Abbas Kiarostami - "Five"

Abbas Kiarostami became famous with the film A Taste of Cherry (1997), then confirmed his class in Ten (2002), a powerful film created with a near-unparalleled technical economy.
In Five, Kiarostami seems to go further than ever before. The subtitle says it all: Five long takes. Five takes*. Long takes. Of water, and a few other elements. We have the beach, the dock, the shoreline and the pond. We have nature. We have a person from time to time (though the people are no more important than dogs, ducks or a piece of wood). We don't have much more. For 74 minutes.
In the first of the five takes, we might still think a minimalist story will be sketched. Indeed, something happens. A piece of wood gets... well, something happens, I wouldn't like to reveal the fragile plot (attention: many reviews do reveal it!) , as the discovery is part of the pleasure. If you take pleasure in slow discoveries. And dubious ones, since the further on, the less story-like it all is. Time seems to stop, literally, and we are left to choose between pure contemplation and total desperation.
The question of time brings me to my main impression: there is still a huge distance between a gallery work and a film meant for cinema. One of the participants of the Serpa seminar, the greatly underestimated Victor Erice, who (as I've been told by some other participants) has been working with Kiarostami, revealed an apparently little-known fact (almost none of the reviews mentions it and the organizers didn't seem to know it): the film was actually first made for a gallery space. That changes everything, both relieving me and disappointing. Relieving, since in a gallery we may allow this sort of anti-rhythm, as we go in and out, put it in and out of a larger context. We can leave, or stick around to contemplate. In a cinema, the conventions are quite different: we are there on an unwritten pact with the director. We accept to stay, given he accepts to take our presence into account. Frankly, I don't think Kiarostami does that. The disappointement also comes from here: it is only and installation, and somehow it was later adopted as a feature film. I can imagine when the idea of turning the installation into a (cinema) film came up at some point, the director thought this would be an interesting experiment. Well, for me the experiment is a significant failure. Mainly, because the time this film creates is another type of time, one that does not care for beginnings and ends, while a film's beginning and end are a "simple" matter of fact. In that sense, even the slowest of films has a dynamic, one which I could not find here.
Of course, there have been comparisons made, and rightly so, between Five and Rauschenberg's white paintings, John Cage's 4'33, I might also add Yves Klein's exhibitions of void. In this sense one could say this cinematic avant-garde arrives as a late-comer in the world of art.

I would argue the matter is not that simple. The question is: what sort of experience can this kind of work provide. The specificity of a film has to do with the duration of its form. In the case of Five I felt trapped within a cinema framework. I wonder how it would be to see it on video, or on TV. The images aren't breathtaking, but they are contemplative. During the discussion after the film some participants suggested it does not allow one to stop watching, because at any moment something might happen and a great tension is present. I replied suggesting that, as I've noticed about 1/4 of the audience doze off, this would have to be a true revolution in the way we see cinema and the relation between the spectator and the film. Someone agreed (!) saying the dream-like character of the film is very close to actual dreaming.
I could imagine myself putting on Kiarostami's work at home, in loop mode, to watch it from time to time, or doze a bit, then go back to watching. Then again, I think I'd rather doze off on a beach.
Which is why I probably wouldn't go to a concert of 4'33 either.
Unless, of course, the interpreter were really good.

*Those aren't actually five takes: the fifth one is quite thoroughly edited and cut. Which adds some doubt to the question of "genuine" filming Kiarostami seemed to be defending.

Technorati: art installation, movies, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Return

I have just came back from a week in the southern Portuguese town of Serpa on Doc's Kingdom, an international seminar on documentary film. More on this soon.

Voyage

Going away.

Bruce Busby, Creativity Enhancement Shelter #BMCD702 (2002)
Note: circular door with reintroduction portholes
Nylon fabric, Aluminum poles, thermoplastic
10' diameter base, 10' high

RECOMMENDED USAGE: Fifteen minutes of splendid isolation inside a self-supporting Filter Tent

FUNCTION: The static action of the tent's lightweight fabric membrane activates reconfiguration solely through location airflow. Strategically placed intake vents increase airflow through the static action membranes. Coerced location airflow channels the transformed constructive particle formations by way of reintroduction chutes or mesh portals.

BENEFITS: Enhance creativity and build immunity to multi-faceted chaos and creativity limiting commerce driven negotiations. Protect against (1) energy and imagination draining CIEI including Oxydipostulatoxigen (MicroFictional Categorical Capacity), (2) visual distraction and elemental compromise (now scale), (3) conceptual criticism (functional validity is indisputable) (MacroFunctional Capacity). Combines the necessary influx of function with the urgency (currency) of Art. Portability encourages widespread installation.

Technorati: art installation, installation, design, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Venice Art Biennale

Here's an interesting, though slightly cynical, comment about the Art Biennale taking place in Venice.

Technorati: art, contemporary art, vvoi

António Damasio and art

Truly great art has the strange effect of making us, the spectators, feel intelligent.

