Exploring ‘social reality’ in the work of four contemporary artists from new EU, ex-socialist states – Pawel Althamer, Roman Ondák, Katerina Sedá, and Tadej Pogacar James Jarrett 23/01/2009
Contents:
P 2. Introduction
P 8. From Socialist Realism to ‘Social Reality’
P 10. I: The Homeless P 12. II: The Minority P 16. III: Maybe Someday
P 19. The Extra-Ordinary
P 22. The Pied Piper and the Parasite
P 23. I: Sheltering P 25. II: Employ, Deploy P 26. III: The extra-ordinary P 26. IIII: Infestation
P 28. Conclusion
P 31. Bibliography
P 31. Books: P 32. Periodical Articles: P 34. Appendix:
P 35. Appendix
Exploring ‘social reality’ in the work of four contemporary artists from new EU, ex-socialist states – Pawel Althamer, Roman Ondák, Katerina Sedá, and Tadej Pogacar
Introduction
The Berlin Wall came tumbling down to earth on the 9th of November 1989, but it remains one of the largest landmarks on the landscape of contemporary history. The communist era of Eastern Europe was symbolically demolished that day and since then massive reconstruction has taken place. And in 2004 the first selection of excommunist countries were granted accession in to the European Union, in what was the EU’s biggest enlargement to date. In this text I will be exploring the work of four artists from four countries that are included in the parameters of being both an excommunist state, and a new member of the EU. The artists under discussion are considered some of the most nationally important of a generation and, over the last decade or so, have exhibited widely in an international context. This text will mainly cover the work of Pawel Althamer from Poland, Roman Ondák from Slovakia, Katerina Sedá of the Czech Republic and Tadej Pogacar from Slovenia. Within the analysis of these artists as a group, it may also be relevant to bring in certain examples of other works by artists from the same countries, such as Artur Zmijewski who has collaborated numerous times with Pawel Althamer. In choosing Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia as the base of my research, I am deliberately zooming in geographically in terms of ‘Eastern Europe’. These countries run down the spine of central Europe, where most of the excommunist or ‘exsocialist’ and new EU states are situated. The choosing of nations was subjective in a sense and countries like Hungary, which also fitted the political parameters, will not be discussed in this text. What the four artists I have chosen do bring to the table however, is a body of work that is at the forefront of contemporary art, and also involvement in international exhibitions and biennial events, such as The Venice Biennale, Documenta, and Manifesta.
This text started as a much broader survey of the art being produced in excommunist, or as I will refer to for the remainder of this text exsocialist, European states within the last decade. The relationship between countries from a Socialist political background, and the contemporary art they are producing, may seem lapsed in terms of a timeframe. However, the effects of such a large scale and relatively recent adjustment are still being felt in the political and social environments. Charles Esche sums up Eastern Europe as “a part of the world where rapid and massive change in political and economic dogma has effected cultural production in different ways.” (Esche, 2006, p.10) Although the artist’s being discussed in this text do not tend to directly accredit their own work as being a reaction of altered political and social circumstances in their home countries––it is certainly worth taking in to consideration, and is often referenced by critics and writers. It is also worth pointing out at this point that there were many variations of Socialism, and in turn many different situations in the ‘postsocialist’ societies from country to country. But as Ales Erjavec argues in his book Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition, despite the political differences, a definitive style was been established and one that was found in the work of artists across many exsocialist nations: “the socialist countries undergoing the initial transition away from socialism began to display not only similar kinds of social and economic stagnation or crisis, but also a specific kind of art and culture.” (Erjavec, 2003, p.4) The other parameter in conjunction with being exsocialist is that the countries have, since 2004, been members of the European Union. It has been stated that despite high hopes of improved infrastructure, joining the EU has not greatly affected art production. Indeed Zdenka Badovinac has commented that: “Slovenia’s accession to the EU does not, prima facie, appear to have greatly affected contemporary Slovene art: the main post-2004 differences seem to be increased opportunities to participate in EUfinanced international projects and easier access to the EU funds.”(Badovinac,2007, p.46). This difference in funding, which was previously covered by such organisations as NATO, seems to be strongly encouraging the new states to operate more internationally in terms of art. It is fair to say that this has in turn raised interest from the international market, and has allowed the artists I will be analysing to achieve a higher profile outside their own country. Juraj Carny however, whilst acknowledging this, has raised similar concerns to Badovinac in regards to Slovakia’s new funding scheme:
“The accession of Slovakia into the European Union in 2004 brought the second significant wave of international interest in contemporary Slovak art. However, Slovakia no longer received foreign financial support from Pro Helvetica which stopped its activities and the Soros Centre had transformed before the accession to the EU. So far, domestic and European sources have not been able to create a substitute for the lost financial resources. EU grants focus exclusively on the support of large-scale projects realised within wider international partnerships. Support for a single art project, exhibition, or art production is practically non-existent.” (Carny, 2007, p.146)
It is not that the artists are unwilling to participate in more internationally minded projects (residencies have been very successful), it is the lack of a developed infrastructure and private financing in the sector that remains a problem. These are the real priorities highlighted by the countries artistic community. As Badovinac points out, one that is shared by most the states:
“As with most Eastern European countries, the issue of production conditions in Slovenia are closely related to the fact that: first, art organisations of greatly varying official status all predominantly depend on public funds, since private financing accounts for a very small percentage of operations; second, the art market has still not developed…” (Badovinac, 2007, p.46)
There is of course no quick fix for these problems, but it is stressed as being of real importance, and a topic that needs to be considered when directly debating the contemporary art been produced in Poland, the
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia – and it is a point I will refer to again, later on in this text. Understanding a basic framework around the realisation of the artists work, especially in terms of society, politics and the art market itself is always of significance. These issues become more important when considering art that has derived from a background in which these topics have been, or are still, major issues of concern. Looking at points of national interest and art produced within this context, may seem voyeuristic, but it is only a background on which to build a much more artistically concerned debate. These artworks are, after all, being presented in an international environment and it is this increasing ‘outside’ interest in their art, which has highlighted their significance in a wider context. Many of the writings and artist statements are being produced in English, and indeed some of the artists in this text have exhibited extensively across Europe, allowing us to consider their work on a larger scale than previously imaginable. The work of Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar is largely performance based and they share many similar traits. In analysing their work collectively it could well be appropriate to start applying a term Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy suggests in reference to the work of Katerina Sedá:
It can be productive to approach Sedá's practice in light of what the Danish curator Lars Bang Larsen has termed "social aesthetics" -- an attitude focused on the world of acts. For Larsen, social aesthetic artwork has a utilitarian aspect that proposes direct public involvement, where collective effort is emphasized as an alternative to authoritarian structures. (Chong Cuy, 2008)
In the creation of this phrase Lars Bang Larsen has defined the general practice of directly engaging with the public realm, raising questions both private and public. He sums up a typical piece of work within this genre in the original essay:
“The social aesthetic artwork involves a utilitarian or practical aspect
that gives a sense of purpose and direct involvement. In the construction of the subject’s interaction with culture it could be said that social aesthetics discusses a notion of the lasting phenomenon that substantiates a critical cultural analysis, a reason for one’s existence.” (Larsen, 1999, p.78)
