m a S
r e pl
Editora y Directora / Director & Editor:
Alicia Murría Coordinación en Latinoamérica Latin America Coordinators: Argentina: Eva Grinstein México: Bárbara Perea Equipo de Redacción / Editorial Staff:
Alicia Murría, Natalia Maya Santacruz, Santiago B. Olmo, Eva Navarro info@artecontexto.com Asistente editorial / Editorial Assistant:
Natalia Maya Santacruz Responsable de Relaciones Externas y Publicidad Public Relations and Advertising Manager:
Eva Navarro publicidad@artecontexto.com Administración / Accounting Department:
Carmen Villalba administracion@artecontexto.com Suscripciones / Subscriptions:
Pablo D. Olmos
Colaboran en este número / Contributors in this Issue: José Manuel Costa, Mónica Mayer, Agnaldo Farias, Terry Berkowitz, Alicia Murría, Alex Mitrani, Rubén Barroso, Eva Grinstein, Sema D’Acosta, Juan Carlos Rego de la Torre, Pedro Medina, Alanna Lockward, Uta M. Reindl, Kiki Mazzucchelli, Filipa Oliveira, Santiago B. Olmo, José Ángel Artetxe, Mariano Navarro, Mireia A. Puigventós, Alejandro Ratia, Mónica Núñez Luis, Javier Marroquí, Juan S. Cárdenas, Natalia Maya Santacruz, Francisco Baena, Luis Francisco Pérez, Chema González, Eva Navarro, Suset Sánchez, Miguel López, Pablo G. Polite.
ARTECONTEX TO ARTECONTEXTO arte cultura nuevos medios es una publicación trimestral de ARTEHOY Publicaciones y Gestión, S.L. Impreso en España por Técnicas Gráficas Forma Producción gráfica: El viajero / Eva Bonilla. Procograf S.L. ISSN: 1697-2341. Depósito legal: M-1968–2004 Todos los derechos reservados. Ninguna parte de esta publicación puede ser reproducida o transmitida por ningún medio sin el permiso escrito del editor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means without written permission from the publisher. © de la edición, ARTEHOY Publicaciones y Gestión, S.L. © de las imágenes, sus autores © de los textos, sus autores © de las traducciones, sus autores © de las reproducciones autorizadas, VEGAP. Madrid 2008 Esta publicación es miembro de la Asociación de Revistas Culturales de España (ARCE) y de la Federación Iberoamericana de Revistas Culturales (FIRC)
suscripciones@artecontexto.com Distribución / Distribution: distribucion@artecontexto.com Oficinas / Office: Tel. + 34 913 656 596 C/ Santa Ana 14, 2º C. 28005 Madrid. (España) www.artecontexto.com
Esta revista ha recibido una subvención de la Dirección General del Libro, Archivos y Bibliotecas para su difusión en bibliotecas, centros culturales y universidades de España, para la totalidad de los números editados en el año 2008.
Esta revista ha recibido una subvención de la Comunidad de Madrid para el año 2007
Diseño / Design:
Jacinto Martín El viajero: www.elviajero.org Traducciones / Translations:
Joanna Porter y José Manuel Sánchez Duarte
ARTECONTEXTO reúne diversos puntos de vista para activar el debate y no se identifica forzosamente con todas las opiniones de sus autores. / ARTECONTEXTO does not necessarily share the opinions expressed by the authors. La editorial ARTEHOY Publicaciones y Gestión S.L., a los efectos previstos en el art. 32,1, párrafo segundo, del TRLPI se opone expresamente a que cualquiera de las páginas de ARTECONTEXTO sea utilizada para la realización de resúmenes de prensa. Cualquier forma de reproducción, distribución, comunicación pública o transformación de esta obra sólo puede ser realizada con la autorización de sus titulares, salvo excepción prevista por la ley. Diríjase a CEDRO (Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos: www.cedro.org) si necesita fotocopiar o escanear algún fragmento de esta obra.
