laterpost 2015. Bea Schlingelhoff at Taylor Macklin, Zürich

28 February 2018 - exhibition, laterpost - Comments Off on laterpost 2015. Bea Schlingelhoff at Taylor Macklin, Zürich

Speaking of Tintoretto and then of the Impressionists, Eco talks about painterly marks creating a state of animation and aliveness: a cacophony of information wherein the sign becomes “imprecise, ambiguous. But not so the forms themselves.” [The Open Work, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, p. 85] Thanks to a degree of formal composition, the eye of the observer can still recognize Monet’s cathedrals as cathedrals, even as they are on the verge of “liquefaction, of dissolution.” In this state of near obscuration, the “open work” remains inexhaustible, as we are unable to access it in its entirety. In doing so, the work enacts the fact that we do not operate in a well-controlled world based on universally acknowledged, totally graspable laws. We exist in a state of almost collapsing movement, where norms (from cathedrals to music scores to governance) must be negotiated, questioned and made strange. In this sense a key feature of the open work is enacting and creating defamiliarization. Defamiliarization might occur when a subject disengages herself from her dominant normative vision of the “bounded-self” and starts to think in ways that connect her, complexly, to others. This is what Rosi Braidotti maintains, and it’s a part of her methodology of posthuman critical theory. Put simply, defamiliarization teaches us to think differently. – A Not So Sad September, Cally Spooner on Umberto Eco’s ‘open work’, Flash Art International, Issue 308, May 2016

26 February 2018 - hyperlink, text - Comments Off on Speaking of Tintoretto and then of the Impressionists, Eco talks about painterly marks creating a state of animation and aliveness: a cacophony of information wherein the sign becomes “imprecise, ambiguous. But not so the forms themselves.” [The Open Work, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, p. 85] Thanks to a degree of formal composition, the eye of the observer can still recognize Monet’s cathedrals as cathedrals, even as they are on the verge of “liquefaction, of dissolution.” In this state of near obscuration, the “open work” remains inexhaustible, as we are unable to access it in its entirety. In doing so, the work enacts the fact that we do not operate in a well-controlled world based on universally acknowledged, totally graspable laws. We exist in a state of almost collapsing movement, where norms (from cathedrals to music scores to governance) must be negotiated, questioned and made strange. In this sense a key feature of the open work is enacting and creating defamiliarization. Defamiliarization might occur when a subject disengages herself from her dominant normative vision of the “bounded-self” and starts to think in ways that connect her, complexly, to others. This is what Rosi Braidotti maintains, and it’s a part of her methodology of posthuman critical theory. Put simply, defamiliarization teaches us to think differently. – A Not So Sad September, Cally Spooner on Umberto Eco’s ‘open work’, Flash Art International, Issue 308, May 2016

Pyongyang Elegance: Notes on Communism by Amalia Ulman for Affidavit.art, February 12, 2018

21 February 2018 - hyperlink, text - Comments Off on Pyongyang Elegance: Notes on Communism by Amalia Ulman for Affidavit.art, February 12, 2018

David Hanes. wfw aware #49

16 February 2018 - aware, wfw contributor - Comments Off on David Hanes. wfw aware #49

The Task (2017), directed by Leigh Ledare, on view at True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, on March 2-4, 2018

12 February 2018 - agenda, hyperlink - Comments Off on The Task (2017), directed by Leigh Ledare, on view at True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, on March 2-4, 2018

wfw weekend #444

11 February 2018 - exhibition, features, weekend - Comments Off on wfw weekend #444

wfw weekend #443

10 February 2018 - exhibition, features, weekend - Comments Off on wfw weekend #443

Kunsthalle for Music, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 26 January 2018 – 3 March 2018

9 February 2018 - exhibition, hyperlink - Comments Off on Kunsthalle for Music, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 26 January 2018 – 3 March 2018

I love the idea of context, and also how you make people look at things, of, you know, things that they take for granted. And I remember, when I was a kid, there was a tree on the street that had blown down; it was, like, enormous. I remember being shocked by its size except when it was upright. Every day you walk past it, you never even see it. You know, with the Pharmacy installation, I wanted to get a pharmacy and put it into an art gallery, but one where you actually think you are in a…you know, in a pharmacy. Then, you know, just to… not even confuse you, but it just makes you question everything, but, also at that time, I was thinking about the…I wanted, like, you to believe in art. I wanted, you know, quite desperately for people to believe in art in a way that I believed in it, and I remember being aware that they totally believed in pharmacies, but, you know, walked into art galleries, and went, you know, “All that kind of modern art is rubbish.” I remember thinking that, you know, an art gallery and a pharmacy, you know, there’s no difference, really. It’s just a white room, and you know, they just function differently. One of them is trying to sell you art, the other one is trying to sell you drugs. – Damien Hirst, transcription from Channel 4: Damien Hirst 360 Private View, April 2012

9 February 2018 - hyperlink - Comments Off on I love the idea of context, and also how you make people look at things, of, you know, things that they take for granted. And I remember, when I was a kid, there was a tree on the street that had blown down; it was, like, enormous. I remember being shocked by its size except when it was upright. Every day you walk past it, you never even see it. You know, with the Pharmacy installation, I wanted to get a pharmacy and put it into an art gallery, but one where you actually think you are in a…you know, in a pharmacy. Then, you know, just to… not even confuse you, but it just makes you question everything, but, also at that time, I was thinking about the…I wanted, like, you to believe in art. I wanted, you know, quite desperately for people to believe in art in a way that I believed in it, and I remember being aware that they totally believed in pharmacies, but, you know, walked into art galleries, and went, you know, “All that kind of modern art is rubbish.” I remember thinking that, you know, an art gallery and a pharmacy, you know, there’s no difference, really. It’s just a white room, and you know, they just function differently. One of them is trying to sell you art, the other one is trying to sell you drugs. – Damien Hirst, transcription from Channel 4: Damien Hirst 360 Private View, April 2012

Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein. Bikini, Basel

9 February 2018 - exhibition - Comments Off on Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein. Bikini, Basel

wfw weekend #442

3 February 2018 - exhibition, features, weekend - Comments Off on wfw weekend #442

Michael E. Smith at 500 Capp Street Foundation, San Francisco, November 18, 2017 – February 3, 2018 via contemporary art daily

1 February 2018 - exhibition, hyperlink, web - Comments Off on Michael E. Smith at 500 Capp Street Foundation, San Francisco, November 18, 2017 – February 3, 2018 via contemporary art daily