Supermarket Art Magazine #3

ISSN 2000-8155

SEK90/£8

issue#3 ARTIST RUN ART MAGAZINE

Happiness #APE 4OWN s #AIRO s -OSCOW s 3EOUL )STANBUL s 3TOCKHOLM s 'ENEVA s "UDAPEST s #HICAGO

Supermarket #3

EDITORIAL STAFF

Cover photo: Jeong Mee Yoon, ‘The Pink Project – Minji Suh and Her Pink Things’, Digital C-print, 2009.

Publishing details: EDITORIAL STAFF PONTUS RAUD (EDITOR & CREATIVE DIRECTOR) ANDREAS RIBBUNG (ART EDITOR) MEGGI SANDELL IZABELLA BORZECKA CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PONTUS RAUD • SOOKYOUNG HUH • ANDERS JANSSON • BEDRI BAYKAM • JAKOB ANCKARSVÄRD • ANTHEA BUYS • MEGGI SANDELL • AMIRA HANAFI • OLEG FROLOV • DR ODYOKE CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS & PHOTOGRAPHERS Yoon Jeong Mee (cover, 08–13) • Petra Obre (03, 63) Anders Jansson (15) • Pontus Raud (07, 59) • Izabella Borzecka (16–19) Ledia Kostandini (20) • Rania Emmanouilidou (21) • Johannes Phokela (23) Andreas Ribbung (24–37, 59, 63) • Sofia Breimo, Kristoffer Strandberg (38–39) Hamdy Reda (40–44) • Andrés Galeano (45) • Mike Chernov (46–51) Mary Ellen Croteau (53) • László Böröcz (54) • Eun Yeoung Lee (57) Niclas Hallberg (60) •Joanna Rzepka-Dziedzic (61) • Heli Ryhänen (62) GRAPHIC DESIGN JOHANNA LARSON IMAGE PROCESSING ANDREAS RIBBUNG TRANSLATION RIChARD GRIFFITH CARLSSON LANGUAGE EDITING JAMES FOOTE, STUART MAYES SPECIAL THANKS TO: STEPHEN TURNER, JAMES BLAKE, LARA SZABO GREISMAN ADVERTISING SALES NADJA EKMAN ADVERTISING CONTACT AD@SUPERMARKETARTFAIR.COM ECONOMY MEGGI SANDELL, MOLLY CARNESTEDT ADMINISTRATION CHRISTINA WENGER, SARIE NIJBOER INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION NEWSTAND DISTRIBUTION AVAILABLE THROUGH PINEAPPLE MEDIA/SH CIRCULATION Pineapple Media Ltd., 172 Northern Parade Hilsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, P02 9LT, UK www.pineapple-media.com/ Tel: +44 (0) 2392787970 PRINTING Printon Trukikoda Ltd PUBLISHER PONTUS RAUD

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CONTENTS The editor 05 An institution in Free Fall

HOW TO BE HAPPY IN THE NETHERLANDS 07 Interview with Jonathan De Breejen

Colour of mind, Shape of belonging 08 Jeong Mee Yoon interviewed by Sookyoung Huh

Only for a few short moments every year 15

by Anders Jansson

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE ISTANBUL ART SCENE? 16

by Bedri Baykam

I SEE THIS SPACE AS A SHIP 24

In search of artist-run spaces in Cape Town by Pontus Raud

TWO-TO-ONE: THE ODDS OF A WOMAN SURVIVING THE ART SCENE IN SOUTH AFRICA 32

by Anthea Buys

An experience of happiness 38

by Jakob Anckarsvärd

On not making art in the revolution 40

by Amira Hanafi

A STORY OF AN UNHAPPY ARTIST 46

by Oleg Frolov

ON HAPPINESS 51

Interviews with Mary Ellen Croteau, Livia Rózsás, Alexia Turlin, Maryline Billod

by Meggi Sandell

THE MONEY TRAIL 59 WHAT A WONDERFUL STATISTICAL WORLD 61 WHAT’S WRONG 63 THIS TOWN IS NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US 63

by Dr Odyoke

Hotei is one of the Shichi Fukujin, the seven Japanese Shinto-gods of luck. The god of happiness and laughter and the wisdom of being content... He is supposedly based on an actual person, and is widely recognized outside of Japan as the Fat, Laughing Buddha.

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SECRET LOVE 宓 爱

the editor An Institution in Free Fall

The happiness industry now consists of a broad array of fortune seekers who create tools for depressed people of all kinds.

On the Internet one can read of how happiness research is based on solid science, and countless courses are available to those can afford them.

Money still seems to be the product that offers the highest degree of happiness, but today, that is a commodity in short supply among culture lovers!

Everywhere throughout crisis-ridden Europe the cry is heard: “Leave our books alone! Hands off of our culture!” Indeed, culture is the first thing to go when cutting costs in the afflicted European countries. “Art is everything that is unnecessary,” as the Swedish artist Ernst Billgren once said. Will support for the visual arts be the first to go when public financing ceases to exist?

When I study the cultural map of Sweden, I realise that the cultural expression that receives the most support is undeniably the theatre (and here I include the opera).

With its paid actors, musicians, dancers and staff with pension plans, occupying heated premises fullyequipped with the latest technology, they naturally easily end up in the crossfire of a government set on reining in on unnecessary expenses.

The theatre is, however, well prepared to defend itself with a strong union and well known, public faces who cry out in frustration when discussions are held regarding the to be or not to be of

government subsidies. In newspapers we write about how the culture scene in Holland is on its knees now that all government subsidies have been slashed in half, but at the same time, one cultural expression flourishes in the shadow of all the suffering institutions – the artist-run art scene.

I often describe the artist-run project as standing on three legs (this is my own unscientific analysis): 1. Passion – a passion for art.

2. Time – the time needed to focus on one’s own art. 3. Collaboration – having the will and ability to cooperate with like-minded colleagues; a shared burden is a lighter burden.

In other words, the artist-run scene does not primarily support itself on either money or the notion of being driven by profit. It is all about autonomy. Even if taking place for a short time, independence is crucial to the artist-run gallery.

The institution is under heavy pressure throughout Europe, and several are looking to alternative paths, with mergers, but perhaps most often budget cuts, as a means of dealing with the shabby economy.

The term Institution comes from the Latin Instituo, which among other things means “to plant”.

This cosy organic definition of the institution is now rapidly becoming an economic liability for people who aspire to shape society based on an economic model. Might cultural institutions, like nature, shrink into small islets struggling for their own existence?

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How happy are we as artists today? All artists struggle for their 15 minutes of fame, but it seems as though that proverbial stretch of time nowadays has been reduced to a mere 5 minutes.

In the critical year of 2012, governments all over Europe have scraped together billions in order to save troubled banks and have made deep cuts in that which is considered the least important in future society.

Economic journalists everywhere rant over the lack of logic in the dominating economic model. It looks as though we’ll be sinking to the bottom with the banks’ flags hoisted high!

What kind of society do we want in the future? Can we even ask ourselves that question? Do we have enough freedom left to question a for-profit run society where all those involved in culture are expected to play the role of entrepreneur?

In the newspapers we also read about The Arab Spring and the struggle for democracy and freedom of speech. There are artists who analyse their everyday life and outline how they intend to survive the next day. We need our own space in order to work as artists. If there is no available space to work in, we create one. A space of our own, an independent space, with no taboos, with endless possibilities, total freedom, and where one can be seen by colleagues.

An artist-run space.

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NORRTÄLJE KONSTHALL Håkan Lidbo & Martin Söderblom (SE) 19/1 – 10/2 Kimmo & Noora Schroderus (FIN) 16/2 – 31/3

Moss, Norway

Peter Ern (SE) 6/4 – 12/5 Curators: Erlend Hammer og Power Ekroth Blog: momentum7.wordpress.com

Åland (FIN) 18/5 – 15/9 Helena Mutanen (SE) 21/9 – 27/10 Nordic Drawing (SE, FIN, NO, DK, ISL) 2/11 – 8/12 www.norrtalje.se/konsthall

punkto.no

26/1 - 10/3 Jesper Norda 16/3 - 28/4 Anita Nilsson Billgren och

Lotta Blomqvist Nya målningar 4/5 - 9/6 Johan Willner Boy Story 15/6 - 1/9

Nadja Bournonville, Jens Fänge, Sirous Namazi och Dan Wolgers Curator: Carl-Fredrik Hårleman 7/9 - 20/10 Fredrik Lindqvist

Träsnitt på tyg och papper

Dimma, detalj. Jesper Norda

26/10 - 8/12 Ann Eringstam 14/12 - 26/1 På G 2013 Jakob Ingemansson, Julia Lindeman, Philip Ekwall och Karolina Bång

Borgmästaregatan 17. Fri entré Tis-fre 12-17, Lör-sön 12-16 www.karlskrona.se/konsthall I

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Interview

with Jonathan den Breejen (The Netherlands/ Canada) by Pontus Raud

Jonathan den Breejen – The only official street art sticker place of the whole city of Helsinki is right in front of Kiasma. You´ll never find a sticker in Helsinki… it’s a happy moment just right here!

The Tupajumi foundation hold one of their appreciated trading events in a rainy Finland, late october.

I was there and celebrated the Gallery MUU:s 25 anniversery with cake and sparkling wine and had a small talk to Jonathan den Breejen (The Netherlands/Canada) about the First International Trading Art eXchange.

What is Fitax?

Jonathan: Fitax is an art trade between artist amongst artist and collectors. We’re trying to take out the middle man and cut out the whole money issue. Its like a one-toone trade. It’s a social network

How to be happy in the Netherlands?

event for artists and collectors… and it’s a lot of fun.

Does it have some value?

Jonathan: It has a great value! It is always this treshold between artists and collectors. Normally the collectors are being represented by galleries or there is a middle man.

This is an opportunity to meet one and one… your fellow in arts becomes your critic and is actually being honest wheather he he wants to trade with you.

When is the next Fitax?

Jonathan: Probably in Amsterdam in the beginning of December and we are working on an event in London and Antwerpen.

Do you consider the situation happy for the artists in Netherlands right now?

