art review: 2012

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

1/8

R o S S E l l A

B i S c o T T i , B y E l

F i l i p o v i c ,

c U R A T o R , W i E

B R U S S E l S

A l A y o Un i S ,

c h R i S T i n E T o h

d i R E c T o R , A S h

A l W A n , B E i R A l E k S A n dR A

d o m A n o v i c ,

B y l A U R A

m c l E A n - F E R R i S ,

E d i T o R A T l A R G E ,

A R T R E v i E W ,

l o n d o n

J A S o n l o E B S ,

B y B E A T R i x R U F ,

d i R E c T o R

k U n S T h A l l E

Z U R i c h

c h R i S T i A n

F R i E d R i c h , B y

W i l l E m d E R o o i J ,

A R T i S T , B E R l i n

A n o U k k R U i T h o F ,

B y J A S o n E v A n S ,

p h o T o G R A p h E R ,

T h A n E T

x

p E T R i T h A l i l A J ,

B y G i o v A n n i

c A R m i n E ,

d i R E c T o R ,

k U n S T h A l l E

S A n k T G A l l E n

n E i l B E l o U F A , B y

B o R i S o n d R E i c k A ,

A R T i S T ,

B R A T i S l A v A

n A E E m

m o h A i E m E n , B y

o l i v E R B A S c i A n o ,

A S S i S T A n T E d i T o R ,

A R T R E v i E W ,

l o n d o n

m o S i R E E n , B y

J o A n n A W A R S Z A ,

A S S o c i A T E

c U R A T o R , B E R l i n

B i E n n i A l

T A m A R G U i m A R A E S ,

B y A l F R E d o

c R A m E R o T T i ,

d i R E c T o R ,

m o S T y n ,

l l A n d U d n o

W A E l S h A W k y ,

B y S U S A n n E

p F E F F E R ,

k W i n S T i T U T E ,

B E R l i n

B R i A n k E n n o n ,

B y A n d R E W

B E R A R d i n i ,

c R i T i c , l o S

A n G E l E S

d A v i d T E R -

o G A n y A n , B y

J o A n n A m y T k o W S k A ,

d i R E c T o R ,

W A R S A W m U S E U m

o F m o d E R n A R T

T A h i m o o R E , B y

c h R i S S h A R p ,

i n d E p E n d E n T

c U R A T o R / c R i T i c ,

p A R i S

k A T l E E n v E R m E i R &

R o n n y h E i R E m A n S ,

B y n A v h A q ,

c U R A T o R o F

E x h i B i T i o n S ,

A R n o lF i n i , B R i S T o l

A n dR E k o m A T S U

B y i S h m A E l R A n d A l l

W E E k S , A R T i S T ,

n E W y o R k

A n A l i A

S A B A n ,

By

h o l l y

m y E R S ,

c R i T i c , l o S

A n G E l E S

l E U n G c h i W o ,

B y m A R k R A p p o l T ,

E d i T o R ,

A R T R E v i E W ,

l o n d o n

A S A n o R B E R G &

J E n n i E S U n d E n ,

B y m A R i A l i n d

d i R E c T o R ,

T E n S T A

k o n S T h A l l

p A U l G A B R i E l l i ,

B y m A R y

h E i l m A n n ,

A R T i S T , n E W

y o R k

138

B R E n d A n F o W l E R ,

B y J o n A T h A n

T . d . n E i l , E d i T o R

A T l A R G E ,

A R T R E v i E W ,

n E W y o R k

F R A n k h E A T h ,

B y T y l E R

c o B U R n , c R i T i c ,

l o S A n G E l E S

R U n o l A G o m A R S i n o ,

B y J A c o B F A B R i c i U S ,

d i R E c T o R , m A l m o

k o n S T h A l l

m i T c h E l l S q U i R E ,

B y T h E A S T E R G A T E S ,

A R T i S T , c h i c A G o

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

2/8

Future Greats ArtReview

Paul Gabriellicombines andassembleseverydayobjects andpresents themas sculpturewith a style

that seduces both with its clarityand the puzzlement that itinduces. Generally, his show atInvisibleExports in New York lastyear, included objects such as asoap dispenser with a yellowplastic air reshener stuck on it.Gabrielli oten returns to thisstrange doubling up o objects.The show also contained a set o