- António Damasio, director of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa, during the conference Brain, Body & Emotion. The conference was part of the 40th Festival of Music and Dance in Sintra (Portugal). 1000 people came to see the professor talk about the brain and emotions. The place was absolutely packed, people crowded in the entrance and nearly fought over the (free) tickets. The presentation was interesting, not too savvy, not too light. Any specialist who has spoken to a non-specialized audience knows how difficult it is to maintain the balance. Here, he even dared to make some inspiring interpretations of the artistic experience ("Art manages to make us stop, and focus"). A beautiful discovery for me was that aesthetic emotions are triggered by what Damasio calls emotionally competent stimuli, which is an expression I truly adore.

Technorati: art, contemporary art, vvoi

(Off topic) Santo Antonio

Santo António is the patron of Lisbon, and his day is celebrated with a great deal of festivities here. That means 3-4 days of party. I didn't go to the old part of Lisbon last night - there are too many people for my taste, it is simply impossible to move once you're on the street - literally. But the nights before, the partying was already happening. People dancing on the tiny streets and stairs of the old district of Alfama, grilled sardines, lots of sangria, noise, music, from traditional fado to modern plastic disco. Delightful. (To get the feel of it, play both videos at the same time. Quicktime required)

Note for self

Make important things: ones that import something, from there, to here.

Grassroot genetic art

art and life converge in a system which keeps on expanding,
which I can put all my concerns into, where I can use everything
that I see. when I watch a documentary and I see how someone
drinks a coffee, puts on his coat and goes to work,
I begin to like that person.

- Urs Fischer (here's an interview with the artist)



Urs Fischer, Untitled (2000)
[The pictures have been taken in two different galleries, which explains the totally different shapes. The fruit seems to be changed regularly.]

Technorati: visual art, fine art, art installation, installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Book review

I have just posted the review of Perform, by Jens Hofman and Joan Jonas, in the Reading Room.

Technorati: performance art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Speak out

One Free Minute is a mobile sculpture [by Daniel Joliffe] designed to allow for instances of anonymous free speech. Callers to One Free Minute's cell phone are connected to an amplifier and have their speech projected in public space for exactly one minute. One Free Minute also houses a digital archive of calls made to its answering machine, which are played back randomly between live calls.

There are two ways to participate in One Free Minute:

>Call the archive number and leave a message for future performances: 614-441-9533

>Call live during a performance- see http://www.onefreeminute.net for the performance schedule.

(via)

Technorati: art installation, installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Innovative Public Art

The strange thing about public art is that very often it is the for of art the public cares the least about. It is distant, cold, uninviting and very elitist. The huge abstract sculptures and installations, the massive gates to nowhere, the blocks of cement or marble, the uncomfortable spaces with stairs impossible to climb or benches unbearably hard, rigid, "slick" - all this scares the public away from anything that combines art and public space.
Fortunately, a wind of change seems to be rising. One signal is the art of Greyworld, a group of four designers (artists? publicists?) who decided to declare war and make art that's close to people, interesting, enchanting, and thus - public, in the proper meaning of the word, that is, accessible to a (general) public. Their most recent work is called Bins and Benches, and

is a collection of intelligent street furniture which will move independently within the extensive public piazza in front of The Junction [Cambridge, UK]. In-built technology will allow these unique items to respond to the needs of the humans that share their habitat. This will include sympathetic responses to weather conditions.

The benches will flock together at certain times of day, hide in shadow when the sun is burning, or under protection when it's raining. They to have people sit down on them, and so will try to attract the people e.g. at night gathering closer to the club zone, or forming geometric shapes to attract attention. The trash bins are more shy and solitary, they usually wander alone, though they like the benches and sometimes stick around them. (an extended description is here).
That's how it looks in written form. I am anxious to read a review.
Greyworld have several other very pretty public projects. You can find them on their site. It's also worth checking out the diversity of the projects proposed to the Junction's invitiation-only contest. I must say, though, that the Bins and Benches seem to have deserved the victory.


(via)

Technorati: art installation, installation, architecture, design, art, contemporary art, vvoi

My show

Thank You, Lunettes Rouges, for remembering thatI had a show. Yes, I'm quite happy with the show, and yes, I'm too drained to give you any sort of reasonable feedback. Today is the second and last showing, so I'm still pretty busy, but I'll try to write about it tomorrow, describe it, give you some background and maybe some spectators' comments (the right ones of course :)). I might also go into the podcast adventure and post the soundtrack, though I have no idea how to do it (any help in that domain is welcome).

Become a pregnant electronic musician

Lamaze is the breathing technique for pregnant women we have all seen in films and series (and some of us surely experienced). Lamaze is now also a musical instrument, that one puts on like... well, like a stomach of a pregnant woman, and pushes buttons like on an accordeon. The sounds are those of a breathing person.

The instrument as such is one thing, but I'll tell you another: I will never look at bagpipes quite the same way.

(via)

Performance art in China

Why does this article irritate me? Maybe because the article seems sponsored by all the businesses (and buisiness-like governments) moving into China recently. Try this for instance:

In the 25 years since China abandoned rote communism and embraced the idea of encouraging private enterprise...

