October 16 - November 13 Opening: Friday October 15 at 6pm
P-H/P is an exhibition involving fragile, banal and familiar objects. Through a process of translation and transformation the objects are re-assembled into small monuments.
A series of fabricated small structures or platforms utilize found or impoverished materials. The platforms are all below waist height with each surface or interior left empty.
Each work is fashioned with regard to structure, transparency, mobility and efficiency. The ensemble of works responds to the gallery interior, particularly emphasising the viewer¡¯s navigation throughout the space.
post-heroic platform
One Monday afternoon waiting for a discount film to start, I recall scanning through the magazine rack, skimming for a hook. Searching for something attractive. Not the sweet smell of bubble gum but the brown of espresso.
In preview, a cover collage seduces. The foremost image is a wide-eyed French actress Amira Casar (sucking a finger banana). The peripheral is a rugged black and white mountainous terrain. At the bottom is the title:
POST-HEROIC LIFE IN THE LONG SHADOW OF WAR 12TH ISSUE BERLIN WINTER 2006/2007
To the right there is a small thumb nail of Richard Serra¡¯s sculpture Joe as seen in front of the Politzer Foundation in St. Louis, USA.
The magazine exposes a clue from the start, with the bright blue canvas spine, bound for extended use. Goethe said that winter is good for the soul, I wonder if this issue of 032c is a contemporary version of Goethe-ish soul food.
On the inside cover there is a heavy image, exposed through a light grey tone. The picture is of two armed men, dressed in military uniform , posed in step, about to kick in a door. The door seems to have served its purpose and kept people out for centuries, one can assume that this will change in the next fragment of a second. I wonder about the treatment of such a confrontational image, why is it subdued with soft grey tones?
The overall content appears to have a far-reaching axis. I noticed something I can¡¯t put my finger on. Some idea with many threads, an idea that, I cannot access passively, by consumption alone.
The curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist seems to utilise an interesting mix of post-heroic protocol in his extensive interview project. Obrist¡¯s included interview with the eighty-four year old Pop Art hero Richard Hamilton roams around a few topics with no clear direction. There are two parts of the article that interest me, the first being a nostalgic honouring of Hamilton¡¯s role in Pop Art (conveyed in Juergen Teller¡¯s photograph, camera in hand surrounded by three stripped-off young women). Hamilton is smiling back at the camera; the grin of a child in the playground on his face seems to display an innocent self-indulgent pleasure.
During the interview, Hamilton says there is hardly any point in talking about the future. This is an idea that seems sad regarding his own life but rather interesting for me in relating to the idea of Hamilton¡¯s Pop.
I wonder why Hamilton is included here, in his twilight glow. Is this indirect comment suggesting that the surface layers of Pop Art have finally become too slippery, has the veneer finally cracked or does Pop coincide with the end of a generation? Is it now time for J.G. Ballards post-consumer apocalypse from Kingdom Come to materialise?
Bidoun Editor, Negar Azimi is interested in a contemporary discourse around the art and culture in the Middle East. Like Hamilton, Azimi deals with heroic images but that is where the similarity seems to end. For me Hamilton is invested in a culture of indulgence. Azimi however is a creator who is willing to discuss his intentions and process as much as the literal material. ¡°There is power in having a platform especially since people don¡¯t know much about the Middle East¡±.1
It must be hard for any documentation to refrain from becoming exotic. ¡°We can¡¯t control how people consume the images we put out there, but we can go to lengths to think critically about our framing. We do this by avoiding the tendency to be authorities or absolutist, by providing context¡±2
It is hard for to imagine how I should appreciate such an elaborate milieu. I have lived in a number of different countries yet I have never lived within a heroic society and probably never will. Azimi proposes that it¡¯s all about framing, he prefers to use the term Conversations rather than Interview because the later implies a power relation. Bidoun embrace interviews by notable (alongside lesser-known) people on a parallel platform. There is a hope that the mix destabilises the idea of the notable interviewee.
¡°One thing that we¡¯re proud of is that Bidoun is a space in which you have established Western writers in the same space as young Egyptian bloggers, or someone who runs a heavy metal band in Teran. This is in a sense, unprecedented. But if you ask me what direction we¡¯re going in, I think we need a little bit more of that young Egyptian blogger rather than the big names who also write for Vanity Fair¡±.3
Bidoun seems to uphold clever tactics in their own development of the nature of power, specifically how one is able to utilize, embrace and promote creative output by a heroic society in a horizontal manner.
Amira Casar is today seen as one of the most prominent faces in French auteur cinema.
¡°Alexander Gorkow asks: If you could get say 1.5 million dollars for a role in a stupid American movie¡
Casar: Stop! I¡¯ve had those offers. Loads of money and I¡¯ve always refused.
Gorkow: Why?
Casar: Because life ends at some point, and then you¡¯ve made movies that are complete shit I have only one life, so I want to work with good people. ¡°I want to work with people who will walk hand in hand with me for a great story¡±4
The post-heroic society is a concept defined by Herfried Munkler. ¡°Munklers concept is a state in which we in the west have been living for over a century¡±. The way I first came across the concept was from Joachim Bessing¡¯s interview in 032c.
¡°Bessing: Where has the wish to be a hero disappeared to? Or is it merely pent up?
Munkler: I believe that we no longer have it.
Bessing: Honestly?
Munkler: Yes. Naturally, one would like to be a hero ¨C but no longer in the actual sense of sacrificing oneself. Except for a few cases, usually considered pathological by society, they can¡¯t be found. ¡°Hero¡± has quasi-developed into ¡°Star¡± Standing in the public eye has changed in view of the gender question and now it is attractive for both men and women in the same way. I believe that is the way in which the post-heroic society organizes its economy of attention¡±.5
The structure is stripped back; we are able to let the cracks show through. One must remember the power of imagination as an instrument for social change.
Nicki Wynnychuk, 2007
(Footnotes)
1 Interview by Brian J. Sholes, ¡°Without Borders: Bidoun Magazine, P70-71 032c Berlin Winter 2006/7 12th Issue ¡°Post-Heroic¡±,
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Interview by Alexander Gorkow, ¡°Amira Casar¡±, P114, 032c Berlin Winter 2006/7 12th Issue ¡°Post-Heroic.
5 Interview by Joachim Bessing, ¡°The Post-Heroic Society according to Herfried Munkler¡±, P52, 032c Berlin Winter 2006/7 12th Issue ¡°Post-Heroic¡±,
Andrew Liversidge
SPACE (BLANKET)
October 16 - November 13 Opening: Friday October 15 at 6pm
tertium no datur (the impossible does not follow from the possible)
If we make some obvious assumptions about the relation between the essay accompanying an exhibition, and what takes place in an exhibition, then:
Letting S be the act of reading this essay outlining the conceptual parameters of the new work that I have made for the exhibition space (blanket), and S¡ä be the act of reading this essay outlining the conceptual parameters for why I have not made a work for the exhibition space (blanket); and letting P be the proposition that there was a work made for the exhibition, and P¡ä be the proposition that there was not a work made for the exhibition; the argument goes:
If P is true, then it is not in your power to do S¡ä (for if P is true, then there is, or was, a lacking condition essential for your doing S¡ä, the condition, namely, of there being a work made for the exhibition)
But if P¡ä is true, then it is not in your power to do S (for a similar reason)
But either P is true or P¡ä is true
So, either it is not in your power to do S or it is not in your power to do S¡ä
Thus, it is never in your power to do anything other than what you actually do and you must logically conclude that this essay outlines the conceptual parameters for the new work that I have made for the exhibition space (blanket).