ound objects stripy cloth, orexample that had beenmanipulated and packaged inclear plastic containers backed byshiny landscape photographs, asthough they were meant to besold. Gabrielli does not title hisworks, because to do so would beto provide too much explanation.So what happens is that one looksat the work and ruminates aboutthe meaning. The generic objectsthat he uses alarms, hand dryersand air resheners are metaphorsor humanistic thoughts, becausethey make one think o what thesedevices resemble, and it is otenparts o the body. They aredisplayed provocatively in thegallery, where they might actuallybe ound in real lie: a re alarm

high on the wall, a sculpture o acamera near the door. Yet t heremay be either logic or conusionabout the combinations. Gabrielli

p A U l

G A B R i E l l i

By

m A R y

h E i l m A n n

German artist Christian Friedrich studiedProtestant theology and philosophy at HeidelbergUniversity and sculpture at the Academy o FineArts in Karlsruhe beore moving to Amsterdam in2007 or a two-year residency at De Ateliers. It wasthere that Friedrich decided to take his analyticalartistic methodology apart, and to make space in hispractice or more intuitive trajectories and

psychological themes. Without shying away rom elements o kitschand dubious taste, his work gained complexity and depth. Hissculptural works evolved to become monumental orms plaster-castsoas or ceramic tableaux depicting ruits and erotic tools, reminiscento Franz West as much as John Miller. At the same time Friedrich beganto stage perormances in his studio, using his sculptures, himsel andvarious collaborators as props. The video documentations o theseperormances became, in turn, autonomous works. Friedrichs latestworks are lms that no longer reer to sculptural elements outside thescreen. Untitled (2011) juxtaposes appropriated images o the earth as

seen rom a satellite with ootage o a young man playing in the sur.The artists almost sculptural edit, reversing and cross-cutting bothimage and sound to sometimes stroboscopic eect, is as brutal as it iscontrolled. The viewer is touched on an emotional, an intellectual anda physical level. This year Friedrich has a solo show with Wilried Lentzin Rotterdam, who will also show his work at Liste in Basel in June.

c h R i S T i A n

F R i E d R i c h

By

W i l l E m d E

R o o i J

sometimes includes videoworkswithin his installations too. Thereis one called Dark Movie (2008) inwhich a boy stares straight aheadexpressionlessly (underGabriellis instruction, he isthinking about his own body ashe looks at the camera), whichadds to the mystery and to theclarity. He is a beautiul boy,alive, human, in ront o themoving sea. And it makes onethink about him, and all the otherthings in the room around him.Paul is really a great artist: I methim when he was a student, andmy riendship with him is a bigpart o my lie. He is a great

inspiration.

I rst became interested in Jason La oormat sculpture o his at the Inair in New York last year, but I got better ater his impressive solo showEssex Street gallery in the autumn.in that exhibition looked very minielegant, but thats seemingly easy tinterested me was his use omise en

perormativity he brought to the passing o time, whicdierent media and technologies. In one room wasAu(1-4) (2011), a series o boxes, each containing a roll opaper. When the boxes are opened, the paper is exposcaptures the ghost o the empty exhibition space. In thThe Smoking Observer(2011), a ten-minute 16mm lmdepicts a cigarette burning down in an ashtray, reerriphotographic process via the way that the lm, the cigpaper all capture a moment o luminescence and ext inBoth works reer to the photographic process (its prob

to develop the photographs rom those exposed rolls iAutophantography, while the colour temperature o th

was dark and reddarkroom) and co hidden connemateriality as widenties a chemcigarettes that isphotographic paintrigued by howrevealed the senin technology (sohas become incrrecent times), anI think that Loebthings to a new l

J A S o n

l o E B S

By

B E A T R i x

RU F

Some people send heir ime predicing he uure, bu i ake oher omake he uure happen. ArtReview Fuure Grea iue i our annualexperimen in uurology: here, inead o reviewing exhibiion a heyome and go or proling he ari who are making wave in he preen,we ou on ari who have ye o reeive widesread atenion, bu whomigh beome ignian in he near uure. O oure, by onenraingon ari who haven gained reogniion rom being repreened by

