I Like it Strong

An art blog about stark artefacts. By Will Furtado

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Armory Africa Focus Preview: A Conversation with Namsa Leuba on @aperture-foundation

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This Exhibition Explores Dementia Through Sensations

Image 05: Tully Arnot „Nervous Plant” (2016), artificial plant, microcontroller, servo motor, electronics, light sensor, dimensions variable Courtesy the artist. Link to video

http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/02/02/this-exhibition-explores-dementia-through-sensations/

In one of the opening scenes of the film “Still Alice”, the protagonist goes on her regular jogging session only to panic halfway through for finding herself lost. Alice is in her fifties and can’t remember the running track she’s previously run countless times. The strange and familiar conflate in Alice’s world, in what signals the first of many disconcerting manifestations of Alzheimer’s.

insitu in Berlin have also tackled this delicate health issue with the group exhibition “Madeleine”, their third installment of a four-part series about fictional characters. After “Vic” which was dedicated to a wavering ambitious girl, and “Jonny” which followed a hedonistic libertine, “Madeleine” is a sobering counter-agent yet a brave and highly sensorial one.

Dealing with health matters in art, especially if the artist is not affected by it, can be very challenging and many stear away from it. Beyond the concerns regarding fair representation and the limits of artistic freedom, there’s also the question of how to address a serious issue without being joyless.

The seven-strong group of artists tackle the latter by completely transforming the gallery and turning it into a minefield of eerie sensations that gradually casts light on Madeleine’s life with dementia. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia and one in three of the population alive today are expected to develop the illness, two thirds of whom are women. Its symptoms vary but often deteriorate our memory, ability to focus, reasoning and visual perception.

As I walk down the stairs to enter the gallery space I am confronted with a wall that didn’t use to be there, making me question whether I am in the right place after all. Doubt is one the main symptoms of AD and the artists achieve its constant animation throughout the show, as well as making me confront further examples, often unexpectedly. And it doesn’t take too long in fact. The involvement with Madeleine’s life starts summarily with Franziska Furter’s arresting work ”Rime” (2005). Once I step on the carpeted grey floor, the comforting impact I expect is replaced by the disorienting gravel-like surface, which the artist accomplished by sweeping chunks of broken glass under the carpet.

The rest of the space was turned into a living room with sofas, TV and decoration, that simultaneously acts as a haunted house where uncanny things happen. Take for instance Tully Arnot’s “Nervous Plant” (2016) which is a creepy shrub that jerks in response to light and shadow. The yellow post-its remind me along the way of customary tasks like turning devices off or warning me not to touch the radiator. These subtle yet curious encounters is what connect us to the plight of Madeleine by recreating surprise and discomfort in a homely setting. They may seem isolated occurrences but their sequence transports the viewer to a place of fear, delusion, paranoia and daze. And yet the playfulness accompanies the journey with added moments of poetry. Daniel Gustav Cramer illustrates time lapses of the memory in the dreamy photography series “Tales 63 (Ericeira, Portugal, September 2011)” (2014). In it, people move behind a window but its sequence provides an unreliable time jump, or is it? Madeleine would surely ask herself. Further on, “Presence of Another Space. IV&V (Second Appearance)”, Antonia Low’s spooky curtains represent the windows that could have been there, or maybe are actually there, should I touch the artwork? It’s confusing but that’s the whole point.

Only one of the artists present is of age susceptible to developing AD – 90-year-old Geta Bratescu who contributes with her 1977 video “The Hands – For the eye, the hand of my body reconstitutes my portrait” which shows the artist’s hands performing repetitive expressions that could mimic lapses of the brain. In the same vein, in “Madeleine” the insitu team imitates without mocking, and informs without sanctimonious memos. Travelling through the show is like visiting our potential future; it’s an exercise of philosophy, in learning how to play the game of life until it eventually flashes “level complete”.

Text by Will Furtado

“Madeleine” is at insitu Berlin until 5 March 2016

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Armory Focus: Challenging Our Idea of ‘African Art’

Ed Young, Your Mom, 2016, Latex Balloon

http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/03/03/armory-focus-challenging-our-idea-of-african-art/

Art produced by African artists and the diaspora has been gaining traction on the international stage in the last few years. In 2013, for instance, Touria El Glaoui set up 1:54, a London fair focusing on contemporary African art that runs alongside Frieze. Despite its success in shedding light on underrepresented art, it has also raised the questions on whether the art presented at 1:54 shouldn’t simply be part of the main event. Adding to this discussion are Julia Grosse and Yvette Mutumba, the first female curators of Armory Focus, a branch of The Armory Show in New York, which this year is dedicated to art with African perspectives. The Berlin and Frankfurt based curators and art historians, who also founded Contemporary And, took up the task of challenging conceptions of what “African art” is, starting with the language to address it.

Sleek’s online editor, Will Furtado, met co-curator Julia Grosse at Soho House Berlin to discuss their risky curatorial choices, why there isn’t such a thing as contemporary African art and the African artists to look out for.

Sleek: What will you do differently at this iteration of Armory Focus? Julia Grosse: They’ve had Africa in mind for a long time and finally thought it’d be a good chance or a good year to do it now. It’s always tricky to say how we’d do it differently but we really tried to. The first step was not to focus on Africa as a continent because it’s not in our interest to focus on a region, it doesn’t make sense for us. Then you have to ask yourself what is African art or what is an African artist, and for example what has a painter in Johannesburg have to do with a conceptual artist in Nairobi. Nothing really necessarily; their practices might be completely different and still you label them all as African artists –  and this is something we want to challenge.

We want to go beyond this kind of old idea and this is what we do at Contemporary And as well. This was our first approach: to state that the focus is just a perspective, and we look at art from Africa and the diaspora, wherever artists may be or come from.

