In this issue

2012 Future Greats ArtReviews eighth annual Future Greats special issue, created in association with EFG International, is, well, the most international yet. Beatrix Ruf, Mary Heilmann, Willem de Rooij, Joanna Warsza, Elena Filipovic, Boris Ondreika, Joanna Mytkowska and Christine Tohme, to name a few, join other artists, critics and curators from around the world to single out 25 artists for special attention. What emerges is not just a highly detailed picture of what contemporary art looks like in this era of instability and unrest, but also signs of a unity of purpose in artists around the world as they expand practices beyond what can be shown, experienced, bought and sold in traditional venues. These emerging strains include live performance, with an emphasis on narrative and storytelling; forms of architecture that extend into urban intervention and social activism; and contrasting approaches to digitalisation, either embracing the vast resources of found photography and video, or turning away, towards sculpture or a renewed attention to photographys tactile and material presence. Its perhaps a sign of the volatile mood of the times that the artists in this edition of Future Greats are busy rethinking how art can jump in and make its mark in a world where all the old reference points are disappearing. Dra Maurer I dont want to be a star or suchlike. Im not the type, Dra Maurer tells Mark Rappolt when he pays a visit to her Budapest apartment-studio. Part grande dame, part overnight sensation, Maurer has been an influential figure in art since the 1970s, and regardless of whatever reservations she may be having, shes currently experiencing a critical rebirth. Maurer updates her breakout work, Seven Turns (which grabbed a lot of attention at the Istanbul Biennial last autumn, 33 years after its creation) for the cover of the March issue. Plus New comic art by Luke Pearson, 10 exhibition previews by Martin Herbert, 22 exhibition reviews by ArtReviews global network of critics, an interview with Karl Marx, and Gallery Girl on British arts beggar thy neighbour policy.

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Issue 57

MARCH 2012

5.00

Contains 30% greatness; 16% fluorescent PANTONE 812; 18% of a damien hirst print; 1 mystery illness

Hungarys best-kept secret

Maurer

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25 artists for tomorrow selected by the leading artists and curators of today

Future Greats

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(including collaborations with DANA SHERWOOD) 25/0110/03/2012 Schleifmhlgasse 5, 1040 Vienna, www.georgkargl.com

Editorial Editor Mark Rappolt Executive Editor David Terrien Art Director Tom Watt Design Peter Ainsworth Jonathan Baron Associate Editors J.J. Charlesworth Martin Herbert Editors at Large Laura McLean-Ferris Jonathan T.D. Neil Assistant Editor Oliver Basciano editorial@artreview.com Interns Emma Lester, Robert Quirk

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On the cover Dra Maurer, self-portrait in collaboration with Evi Fbin, January 2012
Reprographics by PHMEDIA. ArtReview is printed by Wyndeham Group. Copyright of all editorial content in the UK and abroad is held by the publishers, ArtReview Ltd. Reproduction in whole or part is forbidden save with the written permission of the publishers. ArtReview cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage to unsolicited material. ArtReview, ISSN 1745-9303, is published nine times a year by ArtReview Ltd. USA agent: IMS Clevett Worldwide, 19 Route 10 East, Bldg 2 Unit 24, Succasunna, NJ 07876. Subscription price is US $55 per annum. Periodicals Postage Paid at Folcroft, PA. Postmaster: Send address changes to: ArtReview, IMS NY c/o Julie Dorlot, 100 Walnut Street, Door #1, Champlain, NY 12919, T: 1 518 298 3212

14

Sala Longhi, 2011. Photo by Francesco Allegretto.

VENIcE SuItE: SaLa LONghI aND REL atED WORkS

FRED WI LSON
MaRch 17 aPRIL 14, 2012 510 West 25th street, NYC

Contents 1
36

44 26

40

50

119

86

139

68

77

77

145

February MarCH 2012

Rosson CRow

baLLyHOO HuLLabaLOO HabOOb

HONOR FRASER
2622 S. La Cienega BLvd. LoS angeLeS, CaLifornia 90034 www.honorfraSer.Com

Contents 2
Page 20 22 Title Contributors A New Reference Dictionary Subject They made this The language of art made plain Writer / Photographer Neal Brown Now See This 26 March Exhibitions Shows to see this month Martin Herbert 27 Short Reports Vienna Kimberly Bradley Paris Marie Darrieussecq Budapest Aron Fenyvesi The Strip Paul Gravett 32 Comic Strip Melting Luke Pearson 36 Now Buy This A selection of objects you dont yet know you need Oliver Basciano 40 Off-Space Travels Supplement, London Oliver Basciano 44 Great Critics and Their Ideas Karl Marx Matthew Collings 48 Now Hear This Whats occupying our critics this month? J.J. Charlesworth Christian Viveros-Faun Joshua Mack Hettie Judah Jonathan Grossmalerman Maria Lind Sam Jacob Mike Watson Featured 68 Dra Maurer The art star who doesnt want to be one Mark Rappolt 77 Future Greats Todays leading artists and curators select Future Greats Panel 25 artists for special attention Reviewed 115 Exhibitions Synthetic Real Dara Birnbaum Catherine Story Roisin Byrne  Simon Fuijiwara Chooc Ly Tan Michael Snow Gregory Halpern Joel Sternfeld Sanja Ivekovi Brian Bress Glenn Kaino Stefan Brggemann How German Is It? Rivane Neuenschwander Timur Si-Qin Akram Zaatari Drawing Room Kati Heck Goshka Macuga Mathematics, A Beautiful Elsewhere Wang Yuping 138 On the Town Whitechapel Gallery, Modern Art and Pilar Corrias 140 Books The Art of Cruelty Care of Wooden Floors Painting Between the Lines Distrust That Particular Flavor Hans Hollein Robot Agnes Martin Concrete Comedy 146 Off the Record Foreign affairs...

J.J. Charlesworth Sally OReilly Ben Street Jennifer Thatcher Martin Herbert James Clegg Jonathan T.D. Neil Siona Wilson Brienne Walsh Joshua Mack Andrew Berardini Ed Schad Violaine Boutet de Monvel John Quin Luke Clancy Barbara Casavecchia Martin Herbert Chris Bors Sam Steverlynck Pavel S. Py Mark Rappolt Iona Whittaker Ian Pierce J.J. Charlesworth Oliver Basciano Laura McLean-Ferris Mark Rappolt Oliver Basciano Mark Rappolt Laura McLean-Ferris Sally OReilly Gallery Girl

www.margarethowell.co.uk

Contributors
Elena Filipovic is a writer, art historian and curator at WIELS, in Brussels. She cocurated the 5th Berlin Biennale (2008) with Adam Szymczyk, and coedited The Biennial Reader: An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art (2010) with Marieke van Hal and Solveig vsteb. She has curated or cocurated a number of historic retrospectives, including Marcel Duchamp: A Work That Is Not a Work of Art (20089), Felix GonzalezTorres: Specific Objects Without Specific Form (201011) and Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 19551972 (201112), cocurated with Joanna Mytkowska, in addition to organising solo exhibitions with artists such as Klara Lidn, Lorna Macintyre, Melvin Moti, Tomo SaviGecan and Tris Vonna-Michell. This month she contributes to the Future Greats feature. Mary Heilmann is an artist based in New York, where she moved following studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Berkeley. Major solo exhibitions have included Weather Report: Drawings and Prints, at Museum Ludwig in 2010; Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, which opened at the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, in 2007 and travelled to Houstons Contemporary Arts Museum, the Wexner Center for the Arts, in Columbus, and New Yorks New Museum; Mary Heilmann: All Tomorrows Parties at Secession, Vienna, in 2003; and at Camden Arts Centre, London, in 2001. Heilmann is exhibiting at Hauser & Wirth, London, until 5 April. This month she contributes to the Future Greats feature. Willem de Rooij is an artist. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1990 to 95 and at the Rijksakademie from 1997 to 98. He has been a tutor at De Ateliers in Amsterdam since 2002 and professor of fine arts at the Stdelschule in Frankfurt am Main since 2006. De Rooij lives and works in Berlin. He worked and exhibited with Jeroen de Rijke until 2006, followed by exhibitions at K21, Dsseldorf (2007), and at the Museo dArte Moderna di Bologna (2008). He received a Robert Fulton Fellowship at Harvard University in 2004 and represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale in 2005. His works are in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, MUMOK, Vienna, and MoMA, New York. A solo exhibition of his work is at Kunstverein Mnchen until 15 April. This month he contributes to the Future Greats feature. Joanna Mytkowska is a curator and art critic. Since 2007 she has been director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. She cofounded the Foksal Gallery Foundation, also in Warsaw, where she worked from 2001 to 07. She has been a curator at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, where she organised the exhibitions The Magellanic Cloud in 2007, and The Anxious in 2008, as well as a project with Pawe Althamer in 2006. She curated the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005, exhibiting Repetition by Artur Zmijewski. She was a cocurator of Promises of the Past, a major survey of Eastern European art at the Centre Pompidou in 2010. This month she contributes to the Future Greats feature. Aron Fenyvesi Aron Fenyvesi is a Budapest-based curator and art writer, where, since 2011, he has been curator of Traf gallery. He was previously executive secretary of the Studio of Young Artists Association, and was nominated for the Lorenzo Bonaldi EnterPrize award for art in 2009, hosted by GAMeC, Bergamo. Fenyvesi has curated exhibtions in Hungary and elsewhere that focus on local and regional emerging art scenes, including at the Ernst Museum, Budapest, the Art Gallery in Paks and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Dunajvros. In 2010 he curated an exhibition at Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg, Germany. In this issue Fenyvesi reports on current cultural policy emanating from Budapest. Contributing Editors Tyler Coburn, Brian Dillon, Hettie Judah, Axel Lapp, Joshua Mack, Christopher Mooney, Niru Ratnam, Chris Sharp Contributing Writers Andrew Berardini, Chris Bors, Violaine Boutet de Monvel, Kimberly Bradley, Neal Brown, Giovanni Carmine, Barbara Casavecchia, Luke Clancy, James Clegg, Matthew Collings, Alfredo Cramerotti, Marie Darrieussecq, Willem de Rooij, Jason Evans, Jacob Fabricius, Aron Fenyvesi, Elena Filipovic, Theaster Gates, Paul Gravett, Jonathan Grossmalerman, Nav Haq, Mary Heilmann, Sam Jacob, Maria Lind, Holly Myers, Joanna Mytkowska, Boris Ondreika, Sally OReilly, Susanne Pfeffer, Pavel S. Py, John Quin, Ishmael Randall Weeks, Beatrix Ruf, Ed Schad, Sam Steverlynck, Ben Street, Jennifer Thatcher, Christine Tohme, Christian ViverosFaun, Brienne Walsh, Joanna Warsza, Mike Watson, Siona Wilson, Iona Whittaker Contributing Artists / Photographers Dra Maurer, Luke Pearson, Ian Pierce

Correction A review of work by the artist Oscar Murillo, published in ArtReview issue 56, misstated the title and location of the project; it was Animals Die from Eating Too Much Bingo! (2011), and it was performed at his gallery, Carlos/Ishikawa, London.
20

Gray Sky

MEENA PARK

March 1 - 31, 2012 Opening Reception : March 1st 6-8pm

Dictionary

Oo
object to ownership

object See breast. objet trouv See breast.  oblivion Durational art such as literature, theatre  and films concludes in the compound locus of an extinguishing oblivion termed the end. A painting or sculpture has locus ceasement upon the spectator needing tea or coffee, or having unbidden locus sexual thoughts. obscenity Many authorities consider idolatry as  a locus synonym for a partitioning relationship with transgressive sexuality, whose variant multiplicities of specific genital detailings constitute the cultural determinations of a profane breaking of locus covenantal relationships. The Hebrew Prophets frequently compared the sin of idolatry to the sin of adultery in highly stated rhetorical figures, sometimes as allegories for whole peoples. In the Book of Ezekiel, Oholah and Oholibah (Samaria and Jerusalem) were guilty of the abomination of idolatry and of religious and political deviancy. Ezekiels rhetoric against these two figures and his comparison of their idolatry to a sexual obscenity is patriemphatic: There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled. (Ezekiel 23:2021). Donkey genitals are a rare topic in Western Christian art. obsession See opera. Oedipus See breast. official war art See Call of Duty (2003). oh la la See donkey genitals. Oholah Appears with Oholibah in the Book of Ezekiel. See obscenity. Oholibah See obscenity. oi l paint The locus multiplicity gradations of visual meaning possible with oil paint may be posited on a continuum of infinite locus, and thus correspond with the biogenerative locus of secreted bodily mucus. From a conservation perspective, oil paint is better than bodily fluid, as dried sperm tends to flake. Old Master See Panofsky. Ol ympics (art) Religious games that will take place in London in 2012. The ancient Greek games were first held in honour of Zeus, at a religious sanctuary site, and involved ritual sacrifices (including oxen). Theodosius I suppressed them in 393 AD, so as to impose Christianity as state religion. Their traditions, including bovine-meat-product sponsorship, resumed when Christianity ended and the modern games of 1896 began. Sculptors, poets and artisans congregate each Olympiad to display their works of art to the intensely

beautiful wives of cruel, pockmarked oligarchs and ugly, vulgarian bankers. Poems in honour of the Olympic victors are passed from generation to generation. For 2012 the games will involve new religious competitions between Muslims, Christians and militant atheists. The sculptor Phidias is to create a statue of an oligarch made of gold and ivory. It will stand 42 feet (13m) tall and be placed on a throne. The dying words of religious philosopher Christopher Hitchens are said to have been: The glory of the Gods will persist on account both of the festal assembly and of the Olympian Games, in which the prize is a crown and which is regarded as sacred The Gods are adorned by their numerous offerings. Earlier ritual religious festivals have included the Dome and the international art fair, through which the initiated believed that they would have a reward in the afterlife. There are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Olympiads. Note: between 1862 and 1867 Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. See Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Kop. Ono, Yoko See breast. opera See Dawkins, Hitchens. orgasm Increased increments of sexual pleasure have, art historically, led to Surrealism, rather than orgasm, since when the term convulsive has become privileged by theorists. In actuality the term means only quite interesting. orgone chamber See opera. or i fice The locus basis of modern and contemporary art in which the void, receptacle or trace of a negative locus absence is invoked. The orifice referred to is not the generative vaginal one, but the anus, sometimes celebrated for its potentiality for extreme prolapse or colonic digression. In locus terms, the gallery is the anus. ornament See Minimalism, kitsch. Orwell, George Esteemed writer. ossuary A place where the bones of the dead  are kept. In contemporary art, these bones are often placed in codified structures that have symbolic correspondence with the colonic anus. See orifice. Other, The See Facebook. Ovid Writer. Important for his influence on Walt Disney and thus on contemporary art practice. ovum See Brancusi. ownership Many leftist theorists posit that the  good breast and the bad breast should be subject to economic nationalisation. Rightist theorists posit the right to buy. NEAL BROWN

22

Dictionary

John Wood and Paul Harrison Things That Happen 24 February 30 March 2012

Michael Joaquin Grey / Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.orG / Manfred Mohr / Natascha Sadr Haghighian / Thomson & Craighead / UBErMorGEN.CoM / Eulalia Valldosera / richard T. Walker / John Wood and Paul Harrison

Eastcastle Street London, W1W 8EQ www.carrollfletcher.com

Martin Herbert

Now SEE This

Cerith Wyn Evans, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, 17 March 10 June, www.dlwp.com / Spencer Finch, Lisson Gallery, London, 21 March 28 April, www.lissongallery.com / Monica Bonvicini, Max Hetzler, Berlin, to 14 April, www.maxhetzler.com / Martin Eder, Eigen & Art, Berlin, 17 March 5 May, www.eigen-art.com / Richard Prince, Museo Picasso Malaga, 27 February 27 May, www.museopicassomalaga.org / Kateina Sed, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, 3 March 17 June, www.kunstmuseumluzern.ch / Yto Barrada, Renaissance Society, Chicago, 18 March 29 April, www.renaissancesociety.org / David Renggli , Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris, 10 March 21 April, www.galeriechezvalentin.com / Henning Bohl, Casey Kaplan, New York, 29 March 28 April, www.caseykaplangallery.com / Victor Man, MUDAM, Luxembourg, 11 February 6 May, www.mudam.lu

Charline von Heyl

Lalo, 2008, acrylic on linen, 208 x 198 x 4 cm. the artist. Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin

hen not instructing chandeliers to flash Morse code or orchestrating flameouts for lines of mortalitythemed poetry in text-shaped firework displays, Cerith Wyn Evans enjoys a second career as an antiarchitect. Six years ago the Welshman broke down several interior walls in Londons ICA, unloosing natural light through previously blocked windows and explicitly opening the gallery onto that authoritarian thoroughfare, the Mall. In the modernist cool of the De La Warr Pavilion, he (or more probably a phalanx of technicians) will similarly get busy with sledgehammers, refining the art of the institutional knock-through. What Wyn Evans describes as a love letter to the building opening it up, encouraging sociability again suggests an open-ended symbolism reflecting his professed aim of making art codified to the point of vexation; theres also a firework piece on the roof and a re-presenting of his lauded 2010 installation of white-hot columnar lights, Superstructure: Trace Me Back to Some Loud Shallow Chill Underlying Motives Overspill. More light, said Goethe on his deathbed. Okay, says Spencer Finch, who pursues the properties and purposes of illumination and who, like Wyn Evans, is interested in the weight of demonstrable absence. (The title of his Lisson show, Ex Nihilo, out of nothing, is a clue.) In
Now See This

Cerith Wyn Evans

P.P.P. (Oedipus Rex), 1998, fireworks display, Wednesday 15 July, Idroscola di Ostia, Italy. Fireworks text supported by wooden scaffolding. the artist Courtesy White Cube, London

Spencer Finch
Paths Through the Studio, 2012, oil pastel on paper. Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London

26

Paper Moon (Studio Wall at Night) (2009), a torch hitched to a model train set and a set of filtered bulbs model the specific light, created by streetlamps and headlights, flowing into Finchs Brooklyn studio at night. Paths Through the Studio (2012), meanwhile, is a suite of oil-pastel works, inspired by Edo-period Japanese wallpaper of tracks in a muddy field, that map every physical movement the American made in his studio over 21 days: think of him, perhaps, as an aesthete Bruce Nauman, resourcefully setting structural failure against compensatory bursts of gratification. Even more light, said someone else (me), and lo, there was Monica Bonvicini, whose pursuance of sex, power and control as architectural subtexts has been previously expressed winning her the unwanted title of the artworlds resident dominatrix in usable leather swings dangling from chains and in public toilets employing one-way glass (to the users advantage, not the publics). Lately her confrontational approach has taken the form of suspended wordsculptures spelled out in lightbulbs: Desire or Satisfy Me (both 2009), for example, while the same years Light Me Black, a suspended orchestration of 148 custom-built light fittings in an abstract, folding form, acted as a mute aggressor, temporarily blinding a viewer who tried to see how it hung together on its showing in Chicago. Commercial shows outside of malestarchitect-designed institutions deny her a certain amount of animating context, though, so expect some compensatory inventiveness in Berlin. The same city finds Martin Eder, who unambiguously called one previous show Ugly (2010), mounting his own challenges to the eye: these being, a couple of years ago, tightly realist paintings of supine female nudes, greasy iridescent fish and sombre fluffy kittens that had a strong

VIENNA
The Viennese scene has certainly had its radical moments. But recently most have considered it to be well, sleepy. No more: beyond the yearlong Klimt extravaganza (he was born 150 years ago this July), a new contemporary art space has opened, more are on the way and two museums have freshly minted directors. At MUMOK, director Karola Krauss second show a splashy Claes Oldenburg retrospective that opened in early February alongside a Pop art exhibition is indicative of the museums future: ambitious temporary exhibitions in dialogue with works from the permanent collection. At MAK, new director Christoph Thun-Hohenstein was practically catapulted into the position vacated by the controversial Peter Noever in early 2011. Thun-Hohensteins first show, Envisioning Buildings, explores how artists including Sarah Morris, Cyprien Gaillard and Andreas Gursky photographically address architecture, and is a success even if it came together fast Noevers Helmut Lang show was cancelled, and ThunHohenstein only took his post on 1 September. Speaking of changing plans, energetic art patron Francesca von Habsburg intended to repurpose Berlins Temporre Kunsthalle for Vienna as a new home for her T-B A21 foundation, but is now partnering with the Belvedere museum (the Berlin building was too difficult to bring up to Austrian code), which exhibits the Austrian national collections in a palace complex, for the next three years instead. That venture, Augarten Contemporary, is situated in the former studio of obscure Austrian sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi. The space opens in June with a programme featuring individual artists alongside large works from T-B A21s collection. Augarten only became available when the Belvedere inaugurated the stunning 21er Haus in November 2010 as the focus for its contemporary art collection. Even the Kunsthistorisches Museum is jumping on the contemporary bandwagon: this year adjunct curator Jasper Sharp launches shows including Ed Ruscha, Lucian Freud and single contemporary works in the Theseus Temple, a neoclassical building in the citys Volksgarten. Its enough to make your head spin. The way some people here are behaving, youd think weve become New York or something, a local curator told me shortly after the newly slick Vienna Art Week had its run in November. Theres a long way between Vienna and the city that never sleeps, and not everything is rosy (the Kunsthalle Wien is in the midst of a scandal that has director Gerald Matt on a break), but its exciting that Viennas institutions are moving and shaking. Theres a sense of urgency about whats happening here this year, says von Habsburg. The new guard seems to have the ambition and international perspective to give the citys art institutions their due. KIMBERLY BRADLEY

Monica Bonvicini
Identify Protection (detail), 2006 (installation view, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, 2010), six tower harnesses, black liquid rubber, steel chains, steel ring, motor, timer, dimensions variable. Photo: Nils Klinger. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

Martin Eder
Die Schlaflosen, 2007, oil on canvas, 200 x 270 cm. Photo: Uwe Walter. Courtesy Galerie Eigen + Art, Leipzig & Berlin / DACS

ArtReview

27

ENJOY RESPONSIBLY

PARIS
The Bois-le-Prtre tower, in the northeast of Paris, was, before its renovation, typical of housing on the citys Priphrique autoroute: 16 storeys, 50 metres high and containing upwards of a hundred flats. Completed in 1960 by Raymond Lopez, the block has just been renovated by Frdric Druot, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, who received Frances 2011 Equerre dArgent architecture prize for its transformation. Craning my head, I spot the building straightaway: it shimmers, elegant, all glass and air. Its neighbours, slated for demolition, have facades of exposed concrete that were repainted during the 1980s using geometric motifs and colours that have aged badly. Druot (who has his own architectural practice) and Lacaton & Vassal (who run a joint practice) stand for an idea that, surprisingly, is not universally accepted: that it is less expensive to renovate than to demolish and rebuild. For the Bois-le-Prtre, this meant works costing 11.2 million rather than 20m. Its also less of a burden on residents, who get larger, better-looking apartments for their money. Druot, Lacaton and Vassal redistributed interior spaces by simply knocking down partitions, and wrapped the towers four walls in conservatories: sliding glass doors that run from floor to ceiling, with thermal curtains for keeping the heat in, giving access to a balcony, with other curtains for shade. This system reduces heating costs by 50 percent. I could well see myself living in this tower, suspended in the air, my writing table pushed up against the expanse of sliding glass, moving back and forth between indoors and out, living in an apartment as I would in a house. The buildings tenants, hugely in favour of the renovation, were consulted at every stage: a marathon of meetings. Their main request was to remain in the building during the works. The architects succeeded in rehousing each family within the building itself, moving them along, one by one, into apartments as they were renovated. Eighteen months of works, during which not a person had to be relocated offsite. Mme Benjamin has lived in the tower since 1962. She raised seven children here. She lost 1m2 (in her kitchen) but gained 34m2 in the conservatory. Its not counted in the rent. Depending on the residents income, a four-room flat with 127 m2 costs 300 per month. True social housing. Each tenant was able to choose the colour of curtain, the colour of paint on the walls, the type of flooring. Benjamin pronounces herself rather happy. The view is sublime from her 11th-storey flat: the Eiffel Tower, la Dfense in the morning sun. Montmartre, the wooded hill of Mont Valrien. Last year, on 14 July, I invited 62 people to watch fireworks on all sides! Mme Benjamin misses only the 1980s faade: she preferred the colour, and now, with all the blinds, never fully open or fully closed at the same time, she finds it disorderly. MARIE DARRIEUSSECQ

Richard Prince
Untitled, 2011, ink jet, oil crayon, pastel and charcoal on canvas 150 x 193 cm. Photo: Robert McKeever. the artist

Kateina Sed
No Light, 2009 (installation view, Cubitt, London, 2011). the artist. Courtesy Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Turin

flavour of the Neue Sachlichkeit art of Weimar Germany and a seriously attenuated relationship with good taste, intentionally so. His syncretic new canvases big grey-greenish nudes intended to look, says the artist, like the bellies of dead fish, and dwelling on the fleshy facticity of the human body are likely to be no more acquiescent. Eders models sometimes have histories of addiction, and the larger context of his work, he says, is the victimhood engendered by mass culture, the perpetual race to stay au courant; well miss those farcical cats, but the squirmy places Eder is heading towards may well be their own compensation. In breaks from the courthouse, where hes been involved in a lengthy landmark case over appropriated photography, Richard Prince has lately squared up to art history, taking on Willem de Kooning, Czanne and more via energetic, if irreverent, remakes. In Picassos hometown, some 100 works canvases painted in the last couple of years, plus photocollages find Prince taking on the unmatchable Spaniard, a move which, like the Americans latter-day exhibitions of his collections of rare books, would seem to continue his drift away from intentional controversialism towards a sort of semiprickly, semiavuncular middle age based on, as Warhol said of Pop, liking things. Prince, though, evidently still sees these as debased, unoriginal times: check his version of the Demoiselles dAvignon, composited as it is from photographs of cavorting porn models with defaced faces, for mordant evidence. Not every artist shares Princes lemonsucking mien, thankfully. As her first retrospective evidences, since 2001 Kateina Sed has organised social actions that sit on the fringes of art activity, mostly in her Czech homeland, whether on a small scale (setting motivational daily tasks for a family member whod sunk into depressive inaction) or on a larger one (getting a whole village to perform the same tasks in sync, for a whole day). Sed isnt a happy-clappy type, though: her work, ambivalently reflecting the communist yoke that she was born under, walks a line between encouraging sociability and group
ArtReview 29

BUDAPEST
I write these lines in the shadow of the exhibition Heroes, Kings, Saints, on view in the Hungarian National Gallery located in the Buda Castle, which itself overshadows the countrys capital. Opened by prime minister Viktor Orbn, the show features 20 paintings, commissioned by his government, which attempt to create a historical context for the new and much criticised Hungarian constitution. This is only the most extreme and absurd example of present cultural policy in Hungary, which is not concerned with supporting art that is not of representational use. The unification of the Hungarian National Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts took place last autumn, seemingly overnight. The National Gallerys director found out about the merger via the press. The rationale for it a vague notion to create a gigantic museum quarter near Heroes Square by 2017 seems, in the context of Hungarys current economic crisis (not to mention a lack of any architectural plans or consensus as to the function of the project), no more than a dream. Perhaps this is not important: the really interesting things in Hungarian art have a tradition of existing outside of official institutions. Artist duo Little Warsaws latest project (at the Traf Gallery, where I am head curator) neatly summarised the current Kulturkampf: the pair borrowed a number of historical statuettes from state collections and used them like toy soldiers to create a mock battlefield. But of course this isnt going to force any decisionmaker to rethink his role in cultural politics. The same fate awaits Adm Kokeschs unique installation art, Tams Kaszss radical left turn towards phenomena such as locality and provincialism as a social utopia, the artist group NMA, which mocks and imitates the official cultural system in a more direct fashion, and Istvn Cskny, whose installations make direct references to local tinker and DIY culture. The reality is that nonprofit institutions supported by local authorities, city councils or the state are on the brink of collapse. The commercial contemporary gallery system now has to take over their function so that the international visibility of Hungarian art wont be damaged. Or perhaps contemporary art will have to go at least partly underground, as it did during the 1960s and 70s. And yet its also true that in recent decades the Hungarian artworld has been expending too much effort in preserving the institutional system it inherited from the late socialist-communist era, and has been too busy with its local phenomena instead of looking to the outside. What is clear is that now Hungarian artists and other cultural agents have to look for new ways and new dialogues beyond their national borders. ARON FENYVESI

Yto Barrada
La Cage aux Singes (Monkey Cage), 2008/2011, c-print, 125 x 125 cm

David Renggli
Twisted Stripclub Gives Shelter from Rain, 2011, steel, paint, 297 x 370 x 270 cm. Courtesy Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris, and Wentrup Gallery, Berlin

effort and flat-out coercion. Working with local communities and with circumspection is also a priority for Yto Barrada, whose touring show Riffs now arrives precisely where Sed first showcased her practice in America four years ago. Whether focusing on homeless people sleeping in parks or the logistics of riding clandestinely on the underside of a tourist bus, the French-born Barrada has mapped social conditions in Morocco over the past decade in a visual language that alloys documentary and poetics. As central to her work and its questioning view of amelioration, though, are actions such as Barradas founding of a cinematheque in Tangier a decade ago: an art project to her, a social hub to others. Underappreciated outside of mainland Europe, David Renggli is a drily comic cross-wirer whos gone from modest beginnings (Post-it notes fashioned in ceramic, say) to large-scale sculptures in an ongoing demonstration of the allusive, brainstretching power of incompatible reference points. The welded-steel outdoor sculpture Twisted Stripclub Gives Shelter from Rain (2011), for example, crosses Serra, Caro and a stage set, has sideways stairways out of M.C. Escher and offers no physical or cognitive shelter whatsoever. If, then to churlishly quote his French gallery (and also, maybe, Google Translate) the Swiss sculptor adeptly provides a new sensation and a freshing perspective in our way of seeing, he also reminds us that Surrealism has no sell-by date. The freshing perspective pursued by the equally playful Henning Bohl, meanwhile, is one on the very mechanisms of display. Bohls art broadly resembles painting (via bright, hard-edged graphics), but his shows concern themselves not so much with the work itself as how its laid out: his last Casey Kaplan show was a nearmathematical arrangement of colourful, hardedge abstractions made by cutting and pasting

30

Now See This

THE STRIP BY
LUKE PEARSON (See overleaf) Ive got to get this stuff out somewhere, says British prodigy Luke Pearson. Representing his inner muse on the cover of the 2010 gatherum Dull Ache, Pearson shows a cutaway outline of his white head, swimming perhaps drowning in a storm of images and ideas. His brain is empty, save for a small, abstracted black skeleton with an overgrown skull. That skeleton is his minds eye, and its dotted lines of sight project through its hosts eyeballs. Inside the collection, Pearson ruminates on the sources and processes of his not-always innocent fantasies and his self-absorbed autobio comics. What if his own bed, where most of his ideas are conceived, simply sneaks around to my other side when Im too tired to notice, tricking me back into its comfortable grasp? In another episode he ransacks box after box of memories for material, cant find anything, but then in four panels captures the terror of the dark that has lingered since his childhood or a nightmare of sprouting multiple heads based on his various self-representations. Pearson tempers his imaginings somewhat in Hilda and the Midnight Giant (2011) by making his avatar a savvy, sweet little girl, all big eyes, pointy nose, blue hair, freckles, beret and big boots. Hilda has one foot firmly planted in the dreary mundanity of her mothers worries, the other in a magical parallel realm of invisible elves and a mysterious nocturnal creature. Channelling the atmosphere of Tove Janssons Moomins and Hayao Miyazakis anime, Pearson is crafting his own fresh twenty-first-century folklore and a plucky, cute heroine sure to charm all ages. Hilda is reminiscent of boy-dreamer Little Nemo, conceived in 1905 by American comics and animation pioneer Winsor McCay; both children can explore a mainly reassuring Slumberland and return unscathed. To let loose his inner demon, however, Pearson subjects the protagonists of his other comics to far more unsettling experiences, not unlike those in McCays darker Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strip (first published in 1904). In Pearsons My Latest Work (and All to Come) in the compendium Nobrow 6 (2011), for example, a starstruck female admirer is invited back to an artists studio to see kind of an autobiographical piece titled The Double, only for her to throw up at the grotesque 1:9 scale replica he has built of putrefying remnants and body matter from his entire life, held together with spit, jiz and plasticine. In a sick twist, he mops up her vomit to add to his masterpiece. The compact but riveting graphic novella Everything We Miss (2011), Pearsons masterpiece, charts the slower, subtler entropy of a couples relationship, symbolised by another skeleton, freakish with two outsize heads, abandoned by the roadside. Further liminal monstrosities include a pitch-black wraith one of a vast flock floating Magritte-like overhead, oozing fingers into the mans head, gripping his molars and his tongue to craft his words, manipulating him to insult his girlfriend and eight-legged lizards scrutinising the couples every action. As in Melting, overleaf, Pearsons comics invite us to notice what goes unnoticed, the bizarre behind the banal, the things that lurk just beyond our peripheral vision. PAUL GRAVETT

window-display paper onto canvas, diversely arranged on trestles decorated with fragments of text, the whole operating less as a show of paintings (with no paint on them) than as a stuttering theatrical environment: a demonstration of possibilities, rather than a final statement. But then, final statements are so last century. Victor Man pointedly avoids them, his washed-out paintings and mixed-media assemblies being atmospheric, tightly edited entryways onto half-knowable worlds or, as he puts it, zones of turbulence. A painted figure dressed in a horses head bends over, inscrutably; a painting of a man clambering over a wall is paired with a cloudy photograph of the Virgin Mary; a black painting with hints of geometry and architecture pairs with a print of a wrecked spacecraft and an obsidian sculpture sitting in a cat-food tin. Can art make meaning from the elusiveness of meaning? Can it avoid doing so? Answers, please, on an antique picture postcard of something unrecognisable, from another country, from another time.

Henning Bohl
International Artist-inResidence show, 2010 (installation view, Artpace, San Antonio). Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York

Victor Man
Untitled (Basil Hymen), 2010, mixed media, dimensions variable. Collection James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach, New York. Photo: Plan B Cluj, Berlin

ArtReview

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32

Melting, by Luke Pearson

ArtReview

33

OPEN FOR

Gerhard Hoehme, Cimbalom (detail), 1966, Stdel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2012, photo: Stdel Museum

CONTEMPORARY ART FROM 2/25/2012

Stdel Museum Schaumainkai 63 60596 Frankfurt am Main Tue, FriSun 10 am6 pm Wed and Thu 10 am9 pm www.staedelmuseum.de

 Art thou weary?

The painter Mary Heilmann, whose work is currently on show at Hauser & Wirth, London, prefers visitors to spend time with her blobby, oddly shaped, colour-field-influenced canvases. To facilitate this, the artist has installed a collection of club chairs (Club Chair 47, 2008, pictured) in a relatedly bright palette, from the comfort of which one might relax and visually digest the show. And if you find them really comfortable, the chairs are for sale too. hauserwirth.com

The pick of things you didnt know you really needed OLIVER BASCIANO

Eerie pop
The output of Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, is a fully inclusive package: the Canadian musician who emerged from Vancouvers grassroots music scene produces the music and creates the artwork for her releases, additionally choreographing the strange performances in the videos that have accompanied her output of the past four years. Think Spartacus Chetwynd with a soundtrack of aggressive electropsychedelia, and investigate her new album, Visions, out 12 March. Grimes is touring North America and Europe over the coming months. 4ad.com

Showered
The Thing describes itself as a magazine, yet its back catalogue of 15 quarterly issues pushes that definition to the limit: each issue is authored by a different artist or writer and published on an everyday, useful item. (Issue 8 saw Trevor Paglen produce a coffee mug, for instance.) The latest, Issue 16, consists of a monologue supposedly narrated to writer Dave Eggers by his voyeuristic shower curtain, and is printed on, yes, that selfsame object.

thethingquarterly.com

36

Now Buy This

Artist of the Month Club: courtesy Ron Athey and Invisible-Exports, New York

Monthly surprise For the past three years, New Yorks Invisible-Exports gallery has been running an Artist of the Month Club. A years subscription secures one work a month by a different artist (Leigh Ledare, Aids-3D and Matthew Higgs have previously taken part), each nominated by an artworld luminary. While the nominators are advertised and this year include artist A.A. Bronson and curators Benjamin Godsill and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz the artists producing the work are initially undisclosed. Consequently, subscribers only found out they were receiving Sance (2012, pictured) by Ron Athey when it shipped in January. artistofthemonthclub.com

 iBronze Tie me down

The title of this small sculpture by Alexander Calder (Untitled, c. 1925) doesnt give much clue as to what creature the artist was depicting in the 27cm-high metalwork. Well put our money on a kangaroo. The marsupial (if thats what it is) will join a plethora of other post1900 works at Sothebys New Yorks first Contemporary auction of the year, on 9 March. Riffing on the short shelf-life of the type of fetishised technology that the iPhone so ubiquitously represents, Jonathan Monk has repurposed its familiar rounded corners and slim rectangular form to produce a paperweight cast in bronze. Call Weighting Paper comes in an edition of 12.

onestarpress.com

All at sea
For all the stark beauty of Zarina Bhimjis films, there is something disturbing and suspenseful about her work. This print derives from Yellow Patch (2011), a new filmic portrait inspired by trade and migration around the Indian Ocean that is currently on show in London at the Whitechapel Gallerys survey exhibition of the British artists work. Edition of 80.

sothebys.com

Women of the world For another editions subscription, this one featuring one artist producing 12 books, Sharon Kivland will be spending the year sifting through her personal archive of ephemeral imagery to produce these DIY publications, each addressing an eclectic range of subjects, among them (possibly) Les Chiens des Pyrenes and Les Femmes du Monde. domobaal.com

whitechapelgallery.org

38

Now Buy This

Sothebys: Alexander Calder, Untitled, c. 1925, metal, 27 x 17 x 15 cm; Whitechapel Gallery: Zarina Bhimji

ATELIER VAN LIESHOUT

TIM VAN LAERE GALLERY
www.timvanlaeregallery.com

15 March - 5 May 2012

Industrie

Off-Space Travels
OLIVER BASCIANO

NO 4:

An ongoing series of journeys along art roads less travelled this month a gallery in the East End

SUPPLEMENT, LONDON

line scratched into Supplements floor, approximately five feet past the entrance to the former workshop space, marks where Adam Thomas and Thom ONions first erected a wall to create a small gallery in their Bethnal Green studio. That was 2008, and since then the wall has moved steadily deeper into the building; today the gallery takes up by far the greater amount of floorspace, and the studio is no more than an office. Thomas is an artist and ONions a graduate of the curating course at Londons Goldsmiths, yet the evolving architectural demarcation of Supplement is a testament to their increasing commitment to running the nonprofit space at the expense of individual pursuits. This effort has resulted in 20 exhibitions; almost all have been solo presentations of younger, postgraduate artists, with practices that tend towards a formally tight, even materially slick output. Visiting the space a few weeks into 2012, I intended below: Steve Bishop to ask Thomas and ONions about the As If You Could Only Kill Time Without Injuring Eternity V, necessity of this model in London. 2012, mercury and printed T-shirt in There are obvious reasons why artists frame, 20 x 19 cm. Photo: Joe Clark

40

Off-Space Travels

left: (One Hour) Long Exhibition 2011, installation view. Photo: Adam Thomas right:

Steve Bishop

If Everything Has a Place Then Place Too Has a Place III, 2012, wooden frame, window insulation film, 197 x 81 x 5 cm. Photo: Joe Clark

need to act autonomously outside commercial formats, but the rationale isnt always so clear for a gallery that operates from a postcode boasting a dense thicket of galleries and which outwardly at least mimics the straight exhibition cycle of its commercial counterparts. At the time of my visit, the new season of exhibitions has yet to start, and I arrive to find four chairs set out in a circle. But they arent configured in this discussion-group style solely for my benefit the artist Steve Bishop is also present, and hes installing a solo show for the space (he was the subject of the second exhibition Supplement staged, in May 2008; the gallery doesnt shy away from circling back to artists). Except that, on this, the first day of installation, theres not much actual practical work being done, just a lot of discussion around it. Bishop describes how hes going to remove the partitions of the office wall, leaving the bare supporting structure, and how, at night, there will be a projection diffusing from the window into the street. He says that hes interested in using the art to fill and push the gallery beyond its normal physical form. The process of talking through a show verbalising possible work and the thoughts that surround it is central to Supplement, ONions explains. Perhaps this is what sets them apart. The gallery seeks to collaborate with each artist, and it is rare that an artist is left to configure an exhibition on his or her own, or to show solely preexisting work. This is left: why ONions and Thomas Steve Bishop If Everything Has a Place set up the gallery space in Then Place Too Has a Place the first place, they say. II, 2012, unclad wall, window insulation film, limited edition Within the original studio 60th anniversary Bic pen, coins, fortune, dimensions variable space, very little art got
ArtReview 41

IN THE ORIGINAL STUDIO SPACE, VERY LITTLE ART GOT MADE; MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THEY ENDED UP DISCUSSING THEORY OR THE PRACTICE OF OTHER ARTISTS. THE GALLERY MAKES THIS DIALOGUE A PRODUCTIVE, PUBLIC ONE

purpose such an enterprise has (to periodically put on shows at one space no need to additionally act as the artists commercial representative or tend to the fundraising and public-programming demands of an institutional setting), there is time for such discursive pursuits. Exhibitions gestate for a long time at the gallery, and as the majority of the artists the curators work with are known to them through a peer network, made; more often than not the duo above and above right: discussions can occur sporadically Laura Buckely ended up discussing theory or the The Mean Reds, 2011, installation and informally. To grab at a not practice of other artists who interested view. Photo: Joe Clark. All images: wholly satisfactory analogy, courtesy Supplement, London Supplement seems to apply the them. The gallery space was an attempt to make this dialogue a productive, public principles of the slow food movement to the one, a justification for those myriad hours spent business of art production. in conversation. The idea of an exhibition as a However, when I broach the question of place of dialogue and the artist-run space as the why such a space is needed beyond the privilege primary model for facilitating that communication of time it grants to the artist ONions and comes up repeatedly. Thomas themselves express concern about the Due to the financial restraints intrinsic to status of their work within the wider ecosystem, the artist-run venue, and the singularity of pointing specifically to the institutional habit of
42 Off-Space Travels

coopting artist-run efforts for their own means. While this happens frequently on an individual level, with off-spaces perhaps erroneously viewed as some sort of entry-level position for the career artist, there was a time a few years back when they were also providing actual programming for institutions (X Initiative and Tate Moderns No Soul for Sale festival of independents in New York and London in 2009 and 10, for example). While those events fed on the clichd glamour of the low-fi off-space, Supplement eschews that aesthetic to operate on a level which is materially akin to their commercial and institutional neighbours, albeit at the considered pace of artistic production.

ESTHER MAHLANGU
21 February - 24 March

JADE DOREEN WALLER

27 March - 28 April

34FineArt 160 Sir Lowry Road Woodstock Cape Town South Africa 34FineArt.com info@34fineart.com

Great Critics and Their Ideas

INTERVIEW BY MATTHEW COLLINGS

MARX ON ARTISTIC LABOUR

ArtReview Are you worried about being out of your comfort zone with this interview? Karl Marx Not at all. I always intended to write a book about art, after my work on economics was complete, but that took much longer than I anticipated. In The German Ideology I wrote, Really free labour, the composing of music, for example, is at the same time damned serious and demands the greatest effort. I meant freedom isnt idleness, in art or anything else. People need to work in a way that makes them feel alive, not feel that life only begins late in the day, when work ends. If an artist feels fulfilled by making art, its because its unalienated labour. This is almost the definition of freedom. If everyone did it, wed have the society that communism seeks to bring about. Art has a great deal to do with the subjects I am known for exploring, most notably industry. Many English art schools, for example, were started in order to produce technical artists and craftsmen for industry. Many paint colours used by artists today owe their existence to car technology; theyre its hobbyist byproducts. And art has a longstanding relationship with the left, some parts of which might seem rather more distanced than others that is, some art is directly politically engaged, but all art has political possibilities in that artists are in the business of reseeing the world, just as philosophers are, or ought to be. Of course I thoroughly welcome the new interest that art is taking in ethics. I understand next month youre discussing the implications of that with Ruskin. He was a Tory version of me, appalled at capitalisms inhumanity, but drawing the line at socialism. He advocated a new system based on social hierarchy as before, but now with a few enlightened philanthropists helping everyone instead. However, the early Labour party leaders were at least as inspired by his work analysing society as they were by mine.

No 11: KARL

44

Great Critics and Their Ideas

2012, White Images/Scala, Florence

From many disciplines, including economics, philosophy, history and journalism, Karl Marx (born in Trier, Germany, in 1818) forged the sociopolitical knowledge system to which his name is given, and whose principles are expressed in his great work, Capital, the first volume of which was published in 1867. Arriving in London at the age of thirty-one, he spent the rest of his life there, dying in Highgate in 1883.

Do you recognise your ideas in the art magazines now?

KM Superficially, maybe: theyre not profoundly present in ArtReview or Frieze, except in the loose way that they are present in everything. I mean, theyre in these magazines because theyre in the DNA of anything vaguely What is historical materialism? Whats the use of it progressive. They used to be more for art? concentrated in Artforum, but theyve been diluted since the early 1980s, when it entered KM  Its a synthesis of different types of knowledge. its current glossy decadence. In October, The tangible texture of exploitation and which is an offshoot of the old Artforum, set poverty was certainly known to me, as it is up by writers who abandoned ship because known to all by virtue of being alive in a But those spots are meaningless, arent they? of the influx of yuppie values, they lean society based on these conditions. But each towards the version known as cultural of us has his vested interest and reason for KM  I see them as one part of his commentary, Marxism, which is only tendentiously being more frank about the meaning of which is a philosophical proposal about connected to me. poverty and its history. For some, causing atomised existence. In this case (as opposed poverty to increase has been an important to sharks or other objects) he uses the form aim in economic strategy, which might be a of painting. The particular variety of painting Whats the difference? surprise to some of your readers. So with art involves respect for traditions of design, which go back centuries. You can see it KM  I think it is the lack of an emotionally youre not only thinking about what the textures are but also asking what their overwhelming, Dickens-like or Balzac-like enacted in the structure, so empty spaces are vision of redemption. This goes alongside implications are in terms of expressing the the same width as spots. But also in the aims of the age. And this applies equally if it relentless pedantic examination of tiny general framework hes set up, within which details in the way social structures operate, is something made yesterday, like a Damien the assistants are allowed to exercise choice. and the history of their coming into being. Hirst, say, for a society ruled by publicity, or There is never an unsatisfying cluster of tones, Whats missing in October is the yoking of in the 1950s for a cultured elite, a Pollock, for example, always an even pulsing. The these modes, moral and scientific, so they say. Or for that matter a Piero in the 1450s many aesthetic crimes he has committed are both urgently present in whatever is being made for one or two humanists. Or a cave over the years photorealist paintings, inept said. It was missing in the old Artforum as painting made at the dawn of time for a Francis Bacon imitations, the junk he spellbound audience shooting arrows at produced for his Sothebys show are well. It probably doesnt exist today anywhere outweighed by his overall achievement, actually. It doesnt exist because its a different charcoal bison and aurochs. age, it isnt called for but it may come which is to encapsulate the mood of an era back. by being playful with blankness. This era What was the last show you saw? might be ending now, so his art is considered KM David Hockney, and before that Hirst. to be over, too: failed. At best it is thought to Why? be only a helpless manifestation of a historical KM  Well, the reason it stopped is because society What did you think about those spots? moment. But I maintain he consciously became atomised, no one thought in a constructed an artistic equivalent or metaphor collective way any more. And maybe beyond KM  They are part of an overall body of work that for it, so it could be seen clearly. the world of theorists many people bought is conceptual. However, I do think critics the idea that they were actually free. But should analyse these paintings formally and Artistically are you a conservative or a radical? now that society is faced with failure, we may put up arguments based on observation of have to get used to thinking in terms of grand real things. Thats what hasnt happened in KM I question the structure of things. the reviews. (Its striking how they often say strategies again, so the grand critical voice it would be pointless to evaluate individual Did you do much of that in the Hockney show? might sound right again. Not luvvie poseurs of the kind we see on telly, of course, paintings.) But its not the same as analysing pretending to cry at artworks. something sensitive from the 1950s. Hirsts KM  Ah, youve got me there. I thought the show work in general tells you that after a certain was about somebodys labour, putting in a point in the 1980s something happens in a lot of work, and the effort of this old man was What about shows? Do you ever go to any? sort of power balance between art and other enough, a person whos questioning and KM  Certainly. I parted with philosophers who modes, and aesthetic sensibility tends to be looking at, for example, technology. I suppose outsourced by art to design. This is one kind had their heads in the clouds. And its the he sees himself as continuous to some degree same with art: you have to experience its of meaning the spots have. And blank as they with Matisse, thats what I imagine he thinks. objects in order for the ideas it embodies to seem, they inform you about an era, they tell I was sometimes worried and horrified about have substance. Kant famously never saw you about materials, the use of gloss paint, the way his colours turn uniformly Day-Glo. But if the show was 4 percent horrifying and any actual art. You might ask whats wrong all those people in the 1980s decorating their with seeing art as a series of ideas, which on flats, the way uniform white in that decade out of control, and 16 percent worrying, that was replaced by colour, a new domestic art some level it undoubtedly must be. But leaves 80 percent that was pretty good. And enoughs enough, and at a certain point I told myself I would certainly return, even culture of swatches and variants. They tell if, in the end, I dont have the time. youve got to say stop to Kantian idealism, you about superficiality. Each circle is discrete where, as he writes, We can never be certain and all are equal, like the fake choice of whether all of our putative outer experience consumerism. Consumerism offers an illusion Next month is not mere imagining, and bring in some of of choice, which is taken up as a substitute Ruskin on the current fad in art for ethics
ArtReview 45

the hard stuff, some concrete experience. Art objects have a history, and there is a material link between them, from the old to the new. A painting, for example, has a particular composition, particular textures, and its surfaces have a particular personality.

for the difficulty involved in choosing life instead of exploitation. Hirsts work doesnt directly address issues of social change. It says nothing directly about people living life rather than (to replay some of the more lively imagery in my books) having their life energy sucked out of them for the benefit of a few modern vampires who inherited the structures set up at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the beginning of the the age of the Industrial Revolution, by jumped-up parvenus. Nevertheless it speaks volumes.

January 28th - June 3rd

---------------------------------------------------------------

One Sixth of the Earth. Ecologies of Image

Dan Acostioaei , Victor Alimpiev, Matei Bejenaru, Yevgenia Belorusets, Irina Botea, Pavel Braila, Mircea Cantor, Community Art, Stefan Constantinescu, Factory of Found Clothes, Dimitry Gutov, Flaka Haliti, IRWIN, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Zbigniew Libera, Little Warsaw, David Maljkovic, Almagul Menlibayeva, Anna Molska, Deimantas Narkeviius, Mircea Nicolae, Kristina Norman, Adrian Paci, Alexander Ponomarev, Ghenadie Popescu, Tobias Putrih, Anri Sala,Lukasz Skapski, Socit Raliste, Milica Tomic, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Andrej Zdravic, Driant Zeneli, Artur Zmijewski.

---------------------------------------------------------------

MIKI KRATSMAN FLIX CURTO

American Junk

AS IT IS. On Miki Kratsmans Photography

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AZUCENA VIEITES
Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor. Rite of Spring, 2010. Courtesy of the artists

Cross Dissolve Break You Nice

Laboratorio 987 New exhibition series Form and Meaning

--------------------------------------------------------------HIWA K For a Few Socks of Marbles

Showcase Project

--------------------------------------------------------------RAFAEL SNCHEZ-MATEOS CON LAS COLUMNAS STRAUBINGER In Our Gardens Forests Are Getting Ready

--------------------------------------------------------------www.musac.es
Fore more information subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter at musac@musac.es MUSAC, Avda Reyes Leoneses, 24. 24008, Len, Spain

J.J. Charlesworth

Now HEAR this

J.J. CHARLESWORTH The politics of art CHRISTIAN VIVEROS-FAUNE Its the end of art as we know it JOSHUA MACK Biennials and triennials HETTIE JUDAH The taming of the V-sign JONATHAN GROSSMALERMAN Gaddafi was my patron MARIA LIND Concrete art shows the way SAM JACOB Lets go to bed MIKE WATSON Rome experiments with twins

t may be cold in Europe at the moment, but in the fraught relationship between art and the political world, things only seem to be getting hotter, with controversies breaking out all over the place. A characteristic of recent upsets is the way that artists freedom of expression comes into conflict with public and private interests, especially when this freedom shifts from artistic into political expression. In late December of last year, Austrian political artist Oliver Ressler announced that a billboard project, commissioned by the Tyrol region cultural initiative, had been pulled after intervention by the Tyrol provincial government. The poster in question featured an image of the Tyrolean alps, superimposed with the pithy slogan Elections are a con. Riffing on an old slogan from the Paris revolt of May 1968, Resslers billboard and poster campaign had been selected by a commissioning jury, but fell foul of local political opinion. A few days earlier, meanwhile, in Switzerland, Jerusalem-born, Copenhagen-based artist Larissa Sansour was pulled from a shortlist for the Lacoste Elyse Prize for photography, after submitting work Nation Estate (2011), a series of photodigital images in which the Palestinian territories were installed, vertically, in a skyscraper that was deemed inappropriate to the prizes theme of joie de vivre. Both artists cried censorship. But while no one likes having his or her work marginalised because of its political content, these examples throw up some complicated questions about how art currently aligns itself with political realities, and what one should expect if art becomes synonymous with political activism. Big brands like good publicity: when it comes to brand image, politics has to be left at the door. In both Sansours and Resslers cases, however, the assumption that an artistic commission would be protected from political interference because of its status as an artwork highlights a paradox in how we view the political effects of art. Since the 1960s, states and politicians in Western democracies have been wary of too much direct censorship of the arts, which has mostly occurred over issues of morality or obscenity. But with the growing articulation of geopolitical concerns in art, and of the widespread sense of disillusion towards Western governments and the global market economy, artists are making work that is more immediately political than ever.

48

Now Hear This

Oliver Ressler, Wahlen sind Betrug (Elections Are a Con), poster draft, 2011

Yet they still claim arts special status, expecting arts institutions to support artwork as if the political content were of no consequence, and seem surprised when their actions provoke the ire of those in power. Back in the 1960s, politicised artists would criticise arts elite, privileged cultural status, or attack modernist arts by-then apolitical, contentless autonomy. For decades since, under the sway of that radicalism, art institutions have gradually opened up to art which explored different forms of political and social reality. But today that period of liberal dtente may be unravelling. And artists who thought that art institutions might provide an insulated space in which to give voice to oppositional political perspectives may be in for a shock, as public funding gets slashed while corporate sponsors begin to consider the risks in supporting what they might have previously considered a hip, feelgood and mostly harmless part of contemporary culture. Attempting to occupy culture to further political ends is not a new game. Kings, dictators

AS ART GETS MORE POLITICAL, POLITICIANS (AND LUXURY BRANDS) GET COLD FEET
and revolutionaries have all tried it. But the recent trend for political art occurs in a new historical context: in the past, artists had to consider how they related their work to the big political movements that shook the globe. The current moment may be one of a widespread sense of crisis, but it isnt, in the West, producing a groundswell of political organisation and mobilisation. Instead, its as if art increasingly serves as a position from which to project the political frustrations that people cannot seem to articulate elsewhere. It may make art appear more vividly political than ever, but this is a mirage. While artists rightly defend their right to make art about whatever they choose, its going to take more than additional politicised art to reenergise our currently paralysed political culture.

ArtReview

49

Christian Viveros-Faun

50

Now Hear This

Damien Hirst, Levorphanol, 1995, household gloss on canvas, 69 x 69 cm, 1 cm spot. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London. Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2012. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York

recent memoir, penned by the daughter-in-law of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, proves as good a place as any to kick off a discussion about contemporary arts future-basedon-present-circumstances. Its title: The End of Normal (2011). Also described as the end of economic life as we have known it by Pacific Investment Management Companys (PIMCO, a global investment fund) Bill Gross, the global scenario of too much debt, too little trust, growing financial instability and a burgeoning politics of protest has shaken the foundations of a winnertake-all general culture whose art, until recently, has been largely content to serve as head cheerleader. The coming days wont see many pep rallies the economic forecasts are that gloomy. According to Gross, the world and his wife face the growing possibility of zero-rate growth or implosion. The same expert (who dubbed the period before the 2008 credit meltdown the Old Normal and the years that followed the New Normal) warns about a future he darkly dubs the Paranormal. As per always, the superrich will escape this contagion. As for artists, individually and collectively, the choice to engage or ignore the glaring social and moral inequities that sustain creators (either financially or aspirationally) will turn even starker. Theres no way to put this except bluntly: during the past three decades, experimentation in downtown New York (and in London, Paris, Tokyo, et al.) has largely been about creating exotic financial instruments. The reigning paradigm of business art a campy Warhol coinage that effectively transformed the top tier of artworld activity into a mini-bond market has emulated the economic, social and cultural biases of neoliberalism with a vengeance. Today, self-styled alpha gallerists, collectors and artists not only account for a lopsided share of the art pie; they continue to dominate its creative culture. Gordon Gekkos of the SWAG economy (the acronym describes the asset bubbles of silver, wine, art and gold), these predators would now, however incidentally, steer whats left of the artworld over a cliff with what can only be termed robber-barony recklessness.

A CRITIC PONDERS THE END OF NORMAL AND THE FUTURE OF ART

To paraphrase from a performance by the Bruce High Quality Foundation, art history in the last 30 years has become the history of certain artists careers in the market. The limitations of such an inheritance are excruciatingly obvious. Without a corrective, Damien Hirsts dotty spots will come to define our artistic era like William-Adolphe Bouguereaus slick bimbos did his. Thankfully, contemporary art retains a pilot light of sane judgement however dim in the form of certain figures (among others, generous creators Gustav Metzger, William Kentridge and Ai Weiwei). After the economic downturn and the success of anticapitalist protests from Seattle to Santiago, the age of cynicism might yet turn to these notables to guide us back from the brink. Where the artworld was content to function are good for. Liberal intellectuals may be confused largely as an echo chamber in the past, several by so much ethical and aesthetic relativism real-life questions about contemporary art and consider only this years alleged Knoedler artists have of late acquired newfound buzz. Joe forgeries and Marina Abramovis divisive LA and Jane Sixpack might be curious to know what, MOCA gala and truly wonder whether art has besides cosying up to wealthy art patrons, artists any role left to play in shaping society. A New Yorker article from last year, for example, described the principal function of the artist as feeling crummy before everyone else does. A popular idea about the avant-garde distilled into a glib phrase, it amounts to a vision of the artist as Holden Caulfield unburdening himself, selfishly, like a git. Misery loves company, so please enjoy my text-based installation about bananafish. Surely theres more at stake than selfexpression. Now that a few of cultures basic social and economic premises are up for grabs, artists eager to engage the issues of their time (like the NYC-based Working Artists and the Greater Economy, or W.A.G.E.) might want to do so without channelling the callow whining of J.D. Salinger. Ill just come out and say it: artworks, in all their blessed autonomy, should be seen as part of a larger social or moral terrain. Its high time that artists for the sake of their future real-world relevance swapped their gentrifying roles and auction-house dreams for a social conscience.

The ar tist s studio ( Wi l t s h i re, U K )

PAUL EMSLEY

Retrospective
02 M arch - 21 Apr il 2012

Guest Curator Am a n d a B o t h a Universit y of Stellenbosch Wordfest/Woordfe e s Ar t i s t 2 0 1 2 S asol Ar t M useum, Stellenbo s c h U n i ve r s i t y

This exhibition is ma d e p o s s i b l e by :

Joshua Mack

mmediately following a performance by Public Movement the Israeli collaborative whose work plays on the dynamics of group affiliation in New Yorks Union Square last autumn, representatives of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), which itself attempts to transform perceived common cause into social action, introduced the protests artistic programme. A nod to an all are equal inclusivity, the presentation included a putdown of the New Museum sponsor of the just-concluded event as a nexus of moneyed collectors who use its programmes to vet their art portfolios. While the same has been said of many institutions, the cut had specific resonance given the New Museums 2010 show of work from the collection of its trustee and benefactor Dakis Joannou. Ironically, though, its that kind of pull and the tensions that form when social and political interests overlap and diverge that Public Movement renders evident in its participatory rituals; and its the same complexities that constitute the core of The Ungovernables, the New Museums current triennial of new (ie, young) artists, curated by Eungie Joo. Joo took the title from the African National Congresss mid-1980s strategy of making South Africa ungovernable. The term implies a refusal to submit to repressive policies and the creation of alternative centres of power in order to effect change. While the choice of name predates the events of last year, these tactics resonate with those employed in Tahrir Square and in OWSs resistance to existing political processes; remember the latters refusal to issue specific policy demands. What Joo is channelling is an increasing interest in social construction in art today. I hope people understand that I expect art and politics to meet, not in content, but in the viewer, she told me. The result is an exhibition as much about While such inclusions evince the everprocess and participation performances, public increasing recognition of performance and the programmes and residencies as about fixed performative as methods, they also reflect the gist objects, an open-ended structure that pushes for of conversations between the biennials curators, personal engagement by artist and visitor alike. Jay Sanders and Elisabeth Sussman, and the With a clear commitment to the existential cultural theorist Sylvre Lotringer, in which and experiential, the Whitney Biennial, open from Lotringer suggested that the exhibition alter the 1 March, should offer a complement. Its take is time demands it makes on its visitors in order to evident in, say, LA-based Dawn Kaspers push their perceptual abilities and to challenge exhibition-long residence (a three-month site- their reliance on networks of perceptions based specific performance installation in the galleries, on smartphones and computers. Theres also a high quotient of resistance paid for with money sourced on USA Projects), and in the use of the museums fourth floor for a to decorum and commercialised creation from performance programme. Organised like a festival the work of George Kuchar (19422011), whose for the duration of the show, the latter invites films irreverent take on religion and sexuality repeat visits and is designed to create shifting inflect John Waters and YouTube, to that of Forrest contexts for the works on view. Bess (191177), whose spiritually infused images (he is reputed to have slit his phallus to achieve immortality by way of pseudohermaphroditism) are the subject of a show within a show organised by Robert Gober. Along with a programme of new documentary practice arranged by Light Industrys Ed Halter and Thomas Beard, work like this clearly, if unintentionally on the curators part, contextualises much current artistic-political thinking in a broader history.
52 Now Hear This

A CRITIC ASKS: HOW FAR CAN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS PUSH INDEPENDENT THOUGHT?
Dawn Kasper, Murder at the Schindler House, 2003, performance, Fritz Haeg Sundown Salon, MAK Center, Schindler House, Los Angeles, 2003. Photo: Karl Haendel. and courtesy the artist

In an irony of our time, as the mentions of YouTube, Gober and Lotringer suggest, theres a commercial and an intellectually au courant aspect to this ostensible push for alternative, independent thought. As Joo told me, artists today accept that nothing is completely inside or outside. Instead they understand the potential of your position in the group and out of the group with a sensibility and pragmatism to move between different subjectivities as necessary. The grounding and goal of this understanding, and arts role therein, lies in what Kuchar said when he effused about film as a wonderful way of infusing the public with dreams and things of great beauty. Living human beings of beauty.

Fine Emirati Art | Stand B 12 | Art Dubai Johara Ballroom | Madinat Jumaira | 21st-24th March 2012 Tel: +9714 2862224 | Fax +9714 2856249 E mail : hunarart@emirates.net.ae | Website: www.hunargallery.com

CHRISTINE BARBE
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Hettie Judah

t should be little surprise that Liam Gallaghers Pretty Green clothing label has been one of the few recent success stories on Britains flailing high streets; the former Oasis singer clearly has an eye for design classics. He was, after all, honorary poster boy for one of the most iconic British fashion accessories of the last halfcentury, the two-fingered salute. While records of the V sign go back as far as the sixteenth century, it only attained its status as Britains obscene gesture of choice after the Second World War. Folk historians Iona and Peter Opie note in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959) that nose thumbing, which had been ubiquitous in the interwar years, was, by the 1950s, being supplanted by a gesture in which the first and second fingers, extended and slightly parted, are jerked upwards, the back of the hand facing outwards. It may seem a stretch to discuss a hand gesture as a design icon, but it is certainly something manufactured literally handmade and a powerful, multilayered piece of graphic communication. It is also, despite post hoc cunnilingular associations, a curiously abstract gesture, the rutting thrust of flicked wrist topped not with a phallus but with a fork. While it is unlikely to feature in the V&As exhibition of postwar British design that opens this month, the V sign is in many ways a defining icon of the countrys sensibility over the last 60 years.

A DESIGN CRITIC WATCHES ONE OF BRITAINS MOST EXPRESSIVE GESTURES LOSE ITS WAY AND THEN ITS MEANING

The Sun, 1 November 1990

Whether brandished by Billy Casper in Ken Loachs 1969 film, Kes, a parka-clad Gallagher or showjumper Harvey Smith (with whom the gesture was synonymous in the 1970s), the two-fingered salute came laden with potent antiauthoritarian allure. The earliest visual records that exist of the V come from Mitchell & Kenyons 1901 film footage of Rotherham factory workers and a 1913 photograph of fans from a football match. The very abstract nature of the symbol is perhaps key to its associations with the scrappy underdog; the fingers could be raised at the boss classes without being categorically offensive. It was the defiant flick of the rebel, and as The Sun newspapers infamous Up Yours Delors cover so neatly illustrated, Britain does like to see itself as Europes plucky outsider. The power with which the V sign tapped into this Very well, alone aspect of the British self-image is underscored by the urban myths that grew up surrounding its origin. The unfounded tale of the British longbowmen at Agincourt waggling their bow fingers at the French seems to have first appeared sometime in the 1980s and has struck such a chord as to become widely and unquestioningly accepted. It seems poetically appropriate that so insular a gesture really is, within Europe, peculiar to this little cluster of islands the rest of the Continent jerks the forearm, brandishes the horns or, like the Americans and the ancient Romans before them, gives the finger. Thanks to more than half a century of misbehaving tourists, much of the rest of the world now does recognise the V sign as an aggressive gesture, but considerable amusement has been derived over the years from the cached obscenity of the fingers. Just as the V blossomed with the rise of mass media, however, so the global homogenisation of culture seems to be signalling its demise. Innercity schoolchildren these days are more likely to give you one finger than

two. The V signs latest ambassador is the eightynine-year-old Baroness Trumpington, who recently flicked it in the House of Lords, suggesting that the forked fingers are losing not only their sting, but also their working-class roots. There is, no doubt, a campaign already afoot to save the great British V sign, most likely led by the kind of sea-craving lungfish that resurrected the St George flag and refused to weigh their great British bananas in kilograms. But rather like Sir Giles Gilbert Scotts red telephone box, the Unigate milk float and the Sinclair ZX80, this British icon is starting to look like a relic from a previous age.

ArtReview

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Jonathan Grossmalerman

Anyhow, Colonel Gaddafi owns, excuse me, owned far more work of mine than almost anyone else, although I never really advertised it. Im ashamed to say theres still a bit of a stigma attached to dictators. I guess we havent really come so far after all. Whatever, Im not ashamed of the fact that Ive always done well with warlords, strongmen, dictators and autocrats. Im not sure what it is that attracts them to my work in particular. Perhaps its ferocious virility. Its laserbeam focus on desire and freedom. One thing Ive found: dictators are nothing if not in love with desire and freedom. Intensely in love with desire and freedom. Sometimes even too intensely! But Gaddafis appreciation of my work bordered on fanaticism. Did I mention how much of my work he bought? While Bashar al-Assad might actually own more work, most of it was picked up on the cheap at charity auctions, so it doesnt count. And also hes kind of a dick. In any case, Gaddafi paid in money. That wasnt his problem. His problem was the uncertainty caused by his slipping grip on power and the very real possibility that should the rebels win they might hate art and dump all my work on the secondary market. One hundred and eighty three paintings and 574 drawings to be exact. Thats a lot for the market to bear, and Ill be honest, much of it wasnt my best. It began to occur to me that the only way to survive this was to make sure the collection was destroyed and Gaddafi was horribly mutilated and murdered. Thinking back on it now, I cant actually recall the line of reasoning that determined the necessity

of his mutilation and murder, but suffice it to say that it seemed convincing enough at the time. I believe they call it the fog of war. I pressed my case, making quite a few phone calls, and it was easier than I had supposed. There had been substantial lobbying on behalf of gallery interests and human rights groups who had come to a similar conclusion. I had been unaware that Gaddafi had made so many enemies in the international community. He had apparently committed some atrocities that were widely considered to be unacceptable. I guess everything just kind of fell into place. Its beautiful when interests just line up so perfectly. One, two, three. Just like that. After a few awkward mishaps, the collection was finally bombed and a collective sigh of relief could be heard from the international art markets. But I never got so much as a thank you. Which is fine. The look of hope on the faces of the Libyan rebels as the building burned (not the mistargeted school building but the actual building that housed the collection) was thanks enough. And to them I say, Youre welcome.

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Now Hear This

Muammar Gadaffi chairs a defence council meeting seated in front of Jonathan Grossmalermans Total Fulfillment, oil on canvas, 2009. Courtesy the artist

m going to make a bold admission. I had NATO bomb Libya and I am directly responsible for the horrific mutilation and murder of its leader and first-class art collector, Muammar Gaddafi. There. I said it! It sounds crazy, right? But its true! Ive been carrying this burden around for a couple of months now. It was really awful. You see, Gaddafi was one of my biggest collectors. This may be news to you, but the Libyan leader spent the last 20 years assembling what is widely acknowledged by experts to be by far the best and most comprehensive collection of contemporary art anywhere, ever. Even better than that of Robert Mugabe, and without using Mugabes shadowy Sudan Network. Whats that? You never heard of the Sudan Network? The artworlds dirty secret? Where they dump shipping containers full of unsold contemporary art in northern Sudan in exchange for human beings? Human beings! Who in turn are traded by Colonel McAvoy, the Bastard Rhodesian, for guns, drugs and, finally, cold, hard cash. All so that Chelsea galleries can keep their lights on. Its a disgusting practice that I cant denounce strongly enough. Im really against it. I also want to stress that I have never, ever been paid in people. I dont even know for sure how many people my work goes for, although Ive been told exactly ten for a medium-size canvas. Which doesnt seem like so many until you have to feed them. Also, while buying art by the container gets you a lot of it, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which explains why the refugee camp at Kakuma was built largely from abandoned paintings of faithfully recreated Norwegian black metal album covers and sculptures of little things made big.

OOPS, I AM BECOME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS, SAYS AN ARTIST

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Maria Lind

CAN CONCRETE ART HELP BREAK AN OBSESSION WITH HISTORY AMONG CURRENT DOCUMENTARY PRACTICES?

here was a time right before and after the Second World War when Concrete art was the apex not only of contemporaneity but also of internationalism. Many artists in such diverse places as Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia shared both a reduced nonrepresentational geometric language and a belief in universal progress. For them Concrete art was sophisticated and engaged, quintessentially of the time. It was pointing to the future, exploring in depth the idea of creating something entirely new, with no representative or symbolic function whatsoever. And importantly, with no historical baggage. A whole network of galleries and institutions exchanged information and exhibitions about this constructivist-inspired movement, and artists travelled across borders and oceans, even traversing iron curtains, to exhibit together. I am reminded of this half-forgotten phenomenon when, to the dismay of the gallery assistant, I sneak into Lisson Gallery in London the day before the opening of Carmen Herreras show there. This ninety-sevenyear-old Havana-born and New York-based painter is still sticking to the foundational principles of Concrete art: strict abstraction based on simplicity and precision. Her medium-size canvases typically hold only two colours and they are idiom and Concrete art was considered sometimes split into diptychs. Not surprisingly, increasingly old world and uncool, she has colour and the plane are primary concerns. The remained faithful to the ideas behind Art Concret paintings are strikingly concentrated. I am first formulated by Theo van Doesburg. There are starting to think about parallels between Concrete significant women Concrete artists like her from art back then and documentary practices today. all corners of the world, and like her they are not About common languages and widespread generally the well-known protagonists of the interconnectedness; art which enters public movement. Except in Brazil, that is, where several consciousness and history writing fast, and art women were at the forefront in formulating the which does so slowly. agenda of, first, Concrete art and then its further Herrera was part of the postwar wave of development in Neo-Concretism. Conveniently Concrete art, but having sold her first work at enough, one of them, Lygia Pape, who died in the age of eighty-nine, and getting institutional 2004, has a show at Londons Serpentine Gallery, recognition around the same time, the reception which for a couple of weeks at least overlapped of her work has been severely tardy. And yet she with Herreras. is typical: a woman coming from the relative Papes formally diverse body of work periphery who later became part of a context participated in Neo-Concretisms overturning of where Abstract Expressionism was the heralded the taxonomy of art in general and the rationalism of a lot of Concrete art in particular. Geometric rules are first obeyed in her early woodcuts and wood reliefs, and later disobeyed, allowing forms to lose both their purity and hierarchy. In performative, anthropologically inspired videos and installations with metal, string and light, new syncretic forms of abstraction eventually

took shape. Rather than speaking about the Concrete as simplification, here it relates to intensification the concentration bordering on overdetermination. As Concrete art used to be, so documentary practices since the 1990s are ubiquitous and interlinked. They are especially prevalent in relative peripheries and places of social, political and economic change. They generate networks and they exist somewhat under the radar of the majors of the artworld. Another similarity is that both pay close attention to issues of articulation contrary to vulgar perceptions, the relevant documentary practices do precisely that: question assumedly objective means of representation. Many of their proponents are women. But there is a major difference, one that concerns me more and more: an inability today to take the future as such onboard. Instead, as the theoretician Boris Buden argues, retrotopia reigns: as often shown in documentary work, nowadays there is an obsession with history. To the point that the past becomes the main vehicle for even beginning to think about other possible worlds.
ArtReview 59

Lygia Pape, Untitled, 1956, tempera/oil on wood, 40 x 40 x 3 cm. and courtesy Projeto Lygia Pape, Rio de Janeiro

Sam Jacob

60

Now Hear This

Hilton Frankfurt Airport Presidential Suite, Frankfurt am Main. 2012 Hilton Hotels & Resorts

here has been a recent vogue among architects for claiming that evolutionary processes are informing their design process. Their spiel goes like this: a design problem is conceived of as an ecology; the design process breeds a host of solutions; and each of these is tested within the conceptual environment. From this a single, fittest example emerges as the dominant form. This architectural discipline reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of science and a disturbing affinity with eugenics. Still, the misappropriation of Darwinian arguments gives architects an Ayn Rand-type ruthlessness and simultaneously manages to naturalise the arbitrariness of their own gestural signatures by framing it within an apparently objective (though entirely fictional) framework. What all this really leaves us with, however, is thousands of similarly shaped pieces of blue foam and an abundance of fraudulent, family-tree-style graphics. Architects and designers have a terrible record when it comes to this kind of practice. The wholly admirable activity of looking at natural things becomes, in their hands, the most puerile kind of self-justification. Nature, for some entirely frozen. Then there are the clusters of designers at least, is the last refuge of the things that seem to have collapsed into interbred scoundrel. grotesques, like the freakish accidents of pedigree But for the moment, lets take these types breeding: stomachs too distended, unclosable of pseudonatural metaphors to their logical limits: jaws, lungs too small to sufficiently oxygenate the we could imagine arranging all designed things blood, or brains just too scrambled to compute as though they were species. Each category of their own existence. designed thing could become a kind of class For Darwin, creatures such as the duckchairs might be substituted for mammals, cars billed platypus or the giant tortoise, inhabiting replace reptiles, office buildings birds and so on. the far-out edges of earth, opened a space in which Imagine, then, that we were a kind of design- to speculate on a theory of evolution. But can we fixated Darwin on a voyage around the exotic find anything of equivalent value in design? fringes of the artificial world of design. As we The design equivalent of Darwins collect specimens, we arrange them by class, Galpagos, I would venture, is the equally isolated order, family, genus and then species, until realm of bed design. Not mattresses, which are everything is set out in relation to everything a highly evolved species with a fertile gene pool else. of technologies, materials, engineering and In the midst of this taxonomy wed find marketing, but the bit underneath: the bed itself. some design tropes pursued to a conclusion and Here we find a strange genus of objects that have some that seem to remain in stasis for hundreds seemingly evolved with little input from the of years, only to lurch forward into new outside world. Grouping them into three main development all of a sudden. Others remain categories, we find beds where spumes of wroughtiron Victoriana erupt at either end, slicks of boutique hotel bordello moderne all wrapped up in purple faux leather and the giant hulks of divans massive oblongs of redundancy, vast voids that lurk at the heart of domesticity. And that, pretty much, is that.

DESIGN IS NOW AN EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS? REALLY? LETS GO TO BED AND FIND OUT, SAYS A DESIGNER
Why then should beds, in comparison with other design genera of cosmopolitan distribution, such as chairs, cars or clothes, remain objects of such endemic quality? How is it that they remain so unaffected by external influence? Perhaps there is something to those designers suggestions about ecosystems after all. Except that true ecosystems are ones within which products really develop rather than following fictionalised scenarios. The habitat that supports a beds existence is slowmoving its pace set by the number of beds we each might buy during a lifetime and limited by their uncollectable nature. The nature of their market is what regulates their for want of a better word evolution. In a strange inversion, architecture and designs invocation of evolution is as fictional and as unscientific as creationism. Architecture and design dont need nature as a science but use it as a cloaking device for the genesis of the young artificial earth that they have made. The back-tofront mirroring of science and fundamentalist religion has a still stranger effect. Creationists argue that the natural world is a designed gesamtkunstwerk of divine origin with purpose and meaning, as opposed to the meaningless genetic mutation expressed by, say, the metaphor of the blind watchmaker popularised by Richard Dawkins. Conversely, designers invoke an image of the natural right at the heart of their synthetic universe in order to generate sensations of a higher meaning, to engender a supernatural significance to the things they manufacture.

FIRST KYIV BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES REBIRTH AND APOCALYPSE IN CONTEMPORARY ART

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LIFE + BLOOD = DESIRE FLESH RATIONALISM + POWER = UNENLIGHTENED SELF INTEREST IN THE NAME OF ORDER NIGHTMARE + CATASTROPHE = PREMONITION OF CHANGE THE UNQUIET DREAM MYTH + BELIEF = UNIVERSE THE RESTLESS SPIRIT

Mike Watson

DOUBLE VISION OR A CLEAR VIEW OF THE FUTURE MUSEUM, OUR MAN IN ROME WONDERS
he late critic David Sylvester once complained that museums were increasingly being treated like themeparks by ever growing hordes of visitors an opinion that could be seen as elitist. Nevertheless, most of us have at some time wished that museums offered more calm and less jostle. Carsten Hllers Double Carousel with Zllner Stripes (2011) which ends the run of events programmed for Romes MACRO by its recently departed director, Luca Massimo Barbero, who resigned last year in response to steep funding cuts aims precisely at recreating the themepark experience within a museum setting. The site-specific installation, which won last years Enel Contemporanea Award, features two fairground carousels placed next to each other, rotating in opposite directions at slow speed, against a backdrop of black and white Zllner Stripes befuddling zigzags which cover the walls of the entire room, so as to heighten the giddying atmosphere. Some days before the exhibition opened, Hller recorded identical twins continuing his ongoing exploration of the double each dressed in matching outfits and wearing expressions ranging from deadpan to depressed, sitting one on each carousel so that they would pass alongside each other at the same point during each rotation. The resulting video is projected opposite the two carousels. Interestingly, this is the second successive exhibition themed around twins held at the MACRO, following Giovanni De Angeliss Water Drops (2011) a series of photographs of twins taken in Brazils Cndido Godi, a town distinguished by its blond-haired population of largely German descent, and by its abnormally high population of identical twin births, amounting to 47 percent of all twin births. Both shows hint at the amplification of the desire for individual space conveyed by the phenomenon of the double, or doppelgnger. In the context of art and the museum, such As Pietromarchi explained, MACROs two a desire returns one to the issue of high visitor sites will as of this month be dedicated to three numbers, borne of the pluralist cultural and main projects: MacroExpo, MacroLab and political project which has, of necessity, sacrificed MacroLive. MacroExpo will host solo and group elitism and exclusivity to the dream of a common shows at the newly renovated industrial space in cultural experience, cutting across class and Via Nizza and the ex-slaughterhouse in Romes culture. This, it seems, encourages interactive Testaccio; MacroLab incorporates a residency artforms. Hller fits the bill perfectly: if you can programme, with living and studio spaces built ride on it, its in, and so are half of the municipality. into the Via Nizza site; and MacroLive will host Though when I arrived to see Double Carousel performance and music events. The residency I found just one elderly lady looking embarrassed programme, which will host four artists and a little scared as she trundled around at a simultaneously, starts this month and will, along snails pace on a renovated carousel situated in with other initiatives, form part of a living a dark and disorienting room. programme aimed at addressing the needs of the Still, a refinement of the search for shared twenty-first-century museum space. The challenge cultural experience continues, not least at for the coming decade lies in combining the desire MACRO, which is ringing in the changes after a to communicate with growing visitor numbers turbulent 2011. Barberos resignation last May with the ability to deliver specifically artistic sparked a crisis, with artists and creative workers experiences to individuals, lest the museum fearing that Romes mayor, Gianni Alemanno, become indistinguishable from the themepark. would appoint a lackey from his right-wing MACRO is one of a number of young European administration or sell off the museum to private museum spaces facing this challenge head-on. investors. What happened next caught some people off-guard. For while the new director, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, appeared to be merely a safe, apolitical option chosen by Romes city council to calm the aforementioned fears, plans unveiled by him during a press conference in December showed an impressive capacity for creative risk and innovation in a city that is culturally conservative.

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Now Hear This

Carsten Hller, Double Carousel with Zllner Stripes, 2011 (installation view, MACRO, Rome). Photo: Davide Monteleone. Courtesy, Rome Enel Contemporanea

all our relations

Artistic Directors: Catherine de Zegher and Gerald McMaster

Planning on attending opening week events? Register for accreditation before 31 March www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/registration

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Tiffany Singh, Knock On The Sky Listen To The Sound, 2011 (detail), bamboo wind chimes, 1000 x 1200 cm. Courtesy the artist and The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt. Photograph: Tom Teutenberg

Artists Le Quy Tong Pham Luan Phuong Quoc Tri Hong Viet Dung Do Quang Em Dang Xuan Hoa Tran Luu Hau Hoang Duc Dung Nguyen Van Cuong Bui Huu Hung Le Thanh Son Dao Hai Phong Do Hoang Tuong Dinh Y Nhi Le Thiet Cuong Lim Khim Katy Bui Van Hoan

Le Thanh Son, Flower Field, 110 x 130 cm, 2011.

Le Quy Tong, Live Memories, 200 x 320 cm, 2010.

N O W & F U T U R E

J A P A N
S U P P O R T E D B Y

OPENING HOURS Saturday 3Friday 9 March 2012, 10AM6PM daily VENUE 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN RECEPTION & LIVE AUCTION Monday 5 March 2012, 6:309PM

YOKO ONO: MEND PIECE 2000 CHILDREN

LIVE AUCTION:

AUDIENCE-PARTICIPATORY INSTALLATION

MARINA ABRAMOVI | AZIZ + CUCHER ANDY GOLDSWORTHY | ANTONY GORMLEY ALFREDO JAAR | ISAAC JULIEN | WHITNEY MCVEIGH CORNELIA PARKER | TAL REGEV | CHIHARU SHIOTA KIKI SMITH | FRED TOMASELLI | FRED WILSON RICHARD WILSON

BE/LONGINGS
SILENT AUCTION:

RYOTA AOKI | KOUNOSUKE KAWAKAMI TADASHI KAWAMATA | KENTARO KOBUKE MASAKATSU KONDO | MAYU | PETER MCDONALD TATSUO MIYAJIMA | GORO MURAYAMA TOMOKO TAKAHASHI | TOMOKO YONEDA
Curated and directed by EIKO HONDA CONTACT EMAIL: info@nowandfuturejapan.org.uk | TEL: 020 8133 0866 FAX: 020 7691 7232 | www.nowandfuturejapan.org.uk
PM, 11 March 2011; one of the biggest earthquakes in history, followed by a tsunami, hit north-east Japan. The death toll reached 15,844 people: 3,450 are still missing and more than 260,000 people currently live in temporary emergency housing. Crucially, nearly 2,000 children are reported to have lost their parent(s) or guardians. NOW&FUTURE: JAPAN commemorates one year since the 3.11 Tohoku earthquake and

2:46
SUPPORTED BY

tsunami through the three simultaneous contemporary art projects YOKO ONO: MEND PIECE, 2000 CHILDREN and BE/LONGINGS, with a coinciding catalogue publication. The aim of the project is to raise urgent social awareness and nancial support for the children who lost their parent(s) or guardians in the disaster. In order to achieve this goal, educational workshops for children and academic seminars for adults will be run. These events are in addition to the evening
SPONSORS

of charitable auction and the audienceparticipatory work by Yoko Ono exhibited throughout the period. Any nancial contributions raised through this project will be donated to the Tokyo-based charity ASHINAGA, which is committed to providing emotional, nancial and social support to children in need.

Brunswick Arts

Giuseppe Mascoli

DHL

Robert Horne

Park Communications

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES
10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong / 1301PE, Los Angeles / AANDO FINE ART, Berlin / acb Gallery, Budapest / Acquavella Galleries Inc., New York / ALISAN FINE ARTS, Hong Kong / Andersens Contemporary, Copenhagen / Arario Gallery, Seoul / ARATANIURANO, Tokyo / Ark Galerie, Jakarta / ARNDT, Berlin / ART ISSUE PROJECTS, Beijing / AYE Gallery, Beijing / Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing / Beijing Commune, Beijing / Gallery Bernier/Eliades, Athens / Bitforms Gallery, New York / Blum & Poe, Los Angeles / Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing / Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York / The Breeder, Athens / Ben Brown Fine Arts, Hong Kong / CAIS Gallery, Seoul / carlier | gebauer, Berlin / Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milano / Casa Tringulo, Sao Paulo / Leo Castelli Gallery, New York / The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong / Cheim & Read, New York / Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai / Chi-Wen Galley, Taipei / James Cohan Gallery, New York / Sadie Coles HQ, London / CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS, Berlin / Galeria Continua, Beijing/ Pilar Corrias Gallery, London / Alan Cristea Gallery, London / Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris / DNA, Berlin / The Drawing Room, Makati City / Galerie Eigen + Art Berlin, Berlin / Eslite Gallery, Taipei / Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong / Stephen Friedman Gallery, London / Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong / Galerist, Istanbul / Gana Art, Seoul / Gandhara Art, Karachi / Annie Gentils Gallery, Antwerp / Gladstone Gallery, New York / Galerie Gmurzynska, Zug / The Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg / Marian Goodman, New York / Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago / Greenberg van Doren Gallery, New York / Green Naftali Gallery, New York / Greengrassi, London / Green On Red Gallery, Dublin / Galerie Karsten Greve Ag, St Moritz / Grotto Fine Art, Hong Kong / The Guild, Mumbai / Hakgojae, Seoul / Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong / Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Zurich / Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago / Hopkins Custot Gallery, London / Michael Hoppen Gallery, London / HORRACH MOYA, Palma de Mallorca / GALLERY HYUNDAI, Seoul / I-20 Gallery, New York / IBID PROJECTS, London / Gallery IHN, Seoul / Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh / Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London / Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin / Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Hong Kong / Annely Juda Fine Art, London / Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York / gallery barry keldoulis, Sydney / Sean Kelly Gallery, New York / Kerlin Gallery, Dublin / Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich / Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo / Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo / Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna / Kukje Gallery, Seoul / Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery, Hong Kong / L&M Arts, New York / Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai / Yvon Lambert, Paris / Langgeng Gallery, Magelang / Simon Lee Gallery, London / Galerie Gebr. Lehmann Dresden, Dresden / Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York / Galerie Lelong, New York / Lin & Lin Gallery, Taipei / Lisson Gallery, London / Lombard-Freid Projects, New York / Long March Space, Beijing / Galeria Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid / Galleria dArte Maggiore G.A.M., Bologna / Marlborough Gallery Inc., New York / Galerie Hans Mayer, Dusseldorf / McCaffrey Fine Art, New York / Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing / Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna / Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai / Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo / The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow / Hadrien de Montferrand Gallery, Beijing / Galerie Mark Mller, Zurich / Nadi Gallery, Jakarta Barat / Galerie Christian Nagel Kln, Cologne / NANZUKA, Tokyo / Nature Morte / Bose Pacia, New Delhi / neugerriemschneider, Berlin / Anna Ning Fine Art, Hong Kong / Galerie Jerome de Noirmont, Paris / Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris / ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul / Galleria Lorcan ONeill Roma, Rome / Osage Gallery, Hong Kong / Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney / The Pace Gallery, Beijing / Pace Prints, New York / MAUREEN PALEY, London / The Paragon Press, London / Pkin Fine Arts, Beijing / Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris / PKM Gallery, Seoul / Platform China, Beijing / Polgrafa Obra Grfica, S.L., Barcelona / Galera Joan Prats, Barcelona / Project 88, Mumbai / Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City / Rampa, Istanbul / Galerie Almine Rech, Paris / Rntgenwerke AG, Tokyo / Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris / Rossi + Rossi, London / Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan / de Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong / SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo / Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong / SCHUEBBE PROJECTS, Dusseldorf / Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne / Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai / ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai / Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London / ShugoArts, Tokyo / Sies + Hke, Dusseldorf / Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York / Silverlens Gallery, Makati City / Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore / Skarstedt Gallery, New York / Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami / Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon / Soka Art Center, Taipei / Sperone Westwater, New York / Sprth Magers Berlin London, Berlin / STARKWHITE, Auckland / STEVENSON, Cape Town / Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing / Timothy Taylor Gallery, London / Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris / Tornabuoni Art, Paris / Two Palms, New York / Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi / Van de Weghe Fine Art, New York / Vilma Gold, London / Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou / Volte, Mumbai / Michael Werner, New York / White Cube, London / Max Wigram Gallery, London / Wilkinson Gallery, London / XL Gallery, Moscow / YAMAMOTO GENDAI, Tokyo / David Zwirner, New York

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES

assertiveness, DISTURBING ADMINISTRATION, kaleidoscopes, Hindu gods, PURIST SEDUCTION, the shiftiness of language, paving stones, taking it to the streets, concrete conceptualism
words MARK RAPPOLT

facing page: Seven Turns, 19778, gelatin silver prints, six pieces, each 23 x 23 cm. Courtesy Vintage Galria, Budapest

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dont want to be a star or suchlike. Im not the type, says Dra Maurer, with typical assertiveness, as we talk in the Budapest apartment-studio she shares with her husband, the artist Tibor Gyor. Shes being characteristically modest. Or perhaps characteristically contrarian. While she may not yet be a household name to international art lovers, Maurer is a well-established star in Hungary. As one of the leading artists of the avant-garde since the 1970s, as a teacher (she is currently a professor at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest) and as a curator (among other things, Maurer is a member of the Open Structures Art Society, which puts on three exhibitions per year, featuring both Hungarian and international artists, at Budapests Vasarely Museum), Maurer has been decisive in shaping contemporary art in Hungary. And she continues to shape it today. Even at the age of seventy-four. Maurer trained as a graphic artist and, until the late 1960s, worked mainly in printmaking. Subsequently, her work has incorporated film, photography, collage sometimes of found natural materials (twigs, grass, etc) painting and various types of performative works. In short, shes not easy to pin down. Indeed, its typical of Maurer, and of her work, that much of what I asserted in the previous paragraph she would deny. When we discuss, for example, whether she feels that her work falls into a category that might be identified as Hungarian, her response is both quick and direct: There is no necessity to characterise artworks on their nationality. As I know, Hungarian fine art has no special character, it was and is European. A Czech Reversible & Changeable Phases of Movements, art historian said as she saw my Space Painting Etude 4, 1972, gelatin silver prints white pencil on cardboard, made in Austria that it is a typical Hungarian work. and 70 x 100 cm. Courtesy Ludwig Since that I have seen similar colourful installations Museum, Budapest

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Dra Maurer

made by a Czech artist. That I am a Hungarian painter or artist, no. However, I am not an Austrian [although Maurer does have dual Hungarian and Austrian nationalities], not a Norwegian, not an American. I am a human being. Much to Maurers evident amusement, and particularly since her critically acclaimed presentation at last years Istanbul Biennial, shes now becoming a more widely recognised fixture in the international (for which read American/ Western European) art canon. Indeed, she is currently showing alongside the likes of Nauman, Ruscha, Baldessari, Matta-Clark and Polke in Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 19641977, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since a few years ago, she says, everybody has been interested in my work from the 1970s. Everybody wants to talk about these works and to see them. The administration involved in this disturbs me in my current work. I dont apologise for my part in this disruption. Its clear that Maurer is more entertained than irritated. As she later explains, the photograph that she created for the cover of this magazine, in which shes holding images from a work titled Seven Turns (19778) a selfportrait that begins with the corner of her face poking out from behind a square of white card and continues with her holding the previous portrait in the series rotated 45 degrees, culminating in a dizzying spiral of hands and peeking eyes thats vaguely reminiscent both of peering through a kaleidoscope and of certain Hindu gods in part expresses the fact that a work from 32 years ago took so long to become iconic (and the signature work of the 12th Istanbul Biennial). Nevertheless, with its play of revealing, concealing, shifting and manipulating, Seven Turns is as good a work as any with which to introduce Dra Maurer.

THAT I AM ARTIST, NO I AM NOT AN AUSTRIAN,

A HUNGARIAN PAINTER OR

AMERICAN. I AM A HUMAN BEING

NOT A NORWEGIAN, NOT AN

As she continues to discus her feelings about the newfound interest in her work (as opposed to the excitement with which the newly interested treat their discovery of it), I cant help thinking of the catchphrase deployed by the American comedian Chevy Chase Im Chevy Chase and youre not. Im certainly not Dra Maurer, Im not old enough to remember much about the 1970s and didnt experience the circumstances political, social or otherwise in which works like Seven Turns were made. But that never seems to matter. Perhaps the real irony is that much of this has to do with the fact that Maurers work even if it includes portraits of what to her is recognisably a younger self is essentially timeless to everyone other than her. I cant pretend that I always know exactly what is going on in them, but I can say that I always want to know them better. Which, I believe, is the essence of what most people describe as seduction: a process of deliberately enticing people to engage with something. And despite the fact that many of Maurers works spring from a process of calculation that most people would normally associate with a certain cold inhumanity, they are always incredibly seductive in the purest of terms. During the early 1970s, Maurer produced a series of studies titled Reversible & Changeable Phases of Movement. Each contains an action, broken down into a series of movements (either three or five), captured photographically, that make sense when read both forward and backwards. The photographs are then arranged in a manner similar to a magic square. For example, Etude 4 (1972) shows the catching of a ball reduced to five movements. Which might also be the throwing of a ball when read backwards. Etude 1 (1972) contains a photograph of an empty corner space, of a hand holding a stone in midair and of a stone sitting in the corner space. Read one way the stone is being placed, read the other way the stone is being removed. Or in another combination space, hand, space, for example the stone was inserted into an empty space but not placed. I did not regard these photos as

above: System drawing for the series Hidden Structures I, 1977, Chinese ink on paper, 50 x 70 cm. Courtesy the artist right: Hidden Structures I, 1977, frottage on folded Ingres paper, graphite, 51 x 66 cm. Courtesy the artist

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images, Maurer wrote in 1975, but as signals that can easily be interpreted. A single image tells you nothing; a sequence allows you to trace a human intention. Such works are universal, or easy to interpret, because they record actions that anyone might perform: we identify with them (presuming, in the last case, that we have a hand) on a physical as much as a visual level. We enact them as much as we read them (the same could be said of Seven Turns). This is the seductive bit at work (the bit that most of the conceptual artists I run into these days forget to do). In essence, such works are readable because theyre so human, because they describe a certain beingin-the-world (and, without wishing to project too much Heideggerian thinking onto this, because they interpret that world optimistically as one full of possibilities). According to Maurer, the series as a whole could be described as a novel in pictures. Using letters of the alphabet instead of photos would have oversimplified the meaning of the images, she wrote, and often top left and above: graphic symbols would have been too difficult to Enter into the Structure (Handmade Quasi Fractal) comprehend. Its a rare artist that can make (detail, 12), 198895, acrylic on conceptual art both human and comprehensible. wood, six pieces, each 100 x 70 cm. Courtesy the artist And its precisely because her work so evidently seeks an ease of communication that her professed irritation with the current interest in it is so deliciously ironic (and brings comedians to the mind of certain writers). Which is to be expected, of course; a sense of irony and of humour play no small role in Maurers output. The works above dont simply describe a movement, they encourage us to read them as a movement. They foreground a shiftiness of language, the potential of codes and ciphers, and while one way to look at this is to say that such works articulate a rich world of possibility, they also invite an interpretation as a reaction to a life that was, in Hungary at the time of their making, controlled and restricted by an overwhelming socialist regime. As such the works may be read (as most people once more are prone to do in these current turbulent times) as political.
72 Dra Maurer

But of course Maurer has something to say about that too. Her work was political only because at the time she made it everything was political. As an example, she refers to a work titled What Can One Do with a Paving Stone? (1971), which consists of four rows of three images (that, once again, can be read forward and backwards) showing the artist variously tying/ untying, dragging, caressing, wrapping/unwrapping and throwing/ retrieving the titular stone. A paving stone is the material of fights street fighting and so on and what can you do with a paving stone? Here I made some examples of what I can do with the paving stone. It is ambivalent. You can consider it is as political. Mostly it is shown in womens exhibitions, with which, as you know, I do not identify myself. The late Dieter Honisch, a long-serving director of Berlins Neue Nationalgalerie, once wrote that Dra Maurer is not interested in art, but in reality, and the constantly-changing manifestation of reality, and if her ability to do this is, on the one hand, what makes her art so easy to access, it is also what allows viewers to extend its implications into political arenas. Or to put it bluntly, if, for most people, art is something that happens within the privileged and safe confines of a fancypants gallery that both preserves it and limits its effects, Maurers work suggests that this is not the case. And in an age when taking it to the streets is back in vogue, this, I would argue, is a strong factor in Maurers new appeal. That said, since the 1970s, Maurers work has developed along less conventionally literal lines. Increasingly her alphabet has been one of colour and form, rather than direct actions. While definitely evolving the concepts (among them ideas relating to the connection of one work to the next, as a means of capturing motion and potential energies through a series of works) on which earlier works were founded, the later works develop a focus on geometrical and mathematic relations, via processes such as folding (as seen in Hidden Structures, 1977), displacement and distortion. Like the works described previously, these have an emphasis on fluid processes rather than definitive endgames, and continue to develop the artists fundamental interest in exploring language in its most direct and elemental form. The Handmade Fractal Paintings (198895), each of which is composed of painted lines of 3mm width rendered in eight different colours and deployed to create an overlapping series of squares, explore transformations produced by enlargement: each new painting renders a detail from the previous painting while maintaining the restriction of being constructed of 3mm lines. The result is a series of works (looking almost like enlarged fabric samples particularly because those 3mm lines dont run to the edge of the painting, but leave a sort of ragged edge around the image) that relate yet evolve from one to the next.

MAURERS WORKS SPRING

DESPITE THE FACT THAT MANY OF

INCREDIBLY SEDUCTIVE IN THE PUREST OF TERMS

OF CALCULATION, THEY ARE ALWAYS

More recently, in Maurers Overlappings paintings of the 2000s, the artists morphological investigations continue to focus on the lexemes of colour and their potential to influence our perception of the world. In these works, overlapping, seemingly translucent squares or gridded outlines of colour provoke an impression of depth, making the squares appearing to flicker between two and three dimensions. The inclusion of occasional distortions to the squares (curving their sides so that they appear weightless and almost to flutter) only enhances this feeling. And yet despite their apparently complex structures (the paintings come close to looking computer-generated), such works seem to express the same interest in deploying easily comprehensible symbols (flat colours and forms) and enriching them through context (combined, these forms suggest three dimensions) with which Maurers work of the early 1970s started out. More important than that, these latest additions to Maurers oeuvre continue to unite the concrete and the conceptual in a manner that suggests that art can be both complex and thoughtful, and yet also find a relation to everyday life.

Dra Maurers Interdisciplinary Circle is on show at the Hungarian Museum of Photography, Kecskemt, until 25 March, and her exhibition Sluices will be on show at Vintage Galria, Budapest, from 6 March to 13 April. Work by Maurer is also on view in Recto/ Verso, at the Approach, London, until 11 March; in the exhibition Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 19641977, at the Art Institute of Chicago, through 11 March; and in an exhibition by the Open Structures Art Society at Vasarely Museum, Budapest, until 1 May.

Quod Libet No 39, 1999, wood, linen, acrylic, 240 x 462 cm. Courtesy the artist

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B63;33B7<5 >:/134=@ 3C@=>3/</@B7AB71 A13<3A

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART - DESIGN

Zarina Bhimji Whitechapel Gallery

19 January 9 March 2012 Admission free

Whitechapel Gallery 7782 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX Aldgate East / Liverpool Street whitechapelgallery.org

Zarina Bhimji Bapa Closed His Heart, It Was Over 20012006, Ilfochrome Ciba ClassicPrint, 127 x 160 cm, Courtesy the artist.

EFG International is once again very pleased GREATS to be associated with ArtReview and its Future 2012 Greats issue. Nothing is more exciting than discovering artists of true talent on the verge of breaking through, or who have already broken through and are destined perhaps for great things. Each new issue of ArtReview is so eagerly anticipated because of the contribution it makes to this process of discovery, adding to the next chapter in the unfolding narrative of art. As a bank, we have come a long way in a relatively short period of time, and we therefore appreciate what it takes to start out trusting in your abilities rather than your reputation, and the value of working hard and making continual improvements. It is for these reasons that we relate so strongly to the thinking behind Future Greats.
FUTURE
Keith Gapp Head of Strategic Marketing & Communications EFG International Practitioners of the craft of private banking www.efginternational.com

in association with

International
ArtReview 77

JASON LOEBS, BY BEATRIX RUF, DIRECTOR, KUNSTHALLE ZURICH

CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH, BY WILLEM DE ROOIJ, ARTIST, BERLIN

NAEEM MOHAIEMEN, BY OLIVER BASCIANO, ASSISTANT EDITOR, ARTREVIEW, LONDON

MOSIREEN, BY JOANNA WARSZA, ASSOCIATE CURATOR, BERLIN BIENNALE PAUL GABRIELLI, BY MARY HEILMANN, ARTIST, NEW YORK

ANOUK KRUITHOF, BY JASON EVANS, PHOTOGRAPHER, THANET

WAEL SHAWKY, BY SUSANNE PFEFFER, CHIEF CURATOR, KW INSTITUTE, BERLIN

TAMAR GUIMARAES, BY ALFREDO CRAMEROTTI, DIRECTOR, MOSTYN, LLANDUDNO

NEIL BELOUFA, BY BORIS ONDREICKA, ARTIST, BRATISLAVA

BRENDAN FOWLER, BY JONATHAN T.D. NEIL, EDITOR AT LARGE, ARTREVIEW, NEW YORK

TAHI MOORE, BY CHRIS SHARP, INDEPENDENT CURATOR/CRITIC, PARIS

FRANK HEATH, BY TYLER COBURN, CRITIC, LOS ANGELES

DAVID TEROGANYAN, BY JOANNA MYTKOWSKA, DIRECTOR, WARSAW MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

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KATLEEN VERMEIR & RONNY HEIREMANS, BY NAV HAQ, CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS, ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL

ANALIA SABAN, BY HOLLY MYERS, CRITIC, LOS ANGELES

LEUNG CHI WO, BY MARK RAPPOLT, EDITOR, ARTREVIEW, LONDON

ROSSELLA BISCOTTI, BY ELENA FILIPOVIC, CURATOR, WIELS, BRUSSELS BRIAN KENNON, X BY ANDREW BERARDINI, CRITIC, LOS ANGELES

ALEKSANDRA DOMANOVIC, BY LAURA MCLEAN-FERRIS, EDITOR AT LARGE, ARTREVIEW, LONDON

ALA YOUNIS, BY CHRISTINE TOHME, DIRECTOR, ASHKAL ALWAN, BEIRUT

ANDRE KOMATSU BY ISHMAEL RANDALL WEEKS, ARTIST, NEW YORK PETRIT HALILAJ, BY GIOVANNI CARMINE, DIRECTOR, KUNST HALLE SANKT GALLEN

ASA NORBERG & JENNIE SUNDEN, BY MARIA LIND DIRECTOR, TENSTA KONSTHALL RUNO LAGOMARSINO, BY JACOB FABRICIUS, DIRECTOR, MALMO KONSTHALL

MITCHELL SQUIRE, BY THEASTER GATES, ARTIST, CHICAGO

Some people spend their time predicting the future, but it takes others to make the future happen. ArtReviews Future Greats issue is our annual experiment in futurology: here, instead of reviewing exhibitions as they come and go or profiling the artists who are making waves in the present, we focus on artists who have yet to receive widespread attention, but who might become significant in the near future. Of course, by concentrating on artists who havent gained recognition from being represented by commercial galleries or exhibited widely in museums, Future Greats deliberately changes the relationship between an art magazine and the culture it reflects on. While we always stand by the artists we cover, these will typically be figures already starting to establish themselves. So Future Greats allows us to present artists outside of the complicated, often uneven process by which an art practice comes to greater attention, while sidestepping the international barriers that still exist when it comes to one part of the world finding out about whats going on in another. Its like a once-a-year virtualreality group show, and we get to curate it. (Nobody asks us otherwise.) Except that rather than curate it ourselves, we think its better to delegate the choosing to others. So Future Greats aims to be more than the usual ones to watch list of bright young things. Instead we enlist international critics, artists and curators, asking them to put their imprimatur on artists many have yet to hear of. The international reach of our selectors means that this years is perhaps the most global edition of Future Greats weve ever published. Of course, for a magazine to devote so much space to an endeavour such as Future Greats is a luxury, and were extremely grateful for the ongoing support of EFG International, which allows us and the featured artists the additional space in which to dream these futures up. But what about the art? Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of asking such a large, dispersed group of selectors is that many of the artists they have chosen share similar interests and approaches. Its uncanny, in fact, given that no one knew who anyone else had selected. Maybe our selectors are thinking in similar ways, or maybe the most innovative of tomorrows artists are heading in similar directions. Either way, this years Future Greats seems to offer a snapshot of emerging artistic perspectives that go beyond any one individual maker. Most evident is the strong focus on the power of artistic speculation and its relation to new aspects of social reality: many of these artists use forms of live performance, narrative and storytelling to reflect on the complexities of personal identity and history in the context of unstable and fast-changing political and collective histories, while being aware of the great democratic upheavals currently occurring around the world. Then there are those artists who move from the gallery and the art object into forms of architectural practice, which itself bleeds into urban intervention and social activism. Meanwhile, faced with another great upheaval that of the accelerating digitalisation of culture there are those artists who work with the vast resources of the found video and photographic image in the era of web 2.0. And almost in direct contrast, others deal with the enduring trace of the material object as a product of physical transformation, whether in sculpture or in a renewed attention to photographys tactile and material presence, as well as its image. Its perhaps a sign of the volatile mood of the current moment that the artists in this edition of Future Greats are busy rethinking how art can jump in and make its mark in a world where all the old reference points are disappearing. Nothing is certain, and theres everything to play for. The best way to predict the future is to make it happen. ArtReview
INTRO DUCTION

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Paul Gabrielli combines and assembles everyday objects and presents them as sculpture with a style that seduces both with its clarity and the puzzlement that it induces. Generally, his show at InvisibleExports in New York last year, included objects such as a soap dispenser with a yellow plastic air freshener stuck on it. Gabrielli often returns to this strange doubling up of objects. The show also contained a set of found objects stripy cloth, for example that had been manipulated and packaged in clear plastic containers backed by shiny landscape photographs, as though they were meant to be sold. Gabrielli does not title his works, because to do so would be to provide too much explanation. So what happens is that one looks at the work and ruminates about the meaning. The generic objects that he uses alarms, hand dryers and air fresheners are metaphors for humanistic thoughts, because they make one think of what these devices resemble, and it is often parts of the body. They are displayed provocatively in the gallery, where they might actually be found in real life: a fire alarm high on the wall, a sculpture of a camera near the door. Yet there may be either logic or confusion about the combinations. Gabrielli
PAUL GABRIELLI BY MARY HEILMANN

I first became interested in Jason Loebs when I saw a floormat sculpture of his at the Independent art fair in New York last year, but I got to know his work better after his impressive solo show at New Yorks Essex Street gallery in the autumn. All of the works in that exhibition looked very minimal and very elegant, but thats seemingly easy to do; what really interested me was his use of mise en abyme and the performativity he brought to the passing of time, which he revealed via different media and technologies. In one room was Autophantography (1-4) (2011), a series of boxes, each containing a roll of photographic paper. When the boxes are opened, the paper is exposed to light and captures the ghost of the empty exhibition space. In the back room was The Smoking Observer (2011), a ten-minute 16mm film that simply depicts a cigarette burning down in an ashtray, referring back to the photographic process via the way that the film, the cigarette and the paper all capture a moment of luminescence and extinguishing. Both works refer to the photographic process (its probably impossible to develop the photographs from those exposed rolls in Autophantography, while the colour temperature of the cigarette film was dark and reddish, like a darkroom) and contain a kind CHRISTIAN German artist Christian Friedrich studied of hidden connection in their Protestant theology and philosophy at Heidelberg FRIEDRICH materiality as well: Loebs University and sculpture at the Academy of Fine BY identifies a chemical used in Arts in Karlsruhe before moving to Amsterdam in WILLEM DE cigarettes that is also found in 2007 for a two-year residency at De Ateliers. It was ROOIJ photographic paper. I was there that Friedrich decided to take his analytical artistic methodology apart, and to make space in his intrigued by how this show revealed the sense of endurance practice for more intuitive trajectories and in technology (something that psychological themes. Without shying away from elements of kitsch has become increasingly brief in and dubious taste, his work gained complexity and depth. His recent times), and thats where sculptural works evolved to become monumental forms plaster-cast I think that Loebs really takes sofas or ceramic tableaux depicting fruits and erotic tools, reminiscent of Franz West as much as John Miller. At the same time Friedrich began things to a new level. to stage performances in his studio, using his sculptures, himself and various collaborators as props. The video documentations of these performances became, in turn, autonomous works. Friedrichs latest works are films that no longer refer to sculptural elements outside the screen. Untitled (2011) juxtaposes appropriated images of the earth as seen from a satellite with footage of a young man playing in the surf. The artists almost sculptural edit, reversing and cross-cutting both image and sound to sometimes stroboscopic effect, is as brutal as it is controlled. The viewer is touched on an emotional, an intellectual and a physical level. This year Friedrich has a solo show with Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam, who will also show his work at Liste in Basel in June. sometimes includes videoworks within his installations too. There is one called Dark Movie (2008) in which a boy stares straight ahead expressionlessly (under Gabriellis instruction, he is thinking about his own body as he looks at the camera), which adds to the mystery and to the clarity. He is a beautiful boy, alive, human, in front of the moving sea. And it makes one think about him, and all the other things in the room around him. Paul is really a great artist: I met him when he was a student, and my friendship with him is a big part of my life. He is a great inspiration.
JASON LOEBS BY BEATRIX RUF

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Jason Loebs Autophantography, 2011, Kodak Ultra Endura colour emulsion paper, cardboard box, 23 x 25 x 87 cm. Photo: Lucas Knipscher. Courtesy the artist and Essex Street, New York

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Christian Friedrich The Origin of Man, 20089, DV and digital photographs transferred into digital file, sound, 8 min 53 sec. Courtesy the artist

clockwise from below: Paul Gabrielli Untitled, 2011, UltraCal, plastic hairdryer, chrome hand-dryer parts, aluminium, enamel paint, 34 x 36 x 22 cm; Untitled, 2011, plastic smoke detector, plastic air freshener, archival board, electrical wire, aluminium, acrylic, oil, enamel, 13 x 15 x 8 cm; Untitled, 2011, UltraCal, basswood, gold filled chain, aluminum, plastic electrical outlet, plastic light shade, lightbulb, oil paint, 33 x 11 x 6 cm; Untitled, 2010, cloth, aluminium, c-print, archival board, plastic, staples, oil, acrylic, 33 x 28 x 1 cm. All images: courtesy the artist and Invisible-Exports, New York

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The Daily Exhaustion (2010) is a book of photographs featuring a young woman, the artist, looking thoroughly spent, wearing alternating colours that match each of the backdrops that she stands in front of fizzy yellows, bright pinks or purples. In each image she glistens with perspiration as she photographs herself over and over again. Increasing the sense of discomfort, her image, which always stretches across a doublepage spread, is bisected through the centre of her face by the folds in the newsprint on which the images are printed. Its a pile of effort, a spectrum of exhaustion, recorded and ready to take away. Winner of last years Hyres photography festival prize, Anouk Kruithof makes very social work. She engages with various human experiences, her own included, measured in relation to specific processes of production and dissemination. Best known for her genre-defying publications (they stood out a mile alongside the various formulaic and selfpublished efforts at the recent rash of photobook fairs), she is in fact a multidisciplinary artist making work in film, text and installation alongside her photographic, enquiry-based projects. Her outlook is generous and warm while remaining vigorous and critical. It could
ANOUK KRUITHOF BY JASON EVANS

make you laugh and it could provoke deep melancholy, often simultaneously. There is plenty of room for negotiation. Central to her work is motivating the viewer to engage: lazy looking goes unrewarded. She is far from complacent and rewards participation accordingly. In other works we find ritualised choreography in an abandoned office block various components in varying type and scale, the lifesize shadow of a dartboard arranged in a secret dialogue. Another project sees the artist transforming a wall of books into a collapsing, colourful wave by arranging the books according to the colours of their pages. In the artists work the strange and the ordinary swap coats and walk arm-in-arm, waiting to be unfolded, turned over, reassembled. Tahi Moore is arguably New Zealands best-kept secret. Having graduated with a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland in 2005, Moore has primarily exhibited in the antipodes. He collaborated early on with his compatriot Simon Denny, and has since managed to operate with relative discretion, creating strange and idiosyncratic videos and exerting a subtle but legendary influence on the local scene. What initially bewitched me was his video Marlowe vs the Star Chamber (2011), presented in his exhibition that year at Aucklands Hopkinson Cundy gallery, Nonsuch Park. Allegedly departing from no idea, the mute, subtitled narrative follows a string of apparently random yet interrelated associations, beginning with (from the press release): a movie frame of an empty room when Jane Birkin has just left, to images of Birkin bags, to a tattoo on Birkins second daughters arm of the scrawled word Marlowe, to the murder of Christopher Marlowe by his patrons servant and the proximity to the Queen at Nonsuch Palace. These anfractuous leaps and bounds are then paired with a nervous montage, which sometimes jibes with the narrative and, at others, ostensibly has nothing to with it all of it suffused with an oddly lyrical beauty full of warm interiors and rich landscapes (a lyrical beauty, moreover, rendered tenable by how random and unsentimental it is). To paraphrase a shrewd observation made about this work by Elam School of Fine Artss Jon Bywater: what else but the Internet could engender such far-reaching and unlikely associations? Considered in the context of the equally fragmented exhibition, which featured mysterious pieces of wood, paintings, lightbox photos and a printed A4 image of the entrance to Nonsuch Park taped to the wall, such a comment inevitably underlines Moores capacity to allegorise contemporary narrative, meaning and the perfectly aleatory clues from which it might issue into an intelligible form. Elaborately imitating a search engine, the artist could be said to pull back the reality curtain on the asubjective, authorless, exquisite-corpse generator lurking behind it. What is more, Moore seems particularly preoccupied by the increasingly complicated nature of desire to whom it belongs and where it comes from in our current web 2.0 paradigm. It is just such universal preoccupations, and the spontaneous formal finesse with which he articulates them, that both merit this underexposed artist the attention he so richly deserves and promise more compelling work to come.
TAHI MOORE BY CHRIS SHARP

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left: Anouk Kruithof The Daily Exhaustion, 2010, newspaper zine, 48 pages, full colour, 20 x 28 cm. Courtesy the artist below: Anouk Kruithof Playing Borders, This Contemporary State of Mind, 2009, artist publication, 28 pages, 32 x 41 cm, 14 pages colour images, five 21 x 17 cm booklets, one 17 x 17 cm booklet, one 21 x 17 cm postcard, one 68 x 88 cm poster. Courtesy the artist

Tahi Moore Marlowe vs the Star Chamber, 2011, digital video on DVD, colour, silent, 7 min 26 sec. Courtesy the artist and Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland

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left: Frank Heath Graffiti Report Form, 2012, HD video, 50 min. Courtesy the artist below: Frank Heath Old News, 2006, photographs, text. Courtesy the artist

left: Neil Beloufa Documents Are Flat, 2011 (installation view, Extracity Kunsthal, Antwerp). Courtesy the artist below: Neil Beloufa Kempinski, 2007, SD video 4:3, colour, sound, 14 min. Courtesy the artist

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EXT. HOUSE NIGHT. Frank Heath is a rare artist who can claim such particular working conditions, when the lawns and driveways of the American home host his fugitive broadcasts from the domestic underclass: an ornate funeral for a coathanger attended by countless brethren, for example; or the messy aftermath of a shootout between an IV-bag sheriff and a pineapple outlaw. Both scenes figured into an early, formative series, Night Mail (for Jon Newton) (19982003), surreptitiously directed on the lawn of Heaths eponymous friend, while similar works address unknown recipients, like select subscribers of the New Haven Register, who would rise to find supplementary copies of their daily newspaper dated in regressive order a ruse Heath kept up for four weeks until actual delivery boys intervened (Old News, 2006). In a more recent string of recorded telephone calls, a bewildered man describes awakening to a permanent midnight as the windows of his house have been replaced with slate (Fixed Window, 2011). Clearly Heath suits the role of lone trickster, though that storied figure may, in these cases, owe less to cultural than social causes. An atomised contemporary everyday gives his nocturnal eccentricities their shape and depth, and his gags a giftlike quality. Since moving to New York in 2006, Heath has gained a new landscape of habit Morningside Park, notable both as a focal point of the 1968 Columbia University protests and for its current lack of any tangible placard or record of this fact. A project entitled Graffiti Report Form (2012) assumes the guise of a NEIL I first got to know the work of Neil video submission to the New York City parks Beloufa when I was cocurating BELOUFA department website with the intent of Manifesta 8, in 2010 (as part of the BY documenting supposed vandalism but group from Tranzit.org), and in BORIS abruptly shifts into essay film par excellence. particular through his fabulous video ONDREICKA Strewn about the park (rather appropriately) installation Kempinski (2007), which he like Beckettian tramps, pages of Krapps Last showed as part of the exhibition. Tape (1958), a Life magazine on the Columbia Kempinski is a mixed MDF structure in events and Heaths own fictional manuscript which a film was projected. Created in co-opt the video submissions female Mali, this film was a kind of science-fiction documentary voiceover and undermine the viewers featuring individuals holding fluorescent lights, who confidence that the geologic, journalistic describe their strange, dystopian existences to the camera. and historic temporalities of this site It was created using interviews that followed certain rules: could ever receive a clear and authoritative, people were asked to imagine the future and describe it in artistic form. the present tense. While creating a set of compelling visions, the film also played on viewers expectations and imaginings of Africa. For his installations, Beloufa creates complex architectonic structures which are handmade using cheap and easily available materials and techniques, apparently improvised and process-based. These sculptures are also viewing spaces dedicated to the perception of projected moving images and sound. There is a specific strategy of time in his work that seems to embrace all tenses in the same moment, which also relates to that always-disturbing aspect of the unfinished. One can get trapped in the contextual aesthetics of his spatial setups, which drive you from the form and colour of Memphis Group design through deconstructivistworkshop-like setups in the 1970s to a model vision of the 2020s. Beloufa leads us more often to peregrination than to orientation (there is, in his work, no clear specification of a hierarchy between the moving image and the architectural framework). It is all related more to the construction of an obstacle than of a comfort; it is a boundary, a problem of self-determination. The characters in his videos, too, are more phantoms than real people and yes, not that many people know that Neil is an extraordinarily keen rock n roll acrobat as well.
FRANK HEATH BY TYLER COBURN

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Naeem Mohaiemen, based in Dhaka and New York, is an artist in the most expanded sense: he is as likely to produce essays and research notes as he is works destined for exhibition. For sure, he makes films (the most recent, The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army), 2011, is the first in a proposed trilogy) as well as occasional sculpture and photo works (I Have Killed Pharaoh and Im Not Afraid to Die, 2010, for example) but one gets the impression they took those forms simply because of their suitability to a particular iteration of Mohaiemens big idea. And that idea is a longstanding, evolving study of the international left (and its various, often conflicting attempts towards creating a society founded on ideals of equality) through the prism of anecdotal historical incidents. The first part of United Red Army lasting over an hour and shown at both the Sharjah and Momentum biennials last year plays out the crackly 1973 audio recordings of negotiations between a member of the Japanese Red Army onboard a hijacked Japanese Airways airplane grounded at Dhaka airport and a Bangladeshi official. Its suspenseful, addictive listening. Mohaiemen weaves this dialogue with narrative and visual tangents inspired by the details of the incident: we learn that the artist, growing up in Dhaka, watched the hijack standoff live on television as a nine-year-old
NAEEM MOHAIEMEN BY OLIVER BASCIANO

when it interrupted his favourite television series (a serial about a group of ageing resistance fighters, from which we are treated to clips). We learn about the minor film career of one of the captured passengers through more filmic nuggets, collaged with contemporary local and international news reports. The overall effect is an engrossing engagement with the event both on a micro, localised level and within its dizzying historical political context. This profiling of an archival snapshot as a juncture in the progression of the history of the radical left is also present in Sartre Kommt nach Stammheim (2007), in which the artist recounts, via a text-andimage collage, the 1974 meeting between Jean-Paul Sartre, a figurehead for socialisms older incarnation, and the imprisoned, nihilistic Andreas Baader, one of the leaders of Germanys Red Army Faction. Here, as in much of Mohaiemens multifaceted practice (and despite the plotted comic moments that are raised in these films and essays), a pensive melancholia for something lost or a project that has come to ruin pervades.
MOSIREEN BY JOANNA WARSZA

For those who are a part of the contemporary movements that have managed to occupy public space from Tahrir Square to Wall Street with dramatic effect, one of the first rules of belonging is that you lose your individual identity by dissolving it into the identity of the movement. A similar procedure allowed a group of Egyptian artists and filmmakers to become Mosireen. Based in Cairo, Mosireen was created with the goal of filming, collecting and broadcasting footage from the ground in Egypt. Since the beginning of the revolution, the collective sought to raise public consciousness regarding the manipulative use of protest imagery by the mainstream media and attempted to create a parallel narrative that came from the protesters. The group researches and documents cases of torture, illegal military trials and detentions; it conducts workshops in the immediate aftermath of events and live-streams footage from mobile phones, with the production of such media split and delegated among many members and supporters. Mosireen initiated, among other things, the so-called Tahrir Cinema a series of public screenings that started during the sit-ins in July as an exercise in raising awareness of media coverage and potential strategies of counterpropaganda. The groups material is available on social networks and YouTube, and is occasionally broadcast on Al Jazeera. There is an old quote from Marina Abramovi: Art without ethics is cosmetics. Although Abramovi appears to forget this sometimes, Mosireen does not. Quite the opposite.

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Naeem Mohaiemen The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army), 2011, film, 67 min. Courtesy the artist

Mosireen Tahrir Cinema, 2011 (installation view). Photo: Omar Robert Hamilton (Mosireen). Courtesy the artists

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The films, installations and performative works of Wael Shawky make their mark with a compelling complexity and multiplicity in both form and content. Born in Egypt, Shawky makes works that are predominantly concerned with processes of cultural hybridisation. For decades now, there have been Tamar Guimares, a Brazilian-born artist based in Copenhagen, TAMAR signs of a new order emerging in social and appropriates and reconfigures side stories and leftovers through GUIMARAES political systems in Egypt, and especially lately intimate gatherings, collective readings, small-scale public talks BY these same signs have attracted the attention of and film screenings. In tandem with her source material, the ALFREDO the international community. Shawky combines resulting works are invariably presented in near-obsolete media CRAMEROTTI present-day situations with tradition and portrays such as slides, acetate or film. Guimaress film A Man Called contemporary social and political conflicts in the Love (2008) relates the story of Chico Xavier, a psychic writer context of historical events. By using the strategy famed in Brazil during the countrys military dictatorship (1964 of aesthetic and contentual displacement he blurs 85). As a medium who wrote books dictated to him from the spirit world, his visions the boundaries between documentation and of cities in the world beyond, and the working structures therein, contained within animation. Although Shawky received an award them a form of large-scale urban and social planning that was both utopian and for Frozen Nubia (1996), one of his first major conservative. Guimaress work proposes time as space: historical narratives as installations, its critical take on Egyptian history rooms from which one can speculate on the present. Rather than attempting a provoked a vehemently negative response from recovery or reconstruction of the past, perhaps with alternative ends or critical the authorities. His cement replicas of traditional views a posteriori, what interests her is how artefacts and ideologies travel through Nubian homes turned the spotlight on the time how they change, corrode, become opaque, take on new meanings, are enforced resettlement of the Nubians in the misunderstood or are perhaps understood again, anew. Put another way, hers are 1960s because of the construction of the Aswan attempts to create composite images that allude to the continuity of the presents Dam. Shawky laid bare the brutality and desires with the desires and foibles of the past. Guimares takes up the position of ignorance of the government in its treatment of the amateur: a role that, referring to the enlarging of the artists profession to its people and its attitude to a thousand years of become a dealer of several domains attempting to master the ebbing and flowing history. The installation Asphalt Quarter (2003) between the social, symbolic and economic capital associated with art production takes its lead from the novel Cities of Salt (1984) (and the concomitant necessity of speculating on the artist-as-persona, and the by Abdul Rahman Munif and his analysis of the progression towards turning oneself into a destruction of Bedouin culture on the Arabian peninsula as a consequence of the onset work of art) is somehow prescient of of oil-based industrialisation. Shawkys largest film project to date, Cabaret Crusades contemporary notions of the multifaceted The Horror Show File (2010), is partly inspired by the essay The Crusades Through artist. Her attitude is at heart political, subtly Arab Eyes (1984) by Amin Maalouf. Here, Shawky uses 200-year-old Italian questioning dominant discourse and writing marionettes to revisit central episodes in the Crusades (in the period 109699) from by reframing fragments through a process the Arab perspective. Lovingly and meticulously made stage sets and costumes, that generates poetic tales, but never a wealth of references to literary and historical sources, and astutely selected music overloaded political statements; indeed, come together to create an unusually multifaceted film, with self-evident analogies it is in the dimensions of transient microto our own time. Shawky is currently working on the second part of the project, communities and minor public events that which is planned as a trilogy. she manages to create magic.
WAEL SHAWKY BY SUSANNE PFEFFER

Last year in Moscow, where I was working on the project Auditorium Moscow, I made several artistic discoveries. Moscow is a dynamically developing metropolis standing at the doorstep of social and political changes, and one could feel the atmosphere of tension making its way into every field of peoples lives. Even in art despite the seemingly ordinary picture with all the usual artworld elements, such as the kitschy Art Moscow Fair, the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (a copycat of MoMA PS1) and the Moscow Biennale, which exhibits local artists whose concerns are far removed from acute local issues there is a palpable wind of change. In particular it is discernible in artists self-organised exhibitions, and these are frequently put together by one immensely driven man David Ter-Oganyan, an artist whose work greatly reflects on the changes taking place in the city. On the one hand, as a key member of the radical Radek Community (19982008), he is fluent in the language of street protest; on the other, in his more recent works, he combines an innovative formal language with his long experience in activist art. Having tested himself in almost every classical medium, from painting and sculpture to video art and performance, his recent artistic endeavours almost exclusively use the medium of the multiple, made using a tablet and its graphic applications. In these computer drawings and paintings, he fuses subcultural gestures and avant-garde references in a postactivist art of narrative miniatures.
DAVID TER-OGANYAN BY JOANNA MYTKOWSKA

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Wael Shawky Cabaret Crusades: The Horror Show File, 2010, video, 30 min. Courtesy the artist

Tamar Guimares A Man Called Love, 2008, slide projection with voiceover, b/w and colour, English voiceover, 20 min. Courtesy the artist

David Ter-Oganyan Peacock of International Revolution, 2011, computer aided drawing. Courtesy the artist

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above Brendan Fowler Spring 2011 (Andreas Hand Under Table), 2011, archival inkjet prints, frames, Plexiglas, 119 x 127 x 15 cm, 2011. Courtesy the artist and Untitled, New York right Brendan Fowler Summer 2011 (Pacific West Sign on West Garfield, Max in the Car on His Birthday, Torbjrn in Matt & Alexanders Talk, Joels Phones on Mei Ling Way Table, 2011, archival inkjet prints, frames, Plexiglas, 101 x 79 cm. Courtesy the artist and Untitled, New York

Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans The Residence (A Wager for the Afterlife), 2012. Photo: Kristien Daem. Courtesy the artists

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Why shouldnt cool be a criterion of good art? True, cool is a better qualifier of people than it is of things. Miles Davis was cool still is cool. David Byrne is cool, definitely cool. Brendan Fowler is the second coming of David Byrne. He makes art, he makes music, he writes, he edits. He even looks like David Byrne. Brendan Fowler is cool. QED. But his work is cool too. Take Fowlers website: brendanfowler.com. No tricky nickname. No obscure or knowing reference. No pretentious [dot] net. The site itself is all white with just five lines of left-justified text. One that reads Brendan Fowler at, and the next four that link to sites where Fowlers work can be found: Untitled, Fowlers gallery in New York; 100%, KATLEEN Just what is it that makes todays homes so different, so appealing? a print and multiples publisher that put out asked Richard Hamiltons iconic collage, produced in 1956 for VERMEIR & Fowlers book Cancelled (2009); 2nd Cannons, This Is Tomorrow, more a radical advertising showroom than an RONNY Brian Kennons LA-based imprint that has art exhibition, organised by the Independent Group at Londons HEIREMANS published Fowlers prints and ISBN-10: 0Whitechapel Gallery. In light of capitalisms projections of the BY 9820559-3-5 (2009), a visual account of his future new cities packed with new forms of architectures, NAV HAQ 2008 foray into making art after having to lifestyles and unbound creativity Hamiltons collage offered a prescient vision of societies mobilised by personal, unobtainable cancel a music tour; and Upset the Rhythm, the London-based promoter and record label, desires. It is in the contemporary landscape that developed out where the productions of BARR, Fowlers of such desires that collaborative duo Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans have musical and performing self, are catalogued. developed a practice that considers the sheer abstraction that is the global Its all cool. Fowler began making and economy, and in particular its aesthetic manifestations in the realms of art and showing objects in earnest in 2009, and since architecture. Vermeir and Heiremans initiated their collaborative venture A.I.R. then they have grown in scale and ambition. the acronym for Artist in Residence, originally used for the pioneering scheme in Three cheaply framed inkjet prints fanned like New York offering artists loft-living in former industrial spaces as a means to a deck of cards and pierced by a fourth; arrays consider how property is visualised in marketing. Their own apartment which of similarly framed prints jacked together and they consider a kind of artwork in its own right is located in Brussels and acts as a attached face-to-face these are becoming point of departure for several works that they term mediated extensions. Each something like a riff style. Breaking the bigger extension, often an installation recorded via the medium of narrative video, offers, constructions into halves is another. The in various ways, a visualisation of the apartment space that is reflexive of the images and writing are always Fowlers own pictorial and rhetorical language of marketing for future architectural the bits and pieces of the world that are developments visualisations that aim to tap grabbed by a camera and shared in a way that makes them more affective, more into aspirational desires for luxurious weighty, than simply giving them over to the world online. Fowlers work is honest domestic space. Their most recent video in its self-consciousness, which is just another way of saying that its authentic, installation, The Residence (A Wager for the which is just another way of saying that its cool. Authenticity is the core of cool, Afterlife) (2012), offers a glimpse into the lives because others have to sense it in you and your work, which is to say that they must of the poster boys of post-Fordism creative sense not that you are trying to be cool, just that you are, and that what you make is. entrepreneurs. The film tells of an investor Thats the sense I get from Brendan Fowler. named Hilar who commissioned a Chinese architect, Ma Wen, to design a house for his afterlife. The installation also incorporates a design for an algorithm linked to the currency market that in turn generates a neverending edit of the Hilar footage. While Ma Wen regards art as an index to explore the unknown, he paradoxically considers the economy as the single measure of everything, opening uncomfortable questions about the status of creativity. Among sumptuous footage of the designed interiors, the story is a Faustian tale that is allegorical of the balancing act that is life in the creative class.
BRENDAN FOWLER BY JONATHAN T.D. NEIL

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The fetishes of fandom can have the aura of relics. For Brian Kennon, fandom and the images and ideas that serve as stand-ins find ways to be actively misinterpreted, as if the best method of dispelling the anxiety of influence were to reclaim the territory for oneself. Though difficult to imagine without the history of appropriation art that precedes him (from Sherrie Levine, who makes an appearance on the cover of Kennons collaborative book She Has a Hot Ass (2011), to Levines old rival Richard Prince), the work of Kennon depends less on appropriation than on misappropriation, which in modern political-speak means theft. Kennons is a kind of theft that both honours those from whom hes stealing and still happily misinterprets for his own ALA Ala Youniss purposes. This kind of misappropriated artistic YOUNIS fandom demonstrates the same appreciation practice is BY for things and relics as the real thing, but is engaged in the CHRISTINE filtered through his practice as an artist of reinterpretation TOHME making things, often for consumption in art of inherited galleries, though regularly in the form of narratives. Her books. This fetish of the book is doubly projects are realised in works using the pinup spread, the research-based curves of the models body mirroring the sociopolitical investigations, curves of the book. For Kennon, bodies and deeply explored in concurrence forms were never truly separated from minds with personal experience. and ideas. Lately his misappropriations have Through art, film and publication taken on a kind of metacommentary, mixing projects, Younis unfolds the images and influences, from invented group conditions under which collective shows clustering together into a single print to historical and political collapses the totalising of books about Los Angeles art can become personal ones. Her into a single tableau, the latter work offering a work reveals an obsession with brilliant commentary on collapsed space and production: for Beiruts fifth totalitarian summations about art. Collapsing Home Works Forum, in 2010, the false distance between concept and form, she cast and hand-painted a set Kennon takes what most appeals to him, and of 2,500 soldiers representing the makes it most physically his own. nine armies of the Middle East. A year later, she quintupled the piece into 12,265 Tin Soldiers ANDRE I first met Andr Komatsu (2011), produced and handin his home city of So KOMATSU painted in Istanbul for the 12th Paulo while he was BY installing his show Quando biennial. Concurrently she was ISHMAEL developing a publication of Ramos So Subtrados RANDALL contributions and found material (When Branches Are WEEKS on the regions soldiers/fighters, Subtracted) at Galeria to be finished by the end of this Vermelho in 2007. In that year. The Tin Soldiers projects exhibition he mixed elements of urban architectural debris fragile followed a series of works exploring industrial issues and the wall fragments holding meticulous drawings and carved-out words with small models and pale promises of Arab nationalism direct interventions on the walls of the gallery. prevalent in Egypt under the Nasser regime. This began with In one instance Komatsu ran a cut with a circular saw directly into the drywall from the gallery entrance to the middle of the space. It seemed the saw had run dead and had been left there, as if Komatsus sudden burst of destructive inspiration had faded or been stopped. I found myself instantly enthused by and immersed in his poetics of the postreadymade; he has a methodical intimacy mixed with a spontaneous, and often dark, energy. He transforms architectural detritus into a prime material in order to contemplate the destructive elements that are ushered in by the conventions of social inequality. More recent works, such as AK-47 (2008) and Sem Titulo (Tumor) (2010), follow a similar logic, but seem more concise. They deal directly with physical and societal divisions and erosions and demonstrate a need to occupy the urban context within the gallery, disarticulating it to create new meanings and incidences in the perception of the social space. It is in this displacement between creative energy and entropy that the true beauty in Komatsus work lies.
BRIAN KENNON BY ANDREW BERARDINI

her installation and film project Nefertiti (2008), in which she employed a particular model of discontinued Egyptian-made sewing machine as a metaphor for the disappointment surrounding the governments effort to nationalise industry and emphasise Egyptian sovereignty. The sewing machine remains a nostalgic icon from the heyday of nationalistic sentiments. Younis explores archives in order to dig up the creation of sentiments such as these, and to reconstruct the conditions under which they arose. Younis also works as a curator. A series of projects that she curated in 2011 (such as Momentarily Learning from MegaEvents, at Makan Art Space in Amman, and Out of Place, cocurated with Kasia Redzisz as a collaboration between Londons Tate Modern and Ammans Darat al Funun) brought to light her clear focus on research in recent artistic practice, demonstrating a collective intellectual activism much needed for current situations and audiences. Youniss projects suggest a continuum: they open from one story to another in a cyclical process of judging and not judging the conditions that create a state of being.

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Brian Kennon Untitled Spread (Heinecken, Bonvicini, Barrow, Lamsfu), 2010, archival inkjet print, 48 x 33 cm. Courtesy Ltd Los Angeles

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from top: Andr Komatsu, Desvio de Poder 1, 2011, concrete brick and epoxy paint, 133 x 240 cm (installation view, PIPA Prize 2011, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro); Untitled (Tumor), 2010, brick, concrete, iron and glue, 315 x 315 x 25 cm (installation view, Para Ser Construdos, MUSAC Castilla y Len); AK-47, 2009, brick, concrete, paint, plaster and rubbish, 350 x 300 x 100 cm (installation view, After Utopia, Museo Centro Pecci, Prato). All images: photos Andr Komatsu. Courtesy the artist

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top: Ala Younis, Tin Soldiers, 201011, 12,265 painted metal figures. Photo: Nathalie Barki. Courtesy the artist lower two: Ala Younis, Nefertiti (detail) 2008, sewing machines and singlechannel video, 11 min 30 sec (installation view, PhotoCairo 4: The Long Shortcut, Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo). Photo: Ahmed Kamel. Courtesy the artist

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Because Analia Saban has a quiet way of going about LEUNG Based in Hong Kong, Leung Chi Wo is an artist who things, an understated sense of humour and a manages to pull off the difficult trick of combining CHI WO refined, often elegant visual style that rarely makes the particular with the universal. Almost all of his BY use of many colours at a time most of her work in work starts with the image and the imagination MARK recent years has been white, black or grey it can be of a specific urban or architectural site and then RAPPOLT easy to mistake the sly and often radical nature of transforms it into a complex network of ideas, what she does. Though she works in painting, histories and competing interpretations. City Cookie sculpture, photography and printmaking, she is in (19992003) is a collaboration with the artist Sara many ways more of a dismantler than a practitioner. Chi Hang Wong that has had various iterations in Like her art-school mentor and onetime employer John Baldessari, urban contexts around the world. The work begins with the artist whose former studio she currently occupies, she has a penetrating capturing the negative shapes (of the sky) that emerge when city interest in the way art works and a penchant for taking it apart to find skylines are photographed from below. These abstract forms are then out. In her early work, as a student, she unravelled paintings, thread turned into cookies and consumed (sometimes by the artists and by thread, and reassembled them into sculptures. Later, she scraped sometimes by the public). The shape of the cookie is specific to a place, the pigment from developing photographs onto canvases to make a even though what that shape describes (a piece of sky) is universal. stark series of minimalist paintings. Recently shes been making What takes place in the act of consuming the cookie is a form of moulds of bath towels and shopping bags, casting them in white acrylic transubstantiation: we normally assume that what gives a city paint and draping them over raw canvas to make paintings by way of a substance is its buildings; here, whether you view the finished product sculptural process. It was the latter work that she took to Art Basel as air or cookie dough, its something less substantial. A group of Miami Beach last December, recent works comprises lightboxes in a solo show with her LA dealer, housing close-up photographs of MITCHELL Truth is in the water thick, Mississippi water. Thomas Solomon: a laborious individual bullet holes (presumed For those who have not forgotten her, she offers a SQUIRE crafted acrylic replica of a to have been created when Allied particular kind of reflection, and when that water BY perfectly ordinary plastic forces retook Hong Kong from the mixes with the challenges of the black THEASTER shopping bag, among other Japanese during the Second contemporary, a work emerges that not only allows GATES things, which she casually World War) left in the walls of for transformative experiences, it creates a installed on the floor against a Hong Kongs Legislative Council transformational practice. I have watched Mitchell wall with an unprimed canvas Building (one of the last Squires practice invoke a depth of clarity that both tucked inside. One can only informs his sense of self and allows him escape from remaining colonial structures in hope that someone got the joke. all the formalisms that keep artists loaded with the burden of particular the city). Looked at from an angle, the lightboxes histories. Mitchells desire to engage the black imaginary has been reveal words (and collectively evident throughout his strident career as an architect, and now theres sentences) etched onto their no need for hyphens. He has the ability to deliver questions around the fronts that offer various (and American narrative and dig deeper into the things that have no name, sometimes bizarre) need no representational admonitions and most certainly fight quietly, interpretations of what a bulletgiving us a great opportunity to see work that is not overly sympathetic riddled building might mean. to the cause, but that implicates us all, as viewers, as believers and sceptics. In many ways, Mitchells practice has informed the work that Im Glad We Have Been Bombed (2010) reads one set of six, I make. While I was attending school in Iowa, Mitchell was the only quoting the British Queen black faculty member in the College of Design. This is not uncommon Consort speaking after the in design programmes, but this fact, combined with a tremendous bombing of Buckingham Palace intellectual openness and shared interests, were launching points during the Second World War for deep mentorship. Mitchells keen sense of design, his thorough (Aston Webb, who designed the engagement with the history of architecture and willingness to Legislative Council Building, also generate a dialogue between architecture and other forms of political redesigned the east facade of the engagement including race and space made me question my palace and the Victoria Memorial own disciplinary engagement, which at the time was urban planning. that sits in front of it). We Still Critical generosity deserves recompense. Mitchell is an Have to Fight (2010), reads important artistic collaborator and exemplar voice unheard. another set of five, this time He should be amplified! rendering a quotation from representatives of the International Domestic Workers Network protesting outside the Legislative Council Building after a failed attempt to amend the Minimum Wage Bill in 2010. While the images Leung reproduces are about as specific as you can get (each bullet hole is different, and the group are in various states of attempted repair), the reading of them is as various and multilayered you can get. While Leungs work may be rooted in Hong Kong, you dont have to be to read it.
ANALIA SABAN BY HOLLY MYERS

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Analia Saban Fade Out (from Blue), 2011, laser-carved acrylic on canvas, 102 x 76 cm. Courtesy the artist and Josh Lilley Gallery, London

Leung Chi Wo Im Glad We Have Been Bombed, 2010, light installation: LED light, etched Plexiglas, c-print, dimensions variable (each element 30 x 40 cm). Photo: Leung Chi Wo. the artist. Courtesy Rokeby, London

Mitchell Squire The Annunciation, 2010, still from two-channel video, unsynchronised continuous loops. Courtesy the artist

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Rossella Biscotti The Bare Prison of Santo Stefano, Cell II, 2011 (installation view, Open Studio Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, 2011), lead sheet, 500 x 222 cm, unique. Courtesy the artist and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam

Petrit Halilaj Astronauts saw my work and started laughing, 2011 (installation view, Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands, 2011, RaebervonStenglin, Zurich), wood, strings, metal, soil, beans, 280 x 180 cm. Courtesy Chert, Berlin

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It is not a negligible detail that the art of Rossella Biscotti is, more often than not, heavy. And if the physical weight of a number of the Italians projects suggests that she is unafraid of ponderous materials, she matches this with an equal fearlessness when it comes to the weighty implications of her subjects. For Il Processo (The Trial, 2010), which comprises a sculptural installation, film and performance, and is perhaps the artists most ambitious project to date, Biscotti gained access to the portion of the 1930s-built Foro Italico that was originally designed as a fencing school and repurposed, at the end of the 1970s, into what was called the Aula Bunker, a high-security courthouse. It was there, during Italys bullet-ridden years of lead, that celebrated Italian intellectuals from Antonio Negri to Paolo Virno were tried and later imprisoned for what the state considered their direct and nefarious influence on radical leftist terrorism. Biscotti created reinforced concrete casts of various fragments and details of the interior trial cells just as the building was slated to be returned to its original splendour, an official move to cleanse the site of at least one questionable past. The artists resultant forms, like rough minimalist monoliths, bear the physical, indexical traces of a history that her project suggests is inscribed in the very walls, furnishings and accoutrements of that officially sanctioned place of repression. In addition to making a film that recorded the visit of a number of former trial detainees and their PETRIT Petrit Halilaj families to the site, she created a performance does not shy HALILAJ piece for which she commissioned a professional away from BY interpreter to paraphrase parts of the audio using his GIOVANNI recording of the trial in English while a typist personal CARMINE recorded the new paraphrased version. The biography as a crucial distance and difference that Biscotti source for his inserts, indeed performs, is rhetorical. The work. The performance is not a mere repetition, recital or Kosovo-born artists childhood reconstruction of what was once said, because memories, centred on the drama nothing is as it once was: the distance between of war and the subsequent refugee the original text and the interpreters tragedy, are the motor for the paraphrasing, like the difference between the creation of complex and often historic site of the trial and what is produced by monumental installations. For casting present-day fragments of it, reveals a those affected by these recent crucial gap. And it is as if all of Biscottis work is historical events, the search about precisely this gap the aporia of history, for an understanding of home memory and truth. and cultural identity is still a significant theme today, and Halilaj makes it tangible for everybody by mixing world history with a very personal definition of his own identity. A perfect example was the installation at the last (6th) Berlin Biennale, in 2010, where he occupied the ground floor of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art with a gigantic wooden skeleton of a building: The places Im looking for, my dear, are utopian places, they are boring and I dont know how to make them real (2010). This was the ghost of the house that his family was supposed to inhabit in his homeland; his brothers and his
ROSSELLA BISCOTTI BY ELENA FILIPOVIC

father worked with Halilaj on its construction. The artist, who is in his mid-twenties, uses simple materials such as earth and wooden slats, but also live chickens and found objects from the archives of vanished museums in Kosovo, to illustrate this permanent quest. Operating close to the aesthetic of Italian Arte Povera, combined with a sense of Land Art, the artist searches for the spectacular without losing track of a fundamental simplicity. Despite his youth, Halilajs exhibitions are precisely conceived narrations, in which the fictional sometimes even the science-fictional infiltrates the real sociopolitical context of the works on show. Not many artists know how to move an audience and awaken their emotions without becoming pathetic: and this is only one of the qualities embodied in Halilajs work.

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Ive been interested in Aleksandra Domanovis work ever since I saw a version of 19:30 (2010), an ongoing project in which the artist amasses an archive of evening news idents from the former Yugoslavia, spanning 1958 to the present, and invites DJs to remix them. Techno and the evening news were moments of remembered togetherness for the artist and others from the region during a period of change and turmoil, and the combination of the two creates a complex layering of psychological and historical memories of a country that no longer exists. The idea of dancing and being somewhere else mentally is really strong, I think, and powerfully communicated; its mournful yet celebratory full of energy and lively bodies. Domanovi has also created paper-stack sculptures (made by printing to the edge of blank A4 paper, at full bleed) that commemorate the day in 2010 that the .yu domain was taken off the Internet. The images on the sides of the stacks (some of which one can download to print at home) depict violent football fans from the region letting off flares at matches. The memorialising of this moment makes sense for an artist so committed to the Internet as a form; and yet Domanovi is a cultural anthropologist who carries out her work in the plastic world of sculptures, physical archives and documentation as much as she does online. As in 19:30 and the paper monuments, what powers much of the artists work is an interest in pinpointing those moments when struggles with national identity become visibly manifest on the surface of a culture. This is brilliantly RUNO Based in Malm and So Paulo, Runo Lagomarsino uses demonstrated in the video essay Turbo text, photographs, slides, video and found objects among LAGOMARSINO Sculpture (200912), an engaging piece of them matches, maps and natural resources like the sun to BY analysis that tracks the recent popularity in create his conceptual but poetic work. Though Lagomarsino JACOB Eastern Europe (and in Serbia in particular) was born and raised in Sweden (with a few years in Spain), FABRICIUS for creating glitzy public monuments to his parents arrived there having been exiled from Argentina honour celebrities and film characters such as in 1976. Lagomarsinos Italian grandfather, meanwhile, had Rocky, Jackie Chan and Tarzan (British pinup taken the reverse route to Argentina following the First Sam Fox and East Coast rapper Tupac have World War. This transatlantic family history plays an also been mooted) in place of celebrating important role in Lagomarsinos artistic practice works like Full Spectrum national heroes, following the atrocities of war Dominance (2008), Horizon (Southern Sun Drawing) (2010) and Trans Atlantic and the damaged reputations of political (201011) which is further shaped by an interest in historical, political, social leaders. For the Marrakech Biennale this year and, last but not least, colonial issues. Trans Atlantic consists of blank sheets of she plans to create her own form of turbo paper that have literally travelled across the Atlantic Ocean. During their journey sculpture: a version of a socialist monument (accompanied by a solitary sailor) the sheets were exposed to, yellowed and covered in tadelakt stone, the soapy, softened burned by the sun. If, on the one hand, a seemingly arbitrary combination of type of finishing common in Moroccan duration, weather and geography created the works and their minimal, geometric palaces, riads and hammams. randomness, its a particular combination of human and personal histories that produces some more specific associations with colonial history, with the slave trade (and other historic trading routes) and with the journeys undertaken by the ASA NORBERG Asa Norberg and Jennie artist and his family. Lagomarsinos poetic and political sensibility brings to Sundns obsessively & JENNIE detailed and meticulously mind the Brazilian artists Hlio Oiticica and Cildo Meireles, but coming from a SUNDEN younger generation, with dual roots and languages, and being brought up within arranged As We Go Along BY MARIA LIND the context of the Swedish welfare state, he manages to observe and investigate (2009) is an ongoing history and its mistakes, and todays political and social structures, from multiple project inspired by lectures Josef Albers gave perspectives. at the Bauhaus during the 1920s and at Black integrate and get along. Like Albers, Norberg Mountain College during the 1930 and 40s. and Sundn pay close attention to the quality One version of As We Go Along consists of and associations of materials. On top of that, three low platforms (referring to presentations they have an intense concern with detail, at art schools) with simple shapes made of carefully crafting objects that have an unclear cheap materials the sorts of peripheral use value but an apparent beauty. In their materials that are always around: plugs for hands, democratic design is enveloped in mounting, sandpaper for polishing and lifestyle and yet retains a sense of magic. shaping, corrugated cardboard for protecting A similar care for even the smallest component an object, etc on top. Beige tape has been cut of a project comes across in the pairs out to look like filigree, and black plastic has curatorial activities, which since 2009 happen been turned into a delicate net hanging from under the banner of their project space, Hit. slender wooden sticks. Albers, one of the The two graduates from the Ume Academy most influential abstract artists of the of Fine Arts set up this intimate studio-cumtwentieth century and a legendary teacher, project space in one of Gothenburgs famous often used inexpensive materials in his wooden housing blocks (which date from the workshops, encouraging the students to get early twentieth century). In Swedish, hit the most out of what was at hand so as to learn means in the direction of here. Within a how to interact with it. Albers used the word provincial art scene like Gothenburgs, magic in relation to the moment of Hit has become a welcome attraction, and transformation of the material, a moment that has introduced artists such as Falke Pisano, he called Schwindel (which means both hoax Rosalind Nashashibi and Slavs and Tatars and vertigo). He often drew parallels to Sweden for the very first time. between form and society, encouraging democratic design, in which all elements lines, shapes and colours were supposed to
ALEKSANDRA DOMANOVIC BY LAURA MCLEANFERRIS

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from top: Aleksandra Domanovi Turbo Sculpture, 2010 (installation view, The Presents Presents, CAN, Neuchtel), single-channel HD video, photo: Sully Balmassire; Untitled (30.III.2010), 2010, 3 x 7,500-page paper-stack sculpture, A4 inkjet; 19:30, 2011, still, single-channel HD video. All images: courtesy the artist

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Runo Lagomarsino Trans Atlantic (detail), 201011, 32 sun drawings and 17 unrealised sun drawings, newsprint paper, 33 x 48 cm each. Photo: Andreas Zimmermann. Courtesy private collection, London

above: Asa Norberg & Jennie Sundn Dear Maurizio, 2007 (installation view, Project07, Bildmuseet, Ume), mirror glass, photo: Julia Peirone left: Asa Norberg & Jennie Sundn As We Go Along, 2012 (installation view, Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm), wood, textile, plastic, mirror glass, photo: Asa Norberg & Jennie Sundn

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Lines of Thought

Parasol unit
29 February 13 May 2012 Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art 14 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW T +44 20 7490 7373 info@parasol-unit.org www.parasol-unit.org
Image: Anne Truitt, Harvest Shade , 1996, Acrylic on wood, 153 x 14 x 10 cm, Estate of Anne Truitt and courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

OF JAMAIS VU
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LAURA_UPSIDEDOWN DAN COOPEY.

17/02/12 - 04/03/12. by the artist

PREMIUMS INTERIM PROJECTS

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ERIK LARSSON.
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2012 Season concludes with:

SHANE BRADFORD.
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L FOUNDATION.
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NICK CROWE & IAN RAWLINSON.

14/06/12 - 07/07/12.
RA Schools sponsored by

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Adham Faramawy, Between 2 Suns (detail) Digital video, 2012.

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UNITED STATES Casey Kaplan 525 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 +1 212 645 7335 info@caseykaplangallery.com www.caseykaplangallery.com Marlo Pascual to 28 Apr Open: Tue Sat, 10 6 Cristin Tierney 546 West 29th Street New York, NY 10001 +1 212 594 0550 www.cristintierney.com Yorgo Alexopoulos: Transmigrations 1631 Mar Doosan Gallery 533 West 25th St New York, NY 10001 +1 212 242 6343 info@doosangallery com www.doosangallery.com Meena Park: Gray Sky 131 Mar Open 106, TueSat Frieze Art Fair Randalls Island Park, Manhattan, New York, NY 47 May www.friezenewyork.com Marian Goodman Gallery 24 West 57th Street, New York, NY + 1 212 977 7160 goodman@mariangoodman.com www.mariangoodman.com Tony Cragg to 10 Mar Open: MonSat, 106 Marian Goodman Gallery 24 West 57th Street, NY, NY + 1 212 977 7160 goodman@mariangoodman.com www.mariangoodman.com Gerhard Richter 30 Mar 28 Apr Open: Mon-Sat, 106 Metro Pictures 519 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 +1 212-206-7100 gallery@metropictures.com www.metropicturesgallery.com Jim Shaw 17 Mar 21 Apr Open: TueSat, 106 Marianne Boesky 118 East 64th Street New York, NY 10065 +1 212-680-9889 info@marianneboeskygallery.com www.marianneboeskygallery.com Anthony Huberman: At The Speed Of Stone 1 Mar 14 Apr Open TueSat, 106 Oh Wow 937 N. La Cienega Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90069 +1 310 652 1711 info@ohwow.com www.ohwow.com Terry Richardson: Terrywood to 3 Mar Open 116, TueSat The Armory Show Pier 92 & 94 12th Avenue at 55th Street, New York, NY info@thearmoryshow.com www.thearmoryshow.com 810 Mar Open MonSat, 128, Sun, 127 The Pace Gallery 32 East 57th Street New York, NY 10022 +1 212 421 3292 info2@thepacegallery.com www.thepacegallery.com Mythology to 24 Mar Michal Rovner 30 Mar 28 Apr Open 9.306, TueFri; 106, Sat The Pace Gallery 534 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 +1 212 929 7000 info2@thepacegallery.com www.thepacegallery.com Happenings: New York, 19581963 to 17 Mar Adolph Gottlie 24 Mar 28 Apr Open 106, TueSat The Pace Gallery 510 West 25th Street +1 212 255 4044 +1 212 659 0096 info2@thepacegallery.com www.thepacegallery.com Fred Wilson Venice Suite: Sala Longhi and Related Works 17 Mar to 14 Apr Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years to 10 Mar Open TueSat, 106 The Pace Gallery 545 West 22nd Street New York, NY 10001 +1 212 989 4258 info2@thepacegallery.com www.thepacegallery.com Paul Graham: The Present to 24 Mar Open 106, TueSat Regen Projects 9016 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90069 +1 310-276-5424 office@regenprojects.com www.regenprojects.com James Welling: Geometric Abstraction 29 Feb 31 Mar Open TueSat, 106 HONG KONG Hong Kong International Art Fair Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre +852 3127 5529 www.hongkongartfair.com info@hongkongartfair.com 1720 May iPreciation Hong Kong Shop LG 1-3 Jardine House 1 Connaught Place, Central, HK +852 2537 8869 enquiry@ipreciation.com www.ipreciation.com Open Mon-Fri, 10-7, Sat 11-3 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Atr Gallery Serafi Mega Mall, Business Center, 5th Floor, Tahlia Street + 966 2284 5009 / +966 5686 588 88 info@athrart.com www.athrart.com Young Saudi Artists II 21 Jan 20 Mar Open SatThu, 1010 Hunar Gallery Stand B 12, Art Dubai, Johara Ballroom, Madinat Jumaira, Dubai +971 4 2862224 hunarart@emirates.net.ae www.hunargallery.com Abdul Qader Al Rai ; Dr.Najat Makki Art Dubai 2012 2124 Mar Open Wed, 11.303, Thu 49.30, Fri 127.30, Sat 125.30 Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art Education City off Al-Luqta Street P.O. Box 2777 mathaf_info@qma.org.qa www.mathaf.org.qa +974 4487 6662 / +974 4402 8855 Cai Guo Qiang: Saraab to 26 May Open 116, Tue-Sun; 39 Fri Sharjah Art Foundation PO Box 19989, Sharjah +971 6 568 5050 www.sharjahart.org info@sharjahart.org March Meeting 2012 Working with artists & audiences on commissions & residencies 1719 Mar Open 10-5, Sat-Mon

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Armory FocuS: The Nordic couNTrieS: Galerie Anhava, Helsinki Martin Asbk Gallery, Copenhagen Beaver Projects, Copenhagen Gallery Niklas Belenius, Stockholm Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen Crystal, Stockholm D.O.R., Oslo Dortmund Bodega, Oslo ELASTIC, Malm Fruit & Flower Deli, Stockholm i8, Reykjavik IMO, Copenhagen Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm Christian Larsen, Stockholm NOPlace, Oslo Galleri Susanne Ottesen, Copenhagen David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen Galleri Christian Torp, Oslo V1 Gallery, Copenhagen Armory Focus: The Nordic Countries is sponsored by the ACE HOTEL NEW YORK. The Armory ShowcoNTemPorAry, Pier 94: AMBACH & RICE, Los Angeles Andrhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm Angles Gallery, Los Angeles Bar Galeria, So Paulo Galerie Guido W. 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Wigmore Fine Art, New York Amy Wolf Fine Art and ElrickManley Fine Art, New York Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York Solo ProjecTS: Jose Bienvenu Gallery, New York: Dario Escobar Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Lima: Billy Hare Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles / Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York: Patrick Jackson Horton Gallery, New York: Wallace Whitney KS Art, New York: Tom Fairs Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto: Mike Bayne On Stellar Rays, New York: Clifford Owens SEVENTEEN, London: Kate Owens TEAPOT, Cologne: Christian Eisenberger Winkleman Gallery, New York: Jennifer Dalton NoT-For-ProFiT SecTioN: Art Dealers Association of Canada, Toronto Art in General, New York Art Production Fund, New York The Living Arts Museum, Reykjavik / Overgaden, Copenhagen New Museum, New York Whitechapel Gallery, London

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March 811, 2012 New York City thearmoryshow.com

Europe
AUSTRIA Christine Koenig Galerie Schleifmuehlgasse 1A +43 1 585 74 74 office@christinekoeniggalerie.at www.christinekoeniggalerie.com Margherita Spiluttini: Third Room: LOVE architecture to 10 Mar TueFri, 117, Sat, 114 Georg Kargl Schleifmuehlgasse 5 A-1040 Wien +43 1 585 41 99 office@georgkargl.com www.georgkargl.com Mark Dion : Fresh Sculpture 10 Mar TueFri, 117, Sat, 114 Hubert Winter Breite Gasse 17, 1070 Vienna +43 1 5240976 office@galeriewinter.at www.galeriewinter.at Franz Vana: The Mid 70s 10 Feb 17 Mar Secession Wiener Secession, Association of Visual Artists Friedrichstrae 12, A-1010 Vienna +43 1 587 53 07 office@secession.at www.secession.at Rudolf Stingel, Michael Snow to 15 Apr Open, 106, TueSun Thaddaeus Ropac Mirabellplatz 2, 5020 Salzburg +43 662 881 393 office@ropac.at www.ropac.net Jason Martin to Mar 24 Open TueFri, 106, Sat, 102 BELGIUM Almine Rech 20 Rue de lAbbaye Abdijstraat, B1050 Brussels +32 2 648 5684 brussels@alminerech.com www.alminerech.com Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille: The Weed to 11 Apr Open 117, TueSat Galerie Baronian-Francey 2 Rue Isidore Verheyden 1050 Brussels +32 2 512 9295 info@baronianfrancey.com www.baronianfrancey.com Open 117, TueSat Tim Van Laere Verlatstraat 23-25 2000 Antwerp +32 3 257 14 17 info@timvanlaeregallery.com www.timvanlaeregallery.com Atelier Van Lieshout 15 Mar 5 May Open 26, TueSat Xavier Hufkens Rue Saint-Georges 6-8 1050 Brussels +32 2 639 67 30 info@xavierhufkens.com www.xavierhufkens.com Open 127, TueSat Zeno X Gallery Leopold De Waelplaats 16 B-2000 Antwerp +32 3 216 16 26 info@zeno-x.com www.zeno-x.com Barte Stolle 16 Mar 28 Apr Open 26, WedSat DENMARK Nicolai Wallner Ny Carlsbergvej 68 OG DK-1760 Copenhagen +45 32570970 nw@nicolaiwallner.com www.nicolaiwallner.com Sacra Conversazione by Alexander Tovborg and Jeppe Hein through Apr Kunsthal Charlottenborg Nyhavn 2 DK 1051 Copenhagen +45 33 13 40 22 info@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk www.kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk The Spring Exhibition 2012 24 Feb6 May FRANCE Almine Rech 19 rue de Saintonge, 75003 Paris +33 1 45 83 71 90 paris@alminerech.com www.alminerech.com Beatrice Carraciolo: Terra DOmbra Curtis Mann: Openings 3 Mar7 Apr Open 117, TueSat Art Paris 2012 Grand Palais, Paris 29 Mar 1 Apr www.artparis.fr Galleria Continua Le Moulin 46 rue de la Fert Gaucher 77169 Boissy-le-Chtel (Seine-et-Marne) +33 (0)1 64 20 3950 lemoulin@galleriacontinua.com www.galleriacontinua.com Sphres 4 to 6 May Open FriSun, 126 Chantal Crousel 10, rue Charlot 75003 Paris +33 1 42 77 38 87 galerie@crousel.com www.crousel.com Open TueSat, 111; 27 Galerie Lelong 13 Rue de Teheran 75008 Paris +33 1 45 63 13 19 info@galerie-lelong.com www.galerie-lelong.com David Nash to 17 Mar Open 117 Inception Gallery 37, rue de Poitou 75003 Paris +33 1 42 74 36 14 contact@inceptiongallery.com www.inceptiongallery.com Christine Barbe: Corps et Paysages Mutations 14 Mar 2 Apr TueSat, 117 Thaddaeus Ropac 7, rue Debelleyme, 75003 Paris +33 1 4272 9900 galerie@ropac.net www.ropac.net Raqib Shaw: Of Beasts and Super Beasts 3 Mar 6 Apr Open 107, TueSat Emmanuel Perrotin 76 Rue de Turenne & 10 Impasse St Claude, 75003 Paris +33 1 42 16 79 79 info@perrotin.com www.perrotin.com Lionel Esteve / Dan Flavin to 3 Mar Gelitin: The Voulez Vous Chaud 10 Mar21 Apr Open 117, TueSat Myrvold > Myworld 15 rue Sambre et Meuse 75010 Paris +33 6 07968552 myworld@pia-myrvold.com www.pia-myrvold.com By appointment in Paris Suzanne Tarasieve Paris 7 Rue Pastourelle, 75003 Paris +33 1 42 71 76 54 info@suzanne-tarasieve.com www.suzanne-tarasieve.com Boris Mikhailov: Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino, 2000-2010 to 10 Mar

Listings

Suzanne Tarasieve Paris / Loft 19 Passage de LAtlas / 5 Villa Marcel Lods, F-75019 Paris +33 1 45 86 02 02 info@suzanne-tarasieve.com www.suzanne-tarasieve.com Boris Mikhailov: I am not I, 1992 to 10 Mar GERMANY Galerie Daniel Blau Odeonsplatz 12, 80539 Mnchen +49 89 29 73 42 contact@danielblau.com www.danielblau.com Open Tue Fri, 116, Mon & Sat by app

Listings

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Listings

Europe
MAXXI Via Guido Reni, 4A, 00196 Rome +39 06 3996 7350 info@fondazionemaxxi.it www.fondazionemaxxi.it Doris Salcedo: Plegiara Muda 15 Mar 24 Jun Open 117 TueFri, Sun; 1122 ThuSat Workshop Arte Contemporanea Dorsoduro 2793 / A 30123 Venezia +39 041 099 0156 info@workshopvenice.com www.worshopvenice.com Anna M. R. Freeman: Chamber to 24 Mar Open Mon=Sat 10.301 & 2.307 NETHERLANDS Grimm Gallery Eerste Jacob Van Campenstraat 23-25, 1072 BB Amsterdam +31 614883834 info@grimmgallery.com www.grimmgallery.com Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils Group show curated by Nick van Woert 331 Mar de Appel Arts Centre de Appel Arts Centre PO Box 10764, 1001 ET Amsterdam +31 20 6255651 info@deappel.nl www.deappel.nl SPAIN Helga de Alvear Calle del Doctor Fourquet, 12, 28012 Madrid +34 91 468 05 06 www.helgadealvear.com Doug Aitken: Black Mirror to 10 Mar Jos Pedro Croft 15 Mar 5 May Open 117, TueSat Centro de Artes Visuales Fundacion Helga de Alvear Calle de Pizarro, 8, 0003 Cceres +34 92 762 64 14 general@fundacionhelgadealvear.es www.fundacionhelgadealvear.es Group Show Open 102 & 58, TueFri; 102.30, Sun MUSAC Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24 24008 Len +34 987 09 00 00 musac@musac.es www.musac.es One Sixth of the Earth. Ecologies of Image to 3 Jun TueFri, 103 & 58, SatSun, 113 & 59 Museo Picasso Palacio de Buenavista C/ San Agustn, 8, 29015 Mlaga +34 952 12 76 00 info@museopicassomalaga.org www.museopicassomalaga.org Prince/Picasso 27 Feb 27 May Open TueFri, 106 SWITZERLAND Urs Meile Rosenberghhe 4, 6004 Luzern +41 41 420 33 18 galerie@galerieursmeile.com www.galerieursmeile.com Meng Huang: I and We to 31 Mar 106 TueFri, Sat (by appointment) UNITED KINGDOM Alison Jacques 1618 Berners Street, London, W1T 3LN +44 20 7631 4720 info@alisonjacquesgallery.com www.alisonjacquesgallery.com Thomas Zipp: 3 Contributions to the theory of mass-aberrations in modern religions to 31 Mar Open TueFri, 106 BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art South Shore Road, Gateshead NE8 3BA +44 191 478 1810 info@balticmill.com www.balticmill.com Andrea Zittel: Lay of My Land to 20 May Open 106; except Tue, 10.306 Blain Southern 6 Hill Street, London W1J 5NF +44 20 7493 4492 info@blainsouthern.com www.blainsouthern.com Lucien Freud: Drawings to 5 Apr Open TueFri, 106 Brancolini Grimaldi 4344 Albemarle Street, First floor (above Post Office) London W1S 4JJ +44 20 7493 5721 london@brancolinigrimaldi.com www.brancolinigrimaldi.com Dan Holdsworth: Transmission: New Remote Earth Views 23 Mar 19 May Open TueFri, 106 Carroll Fletcher Gallery 56 Eastcastle Street, London, W1W 8EQ +44 20 7323 6111 info@carrollfletcher.com www.carrollfletcher.com John Wood and Paul Harrison: Things That Happen to 30 Mar Open WedFri, 11-7, Sat 116, Sun 124 Cell Project Space 258 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA +44 20 7241 3600 info@cellprojects.org www.cellprojects.org Eddie Peake: DEM 825 Mar Open 126, FriSun Collective 22-28 Cockburn Street Edinburgh, EH1 1NY +44 131 220 1260 mail@collectivegallery.net www.website.com Sun Xun: Undefined Revolution 3 Mar8 Apr Open TueFri, 106

Max Hetzler Oudenarder Strae 16-20 D-13347 Berlin +49 30 459 77 42-0 info@maxhetzler.com www.maxhetzler.com Monica Bonvicini to 14 Apr Sprth Magers Berlin Oranienburger Strae 18 D-10178 Berlin +49 30 / 2 88 84 03 0 info@spruethmagers.com www.spruethmagers.com Robert Morris to 17 Mar TueSat, 116 Stadel Museum Schaumainkai 63 60596 Frankfurt am Main +49 69 6050980 info@staedelmuseum.de www.staedelmuseum.de Open for Contemporary Art from 25 Feb Open Tue, FriSun 106, Wed, Thu 109 ICELAND i8 Gallery Tryggvagata 16 101 Reykjavik +354 551 3666 info@i8.is www.i8.is ITALY Collezione Maramotti Via Fratelli Cervi 66, Reggio Emilia + 39 0522 382484 info@collezionemaramotti.org www.collezionemaramotti.org Huma Bhabba: Players Kaarina Kaikkoken: Are We Still Going? to 15 Apr Brand New Gallery Via Farini 32, 20159 Milan +39 02 8905 3083 info@brandnew-gallery.com www.brandnew-gallery.com Ori Gersht: Still and Forever Alexander Tovborg: Giverny 1 Mar 4 Apr Open 111, 2.307, TueSat Galleria Continua San Gimignano Via del Castello 11 53037 San Gimignano (SI) +39 0577 943134 info@galleriacontinua.com www.galleriacontinua.com Carlos Garaicoa/ Kader Attia to 15 Apr Open TueSat, 27 Lorcan O Neill Via Orti dAlibert 1e, 00165 Rome +39 06 6889 2980 mail@lorcanoneill.com www.lorcanoneill.com Richard Long through Mar Open TueSat, 128

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Listings

101103 Heath Street, Hampstead, London NW3 6SS Open Tue-Sat 2-6, Sun 2.30-6.30 +44 (0)20 7794 4949 art@gallery-k.co.uk www.gallery-k.co.uk

Hodgkinson & Heald

Modern Painters

CLAIRE BURKE & BARRINGTON TOBIN

19 February 25 March
Logo spine.indd 1 04/10/2010 17:57

28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG +44 (0)207 287 8408 www.biddyhodgkinson.com www.victoriaheald.com

27th - 31st March 2012 at The Gallery in Cork Street

GalleryK_0.25.indd 1

9/2/12 14:35:25

Coming in April:

Gillian Wearing, Robert Crumb, Francesco Vezzoli, Becky Beasley, Glasgow, Manifestos for 21st Century Design, Formafantasma, Xavier Veilhan

Listings

Europe & South Africa

Ronchini Gallery 22 Dering Street, Mayfair London, W1S 1AN +44 20 7629 9188 info@ronchinigallery.com www.ronchinigallery.com Giulio Paolini, Domenico Bianchi and Gio Ponti: Italian Beauty to 5 Apr Open TueFri, 106 Rosenfeld Porcini 37 Rathbone Street, London, W1T 1NZ +44 207 637 1133 emily@rosenfeldporcini.com www.rosenfeldporcini.com Cesare Lucchini 2 Mar 21 Apr Open TueSat, 117 Tate Modern Bankside, London SE1 9TG +44 20 7887 8888 visiting.modern@tate.org.uk www.tate.org Yayoi Kusama: Look Now, See Forever to 5 June Open SunThu, 106, FriSat, 1010 The Composing Rooms Lower level, Rich Mix 547 Bethnal Green Road London, E1 6LA +44 7 512 150 743 che@thecomposingrooms.com mailto Anne de Vries from 23 Mar Open 125, Sun, and by appointment The Hepworth Gallery Walk Wakefield, WF1 5AW +44 19 2424 7360 hello@hepworthwakefield.org www.hepworthwakefield.org Heather & Ivan Morison, Ben Rivers, David Thorpe to 10 June Open TueSat, 105 The Modern Institute 1420 Osborne Street Glasgow, G1 5QN +44 141 248 3711 mail@themoderninstitute.com www.themoderninstitute.com Pdraig Timoney 29 Feb 11 Apr Open TueFri, 106 Turner Contemporary Rendezvous, Margate, Kent, CT9 1HG +44 1843 233 000 info@turnercontemporary.org www.turnercontemporary.org Hamish Fulton: Walk to 7 May Open 107, TueThu; 1010, Fri Yorkshire Sculpture Park West Bretton Wakefield WF4 4LG +44 1924 832 631 info@ysp.co.uk www.ysp.co.uk/ Mir: Sculpture show 17 Mar through 2013 Open daily, 104 Zabludowicz Collection 176 Prince of Wales Road London, NW5 3PT +44 20 7428 8940 info@zabludowiczcollection.com www.zabludowiczcollection.com Ed Atkins, Omer Fast, Ruth Ewan, Dani Gal, Glenn Ligon, Mary Reid Kelley, Anri Sala, Alexandre Singh and Ryan Trecartin: Weighted Words 1 Mar 10 Jun Open Thu-Sun, 126 SOUTH AFRICA 34 Fine Art 2nd Floor, The Hills Building, Buchanan Square, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town +27 21 461 1863 info@34fineart.com www.34fineart.com Esther Mahlangu: OVERLAY to 24 Mar Open 10.344.34, TueFri; 10.341.34 Sat Brundyn + Gonsalves 71 Loop Street, Cape Town +27 21 424 5150 info@brundyngonsalves.com www.brundyngonsalves.com Paul Emsley: Retrospective 2 Mar 21 Apr Open 95 MonFri; 102, Sat SMAC Art Gallery 1st Floor De Wet Centre, Church Street, Stellenbosch +27 21 887 3607 info@smacgallery.com www.smacgallery.com Nel Erasmus: Review to 31 Mar Open 95, MonFri; 93.30, Sat SMAC Cape Town 60 New Church Street (access off Buitengracht), Cape Town, 8001 +27 21 422 5100 info@smacgallery.com www.smacgallery.com Simon Stone: New Paintings to 31 Mar Open 95, MonFri ; 102, Sat

Ingleby Gallery 15 Calton Road Edinburgh, EH8 8DL, Scotland +44 131 556 4441 info@inglebygallery.com www.inglebygallery.com Alec Finlay 17 Mar 21 Apr Open MonSat, 106 MADDER139 137-139 Whitecross Street London, EC1Y 8JL +44 20 7490 3667 info@madder139.com www.madder139.com Linda Aloysius: New Model Army 15 Mar 28 Apr Open ThuSat, 126 Mary Mary Suite 2 / 1 6 Dixon Street Glasgow, G1 4AX +44 141 226 2257 info@marymarygallery.co.uk www.marymarygallery.co.uk Barbara Kasten/Alan Michael/Daniel Sinsel/ Ricky Swallow: Construct to 24 March Open TueSat, 126 Max Wigram Gallery 106 New Bond Street London W1S 1DN +44 20 7495 4960 info@maxwigram.com www.maxwigram.com Ximena Garrido-Lecca: Paisaje Antrpico 21 Mar 5 May Open TueFri, 106, Sat, 125 Sadie Coles 4 New Burlington Place, London W1S 2HS +44 20 7493 8611 info@sadiecoles.com www.sadiecoles.com Gabriel Kuri: Classical Symmetry, Historical Data, Subjective Judgement 126 Mar Open 116, TueSat Simon Lee Gallery 12 Berkeley Street, London, W1J 8DT +44 20 7491 0100 info@simonleegallery.com www.simonleegallery.com Alex Hubbard: Eat Your Friends 2 Mar 5 Apr Open 106, MonSat Stanley Picker Gallery Kingston University, Knights Park Kingston upon Thames, KT1 2QJ 44 20 8417 4074 kingston@picker.ac.uk www.stanleypickergallery.org Daniel Eatock One + One to 31 Mar Open TueFri , 126, Sat 124 Rokeby 5-9 Hatton Wall London, EC1N 8HX +44 20 7193 5034 rokeby@rokebygallery.com www.rokebygallery.com Michael Samuels: Tragedy Of The Commons 20 Mar12 May Open TueFri, 16, Sat 114

112

Listings

New York
Randalls Island Park 4 7 May 2012 Buy Tickets Online Now friezenewyork.com

Participating Galleries
303 Gallery, New York Miguel Abreu, New York Air de Paris, Paris The Approach, London art: concept, Paris Alfonso Artiaco, Naples Laura Bartlett, London Guido W. Baudach, Berlin Boers-Li, Beijing Marianne Boesky, New York Tanya Bonakdar, New York Bortolami, New York The Breeder, Athens Broadway 1602, New York Gavin Browns enterprise, New York Daniel Buchholz, Cologne Cabinet, London Gisela Capitain, Cologne carlier | gebauer, Berlin Cheim & Read, New York Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin James Cohan, New York Sadie Coles HQ, London Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin Continua, San Gimignano Raffaella Cortese, Milan Corvi-Mora, London Chantal Crousel, Paris Massimo De Carlo, Milan Elizabeth Dee, New York Eigen + Art, Berlin frank elbaz, Paris FGF, Warsaw Fortes Vilaa, Sao Paulo Marc Foxx, Los Angeles Carl Freedman, London Stephen Friedman, London Frith Street, London Annet Gelink, Amsterdam A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro Greene Naftali, New York greengrassi, London Jack Hanley, New York Harris Lieberman, New York Hauser & Wirth, New York Herald St, London Xavier Huf kens, Brussels Hyundai, Seoul Taka Ishii, Tokyo Alison Jacques, London Martin Janda, Vienna Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver Casey Kaplan, New York kaufmann repetto, Milan Sean Kelly, New York Kerlin, Dublin Anton Kern, New York Peter Kilchmann, Zurich Tina Kim, New York Nicole Klagsbrun, New York Johann Knig, Berlin David Kordansky, Los Angeles Tomio Koyama, Tokyo Andrew Kreps, New York Krinzinger, Vienna Kukje, Seoul kurimanzutto, Mexico City Yvon Lambert, Paris Simon Lee, London Lehmann Maupin, New York Lelong, New York Lisson, London Long March Space, Beijing Maccarone, New York Gi Marconi, Milan Metro Pictures, New York Meyer Kainer, Vienna Massimo Minini, Brescia Victoria Miro, London Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London The Modern Institute, Glasgow Taro Nasu, Tokyo Neu, Berlin Franco Noero, Turin David Nolan, New York Maureen Paley, London Perrotin, Paris Friedrich Petzel, New York Francesca Pia, Zurich Gregor Podnar, Berlin Praz-Delavallade, Paris Eva Presenhuber, Zurich Rampa, Istanbul Almine Rech, Brussels Regen Projects, Los Angeles Regina, Moscow Anthony Reynolds, London Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Andrea Rosen, New York Salon 94, New York Esther Schipper, Berlin Rdiger Schttle, Munich Sfeir-Semler, Beirut Sies + Hke, Dusseldorf Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Sprth Magers Berlin London, Berlin Standard ( Oslo ), Oslo Stevenson, Cape Town Timothy Taylor, London Team, New York Richard Telles, Los Angeles The Third Line, Dubai Vermelho, Sao Paulo Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Vilma Gold, London Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen Wallspace, New York Barbara Weiss, Berlin Michael Werner, New York White Cube, London Wilkinson, London Zeno X, Antwerp David Zwirner, New York

Focus
Altman Siegel, San Francisco Johan Berggren, Malmo Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin Canada, New York Experimenter, Kolkata James Fuentes, New York gb agency, Paris Franois Ghebaly, Los Angeles Alexander Gray Associates, New York Karin Guenther, Hamburg Hollybush Gardens, London Hotel, London Karma International, Zurich Kimmerich, New York Tanya Leighton, Berlin Leto, Warsaw Limoncello, London Kate MacGarry, London Mary Mary, Glasgow Mezzanin, Vienna Andreiana Mihail, Bucharest NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles Plan B, Cluj Simon Preston, New York Rodeo, Istanbul Micky Schubert, Berlin Seventeen, London Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York Diana Stigter, Amsterdam T293, Naples Jocelyn Wolff, Paris Alex Zachary Peter Currie, New York

Frame
47 Canal, New York Michele Abeles Ambach & Rice, Los Angeles Ellen Lesperance BaliceHertling, Paris Greg Parma Smith BolteLang, Zurich Vanessa Billy Bureau, New York Justin Matherly Shane Campbell, Chicago Lisa Williamson Crystal, Stockholm Goldin+Senneby Figge von Rosen, Cologne Jose Dvila Cinzia Friedlaender, Berlin Vincent Vulsma Lttgenmeijer, Berlin Ryan McLaughlin Marcelle Alix, Paris Charlotte Moth Meessen De Clercq, Brussels Jorge Mndez Blake Misako & Rosen, Tokyo Shimon Minamikawa mothers tankstation, Dublin Matt Sheridan Smith Night, Los Angeles Samara Golden Take Ninagawa, Tokyo Shinro Ohtake Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles Liz Glynn Renwick, New York Talia Chetrit Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing He An Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles Antonio Vega Macotela

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Reviewed
Exhibitions/UK
Synthetic Real, Edel Assanti, London Dara Birnbaum, South London Gallery Catherine Story, Carl Freedman Gallery, London Roisin Byrne, Alma Enterprises, London Simon Fuijiwara, Tate St Ives Chooc Ly Tan, Transmission, Glasgow

Exhibitions/USA
Michael Snow, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York Gregory Halpern, ClampArt, New York Joel Sternfeld, Luhring Augustine, New York Sanja Ivekovi, Museum of Modern Art, New York Brian Bress, Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles Glenn Kaino, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles

Exhibitions/Europe & Rest of the World

Stefan Brggemann, Yvon Lambert, Paris How German Is It?, Jewish Museum, Berlin Rivane Neuenschwander, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Timur Si-Qin, Fluxia, Milan Akram Zaatari, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo Drawing Room, Omikron Gallery, Nicosia Kati Heck, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp Goshka Macuga, Zachta National Gallery, Warsaw Mathematics, A Beautiful Elsewhere, Fondation Cartier, Paris Wang Yuping, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing

On the Town
Zarina Bhimji, Whitechapel Gallery, London Tobias Rehberger, Pilar Corrias, London Phillip Lai, Modern Art, London

Off the Record

Gallery Girl celebrates British pluck and cunning

Books
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, by Maggie Nelson Care of Wooden Floors, by Will Wiles Painting Between the Lines, by Jens Hoffmann Distrust That Particular Flavor: Encounters with a Future Thats Already Here, by William Gibson Hans Hollein, edited by Peter Weibel Robot, by Stanislaw Lem, Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal Agnes Martin, edited by Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly and Barbara Schrder Concrete Comedy: An Alternative History of Twentieth-Century Comedy, by David Robbins

ArtReview

115

Gabriel Dubois (see Synthetic Real )

Untitled #2, 2011, acrylic, spraypaint, enamel and oil stick on wood, 110 x 92 cm. the artist. Courtesy Edel Assanti, London

Dara Birnbaum
Addendum: Autism from Six Movements: Video Works from 1975, 1975, single-channel b/w video, mono, 7 min 20 sec, edition of 10. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York & Paris

116

Exhibition Reviews

SY

Synthetic Real Edel Assanti, London 24 November 14 January

The gallery notes accompanying Synthetic Real start by quoting the Russian abstract painter Kazimir Malevich: This is a new plastic realism, plastic precisely because the realism of hills, sky and water is missing. Every real form is a world. Its a purists declaration that nonrepresentational forms might stand for themselves. By contrast, the twenty-first-century artists gathered here are happy to let representation and form mix more promiscuously. While their works seem, at first glance, to be nonrepresentational, they operate precisely at the point of tension where materials trigger an intuition of presence of something represented without necessarily producing an image. So, Amy Stephenss three tall oak blocks, This Urban Silence IIII (2011), against which lean pairs of polished bronze beams, echo sculptures by Carl Andre and Constantin Brancusi. Against the matter-of-fact materialism of a minimalist like Andre, even the act of leaning one thing against another becomes the trace of a gesture or a human presence. Its a motif that reappears in a nearby photograph, Empiricist (2010), by Stuart Bailes, depicting a wall of logs, against which leans a strip of bark. Nothing empirical about this bit of documentary monochrome photography, though: logs, bark and grassy ground may be self-evident, but the tilting

TH

TI

composition harks back to all manner of constructivist geometries image echoing abstraction. So were not talking about images or the lack of them but rather about the trace of one thing in another, an index of presence synthetic, but real. So Peter Macdonalds drawings Littoral and How We Like It (both 2008) could be called obsessive the dense accumulation of an ongoing ink-pen stroke filling the paper to the edge. Though a potentially boring technique, Macdonalds pen produces areas of compactness and dilation, concentrated thickets and wide directional expanses that suggest plenty about the artists shifting attention and wavering hand. By contrast, Jodie Careys ghostly plastercast panels, in which plaster is poured into a trash of scattered cigarette ash and lace mesh, rely on entropy rather than the artists constant intervention to make the work. That the front of these panels is the bottom of the smothering plaster that has accumulated at the bottom of the casting tray complicates them as image-surfaces to look at their surfaces have a sort of exposed interiority, like a revealed fossil. A similar dislocation occurs with Neal Rocks pastel-coloured membranes of silicone draped over oval wall-mounted metal armatures. Rock used to make huge, excessive agglutinations of squirted silicone, a riotous transgression of gloopy pigment into sculptural solidity. These new works ditch the big-budget theatrics for an altogether more lucid dissection of the moment minimalist painting turned into sculpture; here Rock reverses the transition, making barely stretched canvas skins that almost begin to carry an image. His sculpture-stretchers sit awkwardly next to Gabriel Duboiss paint-on-plywood geometries, whose familiar gloss on PopModernism underscores the problem of relying on the too-familiar genealogies of painting. Instead its the newest medium, video, that plays most vividly on the border of image and abstraction, between presence and reference: Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinsons video Die Brcke (2010) takes a sequence of workmen welding girders on a bridge and folds and repeats it across the screen until it feels like you are watching it through a kaleidoscope. A pulsing drum solo accompanies what now appears as a throbbing, shifting pattern-grid of lights and movements. Yet if one concentrates on one small part, a fragment of the original scene can be momentarily rediscovered. Object and image are melded inseparably while revealing their difference. And in a world full of screens full of nothing but images of objects, that still has some kind of purpose. J.J. CHARLESWORTH

Dara Birnbaum South London Gallery 9 December 17 February

It seems that every art-institutional seminar and Q&A session these days eventually dissolves into declarations on the irrevocable influence of the Internet on thought and practice in art and everyday life. While undeniable to an extent, this is a blunt truism that often snookers nuanced discussion; and yet it is impossible to avoid in relation to Dara Birnbaums exhibition. The binary separation of the gallerys downstairs and upstairs spaces into now and then demands the comparison of image creation and distribution, and mediation within two different technological eras; but it also demonstrates Birnbaums supplanting of urgent feminist advocacy with something more perplexed, expansive and intractable. Upstairs, six performed video self-portraits enact psychological states: in Addendum: Autism (1975) Birnbaum rocks and pants, in Chaired Anxieties: Abandoned (1975) she sits splay-legged, like a man, and in Bar (Red) (1975) she walks ethereally past a door jamb, looking back towards the camera with what, in a certain sort of novel, would be termed a haunted expression. Historical exemplars are ready to hand for the arthistorically savvy to contextualise what may at the time have been rather bamboozling: Bruce Naumans videos featuring the body as medium; Judith Butlers texts on the performance of gender and subjectivity; feminisms demand for the visibility of the overlooked. With hindsight, we infer all this with relative ease; but the passing of time defuses impact twofold: through cultural normalisation and the aesthetic swoon evoked by a ruined technology. Downstairs the process of capture is displaced by one of collection and construction, although the roughness of video still speaks of domestic technologies. Arabesque (2011), a fourchannel projection, comprises clips of young pianists gleaned from YouTube, subtitled stills from the Hollywood film Song of Love (1947) and vignetted pages of a book. Gender politics is still on the boil, but whereas a staged antipathy is

formalised in two projections in face-off in Attack Piece (1975) an intergender battle performed in a garden in Nova Scotia, where a number of the artists male friends (including David Askevold, Dan Graham and Ian Murray) chase and film Birnbaum, who wields a stills camera the later work metonymically relates more complexly sprawling and interdependent sociopolitical structures. Birnbaums beef is that Clara Schumann, a proto have-it-all composer-pianist mother of eight, was displaced into the shadow of her husband, Robert Schumann demonstrated empirically by the fact that a YouTube search for Claras comparable masterpiece, Romanze 1, Opus 11 (1840) produces just one performance, compared to the slew of performances of Roberts Arabesque (1839). Dialogue from Song of Love, which dramatises the emotional landscape of the couples marriage and extracts from Claras diaries, infuses the piece with breathless exegeses on love, genius and sacrifice, so that, in contrast to the analytical and declarative toughness upstairs, Arabesque entangles gender politics within a critique of amateurism, canonisation, family values and romantic love. Its tempting to say that the Internet has provided us with a new understanding of such overlapping, interconnected systems, and has sited the individual more tangibly within the multitude; but perhaps its more reasonable to suggest that technology is now better configured to reflect the bewildering plenitude that has always buffeted the politicised subject. SALLY OREILLY

IR

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Catherine Story: Angeles Carl Freedman Gallery, London 24 November 28 January

Picasso once paid for a mansion in the South of France with a still-life painting. This anecdote, cited in John Bergers then-controversial book The Success and Failure of Picasso (1965), came to epitomise a trade-off of product for personality. Only one man could be said to have been as famous as Picasso, claimed Berger, and that was Charlie Chaplin, who had the opposite problem: no one recognised him without the makeup. Yet for both, still life, that traditionally lowliest of genres, was the MacGuffin of an investigation into the outer limits of their respective visual territories. Bottles, glasses, bowls of fruit: in the cubist or early cinematic image, ordinary objects are the apparatus of an experiment into what the painted or projected image can hold. Catherine Storys show Angeles retells the synchronicities of early Modernism in works that evoke the recent aftermath of an archaeological dig. Objects apparently blanched into dusty browns and greys are propped on makeshift shelving; bits drop off and roll along the floor. Look at the materials: plaster, mortar, wire these are preparatory objects, stilled in the process of becoming, like the sinopia of ancient frescoes. Their subjects, though, like their sober palettes, are unmistakably modernist. In United Artists (all works 2011), two white painted clay sculptures stand in awkward communion, their forms at once reminiscent of the early modernist spatial experiments of Georges Vantongerloo and the snub-nosed profiles of early film cameras. Storys work excavates a moment of historical concurrence in which spatial and temporal dimensions were things to be toyed with, and there is a ludic delight in her anthropomorphic sculptures, gazing goggle-eyed out of the past. In Chaplins Limelight (1952), smashed instruments produce note-perfect music, in a pantomime of Cubism (Picasso and Chaplin met that year; unable to communicate, they mimed affably). Storys sculpture of the same title renders Picassos Still Life with a Pitcher and Apples (1919) as a gurning music-hall entertainer, shuffling onstage with its belly popping out. In Storys restaging of the modern past, playfulness is inextricable from invention, bred by necessity.
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Spectres of early poverty haunted both mens lives and work, and the promise of abundance in a bowl of fruit became as much taunt as temptation. In Storys sculpture City Lights Still Life, the fruit that provides part of an iconography of indulgence in Chaplins 1931 film is rendered in grainy mortar, drained of sensual appeal, a cornucopia that crumbles in the mouth. The sandpaper grit of Storys objects rhymes with the cubist fascination with materiality, the world as much felt as seen. Meanwhile, the painting Millionaire a fleshy smokestack against a disjointed Cubist horizon points to the stock villain in City Lights, a feckless moneyman out of kilter with reality, whose revival here pulls the fictions of history up into the light, startlingly. If Picassos cubist paintings are images of things that cant exist in reality, then Chaplins films are images of things that should. And brought to the surface in Storys work, the cracked utopias of the previous century placed on slats of wood, or leaned against the wall, as though temporarily come to uneasy reincarnation, waiting to be understood again. BEN STREET

Roisin Byrne: Its Not You Its Me Alma Enterprises, London 25 November 15 January

Roisin Byrne is the kind of unnervingly obsessive fan that you might find among pop-star groupies or in Hollywood thrillers, but very rarely in the artworld. Having previously stalked Simon Starling and Jochem Hendricks, she goes further this time and hijacks the identity of Italian artist Roberto Cuoghi. The twist in this bizarre scenario is that Cuoghi and his gallery turn out to be as mysterious as Byrne herself. The shows presentation of clues allows the visitor to play detective, following the artists JENNIFER THATCHER trail as she starts from a research interest in a seven-year period of Cuoghis life where he himself sought to physically and psychologically become his ill father, to subsequently taking on Cuoghis identity and, finally, exhibiting as him. Artefacts include a deed-poll letter changing Byrnes name to Roberto Cuoghi, a gold MasterCard in Cuoghis name and copies of his birth certificate and ID card. For all todays

paranoia about security checks, Byrne makes identity theft look frighteningly easy. And as daily evidenced by the number of fake Facebook pages, tweets and blogs, its becoming even harder to prove that you are, in fact, you. A wall of printed emails tracks Byrnes early contacts with Cuoghis gallery, Massimo De Carlo, as she enquires, in the guise of a collector, as to the availability of work relating to the father period, of which she is told there is none (apparently the artist considered it a personal project rather than an art performance). Further emails to curators who have worked with Cuoghi draw the same blank: there is no work. Furthermore, the responses all seem rather vague or lead back to the unhelpful gallery. It reminds me that Cuoghi exhibited at Londons ICA when I worked there back in 2008, but unusually I cant recall whether I met him or whether he even came to the opening. A second gallery space focuses on In Real Life (2011), a conference and exhibition held at Dublins Irish Museum of Contemporary Art about identity and technology, to which Roberto Cuoghi was invited to contribute. Emails piece together the correspondence between Byrne and the shows curator, whose suspicions grow at not being able to speak to Cuoghi on the phone. In the end, Byrne-as-Cuoghi commissions and sends over a triptych of portraits relating to the missing father period. The curator, finally doubting the authenticity of this Cuoghi he admits finding the contact via Facebook rather than Cuoghis uncommunicative gallery renames the artist The Roberto Cuoghi Situation. (The exhibition website has now updated this to Roisin Byrne as Roberto Cuoghi.) Byrne must be pleased that the situation has come full circle back to Massimo De Carlo, to whom the portraits were to be returned at the end of the Irish show. A final cheeky email from Byrne to Cuoghis gallery, purporting to have heard about the Dublin show and the appearance of the drawings, goes unanswered. I wonder whether the gallery has bothered telling Cuoghi about this pesky collector, the invitation to show in Dublin or the mysterious drawings. Would he be flattered or annoyed by this young artists attentions? Byrne has highlighted the fragility of protecting the artist as brand in our mediaobsessed society, but also, paradoxically, the increasing anonymity of the artist in a globalised sphere of curating heavily reliant on virtual communication.

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Millionaire, 2011, oil on wood, 92 x 71 cm. Courtesy Carl Freedman Gallery, London

Roisin Byrne
Its Not You Its Me, 2011 (installation view), dimensions variable. Courtesy Alma Enterprises, London

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Simon Fujiwara
Saint Simon, 2012 (installation view, Tate St Ives), mixed media, dimensions variable. Photo: Tate. Courtesy the artist

Chooc Ly Tan
composite of stills from New Materials in the Reading of the World, 2011, digital video, 5 min

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Simon Fujiwara: Since 1982 Tate St Ives 18 January 7 May

Artists dont typically get to dominate a Tate before their thirtieth birthday, so this show might be attributed to three factors: first, this is the smallest Tate, and there are only eight (albeit room-filling) works here. Second, Simon Fujiwara has enjoyed a rocketing career trajectory in recent years. Third, hes effectively a local, having grown up in nearby Carbis Bay. Fittingly, Since 1982 is an exploded autobiography that uses aspects of Tates own collection of St Ives art; but since the Anglo-Japanese artist has made a career out of mixing his own life story with myths, wider histories and pilferage from the collective unconscious, its not one to take at face value. The opening room juxtaposes eight Alfred Wallis seascapes with Fujiwaras towering sculptural renderings of their depicted lighthouses: a lighthouse visible from his window was supposedly one of Fujiwaras earliest memories. This might suggest an unrealisable desire to return to innocence, the sculptures phallic quality implying a Rubicon crossed irreversibly into puberty. The closing room, meanwhile, invokes mothers, delirious semiabstracted sculptural representations of Hepworth a Robert Gober-esque plaster Madonna with pierced stomach and Fujiwaras art and cello teachers, and is accompanied by a Fujiwara-authored wall text which asks inconclusively whether homosexuality is relatable to absent fathers and strong motherly examples. This speculative querying of sexual makeup identity art for an age of uncertainty reaches a prolix acme in The Mirror Stage (2009 12), involving Tate-owned Patrick Heron and Francis Bacon paintings, mirrored walls, a bed and a video of Fujiwara instructing a young boy in how to play him in a five-minute play about Fujiwaras homosexual and artistic awakening in front of a Heron abstract painting at Tate St Ives in 1993. The backstory is fallacious, though; Fujiwara apparently began with the what-if that abstract painting where subjectivity has traditionally been stored and reflected might mirror a viewers sexuality, and, via Jacques Lacan and some anecdotal stuff about Bacon and abstraction and IKEA buying the rights to Herons colour scheme for bedspreads, invented a nearcomprehensible narrative structure for it.

Such might read as mere cavalier cleverness vis--vis fact and fiction in lieu of hazarding explanations for our self-formation. And thats the obvious critique of Fujiwara besides the fact that, Cambridge-educated, self-assured, adept at clever detailing, Berlin-dwelling and biennial-gracing, hes exemplary of the professionalised contemporary artist the antiWallis, really and right to use preemptively ironic, corporate titles like Since 1982. If the show wins one over, its partly in Fujiwaras compensatory reaching for reserves of actual feeling. Rehearsal for a Reunion (with the Father of Pottery) (20112), inspired partly by local potter Bernard Leachs friendship with Shoji Hamada, recounts a bridge-building exercise between Fujiwara and his distant, Japan-based father making a pottery tea set together in the form of another videotaped rehearsal for an unmade play and a display of Leach/Hamada and Fujiwara/Fujiwara pots. Despite the ornate projects seeming suspicion of unadorned sentiment, its sensitivity communicates more persuasively for being laboriously framed. More generally, though, Fujiwaras gaming genuinely feels purposeful. Recognising that art is inescapably read through the maker and that biographies are full of untruths, hes doing the hagiographic interpretative work before anyone else can, zanily; and saying, additionally, that in the absence of surety about what forms us, were vertiginously free to found ourselves on whatever we like. Things about Fujiwara may vex, but this feels like generosity. MARTIN HERBERT

Chooc Ly Tan: New Materials in the Reading of the World Transmission, Glasgow 6 December 14 January

Oubliism is a fictive movement created by the French-born artist Chooc Ly Tan. A recent graduate of Goldsmiths, in London, she plays with science-fictional themes and an avant-garde rhetoric to animate Oubliism through films and other media. Oubli, derived from oublier (to forget) means oblivion. In one sense oblivion captures the modernist dumping of the past in

order to embrace a new world, while the condition of forgetting, or being unaware and unconscious of what is happening, is evocative of the schizophrenic predicament some theorists identified with postmodernism. On show here is the video New Materials in the Reading of the World (2011), which, being based on a reading of the Oubliist manifesto, allows for an engagement with Oubliisms (purported) founding statements. In an exuberant voiceover, Tan shouts, To herald the genesis of cosmic time, Oubliism refuses the atomist attitude towards existence. It tears to fractions all those grand words like ethics, culture, humanism, good, evil, beginning, end, which are only covers for [pause] all-too-rational people. Sporadic editing, with a drum-synth soundtrack, gives the work a rapid pace. The found images and film footage offering a surface appearance of scientific activity make it feel like a spin on contemporary museums promotional videos. There is something quirky and optimistic about the work, reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard, but neither as pensive nor as aggressive. Watch the film for longer, as an all-toorational person, and it is apparent that the manifesto of Oubliism doesnt set out any clear aims or attempt to add any strategic weight to the abounding hyperbole: Oubliism is the inconceivably vast expression of our cosmic time, the great rebellion of revolutionary movements. One might accept that Oubliism, like modernist precedents such as Dada or pataphysics, isnt going to adopt a rational language in order to overcome the symmetry of reason, but it does need to reflect critical awareness. Imagining the world where all that is solid melts into technology, here suggested not only through the manifesto but also through the crashing together of blackand-white photos of modernist art with graphs, sci-fi movies and SMPTE colour bars, sits very comfortably within postmodern capitalist culture. There just isnt enough to demonstrate how the oblivion of Oubliism is any different from a liberal consumerist free-for-all in which meaningful political positions are rendered inert. For me, the potential of fictive movements like Oubliism to conceive new physical realities from which we will harvest fresh perspectives depends on their ability to be convincing. Against a tendency of some artists to make an ironic nod to the wise or attempt to create a novel brand of art, Tans energy and verve is exciting and seems to suggest that she pursues Oubliism intensively and sincerely, which is great. But on its own, the film New Materials in the Reading of the World feels vulnerable; the detail of the narrative and depth of the ideas doesnt quite hit the mark. JAMES CLEGG

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Michael Snow
In the Way, 2011, video projection, 23 min 10 sec (loop). Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Gregory Halpern
Untitled, 2010, c-print, 45 x 36 cm, edition of 5. the artist. Courtesy ClampArt, New York

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Joel Sternfeld
After a Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California 1979, 1979/2003, digital c-print, 107 x 133 cm (image), 122 x 149 cm (print), edition of 10 + 2AP. Courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

Sanja Ivekovi
Make Up Make Down, 1978, video (colour, sound), 5 min 14 sec. Museum of Modern Art, New York. the artist

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Michael Snow: In the Way Jack Shainman Gallery, New York 7 January 11 February