ommerial gallerie or exhibied widely in mueum, Fuure Grea deliberaelyhange he relaionhip beween an ar magazine and he ulure i reec on. Whilewe alway and by he ari we over, hee will ypially be gure already aringo eablih hemelve. So Fuure Grea allow u o preen ari ouide o heompliaed, oen uneven proe by whih an ar pracie ome o greaer atenion,while ideepping he inernaional barrier ha ill exi when i ome o one par o

he world nding ou abou wha going on in anoher. I like a one-a -year virual-realiy group how, and we ge o urae i. (Nobody ak u oherwie.) Exep haraher han urae i ourelve, we hink i beter o delegae he hooing o oher.So Fuure Grea aim o be more han he uual one o wah li o brigh younghing. Inead we enli inernaional rii, ari and uraor, aking hem o puheir imprimaur on ari many have ye o hear o. The inernaional reah o ourelecor mean ha hi year i perhap he mo global ediion o Fuure Greaweve ever publihed. O oure, or a magazine o devoe o muh sae o anendeavour uh a Fuure Grea i a luxury, and were exremely graeul or heongoing uppor o EFG Inernaional, whih allow u and he eaured ari headdiional sae in whih o dream hee uure up. Bu wha abou he ar? Perhapone o he mo inriguing asec o aking uh a large, disered group o elecori ha many o he ari hey have hoen hare imilar inere and approahe.I unanny, in ac, given ha no one knew who anyone ele had eleced. Maybe ourelecor are hinking in imilar way, or maybe he mo innovaive o omorrow

ari are heading in imilar direcion. Eiher way, hi year Fuure Grea eem oofer a napho o emerging arii persecive ha go beyond any one individualmaker. Mo eviden i he rong ou on he power o arii seulaion and irelaion o new asec o oial realiy: many o hee ari ue orm o liveperormane, narraive and oryelling o reec on he omplexiie o peronalideniy and hiory in he onex o unable and a-hanging poliial and ollecivehiorie, while being aware o he grea demorai upheaval urrenly ourringaround he world. Then here are hoe ar i who move rom he gallery and he arobjec ino orm o arhiecural pracie, whih iel bleed ino urban inervenionand oial acivim. Meanwhile, aed wih anoher grea upheaval ha o heaeleraing digialiaion o ulure here are hoe ari who work wih he vareoure o he ound video and phoographi image in he era o web 2.0. And almoin direc onra, oher deal wih he enduring rae o he maerial objec a aproduc o phyial ranormaion, wheher in ulpure or in a renewed atenion ophoography acile and maerial preene, a well a i image. I perhap a ign ohe volaile mood o he urren momen ha he ari in hi ediion o Fuure Greaare buy rehinking how ar an jump in and make i mark in a world where all he oldreerene poin are diappearing. Nohing i erain, and here everyhing o play or.The be way o predic he uure i o make i happen. ArtReview

i n T R o

dUc T i o n

80

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

3/8


Jaleb

Auophanography,2011,

KodakUltraEnduraolour

emulionpaper,ardboardbox,

23x 25x 87m.Photo:Lua

Knipher.Courteythearti

andEexStreet,NewYork

crsaFrer

TheOriginoMan ,20089,

DVanddigitalphotograph

tranerredintodigitalle,ound,

8min53 e.Courteythearti

lokwierombelow:

pauGabre

Uniled,2011,UltraCal,plai

hairdryer,hrome hand-dryer

part,aluminium,enamelpaint,

34x36x 22m;Uniled,2011,

plaimokedetecor,plaiair

rehener,arhivalboard,elecrial

wire,aluminium,aryli,oil,

enamel,13x 15x8m; Uniled,

2011,UltraCal,bawood,goldlledhain,aluminum,plai

elecrialoutlet,plailighthade,

lightbulb,oilpaint,33x 11x 6m;

Uniled,2010,loth,aluminium,

-print,arhivalboard,plai,

aple,oil,aryli,33x28 x1 m.

