RE: [-empyre-] galleries & establishments

[valerie <valerie@mobilegaze.com>]

Hi Christiane -

Thanks for your comments. You know, it's so important to understand
the politics of how things come about. I actually though "Data
Dynamics" was a great show - it permitted the public to zero in on a
few works and interact w/ them within a specific thematic.

I'm glad you bring up the topic of budget & politics. I am presently
working w/ the Musée du Québec on what will be the *first museum
presentation of net.art in Canada. It is a huge leap of faith on the
part of the institution - and they have really risen to the occasion.
The budget (now) is about 5x more than what they first had in mind -
they have been willing to invest (in more ways than one) in the
presentation etc. But I think that if they hadn't seen the Whitney
show "Data Dynamics" (for example), they may have never considered
showing net.art in the first place. It is (and has been) a very
enriching experience to talk about net.art to a completely new
community (the museum) - and they are very excited to show this kind
of work.

However, I'd like to ask, do you see the Whitney expanding its
support of net.art? And how? (eg. presentation, condervation,
collections etc.)

Valerie


> I've mostly been a lurker on Empyre (and enjoyed many of the discussions) --
> unfortunately I seldom have time to post...
>
> I just wanted to add an entirely mundane footnote to Patrick's comments re
> the net art in the Whitney Biennial (which I curated).
>
> > In the case of the Whitney, it's clear that the issues related to the
> > representation of net art within the gallery are not yet resolved.  In
> > both instances, the work was either relegated to a dark room >or
> 'net.ghetto' or awkwardly positioned next to the stairwell, outside >of the
> gallery proper. There are exceptions, like Yael Kanarek's >TreasureCrumbs,
> but that exhibit was offlien at the moment I saw it, >therefore it didn't
> translate well at all.
>
> I completely agree with the comments (and voiced them myself a zillion
> times) but the issue is a larger institutional one than figuring out how to
> best represent net art in a gallery. As banal as it is, the problem here
> very often is money, space, politics, and institutional support. There was
> no money to show the works in a more "immersive" manner (and many of them
> invited different forms of presentation than a kiosk set-up). I wasn't able
> to choose the space either. Showing the net art next to the stairwell (not
> to mention the gorgeous fire alarm sitting on those walls) to me seems to
> make a statement in and off itself. The budget for the 10 Biennial net art
> pieces was roughly 5% of the budget I had for the 5 pieces in "Data
> Dynamics," which ran at the Whitney last spring (none of the works was shown
> in a kiosk format). I'm far more interested in discussing and thinking about
> concepts for displaying net art but budget, space and support are still a
> big issue. Particualrly if one follows the traditional "press," it becomes
> obvious that new media art hasn't yet found acceptance in the art world at
> large (if that's desirable or not in the first place is an entirely
> different issue).
>
>
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