Maybe because, in need of having "serious artists", it refers to a Wu Yu Ren as an "internationally recognized artist". I have never heard of him, so I Google-checked it. Now, this seems pretty cruel, but if Google doesn't know you, the world pretty much doesn't either. I'm sure Wu Yu Ren is an excellent artist, and now that the article is published he is internationally known, at the least. But that would be the sin of what is called a "self-realizing prophecy" on the part of the journalist.
Or maybe, because of the way performance art is portrayed in the article:

performance artists--members of the ultra avant-garde who specialize in shocking their audiences

My point is that if this is an article for people who know nothing about performance art - I sincerely doubt it can do any good. Not only is the above statement false, it corresponds to a stereotype that is cerainly no more accurate in China any more than it is anywhere else in the world.
Then again, I did put the link. That's because it is rare to find anything about what the art world actually lives like around the world. If you want to get another, deeper picture of performance art in China, try this article. I found it after writing the above. Here is what I found:

Performance art is often seen as gratuitous violence, nudity, absurdity - a naked emperor who struts only to see who will first avert her eyes, obscuring the many playful, joyful and moving performances created by some of China's most outstanding artists. Here we look beyond the gore to a performance art that embraces life.

Technorati: performance art, performance, art, contemporary art, vvoi

The subtle dance of drawing

The Past is Behind. That is the title of this little drawing by L.A.-based artist Mel Kadel. I look at it carefuly. Something about it is quite disturbing. The past. The past is on the right side. You see, in Western culture we read time as we read text: from left to right. Our past is on the left, and our future - on the right. Well, here, the rules are different (as they should be on the real moon). Either time moves the other way, or, maybe, the girl is jumping, setting off, being blown away, and the past is whatever she dares to look at in the right-most position. But then probably this is the moon, and she is landing her jump, and when she falls she looks down, at the ground, not behind her. In any case, the past is absent. Not even a shadow to count it. This abstract landing is, of course, a dance, full of grace and asbent-minded, as only a dance can be. Did I say there was no shadow? I was wrong. There is one poignant shadow: on the face of the girl, as she is flying highest. So the sun is on the right. Behind.

There are many other drawings by Mel Kadel I really like. Here are some examples:

girl with bicycle wheel shoes #2

summersaulting

The Park

Some of her drawings remind me of Linda Zacks, others, of the great Lithuanian-Polish artist Stasys I have to write about some time. The latter might have a different technique, but there is just something about the way of seeing the world, the birds...
(Stasys)


(Mel Kadel)

...and horses...

(Stasys)
(MelKadel)

...that really makes me feel good.




Polish Easter, Mel Kadel

(via)

Technorati: painting, fine art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Welcome new readers!

I was really happy to find out this blog was recommended by the hispanic (Colombian) magazine Semana. To those of you streaming in from there: this blog has a fairly primitive structure - it is not ordered by themes or tags. Please forgive the linearity, and try exploring the archives (see sidebar), as well as making use of the Google searchbox. Any comments, also to the older articles, are always welcome! As you can see, I post new things on average once a day.

Poster for a show

(part 1)

(part 2)
(this is the poster for the performance I'm directing. It is also the excuse for not having written as much as I would like recently.)

Louise Bourgeois about modern art

Which artists do you like?
I like Francis Bacon best, because Francis Bacon has terrific problems, and he knows that he is not going to solve them, but he knows also that he can escape from day to day and stay alive, and he does that because his work gives him a kick. And also, Bacon is not self-indulgent. Some people will say, "What do you mean by that? He always paints the same picture." That's true - he always paints the same picture, because he is driven. But he is not self-indulgent. Never.

(...)what does modern art as such mean to you?
What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself. This is why modern art will continue, because this condition remains; it is the modern human condition. (...) [Modern art] is about the hurt of not being able to express yourself properly, to express your intimate relations, your unconscious, to trust the world enough to express yourself directly in it. It is about trying to be sane in this situation, of being tentatively and temporarily sane by expressing yourself. (...) It is about the difficulty of being a self because one is neglected. Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern.

- Louise Bourgeois (interview with Donald Ksupit, 1988)

Technorati: art installation, installation, fine art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Left-handed art: Walter Benjamin

These days one cannot cling to his own specialty. Improvisation is always the high card. The crucial moves will always be made with the left hand.

- quoted from memory, my translation of a Portuguese translation of Walter Benjamin.

I'm not really sure if it was meant to be a critique or just a statement of a fact, but it made me think. Aren't the "post-avant-gardes" based on the principle of innovation? Isn't the idea of having to be new and different exactly the "left-handed trick" attitude?
So what we might be living is an art world of right-handed painters, sculptors, poets, writers, theater directors, that all create works with their left hand, because "that's the trick"?

Technorati: art, contemporary art, vvoi

4 Fine Art Pics

(I couldn't find anything about the author of above work. His name is Bob Cromer, and he might be the person listed here or here)









(from the Isitart? page)

Technorati: art installation, installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi