curatingLAB:
the catalogue
Curating Lab 2012 offered recent graduates and young curators exposure into curatorial perspectives and practices. Organised by NUS Museum with support from the National Arts Council, the six-month programme began with a curatorial-intensive designed as a workshop, followed by internship assignments with selected institutions, and a regional field trip. Participants were guided by facilitators and mentors, working towards a final exhibition project. The programme centred on curatorial heterogeneities and contingencies, to be addressed as practices informed by conceptions of the nation and the global, spaces and their contexts, where modalities of practice are shaped and positions defined.
www.curating-lab.blogspot.com
Published on the occasion of the programme Curating Lab: Curatorial Intensive & Internship Programme 2012. Organised by:
In partnership with:
Institutional partners:
Published by NUS Museum University Cultural Centre 50 Kent Ridge Crescent National University of Singapore Singapore 119279 T: (65) 6516 8817 E: museum@nus.edu.sg W: www.nus.edu.sg/museum B: www.nusmuseum.blogspot.com Head, NUS Museum: Ahmad Mashadi Project Coordinators: Michelle Kuek, Jolene Lee, Stephanie Wong Lead Facilitators: Heman Chong, Patrick Flores Institutional-Mentors: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, David Teh, Tan Siu Li Catalogue Design: Stephanie Wong Š 2013 NUS Museum, National University of Singapore All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Content Foreword Phase 1: Curatorial-Intensive Phase 2: Internship and Regional Field Trip Curatorial Roundtable Series Phase 3: Final Exhibition Project A History of Curating in Singapore after|thought Objectum Final Essay Essay Collection
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21
1
Group photograph of Curating Lab 2012 participants during the Curatorial Intensive phase. FRONT ROW (L-R): Pauline Yao, Lead Facilitator Patrick Flores, Kamiliah Bahdar, Ng Shi Wen, Tabitha Lee, Riya de los Reyes, Wong Lee Min, Rachelle Su, Jane Koh, Amanda Lee, Daryl Goh, Kathleen Ditzig BACK ROW (L-R): Kenneth Tay, Zaccheus Surendran, Stefanie Tham, Jennifer Lam, Mohamed Ashraf, Kent Chan, Lead Facilitator Heman Chong, Head of NUS Museum Ahmad Mashadi
2
Foreword
F
irst conceived by NAC in 2005 as part of the Singapore Art Show to promote curatorial practice, the Curating Lab 2012 programme continues a partnership between NUS Museum and NAC, expanding upon the 2009 edition Curating Lab: 100 Objects (Remixed), then conceived as a three-day curatorial workshop that was focused on undergraduate students. Last year, the Sector Development (Visual Arts) team at NAC reached out to us to broach the idea for such an extended programme. We would like to thank them for their confidence in us, especially Mr. Khor Kok Wah, Mr. Philip Francis, Ms. Sophia Loke and Ms. Ning Chong. We would also like to extend our appreciation to the Capability Development Sector for making this programme possible, as well as Ms. Pamela Tham and Ms. Jaclynn Seah from Corporate Communications & Marketing Services. We would also like to thank Ms. Ong Puay Khim and Ms. Jolene Lee, who have been instrumental in the organisation and implementation of this programme, and our colleagues at NUS Museum and NUS Centre For the Arts for their support. We are honoured to have an excellent group of facilitators, lecturers and mentors in our programme, and their involvement have profoundly inspired the participants. We thank our lead facilitators Dr. Patrick Flores and Mr. Heman Chong for their participation and the invaluable guidance they have provided throughout the programme, and our invited speakers Ms. Pauline Yao and Mr. Cosmin Costinas for attending the Curatorial-Intensive. We would also like to thank the mentors Mr. Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Ms. Tan Siuli, Dr. David Teh and Ms. Viviana Mejia, who have taken time out of their hectic schedules to guide the participants throughout the programme as well as offering their counsel on the final project development. We are also thankful to Galeri Soemardja (Institut Teknologi Bandung), in particular Mr. Aminudin TH Siregar and Mr. Rifandy Priatna who co-organised the regional field trip to Bandung, Indonesia. The success of the trip was largely attributed to the engaging and insightful dialogues with curators Mr. Jim Supangkat, Mr. Rizki A. Zaelani, Mr. Agung Hujatnikajennong and the members of the Platform3 Board. The success of the Curatorial Roundtable series was credited to the exceptional panel of curatorial and industry practitioners who spoke engagingly about their practices and projects. We thank Prof. Apinan Poshyananda, Mr. David Henkel, Dr. Lilian Chee, Ms. Erika Tan, Mr. Alan Oei, Ms. Tan Shir Ee, Mr. Khairuddin Hori, Ms. Arahmaiani, Mr. Chitti Kasemkitvatana, and Mr. Darryl Wee for their kind participation and the stimulating dialogues they have ignited. Last but not least, we would like to congratulate the participants for completing the programme – Daryl Goh, Jane Koh, Stefanie Tham, Ng Shiwen, Riya de los Reyes, Kamiliah Bahdar, Tabitha Lee, Wong Lee Min, Mohamed Ashraf bin Mohamad Yoonus, Kenneth Tay, Kent Chan, Amanda Lee, Rachelle Su, Kathleen Ditzig and Jennifer Lam. We wish them the best of luck in their first step as curators. Ahmad Mashadi Head of NUS Museum 3
Facilitators and speakers conducting discussion sessions with the participants
Participants had the opportunity to visit the NUS Museum, Singapore Art Museum, National Museum of Singapore, and Gillman Barracks and interact with curators and staff at the various institutions.
Participants locked in engaging dialogues as they were paired up in one-to-one conversations discussing the 6 Modules, textual fragments containing curatorial propositions and their references.
On the last day of the workshop, the participants were divided into their respective internship groups to meet up with their institutional-mentors for the first time.
4
PHASE 1
Curatorial-Intensive 30 July - 06 August 2012 Led by Lead Facilitators, Gwangju Biennale 2008 (Position Papers) curator Professor Patrick Flores and Singaporean artistcurator Heman Chong, and an esteemed panel of guest speakers made up of practicing curators based across Asia, the workshop introduced the participants to critical curatorial practices and fundamental questions such as the roles and objectives in curating and contexts of practice. Over the one-week period, the participants attended a series of lectures, tutorials, and field trips to art spaces, and were exposed to the multifarious aspects of contemporary curating, often referenced to projects completed by the lecturers and their conceptual frameworks. Participants were to recognise the fluidity of curatorial perspectives, informed by the dynamics between curators, artists, objects, institutions and their contexts. With an emphasis on discussions and dialogue, the tutorial sessions encouraged participants to extend the conversations from the lectures, while new challenges were posed in developing curatorial concepts with a given set of parameters, thus pushing the participants to consider real situations and problems in exhibitionmaking. Each participant was also assigned a textual fragment, known as the 6 Modules, which contained curatorial propositions and their references, and were expected to carry these fragments with them through the duration of the programme, and continuously reflect and respond to these fragments. These exercises were complemented by journal writing and presentations, and the participants were encouraged to use the Curating Lab 2012 blog as a depository for their thoughts and writings. In addition, curatorial tours were also organised to allow the participants exposure to curatorial practices in relation to the spaces of specific local institutions. The participants made trips to the NUS Museum, Gillman Barracks, Singapore Art Museum and the National Museum of Singapore and had the opportunity to interact and dialogue with the respective curators of each space.
5
Clockwise from image above: (first 3) Tour around Institut Teknologi Bandung Fine Art Department’s studios | Artist J.A. Pramuhendra sharing his practice and experience with independent art space Platform3 | Tisna Sanjaya sharing about his art activism work in Cigondewah, Bandung, Indonesia | Group photo with Jim Supangkat, Agung Hujatnikajennong and Patrick Flores
6
PHASE 2
Internship
Regional Field Trip
13 August - 02 November 2012
10 - 12 September 2012
With the completion of the CuratorialIntensive phase, programme participants embarked on a three-month Internship programme where they were afforded the opportunity to work closely with practitioners across different spectrums of the arts and heritage industry, developing practical work skills to build upon the theoretical foundations from the workshop.
Not content with only providing exposure to local curatorial practices, the programme also included a regional field trip to Bandung, Indonesia, aiming to broaden the participants’ horizons and put into context curatorial practices in Singapore with the Southeast Asian region.
Participants were assigned internships with curator-mentors Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (NUS Museum), Tan Siuli (Singapore Art Museum) and Dr. David Teh (Future Perfect), undergoing a rigid syllabus of work conceptualised by their respective mentors while at the same time working towards the presentation of the final exhibition project.
Organised during the internship period, the Regional Field Trip was co-organised between NUS Museum and the Soemardja Gallery, Institut Teknologi Bandung. The field trip included visits to the Soemardja Gallery, Platform3 and Selasar Sunaryo Art Space. Participants were also afforded international networking opportunities through the presentations and discussion sessions with figures in the Bandung and Indonesian art scene such as Aminudin TH Siregar, Rizki A. Zaelani, Agung Hujatnikajennong and Jim Supangkat.
7
(L-R): Heman Chong in conversation with Pauline Yao and Cosmin Costinas for Curatorial Roundtable 01 | Moderator and NUS Museum Institutional-Mentor Shabbir Hussain Mustafa introducing the Curatorial Roundtable 02 session | Lilian Chee speaking to the audience with David Henkel and Erika Tan in the front row
(L-R): Alan Oei at Curatorial Roundtable 03 speaking about his experiences | Tan Shir Ee sharing about her projects | Khairuddin Hori engaging the audience in a lively discussion
(L-R): Institutional-Mentor David Teh moderating the Curatorial Roundtable 04 session | Speakers Darryl Wee, Arahmaiani and Chitti Kasemkitvatana | Patrick Flores opening the Roundtable with Jim Supangkat at Curatorial Roundtable 05
8
Curatorial Roundtable Series The programme also brought together curatorial and industry practitioners across different spectrums in a series of public Curatorial Roundtables to speak to participants about their practices and projects. The talks provided participants with a chance to engage, indepth, with exhibitionary practices that allowed them to develop a critical understanding of museums, curatorship and cultural representation. While presented primarily for programme participants, the Curatorial Roundtables was also an opportunity to bridge the gap and encourage interaction between curator and audience.
9
Exhibitions-in-the-making: photographs taken during the exhibition installation.
10
PHASE 3
Final Exhibition Project 17 January to 03 February 2013 During the internship period, the participants began conceptualising ideas for their final exhibition project, drawing up on curatorial knowledge they had acquired over the course of the programme. Tasked to plan, organise and execute this project, the participants were given the responsibility to manage all facets of the exhibition, while receiving guidance from their respective curator-mentors. The participants’ curatorial capabilities were further challenged with the use of a non-traditional gallery space in the meeting rooms at Goodman Arts Centre. Under the collective title Curating Lab: Phase 03, the participants presented three individual exhibitions, which shared a mutual objective in their attempts to draw attention to histories and the artefactual, their relationships and disjunctions, and the curatorial mediations that condition their production and consumption. The exhibitions strived to prompt provisional readings and trajectories of inquiries, hoping to inspire deeper thinking and self-reflection. The three exhibitions were: A History of Curating in Singapore presented by the Future Perfect group, after|thought presented by the Singapore Art Museum group, and Objectum presented by the NUS Museum group. The opening was held at Goodman Arts Centre on 17 January 2013, and the exhibition ran through to 3 February 2013.
11
12
A History of Curating in Singapore Curated by: Amanda Lee | Kathleen Ditzig | Kenneth Tay Kent Chan | Jennifer Lam | Rachelle Su
A History of Curating in Singapore is a proposition examining curatorial development in Singapore traced through the undertakings of the individual, state institutions and the artist. The exhibition is predicated on unpacking the strongly-held and at times individualistic beliefs of how art and ‘culture’ intersect in society, where the manifestation of the curatorial has often teased the lines of complicity and intervention. Bringing together anecdotal histories and fragments from the repertoire of key curatorial figures in Singapore’s art history, the exhibition reflects personalities, national policies and social climates that have contributed to the emergence of the ‘curatorial’ as a state of awareness and being, where agencies are negotiated and (re) played. A History of Curating in Singapore is then precedent in its attempt to present a history of curatorial practice in Singapore.
13
14
after|thought Curated by: Daryl Goh | Jane Koh | Ng Shiwen Riya de los Reyes | Stefanie Tham
after|thought interrogates the workings of the ‘Institution’ as a multifarious but coherent system that articulates and mediates a national consciousness of 9 August 1965 - the date of Singapore’s separation from the Malaysian Federation. Isolating the museum, the media, and mass education as key instruments of mediation, it ponders how one consumes and negotiates the national narrative in relation to our personal memories of 9 August 1965; and how, does this moment of separation recur amongst contemporary generations. Deployed within a classroom setting, artists Joel Yuen, Teow Yue Han and Tse Hao Guang explore these questions, taking as their departure point archival traces of 9 August 1965 presented to them by the curators. These undertakings into history are distanced by time and the immediacy of the contexts, but in harnessing gaps between contemporary imaginings and experience, the very act of representing something that can no longer be retrieved unfolds. after|thought provokes questions about how the institution and the individual agency becomes manifest as the spectres of separation continue to shape, reify or contradict conceptions or memories of the Singapore present.
15
16
Objectum Curated by: Kamiliah Bahdar | Tabitha Lee | Wong Lee Min Mohamed Ashraf bin Mohammed Yoonus
Objectum explores the ambiguity of commonplace objects within museum collections. Based on the understanding that objects in the museum are cherished more so for their capacity to produce meanings rather than any innate qualities, this exhibition explores how objects lacking in fixed identification are malleable to signification. Collaborating with curator and photographer Ken Cheong, Objectum revisits a 1995/6 exhibition at the Singapore History Museum (redeveloped into the National Museum of Singapore in 2006) titled Memories of Yesteryear, and the approximately 6000 daily life objects amassed by the Museum from 1994 to 2000. As a curatorial gesture, Objectum prompts an investigation into how easily things become embedded into discourses and therefore, how different spaces and agents, including museums, but also curators, artists and audiences, confer meanings onto objects.
17
Participants engaged in a cross-critique session
18
Final Essay To string together the Curatorial-Intensive, Internship and Regional Field Trip, participants were required to pen a 2,000 word Final Essay based on their respective textual fragments from the 6 Modules. Serving as a creative outlet for participants to express their thoughts, ideas, and experiences gained through the course of the programme, the essay was meant to be a reflective piece of writing. Facilitated by Heman Chong, the participants were first introduced to the textual fragments at the beginning of the workshop in a format that took after experiential performances devised for students, most recently being Advanced Studies... (Ten Lessons for Life) in 2012, which strived to complicate the dynamics of orating and listening, teaching and learning. Then, through multiple one-to-one conversations amongst themselves, the participants were tasked to explain selected curatorial propositions, and simultaneously shape and reshape their positioning and perspectives. At the end of the Internship period, the participants were reacquainted with the textual fragments as they begin to draft their essays. Drawing on new experiences gained through the internship at their respective institutions, the field trip to Bandung, Indonesia, and the preliminary discussions and brainstorming for their exhibition project, the participants were to build on these curatorial exposures and sensibility in their discourse. The collection of essays is arranged in accordance to the textual fragment assigned, and presented in its entirety with minimal editing.
19
20
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
01
“
It is common practice that artists collaborate with other artists to create ideas and art works. Increasingly, such approaches are deployed between artists and curators. The exhibition produced out of such contexts can sometimes be regarded as artworks. It is not uncommon for artists to be curators, and curators to be artists. Explore the notions of a ‘curatorial community’.
”
21
KAMILIAH BAHDAR In response to Fragment 01 CHARTING THE CONCEPTUAL TOPOGRAPHY OF AN EXHIBITION This essay will take on a decidedly confessional tone. With little to no formal understanding of art, much less any deep informal interactions with artists, I declare myself unqualified to discuss about artists, and their collaborations with other artists, in the creation of ideas and artworks. To attempt to do so would be pompous. And although I am taking what could be construed as a crash course in curating, that does not make me a curator. Hence, I do not identify with a curatorial community – assuming there is one – and therefore do not presume to explore the notions of it. But of all the fine points this particular module calls on me to discuss, having to pick one and run with, it would have to be on the exhibition. And even then, not ‘the exhibition’ as any sort of collective noun, but a exhibition – the one that I am currently working on with three other participants of Curating Lab (initially, there were four). We have been in discussion about the upcoming exhibition for nearly three months now, and from the very moment of pre-conception there has been a lot of meandering, much of it through the wobbly terrains of inchoate ideas and shaky curatorial frameworks. And with slightly just over a month to our opening night, there is a lot of meandering still. (I wonder how the other two groups are doing. Are they on more steady grounds? Do they move more surefootedly?) Before moving this discussion along more concrete lines, let me first sketch a brief topography of the different terrains we have been hopping through, backtracking now and again, and then out of there, passing through a stretch of plateau, mountains, and valleys, to find where we are now – which is a fair distance from where we first began. (Was it us who consciously moved through the terrain, or was it the conceptual topography that permutated organically?) We were exploring different systems of collecting and displaying outside of the museum context, dwelling notably on the avid comic collector. What are his reasons for collecting? How does he arrange his collection?
22
Which issues are given premier display locations and why? How are these prime issues displayed? And from one type of collector, we moved to another. It first began with an analogy, when the connection between the karang guni man and his habits of collecting and displaying were made akin to that of the curator; a curator as opposed to a collector, because the display was often for the public’s consumption rather than personal gratification. This analogy was developed further, with the role of artist and conservator added to the karang guni man’s vocation. From this focus on the actor himself, we shifted to the objects collected – the waste of modernity, the old forgotten junk left unwanted. And it was at this point that a slight fascination with Faizal Fadil and his Study of Three Thermos Flasks developed. There are two main strands that connected Faizal Fadil to the figure of the karang guni man. Study of Three Thermos Flasks is a readymade sculptural work that first exhibited at Sculpture in Singapore, which was curated by T.K. Sabapathy and held at the National Museum Art Gallery from 16 November to 15 December 1991. According to The Straits Times article published on 1 December 1991, Faizal Fadil bought his flasks for about five dollars each from Sungei Road.1 This local Duchampian figure had trawled Sungei Road for found objects – a location often associated with the karang guni man and the hawking of his junk-laden wares. And with that, the conceptual topography shifted. The ground swelled: the crust beneath us raised by another layer of deposited sediments, newly arrived postulations providing resources to build steadier curatorial frameworks and strategies. Attention was now paid to the socio-cultural landscape of Sungei Road, and we further explored it on 29 September 2012, a hot humid sweltering Saturday. Our search for the elusive Mr Poon Buck Seng, a karang guni personality we found on the Internet, brought us to Sungei Road where certain held assumptions were reformed. There, we met quite accidentally with an elderly Mr Tang – not a karang guni man (that would be insulting), but an antique dealer. We unearthed a very different type of space in how values of objects are negotiated. Our initial fixation on the agent as curator transposed itself to this space – we drew parallels Chew, Tze Ngee, “The National Sculpture Exhibition”, The Straits Times, 1 Dec 1991, p 20. 1
between Sungei Road and the art market. Sungei Road was an alternative value economy, and for a while, we played with the idea of colliding these two worlds in the exhibition. Contextualising Study of Three Thermos Flasks in the present, Faizal Fadil’s work is a disruption of both spaces. I would even posit that his is a liminal element, an object truly straddling the in-between. The Singapore Art Museum’s acquisition of Faizal Fadil’s Study of Three Thermos Flasks does not cement its position as artwork. At its exhibit in Intersecting Histories: Contemporary Turns in Southeast Asian Art, held at the ADM Gallery in September 2012, I noted that it still elicited the comment “Is that art?” from at least one casual viewer. Conversely, the thermos flasks remaking by the artist’s hand meant that it was not just a pedestrian object either. With this in mind, although possibly at the time it was not so explicit, we thought of exploring the mechanisms of status- and value-making by injecting disruptive elements into Sungei Road. What these elements were, how we would go about doing it, and to what point was something we had not quite formulated so precisely. And we never did. We shuffled instead to exploring the circulation of objects in the secondary goods market, and how its social life adds values of other kinds besides just monetary. This direction led us to a whole other area, far from where we started, though on hindsight, not too far. I certainly had to learn not to be too precious about ideas – that would not be productive otherwise. Where we first began, we thought of different contexts outside of the museum. Now we were jumping right back into the museum through the same pedestrian objects that interested us in the beginning, along with most of the ideas we explored in slightly new form. The conceptual landscape surrounding us was quite familiar. On Sungei Road, we spoke about the negotiation of value and the circulation of objects as goods. Yet, with the institution of the museum, it negates most value systems, and through an acquisition, removes these pedestrian objects from circulation to be held as inalienable.
my own subjectivity, and I would hazard a guess that if other members of my group were to chart a conceptual topography of this exhibition, it would be different. I was especially frustrated because I had thought of an exhibition as a text, written by an author. And I thought, “If an exhibition is a text embedded with a message, then having multiple authors would dilute that message.” And so I struggled with understanding what that message in our exhibition is, thinking it was diluted. There are of course large bodies of sources that debate this understanding of exhibition as text, with many problematising and rejecting it, but I am ill equipped to enter that debate now, at this point. I decided instead to revisit Clifford Geertz and his interpretive anthropology. This might not be an original thought, but what if we understood exhibitions to be symbolic gestures, like the Balinese cockfight? An exhibition is a symbolic gesture, like a wink, but on a larger scale. And curators are both performers of this gesture attempting to convey meaning, but also reflexive interpreters attempting to understand the context and giving a thick description of that gesture. In which case, collaboration is about working out an interpretation, a process that would not be as clear-cut as crafting a message, and would benefit from constant meandering. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chew, Tze Ngee, “The National Sculpture Exhibition”, The Straits Times, 1 Dec 1991, p 20. Geertz, C. (1973) The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays, 2000 edn, United States of America: Basic Books.