Allimage:ourteytheartiand

Inviible-Export,NewYork

82

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

4/8


The DailyExhaustion(2010) is a booko photographseaturing ayoung woman,the artist,lookingthoroughly

spent, wearing alternating coloursthat match each o the backdropsthat she stands in ront o zzyyellows, bright pinks or purples. Ineach image she glistens withperspiration as she photographshersel over and over again.Increasing the sense odiscomort, her image, which

always stretches across a doublepage spread, is bisected throughthe centre o her ace by the oldsin the newsprint on which theimages are printed. Its a pile oeort, a spectrum o exhaustion,recorded and ready to take away. Winner o last years Hyresphotography estival prize, AnoukKruitho makes very social work.She engages with various humanexperiences, her own included,measured in relation to specicprocesses o production anddissemination. Best known or hergenre-deying publications (theystood out a mile alongside thevarious ormulaic and sel-published eorts at the recentrash o photobook airs), she is inact a multidisciplinary artist

making work in lm, text andinstallation alongside herphotographic, enquiry-basedprojects. Her outlook is generousand warm while remainingvigorous and critical. It could

A n o Uk

k R U i T h o F

By

J A S o n

E v A n S

Tahi Moore is arguably New Zealands best-kept secret. Havinggraduated with a BFA rom Elam School o Fine Arts in Aucklandin 2005, Moore has primarily exhibited in the antipodes. Hecollaborated early on with his compatriot Simon Denny, and hassince managed to operate with relative discretion, creatingstrange and idiosyncratic videos and exerting a subtle butlegendary inuence on the local s cene. What initially bewitchedme was his videoMarlowe vs the Star Chamber(2011), presented inhis exhibition that year at Aucklands Hopkinson Cundy gallery,

Nonsuch Park. Allegedly departing rom no idea, the mute, subtitled narrativeollows a string o apparently random yet interrelated associations, beginning with(rom the press release): a movie rame o an empty room when Jane Birkin has justlet, to images o Birkin bags, to a tattoo on Birkins second daughters arm o the

scrawled word Marlowe, to the murder o Christopher Marlowe by his patronsservant and the proximity to the Queen at Nonsuch Palace. These anractuous leapsand bounds are then paired with a nervous montage, which sometimes jibes with thenarrative and, at others, ostensibly has nothing to with it all o it su used with anoddly lyrical beauty ull o warm interiors and rich landscapes (a lyrical beauty,moreover, rendered tenable by how random and unsentimental it is). To paraphrasea shrewd observation made about this work by Elam School o Fine Artss JonBywater: what else but the Internet could engender such ar-reaching and unlikelyassociations? Considered in the context o the equally ragmented exhibition, whicheatured mysterious pieces o wood, paintings, lightbox photos and a printed A4image o the entrance to Nonsuch Park taped to the wall, s uch a comment inevitablyunderlines Moores capacity to allegorise contemporary narrative, meaning and theperectly aleatory clues rom which it might iss ue into an intelligible orm.Elaborately imitating a search engine, the artist could be said to pull back the realitycurtain on the asubjective, authorless, exquisite-corpse generator lurking behind it.What is more, Moore seems particularly preoccupied by the increasingly complicatednature o desire to whom it belongs and where it comes rom in our current web2.0 paradigm. It is just such universal preoccupations, and the spontaneous ormalnesse with which he articulates them, that both merit this underexposed artistthe attention he so richly deserves and promise more compelling work to come.

T A h i

m o o R E

By

c h R i S

S h A R p

make you laugh and it couldprovoke deep melancholy, otensimultaneously. There is plentyo room or negotiation. Centralto her work is motivating theviewer to engage: lazy lookinggoes unrewarded. She is ar romcomplacent and rewardsparticipation accordingly.In other works we nd ritualisedchoreography in an abandonedofce block various componentsin varying type and scale, theliesize shadow o a dartboard arranged in a secret dialogue.Another project sees the artisttransorming a wall o books intoa collapsing, colourul wave by

arranging the books accordingto the colours o their pages.In the artists work the strangeand the ordinary swap coatsand walk arm-in-arm, waitingto be unolded, turned over,reassembled.

lef:

Aukrut f

TheDailyExhausion,2010,

newsaperzine,48 page,

ullolour,20 x28m.

Courteythearti

below:

Aukrut f

PlayingBorder,Thi

ConemporarySaeoMind,

2009,artipubliation,

28page,32x41m,14pageolourimage,

ve21x 17mbooklet,

one17x 17mbooklet,

one21x 17mpoard,

one68x 88mpoer.

Courteythearti

Tamre

MarlowevheSarChamber,

2011,digitalvideoonDVD,

olour,ilent,7min 26e.

