving bohemiandoomed to an early death – in short, a f*****gWEIRDO! Two popular Hollywood films made particu-larly influential contributions to this pseudo-hagiogra-phy: the original “Moulin Rouge” (1952), in which MelFerrer hobbled about on his knees as the absinthe-addicted dwarf Toulouse-Lautrec; and “Lust for Life”(1956), in which Kirk Douglas so vigorously whettedthe razor of the doomed Dutch artist, Vincent vanGogh. Though it should be common knowledge thateven Vincent could not cut off an ear for every picturehe painted, and that Frida Kahlo required more than aplaster corset to execute her pictures, popularimages of artistic creation stress pain over such neg-ligible factors as imagination, training, discipline, skilland elbow-grease. In this context, a breathtakingexample of life following art would seem to be pres-ent in the near-assassination of Andy Warhol byValerie Solanas, president and sole member ofS.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men). Obviously (sic)this trauma accounts for the artist’s fascination withimages of violence, with skulls and shadows andrevolvers and suicide victims from Marilyn Monroe tothe anonymous defenestrating anti-hero pictured inyesterday’s newspaper. The problem with this insight-ful theory is that Warhol addressed those themes –including automobile accidents, the electric chair andthe police violence – long before Valerie pulled thetrigger. Similarly, images of crucifixion, impalementand castration appear in the work of Keith Haring longbefore he was diagnosed as HIV-positive. This is notto question the impact on Haring and Warhol of beingbrushed by the feathers of the angel of death, but toreduce their work to such a formulaic reading deniesthe richness of their aesthetic vision. Of course anartist draws on personal experience – of pain but alsoof joy – in formulating his aesthetic hypotheses and

shaping his skills. He has no alternative. At this pointit is worthwhile to recall a brief ditty from Americanvaudeville: “Shave and a haircut, six bits” – i.e., cheapat the price. Vince and Britney, take note!

Cheetah’s Brushes

Among the celebrities who have chosen the succu-lent atmosphere of Palm Springs, California, to liveout their twilight years is Cheeta, who celebrated his75th birthday in April of this year. The world’s mostfamous chimpanzee is also the oldest known memberof his species, duly honored in the “Guinness Book ofRecords.” Unlike most of the aging males who findshelter in this sumptuous oasis, Cheeta makes noattempt to conceal the streaks of grey in his hair or toclose the gaps in his yellowing teeth. One mightexpect something else of a celebrated film veteranwho co-starred with Olympic-medalist JohnnyWeissmuller and later with Lex Barker in no fewerthan 12 “Tarzan” films, as well as numerous televisionshows. A true and stalwart companion with a keensense of improvisation and unflagging humor, Cheetawas unfazed by the fact that his companion wan-dered around in a loincloth. (It is interesting to reflecton other American heroes of the time – Superman,Batman and Captain Marvel foremost among them -who repeatedly trounced disfigured villains and savedthe world while wearing nothing but their underwear.)Cheeta moved to Palm Springs in 1992 at the invita-tion of his former trainer Dan Westfall, who maintainsan exclusive residence for aged “non-human anthro-poids” who once enlivened the silver screen. (KingKong is not among them.) Cheeta makes no conces-sions to the youth culture that otherwise sets the tonein Palm Springs. He shows little interest in joining thesenior swingers with plastic hips and plaid pants whosteer their golf-carts across emerald-green lawns byday and fill geriatric discos by night. “Bill Haley,yeah!” Cheeta has other interests. To be sure, likemany golden-agers he spends several hours a daybefore the television set, but he devotes even moretime to playing the piano and painting pictures. Hismusical inspiration is apparently drawn from a varietyof sources, including Eric Satie, John Cage and KeithJarrett, but the results are pure Cheeta: dynamic, byturns fast and slow, crowned by atonal flourishes andsudden, crashing crescendos. At first glance, theretiree’s pictures awaken associations with theAbstract Expressionists, perhaps above all withJackson Pollock. What distinguishes his style fromthat of his more established colleagues, however, isnot unrelated to his musical performances: a certaindensity of composition, a rhythmic interlacing of colorand line that may owe something to the lianas thatdraped the sets on which he and Weissmuller per-formed in the 1930s and ‘40s. Yet those were black-and-white films, and what surprises here is Cheeta’sgift as a colorist. There are, of course, skeptics whowould attribute the painterly results to pure chance,but chance alone does not produce the immediatelyidentifiable “signature” that informs each individualbrushstroke here. Recently a fan brought one of hiscompositions to Da Fen, the reproduction-art villagein Shenzhen, roughly two hours by train and taxi fromHong Kong, where more than 5,000 artists organizedinto 600 studios produce meticulous copies of anyartwork the customer desires. Prices vary accordingto size and complexity of the composition. While DaVinci, Matisse and De Chirico in medium formatsaverage $60, a leading Da Fen copyist, shaking hishead in a mixture of bewilderment and admiration,asked nearly double that amount for a Cheetah look-alike. “The difficulty,” he whispered, “is to capture theethereal mood of the original.” Let this be a lesson to

HAMSTERWHEELDavid Galloway

Continues On Page 26

HAMSTERWHEEL26

mary creative instinct in the craftsmen who lent themform. These anonymous artists were not content toproduce merely a functional, protective “lid” for theshaft descending into the watery underworld, butsubjected it to a process of creative design.Recognizing the existence of this richly modulated,international form language, Ralph Brancaccioresolved to pay homage to its anonymous creators.Setting to work in his curbside atelier, he may applypaint to selected details of the manhole cover or high-light elements with different colors, then press paperagainst this “template” to form a unique print. Theresults are documents of a particular culture at a par-ticular time, but they are also and unmistakably“Brancaccios.” For those who have encounteredthese bright, witty monoprints, the manhole will neverbe the same. There are, quite simply, artists whoseidiom changes the way we see our day-to-day envi-ronment: Dan Flavin’s neon tubes, David Hockney’sswimming pools and Daniel Buren’s stripes have longsince exerted such an impact. In sensitizing us to theart beneath our feet, Ralph Brancaccio is thus in thebest of company.

at Hombroich, near Düsseldorf. One can argue, ofcourse, that the advantages are conspicuouslygreater with works created in natural light than thoseproduced in artificially illuminated studios, yet eventhe works of Karl Arp or Gotthard Graubner gain strik-ing nuances in the shifting natural light Hombroichsupplies. Here, as in the Nimes of yore, one can prac-tice the discriminating Jamesian art of seeing.

Ralph’s Manholes

The postmodern world has spawned a new kind ofnomad in the artist who regularly jets between studios

in New York and Berlin, art fairs in Madrid and Vienna,biennials in Istanbul and Lyon. Yet the Paris-basedAmerican artist Ralph Brancaccio offers a uniqueexample of the creative vagabond. Almost constantlyunder way with paper, paints and roller, he makes useof a kind of printing plate that most pedestrians takefor granted: the manhole cover. The relief-patternsincised in these commonplace urban artifacts rangefrom the geometric to the floral, often incorporatingthe names or logos of cities, utility companies ormaintenance firms. The variations are seemingly end-less, though from Shanghai to Brooklyn these utilitar-ian devices have more than a little in common. (Wedispense, for the moment, with the intriguing questionof why most manholes are round – a question oncefamously asked of applicants for employment withMicrosoft. There are various theoretical answers, butthe most persuasive is, simply, that a round covercannot accidentally fall into a round hole.) First of all,manholes symbolize a process of urbanization inwhich revolutionary services like streetlights andsewage systems heralded a new age of enlighten-ment. Secondly, they seem to have appealed to a pri-

HAMSTERWHEELDavid Galloway

Continued From Page 25

arranged by Veit Loers

The videobox was presented in another form under the title „Franz West without Franz West 2006 in Centre d’Art Santa Mònica,Barcelona, and CAAM, Las Palmas

videos for hamsterwheel

John BockKleinodtotsod, 2003DVD, 07:43 min

Courtesy: Klosterfelde, Berlin;Anton Kern, New York© 2003 John Bock. All rightsreserved

Christian JankowskiAngels of Revenge, 2006DVD,11:06 min

Courtesy: Klosterfelde, Berlin;maccarone, New York; LissonGallery, London

Antonio OrtegaYola Dance, 2005DVD 2:40 min

produced by Museu del´Empordá

David Zink YiAhumm, 1999Videoinstallation1.30 min.

Courtesy: Johann KönigGalerie, Berlin

Ralf ZiervogelDas Erste, 2001Mini DV / DVDSIngelauskoppelung vom Album “Proto”2001 - 2003, Edition: 5 + 1 APEditionsnummer 2/5

Courtesy André Schlechtriem Gallery, New YorkCity, Kopierrecht bei Ralf Ziervogel

Annika StrömSwedish Traveler, 19953 minEd. of 5 of 2 AP

Courtesy: c/o - AtleGerhardsen, Berlin.

Georg Heroldohne Titel, (Demoversion Bolero I + II)2003

Courtesy of the artist

Peter Fischli / David WeissBüsi, 2001video, 6 min

Provenienz - KünstlerCourtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich &Matthew Marks Gallery, NewYork & Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers,Köln/München/London

Rudolf PolanszkyZu einer Semiologie derSinne, 1978video, 16 min loop

Courtesy of the artist

Hans WeigandDer strenge Kurator - Otto Kobalek kuratiert die Ausstellung Sammlung WestInnsbruck, 1995 / 2007

Courtesy of the artist

Mark LeckeyMade in Heaven, 2004DVD, 2 min loop

Courtesy: Galerie DanielBuchholz, Köln

Tamuna Sirbiladze15 minutes of jeff, 200715 min

Courtesy of the artist

Thomas ZippBig Fly, 1998digital video transferred toDVD, sound,1.35 minutesedition of 3 + 2 ap

All courtesy of the artist, GalerieGuido W. Baudach, Berlin

Jose Ruiz GonzalezVelcro, 20055:20 min

Courtesy: of the artist

Erik van LieshoutMary-Achi, 2006 DV transferred to DVDcolour, sound5 min

Courtesy of the artist

Marcus CoatesRadio Shaman, 20069:31 min

Courtesy of the artist

Jonathan MonkChinese Crackers, 200616mm film transferred to dvd(colour) with separate audio trackInstallation dimensions variable

Courtesy: Lisson Gallery, London

HAMSTERWHEEL 27

VVeit Loereit Loer ssDer Titel ist die Antwort des spartanischen Königs Leonidas aufdie prahlerische Behauptung des Perserkönigs Xerxes: „Ich habeso viele Bogenschützen, dass ihre Pfeile die Sonne verdunkeln.“

Humor reicht bis in die Prähistorie des Menschen zurück undsicherte seine Gelassenheit bei der Bewältigung des Überlebens-kampfes. Ob Tiere, wie Aristoteles behauptete, keinen Humorbesitzen, dafür gibt es keine Beweise, weil auch derHumorbegriff sich in der menschlichen Geschichte fast zurUnkenntlichkeit verändert hat. Wenn der Anthropologe überGebaren und Rituale der Wilden gelacht haben mag, so dieseüber die Attitude des Wissenschaftlers bei der Recherche. Es istkein Zufall, dass Humor, Spott, Witz, Ironie und Gelächter sich inden Künsten einnisteten, im Bereich der Fiktion, wo zwar dasEpische, Spirituelle und Dramatische dominierten, aber dasKomische als sein Alter Ego durchaus erwünscht war.

Vom unsterblichen Gelächter der homerischen Götter über diedesillusionierende Maxime des Sokrates „Ich weiß, dass ich nichtsweiß“ zieht sich ein roter Faden durch die abendländische Kulturbis zu James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp und Charlie Chaplin, einefeuchte Wärme (humor = feucht), die wie der Klimawandel diehartgefrorenen Künste zum Schmelzen bringt. Weil er derObrigkeit ein Dorn im Auge war, musste der Humor in denKünsten oft eine untergeordnete Rolle spielen. Er fand Platz inder römischen und neuzeitlichen Groteske oder in den ornamen-talen Bereichen der mittelalterlichen Kirchen und Handschriften.Aber schon ein Hieronymus Bosch konnte es sich leisten, kaumversteckt, humorvolle oder doch wenigstens groteske Elementeunter gewichtigen Themen wie Sündenfall und Apokalypse offizi-ell darzustellen. Schon hier wird sichtbar, Humor tritt immer inVerschwisterung mit anderen Elementen auf. Die Groteske etwalässt den Humor sich im Unheimlichen widerspiegeln. Die nieder-ländischen Genrebilder im Gefolge der Breughels, auf denengetrunken, gegessen, gekotzt und gepisst wird, erscheinen untermoralischen Themen und Vorzeichen, z.B. als Allegorien der sie-ben Laster, um ihre Darstellung von vorneherein zu legitimieren.In vielen italienischen Opern wird pausenlos gelacht, auch wennsie tragisch enden.Die Avantgarde des 20. Jahrhunderts kam zuerst ohne denHumor aus, der sich dann im Gefolge des ersten Weltkriegs unterdem Namen Dada als bittere zynische Antikunst entwickelte. Auchin der Nachriegsavantgarde nach 1945 ist der Humor kaumgefragt. Das ändert sich mit der Fluxus-Bewegung Anfang dersechziger Jahre als Verballhornung und spielerischerKostümierung künstlerischer Anliegen, welche die Diskussion umGegenständlich oder Abstrakt außer Kraft setzt. Im WienerAktionismus waren es Otto Mühl und Günther Brus, die in ihrenAktionen Groteske und Humor verarbeiteten, eine grimmigeVariante des Neodada-Humors der Wiener Gruppe um GerhardRühm, Oswald Wiener und Konrad Bayer. Im nachaktionistischenWien, in dem es u.a. komödiantische Einlagen des KabarettistenHelmut Qualtinger („der Herr Karl“) und des Nomaden DieterRoth („Selten gehörte Musik“ mit G. Brus und H. Nitsch) gab,entfaltete Franz West eine eigene mimische Version des WienerHumors mit seinen Paßstücken.