Before setting out to type away at this essay, I was feeling frustrated from all the meandering and ambiguity about where this exhibition is going. But coming to this point, I realise that ambiguity gave this collaboration with the other participants fluidity and flexibility. I would like to think that all of us were free to travel in different directions in the outer space of our minds, discuss those directions and converge together again. This essay itself was an exercise in the journey out to space on my part, but with an end point in sight, in an effort to make sense of where we were before. It is riddled with
23
DARYL GOH In response to Fragment 01 The fast-expanding role of a curator should be in consideration with the potential overlaps, complements, and contrasts with the role of an artist. Curators are becoming more involved in the production of meaning and the craft of curating has been increasingly read through the notions of artistry and creativity. The functions, roles, positions and influence that they exert has changed and created a new form of relationship between the general audience, the artists, and the art institution. Art critic and curator, Michael Brenson reflects these changes in an interesting way. He posits the following as key characteristics of a contemporary curator: diplomat, economist, aesthetician, critic, politician, audience developer, historian and marketer.1 Concurrently, artistic practices have expanded past the boundaries of the production of objects, and have incorporated other practices of collaborating, editing and interpreting. Some of them associate directly with the curator. Such expansion of roles has led to the blurring of lines between the artists and the curator, and the formation of the role, the “artist/curator”.
Manifestations of the artist as curator are connected to moments where they took it upon themselves to reform the socially decreed politics regarding their profession, thereby redefining the cultural status of works of art.
The term “artist/curator” is employed to describe artists who curate. This function may be purely pragmatic. For instance, if there is no one else to do the job, or if they perceive a significant gap in the work being presented and exhibited by other curators and institutions. Paul Couillard of Curators in Context, suggest that “It is important to remember that there has always been curating done by artist – and there are many models whereby artists have taken responsibility for the exhibition and dissemination of their work”.2 In fact, this practice goes back to 1648 in France where a group of court artists sent a petition to King Louis XIV to request the establishment of a Royal Academy of Painting, which would distinguish their work from the artisan trades. To make their case, they exhibited a grand display of works that glorified the monarch and demonstrated that painting was dedicated to the pursuit of virtue. The Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was eventually secured alongside academies in Holland, England and Italy. With it, the status of the new academic artist as a professional came with a big distinction from the guilded tradesman. It is not a coincidence that such practices were announced at a time where art and its relations to criticism and curation were undergoing intense professionalism.
In his essay, which was included in Jens Hoffmann’s 1993 project “The Next Documenta Should be Curated by an Artist”, John Baldessari writes that, “Curators seemingly want to be artists. Architects want to be artists. I don’t know if this is an unhealthy trend or not. What disturbs me is a growing tendency for artists to be used as art materials, like paint, canvas, etc. I am uneasy about being used as an ingredient for an exhibition recipe, i.e., to illustrate a curator’s thesis. A logical extreme of this point of view would be for me to be included in an exhibition entitled ‘Artists Over 6 Feet 6 Inches’, since I am 6’7”. Does this have anything to do with the work I do? It’s sandpapering the edges off the art to make it fit a recipe”. The fear about this notion of the curator as an artist is echoed by curator Robert Storr as he expresses his refusal to call curating a medium since it ‘automatically conceded the point to those who will elevate curators to the status critics have achieved through the “auteurization” process’.3 Storr also situates the origins of the idea of the curator as artist in Oscar Wilde’s 1890 essay “The Critic as Artist” which theorised the eye of the beholder producing the work of art. Storr concludes, “No I do not think that curators are artists. And if they insist, then they will ultimately be judged bad curators as well as bad artists”.4 This ends
1 2
24
Quoted in Kelly, Noel. “Artists and Curators”,1998. Quoted in video interview, “Curating as Art Making”, http:// curatorsincontext.ca/en/talk.php?id=6
On the other hand, the term “curator/artist”, works within a different set of circumstances. As the role of the curator shifts towards further participation in the production of meaning, curatorial work could be justified as creative or artistic in ways that would have been difficult to conceive of in its more conventional and custodial state. The increased potential for creativity led to the rise of what could be described as the ‘auteur curator’. This model positions the curator as a visionary, with the exhibition as his medium of communication. The curator/artist usually works independently rather than within an institution or organisation. Such a curatorial role has often been the target of criticism, particularly in terms of subsuming the artists and works within his vision. Harald Szeemann, the curator of Documenta 5 in 1972, is perhaps the typical auteur curator.
Quoted in Rugg, Judith. Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, p 21. 4 Ibid 3
up reiterating the divide between artist and curator that inadvertently returns the power of judgment to the critic. Despite this negativity, we can look at the “curator/artist” with a more positive glance. The “curator/artist” model might be a means of identification or style of practice, and a way to articulate and define one’s own practice on personal terms. It is also often suggested that the contemporary curator does not occupy a fixed authorial position but rather, constantly shift in relation to artists, artworks, and institutions. It is clear that the curator’s role cannot be considered as a static set of actions or decisions, but rather, a dynamic and fluid process that constantly shifts and evolves in response to dialogues, conflicts and collaborations. Curated exhibitions were likened to Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Readymade Aided’ artworks, where the display or exhibition is aided by the curator’s ‘manipulation of the environment, the lighting, the labels, the placement of other works of art’. The role of the curator has come to occupy a deliberately less academic stance, often embodying a more participatory or hands-on function. The contemporary curator is sometimes a radically secularised artist. He is an artist because he does everything artists do. But he is an artist who has lost the artist’s aura, one who no longer has magical powers at his disposal, who cannot endow objects with art’s status. He does not use objects but rather abuses them and makes them profane. This makes the figure of the contemporary curator attractive and so essential in today’s artistic landscape. As such, curators are no longer limited to being critical observers but are increasingly understood as instigators, subjective participants actively defining or redefining art and culture. It may be tough to give a concrete definition to the curator. However, its role is simply – to respond to what artists propose. An issue that comes into place is regarding the artist as a curator, exhibiting his own work. Is this a good practice? Firstly, artist as curator brings a fresh eye with new and unexpected choices. A basic argument is that if his work fit the standard of the exhibition, all is well. The question is not so much of why they should not include themselves, but why should they? Regardless of whether the work fits the standards of the show, its inclusion comes across on the ground viewer as selfserving. It is difficult to see how this type of show helps in the artist’s career. If they list on their resume that they exhibited their work with an impressive line up of artists, they would have to mention their part in selecting them as well. If they omit the latter, it comes across as ethical violation.
the curation of a large exhibition as mainly a large marketing tool for the art world without having anything to do with art. While exhibitions are also markets for the exchange of ideas, art still has a purpose to remodel and represent the world. In the end it seems to be an unbeatable system, and in some ways the exhibition is still an interesting and fluid medium. Who should curate it then? An artist, a curator, a carpenter? Just as long as the person has a vision, social and organisational skills, the result will be hated and also loved. No matter how the curators for shows are chosen, or what profession they come from, it is important that the curator is, at the end of the day, only a ‘partner in crime’ alongside the artists. He should be respectful of the creative autonomy and expectations of the artist. The job of curating becomes a sophisticated form of an intellectual discourse that sometimes positions itself on parallel to that of an artist. The challenge is to creatively negotiate a balance between the desire for critical and artistic authorship, the needs of the artists, and the struggle to develop new avenues and audiences. Bibliography Baldessari, John/ “Documenta…”, The Next Documenta Should be Curated by an Artist, 2003. Web. http://www.e-flux.com/projects/next_doc/ john_baldessari.html/ Bank, Darryl. “Artist-Curator”, Curators in Context, Toronto, 2008. Web. http://curatorsincontext. wikispaces.com/Artist-Curator/ Kelly, Noel. “Artists and Curators”, Visual Artists Ireland, Art Journal, Vol. 57, 1998. Web. http://visualartists. ie/resources/infopool-2/professional-pathways/ artists-and-curators/ Rugg, Judith. Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Print.
Many believe that artists have increasingly become puppets to fill the shoes of the curator. Some regard
25
KENNETH TAY In response to Fragment 01 Collaborative practices between artists are nothing new, however tempting it is to fetishise the Internet as the great enabler today. In fact, there is a tendency to invoke a continuum between contemporary collaborative practices and modernist art collectives (such as the Dadaists or the Surrealists). But as Nikos Papastergiadis notes, the “precursors of contemporary forms of collaborations were incomplete or partial manifestations, insofar as they failed to develop the organizational potential” necessary to radically position collectivisation as a vital and primary artistic solution (160). Today, supercharged by the global imperative of speed and with the Internet as its apotheosis, collaborations between artists are coming thick and fast. At the risk of invoking a cliché here, globalisation has ‘shrunk’ temporal and spatial distances not without the help of new information technologies. This has led to increased encounters and confluences between communities spread out across the world and consequently, that of networks between artists to be formed at an encouraging frequency. For that reason, dialogues between artists have frequently gone beyond the provincial, the local, or the parochially defined. Rather than the usual romanticised myth of the artist as a heroic figure critiquing the immediate community s/he is embedded in, contemporary collaborative practices have witnessed artists from (ostensibly) disparate communities coming together, at least momentarily, to engage in a common cause or interest. To paraphrase the curator Okwui Enwezor here, collaborative practices today are much more project-based than permanent alliances established between different artists (Papastergiadis 165). The implication here is that the flexibility of membership in contemporary collaborations has privileged a ‘blitzkrieg’ effect that the modernists could never quite pull off. But more importantly, Enwezor’s observation recalls what Gayatri Spivak terms as “strategic essentialism”. Spivak’s term is particularly useful here since it suggests that groups with different views or political ends can nevertheless band together in order to rally for a common and provisional ground forward, through a “strategic use of essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest” (205). In other words, collaborations on a short term basis have allowed today’s artists to take progressive steps forward, and often in quick successions, rather
26
than remaining static in the obstinate insistence of irreducible differences between one another. This comes hardly as a surprise, given how much of twentieth-century critical discourses have often attacked the cult of the individual as perpetuated by the bourgeois ideals of liberal humanism -- which, it needs to be said, has not left us entirely just yet (Barry 3035). The ‘collaborative turn’ in contemporary art is very much a late descendent of this movement, with the emphasis on the collective spearheading the critique of globalisation and its discontents. If the typical account of globalisation presupposes a homogenisation, it has only conveniently masked over the fault-lines that global capitalism has created and maintained1. That is to say, the homogenising effect of globalisation has only exacerbated the need to assert differences, or in fact radical differences, and further complicated by the capitalist injunction to ‘be yourself’. In other words, globalisation is much more devastating when it encourages a recourse to irreducible (local) differences. To remain adamant of one’s individuality against the backdrop of global homogenisation is to fall right into the chasms. Therefore, collaborations between artists today must be seen as an attempt not to liquidate local differences, but to strategically navigate between differences and common political motivations, and to mount an attack against a global order that insists perversely on the dichotomy between the global and the local, between pure homogeneity and absolute differences. Another reason behind the political efficacy of today’s collaborative practices among artists has been the despecialisation of artistic disciplines and professions2. From the artist-curator to the interdisciplinary artist, it is becoming increasingly rare to find artists today who are merely involved in one project, or a singular medium for the matter. Although it is unclear and certainly debatable whether this has necessarily led to ‘lesser’ art being As Stuart Hall notes, globalisation always involves both homogenisation and the creation of new differences; it engenders a “double movement” that is both “local and global at the same moment” (27). 2 In this, I am also suggesting that every artistic production or collaboration is inescapably a political gesture insofar as it is always already an active intervention. Or to put it more succinctly, it is the “active and partisan nature of presentation” (Charlesworth 92). 1
produced, the political implications of de-specialisation are much less so. In his criticism of modernism’s avant-garde practices, Jürgen Habermas argued that the distance between “expert cultures and the general public has increased. What the cultural sphere gains through specialised treatment and reflection [as per the modernists] does not automatically come into possession of everyday practice without more ado” (45, italics in original). I should probably add that this is not an attempt to rehash or recapitulate the infamous Habermas-Lyotard debate over the role of art in the post/modern. Having said that, it is worthwhile here to pursue Habermas’ criticism since it does suggest that de-specialisation affords a resistance against hermetic practices amongst artists further exacerbated by an appetite for theoretical complications and neologisms. For that reason, de-specialisation should be greeted as a welcomed movement since it keeps artists and their practices much closer to the ground instead of flying off on solipsistic flights of the tangential imagination. If esoteric specialisation on the part of individual artists had often closed off the doors for potential collaborations, de-specialisation encourages a fluidity that consequently favours collaborative practices. Put crudely, de-specialisation provides greater access and involvement. Here, I would like to suggest that it is perhaps much more useful to understand individuals working under the aegis of de-specialisation today as ‘cultural producers’. It should be noted of course that de-specialisation does not end solely as a deterritorialisation of an artistic discipline; but rather, it also involves a reterritorialisation or reconfiguration that avoids the impasses or deadlocks of disciplined constipation. In this sense, artistic or technical disciplines are deterritorialised and reterritorialised into a more general notion of cultural (co)production. Before one speaks of a ‘curatorial community’ then, it is important to recognise the solidarity that potentially emerges the minute one sees him or herself first as a fellow cultural producer motivated by a common cause of proffering the best of what has been thought or said. If one were to take recourse to the etymology of the word ‘curate’, it would lead us down the path of ‘caring’. Would this solidarity between fellow cultural producers encapsulate precisely this compassion? Instead of disciplined insularity, a curatorial community is one that encourages a dialogical engagement with one another’s thoughts and works. This is not to suggest that everyone rubs and lubes up the right way in the naive sense - i.e. “oh everything is so wonderful here!” On the contrary, a curatorial community is one where members would not hesitate to go all the way in their criticisms of one another. I am not invoking a tough love
policy, but I do believe that honest criticism is the most basic courtesy that goes a long way for a curatorial community -- if the emphasis should be placed on care and compassion. It may also be said that members of a curatorial community function as interlocutors or catalysts for one another. In that sense, I would like to think of the curatorial community as one that is constantly in the backdrop of collaborative practices today: While the latter may be orientated around short term projects and goals, it is the former’s continued emphasis on compassion that precedes and exceeds every iteration of the latter. After all, it has to be readily admitted that even within the strategic essentialism that characterises contemporary collaborations, there is always going to be a group or voice that dominates. It would therefore be disingenuous to pretend that there would not be any asymmetry within the collaborative. But this would not justify a call to abandon the project; rather, it only means that members must care enough not only for one another’s common interests, but also care enough to know when to leave or to concede to one another that their collective dream might well be over. This, I claim, would be the ‘spirit’ of the curatorial community which comes back to an engagement with the cult of the individual, or the myth of the individual talent/genius, that is still working in tandem with globalisation today to devastating effects. Within the curatorial community then is a mixture of artists, curators, critics, etc. who fundamentally look at themselves as co-producers of meanings -- and perhaps much more importantly, coproducers of a culture where care extends beyond the respective objects/objectives and onto one another. To conclude, I would just to draw attention also to the way the word ‘curate’ has been thrown around to cover anything from the custodianship of museums and galleries down to cafes claiming to serve only ‘curated coffees’. The latter case is much more than a marketing strategy based on its alliterative effect; in fact, it suggests that the word ‘curate’ has become the word par excellence to describe a thoughtful selection or an exercise in good taste against the cultural white noise that we are flooded with in today’s highlymediatised society. First though, consider what critic JJ Charlesworth observes of the recent fascination with curating: This increase in attention is not merely the product of a more acute sensitivity to the appointment of people to powerful positions within art’s institutions, although that does have something to do with it, especially with the unprecedented expansions of venues for the presentation of contemporary art that has characterized the
27
last ten years, a trend particularly evident in the growth of international biennial exhibitions. More significant, however, is the attention paid to the character of the curatorial endeavour itself, as something not innocent or neutral, but loaded ideologically, epistemologically and institutionally, and in which a consideration of such implications are explicitly rehearsed by curators themselves. (92) History (and even etymology itself) has shown that the meaning of a word is bound to change over time, subjected to local parole. It would therefore be rather silly to hold on obstinately to an immutable meaning for the word ‘curate’. Having said that, it still seems necessary, to me, that a curatorial community must in the first place care, and care enough, about the semantics of the word ‘curate’ itself, least the word becomes yet another signifier so defused of meaning as to find itself signifying everything and nothing all at once. According to Charlesworth, the word ‘curating’ is “a neologism so recent that dictionaries have not yet caught up” (91). While I am not about to suggest that a curatorial community play the role of a zealous ‘thought police’ guarding over its sacred word, it does seem to me only logical to propose that the first order of the day for any curatorial community is to care about the very word that defines the identity of the community -i.e. to pay attention not only to how the word is being used, abused, and stretched out so far as to disappear beyond the vanishing point of its hermeneutic horizon. For that reason, ‘curating’ is the first object that a curatorial community necessarily must be a custodian over. Obviously, the difference between authority and custodianship must be maintained here. While it may be the curatorial community’s prerogative to guard against a potential atrophy of the word itself, there must be, at the same time, this insistence of maintaining the yet-to-be-determined future of the word ‘curate’ itself. This is after all the bare minimum, the ground zero, of curating. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, 3rd ed., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print. Charlesworth, JJ. “Curating Doubt” Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Ed. Michele Sedgwick and Judith Rugg. Bristol: Intellect, 2007. Print. 91-99.
28
Habermas, Jürgen. “Modernity: An Unfinished Project” Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Ed. Maurizio Passerin d’Entrèves and Seyla Benhabib. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997. Print. 38-55. Hall, Stuart. “The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity” Culture, Globalization,and the World-System. Ed. Anthony D. King. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1997. Print. 19-40. Papastergiadis, Nikos. Cosmopolitanism and Culture. Cambridge: Polity, 2012. Print. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen, 1987. Print.
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
02
“
Information, as a body of knowledges and ideas, is synonymous to the ‘internet’ landscape. Its volume and accessibility provides a readymade resource for curators to mine. Appropriating sets of knowledge as a basis for exhibitions is commonplace, often adopted as a predefined strategy. The internet and its ‘raw materials’, in its organization and contents, can also be readily assimilated into an exhibition.
