Thinking
on Your Feet (Partial Reconstruction of Joaquin Garcia Torres Toy
Figures
as
an Instrument of Research for Politics), 2017
Wood,
acrylic, stucco, cement
172
x 30 x 47 cm
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Between the Private and the Public, the Intimate and the Political
Kostis
Velonis’s sculptural work often refers to historical events and art
historical movements, while his markedly political work has at the
same time a very personal aspect. He creates narratives characterized
by the linking of personal stories with the reworking of past
happenings. His personal experiences and reference points inflect his
theoretical pursuits, and historical leaders and literary heroes
often play a leading part in his newly invented scenarios. Velonis’s
sculptures have a modest character, and they are usually made of
wood, cardboard, small objects, and materials from the natural
environment, which the artist finds and reuses in a process of
bricolage. His works often transmit emotions such us loneliness,
failure, melancholy, and uncertainty.
Kostis
Velonis’s solo exhibition A
Puppet Sun is organized by NEON
and curated by Vassilis Oikonomopoulos. It is on view through January
14, 2018. It features twenty-five new works that the
artist conceived for 11 Kaplanon Street in central Athens, responding
to the history and architecture of the building. This neoclassical
residence has a remarkable history. It was constructed in 1891 and
first occupied by Pavlos Kountouriotis, the first president of the
Second Hellenic Republic (1924–35, the second period in modern
Greek history where Greece was not headed by a king). At the
beginning of the twentieth century, the Zouzoula family acquired the
residence, and the ground floor became the office of the politician
Apostolos Zouzoulas, one of the founders of the People’s Party.
Between the 1910s and the 1920s the building served as party
headquarters. Later, during the authoritarian Metaxas Regime
(1936–41), it was transformed into a residence for female students.
Kostis
Velonis and Daphne Vitali in conversation
Mousse
Magazine. Between the Private and the Public, the Intimate and the
Political : Kostis Velonis
This Modern House for Sale
Within
the history of modern architecture in México, collaboration is a
recurring theme. Urban planners, architects and artists praised
collaborative actions as a way to integrate new buildings into the
city in a coherent manner as well as to achieve a synthesis of the
arts with architecture. Through these collaborative efforts,
outstanding works of architecture were raised, such as the modern
campus of the National University (1953) and the Housing Complex of
Nonoalco-Tlatelolco (1964), just to mention a pair. Nevertheless,
there were some projects that, with time, ended up contradicting the
original spirit of collaboration through intense debates concerning
authorship. The Towers of Satellite City, built by Luis Barragán and
Mathias Goeritz between 1957-58 are infamous in this regard. The
dispute around authorship for this monumental sculpture broke any
sort of relationship between the architect and the sculptor from the
late 1960s until Barragán’s death. Even today, followers and
fanatics of Barragán’s or Goeritz’s production continue arguing
about this dynamic.
In
contrast, the history of modern architecture in Mexico is full of
examples of fruitful collaborations. A case in point is the exemplary
collaboration between Juan O’Gorman and Max Cetto, sustained in
great part by their close friendship. O’Gorman, credited as the
first architect to construct a modern building in Mexico, met Cetto
shortly after he arrived to the country in 1939 as refugee escaping
from Nazi Germany. Friendship between the two developed rapidly; they
shared, among other things, progressive ideas regarding art,
architecture and politics. No one knows with certainty the extent of
their collaborations, dialogues and mutual influences; however, their
use of stone and other natural materials in the process of
construction in an almost expressionist fashion, the stair as a
sculptural element, and their respectful and close attention to the
relationship between architecture and the landscape are some of the
interests and defining characteristics that their architectural
practices share.
Collaboration
between Cetto and O’Gorman has not yielded any sort of polemics,
even though the Mexican architect signed and registered the work of
his friend until he became a national citizen. This absence of
disputes can be understood, partly, if the nature of their
relationship beyond their professional practices and dialogues it is
taken in consideration. Juan Guzmán’s (Hans Gutmann) series of
color photographs from the 1950s in O ́Gorman’s well known
residence/studio at Avenida San Jerónimo, features images of what
appears to be Cetto playing chess with O ́Gorman, an activity that
they practiced habitually. In other photographs, the daughters of the
German architect play and lounge around the property, as if it were
their own house.
In
2005, Anuar Maauad found an architectural drawing of Rufino Tamayo ́s
house and studio located in the Anzures neighborhood. The building,
completed in 1949, is part of Cetto ́s production, although Maauadńs finding is signed by O ́Gorman and the drawing showcases some
architectural features that easily relate to his functionalist
period. There are differences between the drawing and the final
buildings, like the stair in the studio, but the general concept of
the construction is very similar. Intrigued by the history of this
project, Maauad began researching the work of O’Gorman and Cetto,
and also included the presence of Tamayo who commissioned the
construction. Without finding any reliable information about this
house’s history, Mauuad’s speculation began: Is this drawing a
preliminary study of the construction signed by O’Gorman shortly
before Cetto became a Mexican citizen in 1947? How much discussion
existed between the architects, as the project demonstrates s shared
interests and solutions between the two? Did Tamayo play any part in
this story, since his confrontational stance against figures such as
O’Gorman increased during the 1940s?
