Allan Kaprow

"Nonart is whatever has not yet been accepted as art but has caught an artist's attention with that possiblity in mind. For those concerned, nonart (password one) exists only fleetingly, like some subatomic particle, or perhaps only as a postulate. Indeed, the moment any such example is offered publicly, it automatically becomes a type of art ... Nonart advocates, according to this description, are those who consistently, or at one time or other, have chosen to operate outside the pale of art establishments--that is, in their heads or in the daily or natural domain. At all times, however, they have informed the art establishment of their activities, to set into motion the uncertainties without which their acts would have no meaning." Allan Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (University of California Press, 1993), 98.

Michel Leiris

Michel Leiris, "On Duchamp" in October (vol. 112, Spring 2005).

Rosler articles from Art Index

GEVER, M. Interview with Martha Rosler. Afterimage v. 9 (October 1981) p. 10-17 Wright, S. Martha Rosler in conversation: packaging the public sphere [interview]. Parachute no. 97 (January/March 2000) p. 14-21 Richard, F. Martha Rosler [Exhibit]. Artforum International v. 43 no. 6 (February 2005) p. 172-3 Rosler, M. Installed in the place of the public. Oxford Art Journal v. 24 no. 2 (2001) p. 57-73 Highmore, B., reviewer Critical vehicles (Book Review); Martha Rosler (Book Review); Painting by numbers (Book Review). Art History v. 24 no. 1 (February 2001) p. 132-9 Rosler, M. Money, power, contemporary art. The Art Bulletin v. 79 (March 1997) p. 20-4

Case study choices

Why write about Martha Rosler (an American) and her Garage Sale in regards to New Realist Arman, and Arte Povera Kounellis? Wouldn't pop art be a better example, such as the issue of consumerism? Here are some of the reasons why:

1. all 3 artworks (Full Up, 12 Horses, and Garage Sale) are gestures which cannot be bought and sold by collectors; they can be repeated and imitated, but exist within a special place in the art market
2. Arman deals with accumulation, which is the theme of much of his oeurve, Garage Sale is also an accumulating gesture.
3. Kounellis deals with the performative, of living animals in some of his art (the horses, the parrot); as well as relating to a history, in Rosler's sense a history of vintage objects.

Weblinks I found today

E-flux (electronic flux corporation) Gesture in Europe: in the cultural heritage of Europe

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art

The Gesture: A Visual Library in Progress Friday, 22 July 2005 "THESSALONIKI, GREECE.- The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art presents The Gesture: A Visual Library in Progress, on view through 18 September 2005. During the late Sixties experimental practices have argued new cultural conditions by collapsing form and content into a constantly fluctuating state. Emphasizing the body art these artists amplified the role of process over product and extended the boundaries of painting and sculpture into real time and spatial movement. What began in the late Forties, as an awareness of the gesture in painting became gradually an understanding of how process informs practice. Yet, live arts are impossible to classify within the narrow definition of “performance”. They usually diverge between physical manifestations, conceptual acts, activism, happenings, demonstrations, and events, private or public, constructive or destructive gestures. Contemporary artists are able to create a new dimension of space, time, power and awareness within human relations and the geopolitical arena."

Temporary structure as gallery

Park Nights at the Serpentine Gallery

Alison Rowley

"Each room on both floors of the Ikon [Gallery] was filled to capacity with examples of Martha Rosler’s work from 1966 through to 1995, installed more or less chronologically with 1960s and 1970s work on the first floor, 1980s and 1990s on the second. In spaces packed with material, visual on walls, floor and hanging from the ceiling, in colour and black and white, image and text; acoustic through headphones and from video monitors it was not easy to determine where one piece ended and another began. Had the installation been planned as the latest manifestation of the Monumental Garage Sale? This is a serious idea supported by the fact that in New York Martha Rosler set up a garage sale in the public access space at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in which she mixed her own possessions with those of others. A sign in the garage sale installation reads, “What if the garage sale is a metaphor for the mind?” Martha Rosler’s practice has played a crucial part in breaking the modernist myth that art was a domain apart from society and immune to politics and power. She has always made work for circulation in galleries and museums and recently confirmed that she “has no intention of giving up on the museum and gallery audience.”[footnote omitted] At the same time, though, a commitment to reaching a wider public beyond the museum and gallery-going audience is fundamental to her practice. This has involved collaboration, with unknown participants in the mail works for instance, and in specific events involving groups of people, in particular places at particular times. The project If you Lived Here is a significant example. The display of accumulated material associated with strategic collaboration and collective action in a retrospective whose title begins with the proper name martha rosler necessarily produces it as the metaphor of a single, an individual artist’s mind ... For a feminist visitor of my generation (not quite old enough to be of Martha Rosler’s, but not young enough to be post what it stands for) displaying the material remains of activities that originally set out to reach beyond the gallery system carries a danger. It risks producing relics in the religious sense. Not the actual finger of St Martha, but holy material all the same. Imbued in these post feminist, post Marxist days with the mystique of its indexical relation to Martha Rosler’s history of feminist /Marxist informed “guerrilla” strategies planned from positions once on the margins of the art world. Was this, perhaps an effect contributing to the critical silence surrounding the exhibition at the Ikon? For to give a direct answer to the question, how did martha rosler: positions in the life world reopen public debates about the generational shifts in “feminist art” and curatorial practices? In Britain it didn’t. Feminists of my own generation involved in cultural politics failed to respond to the exhibition, with the exception of one notable review, to which I shall return." Alison Rowley, "Exhibiting 'Martha Rosler'? A feminist response to martha rosler: positions in the life world" in N.Paradoxa (no. 14 2001).

