Now that there is no essence, we ask: how is it to see through you? What sort of filter are you?
Now that there is no common subject, no us, we say: what is this sum of subject and object?
Now that the body is not enough, and that it stops us as ridiculously as ever, we say: what is so common about this object? What is it about it that is so transparent, and what does this absence, this oppressive absence, taste like when accepted?

The paintings are by Johan Schaefer, the photos – Khristian Mendoza.

• the paintings are by Jeff Soto.
• the chair for partying till you drop is by Sebastian Brajkovic.
• and the look-what-I-found-upon-returning-to-the-hotel-room photo was taken by the great Cormac Hanley (an interview with him is here, although I must add that his admiration for Michael Mann goes strongly against my conclusions after seeing his last film)

For more images of Emma Hack’s work, see here.

Life is Everywhere (2004)

En Epoch of Clemency (2007?)

Hedgehog in a Fog (2004)

Talent Can’t Be Boozed Away (2004)

From Sindbad and International Terrorism (10 Heroic Deeds) (2006)

From Sindbad and International Terrorism (10 Heroic Deeds) (2006)

From Fucking Fascism (1998)

All works by the Russian collective Blue Noses (most known for the 2007 scandal one of their works provoked).

(Thanks Liz!)

“- What is the role of the artist?
- To not get tired of running all his life.”

The Critical Run initiative, by Thierry Geoffroy, at first glance, appears exciting. Lighthearted and simple, yet livening. Take a group of people and make them discuss serious issues – while jogging.
Let’s run and talk. Let’s have fun and share. Let’s move. See what happens – to us, to the surroundings, to the topic.
It reminds me of some of the Lone Twin works, and of other, more discursive, initatives.
But then you see the videos.

- and you realize why this is a copyrighted format. Actually, it’s not about the conversation at all. It’s about the hilarious situation of displacing discourse into a territory that is not its own. It’s about creating a mess with a mass. And hoping (?) for a miracle of super-discourse through a discourse-smashing environment. As we all know from films, the most profound ideas arise on boxing rings.
But wait! It gets better!

Oh, Canada!
Think! Exchange! Travel far! As long as you can fit it on a headband…

But let’s be honest. Discourse is a problem for the work of art, if it stays within the aesthetic experience. It either gets chewn up by the experience or we move out (last movement?) of the aesthetic experience and into the realm of plays-on-ideas. Which is also a tough blow.
Then we have to face the perspective of functioning as anyone else who thinks. And running with them. And quite possibly getting completely lost, syncopated, out-of-breathed, shafted, as my teenage years would put it (notice the momentum of the word). No wonder one can feel the need to go back and, well, try to, well, do, well, something about the loss. Someone like John Baldessari*, witty enough to both play the artsy world and keep his eyes on the ball:

And, to get a fuller picture, how else, a remix of the remix:

Is the relief you feel when being able to read accompanied by a feeling of the loss of Baldessari’s purity? Could it be there is not enough movement? But then again, isn’t it nice to feel that a words translates into a thought?
One of the videos of the Critical Runs is entitled “Does the artist has any impact on society?” (sic!)
There is one comment underneath: “Not in bad English you don’t. Does anyone have…”

* For a succint intro to John Baldessari, see the stylishly designed FLYP magazine.

There comes a time when sophistication just won’t do it.

Photo by Grzegorz Klatka, found here.

It’s my birthday, so today I’m leaving you with some new art that was not meant to be art, made by a scientist in collaboration with ants… (Don’t mind the off-screen commentary and enjoy the visual ride).

(If you’re interested in the ant-not-art part of it, you can see the 6-minute documentary episode here)
(Thanks Pusty!)

Start off with something nice.
Something delicate, subtle, yet not too sharp, just soft enough to create the sensation of closeness. Don’t go crazy, don’t look for the ambitious project. Focus on this line. This spot. This shape. Something ridiculously precious for the little space it takes, for the easiness with which one can grasp it with one blink of an eye. Like a photo. Like a brand mark. Like, say, a sign announcing a poodle.
Now. Keep it fresh, don’t go for the design, don’t become too sure of yourself, you’ve only walked that far, you’ve only just created a little tiny bit of reality, something enchanting, a walk in the night, maybe, a few pretty words, possibly.
Stay humble.
And if you think you’re humble enough, make fun at whatever it is that isn’t there quite yet. Look at the silly figure you’re making, you artiste you, you and your pretty dress, and your flirtacious smile, and your bright ideas and smiling smiles.