”
29
KENT CHAN In response to Fragment 02 Taking a step back, this thought experiment would appear to invite questioning. One can’t help but wonder if the experiment was rigged from the start, whereby its introduction had inevitably conditioned our own encounter with the curatorial. Whether it was the participants that were examining the different propositions or the propositions becoming an examination of the participants. But beyond the initial suspicion, it is tempting to want to agree with the proposition. In that it seems already a given fact, albeit one built upon a generalised point of view. While the Internet is indeed made up of, amongst other things, information, it is not to say that information is necessarily the Internet. There is a degree of generalisation and assumption in the wording of the proposition, but what it does point to, is that information acquisition in the everyday is very often derived via the use of the Internet. And that the Internet has grown to condition the way we process different sets of information. To view the two as interchangeable as proposed by the proposition would entail the need to adopt particular frameworks in our perspectives.
the Internet is through representation, by way of a graphic user interface (GUI). The Internet itself is a vast network of information and data. Hence, whenever we access the Internet, what we encounter is not only information, but through the visual interface also the very ordering of information – an ontological overlap. The Internet not only allows us to access information, it enables us to encounter Information. Encountering not just the information as content, but also information as form, similar to conceptual art practice. Just as how websites order different sets of knowledge, curating too involves the organisation of objects each embodying its own unique set of knowledge. Thus, a vis-à-vis transposition that is increasingly commonplace with the proliferation of the Internet within the everyday and curatorial practice. A curatorial consciousness
The Internet and conceptual art practices
Within the same article Groys suggests, drawing reference to Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic discourse, the expansion of the Internet and its functions has simultaneously created platforms that allowed a wide expanse of the public to participate in the creation of aesthetic experiences and to engage in aesthetic judgment.
In the context of art and/or exhibition making, one would likely look to conceptual art practices as providing such a framework. In drawing the links between the Internet and conceptual art practices, Boris Groys writes:
As this phenomenon continues to grow, we also find the popularisation of the term curating in non-traditional art historical context that correlates with an increasing “aesthetic self-consciousness” as mentioned by Groys:
Today, contemporary networks of communication like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter offer global populations the possibility of presenting their photos, videos and texts juxtaposed in ways that cannot be distinguished from those of many postconceptualist artworks. The visual grammar of a website is not too different from the grammar of an installation space. Through the Internet, conceptual art today has become a mass cultural practice.1
We become aware of our own existence, our own subjectivity, when we are endangered by another subjectivity—through struggle, in conflict, in the situation of existential risk taking that could lead to death. Now, analogously, we can speak of an “aesthetic self-consciousness” that emerges, not when we look at a world populated by others, but when we begin to reflect upon our own exposure to the gaze of others. Artistic, poetic, rhetorical practice is none other than self-presentation to the gaze of the other, presupposing danger, conflict and risk of failure.2
Groys in pointing out the visual grammar of the Internet draws attention to the fact that the way we encounter Introduction – Global Conceptualism Revisited, e-flux journal, 2011, Boris Groys
I would like to also draw attention to Jacque Ranciere’s
1
30
2
Ibid
concept of the aesthetic regime. In place of modernism, the aesthetic regime is what Ranciere has come to define the art historical period beginning in the 19th century stretching on to this day. It is important to note that the extent of Ranciere’s aesthetic regime far extends beyond the domain of artistic development, but extends to the broader social and political changes, reconstituting the distribution of the sensible. A key component to Ranciere’s theory is the identification of aesthetics and political as belonging to the same field rather than autonomous of each other. Over the course of the Curating Lab programme, my group had coined the term, “curatorial consciousness”, which we grown to use loosely amongst ourselves. The term draws much from both Groys and Ranciere in describing an awareness of the aesthetic ordering of things. While Groys talks of an aesthetic selfconsciousness, a curatorial consciousness denotes the awareness of the aesthetic relationships that permeates between aspects of contemporary society. Echoing Ranciere, the aesthetics overlaps with the political in that the ordering is determinant upon the systemic links that constitutes the basis of urban societies. Central to this idea of a curatorial consciousness is the issue of autonomy, in that the autonomy involved in the making of objects and/or aesthetic choices are often deferred in lieu of the relationships that are implicated by the decisions. Again, here we can identify the lineage to conceptual art practices, in particular the relationships between the artist and the institution. We can trace the developments from the institutional critique of the 60s to its current evolution, whereupon the relationship of the artist agent and the institution at times take the form of convenient bedfellows. Institution and autonomy While he was president, Bill Clinton once asked his staff to name an aspect of their lives that the government does not play a role in. The staff were unable to name any examples, which was his way of illustrating how almost every aspect of our lives is in part institutionalised by the state. This is especially true within the context of Singapore, where its lack of size means a heightened proximity between the institution and individuals. This is particularly evident when working with my assigned group, who amongst the members include an architect turned urbanist, arts administrator, arts researcher, magazine writer/editor, a literature major and myself whose background is in film and media, there is a tendency to find overlaps amongst our
respective fields. While some are uncovered in part due to our want for finding them, some overlaps are more obvious, such as those between the areas of urban planning and the arts administration. While working on our exhibition, titled A History of Curating in Singapore, at nearly every turn we would find the state playing an important role in the development of curating in Singapore, whether directly or indirectly. Particularly proliferation of curating in recent years, which is very much attributed to government related policies and initiatives. Curating Lab being the most immediate and explicit example, but in truth, the connection goes far beyond that. The envisioning of the city by the government through its various master plans over the decades has had a direct impact upon the conditions that had enabled developments of the city and artistic practices. The development of museums within the city and its arts developmental policies are clear examples of the government effecting change. This has resulted in the group often seeing the state as a form of meta-curator enacting its conception of the city that parallels the practice of contemporary curating. Needless to say, the effecting of political and economical aims are at the crux of these master plans, but at the same time there are also undoubtedly aesthetic ramifications. Returning to the idea of a curatorial consciousness, there is a significant degree of aesthetic ordering involved in these policies and master plans. From the allocation of space for artistic activities to the way in which culture and artistic practice is defined, and tolerated within the public sphere. Here, the word ordering is particularly important as the ordering is two-fold, one of which is the aesthetic and the other political, as defined by the state’s top-down approach and the systematic trickling down and execution of its plans through its various agencies. So while these state plans are contrasted with curating, the distinction lies in their intended result; exhibition making and curating is at best speculative, while government policies enact actual change. Drawing on an example from the group, one of the common threads that emerge has been the dichotomy between the artist and curator. Partly due to the role that we assume for the Curating Lab programme – the curator, the dichotomy is reinforced and often carefully toed. While the group takes no issue with the exhibition as a meta-artwork, we are however keenly aware of the difference between the kind of gestures performed by an artist from those of a curator, and the implications
31
that could be read. The process of negotiations between artist and curator is paramount in retaining both parties’ autonomy. The physical and the embodied Returning to the proposition, a possible criticism of it is that it does not take into account the importance of the physicality of objects or information that is embodied. For one, the usage of the Internet itself obscures the physical nature of the apparatus by which we access it. As noted by Groys: The standard internet user is, as a rule, concentrated on the computer screen and overlooks the corporate hardware of the internet— all those monitors, terminals and cables that inscribe it into contemporary industrial civilization. That is why the Internet has conjured for some the dreamlike notions of immaterial work and the general intellect within a post-Fordist condition. But these are software notions. The reality of the Internet is its hardware.3 The physical historicity of objects is further lost amidst the Internet. The Internet, for all its expanded capabilities, is unable to manifest objects that are defined by their physical attribute and replicate the way they relate to space on the Internet. The information on the Internet does not age as how artifacts do. They become dated, outdated, but they do not age. Similarly, what is interesting in the proposition is that the premise that it communicate, has to be embodied by the participants over the course of the programme. The proposition questions itself through its execution. Conclusion The Internet however ubiquitous in our everyday lives does not constitute the lived world. While it may seem like a plausible methodology for certain forms of exhibition, as a curatorial framework there remain limitations in its applicability for the full spectrum of exhibition making. After all, a fair amount of the world’s information does not exist or would not exist on the Internet as they do in reality. Much of the activities in the world are still enacted physically, particularly outside the developed world, and a vast amount of information is exchanged and derived through these physical contact and 3
32
Ibid
interactions. To ignore the physical realities of the world in favour of the digital is not merely a choice, but also in itself a matter of politics. BIBLIOGRAPHY Groys, Boris. “Global Conceptualism Revisited”. e-flux journal, 2011. Web. Retrieved from http:// www.e-flux.com/journal/introduction—globalconceptualism-revisited
JANE KOH In response to Fragment 02 THE RISE OF THE CURATED WEB To deny the presence of the “internet” landscape is idiocracy, its presence may be felt and is obviously changing the way which we perceive our everyday. As one witnesses Iran’s ‘Twitter revolution’ to Facebook’s ‘activism’, we cannot help but pause to wonder or wander in its ambiguity. For those who wish to embrace its virtuality, one can be pleasantly surprised that learning to ride this tidal wave requires more than clever presentation but a passion for critical selection and keen sense of social authorship. “The Critical Edge of Curating”1 a conference organised by international independent curators touched on this following framework: Authorship and Agency, Site-Specificity, Curating as Activism: the Social Responsibility of the Museum and Transnational Currents. While curating the virtual web can critically be assessed within such, I will be narrowing my essay down to the topic of authorship and agency, in view of it coinciding with my most recent research paper and my current curiosity of the definition of curator in contemporary light. In my final year thesis, Diary.sg, my research work particularly investigated the social phenomena of social media culture among young female Netizens. In this project, I delved into the sociology and psychology of notable online bloggers engaging the subject on issues about their online versus their domestic identity. Collaborating with the Information Engineering and Media (IEM) school, I interviewed, conceptualised and juxtaposed their online and offline dwellings in to an augmented reality installation. Recently, Mike Michael’s Technoscience and Everyday Life opened me up to themes about critical theory of the multiplicity of ‘new’ technoscientific societies in circulation and perhaps the performativity of these virtual societies.2 It fuelled my understanding of the current shift of culture “re-configuration” on the World Wide Web and supported many observations made in my findings in Diary.sg, such as the pluralities of identities, mundanity and alienation of reality, mass consumption of visceral information and the blurring of The Critical Edge of curating. Retrieved from http://curatorsintl.org/journal/the_critical_edge_of_curating 2 Michael, Mike (2003) Technoscience and the Everyday [13). Open University. 1
the private and public sphere etc. Perhaps to set the idea of authorship and agency into more historical overview, Brittan Morin from the Huffington Post3 wrote a piece which enlightened me about observations made in web curating. Basically, it all started with the printing press, then, media- radio, newspaper, television and magazines. We witnessed technology playing a crucial role in information distribution and being meticulously curated by professionals or in other extend known as editors. With the turn of this century, and the uprising of the Internet, we saw how search engines became the ultimate distributor of information with regards to speed and volume. In recent years, social media platforms such as Google have somewhat taken the onus to “curate” by filtering the search engine to your influences. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter create an outlet for the authorship and agency of the individual to weave their own narrative or re-post information at present. With the influx in massive amount of information, what is the role of curating then and who has the right to be the thought leader? What are the differences of editing (re-posting) versus curating (how do we create, share and learn new ideas together?). Rather, who are the new “intellectuals” or some might like to think “advant garde” of our times? How will virtual curating place a threat to accuracy of the real as mentioned? One thing is for certain that with the rise of online tools for self expression and consumption, we will witness a rise of “hipster” culture. A recent New York Times article, featured Bourdieu, a French sociologist, who found out that the view of “taste” and how “superior” taste was not the resultant of charm of the elites but rather how rigid and arbitrary the local conformities were.4 This exposes that the “social class” and the “advant gardes” were born out of the need for strategy and competition for social dominance. With social media tools enabling authorship and agency, let’s brace ourselves to witness one’s assertion of their personal brand image and exhibitionist behavior for the sake of being crowned the king of the social media cafeteria. The Curated Web. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brittany-morin/the-curated-web_b_1096186.html 4 The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The Hipster in the Mirror, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/ review/Greif-t.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnn lx=1361127746-S+bT2/84M8D8fBKMGIqImw 3
33
Figure 1: Portraits from the Diary.sg series
Figure 2: Augmented reality software in gallery space
Figure 3: Augmented reality software in gallery space
34
Figure 4: Campaign City: Life In Posters exhibition at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library in National Library Building
These are critical questions that we ought to explore and perhaps in time, with practice, have more assurance and clarity of knowing our own position. All in all, I can say the least from my experience from interviewing Singapore’s blog stars, that if one so desires to master the virtual web, it helps to be bold and have a wealth of experience to share, people appreciate connecting to such. To end, I will feature a recent artwork done for Campaign City (Fig. 4) about the Singapore technocentric and consumerist culture to evoke questions about our tomorrow.
35
TABITHA LEE In response to Fragment 02 A candid account: I am not good with words. Hence, allow me a moment to mentally break this paragraph down. Right, so this body of text praises the resources readily available on the internet. The quantity of information really allows one to start with the familiar click, and into a wonderland of curiosity and fascination. I often find myself getting lost in Wikipedia – Often starting with a specific search, I would often find myself linking from that one searched page to another, without a trace of memory of what linked me to the latest page. Even in the course of Curating Lab, the tapping of the resources available online has been quite inevitable. In fact, the basic fact-finding was done online! One weblink to another, coupled with our imaginations and other texts, the concept grew in structure and form. Steven Johnson clearly puts our experience into words, “chance favours the connected mind”. The internet has also allowed us to have easier and quicker access to things we are interested in! I learnt how sgcool.sg could be utilised to run a quick search on stored items via their accession numbers. In fact, almost everything can be done via the internet. This thought came to mind – how much fun would it be to curate a show via the internet. Imagine booking the venue, liaising with artists, art handlers, gallery sitters etc., all via email or internet connections, hope for the best, and hope everything turns out perfectly. Just a random thought, but hey! Definitely worth a try. The internet and its vast readily available resources and knowledge give rise to 2 main issues. First, the debate on the term “curator,” and how its pervasiveness has brought about curators who fight for their rights to stay offline. Issue 1 | The C-word. Curators are increasingly using the internet in the multiple phases of exhibiting. Well, that we all know. But what about the way internet brings a new wave of “curators”? The kinds not formally engaged by institutions, or those of academic qualification. These new types of “curators” I am wondering about are those who manage content of interest, and carefully display or make available to public viewing, all with the advent of the internet. Some proudly bestow the C-word upon themselves, while most managers of content often operate simply out of interest, or aren’t even aware they curate.
36
According the dictionary, (y’know, the built-in ones in your MacBooks) a curator is one who is a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection. Doesn’t that mean everyone is some sort of curator? To be honest, I hoard the silliest items. From French macaroon boxes to stickers from pasar malams (our local night markets), used in a variety of ways. I post pictures on Instagram, but before I do, I spend a bit of time to make sure they look presentable, as well as omitting boring pictures. I repost interesting videos and articles on Facebook that I deem worth sharing with those around me. Does that make me a curator of some sorts as well? Back to the internet and curating. With the rise of social media/blogging sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest, do we also see a rise in lay-curators who manage and disseminate content of their choice to the world around them? Is this not similar to a hired curator going through the processes of selection, acquisition, and designing to display items in a public arena? Enough with the rhetorical questions; I have come to learn that the internet has indeed perpetuated the advent of lay-curators. Not that it is something worrying (in my opinion). However, there is the ongoing debate about the term curation, and what it means for a layperson that happens to disseminate materials of interest to be called a curator. Some curators are of the opinion that the term “curator” has been devalued. These curators work hard at their jobs, gunning for the perfect exhibition, while these youngsters sit comfortably at their laptops or with their iPhones, reposting somewhat artsy pictures and quotes on Tumblr, or putting their entire life in pictures on Instagram. By definition, these people do cut it as curators. They take the pains to consider if the possessed contents are of any interest (not necessarily to be public interest in certain occasions). These are obvious content curators that make it a practice to find content and share them. Some of these content curators may be of influential status (given the vast fans/ followers “liking” or sharing their posts), which only gives them further validation of their chosen content and the impetus to share more content. However, “former actual curator” turn writer, Choire Sicha calls such people “filthy bloggers” or “lowgrade collectors”. While I am quite shocked at his choice of words, it shows one extreme polar end of the debate on the term “curator.” While Sicha is on one end of the spectrum, there are many people for the looser usage of the term. Many actual curators are turning to the internet to give internet
users a feel of their space, and what they can expect in the museum or exhibition. Many museums do up their websites beautifully. Pictures are carefully taken and chosen to best present their galleries. They hope their website visitors enjoy the pictures and virtual tours, in the hopes that they (the visitors) in turn share the links with their friends via online methods. If interested, the layperson/curator then selects a medium of sharing. As such, how can the institutional curator then devalue the notion of the layperson as a curator when they depend on these people to spread their ideas creatively? It is quite impossible to remove the layperson from the notion of curating entirely as the internet has drawn the layman and the curator much closer. Virtually. By removing the curatorship notion from the laypeople simply based on the disapproval of their virtual methods might be shooting oneself in the foot, especially if one’s institution relies heavily on the internet for various purposes (from what I can think off, off the top of my head: to attract visitors, acquire items etc.) This debate on the issue of the notion “curating” gets a little on my nerves. While some work really hard to earn the title of a curator, the term is also used to describe people in general who find content and share them. However, I feel that this is quite a small issue, and not worth all the name calling/rude language. In my opinion, it is because the term is used due to the lack of any other word to clearly describe the notion of selecting and caring for items in a collection. Well, that’s also proven according to my searches on the thesaurus (on my trusty MacBook and a general search on thesaurus.com.) Hence, I would not be too nitpicky about such terms until a better word can be found. Issue 2 | The right to stay offline Here we see another issue brought up with internet playing an increasingly larger role in our lives. With the burgeoning pervasiveness of the internet, and increasing computer literacy, (as touched on above) many museums are pushing to be as tech savvy as they can. The demands of the audience also shift towards desiring more information on museum websites. Many museums seize the opportunity to grab the interests of potential visitors. This might have added an extra burden on the backs of curators – to curate information online for the institution, its website and the general public. Many curators struggle to keep up with the ever-changing waves of technology. Especially those from the older and more technologically conservative generations. I mean, younger curators should have no problem coping with these changes, more so if they are used to using such technology on a daily basis. But what about the older generations - folks who struggle when forming a text message on their under-utilised
smartphones, or have Facebook accounts with only their children as their friends – who cannot adapt to these changes quickly? When they applied for their jobs, such seemingly arduous tasks were not on their job description. Hence, their reason for not wanting to use the internet is valid! I wouldn’t say who is right or wrong, but because the internet and all the technology involved are really moving at mind-blowing speeds, our demands shift to suit technology even faster. We all want things fast, be it information, resources or loading speeds. While the internet brings many benefits to the curator in research, it also brings about the common use of the term to describe ordinary people who take care and pride in their sharing of content, only to be met with heavy and perhaps harsh disagreement from certain curators. Many curators are forced to adapt faster than their minds actually can, in order to fulfil institutional demands for visitorship or online presence, often causing unnecessary stress and increased workload. Hence, online content, though seemingly common/ordinary, sees a lot of discourse and clout around it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chocano, Carina. “Pinterest, Tumblr and the Trouble With ‘Curation’”. NY Times Online, 20 Jul 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com/2012/07/22/magazine/pinterest-tumblr-andthe-trouble-with-curation.html?pagewanted=all “Do museum staff have the right to be offline?”. museum geek, 24 April 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://museumgeek.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/ do-museum-staffhave-the-right-to-be-offline/ Griffith, Erin. “This Curation Trend has One Big Problem: Scale”. Pando Daily, 10 Sept 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://pandodaily.com/2012/09/10/ this-curation-trend-has-one-big-problem-scale/ Ingram, Mathew. “It’s not curation or aggregation, it’s just how the Internet works”. Gigaom, 13 Mar 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://gigaom. com/2012/03/13/its-not-curation-or-aggregationits-just-how-the-internet-works/ Kastelle, Tim. “Chance Favours the Connected Mind”. Innovation for Growth, 22 Sept 2010. Web. Retrieved from http://timkastelle.org/blog/2010/09/ chance-favours-the-connected-mind/ Rosenbaum, Steve. “Content Curators are the New
37
Superheros of the Web”. Fast Company, 16 April 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www. fastcompany.com/1834177/content-curators-arenew-superheros-web ---. “Digital Overload and the Curation Crossroads”. BBC Online, 2 May 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/05/ digital_overload_and_the_curat.html Sicha, Choire. “You Are Not a Curator, You Are Actually Just a Filthy Blogger”. The Awl, 1 Jun 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.theawl.com/2012/06/ you-are-not-a-curator-you-are-actually-just-ablogger
38
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
03
“
More often than not, ambiguity - as seen in images, objects, or situations - prompt a certain lack. We tend to disregard its utility. Perhaps another way of thinking about the ambiguous are the potentials it may accommodate; to regard ambiguity not simply as something opposed to clarity, but to consider its indistinct form(s) as ways to locate a set of meanings within the work or exhibition. Explore the usefulness of ambiguity.