Jonathan: It used to be a great place for artist in the Netherlands but the shift to the right wing government has caused so much disturbance in the culture field. A lot of the old institutions’ work have being spoiled because they had to let go of people.

Theaters companies are going down and orchestras have minimalised the amount of people working for them.

So there are a lot of cutbacks but there are also positive sides. A lot of young artist-run galleries are starting up and are given new opportunities.

So in this case everything is happy in the Netherlands.

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The Tupajumi foundation works solemnly for the promotion of contemporary art and artists. Tupajumi tries to achieve this by organising art-related events, group exhibitions and by any other means they come up with.

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Jeong Mee Yoon

Colour of Mind, Shape of Belonging

Jeong Mee Yoon interviewed by Sookyoung Huh

Jeong Mee Yoon began her well-known series ‘The Pink and Blue Project’ eight years ago. The project is still ongoing and she has expanded the theme into ‘The Color Project’.

Her works shows us that belongings can be a perfect reflection of cultural character, social custom and social position. She documents personal collections of objects as more that merely a collection of curiosities.

Although extreme, they remind us that we all create personal collections at every stage of life.

Hyper-real and surrealistic in their detail and colour, her subjects are uncanny in their orderliness.

What’s your opinion about the division between colour & gender?

That it is located in the social and customised society.

About your production, how much is she/ he represented in your document? What do you see yourself nearest to: being a documentary, stage or interior photographer?

Both or all are important.

To make The Pink and Blue Project series, I visited children’s rooms, where I displayed their possessions in an effort to show the viewer the extent to which children and their parents, knowingly or unknowing, are influenced by advertising and popular culture.

When I take pictures, I begin the photographic session by arranging the larger items (blankets and coats) and then spreading the smaller items on the bed and floor. When I first started taking these pictures, the objects were arranged without an order, but soon I realised that when the photographs show small possessions well organised and displayed in the front of the scene, the images appear to be more crowded.

This method shows my organisation of subjects

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‘The Pink Project – Minji Suh and Her Pink Things’, Digital C-print, 2007

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‘The Blue Project – Ethan and His Blue Things’, Digital C-print, 2006

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‘The Pink Project – SeoWoo and Her Pink Things’, Digital C-print, 2008-2009’

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similar to the way in which museums categorise their inventories and display their collections.

The items are all their own, so this work is also a kind of documentary.

Viewers can see society’s social and cultural trends through the items.

The subjects’ expression and pose is a very important element in my pictures. I ask each model to sustain a blank, neutral expression to underline an “objectification” of each child and I request various poses to heighten the difference in gender and personal characteristics among my subject. I also ask for feminine and masculine expressions and poses from them. I use around five to eight rolls of film and choose the best picture among the sixty to ninety proofs. Sometimes, I get an unexpected gesture of expression that represents the child well. Their subtle gestures and poses are related to their own characters as well as to my intention. ‘The Pink and the Blue Projects’ seem very similar, but in both subtle and interesting characteristics of each model emerge.

How do you choose your models? Do you have a personal relation to them or do you meet them randomly through research activities?

When I went to a big market or took a subway in New York, I could easily find pink girls or blue boys.

I showed my photographs and explained to them, then asked their parents if they could be my models.

In South Korea, I took pictures of some acquaintances too, and people introduced some models to me.

Where did you get the inspiration to begin of this project?

The Pink and Blue Projects were initiated by my five-year-old daughter, who loves the colour pink so much that she wanted to wear only pink clothes and play with only pink toys and objects.

I discovered that my daughter’s case was not unusual. In the United States, South Korea and elsewhere, most young girls love pink clothing, accessories and toys. This phenom-

enon is widespread among children of various ethnic groups regardless of their cultural backgrounds.

Did you keep in mind the relationship in educated gender with favourite colour and personal taste for your parenting?

I have an eighteen year-old son and a thirteen year-old daughter. My son has no obsessions about blue but boys don’t really obsess over colour.

In his childhood most of the time, he chose any colour between blue and pink.

My daughter is obsessed with the colour pink. I tried to choose other colours for my daughter, but when my daughter was five to seven years old, she was very obsessed with pink, so she would prefer pink items and refuse to boyish colours. Naturally, my daughter’s colour tastes have changed from pink to purple and light blue, and now she is thirteen years old and likes various other colours. These days she is fond of the colour grey.

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These days she is fond of the colour grey.

What does ‘Happiness’ mean to you?

The happiness of family and friends is very important and I enjoy my ordinary peaceful life. Of course it is important in the modern capitalist society that we achieve both economic and social success, but the most important thing for me is keeping a peaceful mind in any circumstance.

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This interview took place in-between Seoul and London on the 10th January 2013 by Sookyoung Huh for Supermarket Art Magazine.

‘The Blue Project – Cole and His Blue Things’, Digital C-print, 2006-2009’

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RAWIYA/

25/1 2013

24 FEB – 19 MAJ 2013 BILDMUSEET.UMU.SE

Newsha Tavakolian, Listen, 2010

Even a Perfect Crime Leaves a Trace Vernissage

Ett projekt av Anthony Marcellini

25/1 2013 kl 18–21

Verk av Jörgen Svensson, Elin Wikström & Johan Zetterquist

Texter av Maja Hammarén, Adam Kleinman & Cecilia Eriksen Wijk

17.2 2013

SVEN-HARRYS (KONSTMUSEUM) WWW.SVEN-HARRYS.SE

Foto: Tord-Rikard Söderström / Wingårdhs

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only for a few short moments every year

Wonderful is short, misery is long.

by Anders Jansson

Regrettably, it is not happiness, but sadness that constitutes the basic tone in the works of most of the artists that I admire. It’s not that I believe that being an artist makes one unhappy, but rather that one chooses to become an artist because one is unhappy.

When one realises death is inevitable, and that there is no preordained meaning to our lives, one is simply forced to come up with something! When everything falls into place, art can give rise to short instances of pure joy and meaningfulness.

I have a sailboat that we bought one year when I had an income.

The best experience of the year is waking up on a dazzling summer morning, in the far reaches of the archipelago.

Happiness is swimming naked in the sea, sliding down the slippery cliffs worn smooth by the ice age, encountering the sea at the height of summer. But as with art, it is only for a few short moments every year. For nine months of the year, the boat stands on land under a tarpaulin. Despite knowing how wonderful it can be, I can feel this sense of reluctance welling up every spring – towards the thought of cleaning and sanding, repainting the hull, launching and raising the mast. There is an enormous amount of work involved for a mere few days’ worth of fulfilment.

But it can be completely, completely wonderful, just like art.

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Anders Jansson, ‘Homeless sculpture’, 2012.

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE ISTANBUL İstanbul art scene, ART SCENE? The has been attracting more

by Bedri Baykam

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and more international attention in the last decade and especially in the last five years.

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Although the city’s contemporary scene is tired of being labeled with cliché phrases such as “a bridge between the West and the East”, “the crossroad of civilisations and cultures” it looks as if this “status” given gladly by the western intelligentsia and metropoles is not about to fade tomorrow.

Till some 30 years ago, the Turkish art scene looked much more local and provincial. The art produced was much more the job of academicians, may it be “figurative-political” or abstract or geometric. Some Turkish painters worked outside the country in Europe (Mübin Orhon, Nejad Devrim, Komet, Ömer Uluç, etc.) and some other in the USA (Burhan Doğançay, Erol Akyavaş, myself). With the start of the 80’s the scene started catching some simultaneity with the western metropoles especially during the heigth of NewExpressionism.

The goverment led by Turgut Özal after the military coup of 1980, harmed democracy politically in many ways during the 80’s but the liberal economic policies gave a boost to foreign investments and to the growing capital scene. That made relations with the West more dense. Also the private sector started to invest much more in the arts, as opposed to the public sector that did not move a finger.

Probably, it will be hard to believe for any western reader, but to this day, the Turkish State does not have any single modern or contemporary museum in the whole country!

The art press is not very influential in the country.

Newspapers don’t have any major influential critic after the death of Sezer Tansuğ in 1998. Art magazines such as Genç Sanat led by artist gallerist Doğan Paksoy, RH+ led by gallerist Tevfik İhtiyar, internet site Sanatatak led by art critic Aysegul Sonmez, Art Unlimited magazine sponsored by one of the Turkey’s leading banking company Akbank, try to fill the gap with some well presented monthlies. The 90% of the Turkish Art scene is in Istanbul.

The Eczacıbaşı Family that made its fortune mainly in the pharmaceutical sector and was led by Nejad Eczacıbaşı, started “the İstanbul Festival” with a foundation, (The İstanbul Culture and Art Foundation/İKSV) mainly as a music and opera/theater event for early summers in 1973.

In 1987 the “Festival” expanded its domain to visual arts and started the İstanbul Biennial. The İstanbul Biennial has been gaining more and more importance since, and has

become a focus point for very many international curators and critics; Beral Madra, Vasıf Kortun, Paolo Colombo, Dan Cameron, René Block have been among the curators of the event. After Nejad Eczacıbaşı passed away in 1993, his brother Şakir Eczacıbaşı became the President of İKSV. Oya Eczacıbaşı, who is the wife of Bülent Eczacıbasi (the son of Nejat Eczacibasi), founded the İstanbul Modern Museum. 9 years old now, İstanbul Modern has had a growing impact both nationally and internationally. Now Bülent Eczacıbaşı is also the President of İKSV after the death of his brother Şakir Eczacıbaşı in 2010. The actual curator in chief Levent Çalıkoğlu, has raised the status of the Museum to higher standards after some lost time with foreign curators who did not grasp well the realities of the Turkish scene.

Besides the Eczacıbaşı Family, the Sabancı family dominates the Turkish economy with their investments in all fields; they are also present in the arts with a very rich collection in Ottoman calligraphy and classical art and to a lesser extent in contemporary art than the Eczacıbaşı family. Sabancı Family has a Museum by the Bosphorus, but their shows are more conservative, ”imported” shows of other institutions. They are rather scared of taking any “contemporary art risks”! Beautifully situated in a large Mansion within a forest like garden by the Bosphorus, the Sabancı Museum has just wrapped up a Monet show.