SUMARIO / INDEX / 20
Primera página / Page One: 5
A propósito de la próxima Bienal de Venecia With regard to the upcoming Venice Biennial ALICIA MURRÍA
Dossier Performance Claves y Orígenes / Keys and Origins 7
La acción más radical The Most Radical Action JOSÉ MANUEL COSTA
15
El acto de pensar en el Performance de América Latina The Act of Thinking in the Performance Art of Latin America MÓNICA MAYER
23
Revisando el cuerpo. Performance en Brasil Revisiting the Body. Peformance in Brasil AGNALDO FARIAS
31
Suzanne Lacy: de cuerpo íntimo a cuerpo de Estado Una conversación con Terry Berkowitz Suzanne Lacy: From Intimate Body to Body Politic A conversation with Terry Berkowitz TERRY BERKOWITZ
Páginas Centrales 43
Waltercio Caldas: “Que el objeto se confunda con la situación que crea.” Waltercio Caldas: “Let the object become intermingled with the situation it creates.” ALICIA MURRÍA
51
Eduard Arbós. Fulgurante geometría Eduard Arbós. Stunning Geometry ALEX MITRANI
58
CiberContexto RUBÉN BARROSO
62
Info
72
Criticas de exposiciones / Reviews
Portada / Cover: WALTERCIO CALDAS Próximos, 1991. Acero inoxidable. Cortesía: CGAC
With regard to the upcoming Venice Biennial Halfway through last July, the Instituto Ramón Llull, a body which is dependant on the Catalan Regional Government, whose mission is to promote Catalan cultural production abroad, announced a public competition with the aim of selecting a curator for the Catalan Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennial, which will begin on the 7th of June, 2009. This new project will form part of one of the Biennial’s official sections, entitled Eventi collaterali. The announcement of the competition was preceded by preparation work to find a venue, and, once this was chosen, the process whereby its contents would be defined was given the go-ahead. On the 1st of October, the jury’s decision was announced. They chose Valentí Roma, whose project, Comunidad inconfesable [“Inconfessable Community”], according to the curator himself (see the articles published by Roberta Bosco in the Catalan edition of the El País newspaper, on 16.7.08 and 2.10.08) “seeks to reveal the friction and permanent negotiation processes that are taking place with regards to the ideas of identity and community”, by means of three artworks based on the idea of archive: the Archivo FX, by Pedro G. Romero; the Archivo Poscapital, by Daniel García Andujar; and the one developed by Sitesize, a collective founded by Elvira Pujol and Joan Vila-Puig. At this point, I am not interested in examining the political gesture by the Catalan Regional Government, as it is not the first time that one of the regions in Spain decides to submit its own project to the Venice Biennial, although it is true that on this occasion it contains an aggressive element –on the same level as Taiwan, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who are also presenting their own pavilions– which was absent in previous editions. What I would like to point out now is that, in contrast to the diligence displayed by Catalan institutions, we are still awaiting news from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or its State Cultural and Scientific Office regarding the naming of a curator for the Spanish Pavilion. This should cause tremendous concern. If it is to be successful, this kind of undertaking needs time. A curator cannot be expected to develop a project and select a group of artists in only two or three months. Improvisation is not an option. This, in addition, shows a lack of respect toward his or her work. The Venice Biennial is an event whose participants gain a great deal of exposure. The Catalan modus operandi has been faultless, and has set the appropriate time frame. A similar formula should be followed in the selection of a curator (and a project) for the Spanish Pavilion; and the opinion of the art sector should also be taken into account, through the organisations which represent them in this process. ALICIA MURRÍA
You are reading a preview!
To read the full issue, subscribe or visit us at www.artecontexto.com
1. JACKSON POLLOCK Foto: Hans Namuth, 1950. 2. ESTHER FERRER Las cosas, 1990. Festival Le Lieu. Quebec. Cortesía Àngels Barcelona. Foto: François Forgeron. 3. VALIE EXPORT Aus der Mappe der Hundigkeit, 1968. Del portfolio Doggdness. Con PETER WIEBEL. Acción fotográfica. Foto: Josef Tandl.