Courteytheartiand

HopkinonCundy,Aukland

84

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

5/8Future Greats ArtReview

I rst got to know the work o NeilBeloua when I was cocuratingManiesta 8, in 2010 (as part o thegroup rom Tranzit.org), and inparticular through his abulous videoinstallationKempinski (2007), which heshowed as part o the exhibition.Kempinski is a mixed MDF structure inwhich a lm was projected. Created in

Mali, this lm was a ki nd o science-ction documentaryeaturing individuals holding uorescent lights, whodescribe their strange, dystopian existences to the camera.It was created using interviews that ollowed certain rules:people were asked to imagine the uture and describe it inthe present tense. While creating a set o compellingvisions, the lm also played on viewers expectations and

imaginings o Arica. For his i nstallations, Beloua createscomplex architectonic structures which are handmadeusing cheap and easily available materials and techniques,apparently improvised and process-based. Thesesculptures are also viewing spaces dedicated to theperception o projected moving images and s ound.There is a specic strategy o time in his work that seems toembrace all tenses in the same moment, which also relatesto that always-disturbing aspect o the unnished. One canget trapped in the contextual aesthetics o his spatialsetups, which drive you rom the orm and colour oMemphis Group design through deconstructivist-workshop-like setups in the 1970s to a model vision o the2020s. Beloua leads us more oten to peregrination thanto orientation (there is, in his work, no clear specicationo a hierarchy between the moving image and thearchitectural ramework). It is all related more to theconstruction o an obstacle than o a comort; it is aboundary, a problem o sel-determination. The charactersin his videos, too, are more phantoms than real peopleand yes, not that many people know that Neil is an

extraordinarily keen rock n roll acrobat as well.

n E i l

B E l o U F A

By

B o R i S

o n d R E i c k A

EXT. HOUSE NIGHT. Frank Heath is a rare aclaim such particular working conditions, whendriveways o the American home host h is ugitirom the domestic underclass: an ornate uneracoathanger attended by countless brethren, ormessy atermath o a shoot-out between an IV-pineapple outlaw. Both scenes gured into an eseries,Night Mail (or Jon Newton) (19982003),

directed on the lawn o Heaths eponymous riend, while similar wunknown recipients, like select subscribers o theNew Haven Regisrise to nd supplementary copies o their daily newspaper dated in a ruse Heath kept up or our weeks until actual delivery boys inteNews, 2006). In a more recent string o recorded telephone calls, adescribes awakening to a permanent midnight as the windows obeen replaced with slate (Fixed Window, 2011). Clearly Heath suitstrickster, though that storied gure may, in these cases, owe less tosocial causes. An atomised contemporary everyday gives his noctu

eccentricities their shape and depth, and his gags a gitlike qualityto New York in 2006, Heath has gained a new landscape o habit Park, notable both as a ocal point o the 1968 Columbia University

its current lack o any tang ibrecord o this act. A project eReport Form (2012) assumes video submission to the Newdepartment website with thdocumenting supposed vandabruptly shits into essay lmStrewn about the park (rathelike Beckettian tramps, pageTape (1958), aLie magazine oevents and Heaths own ctioco-opt the video submissionvoiceover and undermine thecondence that the geologic,and historic temporalities o could ever receive a clear andartistic orm.

F R A n k

h E A T h

By

T y l E R

c o B U R n

lef:

Fraheat

GraiReporForm,2012,HD

video,50min.Courteythearti

below:

Fraheat

OldNew,2006,photograph,

text.Courteythearti

lef:

neBeufa

DocumenAreFla,2011

(inallationview,Extraity

Kunhal,Antwerp) .

Courteythearti

below:

neBeufa

Kempinki,2007,SDvideo4:3,

olour,ound,14min.

Courteythearti

86

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

6/8Future Greats ArtReview

NaeemMohaiemen,based in Dhakaand New York,is an artist inthe mostexpandedsense: he is aslikely to

produce essays and research notesas he is works destined orexhibition. For sure, he makeslms (the most recent, The YoungMan Was (Part 1: United RedArmy), 2011, is the rst in aproposed trilogy) as well asoccasional sculpture and photoworks (I Have Killed Pharaoh and

Im Not Araid to Die , 2010, orexample) but one gets theimpression they took those ormssimply because o their suitabilityto a particular iteration oMohaiemens big idea. A nd thatidea is a longstanding, evolvingstudy o the international let (andits various, oten conictingattempts towards creating asociety ounded on ideals oequality) through the prism oanecdotal historical incidents.The rst part oUnited Red Army lasting over an hour and shown atboth the Sharjah and Momentumbiennials last year plays out thecrackly 1973 audio recordings onegotiations between a membero the Japanese Red Armyonboard a hijacked Japanese