Sabancı’s bank, Akbank, holds an art center in the city, “AKSANAT” that is, on the contrary,

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open only to contemporary art and fills that gap. One of the Sabancı daughters, Demet Sabancı and her husband Cengiz Çetindoğan are preparing the foundation of a new Contemporary Museum that is due to open in about two years.

The Koç Family, the most famous one internationally, has been contributing to the İstanbul Biennial regularly.

Led by Ömer Koç, one of the three son’s of Rahmi Koç, “Arter” is their contemporary show room in the intellectual life. Their head-curators are Başak Şenova and the German curator René Block. Another branch of the Koç Family, Suna (Koç) and İnan Kıraç, have their own museum also in the Pera district, Pera Museum that rivals the Sabancı Museum in its conservatism. They follow the same secure path of “imported corporateinstitutional shows”. Mr. Rahmi Koç, the retired head of the business, (son of the late Vehbi Koç, founder of Koç Holding), has his own memorabilia Industrial Museum on the shores of the Golden Horn, the Koç Museum.

Also in the old Beyoğlu-Pera district, the Borusan Corporation holds the “the Borusan Culture and Arts Center”. Led by Ahmet Kocabıyık, the Borusan collection is exhibited in the central offices of the corporation at the “Haunted Mansion” in the Bosphorus. The Garanti Bank, holds an art center thas is quite active, SALT, also in Beyoğlu-Pera district led by curator Vasıf Kortun.

Outside the Pera district “Proje 4L” on the Elgiz Museum, shows on permanent basis the very rich international collection of businessman Can Elgiz Family.

As we said here, the cultural heart of the city the Pera district hold also several other art centers. The “Mısır Apartmanı” is a building that is housing 5 contemporary galleries CDA Projects, Galeri Nev, Galeri NON, Pi Artworks ve Galeri Zilberman.

Turkey’s older generation “decollage and abstract” artist, Burhan Doğançay, has his own museum also there.

“Akademililer Sanat Merkezi” led by Resul Aytemur, is a uniting point for figurative artists. The Piramid Art Center which I founded in 2006, holds about 7-8 national or international shows a year, and puts together also many round table debates on art & politics. (Often on hot controversial subjects that banks or corporate art centers would never dare talking about!)

The Turkish Plastic Arts Association (UPSD) is also another independent force in the Turkish art scene, not just with its gallery, but just mainly for its political positioning and democratic “open combat” against the pressures of a 10 year old government that aspires more and more to an

İslamist Turkey where freedom in arts, literature, press and the virtual world are constantly decreasing. As its actual President, I can assure you that the world is not ready to follow really the growing drama of politics in Turkey, in spite of all the flow of information we try to maintain.

“The Artists Initiative” (Sanatçılar Girişimi) led by the poet Ataol Behramoğlu, the actors Orhan Aydın and Orhan Kurtuldu, the musician Edip Akbayram and myself, brings together artists from various art forms associations (UPSD, Tobav, Özerk Sanat Konseyi etc.) as an artists solidarity of resistance, to help all the Turkish writers, journalists, academicians imprisoned dramatically for the past 5-6 years, without any concrete proof, being accused by the goverment of “staging a coup d’Etat” against them(!). This initiative constantly holds press conferences, organises debates or speeches to make the country and the world aware of the dramatic and unacceptable position of these “democracy heroes”. This is an open wound in the country.

Needless to add that not all artists are so “caring” politically.

The Turkish art market has been growing as we said in the beginning at a very serious rate with serious institutions around it. Sotheby’s and Christie’s are International Auction Houses around few Turkish ones that try to get a slice of the growing cake. The “İstanbul Contemporary” art fair, scheduled every year at late fall, has become one of the main targets within the art world. It represents a growing force in the market. Since many young artists are trying to become independent professionals who live off their art, very few of them would take the risk of taking dangerous “political changes” which brings a good dose of “non-political art” that wanders around “decorative, slick, cool, artsy or corporate” types of art, more easy to sell.

We are talking about “The contemporary art scene” of Turkey in this article. Where as the country is rapidly sinking in its democratic status, with less and less oxygen left fo freedom and liberty of action. The censorship within the western press, prevents the world of finding out what’s really happening in Turkey. The Turkish art scene evolves in a contrasting atmosphere, on the stage of a scene that is fastly and insistently islamicising itself.

The artist(s) tries to resist, money tries to turn art into profit, the world sees only what it wants to see and thus the world keeps turning...

Needless to add, not all artists are so “caring” politically.

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Bedri Baykam, acclaimed artist, writer, political activist,

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and engaged spokesperson for global cultural equality. Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.

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Supermarket #3 Ledia Kostandini, ‘Towards Europe’, oil on canvas, 110 x 165 cm, 2011.

Exhibits at Supermarket 2013 with Zeta Galeri, Tirana.

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Rania Emmanouilidou, “Untitled�, oil on canvas, 140x160cm, 2012.

Exhibits at Supermarket 2013 with Margaris Foundation/les yper yper, Thessaloniki. Greece

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SOUTH AFRICA

Johannes Phokela, born in Soweto in 1966, studied at Royal College of Art in London and was one of the founding resident artists at Gasworks Studios. He has lived in Johannesburg for the last few years.

Phokela is best known for his polemical use of iconography as a resource base from which to transcend burden of cultural

myths. The Baroque images of the 17th century, as well as old Flemish painting particularly fascinates him. He takes on what he perceives as being Europe’s ‘grandiose’ history of art as a medium to convey values and ideals represented within a global context of cultural elitism.

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In search of Artist-Run Spaces in Cape Town

It’s Art Week Cape Town and we are sitting in a taxi on the way to the Woodstock district. I can barely get the door open in the gusting wind that is wreaking havoc on everything in its path. When the ‘Table Cloth’ (the local expression for the cloud covering) spills over the edge of Table Mountain, then you know you are in for some blustery weather. The wind is surprisingly strong and brusquely shoves us around at its own whim.

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I see this space as a ship

by Pontus Raud

Jonathan Garnham, blank projects.

Andreas’ cap flies off but is deftly caught at the last second by one of the local car guards. In their tattered shoes and worn, yellow reflector jackets, they brandish wooden sticks while keeping an eye on the cars on the street in the hope of receiving some small compensation for their services. One is at times awestruck by the social misery and the affluent tourist culture that exists here side by side.

Cape Town is a more segregated city than Johannesburg, and the two large metropolises exist in a mutual, symbiotic love-hate relationship.

Cape Town is a strikingly beautiful city with a scent of Europe. Adored by tourists and journalists alike, they are drawn to the city by the expanse of blue sea and impeccable weather.

Johannesburg, on the other hand, is a larger city with a tougher attitude and is considerably richer moneywise due to the gold industry. It has a larger black middle class and is seen by the artists as having a higher level of energy and a more vibrant art scene.

The three most prominent galleries, Stevenson, Goodman Gallery and Everard Read, dominate the Cape Town art scene. Parallel to them, new venues are emerging such as SMAC Art Gallery and Brundyn + Gonsalves. Across the street from Stevenson, on Sir Lowry Road lie the only two artist-run galleries in Cape Town – Blank Projects and Evil Son.

Jonathan Garnham is an artist who emigrated to Berlin and worked as a sculptor. After twelve years in Germany, where he ran an offspace and was the owner of two clubs, he decided to return home. Once back in South Africa, he opened an artist-run gallery. I started by asking Jonathan why there are so few artist-run galleries in Cape Town.

Jonathan: It’s hard to run an artist-run art space in South Africa because we don’t have the social safety net that people have in Europe. In Europe you get your kindergarten, schooling and medical aid paid, etc. You basically have more time to do things. There is also more support from both local and national government for the arts in Europe than there is in South Africa.

We receive no support at all.

Cape Town is a major urban centre in Southern Africa, with a population of 3.5 million, and there is only one other artist-run space here. In the last 10 years, apart from Blank Projects, there was Young Black Man (run by Ed Young and Matthew Blackman), which ran a programme for just over a year before running out of money.

I’ve seen 10 years of graduates from the two art schools at the universities since I’ve been back in Cape Town. They graduate quite young here, in their early twenties, so the first graduates are in their mid-thirties today and

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we’ve seen very few self-initiated spaces/projects coming from them.

If there is a will, there is a way, and you’d expect a group of graduates in that stretch of time to at least do something. At least once or twice… but that has not really happened!

Pontus: To what extent does Cape Town support culture events involving South African artists?

There are things that happen in the city, but it’s more focused on performative practice, more like festivals. But purely for visual arts there is very little. There is a massive lack of policy from the local government’s side, which means we don’t even have a public arts policy in place. There is simply a lack of understanding and a lack of political will. That is one of the reasons we started “Art Week Cape Town”,

which is funded by the participating galleries and studios, and administrated through our non-profit wing, The Contemporary Art Development Trust.

In South Africa there is not a big enough market to support many galleries, which in turn means that artists get very little support to sustain their careers.

Cape Town does not have a contemporary art museum. The Iziko South African National Gallery is situated here, but that is a national institution, and like the few other art institutions in this country, it doesn’t have much of a budget for acquiring art.

The national gallery in Cape Town generally works with a more international scope, but there is no city gallery that shows the local artists.

Evil Son was initiated as a mentor project by Supermarket and Blank projects. The idea was to broaden the subculture in Cape Town by opening an

In search of Artist-Run Spaces in Cape Town

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independent venue for young artists. However, this turned out to be easier said than done. The first group at Evil Son created the exhibition “Bootleg”, after which they quit and established a very open studio collective with a showroom they call Atlantic. Josh Ginsburg was one of the young artists in the first group and explains the idea behind the new initiative.

Josh Ginsburg: I see this space as a ship. It’s very simple. We just want our own space, a place where we are free to do whatever we want to do on a daily basis. There are some people in our organisation that are connected to sophisticated galleries… but at the end of the day I believe people just want to come here and just work. I don’t think we thought very far about what a gallery would mean

besides being an experimental place where people could create in.

I don’t think there is much resistance here. It’s more like congregating around some sort of central idea that is not necessarily obvious to anyone here… but it’s shared!

