ARS_images_00

ARS_images

ARS_312_weniademstsitar

miranda july
new media work : learning to love you more. (with yuri ono)
website : http://mirandajuly.com/web

interesting website for new media arts
http://www.artistsnewmedia.com/

monica ong
new media work : video, installations
website : http://monicaong.com/

interesting forum for artist and technology
http://www.ylem.org/

ARTISTS, TECHNOLOGY & THE OWNERSHIP OF CREATIVE CONTENT Introduction
pdf on artists and technology:
www.bollier.org/pdf/ATOReport_All.pdf

ARS_312_bbtexex

ARS_312_bbtechex

ARS_312_bbtexex

ARS_312_bbtexex

ARS_312_bbtexex

New Media, and the Performance.

the artist is present.

the marina abramovic show at moma was a reenactment as well as current performance piece by ambramovic stressing the importance of the body. more specifically the importance of the body of the artist to the viewer. many of her performances were about the recognition of of the body focusing on the tension of stillness and closeness.
the new media used during the performance was mostly for documentary purposes. However, abramovic has been working for the better part of 3 decades, so at one point the idea of using ones body or sound and performance were cutting edge concepts as well as the filming (again usually for the purpose of documentation) the peice that she is currently performing, where a viewer is entitled to sit with her is being filmed in real time and streamed directly to the web, which is a manipulation of new media, but not really what i find the piece to really be about, so i really wouldn't classify it as a new media work, so much as a performance that uses aspects of new media - is this an important distinction to make? of course. Especially when dealing with the nature of performance art, presence, (as indicated by the title) is pretty much key.
while i found the work to be particular gender sensitive, i'm not in a hurry to classify the work as feminist, rather, as a performance that is conscious of the presence of the body, and this body just happens to be female, often accompanied by a male.

ARS_312_27_the whiney, considered and reoconsidered.

2010 : WHINEY BIENNIAL

The Whiney Museum of American Art had it’s 2010, titled: “2010”. The basic theme of the collective of 55 American artists in a broad sense is a survey of contemporary art. Minor recurring themes are centered on the ideas of American modernity, and personal or cultural identity. The show was co-curated by Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari. Bonami has curated the Venice Bienniel and Carrion-Murayari is the Whitney’s own senior curatorial assistant. ( The lack of a title, was to allow viewers to create their own ties to the work and how they fit together. which leads me to wonder about the role of the curator - however, more on that in a another blog)
There are a few interesting facts about this year’s biennial that should be noted, the first of which is scale. It is one of the smallest in the shows in the history of the biennial, consisting of fifty five artists rather than the usual eighty to one hundred that it have been in the past. Second, the show has more female artists than male, for the first time in the history of the show.
The vision of the curators is basically a sample of what is happening right now in American art. This brings up an interesting point of the “American identity”. Who is more American, those who come here and assume the culture or those who are simply born within the borders? During one of the most interesting shifts in times in politics it is an important idea to deal with. The dynamic of the two curators, Bonami,is 53, Italian born but a citizen and the United States. Carrion-Murayari is 28, and was born in New York.
Each floor of the museum is arranged basically by medium. The second floor is works primarily dealing with what Bonami calls “suburban American-ness” (in an interview with Frieze’s Dan Fox). The third floor is film and video. The fourth floor has installation work. The fifth floor has works from past biennials, with the subtitle “Collecting Biennials”/
With all of these curatorial factors in place, the biennial was visually underwhelming and vaguely disappointing. The theme, for example, is almost redundant: a contemporary exhibit, in an American museum with the theme of American contemporary art. This is not to say that there were not forward thinking or well executed pieces however there were very few.
On the first floor, Martin Kerels large scale assemblage of both found and fabricated objects is designed for five performances, Family Song, Stuff Song, Ship Song, Loud Song, and Sing Song. It has three main colors black white and orange. While, the piece is during the assemblage used as performance space, it would have greatly benefited from images or video footage of any of the five songs. This absence of clarity during periods where the performance is in place high lights the importance of the audience and artist relationship. This, however, seems to lend itself more to the genre of and the nature of collecting performance pieces than Kerel’s piece.
On the second floor, Kate Gilmore’s video projection of a performance piece along with remaining pieces of the performance was interesting. The video was of Gilmore breaking out of a dry walled column in a polka dot dress and heeled boots using just her own force to break out. The video captures her struggle in the outfit as a commentary on femininity and feminism. While a strong piece, one must wonder about the context and cultural relevance. The dress and shoes were not contemporary, and the biennial is composed of more female than male artists. It seems to be commenting on the ghost of feminism’s past rather than a more contemporary view of gender politics.
On the third floor there was a video projected on the windshield of a hearse, referencing the one used in the film Ghostbusters. This was done by an anonymous group of artist from Brooklyn who go by the collective alias The Bruce High Quality Foundation. The video projected was a mash up of collected news media and popular culture clips with a narrative audio. This narrative was about the American identity as a person, shifting from gender: he and she used interchangeably. The nature of the images and narrative as well was really humanizing of the American spirit, and made one examine their own identity in relation to the culture stereotype referenced in the film.
On the fourth floor, Stephanie Sinclair, a photo journalist, work was about women’s self mutilation in Afghanistan. The images were graphic and showed a desperate courage of Afghani women who burned themselves to comment on abuses they have suffered in the male dominated society. The images by just the nature of the burns were extremely moving and then the nature of the added content of self mutilation was simply haunting.
The fifth floor brings the current biennial into an art historic context by exhibiting work from past biennials, featuring works from such American icons as Rauschenberg and Barbara Kruger. This could have been one of, if not the biggest mistakes of the curators. It juxtaposes past and present, when some artists in the biennial reference that in their own work. It further enforces the modern, accepted works rather than focusing on contemporary. It was neither the time nor the place to exhibit the legacy of the biennial, if only to further aid in the almost repetitive nature of the show in general.

"NEW" Media Reliance

The intimate biennial spoke to identity on an individual and cultural level, while exploring interdisciplinary and traditional mediums. It directly reflected the curators’ visions and identities as well as the artist’s. It is a commenting on the status of art making today in America, and if one is either pleased or displeased by the overall collection, it leaves the visitor wondering why? Is there a disconnect of identity or lack of solidarity on a cohesive cultural definition? Is the lack of a solid cohesive cultural identity supposed to be highlighted? Must we always link modernity to historically modern quests?
This also bring up the idea of "new media" i didn't find any of the artists to use anything considered "new". this is an annoying paradox of art history in the search for modernity while in the context of linear time. i didn't really see much "new media" work so much as vaguely progressive, and even then, it wasn't really progressive in a "post modern" art context. This brings me to my main point, rather than just a criticized review of the biennial, because the biennial is more or less a symptom of a larger issue. the issue here is art historical rhetoric, and lack of a basic formalized critique. what is new is not always what is progressive. Where and why a work belong in an art context isn't as subjective or as talking in circles as one would imagine.


References:


“Whitney Museum Names Curators for 2010 Biennial” Artdaily.org 29 Mar. 2010
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=27788

“Gary Carrion-Murayari” Profiles. 28 Feb 2009 Art in America. 29. Mar. 2010
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/profiles/gary-carrion-murayari/

‘112 Minutes With Francesco Bonami” News & Features 14 Feb 2010 New York 28 Mar. 2010
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/63787/

“Whiney Biennial 2010” 14 Dec 2010 Dan Fox Frieze 21 Mar 2010 http://www.frieze.com/issue/whiney_biennal_2010/