3
2 1
The Most Radical Action
JOSÉ MANUEL COSTA* Something uncomfortable is happening with performance art, happenings and actions. Or, rather, with the idea that they are “simply ephemeral events whose existence as works of art is always of limited duration”1 within what was once called visual arts. This at least is a significant fact, given that, to a great extent, the proposal of those who started these events was always to go beyond Visual Arts, and against its integration in a validation/valuation system which, apart from being elitist, was and is a hindrance, now not of the industrial era, but of a system of baroque exchange. Almost all the papers on performance art tend to begin with the futurist and Dadaist exploits and scandals at the beginning of the 20th century. You know, Marinetti’s declamations, Schwitters’s onomatopoeia and works like Victoria over the Sun in the newly formed Soviet Union. Few of these artists came from painting or sculpture and, anyway, they called for people to take to the streets, abandon what was then the “protected space of the Arts” (A. Muntadas). Allan Kaprow was also of that opinion in Just Doing (1977) referring to the happening Push & Pull (1963): “From different reports I have been able to reach the conclusion that this arrangement has not functioned as well as it might. In the atmosphere of an exhibition people are not predisposed to enter into the process of art. That is why this type of work functions much better far from the habits and rituals of conventional culture”. However, in an ineluctable form, we find in those stories and treatises a pictorial image of what, to a large degree, the idea of contemporary performance art continues to revolve around: the dramatic photos of Jackson Pollock in the act of dripping taken by Hans Namuth
in 1950. Then, Pollock was already known as a hero of the cold war, the determination of the free (and American) individual in the face of Soviet authoritarianism. A son, in part, of the archetypical psychology of Jung (via the surrealist Alfredo Lam) and, in the last instance, the apotheosis of the late-romantic artist, an attitude which would endure in figures like Joseph Beuys and, to a large degree, in the ruthless Austrian and North American actionists of the 1960s and 1970s. The importance of Pollock/Namuth in showing the “fall of the traditional precedence of the object over the act”2, does not justify their pivotal role in the genesis of performance art. In the last analysis it was about a painter painting. It is not that “he is performing” that is important but, precisely, that he was a painter. These photographs were perceived as an open door by some visual artists who, after the Second World War, and the beginning of rampant consumerism, found it increasingly difficult to accept without further ado the speculative commercialisation and integration of artistic objects. That is why this curious identification of performance with art emerged, a distortion which would become established with a paradoxical effect: visual evidence (photographs, film and video) of happenings, actions and performances were transformed into an artistic object that could effectively de consumed by the gallery-museum system. This round trip would be late in being exploited ironically and on its own terms, until the arrival of a Bruce Nauman and a Dan Graham on the scene, and then it would be revived by such artists of today as Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pipilotti Rist and Eija-Liisa Ahtila, who now only offer their actions through consumer/reproducible and potentially mass products, like the photograph or video. DOSSIER · ARTECONTEXTO · 11
MARINA ABRAMOVIC Y ULAY Imponderabilia, 1977. Courtesy: Galleria Communale d’Arte Moderna, Bologna.
ATSUKO TANAKA Electric Dress, 1956. Photo: José Manuel Costa. Documenta 11.
Fixing on photographs of Pollock as the original source has obscured other streams which flow into the performance art of today. The first of these must be ritual, one of the most primitive uses of what we know as culture. Ritual, either sacred or profane, was taken up again in actions by such different people as the Viennese actionist Nitsch or Chris Burden, who mention Antonin Artaud as another basic source of inspiration. In fact, Artaud’s call to rediscover the stripped body and also on how to take it to the limit appears in direct or indirect form in all types of actions. Many of them outside Art and traceable to theatre. This is a complex relationship. On one hand experimental theatre has its own and (almost) uninterrupted history. In terms of the question examined here, we could begin with Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry (1896) or Impressions d’Afrique, by Raymond Roussel (1911) and continue with the Bauhaus and the theatre of the absurd to the Fura dels Baus and our time. The narrative, gestural, choreographic and design discoveries accumulated by that experimental theatre influenced all types of performance in an explicit way. Created after the World War, theatre laboratories like that of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, the self-questioning of the Living Theater (with which Robert Morris was connected), the street demonstrations of the California company Bread & Puppet or Sankai Juku in Japan, form a necessary part of that supra-generic magma which is performance art. Another origin is the cabaret, with or without the K, claimed by both the Italian futurists and the Dadaists (the Cabaret Voltaire was already quite explicit) and prolonged later by comedians like the North American Lenny Bruce and the German Wolfgang Neuss. The disdain 12 · ARTECONTEXTO · DOSSIER
of this inheritance later continued with the ostracism of complex actions carried out in the pop world, like the concerts of Alice Cooper, Can, The Residents or Throbbing Gristle, continuing until today with Liars and Cobra Killer, to name just two examples. We know that dance was more fortunate. This is partly because the accent in dance is always placed on the human body and also because new dancers and choreographers, beginning with Merce Cunningham, and continuing with The Judson Dance Group, Meredith Monk, Karole Armitage and Pina Bausch, did not just look for new storylines but, above all, new sounds on which to construct their new movement sequences, as remote from ballet as the music of Cage, Tudor and Lamonte Young was from symphonic music. A radical political streak that could produce actions like that of the Lettrists in Notre Dame in Paris was also central. During the Easter Sunday solemn mass of 1950, Michel Mourre disguised himself as a Dominican monk and took over the high altar to utter a sermon in which he proclaimed the death of God, ending up in the police station after escaping a lynching at the hands of the faithful. This type of public action does not fit into the protected territory of the arts but both the social disruptions, sometimes brilliantly imaginative, of the Dutch provos or the parliamentary interventions of the Italian Radicals, and the protests by Hi Red Center, Guerrilla Action Group, Suzanne Lacy and Terry Fox, or those of the Bloques Rosas in the anti-system disturbances at the beginning of the millennium, should occupy an essential place in this discourse. At least, the actions by Reclaim The Streets, Ne Pas Plier, La Fiambrera Obrera and Yo Mango en España
ALAN KAPROW Yard, 1961. Courtesy: Collection Feelisch, Remscheid
CINDY SHERMAN Untitled Film Still #14, 1978. © Metro Picture Gallery & Cindy Sherman.