The term ‘social aesthetics’ is a general one in some senses, and could be more relevant to the artists under discussion in this text if it was broken down into two separate notions. The term social is the sphere being directly dealt with by the artists, this is what the artist is hoping to control, what they are doing in a sense is directing. In a majority of the works in this text however the artist is not directly involved in contact with the public and becomes more of an observer. This difference, which separates it from more classical performance pieces, has been noted in the work of Ondák: “However, unlike many Conceptual works from the 1960s and 1970s that involve direct communication of an idea from the artist to the viewer, Ondák’s works usually involve a third-party collaborator: the performer or producer. Through the collaborative nature of his work, Ondák provides a space for the performer/producer to contribute a personal interpretation of his instructions. The work thus becomes a dense network of interpretation and communication between artist, performer/producer and viewer.” (Polkinhorn, 2007, p.58). This ‘third-party collaborator’ is clearly evident not just in Ondák’s work, but Althamer’s, Sedá’s, and Pogacar’s work also. These ‘third party collaborators’ are the public, so instead of making work to provoke the public, it is supposed to empower them through acts, not materialisation or actual objects. This could take the form of work that points out the plight of minority groups, being social in the sense of charity and looking out for others, including family. These ideas point to a kind of actualization of moral values applied to society by society itself. The reality of these interactions comes from their simple nature, they are examples, variations of the everyday, in which the artist does not need to over impose themselves. In that respect these works could be summed up as ‘social reality’. Social reality is what the artist is intending to show, this is an important and deliberate notion. The term takes on another meaning when considered in relation to the artists in the text. Socialist Realism was a style adopted by government-
funded artists under the communist reign, to promote and celebrate the party. We could see ‘social reality’ as a de-politicized reference to this movement, the art being produced now is in stark contrast to that of Socialist Realism. Removing the ist’s and ism’s of a term dislodges it from its original context, it is no longer possible to locate the genre within a specific time frame or to a specific culture or movement. The now ambiguous term comes to represent artistic freedom where ones own concerns are tackled, and work is open to interpretation. As for the aesthetic side of Lars Bang Larsen’s phrase ‘social aesthetics’, this seems to be non-applicable for a selection of the works that will be looked at in this text. Sometimes in these works, the act or performance is so subtle or ‘normal’, that the public may easily not be aware of the instructions that are being acted out on behalf of the artist–certainly not aware that these enactments are in fact works of art. The only aesthetics, in the conventional sense, apparent in these artworks are the end result, the documentation of the artwork in the institutional framework. In terms of medium, which would be what the aesthetic side would be referring, it could be argued there is nothing but that itself is something, the medium is the everyday, it is the ordinary, but in these directed terms it could become the extra-ordinary– it is not subconscious, it is a deliberate attempt or instruction to act normal, like an extra on a film set, such as would be seen in Althamers Film. The terms ‘social reality’ and extra-ordinary are closely related to Larsen’s ‘social aesthetics’, and indeed each other (the extra-ordinary is a variation of social reality), they are however a more concentrated elaboration. These terms will form the basis for my analysis of Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar for the duration of this text. I’m not trying to suggest that these terms can only be applied to these artists or indeed artists from exsocialist states. These notions could appear anywhere and be applied in a global and a historical context. Within this text there will be three chapters, focusing on different aspects of the four artists work collectively. Firstly I will be considering the role of ‘social reality’, how these artists have all showed similar interests in portraying the reality of their public sphere, for better or worse, and through the deployment of ‘third party collaborators’. Secondly I will be exploring the reoccurring theme of the ‘extraordinary’, how some of the works play with the medium of the everyday, producing pieces that are almost invisible to the public. The last chapter will be revisiting the institutional side of the artists work, looking
at how they apply their ideas in a gallery environment, and touching on issues of their under developed art market. Through these applications I hope to give a new and thorough analysis on four of the most important contemporary artist in ‘Eastern Europe’ today.
From Socialist Realism to ‘Social Reality’
In this chapter I will be considering the notion of ‘social reality’ brought about in the introduction, and suggesting how it could be applied to the work of Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar. I would argue that the term ‘social reality’ is more applicable to this text in its parameters, than other existing terminology coined in conjunction with recent performance art or art that involves participation. The terms ‘Relational Aesthetics’ and ‘Social Aesthetics’, as coined by Nicloas Bourriaud and Lars Bang Larsen respectfully, do fit loosely around the concepts under discussion in this text, but in order to examine these concepts effectively, the subtle differences and overruling constants need to be defined. The purpose of this analysis is not to create new terms, genres, or buzzwords, but to simply highlight and distinguish the differences in personality and subject matter of the work of the artists in this text, and the artists referred to in Bourriaud’s and Larsen’s. The writings of both Bourriaud and Larsen in this field are extremely important, and I am not dismissing them as irrelevant, it is only through analysis of their models that I have been able to define for myself a more specialised criteria which will be used in place. The artist’s under discussion in Nicolas Bourriaud’s book Relational Aesthetics, have a tendency in their work, to be directly involved in the contact between the artist and the public, a feature which is far from dominant in the works of this text. The works in Relational Aesthetics also, almost exclusively in terms of physical realisation, occur inside the art world or art institutions, Bourriaud himself alludes to this observation in the book, and has noted it as a point of disagreement and sometimes criticism:
“These relational artistic practices have been repeatedly criticised. Because they are restricted to the space of galleries and art centres, they
contradict the desire sociability underpinning their meaning. They are also reproached for denying social conflict and dispute, differences and divergences, and the impossibility of communicating within an alienated social space, in favour of an illusory and elitist modelling of forms of sociability, by being limited to the art world.” (Bourriaud, 2002, p.81)
The artists in this text however, tend to work with the public in a more expansive and general scale, regularly inside the publics realm and on their terms. If a work is manifested in an institutional environment it often involves inviting along people who, for one reason or another, would normally be distanced from such activities in the art world. This part of the discussion will be elaborated on and analysed in detail in the final chapter. The other key continuity that also sets ‘social reality’ aside from Bourriaud and Larsen’s notions, is the deployment of ‘third party collaborators”, Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar tend to avoid direct communication with the public as ‘artist’. Instead they often use methods which involve instructing or hiring others, or collaborating with individuals or groups of varying sizes. Although it is possible that artworks executed in this manner could be seen under the guise of ‘social or relational aesthetics’, which are broad and flexible enough, it is a method used again and again by the artists under discussion. So instead of fitting these ideas into a larger context and wider definition, it could be beneficial to narrow the parameters when discussing such specific ideas. Another important part of the participation, or collaboration process, in the work of Althamer, Ondák, Sedá and Pogacar, is the desire to work with the more ‘difficult’ cross sections of society, or minority groups they then take on as ‘collaborators’. In larger scale works they also take on the role of uniting sizeable communities, there seems to be an underlying desire to represent social cohesion, not in an ideological sense, but with small, practical and unforeseen gestures. These will be the first communal concerns of the four artists that I will be tackling in this text, this chapter will largely be formed of examining examples and verifying these trends, as well as pointing out interpretations contextually, and touching on a more political analysis.
