Permanent Reception
07 Apr - 12 Jun 2010
PERMANENT RECEPTION
curated by_Clemens von Wedemeyer
vienna 2010
April 7 - June 12, 2010
Esse est percipi aut percipere (George Berkeley)
My attention is accompanied by the necessary evil of a selective examination of reality. Permanent reception, however, refers to keeping ones eyes and ears open, not falling asleep and not looking away. I refer to a critique of permanent surveillance, but also to the alert eye of the individual. Following the first glance made by the eye there is a loop of verifications that takes place until the brain registers this examination... In the course of this, (productive) misunderstandings can arise.
In other words: How do images arise in the mind, films on the DVD, and art on the street? Where do separations between inside and outside persist?
First things first. ARNOLD VON WEDEMEYER’s installation “Passage” stands like a synapse in the first room, welcoming visitors with an animated white rectangle that leaps from one screen to the other. What in painting is the black square, is in cinema the silver rectangular screen and in the digital world the white rectangle. It is a simply rendered depiction of the production of an autonomous three-dimensional space represented only by a slowly growing rectangular pixel that – for a split second – leaps from virtual to real space as it crosses the void between the two screens. Not only do we perceive the works, but the works watch us as well. This is made strikingly clear in DOUGLAS GORDON’s lithograph “untitled,” which shows the artist’s own eye enlarged one hundred fold. It hangs on the wall, watching the visitor with a degree of authority as he or she enters the gallery. At the same time it seems to observe the white rectangle as it leaps across the void, even when no visitors are present.
The two videos shown in the second room deal with cultural production outside the gallery. ULF AMINDE’s work “quad III” emerged out of the artist’s project “Straße ist Straße und keine Konzeptkunst” [the street is the street and not conceptual art], in which, working with homeless people, he reenacted happenings and well-know conceptual and performance art on the street. Thus the video shows a man, in allusion to Samuel Beckett’s Quad, scurrying around a large square ventilation shaft in the center of Bremen. Once in a while he sets a beer bottle down at the edge of the square and staggers on, until, reacting to director Ulf Aminde, who stands behind the camera calling the shots, he finally collapses exhausted.
In DAVID LAMELAS’ film the viewer takes part in an analysis. The classic film of institutional critique was shot on 16mm film and like scientific films is divided into several chapters. The dramaturgy of “A Sudy of Relationships between Inner and Outer Space” begins inside the gallery. Who works here? Where are the electrical sockets? Which lamps? And ends on the street. Which neighborhood is the gallery in? But when Lamelas interviews people about man landing on the moon, we realize that outer space doesn’t end here. In the permanent reception of the relationships one is reminded of films that came later, such as “Power of Ten,” in which the camera zooms in from outer space, entering the human body and its DNA.
CAREY YOUNG’s work “Cautionay Statement” is being shown in the reception area of the gallery, the classic site of communication, the contact point between visit and business. The work appears, at first, to be the gallery’s own statement. Like the optometrist’s chart, the lettering of the message grows smaller and smaller, so that the last sentence can barely be read from a distance: “You are advised that these statements are only predictions and that actual events may differ materially” – everything remains open and perceptible to no final interpretation. The gallery assumes no responsibility for the future reception of the works.
At the opening, MARLENE HARING will perform “Lickingglass,” in which she will lick the gallery windows clean from the outside. This cleaning process can also be seen as an affront, but in any case the artist focuses on the windows of the gallery that separate it from the outside realm. “The title ‘Lickingglass’ refers to both looking glass and licking ass.” (Paolo Bianchi) But what does that have to do with film? Certainly plenty, if the tongue were an eye. Look at the people looking at you! Marlene Haring herself is the acting object and exposes herself to the cameras – she stands on a film crane because the gallery is on the second floor. The production costs are high, as can be expected from a proper art film.
HITO STEYERL’s Video “After the Crash” makes reference to popular action films and their waste products. On an aircraft junkyard in a Californian desert airplanes that have played leading roles in action films are scrapped, e.g. from the movie “Speed,” in which an airplane explodes. The added value of theater props is greater than the material value of the airplane – but the aluminum is also an important raw material that is used, among other things, for the production of DVDs. These, in turn, are used to burn movies like “Speed.” A commercial raw material–image cycle in times of world economic crisis, which thanks to the artist’s view of the whole picture is compressed, here, into an endless loop. To be continued.
CvW
ULF AMINDE, born in Stuttgart in 1969, lives and works in Berlin. Studied fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts. In his work he brings together elements from theater, performance, visual arts, and film. His work "The Hidden Chapters of my Lost Insistence" can be viewed until May 16, 2010 at the Kunstverein Arnsberg.