„Ich nenne die paßstücke mit ihren ver- bzw. angemessenenmenschlichen leibern kunst (kunst ist das, wovon einer, der wasdavon versteht, sagt, dass es kunst ist). Und bei intensiver steige-rung ihrer rezeption eignet diesen objekten bewegung, die wahr-nehmung verfügt – in ihrer relation zur kunst über viele stufen,wie eine passive, auf klischierten assoziationen basierende per-zeption, eine aktive, die sich mit der funktionsweise des gegen-standes beschäftigt, und schließlich eine mediale, bei der man

abfährt (volksmund) nämlich die welt der kunst, ideomotorisch,kurzum: die paßstücke dienen bei nicht bloss vorgestellter benut-zung als motor für bewegungsabläufe.“ (1983)

Was soll das heißen? Franz West benutzt die Sprache des intellek-tuellen Diskurses, wie man ihn etwa in übersteigerter Attitüdebei Kunstwissenschaftlern und Soziologen findet und er geht mitihm um, während er sich gleichzeitig darüber lustig macht.Einerseits spricht er Tautologien aus, andererseits ist es in der Tateine optimale Erklärung seiner Paßstücke. Dem Rätsel desWitzes, seiner Struktur und seiner Form hat sich Sigmund Freudaus psychologischer Sicht genähert, indem er über denLustmechanismus, den Witz als sozialen Vorgang und dieBeziehung des Witzes zum Traum und zum Unbewußten sprach.Dieser inneren Seite des Humors und seiner Ausdrucksformen istjedoch unbedingt der russische Literaturwissenschaftler MichailBachtin an die Seite zu stellen, der in Analysen über Rabelais,Cervantes, Dostojewski und Gogol sich mit der kollektivenGenese und Struktur der „Lachkultur“ auseinandersetzte. Ersprach von der Karnevalisierung der Kunst, ausgehend von römi-schen Festen wie den Lupercalien und Saturnalien, wo in einer Artverkehrter Welt die Herren die Sklaven bedienten und auf denGassen und Plätzen des alten Rom ein karnevalisches Treibenherrschte, das die „Charivari“ , also die lustigen Aufzüge undNarreteien des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, mitgeprägt hat. ImMittelalter gab es noch das rituelle Lachen, die parodia sacra,wenn man z.B. auf Beerdigungen lachte oder beim risus pascha-lis, wo der Prediger von der Kanzel herunter durch Scherze undParodien die Evangelien lächerlich machte und die kirchlicheOrdnung störte. Jede Gattung, sei es Gebet, Denkspruch oderLied, hatte ein parodistisch-travestierendes Gegenstück, vomKnabenbischof und der Liturgie der Säufer bis zur Liturgie desGeldes. Im Dialog, so Bachtin, vereinen sich der statuarischeKunstmonolog und der spontane Karneval als offenes semioti-sches System zur Metamorphose. Phänomene dieser Lachkultursind: Befreiung von hierarchischer Stellung, Exzentrik und dieNacktheit aller.

Zum Phänomen der Lachkultur gehört auch die Figur desTricksters, wie ihn C. G. Jung in seinem Buch „Die Archetypen unddas kollektive Unbewußte in die Psychologie eingeführt hat.Dieser Trickster oder Schelm, den die griechische Mythologie inder Gestalt des Hermes prägt und in der nordischen Mythologievon Loki verkörpert wird, ist ein Archetypus, der den heutigenKulturmenschen amüsiert, aber auch gleichzeitig ängstigt, weiler unberechenbar ist. Die Trickster von heute sind Künstler wieMartin Kippenberger, Fischli/Weiss, Maurizio Cattelan , FranzWest und Sarah Lucas, die mit ihren demonstrativen Ready-Madesaus der Beziehungsfrustration coole Akzente setzt.

Die Kunstform des Videos eignet sich wegen ihrer relativen Kürzeim Gegensatz zum mindestens einstündigen Spielfilm zu dengenannten Formen des Humors, nicht des narrativen Humors,den man vom Medium Film kennt, sondern einer Komik, die wieein guter Witz funktioniert, indem man Dinge miteinanderzusammenmengt, die nichts miteinander zu tun haben oder dienur so tun, als hätten sie etwas miteinander zu tun. DieseKriterien erfüllt auch der heutige Werbeclip im Fernsehen, mitdem Unterschied, dass sein Witz eindimensional und produktbe-zogen ist. Die wichtigsten Positionen der sechziger und siebzigerJahre – noch als Film gedreht – haben im Zentrum nicht dieHumoreske, sondern eben diese Doppelbödigkeit: die Erfahrungdes eigenen Körpers oder die allegorisch melancholische Illusionvon Beobachten und Handeln in einem wörtlichen Sinne, in AndyWarhols Filmen, bei Marcel Broodthaers, in Bruce Naumans One-

Man-Movements, bei Vito Acconci, Gilbert & George oder Bas JanAder.

Das Video der neunziger Jahre nimmt diese konzeptuelleTradition auf, die das Medium selbst durchbricht. Der Autor istpräsent, die Umstände der Aufnahme und das Künstliche dermedialen Szene. Dazu gehören bewusst eingesetzte simultaneoder nicht beabsichtigte Aufnahmen, inszenierte Clips und Ready-Mades von Filmeffekten. Sujet sind oft die Künstlerkollegen, derKunstbetrieb oder die Kunst selbst. Der Philosoph Slavoj Zizekerinnert gelegentlich daran, dass im Gegensatz zur Tragödie inder Komödie der Schauspieler nicht nur die verkörperte Rollespielt, sondern auch als realer Schauspieler präsent ist unddadurch die hypostasierte Welt, in die wir uns als Zuschauer hin-einversetzen, plötzlich mit uns zu tun hat.

Man nennt das Situationskomik: Als Hegel 1806 nach der Schlachtbei Jena Napoleon durch die Straßen der Stadt reiten sah, in derer Philosophie lehrte, sagte er: „Dort sitzt der Weltgeist zuPferde“, eine Feststellung, die einerseits visionär, andererseitsaber irrsinnig komisch war, weil das abstrakte Symbol derAufklärung nun plötzlich auf einem Pferd reitend zu besichtigenwar.

Dass der deutsche Künstler Martin Kippenberger, der sich mitdem Medium Video so gut wie gar nicht beschäftigt hat, nach sei-nem frühen Tod sosehr ins Bewusstsein der Kunstwelt rückte, hatnicht nur mit seinem Oeuvre zu tun. Die beabsichtigte oder impro-visierte Gestaltung seines Lebens war selbst wie eine An-sammlung grotesker Videos, immer um die Kunst herum, abermit dem Background des Scheiterns und dem Herausarbeiten des„Nichts“. Man versteht dies besser vor Kants Aussage, das Lachensei ein Effekt der plötzlichen Verwandlung einer gespanntenErwartung in nichts (Kritik der Urteilskraft).

Humor in der Kunst taucht entweder auf, wenn die zementiertensozialen und politischen Verhältnisse unmerklich von innen herbröckeln wie im deutschen Vormärz um 1840, der Zeit vor demtschechischen Frühling und den frühen sechziger Jahren des 20.Jahrhunderts in einem Westeuropa der bereits dekadentenChristdemokratie. 1968 gab es kaum humorvolle oder ironischeKunst, weil man bereits an der Veränderung arbeitete.

Jetzt, in den Zeiten eines ungebrochenen Kapitalismus undImperialismus, hat Humor in der Kunst wieder einmalKonjunktur, ein Omen, das beachtet werden sollte, etwa inItalien, wo zuvor noch nie ein Künstler des Humors, der Groteskeund der Ironie im Mittelpunkt stand (Maurizio Cattelan). DieKomik muss auch nicht immer in irgendwelchen Kabinetten ste-hen wie zum Beispiel die italienischen Grotesken oder die nieder-ländischen Genrebilder sozusagen als Korrektiv zum Pathos undder Apotheose von Gott und Mensch in den Sälen. Aber es wärean der Zeit, dass auch sie einmal wie bei Marcel Broodthaers insZentrum rückt: Dann haben Kinder keinen Eintritt ins Museum,der Museumswärter wird zum Kamelführer und statt Kunst wer-den Palmen und Kanonen ausgestellt.

Humor ist befreiend, aber er kann auch teuer werden. Das konn-te man bei den Reaktionen der von Islamisten verursachtenSachschäden auf die dänische Karikatur des ProphetenMohammed sehen. Und auf der Rekordliste der Auktionen sindMasterpieces des komischen Genres keine Seltenheit mehr. WennHumor teuer wird, heißt es ihn zu bewahren.

„U„U mso besser – dann kämmso besser – dann käm pfpf en wir im Scen wir im Sc hatthatt e n “e n “

HAMSTERWHEEL28

Douglsas Gordon, Franz West, Fingerfuck, 2007, video, Courtesy: Gagosian Gallery, London

29TERWHEEL

HAMSTERWHEEL30

Summer Love is Piotr Uklanski’s debut film aswell as the first Polish western. It was filmed onlocation in southern Poland with an all-Polishcast, except for the American Val Kilmer in therole of »The Wanted Man« and Czech actorKarel Roden as »The Stranger«. Based on theprinciple of »the copy of a copy«, Summer Loveis steeped in dark humour,reminiscent of the westernand set in a deeply depres-sed atmosphere. FrancescoStocchi talks with PiotrUklanski about identity,economy, desires and thepossibility of reaching theunreachable.

Francesco Stocchi: Firstof all, let’s say thatSummer Love is not awestern in itself, nor is ita parody of the westerngenre. The choice of theSpaghetti Western, thelack of authenticity andthe constant use of ironymake it more a metapho-ric western. Do youagree with this definiti-on?

Piotr Uklanski: Definitely.

You perhaps picked up the most codedgenre in film history, and moved within itsreally closely borders to face other themeslike national identity, acceptance, communi-cation gap, etc… Do you think that speakingabout national identity today is still a way ofdefining differences?

I very much like your angle. I definitely wantedto start from something that is so bankrupt thatit is empty. The western with its whole history of»social relevance« in definingAmerican culture. Then, talkingabout its corruption, etc. Thenthe European chapter. So muchin the past and nothing in thepresent. I saw it as a very codi-fied melodramatic genre that isonly theatre. But because it wassuch an empty shell, it did nothave to bother with what itshows (in its story) but wasmore prone to over all reading –why would a Pole do a film likethis now, why Kilmer, etc. Andthen you start looking at all theidentity issues which I think Ibankrupted as well: in the filmindustry it is purely a matter ofmoney, in the art business it isthat of politics. I think that thepolitics of identity have becomea tool of not so interesting batt-les. Obviously, I am not taking a good guystance here. I’m aware of the metaphors but Idon’t really find them all that effective.

Speaking of »›I did not bother with what it theplot shows‹« is commensurate with the wayyou tell the story that is in fact partly non-chronological, with more visual aspects and

suggestions than a narrative. The story initself is absurd, starting with its improbabletitle and disorienting soundtrack. It seemsas if the editing choices assumed a centralrole, evolving as the editing progressed. Wasthis the aspect you wanted to focus on?

This is different. On the content level, by sayingthat I did not bother with what it shows I wasreferring more to the story’s archetypes(Woman, Man, Stranger, Love, Love Triangle,Money) – I was not looking for a discovery here.The same goes for the dialogues. In fact,nothing in the film is original per se. In a way, itis like a »found object«. Now in terms of editingI was very precise: the film starts somewhatcoherent, traditionally. Then its structure disin-tegrates and, on the one hand, the story beco-mes fragmented/impressionistic, while on the

other hand the story’s disintegration reflects thedisintegration of what is in the story (the blee-ding Stranger, the raped Woman, the suicidalSheriff). All well planned.

