From: "Patrick W. Deegan" <pw@pwdeegan.org>
Date: July 11, 2007 11:03:11 PM BDT
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Documenta reviews : forward from Christiane Paul
Jenny et al.,
I should clarify, lest anyone who is not familiar with my work
believes that there is some goofy agenda, i solicited people's
responses and feedback on Ai Weiwei's work because 1) i am currently
not in Kassel (though i wish i could be there to see it first hand),
2) i am in China completing my fieldwork on contemporary Chinese art,
3) and the reaction here is different so i wanted to get a feeling as
to what the reaction there might be like beyond the newswire. so any
preoccupation really is mine; and any information you might share
regarding this preoccupation is, in fact, very helpful to me. Thanks
to everyone who has posted reviews from D12 on any of its aspects.
yours,
-patrick
--Patrick W. Deegan
University of California, San Diego
Dept. of Art History
VIS 0084 UCSD
La Jolla, CA 92093
http://www.pwdeegan.org
China Contact Information:
äåïåä 102600
åäååèäåé
æåèæç
Patrick W. Deegan
ææçåç: 138.1747.8317
China Contact Information (English):
China, Beijing 102600
Beijing University, Software School
Department of Digital Art
Patrick W. Deegan
mobile: (+86) 138.1747.8317
On Jul 12, 2007, at 24:30:0, Jenny Marketou wrote:
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
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
From: empyre-request@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: confirm b34d3b4a94052709e7425a9c4588e3455f00effc
If you reply to this message, keeping the Subject: header intact,
Mailman will discard the held message. Do this if the message is
spam. If you reply to this message and include an Approved: header
with the list password in it, the message will be approved for posting
to the list. The Approved: header can also appear in the first line
of the body of the reply.