Aspects of Research
Art Forum, May 2005 (p.255):
"We live in the informations age, and that explains the growing and probably excessive eagerness of some artists to accumulate data (images, recordings, graphics, and texts) in the course of analyzing a given problematic. Supposedly, gathering such materials will provide a more complete understanding of the intricacies of the topic at hand. This socioligically informed approach has become characteristic of a large number of contemporary art practices, as witnesses in the last two Documentas. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between a TV documentary and an artist's work. Indeed, some art producers, to use Catherine David's term, do not differentiate between political activism and art." - Juan Vicente Aliaga
Part of what was interesting about this was that this was the intro to a short review of work by Pep Dardanya, and Aliaga never gets around to explaining how this paragraph really connects to the artist's work. I am curious about the "supposedly" he throws in there; I would assume that research could only aid an artist in making work. Perhaps he is hinting at the artist who would hide behind the research in a project, or try to justify a half-assed project by the amount of research put into it. At Documenta 11 (in 2002) I was struck by the amount of the kind of work he's talking about, specifically in that most of it was really, really boring. It seemed like that work needed the art context to justify it, because on strict documentary terms, most failed miserably. It will be interesting to see what is in this Venice Biennale, if there is a recent shift away from the kind of work or not.
Which brings me to the Biennale: I will most likely be slowing down my studio production a bit in the next week or two to see what is going on in town. I will try to get some images of work from the Biennale to post for those of you who can't make it out here, with some writing.
"We live in the informations age, and that explains the growing and probably excessive eagerness of some artists to accumulate data (images, recordings, graphics, and texts) in the course of analyzing a given problematic. Supposedly, gathering such materials will provide a more complete understanding of the intricacies of the topic at hand. This socioligically informed approach has become characteristic of a large number of contemporary art practices, as witnesses in the last two Documentas. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between a TV documentary and an artist's work. Indeed, some art producers, to use Catherine David's term, do not differentiate between political activism and art." - Juan Vicente Aliaga
Part of what was interesting about this was that this was the intro to a short review of work by Pep Dardanya, and Aliaga never gets around to explaining how this paragraph really connects to the artist's work. I am curious about the "supposedly" he throws in there; I would assume that research could only aid an artist in making work. Perhaps he is hinting at the artist who would hide behind the research in a project, or try to justify a half-assed project by the amount of research put into it. At Documenta 11 (in 2002) I was struck by the amount of the kind of work he's talking about, specifically in that most of it was really, really boring. It seemed like that work needed the art context to justify it, because on strict documentary terms, most failed miserably. It will be interesting to see what is in this Venice Biennale, if there is a recent shift away from the kind of work or not.
Which brings me to the Biennale: I will most likely be slowing down my studio production a bit in the next week or two to see what is going on in town. I will try to get some images of work from the Biennale to post for those of you who can't make it out here, with some writing.
posted by Lou at 9:15 AM
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