Why record the games?
Belief there is in it a form of an achievement, that of a ‘free man’ creating out of an imperative, in a classical libertarian way, that described by Humboldt, i.e. similar to that of a vocation of an artist or philosopher.
Why does Julian find Josephine a sad creature? Because of its limited frame, timeframe ? Because of the ‘limits of the state action’, the liberty which tethers her?
The question of the museum, the last legacy of the enlightenment in the “Camp of Achilles” will resurface once again and probably for the last time. The museum is the camp, withdrawn from the time of the present, of its matters, necessarily separated, it has to be. How can study – the ideal activity of the enlightenment- be conducted otherwise?
So the museum will be recurring narrative in the “Camp of Achilles”.
There, Josephine will play the main role, the work of art, passing through times and dreams of humanity, the vestiges of memory and history. Once she is dead, then (and before she is not, not enough time will have passed for it to be accepted), well once she is dead she will thus become part of art history and no museum will be able to encompass her. She, the artwork, will be no more. She will be art history. After all, art is the very energy and imperative of creation conducting us, and conducted by us at the same time, from the times immemorial. A cube could have never encompassed it. In making a cube we have achieved nothing close to perfection, but an illusion of any achievement at all.
I am inclined to think the institution of a museum developed as a countermeasure and counterbalance to the industrialisation of the society. In its values the museum represents enlightenment but as an institution it has not fully developed untill the Romanticism and the industrial revolution. It has been my opinion, culture always poses a counterbalance, especially this being the case from enlightenment onwards and clearly visible throughout 19th, 20th and 21st century.
If such indeed is the case the museum which was created as a last ‘civilised’ act of the enlightenment through the idea of preserving and remembering the great products of the past and retaining the attachment to the roots and the past, the contemporary museum which has no attachment to anything but present or even one could argue rather than that it is practically gambling at the future (showing increasingly younger and younger artists) through the power of its establishment, it fails to accept the fact establishment is alike an oak which will eventually brake at the power of historic hurricane whereas humble reed will remain. It is true most of art which remained has done so through protectorate of the institutions of establishment (church, museum, etc.) but it is not exclusive and one should remember all museums contain countless works of art of minimal if any significance. Now, we can only continue, if without further bluff we accept, the contemporary museum is no noble or valuable institution, or even that it has in its present form ceased to be an institution (in the context of institution of public interest). In the time when the speed of technological developed is accelerating further and further, our society has no need for temporary grimaces of the private trade companies targeting private concentrations of wealth and power.
The matter is pretty disturbing. The matter of the museum, which has become a showroom for a private enterprise. It is comprehensive with the structures of neoliberal economies at any rate – e.g. the state heavily subsidises military industry and that in turns provides (free) technology for private enterprise to gain profit from (notice the society in turns gets nothing back from the investment it has committed, of course apart from perhaps some limited employed opportunities and new products to purchase, being hardly enough for the extent of the investment). The cultural institutions work in the same way, publically funded they provide a showroom for let’s say big galleries, who in turn would subsidise individual event providing they can use the institution’s spaces for their benefit (which mean only show the artist who are already commercially present).
Whereas, the matter is very simple. Any sort of project which receives public funding should contain at least one of the following values: intellectual, cultural (social) or historical. If it doesn’t, why should it be publically supported (since it can very well support itself, anyway ).
Of course, here the case of the cultural and social is somewhat tricky and easily exploited (since bureaucrats have no intellectual capacity to determine the other two values), the social and cultural value becomes a shallow slogan without comprehensive understanding of its function.
Thus back to the question of the museum, a showroom for the market. Market which by definition is private. In terms of protection or support of the market, such is not a bad thing (of course taking into the consideration we abandon the myth of the market being free – it is not in the state capitalist economies), but the problem is rather the museum which has lost any of its historical value as an institution. It would be fair to point under the museum banner I group all kind of art centres, state galleries, etc. since their role and social function are not distinguishable to larger degree.
One could say Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) could be renamed into Showroom of Modern Art( SoMA) as there is a basic discrepancy between modern art and the concept of the museum as it was meant originally. One could even go further in saying MoMA has not much to do with the concept of the museum as much as the so called ‘free market’ has nothing to do with being free.
That is most likely true to the relatively new institutions of the so called museums of modern or contemporary art. Museums created in 19th century (100 years before) concentrated on preserving historic objects for the case of later study, but not showcasing contemporary ones, a sensible idea. 100 years later what evolved out of it was the concept of a museum of contemporary art, as a part of steps modernists took to establish their new world’s order and values.
