[-empyre-] -empyre- June 2011: Biennales Plus and Minus

[Simon Biggs]

Where some artists seek to stage their work as interventions within the
institutional framework that is the Biennale, whether officially or
unofficially, the exhibition Isak describes appears to function as a
curatorial intervention: an intervention in an institution and a place but
also history (or that about to become history) itself. With history
increasingly written through the media in real-time the potential agency of
such intervention (artistic and curatorial) expands.

Best

Simon


On 07/06/2011 15:43, "Isak Berbic" <isakberbic at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Tim, Renate and empyre,
> 
> I am looking forward to engage in dialogue with the guests of this month and
> everyone on the list.
> Below is my initial statement on my recent work and the ³biennale model in the
> context of global digital environments² and mediums of mass dissemination. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> 
> Many of us learn about biennales, exhibitions and artworks by looking at
> books, art magazines, culture sections in newspapers, exhibition catalogs and
> internet websites. We have, long ago, become accustomed to consuming cinema on
> the television screen, and symphonies in earphones. Through these mediums, we
> learn about flat works, three-dimensional works, large-scale installations,
> and time-based pieces. We have become used video art on DVD or the small
> screen of YouTube, and imagining installation art through photographs that
> describe it. It is common practice that artists¹ submissions for exhibitions,
> or applications for programs, are viewed on computer screens or digital
> projections. While looking at art, through its second-hand representations, we
> judge it by reconstructing all or part of the experience in our mind. We use
> our imagination to decode the images, while at the same time, we keep in mind
> that in reality, the works themselves are somewhat
>  different, somehow more real. Artists themselves are aware of these
> limitations, and their work has increasingly come to address the conditions
> under which it will be seen, not only in the gallery or the museum, but in the
> pages of art magazines, catalogs, and websites. In a contemporary scene
> flooded with international biennials and art fairs, they know that these
> second-hand impressions that can be made available to millions are perhaps
> more important than the first-hand encounter that will occur for only a
> privileged few visitors.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Most recently I co-curated, with Fawz Kabra, an exhibition with the aim to
> utilize new media and put together a show with most speed. The exhibition
> opened during the Sharjah Biennial and Art Dubai in the spirit of dialogue
> with these large events, as well as to use the presence of a large audience
> and their interest in art. 
> 
> In the month of March 2011, we were watching on the television, facebook and
> twitter, that the entire region was rapidly changing. We felt that large
> exhibitions take much forward planning, and the curatorial decisions and the
> work of artists occur too far in advance to be timely. So the exhibition Brief
> Histories was conceived as a responsive project to the recent political
> turmoil in the middle east. We worked with very quick deadlines, and practical
> means of realization. We asked for contributions which could be sent thorough
> email or small packages with currier to be subsequently materialized on site.
> Which meant that the works themselves were jpgs, video files, texts, or
> instructions, which we produced into prints, projections, even a wall painting
> by Brian O'Doherty. There were no frames, there were no plinths and pedestals,
> the site of the exhibition was utilized to the maximum, and the spartan
> install allowed for the focus to be on the images and
>  the content.
> 
> At the opening we received 200 visitors on foot, while on our blog we received
> 2,000.
> 
> You can visit the online version on the following link:
> 
> http://briefhistories.blogspot.com
> 
> WINTER/SPRING 2011 BRIEF HISTORIES brings together contemporary works
> responsive to the unfolding events in the region and the larger global
> happenings of the day. The show will be momentarily materialized in the
> intimate setting of a villa in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and subsequently
> posted online. Diverse participants, from six continents, present photography,
> moving image, installation, drawing, text, and web-based work. Themes lying
> within their contributions reflect upon social geography, power and authority,
> labor and capital, private and public space, and the media.
> 
> With telepresence of information, temporality has transformed from its
> traditional linear progression (past, present, future) to a coexistence of
> past and present­on demand. In this respect new media networks broadcast
> multitudes of distinct perspectives, which in turn destabilize a definitive
> narrative. The challenge has become to maintain a critical, artistic, and
> curatorial practice that is responsive and relevant, and that is capable of
> keeping its place amongst rapidly changing contexts and shifting meanings.
> 
> BRIEF HISTORIES is an attempt to address this need for immediacy, by bringing
> together artists and writers to respond with works that are significant to the
> context of our present day reality. Fawz Kabra and Isak Berbic
> 
> 
> 
> Isak Berbic
> Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre


Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
http://www.elmcip.net/
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/



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