give reason to believe that many groups are working in this field regardless of their name. Whereas, actionist feminism was the lever which permitted the massive irruption of women into the realms of art for the first time. In what was possibly the most participative wave of performances and happenings of the 1960s, women’s presence was limited to Niki de Saint Phalle, Yoko Ono, Alison Knowles, Carolee Schneemann, Charlotte Moorman and paintbrush-women of Ives Klein. However, In the next decade one could say that women’s actionism increased exponentially in the figures of Adrian Piper, Lidia Montano, Lygia Clark, Barbara Smith, Joan Jonas, Laurie Anderson, Valie Export, Marina Abramovich, Rebecca Horn and many others. Here the connotations acquired by the body were not as heroic as those of the men. Women already had a background of abuse of their bodies and contributed an almost unanimous radicalism and a political (or politicised) awareness that would have immediate repercussions in the work of male artists. From another point of view, that of the persistent ethnocentrism in modernity, the 1960s and performance art contemplated another unexpected irruption: that of some Japanese (and, to a lesser degree, South Korean) artists who joined the dialogue of artistic practices which until this time had been exclusive to Europe and the Americas (Brazil had already entered this field in the 1950s and they did it once again with Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape and Helio Oiticica). It was not just that Kazuo Shiraga, Saburo Murakami, Atsuo Tanaka, Shozo Shimamoto, Akira Kanayama and Masanobu Yoshimura began at the same time as the western actionists, of whose activities they were well aware, but
that they contributed elements extracted from their own culture which were able to join in that dialogue without mimicry. All the above attempts to indicate the questionable artistic connection of performance art, which prevents it being regarded as a whole, typical of different techno-culture geared to interdisciplinary action, not only in creation but also in the reception of stimulus. Pollock’s legacy is there, it is undeniable, but it directs the action towards maintaining the elitist and romantic discourse of the arts by transferring the work’s aura to a creator who is something between a hermit and a shaman, a special being only responsible to himself or some concept superior to humanity, the universe or god. Is this the aim? Performance art encounters very different supporters, with dispassionate attitudes like those of Marcel Duchamp or John Cage. We are not going to enter into the argument of whether the silences of the first have been over-interpreted or if the fortuitous nature of the second is an idealist Utopia. What both (and others with them) generated was not so much works as a very different way of conceiving artistic practice in developed industrial societies, beyond modernity. Even if the modernity of Duchamp and Cage is insisted upon, their work prefigured paths that meant absolute separation from the development of the arts as they had been regarded since the beginning of the 19th century. On the other hand, the immaterial legacy of both of them is open, flexible and so remote from any formalisation that it has acted as a stimulus in practically all the arts. Conceptual neo-Dadaism as well as Fluxus continues to be part of most of the new visions that DOSSIER · ARTECONTEXTO · 13
JOAN JONAS Glass Puzzle, 1974-200.
