Do you know Tino Sehgal? You know, the artist that doesn’t allow any pictures taken of his works? And doesn’t write any introduction, or artist statement? Or make written agreements with museums? That wants no material artifacts in his works?
Does it matter what the works are?
They are performative. More: they are performances. They are people doing things in exhibition spaces. They are things happening with people within an exhibition framework.
They could be happening to others (say, someone kissing). Or to you (say, someone talking with you).
You might never discover which part was the work. Yet somehow, you often do.

Once again: Does it matter what the works are? Once you experience something, what good is the analysis?
But we are pretty smart animals. We may experience, and still want to think about it. We may want to decide what we think, and if we will go to see this thing again or not. We may rework this experience in our mind until we decide, say, that this is just not enough. That a good ice-cream would have done the job. Or a meeting with a friend. Or both combined. Maybe in a museum. Maybe accompanied by a stranger, having a conversation about progress. The luxury of conversational art. Now isn’t that progressive.

Then again, what is wrong with living a series of perfectly good conversations put into a gentle, clean formal frame? Can’t we just accept this? What is it that makes one (me) so voracious?
Is it the fact I’ve never actually seen a Sehgal, done a Sehgal?
Isn’t the picture enough?
Or the reviews that seem to make a huge effort in taking the mimetic weight off the image and putting some of it on words?
Paradoxically, all the effort put into keeping it live seem to make us focus not on the thing, but on this very effort. Would Tino Sehgal be at the Guggenheim had he allowed taking pictures? So what exactly is the work, here? How come I feel it so clearly, if it’s all about presence? Or am I just feeling its double, its fake, the afterthought? But isn’t that crucial in experience? Doesn’t that re-constitute the experience once it is over? Can one re-construct something one did not experienced in the first place?
You would have to have been there. The most dreaded sentence in the world. What are we supposed to do with it? Take a hidden snapshot?

Tino Sehgal is on at the New York Guggenheim until March 10.

I like discovering interesting artists that I have never heard of before. French artist Bernard Lorjou (1908-1986) is one of them. I still don’t know much about him but I like his work.

Bernard Lorjou – Bull and Bullfighter (The Friends)

Bernard Lorjou – The Jazz Pianist

Bernard Lorjou – Circus Horse on Hind Legs

Bernard Lorjou – King David

More of his work can be seen at Lorjou.com (it’s a little challenging to navigate but worth the effort) or at the official Bernard Lorjou website.

Bloodshedding pieces of black-and-white happiness.
The unfair balance of the picture.

The wider picture. The bloody wider picture always giving it the color that wasn’t there in the first place.
Notice: the wider picture is never the first place. It comes as we back up, until we are nowhere to be found, impressed by the relation of the Thing with that wide horizon, that swift encompassing of the Other into the Thing.

The unfair balance of the picture. Nothing should ever be framed. Frames should be prohibited, forcing us into oblivion, into focusing on the End nearest us. Who knows how many Santa Clauses are necessary?

The unfair balance of the picture.

The pictures are by, in order of appearance, Diane Arbus, Miko?aj Chylak, Diane Arbus, Fischli & Weiss.

Bloodshedding pieces of black-and-white happiness.
The unfair balance of the picture.

The wider picture. The bloody wider picture always giving it the color that wasn’t there in the first place.
Notice: the wider picture is never the first place. It comes as we back up, until we are nowhere to be found, impressed by the relation of the Thing with that wide horizon, that swift encompassing of the Other into the Thing.

The unfair balance of the picture. Nothing should ever be framed. Frames should be prohibited, forcing us into oblivion, into focusing on the End nearest us. Who knows how many Santa Clauses are necessary?

The unfair balance of the picture.

The pictures are by, in order of appearance, Diane Arbus, Miko?aj Chylak, Diane Arbus, Fischli & Weiss.

Video directed by Takafumi Tsuchiya (TAKCOM).

What is it that we like about simplicity? Is it not that it’s close to us? It is attainable, like something that is nearly us. Or, to put it differently – an it that almost makes it into me. Thus, an imaginary community. Yes, if I dared, I would say simplicity gives us an imaginary community. A universe we don’t need to adhere to, as it has already adhered to us.

The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm’s short film Dreams from The Woods.

Two pictures from the Visit series (2007/8) by Filip Berendt.
The idea is so simple and to the point that it is irritating. Berendt put an ad in a newspaper saying he wants to make installations in people’s homes out of the things he finds there and take pictures of them. Some people answered. He went to their homes, and, well, did what he said he would do.
The series won him the Sittcomm award last year.

Two gorgeous 2009 Szpilman Award candidates:
The runner-up, Alexander Thieme with his Embedded

… and this year’s winner, Hank Schmidt in der Beek, with In den Zillertaler Alpen






Can you spot me?
What am I, within this overwhelming sight?
Am I a humble creature? Do I not see myself?
Or is it but a false humility, a false erasing of the onlooker’s look?
–
I was told twice in the last two days that one should not make art in anyone else’s name but her own.
You want it – you have it.
Hank Schmidt In Der Beek, you have just made my day.

Other candidates can be found here. Also check out their blog.

Le Monde des Montagnes (The World of Mountains), an ECAL graduate project by Camille Scherrer

Nothing to stop us from getting lost. From deciding we no longer belong here, and using all our knowledge and craft to make this place just confusing enough to dream.
Be it an augmented reality, be it a book, a picture that can actually be moving. Be it our imposing of what’s in our head, or rather, what dropped by for just a second, only to fool us into believing we own it, we are it.
Nothing to stop us from finding our way. With every single hesitating step we so confidently make into this our augmented reality, with more of you than I could ever have hoped for, with less of me than you would expect, with just enough of us to get the picture.
And move on. As if nothing really happened. As if.

(via)

“Procrastination refers to the deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting and/or completing any task or decision. There are three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guilt and crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as disapproval by others for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.”

So, I have a label I can hide behind now. It’s not me to blame for the lack of posts, it’s the “psychological disorder” of “chronic procrastination” which I suffer from to blame. I knew all along that it wasn’t my fault and wikipedia has proven me right.

Sorry if I haven’t replied to your emails or comments lately, I really have been pretty vacant. I’m back on the horse now and holding tightly to the feisty little filly.

I wonder what has been happening in the world of art…