�
39
AMANDA LEE In response to Fragment 03 CAROUSEL & FORT It was my director’s directive, the curator said before she’d even settled herself into the wicker chair, looking at the slightly smug, bemused—or so it seemed, to her— expression on the artist’s face. She folded her hands tightly in her lap, over the skirt which grazed her knee. She’d changed out of permutations and combinations of five outfits before deciding on this, a decision she regretted right before entering the cab; as it pulled up she saw her reflection in the tinted windowpane and thought: I look like I’m attending a state funeral. The artist held his hands up, smiling and shrugging disarmingly. His hair had begun to grey, a touch that lent credibility to his appearance, she thought. He was in a rumpled grey t-shirt and this made her feel even more foolish as she sucked in her stomach, corseted as it was by the severe-looking pencil skirt. You’ve gotten so, he ran his fingers through his hair, Corporate. He smiled and leaned back. They were in the outdoor smoking area of a sidewalk café, a neutral space almost exactly in between his studio and the museum she worked at. She stirred the stick of honey into her coffee, looking at him, resolutely deadpan. She said: We leave it to the artists to be bohemian.
You. Excuse me? I was thinking of you. Why are you making this harder than it has to be? Suddenly, she felt very, very tired. The buzzing edge that had made her snappy to her subordinates, curt to her superiors, and unable to get a decent night’s rest for the whole week had expired. She wanted to go home. Perhaps she could get an M.C. for the rest of the week. Perhaps she would not be able to curate this exhibition; it would really only be one more addition to the long line of things he had ruined for her; perhaps she should apply to a higher position in the new private museum that would be opening at the end of the year, the one that was rumoured to be financed by an oil sheikh. It was about time to make a career move anyway. I’m not trying to make things difficult for you. I’m talking to you as a human being, as an artist, coarse as they come. I tell you the base instinct, you turn it to gold. It’s your job to make my work sound polished. Besides, c’mon, it’s not at all like I was thinking of you throughout my practice. Carousel was a very early work.
He’d leaned forward abruptly—Tell me, do you still paint?
She looked at him. He looked at her. She dislodged the clasp of her clutch and brought out a pack of Menthols. She ordered one more flat white. She lit up and exhaled.
No, she said, quiet but furious, Never.
He said: What happened to the Sampoernas?
They both picked up their coffee cups and took a drink. As she settled it back down into the saucer, she managed to say, Besides—as evidenced by your success—painting is dead. She took out a leatherbound notebook and a pen. Now, shall we?
They were too cloying.
He steepled his fingers agreeably. When you developed Carousel, the work where the cross-sectionally halved carcasses of two horses are suspended and chained on opposing ends of a metal rod to a fulcrum and dragged across the floor for the full duration of the exhibition, what was your process; what
40
were you thinking of?
He said: Okay, okay. When I made Carousel, what I was thinking of was this: the inevitable, cyclical failure of relationships. How bloody it is. How tiring it is. How persistent we—the universal plural that is—are. The carcasses are spun across the gallery floor till the meat gets worn down to the bone. They are both in pursuit of one another but they will always be the same distance apart. The circular spread of blood across the floor, the carcass as a blunt, honest apparatus of painting. To paint in blood with a stump of flesh, over blood that has dried over itself. It never ends till we’re bled dry.
It’s a macabre, visceral celebration of failure and persistence, the failed persistence or the persistent failure of love if you like, in all its guts and glory. She did not look up from her notebook as her pen flew across the page. She said: People go to see Carousel, and they throw up. Yes, and I love that—I love it when there is a physiological reaction to my work. I find it so flattering. It seems something dramatic always tends to happen with my larger works. It is pain, it is discomfiture, it is nausea. But isn’t that true to life, to the way things end? Do you enjoy causing hurt? She looked up briefly. Is the pain, discomfiture and nausea on your agenda, as an artist? He seemed to laugh and frown at the same time. I don’t aspire to that, no. It isn’t forefront in my mind. They are reactionary by-products that I feel attests to the physical and emotional brutality of my work, but it isn’t something I actively seek out in my process— how should I pain my viewer?—the process is much purer, in that it is, I admit, self-absorbed. You admit to being self-absorbed? I admit to my process being self-absorbed. But if you must, yes—I admit to being self-absorbed, as should every good artist. Let us talk about your recent work Fort, the one that’s gotten everyone riled up. You’ve constructed a simple sangar breastwork with pebbles you picked in Iran, where the sacks encasing the pebbles are the burqas of Iranian women you met and offered money to. I’m sure you’ve heard about this already, but it’s too important to not make certain—it’s not an urban legend—I offered them money for the very burqa on their body. Could you elaborate on the motivation behind that? I wanted to know at what price one can be coerced into disavowing one’s beliefs; one’s modesty; one’s dignity. And they would walk home naked?
Well, they would usually try to run. In their undergarments. Not all of them wore undergarments, though. I must say however that the project is fatally weaker than it should have been—for the moment they turned around to leave, I would stop them and hand them a fresh burqa, so they wouldn’t be shamed. How does it weaken the project? It makes you less despicable. Gallant, almost. Precisely. Gallantry isn’t strength, it’s a deference to restraint. Their shame, my brutality, would have raised the conceptual price on the head of a project like this. It’s like the photojournalist who waited for the vulture to close in on the starving Sudanese child before he pressed the shutter and left it there. Only this time you were both the vulture and the photojournalist. Yes. But—don’t look at me like that, you’re a curator, we’re in this contemporary hot soup together—it is a leap of faith to engender the opposite of a leap of faith. I only wanted to push something as far as it could logically go. The moment she strips off her burqa for me at a certain sum of money—US dollars, I might add—I’ve proven my point, and I can’t bear to shame her further. Why did you want to make this project? You’ve never been interested in religion in your practice. And I hear you’ve received the requisite death threats from the Islam fundamentalists who’ve gotten wind. Do you really want to know? What do you mean? Yes, or no. Alright. Is that a yes? She rolled her eyes. Yes. I’d like to keep this off the record, but I was in love with an Iranian reporter at that time. She, too, loved me, but she said we could never be together because I wasn’t Muslim. Strict Atheist though I was and am, I did actually love her enough to convert to Islam, but I thought about it long and hard and I couldn’t do it because it meant that she didn’t love me enough to
41
see past something categorical. If I converted to Islam, Allah would have won, and she would always love him more than me.
You’re such a ladies’ man.
You’re crazy.
I do love my women, he said.
I wanted to make a work that would make her rethink her assumptions and beliefs. I wanted it to be a slap in the face to her. At the same time, I wanted the slap to be charming and clever and outlandish, I wanted her to love me for the sting it left on her cheek. And so I went around Iran, playing the devil propositioning these local women, one pocket stuffed full of dollar bills, the other laden with the pebbles I was collecting by hand. My gait was lopsided. Sometimes I felt like Virginia Woolf packing her pockets with rocks to weigh her body down. I felt so burdened, so drained. I felt like I was walking into the River Ouse, I felt like I was drowning in the dunes of the Dasht-e Kavir.
I note the plural tense, she said lightly, But seriously: is every work of yours about a woman? Doesn’t that emasculate you in a way?
How very touching, she said with a slight sneer that she’d calibrated so it wouldn’t seem vicious. She stubbed out her cigarette. Well—did it work? She was the one who told the Basji fundamentalists about me. Oh my god—I’m sorry to hear that. I’m not. Why? In a way, it was then I knew how much she loved me. The curator slapped her notebook down onto the table and laughed. She threw her head back. Her laughter was sincere. You’re really—you’re really something, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell this story to the press though? They would’ve lapped it up. It’s feature filmworthy. Because it’s between me and her. It’s far more romantic this way. Everyone else’s got their knickers in a twist because of the politics and the religion, but really, for us, it’s just a love story. It’s so romantic it would kill my name as an artist. For a moment she desperately wanted him back. Then as quickly as it came over her it passed. She was glad that two decades had elapsed between them and that the sensation had passed without undue thought. She felt surer of herself now.
42
They both laughed.
Not every work of mine is about a woman. But even if it were so, I wouldn’t be afraid of that emasculation. That’s how much I love women. I don’t pretend that my existence would be complete without them. I don’t mind if my work springs from their rib. Would you say, then, that when you enter into a relationship, you’re looking to make art out of it? God, no. She was lighting another cigarette. She offered him the pack, and he took one. She extended her lighter towards him; he cupped his hand around hers as the flame trembled in the breeze. She was wearing his oversized, threadbare Flaming Lips t-shirt (it was actually his father’s) and he could see her thong under it as he came through the door. He’d in fact just returned from a quick liaison with the foundation year life-drawing model in the sculpting studio in the west wing on campus. She was a redhead and when he’d charcoaled in her pubic hair the lack of colour had seemed such a shame. There was white paint on her nose and he flicked it off tenderly. Where were you? I was playing with clay—I’m considering changing my major. Did you know that Dali was afraid of women with body hair? That’s really funny. They moved to her easel, by the window. Y’know, you’re really good, he said, nuzzling her behind
the ear.
dust and strewn with rubble.
Only technically, she said. I don’t have the flair. I know it.
The curator, too, was not hurt; the impact had merely thrown her to the ground. She found herself entirely mesmerised by Carousel. She could not bring herself to move to safety. She had to keep watching. The electrical wiring of the gallery had blown, the lights were out, but the two flaming carcasses were still spinning on principles of physics. One was almost catching up with the other now. The smell of charred meat—whether it was the horses or the guests of the opening—was beginning to perfume the air. With each round, the carcasses were slowing down unevenly on their metal suspension cord. They dragged on the ground sluggishly, roasting from the neck up, bleeding from the flank down, leaving a textured trail of red and rubble in their wake.
But you, she turned to face him, You’re really—you’re really something, aren’t you? On the night of the artist’s opening at the museum, the curator was in a midnight blue dress that showed off her figure. The artist was in a black blazer, under which was a rumpled grey t-shirt. The curator noticed that he’d dyed his grey hairs black when they air-kissed in greeting. The curator was speaking with a pair of collectors. The artist was listening to the director’s institutional spiel. He was flipping through the exhibition catalogue, noticing—and smiling at—the curator’s choice of words: faithseeking brutality, an iconoclastsaviour complex, satyriasis, despair, extravagant syntax, “Art is a lie that makes us realise truth”. She’d asked him to vet through the curatorial essay, but he’d laughed and said, Surprise me. A fat man in pinstripes was shaking his hand; the director was making introductions. The viewing public was mostly standing around Carousel in the main gallery, silent, whilst his smaller-scale works lay littered and lonely in the annexes like afterthoughts. A fair smattering of people surrounded Fort too, on the other end of the main gallery, these ones talking animatedly. A waiter came by with canapés. There was a prawn and mango mousse concoction on a porcelain spoon. The artist picked that, and having consumed it, wondered what he was to do with the spoon. He held on to it, feeling a little silly. At around 9pm, a car bomb went off in the front lawn of the museum. Women in high heels were screaming. Men lay crushed by pillars of the museum, whose structure was a reclaimed art-deco missionary boys’ school. The artist was hit by shrapnel, dying almost instantly. Most of the gallery had fallen to rubble. The burqasacks of Fort were burning, leaving the pebbles behind, innocuous, cleansed, a trial by fire. Carousel had not been fell; it stood like the ruins of an old fairground. The suspension cable was damaged and the halved carcasses were no longer on either ends of the metal pole—they were almost touching one another, and they were on fire. The circumference of blood they had drawn across the floor was lightened with a layer of
43
STEFANIE THAM In response to Fragment 03 The first time I read the module, I remembered how a friend once impassionedly exclaimed that he could not tolerate ambiguity. “It’s a waste of time and says nothing,” he said. I suppose by that he meant that because it yields no clear answers, he found it rather fruitless to even engage in such a situation. Such a perspective towards ambiguity is not surprising. Ambiguity eludes certainty; it is the ‘gray area’ that leads to frustration among those who prefer things to be less confusing and more conclusive. It means that the entity in question has more than one interpretation, or “a self-contradictory essence; or simultaneously being and not being a particular thing”.1 And some people prefer to be given answers than to be stuck in the chaos of ambiguity.
during this century”.5 Curators and viewers have grown more aware of didacticism in museums that essentialise or impose meanings onto its objects, and no longer regard it as the neutral and objective space it was once perceived to be.6 To use Iwona Blazwick’s words, “the exhibition space, be it museum or laboratory, can no longer be understood as neutral, natural, or universal but rather as thoroughly prescribed by the psychodynamics of politics, economics, geography, and subjectivity”.7 Consequently, institutions have turned to explore varied meanings of a work through new curatorial models that are often inherently selfconscious of its conceptual limits. The exhibitions of today are far more self-reflexive and ambiguous than in the past.8
But it appears to be good practice as curators to create exhibition sites that are open-ended to allow room for personal interpretations. Clementine Deliss, a curator, describes exhibitions as “ambivalent spaces” with the ability to “evoke passionate subjective responses” through its presentation.2 Likewise, Robert Storr posits:
Being ambiguous certainly has its usefulness. Ambiguity only “says nothing” if one does not accept its invitation to make meaning out of it. It is often mistakenly dismissed as vagueness, but it is actually a site of intersecting meanings, being one and all at the same time. It is a space that allows for the interaction of views and transforms an exhibition from a presentation to a conversation; it prompts the audience to explore, analyse and critique what is being shown, and it is a “playful, episodic encounter with phenomena” that holds in view nuances and entertains mysteries.9 In this, ambiguity does not necessarily mean that it is lacking in clarity; by engaging the audience to negotiate the possibilities found in the ambiguous, perhaps one can find clarity in the process of refining their thoughts in this dialectic negotiation of ideas.
A good exhibition is never the last word on its subject. Instead it should be an intelligently conceived and scrupulously realised interpretation of the works selected, one which acknowledges by its organisation and installation that even the material on view—not to mention those things which might have been included but were not— may be seen from a variety of perspectives, and that this will sooner or later happen to the benefit of other possible understandings of the art in question.3 This support for more dynamic displays can be seen as part of the shift away from the outdated and problematic idea of a universal narrative that is taken as authoritative truth in this present postmodern culture.4 In the zeitgeist of postmodernism, the grand narrative has given way to plurality and opened new spaces of enquiry. As such, the idea of a museum holding normative power is conceptually challenged by the limitations of display “as the gap between material and interpretation widened George W. Peckham, “The Existence of Ambiguity”, The Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 18, p. 483. 2 Clementine Deliss, “Explore or Educate?”, in Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill p. 87. 3 Robert Storr, “Show and Tell”, in What Makes A Great Exhibition?, ed. Paula Marincola, p. 14. 4 Karsten Schubert, The Curator’s Egg, p. 134. 1
44
Storr and Deliss’s statements suggest that in the ambiguous space of an exhibition—in its lack of an ultimate conclusion—new ideas and viewpoints can develop to enhance one’s understanding of the work in view. By inviting multiple interpretations, ambiguity forms a fertile ground for creativity and discussion. And through negotiating various views, one interrogates the exhibition from new angles which can lead to insights that shed light on old narratives. Ambiguity also sees a shift in the position of the viewer. As a result, the show is able to meet the viewer at his level and engage him in a two-way dialogue, creating an exchange where Ibid, p. 134. Ibid, p. 144. 7 Iwona Blazwick, “Temple/White Cube/Laboratory”, in What Makes A Great Exhibition?, ed. Paula Marincola, p. 118. 8 Schubert, pp. 144-145. 9 Deliss, p. 87. 5 6
“the visitor has progressed to being at the centre of the intellectual construct that is the [exhibition]”.10 As such, ambiguity is central to an exhibition so as to make room for the viewer to leave his own imprint in the exchange that occurs in between audience and object. The viewer is encouraged to grapple with the questions found in an exhibition, and in doing so is likely to form a deeper personal relationship with the work. In short, ambiguity is indeed useful because of “the potentials it may accommodate”—the potential for new ideas. However, having the potential does not mean that it will be actualised. When does ambiguity cross the line from being useful to “a waste of time”? In the enthusiasm to explicate ambiguities, an exhibition can inadvertently end up confounding its audience rather than successfully convey a layered presentation of its subject. An exhibition can be ambiguous for ambiguity’s sake, dwelling contentedly on the fact that there can be many interpretations but fail to constructively engage and acquaint the audience with the display; it is perhaps too easy to use ambiguity as an excuse for poor curating. That exhibitions run the risk of distorting reality to an extent where it is no longer relevant to its original intention also diminishes the usefulness of ambiguity.11 Furthermore, ambiguity may not easily find its place in state museums that have an educating agenda; however “astute and insightful”, its narrative “often remains in the realm of the purely subjective and speculative”.12 In such cases, ambiguity can end up frustrating the viewer instead of enriching his encounter with the work. In such circumstances, perhaps the claim that ambiguity prompts a certain lack does ring true.
answers, why not ask questions—to turn the space into a site for discourse, enquiry and encounter by setting the stage for meaning making. In other words, the curator has to be firm with what he is asking, and provide the cues for the audience to read and plug into the discussion. I am learning that this is when curatorial strategies employed to negotiate the ambiguities in an exhibition is crucial, and this is also where the challenge lies. The exhibition narrative has to be crafted with great sensitivity, at once aware of itself, the works and the audience. There should be a sense of authority to why the curator chooses to display objects as such, but also ambiguity in how the audience can read them. Above all, the curator has to ensure that his audience can take delight in the ambiguous; too much ambiguity makes the show confusing, but over-instructing the audience on how to approach a work comes off as being didactic. Navigating between the two is the curator’s game. In theory, the usefulness of ambiguity should be put to good effect in exhibitions; in practice, this requires an exercise of curatorial techniques and strategies that effectively invite the audience to engage in discourse. Ambiguity is a storehouse of potential for the curator to use to good effect. From a state of uncertainty springs forth endless possibilities and opportunities. Ambiguity does not constraint the viewer’s responses, but it is precisely the fact that it is a fluid and boundless space that makes it potentially confusing and unsatisfying. If not conveyed successfully, the audience can end up being stuck in the frustrating chaos of ambiguity, and leaving with a negative experience of a non-encounter.
As budding curators, we are often advised to ensure our exhibitions are open-ended and without agenda; rather, the viewer should determine for himself his thoughts and views on the works, and curators are there to show the viewer around but refrain from telling him how he should see them. With this in view, in the process of brainstorming our exhibition, we had to keep checking ourselves to avoid pushing an agenda, however subconsciously so. But being painfully aware of needing the show to be open-ended, we often become confused about what the curator can say, if at all? Where is the curator’s voice and what are the boundaries of his authority? Does commenting on the object necessarily mean it overwrites the potentiality for interpretation? There is something uncomfortable about simply displaying works of art without drawing upon a vision to undergird the exhibition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Perhaps, then, since we should not seek to give
Storr, Robert. “Show and Tell.” In What Makes A Great Exhibition?, ed. Paula Marincola, pp. 14-31. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, 2006. Print.
Schubert, p. 144. Ibid, p. 144. 12 Ibid, p. 136. 10 11
Blazwick, Iwona. “Temple / White Cube / Laboratory.” In What Makes A Great Exhibition?, ed. Paula Marincola, pp. 118-133. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, 2006. Print. Deliss, Clementine. “Explore or Educate?” In Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill, pp. 86-91. London: Open Editions, 2011. Print. Peckham, George W. “The Existence of Ambiguity”, The Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 18, 2 Sept 1926. Schubert, Karsten. The Curator’s Egg. London: OneOff Press, 2000. Print.