Now we are 100 years past that time, and it seems the inevitable has occured, the institution has acquired a very new form very far from its original one. What to consider: is the museum in its original form still valuable (and i suppose there would be examples of such museums, those which do not affiliate with contemporary activity, e.g. British Museum) and if such, and if it should be kept, should the newly born institutional concept receive a new name and then how should it be funded).
To fully develop this thread one needs to commit further development of ideas in the field of: history, social, political economic and cultural changes (art is a developing parallel, an important cultural signature) and following development of the public institutions from its early beginning. and analysis.
In Vanito Vanitas the language of Malewicz (supposed modernity) is empty, i.e. supposedly without implications to the roots of the culture, but then through the connection to the classical made in Vanito Vanitas, these implications become apparent again.
In Vanito Vanitas one sees this connection can never be severed. The empty square is a historic quote, nevertheless it does not symbolise the concept already explored in the modern discourse (e.g. that of the square and all its implications made by Malewicz), it is rather a symbol of the historic significance of this particular time (point in history), all the cultural implications of changes of the time, etc.
The modernity is represented through the empty field of the photographic paper, yet that is not all, I mean not simply empty, it is surrounded by vestiges of culture and history in its all directions, which simply wait to be yet again observed and acknowledged.
In ‘Reading history’ this crucial to the artist concept becomes arranged into three structural sections.
The very first is the framework in which history is deciphered (through an object of the reconstructed historic game); the second is reading and evolution of symbols; whereas, the third offers the question of relationship between the artist’s intent and its reception by posterity.
The point of V.A.N.I.T.A.S is not the loss of meaning.
It is rather characteristic of history. That means the letters are arranged by the artist. In some way.
Whether it holds common meaning or the meaning to the artist.
So VANITAS. Or perhaps VANITSA?
But finally, as i started saying, the point is whatever the artist leaves behind, he has no influence over the posterity. The institution places an arte povera object on a white pedestal in a white cube space in some smart location or whatsover and so is the inevitability and brutality of history.
The whole point is
When Josephine dies, how to tackle the case of her status as a work of art.
It is in fact simple. When she dies, the work of art will be no more. Josephine will become part of art history and will be thus artwork no more.
Klein’s “Antropometrie” are by all means images of death. There is no life in the controlled carcases of women, as they have neither will nor freedom. Klein creates some kind of Danse macabre which honestly and rightfully should disgust in its chauvinist structure.
On the other hand “Shadows and other signs of life” are full of life. They are after all traces, records of life which is free and under no control, like any true artistic activity.
„Sous les pavés, la plage!” (Under the cobblestones, the beach!) was one of the slogans used in France’s 1968. It expressed the desire that beneath the city which had been hardened by stone, there be the freedom of the beach (represented by the sand in which the paving stones were placed).
Beneath this poetic phrase of the past lays actual brutality and anger of the French fighters for freedom and all the pre-1968 ideals which have never quite played out.
„Tutto inizio in un giorno di violenza” (It all began on the day of violence) is the first line of the contemporary paraphrase of The Illiad written by Alessandro Baricco during the time of the war in Afghanistan. This phrase in the direct contemporary language sums up the problematics of the original story, for The Illiad (the very first book of the Western civilisation) does not begin with chapters of love between Helen and Paris, but with the raging war.
The two works originally created to function as part of other projects, now together, construct an even more complex narrative. This is the typical method the artist takes in constant re-developing his work. At first, he creates mix media installations concentrated on more narrow specific ideas, to then broaden their significance through a compilation of several narratives (chosen elements of other individual projects) into a multi-parallel one. The newly created significance of individual artworks and its symbolic functioning throughout the artist’s oeuvre both have to be considered. The work which was to be looked at from the front in another installation might reappear turned with its back and one could say it is thus developed through with the quality which Feuerbach once called Entwicklungsfähigkeit – something holding a capacity to be developed over and over.
The exhibition is constructed through an intricate study of historic frameworks: the poetic title somehow provides us with, as in most cases, romanticised image of history, but so is the visual language: the blue walls, the orange neon, the beach chair and umbrella, they all bring an image of some sort of vintage holiday advertising, only crystals which replaced the sand bring us closer to the contemporary, for in the language of contemporary media nothing is allowed to be real, i.e. imperfect, and can there be a less imperfect replacement for sand, if not the crystal which, incidentally, is made of it. Of course, crystal in a way represents industrial revolution too, the phenomenon which shaped the society to give birth to modernity.
The above analysis as much as descriptive doesn’t tackle, however, the actual content of the work which has a double basis: one is that of analysis of history, a turning point of several narratives which 1968 represents, but most importantly the two ever-present aspects of human civilisation: the violence and freedom. The latter narrative is drawn starting with “The Iliad”: with the sensible women who represent in a way enlightenment and reason, for they always cry for peace and the fighting to cease, and with the romantic men who despite each time postponing their clashes, calling forth names of their fathers and forefathers, are willingly going into the fray to sacrifice their lives and achieve the freedom of immortalisation, in other words become part of the history. In 1968 striving for different ideals of peace and freedom, ultimately resulted in violence too. One could admit the students craved revolution without clearly proclaimed ideals, after all, revolutionaries too, take their place in history, their position being determined on the actual success of their violent endeavour.
Sous les pavés, la plage! commits a certain reversal of the meaning. At the level zero there is the concrete, that’s the point of perspective, under the pavement should be the sand of the beach, symbolising freedom and nature. The sand is thus taken from underneath and placed on the top, with such difference the sand is no longer the representative of nature, but an industrially produced material ( the place taken by concrete in the original metaphor) and thus we end up with crystal, common and without value like the sand in fact, yet for some strange reason considered valuable.
We may find this new beach very beautiful, it certainly attracts us. It perhaps reminds of the peaceful holiday time we spent at the seaside but here is where two discomforts might occur (which nevertheless would be ignored while the blink blinds and draws us): 1. the crystal beach on the concrete as much as beautiful is even more artificial, but the true artifice is in 2. the neon, which points to the violence, violence which lays at the base of every beginning, but which in this case cannot be clearly seen under the cover of beauty. This contemporary violence is docile, it lays in the act of creating a docile pacified man who will devote himself to perhaps attractive, yet fruitless and passive activity.
In a sense, both works inform one another. As the violence is not apparent at the crystal beach so the artificial is not visible on the surface when one considers the neon work. This quality of the artificial though plays a crucial role in the project Empty room of which the neon is the opening work. In there, however, the violence is placed in the existential context of contemporary communication, drawing the story throughout the digital, AI, history, and the physical.
“All began on the day of violence”. In The Iliad death is aesahetised, romanticised.
From one side the women who call for peace, they are the reasonable and represent what we later called the enlightenment. On the other side, the men who could be considered romantics (and as such whose existence is dramatic through the constant struggle for freedom). That freedom could be considered as freeing themselves from their mortality, daily constraints placed upon them,etc. Through disappearing on the battlefield and thus claiming glory, they can become immortal. This is most certainly the case with Achilles, who consciously decides so. Nevertheless, the ancient heroes don’t want to die, they postpone the battle through the never ending discussions, calling one another and calling forth the names of their fathers and forefathers. Eventually, they perish. This is the myth building function of the Iliad. It is how it is connected to the Tears of Iblis, “whatever is lost returns to god”. Nothing is lost when it becomes part of the myth, the history.
In such way the crystal beach is connected to the mythical crystal cities of the medieval literature, Troy was one of these cities ( Le Roman de Troy, Benoit de St Maure ), so was Jerusalem. In the former the Alabaster Chamber is made of crystal too, and holds many secrets and riches. A crystal beach is a kind of place from a fairy tale too.
What can an artist do with the historic luggage of modernity and following postmodernity.
He cannot abandon this hopeless dead end. It is his past after all. He takes it, and fills it with meaning.
To Nessa Cui, De Sarthe Gallery, Beijing
Dear Nessa,
In regards to the subject of the talk, I think it should be connected to certain points made by our exhibition.
Over all, my monography I am preparing for the next year is subtitled: ‘creating historic significance’ and it could be title for our talk. It is both in this as in other works of mine that significance of history becomes its significance in the present rather than in the past. The beach piece is symbolic, not in the way its elements are though (this could be reading it in a way post modernism taught us). Most importantly it is a symbol of particular moment of history, as is the neon. This is reoccuring in my works, in another one for instance, where I am using a banana, which again could be read with its fallic implication and in the way it has been used by artists of 20th century but then again most importantly becomes a symbol of art history and history (particular moment of art history, of social changes at the time, etc.).
Michal
It has been clear to me for quite some time that I am using elements of art history throughout my practice. Taking a photograph of the banana above and thinking again of my older film with the so called ‘banana guard’. The banana in neither cases should be simply understood with the implications art history has already explored, and thus not as a symbol with its existing and clear meaning and implications, but, and that is of utmost importance, as an element and symbol of several ideas of history and art history, a universal symbol of history, or one of such symbols perhaps.
As such, the white rectangular figures in ‘Vanito Vanitas’ are not functioning within the framework of the modernist discourse, that might be misleading. They on the contrary function with strong historic and referential implications to the particular elements of art history and all the complexity of contexts, ideas, social movements behind them/behind the time they were made.
Pandalisation of the discourse and the contemporary man.
The beach is connected of course to pandalisation of the discourse and the contemporary man and is further developed in the works like (The panda contemplating the black square) and as Ortega y Gasset and Burckhardt already hinted is a direct result of industrialisation of the society (thus the crystal is industrially produced).
The rabbit might not be much better than the panda on many grounds. But at least it is alive.
With the panda, like with death, I will, we will, never be free.
art cage.
Continuation to a series of stills from a film which has never been made.
The continuation sets a parallel to the one with the panda and features the rabbit.
Josephine is put together with text (subtitles) by other artists starting with Jaromir Hladik.
“We are together, here, for now.”
Everything about the contemporary is panda.
It has occured to me, when i used the term the historic level, I meant subconsciously the height of times. As it is after all the height of the panda.
The installation, although making a direct and clear reference to the concept of the historic level (used by Ortega y Gasset in the context of its raise) is in fact treating the very problem only as a secondary one. The true problem is then hidden behind the literal reference of the text. After all, the line of the ‘level’ is determined by the height of the panda, and so the other of the historic, and one could say the paramount one, that of the ‘height of times’.
The Laocoon Group is devoted to the forgotten and lost, after all it is what persists and remains as forgotten (so each time can be found again) that is the paramount feature of our culture.
Julian,
Today I thought, in the same way as in the game of Shuusaku (of which moment im reenacting with my Go installation), art is a game which offers with each step similar construction alike placing each stone on the board. Wouldn’t it be nice to construct the your life/practice exactly so, with each element placed one after the other but so that the meaning cannot surface at the time, and so that eventually with one grand gesture, one provides all the smaller ones which came before with meaning on the scale nobody expected of them. And indeed changing the meaning of the whole.
If one could think of a life and art practice as a this kind of game, it does sound like a lonely, but rather wonderful idea, don’t you think?
Time to regain
the greatness
the pathos
the poetry
time to recreate the myth
and give the meaning
Art here and there cannot be the same.
Art is about oneself conducting a free activity and as such, the activity cannot be the same if on the ground it is practiced the restrictions of freedom are different. (The possibility and conditions of freedom differs and the quality of the establishment differs.
In the west one has a liberal art institution, how can one go against such establishment thus? And artists’s role should not be supporting mainstream institution (as they often are).
Minimisation or miniaturisation is a contemporary procedure, and indeed it can be observed on all fields. This can be understand not just by the means of size, which is a common occurrence in the field of technology but also in the context of time, for instance in cinematography.
Overall as in the copy of the painting of The incredulity of Saint Thomas what was observed is a certain simplification, but in a way of becoming simultaneously more primitive. This simplification and primitivisation is a wider metaphor but it is also very panda like.
The problem of the contemporary is not lack of good art. It is easy, there is a lot of it, e.g. there are quite a few good paintings being produced out there. However, the question to be asked is why good art is not interesting enough and thus not good enough. And that is because, what is of importance is not good art but rather one holding historical significance, and thus significant work, valid work in our particular moment of history. That is one, which is of interest, and that is also why somehow I feel inclined not to make good work with full determination.
Whether it is of greatness or not, I feel it impossible to make different kind of work at this point of history
Once the concept of the ready framed has been established (‘all is history’) the artist ceases to be necessary as he joins the group of spectators. With this concept on the contrary to the readymade everything becomes art and what is given to the spectator is possibility (not a micro, but a macro-concept) to consider anything and everything as everything has a frame of history upon it. In sense this makes conceptual art freed of whatever classical idea of object and represented value it might have had, but also of modern concerns to do with organisation of labour (Marx). The artist provides the framework (frame) like a photographer frames a view anybody can see, and then what happens and is seen within the frame is for each of us to determine.
the blue of the works remains of utmost importance, it is the most immaterial of all colours.
And the print of the thread, i.e. an existential symbol and as such supposedly more real in the form of a negative image, produces, in fact, nothing and in this case blank paper.
This white empty trail leads the eye, which thanks to it experiences what is supposedly the background (the blue), but at the same time something that this empty existence defines.
Of course, blue is just a colour. What matters is, how far can you see…
It is an illusion that contemporary art is more difficult than classical art as much as it is an illusion majority of the audience understands classical art better.
In reality who does fully understand symbolic painting? Perhaps, a narrow group of scholars who through research acquired particular knowledge which is always specific to the period.
Contemporary art created a situation in which the surface can be removed. It rejects the surface, i.e. the decorative. It doesn’t mean, however what lies deeply is uncovered, it is as covered as previously. This development is called refinement. And is the achievement of a civilisation.
History with an existential base
In the camp of Achilles.
….
This film is dedicated to all the art and artists, and the human’s constant insatiable urge to create. For Josephine it is a role of her life. A life of a work of art. Alike Achilles, once her time and role are over, she becomes part of history.
Anything in art you take or make and then claim and assume: it is a work of art.
And it changes your life and it changes everything.
So you take a rabbit and you don’t stuff it or carry it dead (although you could do that too) but claim it art while letting it live. And it changes everything. It becomes your work. And together with it you explore all the new possibilities. Because however big or small, it is your achievement.
When asked when would I like to show the most, one would most normally consider institutions forming the structures of establishment. Behind these structures lay of course concentration of political power, economy, etc. And so one could mention, for instance, MoMA. But in fact, this institution which should never become ‘old’ is now 100 years old and so intricately involved in the market one would be correct to carefully question its significance. Does it go beyond that of short term value forming body?
In such case the correct answer to the initial question would be a place which goes precisely beyond a limited role of one singular institution, a place where being ‘old’ is not a detrimental, but rather enriching.
Hagia Sophia!
It is a place with such intricate and fascinating context. It has everything European culture consists of. The Roman Empire, Christianity suspended between the West and East and longing for the lost culture. The magically preserved time of the fall of Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia becoming a mosque to then give in and become a Museum, and that is then the most recent turn of history and also the most recent format of our approach towards history.
What is beyond that? In the sense: before and after?
How far can you see?
What does panda have in common with Osiris?
The 14 pieces of Osiris scattered across Egypt.
The difference is overwhelming.
Should there be a panda at my work table apart from its presence, well, that would be it.
A rabbit at my work table would probably end up eating up catalogue raisonne of Marcel Duchamp (an event which actually did take place).
You see, the difference is overwhelming. This is for me the connection between Duchamp, Beuys and Josephine.
Death is reoccurring element of my practice, perhaps, but there is no future in the panda.
Josephine is our future, it is the only way.
And thus, by having a rabbit in my studio I continuously explore the relationship of a man to a work of art.
A herm is neither your nor mine. It is a contingency and necessity of history.
Anything premodern has a quality of universality. On the other had anything created by the modernity has inevitably become historic(al).
La Chambre de Labastrie.
In a sense the characters portrayed always lose their original identity and get one where they are yet to be named by the poet. They thus acquire a new role in the symbolic practice of the artist. Consequently, through their original identity being lost they are immortilised as they become part of the artist’s own mythology and thus art history.
Civilisation implies script and as such preservation of history (and it as a concept) and that consequently implies the rule of law and possibility of retrospective verification. And as such civilisation is a situation which opposes the idea of the ‘survival of the fittest’.
Demise is profitable and greed runs the world. Hunted by the past where ideologies were abused by those in power we reject it a priori. That is why contemporary man does not believe, and consequently that is why contemporary politicians have no strong clear ideologies. That is a clear path into the disintegration and demise alike that of pandas.
Joseph is what i call a panda rabbit, and interestingly enough despite popularity of both, the rabbit does well what panda doesn’t – creates life. Rabbit, being pagan symbol of life is then opposite to the panda, which in a sense, becomes symbol of death.
And this way, this contemporary Thanatos found its way into the contemporary society, which being scared of death more than ever before, embraced him fully.
When I see an untouched glass I want to break it.
Do you believe in art?
There are two important aspects western art has developed:
it means (signifies) and has content.
Art has developed out of religious rite or religious practice and at some point it was in fact the very same practice (which divided later on) and this is why we speak of art practice.