Disintegration. In Summer Love, the visualaspect is accurately and vividly expressedwithout knocking away the tension the film

suggests. Each moment is a picture to me:you could de-compose the whole film, »dis-integrate« it by printing each single frame.

Each moment is a picture, I very much agree. Iwas looking for a certain viewing tension wherethe fibre (sets, costumes, make-up, guns,

faces, etc.) would be aut-hentic but the viewingexperience would benothing like you’ve seenin westerns. More like anold school »avant-garde«film experience whereyou’d have wholesequences with no sound… A hypnotic experience.This was the aim. Ithought it was the onlyway I could make a Polishwestern, a film like noneother. In a sense I wasgoing back (if you will) –instead of making a tech-nological marvel, I’vetried to »stop« the film,the story. In a very tradi-tional, old school way;Brakhage, Cocteau …

Summer Love is theresult of a long process

that lasted about seven years, which startedwith framed portraits shown in galleries.Could you describe the process that led to amovie?

First, the paradox: cultural impossibility. On avery conceptual level, the work was finishedwith these photos I made it in 1999. However,the photos had a greater impact than I hadexpected and I met some film people who chal-lenged me to turn it into a film. Some years laterI got more and more interested in the public

sphere, in art or in culture ingeneral. A wide resonance,cultural schizophrenia. Thenthe portfolio with some 16photographs was no longerenough to convey the »PolskiWestern«. I had to make a fea-ture film that could play withmass expectation.

Your work was often veryclosely knit with the world ofthe Nazis series are postersor film stills taken fromHollywood B-movies, thepavement constructed forGavin Brown’s club is areproduction of SaturdayNight Fever’s dance-floor,the use of a stuntman in FullBurn for Manifesta II is a de-contextualization of the spe-

cial effects practice in movies etc. What is itthat really draws you towards it?

The reasons are very different because there isat least a ten-year gap between some works: ifwe presume that art or other creative activity iscapable of reflecting the truth about human exi-stence, I believe it should not mimic that exi-

»SUMMER LOVE«

Summer Love, Poland, USA, 2006, Stills, Courtesy of the Artist

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stence but to create an artificial reality/formthrough which you may or may not eventuallyget to the »truth about life«. Therefore I am allfor artifice. Perhaps this could be a commondenominator. The films, movies I prefer mostare those that are less successful at their narra-tives: Exploitation films, B-films, Italian »bad«westerns. Perhaps that’s the paradox thatdraws me to this medium: they so-o-o-o wantto reflect life, and fail so beautifully.

Why do you think that more artists feel theneed to do a movie now? Does it come fromaIs it because of the chance they are givento them by an industry that supports them, asearch quest for visibility outside the art bor-ders, or is it more an expression of a con-temporary need?

On the one hand, yes, of the above. On theother hand, what do you mean by »now«?Cocteau made a film with Yul Brynner in the1950s. Warhol and Morrissey made two films(Dracula and Frankenstein) for De Laurentiis inthe 1970s. David Lamelas, too, made a film inHollywood. And then you have Cindy Sherman,David Salle, Robert Longo, Julian Schnabel(1990s). What’s ›now‹? Matthew Barney,Douglas Gordon, who else? Everybody is tal-king about making films, but who eventuallymakes them in the end?

I see, but I think the art system, due to theeconomic power it embodies today, is theonly art expression capable of reabsorbingthe others. It is a big pot licensed to digestfashion, theatre, music concerts, etc.Summer Love is conceived to be shown intheatres. How would do you react if youwere asked to present it in a museum or agallery one day? (Out of its context, but wit-hin your originative context)

Well, I think that the change that has occurredin the art system as a consequence of this tre-mendous influx of money (last 10–15 years) isone thing. A very interesting discussion, butmaybe some other time. I don’t think I would beable to make such a ›big‹ budget ›avant-garde/art‹ film otherwise. Now, regardingabsorption … I think a good exploitation filmcan do it effectively just the same – Snakes ona Plane? About Summer Love’s distribution, this was animportant issue before the film was shownanywhere because it has so much to do withthe film’s identity. I didn’t want to pigeonhole it.But now, after showing in Venice and other fest-ivals (Stockholm, Athens, Warsaw, Sao Paulo,Bratislava, etc.) it doesn’t matter so much. Iwould show it in the museum if it has a theatre.This context no longer has the power to label itan art-world film – even if it goes straight ontoDVD with no distribution.

The relation between the gallerist and theartist seems to be changing. I witness a newattitude towards the artist in which hisneeds, the conditions and the autonomy ofhis creativity are respected, which is basical-ly a turning away from the attitude that wascommon in the 1980s and 1990s. On theother hand, the market is wealthy, so reallyhungry, always asking for more. As an artistdo you believe that your creativity receivesthe respect it deserves and do you generallyfeel under pressure?

I don’t think I receive the respect due to me, butif I thought any differently it wouldn’t be veryhealthy. I don’t think there is any particular pres-sure coming from outside. I always had quite abig self-imposed pressure, so the one from out-

side was never bigger. I think this situationcould be a real problem for artists who are notinterested and not willing to engage with anoutside world, you know, »I just want to be inmy studio doing my thing«. Nothing wrong withthat, but then the pressures from the outsideworld can be devastating.

This organisation around art tends to makethe artist non-guilty. Everything tends tomove towards an explanation or a justificati-on of whatever you do, »in the name of Art«.Criticism becomes more and more fusedwith marketing. How do you place yourselfwith this attitude?

I never let myself get too invested in the criti-cism. Therefore, the fact that it does or does notbecome infested with advertising bothers meon a more personal level only. Regarding thenon-guilty artist, I am not really sure what youmean. If you mean that lazy, bad artists getaway with this, it would worry me, but if youmean artists who are mean-spirited, bad-boys,or unethical – I couldn’t care less – If the workis good, that is.

Like in the Nazis series, Summer Love dealsstrongly with repulsion, which I find an effec-tive way to introduce seduction. SummerLove is really seductive. The characters areunable to communicate except through vio-lence. Each little personal hope soon diesdue to verbal, physical or psychological vio-lence. The ugly and the malign figures do notembody an official status but are everywhe-re, spread among the people, which is muchmore compelling and scary. Is this a look atcontemporary society?

At life. I am a pessimist.

The story and the surrounds settings don’tseem to to take over thehave any influenceon the characters’ identity development (sostereotyped that they don’t even have aname but a definition-role): whoever you are,the Boss, the Servant, the Lazy, the Stupid,the Willing, the only way to act is throughviolence. Violence is more a symptom ofnon-communication. But using these stereo-types you overstep the genre, making some-thing experimental but within a defined cate-gory. To whom is this film addressed?

I think in most of my works I try to reach a fewaudiences at once. The immediate one and theone that is more in the know. The immediateone is a part of each project, so to speak. Incase of Summer Love you first get the mostpredictable immediate audience (that goes tosee violent genre films, with Val Kilmer, etc.) –which often gets disappointed. And an ultimateone, like you perhaps. But without the first audi-ence the second audience would view the pro-ject differently.

This is a sophisticated approach towardsyour audience. But although the only possi-ble language seems to be violence, the inde-finite space where the movie is set, the eco-nomical crisis and depression expressed init, create nostalgia and melancholy morethan pain. Are these feelings more potentthan pain?

I think so. Pain is more definite, therefore lessprojectable. I think we can talk some moreabout violence here. You mentioned it quite afew times. I think that the violence in SummerLove is a graphic sign rather than graphic vio-lence. It is a quotation. And I believe that theelement of tragicomic serves a similar role; itSummer Love, Poland, USA, 2006, Stills, Courtesy of the Artist

puts a certain quotation mark. Ithink it was necessary to constructa »product« where you have toconstantly re-define to what extentyou are to believe what you areseeing. In and out. Like sex.

Comedy and violence. Violenceis levelled with a sharp humour,making the scenes tragicomic.Do you see life as tragicomic?

I think quite a lot of the mainstreamaudience, in Poland for example,found it troublesome.

You think they didn’t catch getthe vivid humoristic aspect?

They did. But then they had a pro-blem with defining whether this filmwas »serious« or not.

But should it really be defined?

Of course not. I tried to push thedichotomy as far as possible. Andthe Polish audience viewers pro-ved to be the perfect audience/vic-tim because they projected somuch onto this film.

You once defined yourself as afanatic about your work. Wouldyou define your work as a job?

More addict than fanatic. My workis a job.

Appropriation is a common prac-tice in your work. I could menti-on a good number of twentieth-century masterpieces that Ibelieve explicitly inspired yourworks, like Warhol’s 13 mostwanted men (The Nazis), Dali’sVoluptate Mors (Skull), Matisse’scollages (The Bomb)… In SummerLove, I noticed that you don’t

refer to other artists’ works butto your own. An appropriation ofyourself. Is that true?

I refer to other filmmakers, writers.They are artists. But it definitely is aform of self-exploitation.

The two main characters (TheStranger, Karel Roden and TheWanted, Val Kilmer) never say asingle word. And how did youmanage to convince a Hollywoodmovie star not to speak?

Well. Kilmer is dead – he can’tspeak. And of course, it would notbe that difficult to write a flashbackscene where he does speak. But Iwas very interested in concept-casting: American star power,wasted. And then the obvious refe-rence when one has to have anAmerican actor for the western tosound like an American (authentic)production. Karel’s story is just abit different. His looks alwaysmade me think of him as aneastern European Clint Eastwood.Man with no name and of a fewwords – in fact even no words atall. In the original version of thescript there even was a commentspoken towards the end of the filmwhere he (Karel) is a mute. It is verydifficult to convince a star to play arole like this. Mickey Rourke consi-dered playing in Summer Love eit-her of both roles, but becausethere was no dialogue, he eventu-ally turned it down.

I want to go further in this. Theonly American actor in the cast –as The Wanted, he representsthe treasure – is the key to a new,wealthy life. He lies dead on theground staring at the events. Isthis subtle and courageous choice

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Summer Love, 2006, Poster

Talkeetna, Photo: Paola Pivi

a premonition of the forthcomingpolitical order?

Jesus. I love it. GWB versus Korea.

The sheriff’s instability, drun-kenness, the banal dogmatismreferred to his role of law keeper,underlines a crisis of the authori-ty figure, or its original intrinsicabsurdity?

Actually, for the first time, I have tocontradict you. For me the sheriff isa self-portrait. A drunken artist.Hoplessly in love. Pathetic. Pitiful.And a first billed main character ofSummer Love.

"The interview was first publishedins spike art quarterly No. 11, March2007. www.spikeart.at".

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Fin dai primi anni accademici sidistinguono nei lavori di Tamuna ipunti essenziali della sua pittura.L’esperienza universitaria in diversecittà quali Tbilisi e Vienna hannocontribuito ad elaborare e ad arric-chire uno stile proprio. Il linguaggiopittorico di Tamuna si è evoluto coni suoi spostamenti e come permolto artisti, il primo approccio allapittura è stato caratterizzato daldisegno dal vivo dal quale poi l’ar-tista si distacca per concentrarsisul tratto, il colore e la composizio-ne. Al disegno figurativo, Tamunapreferisce un tratto impulsivo sem-plice ma deciso. I colori naturalisti-ci sono rapidamente sostituiti dacolori puri abbinati secondo le tec-niche espressioniste, l’artista siconcentra sulla ricerca tra l’equili-brio, il colore e la composizionedelle immagini sulla tela. Le suetele sono quindi lo spazio su cui

esprime le sue sensazioni, espe-rienze ed emozioni.Arrivata a Vienna si lascia affasci-nare dal mondo multimediale: perbreve tempo lascia la pittura elavora con il video, rielabora imma-gini scaricate da internet, per poitornare definitivamente alla pittura.Dotata di una piccola telecamera sidiletta a registrare la realtà che lacirconda creando dei montaggimolto semplici, ma comunque forti,su internet scopre le risorse cheGoogle offre. Inserendo una parola,infatti, il motore di ricerca Googletrova infinite immagini ad essa cor-relate. Una volta scelta un’immagi-ne, Tamuna la rielabora aggiungen-do parole o frasi. Questa fase chelei stessa identifica come speri-mentale si esaurisce in poco tempoma aggiunge alla sua espressionestilistica un elemento importante ecostante quale la parola. Alleopere, infatti, si accompagnanotitoli spesso molto lunghi chevogliono in parte suggerire unachiave di lettura sempre “positiva”dell’opera.Lavorando su tele di grandi dimen-sioni, Tamuna si esprime attraversoun tratto forte ma pulito; nei suoiquadri sono riconoscibili figure eoggetti interpretati attraverso l’im-pulsività del segno e la leggerezzadel colore. Il tratto deciso e quasi

violento è smorzato dalla traspa-renza del colore e dalla composi-zione delle figure sulla tela che tra-smettono un senso di profondaarmonia e trasparenza. Tamunalavora con l’acrilico sulla tela bian-ca dando un effetto quasi acqua-rellato certamente improprio diquesta tecnica. Il contrasto tra laleggerezza del colore e il trattoimpulsivo sono sempre armonica-mente distribuiti su grandi sfondibianchi che creano un effetto dispazio e di forte luminosità. Le figure e le storie che rappresen-ta sono il risultato di una costanterelazione tra la vita interiore dell’ar-tista e i diversi impulsi provenientidall’esterno. I temi delle sue operesono spesso legati al mondo mulie-bre, al quotidiano delle donneimpregnato di una femminilitàquasi violenta e spesso non com-prensibile dall’altro sesso. Tutto cióspiega la scelta delle sue soluzionitecniche che servono ad espri-mere immagini non totalmentenitide, quasi oniriche che ricorda-no come le figure delle sue telesiano la traduzione di situazioni inparte inventate ed in parte vissu-te dall’artista stessa. Le donnesono spesso dipinte nude perchénon interessa tanto il loro aspettofisico quanto la situazione in cuiqueste si trovano, come ad

Dell’opera di Tamuna SirbiladzeCarola Annoni esempio donne al bagno, in came-

ra, gruppi di figure o coppie. I sog-getti delle tele possono sembrareuna rappresentazione cruenta dellavita delle donne ma al contrariovogliono essere un’interpretazionepoetica del mondo femminile in cuila donna si esprime con gioia intutti i suoi aspetti anche nei più inti-mi. A differenza di molti artisti, perTamuna dare un titolo alle sueopere è fondamentale. I lunghissimititoli vorrebbero suggerire una let-tura sempre positiva delle operesebbene a volte ciò possa apparirenon ovvio. Di conseguenza la paro-la diventa parte stessa dell’opera; èda notare quindi come i titoli nonsiano mai pienamente esplicatividelle opere, poiché è Tamuna stes-sa a non volere imporre un solosignificato ai suoi lavori attraversoun determinato titolo ma solamen-te suggerire una strada per inter-pretare le storie raccontate nellesue tele.

