Was Robert Rauschenberg’s 1964 visit to Tokyo a case of cultural exchange or of cross-cultural discommunication? The question is central to this account of Gold Standard, a “combine” that Rauschenberg created during an event at Tokyo’s Sōgetsu Art Center in November of that year. Originally planned by the critic Tōno Yoshiaki as a public interview…
Big Tail Elephant was a four-member artists’ collective active in Guangzhou, China, from 1991 to 1998, the first such group in South China to employ multimedia art forms, photography, performance, installation, and video. While maintaining their individual artistic practices, the members—an advertisement designer, two teachers from the Guangzhou Art Academy, and a TV station worker—gathered…
“ ‘大尾象’ 这个词就象西方古代哲学家对自然的最终解释是上帝这个词。这是一种理念起作用，而不是某一个具体的人。”——林一林 This is a transcript of a meeting of the Big Tail Elephant Group that took place in 1993. Read the English translation here. 林一林整理 “大尾象工作组”成立于1990年底。1991年1月和1992年10月，曾经在广州举办了两次大型展览。1993年7月， “大尾象”举行了这次讨论会，参加讨论会的人仅限于这个工作组的成员，因而我充当半个发问人开始了这次的讨论会，讨论的方向主要是“大尾象工作组”的活动特点，它所处的文化背景及其成员的艺术观念和作品情况。 林一林：徐坦， 你的艺术风格已经很成熟了，并且你的作品在中国同行的眼里也不太陌生，作为你这样的艺术家完全可以按自己原有的思路继续走下去，什么原因令你加入“大尾象工作组”呢？ 徐坦： 作为新近加入“大尾象工作组”的新成员，我和“大尾象”的成员在艺术上的合作已经有一段不短的时间了。我觉得“大尾象”有一个很大的特点， 我相信这种特点在世界上任何一个地方都具有特殊的价值。在这个工作组里，每位艺术家的个人创造都会得到鼓励和支持，你会感到创造性思维的活跃，这里总是处于一种自由的状态，大家在一起工作预示着一种力量，是一中深远的潜在力。我们抱有对未来的信心在于我们工作的结构方式具有开放性。 梁钜辉： 除了你刚才所说的，“大尾象”对你最有吸引力的，是否还有别的什么？ 徐坦： 这个工作组有一种神秘的凝聚力，有一种共同的东西。很多人问过“大尾象”的共同点是什么，我发现大家都说不出来，但我们都意识到确实是有共同之处， 这种共同点有待别人或我们去发现。 别人谈到南方的形而上缺少和生活中的神秘因素，我想在这点上具有魅力和不可说的… …。 梁钜辉: 在“南方艺术家沙龙”的时候，我和林一林、陈劭雄开始合作，到现在已经有7年了。就象你所说的，这种神秘力量把我们结合在一起。 陈劭雄：我们的共同点是区别于其他的艺术群体的做法， 如“大尾象”没有什么核心人物， 假如工作组里少了任何一个人， “大尾象”仍然还存在，很奇怪，它具有凝聚力， 但又没有核心。 林一林： 这个核心就是“大尾象”这个词。 徐坦： 我想起德里达关于中心的一个问题，他谈到中心既不存在某个结构之内，也不存在于某个结构之外， 就好像一个乐团， 谁是中心？ 有人认为指挥是中心， 有人认为第一提琴手是中心，…
What are the goals of an archive based in a region where the local art scene is still finding its place in the world map of contemporary art? How to approach contemporary art in the region if no linear social, political, and art history can be told? How can archives be instrumental in helping regional…
Mimi Zeiger considers how Uneven Growth’s curatorial method invites designers to go beyond numerics in their approach, taking a critical stance on the perils of the “statistical sublime.” When Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s outgoing Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, took the podium at an October workshop for Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities,…
I believe that painting ultimately still rests on a linguistic level, which enables us to make proper judgments regarding the proficiency and profundity of expression. In other words, what matters to artists is what kind of language they authentically have a feeling for and whether they have entered a desirable linguistic state….Sometimes the feeling for…
Ay-O, a Japanese artist who had been part of Fluxus in New York, returned to Japan in 1966 after an eight-year absence. He organized Happening for Sightseeing Bus Trip in Tokyo which was recorded on film and in photographs taken by some of the participants. post presents the film and selected photographs by Nishiyama Teruo, who took part in the tour.
What were the main issues at stake in Brazilian modernism? How did the necessities and demands of the national context shape the country’s modernist art practices in the twentieth-century? These questions are addressed by Tadeu Chiarelli, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art – University of São Paulo, who surveys the major figures in Brazilian…
Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. —Peggy Phelan Figures 1–6 are scans of what remains of Circle & Square, performed at LUX in London on the October 13,…
When a stem breaks the water perpendicularly, its angle is measured to be 0 degree, and the degree gets closer to 90 as it is slanted more, and the level surface is 90 degrees.[from the Sogetsu ikebana handbook] Silence is not acoustic. It is a change of mind, a turning around.[John Cage] Arranging flowers takes…
Ana Longoni delivered these reflections as a response during the yearly C-MAP Seminar that took place at The Museum of Modern Art in April 2013. Entitled “Global Networks,” this two-day-long meeting of members of the three geographically oriented C-MAP research groups and guests focused on self-critically addressing C-MAP’s mission to build a more global program for MoMA’s…
What does it take to perform an object?