Photo: © Joan Jonas. Courtesy of the artist and Yvone Lambert, Nueva York y París. Colección MNCARS.
appear in music, artistic practices and even poetry. But performance art, developed and made more technical over time, has especially benefited from that generosity when it comes to penetrating without fear into uncharted territory. Here can be posed the question of taxonomy. One is not only setting foot on virgin territory, but the explorers come from all different directions and contribute very different views and interests. Some are musicians, some visual artists, some dancers, some textual artists, whilst others work in the realm of technology… And some will be more abstruse, entertaining, politicians, scientists, psychologists, philosophers, etc. The approach of Roslee Goldberg, author of Performance Art, one of the essential books on the subject (first published in 1979 and republished since then), is presented essentially in chronological order, with group or regional sections from time to time. As always when it is well set out, this type of approach is useful but leaves a certain unpleasant aftertaste. Which is that startling and somewhat odd apparition in the placid path of an Art that continued its course unmoved, was not at all what most of those who took part or take part in performance art had in mind. Goldberg herself wrote as a warning to readers: “When tracing out an untold story, the first narrative inevitably frees itself from its material, because that material continues to pose questions on the real nature of art”. Another widely held approach regards the human body as the source of all performance art, as was stated in that great book The Artist’s Body (2000, Phaidon). Using this classification, performance art could be divided into these sections (with some artists appearing in several of them): painting bodies, gesticulating bodies, ritualistic and transgressing bodies, limits of the body, representing identity, absent bodies, outspread and prosthetic bodies. Before closing I wanted to emphasise, with alarm but without 14 · ARTECONTEXTO · DOSSIER
surprise, the total absence of Spanish performers in this discourse or, rather, in general studies about it. By trying hard, we are able to come up with Juan Hidalgo and then the Fura. It is not a question of lamenting it or of it being a gross injustice. It is simply that artists like Esther Ferrer, Valcárcel Medina, Nieves Correa, Nacho Criado, Angels Ribé, Concha Jerez, José Iges, Pere Noguera, Benet Rossell, Fátima Miranda, Jaime Vallaure, Borja Zabala, Dionisio Romero, Bartolomé Ferrando, Mónica and Sonia Buxó, Marta Domínguez, Pedro Garhel and Rosa Galindo (all appearing on the DVD La Acción, MNCARS, 1994), as well as living in an outdated cultural system, have distanced themselves, as in few other countries, from the commercial and academic routes which guarantee visibility and notoriety. To a small degree because they had no choice, but, more importantly, from simple conviction. They always deserved great respect, but it is just now that they are beginning to be recognised. Going over the text, descriptions, photographs, films and videos on these phenomena, we are left with, as I mentioned above, a contradictory sense of humour. On one hand, we outline the development of some activities endowed with a conceptual load, of an ideology and a really new and exciting aesthetics. On the other hand, we do it from an objectual-documentary perspective which remains integrated in the mechanism that these practices should help to destroy. But, ying and yang, it could be that this documentary and commercial aspect is what has preserved the testimonies/residues of performance art and has contributed to maintaining its development, within more or less integrated and stable –although not suffocating– parameters. Outside of here, one can observe how, when performance art reaches the mass media, it usually does it in the accident and crime report or freak events sections. Being an involuntary fairground attraction does not sound too exciting. It must have something to do with absolute spectacularisation. It is doubtful that the digital contribution in this field will change things much, because bits are not free from suspicion either, and neither do they need to be. Every new technology seems like magic, dazzling, and generates an air of optimism. But as Marcel.lí Antúnez reminds us: “The new technologies in themselves are now not so important. They are simply there. What are important again are ideas”. From what we know, ideas continue and will continue to be involved in an ancient battle with no foreseeable end. Performance art, from its liberating origin has not known how to completely free itself. We could not hope for so much. But in that search they have discovered mechanisms, behaviours and attitudes that enable them to see a little farther, a little bit beyond. Let’s carry on walking. * José Manuel Costa is an art and music critic.
1. Aznar Almazán, Sagrario and Soto Caba, Victoria. El Arte de Acción. Editorial Nerea. Madrid, 2006. 2. Schimmel, Paul. Out of actions: between performance and the object, 1949-1979. Thames and Hudson. London, 1998.
www.artecontexto.com
Pr贸ximos, 1991. Acero inoxidable. Cortes铆a: CGAC
WALTERCIO CALDAS: “Let the object become intermingled with the situation it creates.”