Tamuna Sirbiladze, all works untitled, 2006, 2007, 200 x 200 cm, acrylic on canvas, Courtesy: Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner, London, Gallerie ColletPark, Paris

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Milovan Farronato

A sea of black & white photos, re-photocopied imagesobsessively portraying the same subject: Matera. Theancient Lucan town perched on a hilltop and partiallydug out into the rock face.

The images are repeated in three different formats.Steep winding paths leading up and down, and detailsof windows and doors each peeping out from behindanother. Stairways taper off and up in a sort ofPiranesian reverie. Lastly, townscape views calmlydraw all the elements together. This melange of viewsis brought together in an apparently random collage onthe inner side of two wooden walls laid out to form anobtuse angle, the outside of which is covered withsheets of shiny black Plexiglas silkscreened with animage of a brick wall. The onlooker is thus faced withan obtuse angle on approaching the wall, forcinghim/her to make a choice. It is up to us to decide: shallwe take the left or the right? The most important thingis not to end up like Buridano’s donkey!

The images thicken like a cloud of dust within this

geometry: frenetically blurring into one. From the dis-tance, this iconic grey nimbus appears somewhat dis-jointed, chaotic, bereft of centre, silhouette or shape.In actual fact, its centre is to be found in the corner:Ugo Rondinone started out from that point from whichto orchestrate the construction of the whole, beforedefining the groupings of doors, paths and stairwaysby relative order of format. There is even a definition ofthe edges to indicate the delicate margins of this cos-mology/cosmogony: a series of childish drawings (alsophotocopied) showing a crow – representing the artisthimself – waking up, washing, leaving the house,crossing the road, walking through a park, resting on atree, settling down in a nest, only to then go throughthe same sequence backwards, falling asleep in thatbed from which his day began. The determination interms of ‘shape’ is given by the corner, which is set outdialectically with regard to the space. Despite startingout from a single point, it remains an open structure. Interms of compositional harmony, there is a sense ofarchaic and obsessive repetition, akin to the initiationmusic of Terry Riley. The path of the crow and theceaseless randomness of the images reflect the eter-nal return to the same.

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FADING BLACK / IL NERO CHE SCOLORAUgo Rondinone, nesting ground, 2006, Holz, schwarze Beize, Acrylfarbe, Lack240 x 400 x 400 cm, Ed. von 2 + 1 AP, ©Ugo Rondinone, Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich

Through the „trans-aggregate structure“ allows fordirect information transfer to other individualitiescapable of decoding incoming signals. In a virtual-ly reconstructive process, received information isnow rendered biologically manifest. Via the con-nection points of trans-aggregate structures andthe adaptive increase of structuralizing elements(ad-hoc synthesis), a structure of information isthus infiltrated and changes its previous state. Isee art as a particularly suitable vehicle for trans-porting „new“, as yet unadapted developmentqualities and individualism as its evolutionary pre-requisite.

A Fictitious Dialog between Rudolf Polanszky and (J.)B.L.

HAMSTERWHEEL 35

Matera, in the life of the artist, represents the home-land of his soul. It is found in the black spot on themap where the artist deliberately sets out to rediscov-er the roots of his family, and not just those of his par-ents. As the crow’s path does not go full circle in a sin-gle dull day, meaning a path reiterated day after day,thus the nest – the underlying ideal – is found in themiddle of the path. Not at the beginning, nor at theend. It is an origin which rears up as a sort of revela-tion after following a hard, tiring and labyrinthine path-way (like that pieced back together in the collage,which is designed to be an example of order withinchaos). It is a fragmented yet harmonic vision, a tele-scope turned around and a kaleidoscope.

Truth or hallucination?

The Lantern of the memory is offered to light up the

dark corners, yet it sheds just as much light on thepowers of imagination. The ego is dressed up,stripped bare and re-disguised cyclically; the psycheis always expressed confusedly as it is always mixedup with other things… memories always revolvearound the same old centre, that hypothetical ‘nest’.Nesting Round –the title of the work might suggest apersonal sense of recognition, otherwise insinuatingillusion. It is as if we are witness to a crying out, acrescendo which starts off inaudibly only to becomeunbearably deafening.

The walls open out like the pages of a diary; they areset out like a prism refracting a shaft of light whichpours forth from the point in which the light of Mnemeis at its weakest, where the black of the half-asleep (orhalf-awake) consciousness starts to fade.

Rudolf Polanszky

Most theories on art have the shortcoming of acomprehensive approach. Reading Lamarck’s1809 work „Zoological Philosophy“ has confirmedmy deliberations towards seeing a hypotheticalapproach in an evolutionary strategy of art. Theanalogy to the biologistic hypothesis of evolution,which is to say the development of and changeundergone by animate objects becomes conclu-sive when development is understood as inventiveplay and information as a structuralizing, codedsystem. In a roundabout way, Lamarck’s theory ofa direct transfer of „acquired qualities“ is, thus,rendered „true“ again. A mechanism generated

On Evolution as a Strategy of Art or Art as a Strategy of Evolution

Continues On Page 36

Ugo Rondinone, nesting ground, 2006, Holz, schwarze Beize, Acrylfarbe, Lack240 x 400 x 400 cm, Ed. von 2 + 1 AP, ©Ugo Rondinone, Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich

Rudolf Polanszky: Individualities,as we know, are a superfluouseffort on the part of nature because,according to evolutionary facts,there is no chance that during theirshort life spans they will manifestlydevelop in any other fashion than isdetermined by their predisposition.Endeavors at self-understandingare meaningless, as they cannot betransferred on the biological level. Jean Baptiste Lamarck: What asinister theory. As an extinguishedindividual, I have made every effortto prove that precisely those changesin an individual, which are attained,for instance, on the basis of accu-rate observation of its environmentand living conditions can be passedon, be it through the upbringing ofthe young, filial generation, or be itthat they even manifest themselvesin biological structures. As far asthat goes, his efforts were not in vain!There’s no denying that an individ-ual must adapt to its environmentand that’s the anti-individual aspectof the given facts. My colleagueDarwin’s additional thesis (the factthat I put forth the original and fun-damental one usually goes unmen-tioned) that the fittest survive could,in turn, be credited to the individual,if the fittest were not also the mostadapted. RP: In every social environmentthere is a pool of conditioned, well-adapted conformists that line upagainst the superiority of strongindividuality that dissociates itself.The leap in evolution that broughtabout individuality, therefore, hassomething tragic about it. The termadaptation, however, must not beconstrued to merely imply weak-ness. Adaptation also carries themeaning of expansion, improvement,etc. Biologistic developments, how-ever, are of no importance for myconsiderations, I’m not interested inthis thrownness into a dreary, end-lessly long process of incessantrepetition and blind, incrementalchange. The scheme followed bythose observing nature is a terriblyboring matter, cut out for peoplewho lack any powers of moreabstract thought and imagination.The classic scientist with his vascu-lum is a bean counter; no wonderthen that Mendel’s Laws weredemonstrated on this plant.JBL: I strongly disagree with thisposition as these newly establishedlaws serve as a shining example ofthe power of abstract thinkingachieved by this exceptionally gift-ed man of God. Imagination is thecreative capacity to generate newideas. With the help of thoughts itprocesses, the organ of reason isable to attain this capacity if it con-tains a large number of ideas andwhen it is habitually trained tomould them into complex ideas.Meta-Lamarck: But where wouldthis creative ability be located?Does it not amount to just anotherdeviation from habitual ways ofthinking when all of a sudden a new

connection flashes through themind, one between details thathitherto have not been associatedwith each other, or when analogiessuggest themselves, transferringcontext from one area to the next?RP: Understanding or rather invent-ing intellect and reason as its pro-jecting machine of the world asnature, which is to say the rationalunderstanding of the animate worldas a machine analogy, led the earlyexplorers or rather inventors of thephilosophy of nature into a frenzy ofdefining newly established terms ofcategorization. The projecting machinedissected the world machine on thebasis of science’s apparently un-compromising method. Art wasregarded as some kind of outpostof cognitive possibilities, as an anti-rational reaction. Questions as to itsnature were moved to the fringes ofscientific interest and broken downinto its dissectible components.JBL: Well, it’s nice to hear you canimagine yourself in my shoes andmy era to such an extent. Especiallyyour repeated mention of the dis-sectible. The machine-like proper-ties, which you intend to bestow onthe whole world or which you applyto get things moving, all this isnothing new to me, a dissector ofsystems, the materializations ofwhich comprise, for example, thewebbing of water birds and its elas-ticity that adapts to their fluid envi-ronment. The fuzziness of theseconnections and the sheer numberof involved parameters, however,make things difficult for a mecha-nistic approach. What, then, ischance based upon when it allowsfor successful mutation to takeplace or makes it possible? To adeterminist, chance merely signifiesignorance on the part of theobserver.RP: It was during your lifetime thatthe machine metaphor had its hey-day. Nevertheless, scientific thoughthas never succeeded in developinga reasonable theory of art; at best,it has tackled its manifestations inarchaic, metaphysical forms ofusage, which are aimed at circum-venting rational insights and endow-ing art with the romantic aspect ofprivacy that is connected with thisapproach.JBL: Science itself is a curiousstrategy of our species, and yourcomplaint raises the question ofwhether it suits the quest of sci-ence to engross itself with some-thing that virtually stands as its van-guard, an avant-guard that pre-pares the field by bringing togetherand loosely connecting models togain elements that can be linked.What’s interesting to me in this con-text is just how you want this archa-ic, metaphysical type of applicationto ply science with its wild type ofthinking and its self-concoctedsymbols. Are these outgrowth pro-cesses, as it were, they develop indealing with their environment,which, tailored to their lifespan,

they intend to pass on to nothingother than their work? So, how arewe getting on with evolution as astrategy of art, or rather, how do weproceed with this strategy?RP: The advantage of evolutionary,developing artistic procedures liesin their overcoming of rationalsemantic criteria and the resultingmethodical constraints. Rationalunderstanding regressively trivial-izes creative autonomy. The anar-chist, destructive strategy of cre-ative procedures implies a transfor-mative shift on the semantic level,their references and interpretivehierarchies resting with somethingthat is yet to be invented. The cre-ative act, therefore, is antisocialand self-inventive. It follows thatreturning its outcome to the realmof understanding is always recon-structive. The disruptions of under-standing, which are accounted forby the informational quality oftrans-aggregate structures result-ing from individual transfers, ischanneled through the translationalfeedback in existing structures andrecoded. Here, the trans-aggregateprocedure, thus, evolves the re-

spective targeted state.JBL: It’s wonderful to see how yourevolving syntactic structures andword formations on the verbal sym-bolic level reflect your assertions onthe capacity of artistic activity togenerate symbols. I don’t quiteunderstand, though, why yourrational approach to the insightsgained into living environments andcreative processes is apparentlyscorned, that is to say why theanarchistic impulse in your creativeactivity plays such an importantrole. As a theoretician of evolution, Ican perhaps understand that arigid, stringent error preventionstrategy could be understood assomething opposed to mutationsand evolution. But isn’t anarchy justa means to an end in the field of art,something aimed at gaining newelements through deconstructionand destruction, from which thesynthesis of one’s inner imagery isderived. RP: Now that’s a promising cogni-tive approach. Think of nonsenseas the anti-rational side of under-standing. Art could be seen as acounter strategy to methods of