45
WONG LEE MIN In response to Fragment 03 THE STOWED-AWAY MUSEUM: AMBIGUOUS MEANINGS OF RARELY AND NEVER-BEFORE EXHIBITED COMMONPLACE ARTEFACTS The extraction of objects from circulation in everyday life into the closed, climate-controlled sphere of museums is often described as entailing a total transformation in the significance of these objects. No longer just ordinary and replaceable commodities, accessioned objects are made unique with reference to their material qualities, social life and the milieux in which they were circulated. This change does not necessarily arise from any innate value of the objects, but rather, through the special treatment of them as sacred icons, laid behind plexiglass or railings in the gallery, prohibited from being touched except by qualified handlers and ruled impossible to be de-accessioned. More than their utilitarian and aesthetic qualities, museum objects are cherished for their ability to signify invisible meanings outside of themselves and can be understood as what Krzysztof Pomian terms semiophores, ‘objects prized for their capacity to produce meaning rather than for their usefulness’. Such morphing from use value to symbolic value experienced by museum objects is often couched in terms of a ‘promotion’.1 This analysis, however, generalises the transforming powers of accession, leaving no room to explain the presence of rarely or never-before exhibited commonplace artefacts in the museum collection. Sure enough, due to spatial and thematic restrictions, the museum cannot utilise every piece in its collection. The point here is that some museum artefacts, despite being accessioned, remain limited by their previous ordinariness or circumstances of collection, and subsequently what they can signify, leaving them with hardly any possibility of being exhibited. They are ‘promoted’ to an ambiguous position in the museum collection, unable to perform their symbolic value as semiophores because they are not exhibited, but no longer just banal disposable things of at least some use value. Suspended from their use and symbolic values, Russell W. Belk, “Collectors and Collecting”, in Interpreting Objects and Collections, ed. Susan Pearce, 1994, p. 320; John Carman, “Promotion to Heritage: How Museum Objects are Made”, in Encouraging Collections Mobility: a Way Forward for Museums in Europe, eds. S. Pettersson, M. Hagedorn-Saupe, T. Jyrkkiö and A. Weij, 2010, pp. 79, 81 and 84; Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, 1995, pp. 35 and 165 (quote). 1
46
these artefacts are relegated to the liminal darkened space of storage, where they await the day of being displayed that may or may never come. Using as a case study the approximately 6000 rarely-exhibited ordinary objects accessioned by Ken Cheong, previously a curator at the Singapore History Museum (now the National Museum of Singapore) from 1994 to 2000, this essay considers the creation and deployment of ambiguous artefacts to tease out some aspects in the economy and politics of museum collections and display. Museum objects do not end up merely as holders of different levels of symbolic value. Instead, their symbolic values are the malleable basis for another type of use value in achieving the ideological goals of museums. The Making of Ambiguous Artefacts The massive collection that Ken helped to amass is situated in the larger canvas of nation-building through the development of Singapore’s art and heritage scene in the 1990s. An intensified pace of globalization and increased mobility of Singaporeans had weakened their sense of belonging to the state and was manifested in the growing numbers of Singaporean migrants. Attuned to this phenomenon, Singapore’s nationbuilding strategy shifted from the foci on tangibles such as economic progress, defence and housing, to the intangible aspect of cultivating emotional ties to the nation. The reason behind the government’s attention on museums after a period of neglect was, as the then-Minister for Information and the Arts BrigadierGeneral George Yeo explained in 1992, to ‘help Singapore find its soul for it cannot be by bread alone that [Singaporeans] live.’2 To this end, knowing the long histories of various Singaporean communities was fundamental – ‘the idea is for Singaporeans to feel that while we are a young nation, we’re an ancient people. […] Being an ancient people gives us spiritual strength. If you are down or starving, knowing this gives you new strength to go on.’3 The National Heritage Board was therefore established in 1993 with the explicit aims to showcase ‘the heritage and nationhood of the people of Singapore in the context of their ancestral cultures’, educate the public on the arts, culture and heritage, and ‘record, preserve and disseminate the history of Singapore’.4 Agence France-Presse, 30 Jan. 1992. Straits Times (ST), 31 Jan. 1992. 4 ST, 25 July 1993. 2 3
Joining the Singapore History Museum as an assistant curator in 1994, Ken was involved in what can be described as the National Heritage Board’s frenzied accumulation of everyday-life objects in Singapore. While museum donation drives calling for the public’s objects had been organised since the 1980s, they reached a feverish pitch in the 1990s. The 1994 donation drive, reported to have sold the idea that ‘the past will be better appreciated if people let go of it’, went to the extent of holding a lucky draw in which ten winners were each given a $150 camera.5 In 1995, Ken curated an exhibition titled ‘Memories of Yesteryear’, featuring approximately 1000 daily-life objects dating from the 1950s and 1960s. These objects included F&N bottles, matchboxes, cinema tickets, posters, handbills, paper currency and items from barbers and provision shops, half of which came from fifty individuals.6 The six-month long exhibition celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Singapore’s independence by stocktaking the odds overcome and progress attained by the nation. More importantly, it emphasised the contributions of ordinary people in this process of nation-building, as opposed to the great men already memorialised in history.7 For Ken, the exhibits ‘may be simple things but they are meaningful and important [because they] give us a memory, identity and a sense of the past’. On another level, he wished that the exhibition would clear the common misconception that museums only acquired expensive or ‘high culture’ objects. ‘Hopefully’, he said, ‘we will persuade more people to come out with their collections to build on what we have at the museum.’8 In the following year’s well-subscribed donation drive, the museum received around two hundred objects, and called for even more everyday-life objects: ‘pre-1960 school uniforms, textbooks, platform shoes, kampung games, old society magazines and National Library cards, […] household items [, old] campaign posters and pictures of air-raid shelters in older estates’.9 Supplementing objects from these public donation drives with purchases and further donations from individuals and curio shops, Ken had accessioned more than 6000 items from Singapore of the 1930s to 1960s into the National Heritage Board’s collection by the time he left his curatorial position in 2000. Among these artefacts were: Chinese opera ST, 11 Nov. 1994. ST, 15 July 1995. 7 National Archives of Singapore (NAS), “Speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Minister for Home Affairs, at the Opening of the Exhibition in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Independence of Singapore at the National Museum on Wednesday, 19 July 1995 at 6.30 pm”, <www.a2o.com.sg>, accessed on 25 Oct. 2012. 8 ST, 15 July 1995. 9 ST, 30 Dec 1996. 5 6
objects, school textbooks, government publications, insurance policies, receipts, movie tickets and posters, handbills, vinyl records, cameras, hair creams, bottles, toys, cigarette boxes, objects found in the kitchen and at festivities and special occasions, with buttons and badges constituting the majority. Few of these artefacts, however, have been displayed in museums since the 1995 exhibition. One reason behind this situation lies in the abundance of these daily-life objects in the museum collection, many of which are of the same type, e.g. bottles, badges, buttons, while some items are in fact identical. These recurrences probably arose through donations made to the museum, especially in the form of collections, which made it difficult for curators to reject certain items if they wanted others within the same set. Nonetheless, recurrences diminish the uniqueness of a museum artefact, reduce the probability of it being displayed and thus, transformed into semiophores. When there are many artefacts of the same type, artefacts without outstanding aesthetic qualities, social lives or signified milieux are exchangeable with one another, e.g. an empty F&N orange glass bottle and a Coke glass bottle of the same height, width, shape and material. Whether or not they are displayed then depend on the random choice of curators and their decisions on how many artefacts of the same kind should be shown. If there are identical objects, again of little difference in their conditions, histories and significance, only one is chosen for display, implying that the other objects, ostensibly icons by nature of being accessioned, are merely superfluous second bests and replacements of the selected exhibit. In addition, a sizeable number of commonplace objects acquired by the museums were initially gathered in private collections founded on principles which clash with that of the museum, leading to difficulties in incorporating them into exhibitions. Susan Pearce identified three modes of collecting: collections as systematics, souvenirs and fetish objects. The first mode describes museum collections while the latter two apply to private collections. Objects in museums are organised and collected according to somewhat empirical taxonomies and are meant to carry meanings public enough to engage a range of visitors. In contrast, souvenirs are linked to life experiences of individuals or groups and can be fascinating or boring to visitors depending on the fame of their previous owners, for as Pearce explicates, souvenirs encapsulate ‘an intensely individual past – no one is interested in other people’s souvenirs’. Consequently, souvenirs are not displayed except in exhibitions which allow for an illustration of their social lives. Fetish collections are results of individual whims to amass as many objects as possible
47
in accordance to one’s desired categories, such that objects entering the collector’s ‘private universe’ lose their original meanings and contexts, and become defined solely in relation to the collector’s passions. This shedding of relationships to the larger world undergone by fetish objects is the key reason why they are rarely exhibited unless some other aesthetic or historical value can be laid upon them.10 In general then, whether or not commonplace artefacts are exhibited hinges on how successfully their previously private meanings can be converted to a public, widely-accessible significance, which brings us to the next section of this essay on how these ambiguous artefacts have been deployed, when they finally are, in museums. Potentials of the Ambiguous Artefacts Commonplace objects appear particularly amenable as insertions into narratives that are compatible with the ideologies espoused by museums as state institutions. As conceptualised by Tony Bennett, museums are part of an ‘exhibitionary complex’ of ‘disciplinary and power relations’ employed by the state, a ‘set of cultural technologies concerned to organise a voluntarily self-regulating citizenry’.11 He asserts that the exhibitionary complex did not function by threatening visitors into believing its representations. Instead, it used its epistemological power to arrange objects and people in an order, persuading visitors to accept their positions in that order and in doing so, recognise the state’s power as their own or at least one which is beneficial for them.12 Following this formulation, the display of dailylife objects that are familiar to visitors from different classes is arguably more effective in convincing them to identify with the depicted order of things. That this is the role of daily-life exhibits conceived by the state in the 1995 exhibition ‘Memories of Yesteryear’ is evidenced by the opening speech delivered by then-Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng. Running through a list of memories evoked by the exhibits, he urged, ‘For those who lived through the turbulent years, you have witnessed and participated in the changes in Singapore. Whether you are in your thirties or older, it is hoped that when you visit this exhibition, you will share with the younger generation “memories of yesteryear”, so that they will treasure Singapore’s fruits of success.’ Susan Pearce, “Collecting Reconsidered”, in Interpreting Objects and Collections, pp. 194-201. First quote from p. 195, second quote from p. 200. 11 Bennett, Birth of the Museum, pp. 59 and 63 (third quote). 12 Ibid., p. 67. 10
48
In particular, Minister Wong credited Singapore’s progress to sacrifices made by ordinary people, ‘the man in the street, the person who came to Singapore as an immigrant and stayed on to help build what we have today’, claiming that they ‘all came from an era of hardship in which individuals toiled for a better life. They worked hard so that their children could be brought up and be educated to lead a better life.’13 These statements yield more meaning when read in the context of globalisation and increased migration, as well as the government’s view of the post-‘65 generation as individualistic and selfish, unwilling to make sacrifices for the nation and ignorant of the obstacles that the country had conquered prior to reaching its current prosperity. Daily-life objects are thus used in the exhibition not only to conjure a poignant image of selfless nation-building by the ‘65-yers to inspire the post-’65 generation to do the same, but also to enlist the ‘65-yers, through their identification with the exhibits and the narrative in which they are embedded, in the project of educating the youth. In unravelling the ambiguous position of rarely or never-before displayed commonplace artefacts, this discussion has touched on the economy of symbolism that museum objects are located in, outlining ways in which, beyond the point of accession, the abundance and ability of artefacts to speak to a larger audience affect their symbolic values and therefore, their status as icons. When these artefacts are eventually exhibited, they can hold a powerful symbolic value, thanks to the visitors’ familiarity and identification with them, and be harnessed to promote certain ideologies. Perhaps, the ambiguity of these objects will fade with time, as they grow rare outside museums and more precious with age, though this also means that fewer visitors will be able to identify with them. When the past has become distant enough to be ‘a foreign country’, visitors may even flock to see these ethnographic curiosities and be grateful for their abundance. After all, aren’t many of the archaeological artefacts we treasure today everydaylife objects salvaged from rubbish middens? BIBLIOGRAPHY Agence France-Presse, 30 Jan. 1992. Belk, Russell W. “Collectors and Collecting”. In Interpreting Objects and Collections, pp. 317326. Edited by Susan Pearce. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. 13
NAS, “Speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng”.
Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Carman, John. “Promotion to Heritage: How Museum Objects are Made”. In Encouraging Collections Mobility: a Way Forward for Museums in Europe, pp. 74-85. Edited by S. Pettersson, M. Hagedorn-Saupe, T. Jyrkkiö and A. Weij. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery, 2010. National Archives of Singapore (NAS). “Speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Minister for Home Affairs, at the Opening of the Exhibition in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Independence of Singapore at the National Museum on Wednesday, 19 July 1995 at 6.30 pm”. <www. a2o.com.sg>. Accessed on 25 Oct. 2012. Pearce, Susan. “Collecting Reconsidered”. In Interpreting Objects and Collections, pp. 193204. Edited by Susan Pearce. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Straits Times, 31 Jan. 1992. Straits Times, 25 July 1993. Straits Times, 11 Nov. 1994. Straits Times, 15 July 1995. Straits Times, 30 Dec 1996.
49
50
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
04
â&#x20AC;&#x153;
Books, e-books, websites, artists books - a collection of images and text spread over linear and non-linear pages are valid curatorial forms. They also play on the differences (and similarities) between document(ation) and material(ization). Compare this to the exhibitionary.
â&#x20AC;?
51
KATHLEEN DITZIG In response to Fragment 04 REMEDIES FOR AN ABSENCE: ON CURATING AND A FALTERING FAITH IN THE ART OBJECT I just bought a book online that declares at the outset that it “is not the catalogue for an exhibition which is not a show of Reiner Ruthenbeck’s work.” A companion to the exhibition, Dokumentation Reiner Ruthenbeck or Remedies to the Absence of Reiner Ruthenbeck, ‘which included no actual artworks’ but comprised of full-scale projections of original installation shots in a villa in Florence. The book is not about sculptures, of which there are only allusions made, but instead is a collection of texts around the concept of an exhibition. I don’t know who Reiner Ruthenbeck is. I bought the book, not so much for the artist who is an enigmatic index but for the proposition that the book is premised on - an exhibition about something other than the art it refers to. The reflexive processes of referents circle on and on from my projection of desire through the internet that will eventually provide me with a material book to a material event in the 60’s that was recast as another material event recently that was commented upon by a material book that I will soon have in my possession - all of which are defined by a moment in the past and its immaterial artwork. I hope eventually that in reading the book there is a point of origin that substantially shows how “the original” and “the derivate” can actually be aligned and equivalent. I bought the book because I want to see what it proposes that the form of documentation - be it a text in a publication or a picture projected - is capable of “summon(ing) the presence of what is afar, as a remedy to its absence.” Link: Cover of Remedies to the Absence of Reiner Ruthenbeck (http://www.vincenzolatronico.it/ RR_EN.pdf) Adding to the encircling referents to the original events is the bootleg pdf of the book that I soon found online after making my purchase - another cipher, another disparate link to the Ruthenbeck’s sculptures. It is interesting that the word ‘summon’ is chosen to crystallize the idea behind the exhibition and the publication. The word ‘summon’ is connotatively shamanistic and implies a teleportation beyond the simple power to call up. To consider the derivate as documentation and referent in place of the original, sees the artwork as an event specific to a moment in time.
52
The sculptures could have easily been re-shown but were explicitly not so. In the flat photographic projection of the original or the possibilities presented by a text that describes the original, you are provided a mirror to the artwork as it was documented, allowing past and present time and space to collapse. I envision that the process of envisioning the original with the aid of the projections, provides an imaginary ‘teleportation’ to that moment, while still being restricted to the materiality of the present moment: A body in a specific time and space having a very material experience while mentally occupying a fictive space of the projection before it. Link: YouTube video of “Jodie Foster final hearing - from Contact 1997” (http://www.youtube. com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FbSPXC4btU) “4. Story and Trick Shamans make mighty conjurors, we are told. They can throw voices, talk to spirits, travel the skies, and walk the depths of the ocean. They can extract strange objects from their bodies or from the bodies of the sick, and just as easily make those objects disappear. In the twinkling of an eye. They can cure and they can kill through seeing , and such seeing, so I am told in many parts of South America is a bodily substance - like the down of newborn birds in Tierra del Fuego - that fills the body of the shaman. Seeing is a substance and such seeing changes fate. Seeing is the feathers of new born birds. What does “is” mean here? Note that conjuring is not distinct from these supernatural acts but is the same thing. The trick turns out to be more than a deceit. More like a mimesis imitating natural forces, a play for the spirits… Conjuring questions being. The nature of being is suspended. It is not clear what is object, what is subject. With its love of rapid disappearances and appearances out of nowhere, with its turning of insides into outsides and vice versa, shamanic conjuring helps us understand a little better how this theatre of being presents being as the transformation of being into the beingness of transforming forms. That is animism. Anything but constant… Things come alive in a continuous if staggered series
of transformations as happens of course with work, and with the coordination of hand, soul and eye” − Michael Taussig, The Stories Things Tell And Why They Tell Them (2008)1 Perhaps like Taussig’s shaman, the curator of Remedies or more generally the Curator is a ‘shaman’, ‘seeing’ and revealing the animism of things, extracting things, facilitating the transformation of things and making them disappear in the twinkle of an eye. The curator creates the frame of the exhibition of projections and the publication that has lent to my interest and imagining of the possible ‘time and space travel’ that I have technically begun by exploring the premise of an exhibition I will not attend and will only know through the internet and the publication. In Remedies, the curator’s choice to project life-size photo-documentation of sculptures as well as to not include photos but only descriptions of the sculptures in the publication, allow the original artwork to be conjured. The art as referent is both absent and present. In the hands of the curator, the document becomes art materialized through experience. In the descriptive references made in the publication, the art again is documented and realized through the experience of reading. Link: Video of “Marina Abramovic Art Must Be Beautiful (1975)” (http://www. youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=8cCFDSzDnUk) Link: Video of “Tameka Norris, Art Must/ Should Be Beautiful (2011)” (http://www. youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=C587z0T0I1U) Boris Groys in perhaps the over-read Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Document makes a case for the delineation between Art documentation and Art, tying the distinction to biopolitics in that “the art that is made under these new conditions of biopolitics – under the conditions of an artificially fashioned lifespan –cannot help but take this artificiality as its explicit theme.”1 Groys delineates that “Art documentation is by definition not art; it merely refers to art and in precisely this way it makes it clear that art in this case is no longer present and immediately visible but rather absent and hidden. The materialization being that of the document and not art itself… Correspondingly art documentation is neither the making present of a past art event nor Boris Groys, “Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation”, 30 Aug 2004, trans. by Steven Lindberg, http://www.ranadasgupta.com/notes.asp?note_id=34) 1
the promise of a coming artwork but the only possible form of reference to an artistic activity that cannot be represented in other ways…Rather, documentation becomes the sole result of art which is understood as a form of life, a duration, a production of history. Art documentation thus describes the realm of biopolitics by showing how the living can be replaced by the artificial, and how the artificial can be made living by means of a narrative.”2 Remedies assumes to offer that the document and the art object is equivalent and interchangeable in conjuring ‘art’. This proposition is made not to say that the art object and the document are identical but that they are of the same value as different art objects. The sculptures when they were first presented were an event, a moment of life that existed within a specific time and space and the summoning of this moment through photo-documentation and attempts to recreate them at their same size through projections and through the imagination required by reading results in a different and new aesthetic experiences derived from the referent. It is not the re-living of a past event when you encounter the projection or when you encounter the publication, but the creation of a whole new event, a new aesthetic experience. In turn, it begs the question: What happens to our understanding of the art object as embodying art in its DNA, in its materiality, when the derivate, can also be art and facilitate an aesthetic experience? The assumption that when we go to an exhibition and what we see there - whether it is paintings, sculptures, drawing, photographs, videos, readymades or installations – is art is challenged by exhibitions (and publications) like Remedies that question the faith in art objects as the source and definition of art. In the space of the exhibition, the document is appropriated such that the document per se disappears and instead the cultural object or more specifically the art object appears. In this regard, I think that this is an appropriate point to state that in discussing materiality, we must take into account the substantial change in the understanding of materiality as it relates to the Art Object. Images of art as well as art itself can no longer truly be site-specific to a singular moment and space. The consistent currencies of images and information that travel across borders through mediums such as the internet changes the way we think about materials. Art is or has become metaphysical and the exhibition by extension which has historically been the reciprocal host of art, with both having traditionally been object-driven has also become metaphysical. The exhibitionary reduced 2
Ibid
53
to its basic premise of putting on show can take many acceptable forms (the publication, the website, YouTube, television etc.) provided it has agreeable trappings, an accompanying text or concept that contextualizes it as art and separate from design and entertainment. Materiality today or neo-materiality and the experience of it is no longer restricted to a time or space and in effect is conceptual. Joshua Simon in Neo-materialism:The Unreadymade provides a concise exposition toward this end: “the idea of dematerialization in the New York art scene of the late sixties and early seventies… corresponded with the Nixon shock, a culmination of a series of measures that unilaterally cancelled the direct convertibility of the US dollar to gold….In this reality of unfixed exchange rates, it was claimed that capital itself was dematerialized. Yet, in fact, through the annulment of the Bretton Woods system, a symbol (money) itself became the material. And thus, from dematerialization we actually move to a materialization symbol, arriving at neo-materialism… This helps us to understand how brands and labels are regarded as material objects (the criteria of “real” and “fake” in brands are actually commodities made of money.) or how labour has shifted from production to consumption(tourism, shopping, entertainment, watching television, advertisements and social networking).”3 So if we are to agree that in this day and age, symbols behave like materials and are understood along material terms, it is not too far a leap to see how Art as symbol can be constructed into material experience separate from the art-object and how Remedies functions outside the delineations that Groys sets up between Art and Art Documentation. (In reference to this, there is a long history of dematerialization in Art that has not been fleshed out - but the focus of the discussion here is the specificity of time and space in relation to the concept and whether a universal materiality can be accorded a concept, even one as metaphysical as Art. As such, I have chosen to not discuss the socio-political significance of de-materialism in art. I would rather look at the document, the website, YouTube, the publication, the boot leg pdf and all such platforms that demands for a narrowing if not myopic and personal aesthetic experience and insisting upon the individual to conjure or in the very least to go along with a curator’s conjuring/ conjecture.) Remedies utilizes documentation as a symbol and through it the curator conjures the original in size at least, such that the document behaves like the original, like ‘Art’ at least within the materiality of the exhibition or the experience of the viewer ‘buying in’. Joshua Simon, “Neo-Materialism, Part Two: The Unreadymade”, 2011, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/neo-materialismpart-two-the-unreadymade/ 3
54
Link: Video of “Lady GaGa talks about Marina Abramović” (http://www. youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=EVY4Whayw0s) In a neo-material world, where the symbols behave like materials and the neo-materialist sensibilities of shows like Remedies enable a re-evaluation of art, it appears that an art object’s status as such is uncertainly dependent on the discourse that supports it; with the site of aesthetic experience outside the individual and the singularly specific, and instead in the wielding of ‘context’, in the manipulated networks and systems of knowledge that uphold an artwork and not the bricks and mortar of pedestals in the gallery. The curator of Remedies in calling her choice to project documents as Remedies for an absent artwork and the past art event that cannot be returned to has made a suggestion, has conjured an apparition, providing the frame for a discursive experience, depending on whether you can agree with her. In effect, taking the artworks out of its tie to the artist and to the status of the singular art-object and placing it on some other conceptual plane. The publication is also a form of conceptual teleportation, providing a means to travel to the same conceptual space as the ‘exhibition’ but through a new range of documentation – promising that art and the experience of it is not a result of the material experience of an art object but rather the narratives and ideologies that you buy into.
