Portable Landscapes

Portable Landscapes
A conversation between Inga Lāce and Àngels Miralda about de-territorializing identity through cultural production in the context of Latvia's centennial celebrations. The exhibition Portable Landscapes was on view at the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga earlier this year, is shown currently in Gotland and will subsequently travel to Berlin and New York. The exhibition aims to engage in a dialogue with the centennial of independence cultural program commissioned in all three Baltic states while revealing new research into artistic exile and émigré Latvian communities.

Neuerfindung einer Notwendigkeit

«Atlas of Commoning: Orte des Gemeinschaffens» im Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien (Berlin)

Neuerfindung einer Notwendigkeit
Berlin im August. Die gefühlten Aussentemperaturen liegen bei 40 Grad. Ich sitze zwischen Umzugskisten aus den Untiefen der Vergangenheit. 20 Jahre Geschichte(n) ungefähr. Es gilt, das Berliner Domizil aufzulösen. Endgültig. Es gibt Angenehmeres ... Als ich Ende der 90er Jahre hierherziehe, gehören Umziehen und Kistenpacken zum guten Ton. Man wälzt sich so durch die Stadt und Wohngemeinschaften. Eine grosse, gemeinschaftliche Karawane bis oben hin vollgestopfter Robben&Wintjes-Karren. Moabit, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg 61. Schliesslich lande ich in Berlin-Prenzlauerberg – hipp, hipp, hurra, mit der Hoffnung auf ein ewig junges, cooles und urbanes Leben.

What Plants Were Called before They Had a Name

Uriel Orlow, «Theatrum Botanicum», Kunsthalle St.Gallen

What Plants Were Called before They Had a Name
In his long-term artistic project Theatrum Botanicum, Uriel Orlow considers plants as actors on a political stage: protagonists of colonial trade, flower diplomacy, or bio-piracy. As such, they serve as a prism through which environmental colonial history can be re-negotiated. Theatrum Botanicum can be read as an attempt to decolonize both, history and nature. And for decolonizing nature, it is crucial how plants are considered as acting and living beings. If they tell stories about colonialism, how are they brought to speak?

«Contradictory Statements», Selina Grüter et Michèle Graf à Fri Art

Programmer la performance: une proposition contradictoire

«Contradictory Statements», Selina Grüter et Michèle Graf à Fri Art
Dès lors que l’on envisage l’art contemporain comme une activité culturelle, l’on a tendance à intégrer la performance comme ce qui offre une alternance au format de l’exposition en venant rythmer, par sa dimension événementielle, un programme. Par une série de stratégies appropriées, et notamment par ce que nous nommerons la programmation de la performance, Contradictory Statements, la proposition de Selina Grüter et Michèle Graf pour Fri Art, prend le contre-pied d’une tendance qui oppose dialectiquement la performance à l’exposition, comme le vivant s’oppose au mort.  

Psy-Alps: Abel Auer at Galerie Kirchgasse

Psy-Alps: Abel Auer at Galerie Kirchgasse

The landscapes of Abel Auer center on figures, flora, and various symbolist paraphernalia roaming in ‹out there› topographies. His exhibition at Galerie Kirchgasse, titled Schatten meiner Selbst (Shadow[s] of Myself), evokes the concept of the shadow in analytical psychology. Being aware of one’s own shadow is probably a good thing. The train of thought of the following review stretches across generations from the nineteenth century to the present, from landscape painting to mountaineering and, in the process, reflects on a psychedelic connection between the Himalayas and the Alps.

Old Media, Networks & Borders

You’ve Got 1243 Unread Messages at the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art

Old Media, Networks & Borders
The show You’ve Got 1243 Unread Messages at the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art deals with media before the internet, their materiality and potential as well as their restraints. It outlines artistic, political and personal strategies with economic and political interests mirrored in the media.

Jahresrückblick

Sam Pulitzer: der Schatten des Problems an sich

Jahresrückblick
Einige Ereignisse werfen ihren Schatten voraus, sagt man. Noch passiert nichts – man ahnte es aber schon, zumindest rückblickend. Welche Ereignisse es in diesem neuen Jahr sein mögen, sei vorerst dahingestellt. Was im vergangenen Jahr 2017 hingegen hätte geahnt werden können, das lesen wir nicht aus dem Satz des Silvesterkaterkaffees, sondern aus der Soloshow Shadow of the Problem as Such des jungen Amerikaners Sam Pulitzer (geboren im omenhaften 1984) in der Galerie Francesca Pia in Zürich.

Regionales Kunstvermittlungszentrum

Mitchell Anderson in der Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg

«Sie werden noch an mich denken.» Das hat eine Kursleiterin zu mir gesagt. Ihren Kurs musste ich besuchen, weil meine Betreuerin beim Zürcher RAV (Regionales Arbeitsvermittlungszentrum) fand, dass mit mir etwas gehen müsse. Ich nahm also teil an einem Kurs, in dem ich meine Bewerbungsunterlagen und -skills zu optimieren lernte.