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Continued From Page 35

understanding and perception thatresult from deductive-rationalapproaches. Through the trans-aggregate structure, as it were, themind manages to escape into mat-ter. JBL: Understanding is the rationalelement. The anti-rational side isnot-understanding. Where does thisview leave anti-rationalism? Is itmaybe a pernicious spirit thatenters into matter much in the waythe foul spirits entered the biblicalherd of pigs.RP: Being a trained materialist, youought to know that the anti-rationalapproach consists of salvaging thespirit by transferring it into matter.JBL: Doesn’t this raise the questionof who is salvaging whom?RP: With your specialist education,all this Cartesian dualism thatseems to show through in yourargument is something you shouldhave shrugged off long ago. In thiscase it wouldn’t make any differ-ence, though. The attack on ration-ality was only launched becauserational thinking always and onlyleads to rational results. You neverget anywhere that way. In your era,

you invented reason; we mustmake further headway towardssome kind of hyper reason andallow the mind to use new tools inprojecting the world.JBL: You’re starting to philosophizewith a hammer, that’s what I callthis tool. My speculative latecomer-friend Wittgenstein also liked todraw on this bag of tricks. But justa minute ago, you were talkingabout evolutionary shortcuts, whichbecome possible in the realm of artin just the same way as on everylevel that provides an adequate setof symbols, or that’s my theory atleast; here, anti-rationalism runsinto some difficulties again when itcomes to an adequate repository ofrules, which administers what canbe made of symbols. Calculationsthemselves may well be vital ele-ments of an evolutionary world. Yousee, errors and mutations are onlypossible as far as full-fledged sys-tems exist. Didn’t you just arguethat meaning is only rendered pos-sible where it can be gained fromnonsense, that understanding must,therefore, always apply itself tononsense, and one could say that

nonsense is only possible wheresystems that generate meaningexist. Aside from this, there is thethird possibility that understandingis only possible where there issomething to understand, wherethere are regularities. How couldyou arrive at the superlative form ofyour trans-aggregates if you hadnot already developed an aware-ness of the state of their presentexistence and the components theyare made up of?RP: Due to its suitability for rationalassessment, reason even forbidsus to take the unreasonable path.„Behave. No nonsense!“ is theinstruction given by reason, whichthus stands as merely the adminis-trator of convention. The anarchis-tic conclusion is to follow nonsensein order to enter realms that liebeyond the reach of reason. It’sprobably time to drop the term„art“, as far as it only representsanti-rational methods, which iscontradictory, of course, becausethis concept reaches much furtherthan that.JBL: Well, you said that. Could artnot define itself as a field of unbi-

ased experiments, too, which, ofcourse, requires a minimum ofrational deliberation with regard toits test arrangements and theirresults?RP: One could even say that we aredealing with a kind of codificationof the trivial and banal that repre-sents itself in an encrypted, enig-matic manner. JBL: But that would render anyinterpretation in vain!RP: Every interpretation is a regres-sive attempt to reintroduce order;one could almost call it reactionary.Contrary to other systems of orderand mediation, the trans-aggregatestructure givers priority to weaklyreferenced basic patterns, topurged mental prototypal models oftransformation, so to speak. In aquantum-like manner, its depend-ence on states oscillates in a kindof unstable back-and-forth move-ment, passing coded patterns ofinformation on to the adjoiningstructure which, as a result, reor-ganizes and reconstructs itself.Thus, information patterns virtuallybecome physiologically manifest inthe new „host“.JBL: Well, that does sound damnrational to me! All this adopting ofmodels, the drawing of analogies,as it were, forms the starting pointof all scientific heuristics. It is pre-cisely for this reason that we havedeveloped the supreme disciplineof mathematics; it provides us withthe tools you have just complainedabout, allowing us to search unex-plored terrain for regularities on atrial basis. When theories are builtcorrectly, they are geared at pre-dicted events, which are subse-quently confirmed through experi-ments or observation. By the way,mathematics itself is a highly evolu-tionary system that continually pro-duces new calculations by makingmodifications to old calculationsand introducing new axioms etc.RP: Extrapolation from nonsense,of course, means taking the longway to avoid deductive, which is tosay usage-dependent functionsthat must correspond to a pre-formed structure of rules in order tojustify their use. JPL: Now, is that a proper tenetthat exemplifies itself? When youtalk of usage, do you take non-sense to mean devoid of meaning?Or does meaning consist of usage,of regular usage, that is? RP: Quite the reverse is true,there’s no denying that nonsense isrelated to wits and humor, which,aside from their many other mean-ings, serve as relativizing agents tomeaning. Also, their entertainmentvalue is in close reach here, andthis could be further extrapolated toan attractor of attention which, bythe way, is the main function of artthat degenerates into a spectacle.

37TERWHEEL

Rudolf PolanszkyModels of trans-aggregate structuresHypertransforme Skulpturen, 2005 / 2006Metall, Holz, Plexiglas, Federn, Schaumstoff,Farben, Courtesy of the artist

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Toby Ziegler, Reverse Cowboy, 2007, wood, glue, gesso, 220 x 140 x 100 cm, Courtesy Simon Lee Gallery

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Fortfahren. Ein Aussteigen gibtes eigentlich nicht mehr.Diese Überlegungen betreffendas Ausstellungsschaffen heuteallgemein, das Erschließen neuerund “anderer” Räume, das steti-ge Sich-Öffnen der Möglich-keiten, der Sichtweisen, derHorizonte. Die ganze Welt “läuft”inzwischen mit auf unserem Rad.Die Künstler müssen heute nichtmehr nach New York, Paris oderBerlin gehen, um “entdeckt” zuwerden. Es sind inzwischen auchdie anderen, die Kuratoren,Direktoren, Sammler, Galeristen,die durch die Welt reisen, auf derSuche nach neuen Künstlernund neuer Kunst. Und kein Ortwäre zu klein oder unbedeutend,als dass er nicht doch Neues,Spannendes und Bedeutendeshervorbringen könnte in der

Kunst. Kein Dschungel ist mehrzu dicht, keine Wüste zu weit,kein Kriegsgebiet zu gefährlich,keine Großstadtperipherie, keineFavela zu elend, als dass nichtdoch die interessanteste undwichtigste Kunst dort, aus solchenGegenden und ihren inhärentenKonflikten heraus, geboren wer-den könnte.Das Publikum für die Kunst wirdimmer größer, Informationen wer-den immer reichhaltiger und leich-ter zugänglich, Bilderwelten, ganzeBilderfluten ergießen sich durchunsere Fernseher und Computer.Kunst treffen wir auf den Straßenan, auf Baustellen, in Unter-grundbahnen, in funktionierendenstädtischen Strukturen. Kunst kannsich in jedem Museum einenOrt schaffen, heimlich oder ganzoffiziell, man findet sie in Parks

und mitten in der freienLandschaft, und mehr und mehrin alten, für ganz andere Zweckeerrichteten Gebäuden.Und auch das ist neu. Die sogenannte “Umnutzung” von über-schüssigen, verlassenen Arealenund Gebäuden in kulturelle Ein-richtungen hat in vielen Teilen derWelt in den letzten Jahren bereitsmassiv stattgefunden, so in denstillgelegten Kohlenabbaugelän-den im Ruhrgebiet oder in denvielen aus alten Fabriken ent-standenen Museen in England.Auch in Italien gibt es immer mehrBeispiele für großartige Umge-staltungen von Bauten und ganzenLandstrichen, die die Faszinationder alten Architektur und deren

At the end of the rue Guenegaud, as you come up from the river, you find the Passage du Pont-Neuf, a sort of narrow, dark corridor con-necting rue Mazarine and rue de Seine.This passage is thirty yards long and two in width at the most; it is paved with yellowish flagstones,worn and loose, which always exude a damp, pungent smell, and it is covered with a flat, glazed roofing black with grime.

On fine summer days, when the streets are baking in the oppressive heat, a whitish light does fall through the dingy glass roofing and hangdismally about this arcade, but on nasty winter ones, on foggy mornings, the panes send down nothing but gloom on to the greasy pavementbelow, and dirty, evil gloom at that.To the left open out dark, low, shallow shops from which come whiffs of cold, vault-like air. Here there are booksellers, vendors of toys, card-

board dealers, whose window displays are grey with dust and slumber dimly in the shadows; the small window-panes cast strange greenishmottlings on the goods for sale.The murky shops behind are just so many black holes in which weird shapes move and have their being.Tothe right a wall runs the whole length of the passage and on it the shop-keepers opposite have hung narrow cupboards, where on flimsyshelves painted a horrible brown colour are displayed a lot of nondescript odds and ends that have been mouldering there for the last twen-ty years.

From Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, 1868

Agnes Kohlmeyer

Hamsterrad– wie ich es sehe, imZusammenhang mit meinenBeruf, als Ausstellungs-Kuratorinund als Lehrende an einer Kunst-hochschule, aber auch als je-mand, der seit mehr als 20 Jahrenhier vor Ort ansässig ist und dievenezianische Biennale hautnahmiterlebt hat, mit eigener Biennale-erfahrung – die Zusammenarbeitmit Harald Szeemann im Jahr1999. Alles dreht sich, endlos,geht weiter, immer weiter, Dis-kussionen zu bestimmten Themenwiederholen sich oder werdenwieder aufgegriffen, eine Not-wendigkeit, ein unermüdliches Continues On Page 40

Toby Ziegler, Pathetic Fallacy, 2007, wood, plextol, gesso, horse hair, human hair, coffee, 130 x 215 x 95 cm, Courtesy Simon Lee Gallery

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Geschichte bewusst in Neu-nutzungen mit einbezogen haben.

Dies kann oftmals der geeigneteMoment für das zeitgenössischeKunstausstellungswesen sein,das sich seit langem nicht mehrnur mit dem weiß gestrichenenMuseumsraum begnügt, son-dern sich mehr und mehr in denAlltag, das ganz normale Lebenund dessen spezifische Räum-lichkeiten begibt. Einzelne oderperiodisch wiederkehrende Kunst-ausstellungen bieten noch denVorteil, dass sie temporär sind,also bestimmte größere Ent-scheidungen zunächst einmalaufgeschoben, Nutzungen nurerst erprobt werden können,bevor eine längerfristige Lösunggefunden wird. Ein Beispiel hier-für ist das Gelände des Arsenalsin Venedig, auf dem seit derSzeemann-Biennale 1999 mitrelativ wenigen baulichen Ver-änderungen die Biennalen statt-finden, während sich Militär-marine, Stadt und Staat erstnach und nach einig werdenüber eine zukünftige Nutzungdes restlichen, noch immer riesi-gen Geländes. Langsam werdendie fantastischen ehemaligenSpeicher- oder Fabrikräume inwunderbarster Lage neu genutzt,als vermietbare Ausstellungs-räume, Theater- und Konzert-hallen, Cafés und Restaurants,Buchläden und vielleicht – eswäre nur an der Zeit – sogar füreine internationale Kunsthalle.Meine Überlegungen betreffen inerster Linie die Stadt Venedig,diese Stadt der Biennale, derältesten Biennale überhaupt undder so genannten “Mutter allerBiennalen”, die rund um denGlobus geboren wurden – in SaoPaolo oder Sydney, Santa Feoder Istanbul, Berlin, Moskau,Lyon, Johannesburg, Gwangshu,Prag, Athen oder Thessaloniki,Cuenca in Ecuador, Sharjah inden Vereinigten ArabischenEmiraten oder Ushuaia in Feuer-land, Patagonien. Provoziert wohlauch durch die Aktion des 1995amtierenden Biennale-DirektorsJean Clair, der zum 100.Jubiläum der Veranstaltung dieAbteilung “Aperto” für die jünge-ren Künstler rundweg strich –nicht weil er diese Abteilungetwa als überholt empfand, son-dern ganz einfach, weil ihm dieallerjüngste Kunst zu weniginteressant erschien.Denn was speziell Venedig