I: The Homeless
To start demonstrating some of the above mentioned, this section in particular will be looking at a certain social outcast that has cropped up numerous times, the illusive figure of the homeless or the tramp, specifically at this stage, in works which are outside the borders of the institutional environment. I will start with a couple of examples from Pawel Althamer, one of Poland’s brightest contemporary artists, and who in 2004, was the winner of the Vincent Van Gogh Bi-annual Award for Contemporary Art in Europe. In Astronaut II, (1997) Althamer participated in documenta X, which took place in Kassel, Germany. For this project, Althamer walked through the streets of Kassel with two others, dressed in makeshift astronaut suits, and recording everything they saw with mounted video cameras. When documenta X officially opened Althamer’s work became accessible at a permanent location, and another element of his practice came to light, particularly in a trailer he had brought with him from Poland. The trailer was split into two sections separated by a sheet of transparent plastic, in one half was the main entrance intended for the public, which lead to a small space housing a few items Althamer had amassed, such as a busted fan and an old fridge. But more strikingly and perhaps more importantly, in this room there was also a view from one half of the trailer into the other, which housed a homeless Pole whom Althamer had invited and paid to stay for the duration of the exhibition. In this gesture Althamer is being charitable, extending the opportunities and invitations he has been offered to those less fortunate. The homeless man’s presence should be no less imposing than a guard or a steward at other such events, the only startling factor is literally facing such a stark sense of ‘reality’ in a situation you wouldn’t normally expect to. This decontextualising of reality and elevation of the more diverse members of society is, as Paul Sztulman suggests in the official short guide of documenta, common practice in Althamer’s art. “To do so means paying a kind of attention to him he usually does not get. Althamer has frequently worked with people in this way, asking them simply to enact the roles of their social existence, whether that of a watchman or of a homeless person.” (Sztulman, 1997, p.18) It could also be noted that in the first part of Astronaut II (which was exhibited as a video in the trailer), whereby Althamer, and others he had instructed, walk through the town dressed as astronauts, that he is making a deliberate connection to the ideas of being an outsider in a very literal way. In this instance, it is
he who is the alien presence, gathering the attention of the unsuspecting public, just as the homeless Pole in the unfamiliar space of a huge international exhibition does in the second part. Another of Althamer’s more early pieces, entitled Observer (1992), again involved appointing homeless people, this time after been asked to make an advertising campaign for a daily newspaper. He gave the homeless people badges with the word “Obserwator” (observer) on, which is the name of the renowned newspaper that appointed him. But this gesture is also a play on words, as the chosen ‘observers’ who were appointed to watch others, tended to sit for long times watching the world go by beforehand. By putting these titles on them he elevates their status to one of responsibility, whilst performing the same routine they would normally do, now that they now have a title, others perceptions of the homeless men have been changed. The Slovenian artist Tadej Pogacar is best known for creating his own institution, which oddly is without a fixed address or collection, The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E Museum of Contemporary Art was formed in 1990, and has since become a nomadic vessel for numerous pieces of work including Kings of the Street (1995). For this work Pogacar invited homeless people to one of the busiest squares in the centre of Ljubljana to sit for several hours on thrones (borrowed chairs on special podia). The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E Museum of Contemporary art, or P.M.C.A, was involved in drawing up contracts with the participants or ‘collaborators’ and paid them a small fee for their part in the performance. Pogacar deliberately set out to promote the status of the homeless to equal or superior members of society, through a simple yet empowering act of exposure and breaking of normality, a method that according to Igor Zabel, was well received.
“Kings of the Street exposed the public to a constantly present but stigmatized social group. The response of the passers-by was positive, and direct communication between them and the “museum’s collaborators” was established. On the reproach that he was manipulating the homeless, Pogacar answered: “I believe the manipulators are exactly those who refuse to acknowledge them.” (Zabel, 2003, p.296)
Tadej Pogacar used the homeless as middlemen between himself and the public, expressing sentiments he would not have been able to himself. Other works follow a similar format, and again use the homeless to represent forgotten ideals and remind the public of the weakened fabrics of social hierarchies. In Dancers (1997) Pawel Althamer made an installation comprised of videos which seemed to jump from one screen to another. It depicted a performance with a group of naked homeless people, dancing in a circle in a brightly lit white room. In Untitled (2001), Althamer got a street busker in Prague, Czech Republic, to play sentimental Czech folk songs, which he then amplified and subjected to a busy street in the capital, the busker shed his usual marginality and briefly became a figure of influence, a DJ for a fraction of the city. Katerina Sedå has also worked with the homeless for example in Homeless Man (2000), where she used items such as supermarket salami wrappers to fashion clothes and other items for the homeless. These pieces all have an element of benevolence about them, if not in legal tender or material goods then certainly in time and attention. They keep in mind the inevitable and more unfortunate persons of communities, but in a way that doesn’t overstep the border and become patronising, and crucially, by leaving themselves open to interpretation.
II: The Minority
It is not just the homeless that are subject to approaches and collaboration with the artists, all shapes and forms of the social underbelly of all four artists respected countries, and beyond, have been put on the radar and into the publics sometimes unwilling eyes. It seems appropriate here to start with one of the more ambitious and controversial examples available, Althamers recent submission to the 2006 Berlin Biennale, entitled Fairy Tale (2006) (see Appendix 1). For this piece Althamer spent his allotment of time and money in trying to secure permanent German residency to a Turkish illegal immigrant, who had just turned 18 and was due to be deported (and reportedly on suicide watch at a local hospital). The work takes the form of an installation in an old dilapidated stable, near an abandoned post office in Berlin. On the door is
a formal letter detailing Althamer’s proposal to a politician, and inside, nothing except for a single shoe belonging to the boy, placed there by the artist in a way that creepily echoes the title. This is an emotionally charged work, which instead of protesting about the ideas at hand, is directly involved in them, raising questions of society and politics under the shelter of a corporation, as Claire Bishop points out in comment on this work: “Fairy Tale [...] is an activist project: the artist leveraging the power of institutions (in this instance, the biennial, with its visibility and prestige) for social change.” (Bishop, 2006, p.269) Although it would appear the work has been unsuccessful in terms of making the boy a German resident, it was sincere and genuine in its intentions, which were as far from institutional critique as possible and closer based to notions which question accepted morals and hierarchies of power and influence. Alternatively, Tadej Pogacar has used sex workers as a starting point in producing artworks, significantly in an ongoing series entitled CODE: RED. At the Venice Biennale he demonstrated one such piece, CODE: RED (2001-2) (see Appendix 2), where he and his institution, the P.M.C.A, arranged a type of mass demonstration. Participants included sex workers from around the world as well as affiliated persons and sympathisers, all of whom carried a single red umbrella and marched through the city. It was a striking and provocative piece, and one that Igor Zabel believes, exposed a side of reality that would normally remain concealed to the general public. “[…] PMCA probes a hidden social and economic system – the world of sex workers. According to Pogacar, the project ‘gives the sex workers – who are among the most marginalized and deprived population groups in the urban environment – a chance to speak out and be seen in a new context’.” (Zabel, 2003, p.296) Through the use of numerous and appropriate collaborators, the work turns a subject often tip toed around, into a challenging and powerful march, which confronts the sophisticated art world with a new kind of realism. Other examples are more direct in their seeking of social progression and harmony, such as Einstein Class (2005) by Pawel Althamer. This piece came about after Althamer was approached regarding a commission, to produce an artwork that would mark the anniversary of Albert Einstein’s death – he gladly obliged and used the commission to set-up a teaching project in Warsaw. He developed a six-month schedule, in which