DOUGLAS GORDON, born in Glasgow in 1966, lives in Glasgow, Berlin, and New York. 1996 Turner Prize. His work comprises film, conceptual texts, photography, and video installations. His work will be shown in the upcoming exhibition “EMSCHERKUNST2010 – Eine Insel für die Kunst,” Ruhr 2010, Essen, May 29–September 5, 2010.
MARLENE HARING, born in Vienna in 1978, lives in Vienna. Studied computer and video art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Birgit-Jürgenssen Prize 2005, MAK Schindler Stipendium 2003. Participation in the 6th Berlin Biennale, June 11–August 8, 2010. www.marleneharing.com
DAVID LAMELAS, born in Buenos Aires in 1946, lives and works in Berlin, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires. Sculptor, conceptual artist, photographer, and experimental filmmaker. He is considered one of the pioneers of the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His work can currently be seen in “Changing Channels,” Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, until June 6, 2010.
HITO STEYERL, born in Munich in 1966, lives in Berlin. Studied Cinematography and Documentary Film at the Academy of Visual Arts in Tokyo, at the University of Television and Film Munich, PhD in philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.She works on the borderline between cinema and visual art, combing film with post-colonial and feminist critiques of representation. Documenta 12, Kassel. Participation at the Gwangju Biennale, South Corea, September 5 –November 9, 2010.
ARNOLD VON WEDEMEYER, born in Göttingen in 1970, lives in Berlin. Studied art and visual communication at the Kassel Art School, works in the fields of electronic media and computer-controlled installations. Current exhibition participation: “Cause + Time,” The Luminary Center for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri, running till June 26, 2010. www.von-wedemeyer.de
CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER, born in Göttingen in 1974, lives in Berlin. Studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Visual Arts of Leipzig (prof. Astrid Klein). He received numerous international awards including the Kunstpreis der Böttcherstrasse in Bremen, Germany (2005), the VG Bildkunst Award for Experimental Film and Video–art, Munich Film Festival, Germany (2002), the Marion Ermer Prize, Leipzig (2002), among others.
CAREY YOUNG, born in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1970, lives in London. Studied at the Manchester Polytechnic, University of Brighton, and studied photography at the Royal College of Art, London. Her work comprises video, photography, performances, and installations. Current participation in exhibitions: “Atopia: Art in the City in the 21st Century,” Centre di Cultura Contempóranea de Barcelona, until May 24, 2010. www.careyyoung.com
curated by_Clemens von Wedemeyer
vienna 2010
April 7 - June 12, 2010
Esse est percipi aut percipere (George Berkeley)
My attention is accompanied by the necessary evil of a selective examination of reality. Permanent reception, however, refers to keeping ones eyes and ears open, not falling asleep and not looking away. I refer to a critique of permanent surveillance, but also to the alert eye of the individual. Following the first glance made by the eye there is a loop of verifications that takes place until the brain registers this examination... In the course of this, (productive) misunderstandings can arise.
In other words: How do images arise in the mind, films on the DVD, and art on the street? Where do separations between inside and outside persist?
First things first. ARNOLD VON WEDEMEYER’s installation “Passage” stands like a synapse in the first room, welcoming visitors with an animated white rectangle that leaps from one screen to the other. What in painting is the black square, is in cinema the silver rectangular screen and in the digital world the white rectangle. It is a simply rendered depiction of the production of an autonomous three-dimensional space represented only by a slowly growing rectangular pixel that – for a split second – leaps from virtual to real space as it crosses the void between the two screens. Not only do we perceive the works, but the works watch us as well. This is made strikingly clear in DOUGLAS GORDON’s lithograph “untitled,” which shows the artist’s own eye enlarged one hundred fold. It hangs on the wall, watching the visitor with a degree of authority as he or she enters the gallery. At the same time it seems to observe the white rectangle as it leaps across the void, even when no visitors are present.
The two videos shown in the second room deal with cultural production outside the gallery. ULF AMINDE’s work “quad III” emerged out of the artist’s project “Straße ist Straße und keine Konzeptkunst” [the street is the street and not conceptual art], in which, working with homeless people, he reenacted happenings and well-know conceptual and performance art on the street. Thus the video shows a man, in allusion to Samuel Beckett’s Quad, scurrying around a large square ventilation shaft in the center of Bremen. Once in a while he sets a beer bottle down at the edge of the square and staggers on, until, reacting to director Ulf Aminde, who stands behind the camera calling the shots, he finally collapses exhausted.