Even if they might be white? Yes, we have a few white artists; however, the focus of course is more on black artists. But for us it’s super important to focus on the diversity of artistic positions. We are both art historians and we approached the whole idea through the individual artists and then we approached the galleries and convinced them to show just a solo exhibition rather than having the booth full with work from ten different artists. That would have made sense for big recognisable names but in this case most of them aren’t really known; they are pretty young, the youngest was born in 1991. All the galleries agreed on having only one voice per booth. This is still like a little risk in terms of selling them. But we know these artists are great; we are really looking forward to see it happen.

Why did you only select young artists? Compared to, for example, older artists who are in their 50s now and decided to stay in the west, the tendency among young artists is to go back, spend a few years in Nairobi and start a residency programme or an artist run space. And then maybe they want to go back to New York or elsewhere: so this kind of flux is quite telling for the young generations. It’s something we really relate to in our world so that’s why the focus is on the youngsters. But we also included two galleries who focus on modernists like Ibrahim el-Salahi, demonstrating the long history of contemporary art from African perspective.

You’ve once said there isn’t such a thing as contemporary African art. What exactly do you mean by that? It is more about the idea and wording. Of course it exists, this tendency of all the artists in the 54 African countries to deal with Africa as a topic but it’s just too easy to put it all down to one label.

So contemporary African art is just contemporary art? Yes – that’s it. This is the goal as well, that ideally in 10 years you wouldn’t need something like Contemporary And anymore. An artist is foremost contemporary, and to the younger generation identity is important but not in the sense of “I’m from here or there”, but more like “I was here and there and this is all part of my identity.”  In our next print issue which comes out during the  Armory, there’s an interview with Martine Syms who is such a good example of this. Of course she has an inclination towards black culture, but she is also present in group shows at the New Museum and other not as a black artist but as a contemporary artist, and this is the goal. You don’t ask an artist where they’re from but what they’re working on.

Could you give us one artist we should look out for? Namsa Leuba. She was born in 1982 to Swiss-Ghanaian parents, studied art and design and often works for fashion magazines like i-D. Leuba works with the stereotypical western images of Africa and juxtaposes them with elements from fashion and design. The end result features crazy settings with models in this kind of ritual tribe masquerades. She’s presenting a new project as well, which she produced during her residency in Lagos last year.

The Armory Show takes place in New York from 3 until 6 March 2016

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PUSSYKREW

My new artist collective crush

[studiopoetry]

How it buzzed, and how it hurt she thought as she lay back quietly. It should look good though, and elegant (on the whole). He is quite mysterious.

(Mira Dancy, ‘Call From Violet’, 2015, Neon)

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New York based artist reclaiming the representation of female bodies

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Wild Parade: Mons Retraces the History of European Counterculture

http://www.sleek-mag.com/showroom/2015/12/wild-parade-mons-retraces-the-history-of-european-counterculture/

In September 1871, the French Symbolist poet Paul-Marie Verlaine invited the rebellious young colleague Arthur Rimbaud into his Paris family home. This would be the start of a tumultuous and passionate relationship between the two writers, which lead to Verlaine leaving his wife and son to embark on a wild journey with his new lover. Years later in Brussels, under the influence of absinthe, Verlaine fired two shots at Rimbaud who survived and refused to press charges. Despite this, Verlaine ended up being sentenced to two years in prison in the Belgian town of Mons, for attempted murder as well as for his “immoral” behaviour. Known for being libertines, not only did they challenge social conventions but inverted the traditions of poetry. They went on to influence generations of writers and artists including the Beat Generation authors and Patty Smith. “Parade Sauvage” is an exhibition in Mons that pays tribute to Rimbaud while focusing on 1960s counterculture. It features artists from both sides of the Atlantic who, just as the poet, defied their era’s middle-class conformism. Taking place at Beaux-Art Mons, which also houses a show on Verlaine, “Parade Sauvage” is not anchored in one major work or artist and instead offers a comprehensive overview of the period.

Spanning the period between the late 1940s and the late 1970s, curator Denis Gielen presents the exhibition through the perspectives that shaped this era – transvestism, ritualism, environmentalism and anarchism. Given the topic, well-known American names are present. However, Gielen has selected a large number of lesser-known European luminaries to highlight the far-reaching nature of the counterculture phenomenon. “The purpose is to show how that this cultural revolution also happened in Europe,” says Caroline Dumoulin, the museum’s coordinator of exhibitions.

“Parade Sauvage” starts with a selection of works by European artists heavily influenced by the post-war painters who collectively attempted to break free from the constraints and rules of academic art. The work that lends its title to the show appears in the form of a Fernand Léger painting – “J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage” – a clear reference to one of Rimbaud’s poems, albeit the only one offering a direct connection to the author. Alongside, Italian artist Enrico Baj provides a fitting example of that time’s disregard for traditional painting. In “Parade Militaire au Bois de Boulogne” Baj gave the canvas a battle-field treatment by patching it up with fabrics and other objects while mocking the military in all its preposterousness and inanity by depicting soldiers as marching creatures. Other artists presented in this room include painter Asger Jorn, who was part of the COBRA movement and remained an influential figure from the 50s onwards.

The themes of transvestism and ritualism are presented side by side, and despite the works not being the most graphic they are nonetheless strong when put into context. The photography works of Americans artists Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and Nan Goldin feature here, mostly portraying the LGTB community in the late 60s, before homosexuality was decriminalised in the US. The section reserved to ritualism, features photographs of the Viennese Actionists’ bloody Aktionen. Taking place in 1960s Vienna, these violent and at times illegal art performances aimed at galvanising the repressive Austrian society into facing their Nazi traumas. But the squeamish should not fear, as the images on show have a more poetic feel.