ALICIA MURRÍA*
Waltercio Caldas belongs to the generation which appeared on the Brazilian scene at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, a time when the country was experiencing a complex situation: on the one hand a cultural high spirits which had inherited the modernizing energy of earlier decades and, on the other, a dictatorship which from 1964 had restricted individual and collective freedoms. Years of experimental radicalism with the participation of artists like Lygia Pape, Cildo Meireles, Helio Oiticica, José Resende, Carlos Bergara, Antonio Manuel, Miguel Rio Branco and Waltercio Caldas himself, who, at the Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo, is now presenting an exhibition which is essential for the understanding of his artistic stature. Curated by Manuel Olveira it combines installations, sculptures, drawings and books from the last twenty years, plus two works created specifically for the CGAC. Its title Mais lugares. “When we began to define our work there did not exist in Brazil, as there does today, a standard context, or market, or favourable conditions; so that, as well as doing and defining our own work, we had to create the conditions for its reception. It was necessary to create a context and decide if we wanted to occupy that space and in what way. Today young artists enter an established circuit. We produced magazines, we created spaces for discussion, we generated debate, and in this way we gradually constructed a new situation”. Those difficult conditions undoubtedly led to the development of a sturdy framework when it came to defining their objectives. “Obviously. It wasn’t easy but, look, from that arose a generation with very different
works. We did not embrace any ‘isms’; on the contrary, we all followed very different paths. They were very fertile times”. With regard to his training and beginnings and also to his reasons for deciding to devote himself to the creation of art, he points out: “My first exhibition was in 1973, in the Museo de Bellas Artes of Rio de Janeiro, an institution that played an important revitalizing role then. I had been working for five or six years. They were years in which I was able to experiment independently, making rapid progress, so when I had my first exhibition I had already marked out my own territory and had produced a body of work. If one moves too quickly into the public or professional scene, mistakes are also made publicly; let’s say that I avoided that problem. On the other hand, I must point out that I began to be an artist by also being a spectator; I asked myself what had led each artist to make such different works...and I began to ask myself how I would solve certain problems that were posed in those works; it was a choice linked to questions which arose from seeing art”. The first works that the artist regards as relevant to his development, made when he had just turned twenty, already seemed to enunciate, from their very title, the coordinates of his future production: [“Drivers of Perception”]. Interest in art history has become a structural part of a language which also has an extraordinary conceptual solidity. Caldas maintains a permanent dialogue with classical and modern works and artists which, on occasions, can be seen directly, as in the case of the fragile and private piece-book dedicated to Duchamp, Man Ray, Morandi, ARTECONTEXTO · 47
Verde por dentro [“Green Inside”], 2008. Wood and polished stainless steel. Photo: Mark Ritchie. Courtesy: CGAC
Matisse and Ingres, or that other major piece that is the Velázquez book –where he eliminates the figures in the paintings in order to investigate the spatial questions posed by the Sevillian artist–, and other times appears in an elusive way, as in his Giotto sussurando, or in the magnificent A distância entre, filtered by a subtle irony. When connections with minimal art are traced in his work, as some critics insist on doing, the artist replies emphatically and once again reveals his ironic side. “They are simplistic readings, it is pure ignorance, they prefer not to think. When one knows, even if only a little, about the development of Brazil, its character and its culture, one understands that minimalist moralism cannot be found there. Both Brazil and Venezuela have a constructivist heritage. A European might think of the city as a model of order; however, let us take the example of Oiticica’s work, his model of order is the jungle, the forest. It is not about ‘untidiness’ but a different model of order. When I was eight years old I was able to see the scale models of the city of Brasilia, it was twenty years later that I got to know about minimalism. My work does not contain that reductive morality; it is about a synthesis, which is a very different concept.” Beyond ideas like lightness, balance, scale and precision which could, quite rightly, be connected to the works by Waltercio Caldas, they confront us with a sort of strange ineffability, another dimension that can only be verbalized as a ‘perceptive event’. Undoubtedly, this is the way that this sculptor understands and works space, as an 48 · ARTECONTEXTO
element that possesses a physicality, a density close to that of the other materials with which he conceives his pieces: steel, plexiglas, stone, paper, skin, strands of wool... For Caldas the space ‘between’ is just as important as the things themselves, but its specificity would be closer to the way in which we can measure the subjective space that separates –or unites– our thought or the distance –or nearness– that joins us to other beings. How do we name or get closer –without descriptions that crush them– to pieces that are not like any other form because they are materialised ideas and their meaning is always elusive. There, is shown the sensual side of these productions that fight against being interpreted, for, to their formal constructive heritage, they add a poetic conceptual dimension whose foundation is not strictly rational. While he converses, Caldas slips away from precise commentaries: “The poets use words that we know, and with them devise new relationships, structures, connections... My work is similar, except that I also have to invent the words”. I commented that Richard Serra once said “what is really talked about is the weight” and how he would place it at the other extreme, for his works seem to resist gravity, touching the ground in the slightest way.”I would not say that the opposite of weight is lightness. I would say it is transparency”. At this point I point out how difficult it is to photograph many of his pieces and installations. “I like objects to let themselves be crossed by the gaze; transparency makes the gaze come back to you. My works need to be re-seen, the first time the