a small group of ‘juvenile delinquents’, would be taught physics by a rouge science teacher, who had himself only recently been laid off. He creates opportunities for people, not just by giving the deprived kids another chance to learn some skills (he also took them to Berlin for the opening of the Einstein exhibition), but also the rebel teacher, who is reintroduced into the classroom. Althamer is doing his level best to tie up the loose ends of society, not in hope of changing the world, but in order to demonstrate the power of seemingly small and simple exchanges or revelations. “Through those actions, Althamer challenges accepted hierarchies and logic, and proposes alternative ways of looking” (Desclaux, 2007, p.28) This is not the only example of Althamer using methods of education or teaching in his practice, he has even sent his own teenage boys on a similar programme he devised himself, but importantly he has also appropriated the role of teacher, and taught others. Pawel Althamer has been working on a project since 1993 with fellow Polish artist Artur Zmijewski, with whom he has collaborated numerous times. Zmijewski shares many of Althamer’s concerns, and has, in his practice, worked with different social, political and religious groups in Poland, as well as disabled people and amputees. Althamer and Zmijewski have been working at a small arts centre in Warsaw teaching sculpture and ceramics to people suffering from multiple sclerosis and other types of paralysis. The project known as Quadriga, is a proposal by the two artists, that their students should make a full scale bronze ‘quadriga’, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the art centre. This work is designed to show the skills and abilities of the disabled students, whom Zmijewski and Althamer have supported, and challenge existing perceptions of equality and prejudice. Recent publications suggest that so far only a model exists, and they are awaiting further funding for its full realisation. This next work demonstrates how a network of collaborators can sometimes be used in interventions that lead to the fabrication of new and stimulating artworks. Althamers project at Westfalischer Kunstverein, Munster in Germany, simply called, Prisoners (2002), was a project that was coordinated with the full cooperation of the Justizvollzugsanstalt Munster (Munster’s prison). The project started as an installation, which included objects found in prison, such as an abstract wall painting, which was copied from the site, drawings, which were on loan from the prisoners, and objects made by Althamer, such as a pistol baked out of bread. After the opening of this exhibition, which a selection of interested prisoners were invited to,
Althamer set up a workshop with the Justizvollzugsanstalt Munster which took place fortnightly throughout the exhibitions duration. The prisoners who wished to be involved produced work within these workshops which were, when finished, integrated into the rest of Althamers exhibition. The starting point of a clean-cut gallery space, and typical presentation, was over time transformed into an abundance of work by the prisoners. More importantly as Joanna Mytkowska and Andrzej Przywara sum up, was what the work represented. “Thus, the idea of imprisonment present in the first set, which Althamer had designed was gradually covered by objects expressing the real needs and hopes of prisoners.” (Mytkowska – Przywara, 2004, p. 180) Allowing people who would not normally be able to show their feelings to a wider audience, let alone an art audience, the chance, and the faith to do so is a strong, bold and sentimental action from Althamer, who remains the artist in his networking of ideas. An extension of this argument can be seen in the work of the Czech artist Katerina Sedá, who has dealt with social issues closer to home, namely within her family. As Martin Herbert points out the family is the atom of society, and it would seem a logical place to consider in artworks that revolve around communities. “Given that Sedá’s conceptual backdrop is the atomization of contemporary society, it is not surprising that she has worked outward from its most basic building block, the family.” (Herbert, 2008, p.337) She developed a series of pieces working with her grandmother Jana after her husband’s death. In It Doesn’t Matter (2005) (see Appendix 3) for example, Sedá sets about giving her inactive grandmother a purpose again, and she became a collaborator in Sedá’s work. The title literally derives from the repeated response she gave when the family attempted to engage her in activities. For 33 years her Grandmother worked as the head of the tools stock room in a hardware store in Brno, and using this as a starting point Katerina Sedá, in an almost ‘test’ like way, coaxes her into recalling over six hundred of the items she was responsible for. Each item was recorded as a detailed sketch, which Sedá then exhibited as the final work. The result was a drawn inventory of all the tools her grandmother was responsible for. An additional example is Her Mistress’s Everything, (2008), an installation of video and photography, shown at Manifesta 7. Sedá documented the melancholic conditions in her grandmother’s apartment after
her death in 2007, the family maintained the apartment for Jana’s faithfully yearning pet dog, who was still living in the apartment and watching television.
III: Maybe Someday
Sometimes social concerns are tackled on a larger scale or population by the artists, these works are not so much about social underdogs, but instead take on the ambitious role of uniting communities. The collaborators then, instead of being the marginalised, become groups of residents or workers, and work is produced that confronts the lack of social contact between people who live in close proximity. One such work by Katerina Sedá called Over and Over (2008), was included in the 2008 Berlin Biennial. This piece consisted of a large polygonal fence over thirty feet in diameter and 40 residents from Lisen in the Czech Republic. Using ladders the residents had brought from home, and the fence (which was a German-made reconstruction of the fencing in Lisen) the participants scaled up and down, and greeted one another when they passed. Given the political connotations, its positioning in Berlin on the division between the former East and West, also known as the ‘Death Strip’, perhaps Andrew Nairne makes a valid point when suggesting: “[…] the possibility that Sedá is mirroring the years of Communism when much of peoples lives were regulated by the state and living and working collectively was the social norm.” (Nairne, 2006, p.13)
However it can be argued that the work manages to maintain its key focus, which is much less about historical and political indifference, and more about the current concerns of civilization. Martin Herbert describes a supporting contextual analysis in a review for Artforum International:
“Over and Over doesn’t feel nostalgic for Communism, but rather outlines a condition in which neither past nor present is romanticized but in which art, if directed toward reaching a wider public first and institutions second, might make tentative differences.” (Herbert, 2008,
p,337)
This work was also performed at the homes of the Lisen residents either side of the Berlin Biennale, so the political topography was not the main catalyst surrounding its realisation, rather it poetically demonstrated that whilst fences may typically serve to divide, they might just as effectively be used to unite. One of Pawel Althamer’s more well-known, imposing and indeed ambitious works is entitled 2000 (see Appendix 4), which was realised in Brrno that same year. The location, a not so spectacular housing block in Krasnobrodzka Street, in which Althamer himself resides. The street is part of a district in the East of Warsaw, which according to Joanna Mytkowska and Andrzej Przywara (2004) “the more refined parts of the city consider poor and rather uninteresting.” The instructions given to various ‘third party collaborators’ within the block of flats were rather simple, to turn on or off lights in their homes over a period of 30 minutes. At first this could seem to be a rather small, fleeting, and simple gesture, but the way the project took of was spectacular even beyond Althamer’s expectations or standards. The idea was to display the number “2000” in gigantic letters on the housing blocks front wall, simply by having the relevant apartments turn on or off their lights as appropriate. Althamer gave precise written instructions, which scouts delivered to the residents, noting the exact sequence in which they should switch lights on and off in particular rooms. This did however require the participation of some 200 families, and the action itself lasted approximately 30 minutes. Aside from Althamer’s directing and coordinating, the artwork was growing, as outside the apartment block at least 3,000 people came to watch this event. Free food was being distributed, there was a fireworks display afterwards, a dancing party, a Warsaw folk music band who played, and even politicians and local officials turned up and gave speeches during the event.