Land Art and Arte Povera are the main focus within the environment section. These two movements played an important role in nonconformism for their links to nature at a time of increasing consumerism in the late 60s and 70s. For instance in Giuseppe Penone’s sculpture “Patate”, the Italian artist worked with a food as modest as potatoes, together with other materials in the shape of ears or noses. By mixing the shapes of our senses with perishable goods the artist not only connected physically with the organic but also raised the middle finger to tired notions of “fine art”.

With a yet sharper political attitude, the artists, that illustrate the anarchism aspect, often used collage and slogans to subvert the iconography of capitalism. In the wake of the brutality of the Vietnam War, not even European artists could be indifferent to it. And Parisian artist Erró epitomised that with the collage “Military Life, Vietnam” where he portrayed troops as drunken apes. However, the question of whether such art is less ballsy when done on European soil remains unanswered. What would have Verlaine’s reaction been to these artists? After all, the poet paid the price for his “rebellion” with incarceration, during which he wrote some of his best work. The thought lingers in the air.

Image: Nan Goldin (1953-), Bea as Rita Hayworth, 1973

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Adam Pendleton, Rendered in Black, 2007-, Group of 30 unique glazed ceramic black cubes, 25.4 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm each, © Adam Pendleton, 2009.

ADAM PENDLETON

The up and coming artist who is bringing ‘Black Dada’ to the art world.

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Jon Rafman: History Reloading

I wrote this feature about artist Jon Rafman for Sleek #47, my first print issue as the online editor at the magazine.

The internet can be a daunting place. Link after link, tab upon tab, it’s easy to get lost in its vortex of useless information and infinite supply of gifs. However, for post-internet artist Jon Rafman, such infinite scrolling is how he finds inspiration. “I see the online world as my material, the same way a painter would use colours and paint. Nothing is created from scratch anymore – everything is created from something else,” he says.

However, the Quebecois artist doesn’t like using the word appropriation to describe his work, nor does he see it as digital readymades. Once he has spent hours mining the internet and selecting images for his installations, he then spends time editing them and adding structure, narratives, dialogue and sometimes his own voiceovers.

And although the content uploaded to the internet might sometimes seem chaotic, disparate and even irrelevant, Rafman’s skill lies in highlighting its aesthetic potential, like a poet who finds beauty where others don’t, except Rafman doesn’t find art in the least expected places – he makes art with the least expected materials.“I actually started off by making films and basically started using the internet as an extension of my practice,” he says. “What I find most interesting is how different forms of content can be uploaded to different platforms.”

This fascination is embedded in his oeuvre which inevitably means dealing with issues relating to intellectual property. Yet when it comes to copyright Rafman isn’t so interested in the law but in the way in which internet culture deals with it. Nonetheless after he tried to publish a book featuring images from Google Street View, he had a brush with the possibility of legal action. “They never really authorised me to use their images,” he says. “But once National Geographic asked me if they could show one of Google’s images in their magazine – and since they were a big enough organisation – they were able to get it signed off by Google under the precondition that we wouldn’t show any violent imagery and that under the picture of the beautiful running reindeer it was stated that ‘no animals were harmed during the shooting.’”

The book in question was the eponymously named first monograph from his ongoing Google Street View project (GSV) “9 Eyes” that he began in 2007 and which consists of unusual images lifted from the app. Captured by cameras fixed to Google’s Street View cars, there’s an element of voyeurism to these images. And because the photos are taken during the day, they capture contrasting demographics and scenes in absolute clarity, from office drones to sex workers to policemen in action and tigers roving in car parks.

Subjects on the fringes of mainstream society are one of the themes of Rafman’s work. “I’m interested in the internet troll: obsessive and shut in,” he says. “For me they are like modern day tragic heroes. They represent a certain pole of existence that tells us something about ourselves. They’re often rude and offensive but sometimes their criticism is also revealing.”

The full feature can be found in Sleek #47, which you can order here.

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Christto & Andrew: Hyperreal Exuberance at Unseen

Christto Sanz and Andrew Weir are the photography duo based in Qatar who visually translate the country’s rapid changes through their exuberant and humorous hyperreal scenarios. Hailing from Puerto Rico and South Africa, respectively, the artists blend the vintage and surreal to interpret the speedy economic growth and the formation of identity of Doha – a city where migrants form the majority of the population. “Current Obsession” is one of their latest projects featuring their vivid and colourful photographs, often with models recruited from the streets of Qatar.

In September the artist duo is presenting “Current Obsession” at Amsterdam’s Unseen Photo Fair, an international photography festival which focuses on new photography. Sleek talked to Christto & Andrew about their contribution to the fair and why their art is so universal.

We’re also offering double tickets to Unseen Photo Fair, and in order to win one, simply e-mail us with your name and address. The winners will be notified on 1 September.

What’s your thought-process when juxtaposing two seemingly contrasting ideas?

We usually first research shared ideas, but more importantly are the ensuing conversations we have which are vital in creating our images. We use a lot of colour, which is often symbolic or referential. Contrasting ideas form an important part of our work, as this highlights inconsistency and allows for the final piece to be appreciated in different ways providing multiple interpretations instead of imposing a direct thought. The work then becomes part of an ongoing discussion, instead of a single-handed approach by which the artists voice their concerns. In general we share a similar vision for our work despite not always agreeing on things, however, this dialogue is another crucial element in making work. With each project we aspire to achieve something new and innovative. In the future we would like to experiment more with our creative process and incorporate sculpture and installation work.

How different is it to show your work in Doha and Amsterdam?

We think of our audience as global and since we come from such different backgrounds it’s impossible for us to conceive our work in only one place. Our new series, “Glory of the Artifice” explores the use of aesthetics in a “give and take” manner, combining different ideologies that are often employed to start conversation and prompt interpretation. Our work is informed by our experiences living in the Gulf region, which is apparent, however, it has been our experience that the work resonates equally well for a foreign audience as it does back home.  

We would see the main difference in how our work will be perceived in Amsterdam as opposed to Doha, in that in Amsterdam we are making more of a presentation, whereas in Doha we view exhibitions more like an ongoing dialogue and discussion.

What can we expect from your contribution to Unseen?

We will be one of the few artists at Unseen Photo Fair with a “solo” presentation of our work. We have been to Unseen last year as part of the Foam Talent outdoor exhibition, but we are very excited to return with this new body of work presented by our gallery, East Wing. Being at Unseen is very inspirational and it allows audiences to see what’s next in the photographic world. We hope that our work will contribute to new dialogues and exchanges. It’s always great meeting new people and be exposed to different perspectives.

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KIM LAUGHTON

Shanghai-based Kim Laughton mixes all his digital apprehensions to produce videos of 3D realities that poke fun at our constant digitalisation of emotions. He picks up on what has become commonplace like emoticons and takes it one step further, hypothesising where humans needs are and where they're heading to. In this Siliconscious residue from emoticons becomes a cream to apply where there’s none. He says: "A 3D model is in itself a tiny – and hugely simple – world that can be examined in multiple ways, and has its own crude laws of physics, although they are biased towards human senses.”

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Is Richard Prince a Genius Troll, or a Lazy Sexist?

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/06/03/richard-prince-instagram-art/

As of last week much has been said about Richard Prince’s most recent, highly controversial new work “New Portraits” – a series of blown-up screenshots, taken straight from his Instagram feed, each on sale at Frieze Art Fair New York for $100,000 a piece. The fact the artist is profiting hugely from appropriated photos of semi-naked girls without their permission is, understandably, causing quite a stir. However, in my eyes the real outrage is the art world’s insistence on championing lame art by unimaginative celebrity artists.

Prince’s “New Portraits” series, which were first shown at Prince’s own Gagosian gallery in New York last year, are exact copies of unauthorised images, jet-printed on six-foot canvas with added salacious remarks in the comments thread. Some of the images were taken from celebrities’ profiles, including Pamela Anderson and Taylor Swift, but many of them were taken from the account of SuicideGirls, a community of alternative pin-up models.

The controversy itself is dividing opinions, with New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz defending the works as “genius trolling”, while The New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl concluded they made him “wish he was dead”. Paddy Johnson, meanwhile, openly called Prince out on his crass sexism and inability to understand youth culture. There were also mixed reactions from the Instagram account owners themselves, with sex writer Karley Sciortino admitting she felt honoured, while SuicideGirls founder Selena Mooney claimed the installation felt like “a violation by someone who doesn’t get it.”

In an effort at retaliation, Mooney started selling prints of the images for $90 with the proceeds going to charity. Commenting on the affair, she wrote: “If I had a nickel for every time someone used our images without our permission in a commercial endeavour I’d be able to spend $90,000 on art. I was once really annoyed by Forever 21 selling shirts with our slightly altered images on them, but an artist? Richard Prince is an artist and he found the images we and our girls publish on Instagram as representative of something worth commenting on, part of the zeitgeist, I guess? Thanks Richard!” Prince tweeted later that he thought it was a smart move.

Regardless of how amusing this circus might be, let’s get one thing straight: Prince’s latest attempts at creating something of artistic merit are tired and desperate. Prince started his career in the 1970s with appropriation. He shot to fame by re-photographing Sam Abell’s photograph of a cowboy, and later caused more controversy by appropriating photo of a nude Brook Shields aged 10 with the pretext of highlighting how American culture sexualises children. So, his formula is a medley of barely legal themes, with a bit of added flesh and a hefty price tag, all working as a critical portrait of society. And, 40 years on, he’s still relying on these “shock tactics” for attention, although this time he’s using images from “ordinary” people as opposed to those of major corporations or celebrities. Really, is there anything more tame than a one-trick pony celeb artist?

“IG [Instagram] is a bedroom magazine,” he wrote about the series on his blog. “I can start out with someone I know and then check out who they follow or who’s following them, and the rabbit hole takes you on an outer body experience where you suddenly look at the clock and it’s three in the morning. I end up on people’s grids that are so far removed from where I began, it feels psychedelic.” Prince is a joker with a one-dimensional sense of humour, who behaves as if he’d only just discovered the internet. But this type of art is not really funny, because a rich artist using an old trick to make thousands at the expense of other people’s Instagram photos is not funny or clever, is just eyeroll inducing.

Across all its dimensions, there’s absolutely nothing new to find in this “New Portraits” series. We can trace the practice of appropriation in modern art back to Marcel Duchamp, who utilised day-to-day objects entirely as they were and called them art. His most iconic work is undoubtedly the urinal-turned-sculpture “Fountain” (1917), which spawned the era-defining quote: “It’s the artist’s choice. He chooses what is art.”

Since then, Duchamp’s legacy has been followed by many great artists, among them Andy Warhol, Mat Collishaw and Tracy Emin. Warhol in particular took the practice further, and in the ’60s he conceived the series “Flowers” consisting of other photographers’ images which he then silk-screened, leading to him having to pay a sizeable cash settlement to each artist.

Using unauthorised images found online is also by no means a novelty. In 2012 artist Marc Adelman exhibited “Stelen (Columns)” (2007-11), a collection of more than 100 photos culled from gay dating site profiles. It caused agitation when the work was featured in New York’s Jewish Museum, and one of the photos’ owners threatened legal action if his picture wasn’t taken down.

Last year in Berlin, “Wanna Play?” – another similar artistic experiment – broadcast live private chats taken from the dating app Grindr in the middle of town. It also caused outcry, many claiming that the artist was violating the safety and privacy of users and exploiting the gay community. At the time, Haus der Kulturen der Welt curator Ashkan Sepahvand called it “sloppy artistic practice” and the whole installation was abandoned after just five highly controversial days, so why is it that Prince’s sloppy work is being celebrated at millionaire’s art fairs?