That’s it. You’re moving you’re making you’re growing. You’re growing on this other you that is not you, and which surprizingly serves you as a filter to bring about the rest. See?
And though you know there is no other self, by now the distance is your best ally, you use it like a magnifying glass, the distance is what you learn to know best, you play with it, you give it true depth, you make it resound, this distant you, like a tolling bell, and then you pretend there is nothing, you get on with your work and all the rest, until, one day, it comes back, the echo, simple and potent and clear.

Andrea Schumacher, Poodle; Belle of the Ball; and Transposed Gesture (the latter, original, gesso and gouache painting is available at the Pierogi Gallery for under $400)

On June 4, 1989, Poland held the first (partly) free elections of the so-called Eastern Block.
It was the first time since WW2 that opposition parties could legally participate in the political process, and the result – a smashing success of the opposition – was the end of communism and the beginning of a new, free Poland. These elections are generally considered the single event that began the overcoming of the totalitarian regimes in this entire region of the world.
And among the ways in which Poland will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of these events, one is particularly interesting.

Tomorrow, the excellent Polish artist Pawe? Althamer (I’ve written a short note about him before), will land with 160 other passengers of a Boeing 737 in Brussels. They will all be wearing golden suits that look like a combination of space suits and fairy-tale costumes. Even the plane will be specially designed and painted gold – all as part of Althamer’s work Common Task (the Polish expression “Wspólna sprawa” could also mean “common issue” or “common quest”). Their first stop in the city will be the Expo 58, a modernist dream-town. A model of an atom will be a starting point of the visit to the European Parliament and “meetings with the residents of the city” (How does that work?). They will be making a tour of the city as strange, alien visitors. 160 gold-dressed aliens.
Who are they? Mainly Althamer’s neighbors, family and friends, who have been joining him for other performances he organized.
Who are they? Poles. Strangers. People from outer space.
They are the winners. The visiting winners. The happy neighbors. The curious onlookers, the modernist dreamers, the naive children of freedom, the believers. They are the pure creators, the dreamed Europeans, the perfect people, they are the unexpected turn of events, where everything turns gold.

The words on the page of the entire commemoration state:

The motto of the commemoration, It all began in Poland, is a bold reference to the fact that Poland was the first European nation to oppose, in 1939, the spread of Nazism and communism, and was the first to remove their communist government from power in 1989.

The gold suits seem to fit. And yet, what I like about this social sculpture (as Althamer sometimes calls his works) is something quite opposite to that spirit of heroism and pride we so desperately claim. It’s… you guessed it – the lack of pathos.
Or rather – the way pathos is masked by the gold suit.

David Lynch’s new project, Interview Project, is assumingly as simple as it gets: travel across the US. Interview people.
Here is the first episode.
First impressions? It’s… nice. Potentially fascinating. Not quite yet. For the moment, it’s too early to say.

This might seem like something very unfocused, as if it lacked a form, a formula, a format to support it. Compare this first episode to Kie?lowski’s (amazing, amazing) Talking Heads (1980):

Kie?lowski has a format and sticks to it.
Seen from this perspective, Lynch’s project might appear as amateurish.
But then, it goes so well with the spirit of our times, with the thirst for simple, everyday stories…
After all, we can still feel quite a heavy dose of humanist ideals and pathos in Kie?lowski’s approach. Even the way he films his subjects is dramatic, often painting-like.
Lynch has this capacity too, as we know so well. Yet he chooses a very different approach, different texture. Different proximity.

One small, hardly noticeable element is similar in the two projects: the music. It is heavy, dramatic, as if contradicting the simplicity of the protagonists.
Is it nostalgia for the great narratives?

Oh, and one more thing. We can only get that far asking constantly the most basic questions. After a while, I get tired. I want more. The essential stops being essential. It becomes annoyingly abstract, unaccessible. That’s one reason to go beyond the existential questions, and one reason to ask other questions. One way of dealing with this is moving away from the person-as-biography to the person-as-projection. Take the famous work by Sophie Calle called Blind, where she asked people who were born blind about what is their image of beauty.

The pathos is still quite present. Yet the projection, the sensibility of the imagination, makes us… dance with empathy.