There is a lot of power and value in presenting a work in a room that is public. This is a particular space and I see this as a ship… it’s afloat. The room that we have gives us the opportunity to see our things isolated… as a noise of data or emotions of life, action and reflections. It’s a loop, a cycle that is required for that act.

It is possible to stand in the street and see something and just for a moment see it as if you’re seeing it in the gallery.

Everything disappears… all the noises are absorbed and you have an experience… but if you have the opportunity to have a clean space … well, that is great!

Left: Josh Ginsburg at Atlantic.

Right: Mikhael Subotzky’s opening at South African National Gallery.

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In search of Artist-Run Spaces in Cape Town 25/1 2013

25/1 2013

17.2 2013

A new group of young artists will work with Evil Son and their first exhibition is planned for January, after which they will be participating in Supermarket 2013.

One cannot avoid looking around for some sort of genuine African art. I realise that I am no doubt playing the role of a true westerner when I present my thoughts to Marelize Van Zyl, curator at the Stellenbosch Modern and Contemporary (SMAC) Art Gallery. She is automatically sceptical when western curators come to South Africa in search of distinctly arts. She Ett projekt av African visualVernissage 25/1 2013has kl 18–21 Anthony Marcellini points out that globalisation already incorporated the western Texter av Verk av in South African culture.

Maja Hammarén, Jörgenimage Svensson, Adamworld Kleinman Elin Wikström & of the Western The image is & Cecilia Eriksen Johan already Zetterquist assimilated in the African Wijk culture. I then realise that the speed of communication renders the notion of an untouched, pure Africa, completely irrelevant.

25/1 2013

25/1 2013

Colin “Bushman” Meyer, “Caged”, performance at Greatmore Studios, ArtWalk 2012.

Even a Perfect Crime Leaves a Trace

Even a Perfect Crime Leaves a Trace

Vernissage

25/1 2013 kl 18–21

Verk av Jörgen Svensson, Elin Wikström & Johan Zetterquist

Texter av Maja Hammarén, Adam Kleinman & Cecilia Eriksen Wijk

Even a Perfect Crime Leaves a Trace Vernissage

Ett projekt av Anthony Marcellini

25/1 2013 kl 18–21

Verk av Jörgen Svensson, Elin Wikström & Johan Zetterquist

Texter av Maja Hammarén, Adam Kleinman & Cecilia Eriksen Wijk

17.2 2013

17.2 2013

Utställningar 2013

Ett projekt av Anthony Marcellini

Even a Perfect Crime Leaves a Trace 22 februari - 3 mars

Grader av irritation - Eva Olsson och Jonas Nilsson 9 mars- 21 april Ur tankens mylla av - Jonas WallinderVernissage Ett projekt 9 mars21 april 25/1 2013 kl 18–21 Anthony Marcellini Andetag - Lisbet Sand 27 april -Verk 19 maj Texter av av Höglandets Konstronda Maja Hammarén, Jörgen Svensson, 15 juni-18 augusti& Adam Kleinman & Elin Wikström Rekonstruktion - Eric Lennarth Cecilia Eriksen Wijk Johan Zetterquist 24 augusti-29 september Öppet 12-16 Boklådan - Lennart Nilsson Stängt måndagar 5 oktober - 10 november Modern tid - Kenneth Pils 5 oktober - 10 november Att dröja vid - Lotte Nilsson-Välimaa

17.2 2013

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Studios at Albert Rd.

A new generation is emerging that has not grown up in the dark era of Apartheid. Many artists I meet refer to the odd situation of their childhood where they had no contact whatsoever with people of other races. They were quite simply separated, like the original sense of the word apartheid, meaning separated in Afrikaans.

Times change, and South Africa

is in dire need of the ability of the young generation to create natural integration and new social rules.

On our last night in Cape Town, Andreas and I attended an opening at “A WORD OF ART”, a newly established gallery in Woodstock.

Four black guys played on marimbas with wooden clubs, deftly striking tones in rapid succession forming heavy chords. It sounded like an

Alejandra Baltazares and Philip Metz, ‘The Carpet’, human hair collected from barbershops, 3 m diameter, Greatmore Studios 2012.

African version of House music.

Together with a white DJ, who churned out beats along with all kinds of sounds, they created an immensely evocative groove where people of all colours danced reckless abandon, swaying to and fro just like on… well, a ship.

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Gerlesborgsskolan

BOHUSLÄN/STOCKHOLM

www.gerlesborgsskolan.se

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Foto: Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

- Basic university training in fine arts.

- On-going training for artists and other groups.

- A wide range of additional activities such as exhibitions, concerts, seminars and workshops for all stages in life.

Best of Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin Rydals museum 13 mars–8 september

mark.se/rydalsmuseum

PROVIDING SWEDEN WITH FINE ART EXCELLENCE SINCE 1944.

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SOUTH AFRICA

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Dan Halter, work in progress, Atlantic.

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Ayanda Mabulu, “I have your country in my dick”, oil on canvas.

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South Africa

Two-to-one: the odds of a woman surviving the art scene in South Africa

by Anthea Buys

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Athi Patra Ruga, ‘The Future White Woman of Azania’, performance at Hiddingh Hall ​during GIPCA Live Art Festival, Art Week Cape Town.

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While the art scene in South Africa looks as if it is run by women, it still feels like a man’s world. This is probably because it is.

I have a friend – a female friend – who works as a commercial and conflict mediator at one of the world’s most prestigious law firms.

The parties between which she most often mediates are almost always groups of men, older and wealthier than she, and her colleagues in the field too are mostly men. Her educational qualifications outstrip theirs, as does her wherewithal in a vocation in which one needs to be able to keep ones head. And yet, the secret to her survival (let alone her success) in this field? High-heeled shoes. That’s right. Over $500 000 of university debt at a postgraduate level and the highest honours at Yale law school, and my friend needs to wear high-heels to be taken seriously by her male counterparts.

Though the art world is less inclined to put its inhabitants into personal financial liquidation, if only because we are already there, or our comparatively meagre potential earnings make us ineligible for study loans, the same absurd standards for individual appreciation apply.

If, as a female professional in the

art world, you can walk in a pair of Christian Louboutins (a feat which, it must be said, deserves some sort of praise), your prospects with the male gallerists and artists who run the show, and the male collectors and patrons who fund it, are a lot better than those of the dowdy, well-qualified art historian who can’t be bothered to climb out of her Birkenstocks.

I write these words from South Africa – relatively speaking, a blip on the international art scene’s radar – a country where, thankfully, the appalling sexism endorsed by our political leaders is not echoed in the art sector. Well, at least not explicitly. Female artists are sought out to join the ranks of commercial galleries’ stables, largely in the interest of redress, and more women sit in executive positions in museums, art galleries and advisory boards than ever before.

One need only pay a visit to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which is almost entirely staffed by women, to see that the demographics of the arts administration workforce in South

Africa have shifted. However, despite a preponderance of respected female curators, successful artists, and one or two female collectors whose fortunes do not come from a divorce settlement, on the ground the art scene here feels overwhelmingly macho. A girl like me, who cannot walk in Louboutins (nor will ever be able to afford a pair), survives here by swilling beer and cursing, getting muscles (to hang the shows I organise) and out-boying the boys.

I carry a mini-drill in my handbag, and pick fights in traffic. While my male compatriots snigger at so-called “vagina art” I snigger as well, but at my growing art world blacklist.

While the art scene in South Africa looks as if it is run by women, it still feels like a man’s world. This is probably because it is. A quick head count of the artists represented by Stevenson and the Goodman Gallery, South Africa’s two most influential dealing galleries, shows that the epicentre of this sector – the artists – is still overwhelmingly male. At the time of writing, Stevenson

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For good measure, the article added that “depictions of women often command the highest prices, whereas works by them do not”

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represents 33 artists, 21 of which are men. Similarly unrepresentative, the Goodman gallery works with 53 artists, a paltry 18 of whom are women. In both cases, there is a two-to-one bias in favour of male artists. This is entirely at odds with the numbers of fine art degree graduants at tertiary educational institutions in South Africa, where, for the last five years, the ratio of female-to-male students has been consistently close to, and often more than, two-to-one.

If one is to derive any significance from these figures, it might be that the art market itself is male-oriented, or, rather, that South Africa is in step with the international art market, in which men dominate, sometimes at even higher ratios. The catalogues to Sotheby’s and Christies major modern and contemporary art auctions in 2012 showed male-tofemale artist representation ratios as high as ten-to-one. When it comes to money, the situation is much the same. An article in the Economist published in May 2012 tabled a comparison of the ten highest

auction prices achieved for postwar works by male and female artists, and showed plainly that the women at the top sold for much less than half - in fact closer to a third - of the prices fetched for the ninth and tenth most expensive works by male artists (in other words, the bottom of the men’s list).

Naturally, the most expensive living artist – Gerard Richter, as of October 2012, with the sale of ‘Abstract Picture’ (1994) for $34.2m – is a man, and had the Economist published their table five months later, he would have sat in seventh place. For good measure, the article added that “depictions of women often command the highest prices, whereas works by them do not”.

In 2012, the former curator of contemporary art at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Nontobeko Ntombela, hosted a series of discussions supported by the Goethe-Institut and a Johannesburg project space called the Parking Gallery that addressed not only the poor gender representation in professional

artistic practice, but also possible reasons for which women in South Africa leave careers as artists and move into arts administration and education. Ntombela herself was once an artist, but abandoned her practice for a career through which, as a single mother, she would be able to support her daughter.

Having recently moved from the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Ntombela now lectures in art history at the University of the Witwatersrand, a position which allows her still greater stability and flexibility.

With an absence of reliable funding possibilities for artists, and minimal state support for raising children, many women artists in South Africa – particularly those who do not come from privileged backgrounds – have no choice but to make the transition to more stable, financially rewarding vocations, Ntombela suggests.