Shahryar Nashat: An Image is an Orphan

Shahryar Nashat: An Image is an Orphan
Rigged to a free-standing display system, close but not touching the wall nor grounded, eight screens stand on their side, upright, sealed in a grid. Together their 8, 16:9 aspect ratios form a 5:4 aspect ratio. The unknown aspect a provocation to the now. The now, a provocation unto itself. On either side a speaker, by the entrance/exit door a subwoofer faces the screens, the body. The image holds the body. The space between simulation and failure holds the image. The words: «an image is a hustler » resonate. Shahryar Nashat’s An Image is an Orphan is a newly commissioned 18’22” HD video with sound, the core piece within Nashat’s solo exhibition The Cold Horizontals at Kunsthalle Basel. Below are notes on the content of the video and its mediation.  

 

Learning to Speak? Part 2

A discussion about ‹black›ness in Switzerland and why art institutions should burn their fingers on this issue.

Learning to Speak? Part 2
On January 30, 2017 we published a review of an exhibition by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Kunsthalle Basel on Brand-New-Life. One of the questions the article raises is why the debate accompanying the exhibition doesn’t touch on the implications of the fact that the paintings of the British artist with Ghanaian roots depict exclusively dark-skinned figures. In response to the article, Elena Filipovic, the curator of the exhibition and Director of Kunsthalle Basel sought a dialog with us. We thereupon invited Elena and a few other individuals whose opinions on the topic we were curious about to a private discussion. Finding a date proved difficult, though. As a result, we ended up sitting in the Kunsthalle library twice with groups of, in each case, slightly different composition. Although the initial question was the same, the two discussions unfolded in different directions with different thematic priorities. Still, both discussions are an attempt to reflect on the ways in which issues of blackness may be discussed in Switzerland—in art and with art. In passages, we even demonstrated such a way of speaking.

Gab es sie je, die guten Dinge?

Stefan Burger in der Kunsthalle Bern

Gab es sie je, die guten Dinge?

Stefan Burgers umfangreiche Ausstellung fotografischer Arbeiten impliziert die inhärent widersprüchliche Genese der analogen Fotografie im Laufe der Industrialisierung. Die neuen Arbeiten sind nicht nur alle namenlos, sondern entziehen sich sowohl kategorischen Sujets wie Stilleben oder modernistische Abstraktion wie auch mediumspezifischen und damit einhergehenden indexikalen Lesarten. Burgers teilweise plastische Bilderzeugung reicht von raffiniert verführerischen Oberflächen bis hin zu einer «immateriell» wirkenden Flora und dialogisiert hierbei unerwarteterweise mit den freischwebenden und referenzgleichgültigen digitalen Bildwelten welche die postindustrielle Dienstleistungsgesellschaft bewerben.

Portentous Chainsaw Massacre

Claudia Comte at Kunstmuseum Lucerne

Portentous Chainsaw Massacre

In her first major institutional show in Switzerland Claudia Comte delivers all the dull mid-range design we’ve come to expect, but here there’s a lot more and, now, with the incredulous air of credibility. Titled 10 Rooms, 40 Walls, 1059 m2, and featuring over 60 paintings, 40 sculptures, 40 wall paintings and some prints, it’s an epic ode to the big, dumb and aggressively anti-intellectual. 

Yes, I believe every word you say?

Glaube, Macht, Arbeit in Andrea Büttners «Gesamtzusammenhang», Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, 04.03.–07.05.2017

Yes, I believe every word you say?
Politischen Aktivismus religiöser Gemeinschaften, Schlagworte wie Humanität oder Ethik auszuloten, um dabei Idealismus gegen Materialismus zu halten – nichts weniger hat sich Gesamtzusammenhang vorgenommen. Dass Andrea Büttner sich politischem Widerstand durch Glaube nähert, provoziert die säkularisierte Kunstwelt des 21. Jahrhunderts. Ihr Schaffen entfaltet dabei eine ambivalente Faszination für verdrängte Erzählungen.

Myths of the Marble

A group exhibition at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo and the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia

Myths of the Marble

Conceiving a thematic exhibition around a pioneering — or disastrous — moment in history has long become an accepted staple for exhibition makers seeking a reliable conceptual framework to lean on. Reconsidering this approach, the multi-faceted group show Myths of the Marble instead looks mostly to present fact and fiction.

Laure Prouvost: Trying

Kunstmuseum Luzern

Laure Prouvost: Trying
Walking into Laure Prouvost’s exhibition I nearly missed a note she had dropped. She had written it for the moment I moved through the liminal glass passage where you can see galleries in front and behind, yet below lies the water of Lake Lucerne. It read «…look iam waving but maybe you cant see me I can see you, you look great today…» in sloping cursive, though nobody down there seemed to be looking up.

Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round So Our Thoughts Can Change Direction

Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round So Our Thoughts Can Change Direction
Someone I met in Berlin a little while ago said he couldn't wait for the Biennale to end so that people could finally start talking about something else. The shock of the summer in this city was that Manifesta 11 wasn't the big talking point after all, but that the excellent retrospective of Francis Picabia at the Kunsthaus Zürich was. In fact, these two exhibitions had more in common than just their dates; while DIS used to concern themselves primarily with visual tropes of 21st century work (the theme Manifesta chose as its subject matter), the Picabia show and the DIS Biennale engage much more with questions of artistic authenticity, sincerity and political responsibility.  

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