All of the work in Michael Snows In the Way some older, such as Exchange (1985), an early holographic work of a man mugging for the camera, and La Ferme (1998), a blown-up and recut filmstrip of cows in a field; and one newer, In the Way (2011), a floor-bound projection of a video shot off the back of a truck, showing a rough and muddy road passing beneath our feet deals in some way with the shallow space just on the other side of the lens- and light-derived frame. But it is the newest work, The Viewing of Six New Works (2012), that takes this shallow space to its extreme and also animates, literally, what we might well call the geometry of touch. The Viewing of Six New Works is an installation of seven looped video projections (one work consists of two projections), each of which features a different-coloured and -sized rectangle that moves against a black-screen background and intersects an invisible frame that is both internal to the projectors own and commensurate with its coloured partner. (Just imagine the dream life of Ellsworth Kelly and youre halfway there.) Every so often we get a glimpse of one of the rectangles aligning itself in its frame, but all the real action is contained by the rotations and translations of the rectangles within and behind the frames, which at once hide and reveal the rectangles edges (now parallel, now skewed) and corners (now present, now absent). However, to accept that what one actually witnesses are the movements of rectangles behind their frames is to accept too easily this metaphorical language of real space: there is no frame to speak of until it is intersected and so revealed or better, actualised by the movement of colour across the screen. And that colour itself only ever appears as a rectangle as much as it appears as a parallelogram or as some other irregular figure brought about by this actualisation of framing edge by the mobile colour field. The animation is self-consciously two-dimensional; its a speciation machine for inhabitants of flatland.
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Thats the geometry part. The touch part comes with the type of movement that the coloured rectangles exhibit. The animations are created using a touchscreen setup (designed by Greg Hermanovic, who also helped Snow with the digital manipulations of his ludic yet masterful film Corpus Callosum, 2002), so what one sees are actually recordings of movements that Snow made with his fingertips, coaxing the coloured rectangles through an exploration of their little framed worlds. The sometimes stuttering movements are signatures of the motions handmade quality, which couldnt be more different either from standard vector animations or the developmentally stunted swipes in which we are all becoming trained at the hands of our A is for America is the banal, childish ditty iWhatever masters. that came to mind when I first entered the gallery. Snows shallow space isnt communicative But banal these images are not. Halpern avoids (ie, graphic) or material (ie, abstract) or the clich of nostalgic Americana. Instead, with representational (ie, deep), but it has been his all photos Untitled and no recognisable landmarks, playspace for years, and in it he continues to A gives us traces of a blankly generic America. In advance productively, smartly the film and true American documentary tradition, this series lens arts into ever newer translations and is formed by a journey, but not the wide-ranging rotations. ramble of, for example, Robert Franks The Americans (Halpern dances deftly around the ghost of this seminal 1958 work). Instead the JONATHAN T.D. NEIL artist travelled to what politicians insincerely refer to as the real America. As the press release indicates, the impoverished rustbelt cities of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit and probably Buffalo, too, where Halpern lives and works appear in anonymous fragments. A includes scattered tokens of the economic crisis and sly hints of these recessionary times. A flattened-out office block looms like a glowing cardboard cutout against the night sky, an emblem of corporate America. A burning house in an overgrown lot is enough to suggest the subprime crisis that started the recession stateside. A black-clad cyclist proffers a pearl bracelet as if it were stolen goods for sale. The print is overexposed, so that the narrative suggested is barely drawn. We slide along, like the rider, to Gregory Halpern: A the next incomplete trace. ClampArt, New York A kitten, tail puffed in aggression and fear, 5 January 11 February confronts us with a warning as we enter the gallery. Like nearly all the animal subjects, this diminutive feline functions anthropomorphically. The letter A, used as the abbreviated, codelike It prepares us for the hostile stare of a middletitle of Gregory Halperns exhibition of aged shirtless man who looks directly into the photographs (an abridged version of his 2011 camera. His aggression is softened as our eyes book of the same title), began to haunt me when shift to the beads of sweat mingled with blood I was three-quarters of the way in. After noticing on his brow, the only zone of focus in a very the capital A tattooed on the chest of a shirtless shallow depth of field. Everything else, including young man, I started to see the letter everywhere. his piercing gaze, slides into degrees of blur. This A makeshift scaffold supporting the porch of a glide within the print prepares us for the next in once grand colonial-style house forms the very the series, making the overall structure of the same capital letter, as does an eerie wigwam-type exhibition one defined by metonymy. structure of spindly logs, charred and threatening Violence and menace are all here in flashes, to collapse. Most striking of all is a shard of A- but the dominant note is pathos. Halpern, as Jack shaped broken mirror glinting in the dirt that Kerouac wrote of Frank, has sucked a sad poem gives a portent of violence, or a suggestion of right out of America onto film. A is a terse elegy violence just occurred. This proliferation of As to these dark times. turns Halperns series into a dispersed and incomplete poetic form. SIONA WILSON

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indistinguishable from the wigs on the racks behind him, and in New York City, (#10), 1976 (1976), acne wreaks havoc on the face of a young man who shyly smiles from behind a lock of chestnut hair the images depict the psychological landscape of an America that is spending money, soaking up sun and, more than anything, having a really good time. Like William Eggleston, whose work First Pictures strongly recalls, Sternfeld is often credited with helping to establish colour photography as a respected medium. In the back room of the exhibition, which contains Happy Anniversary Sweetie Face!, a series begun in 1971, Sternfeld makes more formal inquiries into a Bauhausbased idea that works of art should be based on two or three dominant hues of equal density. In Location Unknown, 1976 (1976), a young tennis player clad in cherry-red drinks from a water fountain, his tanned legs a sublime break from the royal-crimson-and-purple landscape he inhabits. In Rockaway Beach, New York City, (#2), August 1975 (1975), concrete housing blocks, set against a grey sky, meld with a sandstorm on the beach. Marked by flashes of brilliance, the series looks at the world with a naive wonder that Sternfeld, even in later work, never loses. BRIENNE WALSH

Joel Sternfeld: First Pictures Luhring Augustine, New York 6 January 4 February

If Joel Sternfeld had started his career in the digital era, his early pictures would have made for a killer Tumblr page. They are casual snapshots of chance encounters with the absurdity and beauty of American life, soaking with youth and flush with colour. As it is, he rose to prominence during the 1970s, a Kodachrome camera in hand, and many of his early photographs are being seen here for the first time. Consisting of four distinct bodies of work made between 1971 and 1980, First Pictures opens in the atrium of the gallery, with four photographs from Nags Head, 1975 (1975), a series that documents a vacation spot in North Carolina. Taken at night, the images are lit by lithe, tanned bodies coiled in anticipation of some kind of happening a hookup, a bar fight, an epic evening. In them, and in the rest of the exhibition, Sternfeld is clearly taken with the notion that post-Vietnam America, despite all its faults, may actually be a land of possibility. In the next room hangs the rest of Nags Head, along with Rush Hour, a series of urban street portraits made in Chicago and New York in 1976, and At the Mall, New Jersey 1980 (1980), which offers semiformal portraits of bemused mallgoers holding up their purchases for the camera. The photographs are closely cropped and intimate, taken with the eye of an observer who is complicit rather than critical. Lighthearted and poignant in New Jersey, (#21) May/June 1980 (1980) a man holds a small dog that is almost

Sanja Ivekovi: Sweet Violence Museum of Modern Art, New York 18 December 26 March

In 1979 Sanja Ivekovi sat on her balcony in Zagreb drinking whisky and pretending to masturbate as a motorcade carrying Marshal Tito, the Yugoslav strongman, passed below. Within 18 minutes a policeman calling on the building intercom interrupted her demonstration of personal freedom; he had been alerted by a colleague stationed on a nearby rooftop. Just how repressively paternalistic Titos regime was is suggested by Triangle (1979), Ivekovis record of the incident in four documentary-style photographs, includes an image of the dictator, stout and tailored, standing upright next to his wife in a convertible limousine.

But despite her acts deliciously feminist flagrancy, it was more than a critique of a sexist order. The triangle referred to is not, crudely, the artists crotch, but the spatial relationship between her and the policemen, itself an actualisation of the interface between leader, agent and citizen, and, more broadly, between ideology, government and subject. Working in Croatia during and after the Cold War, Ivekovi has been ideally situated to analyse the dynamics of power, from Titos third way, an ostensible combination of Socialist solidarity and consumer economics, to Tony Blairs third way, as Britains prime minister triumphantly dubbed neoliberalism in 1998. In Double Life (19756) she pairs magazine ads for beauty and fashion products with personal photos that predate them but also happen to resemble them in pose and situation. While the similarities suggest that the media shapes selfimage, the chronology indicates that it does so by appropriating common behaviours and embedded cultural tropes. On some level, Ivekovi proposes that the gulf between people as they are and the social and commercial ideals to which they are held generates a sense of inferiority, anger and fear that motivates consumerism, selfishness and, in the case of Womens House (Sunglasses) (2002), domestic violence. That work matches statements by victims of such violence with ads for designer eyewear. Horrifying and arresting in their brevity, and rife with epithets like whore and bitch, the stories indicate that women are abused for falling short of cultural standards eg, the proscriptions of abortion in Poland and ethnic identity in the former Yugoslavia. As the pairings of these texts and images indicate, the mechanisms of control and objectification effected by religious and cultural mores are of a piece with the manipulations wrought by commerce. As Triangle makes clear, how one reacts to these pressures is a matter of personal choice; and Ivekovis work, which also addresses issues of historical memory and national mythology (in performances and installations confronting apathy towards and the denial of Nazi persecution of Roma people, and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans), has an urgency and an immediacy of address both in content and method that present her subjects as both theoretical constructs and matters of individual ethics. Like much politically inflected art today, hers is sometimes strident in its outrage, but overall it coalesces into a broad and subtle analysis of the perversion of emotion and values in European cultures rife with prejudice, anger, greed and vanity, and all the while operating under the cloak of manufactured and imposed virtues. JOSHUA MACK

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Brian Bress
Cowboy (Brian Led by Peter Kirby), 2012, colour video, HD monitor and player, wall mount, frame, 71 x 58 x 10 cm. Courtesy Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles

Glenn Kaino
Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis, 2011 (installation view). Photo: Josh White. Courtesy Honor Fraser, Los Angeles

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Brian Bress: Under Performing Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles 7 January 25 February

the Tiger really makes us want to believe that Frosted Flakes are Ggggggrrrrreeeeaaatttt; Mr Kool-Aid only destroys walls to bring us artificially flavoured sugar punch when boredom has put us at an absolute nadir. But a talking tiger trying to sell us cavities from a skateboard is weird; a giant smirking glass pitcher breaking-and-entering, its guts ready to spill into our outstretched glasses at any moment, is also very weird. They possess a surreality so common that its easy to ignore their discomfiting complexities, but it is just this that Bress explores with such humour and grace. ANDREW BERARDINI

Its like theyre looking at you. Even the ones without eyes. A paranoiac stab. But really its less intensely disquieting than slightly unsettling, like the portraits in the hallways of Disneylands Haunted Mansion, which turn holographically to follow visitors every move. These carnie tricks still give me the willies. Here, though, the costumes and characters and creatures in the pictures look almost friendly: softish and colourful, moving at that nonthreatening, soporific halfspeed of most young childrens television programming (from Sesame Street to Teletubbies and beyond). Eight video portraits (including one diptych and two family pictures) by Brian Bress in colour-matching frames line the walls of the main gallery at Cherry and Martin. Soundless, they all move, albeit some more than others. The two families shift and shudder in sedate slowmotion; their collective facelessness and leaden movements make them the most spooky. Across the room, a foam-faced ghost cowboy scribbles with a marker directly onto the glass of the picture plane, as if trapped just on the other side of the wall. The work that looks most like a painting has a figure wearing a camouflaged outfit meant to mimic the bright colours and thick lines of the abstract background behind him; even as the colours shift and change, the costumed figure chameleons alongside, still twitchy, and just slightly sinister as if Jim Hensons Labyrinth (1986) were art-directed by Ellsworth Kellys evil twin. Each one of these portraits is stunningly beautiful, a videomakers joke on the conservatism and commercial fungibility of painting that nevertheless taps into that ultimately affecting quality that portraits can possess. A strange and moving humanity persists in these pantomimes, and its all the more potent for the silly and sometimes monstrous masks the subjects wear. Consumer capitalism and childrens cartoons both probe our collective id, that place where all our most primitive impulses get processed, entertainingly appealing as they do to our most infantile desires and fears so that brands can implant a buyers craving before were old enough or critical enough to fight back. Tony

Glenn Kaino: Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis Honor Fraser, Los Angeles 7 January 18 February

One can certainly sympathise with Glenn Kainos belief that art has lost its magic. The revelation came to him in the way it comes to many, through the unpleasantness and cacophony of Art Basel Miami Beach. Kaino said at a past fair that he was going back to magic, that he wanted to believe in something again. He pursued this goal directly, studying under professional magicians and learning magic over the course of a year and a half. The apprenticeship now informs and compels Kainos art. After a first volley of this material last year at LAs LAXART, he now presents Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis at Honor Fraser. Magic in the show is sought through a deliberate obscuring of known quantities, a willingness to leave facts unseen or guessed at, a sleight of hand intent on dazzling and keeping its methods to itself. To this end, Piri Reis, the ancient Turkish cartographer, loses his hands,

his maps are dissolved and the earth is returned to its magical, primal condition. Kainos goal is to stimulate the lost or malnourished imagination. For example, Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis and Linking Rings (all works 2011) are contained, synthesised moments of wonder, the former a beautiful casting of hands bristling with cartographers tools, and the latter a wonderful video of magicians linking rings exactly as they do on stage. In the end, however, most of the show comes across as self-conscious, as a series of conceptual projects of the ilk that Kaino wants to critique. His projects make their points by laying bare certain tendencies in recent art history rather than by being particularly dazzling or magical. Take Kainos maps of Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo, Cairo and other large cities, which have been made with atomised hobbyist models. The maps, which show Piri Reiss handiwork being pulled apart, should be the heart of the exhibition. The all-knowing tranquillity of maps, to Kaino, hides the trauma and richness of history that churn beneath their surfaces. Magic would be unlocking this content, letting it fire the imagination. In Search of a New Model (Los Angeles), for example, shows the site of Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, and the exploding model is meant to recall the strife of the lands clearance, the displacement of citizens and a horrible political history. However, there is little magic in the finished product. Hidden histories are revealed in the work less as an epiphany and more as a dry political point. The piece is didactic rather than wondrous. Sargent and Greenleaf Model No. KD5311 is another such self-conscious moment. The work hides a borrowed painting under a wrapped tapestry with a printed diagram of a dismantled lock on its surface. Instead of charging the mind with intrigue, Kainos work makes an overly simple conceptual point: the decades of taking painting apart as a system have drained it of its blood. This may be true, and the impulse to show it may be noble, but it is too recognisable a proceeding, a mere demonstration rather than an enchantment. ED SCHAD

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Stefan Brggemann
Untitled (Joke and Definition Paintings), 2011, archival inkjet print on canvas, 134 x 154 cm. Photo: Didier Barroso. Courtesy Yvon Lambert, Paris

Boris Mikhailov (see How German Is It? )

Look at Me I Look at Water, 2004, collage and text on paper. the artist. Courtesy Barbara Weiss, Berlin

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Stefan Brggemann Yvon Lambert, Paris 25 November 14 January

A decade into his search for the improbable juncture between conceptual and Pop, idea and product, Stefan Brggemann devotes his third solo show at Yvon Lambert to a chance encounter, so to speak, between Joseph Kosuth and Richard Prince the pair meeting on the shared territory of language. With the apparent detachment of a voyeur and the discretion of a thief, the Mexican artist explores the symbolic confrontation between the adverse poles that the artists represent rationalism and absurdity via Untitled (Joke and Definition Paintings) (2011), 31 inkjet prints on canvas (though only 11 are displayed in the gallery). Each layers one dictionary definition from Kosuths Titled (Art as Idea as Idea) (1966) series on top of one anonymous buffoonery from Princes Joke Paintings (1985), or the other way around. A face-off, then: but the joust between the professedly high-cultural and the professedly low never quite gets going. On the one hand, Brggemanns refereeing is as deliberately unreliable as his actual intervention in the compositions is strategically minimalist. From the font of the printed letters to the plain colour of the backgrounds and the overall scale of the simplistic designs, every formal decision has been ostensibly relinquished to Kosuths and Princes original photostat and silkscreen reproductions: a schema so apparently indifferent that it could be summed up by Brggemanns words: Take, Put, Abandon (this, and all subsequent quotes, from the artists ongoing list of Show Titles, 2000). On the other, the superimposition of Kosuths definitions and Princes jokes not only estranges them from the previous context of these two artists distinctive intents, but also and more importantly turns them into each others very own disturbing and obstructing parasites (in case anybody would in fact be tempted to read, comprehend and interpret these textual displays of cacophony). That being said, stuck between Kosuths use of language, which tends towards literal abstraction (whats behind the words), and Princes, which delights in nonsense (whats beyond), it doesnt take long to understand that in Brggemanns supposedly careless gleanings of Things Put on

Top of Things or Nine or Ten Works I Used to Like, in No Order, no collision can, nor is meant to, occur. Indeed, the two roughly opposite rhetorics of Kosuth and Prince cancel each other out in Untitled (Joke and Definition Paintings), which, rather than generating a miraculous Super Conceptual Pop chiasmus, leads to A Production of Nothing. The artist pushes to an extreme oxymoron any ideological material he appropriates, and in doing so he approaches with great pertinence the ineluctable dead-end of all bipolar systems, the annihilating Manichaeism that has been haunting all politics, including the aesthetics of art, since the Cold War. Behind Brggemanns couldnt-give-a-damn attitude, then, there might well be a postmodern spleen; in which case hes undoubtedly a master of contemporary chiaroscuro. VIOLAINE BOUTET DE MONVEL

How German Is It? 30 Artists Notion of Home Jewish Museum, Berlin 16 September 29 January

Heimatkunde, the German title for this daring show, is difficult to translate: the study of a district with its history and geography comes close. The more fitting English appellation, though, riffs on the title of Walter Abishs great 1979 novel and accurately reflects the intentions of these works from 30 exiles and new residents alike. What, exactly, does Germany mean to all those known to her? Unlike Abish, who famously had never visited the place when he wrote his book, a horde of arty easyJetters are now filling up Friedrichshain, impatient to tell us about the fresh world theyve found. The problem of German history weighs heavily on them: the great infamy, the crushing baggage of disturbing associations. Theodor Adorno worried that the question posed here repeats the Nazi presupposition of an autonomous national collective. That the Germans, reassuringly, are many peoples today is inferable from the allegorical work of Brazilian Maria Thereza Alves: in her video What Is the

Color of a German Rose? (2005), the artist cheerily introduces various fruit and veg and their countries of origin. Sarajevo-born Azra Akamija continues the optimistic multiculti theme with Dirndl Dress Mosque (2005), a magical twist on the traditional Germanic costume that can be turned, abracadabra, into a prayer mat thrown on the floor. Is this what T.E. Hulme envisioned when he talked about Romanticism being spilt religion? Romanticism la Caspar David Friedrich is very much in the Berliner luft here. Julian Rosefeldt takes us for a bracing walk in the Black Forest with My Home Is a Dark and Cloud-Hung Land (2011), a four-channel-film installation that deliriously expresses moody ambivalence about der heimat. One screen gives us the rckenfigur, the solitary romantic staring into the pregnant vastness of the wald, dwelling on Goethe and Tacitus. Another presents a speech ragingly critical of the upright, overly rigid trees and their avatars, the Germanic peoples. Unlike musician Wolfgang Voigts Gas project (1995), where the neoromantic techno groover essays his impressions of walking in the woods via immersive soundscapes, here we get a chainsaw-wielding fanatic revving up in the style of Einstrzende Neubautens F.M. Einheit. A wolf (guess who?) pads around worryingly. A girl in a red riding hood strolls by in this Grimm land where things have their own eigentmlichkeit peculiarity, particularity, strangeness. Outside the entrance, Victor Kglis Herschel and Gretel in the Jewish Museum Berlin (2011) comprises two dolls that greet you cheekily, one a bowing Orthodox Jewish gentleman, the other an Aryan shiksa. The spirit of Surrealism is present too: its strategic notion of dpaysement, of being literally outside your own country, of exile as disorienting stimulus, is caught by Muscovite Misha Shenbrots (2011), which, like a raree-show, offers a peep into a new world. And in this land of the perpetrators, Ronen Eidelmans installation Medinat Weimar (2008/2011) fancies the foundation of a Jewish state in Thuringia: a proposal that he suggests will counteract the rightwing, will slow depopulation. (An extension, then, of Philip Roths counter-Zionist comic fantasy in Operation Shylock, 1993.) This is a brave show because reimagining Germany remains politically charged and the conflicting voices here are challenging for the conservative many. That it should appear in this venue is doubly courageous. Can you imagine a show in the UK called How British Is It? Wrapped as we are in our delusion of national immortality, we would do well to heed Norman Daviess key lesson in Vanished Kingdoms (2011): states and homes as solid as trees can be rooted up and, as with ourselves, vanish like a cloud. JOHN QUIN

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Fluxia, Berlin-based Timur Si-Qin followed this ludic thread: after learning that the father of Valentina Suma, one of the two young dealers running the gallery, regularly participates in medieval reenactments, the artist asked her to organise a fieldtrip to her hometown, Oria, in from a drip of water? Another text, for The Tenant Southern Italy. Once there, Si-Qin asked Suma (2010), a video projection that appears to show and the gallerys other director, Angelica Bazzana, a large soap bubble moving at will, investigating to embrace real firearms and play in front of the an empty building, describes the events with camera the girl with a gun being another plain literalism. Were being invited, it might alluring character, I guess while using, as a seem, to resist thinking carefully about the details target, a contemporary remake of a suit of armour and implications which is always an unnerving owned by the father. proposition. All of this became part of the exhibition The headline work for the show is an in Milan. On a darkened double screen played installation of the artists First Love (2005), which the video of the shooting session (the artist also involves visitors volunteering for a session with posted it on his website and on YouTube, under a forensic artist, who will draw a portrait of that the title Italian Girls Shoot AK-47 at Pieces of persons first love from the results of a cognitive Medieval Armor). All around, meanwhile, Si-Qin Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other interview. Here the editing of reality, the harrying suspended on cheap coat hangers and mounting Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin of concept from one mind out into the public brackets for televisions the damaged breastplate, 16 November 29 January domain, becomes the purview of the observers, gloves, helmet and coat of mail, their wafer-thin even while those participants are brought into a layer of metal visibly torn up by bullets. The only productive matrix with the pencil-wielding police spot of colour was provided by a yellow apple on A funfair sponsored by a soft-drink brand artist and the puppetmaster, Neuenschwander a tall white pedestal, calling to mind the infamous currently surrounds the Irish Museum of Modern herself. And First Love achieves this complex medieval legend of William Tell another fairly Art, which itself is disappearing bit by bit into a relational task with such efficiency that it is epic tale of fatherhood and target practice. yearlong exile, leaving open at Kilmainham the possible, here (as it is not with Make a Wish, 2011, In an accompanying text, Si-Qin quotes outer pavilion in which Rivane Neuenschwander a kitschy, Ono-esque room filled with coloured from Brian Boyds On the Origin of Stories: reigns. Here the Brazilian artist has installed a ribbons and handwritten wishes), to ignore quite Evolution, Cognition and Fiction (2009): In each different but clearly related type of funfair to the how twee things might have to become before new work [artists] will seek to raise the benefit one filling the afternoon air with chilling cries theyre heard by the funfair crowd. Fortunately, the attention-earning power of their and dubious pop sounds, as though somewhere thats a strategy of which Neuenschwander has compositional efforts and lower their composition nearby a forward-looking production company no fear. costs, through recombining existing solutions in new ways, while also raising the benefits and were filming its tween remake of Dawn of the LUKE CLANCY lowering their audiences costs in time and effort. Dead. An eminent Nabokov scholar, Boyd argues that Neuenschwanders work, too, involves art and fiction grew out of play, and significantly finding a place for revellers. In her Fluxusinflected (and indeed -remixed, since some contributed to the survival and evolution of Homo sapiens communities by training their cognitive projects seem like slight variations on original skills and bounding their identities. Its an ongoing Fluxus ones) work, antic visual poetry has more often than not been coaxed or coerced from, or contribution: to play implies being adaptive, learning how to deal with a given structures simply surreptitiously melded with, the presences, arbitrary limits and sometimes transform it. Siactions and, indeed, memories of visitors. The Qins research, relatedly, moves within the people lend their unwilling feet to create Walking boundaries of post-Internet art ie, art taking in Circles (2000), a series of large, dirty ringmarks on the gallery floor created, or so it is place after the introduction of the Internet, which means it doesnt only happen online or by digital asserted, by putting sticky glue circles on the Timur Si-Qin: Legend means but that it uses as media all of the webs ground at the opening and letting the gunk from Fluxia, Milan dynamics, such as social networking, interplay, visitors shoes adhere to create the visible 2 December 31 January the migration of information from one peer to marks. another, DIY creativity (music, films, etc), the The note of doubt is there simply because, here as elsewhere in the show, something in the If cowboys and Indians are definitely out of cracking of codes, etc. Here Si-Qin seems at play with the field of tone opens some sort of gap, some suggestion date, medieval knights still rank among the stars that what we are seeing might not be what we of the entertainment industry. They persuasively relations and flux of communication generated are being told we are seeing. But why on earth embody the macho hero in several contemporary by an art exhibition: he chooses what moves to couldnt this simple statement concerning chansons de geste songs of deeds ranging from assign to the players (artist, dealer) of this game Walking in Circles be, in most senses, true? Why the founding myths of secessionist parties (like and how to frame its narrative around a recurring this uncanny sense of slippage between the Italys Northern League, with its medieval warrior fictional theme, capable of awakening the viewers signage around the gallery, which never quite symbol) to fantasy books, movies, TV series, robot attention. Violence and romance always worked seems to tell the truth about what we are seeing, cartoons and videogames. Some people even well, in this respect: Of loves and ladies, knights and the collection of installations? One installation, strive to bring chivalry back to reality, dressing and arms, I sing, as Ludovico Ariosto put it in It Is Raining Out There (2008), promises drips that up and performing tournaments during local the epic poem Orlando Furioso (1516). fall at five-second intervals into a bucket. But festivals, tightrope-walking between folklore and how could anyone promise such a rigid timetable adult cosplay. Preparing for his first exhibition at BARBARA CASAVECCHIA

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Rivane Neuenschwander
I Wish Your Wish (detail), 2003, silkscreen on fabric ribbons, dimensions variable. Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Vienna, and Juan and Patricia Vergez, Buenos Aires. Photo: Chocolate Milk. Courtesy the artist, Fortes Vilaa Gallery, So Paulo, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

Timur Si-Qin
Legend, 2011, metal gloves, television hanger, 60 x 36 x 25 cm. Courtesy the artist, Fluxia, Milan, and Socit, Berlin

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Akram Zaatari
Bodybuilders. Printed from a damaged negative showing Munir el Dada in Saida, 1948, 2007, inkjet print, 180 x 145 cm, edition 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg & Beirut

Kyriaki Costa (see Drawing Room)

Rhizome, 2011, fabric, thread, marker, 86 x 114 cm. the artist. Courtesy Omikron Gallery, Nicosia

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Akram Zaatari: Composition for Two Wings Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo 4 November 22 January

Akram Zaataris video Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright (2010) recounts a timeless scenario in an aptly out-of-time manner. An Instant Messenger-style conversation, its alternating red and black sentences appear, one by one, in Courier font within an old-fashioned log report, as if typed by a wartime code-breaker. Someone is contacting an old flame (opening line: Hello sexy!). Theyd parted acrimoniously; now this someone wants his or her ex back, and the other is, to say the least, not sure. Theres recrimination, flirtation, recollected heartbreak, rebuttal, pleading and, for us, a feeling of raw intrusion. Much of whats alluded to, significantly, is outside our understanding (even prior to the videos ambiguous coda, old camcorder footage of a sunset), though were led to wish we knew more. Intimate communication, this retrospective demonstrates, is Zaataris wheelhouse; yet hes equally concerned with the means we use how theyre circumscribed, how theyre problematic to convey feelings or truths. And as a result, his practice is of the rare kind that can collapse the interpersonal and the political. Much of Zaataris practice, like that of Walid Raad and other artists connected to the Arab Image Foundation, has concerned the civil war in his native Lebanon during the 1970s and 80s; as above, withholding or slowly delivering information is frequently his method. In the video Letter to Samir (2008), a man matter-of-factly writes a letter, but hes a Lebanese resistance fighter whos spent a decade in an Israeli prison, from 1998 onwards. In such jails, a wall text informs us, information travelled via letters in microscopic handwriting, folded down to pill size, wrapped in plastic and swallowed to be transported or passed via a kiss. A 2008 c-print, also entitled Letter to Samir, features one of these, blown up to the same scale as and ironically resembling the mortar shell in the photograph beside it. Zaatari also shares with Raad a structural anxiety about how historical information is conveyed, and numerous works here both lean on and question personal archives in a play of revealing and concealing. Sumptuous large-scale photographs make still lifes of BASF cassettes, or of photographic albums with jolly covers

containing images of rubble-strewn streets and wrecked buildings. Photographs of explosions that the artist took as a teenager are turned into videos that uneasily address the indexical, as when Zaataris camcorder pans and zooms on his own photographs of explosions, briefly reanimating them. Theres a palpable sense, here, of trying to resurrect and understand a painful past another link to Tomorrow and yet this work pales beside the shows highpoint, Her + Him Van Leo (2001). In this slowly unspooling video travelogue, Zaatari tells us (via stammering captions: first, second, third drafts of his narrative) that hed found a photograph of his grandmother as a young woman and gone to meet the ArmenianEgyptian commercial photographer famous in his own right whod taken it. Without telling the photographer of his blood bond, Zaatari reveals to us in captions that the photograph was a scene of seduction. While intercutting between the photographers strange, arty self-portraits and the artists naked, then twenty-five-year-old grandmother, thereby constructing an implicit, near-paranoid relationship between them, Zaatari records the ageing artisans assertions about photographys changing shape. How it was always untruthful subject to retouching; how it is now dead, replaced by video. What comes over here, though, is not some cultural-studies bromide about photographys limitedness, but the authentic humanist note of Zaataris practice: an evocation of people, driven by varieties of need, using the fragile expressive tools to hand, and of other people, later, trying keenly to understand them. MARTIN HERBERT

Drawing Room Omikron Gallery, Nicosia 10 December 14 January

Nicosia, Cyprus: a city of much contradiction, where ancient walls coexist with Louis Vuitton outlets. The discovery of natural gas in local waters has only added to the still-palpable tension between the Turkish-occupied north and the

Greek Cypriot south. Whether offshore reserves will turn this picturesque island into Dubai in ten years time remains to be seen, but that hasnt stopped people from making hopeful predictions. How any of this affects the local art scene is unclear; but despite its somewhat isolated location, a bevy of emerging artists calls this isle home. And in terms of drawing, it turns out that theyre preoccupied with the same issues as their counterparts the world over. Without any particular theme or trend, Drawing Room is simply a showcase for a wide range of works in many styles, and despite the absence of any coherent theory, many of the more successful pieces do seem attentive to matters of craft. A prime example is Anastasis Stratakiss Turn Me On Dead Man (2009), a graphite-onpaper rendering of a dead soldier: the unfortunate victims eyeballs are somewhat cartoony, as if drawn by master animator Tex Avery, but overall the shading and rendering on the soldiers jacket and helmet verges on photorealism, carefully indicating volume and texture. Ino Varvaritis pencil drawing Mountains Come First (2009) is in a similar vein, the Greek text that spells out the title appearing, via trompe loeil precision, as if it were engraved on a piece of marble; while Efi Savvidess ghostly monochrome silkscreens on handkerchiefs, Maqtub (Destiny It Is Written) IVIII (2011), are based on detailed drawings of abandoned houses engulfed by foliage from the Turkish-occupied city of Famagusta that are then repeated three times and mirrored in a Rorschachlike pattern. Kyriaki Costas Rhizome (2011), in fabric, thread and marker, has an outsiderish, folk-art quality that is tempered by its monochrome palette. Several animals hover on the horizon line, while the roots of trees penetrate the soil where human forms congregate underground, including a sickly-looking baby breastfeeding. Although not working from actual legends, Costa manages to allude to her countrys rich heritage without succumbing to trite sentimentality. Dimitris Neocleouss long vertical ink on paper Palimpolis Gazing at the City II (2011) is an agreeable mix of fantasy drawing and graffiti mural. Owing a bit to the Arts and Crafts movement, it leaves one unclear as to whether Neocleous is representing flora and fauna overtaking a claustrophobic view of a compact city, or perhaps something more alien: cybernetic conduits, say, supplying the hamlet with essential nutrients. Its beautifully laid out, with a somewhat ornamental pipeline form becoming larger and dominating the bottom of the composition until it engulfs the inhabited parts of the city. While it might be a stretch to forge a connection to Cypruss newfound reserve of fossil fuel, the stylish drawing nevertheless points to a future state where an interconnected landscape is the key to survival, and provides both aesthetic and intellectual nourishment. CHRIS BORS
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situations, like the cowboy and soldier shaking hands in Neue Freunde (Hot Hot Spatzi). Media come together in Sturm, Welle und Beben im Konferenzzimmer, a big piece of paper taped on a canvas, to which Heck has attached a black-andwhite photograph of herself and her friends pulling funny faces and some watercolour aerial views of townscapes, partly overlapped by a painting of a goose, while a phrase (which translates as the surprise) spelled out in papier mch adds a three-dimensional element to the whole. Elsewhere Heck sometimes uses the format and composition of historical paintings, only to undermine the genres characteristic grandeur. She does not portray Greek gods or victorious generals but a motley crew of friends and acquaintances, among them a local shopkeeper and the Antwerp in-crowd. Eure Opas Kati Heck: Multikulti Sause Gulaschkanone is such a work, depicting a bunch Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp of people at the sea, some like the woman sitting 8 December 21 January on a rock striking an almost allegorical pose while simultaneously clearly being in the hereand-now. Its exemplary of how Heck manages You can take the boy out of the village, but you to absorb various influences and styles ranging cant take the village out of the boy: switch the from historical painting to Dadaism to gender, and that is also applicable to Kati Heck. Kippenberger and translate them into her Though the German artist has lived in Antwerp distinctive language. By doing that, she delivers for a decade now, her work still has something an almost classic mastery of her medium while clearly German about its subject matter (beer simultaneously deconstructing it in a cheeky and sausages, folkloric dances), style (wild, way. expressionistic brushstrokes and German sentences written on the canvases) and sensibility SAM STEVERLYNCK (a combination of big gestures, pathos and a Martin Kippenberger-esque sense of iconoclasm). Over the years, she has developed a grotesque universe where the bold and the freaky rule; and thats also the case with her current show, which consists primarily of seven monumental new paintings almost all portraits, at least in a way, but far from conventional. The eponymous work Multikulti Sause (all works 2011), for example, depicts a group of women holding hands while dancing in a circle. Though the dancers are painted in an extremely precise manner, other parts of the composition are deliberately left unfinished, messy or abstract. Heck plays with different kinds of reality, combining an almost photographic depiction of people with fairytale creatures rendered in a caricaturelike way. At times the artist Goshka Macuga: Untitled demonstrates a virtuosic control of her medium, Zachta National Gallery, Warsaw but isnt interested in painting perfect pictures: 3 December 19 February instead, she deliberately puts mimetic illusionism into question. The fact that she attaches wooden holders with glasses of wine and beer to the You lousy Jew, leave the Holy Father in peace! canvas in line with earlier works by Jasper Johns reads one of many, mostly anonymous, antiand David Salle not only contributes to Multikulti Semitic and nationalistic letters addressed to Sauses festive atmosphere but also emphasises Anda Rottenberg, former director of Warsaws that a painting is merely an object hanging on Zachta National Gallery (1993-2000). Written in response to an exhibition featuring Maurizio the wall. Although Heck is best known as a painter, Cattelans sculpture La Nona Ora (1999) of an this exhibition also features two photographic effigy of John Paul II felled by a meteorite, its works and a series of drawings. Despite the one of the many archival materials that constitute different media, they share a sense of the Goshka Macugas first institutional solo show in grotesque and illustrate her penchant for staging her native Poland. It is perhaps Macugas

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dissociation and distance she left Warsaw for London in 1989 that have enabled such an open, pervasive enquiry into censorship and attacks on art objects, artists and art professionals since the fall of communism here. Zachta has recurrently triggered discussion on artistic freedom it was here that works by, among others, Piotr Uklaski, Dorota Nieznalska and Katarzyna Kozyra sparked debates of national proportion, often characterised by raw rightwing outcries in defence of ideals of the Polish family, public decency and accountability. Collaged news clippings on the scandals form five lithographs (formally taking their cue from Richard Hamiltons Swingeing London 67 posters, 19678), while a 14-metrelong wall features facsimiles of news items, comment books, letters, emails a full spectrum of accounts, professional and amateur, leftwing and rightwing, official and unofficial. Acts of aggression are a theme, evidenced by documentation of actor Daniel Olbrychski hacking Uklaskis The Nazis (1998) with a sword, but also by conservators photographs of damage inflicted upon Cattelans notorious work by the rightwing MP Witold Tomczak. The art objects destruction is further referenced by The Letter (2011), a monumental tapestry that depicts Macugas restaging of Tadeusz Kantors 1967 homonymous happening, where a 14-metre-long letter addressed to Foksal Gallery was carried through Warsaws streets by postal workers to be destroyed by an awaiting audience. Originally this was a comment upon the institutional restrictions of an artworks definition and display; Macuga extends Kantors happening to question the audiences active and physical response to art objects. Inverting her previous use of tapestries as traditionally determinants or symbols of power and distinction, the political resonance of The Letter is more ambiguous. Addressed to Zachta, featuring a

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Kati Heck
Blck, 2011, oil on canvas, 180 x 260 cm. Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp

postal mark bearing the image of Polands first democratically elected president, Lech Wasa, the tapestry refers explicitly to the last two decades. Displaying it opposite 33 defamatory letters to Rottenberg addresses Zachtas relationship to its audience, how communication takes place and debates are addressed. Close by are Anti-Collages (2011), reproduced archival photographs of private views and press conferences that Macuga has screenprinted over. Blacked out are the contours of Adam Szymczyk, Monika Szewczyk and Harald Szeemann, as if to remove these controversial figures from the archives memory. Dominating the exhibition is Family (2011), a ten-metre-tall sculpture inspired by Oscar Bonys La Familia Obrera (1968), for which the artist hired an actual blue-collar family to sit atop a pedestal. Seated high, the slumped grouping shares some resemblance to the social-realist sculptures found dotted around Warsaw. Roughly hewn and unfinished, Family emphasises the inbetween and incomplete nature that marks collective values in post-communist society. Many of the attacks recalled by the exhibition were ideologically motivated, carried out by rightwing conservatives in the name of the family, the sacred and the common good. Scouring the recent past, Macuga asks what has brought about such repeated anger and animosity against contemporary culture. Publicising and elaborating upon Zachtas archive, her exhibition examines the institutions responsibility towards its audience, the education and dialogue it fosters, and ways to negotiate the tensions at play, without causing humiliation or offence. PAVEL S. PYS

Goshka Macuga
Im a Rebel, 2011, lithograph. Courtesy Zachta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

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Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret (see Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere)

Au Bonheur des Maths, 2011 (installation view), filmed portrait of Cdric Villani, 35mm film, b/w, 32 min. Photo: Raymond Depardon Palmeraie et dsert

Wang Yuping
Snow of Xi Hua Men, 2010, acrylic and pastel on paper, 68 x 58 cm. Courtesy the artist.

