An artist on a residency in
a center for curatorial studies.
A poem which denies all sense
and reason.
A dada-esque poem which is
denied all sense and reason.
A hobby horse without a job.
An unemployed hobbyhorse,
denied by sense and reason.
An artist on a residency in a
Center for Curatorial Studies.
Version 3, June 18, 2013
In this text, I will refer to myself as
“artist ” – not because I necessarily identify as such, but because in my
current affair with CCS, the Center for
Curatorial Studies, I am referred to as
the artist -in- residence .
***
This year’s spring exhibitions at CCS
are composed of the 14 student-curated
exhibitions and projects (entitled less
like an object more like the weather) and
duo-solo show Monogamy (Sarah Pierce
and Gerard Byrne, curated by Tirdad
Zolghadr). The exhibitions opened on
March 24 and are currently occupying
both CCS exhibition spaces, the Hessel
Museum and CCS Galleries. The shows
will be on view until May 21. My artist
residency began on February 1 and will
end on May 31.
An artist on a residency in a
Center for Curatorial Studies.
A poem which denies all sense
and reason – the first sentence
describing my current situation and
whereabouts, the latter being part of
a quote taken from the website www.
poemofquotes.com,
host to the Dada
Poetry Generator.
This web application randomly deconstructs the syntax of existing paragraphs and spits out a somewhat
nonsensical (hence surfacely dadaesque) six-liner. The Dada in Poetry
Generator, so explains the website, is
inspired by the randomness at work in
the naming of the movement in 1916,
which was – according to urban legend
– a product of mere chance.
(Wikipedia did not help me backing
up my wording here. Instead, doublechecking the accuracy of
“urban legend” gave way
to a trickier, yet much
more interesting question. One day in 1916,
two years before publishing the Dada Manifesto,
Tristan Tzara – on the
quest for a suitable title
– threw a paper knife at
a French Dictionary and the
blade stuck at precisely the
entry for “hobbyhorse”, “dada”
in French. Another less exciting
theory says that Tzara, being Romanian,
frequently used the words da da, “yes”
in most Slavic languages.
According to wiki, the term “urban
legend” is used to “differentiate modern
legend from traditional folklore in preindustrial times”. Whether the of naming
Dada is thus located in “folkloric” or
“modern” times, largely depends on
whether one would count the movement as belonging to art history (hence
Modernism) or human history (Modernity) in first place – and on whether one
then relates to pre- or post-industrial
times in regard to the manifestation of
Futurism or the advent of the industrial
revolution).
Back to the merely clarifying intention of this introduction. A total of fiftynine artist s, respectively their works,
are currently on display at the Hessel
Museum and CCS Galleries (in less
like an object more like the weather and
Monogamy), including writers, dancers,
designers, a lawyer and a mathematician. I, the artist on a residency /
the poem which denies all sense
and reason / used the Dada Poetry
Generator to render excerpts from freely
available PR materials of those fiftynine artist s into nonsensical poetry.
I am publishing this volume of poems
as a Portable Document Format on a
customized and logoprinted USB wristband (together with a
karaoke instrumental
and the most recent
version of this essay)
on the occasion of the
bookshop project Point
of Sale, curated by
second-year student Karly Wildenhaus.
It’s also the third of my responses as part
of this residency.
***
One can look at this PDF-volume of
poems as a sort of immaterial group
show of fifty-nine textual representations of the respective artist ic (and
other) practices. Linked only by time,
space and occasion and denied all
sense and reason, the semantic
leftovers of marketing vocabulary, highspeed-career-achievement-sum-ups
and the omnipresent International Art
English may reverberate the sensation
an artist might feel struck by on a
residency in a center for curatorial studies.