Once in the administrative and educational fields, the opportunities, rewards and horizons of progress for a woman are much the same as for a man. For those who can tolerate

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clocking in each morning, a desk job seems finally to promise some semblance of equality. However, at the risk of sounding fatalistic, female curators, administrators, educators and managers still have to steel themselves against a bestiary of sexist attitudes and gestures that are embedded either in the psyches of our male colleagues or in the bureaucratic systems we have inherited from a past era. For example, I cannot count the number of times that, while installing an

exhibition, I have been assigned at least one pair of male assistants who know how to use a spirit level and a drill to administer the screws into the walls, as if counting, leaning and pushing a button were skills beyond the ambit of the female mind and body. In South Africa the recognition from others that occasionally a curator cannot actually install an entire exhibition alone is most welcome; but why are there no female exhibition technicians? In some contexts

the matter cuts even closer to the bone, and these gender roles are entrenched from management down. During my time working as a curator at the Iziko South African National Gallery, I had plenty of opportunities to man a concrete drill. However, the only circumstances under which, while doing so, I would not be cautioned against emasculating the exhibition technicians and undermining their job descriptions, were those that involved my working

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I am still taken aback by the entitled greetings that take place at exhibition openings, in which an acquaintance’s man-hands show no hesitation before landing on the waist of a female colleague who is just shooting for a polite “hello”.

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after hours, in their absence.

The absurdity of this version of discrimination, in which bigotry masquerades as vulnerability and generosity, is more tolerable – because it gets a job done – than the plain-faced sexualised prejudice that plays out at a social level in the art scene. Although I should know better, I am still taken aback by the entitled greetings that take place at exhibition openings, in which an

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acquaintance’s (often senior) manhands show no hesitation before landing on the waist of a female colleague who is just shooting for a polite “hello”. If this happened each time my friend the lawyer appeared in court there would be recusals, headlines, constitutional enquiries.

My female colleagues in other parts of the world experience the same – and often worse – displays of sexism, and there seem to be similarly few attempts to curtail this behaviour, as if to do so would identify one as a prude. Some of the prettier ones are routinely deployed to dine with wealthy male, heterosexual clients or, in the case of museums, potential funders, in order to warm them up to the idea of disbursing funds. For the most part this is arranged innocently, citing not the deployee’s prettiness, but her skill or, more transparently, “charm”, as the reason for her being elected to this task. I cannot help but notice, however, that their heterosexual male associates are seldom sent on these missions.

The bottom line seems to be that

the art world, despite its liberal pretensions, is consistently and irredeemably sexist. What is the value, then, in isolating the case of South Africa in this discussion of the experience of women in the art industry? In addition to the fact that I live here and know this flavour of sexism better than any other, South Africa is a particularly dysfunctional place when it comes to sexual politics. Thus, the proliferation of sexism in the local art scene is not a draconian anomaly, as are the Christies auction catalogues, but a symptom of a deeply-ingrained societal malaise.

No individual exemplifies the problem better than South Africa’s populist president, Mr. Jacob Zuma, who holds such Levitican beliefs as the notion that all women secretly want nothing more than to get married (to a man, or several of them to one man) and procreate.

Recently he has even gone so far as to suggest that women who do not want these things are morally bereft, that it is simply “not right” for a woman to be unmarried.

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,

As feminist art retreats further and further to the depths of gallery storerooms, and audiences and collectors become increasingly enamoured with the macho, phallic artworks...

His exact words on the matter included the sagely observation that having children “give[s] them extra training”. While this is laughable, other news items are less so.

According to a widely reported-on 2010 Medical Research Council report, more than 37% of men living in Gauteng, South Africa’s most populous province, admitted to having raped at least one woman.

This means that almost two thirds of men in the most densely populated region of South Africa are not rapists. This is hardly an accomplishment.

As feminist art retreats further and further to the depths of gallery storerooms and audiences and collectors become increasingly enamoured with the macho, phallic artworks on which contemporary artists like Kendell Geers and Michael MacGarry have built careers, one cannot help but wonder what things will be like for women artists in South Africa in five, or even ten, years time. Those who are outspoken about their right to exist safely and sanely in society – such as

Zanele Muholi, whose pro-lesbian photographic work has frequently been censored, vandalised and even stolen – absorb the aggression not only of those who wish to deny women these rights, but also those who think that art with a cause is simply bad art. Persevering under such circumstances is a task not reasonably expected of any mere mortal. In fact, without some stern and frequent hand-slapping, and an enormous injection of cash, it is difficult to see any relief for women in art in South Africa.

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Anthea Buys is a curator and writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

She is director of the Contemporary Art Development Trust, and worked as curator of contemporary art at the Iziko South African National Gallery. She is also a research fellow with the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg, and has published essays and articles in a number of forums, including peerreviewed international journals, books, magazines and newspapers.

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An experience

by Jakob Anckarsvärd

“As soon as we have food on the table and a roof over our heads, we start looking for art”

This line, or something very similar, is delivered by Maria Callas in the play “Master Class” by Terrence McNally. And it is certainly so, that people are looking for something that only culture can provide, as soon as it is possible. Is this, in point of fact, a pursuit of happiness?

There is at any rate a particular need within us to seek connection with others, and that special thing can lift us up from a mundane life, and give us an experience. What then is a true art experience? What is it to the beholder, the artist and to the art producer?

Numerous people have described the impact experienced inside the Mark Rothko room (at Tate Modern in London). Some sit there in sacred awe for the longest time. An art experience need not necessarily be of a spiritual nature, but it needs to give us a sustained and profound 38

sensation. Not that it happens a lot, rather the contrary, but the hope of getting a strong encounter with art could be the reason why we take the leap into an art gallery. Maybe we hang on to the hope of being part of something greater, rather than just consuming something rather decorative, vaguely amusing or utterly and completely pointless.

The latter case being the more usual scenario.

Happiness for the artist can occur in the process, in the completion of a work of art, or through the juxtaposition of an earlier work in a new context. But what just felt so good can be next to impossible for the artist to appreciate the very next moment. Self-criticism is an obvious and constant companion.

The artist may be struggling all night and finally reaching a solution to a problem. And the next day, the

problem will reappear. Remember Franz Kafka’s words: “Don’t be too optimistic, the light at the end of the tunnel might be a train”. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with transitory happiness. But while the artist’s happiness is short-lived and fragmentary, the beholder’s experience becomes permanent.

Myths describe artists as lone searchers hoping for divine inspiration. It’s quite a long time since these chimera were prevalent.

Today’s artists have new ways of finding collaborators and getting connected. The Internet has created ways of communicating and cooperating that we never thought possible before. Today we share information and images as naturally and instantaneously as consuming a snack inbetween meals. This is one of the reasons why artist-run galleries (and similar collaborative

of happiness

platforms) have developed dramatically over the past 15 years.

The artist-run alternatives have obviously been around for a long time, but today they are a natural part of the art scene. Previously, although regarded as spaces for the experimental and the avant-garde, these galleries weren’t really taken seriously. And they received minimal press. The situation is rather different today. Through forums like Supermarket* they’ve finally received proper credit, respect and attention.

Artist-run art fairs give the general public a more accessible possibility to see the high quality that is evident and commonplace in most of the artist-run spaces.

The artist-run initiatives are seldom an alternative little place with friends just helping each other. On the contrary, they are a central part

of the art world that is based on supporting others. This is where artists (and curators, etc), work without reasonable wages in order to create opportunities and to promote fellow artists and their visions. This is not about altruism, it’s merely about wanting to be involved in a constructive, generous and dynamic part of the art scene. What about that other part, then? Well certainly, the artist-run galleries operate and coexist gladly together with the commercial art scene, but quite frankly, the private art galleries can not survive long without the artist-run-initiatives. Happiness, obviously, can not be bought. If it lives in oxes or cows is hard to say, but at the very moment we have our subsistence secured, we will surely start looking for the experience of art.

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Performance by Sofia Breimo, ‘Peppar, peppar, ta i trä (Knock on wood)’, photo: Kristoffer Strandberg.

* Other artist-run art fairs: Alt Cph in Denmark, Pool in the U.S., UND in Germany, Belgrade Art Fair in Serbia and the Sluice Art Fair in London.

Jakob Anckarsvärd, Artist/Writer.

Anckarvärd has worked on many artist-run projects, platforms and publishing houses in Glasgow and Stockholm. Anckarsvärd runs an interactive website for sharing experiences from the art scene. www.altruistartists.blog.se

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Cairo

Photographs by Hamdy Reda

On not making art in the revolution

by Amira Hanafi

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For me, everything I was working on, had worked on, was political. In fact, every detail in life was political. Above all, the very choice to be an artist and a poet was political.

I arrived for maybe the dozenth time in Cairo on January 14, 2011, this time with a plan to stay ‘permanently’ or, as I often translate to appease my nomadic impulse, ‘for the foreseeable future.’ It was a major transition as I have lived inside the United States for nearly my whole life. Just eleven days after my arrival, exhausted from purging most of my belongings and dragging the rest thousands of miles across the northern border of the United States and over the Atlantic, I found the entire country, and then the entire Arab World, entering a major transition with me.

Transition is hard. The death of a close friend, a divorce, a move into a new home – these events put us in a space that requires negotiation, full of emotion and confusion – a tornado of all that is familiar. In the vortex we struggle as we await a return to normality.

I am an artist. I am a poet. I have been a teacher, an administrator, a student, a friend, a collaborator. I have always been somehow bothered that I am not a political activist. I studied political science in college, having taken a taste of Karl Marx in my freshman year and, besotted, I continued to consume philosophy. I keep a close eye on the news and still read a healthy dose of theory. I take time to understand political structures and the ways they play out in daily life. But I would not say that I have ever been ‘active’ in any strict sense, other than attending some protests and signing a bunch of petitions.

I make art. This is my contribution as well as my way to personal satisfaction. Once, in graduate school, I was making a presentation of my work. Someone asked a question: “Is your work always political?” I was taken aback for a moment, not ever having explicitly categorised my work as political. Although at the same time, for me, everything I was working on, had worked on, was political. In fact every detail in life was political.

Above all the very choice to be an artist and a poet was political.

I started demonstrating in Cairo on January 28 – just two weeks after my arrival – and kept returning to Tahrir Square, until the night before the Camel Battle when, in the small dark hours of February 2, I hid from the threat of baltagiyya in a friend’s apartment close to

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Cairo

I had some conversations and I decided, any art we could make in this moment would be bad art.