Airways airplane grounded atDhaka airport and a Bangladeshiofcial. Its suspenseul, addictivelistening. Mohaiemen weaves thisdialogue with narrative and visualtangents inspired by the details othe incident: we learn that theartist, growing up in Dhaka,watched the hijack stando liveon television as a nine-year-old

n A E E m

m o h A i E m E n

By

o l i v E R

B A S c i A n o

For those who are a part o thecontemporary movements that havemanaged to occupy public space

rom Tahrir Square to Wall Street with dramatic eect, one o the rstrules o belonging is that you loseyour individual identity by dissolvingit into the identity o the movement.A similar procedure allowed a groupo Egyptian artists and lmmakers to

become Mosireen. Based in Cairo, Mosireen was createdwith the goal o lming, collecting a nd broadcastingootage rom the ground in Egypt. Since the beginning othe revolution, the collective sought to raise public

consciousness regarding the manipulative use o protest imagery by themainstream media and attempted to create a parallel narrative t hat came rom theprotesters. The group researches and documents cases o torture, il legal militarytrials and detentions; it conducts workshops in the immediate atermath o eventsand live-streams ootage rom mobile phones, with the production o such mediasplit and delegated among many members and supporters. Mosireen initiated,among other things, the so-called Tahrir Cinema a series o public screenings t hatstarted during the sit-ins in July as an exercise in raising awareness o mediacoverage and potential strategies o counterpropaganda. The groups material isavailable on social networks and YouTube, and is occasionally broadcast on Al

Jazeera. There is an old quote rom Marina Abramovi: Art without ethics iscosmetics. Although Abramovi appears to orget this sometimes, Mosireen doesnot. Quite the opposite.

m o S i R E E n

By

J o A n n A

W A R S Z A

when it interrupted his avouritetelevision series (a serial about agroup o ageing resistanceghters, rom which we aretreated to clips). We learn aboutthe minor lm career o one o thecaptured passengers throughmore lmic nuggets, collagedwith contemporary local andinternational news reports. Theoverall eect is an engrossingengagement with the event bothon a micro, localised level andwithin its dizzying historicalpolitical context. This prolingo an archival snapshot as ajuncture in the progression o thehistory o the radical let is also

present in Sartre Kommt nachStammheim (2007), in which theartist recounts, via a text-and-image collage, the 1974 meetingbetween Jean-Paul Sartre, agurehead or socialisms olderincarnation, and the imprisoned,nihilistic Andreas Baader, one othe leaders o Germanys RedArmy Faction. Here, as in much oMohaiemens multiacetedpractice (and despite the plottedcomic moments that are raised inthese lms and essays), a pensivemelancholia or something lost or a project that has come to ruin pervades.

mree

TahrirCinema ,2011

(inallation view).

Photo:OmarRobertHamilton

(Moireen).Courteythearti

naeem aee

TheYoungManWa

(Par1:UniedRedArmy),

2011,lm,67min.

Courteythearti

88

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

7/8


Last year in Moscow, where I was working on the projectAuditoriumMoscow, I made several artistic discoveries. Moscow is a dynamicallydeveloping metropolis standing at the doorstep o social and politicalchanges, and one could eel the atmosphere o tension making its wayinto every eld o peoples lives. Even in art despite the seeminglyordinary picture with all the usual artworld elements, such as thekitschy Art Moscow Fair, the Garage Center or Contemporary Culture(a copycat o MoMA PS1) and the Moscow Biennale, which exhibits localartists whose concerns are ar removed rom acute local issues there is

a palpable wind o change. In particular it is discernible in artists sel-organised exhibitions,and these are requently put together by one immensely driven man David Ter-Oganyan,an artist whose work greatly reects on the changes taking place in t he city. On the one hand,as a key member o the radical Radek Community (19982008), he is uent in the languageo street protest; on the other, in his more recent works, he combines an innovative ormallanguage with his long experience in activist ar t. Having tested himsel in almost everyclassical medium, rom painting and sculpture to video art and perormance, his recent artistic

endeavours almost exclusively use the medium o the multiple, made using a tablet and itsgraphic applications. In these computer drawings and paintings, he uses subcultural gesturesand avant-garde reerences in a postactivist art o narrative miniatures.