“The event went well beyond the notion of a happening or performance, and was given enormous and seemingly spontaneous media publicity. It stirred up a debate among the local community, and also became a perfect example of what Althamer calls “reality directed”. The most important thing was that the project became an efficient medium for the articulation of the community’s various needs and interests, without
being reduced to an “artistic event”. (Mytkowska – Przywara, 2004, p. 180)
By directing such scenes inside the public realm, Althamer knows they have the potential to expand spontaneously – the simplicity of the act makes it both appealing and memorable. It could be argued that this simplification would obscure the work’s initial intentions, but Igor Zabel alternatively proposes this could assist the collaborators in translating their work. “The illuminated windows evoke utopian visions of social and technical progress, of a rationally structured and perfect society, on which the idea of such buildings was originally based.” (Zabel, 2003, p.36) Zabel’s theory also carries great weight when considering Katerina Sedá’s work, which has dealt with similar ideas regarding housing blocks. For Every Dog a Different Master (2007) (see Appendix 5), a work made for documenta 12, Sedá works in Nova-Lisen, near her hometown Brrno-Lisen, which in 1970 became the site for one of Brnos’s largest housing projects. The area has recently been renovated and the building has had its tired, murky coat replaced with a palette of vivid colours in an attempt to liven up the area. Katerina Sedá had her own thoughts on how this could be achieved, in a way that was more efficient and encouraged a sense of community. She turned the spectacle of the building, and its colourful new paint job, into an image that was then transferred via a cloth pattern onto a thousand shirts. The same-number of apartments within the housing block, were subsequently grouped into pairs and each received a shirt in a handwritten package, with the name of its respected paired family listed as sender. The title is also an important part of this piece, “Kazdej pes jiná ves” (For Every Dog a Different Master), is a Czech proverb and is symbolic of the diversity of the residents, which currently serves as their only mutual attribute. The shirts however serve as a tool of visual unity among the residents and as an unwarranted gift from one another (albeit via Sedá), in a hope to encourage cohesion and circulation. The residents were consequently invited to the opening of the show a month later, and were written to the following month, summarizing the projects aims and requesting feedback. Slovakian Artist Roman Ondák has produced work in keeping with a similar theme, Passage, (2004) (see Appendix 6) is not promoting sociability in housing developments, but in another instance where large
groups of people, spend a lot of time together. Whilst the artist was in Japan, he struck up an agreement with a Japanese Steel firm, and as a result ended up handing out 500 chocolate bars to the workers. He instructed the workers that once they had eaten the chocolate, they were to save the tin foil wrapping and sculpt something out of it. The results were surprisingly imaginative, varied and technically well executed – the mini sculptures are all presented on one table, as a shimmering collection of objects including miniature boats, boots, animals, flowers and classical origami. It could be seen as somewhat ironic that Ondák persuaded steel workers to sculpt things out of a flimsy pieces of tin foil, or even slightly stereotypical, giving Japanese workers the task of making micro-origami. It could however equally be noted, that this was simply a playful way of instigating an elaborate network of hundreds of collaborators to help produce a bold and eye-catching artwork with serious motivations in both process and context.
The Extra-Ordinary
The ‘extra-ordinary’ is a variation of social reality, it carries similar characteristics as some of the above mentioned works, but it is executed in ways that are so subtle and ordinary that they remain for the large part unnoticed. This approach doesn’t place social minorities on a moral pedestal – it instead uses simple methods that blend into the public realm disguised as normality. The overlooked in previous examples have been a cross-section of society which are under represented, using techniques of ‘the extra-ordinary’ aims to highlight society itself, and question parts of everyday life the public are accustomed or numb to. This observation has been noted by Martin Herbert, in relation to the Katerina Sedá’s “There is Nothing There”. “[…]- the event was a testament to the latent potential of invisible ordinariness for fostering social cohesion or, more ambitiously, even reenchanting daily life.” (Herbert, 2008, p.336) The work then emphasises the importance of embracing reality, as opposed to trying to escape it. Consistent in both ‘social reality’ and ‘the extra-ordinary’ is the frequent presence of ‘third party collaborators’, through the hiring of actors or the passing of instructions to willing participants. These
actors perform ordinary gestures, which they are free to interpret to a certain degree, perhaps then a more suitable term would be ‘extras’, such as would be found on a film set.
One work that perfectly sums up this notion of the ‘extra-ordinary’ is Pawel Althamer’s Motion Picture, at Manifesta 2000, in Ljubljana. For three consecutive weeks, at the same hour each day, actors hired by Althamer were playing out an almost invisible scene. The scene lasted 30 minutes, and the same characters were present each day. An old man fed the pigeons, a couple kissed, a boy roller-skated in the square, a busker played the oboe, and a tourist asked for directions. Among these characters or ‘extras’, appeared an actor known from TV commercials, although in other variations of this work there has been no recognisable figure, in others, even more famous faces appear. The scene is all around rather unremarkable, and doesn’t break the surface of normal city life. “Althamer’s poignant and incisive critique emerges from the apparently seamless insertion of staged artifice into quotidian social situations.” (Bonacina, 2006. P.036) One of Katerina Sedá’s best known works, There is Nothing There (2003), uses similar techniques, in this project the artist worked in the small Czech town of Ponetovice, In an interview conducted by Jana Klusakova in 2005 she explains her reasons for doing so, and in turn the title of the work. “[...] in one queue I heard, I heard the fateful saying that there was nothing in Ponetovice. I was so intrigued by the idea that I had to go see this ‘nothing’. I had to agree THERE’S NOTHING THERE.” (Sedá, 2005) Sedá started to devise what she called the ‘Daily Regime’, in which she planned to orchestrate the actions of all 300 residents, so that for one day they all performed the same routine together. To construct this detailed ‘regime’ she produced numerous questionnaires, meetings and discussions with groups of residents, and key figures in the community. On Saturday the 24th May 2003, concluding months of conversation, persuasion and reassurance, the event took place. Every action was laid out in Sedá’s ‘Daily Regime’, which was posted around the village and announced over speakers. That day everyone woke up at the same time, swept their pavement, went shopping, ate dumplings for lunch and ultimately met for a beer. “When it was apparent that everyone pretty much did the same things. I just had to have them do it at the
same time. That’s how the ‘Daily Regime’ was created: a schedule of activities for the entire day.” (Sedá, 2005) This gesture furthers the artist’s previous attempts to harmonise society, and although this work was only transitory, Sedá’s controlling of reality reminds the inhabitants of the merits of small actions. Roman Ondák, has also produced pieces that suitably sum up his use of the extra-ordinary within his artistic practice. The first, SK-Parking (2001), involved the artist parking several old Slovakian Skodas in the car park of the Secession gallery in Vienna. This ‘installation’ of sorts, was intended just as much for the passers-by of the building as much as the gallery going public. The vehicles were left in full view of bystanders for two months, eventually frequent users of certain routes might start to wonder why the vehicles are all registered to Slovakia? Why they are all old Skodas? And why have they been there so long? There are political and geographical connotations, which could be picked up on in this work, but the subtle execution of the piece suggests there are no intentional grand statements, indeed Igor Zabel perhaps sums it up best.
