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Santiago Sierra's Gas Chamber; Olafur Eliasson's "Art Car"; Gaßner on Schneider's Cube; ARS 06 and more...
SIERRA TURNS SYNAGOGUE INTO GAS CHAMBER
For Santiago Sierra's latest project, the artist has transformed a former synagogue near Cologne into a gas chamber. At the Stommeln Synagogue in Pulheim, Germany, the Spanish artist has installed tubes to funnel carbon monoxide into the synagogue from six running cars parked outside. Visitors, who must don gas masks to protect themselves from the toxic exhaust fumes, can enter the site one at a time and stay for only a few minutes in the accompaniment of a fireman. 245 Kubikmeter—which refers to the volume of the synagogue—is on view from 11 AM to 5 PM every Sunday, with the exception of Easter, until April 30.
As Der Standard reports, Sierra hopes to raise awareness about "the banalization of the Holocaust" as well as "the industrialized and institutionalized death through which European people lived and still live in the world." His intervention is the latest in a series of public art projects, which began in 1990 when the Stommeln Synagogue was transformed into a "Denkmal im Wandel" (Monument in Mutation). Richard Serra, Rosemarie Trockel, Carl Andre, and Rebecca Horn are among the artists who have created temporary works at the synagogue, which has not been used as a religious site for eighty years.
Der Zentralrat der Juden—the Jewish central advisory council in Germany—has heavily criticized Sierra's intervention. According to the council's general secretary Stephan J. Kramer, the work "goes way beyond the limits of what's acceptable" and is "insulting to the victims" of the Holocaust. "If this is the new form of memory," said
Kramer, "then should we reopen Auschwitz and hand out gas masks to the visitors so that they can get the real experience?"
ELIASSON TO DESIGN BMW "ART CAR"
As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Niklas Maak reports, an international jury hired by BMW has chosen Olafur Eliasson for the unique task of designing BMW's sixteenth "Art Car." The Whitney Museum's Donna De Salvo claims that the artist's "profound understanding of, yet willingness to challenge, prevailing scientific and social thinking" will guarantee the success of the experimental, hydrogen-powered car. Bruce Ferguson, dean of Columbia University's School of the Arts, is equally enthusiastic: "BMW and Olafur Eliasson are a marriage made in heaven. […] Just as BMW is concerned with the future of emissions and alternative fuel sources, Olafur is concerned with a politics of consciousness and conscientiousness within an aesthetic realm." In her assessment, Suzanne Pagé from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris suggests that Eliasson would strike the right balance between the public and the automobile giant. "Refusing to be locked in by institutions," said Pagé, "he opens himself to the entire world and creates with romanticism a new relation with life."
In his own assessment, Maak is not convinced that such commercial ventures with artists can maintain a certain "criticality," let alone remain artworks. "Unfortunately," writes Maak, "it remains to be seen how one can work for BMW while 'refusing to be locked in by institutions.'" Questioning Vanessa Beecroft's recent collaborations with Louis Vuitton, Maak also notes that Eliasson will design the Christmas display windows for the luxury brand's stores. Why have conglomerates such as BMW and LV—once the enemies of socially-minded artists—become top art promoters? "The heroic image of the artist as a lone fighter, who courageously creates what has never been seen before [...] corresponds to the ideal image of the entrepreneur," writes Maak. "In other words, in contemporary art, entrepreneurs see themselves as they would like to be, with an extra dose of bohemian flair."
WHO'S AFRAID OF SCHNEIDER'S CUBE?
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung's Kia Vahland speaks with Hubertus Gaßner, the new director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, who has decided to show Gregor Schneider's controversial black cube. Schneider's project has already been rejected twice—first by Venice city officials for last year's Biennale and then by the Prussian cultural foundation for Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof—due to the structure's resemblance to the Kaaba in the Muslim holy city Mecca. In both cases, officials felt that the work might offend Muslims, although Islamic law does not prohibit making images of the Kaaba.