For
this exhibition Anuar Maauad has built three models of Tamayo’s
house and studio--as it appears in the drawing that he found, as it
was constructed in 1947, and as it appears today after decades of
unfortunate interventions and modifications. Each structure
represents a point in the history of this building that,
miraculously, is still standing. He also gives a physical presence to
Cetto, O’Gorman, and Tamayo who were involved in the mythology of
this house. The large-scale plaques made of stretched canvas with
their signatures rendered in bronze serve as an index of identity and
authorship. The artist has collected and displays photographs and
documents that serve as fragments from which to speculate about the
house’s history and the three characters involved with it. In one
of these images, it is possible to see the functionalist houses built
by O’Gorman for his family and Diego Rivera in San Angel between
1929 and 1932. In the photograph, a sign on his family’s house
reads “This Modern House for Rent.”
It
is from this document that Maauad borrows the title of this
exhibition. If in this case, the title announces This Modern House
for Sale it is because this project aims to be an open invitation for
someone to acquire Tamayo’s former residence and workplace. As part
of his initiative, the artist seeks to find a buyer for the house, in
order to restore it and redefine its history. As such, This Modern
House for Sale is an invitation to collaborate with the artist, in
the spirit of O’Gorman and Cetto, in order to preserve an example
of modern architecture and launch a platform to advance research and
programs on this matter.
- Daniel
Garza-Usabiaga
Anuar
MaauadThis Modern House for Sale
November 18 - December 10
Efrain
Lopez Gallery
Monday, December 18, 2017
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Peacocks: The Pomp of Power
Peacocks:
The Pomp of Power presents
a display of artworks and objects from the Nottingham City Museum and
Art Galleries fine art, decorative art, lace, costume and textiles,
and natural history collection. The selected works are inspired by
the beautifully elegant peacocks that grace the grounds of Newstead
Abbey, the ancestral home of the Romantic Poet Lord Byron. Byron was
both a sartorial peacock and lover and keeper of these extravagant
creatures; hence the title of this exhibition has been taken from Don
Juan: Canto The Seventh,
a poem by the poet and great eccentric.
Peacocks
have taken on important roles and various identities in many
countries and cultures: their vivid feathers or designs resembling
their shape and beauty continue to feature heavily on interior décor,
garments, ceramics and accessories.
The
Henry the Seventh’s Lodging, situated along the East Gallery from
the Charles II Room, is one of the main bedrooms at Newstead and is
also known as the Japanese Room. The upper walls are fitted with
screens and painted panels that were brought back to Newstead by the
Webb sisters, who travelled to the Far East in the 1890s. They depict
the beauties of the natural world and date from the 17th, 18th and
19th centuries. They are hand-painted on gold leaf with
peacocks, cranes, ocean waves, pine trees and cherry blossom.
The
peacock and its colours are synonymous with Indian identity and in
1963 the peacock was declared the National Bird of India because of
its rich religious and legendary involvement in Indian traditions.
The bird is indigenous to India and Sri Lanka, but now features in
countries all over the world and is as much a part of the
country-house tableau as fountains and parterres. Taken from its
homeland by traders thousands of years ago, the Indian peacock
eventually reached England, where it became something of a country
house status symbol. A number of vibrant and detailed Indian textile
items are included in Peacocks: The
Pomp of Power along
with a beautiful wooden plate with a copper inlay and a ceremonial
sword.
In
Russian folklore the peacock carries a lot of meanings, it symbolises
the spring and the sun along with its many attributes such as warmth,
light and power. In the 11th century, the peacock motif appeared in
Russian embroidery, and is thought to have come from Byzantium art to
Russia, along with Christianity. Different regions developed their
own depictions of peacocks and some of these stylized peacock designs
can be seen within this exhibition, used by embroiderers on a number
of 19th century linen bobbin lace borders.
The
exhibition is open alongside a display of Japanese Woodblock prints
from the Nottingham City Museums and Galleries collections in the
Charles II Room.
Friday, December 15, 2017
Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War
Lene
Berg, Stalin
by Picasso or Portrait of a Woman with Moustache, 2008.
Façade-banner. Courtesy the artist.
In
Amos Tutuola’s 1954 novel My
Life in the Bush of Ghosts,
the young protagonist is running away from slave-catchers when he
accidently crosses the border of reality as he knows it. His flight
from bondage, however, does not earn him freedom. Rather, he finds
himself in an absurd, liminal world of conversing symbols and
delirious phantasms, in which the entire regime of meaning-production
is subject to tectonic shifts. Tutuola—whose idiosyncratic use of
English language and Yoruba folklore propelled a battle of
interpretations—would later become a member of the Mbari Clubs, the
first of which was established in Ibadan in 1961. These cultural
centers, initiated by the German-Jewish expatriate Ulli Beier, were a
gathering place for a generation of African artists, writers, and
musicians. Together, they spearheaded a renaissance of Yoruba
culture.