“Ondák’s works always remain open to many different or opposing interpretations. Nevertheless, such interpretations cannot exhaust their meaning and impact; they add to the work’s complexity, while never fully explaining them.” (Zabel, 2003, p.264)
Another piece from Ondák is entitled Good Feelings in Good Times (2003), which has been staged at the Cologne Kunstverein in 2003 and at Frieze Art Fair in 2004. This piece similar to Althamer’s Motion Picture, uses hired actors or ‘extras’ to act normal, only this time in the specificity of a queue. The work blended into the environment in which it was being ‘performed’ – the performance did not require an audience. At the Cologne Kunstverein the queue would appear in the same slot each day outside the museum, at the Frieze Art Fair it formed and disbanded of its own accord, around anywhere it chose. This ‘artificial queue” is so subtle and close to reality that many do not register it as an artwork at the time, some even actively joining in, according to Melissa Gronlund: “The actors stood patiently reading the newspaper or texting friends on their mobile phones; visitors
approached to enquire about the line, and some gamely joined.” (Gronlund, 2006, p.065) One example by Roman Ondák sits solely in the environment of the art world, which proved to be another opportunity to twist expectations and play with formalities. At the private view of the Markus Schinwald exhibition in April 2006 he encouraged a selection of people present to untie their shoelaces, Resistance (2006), though the act was largely unnoticed, it has been dramatized as an artwork through its documentation. Then there is Althamer’s slightly more controllable non-event, where he announces he will not appear somewhere at a certain time, Invisible in Berlin Alexanderplatz on 28/06/02 between 17:00-19:00 (2002). Althamer naturally stuck to his word, and Alexanderplatz played host to numerous collaborators, passers-by who unknowingly served as distractions or replacements, and the people who came to watch it, confirming his no show.
The Pied Piper and the Parasite
In this chapter I will be looking at the same motifs and incarnations of ‘social reality’, but this time in a specifically institutional environment. Although a lot of the artists work previously discussed is formed inside the public sphere, it is inevitably harboured back into the sanctuary of the gallery for the consumption of art hungry enthusiasts. Various cunning and equally challenging tactics have been deployed, to bring the public sphere as ‘collaborators’, into the gallery environment and formulate artworks. I will be analyzing their invitation to minority groups or ‘outsiders’ who follow the artists instructions, and join them in creating work inside the daunting white walls of some of Europes leading galleries and kunsthalles. These works, however, should not be mistaken as a form of institutional critique – in fact, the artists and their countries respected art communities have been more than vocal in their support of institutions, as demonstrated in the introduction, and are actively encouraging a sustainable infrastructure of the arts. When Gerald Matt suggested to Althamer in an interview that he ‘subverts the function of art institutions’ and ‘turns the order and the expectations of art institutions on their heads’ he was very clear in his response that this was not the case.
“I don’t subvert the function of art institutions; on the contrary, I support them as forums for human communication. I don’t “turn them on their heads” but rather “put them back on their feet.” My strategies, similar to the strategies of my peers, stem from the old shamanistic goal to communicate with the world.” (Althamer, 2005, p.42-3) The artists in this text are instead more orientated towards a social critique, the museum is a fosterer of social collisions, focus is thrown on opening debates and doors. Charles Esche summed up this argument in a seminar on The Future of the Museum in 2004. “It is key that a museum should be speculative, that it should allow people to speculate about themselves as much as about the arts, and about the society as much as about the artist.” (Esche, 2004) The work of artists like Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar are pushing the notions of human communication through subtle yet powerful techniques, direct consultations, and complex networks.
I: Sheltering
This section will look at work realised inside galleries that still incorporates the ideals of ‘social reality’, again a marginalised cross-section of society are used as collaborators, and even economic concerns such as contracts are tackled. Pawel Althamer has been likened to The Pied Piper, in a great short text by Charles Esche (Pawel Althamer: A New Pied Piper), it is noted that his practice seems to hold a desire to lead people to a sometimes rather unclear destination: “Given the instability of the signifier ‘Pied Piper’, and also given that he performs the role of both outsider and popular leader (as charmer and avenger of injustice), he seems consummately appropriate to use as a way of imagining what Althamer does and could do.” (Esche, 2006, p.440) This destination, in some cases, could be the museum, as in Untitled (2001) at Secession, Vienna, Althamer again extended his welcome to some homeless people from the Austrian capital. Normally spending their time in public places, such as parks and stations, the homeless were taken from the public sphere and put in the institutional environment, or alternatively it could be claimed, Althamer had brought the public sphere into the gallery. Whilst inside, the gallery as host, would provide them with a free meal
everyday, they were also given weird white overalls to wear, reciprocating the space and making them appear like visitors from the future. Similarly, Tadej Pogacar developed previously discussed ideas in The Queen Meets Marcel (1999) staged at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In this work homeless woman were seated on a platform in a gallery alongside Duchamp’s readymades and other works in the collection. In Blokers (2004), Pawel Althamer again brings the realities of society crashing down into the art world. In this piece he transported a group of teenagers from a Warsaw suburb to the Dutch city of Maastricht and its museum. Here they were given the freedom of a room allocated to Althamer, and it soon became a mural of graffiti. After this part performance/installation, following visitors were free to continue the ‘vandalism’ started by the deprived kids, who in fact seemed to react relatively positively in light of the opportunity. Indeed Adam Mazur has commented: “Despite the gallery managers' concerns, the graffiti on the wall is not even half as vulgar and extreme as that found on any wall in Warsaw's numerous post-communist inner city ghettos.” (Mazur, 2005, p.157) Roman Ondák has done likewise in Teaching to Walk (2002) for example, in which, daily for the duration of the exhibition, the artist invited a one-year old and his young mother into an otherwise empty gallery space, where he would learn to take his first steps. Two examples here from Pawel Althamer, realised in the USA, involved Althamer distributing his work and funds to others. Untitled (2001), at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Althamer invites Piotr Anczarski, an old student friend who now lives in the US working among other things as a wall painter, to collaborate with him. A contract was negotiated under which Anczarski would paint a room in the museum a different colour every day for the duration of the month long exhibition. Untitled (2003), at The Wrong Gallery, New York, the artist again hires collaborators in a bizarre network of deconstruction and reconstruction. Illegal Polish immigrants from New York are taken to the gallery and instructed to destroy it, breaking windows, door frames and a piece of work behind a pane of glass. Then they are hired to repair everything, employing people who are desperately seeking work in the city, and with whom Althamer empathized. “At the same time, it was a comment on an over-saturated economic system in which you have to destroy something to create room for something new [..]” (Mytkowska – Przywara, 2004, p.190)
In these scenarios a kind of role reversal is taking place, the gallery, which is normally sheltered from the outside world, becomes a shelter for the outside world.
II: Employ, Deploy
Sometimes the Museum’s staff are subject to proposals by the artists, and have acted as collaborators, performing via instructions in a more internalised network. Silence Please (1999) staged at the Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, entailed Ondák getting the museum’s attendants to dress in the original guard uniforms of recent decades, depending on the relevant periods in which they were born. In the Spala gallery in Prague, Ondák concieved the work Tickets, Please (2002), which started at the gallery’s entrance. There you would pay a young boy for half of your ticket and proceed to the upper floor, which was laid out the same way, and pay the other half to his grandfather, the institutes normal ticket seller. Workers (2002) by Pawel Althamer also utilizes the people or ‘workers’ of the institution as the medium, part of what Althamer calls “en plein air”. This involved him inviting the women and men who work as exhibition guards at the Zacheta Gallery in Poland, to a gallery in Austria, he goes further in suggesting possible extensions of the piece: “The possibility should exist for a so-called “exchange” with colleagues from Vienna. Planned aspects of this program include: a few days of museum visits, working two or three days in the suggested institutions, and a closing celebration with the “local” colleagues.” (Althamer, 2005, p.38) Ondák has even placed the curator in his network as a ‘third party collaborator’, as demonstrated by I’m just acting in it (2007). The curator was instructed to then ask ten people to draw Roman Ondák walking through the empty gallery space, based solely on the curators spoken description. This series of portraits or perhaps more accurately, ‘self-portraits’, were surprisingly consistent and constituted the final exhibition.