There lays a certain contradiction as we so desperately try to understand art and clearly believing and understanding cannot go together.
We ask ourselves or are asked if we understand the work of art, but the ‘mystery’ of art (or rite) is not ‘mysterious’, it rather refers to a liturgical actio and so performative or even happening quality of the work of art where the actors are the work of art itself and its audience.
The art’s characteristic is that it is essentially an actio, which means an action or a performance. Understanding lacks performative character, but certainly not believing.
To participate in the liturgy (in the church) one needs to confess ones belief – not ones understanding.
I pose questions rather than statements because the quality of the question is not finite (on the contrary to that of a statement).
In the context of art after readymade and the work of art in general the question of belief is resurfacing as pivotal: after all for a work of art to be only two prerequisites are necessary – belief of the artist and of the spectator.
Honinbo Shuusaka and his game against Gennan Inseki 1846. the move.
re-performing such game again is like participating in history, again and like painting at the same time (considering the subsequent quality of the medium). the reality is being represented but it is up to the artist to decide at what point to stop.
The lack of purpose of the creation allows the freedom of creativity.
Journey to the west.
What do you desire?
The revolt of the masses -> the height of time -> from one side fulfilment of achievement of social standards – being content; from the other progress and technological advancement is just at the beginning; Content – peak of time culturally; at the beginning of scientific advancement.
Discrepancy never as large.
Ready made – ready framed
History becomes a ready made. Whatever one makes or not, it already has a frame of history.
The problem of the ready made is to look at a “ready made” artwork without the discourse of the ready made.
Which is at this point no longer necessary.
As the concept has already been established (thus accepted by the establishment). But rather look at the ready made in a way one looks at any other ‘created’ artwork, thus without stigmatisation of the creative act.
Ready framed. The supposed ‘return to the painting’ acclaimed by the market, after all sounds like Donald Trump and “let’s make America great again”.
A ready framed – following Duchamp – a painter (manual creation) a ready-made does not require to be made by the artist. The ready framed is a similar construct with the difference that its background is photographic. And so the base of creation is not a physical/manual fabrication but an act of framing. In a ready framed an artist is utilising an already existing frame (e.g. made by another artist or existing as a result of historical contingency) as a creative act/gesture.
Dear Julian,
I came to a conclusion the placement of the neon next door in the flat was very good, I would even go as far as to say of grave importance.
I haven’t read your texts yet but I have a feeling you see the role of Duchamp much further than I do (in this work), which is also fine because I always approve of exterior ideas developing my works in the directions I had less interest in. Elements of this work (in all cases) are very Romantic. The three figures brought up, function in a similar way to folk and ancient stories did in Romanticism. Thomas, Duchamp and the panda (who has something of a mystical creature in the installed works) are all symbolic by all means and mythologised at the same time. The important thing, as I have briefly mentioned, is this does not take Duchamp with his historic heritage (despite such approach being unavoidable at any rate, to me is not the key) but rather as a symbol, through the myth, and so a Duchamp both understood and misunderstood. The three symbols are in a different way representing different natures of a human being, and that is then put into the framework of the dynamic of belief, as I mentioned in my previous letter.
Michal
Berlin, 29/09/2016
Duchamp points towards the man who creates, as art is dependent only on his action, manifestation or simply a decision. But the artist will be and will create (whatever it implies) despite being believed in or not. Belief in the artist does nothing but reassures his position on the common and neutral ground, in-between, but nothing more.
For art to be however, what is paramount is to believe in art. If you believe, an urinal, or a place or even man’s life becomes art. Here, for anything to flourish truly, what is required is the belief which comes from two dimensions and two opposite ‘polars’: the belief (in art) of the artist and the belief (in art) of the spectator. Art is because of these two whose net force meets in the “inbetween” space (which always acquires sacred stigma whatever one would manifest or wherever placed it).
To me (any) art is simply an outcome of these two beliefs meeting one another.
I think the narrative of 3 spaces becomes clear with this (Engel mit Sphinx Gesichten):
The questions asked in the street, have a bit of a religious character, their aim is to lead the spectator to believe: 1 in himself and thus 2 in art. The statement neon in the studio is opposite, it is a belief in the creative act.
Consumerism, globalism, capitalism, means of control of the society, the panda which prevents us from being critical is juxtaposed with critical thinking in art which begun the contemporary art discourse as we know it.
The work functions on the borderline between absurd – laughter and despair as one relays common tragedy and failures of contemporary societies.