What Richard Prince did skirts exploitative territory, but exploitation is sadly nothing new, and all-too-often its perpetrators find themselves celebrated in the worlds of ultra-expensive fashion and art. So, it’s no surprise that an older, white, privileged male art critic stepped up to back Prince (who’s now in his mid-60s) and his latest exhibit. NYMag’s Jerry Saltz argues that, in this day and age, images are “materials, and artists use materials to do what they do.” He contends that these images were in the public domain, and thus fair game for use, yet fails to explain why he believes this trite move is “semi-revoluntionary” in any respect. Perhaps that’s because there’s nothing revolutionary about it at all.

Yet, regardless of your opinions on the art itself, the question many were asking is: are Prince’s actions legal? The somewhat frustrating answer is: probably. Previously, Prince has been embroiled in a long-running legal battle with photographer Patrick Cariou over his unauthorised use of Cariou’s work – a battle he partially lost, leading to the destruction of several works in the collection (although by no means the majority of it). By now he’s more than familiar with the legal definition of so-called “fair use”, and has likely positioned this work just enough on the side of the law to make it stick, should a case ever be brought against him.

Prince knows that, provided he alters an image just enough to call it “original,” he’ll get away with it. As such, his own sleazy additions to the pictures like, “Nice. Let’s hook up next week. Lunch, Smiles R” – a comment left under a photo of a girl in a swimsuit – might actually save his bacon. However, copyright is murky legal territory that’s only truly navigated with the aid of highly-paid lawyers, and should anyone bother taking the artist to court they will only be able to claim the market value of the images themselves – which, for the likes of SuicideGirls, wouldn’t be very much. Ultimately, Richard Prince knew exactly what he was doing when he picked them as his target, and that’s what makes the act all the more deplorable.

Still, despite all this there are those who claim Prince’s work is culturally valuable for the issues it raises in the global conversation. But let’s examine those issues a little closer. If, in fact, it was his aim to raise the issue of narcissism in the digital age, such a move would be no better than sanctimonious finger-wagging akin to the mother who shamed her daughter on video for posting sexy snapshots on Facebook. Thanks, Daddy Prince, for the moral lesson, but there’s zero cultural value in a rich man seizing and exploiting a woman’s image for his own financial profit, even if she is supposedly “fame-hungry” (and if, in the end, the image is returned).

Perhaps, instead, he’s trying to use his art to bring attention to how corporations like Facebook (which owns Instagram) have the power to monetize our images, despite not owning them. Yet, far from critiquing the practice, Prince’s actions simply play the role of such corporations, which is something only a hypocrite would do.

Regardless, there is perhaps one good thing about Prince’s sad spectacle, which is that the publicity stunt has (whether or not intentionally) unleashed a web-wide debate on art, copyright, appropriation of women’s bodies and our behaviour online. It has perhaps ignited a similar conversation to that of Miley Cyrus’s VMA performance, when she columbused twerking to mainstream audiences, instigating fervent analysis of white privilege and the indiscriminate appropriation of Black culture. At least that’s some small payback.

It’s long been apparent that the internet is up for grabs, and for that reason there are no shortage of people desperately trying to control it. It’s widely known that Mark Zuckerberg and Co. are selling our data to companies (and perhaps one day to governments), and Prince’s  work is a reminder that our rights in these matters are painfully thin. Yet, in its lack of imagination, it feels very much inconsequential.

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10 Exhibits Not to Miss at the Venice Biennale 2015

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/05/19/venice-biennale-2015-best-exhibits/

The Venice Biennale is simply the grandest art event on earth: it was the first of his kind to exist and it pulls artists, art lovers and collectors from all over the planet in a history-rich sinking city. For its 56th edition Nigerian-born curator Okwui Enwezor chose the title “All of the World’s Futures” and he didn’t disappoint by inviting 139 artists from 53 countries to the main exhibitions. The final result is a politics-laden event with hundreds of artworks that address global concerns from neoliberal systems, to postcolonial realities, to feminism. As such, the selection is more often serious and meaningful than humorous and uplifting but nevertheless always magnificent and relevant. Despite the main attraction being the international pavilions at Giardini and Arsenale there is plenty more great art to see in the national pavilions and the collateral shows spread across the Venetian landscape. And because it’s almost impossible to see everything in a few days we’ve selected the ten shows not be missed.

Great Britain - Giardini

Sarah Lucas’s “I SCREAM DADDIO” is an exciting and irreverent combination of her usual aesthetics - the body and quotidian - and gender themes, all brought into a new realm of art forms. The London artist created installations that arouse and amuse, with her typical wry humour and panache. Here, her trademark stuffed stockings have a new majestic glistening appearance; while her fags are stuck into new orifices. Right by the portico we’re confronted with the first monumental “Deep Cream Maradona” sculpture whose phallus aims to the sky. Everything else in the elliptical exhibition room is stimulating, from the bright yellow walls, to the in-your-face casts of genitalia, to the diversity of practices. Lucas brought the rebellious spirit of the YBAs back adding a positive vibe to the state of things and to a lethargic Giardini.

Canada - Giardini

With “Canadassimo” guest curator Marie Fraser conceived a fun and colourful exhibition that pokes fun at blind consumerism and the unnecessary accumulation of objects, while focusing on the transformation of materials. The artists of the BGL art collective offer therefore a personal and up-close experience starting with the recreation of a Quebecois convenience store fully stocked with typical Canadian household products. So far so simple but there is a catch. Once that has been spotted the exhibition continues with two more levels of bewildering installations including the workshop of an eccentric tinker, and a gigantic pinball wall connected to a complex system made out of recycled items. Visitors will also be given real euro coins to play the game (or not).