Tamar Guimares, a Brazilian-born artist based in Copenhagen,appropriates and recongures side stories and letovers throughintimate gatherings, collective readings, small-scale public talksand lm screenings. In tandem with her source material, theresulting works are invariably presented in near-obsolete mediasuch as slides, acetate or lm. Guimaress lmA Man CalledLove (2008) relates the story o Chico Xavier, a psychic writeramed in Brazil during the countrys military dictatorship (1964

85). As a medium who wrote books dictated to him rom the spirit world, his visions

o cities in the world beyond, and the working structures therein, contained withinthem a orm o large-scale urban and social planning that was both utopian andconservative. Guimaress work proposes time as space: historical narratives asrooms rom which one can speculate on the present. Rather than attempting arecovery or reconstruction o the past, perhaps with alternative ends or criticalviews a posteriori, what interests her is how arteacts and ideologies travel throughtime how they change, corrode, become opaque, take on new meanings, aremisunderstood or are perhaps understood again, anew. Put another way, hers areattempts to create composite images that allude to the continuity o the presentsdesires with the desires and oibles o the past. Guimares takes up the position othe amateur: a role that, reerring to the enlarging o the artists proession tobecome a dealer o several domains attempting to master the ebbing and owingbetween the social, symbolic and economic capital associated with art production(and the concomitant necessity o speculating on the artist-as-persona, and theprogression towards turning onesel into awork o art) is somehow prescient ocontemporary notions o the multiacetedartist. Her attitude is at heart political, subtlyquestioning dominant discourse and writingby reraming ragments through a processthat generates poetic tales, but never

overloaded political statements; indeed,it is in the dimensions o transient micro-communities and minor public events thatshe manages to create magic.

The lms, installations andperormative works o WaelShawky make their markwith a compelling complexityand multiplicity in both ormand content. Born in Egypt,Shawky makes works that arepredominantly concernedwith processes o cultural

hybridisation. For decades now, there have beensigns o a new order emerging in social andpolitical systems in Egypt, and especially latelythese same signs have attracted t he attention othe international community. Shawky combinespresent-day situations with tradition and portrayscontemporary social and political conicts in thecontext o historical events. By using the strategyo aesthetic and contentual displacement he blurs

the boundaries between documentation andanimation.Although Shawky received an awardorFrozen Nubia (1996), one o his rst majorinstallations, its critical take on Egyptian historyprovoked a vehemently negative response romthe authorities. His cement replicas o traditionalNubian homes turned the spotlight on theenorced resettlement o the Nubians in the1960s because o the construction o the AswanDam. Shawky laid bare the brutality andignorance o the government in its treatment oits people and its attitude to a thousand years ohistory. The installationAsphalt Quarter(2003)takes its lead rom the novel Cities o Salt (1984)by Abdul Rahman Muni and his analysis o the

destruction o Bedouin culture on the Arabian peninsula as a consequence o the onseto oil-based industrialisation. Shawkys largest lm project to date, Cabaret Crusades The Horror Show File (2010), is partly inspired by the essay The Crusades ThroughArab Eyes (1984) by Amin Maalou. Here, Shawky uses 200-year-old Italianmarionettes to revisit central episodes in the Crusades (in the period 109699) romthe Arab perspective. Lovingly and meticulously made stage sets and costumes,

a wealth o reerences to literary and historical sources, and astutely selected musiccome together to create an unusually multiaceted lm, with sel-evident analogiesto our own time. Shawky is currently working on the s econd part o the project,which is planned as a trilogy.

T A m A R

G U i m A R A E S

By

A l F R E do

c R A m E R o T T i

W A E l

S h A W k y

By

S U S A n n E

p F E F F E R

d A v i d

T E R - o G A n y A n

By

J o A n n A

m y T k o W S k A

WaeSaw

CabareCruade:TheHorror

ShowFile,2010,video,30min.