"The work fits fantastically into an exhibition we're doing next year about the effects of Malevich's Black Square," said Gaßner who notes that Malevich gave his 1915 painting cult overtones by describing the work as "a modern icon." Instead of being installed in a corner, Schneider's cube will be erected in the middle of a central open terrace that links the old Kunsthalle building with the new Galerie der Gegenwart wing, a white cube designed by the architect Oswald Mathias Ungers.
Schneider's work is described as "a monument to tolerance," but Vahland wonders whom Schneider and Gaßner are asking to be tolerant, especially in the wake of the recent scandal around caricatures of Muhammad. "Muslims should have tolerance for art, or Hamburg citizens should have tolerance for Muslims?" she asks. "We don't want to admonish anybody," Gaßner told the newspaper. "It's about coming together in conversation and allowing for several opinions and interpretations. If one cannot even set up a black box anymore, then something is wrong."
Vahland notes that Schneider's project would not be the first time that Gaßner has faced a cultural clash over art. Three years ago at the Folkwang Museum Essen, Gaßner showed Georg Herold's Mekka, a black box over which was stretched a pair of underwear. When Muslims protested, Gaßner renamed the offending work Mokka, only to escalate the conflict.
Would he do the same today? "Absolutely," Gaßner told Die Süddeutsche Zeitung. "When 350 Muslim fellow citizens were standing outside the museum, the artist and the collector would have had the work removed immediately. For me, this does not come into question, not even in the heated situation today. The freedom of art is our holy property, from which we are not permitted to deviate. Let's take such conflicts as a chance to finally speak with one another instead of living past each other."
Although Gaßner remains firm, the final decision lies with Hamburg municipal officials, who must still review Schneider's proposal. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung provides a computer image of the proposal, which is slated to appear between March and June 2007.
IN BRIEF
Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung's Samuel Herzog examines ARS 06 at Helsinki's Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art. This "mini-Documenta of the far north" takes a look at the theme of paradise through the works of forty international artists, from Motohiko Odani's "wonderful video" Rompers to Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz's snowballs. The exhibition closes August 27, 2006.
Le Monde's Philippe Dagen writes about a "saturation of signs" in the exhibition "Los Angeles 1955-1985" at Paris's Centre Pompidou. "Art from the city of angels fits into the successive currents of contemporary art," writes Dagen, "but on a distant mode of irony, derision, burlesque." For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Peter Körte, the Pompidou "has historicized more than it has discovered a 'capitale artistique'—which was more or less the same case about nine years ago with 'Sunshine & Noir: Art in L.A. 1960-1977' at the Wolfsburg museum."
Die Frankfurter Rundschau's Ursula März offers a one-day diary on the highly inconspicuous demolition of Berlin's Palast der Republik, once home to the GDR government. "One imagines demolition as more violent, more dynamic, and above all a lot noisier," writes März. "But there's really nothing of that to see and hear. […] Behind the metal barriers, there's not even the slightest bit of demolition tourism."
Reviewing "the art of confusion" at the Whitney Biennial, Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung's Andrea Köhler focuses on the "triumph" of artist collectives, from Reena Spaulings to Critical Art Ensemble. Die Frankfurter Rundschau's Sebastian Moll sees the biennial as a symptom of "the American art scene's fight against depression."
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung offers a roundup of recent art fairs around the world. At the Amory Show in New York, Lisa Zeitz notes the ongoing strength of figurative painting, "which for a long time has not been coming only out of Leipzig." At the first edition of the fine art fair in Frankfurt, Rose-Maria Gropp finds "more high than low points" at the exhibition-like fair, where each gallery had one artist make a booth around the theme of "High & Low." At the "colorful" opening of Art Karlsruhe, Swantje Karich was taken with classic modern and post-World War II artworks, but found the contemporary selection lacking.
Finally, the Städelschule's exhibition space Portikus is attending the fine art fair to raise funds for its new building on an island in the Main River that runs through Frankfurt. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Konstenze Crüwell reports, fine art's director Michael Neff and Michaela Neumeister from Phillips de Pury & Company will auction off more than seventy-five works donated for the charity benefit by international artists, from Richard Artschwager to Andreas Gursky. Bids may also be sent by email until noon on March 17 at info@portikus.de. The new Portikus building is slated to open May 5.