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DOCUMENTA DIRECTORS MEET IN TURIN
Documenta 13 director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev invited all the living former directors of Documenta for a discussion at the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Holger Liebs reports, the question of the day seemed to turn around poetry versus discourse in the curatorial strategies at the Kassel show.
The late founding curator Arnold Bode and the late Documenta 5 curator Harald Szeemann were both represented by companions of the period or former colleagues. Jean-Christophe Ammann from Szeemann’s team argued that Catherine David’s 1997 Documenta brought an end to the exploratory, poetic character and introduced a “social-pedagogical model” with a “statement character,” which Liebs links to the discursive approach of the figure of the curator-author.
David and Okwui Enwezor were quick to defend their shows against the verdict that they had given the public an overdose of enlightenment instead of dispensing poetry. “Globalization is here,” said Enwezor. “It must be tackled!” David added that by the time of the 1997 Documenta—in the wake of German reunification—Kassel had suddenly become the center of the country, while the cultural and political network of coordinates around had changed. Whoever hoped to function “subjectively” would need to possess a “gigantic ego.”
No word on how the Turin meeting impacted Christov-Bakargiev’s plan for the next Documenta—or her ego—although Liebs gives her kudos for initiating the event. Liebs also notes that no replacement has been found for Christov-Bakargiev at the Castello di Rivoli, which has still not even advertised the vacant position. For Liebs, that oversight speaks volumes about current Italian cultural politics and could have “ruinous consequences” in the long term for the collection.
KIPPI’S PARIS BAR FOR SALE
Martin Kippenberger’s painterly rendition of a traditional Berlin artist haunt will soon be hitting the auction block. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the 1991 painting Paris Bar will be up for sale at Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary sale in London on October 16. The selling price is estimated to be between one and two million dollars; the painting not only depicts the art-covered walls of the artist’s favorite restaurant bar, it also long adorned the walls itself.
In 1991, Kippenberger organized a protest exhibition at the Paris Bar that coincided with the Metropolis exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, to which he was not invited. The protest show featured artists from the “Sumak” collection belonging to the artist and his sister. Always one step ahead of the times, Kippi took on the role of curator, artist, and collector, celebrating the opening in the Paris Bar on the very same night as the opening at the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Paris Bar—completed a few months later—captures this protest exhibition, including works by Werner Büttner, Albert Oehlen, Hubert Kiecol, Michael Krebber, Charline von Heyl, Mathias Schaufler, Heimo Zobernigg, Ronald Jones, and Robert Frank.
ARTISTS DRAW KHODORKOVSKY TRIAL
There seems to be a new genre in Russian contemporary art: courtroom art. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Sonja Zekri reports, artists have been attending—and sketching, painting, illustrating, and caricaturing—the proceedings of the second trial of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev, who were once again charged with fraud. The depictions by the artists began as part of a broader cultural contest to provide another point of view of the high-profile trial at the Khamovnichesky Court. The results of the contest are now being exhibited at the Central House of Artists in Moscow.
As Zekri points out, artists' depictions of courtroom trials actually have a long history, especially in the Russian tradition, which includes Boris Jefimov’s images of the Nuremberg Trials. But not everyone is pleased with the results. After seeing his own portraits, Khodorkovsky asked: “Do I really look that bad?” The contest winners in four categories—painting, sketching, caricature, and comic illustration—plus a winner voted online by the public will all receive a trip to New York. The contest organizers explain that the prize trip follows the tradition of sending Russian artists abroad to perfect their art.
GOOD-BYE TO THE BLOCKBUSTER, HELLO TO THE PERMANENT COLLECTION
The blockbuster exhibition may well be the latest victim of the economic crisis—a loss that may impact curating on a long-term basis. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Jörg Häntzschel reports, Thomas Campbell, the director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, had some bleak news beyond the museum’s financial and employment situation. A quarter of the $2.8 billion that the museum possessed in summer 2008 has been lost, while 350 employees from the museum’s more than 2,550 have lost their jobs. Those losses will have an impact on future shows—or lack thereof. As Häntzschel notes, the Metropolitan usually presents thirty to thirty-five exhibitions per year, with a dozen-odd big shows featuring loans. But now the future is looking slimmer—and more familiar.
Instead of the blockbuster, there seems to be a new brand of exhibition, which involves taking another look at the old works in the permanent collection. Indeed, Campbell plans to get curators who previously worked on the special exhibitions plan to put a new spin on the Met’s permanent collection. While it’s not unusual for a freshly hired director to make his mark on a museum’s permanent collection, Häntzschel believes Campbell’s plan is part of a larger paradigm shift across the country.
“If one looks at the programs of American museum for the beginning season,” writes Häntzschel, “one finds different versions of the same exhibition everywhere: ‘Works from the Permanent Collection.’ The museums are doing the same as the American people: forgoing consumption. Instead of shopping, they are doing the best with what they already have.”
