Melting ears (on Cory Arcangel's two works)

The one I liked was this:


while the one that goes further is this:


Both are fragments of works by Cory Arcangel.
The difference between them is significant. The first one is a joke - it is a repetition, a trick played on the idea of reproduction or universality.
The other one too. But the other one moves towards something else. It provides us with the doubt as to what it should be like. I don't know Schoenberg's op. 11, 3. I might have heard it, but I'm not sure how it sounds. Yet it certainly doesn't sound like these cats. Or does it? What is it about Schoenberg that makes him sound like Schoenberg? And why do we need him to sound like Schoenberg? (Why do we call artists people who interpret in the most faithful way? And no, this is not a rhetorical question. What is it about repetition that still makes it move us aesthetically? And no, any form of the answer "the difference within the repetition" will not satisfy me as long as I keep putting the same piece on my mp3 player and enjoy it beause it is the same, and still appreciate its freshness, not its "difference".) The thing, here, is not just about the cats, it isn't the old elephant-making-oil-paintings trick. It is rather about other possibilities of listening, of paying attention, of defining what you hear. Can we hear the Schoenberg in the original cat videos? Can we hear Bach in the original music versions? The Bach composition, in that sense, says too much - it states a clear correspondence between the original YouTube videos and Bach's work. The second says less: it says "it is out there, but it's hard to say where exactly, and why exactly we would stop there". (And does it while being damn funny). And that's when our ears melt and reconsolidate, they become other ears, and other, and other. We are forced to listen to what might be there, and not what we think is there.
So why do I like the first video more? Maybe because I still enjoy what is there a lot.
Or because I'm not a fan of Schoeberg.

What you like is to look

What you like is to look.
You like to suck it up in your gaze, you like to smear your innocent mind with the flesh of sight.
What you like is to become dependent. To let go of the constructions and make them make you.
This is the universe of the aesthetic. It is where you can always find a haven. Where you can let go of your constrained negotiations with what surrounds you, and be indulged, and be spoiled, and be challenged just safely enough to get back home.
What you like is when necessity becomes an ice-cream cone. Be it vanilla-flavored or razor-edged.
What you like is the place which is a place but requires no consequences. Of you.
Where the fish sing gentle songs and have human heads and human breasts, so you can see this is not real, and you can join the part of it that is real enough to be like you.
And you can be like you. Only less conspicuous. Or less conspicuously limited to what you believe you are.
What you like is to look, to admire, to appreciate, what you like is to jump in, when you were keeping yourself outside for some absurd reason. What you like is to overcome the feeling of absurdity through the feeling of empathy. You like to believe the thing there brings you closer to the thing here. And when you're back - well, when you are back, you leave.

(The video features work by Harrisson and Wood)

Five sentences concerning ghosts

Both pictures by Ujin Lee, from the Dust series.

There is never enough time or effort or vision to make sure things are fixed.

We must suppose they are (or were) somewhere here, in the vicinity of the place we are (or were) standing, in the present continuous, within the limits of what we are ready to appreciate.

I can hardly imagine a memory that has no stills.

The trick is in admiring the thing the trick tricks you into believing, while knowing the trick.

Ghosts : the need for accompanied presence.

(via)

Alevtina Kakhidze - Revolutionary Obedience

"Art must concern itself with the real, but it throws any notion of the real into question. It always turns the real into a facade, a representation, and a construction. But it also raises questions about the motives of that construction." - Mike Kelley

Here is how it went:
Ukrainian artist Alevtina Kakhidze has been working on value and power for a while. In one of her charming projects (The Most Commercial Project), for instance, she drew objects that she liked, most of them she couldn't afford, and gave the drawings the same value that the objects had. So, a drawing of a Louis Vuitton handbag had the same value as the object itself. And when she brought her goods into her marriage, the lawyers confirmed that her estate was worth much more than her entrepreneur husband's.
In one of her projects, back in 2008, Alevtina drew the earth seen from the sky. No, this needs more precision: the earth seen from an airplane which is not her own private airplane.
Once she made the drawing, Alevtina Kakhidze wrote to some of the richest people in Ukraine - Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk (who has his own adventure in the art world now) - and asked them to make a drawing for her of how the earth looks from a private plane. It was a nice portfolio she sent them, very professional and smooth. She tried encouraging them, telling them it wasn't about drawing well. If anyone can draw, so can you!
This (and the obvious silence afterwards) made for a nice work. A clean statement about what we see and the position we see it from.