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with Charles Baudelaire, describes his interests and career path by effortlessly scrawling geometric shapes, waves, bubbles and squiggles onto a blackboard, theres little to distinguish the fully loaded board from a work of art. Sometimes youre the teacher, sometimes youre the student, he says to the camera, but the blackboard is always there. It is an unrivalled tool of communication. You cant help thinking of, say, Joseph Beuys analysing society on his own blackboards (occasionally during debates with scientists about language and elitism), and then wondering whether its really a good thing that the artists now-museum-preserved efforts look Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere so much more cryptic and complicated than Fondation Cartier, Paris Villanis. Indeed Alberolas hypnotic video Cdric 21 October 18 March Villanis Hand (2011) simply shows the mathematician writing out a problem. Perhaps what this show finally boils down Despite the fact that the reference to a beautiful to are issues of language and communication, elsewhere in this exhibitions title is apparently and, in particular, the clich that both artists and derived from mathematician Alexandre mathematicians choose their professions because Grothendiecks mysterious phrase a sudden they are not best suited to communicating with change of scenery, its hard not to take it as the world via standard verbal means. As the title suggesting that in this context a foundation of this show suggests, there was clearly some dedicated to contemporary art mathematics is expectation that the artists, by deploying their something of a foreign country. The truth, of talents for visual display, might help to bridge course, is that mathematical calculation (whether the communication gap on behalf of the conscious or unconscious) lies behind everything mathematicians. The irony is that the strongest from Bridget Rileys geometric abstractions to works on show are those in which the latter talk Carsten Hllers slides. In case you forgot that, directly to the audience with little or no assistance you only need look at this shows animation of from art. British mathematician Roger Penroses famous tiling systems to be reminded. MARK RAPPOLT The exhibition features eight mathematicians and nine artists working in tandem. Perhaps perversely, the nine JeanMichel Alberola, Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, Takeshi Kitano, David Lynch, Beatriz Milhazes, Patti Smith, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tadanori Yokoo were selected not because their work demonstrates any particular interest in mathematics, but because theyve all previously shown at the Fondation Cartier. And many of them (notable exceptions being Milhazes, who directed the Penrose film and produced a collage, O Paraso, 2011, explaining how the natural world can be understood through equations, and Kitano, who simply presents a mathematical conundrum) are seemingly illustrating ideas rather than fully Wang Yuping: 2011 Annual Nominated incorporating them into their art. Not least in the Exhibition of Plastic Arts space-absorbing case of Lynchs strange, O- Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, shaped temple containing his animation The Film Beijing of the Universe (2011), which orders objects in the 16 December 19 February visible universe by scale. It feels, in fact, like many of the artists didnt really know what this exhibition required of them. Theres a Chinese adage that describes the city In the end, its the most apparently simple of Beijing as a man, and Shanghai as its female work of all, Depardon and Nougarets The Joys of counterpart. If theres any truth in that, then the Math (2011), a film documenting mathematicians work of Wang Yuping, one of the Chinese capitals describing their profession (and sometimes most celebrated and mature painters, best struggling a little to do so) in monologues, which embodies in portrait form the kind of intimate, is the most arresting inclusion. virile grittiness associated with Beijing residents, When Cdric Villani, whose eccentric and in recent landscapes reveals a palpable dress sense suggests hes about to drink absinthe affection for the city he seldom leaves. Chosen

for the 2011 Annual Nominated Exhibition of Plastic Arts at Beijings Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he is currently professor of oil painting, he presented more than 160 works, spanning portraiture, landscapes and architectural scenes executed between 2007 and 2010. Wangs portraits retain large areas of white negative space, a certain scratchy realism and a vibrancy of colour that have led some to call his style cartoonish but such a label belies the detail and sensitivity with which they are executed. His expressionist manner here inscribes a cast of individual men and women, a father and son, aged couples and monks with striking honesty, conveying the existential demeanour of each. The poses are unassuming pouring tea, sitting smoking and the artists method of combining oil and acrylic paints for a distinctive, textured finish (sometimes scratched into) is wonderfully apt for depicting straggly grey hair and patterned sofa covers. Long lines of paint dribbling from particular features enhance the power of these works to communicate character: a womans lips bleed sensual red, but her dry eyes yield little. Subjects are invariably anchored to the bottom portion of the canvas (leaving the top part blank), which has an at once familiarising and satirising effect, as if by centring their gravity at the edge of the frame they seek to evade the focal imperative of its centre. An extensive series of small square canvases depicting urban scenes fills the main exhibition space, looking from afar like an exhibition of photographs. Indeed, the views presented are often delineated as if by a lens and bordered with blank canvas. The most successful of these situate the elements of an Old Beijing scene red walls, parked cars, road signs, trees and CCTV cameras so precisely as to override the apparent childishness of their portrayal. Others, however, are simply too loose, with perspectival errors undermining the composition and highlighting a lack of detail or coarseness of colour. Artists too have off-days, one guesses. But collectively these are charming, if nonenigmatic affirmations of a life embedded in the city. At the end of the room is a set of enormous double-panel paintings of local temple statues (Eleven-Face Guan Yin, 2010, for example) that tower lifesize at over four metres tall. Totemlike, these seem curious bedfellows for the artists more familiar landscapes and telling portraits. But ultimately, perhaps, their jarring presence provides a valid jolt, injecting a freshness born of incongruity into the show as a whole. IONA WHITTAKER

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On the Town

7 ZARINA BHIMJI, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, LONDON, 18 JANUARY photography IAN PIERCE

8 9

1 Zarina Bhimji 2 Comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli 3 Artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell 4 Artist Hew Locke 5 Whitechapel Gallerys Iwona Blazwick 6 Artists Tom Hunter and Ori Gersht 7 Leadership Foundation for Higher Educations Tricia Wombell and curator Paul Wombell 8 Whitechapel Gallery's Achim Borchardt-Hume 9 Curator Catherine Lampert
138 On the Town

10

TOBIAS REHBERGER, PILAR CORRIAS, LONDON (15), 12 JANUARY, AND PHILLIP LAI, MODERN ART, LONDON (610), 12 JANUARY photography IAN PIERCE 1 Tobias Rehberger 2 Finers Stephens Innocents Daniel McClean 3 Finers Stephens Innocents Mark Stephens 4 Fashion agent Camilla Lowther 5 Artist Charles Avery 6 Artists Aleksandra Mir and Mike Nelson 7 Phillip Lai 8 Modern Arts Ryan Moore 9 Artist Caragh Thuring and Modern Arts Jimi Lee 10 Gallerist Kate MacGarry and curator Tom Morton
ArtReview 139

Books
Art History

The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning

By Maggie Nelson W.W. Norton, 17.99/$24.95 (hardcover) Arts capacity to shock, to present images of horror, violence, barbarism and suffering that have the power to distress and disturb, is ingrained in its history. But its only since the emergence of the modernist avant-gardes of the last century that this capacity has become an aesthetic imperative for some artists, even acquiring the status of a kind of political duty. And yet, as American poet, art critic and teacher Maggie Nelson continuously suggests, the cultural claims made on behalf of what she styles the art of cruelty have started to seem repetitive, cynical and self-serving. By now, writes Nelson, it is something of a commonplace to say that twentieth-century art movements were veritably obsessed with diagnosing injustice and alienation, and prescribing various shock and awe treatments to cure us of them. Nelson is rightly sceptical of justifications claiming that shock somehow acts as a corrective to the otherwise dulled and conformist sensibilities of a stupefied public, observing how this line has been successfully hijacked by, for example, the producers of mass culture to excuse all kinds of barbarism and sadism in the movies and on TV. The radical credentials of shock have been neutralised by the society such art was meant to oppose.

Out of this mess Nelson attempts to clarify and redefine what might still be valuable in the kind of art that pushes its audiences tolerance to the limit; her history winds from the extreme ravings of the French dramatist Antonin Artaud (who demanded what he called a theatre of cruelty), via the poems of Sylvia Plath and the paintings of Francis Bacon, through the history of performance art as shaped by the Vienna Actionists and feminist and protofeminist artists such as Yoko Ono and Marina Abramovi, before attending to postmodernist shockers such as Paul McCarthy and Jenny Holzer, and arriving in the present to find younger artists such as Ryan Trecartin and Kara Walker. Nelsons historical overview is shrewdly judged, threading from one flashpoint to another, describing and discussing works in vivid prose that doesnt hesitate to enthuse and extol one moment, while happily dispensing damning criticism where its due the next. But for all its historical looking-back, this book is essentially a rumination on the present a reckoning of the promises and failures of the radical commitment to art-as-disruption. There is a palpable sense in Nelsons account that while cultural cynicism now undermines the power of transgressive art, there are nevertheless forms of artistic transgression that must be defended and celebrated. Cruelty, she writes, bears an intimate relationship to stupidity as well as to intelligence, and I am not interested in stupid

cruelty, of which the world is overfull. (This includes most cruelties brought about via conformism, especially conformism to misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, or racist norms.) That didactic list of conformist cruelties reveals one of the key tensions of the book: Nelson is anxious to preserve the transgressive justification of the kind of art that, politically, has tended to oppose such norms thats to say, the art that came out of the movements of identity politics from the 1970s to the 90s, particularly feminist, queer and black art. The art of cruelty, then, is justified when it serves what might be termed emancipatory goals, and it is not surprising that the emancipatory effect Nelson upholds is one rooted in the perspectives of psychoanalysis, in which concepts such as the subconscious, trauma and catharsis operate to destabilise the ingrained habits of conformist subjectivity. The trouble with Nelsons account is precisely the ambiguous valorisation of good and bad art-cruelty. Nelson castigates the boorish and vacuous antimiddle class provocations of film director Michael Haneke, and really lets loose on the more impish and ironic posturing of Lars von Trier, mostly for his apparently unreconstructed misogyny. But Nelson misses that such works are shocking (in the bad sense) because they offend, for real, the deeply held political and ethical commitments of identity-politics liberals like her. This is not to excuse Haneke or von Trier, but to note that if the earlier art of cruelty is celebrated for its attack on traditional bourgeois values, then we have to admit that the power of shock in art cannot always be a tool to undermine only those values of which we disapprove. Ironically, Nelsons account of the effects of the transgressive violence of art turns it into a self-reflective aesthetic performance about the limits and conditions of subjectivity by those intelligent enough to appreciate it, rather than what it can often be a weapon in the battle over who determines the cultural values of society. J.J. CHARLESWORTH

140

Book Reviews

Fiction

Care of Wooden Floors

By Will Wiles HarperPress, 12.99 (hardcover) This first novel by Will Wiles deputy editor at UK design magazine Icon is a portrait of two characters with two very different personalities: the narrator, a single man living in a messy London flat he doesnt like, doing a job he doesnt like; and his old university friend, Oskar, a famed composer, who lives in the capital city of an unnamed Eastern European country and has designed his life into something approaching perfection. Oskar invites the nameless narrator to look after his pristine, elegant flat and the pale wood floors of the title while the composer travels to the US to sort out the one shadow on his perfect, if coldly prescribed, existence: his soon-to-be-ex wife. The consequences are disastrous, as the narrator engages in a darkly comic battle of wills with Oskars way of life, noting that the flat itself had always been against me I had been intimidated the moment I had walked in the door Perfection is aggressive. Wiles is a highly descriptive writer, and the narrative is packed with subtle design references. Sentences are littered with similes, a writing style that could be distracting, did it not entertainingly conjure up a life lived through aesthetics. The result is a suggestion that design from creation of to coercion towards ways of living is a civilising force, but works its magic at the cost of a certain freedom.
OLIVER BASCIANO

Exhibition Catalogue

Painting Between the Lines

By Jens Hoffmann CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 19.50/$25 (hardcover) Published to accompany an autumn 2011 exhibition at CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and premised on its curator Jens Hoffmanns project to resubmit literature as a viable subject for painting, Painting Between the Lines comes on the back of a growing curatorial and editorial interest in the making real of fiction (and, indeed, the fictionalising of the real) seen, most recently, in endeavours such as Koen Bramss The Encyclopedia of Fictional Artists (2011) and Alias, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarins curated exhibition for last years Krakw Photomonth festival. For Hoffmanns iteration of this conceit, descriptions of imagined paintings that appear in 14 works of fiction among them Prousts Remembrance of Things Past (191327) and Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) were dished out to artists, including Michal Borremans, Marcel Dzama and Laura Owens, who were asked somehow to realise the fictional painting. Fewer and fewer painters, bemoans Hoffmann in this catalogue produced after the fact, are turning to literature for inspiration. But why should they? Thats not to say that Hoffmanns isnt an enjoyable commissioning ruse; indeed there are instances when he appears to be the perfect matchmaker of painters and fictional subjects. For example, Milan Kunderas

description of a painting in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) seems as though it could have been written with Wilhelm Sasnal in mind: Here is a painting I happened to drip red paint on. At first I was terribly upset, but then I started enjoying it. The trickle looked like a crack; it turned the building site into a battered old backdrop, a backdrop with a building site painted on it. Sasnals way of painting buildings flat, blackly brooding and anonymous seems to fit the description perfectly, and so even as a dark red, bloodlike drip careers down the surface of his work, it appears totally Sasnal-like both as a painting and as an idea: a flat depth of field featuring anonymous buildings. But still the realm in which Hoffmanns project operates seems more complex than he accounts for, and perhaps its also smaller and more specific in both scale and reach. What Painting Between the Lines does is not simply to present works of literature to artists as a source of potential inspiration, but to ask them to investigate a fantasy world of fictional artworks and artists. Though what is the pleasure that we experience in treating fictional artists and artworks as though they were real cataloguing them, fleshing them out, giving them Wikipedia entries, thinking about their significance? And what space is the fictional world offering us that the nonfictional one isnt? Is this the return of the not-real? If Hoffmann thinks painters should be looking in this direction, then perhaps we need to be told why. Perhaps an interest in fiction and the borders around it relates to the way in which we are encouraged to construct, catalogue and reference the world and its characters using the technology and tools of our mediated age. It could be suggested that works of literature are more immune to such endeavours a painting described in words alone will necessarily have as many versions and interpretations as there are readers of the text. (Red paint for example might conjure any number of bloody hues.) The notion of an original is somehow absent in this scenario. But are the worlds created by painting as resistant to the straightforwardly indexical? Or do they simply sour the very thing that made the written version such a delight? LAURA MCLEAN-FERRIS

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Thematic Survey

Concrete Comedy: An Alternative History of TwentiethCentury Comedy

By David Robbins Pork Salad Press, 31.90/38 (softcover) Concrete Comedy brings together a series of formats, tropes, tendencies, memes, genres and practices that David Robbins has identified as operating counter to traditional comedy, which, he notes, is verbal, narrative, and illusionistic. The concrete comedian, he insists, makes humour from materials directly to hand, whether they be material stuff or a social situation, a cultural sector or a media-driven platform; it is, he defines, a comedy of things rather than words or pictures. Examples are drawn from art and entertainment formats such as television, cinema and thematic museums, with case studies that include the well known and the overlooked or forgotten, the selfdeclared artwork as well as actions in the real world, from frat pranks and practical jokes, to hidden backstories and elaborate metafictions. Robbins is himself a visual artist, but while situating his own work in a history that includes Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Marcel Broodthaers, Martin Kippenberger and Maurizio Cattelan, his hypothesis also envelops popular producers such as Buster Keaton, Mad magazine, Frank Zappa and Jean Paul Gaultier. He concentrates on operations and methodologies, rather than subject matter or aesthetics, and as such his argument is both solid and supple. It does indeed become clear that Fischli & Weiss and Jacques Tati have much in common in their contemplation of the perceived animus of objects and machines, and that Robbinss own metafiction The German Reunification Public Sculpture Competition (1991) an apparent display of shortlisted submissions, all made by the artist is a gallery-based cousin of Andy Kaufmans mendacious television appearances, since both anticipate and subvert attitudes that adhere to known formats. Now, it might sound really dodgy for an artist to draw an alternative canonical history around his own practice, and indeed there is a tone to some of Robbinss writing that is a touch eye-watering. Throughout the book he defines and redefines concrete comedy in eulogising
142 Book Reviews

terms recalling, at times, the rhetoric that was used to describe the relational aesthetics of the early 1990s crediting it with increased potency, in contrast to illusory comedy, less favoured by Robbins because pretending leeches away the vitality of the real. And at times the thematic and conceptual framework around case studies is outrageously broadbrush, partisan or dismissive, with many a claim that will rub various people up in various wrong ways: feminism of the 1970s is, according to Robbins, a case of women expanding their clout in society; America apparently introduced the democracy of pleasure to the rest of the world; and Surrealism is just a style, and of little importance to a book dealing with category-transgression, these being just a few examples. However, one of the themes through which Robbins approaches this century of esoteric acts and attitudes is that of the comic persona, and he himself seems to write across two distinct personae. At times, when explaining incredibly large and difficult ideas, such as the sociological nature of success or the impact of the Industrial Revolution on humankind, Robbins is worldly and sage (if rather subjective), with a scope that can only come from long-term contemplation and profound puzzling. At other times he is a breathless teenager, a giddily dedicated fan. While this makes for a progression through ideas that, stylistically, can unpick itself at times, it lurches enjoyably towards polemic, a mode generally absent from historical accounts. This is consequently a griffin of a book overly canonical and autobiographical, epic in its scope and yet knowingly selective in its examples, detailed and revelatory with regards to case studies, held in a web of propositions that are at times taut as a waistband at Christmas, at others slack as a landed parachute. Perhaps Robbins could himself have been more of a trickster with information and exaggerated this antiacademic approach, but no doubt that was dismissed as a concrete comedy too far, since Concrete Comedy is not an authoritative, completist history but a plastic, personalised account that demands that readers modify and augment it to their own ends. SALLY OREILLY

Monograph

Agnes Martin
Edited by Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly and Barbara Schrder Dia Art Foundation/Yale University Press, 25/$40 (hardcover) Though admired to the point of devotion, Agnes Martins paintings are the type of minimal, quiet constructions that are virtually impossible to reproduce photographically, partly due to the tremulous optical vibrations that they create when experienced in the flesh. A few dominating critical accounts (by Lawrence Alloway and Rosalind Krauss), as well as Martins own highly prescriptive assertions about her work, meant that thinking regarding it reached a kind of impasse following her death in 2004. This is a situation that the present book (which began as a conference at New Yorks Dia Art Foundation) seeks to redress. The resulting collection is a fascinating clutch of considerations from a group of writers that includes Douglas Crimp, Michael Newman, Anne M. Wagner and Zoe Leonard, who are given the freedom to write about Martin from several vantage points. Leonards contribution, A Wild Patience, is a particularly lovely response to Martins only completed film, Gabriel (1976). The latter, intended by the artist as an expression of innocence, features a young boy walking around in a natural environment. Leonard describes her struggles to write about Martins work, the wrong turns in her thoughts and her constant return to Adrienne Richs poetry (including Richs collection of poems A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far, 1981) as a kind of messy, feminist flipside to Martins work. She eventually finds a poem of Richs that expresses the connection between the two: If the mind were simple / if the mind were bare / it might resemble a room / a swept interior / but how could this now be possible. The others include materialist histories (Christina Bryan Rosenberger notes that the artist used white grounds incorporating pigments containing titanium, zinc and lead, all of which have a high refractive index and so create a sense of brightness and reflection) and an account (by Crimp) of an awkward trip to see the artist in the desert. Several essays tackle the artists personal relationships and sexuality, while others more conventionally address her filmwork, writings and, of course, the paintings.
LAURA MCLEAN-FERRIS

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Collected Writings

Distrust That Particular Flavor: Encounters with a Future Thats Already Here
By William Gibson Viking, 12.99 (softcover) Contrary to what those of you who are not in the habit of reading science fiction might think, the masterpieces of the genre are generally not about describing the alien in alien terms; rather, the best of them operate a kind of clean, direct, easygoing style that makes the technobabble, goofy aliens, nanotechnology, interdimensional travel and improbable laser weaponry seem, well, normal. Which is why things like blasters, lightsabers, teleporters and, via William Gibson, cyberspace, so quickly enter everyday language (although not, in every case, Microsoft Word 2004s automatic spellcheck). If more mainstream literature makes the ordinary seem extraordinary, sci-fi tends to operate in the reverse. It is perhaps for this reason that Gibson, whose debut novel, Neuromancer (about global computer networks, virtual reality, hackers and artificially augmented assassins), appeared in 1984 and who has gone on to become the leading science-fiction writer of our time, introduces his first collection of nonfiction writing with a disclaimer: I had become uncharacteristically strict with myself about only writing fiction, he says of his early years as a novelist, which is why I have never felt entirely comfortable with the pieces collected here. Those pieces, spanning approximately two decades from the late 1980s onward and originally written as articles for magazines such as Time and Wired, or as introductions to other peoples fictions or
144 Book Reviews

photography catalogues, and most often, as the author notes, delivered in return for a paid-for trip to somewhere more-or-less exotic, constitute biography, source notes and brief observations of a world that too often fails to notice the extraordinary the Net, digital moviemaking, cities such as London and Tokyo, and the songs of Steely Dan because it so quickly embraces them as being ordinary. In an address to the Directors Guild of America, Gibson traces the history of film, from images seen in the flames of the first fire through to digital, as the unthinking construction of a species-wide, time-defying, effectively immortal prosthetic memory. We dont understand the implications of this, Gibson notes, because we are too much of it to see it. Similarly, of the Internets ubiquity in contemporary culture, he remarks that we are of the Net; to recall another mode of being is to admit to having once been something other than human. Like Gibsons most recent fiction, these essays and articles are set firmly in the present. (No more so than when the writer finds a character that he had been struggling to situate in one his novels while on an outing with his sixteen-year-old daughter to the Game Cave the physical retail locus of a website called Game Cave, and subsequently the potential physical locus of Gibsons character.) But its a present thats increasingly elastic, stretching backwards (you can watch a film of someone whos been dead for a hundred years) and forward (worries about whether or not well all have computer chips implanted in our heads) through time with increasing rapidity. Indeed, as if to emphasise the speed of technological change, articles from the 1990s about using postal orders to pay for products bought on eBay, or talking about the joys of using the AltaVista search engine, seem to include details that have dated almost before they were written. All cultural change is essentially technologically driven is this collections mantra. The Internet, for example, is part of an ongoing democratization of connoisseurship, in which curatorial privilege is available at every level of society. And yet the elusive present Gibson seeks to grasp in these articles is not merely defined by the virtual or technological. Indeed, Gibson is a famously late adopter of both the Net and email. Consequently, hes interested in the dongles rather than the mobile phones in Tokyo, and in the draconian regime in Singapore during the early 1990s rather than its mass adoption of the latest information technology. And most movingly, his response to 9/11 is channelled via a meditation on the shop window of his favourite (New York) store. If hes interested in the technological, its only to locate where the human exists. Dont worry about guessing where youre going next, Gibson seems to say; you were always already there. MARK RAPPOLT

Graphic Novel

Robot
By Stanislaw Lem, Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal SelfMadeHero, 14.99 (hardcover) Robot contains contemporary graphicnovel adaptations of a pair of robotthemed short stories written during the early 1970s by the Polish science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. Uranium Earpieces (1972), restyled by Danusia Schejbal, is a tale that explores two of Lems favourite themes: science as the closest man gets to godliness and the rise and fall of a totalitarian regime. The tale begins with an engineer who wanders the universe creating stars and planets. One of the latter is populated by robots and ruled by a dictator who forces his subjects to wear suits of uranium armour so that they can never congregate in numbers, lest the radioactive material reach critical mass. Eventually the engineer intervenes by

introducing the oppressed to the element cadmium (a radioactive barrier), allowing the masses to overcome their oppressor. While Lem codes his story (which would have been subject to censorship when he wrote it) by fusing the languages of nuclear physics and sociodynamics, Schejbals graphic style suggesting a darker and sketchier version of Antoine de Saint-Exuprys The Little Prince (1943) sympathetically highlights both the fairytale and political aspects of the writers strange tale. Andrzej Klimowski interprets a seemingly more realistic story The Sanatorium of Dr. Vliperdius (1971) about a writer who visits a sanatorium specialising in the cure of electrical dementia in robots. The tale presents another of Lems favoured narrative tactics: operating a black hole of stories within stories to facilitate a sense of paranoiac social implosion here via encounters with, among others, humanoid robots who think they are humans whose bodies have been stolen, a robot who wants to destroy nature because of its apparent imperfections and a robot philosopher whose logic leads him to conclude that there is nothing, but who has committed himself to the sanatorium because, against all logic, he keeps discovering that there is something. Klimowskis illustrations amplify the madness by suggesting that there is very little difference between robots and humans indeed, besides the presence of a subtle blue glint in the odd robot tooth, its often impossible to tell which is which all of which serves quite wonderfully to highlight the centre of this particular black hole: the narrator has chosen to visit the sanatorium because a robot newsagent saw the light glint off his fillings and decided he was one of her kind.
MARK RAPPOLT

Monograph

Hans Hollein
Edited by Peter Weibel Hatje Cantz, 55/58/$120 (hardcover) The way Peter Weibel describes it in his lead essay here, Austrian architect Hans Hollein is the missing link connecting a wealth of twentieth-century creative practices: peppering the authors fivepart text are references to Adolf Loos, Josef Frank, Mies van der Rohe, Ernst Mach, Walter Gropius, Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp, Quentin Tarantino, Walter De Maria, F.T. Marinetti, Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Buckminster Fuller, Roland Barthes, Rudolph Schindler, Marshall McLuhan, Charles Jencks, Joseph Beuys, Frank Lloyd Wright and Erwin Wurm, to name just a few. Hollein seems to have most in common with Frederick Kiesler, while Le Corbusier is comparable, and in his multifaceted practice Weibel believes the architect anticipated land excavation as art, Bruce Naumans various plays on the corridor, Damien Hirsts Pharmacy and medicine-cabinet works (1989) and Ai Weiweis Coca-Cola Vase (1997). If this seems overblown when listed baldly, the author makes convincing arguments along the way, backing up his copy (in German, with an English translation enclosed as an unbound set of papers) with a trove of annotated archival images (Hollein is big on architecture as a medialed, representational discipline, so this expanded form of research imagery is particularly comprehensive and illuminating). Weibel positions Hollein as a Mitteleuropean bridge between Modernism and postmodernism, in which his output of buildings, urban plans, sculptures, design objects and fashion (he titled a 1967 manifesto Everything Is Architecture three years before Beuyss everything is art dictum, naturally) is both an evolution of the avant-gardes Modernism and a quotation of it.
OLIVER BASCIANO

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145

Thursday, February 9, 2012 14:29 Subject: off the record Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012 11:17 From: gallerygirl@artreview.com To: <office@artreview.com> Conversation: off the record

I dont want big fat guys like you in my shop such was Tom Fords sage explanation of the realities of fashion when confronted by larger-than-life French-born collector Jean Pigozzi. I think hes making a mistake because big guys like me have the money, Pigozzi retorted as he explained the realities of economics to the fashion designer. These days, however, the black leather ankle boot with overcast stitching is on the other foot. And not just because Pigozzi is the owner and creative director of a fashion brand. Europes economies are on the brink, and those of us who might once have opted for a pair of Dior Homme virgin wool-cashmere wide-legged trousers are generally looking for something a little slimmer. Even as we sip our Domaine Olivier Pithon Le Vitriol 2010 and talk French like the traitor Mitt Romney, everyone in the artworld knows that America, as Abraham Lincoln said, is once again the last best hope of earth. And so we Europeans are sending our pluckiest art fair across the Atlantic: hurrah for Frieze New York! Yes, readers, this is a brave, foolish last bid to persuade American collectors to plough their dollar bills into European economies. To stimulate a Keynesian alternative to austerity. To tear down walls. Although not quite to the extent that the Independent art fair has: that British-American hybrid has successfully confused New York art lovers by doing such radical things as propping art on fire extinguishers and the like. Frieze needs to take note and take things further. Now more than ever, it is time for Europeans to try and win the battle of wits against the corn-dog-chomping morons and reassert our cultural superiority. To symbolise the expected friendship between Europe and America, and encourage the dollar flow, Frieze New York is staging its inaugural edition far out in the Atlantic Ocean. This annexation of the previously entirely unoccupied Falklands has earned the noble fair directors the Order of the British Empire, and we expect that, armed with this accolade, they will make it very difficult indeed for Americans to get a boat back to the mainland without parting with a fat load of cash. As well as the all-important dough, our plucky fair is battling for an elusive triple A rating. Many people ask who comes up with these entirely arbitrary ratings. I can reveal that in the artworld the main credit-rating agency is called Adam Lindemann, who recently caused a storm by downgrading Art Basel Miami Beach to junk status. This angered many, including the reality TV star Jerry Saltz, who mused about Lindemann: Is there anything more obnoxious than the son of a billionaire who still feels the need to remind us precisely how expensive his moccasins are? But Lindemann has recently struck back on his idiosyncratic weblog. Recognize the whole art world as our mother is his advice. Perversely, while we try to impress the Americans, the Middle Eastern folk have been over in London trying to win our approval (Europe might not be rich in cash, but it retains vast stockpiles of intellectual capital), and it turns out that the cheeky upstarts have started building museums! Just how do they expect to be able to pay for both theirs and ours? I shudder to think what will happen to our own fine institutions if this Arab spring-type thinking catches on. It turns out that our benefactors had travelled to London for the launch of a think tank called Art & Patronage: The Middle East, which was launched at the British Museum and the Royal College of Art with a two-day conference. Lots of high-powered Middle Eastern collectors and museum folk were softened up by Hans Ulrich Obrists repeated muttering of the word urgent, before Tate Modern director Chris Dercon suggested, Perhaps it would be more interesting to fail to become an institution at all. When the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was put on indefinite hold last October, it seemed this advice was being taken literally. All we need is for the others to listen to Dercon and soon these busybodies will stop threatening the preeminence of Europes museums. Luckily the European cause was helped by Hossein Amirsadeghi, the founding director of the think tank, who startlingly stated in his speech that the Middle East had failed to produce anything of cultural significance in hundreds of years. Clearly the man hasnt seen Manchester City play yet. GG
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Off the Record

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