#Documenta 15

[gregdotorg]

Something's in the air, or maybe it's just LA, but I've been getting wafts of incense from the art lately. Conceptual perfume artist Chris Rusak published a zine survey of liturgical incense, including some made by artisanal monks. Meanwhile, in New York, artist/mage L is showing an altar made from a vestment rack from an anarchist priest, which includes a custom collab incense made with Maison Anonyme. It was last seen/sensed at Documenta 15.

[zehrcoolpotato]

A Touch from the Abyss

“To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”— Elie Wiesel, preface to ‘Night’ (2006)

As if free-falling, the body plunged into darkness. Humid air dampened the skin, cooled the ground, and diffused an earthy scent. The wind’s symphonies sounded celestial from a distance, enchanting the listener into nocturnal woods. This ambience was characterised by “âm”, the form and expression of ‘And They Die a Natural Death’ (2022) by artist and filmmaker Nguyễn Trinh Thi. A homophone in the Vietnamese language, âm has different usages, some of which provide clues to understanding humanist concerns in this work.

In the Vietnamese language, the syllable âm denotes distinct meanings. As a Vietnamese observer, I realised an existing language barrier—artistically and linguistically—that poses a challenge in contextualising ‘And They Die a Natural Death’. By introducing the word âm, I attempt to illuminate foundational layers of Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s presence at documenta fifteen, which is arguably one of the most prominent global exhibitions.

Nguyễn Trinh Thi, ‘And They Die a Natural Death’, 2022, chilli pepper plants, wind, bamboo flutes, projection, monitor. Installation view, Rondell, Kassel. Image courtesy of the artist.

Rondell (circular building on the left), exterior view, Kassel, 2006. Photo by Eva Kröcher. Wikimedia Commons. 

Âm 音: sonic, sound

A site-specific art installation, ‘And They Die a Natural Death’ was a public intervention reviving Rondell—Kassel’s long-standing defensive tower built in 1523 and was said to later house torture facilities in its underground vaults. As part of the installation, a high-tech system recreated and implanted the natural environment of Tam Đảo forest in Vietnam. Via this hidden automated design, the Tam Đảo wind was generated in Rondell’s interior, and composed rhythms with the bamboo flutes in the dome. In this absolutely dark cinematic space, sound became the main device to storytelling.

Recently, Nguyễn Trinh Thi began to incorporate new media in her work, including organic materials and natural forces, prioritising the art of listening over mere representation. She experimented with sound as the primary technical apparatus. An ethnographic research trip to the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 2021 touched the artist so significantly that she dedicated her film to the J’rai culture of listening.2 ‘How to Improve the World’ (2021) is the documentary film that acts as a prelude to ‘And They Die a Natural Death’. By appropriating musician John Cage’s diary titled ‘How to Improve the World: You Will Only Make Matters Worse’ (1992), the filmmaker suggests that we should listen to the world around us to survive ecological crises together.3

Âm 荫: tree shade

The Tam Đảo wind not only created sounds inside Rondell, but also activated a lighting system to blow up silhouettes of bird’s eye chilli plants hidden underneath the platform. Enlarged shadows reached the highest parts of the dome, casting a luxuriant forest onto Rondell’s circular wall. Using small plants as main actors, the artist built an eco-theater in which non-human agency played a crucial role in the retelling of death. Chilli pepper shadows inside Rondell formed a panoramic ink painting, and this visual quality could be said to reference East Asian traditional art. In feudal China, the landscape genre seeks to express harmony between Heaven and Earth and cosmic wholeness between humans and nature, and this is observed with the installation.

Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s use of shadow as a visual signifier is not unlike American American artist Kara Walker’s signature strategy, which elicits the legacy of slavery through stereotypical--often grotesque--cut-paper silhouettes. Such technique aids the artists to walk the lines between pleasure and pain, visibility and invisibility, power and oppression. 

Preparation of chilli pepper plants before being installed underneath the viewer's platform in the Rondell. Original caption: “She took care of everything - production, plants, people, and text. I’m deeply grateful.” Image courtesy of the artist.

The electrical system which measured the wind’s intensity was being set up in Tam Đảo, Vietnam. Originally captioned “Thank you so much Đức for sending us your wind!!!” Image courtesy of the artist.

Âm 喑: muteness

Like the other projects at documenta fifteen, Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s installation recalled a testimony denied by grand history. ‘And They Die a Natural Death’ was a mute cry for loss and brutality. The artist referenced a chapter in Bùi Ngọc Tấn’s memoir in prison, A Tale For 2000.4 In the labour camp, male prisoners longed for the spicy heat of chilli pepper. One day, the discovery of a vast pepper tree forest caused an uprising in the camp. Unable to control the mob, furious guards fired in the air and ended up shooting a prisoner. The mob went silent and returned to the camp; their hands still held on to the chilli peppers as if it represented fleeting freedom.

As a site-specific project, ‘And They Die a Natural Death’ connected to local history in Kassel. In the Nazi era, the city witnessed book burning, destruction of Jewish synagogue, concentration camps, and Adolf Hitler’s speech in the first Reich Warriors’ Convention. Within this context, the installation can be interpreted as a passive mourning. Its dim lights and eerie sounds gestured towards, in the words of philosopher Jacques Ranciere, “the representation of the inhuman.”5 This rhetorical device employs micro-description of actions, which highlights the absence of humanity experienced in prisoner camps from Bùi Ngọc Tấn’s memoir and Kassel’s Nazi past.

Âm 陰: the underworld

Nguyễn Trinh Thi is neither the first nor the only artist to adapt a ruin’s history in a retelling of memory. However, her philosophy, deeply rooted in Taoism, fostered aesthetic qualities that were peculiar to East Asian and Vietnamese worldviews. In 1987, German artist Rebecca Horn also addressed history by staging a site-specific installation ‘Concert in Reverse’ in a Munster fortification, which was built around the same time as Rondell. While both artists intrigued their audiences with cinematic experiences and sounds from ordinary tools, for Nguyễn Trinh Thi, darkness was crucial to the mise-en-scène of death. Such an artistic strategy inserted the Vietnamese spiritual belief that the dead are not far gone, and that their souls stay in the underworld. With its 10-metre-thick wall, humid air, and absolute absence of light, Rondell became a vessel, displacing viewers to enter a space outside of time. The haunting yet meditative ambience enchanted listeners to feel a tender touch from the abyss.

A story about death is a reminder that nature’s flow waits for no one. However, by narrating death, both storyteller and listener resist this flow and encounter the deceased in a parallel reality. This temporal convergence offers a space for grief, and in some cases, the telling of death helps to make sense of loss.

At documenta fifteen, Nguyễn Trinh Thi presented her ongoing investigation of anti-representation, nonhuman agency, and power. She conceived of  “landscapes as quiet witnesses to history.”7 ‘And They Die a Natural Death’ was a live theatre in which nonhuman actors--wind and chilli pepper plants--took centre stage. In this nonverbal retelling of death, artistic strategies were utilised to engage the viewer’s multiple senses. By imagining a gate to the underworld, the artist staged a landscape that connected Kassel and the Tam Đảo forest where the prisoner died a natural death.

[marcogiovenale]

esce 'roots § routes' n. 42, agosto 2023

Care.Cure.Curate: un viaggio verbale da leggere tutto d’un fiato ma anche una curva sonora non puramente melodica che raccoglie in un breve segmento un caleidoscopio di declinazioni possibili della parola cura. Una parola oggi a rischio di depotenziamento per il suo arrotondamento morbido, spesso ridotto a pratiche empatiche nell’universo delle micro-relazioni umane preferibilmente appaltate alla…

[ksnhr2015]

30 Jahre Künstler-Nekropole Kassel

Nach mehr als zehnjähriger Vorbereitungszeit konnte Ende des Jahres 1992 der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert werden, was der Kasseler Hochschulprofessor und Initiator Harry Kramer seit 1980 beharrlich vorangetrieben hatte: Die Übergabe der beiden Grabkunstwerke von Rune Mields und Timm Ulrichs am 1. Oktober vor 30 Jahren markiert den offiziellen Beginn der Künstler-Nekropole Kassel im…

[masorad]

[sexypinkon]

                                 S    E     X     Y       P      I      N      K

Another year of highest highs and devastating lows greeted us in 2022. We had much for which to be happy and hopeful, sad and hurt. But the Art keeps us alive and for that we are all extremely grateful. Here is to 2023. We shall persevere and be stronger than ever because that is what ART does.

[wodkapudding]

15 questions

tagged by @firstaudrina - because i am a mutual :>

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?: it's complicated. basically i have the same first name as my grandmother, great-grandmother and her sister, great-great-grandmother. however, because we have so many elizabeths in my family, we all use nicknames and apparently my dad (who comes from the family of elizabeths) had forgotten that all those nicknames were short forms of elizabeth. so technically no, but also kind of yes.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: sometime in the last week, when i was trying to process my great uncle passing away.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?: no. also no intention of having any.

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?: karate, judo

DO YOU USE SARCASM?: what's that?

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?: eyes (face in general).

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOUR?: brown

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?: definitely happy endings, because i get scared easily. however, i love ambiguous endings. no scary movies for me though!

ANY TALENTS?: research?!

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?: documenta stadt kassel, nordhessen represent.

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?: writing, making little collages and putting them in mini zines or on postcards, making junk journals (still a rookie and i dread the binding process), reading (fiction, popculture related nonfiction, philosophy, literary theory), letter writing, going for walks, amateurish photography, cooking.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?: sadly not. i used to have two pet bunnies as a teenager. and i dream of having pet capybaras.

HOW TALL ARE YOU?: 5'4 / 1.65 m (i'm taller than you, megan!)

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?: history, philosophy, mathematics, english.

DREAM JOB?: if they let me, i'd happily do research and teach philosophy until retirement age. realistically, i honestly don't know. i don't have kids or a wife to provide for, so i'll see.

Tagging @deanwinchesterpregnant, @maxwellshimbo, @lalalenii, @bybdolan, @esskuesli, @whispering-imp, @winter-angst and @daughterofhecata, in case you feel like doing it!

[banffcentrelibraryandarchives]

ARTIST BOOK DISPLAY JANUARY 2023

Copperplate cookbook again : a portfolio by Year 2000 undergraduate printmakers. Nicole Brabant. [Regina, SK] : University of Regina, Faculty of Fine Arts, Dept. of Visual Arts, 2000.

2008 Seoul International Book Arts Fair. Seoul International Book Arts Fair, Sŏng-jae Song. [Seoul, Korea] : Artistbookseoul, 2008.

Language of Color. Olaf Nicolai, Annelie, Pohlen, Bonner Kunstverein. [Bonn] : Bonner Kunstverein, 2000.

Printed Matter Special : 2010 NY Art Book Fair edition. Misaki Kawai, Printed Matter Inc., NY Art Book Fair. [New York, N.Y.] : Printed Matter, Inc, 2010.

Artforumx : summary. Parasitic Ventures Press. [Toronto] : Parasitic Ventures Press. 2010.

Persistent Huts. Derek Sullivan. [New York, N.Y.] : Printed Matter, Inc, 2008.

15 Lombard St. Janice Kerbel, Stefan. Kalmár, Book Works. [London] : Book Works, 2000.

Christian Marclay: The Clock. Christian Marclay, Honey Luard, Darian Leader, White Cube. [London] : White Cube, 2010.

The Day Mubarak was Tried. Nawāl Saʻdāwī, Documenta. [Ostfildern] : Hatje Cantz, 2011.

Two Novels and Two Women. Ṣunʻ Allāh Ibrāhīm, Documenta. [Ostfildern] : Hatje Cantz, 2011.

Deadstar : A Ghost Town. Janice Kerbel, Mark Godfrey, Lyall Watson, Susan Morgan. [Newcastle upon Tyne] : Locus+ Publishing, 2006.

[betontulpen]

documenting documenta II #betontulpen #artgram #_di_ma #banalmag #architecture #documentingspace #banalography #BeautifulBuildings #beton #gayart #germanphotography #lekkerzine #lostplaces #lucecurated #streets_unseen #newtopographics #nofilter #photozine #ThroughTheLens #urban #awfulmagazine #urbanphotography #urbanshots #kassel #documenta15 (hier: Documenta 15) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkWBXdhsVkq/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[capybaraonabicycle]

For the art ask game, 3, 15 and 16?

Thank you for the ask!! I was so hoping someone would send one in :)

3. What artist do you wish people knew more about?

This is difficult because I am mostly aware of the standard artists you meet in art class - almost all of which are western men - and the most 'niche' of the ones I love would be like Georges Braques and Wassily Kandinsky and Umberto Boccioni and Edward Hopper and Canaletto and Ai Weiwei and Franz Marc - and I feel like for any one of those names I will have people at my throat for mentioning them in a sentence that includes the word 'niche'.

There are two that I can name though, that I don't know from art class and I believe they are at least somewhat niche:

There is Kent Monkman, a contemporary queer Cree artist who I was introduced to at uni. He uses a multitude of art forms (and you can check them out on his website) but I am most familiar with his paintings, especially the "Shame and Prejudice" exhibition that we looked at in class.

The exhibition features Monkman's genderqueer alter ego Miss Chief Testickle who tells Canadian history from her perspective and the paintings are, in my opinion, very clever and impactful. I analysed "The Subjugation of Truth" for class and there is a ton of subtle symbolism to drive the political message (painting in traditional settler style, putting the viewer into the position of the indigenous men, having the queen hover menacingly above it all) in the art work.

This is it:

Another really famous of the works is "Resurgence of the people" which references an old settler image with George Washington replaced by Miss Chief:

I'm not sure whether this one is the exact reference but it quotes some picture like this:

I really like Monkman's style and I think his images are very strong and often for the topic of indigenous history with settlers, the violence in them is palpable. Another impressive one would be "The Scream" :

Then I would like to mention the possibly most important artist of my childhood, Estonian-Swedish illustrator Ilon Wikland. She illustrated most of Astrid Lindgren's books and her style is just - so cozy and soft, I want to live in her art.

I feel like many people do know the books and her art, but few will know her name. So she counts :) (she's still alive btw, I had to look that up and was surprised)

15. Share a photo of your favorite contemporary artwork

I'm not sure I have one special favourite art work but this is something I saw at the documenta exhibition semi-recently and it really stuck with me. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to find the title, but I remember it was something similar to "deep belly breath".

(It's the blue one in the front)

It's a pretty big plastic, higher than I am tall and it is fluffy and blue and there is water in the middle. I love it mostly for looking like an alien being, but the fluffyness has a nice feel to it too (or rather 'a nice look', I obviously didn't touch it). Together with the title and the water and the dark fur on the inside, there is a sort of desperation and drowning feeling to it, softened by the fact you really want to hug it and climb into the water and be safe in your cocoon.

No idea whether any of this was intentional, but I had to stick with it for a good 10 min before being able to walk on (even though I was already tired) and I had to come back multiple times. I also had my aunt take a picture of me with the art and I am wearing a dw shirt so it's perfect :)

The work was made by someone from the art collective *foundationClass, an organisation based in Berlin who prepare students for art school. They made a bunch of cool, often political, art for the documenta

I have to say I am also particularly fond of the Möbiusship, though, that has been circulating on tumblr

16. What museum or gallery do you want to visit?

I really want to visit the Munch museum! He is one of my favourite artists and when I was in Oslo once, the museum was closed for renovation. But now it should have reopened, so I just need to get myself to Norway and reserve a full day for Munch :)

[universalcovers]

“I’m more interested in looking for something transitory than in producing a conclusion.”

Pierre Huyghe

“I’m interested in contingency,” the French artist Pierre Huyghe has said. “Of what is not predictable. Of what is unknown. I think that has somehow been a core of my work.”1 Pursuing interests in contingency and unpredictability, Huyghe creates art forms that incorporate living organisms, such as dogs, turtles, spiders, peacocks, ants, and bees. Over the course of an exhibition, his living works of art grow, decay, and die. Huyghe said, “They are not made for us. They are not made to be looked at. They exist in themselves.”2

Throughout his career, Huyghe has experimented with many mediums and technologies, including film, sculpture, photography, music, and living ecosystems. At the outset of his career, Huyghe collaborated with artists whose work explored human relations and their social context; to describe their interests, the curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term Relational Aesthetics. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Huyghe’s works often reenacted notable artworks or popular footage from mass media. In Silence Score (English Version), a musical notation of John Cage’s pivotal composition 4'33", he created a readable score for the silent piece using a computer algorithm.

In 1997, with artists Charles de Meaux, Philippe Parreno, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and curators Xavier Douroux and Franck Gautherot, Huyghe cofounded a film production company called Anna Sanders Films. They named the company after a fictional character first developed in a magazine released in 1997. Blanche-Neige Lucie, the company’s first film, stars Lucie Doléne, the voice actor who dubbed the Disney character Snow White in French, and who won a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Corporation for the rights to the reproduction of her voice. The film features Doléne humming the melody of “Someday My Prince Will Come” in an empty film studio, facing the camera, while her story is told through the subtitles. The work explores how a voice can be used to create a character, and who then owns that product.

The Host and The Cloud fuses scripted action and improvised narratives generated by the actors. The yearlong project records theatrical events that took place in an abandoned museum in Paris on three holidays: the Day of the Dead, Valentine’s Day, and May Day. In a variety of fictional settings, 15 actors clad in LED masks perform alongside puppets and animation. These spontaneous elements reflect Huyghe’s interest in contingency and adding dynamic layers to his storylines.

Originally created for Documenta 13 in 2012, Huyghe’s Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) is a reclining female nude whose head is covered by a live beehive. The work was part of an entire ecological system the artist created in a composting area in Karlsaue Park in Kassel, Germany. In a video Huyghe filmed during the exhibition, his camera captured a wide range of beings at different scales, including minute species that are barely visible to the naked eye. Huyghe aims to “intensify the presence of things, to find its own particular presentation, its own appearance and its own life, rather than subjecting it to pre-established models.”3 With interest in “the transitory state, in the in-between,” his complex worlds blur the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the physical and the virtual, and the real and the fictional.4 In 2015 and again in 2023, the statue found itself in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, placed in a new context and in conversation with other works of art. During the summer, the bees travel in and out of the garden to pollinate and build their hive.

Huyghe’s artistic practice reflects his belief that life is in constant flux, and that all beings exist beyond the perceivable realm of human senses and knowledge. By engaging with unconventional materials and technologies, he provides us with a way to see, feel, and experience the wild, untilled world we are living in.

Source: MoMA / Pic: YBCA

[badarchitecturesucks]

Maria Eichhorn, 15 Stavropoulou, Athens, building and plot for Building as unowned property, 2017, Documenta 14

[photographydevoted]

Tras 16 horas de operación en la Clínica Cleveland de Ohio, los cirujanos finalizan la compleja tarea de retirar el rostro de un donante de órganos. Impresionados por la imagen y la seriedad de su trabajo, el equipo se queda en silencio mientras el personal documenta el rostro entre sus dos vidas. Los cirujanos pasarían otras 15 horas fijando el rostro a Katie Stubblefield.Mostrar menos

FOTOGRAFÍA DE LYNN JOHNSON

[marcogiovenale]

pasquale polidori: una lettura di documenta fifteen

da leggere e includere in qualsiasi ragionamento e dialogo in tema di arte, processualità, condivisione, …: https://unclosed.eu/rubriche/osservatorio/recensioni-attualita/400-le-sedie-di-documenta-fifteen-per-un-sabotaggio-del-pathos.html … …

[shape]

Wenn die IDF Kulturkritik betreibt, bleibt nichts übrig vom antisemitischen Kunstwerk der Documenta 15

[fashionbooksmilano]

Enzo Cucchi e Ettore Sottsass

Salvatore Lacagnina 

testi di Roberto Giustini, Barbara Radice, Enzo Cucchi

Charta, Milano 2001, 64 pagine, 21 x 30 cm, 60 ill.di cui 52 a colori, Italiano/English, ISBN  978-8881583638

euro 15,00

email if you want to buy :booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Siracusa, Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea Montevergini, 15 settembre - 10 dicembre 2001.

Two subversive creators propose a dialogue inspired by a land they both love: Sicily. The artist Cucchi and the architect Sottsass met for the first time in 1999; this book documents the drawings, projects and sketches they have realized together since then.

Enzo Cucchi (Morro d'Alba, 1949) e Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck, 1917) , due sovversivi, due ribelli naturali, ci propongono un dialogo nel segno di una terra amata da entrambi: la Sicilia. Se l'immaginario di Cucchi è vicino al sentimento mitologico e alla sacralità di cui è tradizionalmente ricca la cultura siciliana, il lavoro di Sottsass ha sempre tratto linfa e suggestioni dai colori, dal paesaggio e dall'architettura mediterranei. Si incontrano per la prima volta nel 1999 su un terreno comune di riflessioni e di visioni, ma nel dialogo intrapreso, le loro voci hanno sempre conservato un carattere chiaro e sempre nettamente distinto. Il volume documenta le opere a quattro mani in due anni di collaborazione: i disegni, i progetti, gli schizzi, fino all'allestimento nella Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea Montevergini di Siracusa, dove Sottsass ha realizzato una struttura per ospitare due sculture greche del V secolo a.C., e Cucchi ha dipinto due grandi stuoie di canne fluviali che pendono leggere dal soffitto.

12/11/22

orders to:     booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

ordini a:        booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

twitter:         @fashionbooksmi

instagram:   fashionbooksmilano, designbooksmilano tumblr:          fashionbooksmilano, designbooksmilano