gaze crosses them and returns; it is that second time that the gaze makes them its own”. This quality of ‘letting themselves be crossed’, beyond the fact of being passable, would be the most exact definition of Half Mirror Sharp, an installation that he presented at the last Venice biennial, where he managed to make it function as an unexpected antidote to the background noise, a kind of suspended and emotionally dense space, an experience that is renewed now and which for itself alone justifies the visit. Caldas’s interventions cause space to vibrate, gain density, ‘it takes on new life’ through the minimal friction generated by his pieces, as happens with his light strands of wool that trace out ellipses, lines of colour whose intersections are modified according to where we are, or with the installation Escultura para todos os materiais não transparentes. That ‘vitalization’ of space has special relevance in another of the pieces that he carried out in the CGAC. I am referring to the surprising yellow gash which sticks to the architectural fold invented by Alvaro Siza in the hall of the building. Caldas manages to convert his interventions into events for perception, small revelations... On this matter he points out: “I try to make an object that is similar to the object it occupies. One tries to manage to make the object be confused with the situation it creates. The object of art is an object of appearance... When it appears it still does not have a name, that is the important moment, and I try to make it stay on that plane for it is there that a multitude of possibilities for the imagination unfold. I believe that the artist guarantees that there is always something that can be revealed”. On asking him how he saw the exhibition Mais lugares, where works appear from very different moments along with pieces specifically planned for this space, like Verde por dentro [“Green Inside”], and how he managed that natural coexistence, a kind of continuity between them, taking into account also that, as he has pointed out on different occasions, every work is resolved in itself. “I never try to compete with architecture; here I was interested in establishing a dialogue with Álvaro Siza’s space. With regard to the second part of your question, when I talk about a piece being ‘resolved’ I am not saying that it is ‘perfect’. I would say that the work is not there to respond to my intentions, I don’t try to give it the size that I wish; to me it only seems to have real interest when it says to me ‘ah... but you did not think about this’. I want every work to question me, to have its own independence, to respond to my questions with something new. On the other hand, as I said before, I am not interested in a process of reduction, I am not interested in simplicity, on the contrary, I am interested in complexity, I would say that I pursue it hotly”. And he adds, laughing: “As someone said: And only God knows what it cost to achieve it”. *Art critic and independent curator. She lives in Madrid
Quarto amarelo IV, 2008. Vinyl and wool thread. Photo: Mark Ritchie. Courtesy: CGAC
ARTECONTEXTO · 49
CIBERCONTEXTO On the Internet and Other Actionist Issues By RUBÉN BARROSO The practices which take place within the parameters of what is known as action art and/or performance, require, as a result of their ephemeral and contextual nature, constant documentary support. Since the emergence, more than a century ago, of the first artistic attitudes which can be considered “actionist”, the document and manifesto has played an essential part of the action itself. This is even more apparent in the case of a militant art which preserves, as one of its main characteristics, the role of the artist as “manufacturer” and engine of experiences and situations, producing, in a moment, an art which delves into other ways of carrying out and sharing the artistic event (the artist as manager, editor, researcher and documentary-maker, the artist who speaks, who reflects, and who shares his work and way of understanding life and art). The documentary and informative element of action has taken on a range of shapes, and it has been expressed through different media over its history: from book and object-actions, to pamphlets, self-edited magazines, postcards and mail art, sound archives, etc. The rise of the Internet has meant, in this as well as in other fields, that it is now possible to expand and, in the case of the Web, distribute pieces to a more diverse audience, which would have previously been restricted to a limited circle, giving rise to projects specifically designed for this medium. In addition, the net has partly mitigated one of the multiple paradoxes which have
Accion! MAD
International Action Art Summits in Madrid www.accionmad.org
always formed part of action art (an extremely paradoxical art form): the traditional lack of awareness of what is done, in contrast with the huge presence and influence currently enjoyed by actionist and performative phenomena. As the artist Joan Casellas points out “action is there, one just has to be willing to see it”. If, in addition, we analyse the evolution of action art in Spain over the last few decades, we find that, since approximately the beginning of 2000 –and as a direct consequence of the accumulation of experiences from previous decades, from the avant garde trends of the 1960s and 70s to the new action of the 1990s– performance art is immersed in a different context, perhaps a different stage, in which its structures (events, publications, exhibition and documentary projects) tend to enjoy a greater level of protection and visibility with regards to other fields within and without this art form. This may have quite a lot to do with the growth possibilities offered by the Net, which could in itself be considered an important performative element: it is direct, approachable and attainable. In order to analyse the influence of the actionist documentary and informative space on the Internet, I have selected four proposals which, together, offer a range of points of view regarding the present status of performance: events, the work of artists and documentary and educational projects.
