Jeremy Beaudry (Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum)
Reckoning with Unknown Knowns:
a brief for Manifesta PLATFORM FOR (UN)SOLICITED RESEARCH AND ADVICE
The development of ACAF’s curatorial contribution to Manifesta 8 begins with a quest to identify the ‘unknown knowns’ of the contemporary art system. What do we believe, but don’t know we believe, about contemporary art and curating? And what about politics, human geographies or histories, and the communication of cultural difference through today’s culture infrastructure? What codification occurs along the points where the mundane details of everyday life meet with the industries of politics and culture?
Art appropriated as a tool for a social and political agenda has inhibited us in locating the deep beliefs and knowledge that we are not fully aware of, but which we harbour in our collective unconscious. It is time to begin understanding this collective unconscious of art and locate what might be the actual problems at hand, or even better, what could even offer some solutions.
The Theory of Applied Enigmatics is rooted in an analysis of the condition of art today, and from there looks to operate as a kind of cultural algorithm, leading us towards some resolutions for the questions above. Through its application, the theory should lead towards the emergence of a multi-layered and complex project that while remaining part of what we call the ‘art system’ makes a route to its goal without using most of the widely accepted or highly criticized paths to a ‘successful project’.
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Platform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice
(Lauren Alexander, Lado Darakhvelidze, Jimini Hignett, Anna Hoetjes, Jeroen Marttin, Eva Olthof, Julio Pastor and Patrícia Sousa)
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Erick Beltrán
Dear Friends,
Since we will meet next Wednesday and as a way of creating common ground between us, I would like to propose a very simple though intense game.
1- Could you make the biggest list of fundamental questions that you need to find an answer to?
Let me rephrase it (adding focus): Which are the questions that you really feel should be solved in order to reach a sense of wide contact with the world?
Another rephrasing: As participant of the world who is in a constant interchange within its particles, there are a lot of incomprehensible things, plenty of gaps, hundreds of misunderstandings, infinite false starts and mistakes, seems most of this communication is just guessing a going with the flow. Which are the doubts and questions that if solved would fill up that gap?
Eager to meet you,
Erick
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Plattform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice
Who are we?
1. Rousseau defines constitutional law as an “expression of a general will.” Whose general will is involved in this case? Who will establish the content of this constitution?
The participating artists establish the content. These artist are currently students at the Dutch Art Institute and the (soon to be ex-) members of the Platform for Unsolicited Research and Advise. FG will be available as a mediator, facilitating and initiating discussion, helping to distill a goal. Artists can ask FG, his role is not fixed or obligatory and he will not participate unless asked.
2. Are these people the artists and curators and invited advisors – during the preparatory phase of the exhibition?
Participating artists can invite advisors, but the invited advisors won’t be part of the constitution.
3. Do we also include other groups and individuals?
No.
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Boris Ondreička, tranzit.org
QUESTIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION FOR TEMPORARY DISPLAY
tranzit.org proposes creating THE CONSTITUTION FOR TEMPORARY DISPLAY to challenge all stereotypes that biennials (and exhibition formats in general) bring.
tranzit.org would like to submit the mechanisms of the biennial (and exhibition formats in general) to the critical consideration of the artists and advisors, with a desire to make the constitutional proclamation happen and to translate it into concrete steps for action.
Who are we?
1. Rousseau defines constitutional law as an “expression of a general will.” Whose general will is involved in this case? Who will establish the content of this constitution?
2. Are these people the artists and curators and invited advisors – during the preparatory phase of the exhibition?
3. Do we also include other groups and individuals?
How do we work?
5. What will be the principle for preparing the CTD?
6. What form and structure of discourse do we establish? And how will the on-site physical dialogue then be conducted during the installation and opening period, and then for the duration of the display? More »
Jeroen Marttin
-Yes
-Yes
-Biennials try to tell me what is art, even if it isn’t that nice.
Lado Darakhvelidze
Ideal Media, Biennale Cuvee 10
Patrícia Sousa
I could mention several different things that have surprised me for this or that, for more or less logical reasons. Having to think of one I decided to choose this image. It is for me a beautiful image.
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Eva Olthof
After reading this question I was thinking about my road trip to Morocco that turned out to be a road trip through Andalusia, Spain. After my passport was stolen out of our old camper van. In my mind I passed by the cultural buildings I had seen there: la Alhambra in Granada, la Mezquita in Córdoba and el Archivo del Indio in Seville. Interesting things. Cultural things. Nice things. More »
Jimini Hignett
Beware of beautiful surroundings. You may be overcome by a sense of melancholy which lurks in the spectacle of such beauty. The melancholy of its impossibility. The beauty of the individual parts, the trees, the grass – her seductive softness, which actually isn’t soft at all but prickly, full of ants and thorns, only the idea of softness – these stir up a longing for a memory in which the grass really is soft, really is green. The sadness has something to do with the impossibility of that memory.
Anna Hoetjes
A week ago I was asked for a publication to react visually on the question: ‘What do you like to look at?’ More »
Denis Isaia
Respond one question at a time, without thinking of the question that follows. You do not need to respond to all of the questions. If you do not like the question that follows, or if it does not suit you, do not go any further.
- Is there anything nice you have seen? (In a general sense, thinking of your experience, of what you have done, seen, read, or lived)
- Are you interested in knowing if what you consider nice is art?
- In which way can you relate the big biennials with the two previous questions?
Jeroen Marttin
The Death of the Author
The Death of the Author is an important text from structuralist and critic Roland Barthes, published for the first time in 1967. But more imporant the Death of the Author is a concept in art theory about the giving of meaning. Barthes argued that the viewer was the one who was important for the making of meaning. The author was the one who wrote the story down (or painted it on a canvas) and afterwards his job was done. He might have put his own meaning in it, but a viewer could still extract a totally different meaning. More »
Jimini Hignett
Official Invitation (scribble-down letters!) / Photo by Timothy Greathouse
Media-Savvy
Coined ‘The Royal Drag’ by the SOHO-news, Topo Grajeda & Jimini Hignett’s wedding performance planned to challenge Charles and Di’s monopoly of prime-time news on July 29th 1981, was a wonderful combination of art and media-savvy. Performing in New York in the early 80’s under the name ‘Christians from Outer Space’, Topo and Jimini topped their usual aim of having their name appear in the local listings each week – performing at off-off-Broadway locations on the Lower East Side and on the sidewalks midtown – with this cross-dressed version of the Royal knot-tying making onto the Channel-7 news. More »