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Midan Abdel Minam Riyadh. That’s where they congregated to prepare their attacks on the Tahrir demonstrators. I watched from the window, ensnared in a din of chants and shouts, reverberating bangs of metal sheets and explosions of Molotov cocktails for nearly thirty hours. Cars burnt and a person, maybe dead, was dragged across the bridge. My friend, who left the apartment, was arrested, held all day and night, accused of being an Iranian spy. I was traumatised by what I saw and suspicious of everyone around me; yet within a week I returned to Tahrir, and still go to demonstrate almost every Friday. For months afterwards I could barely talk of anything but that night. It felt as though I never spoke or thought of anything but the revolution.

All of my interactions were based around the uprising.

When I wrote, which was only occasionally, I could only write of what I had seen on the night of the Camel Battle. Overwhelmed, I stopped. Months passed in which I sat in the ahwas of downtown Cairo, learning to speak Arabic, to understand terms like oppression, rage, civilian, Field Marshall, Ministry of the Interior, and social justice before I could say short, sad, thirsty, or anxious. I did not make art. People around me made art and I looked at it. What I saw in galleries fell into two categories: documentation of the uprising or work that bordered on propaganda. Of the hundreds, I saw maybe two or three pieces that raised questions beyond the very immediate concerns of the uprising. I read some of the writing of Egyptians, poems and stories that were rallying cries to revolution.

I had some conversations and I decided that any

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art we could make in this moment would be bad art. I deeply considered the words of Egyptian artist and critic Hassan Khan in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm on June 3, 2011: I believe we are going to see a lot of terrible work for a long time. It’s just going to happen no matter what. People are going to exploit this 100 percent in all media. Politically, it’s problematic because the revolution is not something that is done and over that we can now neatly shut in a drawer and remember nostalgically. Nothing has been resolved. By making artworks or feature films representing the revolution, especially now, you end up stealing the revolution from the revolution. The revolution of course has an impact upon everyone, but one doesn’t contribute to it by painting crowds demonstrating. It might be acceptable in popular arts because it doesn’t try to make big claims.

But art is a space, which I believe should go beyond mere celebration and condemnation. And by just ‘representing’ the revolution, you’re only promoting yourself through something that everybody has a stake in. This again is the old regime with a new face.

I did not make anything, but still I thought I still should, even if it was going to be utter crap. I laughed with friends as we imagined a compilation of Egyptian revolutionary art some decades from now, someone writing their dissertation on how ephemeral it all was.

In late June I started to write. I was still writing about the night of February 2. This time I pushed through and I kept writing. I wrote down what I remembered,

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a miscellany of emotions and images. I started to sit in at Tahrir on July 8, calling for the demands of the revolution to be met. I made notes every day. On August 1 the sit-in was violently dismantled by the ruling forces.

I kept writing. I started some research into public space, the right to the city, and agoraphobia. I made notes and composed strange paragraphs. Then I stopped.

As an artist I am very focused on process, comfortable with not knowing what is going to come of any of my actions. Yet, in this time, I am followed by a nagging guilt about not making any work for the public eye.

Most of all I am enveloped with that sad draggy feeling I get when I am not making anything: the same feeling that is my main motivation for making art. I wonder, am I afraid of making a mistake? Of taking a position I will regret later? Of not understanding enough and feeling like an inadequate citizen? Who am I speaking to and what am I trying to say? How can I make art that neither supports nor opposes a particular position but explores the complexity of this movement? Every idea I have for work in these moments gets tangled up in these questions, goes nowhere, stays locked in some blurry process. And I cannot think of work that does not delineate these days.

What am I supposed to say that will not be cut up for a soundbite, that will not be a slogan plastered on a placard in the Square, that will not support an already established order, that will, in fact, be the revolution?

I try instead to be an activist, because that seems more honest, more direct – but I fail. I am only an artist, not making art in the revolution.

November 2, 2011, Cairo, Egypt

I started research into public space, the right to the city, and agoraphobia.

I made notes and composed strange paragraphs. Then I stopped.

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Amira Hanafi

Hamdy Reda

Amira Hanafi has worked in diverse capacities in the cultural field for over 15 years as an artist, writer, teacher, curator and arts administrator.

She grew up as an Arab in America and returned to Egypt in 2010 to compile a psychogeography of Cairo, featuring insider and outsider perspectives. She is committed to values of social justice, self-determination and collaboration, developing projects with these principles in mind. She is the author of Forgery (Green Lantern 2011), a collage-essay centered around a 140 year-old Chicago steel forge, and Minced English (aHa Books 2010), an index of 29 terms for people of mixed race.

She has exhibited her work to audiences in the United States and the Arab world. Hanafi earned her MFA in 2008 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Political Science from Rutgers University in 2000.

Hamdy Reda lives and works on the outskirts of Cairo. Reda’s background as a painter as well as his experiments with photography form a very solid artistic foundation for his artwork. Reda’s work has been exhibited at many venues inside Egypt as well as around the world, and he is a recipient of various artistic awards and recognitions.

Reda is also interested in building artistic dialogues. This is reflected in his residencies, projects and exhibitions in Europe, and also in his joint exhibitions with not only European and local artists, but also writers, poets, filmmakers, and philosophers.

Hamdy Reda’s feelings as an alienated artist in the Cairo elitist artistic community made him establish artellewa as his artistic refuge. artellewa is an independently run art space that provides artistic services to the residents of Ard El-Lewa, which is the local neighborhood of Mr. Reda. As well it provides a different environment to the artists.

b

Supermarket #3

Andrés Galeano, ‘Unknown Photographers #13’, C-Prints, 40 x 50 cm, 2012.

Exhibits at Supermarket 2013 with Grimmuseum, Berlin.

45

A story

Supermarket #3

by Oleg Frolov

A trivial, yet meaningful, observation tells that the (post) modern world is countable and manageable. It’s no wonder considering that in today’s mass societies with total population of more than seven billion, the calculation and control of a huge number of people, objects, food, waste, weapons and so on, equals the survival itself. What is more interesting, is that phenomena of apparently non-material nature are accurately counted as well. Are there really any abstract or symbolical values left which aren’t subject to account and analysis in forms of statistics, ratings and indexes of various sorts?

Even if so, happiness is definitely not one of them. Why has the question of happiness taken such a crucial position? Why is it so important to

Why is it so important to give a definition and gradation of happiness, to count those happy and unhappy people and to show the unhappy ones the way out of unhappiness?

46

give a definition and gradation of happiness, to count those happy and unhappy people (or countries), and to show the unhappy ones the way out of unhappiness? It seems that the problem of happiness lies at the very core of human nature. Indeed, the fact that the United States Declaration of Independence posits the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable human right, shows to what extent the idea of happiness influences the formation of relationships, and legal institutions, in a modern state. There are lots of informal definitions of the human species, so let’s regard humans as happiness-pursuing animals as well.

I would argue that we’re quite near to solving that problem of happiness.

Consider numerous ratings, indexes and lists that measure happiness or – to use a more sociologically specific term – quality of life, country by country. Skillfully they discriminate between concepts of emotional wellbeing and life evaluation, they list objective and subjective indicators of happiness, they match the emotional sphere with economics and ecology and so on. However, I’m not trying to explore the objectives and methods of respective ratings here. I just want to note that those rules and approaches do exist, happiness is defined and known, at least conceptually. We clearly see it as a reachable aim, and happiness has become the default state in all political and societal dialogue

and goal-setting; not least, we’ve seen a huge growth of a happy population in recent decades, exemplified when the oppressive communist regimes fell in Eastern Europe in 1989. I, by no means, want to argue that misfortune, bitterness, depression and all other facets of unhappiness are extinct, but I strongly believe that they are to be overcome (and one knows how); to rephrase political philosopher Francis Fukuyama’s judgment on democracy – happiness’ failure lies less in concept than in execution… 1 One of my motives for writing this piece was the repeated shock I experienced when hearing the news that an artist, who I found inspirational, had committed suicide; those artists were people of different nationalities, ages and fates and were all important and productive in their respective fields. I really thought such tragedies could only occur at the dawn of modern art. Indeed, the tragic narrative was historically valid in building the myth of a modernist genius – take the lives of Van Gogh, Egon Schiele and Frida Kahlo.

Nowadays however, the mainstream narrative in the arts seems to be that of happiness and success. Art historian and critic, Isabelle Graw, examines a current tendency when an artist is seen as an especially suitable prototype of a professional in today’s service sector.2 The image of the happy artist (which by necessity includes

The author’s original phrase was, “Democracy’s failure, then, lies less in concept than in execution…” in Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order. From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).

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Supermarket #3

of an unhappy artist commercial success) embodies values of entrepreneurship, selffulfillment (as well self-reliance), competitiveness, mobility and pursuit of freedom, which is exactly what the contemporary employment market seeks. These personal traits matter more, artworks matter less. The more Art is seen as a social experience, or a life-style habit, the more artist-aspersonality, artist-as-public figure, turns into the main interface between larger audience and works of art.

That’s why any abstract discussion on the topic of happiness in the Arts will eventually start to discussing the lives of particular happy artists, at the same time any analysis of its opposite – the unhappiness and its many facets – will lead us to biographies of particular unhappy artists.

The goal of a fictitious biography (based on real-life stories) of the unhappy artists I am about to present, is to shed light on when and how the art world fails in supporting artists, and to provoke further thoughts on what can be done to help people – whether artists or not – to pursue happiness. ***

*

See Isabelle Graw, High Price. Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture (Sternberg Press, 2009), pp. 112-116.

2

The image of the happy artist embodies values of entrepreneurship, self-fulfillment, competitiveness, mobility and the pursuit of freedom, which is exactly what the contemporary employment market seeks.

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– it’s become common for wannabe art-stars to flirt with media and to cultivate controversy but back then it was a very risky game.

*

How it all started… She decided to move to one of the world’s art capitals in her early twenties, unable to become an artist in her home country. Such a role neither existed for a young woman from a wealthy family back then, nor was there space for experimental forms of creativity.