Greece - Giardini

“Why Look at Animals? AGRIMIKÁ” is the name of the Greek exhibition in which artist Maria Papadimitriou almost entirely recreated a shop that sells animal hides and leather in the city of Volos. In addition artist presents a film featuring the elderly and candid owner of the shop telling a thrilling story of his decade-long business in relation to the history of modern Greece. But the captivating movie is far more than just a recollection of memories that trigger concerns ranging from ethics to politics, to the history to economics. Through the protagonist’s personal accounts we start questioning the relationship between humans and animals and the concept of humanity in contrast to the nature of wildlife.

Belgium - Giardini

The Belgian pavilion refused a traditional national format and instead present “Personne et Les Autres” - a bullish international group show that challenges Eurocentric views on art. With artists invited from Asia, Africa, South America and Europe the exhibition focuses on the cultural results of colonial encounters without sugarcoating the past. Vincent Meessen offers a refreshing film that explores the largely unknown participation of Congolese intellectuals who helped shape the last international vanguard of modernity via the Situationist International. And to place those achievements in context Congolese artist-photographer Sammy Baloji presents his fascinating recent photo-documentary work on how malaria mosquitoes were used as a tool in the politics of division in colonial Congo. The fact that the pavilion itself was built at the zenith of Belgium’s colonial power, makes it all the more interesting.

China - Arsenale

Keeping in mind that censorship in the county is pervasive the works on show are incredibly ballsy by openly dealing with religion, politics and sexuality. The large-scale photo of topless men at the entrance of the pavilion already gives the feeling of entering a more open China. It’s a still from Wen Hui’s documentary about contemporary dance involving farmers from a poor rural area. “The Caochangdi Workstation” is Wu Wenguang’s project about a documentary-making collective that trains locals to make works aimed at bringing socio-political reform. And Lu Yang finishes it off with a mesmerising installation and video of bare-chested men wearing halos to represent various religious icons. With an aptly sonic soundtrack provided by Music For Your Plants, the high energy video work makes us ponder whether those icons aren’t all too similar.

Iceland - Santa Maria della Misericordia

Their piece of intervention art simply called “The Mosque” was brought to Venice with the aid of the Muslim communities of Venice and Reykjavik (where there is an ongoing campaign to build the city’s first mosque). Despite the “artwork” itself not being as tangible as most of the works in the main pavilions, the artistic action screams a much concrete answer to the questions posed by this biennale’s curator. Venice being a city that has some thousands Muslims and very clear Islamic influence in its architecture and dialect has however never permitted a mosque to be built in its historic centre. And this intervention did just that - it turned a disused 10th century catholic church into a mosque for the duration of the biennale. The juxtaposition of the prayer carpet orienting to Mecca, or the qibla wall with the architecture of the church is quite strong and hopeful.

Angola - Palazzo Pisani

The pavilion that won the Golden Lion in the previous biennale is again on point with the group show “On Ways of Travelling,” curated by Antonio Ole and held at the gorgeous Palazzo Pisani . The five young artists featured explore themes concerning the postcolonial reflections on identity through large expressive installations, sculpture and video. The work that most stands out is Binelde Hyrcan’s “Cambeck,” 2012, a video performance of four kids playing adults in their sand car. Beautifully shot on the beach the short movie tells their future hopes and perceptions of the world with innocent humour that’s both disarming and eye opening.

My East is Your West - Palazzo Benzon

This is the triumphant surprise of the biennale. The group show not only manages to unite India and Pakistan (two historically conflicting neighbouring nations) through art it also does it with a jaw-dropping installation that explores the essence of a divided people. Lahore-based Rashid Rana surveys the concept of presence by treating us to his technology concepts across five rooms that include live stream video work that will transport visitors to Lahore and vice versa. His most stunning piece is a large scale multi-channel video that comprises of many tiny screens. Mumbai-based Shilpa Gupta presents her new series of works that encompass four years of research into the the world’s largest security barrier between India and Bangladesh. Through photography, sculptures, drawing and text-based pieces, Gupta works with goods and bodies that trespass security and political barriers to expose the absurdity of politics.

Cyprus - Palazzo Malipiero

The solo exhibition “Two Days After Forever” sees artist Christodoulos Panayiotou questioning the invention of archeology and how the relevance of historical narratives is defined. Adopting a wide range of practices the artists looks into how tradition is made by working with discarded stones, considered debris in an archeological excavation process, to make sculptures that could seemingly belong in any archeology museum. In other works he questions the concepts of classification and authenticity further by producing custom-made shoes from fake designer bags bought on the streets of Venice. Two rooms of the palace are amusingly filled up with shredded Cypriot banknotes, which immediately links to Scrooge McDuck and the worthlessness of money while also emphasising the transformative capacity of art-making.

Iran - Calle San Giovanni

Walking through the Iranian pavilion in a Cannaregio warehouse is like walking through a contemporary art museum that extends from the Middle East to India through Central Asia. There is a wealth of artworks in this group show that deal with local and global political realities without the finger-wagging. Among older and newer works we can find Pakistani Bani Abidi’s print installation “Security Barriers A-L,” 2008, a subtle and stylish study on the narrow and yet so large divide that security systems impose; or India’s Hema Upadhyay and her enchanting cabinet “Silent Shadow,” 2015, that deals with the phenomenon of migration and its ontological origin.  Also strong is Huma Mulji’s controversial “Arabian Delight,” 2008, an installation made out of a taxidermy of a camel tangled in a suitcase, a humorous representation of the swift “Arabisation” of Pakistan.

