RE: [-empyre-] Documenta reviews : forward from Christiane Paul

[Jenny Marketou <jmarketou@yahoo.com>]

Hi Everyone,
A big thanks to Christina fro bringing up the
Documenta discussion. A big thanks to Christiane for
entering the conversation and bringing our attention
away form the obvious about the "chairs" and the
"Chinese" people. I  was in Kassel before and after
the opening of Documenta 12 and I spent several hours
going through the exhibitions. I found the  approach
of the curatorial team and their meticulous attention
to detail at times esoteric but very strong and I kind
of like it very much ! As Christiane points out it
raised effectively a lot of  questions about  the
boundaries between exhibition space and the work of
art  as well about the fluidity of boundaries in
general. Also,I liked the subtle political climate and
the lush visuality  in Neue Gallery where it
challenged our norms excpetions  of the "white cube".

I am also surprised why we are preoccupied with the 
the "chairs" and the "Chinese guests" instead of 
discussing  extremely effective works of art  such as
the video installation " Lovely Andrea " of Hito
Steyerl at Fridericianum where actually the audience
could sit on the "Chinese" chairs to view the video or
the stunning installation "Phantom Truck " and  "The
Radio " of Inigo Manglano-Ovalle at Documenta Halle
only a few among many other brilliant works the
majority of which have no connection with art market.
Jenny 

--- Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>
wrote:

> [this post was received in rich text format, so here
> is forwarded in  
> plain text... -cm]
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      From:    christiane_paul@whitney.org
> July 11, 2007 1:44:38 AM BDT
> 
> 
>      List:    empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>      From:    christiane_paul@whitney.org
> 
> 
> As far as I understand, the Chinese people also were
> the 'couriers'  
> who brought in the chairs from China. The confusion
> about permission  
> to sit on them was created intentionally. The white
> lines of tape on  
> the floor that 'fenced in' groups of chairs and some
> of the artworks,  
> actually were a separate artwork that (quite
> effectively) raised  
> questions about boundaries in the exhibition space.
> Christiane
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on
> behalf of Brian Holmes
> Sent: Tue 7/10/2007 6:08 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Documenta reviews
> 
> I saw groups of Chinese everywhere, and on my last
> day, met the Chinese
> interpreter with whom I had the pleasure of
> conversation in the only
> language we shared, German. We puzzled over why it
> was such a poor
> exhibition.
> 
> I sat in the chairs throughout the exhibition, along
> with all the other
> weary ones.
> 
> Christina McPhee wrote:
>  > patrick,
>  >
>  >
>  > To be frank I didn't notice groups of Chinese
> people.  I was there  
> for
>  > the several preview days and left on the
> afternoon of opening day.  
> I wll
>  > be going back next week for the magazine
> conference.
>  >
>  > What was strange though were Wei Wei's
> conglomerations of antique
>  > Chinese chairs.  Grouped elegantly and
> anonymously in the midst of
>  > what sort of seemed like installations of other
> art.  Boundaries
>  > completely fluid, differentiation between
> different 'works' seemingly
>  > treated as unimportant.
>  >
>  > Unfortunately throughout the Aue Pavilion and the
> Neue Gallerie,  
> there
>  > seemed to be no places to actually sit when
> exhausted, to wait for
>  > someone, etc.
>  >
>  > THe Chinese chairs intensified an atmosphere of
> uncanny oppression  
> -- so
>  > few human-scaled accomodations (architecturally)
> to the needs of
>  > visitiors, so many strange gestures.
>  >
>  > Could you sit on the chairs ? or not?  no one
> was.
>  >
>  > christina
>  >
>  > On Jul 10, 2007, at 9:45 AM, Patrick W. Deegan
> wrote:
>  >
>  >> for anyone else there witnessing D12, i would be
> deeply  
> interested in
>  >> firsthand reactions, assessments, news, or lack
> of any of these  
> things
>  >> regarding Ai Weiwei's "importation" of 1001
> Chinese to Germany  
> for one
>  >> part of his ouevre there.
>  >> thanks!
>  >> -pwdeegan
>  >> _______________________________________________
>  >> empyre forum
>  >> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>  >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>  >
>  > _______________________________________________
>  > empyre forum
>  > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>  > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>  >
>  >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>