Performancelogia
[“Performanceology”]: Everything on the art of performance www.performancelogia.blogspot.com
Action is a cumulative territory, something which brings together life experiences over time. In a way, it could be said that the experiences that have been taking place in Madrid since the early 90s, with the first FIARP events (International Performance and Weird Art Festival, 1991-92-93), the Action and/or Performance Weeks (1995-98), and the SinNúmero. Action Art event (1996) have found their prolongation in Acción!MAD. Founded in 2003, and directed by the artists-managers Nieves Correa and Hilario Álvarez (who also played an important role in many of the previous adventures), each year the International Action Art Summits, which take place in Madrid, offer a programme of events that feature a wide spectrum of perspectives, and delve into various different ways of seeing and exercising actionist practices. On its website we can take a detailed journey through the different editions of the event (actions, meetings, presentations), as well as essential texts on action art, links to several other sites about performance art, both on a national and international level, and information regarding other events and European exchange programmes, such as JamónKinkkua and the Space for Live Art.
The art of action constantly requires a series of exercises to provide context, and to help audiences understand the moment. There are several projects devoted to offering extensive view of performance on many levels. One of them is Performancelogía, a thorough, interesting and extensive virtual archive of documentary materials and updated information, divided into several sections: theoretical texts, history, artists, photo and video galleries, documentaries on performance, instructions and scores for action, events and workshops, links to numerous international websites, action poetry, sound art, special section on the body and the art of performance, etc. This archive is constantly being updated, and is run from Venezuela and supported by an open network of contributors who focus their attention on a wide variety of ways of developing performance on an international scale, paying particular attention to action art in Spain and Latin America, which it combines with other international perspectives. An informative space from which to gain a general idea of action art on a great number of levels.
De LTM Machina.
Performance 90. Collaborative Site www.igac.org/container/deltmmachina/ De LTM Machina [“On the LTM Machine”] is a hypertext on the operation of the action music project Low-Tech Music by the sound artist and curator Oscar Abril Ascaso. This project includes another documentary metaproject entitled Performance 90. Collaborative Site, a collectively-built website, in the style of Wikipedia, on the subject of Spanish action art in the 1990s (compiled via the direct participation of the artists and promoters who took part in that scene), which then gave rise to new approaches and to a self-managed and independent model for artistic production. On this website we can find an extremely thorough archive of descriptions of the artists, events, situations and references (including artists’ careers, graphic documents, texts, links, etc.) belonging to the movement which came to be known as “new action” or “new conceptualism”, an actionist trend which established links with the generations from the 60s and 70s, from a new perspective and context.
ESTHER FERRER
www.arteleku.net/estherferrer/ Esther Ferrer (San Sebastián, 1937), an essential and crucial figure in contemporary Spanish art and performance, is an artist who displays an enormous lucidity, consistency and continuity right from the beginning of her career in the early 1960s, continuing to the present day. Since 1967, when she joined ZAJ - the most important avant garde group in Spanish art - her work has focused on action, “...an art with no fixed address...”, with photographs, objects and installations, as well as running workshops and courses, and producing sonic pieces, texts, radio-art, etc. Her website offers an extensive journey through her career, by means of references, texts and documents, which, in her case, are even more interesting (if possible) as her work is a landmark in Spanish avant garde art from the last four decades. “If for the audience, the performer is the spectacle; for the performer, the audience is what is being watched. In these conditions, who is watching whom?”
Thank you for reading this preview!
To read the full issue, subscribe or visit us at www.artecontexto.com