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Venice Gets Its First Mosque For The Biennale

http://www.sleek-mag.com/showroom/2015/05/venice-biennale-mosque/

After finishing off the second Venice Biennale preview day with spirituality, the third day started with actual religious spirituality at the Icelandic pavilion. Their piece of intervention art, simply called “The Mosque” was brought to Venice by Swiss artist Christoph Büchel and curator Nina Magnusdottir, and was aided by the Muslim communities of Venice and Reykjavik (where there is an ongoing campaign to build the city’s first mosque). Despite the “artwork” itself not being as tangible as most of the works in the main pavilions, the artistic action screams a much more concrete answer to the questions posed by this biennale’s curator. Venice being a city that has some thousands of Muslims and a very clear Islamic influence in its architecture and dialect has, nonetheless, never permitted a mosque to be built in its historic centre. And this intervention did just that – it turned a disused 10th century Catholic church into a mosque for the duration of the Biennale. “The Mosque” was given the necessary Muslim worship attributes that add physical layers to the social and political commentary present: the prayer carpet orienting to Mecca, or the qibla wall covering the frescos. “The Mosque” is indeed being actively used: a tremendous example of the politicisation of art and should add to the debate around this biennale dealing with socio-political issues superficially.

Not far from the train station lies the Iranian pavilion, which holds an international exhibition showing mostly artists from the Middle East and Asia. The show is set up like a contemporary gallery exhibition and among the melange of older and newer works we can find Huma Mulji’s controversial “Arabian Delight”, 2008, an installation made out of a taxidermy of a camel tangled in a suitcase. Also good is Reza Aramesh’s “Action 144”, 2015, a porcelain sculpture typifying trousers lying on the ground, a reference to a US army punishment in Baghdad consisting of burning prisoners’ clothes and and forcing them to parade entirely naked.

On again and the vaporetto takes us to the Angolan pavilion, which won a Golden Lion when it debuted two years ago. Held in the stunning Palazzo Pisani, this time round the group show titled “On Ways of Travelling” counts with a collection of installations anchored in postcolonial reflexions on identity. The standout piece is “Cambeck”, 2012, the ravishing short video shot by Binelde Hyrcan. Performed on a beach by four kids sitting in a sand car, it documents their amusing conversation about their dreams and perceptions of the world, a delightful and absorbing work.

Video works in this Biennale have proved to be exceptionally good, and you should look out for them (they’re easy to miss in the rag-bag of art of the main pavilions): they have added a poetic and human touch to politics-laden event, reminding us that the real “capital” exceeds the material.

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56th Venice Biennale: All Roads Lead To The Macedonian Pavilion

http://www.sleek-mag.com/showroom/2015/05/56th-venice-biennale-macedonian-pavilion/

Several drums are stacked up almost scratching the high ceiling, followed by ominous large standing trumpets and a white bust of Mao sitting on cassette tape records. The work of the late Terry Adkins dominates the first rooms of the international exhibition at the Arsenale pavilion, including: “Muffled Drums”, 2013; “The Last Trumped”, 1995 and “Darkwater Record”, 2003-2008 (from the series Darkwater). A feeling of foreboding lies in the air, which is soon confirmed by Monica Bonvicini’s “Latent Combustion”, 2015, consisting of five hanging sculptures of black metal and chain saws, succeeded by Pino Pascali’s “Cannone Semovente”, 1965, a black canon made out of wood and metal. It seems the Arsenale (a former military site) was taken quite literally. Did Okwui Enwezor curate this part of the biennale while in a bad mood? 

Luckily there is plenty more to expect elation from. Berlin-based artist Katharina Grosse is the first to add colossal colour and oomph with her psychedelic installation “Untitled Trumpet,” 2015, which breaks up the Materialschlacht (material battle) of Arsenale’s start by coating it with a burst of pigments. Another example include Steve McQueen’s “Ashes,” 2014-2015, a short film about a boy called Ashes. The video is beautifully shot: a topless black boy on a boat wearing blue shorts and facing the deep blue sea. Sometimes he flirts with the camera while the wind blows his hair and the boat rocks and the wind hisses. The screening room is crowded, the viewers are marvelled, they can’t look away even if the story being told is about the boy’s death. His life is celebrated with such indelible beauty that it gives it continuity.

Further along the crammed rooms and wings of the pavilion is Cao Fei’s video, which is also a must-see. “La Town”, 2014, is an ingeniously theatrical stop-motion feature about a thrilling microcosmos that reflects on the chaotic changes occurring in society today. Using animated miniatures and figurines, the Chinese female artist creates tragic scenes of a quasi-apocalyptic world that also has a reinvigorating consolation to it.

After such a visual overload in the main exhibition, the word on the street is that the national pavilions lead to Macedonia, and its conceptual and almost immaterial installation. “We are in this alone”, 2015, takes the pre-renaissance fresco from the Church of St. Gjorgi, by an anonymous painter in the 12th century, as its premise. Artists Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski recontextualise the painting with a firm focus on trust (which was initially deposited to that unknown artist) and question the importance of faith in human existence, the arts and the artists, complimenting the biennale with alleviating spirituality.

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Venice Biennale Preview Day 1

Image: Giardini covered with artworks from Murilo and Nauman

La Biennale di Venezia – the mother of all art biennales; the Olympic Games of art – is back for its 56th run. Curated by Okwui Enwezor, with “All of the World’s Futures” as a theme, it promises to be political; and it gets there right from the outset with Oscar Murillo’s long black drapes hanging in front the Central Pavilion at Giardini (“signalling devices in now bastard territory,” 2015). 

Once inside, the feeling remains demure and profound; no funny business here. The immense space is populated by mostly old works (Christian Boltanski’s “L’Homme qui toussse,” 1969, or Marcel Broodthaers with “The Winter Garden II”, 1974), that Mr Enwezor carefully selected to represent the various perspectives our world has to offer on the history of art, capital and humanity. There are really affecting works like Senegalese Fatou Kande Senghor’s doc “Giving Birth,” 2015, about an elderly female sculptor in an African village who fears her art will die with her. However, the prevalent thread is society’s relationship with money, epitomised by Isaac Julien’s video installation “KAPITAL”, 2013, that points out “you can’t talk about capital without mentioning passion, morality, desire…”

At the end of the pavilion I stumble upon the lovely Jeremy Deller and his large banner that reads “Hello, today you have a day off.” It would  make anyone chuckle but the 2014 piece with the same title, which is accompanied a the larger installation, actually makes reference to “Zero Hour contracts,” a type of underemployment in Britain. A serious topic, but as always Deller manages to lace the social with the humorous (which lightens up the overall mood).