The task of creating a fruitful art milieu really falls back to the status of art and artists. You can’t do much as an artist, unless art is cherished and praised in a society. Thus, effort should be put into making the public unafraid of art, and building a less discriminative and more inclusive art world.

So she moved to a big city abroad and turned out to be an initial success. Despite being a stranger, she was strategic, some people even said aggressive, in promoting her art, and indeed she became highly visible even in the male-dominated art world of those days, becoming a common tabloid fixture. She set a goal to make it big and employed all available means – it’s become common for wannabe art-stars to flirt with media and to cultivate controversy, but back then it was a very risky game. Various social forms of art were quite fresh in those years, including happenings and interventions into established formats of political protest, leisure activities (e.g. clubbing) and publishing. So she fully embraced them all and never hesitated to exploit her own appearance or the sexuality of others to the full. As said, it gained her a certain notoriety but it also gave her quite a negative kickback.

Wild things have certainly happened in the arts during the 21st century, but by no means should art be reduced to an exercise in a deviant behavior. It’s necessary to show young artists the whole perspective and not corner or marginalise them into certain art forms, attitudes or thinking patterns labeled fashionable, progressive or more genuine that may eventually ruin all prospects of a career and a good life. The longer she let her eccentric creativity blossom, the less seriously people considered her as an artist; the fact that she didn’t sell any of her art didn’t help either.

Finally, unable to tackle the situation emotionally, impoverished she had to return to her home country – only to meet a cold welcome. She entered a mental institution there.

His home country was a totalitarian state where no art was allowed, unless officially approved by the Heads of State. As recently as a few decades earlier, people who were brave enough to express themselves freely were literally risking their lives. In this case, the question of art and politics is really simple. Confines of any sorts are deadly to art; even flirting with idea of a state regulation is dangerous.

There’s basically no art under oppressive regimes, and that which somehow breaks outside is usually of inferior quality. The regime has mellowed since; still, the fate of a young experimental artist was full of dangers and insecurities. Even those who weren’t closely followed by secret services could never dream of an artistic life and careers which were available to their peers in free countries.

*

… it gained her a certain notoriety but it also gave her quite a negative kickback.

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Supermarket #3

*

Anyway, he and a group of friends tried to live and make art as independently as possible, refusing to allow the hardships of their life to be a hindrance. As a result, they became popular within a narrow circle of artist-peers, their work infiltrated the local youth culture, and, finally, word about them found its way abroad.

The latter fact was one of the reasons why officials were furious and acted violently: He was put into military service by force for a year. By the time he was out things got better.

The country opened its borders and experimental art and art trade were no longer prosecuted. Foreign collectors appeared – some of them eager to buy his works; they were very inattentive to the local context though, treating the artists and their work ultimately as exotic souvenirs.

Equal opportunities are what artists around the globe need, while what they usually get is backed up in empty beliefs in their local nationalisms and values of underdeveloped political and symbolic systems which may convert badly into the globalised dialogue on art. Insulted by the rudeness of the emerging art market, he believed he understood the utterly conformist and vulgar machinery of the art world and chose a pessimistic and cynical attitude. His final dictum was that art has lost its freshness and failed to inform life in any substantial manner.

He had a hard time building a successful career in terms of recognition and earning money, and it really worried him a lot. Firstly, as the art market entered the picture, the competitiveness amongst yesterday’s art-college friends rose immensely – suddenly it mattered who showed where, and whose work was bought by which collectors. Secondly, his own ambitions and expectations were always extremely high. In his own words, he never measured up to his own ideals. The flourishing art market created very unequal conditions for artists so, while he couldn’t afford to rent a nice place

50

His final dictum was that art has lost its freshness and failed to inform life in any substantial manner. to live, some of his assistants began making more money than he was by selling art.

It was crucial to be able to communicate to succeed in such an environment, which was hard for someone as uncompromising as he was. He wouldn’t approve even of those people who were supportive, if he wasn’t impressed by them as artists.

He was honest, and he was shy, and he was isolated, which often made people make up stories about him and project their misconceptions on him. He also couldn’t fit into any art world cliques because his work had a very distinctive character, so it wasn’t easily consumed by collectors, and galleries didn’t want to promote it. This was despite the fact that his paintings were featured in one after another group shows and many well-known artists acknowledged him as an important influence.

The problem of personal relationships, egoism and intrigues

He was honest, and he was shy, and he was isolated, which often made people make up stories about him and project their misconceptions on him.

Supermarket #3

was arguably the hardest to solve, not least because so much good in the Arts is actually derived from egoism and, let’s call it, alternative behavior. An immediate answer to free an artist from being a hostage of negligence and misbehavior of this or that Art World’s actor is diversity and transparency. There should be no single source neither of financing (as, say, a strong state support), nor of meaning making (as, say, a small group of academically trained critics promoting a certain strain of art). A free flow of information should exist so various actors have an opportunity to speak up: Artists will say what their interests are, and the galleries or collectors will tell what their practice is about and so on.

Eventually, he found a couple of galleries who cared about his art, but even when he began to make more money, he invested much of it into making more art. He produced too much because of a fear of failure; working nonstop was a way to reduce the constant stress. He took drugs to be able to operate and to feel better about himself, but his drug habit led to nervous breakdowns. He tried to take his life several times.

Throughout his career he was recognised as a tireless performer and author of laborious multimedia projects.

He became depressed to an extent that was apparent to people around him. A journalist who conducted an interview with him could clearly see he was melancholic and sad.

Throughout his career he was recognised as a tireless performer and author of laborious multimedia projects, still he decided to slow down, if not stop making art altogether.

This is despite the fact that there were no artistic heights he hadn’t achieved: His influence on younger generations of artists was apparently seen in numerous current exhibitions, he was represented by one of the most renowned art galleries, and his works fetched hundreds of thousands dollars in auctions. He still saw some of this as being problematic. Contemporary art galleries lack the familial feeling of earlier days and are basically

He produced too much because of a fear of failure; working nonstop was a way to reduce the constant stress. bureaucratic power plants driving the art-market. Millions of dollars paid for works of art at auctions have very little to do with artists’ financial security.

Money and speculations is a hot topic in recent years and even decades.

Unfortunately, the most prevalent attitude is market-phobic and the critique is simplistic. People are baffled and afraid of huge sums being paid for art, but are rarely eager to investigate what those sums mean. Whereas, the intricate interdependence of art and market could be better conceived, especially during market booms like today’s. The discussion of true meaning of high prices could improve the situation.

Some of his melancholia could be tracked back to the childhood; lack of support from his family was apparently an issue. His thoughts oscillated between those days when becoming an artist was an experiment and a challenge unlike today’s moneyfuelled careerism. He went in and out of psychotherapy for the most of his life. Unfortunately, he was so overwhelmed with problems that he has now committed suicide; he was in his late fifties.

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Oleg Frolov is an artist and author of texts on art from Moscow, Russia. He publishes a small magazine on art called Populist (populistmag.com). You may reach Oleg by email: oleg.critic@gmail.com The text is illustrated with ‘Fake Egon Schiele drawings’ by Mike Chernov.

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Supermarket #3 Mary Ellen Croteau in front of her plastic bottle caps self-portrait.

ON HAPPINESS

by Meggi Sandell

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Supermarket #3

* ON HAPPINESS

by Meggi Sandell

What are the specific issues concerning happiness in relation to art and artists?

To explore various aspects of the perception of happiness, four people with different perspectives from the artist-run scene in Chicago, Budapest and Geneva share their thoughts on the subject.

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Pillow fight at 2B Gallery, Budapest.

Photo: László Böröcz

Mary Ellen Croteau from the window gallery Art on Armitage is an artist based in Chicago, USA, whose work exposes the absurdities of social norms and the underlying bias and sexist assumptions on which culture is constructed.

Lívia Rózsás, connected to the 2B Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, is an art historian and independent curator who mainly deals with new media art, video art, film and animation as well as sound art.

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What are your thoughts on success? When do you consider an exhibition successful?

Mary Ellen Croteau: When

me they love my work.

people tell

By organising an exhibition the feeling of success could come in three waves: first – during installation, second – through visitor’s feedback, third – through feedback from the press.

Unfortunately there are cases when none of these waves appear....

Lívia Rózsás:

Alexia Turlin in discussion with Maryline Billod: It reminds me to ask: what is

success exactly? To earn money? To fit into the neighbourhood well? To be loved? And be happy? In this way we consider that a good exhibition is one which opens the minds of the public. And for Maryline it would be an exhibition that explores new issues for her and for other artists and critics. An exhibition that keeps one active for a long time and that grows beyond one’s control.

In other words, an exhibition that creates surprising connections, new meanings.

Alexia Turlin is an artist running the window gallery Milkshake Agency in Geneva, Switzerland, and also teaching at the Geneva University of Art and Design in Geneva.

Any thoughts on happiness?

Eric G. Wilson, the author of ”Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy”, claims that melancholia and sadness can be a powerful creative force that has motivated, among others, Virginia Woolf and Vincent van Gogh to produce some of their greatest works.

He is concerned that there is a tendency in the U.S. to diagnose and medicate the slightest negative mood and that this will eventually lead to the extinction of one of the most motivating forces and its potential products. Do you think he’s right?

Mary Ellen Croteau: It

is certainly true that anger, frustration, and depression are considered illnesses and aberrations in the US. It is also a very profitable situation for drug companies. But suppression doesn’t just affect the creative process, it affects the political zeitgeist as well.

Perhaps this is more to the point: people who are drugged will be much less likely to challenge the system or revolt.

Maryline Billod is an art historian and independent curator collaborating with both independent and official spaces in Switzerland.

Certainly Kathe Kollwitz and Dorothea Lange found it a rich subject to artfully explore, and their work had a larger social impact because of it. But I do not think that creative people in general are those who will pop a Xanax when depressed (but maybe I should conduct a poll of my artist friends on this).

Lívia Rózsás: There are artists who do not suffer from mental illness and produce remarkable works.

If someone has a serious mental disorder it should be treated.

Hopefully it does not affect the artist’s creative energy. I’m not much involved in this topic, does anyone know an artist who produced less important works after psychological treatment?