But two years later, unexpectedly, an answer arrives. Akhmetov decided to make his huge foundation to support artists' projects. And Alevtina's project was thought perfect for a beginning. Unfortunately, Mr. Achmetov is too busy/shy/untalented to make a drawing, but he will be happy to rent a private plane for Ms. Kakhidze, so she can make her project herself.
And make it she did.
The project, called "I'm Late For A Plane That Cannot Be Missed", started with Alevtina going by collective transport from her house in the suburbs to the airport. She hitch-hiked a little, took a suburban mini-bus, a suburban train, and (as expected) arrived late at the small private airport near Kiev. There was already a TV crew traveling with her by then, asking everyone on the way who they were and if they knew Alevtina. At the airport, there were several more crews, and over a dozen news photographers. After all, this was an important day for art and culture in Ukraine: the richest man around decided to support real artists, and started by allowing this innocent-looking girl to realize her dream.

And off she went. Onboard, she took only a few reporters. (There was even a struggle for the seat.)

The anxious journalists were mad when, upon returning, Alevtina declared only one thing: she will tell the whole story and answer all the questions tomorrow during her lecture performance. That made no news story at all! Disappointed and frustrated, they could do nothing but wait.

However, the next day arrived quite quickly. And here they were, the journalists, and tens of artists gathered at the conference in one of the most prestigious places in Ukraine (a part of the Saint Sophia Cathedral complex). Waiting mainly to learn how to get money for their projects. And, also, to hear what Alevtina has to say. And to see the drawings.
Alevtina starts describing how she prepared for the trip, how she got clothes specially designed for the occasion, she talks about the cost of the plane rental (10 000 euros). And then she declares:

I felt so calm on the way to the airport and in the sky but now I have to account for this tranquility. What have we done on the plane? We were there. There is no result. I have nothing to show for what actually happened there.

The journalists were confused. This is surely a scandal? No drawing!
But also - no demolition! No shocking performance! No reaction! Nothing! Alevtina did strictly nothing - she did not change the game, she did not make the plane fly somewhere else, she did not paint it red, she made no drawing. She took the flight.
Did I say she didn't change the game?
Of course she did.
Her non-action was performative. It created a new reality. It brought about a challenge to the system, keeping up the power struggle between the art and the money. Who is the boss here? And why?
Certainly, they want us to do what we want. But if we do what we want our way, we are the ones defining what they want. And for a fraction, it becomes our game. And this fraction, for me, is the work.

In one of her works, Alevtina writes (or quotes, the origin is unsure): “And do you remember, I found 10 roubles, and ran home to show mom. Not the 10 roubles, but how lucky I am.”
It is not the thing we find. It is about how lucky we are.
And how we subvert this luck.


PS. The struggle continues: in the description of the event on the Foundation's site, the actual request for Akhmetov to draw the earth is not mentioned, making it all seem slightly more like making "Dreams come true in art". What dreams, exactly?

Take a break

Remember Zimoun?

Zimoun : 186 prepared dc-motors, cardboard boxes 60x60x60cm, 2010. from ZIMOUN VIDEO ARCHIVE on Vimeo.

Reverse

At the BWA City Gallery in Bydgoszcz (which has the most poignant introduction of any art gallery I've seen so far: "WHAT"), the Polygonum exhibition which opens on October 14th to showcase the Polish region's visual talents has some tasty discoveries.

"Movemental" by Tomasz Dobiszewski does look a little like a furniture catalogue. And yet there is something wrong with this catalogue. It does not clarify, it does not simplify, but multiplies, undoes the tight order of things. It lets the picture breathe, opens it up, as if it was obvious: the reverse is necessary, the negative, the outline - everything our gaze seems to take for granted. Dobiszewski adds nothing, he just cuts out and moves,allowing the rhythms to become juicier through the absurd joy of things fitting like in a reverse puzzle. Do things become undone, this way, or are they put more clearly into their necessity? After all, this is the space for the space this is.


Another tasty moment requires distance.
Evidently, it's not about the painting. But the painting seems an important introduction (and the floor, and the floor). This creature, to the right (unfortunately I didn't write down the name or author), stands as its own double. It should not be approached (really, definitely, in cases like this I understand why beauty needs distance). As any mirage, it is only what it seems, a reflection, a game of angles, a line and a line and a line. It rings a bell, and another, and I wonder, is there a way of keeping it there, of not getting closer, of remaining within the illusion that there is something beyond, just a little more plenty.