William Rimmer’s “Scene from Macbeth” (c. 1850), depicting the witches’ conjuring an apparition.
With such shaky subjective ground upon which we define the art object, the question of validity with
regards to valid curatorial forms is even more difficult to assert without resorting to truisms. Pertaining to the politics and status of the curator in relation to the artist, the institution, the public etc. as well as that of the art object, it is nothing short of finding the answer to the meaning of life or one’s place in society. By extension the questioning of our faith in the art object also questions whether the artist is the only source and creator of art and subsequently what the curator’s role is in relation to the artist. In lieu, of a specific and singular art materiality that can essentially reference Art, the exhibitionary becomes the necessary tool for the construction of Art’s animism.
space in New York, located at 516A1/2 West 20th Street in Chelsea, opening in 2002 and closing in September 2005...As the wrong dealers say, “The Wrong Gallery is the back door to contemporary art, and it’s always locked. ”The concept of the original Wrong Gallery, to replicate the structure of the art system while radically transforming scale and resources, is now taken to the next level by recreating a realistic 1:6 scale home version in resin, glass, aluminum, steel, brass, wood, with electric lighting, which is designed to be installed in a wall in your home. It will also sit on a tabletop.5
As Boris Groys offers in Art Power, “To practice artatheism would be to understand artworks not as incarnations, but as mere documents, illustrations or significations.” And that under the contemporary reign of “equal aesthetic rights”, Groys writes,“The contemporary curator is the heir apparent to the modern artist…He is an artist because he does everything artists do. But he is an artist who has lost the artist’s aura (and become) an agent of art’s profanation, its secularization, its abuse.”4
“An illustration that does not complement a story in the end, will become but a false idol,” says the Sultan, “Since we cannot possibly believe in the absent story, we will naturally begin to believe in the picture itself.... This would be no different than the worship of idols in the Kaaba that went on before Our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had them destroyed... You do understand that, eventually, we would then unthinkingly begin worshipping any picture that is hung on the hall, don’t you?” -From My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk Link: Video of “Alain Resnais, Hiroshima Mon Amour - opening (music by Georges Delerue & Giovanni Fusco)” (http://www. youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=B2oWVX_2XZI) How easy it was to forget Ruthenbeck. BIBLIOGRAPHY
“The Wrong Gallery” (2006), Maurizio Cattlean, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick
Edition of 2500 “Now everyone can be a dealer” -Maurizio Cattelan Cerealart is pleased to present a project from Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick: an edition of 1:6 scale reproductions of New York’s smallest exhibition space, The Wrong Gallery. Open the door, turn on the light, install a work, and become the curator you’ve always imagined you could be by organizing your own personal gallery program. The Wrong Gallery was the smallest exhibition Boris Groys, Art Power, 2008, http://www.artmargins. com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3 64:review-of-boris-groys-qart-powerq&catid=112:bookreviews&Itemid=104 4
“Alain Resnais, Hiroshima Mon Amour - opening (music by Georges Delerue & Giovanni Fusco)”. YouTube.com. 20 Dec 2010. Web. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=B2oWVX_2XZI Groys, Boris. “Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation”. Trans. Steven Lindbergami. Rana Dasgupta. 30 Aug 2004. Web. Retrieved from http://www.ranadasgupta.com/ notes.asp?note_id=34 “Jodie Foster final hearing - from Contact 1997”. YouTube.com. 12 Jun 2008. Web. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=-FbSPXC4btU
55
“Lady GaGa talks about Marina Abramović”. YouTube. com. 30 May 2010. Web. Retrieved from http:// w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? f e a t u r e = p l a y e r _ embedded&v=EVY4Whayw0s Latronico, Vincenzo (Ed.). Remedies to the absence of Reiner Ruthenbeck. Archive Books, 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://www.vincenzolatronico.it/ RR_EN.pdf “Marina Abramovic Art Must Be Beautiful (1975)”. YouTube.com. 3 Mar 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=8cCFDSzDnUk Miller, Daniel. “Boris Groys, “Art Power” (Book Review)”. Art Margins. 22 Apr 2009. Web. Retrieved from http://www.artmargins.com/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=364:re view-of-boris-groys-qart-powerq&catid=112:bookreviews&Itemid=104 Simon, Joshua. “Neo-Materialism, Part Two: The Unreadymade”. E-flux, 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/neo-materialismpart-two-the-unreadymade/ “Tameka Norris, Art Must/Should Be Beautiful (2011)”. YouTube.com. 7 May 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=C587z0T0I1U Taussig, Michael. The Stories Things Tell And Why They Tell Them. e-flux, 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-stories-thingstell-and-why-they-tell-them/ “The Wrong Gallery”. Saatchi Gallery. N.d. Web. Retreived from http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/ dealers_galleries/FullSizeArtWork/dg_id/1287/ image_id/100926/imageno/3
56
NG SHI WEN In response to Fragment 04 This statement questions the nature of text -- can they be mediums through which curating can take place? Does the validity of text as a curatorial medium blur the distinction between the document and material (which are objects) and documentation and materialisation (which are acts)? July 2012 What are ‘curatorial forms’? What is curating? The etymology of the word ‘curate’ conveys care – the care of minors and lunatics, and the care of souls Yeung Yang, pp.12 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010 Today a curator is expected, or may choose, to take on multiple tasks like conception, artistic direction, administration, project management, programming, publicity, dealership and writing. Michael Lee, pp. 6 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010 The rise, over the last forty years or so, of exhibition spaces that have no permanent collection has led to a shift in the focus of the role of curator towards that of a ‘filterer’ or ‘selector’. Magnus Renfrew, pp. 141 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010 Curating can be likened to caring for an (art) object. The curator is expected to care for the works in all its aspects. His or her role is also to communicate the significance of the collection to the public, to act as a “filterer” or “selector” in order to construct a coherent and focused narrative, which can best allow the viewer to perceive the work. The curator acts somewhat like the middle person between the artist and the viewer, like the editor of a book.
how to re-present. Image making is a similar process, for in making an image there is a decision to be made on what to include and exclude. In the case of books, this is followed by another selection process – what images to include and where to place them in a body of text. If the practice of curating is one that is largely synonymous with acting as a “filterer” or “selector”, text and images can be seen as valid curatorial forms. What is the difference between the document and the material? When are the distinctions blurred? When considering this perhaps it is best to begin with examples. Many pieces of art, especially sculpture or installation art, are photographed (think Heman Chong’s Stacks). Here the art is documented in the form of photography, but the photographs of the piece will not be sold as art. However, another interesting example that was mentioned during the Curatorial Intensive of Curating Lab was that of 2000 yuan bills being slotted into books borrowed from a public library. These were then photographed, and the photographs transacted as art. In this case, the only way others could encounter this art was through its documentation. Here, the document has become the material, the art object. Texts as exhibition The difference between an exhibition and a display can be crudely described as such – a display is merely the showing off of a collection of objects. They are arranged and manipulated for visual consumption, but may not necessarily be ordered in a thoughtful way. An exhibition, on the other hand, would imply that the “display” has been through some sort of curatorial intervention. Texts as exhibitions, then, is not an invalid claim. Both are curated (having gone through similar acts of selection and re-representation), as this essay argues above, and seek to communicate an idea or concept to the viewer.
Texts and images as valid curatorial forms
December 2012
In writing, one chooses what to include. There is a process of selection and selecting is a curatorial act. How does one translate sight/experience into text? The process of expressing the visual as text is already an added layer of interpretation when one considers the fact that texts seek to represent something. In re-presenting, the text maker is implicated, being the agent who decides on
I started thinking and talking about curating in July 2012 with a way of thinking that had been shaped by years of being immersed in my field of study (the social sciences). It is the way of understanding the world and its phenomena by seeking definitive answers. I imagined curating to be similar to a research essay, expressed not in the medium of text but in visuals, both
57
having a clear and focused narrative (coming from the curator) through an unabashed neglect of discordant voices that did not help the narrative. Viewers (of both text and exhibition) would come away having learnt something, or understood the curator’s point – all viewers would derive the same understanding, and from there they were free to agree or disagree with it. Reviewing my response to Module 4 now, what has become strikingly obvious are the gaps in my understanding of curating. To curate inevitably also deals with space. The exhibitionary can allow the space to speak, whereas books, or press space, are fixed space that the viewers cannot transcend. Whereas the viewer is an active agent who is free to move in an exhibition space, text is necessarily linear. Pages are ordered, and order has agency. To curate, if it means to care for the objects in all its aspects, also requires allowing for the objects to speak for themselves, to provoke thought, as the objects do, and not to provide answers. In such a framework, the act of translating sight into text seems almost unfair to the art objects, for in doing so, the act of text making is already interfering with objectivity. This is not to say that texts, or more specifically, books, cannot be valid forms of curating. However the ways textual space and the medium of text itself are interpreted by the viewer is essentially different from the exhibitionary. It may privilege information, or order, or interpretation. What I can take away from this difference in the ways I have negotiated Module 4 pre and post experience is that there is no simple answer to what curating is, and following that, what ‘curatorial forms’ are. Curating is a practice that can take many forms and focus on various aspects of “caring” within the ecology of art today. It is a malleable practice that can be shaped by the commercial, by history, by art and artists, by institutions, the state, etc. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fominaya and Lee, 2010. Who Cares? 16 Essays On Curating in Asia. Para/Site Art Space with Studio Bibliotheque, Hong Kong. Print.
58
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
05
“
Think of the word ‘Concept’. Refer to the word ‘Conceptual’. Think of the word ‘Performance’. Refer to the word ‘Performativity’. We live in a reality that requires certain definitions in order for us to identify with things on a symbolic level. However, such definitions have this effect of closing up situations in which we can think about things. Identify the problems involving language and exhibitions.
” 59
RIYA DE LOS REYES In response to Fragment 05 Introduction This paper will identify the “problems involving language and exhibitions” by first addressing how we define reality on a symbolic level, and then demonstrate how this has ”an effect of closing up situations in which we can think about things”. This essay will do this by examining [concept/conceptual] and [performance/ performativity], which I see as two different exhibition strategies. For the purposes of this essay, it is imperative to understand how we derive meaning from ideas and objects through language. According to the Structuralist school of thought, “things cannot be understood in isolation” and that they have to be seen “in the context of the larger structures that they are a part of”. There is no inherent meaning within an object or an idea; meaning arises from the way that the human mind attributes sense and significance on them. Meaning is created and assigned through attribution, not contained within the object or idea.1 I.
Structuralism to ‘linguistic turn’
Post-structuralism:
The
Ferdinand de Saussure, considered the father of modern linguistics, claimed that words themselves are ‘unmotivated signs’, which means that there are no inherent connection between a word and what it signifies, and that a word is attributed to mean something based on established linguistic conventions.2 For instance, the word violet is not reflective of the colour violet – it is a way to name the colour. Now think of that popular mind game where you are asked to say the COLOUR, not the word that you read: RED GREEN BLUE YELLOW. It is easy to mix them up and say the word instead of the colour of the word because established conventions are thrown out of the window. This shows that as a system of signs, language is arbitrary and random. It is governed by conventions that assigned definitions on an object or an idea. Viewed this way, language does not provide a reflection of the world as it experienced (we experience the colour, not the word), but functions as a means to identify an object or idea.3 Peter Barry, Beginning Theory, 2002, p. 41 Ibid., p. 41-43 3 This already hints on potential problems that could arise with regards to language and exhibitions: because language is arbitrary and distanced from reality, certain linguistic conventions have to be adhered to if an exhibition’s concept is 1 2
60
However, Saussure contends that “meanings are relational”, which means that a word can be defined in relation to other words surrounding it – that is, that the only thing that gives the word its “meaning” is its position and difference from other words surrounding and/or contrasting it.4 When we say “violets are blue”, the verb are indicates that violets (plural noun) is described as blue, which does not make logical sense if they are both taken to mean colours. In this case, determining the meaning of the noun violets will have to take its cues from the fact that it will not make logical sense for the noun to mean the colour. Jacques Derrida expounds upon Saussure’s claim that meanings are relational: “The signified concept is never present in itself, in an adequate presence that would refer only to itself. Every concept is necessarily and eventually described in a chain or a system, within which it refers to another and to other concepts, by the systematic play of differences. Such a play, then—différance—is no longer simply a concept, but the possibility of conceptuality (emphasis mine)”.5 II.
Defining the term “concept” and “performance”
A definition of the term “concept” is first necessary to understand this shift from “simply [being] a concept” towards “the possibility of conceptuality”. A concept may be defined as a “mental representation”.6 Language is a means to compose the mental representation of our world, not simply to label or record it (although it functions that way too). An example of this is how the calendar year has been categorised based on four seasons. This is even though in reality there is no real division or rupture indicating the switch, for instance, from winter to spring. In other words, the seasons are our way of seeing, “rather than an objective fact of nature”.7 On the other hand, our “conceptual ability” enables us to interpret and attribute meaning to our world: for instance, we have associated flowers with spring, which is an objective fact of nature and has to be communicated beyond the exhibition itself. As already expressed in the module, this has an effect of closing up the way we think about things. 4 Barry, p. 42 5 Charles Altieri, Act and Quality: A Theory of Literary Meaning and Humanistic Understanding, 1981, p. 32 6 Gregory L. Murphy, The Big Book of Concepts, 2004, pp. 1-2 7 Barry, p. 43
come to symbolise the season through our linking and attribution of meaning between them. One of the problems with this way of defining “concept” is that language is viewed as “the tool of thought (i.e. that thinking happens in language)”.8 Derrida has problematised that although language—through writing—enables us to be cognizant of the fact that meaning is relational, it also has the tendency to “overdetermine the signs and prevents any coherent single chain of meanings from developing” (that is, has an effect of closing up the way we think about things). He believes that “iterability makes possible idealization— and thus a certain identity in repetition that is independent of the multiplicity of factual events—while at the same time limiting the idealization it makes possible”.9 The seasons are conventionally “written over” the months in the calendars because of the repetitive pattern in nature that made it possible to identify each season in relation to their corresponding months. According to Derrida, this way of repetition “leaves us no choice other than to mean (to say) something that is (already, always, also)”, such that “discourse continually produces meanings which never fertilize reproduction but invite further dispersal in ultimately narcissistic acts”.10
This disconnect not only proves that language is not necessarily reflective of reality, but also shows the problems of viewing it as “the tool of thought (i.e. that thinking happens in language)” as the linguistic expression of thought “is often necessarily general, non-specific, even imprecise”.11 Linguistic representation should therefore be seen as distinct from the corresponding conceptual representation. The philosopher John Searle’s Principle of Expressability, which states that ‘whatever can be meant can be said’, cannot hold true. As shown from the calendar example, “the more explicit I try to be (in idealizing and establishing ways of seeing), the more unintended implicatures I generate”, and these implicatures are often due to contingencies and alternative possibilities.12 For Derrida, the alternatives and the possibilities surrounding a concept are paramount, as they are inextricably linked to it to ensure that “the purportedly ‘ideal’ structure must necessarily be such that this corruption will be ‘always possible’”. The ‘normalising’ effect of speech acts (previously described in this essay as the establishment of conventions through repetition) fails to account for “the complexities of experience” and the way that forms of power “covertly establishes hierarchies of relevance” in interpretations.13
Writing, therefore, not only enables the composition and creation of concepts, it can also render a concept a convention through repetition since re-writing or “iterability makes possible idealization”. This is how a concept can be repeatedly performed as something that becomes a recognisable pattern until it eventually becomes an established paradigm. Once it has become an ideal, Derrida claims that the concept would not allow for different ways of interpretation and instead “invite further dispersal in ultimately narcissistic acts”— that is, that it continuously performs itself to define itself as “reality”. We could then be locked in the paradigm of looking to the calendar as the authority (a conventional/ customary way of seeing) in determining seasons. But what if spring does not arrive in March as the calendar system has determined? The snow has yet to thaw and flowers are nowhere to be seen (objective fact of nature). We would be more inclined towards believing the “objective fact of nature” and may become sceptical of the calendar system.