Off to the national pavilions and in the midst of disappointments it’s Canada that provides a surprisingly entertaining and critical pavilion. The “Canadassimo”, 2015, a three-part installation framed in scaffolding by collective BGL, replicates a typical Quebecois convenience store: a space crowded with shelves fully stocked with tins and household essentials, many of which have blurred text on their labels, alluding to blind consumerism. It takes you to a different world, some sort of suburban wonderland. Through the door (or down the rabbit hole), we enter a new room which feels like a workshop packed to the ceiling with used items from the store and banal dross; that familiar accumulation rife in a “first world” country near you.

A nice surprise is the Greek pavilion, where there’s also a replica of a shop that sells animal hides and leather (Agrimiká) together with a movie about the owner. In Maria Papadimitriou’s “Why Look at Animals? AGRIMIKÁ,” 2015, the candid and critical speaker explains the fluctuations of the business while taking us through a great part of the history of modern Greece. Her enthralling and honest presentation sparks concerns about traditions, politics and history to economics and ethics – an original and effortless take on the Biennale’s theme.

As I’m almost mesmerised into slumber by the floating pine trees outside the French pavilion I am suddenly revived by a metal band playing conspicuously at the top of the main artery of the pavilions area. One girl on drums, another on guitar, both looking fierce in golden dresses and heavy face make up. “Too much drugs,” they sing and they don’t just draw the crowds, they steal the whole show. The Brits have arrived and rock the Biennale like it’s 1999 (when Pulp played a live gig). In fact, they’re jamming so hard that even the visitors inside the neighbouring German pavilion stop to stare out of the window at the electrifying performance which kickstarts Sarah Lucas’s majestic and phallic exhibition. One artgoer sighs: “That’s how it used to be in the UK…”

Originally published in: http://www.sleek-mag.com/showroom/2015/05/56th-venice-biennale-no-funny-business/

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El Anatsui

Bleeding Takari II. 2007

393.7 x 576.6 cm

Gift of Donald L. Bryant, Jr. and Jerry Speyer to the Moma.

Congratulations to El Anatsui for winning the Golden Lion at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Anatsui creates sculptures with everyday objects that are injected with philosophical and idiomatic signs, alluding to contemporary consumer habits and to the history of colonialism in his home nation of Gahna and in his current country of residence, Nigeria.

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Shimabuku at Wilkinson Gallery

“Sharpening a MacBook Air”, 2015. Video and object in vitrine Vitrine 80 x 85 x 65 cm, duration 2 mins 6 secs, colour, sound, WG/SSHI00143. Copyright the Artist, courtesy the Artist and Wilkinson Gallery, London.

In 2003 Motorola launched the RAZR clamshell mobile phone, which was then one of the thinnest phones on the planet, and was explicitly marketed as such: so thin, it was almost a razor blade! Since then companies’ manic obsession with the leanness of devices has become ever more aggressive and preposterous. Recently, Apple came up with a farcical tag line claiming their iPhone 6 to be “at its largest. And thinnest,” staving off other more pressing tech needs like, say, battery life.

Shimabuku is an artist who likes to observe theses oddities and other mundane pleasures and displeasures of modern life, translating them into interactive works with quirky humour. In “Exchange a Mobile Phone for a Stone Tool”, his latest solo show in London, the Japanese artist studies how we interact with electrical devices while poking fun at technological evolution. His art is dependant on giving life to objects and transforming the living into things, and has the wizardry of revealing the quotidian as peculiar and vice versa. For example, he has previously asked gallery-goers to scribble on the sole of a slipper with a pen. “Sharpening a MacBook Air,” 2015, is a video showing the edge of a MacBook Air screen being sharpened to the point of becoming so knifelike that it effortlessly slices an actual apple in two. Next to it a vitrine displays the tool which, years later, materialises the prophecy of the Motorola RAZR – a device that cuts like a hot knife through butter. This feat has populated YouTube since 2011, but in this context it hints at the not-so-ludicrous possibilities awaiting these devices, that have such a short lifespan that may otherwise be piling up in a landfill in parts of Africa and Asia. It makes hence a subtle and chilling reference to the e-waste white elephant, which represents 70% of the overall toxic waste.

Another ridiculous installation at first sight is “Oldest and Newest Tools of Human Beings”, 2015, a vitrine containing five stone tools, each accompanied by either an iPhone or an iPad. Shimabuku picked stones that greatly resemble each of the electrical tools in shape and colour: square, round edges, chunky. Removed from their original purpose both look very alike, making us perhaps ponder which would make the best paperweight. Technology emulates stones more often than we thought, or is it the other way round? This work links directly to “Exchange a Mobile Phone for a Stone Tool”, 2014, the experiment captured in a video where participants are asked to exchange the roles of their phones with that of stones for a whole day. This interaction between the human and the nonhuman, and the role reversal between two seemingly dissimilar items might be formulaic but that is what initiates the art’s apposite action: to make us think. The video doesn’t show the “results” of this experiment, viewing alone is what forces us to wonder whether we’d miss our devices ourselves, should we follow suit.

Unsurprisingly, Nicolas Bourriaud (author of “Relational Aesthetics,” 1998), wrote in the exhibition text that Shimabuku’s work elevates the encounter above form in true relational art style. Relational aesthetics might be out of fashion but with a few stones thrown in aided by tech gadget must-haves it gains some cultural relevance, if only ephemerally.

Originally published in http://www.sleek-mag.com/showroom/2015/04/mobile-phone-like-stone-shimabuku-wilkinson-gallery/