III: The extra-ordinary
There are also incidents in which the medium of ‘the extra-ordinary’ has found its way into the gallery, especially apparent in the work of Roman Ondák. The Slovakian’s solo show at the gb agency, "More Silent Than Ever," in Paris 2006, housed a work which shared its name with the exhibition title, situated in the empty second room of the gallery. Inside there is nothing, and the room is illuminated only by twelve neons, and a sign which suggests there is a work hidden in the space, the viewer is left bemused and doubtful when fruitless efforts reveal conflicting evidence. Another work executed in an institutional environment that retains aspects of the ‘extra-ordinary’ is Announcement (2002), here Ondák set up a radio system in the gallery space. A prerecorded announcement resided over visitors: “Your attention please for the following announcement: As a sign of solidarity with recent world events, for the next minute do not interrupt the activity you are doing at this moment.” This imperative broadcast was denoting more emphasis on the reality of the everyday, and mundane gestures, the audience unwillingly become collaborators, as Jessica Morgan explains. “Asked to perform the action of not performing, the visitor takes part in Ondák’s complex structural analysis of producer and produced, implication and imagination” (Morgan, 2005, p.145)
IIII: Infestation
Tadej Pogacar has constructed a fully functional parasitic museum, which works internally and collaborates with other museums, sometimes appropriating their collection. One project Welcome to History (1998), for instance, involved Pogacar and the P.M.C.A working inside the Museum of Modern History in the capital of the artist’s native Slovenia, Ljubljana. The collection of the museum was open for interpretation, as Pogacar curated his own version of history, putting a slant on accepted and often unquestioned narratives. The P.M.C.A aims to shed light on the concealed background and mechanics of such specialised museums, refreshing the fundamental intent of the institution. In the Art of History: Through the Body (1994), the P.M.C.A penetrated the same museum and again altered its objective collection into a more
subjective one, this time with a theme of the body. However, in this project the P.M.C.A also set up an administrative office in one of the exhibition rooms, openly displayed so that visitors could look right into a part of the infrastructure normally hidden, the public could watch Pogacar working in a museum, in a museum. Although the filing cabinets were completely empty, and the phone was not connected, the artist nevertheless worked in the office for several hours a day. Whilst it is apparent that these two works were executed in the same museum, it simply serves to demonstrate how the P.M.C.A can adopt different methods of practice, an important characteristic as Alenka Pirman observes. “The strength of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E Museum is in its mobility and adaptability. It can operate regardless of the host’s status or the premises available.” (Pirman, 1997, p.14-5) In this example by Althamer, it was not the history of the museum collection that was being reinterpreted, but the history of the building and specifically its site. For a show at neugerriemschneider, Berlin, in 2003, Pawel Althamer transformed the gallery, in the stylish Mitte neighborhood, into a dilapidated shell of it’s former self. After wrecking the gallery’s exhibition space, Pawel Althamer put up a brick wall to seal off the offices, where normal proceedings continued. Inside fake wires dangled over and beyond the rusted support beams, debris blanketed the floor, windows were broken and covered with plastic sheets, wallpaper hung limply above the remains of a fire, and an abandoned car seat was sprawled out in the centre. It could indeed be noted that there are strong political undertones in the work’s geographical location in East Berlin, it could be reasoned that Althamer was returning the space, historically, to a time of postwar disarray. It should, again, not be mistaken be a form of critique aimed towards the institution as Jennifer Allen has remarked. “But by “designing” ruin, the artist does not so much challenge established values as flaunt them. Like potlatch, his intervention is a carefully orchestrated display of destruction under the sign of expenditure.” (Allen, 2003, p.201) The act of annihilating the gallery, rather ironically, required a constructive attitude from Althamer, who had to painstakingly reconstruct the building as a ruin. But perhaps the most important and sometimes overlooked aspect of this work is the fact that it was left open 24/7 to the public. The museum was distorted into a run down space, free to become inhabited by scurrying and suspicious life in the dead of night.
Conclusion
The work of Pawel Althamer, Roman Ondák, Katerina Sedá, and Tadej Pogacar all exhibit traits of ‘social reality’, and whilst not all of them use the same variations across their practice, they have all delved into its primary concerns. Concerns which include working with minority or majority subjects, the marginalised or deprived, or outsiders of society in numerous combinations. The artists try to operate around these motives and integrate them through the use of omnipresent ‘third party collaborators’. It can also be noted at this point that these artists are generally very tactful in their undertaking of these objectives, the works are not practically idealistic, and steer clear of direct propaganda. The artists in this text criss-cross between the borders of realms, work often commences in the public domain, and failing that, integrates the public into the institutional realm. This also occurs visa versa, as most the works initiated in the public realm will subsequently be presented in galleries, indeed my first point of contact in the writing of this text was seeing Artur Zmijewski’s captivating video Them (2007) at the equally enthralling exhibition Die Lucky Bush, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (MuHKA). Work incorporating ‘social reality’ can also aim to highlight overlooked aspect of society, in instances of ‘theextra-ordinary’ this can include artists subtly questioning elements of the everyday and accepted ‘reality’. Techniques are adopted by the artists that are camouflaged within the everyday environment, especially through the hiring of actors, or instructed collaborators, as Massimiliano Gioni states in relation to Pawel Althamer. “Guiding actors and extras to perform banal gestures and almost invisible moves, he replicates everyday life in all its richness, doing so with extreme simplicity.” (Gioni, 2008 , p.91) The works sometimes embed themselves into institutions through various means, working with the staff and curators as participants, turning the gallery into a refuge for society or even establishing and deploying parasitic establishments. The gallery under these artists becomes less private, opening itself to the public sphere and taking on new roles of accessibility exemplified in Pawel Althamer’s neugerriemschneider which is although slightly more gloomy, similar in principle to Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled (Tomorrow Is Another Day) (1996). The artists encourage museums as hot spots of human confrontation, and in the arena