In other words, the performativity of ‘ideals’ could in fact simplify reality by failing to take into account that these established ideals are not necessarily immutable since—for Derrida—these ideals are always surrounded by possibilities. Ludwig Wittgenstein provides “hope for a possible cure” to this problem raised by Derrida. He suggested that “it is the grammatical competence which education in a culture produces that enables us to establish ideas for appropriateness and then to rely on practical considerations for defining degrees of probable relevance in hypotheses about meanings”. Rather than “rooting essences in nature”, Wittgenstein posits that “Essence is expressed by grammar” and that “Grammar tells us what kind of an object anything is.” We are able to eliminate objects as “irrelevant” not by forgoing the need for “forms of secure knowledge” but rather by altering “the grounds for determining what we know and can trust as secure and meaningful”.14 I believe that what he is referring to is the need for context and knowledge classifications.
III.
Linguistic Representation is not equal to Conceptual Representation
Jan Nuyts and Eric Pederson (eds), Language and Conceptualization, 1997, p. 4 9 Altieri, p. 36 10 Altieri, p. 34-37 8
Recall the previous example: violets are blue. As Stephen C. Levinson, “From outer to inner space: linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking”, in Nuyts and Pederson (ed.), Language and Conceptualization, p. 17 12 Ibid., p. 18 13 Altieri, p. 30-31 14 Altieri, p. 47 11
61
mentioned, the verb are indicates that the noun (violets) to be blue, but it does not make logical sense if they are both taken to mean colours. How do we determine the meaning of violets? It is the human mind—our “conceptual ability” (i.e. through a system of categorisation and contextualisation)—that enables us to figure out that it would be better to interpret violets as a type of flower rather than a type of colour. Therefore, concepts can perhaps be better understood as “themselves connected to our larger knowledge of structures” and as “a kind of mental glue [that] tie our past experiences to our present interactions with the world”.15 Moreover, we can see that human agency/ human rationalisation is possible when negotiating with concepts, particularly concepts that (through their iterability) have been deemed as established paradigms or way of seeing. Concluding Remarks: Derrida’s method of deconstruction states that ‘the centre cannot hold’ (decentralisation) and that the surrounding texts/contexts are more important in the search for meaning than focusing on the ‘centre’ or the concept itself. As such, this is how a concept becomes conceptual rather than simply being a concept. From this conclusion, I believe that a “conceptual exhibition” is one that relies not on its concept in itself, but rather the relation of the texts that surrounds and informs the viewer of the concept. The focus is not so much the concept itself, but rather the way it negotiates with the texts it has employed and engages with. The conceptual exhibition defines itself from the interpretation of the viewer—i.e. the exhibition’s meaning is not expressed directly or perceived immediately, but rather interpreted through the linking and attribution of meaning to the texts that constitutes it, through the texts that the exhibition attempts to compose. I would like to bring this back to my assessment piece on the exhibition Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya at the NUS Museum.16 For instance, the opposition between arbitrariness and conceptual in relation to language can be paralleled to the bricoleur and the engineer. The arbitrary vs. conceptual dichotomy is analogous to the methods of inquiry espoused by Mohammad Din Mohammad and Dr Polunin, and the “gap” between them is ensured by the lack of grammatical congruence in the way they communicate to each other, if not the insistence to maintain their respective identities through the process of “othering” or performativity through the 15 16
62
Murphy, p. 1-2 Link to essay: http://tiny.cc/riyadelosreyes-assessment
play of différance, according to Derrida. One of the reasons why I liked this exhibition a lot was its ability to “speak against” the Westernised concept of the museum by deconstructing and exposing the way museums (as expressions of Western power) have conceptualised Malaya. Through mimicry (i.e. conscious iteration/performativity), the exhibition is able to speak about and against Westernised modes of exhibition-making using the same tools (grammar and language) used by “established conventions” of exhibition-making. This way, the curators themselves followed the same vein of Wittgenstein’s “hope for a cure” to Derrida’s gripe against idealisation—that is, the curators acquired the grammatical competence to “talk back” and re-negotiate the way Malaya has been represented. The re-writing (performance) of established conventions is done such that the focus is no longer on the ‘ideal’, but rather on the context composed by the curators. I guess one of the main problems (for me, personally) when it comes to language and exhibition is the question of authorship and the necessary ‘open-endedness’ of exhibitions. Roland Barthes’ proclamation of the ‘Death of the Author’ posits that the authorial intent is no longer relevant as soon as interpretation is given up to the viewer. The arbitrariness of language and the deconstruction method makes ‘representation’ multi-faceted, fractured and intricate, more so since the viewer is invited to be participant to the “meaningmaking” process of the exhibition. But what if the viewer does not have the necessary context to even grasp the surface of the meaning/concept that the exhibition was trying to convey? From Derrida’s point of view, the re-presentations and even (mis)representations are invited if only so as to refute even the notion of an ‘ideal representation’, to make it open to “corruptions” and to prevent the privileging of one interpretation over others. As such, grammatical competence on the part of the viewer is also necessary if he/she could purposefully partake in the “meaning-making” process of an exhibition. I believe this is also the main reason why art (especially conceptual/abstract or those that references other established works) is sometimes deemed inaccessible to those who lack grammatical competence (context) to understand it. I remember Jim Supangkat saying that a viable way for Asian contemporary art to remain relevant is if it can be understood by Western audience—that is, not by aping Western art-making techniques but rather using it in such a way that warrants Asian contemporary art to be understood by the Western audience because the
artwork could speak in the language/grammar that is familiar and immediately recognisable to the Western audience. Bibliography Altieri, Charles. Act and Quality: A Theory of Literary Meaning and Humanistic Understanding. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. Print. Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Print. Levinson, Stephen C. â&#x20AC;&#x153;From outer to inner space: linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinkingâ&#x20AC;?, in Nuyts and Pederson (ed.), Language and Conceptualization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print. Murphy, Gregory L. The Big Book of Concepts. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 2004. Print. Nuyts, Jan and Eric Pederson (eds). Language and Conceptualization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print.
63
JENNIFER LAM In response to Fragment 05 Should there be a strategic reason behind why we received the specific modules we did, I was quite sure what mine was. Rewinding to the application process of CuratingLab 2012 in July, one of the tasks was to write a review on a chosen exhibition out of a list of three. I picked PANORAMA: Recent Art from Contemporary Asia at Singapore Art Museum1. Two languages were used in the opening paragraph2, followed by an analysis on the exhibition layout, exhibition flow and design, curatorial concept, and representation of the concept with artworks. The review ended by asking readers to “be conscious that it is never an easy task to take the first step in creating a new canon and define a position in Art, especially in Contemporary Asian Art”. These fit nicely into Module 5. [Language + Definitions = Associations → Presumptions ~ Restrictions] Module [textual fragment] 5 first appeared to be simple. Language and Definitions give birth to Associations, which leads to Presumptions, and thus form Restrictions. One reads the word ‘apple’ and straightaway define it to be either the fruit or the brand made famous by Steve Jobs. With the former, one is triggered to think about apple crumble, toffee apple, Granny Smith, teacher’s day, Adams & Eve, Snow White etc. With the later, one is triggered to think about iPhone, iPad, Mac Book, Apps, competing models and brands, technology advancements etc. However, ‘apple’ can also be (the name of) your distant cousin or a fashion boutique down your block. This is where Misunderstanding enters the picture. Working with one language brings you to this equation that reminisce the butterfly effect. Imagine what it will be like working with more than one language! Issues The review was written on the inception part of PANORAMA at SAM building. Since 29 Sept 2012, the show has moved to 8Q with a new rotation works on display. It was publicised that a PANORAMA Part II will be on view in 2013. To view the full review, please visit http://souppods.blogspot.sg 2 The review began by describing PANORAMA with a metaphorical reference to “Rojak” – a word in Malay language meaning “wild mix”, and the name of a local bite-to-eat. 1
64
on locality of languages and being lost in translation are inevitable. Being fluent in English Language, Mandarin Chinese (simplified written Chinese) and Cantonese (traditional written Chinese), juggling linguistic matters is part of my common daily affair in both the private and professional realms. Often when translating English to Chinese and vice-versa, the product of translation makes no sense if the context is ignored. Few phrases are able to have direct one-on-one translation. Let us take the English term ‘Art’ for example. [Art = Yishu]? ‘Art’ can be translated to ‘yishu’ (艺术) and ‘meishu’ ( 美术) in Chinese. Yishu carries a connotation that includes all kinds of Art, i.e. painting, sculpting, poetry, literature, dance, theatre, opera, cinematic, architecture, landscape architecture, flower arrangement. The list can go on, as yishuultimately refers to any skills and practices that are deemed upon as forms of a higher humanistic expression.3 The term yishu can be traced to origin from the Han Dynasty (circa 206 BC – 220 AD). Each syllabus refers to four kinds of abilities/activities. Yi (艺) refers to literature writing [shu (书)], mathematics [shu(数)], archery [she (射)], and ability to ride a horse or drive a horse carriage [yu (御)]. Shu (术) refers to the practices in medicine [yi (医)], carpentry [fang (方)], foretelling [bu (卜)], and divination [shi(筮)]. Evidently, ‘yishu’ or ‘Art’ in the context of Chinese culture and history relates very different to our nowadays understanding of the term. Yishu was associated with technique-based activities, rather than a visual element or form of expression. However, this does mean there has not been any conceptual development or awareness in artistic expression. Cultural literacy (文化素养) was seen as an essential quality of the scholar-bureaucrats or literati of imperial China. The level of cultural literacy works similar to military rankings. In order to prove their level of cultural literacy, competence in ‘qin qi shu hua’ (琴棋书画) is measured. Qin (琴) refers to the stringed-musical Definition of yishu on Baidu Encyclopedia http://baike.baidu. com/view/576.htm#1 3
instrument guqin. Qi (棋) refers to a board game called weiqi, known as Go in English and sometimes in modern colloquial terminology as ‘Asian Chess’. Shu ( 书) refers to calligraphy, but should not be confused with the shu mentioned earlier in the passage. The earlier refers to the ability to articulate and write cohesively and the later refers to poetic expression, both in content and form (brush works and intensity of ink). Finally, hua ( 画) refers to painting, and is unarguably the greatest measure of individual creativity and cultural literacy. These four activities / abilities have existed as individual entities since the Three Sovereigns and Five Kingdom period (circa 2600 BC - 2110 BC), and later placed together during the Tang Dynasty, hence forming what we know now in English-translated terms – The Four Arts in Historical China. Another translation for ‘Art’ is ‘meishu’ (美术). ‘Meishu’ has a closer reference to ‘Fine Art’, narrowing down to paintings, sculptures, literature and music. The term meishu was first used by Cai Yuanpei in the New Culture Movement, which occurred in the early 20th Century. Broken down to syllabus, mei means ‘beauty’ and shu refers to a technique, hence referring to tangible objects of beauty. Towards the mid-20th Century, yishu was used as an analogy during a Communist Party Speech by Mao Zedong in 1939, with the phrase of “The Art of War”. Later, Mao turned the term into a political agent at a speech in Yan’an (1942), where yishu / art is categorised by levels and used to reflect particular social classes. In the late-20th Century, various other associations of yishu came around. Some use it as an adjective referring to ‘being rich and varied’. Others referred to the term as an object or element that expresses and represents life and one’s soul. This last connotation is similar to what the West refers to as ‘aesthetics’ [Art = Yishu = Seni (?)] Meeting Jim Supangkat (aka Pak Jim)4 in Bandung, during the program’s regional fieldtrip, brought reassurance to my finds and excitement to my criticalthinking mind. Fifteen of us sat sluggishly, struggling to stay attentive Jim Supangkat is an art critic, theorist, and activist. He founded Indonesia New Art Movement in 1975, which proclaimed the re-definition of art and the search of Indonesian subversive perception on art. To know more about Pak Jim, please refer to his short bio on Global Art Museum website http://www.globalartmuseum.de/site/person/222 4
in silence after a delicious hearty home-cooked lunch at the Selasor Sunaryo Art Space. It was a warm autumn afternoon with an occasional cool breeze passing by through the surrounding woods. We were seated at Bale Hadap, a pavilion inspired by traditional Javanese architecture. Agung5 was sharing with us a power-point on curatorial strategies and the relation of curating & space, gathered from his professional experiences thus far. Our facilitators fidget in their seats, stealing frequent glances at the brick staircase which leads upwards to the main entrance of the complex.
Notes taken during the Dialogue with Pak Jim, 11 Sept 2012 at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space Swift like a breeze, one of our facilitators sprang up from his seat and walked purposefully towards the brick staircase. A pair of brown loafers descended to view, followed by legs covered by denim jeans, a healthy belly tucked-away by a black belt, a simple black long-sleeved turtle neck… Pak Jim is a tall angular man, wearing circular thin framed glasses, a tidy full moustache and beard and matching white hair tied neatly into a short ponytail, and black bowler hat adorned with a red speckled feather. Pak Jim sends off an edgy rocker aura. Among ourselves, we silently nicknamed him ‘The Indonesian Art Godfather’. During the dialogue, Pak Jim elaborated upon his previous writings and theories. He also shared with us his decision in becoming an art critic and curator, shedding away his artist-self, and the importance of writing a local art history aside from following Western Agung Hujatnikajennong is a lecturer at the Department of Art, Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. Having concluded his undergraduate (2001) and graduate (2006) studies, he is now doing his doctoral research on Indonesian art curatorship at his alma mater. Agung also works as an independent curator, and has just completed his term as curator at Selasor Sunaryo Art Space. 5
65
theories, which often is viewed as the mainstream. It was through this rare moment of encounter and exchange that I came to learn to view my earlier thoughts on yishu in a different angle. In September 2009, Pak Jim’s The Seni Manifesto was published on-line in Global Art Museum website.6 By tracing the linguistic and philosophic basis for artistic discourse in Indonesia, as compared to a Western ideology of art through theoretical analysis on the key phrases of “seni”, “seni rupa” and “kagunan”, Pak Jim pointed out the necessity of cultural translation to fully understand the developments in art and art history, without having to resort to the persistent thesis of cultural incommensurability. Through the manifesto, Pak Jim introduced me to Stephen Davies and Denis Dutton, their debate7, and his treatment for seni, leading us back to Dutton’s question – Do they have our concept of art? Looking back to [Art = Yishu]?, yishu has evolved through historical and cultural contexts of China into a term we can now closely link with the Western terms ‘art’ and ‘aesthetics’. The essence of creativity and artistic expression in Chinese art has always been around, and was merely given a different name to yishu and known as other nouns. These qualities survived through time by being infused into the Chinese culture and daily lives. Hence, answering Dutton’s question – Yes, we do share the concept of art, but on different trajectories, particularly time. [Art = Yishu = Seni → Alternative Modernism] Throughout the world, regardless of cultures, philosophers did not anticipate that there would be other cradles of heritage that developed differently and provided alternative thoughts. This is particularly so in the Euro-American realm, as Pak Jim also mentioned in his manifesto. It was only when mechanics and technologies enhanced mobility, did continents and Jim Supangkat, The Seni Manifesto, Sept 2009 [http://www. globalartmuseum.de/site/guest_author/222] 7 The debate between Dutton and Davies revolves around (1.) the understanding of the term ‘aesthetics’, (2.) manner to view and comprehend non-Western artworks and terminologies, and (3.) the concept of art in Western and non-Western context. For further reference, please refer to their individual publications: Stephen Davies, “Non-Western Art and Art’s Definition”,Theories of Art Today, Nöel Carroll (ed.), The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000 and Denis Dutton, “Chapter 5: But They Don’t Have Our Concept of Art.”, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution, New York Bloomsbury Press, 2009. 6
66
their people became closer to each other. The birth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s sparked off a pivoting change to accessibility of information, mode of acquiring knowledge, and dialogue exchange. A myriad of discourses were generated, mainly from the West8 and brought back to the homeland of travelers and visitors of the West.9 One of the pressing discourses we are situated in by default is the topic of Modernity aka Contemporaneity10. Do all cultures undergo the same range of cultural changes in a uniform pattern that result to Modernity? Applying the treatment of yishu and seni into the concept of Modernity & Modernism, I am sure you are able to now confidently point out that there is neither one single form nor one single definition to Modernity & Modernism. Modernity is a condition of the ‘modern’, whether it may be a social or political stance for example. Modernism is a noun that describes the character or quality of thought, expression, or technique of the ‘modern’. Coined by Western cultures, Modernism marks the beginning of rationalism, reasoning, scientific thinking and parting with traditional belief. All of these were defined specifically to historical, social and political realities in Euro-America. When one pauses to contemplate on rationalism and reasoning, do the Middle East and China not have a longer history, i.e. in relation to Mathematics and Medicine? The connotations Modernity & Modernism bring with them are very much rooted in Western cultures egoism. Hence, direct transfer of the terms will not work in our local context in Asia and Southeast Asia. We need to be mindful about the implications and perhaps restrictions that go hand-in-hand with the terms, using our sensibilities as judgments, and not forgetting our own unique aesthetics and philosophies. Adding Curating to the Equations In order to mindfully apprehend the definitions across different languages, one need to break away from Associations, abolish Presumptions, and look into the context in which the term was created and used. Such a task is where dictionaries come into the picture. Being The West here refers to Europe and America. For a quick introduction in the constitution of Modern/ Contemporary Asia through the lens of Art, kindly refer to my personal blog post: http://souppods.blogspot.sg/2012/08/ introducing-chinese-20th-century-art.html 10 Definition of Contemporaneity is 1. modernity; 2. the quality of being current or of the present. 8 9
time specific, the definitions of terms need to be updated accordingly. In spite of this, how do such anthropologic and linguistic theories have to do with Curating?
text remains a debatable issue, and designing the layout of our show. It will be the final assessment to this program, available on view in January 2013.
“A curator takes up the role of a challenger”, as Dr. Patrick Flores shared with us during one of CuratingLab 2012 intensive workshops. S/He is a contemporary explorer, where written and verbal languages and visual languages are weapons. Curators push cognitive boundaries, “leading their audiences out of comfort zones”, prompting them to gain awareness of issues oblivious about. In succeeding these, curators either communicate verbally (i.e. guided tours, dialogues and round tables), through text (i.e. curatorial statement, essays, wall text, labels), or visually in the form of exhibitions. By doing so, curators also act as mediators, between the shown object and audience. Just like lawyers, who take up the role in presenting the law in an easily comprehensible fashion, art curators present art history and art in an accessible and understandable manner.
Perhaps Professor Apinan Poshyananda’s drop of wisdom is true.11 Upon picking up the task of curating, we are on a long labyrinth path.
Manifesto is an excellent example. Pak Jim curated this exhibition with the curatorial aim to explore the Indonesian understanding of seni and seni rupa. Opened at the National Gallery in Jakarta (May 2008), showing over 350 artists from Indonesia, Manifesto was the visual form of The Seni Manifesto. This was Pak Jim showing and telling his seni manifesto using no other objects than art / artworks themselves. Module 5 – the quest continues A topic that first appeared to form a succession of simple equations, turned out to be a Pandora box. Conversing with my fellow curating-lab mates, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that all of us joined the program with several questions in mind – What is curating? What kind of qualities do Curators have? Can you curate books and architectures? – but with three-quarter of the program completed, we carry with us more than our initial mental capability can hold. In this paper, we have looked closely at the problems of language and derived a possible solution to minimise the effect of the cause. However, the relation of language and exhibition can be further explored. At this point in time, I am unable to present a respond as I am still on the quest. I can only share with you that my cognitive process has now join arms with the practical areas of exhibition-making. Questions like ‘role of language in an exhibition’ and ‘contributing factors in exhibitionmaking’ are embedded in the process of writing the curatorial statement and labels, where the use of wall
Curating-Lab members met during a closed-door roundtable at Visual Arts at Temenggong, 9 Oct 2012. 11
67
68
TEXTUAL FRAGMENT
06
â&#x20AC;&#x153;
We are witness to a number of exhibitions and art works that involve commentary or reactions to sociopolitical issues. Art as activism has always been a highly contested arena, with many varied perspectives on the multiple issues involved. Think about an area in which art and politics had often come into contact, and state the various positions and reasonings for such positions.
â&#x20AC;?