Some shows already on view are also being hit, including the recent Bauhaus exhibition at Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau. While made in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exhibition will arrive in a somewhat reduced form in New York in November. Instead of the thousand pieces on display in the Berlin show, the New York will feature only four hundred.
SPREAD OF STREET FESTIVALS: THE ANTIDOTE TO “ELITIST” CONTEMPORARY ART
Le Monde’s Michel Guerrin picks up on another growing trend: the spread of contemporary art festivals—all night and in the street—in cities across France this fall. Along with Bordeaux’s Evento, there’s an all-nighter at Toulouse, followed by a similar event in Paris and other cities.
“A contemporary art fever has also hit Lyon, Nantes, Lille, Metz, Bordeaux,” writes Guerrin. “The mayors flaunt the same credo: Since the public has difficulty entering a contemporary art space, why not go out and find the public, disrupt its perception by presenting art works in the street, a train station, a former church, a factory, along a river?”
That formula always seems to include extending opening hours into the evening and throughout the night as well as adding techno music to augment the festival character of the event. The artworks themselves tend to be “spectacular installations, digital and video.” And the formula works. All the cities reported increased visitor numbers, beyond their initial calculations.
Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé sees Nantes as a model but cites the success of Lille during its tenure as European Cultural Capital in 2004, when over nine million people hit the streets for events held over several months. For the opening night on December 6, 2003, the police expected forty thousand visitors, only to be confronted with seven hundred thousand, who took in works by Morellet, Buren, Tahara, and Alain Fleischer while dancing to music by DJ for the evening Pierre Henri.
As Guerrin notes, French mayors had a different attitude toward art a decade ago. “Contemporary art had all the flaws: elitist, hermetic, attracting few people. And electorally worthless.” The ’80s are filled with “catastrophic examples” of public sculpture, which the public had been “primed to admire while keeping their mouths shut,” as one unnamed elected official put it. The former mayor of Toulouse, Dominique Baudis, recalls a similar experience: “I was caught between the public who rejected this art and a small elite who expected that I defend it.”
Today, French mayors see contemporary art as the best way to give a city a younger image. Moreover, art seems to offer the most optimal quality-to-price relationship. The reason for the change in attitude? Beyond the success of such events, contemporary art no longer seems to intimidate the public, while being more spectacular and more in tune with the present era. Art has the capacity to unveil a city to its own inhabitants while involving the public in local debates about the life and identity of a neighborhood.
The trend has its critics, including those who complain that a Nuit Blanche event leaves no permanent traces. When the sun rises, there’s nothing left to see. Others denounce the festive spirit, which can be more entertaining than artistic. The festivals take away sparse cultural funds from sites that work on a more permanent vision of art, including museums and art centers.
Guerrin concludes by citing the philosopher Yves Michaud: “The political leaders bear this phenomenon: The ephemeral would be authentic while the permanent cultural space—museum, concert hall—suffer from an overly institutional image.” If the American crisis trend of revisiting the permanent collection takes hold internationally, then the street and the museum may well be heading for a new culture clash.
PHILLIPS DE PURY INTRODUCES THE MONTHLY AUCTION—WITH A THEME
The auction house Phillips de Pury seems to be kicking the recession—or going for broke. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Laura Weissmüller reports, the number-three auction house has announced eighteen auctions for the next year and a half—in addition to the regular fare. Weissmüller calls the move “bold,” since competitors Christie’s and Sotheby’s have been canceling shows recently while thinning out their catalogues. Moreover, Phillips de Pury has specialized in contemporary art, the market segment that’s been hardest hit by the crisis.
Frequency is not the only novelty. The auctions—which will take place in London and New York and will feature for the most part photography, contemporary art, and design—will each have their own theme, starting with the latest, “Now” (three hundred works made since 2000), and continuing with themes such as “Latin American Art,” “Film,” “Sex,” and “Music.” Sounds like the auction has become like an exhibition.
According to Weissmüller, critical opinion is split. Some believe that the auction house will not be able to offer sufficient quality works, while others suggest that the new strategy may well attract a new public and a new set of buyers.
While the auctions have the air of exhibitions, the catalogues look like art magazines. “An interview with the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist follows an atelier visit with the British artist Keith Tyson,” writes Weissmüller, “and an elaborate analysis of the Red-Blue-chair on offer at the auction, a chair that the designer Mario Minale made from Lego blocks after the famous model by Gerrit Rietveld (forty-two thousand dollars).”
Weissmüller wonders whether the catalogue’s new magazine appearance has something to do with Bernd Runge being named as CEO of Phillips de Pury earlier this year. Before taking on the auction house, Runge was a vice president of Condé Nast International, which owns titles from Vanity Fair to Vogue. For Weissmüller, the success of the theme auctions will be decisive for the auction house. “The company can no longer afford a flop.”