In Switzerland we have high levels of suicide. It’s surprising how people living comfortably (money, warmth, a roof and sometimes even a washing machine...) become more disappointed and lose a certain meaning in their lives. It’s so easy – and to think that we used to fight for food in the woods!

Alexia Turlin:

Maryline Billod: Yes, melancholia and sadness can be powerful elements of creative force indeed, as far as they are authentic. Trying to get in this mood artificially or to force it would be too fake to become a real source of creative energy. When it touches or gets too close to the idea of suffering, when it is connected to this judeo-christian idea that you have to suffer during your earthly life, I don’t feel ok with that. I would like to believe in other powerful creative energies that would be induced by more epicurean elements.

*

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Katrineholms konsthall 2013

Mourning procession, Helena Blomqvist

www.katrineholm.se/utstallningar

Supermarket #3

* Do you think there is more room for unhappiness in the identity of artists compared to other professions or is this just a stereotypical myth of “the miserable artist”?

I do not think there is necessarily more misery in being an artist than any other profession. In fact, I think because we are doing work that we love to do, want to do, need to do, we are probably less likely to be miserable than the average sales clerk or office worker.

Mary Ellen Croteau:

Lívia Rózsás: The artist can be miserable as much as not. The stereotype of the “miserable artist” grew through romanticism but it seems that this preconception is still alive.

Alexia Turlin: I think that artists are melancholics and suffering as the myth says, and because their interaction with society exposes them, they are public people.

But in other sectors of work people are also asking themselves existential questions and suffering.

It’s perhaps only because artists are so exposed to society that we transmit this idea of the artist as suffering.

What I think is that art is not there only to make

posture and tension in a relaxing mood – this way we explore the limits of suffering. So it’s “playing” between these two tendencies. I used to have a teacher in France who used to say when we were working (at the fine art school) “You are suffering, you are going further”. He was joking but I know now he was actually quite right. It’s good to be down sometimes and introspective sessions can help you to be creative – but only for 20% of your time. I say that but now I myself wonder: maybe I was a better artist when I was more down!?

What do you think of the idea of a gap between “the poor and depressed artist” and the new “successful entrepreneur artist” or gallery owner or art collector?

What are your experiences of the overlapping roles of artist/ curator/gallerist/manager in the artist-run field?

People who make enough

Mary Ellen Croteau:

money should be happier than those who are poor, but I don’t think that is necessarily the case. It is certainly depressing to have someone profit handsomely from your work while you struggle. It is difficult when gallerists don’t pay the artist after selling their work. It is basically an exploitative system. I have solved the problem by not pursuing sales. As a gallerist, if anyone asks about buying artwork, I send them directly to the artist.

Lívia Rózsás: The spectre of financial abyss could divide any members of the art world – this is not about being a gallerist or an artist. It can also happen that the gallerist is poor, and the artist is rich, there are ups and downs.

Alexia Turlin: It depends on the level of involvment in the art and with the artist. Often, people active in art are more interested in money than in the human relationship with the artist. If so, it’s a way to increase this kind of gap... But I really think that successful people are not so happy. Pressure is big. Since I was in fine art school, I’ve been so happy to work and share with other artists, other practices, ways of life, ways of integrating art into everyday life... It’s so important to support, exchange ... and be supported! Success and happiness are results of the search for a balance between ideals, honesty, love, dreams, money... trying to reach Aristotle’s “juste milieu”.

b people happy (artist and/or spectator), art is a reflection of our societies. And to be a good artist is a mélange of happiness and suffering... like yoga for example! We have to find the tension in a relaxing

Eun Yeoung Lee, ‘Bird’, ceramic, 25 x 35 cm, 2012.

Exhibits with Milkshake Agency at Supermarket 2013.

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Supermarket #3

Dr Odyoke

The relentless pursuit of freedom and justice by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei have earned him respect and appreciation all around the world.

The money trail But the art world’s market makers see things from a different perspective. In Artprice.com:s yearly survey of the global art market revenues, Ai Weiweis was beaten by at least 20 other Chinese artists, many of them never heard of in the West. In 2012, China emerged as the world’s leading art market if the turnover from sales of artworks is considered. But big is not best – or is it just a question of which perspective you choose to apply? In the West, Ai Weiwei is the darling of both art critics and collectors.

Recently, his Sunflower Seeds

installation was sold by Sotheby’s at the neat price of 500,000 euro. But this is peanuts compared to realist painter Yang Feiyun, who’s image Girl In Front Still Life was sold at an auction in Hong Kong for close to 4,000,000 euro in June last year.

Ever heard of him? Thought not.

You don’t have to be rich or cool to rule the world. But some cash comes handy if you want to transform the art world. Or just being able to buy something big and uncontroversial to match your new designer sofa.

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Supermarket #3

The artist-run Belgrade Art Fair was held at Kulturni Centar Beograda in October 2012.

For information about Belgrade Art Fair 2013 please visit www.belgradeartfair.com

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Photographs by Belgrade Art Fair. Performances by Dragan Vojvodic, Gustaf Broms, Marko Bogdanovic, Nenad Bogdanovic.

Supermarket #3

Dr Odyoke

Joanna Rzepka-Dziedzic, ‘House-warrior’, photo object/fragment, 2009/2010. Exhibits at Supermarket 2013 with Galeria Szara, Poland.

What a wonderful statistical world What would we do without statistics? Be completely lost, I suppose.

In a report by the British Economic & Social Research Council (published in August 2011) the economics and statistics of European culture is revealed to its full extent. And the results are both astonishing and, in some parts, embarrassing. The concept of “Europe” is in many ways regarded as equal to the concept of “culture” as such. The report supports this view. Europeans are pro-culture. Especially citizens of the countries in the Mediterranean countries believe that culture is of great personal importance to them (80-90% agree). But, as often, ideals and reality does not always match.

When these responses ar matched by figures showing to which extent people really attend participate in cultural events, the Mediterraneans are exposed: actual participation figures fall between 10% and 20% below the figures indicating cultural importance. The opposite goes for North Europeans: the participation figures are generally between 10% and 20% higher than the figures showing how important respondents believe that culture is. Exactly what we thought: the Mediterraneans are not only sloppy with govenment spending, they are also liars.

But wait a minute, what is this huge gap in our statistical charts? It is the Poles, of course. While well over 90% of the Polish people believe culture to be of great importance, only 50% participate. As always, anything can be proved by statistics. By the way, did you know what kind of expression Europeans in general think of when they hear the word “culture”? The answer: performing and visual arts. Swedes and Danes are way ahead of the rest of Europe in promoting this definition.

Not bad for two countries where H C Andersen and August Strindberg is Culture with a big C.

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Utställningsprogram 2013

2013.01.19-2013.03.10

Mikael Åberg Daniel Milton 2013.03.23-2013.05.19

Cajsa von Zeipel johan svensson 2013.06.01-2013.08.11

Åsa skogberg

villu jaanisoo 2013.08.31-2013.11.10

norDiC art station

2013.11.30-2014.01.19

linn FernströM

jonathan joseFsson

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För mer information och ansökningsblanketter 08 -767 30 00 eller www.konstnarernashjalpfond.se Styrelsen för Konstnärernas hjälpfond Ordförande: Carl-Gustaf Petersén Ledamöter: Lars Huck Hultgren, Bengt Härdelin, Ingvar Jörpeland, Anders Karlsson, Gunilla Odelfelt, Ulf Olausson, Andreas Ribbung, Bo Thorén, Tommy Widing, Lotte Nilsson-Välimaa Sakkunniga: Stig Kangas, Anna-Lena Lundmark, Lars Lundblad Sekreterare: Marianne Petersén

Supermarket #3

This town ain’t What’s wrong? big enough for the both of us Dr Odyoke

Never trust the art market gurus when it comes to judging artistic value. For some time, we have been hearing a lot of business mumbojumbo about the booming commercial interest for comtemporary art.

Sometimes, it is easy to get the impression that the financial crisis is something that just affect notoriously lazy South Europeans.

But the question is how comtemporary “contemporary” really is? On the list of last year’s top 10 hammer prices at European auctions, works by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is to be found in 6 out of 10 slots. And he is unquestionably as dead as a dodo. Among the four living artists on the list, Glenn Brown is number four, a success for Charles Saatchi who has been promoting Brown since the days of the YBA. In fact, it took only a few months after the YBA blockbuster show Sensation for Glenn Browns works to reach the auction market, no doubt as a result of Mr Saatchi pulling the golden strings.

But nothing is as old a yesterday’s news. Next year will be the breakthrough year for urban art, the market gurus tell us. The sales of urban artworks is already through the roof (up by 90%...) in the last decade, and the golden Post-Banksy era is waiting just around the corner. What are you waiting for? Just grab a jackhammer and go out to roam the streets (preferably at night time) to find yourself a nice piece of investment-friendly graffiti.

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The south easten part of Sweden is well known as an area crowded with artists who have grown tired of the bustling urban life of Stockholm. But this also means that conflicts between big egos are never far away. For some years, Swedish author and musician Ulf Lundell has been involved in a bitter clash with Sune Nordgren, chief curator of Kivik Art Centre. The issue? An architectural installation by British artist Anthony Gormley. Lundell claims that the installation poses a threat to his privacy, since visitors may be able to see Lundell’s house from the upper “floor” of the installation.

Lundell filed a complaint at the local court, arguing that the installation is an illegal construction, since it has been build without the approval by the municipality. Several courts have since then ruled in favour of Mr Lundell, giving Sune Nordgren no other option than applying for a temporary building permit from the municipality. So far so good?

An immement reconciliation? No way! Some time ago, Kivik Art Centre proudly announced its new project: a giant staircase by Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh.

This time, Mr Nordgren have taken all precautions to avoid yet another lawsuit. “A staircase does not require a municipal building permit”, Mr Nordgren concludes with a wry smile. As they say, this town is not big enough for the both of us.

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Supermarket #3

Heli Ryhänen, ‘Mariborin Partisaanit’, steel, recycled leather and textile, 30 x 115 cm, 2012. Exhibits at Supermarket 2013 with Galleria Sculptor, Helsinki.

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