In DAVID LAMELAS’ film the viewer takes part in an analysis. The classic film of institutional critique was shot on 16mm film and like scientific films is divided into several chapters. The dramaturgy of “A Sudy of Relationships between Inner and Outer Space” begins inside the gallery. Who works here? Where are the electrical sockets? Which lamps? And ends on the street. Which neighborhood is the gallery in? But when Lamelas interviews people about man landing on the moon, we realize that outer space doesn’t end here. In the permanent reception of the relationships one is reminded of films that came later, such as “Power of Ten,” in which the camera zooms in from outer space, entering the human body and its DNA.
CAREY YOUNG’s work “Cautionay Statement” is being shown in the reception area of the gallery, the classic site of communication, the contact point between visit and business. The work appears, at first, to be the gallery’s own statement. Like the optometrist’s chart, the lettering of the message grows smaller and smaller, so that the last sentence can barely be read from a distance: “You are advised that these statements are only predictions and that actual events may differ materially” – everything remains open and perceptible to no final interpretation. The gallery assumes no responsibility for the future reception of the works.
At the opening, MARLENE HARING will perform “Lickingglass,” in which she will lick the gallery windows clean from the outside. This cleaning process can also be seen as an affront, but in any case the artist focuses on the windows of the gallery that separate it from the outside realm. “The title ‘Lickingglass’ refers to both looking glass and licking ass.” (Paolo Bianchi) But what does that have to do with film? Certainly plenty, if the tongue were an eye. Look at the people looking at you! Marlene Haring herself is the acting object and exposes herself to the cameras – she stands on a film crane because the gallery is on the second floor. The production costs are high, as can be expected from a proper art film.
HITO STEYERL’s Video “After the Crash” makes reference to popular action films and their waste products. On an aircraft junkyard in a Californian desert airplanes that have played leading roles in action films are scrapped, e.g. from the movie “Speed,” in which an airplane explodes. The added value of theater props is greater than the material value of the airplane – but the aluminum is also an important raw material that is used, among other things, for the production of DVDs. These, in turn, are used to burn movies like “Speed.” A commercial raw material–image cycle in times of world economic crisis, which thanks to the artist’s view of the whole picture is compressed, here, into an endless loop. To be continued.
CvW
ULF AMINDE, born in Stuttgart in 1969, lives and works in Berlin. Studied fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts. In his work he brings together elements from theater, performance, visual arts, and film. His work "The Hidden Chapters of my Lost Insistence" can be viewed until May 16, 2010 at the Kunstverein Arnsberg.
DOUGLAS GORDON, born in Glasgow in 1966, lives in Glasgow, Berlin, and New York. 1996 Turner Prize. His work comprises film, conceptual texts, photography, and video installations. His work will be shown in the upcoming exhibition “EMSCHERKUNST2010 – Eine Insel für die Kunst,” Ruhr 2010, Essen, May 29–September 5, 2010.
MARLENE HARING, born in Vienna in 1978, lives in Vienna. Studied computer and video art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Birgit-Jürgenssen Prize 2005, MAK Schindler Stipendium 2003. Participation in the 6th Berlin Biennale, June 11–August 8, 2010. www.marleneharing.com
DAVID LAMELAS, born in Buenos Aires in 1946, lives and works in Berlin, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires. Sculptor, conceptual artist, photographer, and experimental filmmaker. He is considered one of the pioneers of the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His work can currently be seen in “Changing Channels,” Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, until June 6, 2010.
HITO STEYERL, born in Munich in 1966, lives in Berlin. Studied Cinematography and Documentary Film at the Academy of Visual Arts in Tokyo, at the University of Television and Film Munich, PhD in philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.She works on the borderline between cinema and visual art, combing film with post-colonial and feminist critiques of representation. Documenta 12, Kassel. Participation at the Gwangju Biennale, South Corea, September 5 –November 9, 2010.
ARNOLD VON WEDEMEYER, born in Göttingen in 1970, lives in Berlin. Studied art and visual communication at the Kassel Art School, works in the fields of electronic media and computer-controlled installations. Current exhibition participation: “Cause + Time,” The Luminary Center for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri, running till June 26, 2010. www.von-wedemeyer.de
CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER, born in Göttingen in 1974, lives in Berlin. Studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Visual Arts of Leipzig (prof. Astrid Klein). He received numerous international awards including the Kunstpreis der Böttcherstrasse in Bremen, Germany (2005), the VG Bildkunst Award for Experimental Film and Video–art, Munich Film Festival, Germany (2002), the Marion Ermer Prize, Leipzig (2002), among others.
CAREY YOUNG, born in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1970, lives in London. Studied at the Manchester Polytechnic, University of Brighton, and studied photography at the Royal College of Art, London. Her work comprises video, photography, performances, and installations. Current participation in exhibitions: “Atopia: Art in the City in the 21st Century,” Centre di Cultura Contempóranea de Barcelona, until May 24, 2010. www.careyyoung.com