of exsocialist countries, this is a topic becoming addressed with evermore urgency. Interest is steered away from launching a critique as such, and emphasis lies in creating meaningful and positive work that presents a new vision of infrastructure. Given the network of participants in the works of ‘social reality’ it could be argued that some may appear to be questioning issues of ownership, but equally it can be stated, as James Yood argues in connection to Katerina Sedá’s It Doesn’t Matter, that, is not any of these artists primal concerns: “The exhibition, though, was presented as the work of Katerina Sedá, not her grandmother, and begged to be interpreted less as the discovery of some visionary portraitist of mid-twentieth-century hardware than as a representation of an artist generating work through social activity.” (Yood, 2008, p.376) Some writers have been particularly prominent in this text and have contributed some major points towards its articulation, particularly Charles Esche, Igor Zabel, Jessica Morgan, Catherine Wood and Claire Bishop. Terms have been established to aid analysis of reoccurring methodology within the artists work in an efficient manner, analysis that could continue to expand and include the work of other artists such as Marko Peljhan and Apolonija Sustersic, to name but two. The parameters of the text were originally structured around political concerns, artists from exsocialsit countries that have also entered a new phase in the EU. Historical and political references have been cited as having a passive effect on the artists work, repairing the holes of society from political agendas past. There have been exhibitions that tackle this angle such as After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe, at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. More specifically in the context of this text, motivation is sometimes accredited to the regeneration after exsocialist regimes which overruled their countries in prior decades, and suggestions the passing of socialism left fractures in the facades of communities and broken cohesion. Claire Bishop has also noted this factor in recent art involving participation in general:
“The third issue involves a perceived crisis in community and collective responsibility. This concern has become more acute since the fall of Communism, although it takes its lead from a tradition of Marxist thought that indicts the alienating and isolating effects of capitalism. One of the main impetuses behind participatory art has therefore been a
restoration of the social bond through a collective elaboration of meaning.” (Bishop, 2006, p.12)
This could seem a logical connection given the artists production of work that is manifested in society, and centred around issues of morality. But there are also critics who, whilst acknowledging this aspect, do not consider it an overruling factor in the practice of the artists concerned in this text, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy has expressed similar doubts and offers a more apolitical and appropriate theory in discussion of Katerina Sedá’s practice, in an article in Modern Painters:
“Yet Sedá 's work-with its emphasis on communal cooperation and its utopian underpinnings is a departure from performative work of the previous generation, which was often reacting to the suppression of individuality under Communism. In contrast, Sedá's insistence on socialization is an attempt to reveal potential conviviality and create meaningful crossings over inequalities and borders.” (Chong Cuy, 2008, p.66)
So it could be that prominent issues in the work of these artists are global concerns not just exsocialist ones, and lets not forget these artists have worked with people, galleries, and participated in residencies across the globe. The problems they are pointing out are not the leftovers of a failed political uprising, but the modern day problems facing humanity on a global scale. Instead the work of Althamer, Ondák, Sedá, and Pogacar has only being affected by this set of circumstances, and has had an impact on their practice, in the sense that it has led to a freedom of ideas and exchange. Theirs is an artistic infrastructure that has, and is in the process, of continuing a steady development, and opportunities to work in a more international context have recently arisen. These factors, and the artists undeniable devotion to the cause, have enabled them to evolve a practice, which sits at the forefront of contemporary art, and allows their own concerns to be tackled in a production of work which is continuously open to interpretation.
Bibliography
Books:
Barth, Cornelia: Buness, Jutta. (ed). (1997). Documenta X – short guide. Germany: Cantz Verlag.
Bishop, Claire. (2006). Participation.London: Whitechapel Ventures Limited.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. France: Les Presses du Reel.
Erjavec, Ales. (2003). Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition – Politicized Art Under Late Socialism. University of California Press.
Gronlund, Melissa. (2006). Frieze Projects – Artists’ Commissions and Talks 2003-2005. London: Frieze.
Irwin (Artist Group). (2006). East Art Map: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe. Afterall
Kleijn, Ineke. (2004). Pawel Althamer : the Vincent van Gogh bi-annual award for contemporary art in Europe, 2004. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz
Kunsthalle Wien. (2005). Das unmögliche Theater : Performativität im Werk von Pawel Althamer, Tadeusz Kantor, Katarzyna Kozyra, Robert Kusmirowski und Artur Zmijewsk. Nürnberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst.
Modern Art Oxford. (ed). (2006). Local stories: Rory Carnegie, Gillian Wearing, Laura Lancaster, Daniel Guzman, Katerina Seda, Mark Neville, Nalini Malan. Oxford: Modern Art Oxford.
Modern Art Oxford. (2007). Arrivals>Art From the New Europe. Oxford: Modern Art Oxford
Morgan, Jessica: Wood, Catherine. (2007). The World As A Stage. London: Tate Publishing.
Williams, Gilda. (ed). 2003. Cream 3: Contemporary Art in Culture. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.
Periodical Articles:
Allen, Jennifer. (2003). Artforum International. Pawel Althamer: Neugerriemschneider. (44)3. p.201.
Bishop, Claire. (2006). Artforum International. Pawel Althamer Talks About Fairy Tale. (44)9. pp. 268-269.
Bishop, Claire. (2007). Modern Painters. The New Masters of Liberal Arts: Artists Rewrite the Rules of Pedagogy . (19)7 .pp.86-89.
Bonami, Francesco. (200). Flash Art Forum. Pawel Althamer: Requiem for a Dream. (35)223. pp.68-69
Colin, Anna. (2006). Art Press. The Spreading Web of Situations. 326. pp.42-43.
Herbert, Martin. (2008). Artforum International. Kateřina Šedá. (47)3. pp.336-337.
Hernandez Chong Cuy, Sofia. (2008). Modern Painters. Kateřina Šedá. (20)8. pp.64-66.
Kersting, Rita. (2003). Parkett. Mimetic Moments. 67. pp.182-185.
Krainak, Paul. (1996). New Art Examiner. Sitting Slavs at the Factory. 23. pp.19-21 & 34.
Larsen, Lars Bang. (1999). Afterall. Social Aesthetics: 11 Examples to Begin with, in the Light of Parallel History. 1. pp.77-87.
Morgan, Jessica. (2005). Artforum International. Roman Ondák. (43)5. pp.144-145.
Noé, Paola. (2007). Artforum International. Milan: Pawel Althamer: Fondazione Nicola Trussardi. (46)1. p.485.
Pirman, Alenka. (1997). Sculpture. Tadej Pogačar and The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art. 9. pp.14-15.
Schwalb, Harry. (2004). Art News. Pittsburgh Fonda Peter. (103)9. p.48.
Seidel, Claudia. (2003). Flash Art International. Berlin: Pawel Althamer: Neugerriemschneider. (36)232. p.122.
Stange, Raimar. (2007). Modern Painters. Pawel Althamer: Neugerriemschn Eider. (19)4. pp.120.
Vogel, Sabine B. (2005), Artforum International. Roman Ondak: Galerie Martin Janda. (44)1. p.316.
Wood, Catherine. (2008). Parkett. Magic Realism. 82. pp.74-117.
Yood, James. (2008). Artforum International. Chicago: Katerina Seda: Renaissance Society. (46)8. pp. 375-376.
Appendix:
I. Kateřina Šedá. (2007). For Every Dog a Different Master. www.artcornwall.org/ Seda_02.jpg
II. Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea. (2005). It Doesn't Matter. www.artnet.com/magazineus/ news/ntm/ntm2-1-08.asp
III. Brodno. (2000). Light. artnews.org/pawelalthamer
IV. Althamer, Pawel. (2006). Fairy Tale. www.arte.go.it/ eventi/2007/0974.htm
V. JD. (2008). Table of the Roman Ondak Room 2. picasaweb.google.com/.../ Wff5MXihzCL7w9aqxReumQ
VI.Pogacar, Tadej. (2001). Public Intervention Image One. www.parasite-pogacar.si/sex-inter1.htm
Appendix
Appendix 1
Appendix 4
Appendix 2
Appendix 5
Appendix 3
Appendix 6