***
Extracts from public relational texts
were swiftly gathered on the internet,
press releases from gallery or institutional pages, quasi-encyclopedic
entries from big muscle museum
websites, online articles, blogs. While
trying to prioritize texts that are more
of a descriptive and less interpretive
nature, I noticed four main categories:
1) there’s the big names that have made
it to encyclopedias like Britannica or
collection-based entries on power structures like Tate or MoMA. The importance
of those artist s seems to be located
beyond any necessity of introduction
or explanation. Such entries on, say,
Bruce Nauman, are rather partying
an success- and eventful biography
peppered with a master piece here and
an exciting turning point there, usually
concluding with a list of overall and insti-
tutional achievements. 2) Then there’s
the well-covered mid-career artist
with a rather boring array of efficient
sources and well-written coverage. 3)
The seriously emerging artist s are
press release-heavy, with less reflexive
materials to be found and more immediate, opinionated, at times passionate
responses on Frieze and such. 4) There’s
not much to be found about what the
work of the (post) web-based artists
really is about, but one does get an idea
of what their ideas might be “based on”,
typically illustrated by a well-groomed
event log.
(a jump)
I have been thinking about how I experienced art and design before entering
into the academic structure, hoping
to find clues as to whether a sort of
innate (“unreflected”) creativity simply
belonged to me or whether my creative
pursuits were more the product of intent
and determination, common symptoms
of adulthood.
During my childhood and teenage years,
my creative output was entirely motivated by love and affection: I would
only engage in “creative” activities (yet
obsessively so) when making gifts for
friends and family. I would draw clues
from shared experiences, personal
histories, things they liked. Often the
gifts were made for special occasions
and were useful of some sort, things one
could use or wear, like boxes, candles,
pillows, clothing or accessories. A big
rat pillow for my best friend, as she was
forbidden to get a rat as a pet or a card-
board box in the shape of that same
friend’s favorite bunny that had just
passed away, with 3-dimensional replicas of its head, limbs and tail attached
to the box.
My pre-academic creative drive was
clearly motivated by care and a sense of
usefulness.
***
What kind of “project” do I engage with
(apart from teaching a workshop on
exhibition documentation) as artist in- residenc e under the rooftop of an
educational institution that is host to
a vast collection of contemporary art,
a museum and exhibitions spaces, a
mind-blowing library and archive AND a
master program for curatorial studies? The educational beehive and input
madness indoors is crassly contrasted
by the remote location of the Center
for Curatorial
Studies on the
wooded campus of
Bard College along the Hudson river is.
A senior academic advisor, had warned
me about, quote, “CCS’ dual vocation of
academic program and curatorial boot
camp”.
I approached the residency loosely
inspired by fisherman’s wisdom and a
care-ful rekindling of that pre-academic
flame of attention and generosity. I
decided to act in response to the structural effects and affects of location,
building, curriculum, institutional structures, faculty and students.
***
The first “work” that made sense in
that mindset was a video animation I
conceived
to conclude
my introductory talk at
CCS early on
in February.
Entitled “The
big rat pillow and a furry bunny box”, my
presentation was built around the revision of past and recent works in relation
to their potential as gifts. Invested in the
idea of art works as potential embodiments of sharing and materializations
of generosity above all, screening the
video functioned as an applied gesture
of “giving”, a work made for this specific
occasion and for CCS’ English-speaking
audience.
***
My mother had taken my sister and I to
Hamburg to see Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s musical CATS in 1990, and I
subsequently immersed myself in the
magical world of dancing and singing
cats like only a 10 year
old girl can. I carried the
cassette tape of the German version
(Deutsche Original-aufnahme) around
with me everywhere I went and knew
(and embarrassingly so still do) all songs
and voices by heart. The video is a desktop recording of my
literal English translation of the German
version of the postmodern elegy of Gus,
The Theatre Cat. Gus, the old theatre
cat, was the embodiment of the classic
notion of an “artist ic personality” _ and
my first conscious encounter with art
as such.
In his appearance as an
aged stage actor who had lived a
long and intense life on and off stage
(booze), Gus is rhymingly reminiscent
of the good old times when cat theatre
(art ) was free of irony and really moved
people, when cat actors (artist s) were
made of heart and soul, not dough and
attitude.
I like to think that no other than Gus
planted the
bitter-sweet
duality of attraction and suspicion into little
Rebecca’s
understanding of what the art world was
all about.
***
My second response was the result of
a surprisingly organic and effortless
conversation with Marina Noronha,
another graduating second-year
student.
Talking
about the
mediation of her
exhibition, we’d
discuss
about cross-disciplinary collaborations and how to get rid of the work in
art work altogether. As Marina used
curatorial interventions and strategies
as her material for Unless otherwise
noted, I in turn
used her exhibition information
(curatorial statement, wall labels,
accompanying
photograph, list
of plant names and and the visualization of an algorithm) as our “collaborative” material for my contribution to her
exhibition. Situated between invitation
and briefing, I was interested in creating an autonomous, yet fully legible, wall
piece that would tease the traditional
format of the wall text and question the
visitors’ expectations thereof. The rhythmic surface of the laminated loops is in
continuous rivalry with the underlying
gestural layer of information – the “material” the work is made of. An ambiguous
image between pattern and information,
distant aesthetics and close reading.
***
While reflecting on the hierarchies of
cultural practices and the dissemination of medium specificity amongst my
generation of artists and designers, I
caught myself thinking in exactly those
categories, namely whether the various
shades of my residential responsiveness weren’t more characteristics of a
designer’s than an artist ’s mind: the
designer as a mediator of given content
on a specific occasion.
***
In the past years, the numbers of artist
publications have exploded from a
rather quiet niche into a busy market
place. While acknowledging the sincere
efforts (money and time) that many
small publishing houses, publishers,
editors, designers are investing in this
marginalized cultural publishing, I can’t
help but feeling more and more out of
place in this ocean that used to feel like
a bathtub. But maybe that’s just what
happens when growing up: that endless
front yard turns out not to quite mean
the entire world but rather a fairly small
piece of land, next to another yard and
another street and another house.
The rise of availability, visibility, cheaper
production modes and a general revival
of the artist book have unfortunately
given way to an increased parasitical
and cynical usage of cultural publishing:
many artist books, institutional publications or gallery-initiated publications
are intended as multipaged business
cards above all, as proofs of legitimacy,
output and “happening”. More so than
being motivated by or concerned with,
again, generosity or a sense of urgency.
***
As with most of my projects, this one,
plugged into your computer or mobile
device, is a test (or experiment, forgive
the bore of that word). Although “test”
or “experiment” only come close to
the word I am trying to convey, which
is the antonym to German “Kalkül”. In
the words of the German Bourgeoisie,
a “Kalkül” is a calculated act, typically
in one’s own interests and insensible to
the people affected. It is often used as
the opposite of “Gefühl” (feeling, sense,
emotion), which happens to rhyme with
“Kalkül”, yet only partly describes what
I mean. I am looking for Gefühl in regard
to intent, with a pinch of surprise and
frankness, lightness sincere. This word
would thus describe *here* whether this
USB-object and PDF-publiation can be
felt as a sincere promotional hybrid, in a
way that make object and content come
together more efficiently (contemporarily?) while seeking ways to translate the
artist book’s potential into a gift or
exchange economy beyond the limitations of printed matter.
Logo printed USB drives are promotional objects. Promoting the positive
qualities of the relationship between
giver and taker (be it strategically or
emotionally) is what every gift wants.
The promotional gift is certainly tautological, rarely cynical.
* **
The flash drive wristband is accessory,
cover, and an artist multiple in the
edition of fifty. The colors of “Da Da Da”
on the USB are taken from the colors of
the covers of
Pantone 422
the three publications that
accompany the
current Hessel
Museum/CCS
exhibitions less
like an object
more like the
weather and
Pantone 489 Monogamy.
Pantone 316
My fiddling with
the multi-potential of a USB drive vs.
the single-potential of paper was inter-
rupted by a somewhat bumpy associative jump from the employment of Dada
by the makers of the Poetry Generator
to German New Wave 80s uber-classic
earworm “Da Da Da”, by TRIO. Lets
embrace the multi-media-fun of the USB
as a performative act: tune in the karaoke instrumental of
the triple Da while
you read, put it on a
loop, read out loud
or mix in the rhythmic sound of the
desktop printer of
your choice.
The volume of poems is arranged on US
letter format for an easy “print at home”
experience under standardized parameters.
The binder clip would like to invite you
to print and clip the volume of poems at
home.
And Maize Yellow is the corporate color
of the Center for Curatorial
Studies.