69
MOHAMED ASHRAF BIN MOHAMAD YOONUS In response to Fragment 06 TAMING A REBEL CULTURE Political Art? It is an easy enough position to take when an artist, critic, curator or an academic claims that all art is political. While the position may seem inquisitive and the semantics involved may seemingly offer an alternative to widely held views that delineate art and politics, it is a position that is easy enough to argue for. A closer look at how this position is arrived upon offers reasons why I consider this position slightly. The social relations that govern all human production be it art or beyond it, is considered political as social relations ultimately have political dimensions. The relationship between an artist and the society that he is a part of, the sort of economic dynamics within which he operates to ply his craft, and the very many artists who see themselves above and beyond petty preoccupations such as politics and thereby take a very political stand-it is all political (if you wish to contextualise it as such). I think no one capable of logical reasoning is going to dispute a statement such as “all artworks are political owing to how they offer perspectives on social relations”. By this reasoning, naturally everything is political. It is the sort of uninspired position that hampers any meaningful analysis of the issues that rise out of overlaps between art and politics. Especially since this essay is about a particular-political art. I tend to have a very simplistic litmus test to determine if an artist and his artworks are political. While not foolproof, it helps to narrow the ever-extending list of artists. If an artist’s works are compared to the other artworks of its time and those who shape art aficionado opinions, such as critics and historians, trace influences to other art movements, then it is probably not political enough for me to qualify as political art; Whereas political art would probably be considered in terms of signposts that denote socio-political events of the era. Simplistic maybe, perhaps over-simplistic, but this test allowed me to quickly narrow down the list I had to look at when I started studying artworks that are considered to be political art. And of course, at this juncture, it is important to state clearly what I mean by political art. Political art has to offer a commentary, make a statement, about various socio-political, cultural issues. Intentions of artists who produce political art if plotted cover a wide spectrum.
70
From creating awareness to defeating a policy or even to sway the public to opt for a particular politician over another, it is all political art. It is the sort of art that purports to alter how we perceive the world around us, to make us understand what is going on in the world in the hope of altering it for the better; Better as according to the artist of course. And so an artist who produces political art is also a shaper of (public more than the art critics’) opinions. Political art has a determined activist angle to it, which is why political art and activist art are often conflated. Merely representing the world is not enough to qualify as political art, as such not all art that is about politics can be termed political art. The function of the artwork in some sense defines whether it is political art or otherwise. The idea is to challenge the way things are, and to facilitate a change for the better. Moving beyond artworks that are merely for contemplation and appreciation, political art has a strong action component that is required of its viewer. For most people, engagement with what they would consider art would be at the museum. The museum as an institution defines what art is and determines what is good and otherwise. I would like to draw attention to the demographic of museum visitors. If I could pander to common stereotype, it is a select group that visits museums, especially art museums. What is art and what is not is defined by a small pool of people for the benefit of a slightly larger pool of people of mostly similar background. This oversimplification helps illustrate a point. The world of art consists of a very small populace. Political art in this sense is determinedly opposed to this as it targets a wide audience-the polis, in its entirety. This is the reason why apart from the potency of the content in inspiring change of some manner, political art’s success is also determined by its reach. At this juncture, I would like to write about street art in hopes of refining my focus. Political art, by virtue of having the need to have a wide reach, contends itself with a venue for its “show” unlike any museum or gallery. The streets, the mass media, the digital media are all platforms to showcase political art. The basis of street art itself is political since it is often an overt, ostentatious and illegal display of resistance against the privatisation of space. Control of the space is in the hands of a select few, the owners or the state and so the space in some sense becomes colonised by them. Street artists thus serve to resist this colonisation of space in order to assert that these spaces are democratic venues open for everyone’s
usage. Shepard Fairey expands on this by claiming that it is the right of taxpayers to use these spaces, the same way corporations use the spaces for advertising.1 Street art while a derivative of graffiti goes beyond tagging. The works of street artists have conceptual content and are used as platforms for the artists to voice opinions that are seldom heard and/or give voice to the marginal groups. The function of being a social commentary and the freedom that is afforded to artists who do not have to worry about institutional backing allows for a raw, unvarnished viewpoint that may at times seem raw and brutal. The works have to compete with the mess of what surrounds them. This is opposed to works shown in museums that allow for people to succumb to indulgence where they can retreat into silence and solitude. The brash quality, rather the lack of subtlety, is often derided by those who see street art as something of a pariah in the art world. Perhaps the rubrics that critics use to judge art need to be re-evaluated where street art, and political art, is concerned since the medium they work with necessitates the treatment. Street art cannot afford to be indirect in its communication of ideas. The wide reach that it contends with and the competition for visual arrest means that the message has to be conveyed in as few words as possible with a simple discourse that immediately evokes a visceral reaction or at worst a reflective moment. In this sense, it is truly democratic as an art form. While it goes without saying that street art allows for these voices to be heard, it also works with a platform that is not assured an audience. The notion of a captive audience, one that museums benefit from, is alien to street artists. The works of street artists can be ignored if not compelling enough, aesthetically and conceptually. Street art and political art thus have many overlaps and oftentimes one serves as a subset of the other. A needless clarification would be if I state that not all street art is political art, and not all political art is street art. Banksy and Shepard Fairey have been by far the most iconic street artists and their success is in large part due to their strong social commentary element (and of course their employment of brand culture to position themselves as creative entrepreneurs). While street artists, they have made a name for themselves as political activists, with art being their medium for activism. Their success has brought to the fore many issues about street art and political art that had previously not been addressed widely.
Simek, Peter. “Interview: Why Shepard Fairey is not a Sellout”, OBEY. [http://www.obeygiant.com/headlines/interviewwhy-shepard-fairey-is-not-a-sellout] 1
Mainstream? Political street art combines social action, social theory and art to pave the way for a diversity of views that were hitherto not heard. While it may not be the best of didactic tools, Murray Edelman even claims that it is through the arts that our views of politics are engendered, and only indirectly through personal immediate experience. This is why there is an assumption oftentimes that what is reflected on “canvas” is akin to their own reasoning. Although these art forms are considered to be fringe, and it is the artworks that are within the accepted art contexts that are considered mainstream, the fact is that political street art is more mainstream than most other art forms. The sheer reach of the artworks makes it mainstream. In this way, Banksy and Fairey occupy a coveted spot in the art world, for being able to operate in the mainstream and beyond accepted art contexts. This brings to fore an important issue. Art should not be defined narrowly and artworks should not have to be bracketed within styles. Rather, art is better defined when you consider the functions of the artwork. Increasingly, artworks of Banksy and Fairey are coopted into institutions with the likes of the Smithsonian being a patron of Fairey. While this recognition is a positive turn, as it shows a maturing art world that is more inclusive, it is also a troubling trend as has been argued by street artists themselves. While on the streets, the social commentaries were uninhibited. Condemnations and criticisms were exhibited freely such as against the state and the various apparatuses of the state. Operating under the auspices of an institution such as a museum, while giving the artworks a certain level of prestige, comes at a price. The unruly, brash nature of the artworks gets tamed. The appropriation of the artists and the artworks basically removes them from their contexts, their natural elements and they thus become open to the museumising effect of the institution. Curators get overzealous in slapping on meanings and recontextualising the artworks. In some sense, as the artwork becomes more mainstream in the conventional sense, from being fringe to going vogue, the rebel culture that set street art and political art apart from the other art forms is tamed. While some museums are coming forth to include these art forms, there is also the problem of how most museums still have a revulsion towards them as being fringe or not being art at all. The argument that is often put forth is that while the social commentaries and the political activism is good for the streets, it has no place in this form in the museums. And then there is the criticism that such art is plain silly when compared to the actual needs of the issues that are touched
71
upon by the artists. The works are thus shrugged off as nothing more than â&#x20AC;&#x153;abstract liberal pathos and selfrighteousness directed towards an uncertain audienceâ&#x20AC;?. Yet another issue faced by the likes of Banksy and Fairey as their works become more mainstream and popular is that they begin to lose their credibility as street artists and as political artists. As their works get duplicated and represented in institutions, whatever defined their works as political street art get diminished. It is a balancing game of sorts for the artists; their crossover into the mainstream hinge on their fringe cred. Their reputation as artists of the streets is integral to their value as artists. This is why factors such as anonymity, the illegal nature of their activities (through arrests) are highlighted and hyped by the artists. Their antiestablishment rhetoric is praised for being alternative. As they crossover into the mainstream, they are able to do so only through harping on their difference from the mainstream. In this thought piece, I have tried to establish how political and street art can be integrated into the art world and also touched upon the problems that arise out of this inclusion.
72
RACHELLE SU In response to Fragment 06 To speak of a “cultural object” today is too limited, and that is partly because culture has become part of the market economy. Perhaps, the only domain that is not entirely absorbed by the market is the political domain…and a positive outcome of globalization is that we live in such an incredibly radical moment that the best way to participate is through politics, rather than culture.1 In the “Curating Architecture” project, architectural research studio AMO developed an installation that rethinks the relation between image, data, ideological rhetoric, and built forms. This work essentially conveys Rem Koolhaas’ firm assertion that “architecture develops out of shifting global economic and cultural infrastructures”2, and should be rightly understood as “sites of politics…and that politics admits architecture both as a spatial and social process.”3 Architecture and urbanism have always been considered as complex and creative acts that are uniquely sensitive as they work on a scale that requires keen calibration between various extremes of function, attitudes, objectives and thoughts. The contemporary city can therefore be read as a hybrid system that is constantly “becoming,” and through different intentions, interventions, narratives and analyses. Beyond the structuring of cities by static objects such as houses, its urban flux – the ephemeral relationships formed between the users, objects and events – also makes up the critical mass of a city’s experience. What is mapped in the mental life of a regular urban dweller will then require (re)-evaluations. Be it having breakfast in the park, wandering along the streets, or rubbing shoulders with complete strangers on crowded transportation, it is meaningful to note that the city arises out of these provisional and negotiated relationships as well. The temporal expanse within which these dramas unfold, the ongoing writing and rewriting of the city, have rendered it akin to a palimpsest – a favorite term in urban studies of late, from André Corboz to Giuliana Bruno. What this amounts to A dialogue between Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist as recorded in the essay published by Andrea Phillips on “Curating Architecture”, an exhibition at The Showroom, London, 2008. 2 Andrea Phillips, ‘Curating and Architecture: Notes from the Research’, http://old.gold.ac.uk/art/curating-architecture/ Andrea-Phillips-on-CA.pdf, (accessed: 1 December 2012). 3 Phillips, ‘Curating and Architecture: Notes from the Research’. 1
is a reading of the city as a layered parchment, with countless fragments of possible stories emerging through constant overwriting, none of which can be read in isolation or completeness.4 And by doing so, urban dwellers are offered an opportunity to discover something new, and through their own agendas and perspectives find a new mapping and way of thinking about cities. These ambiguous and hidden layers in our urban-scape remain indispensable in recognizing cities’ latent energies and what seems to make up future interventions. This is a significant trial of contemporary urbanism, as it identifies the need to develop unorthodox ways of reading and intervening in the urban framework. The empirical apparatus for conventional urbanism deals only with limited aspects of the city while an elusive void still remains un-approached. The overload of information and stimuli that frames our recent culture is testimony for the need to widen the intellectual horizon and to be equipped with new tools for engaging with modern urban phenomenon. In this case, the contemporary city is one that, … requires increasingly informed and critical navigation, if any sense – both as meaning and direction – is to be got from it. It seems that the work of interpreters has never been more topical. Approaching the city as a collection to be curated, whether through representations or in situ, opens up new possibilities for exploring and enriching the urban fabric and urban condition as a whole.5 Curation in its original meaning refers to the responsibility and care for something. In the past, a curator would traditionally be a person who looks after a collection of artifacts or things in a museum, and is a custodian of all that encompasses the collection – from ensuring that they are maintained in the best conditions, managing new acquisitions for expansion of works, to administrating its capabilities in display. Presently, curation has caught on additional meaning with a considerable shift towards the way things are displayed and less concerned with the specificity of the collection. It (curation) has become a more loosely Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City (London: Routledge, 2009), p.2 5 Chaplin and Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City, p. 1-2. 4
73
defined creative activity, increasingly employed in a wide range of cultural fields. No longer implying an exclusive link to a collection, the contemporary curator is more like an artist-atlarge, representing the world through the widest variety of media, locations and intentions. At its most extreme, this reinvention of the idea of curation could be criticized as yet another fad of consumerist post-modernity, requiring everchanging ways of selling everything. Indeed, there is affinity between the arts of packaging, branding and curating, deployed in equal measures across the department store, the gallery and the museum. And although styling itself can no longer be dismissed as an inconsequential activity, it is the potential of contemporary curatorial practice beyond appearances that renders it most interesting and relevant.6 With such a shift from the traditional role of a curator, one naturally asks what is the stance that architectural exhibition-making can take in this expanded definition? Can an exhibition of architecture create a more complex inquiry into the link between architecture and other cultural participants? In her book entitled Art and Architecture: A Place Between, Jane Rendell proposed that public art could be thought of as social space. This proposition was interested in how the various forms of ‘spatial practice’ carried out by public artists engaged with issues developed through ‘spatial theory’. In addition, art and architecture collaborative, muf, also discussed their work as “a place between people”, much like how curation is the place of mediation between the work and the audience. Such an association inevitably provokes revisions in our thinking about the implicit relationships between curatorship and architecture. By taking a broader philosophical look at curation – by re-positioning it both as and within spatial practice – one may articulate ‘care’ as both a responsible act and a conceptual expression where idea and space interact. Ultimately, this links the curator, the architecturban planner and the city dweller in a shared act of participation. The architectural exhibition, the national gallery, the urban redevelopment project, the heritage precinct, and art biennales, can unravel non-traditional forms of the city and route out fresh navigations between them. In essence, the architecturban planner characterises a type of über-curator, whose sculpting of cities provides grounds for their own involvement in the over-arching curatorial function: Has architecture, properly thought and experienced, ever been otherwise? Is the city, considered as a site of curation, a place of care, Chaplin and Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City, p. 1. 6
74
anything other than such a irreducible life? Is the responsibility of the city curator, the urban planner, the architect, anything other or less than the fostering of such care? Or can their concern simply be regarded instead as the derived realm of res extensa, its forms and the materiality in which they are represented?7 Rather, just as the creative designer curates the city and at the same time creates their work in a to-and-fro activity between what exists and what will exist, what they have an eye to in this resonating movement is its continuation by others within the space of the city of the room… when the task of the designer becomes not primarily the consideration of built form but the wider task of the consideration of the interplay of people and space, peoples and place… (this) gives responsibility and thus the possibility of curation to the others who will come to inhabit and come to view… this means that there is a responsibility – a political one – to allow for care, to allow for curation.8 In 1968, SPUR (Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group) exhibited on Elizabeth Walk a showcase entitled, Singapore: Our Environment Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Clearly, the ideological and educational values of public architectural exhibitions were never lost on civil society groups since post-independent. This exhibition premiered to jolt the public’s awareness of the condition of the city and to ‘bring out the inherent quality of the environment and attempt to recast old familiar scenes in a new light’. Rather than highlighting the state of architecture then, the curatorial technique used in the exhibition was to show deliberately how vital the architectural environment was to the existence of good architecture and practice. Curatorship in this case involves a different conception of space altogether, one that bridges the expanse between production and interpretation, author and reader – the city curator is therefore the ultimate mediator of things in space. Such category of urban curatorial acts translates to what Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara has referred to as ‘poetic interpretations – creative interventions through interpreting and, conversely, invitations to critical engagement through making.’ This school of thought distinguishes curating from other types of public thinking, teaching and research in that it is both affirmative and critical at the same time. In other words, curation is not short of being a spatial practice with the act of exhibition-making an essential device for architectural production. Tim Gough, ‘Cura’, in Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City, 2009, p.101. 8 Gough, ‘Cura’, in Chaplin and Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City, p. 101. 7
Traditionally, the role of architectural exhibitions is to display representations of architecture – it is usually linked to the idea of a space with miniature structural models and architectural plans depicting scenes of a building’s development and construction. Although exhibitions are discursive environments, they are also communicative: The exhibitor can use them (exhibitions) to gauge public opinions on his or her cause, rally public support or fortify his or her position. For these reasons, the nature and the transformations of (architectural) exhibitions directly highlight the public’s awareness and interest in architecture as a medium for imagining the future and taking stock of the moment.9 Beyond these values, architectural exhibitions can also ‘show architecture without recourse to representation (since) exhibitions are produced in spaces and the experience of space is the primary way in which we perceive architecture.’10 In Martina Eberspächer and Gottfried Korff’s exhibition entitled 13 things, they confronted the subject with the object. The idea of the exhibition was to examine the fields of significance of the objectworld using individual things. What structural effect do things have on the architecture of our reality? Is there a grammar of things in the same way that there is a grammar of language? Eberspächer and Korff described their exhibition as architectural, although architecture as a cultural-political object was never fetishised: The exhibition room, the stage production: every thing corresponds to an angled wall panel. The panels are arranged in such a way that the observer always has a view from underneath and from on top. The things look as if they have been cut out from some larger framework, they turn away from each other, and also look at each other again around the corners. These are inclinations and aversions. The angled wall panels seem to like frozen moments in the whirling chaos, in the possible network of interrelations. The world of meanings is presented here as an open system in which constellations arise and break away from each other again.11 Wong Yun Chii, ‘Missions and Visions: A Stock-take of Architectural Exhibitions in Singapore’, Singapore Architect Journal no. 228, August 2005, p.29. 10 Carson Chan, ‘Showing and Experimenting Architecture’, http://www.domusweb.it/en/interview/showing-andexperimenting-architecture/, (accessed: 2 December 2012). 11 Martina Eberspächer and Gottfried Korff, 13 Things, Württembergisches Landesmuseum,Stuttgart, Museum für Volkskunde, Waldenbuch,1993. 9
Here is something of a challenge to curators of architecture. How does one focus on the nature of architectural exhibits and the limitations of interactivity in exhibition design without merely just staging an event and controlling the terms of display and object engagement? With the pressing questions that face us about the future of the built environment, the business of curating architecture and the city should perhaps embrace a more messy manifestation – akin to a de-sign(ifier) of things of sorts. A thorough curatorial exercise would be to fully embrace endless questions and contradictions. What, we might ask, is that why not let what happens in art happen with architecture? Being the mythical mother of the arts, how should the treatment of architectural exhibitions differ from that of displaying of artworks? When asked by PRAXIS: Journal of Writing + Building what would be the defining aspect of contemporary moment in architectural production and thinking, Aaron Betsky the director of Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) replied, “If I knew that, I could retire.”12 As a response to that question, the curator will have to seize architecture’s wider social and political context, and engage directly with spaces, places, people and their ideas. The objective is to discover as many relationships as possible between the city we live in, and the built and un-built objects within it, and how they all eventually coincide together as one curatorial gesture in which we make sense of life. Bibliography Chan, Carson. ‘Showing and Experimenting Architecture’, Domus. 2011. Web. http:// www.domusweb.it/en/interview/showing-andexperimenting-architecture/, (accessed: 2 December 2012). Chaplin, Sarah and Alexandra Stara (eds), Curating Architecture and The City. London: Routledge, 2009. Print. Eberspächer, Martina and Gottfried Korff, 13 Things, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, Museum für Volkskunde, Waldenbuch,1993. “Exhibiting Architecture: The Praxis Questionnaire for Architectural Curators”, Praxis, Issue 7. 2005. Web. http://www.anamiljacki.com/wp-content/ content/Article_Praxis7.pdf Gough, Tim. ‘Cura’, Curating Architecture and The City, “Exhibiting Architecture: The Praxis Questionnaire for Architectural Curators”, Praxis, Issue 7, p. 108. Retrieved from http://www.anamiljacki.com/wp-content/content/Article_Praxis7.pdf 12
75
Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara (eds). London: Routledge, 2009. Print. Phillips, Andrea. “Curating and architecture: notes from the research”, Curating Architecture. 2008. Web. http://old.gold.ac.uk/art/curating-architecture/ Andrea-Phillips-on-CA.pdf Wong, Yun Chii, ‘Missions and Visions: A Stock-take of Architectural Exhibitions in Singapore’, Singapore Architect Journal no. 228, August 2005. Print.
76
77