betrifft – trotz aller unbestrittenenProblematiken dieser erstenBiennale, trotz aller eventuellenRückwärtsgerichtetheit (so dieAusstellungen bis zum Ende desZweiten Weltkrieges), trotz derstets viel zu knappen Zeit zurErarbeitung der jeweiligen Aus-stellungs-Edition und infolgedes-sen häufig mangelnder didakti-scher Hilfestellung und auchsonst spärlicher Ausstattung anlogistischen und Dienstleistungs-einrichtungen im Sinne derAusstellungsbesucher – dieseStadt und ihre Biennaleland-schaft üben eben doch eine ganzbesondere Anziehungskraft aus,zumindest auf das alle zweiJahre anreisende Kunstpubli-kum. Wie viel dabei auf dasKonto der Stadt, ihrer ganzbesonderen Schönheit und ihresZaubers geht und wie viel aufdas der Ausstellung, ist wohlkaum noch auseinander zu hal-ten. Die ganze Stadt ist mit die-ser Ausstellung und all ihren sichmehr und mehr verzweigendenNebenaktivitäten verflochten.Da gibt es zu Biennalezeitenkaum noch einen Palast oderGarten, kaum einen Campo oderPlatz, der nicht auf irgendeineWeise miteinbezogen und aus-gebucht wäre. Ganz zu schwei-gen von freien Betten undMöglichkeiten zu Speis undTrank, vom Aperitivo bis hin zumgroßen festlichen Empfang ineinem der schönen Paläste der“Serenissima”.Alles und alle in dieser Stadt sindzumindest während der Tage derPressevorbesichtigung auf dieBiennale und ihre Besucherbezogen, und die Nachfragenach immer neuen Orten zumAusstellen und Feiern wird jedesJahr größer und beharrlicher, derPhantasie sind keine Grenzenmehr gesetzt auf der Jagd nachimmer neuen Ausstellungs- undVeranstaltungsorten. Stellt sich noch die Frage nachdem “Warum”? Warum glaubtdie “ganze” Kunstwelt so sehr andiese Stadt, an ihre Kraft, wasdie Präsentation der neuestenKunst rund um die Welt anbe-trifft, sprich warum üben dieStadt und ihre weit über hunder-tjährige Biennale noch immereine derartige Faszination aus?Die Kunst allein wird es nichtsein, denn das Phänomen derriesigen Nachfrage sowohl beiBesuchern wie “Machern”, aberauch bei vielen Künstlern ausaller Welt selber, nach Möglich-keiten zum Bleiben, Ausstellen,Sehen und Gesehenwerden istkeineswegs von irgendwelchen

Qualitätskriterien der gebotenenKunst abhängig. Ich denke, dassin erster Linie dieselbe Faszina-tion eine Rolle spielt, wie sie füralle übrigen Besucher der Stadtgelten mag: jeder will Venediggesehen haben und von derStadt träumen, zumindest eineWeile in ihr verbringen und sichdem unverwechselbarenCharme dieser “kleinenGroßstadt” hingeben, die durchihre Bauten und Brücken von derVergangenheit erzählt und durchdie ganz besondere, in stetemBezug zum Wasser stehendeLichtsituation und die manchmalganz unglaublich stilleAtmosphäre besticht.Wahrscheinlich ist es genau dierichtige Mischung aus all diesenKomponenten. An Publikum,dem “richtigen” Kunstpublikumfehlt es jedenfalls nicht.Und dann ist da noch das wahreHamsterrad, die “berühmte”Nationalitäten-Frage, die pünkt-lich anlässlich jeder Venedig-Biennale wieder auftaucht. Dennnur hier, in dieser ganz speziellenAusstellung wird die Traditionder nationalen Beteiligungen bei-behalten, und alle zwei Jahregibt es wieder einen speziellen“Goldenen Löwen” für die bestenationale Beteiligung.“Nationale Identität” in der heuti-gen Kunst im Allgemeinen istzweifelsohne eine interessanteFrage, wird aber mehr und mehrangezweifelt, seitdem so vieleKünstler “Nomaden” gewordensind: Kunstschaffende, die esablehnen, sich auf einen einzigenWohnsitz zu beschränken, esauch, was ihre Kunstproduktionanbetrifft, genauso bewusst ab-lehnen, noch mit ihrer Ursprungs-nationalität in Verbindung ge-bracht zu werden. Einige stehenihrem Ursprungsland und des-sen Kunstpolitik eher kritischgegenüber, sehen sich nichtmehr unterstützt und geliebt imeigenen Land, ja manchmal inVergessenheit geraten. Anderesuchen neueArbeitsmöglichkeiten oder sindweggegangen, weil in ihrem LandKrieg herrscht oder die politischeSituation unerträglich ist. Diesalles mag dazu beigetragenhaben, dass bestimmte künstle-rische und mit nationalen Tradi-tionen verbundene Positionenheutzutage nicht mehr so ein-fach zu bestimmen sind. Positiverscheint die Tatsache, dass wiralle die Kunst der ganzen Weltimmer besser kennen zu lernenin der Lage sind, gerade weil wirsie, vielleicht erstmals bei derdocumenta 11 Okvui Enwezors,

mehr und mehr auf sämtlichenGroßausstellungen rund um dieWelt entdecken können.Aber warum dann auch heute inVenedig noch immer diese un-glaubliche Ernsthaftigkeit, mitder sämtliche Pavillonbesitzerdas Schicksal ihrer Vertretungenbetreiben, die Sorgfalt, mit dersie ihre Künstler auswählen unddie oft immensen Gelder, diezumeist für eine solche Präsen-tation auch aufgetrieben werdenkönnen? Warum dann eine stetigansteigende Nachfrage nachdem letzten freien Platz, auf demweiterhin nationale Pavillons ent-stehen könnten bzw. warumdann diese erstaunliche Verz-weiflung ob der Tatsache, dassinzwischen einfach kein einzigerfreier Quadratmeter mehr in denganzen “Giardini” zu finden ist?Gibt es eben doch noch einInteresse und geradezu ein tiefe-res Bedürfnis für nationaleKriterien? Sicherlich wird dieses Bedürfniseher auf der Seite der Länderund ihrer diplomatischen Ver-tretungen liegen als auf Seitender Künstler, denen es um ihreindividuelle Freiheit und die best-möglichen Bedingungen für ihreArbeit geht. Trotzdem, ich kannmir keinen einzigen oder nur sehrwenige Künstler vorstellen, dieeine Einladung ihres Landesablehnen würden, dieses auf einerVeranstaltung wie der veneziani-schen Biennale zu vertreten, unddie in diesem Falle nicht sehrbewusst daran denken würden,wie und mit welchen Arbeiten sieihr eigenes Land am besten ver-treten könnten. Auch dies ein sich stetig weiter-drehendes Hamsterrad, dasmanchmal das Tempo ver-langsamt, um dann, nach einwenig Nachdenkzeit für uns all-zeit “Rennende”, mit nochrasanterer Geschwindigkeit fort-zufahren.

Continued From Page 39

Agnes Kohlmeyer

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schmissig gequirlte Scheisse auf Dachdeckersohlen von Brüdern in Deine seichte Süssmäntel gewickelt meinHerz kommt bleiern gestuckt bitte sehr bitte schön hauptsache dick und vom Sockel fliessend und dann duftet derAli schizoid zerstäubt angezeichnet wehe Du reibst Dir die Augen weder das was tobias gerne sagt, noch das waswolfgang gerne säuft. auch nicht das was florian frisst und das Ali an den fingern klebt nach einer langen nacht.fast gibt es ein flirren in der umkreisung, ein einfangen aber es ist immer porös, es ergiebt sich eine öffnung. eineumschlingung. eine verschlingung. eine doppelhäutigkeit, das wasser läuft in dem zusammen das der mundumschliesst. Vom Kopf zerschmetterte Lithurgie und postwendent zurück klebrig gelockert hinein in einenNachmittag in Erdbeereis gerührt von dem endlosen Schleichwerbefutzies bestottert, gern komm herein, setztdich und kaue dich dumm an meinem Gabriel geknebelt mit Tulpenstaubküchentüchern aber die Liebe die nichts-gebeugte Schweisskanone stolz bis zum Lammhaxenrichtfest mit Dir im langweiligsten Sonnenuntergang, DuPresswurst.Häuser wie Vögel, Schokoriegel wie Schwimmbäder, Bücher wie Autobahnabsperrungen, wenns nach mir gingewäre der Kanzler ein kleines autistisches Mädchen. mein trans-fett ist nahe an der kurve und ich klebe wie eine hundsstulle im gummistiefelabsatz eines x-beliebigen.ruf an 0049 172 9070009 spei mir einen Fixpunkt aufs Revier meine Silberbüchse sabbert und das mädchen dasausrutschte und ihr guglhupf aus drei eiern flog über die friedhofsmauer.so bleibt Dir unverwechselbar das Seidengestüpp erspart Unheilvoller Dein tropfendes Stirngewimmer lächztnach Sieben die triebverwunden locken, wer hackt hier wem ins Geflüster, das Gerede vom Unmöglichen bleibtfür immer hinter dem zurück,

pack sie, Taxi, zerhack sie. Was muss passieren damit es mal richtig fremd wird, wir langweiler.Idiotie, Oligophrenie, Amentia, Schwachsinn, geistige Defizienz, er. Sie, als ob ich, bloss wie, zerhexelt, ausge-fischt, mitgefuchst, eigentlich ist alles gleichlaut, Würstelköniginnen, Platzhirschen, schönes weichsaufen, nixund wiedernix geworden, sodala jetzt wurmversäucht an Lattes und Grundwassergehältern, nur fünf Minutenohne Angst jeden Tag.wenn nun aber der Textexegetiker dem schnulligen Euphorotiker versucht das Hirn aufzustemmen sprängt der sil-brige Ontoprachialgenetiker das Gewächshaus der periornothologischen Steckrübensuppe ein letztes Mal sieg-wärts das Genick, dreh dir den Hahn zu, mach mal auf dicke Hose, vergifte, so a mal b mit c auf d ins m rüberzum k hinein in q zurück, Getreidegassenhäschen hast mich gefeilt, zerquetscht, gehäuchelt, komm ich näh dichzu, neues geöffnet, kannst Dir holen, unersetzbar, gelichtet mit meinem Alltag, hereinspaziert, mal umgeschaut,grüss gott gesagt, Schnitzel gewürgt, Tische verprügelt, Lust verloren, durch Siebe gedrückte Hoffnungstropfengegrillt, geläuterte sabsche gekühlt, Seiblingskind hat Sud im Mund. Sieg heut abend, das Alte kommt zurück, der Suff erbricht sich leiser.Aufwärtstrend mit ihm gelacht, erstlingwerk erniedrigt, Saumagen gelurcht, untenrum ernuchtert verzweigt,wochenlang die Augen verbunden, im Kopfstand gegangen, kein Wort gesagt, Batterien in beiden Ohren…Schluss aus ist es mit uns, warum ersetztbar geliebt, Schüssel raus.

Gabriel Loebell

gelitin studio, Vienna, January 2007, Photo: Darsie Alexander

HAMSTERWHEEL42

Rudolf Polanszky

models for trans-aggregate structures

A romantic interpretation of my work methods

Structure here is a metaphor for something “made evident”, “trans-aggregate” here means the instable construct of a subjective reality,pointing beyond a seemingly stable condition.

My work is an attempt to reorder correspondences to imagination patterns, to change them and to rearrange my thought structures. Iassume that there are habitual structures adapted from repeated habitual processes of experience which can be recurred to in identifyingwhat is perceived.

In the play of perception and experience, it seems one is supposed to decode the external image that is offered, and one makes use ofthe mnemonic material, the available patterns of similarity, which are moulded until an apparently congruent model of reference ensues.

The convention on the interpretation of experience is on the one hand empirical via the senses, on the other hand organized and pre-for-med by rational, deductive structures in the cognitive system.

In my work, I try to modify the basic material by distorting and exaggerating just these mental imagination patterns and to eshew theemprisonment of the biologistic, adaptive conditions of sense. Thus my work is the expression of a kind of perpetuum of continual reorga-nization via my mental invention machine. The fewer cues for making sense I include in the material and its use, the harder the “inventionmachine” has to work to invent an order as a bridge to an understanding of the “new”.

What “points outward” in the “trans-aggregate structure” of course itself always remains “inside”, and so the “artifacts” thus produced, asthe objects of my work, are my remaining outposts.

Rudolf Polanszky, models for trans-aggregate structures, 2005 / 2006, Video 11 min, loop, Courtesy of the artist

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Syncopation as a cognitive revolution

On the importance of cognitive revo-lutions

The artifact nature of forms isrevealed in periods of cognitive revo-lutions - when the human race provesable and willing to project on experi-ence new forms, incommensurablewith old ones. In such periods, the‘hold’ of old forms lessens and that ofthe new ones, still weak. Consequently,the citizens of these times becomeacutely aware of the fact that a certainaspect of their vision of the worldwas based on convention. Much ofthe raison d’être of revolutions in thecultural field stems from this point -Every form, responsive and open as itmight be, is in danger of being even-tually atrophied. The negative poten-tial of such developments is not lim-ited to culture; when the dominantforms become degenerate humansubjects loose their ability to self-reflect on their cognitive activities,namely, tend to confuse their ownproducts and projections with what isexternal and real. As a result, they canno longer live up to the commitmentto critical thinking, namely, refrainfrom metaphysical reification. Theability to change forms at will is thusof the highest significance tomankind; it is also the greatest mani-festation of one’s inner freedom. InKandinsky’s words:Freedom is manifested in the effort tofree oneself from those forms thatalready achieved their purpose i.e.old forms, in the effort to create end-lessly diverse forms.