Courteythearti

TaarGuare

AManCalledLove ,2008,

lideprojecionwithvoieover,

b/wandolour,Englihvoieover,

20min.Courteythearti

da

Peaco

Revolu

drawin

90

8/2/2019 Art Review: 2012

8/8


Just what is it that makes todays homes so diferent, so appealing?asked Richard Hamiltons iconic collage, produced in 1956 orThis Is Tomorrow, more a radical advertising showroom than anart exhibition, organised by the Independent Group at LondonsWhitechapel Gallery. In light o capitalisms projections o theuture new cities packed with new orms o architectures,liestyles and unbound creativity Hamiltons collage oered aprescient vision o societies mobilised by personal, unobtainabledesires. It is in the contemporary landscape that developed out

o such desires that collaborative duo Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans havedeveloped a practice that considers the sheer abstraction that is the globaleconomy, and in particular its aesthetic maniestations in the realms o art andarchitecture. Vermeir and Heiremans initiated their collaborative ventureA.I.R. the acronym or Artist in Residence, originally used or the pioneering scheme inNew York oering artists lot-living in ormer industrial spaces as a means toconsider how property is visualised in marketing. Their own apartment whichthey consider a kind o artwork in its own right is located in Brussels and acts as apoint o departure or several works that they term mediated extensions. Eachextension, oten an installation recorded via the medium o narrative video, oers,in various ways, a visualisation o the apartment space that is reexive o the

pictorial and rhetorical language o marketing or uture architecturaldevelopments visualisations that aim to tapinto aspirational desires or luxuriousdomestic space. Their most recent videoinstallation, The Residence (A Wager or theAterlie)(2012), oers a glimpse into the liveso the poster boys o post-Fordism creativeentrepreneurs. The lm tells o an investornamed Hilar who commissioned a Chinesearchitect, Ma Wen, to design a house or hisaterlie. The installation also incorporates adesign or an algorithm linked to the currencymarket that in turn generates a neverendingedit o the Hilar ootage. While Ma Wenregards art as an index to explore theunknown, he paradoxically considers theeconomy as the single measure o everything,opening uncomortable questions about thestatus o creativity. Among sumptuousootage o the designed interiors, the storyis a Faustian tale that is allegorical o the

balancing act that is lie in the creative class.

Why shoucriterion ocool is a bepeople thaMiles Davis cool. Dacool, denBrendan Fsecond co

Byrne. He makes art, he makwrites, he edits. He even lookByrne. Brendan Fowler is coowork is cool too. Take Fowlerbrendanowler.com. No trickobscure or knowing reerenc[dot] net. The site itsel is allve lines o let-justied text.Brendan Fowler at, and the n

link to sites where Fowlers wUntitled, Fowlers gallery in Na print and multiples publisheFowlers book Cancelled (200Brian Kennons LA-based imppublished Fowlers prints and9820559-3-5(2009), a visual a2008 oray into making art acancel a music tour; and Upsethe London-based promoter awhere the productions o BARmusical and perorming sel, Its all cool. Fowler began mshowing objects in earnest in then they have grown in scaleThree cheaply ramed inkjet pa deck o cards and pierced byo similarly ramed prints jackattached ace-to-ace these something like a ri style. Breconstructions into halves is an

images and writing are alwaythe bits and pieces o the wor

grabbed by a camera and shared in a way t hat makes them more aweighty, than simply giving them over to the world online. Fowlein its sel-consciousness, which is just another way o saying that itwhich is just another way o saying that its cool. Authenticity is thebecause others have to sense it in you and your work, which is to sasense not that you are trying to be cool, just that you are, and that wThats the sense I get rom Brendan Fowler.

k A T l E E n

v E R m E i R &

R o n n y

h E i R E m A n S

By

n A v h A q

B R E n d A n

F o W l E R

By

J o n A T h A n

T . d . n E i l

kateeverer&

Rherea

TheReidence(AWagerorhe

Aerlie) ,2012.Photo:Kriien

Daem.Courteythearti

above

BreaFwer

Spring2011(AndreaHandUnder

Table),2011,arhivalinkjetprint,

rame,Plexigla,119x 127x 15m,

2011.Courteytheartiand

Untitled,NewYork

right

BreaFwer

Summer2011(PacifcWesSign

onWesGarfeld,Maxin he

CaronHi Birhday,Torbjrnin

Mat&AlexanderTalk,Joel

PhoneonMeiLingWayTable,

2011,arhivalinkjetprint,rame,

Plexigla,101x 79m.Courtey

theartiandUntitled,NewYork

92

art review: 2012

Documents