One
of the sponsors of the Mbari Clubs was the Paris-based Congress for
Cultural Freedom (CCF), an organization founded in West Berlin in
June 1950 by a group of writers driven to consolidate an
"anti-totalitarian" intellectual community. Its ten-year
anniversary was celebrated at the then newly inaugurated
Kongresshalle, today’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt. With offices in
more then 30 countries, the CCF subsidized countless cultural
programs from Latin America to Africa and Southeast Asia, developing
a network of journals, conferences, and exhibitions that advanced a
"universal" language of modernism in literature, art, and
music. By 1967, it was revealed that the CCF was secretly bankrolled
by America’s espionage arm, the Central Intelligence Agency. The
CIA scandal confirmed the lingering suspicion that had trailed the
CCF from the days of its origin: not quite an autonomous entity, the
organisation had been enlisted in shoring up an anti-Communist
consensus in the service of US hegemony during the Cultural Cold War.
The disclosure destroyed the CCF’s reputation, exposing the
ideological contradictions and moral ambiguities of advocating
freedom and transparency by means that are themselves outside of
democratic accountability.
The
term "parapolitics" refers to the use of soft power in the
Cold War. Employing the history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom
as an optical device, the project brings Picasso’s famous dictum
"art is a lie that tells truth" into relation with
the work of an intelligence agency whose "art lies in concealing
the means by which it is achieved."
In
the shadowy underside of liberal consensus, freedom appears as always
contingent on its foreclosures. Tracing tectonic shifts in
intellectual affiliations across political conflict lines through the
20th century, the exhibition explores artistic strategies of
engagement and subversion. It underlines how the play with meaning in
an increasingly conceptually and semantically oriented world of art
production has acted on the assertion of an endangered, precarious
autonomy. Within the choreography of parapolitics, the canon of the
Cold War modernism becomes a bush of ghosts.
Parapolitics brings
together archival documents and artworks from the 1930s to the
present by artists that prefigure and reflect the ideological and
formal struggles arising from the cultural Cold War, but also works
by contemporary artists critically reassessing the normalized
narratives of modernism. It features magazines such as Der
Monat (Germany), Encounter (UK), Sasanggye (South
Korea), Quest (India), Africa
South (South
Africa), Black
Orpheus (Nigeria), Transition(Uganda
/ Ghana), The
New African (South
Africa), Hiwar(Lebanon),
and Mundo
Nuevo (Latin
America), that were either initiated or at times supported by the
Congress for Cultural Freedom.
With
works by Art
& Language, Doug Ashford, Michael Baers, Antonina Baever,
Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck (with Media Farzin and Paolo Gasparini),
Robert Barry, Romare Bearden, Samuel Beckett, Lene Berg, Broomberg
and Chanarin, Fernando Bryce, Daniel Buren, Luis Camnitzer, Alice
Creischer, Didactic Exhibition, Liu Ding, Charles and Ray Eames,
Miklos Erdély, Peter Friedl, Liam Gillick, Sheela Gowda, Philip
Guston, Gruppe Gummi K, Max de Haas, Chia Wei Hsu, Iman Issa, Voluspa
Jarpa, David Lamelas, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, İlhan Mimaroğlu,
Moiseyev Dance Company, Museum of American Art in Berlin, Solomon
Nikritin, Irving Norman, Guillermo Nuñez, Branwen Okpako, Boris
Ondreička, Nam June Paik, Décio Pignatari, Howardena Pindel, Sigmar
Polke, Rebecca H. Quaytman, Walid Raad, Steve Reich, Ad Reinhardt,
Gerhard Richter, Faith Ringgold, Norman Rockwell, Peter Roehr, Martha
Rosler, Charles Shaw, Yashas Shetty, Francis Newton Souza, Frank
Stella, The Otolith Group, Endre Tót, Suzanne Treister, Twins Seven
Seven, Josip Vaništa, Wolf Vostell, and Susanne
Wenger.
An
accompanying conference titled "Freedom
in the Bush of Ghosts" will
be held on December 15 and 16, 2017 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Curated
by Anselm
Franke, Nida Ghouse, Paz Guevara,
and Antonia
Majaca.
https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2017/parapolitics/parapolitics_start.php
Puppet
There
are many like me.
I
was made in a world of wood and old wives' tales.
I
was made, with rings in my head and heels, to hold only
the strings that hold me.
the strings that hold me.
Vaclav
made me with his several knives.
His
middle daughter made me with her milk and silver needle.
I
lost my sword at sea when the captain ran off with me
in the play
in the play
and
Sundays by the Vltava.
I
was laid aside, like Czechoslovakia.
My
strings were made of raw silk, red, and rotted
at sea and knotted themselves around me.
at sea and knotted themselves around me.
Gillian
Allnutt, 2004
Thursday, December 7, 2017
You Glow in my Heart like the Flames of Uncounted Candles
You
Glow in my Heart like the Flames of
Uncounted
Candles, 2017
Cement,
wood, plywood, paper, acrylic, oil, watercolour
136
x 45 x 36
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