2007/10/25
writing on PS trip 07 (part 2)
Creating a show in which nothing could fail was, to Szeemann, a waste of time.
- David Levi Strauss, in Curating in Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating, p.24.
Don't take me wrong for my last entry (part 1), I am still very much interested in following the discussion/debate (alas, writings) in assessing the various shows this summer, particularly the reception of seemingly "disastrous" Documenta (which was not included in this ps trip might already be a noteworthy point?) [Interestingly, Documenta, seems to prefer seeking people outside of the already well-known mainstream curators in the present biennial circuit. Enzewor's Johannesburg biennale might be one tiny exception. As the so-called most important art exhibition around the world, let's see if the coming one will yield to this, owe to the "failure" pressure of this last one?)
So far, much has been said between Storr (07VB) and Buergel (07 D11), but Hou (07IB) and Obrist (07LyonB, herefater LB) could be another interesting pair, especially considering their previous partnership on various occassions. (I do hope I could touch on that a bit later on.) But despite Francesco Bonami frequently jumps between comparising Storr's VB with Buergel Documenta11 in his contribution to ArtForum, his major critique of Storr is fundamentally circulating the question of:
What a Biennial is (supposingly)? What curating VB is really about?
To him:
"a truly contemporary show must be about challenges, discovery, failure – the moment".
– Francesco Bonami, "Isolated Incident," Artforum, Sept 2007, p. 396.
and in his eyes, Storr, as the "museum-trained" curator, failed to recognize the unique character of a biennial and particularly that of the VB.
But wasn't that (view of Bonami) a kind of fixed expectation (of Biennial) as well? Robert Storr's uncompromising speech in his catalogue essay, of "proceed on the faith," in want of "breaking the public of its habit of rapidly comsuming images," claiming that "nor are biennials for people in a hurry," could actually be posing another kind of "challenges," and risking oneself becoming a "failure" too. (If risk and failure is really so important to biennial and curating.)
The failure of Storr, to me, was however not in Arsenale, despite Jorg Heiser too, has also very similar complaint as Jerry Saltz, that "In the Arsenale, Storr adopts a gambit I call 'Curator As Anchorman.' Here, a curator in effect says, 'Whenever there's a problem in the world, I'll be there." (full text here) For me, I guess the failure happened in the Italian Pavilion in Gardini (which might be too close to being a museum space that it laid a trap for Storr). As usual, the exhibits were a mix of good and bad works, but with Sigmar Polke's huge painting occupying the central foyer, and the dead artists above in the attic, the usage of these strategical positions seems to have betrayed the kind of "emerging patterns" and falling back to the "epiphanies" in his catalogue essay of "Think with the Sense – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense." As critic Jerry Saltz puts it earlier on, with all the A-listers artists, it exemplifies that "this Biennale is Storr's résumé", but unfortunately "brilliant errors are missing here."
I will try to line up more failures here below, the major ones that I felt over the other two biennials (IB07 & LB07), not that I believe they are valid critiques in any ways, but as fulfilled duties, so that I could move on back to the basics that I wanted to write as my part 3.
For LB07
Obrist failed to come up with (at least from himself) any substantial statements. (wasn't "handover/talkover" doing the same thing? wasn't "handover/talkover" being criticized for the same thing? (issue of artist as curator/"sub-curating" as Jeff puts it/artists picking artists.../role of curators)
For the art that he picked, it seems he is not shy from showing a pretty narrow taste of aesthetics, unified, yet remained quite Euro(?)centric.
For IB07
Hou failed in many contradictory ways. The major one to me is how "Burn it or Not" and "World Factory" is more sucessful than the proper art venue of "Entre-polis" in curatorial sense, but Xu Zhen occupying such a signifcant place in "Burn it or Not" ruins the whole show there, while "World Factory" is a prefabricated series moving in from San Francisco, and proved too packed to do justice to the works.
- David Levi Strauss, in Curating in Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating, p.24.
Don't take me wrong for my last entry (part 1), I am still very much interested in following the discussion/debate (alas, writings) in assessing the various shows this summer, particularly the reception of seemingly "disastrous" Documenta (which was not included in this ps trip might already be a noteworthy point?) [Interestingly, Documenta, seems to prefer seeking people outside of the already well-known mainstream curators in the present biennial circuit. Enzewor's Johannesburg biennale might be one tiny exception. As the so-called most important art exhibition around the world, let's see if the coming one will yield to this, owe to the "failure" pressure of this last one?)
So far, much has been said between Storr (07VB) and Buergel (07 D11), but Hou (07IB) and Obrist (07LyonB, herefater LB) could be another interesting pair, especially considering their previous partnership on various occassions. (I do hope I could touch on that a bit later on.) But despite Francesco Bonami frequently jumps between comparising Storr's VB with Buergel Documenta11 in his contribution to ArtForum, his major critique of Storr is fundamentally circulating the question of:
What a Biennial is (supposingly)? What curating VB is really about?
To him:
"a truly contemporary show must be about challenges, discovery, failure – the moment".
– Francesco Bonami, "Isolated Incident," Artforum, Sept 2007, p. 396.
and in his eyes, Storr, as the "museum-trained" curator, failed to recognize the unique character of a biennial and particularly that of the VB.
But wasn't that (view of Bonami) a kind of fixed expectation (of Biennial) as well? Robert Storr's uncompromising speech in his catalogue essay, of "proceed on the faith," in want of "breaking the public of its habit of rapidly comsuming images," claiming that "nor are biennials for people in a hurry," could actually be posing another kind of "challenges," and risking oneself becoming a "failure" too. (If risk and failure is really so important to biennial and curating.)
The failure of Storr, to me, was however not in Arsenale, despite Jorg Heiser too, has also very similar complaint as Jerry Saltz, that "In the Arsenale, Storr adopts a gambit I call 'Curator As Anchorman.' Here, a curator in effect says, 'Whenever there's a problem in the world, I'll be there." (full text here) For me, I guess the failure happened in the Italian Pavilion in Gardini (which might be too close to being a museum space that it laid a trap for Storr). As usual, the exhibits were a mix of good and bad works, but with Sigmar Polke's huge painting occupying the central foyer, and the dead artists above in the attic, the usage of these strategical positions seems to have betrayed the kind of "emerging patterns" and falling back to the "epiphanies" in his catalogue essay of "Think with the Sense – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense." As critic Jerry Saltz puts it earlier on, with all the A-listers artists, it exemplifies that "this Biennale is Storr's résumé", but unfortunately "brilliant errors are missing here."
I will try to line up more failures here below, the major ones that I felt over the other two biennials (IB07 & LB07), not that I believe they are valid critiques in any ways, but as fulfilled duties, so that I could move on back to the basics that I wanted to write as my part 3.
For LB07
Obrist failed to come up with (at least from himself) any substantial statements. (wasn't "handover/talkover" doing the same thing? wasn't "handover/talkover" being criticized for the same thing? (issue of artist as curator/"sub-curating" as Jeff puts it/artists picking artists.../role of curators)
For the art that he picked, it seems he is not shy from showing a pretty narrow taste of aesthetics, unified, yet remained quite Euro(?)centric.
For IB07
Hou failed in many contradictory ways. The major one to me is how "Burn it or Not" and "World Factory" is more sucessful than the proper art venue of "Entre-polis" in curatorial sense, but Xu Zhen occupying such a signifcant place in "Burn it or Not" ruins the whole show there, while "World Factory" is a prefabricated series moving in from San Francisco, and proved too packed to do justice to the works.
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