No strategy can save oldforms from this fate other than onebent on initiating the next revolutionof form. In the cognitive domain, thatoften means finding a form incom-mensurable with the old ones.Incommensurable forms, vying forprojection into experience, tend tocancel each other out, as it were, giv-ing rise to a moment where experi-ence seems sensible bare. Only dur-ing such magical moments mankindis afforded a glimpse into its owncognitive machinations. Cognitiverevolutions, in conclusion, are neces-sary for the very possibility ofexpanding the cognitive abilities ofthe human race, in general, and, gen-uine self-reflection, in particular.

Syncopation and incommensurabilityOne historical episode we

deem a cognitive revolution hap-

pened as the result of the introductionof syncopated beat; under the influ-ence of ragtime and then jazz, thehuman race learned to ‘carve’ anentirely new type of temporal orsequential patterns onto experience.

Syncopation, immanently de-scribed, is a rhythm composed of twosources: a ‘strong beat’ - usuallyEuropean ‘two step’- provides the‘rhythmic skeleton’ and a second‘weak beat’ is described by jazzmusicians as an attempt to play off ofthe first, connecting before or afterthe accents of the latter.

The two sources of rhythmare usually incommensurable; theyhave no common divisor or denomi-nator and, for this reason, cannot begiven unified presentation. (In themanner in which a rhythm of ‘twofourths’ and one of ‘two thirds’ can beboth presented as fractions of twelve,for example.) Before the introductionof syncopated rhythm, music thatcombined different incommensurablerhythms, was considered necessarilydissonant. It was taken to be an a pri-ori truth that a manifold of soundsthat cannot be ‘unified’ in the mannerindicated - arranged according to asingle beat, - must be disagreeable tothe human ear. In the realm ofsequential patterns, ‘unity in diversi-ty’ meant finding a single divisor forall the rhythmic patterns found in thesounds.

For this reason, the aestheticreception of syncopated rhythmsrequired a conceptual revolution;whether we say that the maxim of‘unity in diversity’ was flaunted or,different concept of unity emerged,instead, the foundations of rhythmicunity had to be reformulated. It wasno longer possible to regard therequirement that a single overridingrhythm found in a manifold of soundsas a necessary condition of its ‘rhyth-mic unity’.

Syncopated music taught thehuman race the pleasures of incom-mensurable rhythms and frequencies.Indeed, the syncopated rhythms welisten to so often nowadays are in-variably made of incommensurablebeats ‘taken in’ and ‘held together’ asone. In the advent of syncopation, thehuman mind learned to instill musicalunity of an altogether different kindwithin his manifolds of sounds. Thelesson learned from syncopation wasthat strategically deviating from apattern does not necessarily amountto its destruction; quite to the con-

trary, syncopating to a strong beatfurnishes the subject with a newmeans for establishing a correlationtherewith.

Syncopation as a new cognitive abilityIt seems safe to say that the

ability to hold incommensurablerhythms together as a single rhythmicunity did not exist in Europe prior tothe end of the 19th century. This cog-nitive ability was imported, throughmusic, from the slave communities inthe Caribbean islands. The origin ofthe advanced state of the cognitivesystems of the latter was probably theresult of the fact that the slaves, tiedtogether to each other, ‘chain gang’style, had to learn to follow the‘strong beat’ of the group while, atthe same time, engaging in separateactivities of their own. Doing sorequired of them an ability whollyabsent in Europe, namely, to followsimultaneously two incommensu-rable rhythms at the same time. The large scale acquisition of theability to assimilate together a num-ber of incommensurable frequencieshad highly important consequences;the human race became vastly more‘cognitively sophisticated’. For allintents and purposes, holding togetherincommensurable frequencies amountsto finding for them an infinite divisor.One could say then, that, espousingsyncopation, the human tribe becameaccustomed to infinite operations onits manifolds of experience.

The social implications of syncopatedmusic

One could say that, assimilat-ing jazz, the modern wage-slaves ofthe city listened to the cognitiveadvice of an older subservient tribe.Through syncopation they learnedhow to inject a measure of individualstyle and ‘attitude’ into their highlyregimented life. Indeed, from thevery beginning of the twentieth cen-tury, youthful metropolitan typesadopted syncopation as their own.The new conception of musical unitywas immediately applied by scores ofjazz fans to different aspects of theirlife.

The aesthetic revolution thatfollowed the ragtime craze of the mid1890’s was one aspect of the genera-tion gap that opened at the time - ithelped the young generation to defineitself viz a viz the older one. The larg-er cognitive implications were obvi-ous - the youth was completely con-

scious of the fact that, having assimi-lated the principle of syncopation,they thereby acquired a new cogni-tive ability that changed, in nometaphorical sense, their cognitiverelation to their environment. Jazzshowed them how to project rhythmicpatterns onto manifolds of soundtheir fathers experienced as insuffer-able cacophonies. More specifically,they were introduced to a method thattaught them how to make the synco-pated sounds sounds of the metropol-itan environment not only acceptablebut agreeable - transforming theminto something to which they coulddance. Syncopated music was thusconsidered a quintessentially metro-politan form.

One aspect of jazz that wasparticularly important and appealingwas the cognitive solidarity and unityin groups of syncopating musicians.Once jazz became well known andappreciated, one could conceive ofany multiplicity of anarchic sourceswho play off of the same ‘strong beat’as a unity of a brand new type. To beunited, the individuals did not have tomarch in step; unity was consistentwith a measure of strategic individualdeviance.

The social implications of thesyncopation revolution were perfect-ly clear in the opening decades of thetwentieth century. Some were notwilling to be ‘cognitively reformed’.The Nazis, in particular, disliked syn-copated music. Apart from its associ-ation with Afro American culture,jazz provided an alternative to theirmilitary conception of collectiveunity according to which, absoluteobedience was required. The bolshe-viks, by contrast, accepted jazzenthusiastically; they understoodinstinctively that the ‘music of thejungle’ - as many referred to it earlyon - reconciled collectivism and indi-vidual creative freedom. Indeed, it isnot sufficiently acknowledged that, inthe early decades of the last century,jazz was part and parcel of the cultureof the communist. It provided a muchneeded proof that shedding off thesolipsism and solitude of bourgeoisexistence in order to becomeimmersed in a collective did not nec-essarily entail the loss of freedomand, individual style.

FROM THE STRUCTURE OFCOGNITIVE REVOLUTIONSY. M. Guttmann

HAMSTERWHEELTHE

JEAN-MARC BUSTAMANTE, URS FISCHER, OLIVIER GARBAYGELITIN, DOUGLAS GORDON, RACHEL HARRISON, SARAHLUCAS, PAOLA PIVI, RUDOLF POLANSZKY, UGO RONDINONETAMUNA SIRBILADZE, UNA SZEEMANN, PIOTR UKLANSKIFRANZ WEST, TOBY ZIEGLER

TESA DELLA NUOVISSIMA 105 / ARSENALE DI VENEZIAACTV 41/42 , 51/52, Fermata: Bacini Entrata: Spazio Thetis

JUNE 8TH - AUGUST 26TH OPENING JUNE 7TH 4PM

FESTIVAL PRINTEMPS DE SEPTEMBRE, TOULOUSESEPTEMBER 21ST - OCTOBER 14TH 2007

www.hamsterwheel.eu

HAMSTERWHEEL44

Urs Fischer, Spinoza Rhapsody, 2006, Epoxy resin, pigment, enamel, Ed. of 2 + 1 AP, Approx 400 x 950 x 1500 cm, © Urs Fischer. The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens; Ringier Collection, Switzerland. Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

45TERWHEEL

er Collection, Switzerland. Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

HAMSTERWHEEL46

The Hamster Wheel maybe the best metaphor yetfor the furious race againsttime that characterizesVenice during June ofevery odd year, when thecity becomes the ultimatedestination for a hungryart public seeking some-thing to sink its teeth into.Here amidst ramblingcanals and cool churchinteriors congregates anoverwhelming populous ofartists, art enthusiasts,curators and collectors work-ing to keep apace with theconstantly-changing tide oftalent and product broughton by the contemporary artworld. Fortunately, Veniceitself demands a certainslowing down of frenziedspectatorship, since its verylayout promotes both dis-covery and wrong turns.What may have started asan afternoon devoted tofinding an installation atthe Lido may become a pro-longed stop along the way,distraction being the nameof the game in a city filledwith visual and culinarydigressions. Returning tothe Hamster Wheel idea asa curatorial proposition,one is faced with an exhibi-tion that makes plain thefact of circles, tangents andunexpected encounters;artists choose each other,curators intervene as com-mentators, and friends dotheir part in oversight andorganization. “Encounters,not constructions of signifi-cation, are the importantthing,” reads the exhibitionprospectus – appropriatein this place of meanderingpaths and unforeseen con-nections.

All paths and encountersrequire starting points andmine begins with FranzWest, an artist whose workseems destined to circum-vent any adequate descrip-tion by successfully beingmany things at once, someof which don’t belong toobvious art categories. To

list a few (and they arethings): tabletops, restingspots, embedded bottles,dirty drawings, amorphousrocks, pictures as objects,objects as pictures, littleslapping devices, a place topee, plaques with people’snames on them, screens tohide behind, low-lying alu-minum dildos for outdoors,plaster faces with mouthsagape, oversized lamps,models of things alreadymade, white touchableobjects that resemble bodyparts and instruments oftorture, respectively. Likethe hamster wheel, thisabbreviated list offers noparticular order but drawsa circle, with each “devel-opment” feeding anotheror, just as likely, spinning anew riff on somethingmade years ago. There is achronology to the work, ofcourse, but a random item-ization gets more effective-ly at the bouncing back andforth of his practice, andthe prospect of its chang-ing with each new installa-tion or conglomeration.Some works are disassem-bled by the artist and rein-carnated as somethingnew; others live on with anarmy of curators and con-servators fighting to pre-serve the inevitably perish-able materials of plasterand papier-mache. Theseattempts cannot suppressthe fact of art’s inherentfragility and life span,which West’s work power-fully embodies in its mate-rials and conceptual frame-work.

Life’s routine also has itsplace in West’s world, andthough the work rarelyrepeats itself, the refer-ences to everyday habitsare very clear. The earlywork (1970s-1980s) speaksto time spent in cafes andmusic taverns, where ani-mated conversations andexaggerated gestures enact-ed to the sake of communi-cation sparked some inter-

est in the art that wouldsimilarly engage bizarregesticulation. Later bodiesof work allude to the acts ofdrinking, sleeping, defecat-ing (more on this in amoment) and having sex.And, of course, eating.Foraging for food, feedinghis staff and supplyingconstant sustenance tothose in his midst is aneveryday concern for West.Daily excursions to afavorite Chinese restau-rant in his neighborhood,

often followed by prolongedstops at an outdoor mar-ket, are part of the produc-tivity, albeit in the form ofrefueling. Virtually anyonecan show up at the tableand get a seat, though acore crew of handlers, fab-ricators, and builders arehis lunchtime staple. Con-versations unfold, food getssent back (West himselfisn’t a big eater), and peo-ple stop by to chat. Talkdrifts from one end of thetable to the next; someoneasks about the Lemur-heads, plaster-turned-alu-minum sculptures with gap-ing and oversized mouths.Suddenly it’s 3pm and theinterview hasn’t begun northe checklist confirmed northe flights booked. Wouldn’tit be nice to stop by theother studio to check onthe progress of one of thesitting pieces? Absolutely,it’s exactly the thing to bedone as we pile into a verycompact blue car playingvery bad music that no one

seems to notice.

West’s second studio, likethe main atelier in Vienna,is full of activity, withassistants sandblastingtables, tweakingStyrofoam models, andwelding aluminum. Thefloor carries the marks ofthese tasks, and I can’ttake my eyes off the kalei-doscopic drips. Baselinescome into view: feet,pedestals, points of con-tact. A huge diamond-

shaped work rests on a sin-gle tiny rod that is its sup-port. It all seems startling-ly precarious, very possiblyabout to tip over and fallapart, but it simply neverhappens. Gravity is mas-terfully commandeered byfine engineering, and thework holds its own againstthe pressure of constantdabs, slaps and add-ons,not to mention the periodicand accidental knock frompassersby. The work begsto be touched at everystage of incarnation, fromthe formless mass of graypapier-mache to the hard-ened and rocky surfacesthat constitute, in somecircles, West’s aesthetic sig-nature. The impetus tomanhandle goes back tothe very earliest interac-tive work, which he meantto be picked up, worn andcircumnavigated. Nowadaysprimary physical contactcomes in the form of one’sbackside, since sitting isintegral to the leisurely

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experience of West’s neweroutdoor work.

At one point in his a careerWest wondered aloud if hiswork constituted furnituremasquerading as art or artmasquerading as furni-ture, and the questionseems a good one to ponderfrom the seated position. IfWest’s work incites bodilymoves of interaction, it isnow frequently with kneesbent and derriere properlyplaced, bottom down onsome plastic platform thatmay or may not be appro-priately “fit” the anatomy inquestion. Here in his stu-dio, sitting releases a bar-rage of information straightfrom the artist’s mouth, asif settling one part of hisbody makes room for theactivation of other decided-ly verbal parts. On my ownreceiving end, a convention-al form of learning takesplace in response to thetalk, with scribbled notesmarking themes as theyare discussed, leaving thedetails to be taken by asmall digital recorder rest-ing on the table. The chal-lenge, as always, is back-ground noise, since peoplecome and go from the stu-dio with regularity, doorsslam and cell phones ring.In fact, the experience ofbackground noise and un-avoidable distractions is,in its own way, relevant tothe aggregate nature ofWest’s work, with its vari-ous permutations andpiled-on materials. A workthat makes the theme of

distractedness rather explic-it is Clamp (1988) an en-closed room that featureswalls lined with newspa-pers, a sofa, and severalfreestanding “telephone sculp-tures.” One imagines theprospect of some pressingincoming call, the voice onthe other end asking thatunsettling question, “Areyou sitting down?”

The situational aspects ofWest’s work, in particularthe onus it puts on theviewer/participant to sit,think and act, is also a fea-ture of the collective boy-group from Vienna, gelitin,whose events prompt phys-ical action in the extreme:body-on-body contact, mudbaths and rollercoaster joyrides are among theirrecent escapades. For gelitin,participation demands acertain letting down ofone’s guard, and recentlythe literal dropping ofpants. In addition to brownclay “paintings”, new workincludes the Shitplex (2006),a tall wooden structurethat leads, according to aKunsthaus Bregenz cata-logue, to a “small boothwhere you really shouldtake a shit. You really must,because it is so exciting.”Simultaneously a kind ofindoor tree house and lava-tory where nature can takeits course from on high, theShitplex is also a viewingstation complete with mir-rors allowing for posteriorrevelations. In a relatedproject, the artists system-atically documented their

own scatological triumphswith a camera. The result-ant shit-pictures, as theymight be called, turn out tobe more than a little grossthough in some ways fasci-nating, if you think abouthow the subject itself ashistory as opposed to speci-men. Manzoni canned hisshit in 30-gram doses in1961, for example, charg-ing buyers the price of goldfor his authentic waste(though the question ofwhether or not he actuallycanned the stuff remainsopen…). Beyond the obvi-ous humor of selling crapto collectors, Manzoni’sendeavor exposed the bath-room as perhaps the mostcompelling site of originali-ty, since no one’s shit canbe exactly the same (lead-ing to the inevitable ques-tion, is some shit betterthan others?). Gelitin’seffort is at once communal(all have “contributed”)and wide-ranging, with theartists weighing in amongstthemselves on whose styleis the more arabesque andwhose the more geometric.Their personalized approachis underscored by the factthat each “draws” a letterin his shit to form a collectivealphabet. Unlike Manzoni,though, the ‘actual’ shit ofgelitin is photographedrather than canned, turn-ing action into documenta-tion and in so doing pack-aging their private three-dimensional acts for a two-dimensional spot on yourwall.

Beyond the historicalexplanations that one canthrow at their art, the factis, the boys want to havefun. It’s an unavoidable con-sequence of being aroundthem, wallowing in theirmud baths and perusingtheir website (www.gelitin.net)where animated descrip-tions of pink bunnies coex-ist with text on installa-tions designed to “feel likea humongous implosion,sucking you into deep andprofound chaos, instability,joy and pure wonder.”Camping out on an artistic

playground built years agoby Paul McCarthy andMike Kelley, among others,gelitin engages all forms ofextreme (and extremelybad) behavior while wink-ing out of one eye. No sub-ject or person is abovereproach, least of all theartists themselves, whofeature prominently intheir own work and engageits oozing pleasures andflagrant absurdities asmuch as anyone else. Oftenthey put themselves as thecenter of something thatmight go terribly wrong(crushing bodies? burntflesh? beaurocratic may-hem?) and tempt chancewith their impromptuantics. A 2005 project atthe Shanghai Biennalepresented numerous logis-tical obstacles that theartists seized as part oftheir work (limited accessto a much-needed buildingresulted in their creation offake entry passes that theartists distributed amongstthemselves and whoeverhappened to want one,causing momentary may-hem). Upsetting systems oforder is an old game in theperformance art world, butit is played to new andcomical extremes in smartwork that revels in itscapacity to thwart, offend,and thoroughly indulgethose it engages. Somehownot surprisingly, the mem-bers met at summer campin the late 1970s.

There are certain logicalparallels that can bedrawn between Vienneseartists like Franz West andthe gelitin guys, who simi-larly work with crews ofparticipants and makers,who occupy spacious stu-dios in old buildings, andwhose work deals to agreater or lesser extentwith the psychologicaleffects of bodily experience.One might assume theseparallels to imply spheresof influence, but this can bean extremely difficult phe-nomenon to substantiate.Exchange may be the bet-

Franz West (untere Hälfte) beimBemalen eines Teils der Figurengruppe“The Fragile on its Cloak”

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ter model, since it is integralto the thinking of FranzWest, who has teamed upand swapped works withother artists throughouthis career. However, ex-change can also be amor-phous and subconscious,played out in fleeting con-versations or jointly heldexperiences that may bequietly forgotten. HamsterWheel takes up these mat-ters as an underlying con-cern, dispensing with the-matic or monographic exhi-bition models to pose a fewprovocative questions: “Isit chance that brought[these artists] together?Serendipity? Old boys’ net-works? Pitfalls on the careertrajectory between demen-tia praecox and dementiasenilis?” To this I mightadd that personal proximi-ty, the very fact of beingsomeplace with someone orsomething, probably doesmore to inform artistic andcuratorial decisions thananyone would like toadmit. As everyone knows,familiarity does not breedcontempt but opportunity.

When it comes to exhibi-tions, organizational ration-ale can run the gamut.Does the inclusion of everywork need a page-long jus-tification? Most curatorsand historians are trainedto answer with an unequiv-

ocal yes. But as HamsterWheel illustrates, the rulesare loosening to allow forthe addition of works delib-erately situated to upsetthematic balances and air-tight arguments. More crit-ics are paying attention tothe unpredictable associa-tions that can be madebetween works that arefundamentally “about” dif-ferent issues. Geoff Dyerrecently published a bookon photography, The OngoingMoment (Pantheon 2005),that addresses the unpre-dictable associations thatcan be made betweenworks that otherwise havelittle in common. Hands,blindness, people’s backs,unmade beds, and desertedrooms are among the sub-jects he takes up, usingexamples from differentartists and eras that com-municate across time. Theexperience of seeing com-monalities between ran-domly assembled objects islikewise a reality of curato-rial practice, since the verysystem we use to store andorganize works of art (bynationality, then last name)is the same system thatallows random serendipityto take place and beobserved. Thus we maynotice in the B box of a col-lection vault that JillBaroff and Astrid Bowlbyare obsessed with quasi-

organic patterning. In thesame box, though, can befound radically dissimilarobjects that are no lesspowerful in their completedisregard for one another,as if each were made to dis-prove the other’s point.

Tamuna Sirbiladze, wholives in Vienna and is mar-ried to West, could arguablyprovide the counterpoint tothe artists already dis-cussed, the fly in their oint-ment. Her large paintingsof floating bodies againstan aqueous world of pur-ples, blues and oranges aregraphic and emotionallyraw. This comes in partfrom a deliberate speed ofexecution – if content is notdelivered quickly enough,it is dropped. Thus paint-ings of reclined women, afigure puking into a sink,and a mountainous land-scape, all come from some-thing like a birthing processthat follows a long gesta-tion period. Overheardphrases like ‘it never hap-pened’ find new articula-tion in the visual languageof her paintings. It’s as ifcertain words lodge them-selves in the artist’s memo-ry bank and can only bereleased by painting themout, emptying them ontoher canvases. The workshave a kind of poured-outgut wrenching honesty

that stands in deliberatecontrast to the moretongue-in-cheek strategies ofher peers, and they arealso more narrative. One isleft to ponder the prospectthat in some ways thesefigures are real womenstaring at each other in themirror, and we are left toconstruct their stories as ifthey were our own. But ofcourse they’re not.

The idea of straying linesof inquiry is at the verycore of Hamster Wheel,much as it is central to theexperience of the art ingeneral. The inclusion ofan artist like Sirbiladzeinto the mix does much tochallenge viewers whomight expect conclusionsfrom group shows like thisone. In the end, no amountof reasoning can succinctlyexplain why these artistsbelong together. Yet in thesimultaneous pulling ofdifferent directions thattheir works offer, the proj-ect persuasively illustratesthe fact that, for the mostinteresting artists andexhibitions, tidiness is neveran option.

HAMSTERWHEEL48

The Hamsterwheel project devised in Vienna by Urs Fischerand Franz West will be inaugurated at the 52nd VeniceBiennale on 7th June 2007. It will take on a new dimension atthe 7th Printemps de Septembre show in Toulouse, from 21stSeptember to 14th October 2007. Many historians, critics,gallery owners and leading figures in the art world have had ahand in this project.

Locations:Tesa Della Nuovissima 105, Arsenale di Venezia www.hamsterwheel.euPrintemps de Septembre à Toulousewww.printempsdeseptembre.com

Thanks to:Darsie Alexander, Carola Annoni, Ben Bazalgette, EdithBergmann, Günther Bernhard, Bernie Bernsteiner, KlausBliem, John Bock, Achille Bonito Oliva, Karoline Brand, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Enrica Calebich, Valentina Cancelli, AnnaCaruso, Marcus Coates, Sadie Coles, Sadie Coles Gallery,Anna Colin, Livino Corradi, Roberto D’Agostino, Pauline Daly,ddkern, Marco Eneidi, Milovan Farronato, Urs Fischer, PeterFischli, Katharina Forero, Glenn Frei, Maike Fries, Frikki,David Galloway, Gagosian Gallery, Wolfgang Gantner, OlivierGarbay, Günther Gerdes, Alison Gingeras, Sara Glaxia,

Organisation: Valentina Cancelli

Publication:Layout: Albert MayrPrint: Herold Druck© by the artists and the authors. Für namentlich gezeichnete Beiträge übernehmen die Herausgeber keine Haftung. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without permission.All rights reserved.

Published by:SCHLEBRÜGGE.EDITORMuseumsplatz 1, quartier21/MQ1070 Wien, www.schlebruegge.at

Edited by:Firma Renate KainerEschenbachgasse 91010 Wien, www.meyerkainer.com

Printed in Austria

Matthias Goldmann, José Ruiz Gonzalez, Douglas Gordon,Antonietta Grandesso, Carol Green, Georg Gröller, MartinGuttmann, Bruce Haines, Marie-Frédérique Hallin, ChristophHarringer, Rachel Harrison, Heiri Häfliger, Alanna Heiss,Susanne Herder, Georg Herold, Peter Isler, Urs Jaeggi, AliJanka, Christian Jankowski, Philippe Joppin, Renate Kainer,Sophie Kinkel, Jutta Küpper, Mark Leckey, Simon LeeGallery, Thierry Leviez, Erik van Lieshout, Gabriel Loebell,Veit Loers, Sarah Lucas, Schuyler Maehl, Midori Matsui,Albert Mayr, Emanuela Mazzonis, Christoph Meier, ChristianMeyer, Jonathan Monk, Mundi, Greene Naftali Gallery, MariaNievoll, Michaela Obermair, Nansi O’Conner, Blandine Orfino,Antonio Ortega, Paola Pivi, Rudolf Polanszky, EvaPresenhuber, Printemps de Septembre Team, Sam Pulitzer,Philipp Quehenberger, Lindsay Ramsay, Stefan Ratibor,Florian Reither, Olivia Reither, Luca Rento, MarkusRischgasser, Ugo Rondinone, Galerie Thaddäus Ropac,Johannes Schlebrügge, Karl Schneller, Elfi Schnöll, TamunaSirbiladze, Ewald Stastny, Francesco Stocchi, Annika Ström,Una Szeemann, Markus Taxacher, Patrizio Telesio, JohannaTilche, Nicola Tonutti, Ines Turian, Alexandra Tuttle, AndreaÜberbacher, Piotr Uklanski, Tobias Urban, Kara Vander Weg,Salvatore Viviano, Suzanne Weenink, Hans Weigand, KerstinWeiss, David Weiss, Dominique Wenzel, Franz West, FranzWingelmaier, Nicolò Zen, Toby Ziegler, Ralf Ziervogel, DavidZink Yi, Thomas Zipp

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