Revised working abstract

The purpose of this exploration is to construct intersections involving art,gallery spaces, heterotopias, geopolitical contexts, repetitions, and theeveryday. The artistic gestures by Arman (Full Up, 1960), Kounellis (TwelveHorses, 1969), and Rosler (Garage Sale, 1973) are unique in themselves, as wellas instances of a specific angle in conceptualism during the 1960s and 70s. Theeverydayness of these gestures are critical to gallery ideologies, and produces'masquerading gallery spaces' in late-capitalism (as junkyard, stable, andgarage). These artists enable a reading of neo-dadaism, performance andinstallation art, situated in the postwar period. Space is being collapsedbetween everyday banality and artistic practices, notions that areconventionally divided by philosophical history. In postmodernism, are 'theboundaries truly being blurred,' or are new boundaries being created? Aremuseums as heterotopias--the placeless place outside time--being debunkedthrough these critical gestures in conceptualism? This discussion examinesthese questions and others through the theoretical lenses of Lefebvre,Foucault, and Deleuze, to develop a debate on the everyday and spatiality. Thefocus herein is 'what is(are) space(s),' instead of the perhaps more commonquestion 'what is art.' Douglas Drake Leeds, July 2005

www.artnet.com

artnet® Magazine - People Index

Canada weblinks from Julie Fiala

The Power Plant - Contemporary Art Gallery Habourfront Centre instantcoffee.org : Instant Coffee : no better than you Gallery 44 - Centre for Contemporary Photography Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre

Email from Mara 20.4.05

"here's a few of the video sites i mentioned: http://www.eai.org/eai/streaming_video.jsp http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/search/category:video http://the-artists.org/tours/video-art.cfm also a site with lesser known/emerging artists: http://www.cinematicfilm.com/acces.html if i come across others i'll send them your way."

Draft of working abstract

To construct intersections involving art, gallery space, heterotopias, geopolitical context, repetition, and the everyday is the purpose of this exploration. The art gestures by Arman (Full Up, 1960), Kounellis (Twelve Horses, 1969), and Rosler (Garage Sale, 1973) are examples of a specific angle within conceptualism of the 1960s and 70s. Within gallery space, the everydayness of these gestures are critical to gallery ideology, and produce a ‘masquerading gallery space’ (as junkyard, stable, and garage). These artists provide a reading of neo-dadaism, performance and installation art. Space is being collapsed between the philosophical division of banal everyday and artistic practice. In postmodernism, are ‘the boundaries truly being blurred,’ or are new boundaries being created? Is the museum as heterotopia--the placeless place outside time--being debunked through these conceptual everyday gestures? This discussion examines these questions through theoretical lenses of Lefebvre, Foucault, and Deleuze; to provide a debate on the everyday and spatiality. The focus herein is 'what is space,' rather than the common question 'what is art.' Douglas Drake Leeds, July 2005

The Guardian: "Jumble fever"

Caroline Sullivan talks to beatnik artist Martha Rosler about shopping as art Friday June 3, 2005 Martha Rosler is examining the contents of her first London solo exhibition, Garage Sale, which opens at London's ICA this weekend. One particular item among hundreds, all of which will be on sale to the public, has caught her eye. It is a children's toy, a little plastic alien entombed in a clear latex ball, purpose unknown. She finds it fascinatingly repulsive - "like a foetus in an egg" - and decides she has to have it. She gives the thing a squeeze, giggles little-girlishly and slips it into her handbag. She looks and sounds like the Brooklyn Jewish mother she is, though it would take courage to say it to her face ... It's rather like the clothing sales Elton John occasionally holds - but he doesn't expect customers to ask themselves whether the tat they're pawing through is art - or just tat. Rosler, on the other hand, hopes her buyers will be questioning "the nature of art, and the nature of the art object" as they haggle away. She wants people to decide whether they're buying art, or just designer blingwear. This will encourage them, she says, to think about shopping and "domesticity", subjects that have preoccupied her since graduating from Brooklyn College in 1965. Her sphere is broad, with major works focusing on homelessness, the Vietnam war and sweatshop workers, but the sale is the one that has caught the popular imagination ...

Articles found on Art Index

Obsolescence: a special issue [9 article special issue]. October (Cambridge, Mass.) no. 100 (Spring 2002) p. 3-228 WEDEWER, R. Environments and rooms. Art & Artists v. 5 (July 1970) p. 16-19 Muller, G. Arman Arman Arman Arman Arman Arman Arman. Arts Magazine v. 44 (April 1970) p. 35-8 MARTIN, H. Real and living; career of Jannis Kounellis. Art & Artists v. 7 (June 1972) p. 24-9 Christov-Bakargiev, C. Arte povera 1967-1987. Flash Art (International Edition) no. 137 (November/December 1987) p. 52-69

NMPFT, Bradford

Fashionation: between art and fashion - National Museum of Photography Film and Television, Bradford

Final rough draft

Click the link below to read the [final] rough draft, which I handed into the department today for my tutor. It's different than the previous draft I posted on the blog a few days ago. As a draft, I'm fairly happy with it, mind you 'as a draft.' I used a lot of bulletpoints where paragrahs will be more elborated on or expanded. The draft is about 8,000 words (text, bibliography, and foonotes combined). I need to expand more about the context of 1960s and 70s conceptualism, as well as theory of space. I also need to write more about how Gilles Deleuze connects with my dissertation, the Foucault is obvious--i.e. heterotopia--but the rhizome and Difference et Repetition needs to be clarified. Plus find more sources regarding the works of art I primarily refer to: Arman's Le Plein (1960); Jannis Kounellis’s Dodici Cavalli Livi (1969, 76); and Martha's Rosler Garage Sale (1973, 77). The latter being the main focus of the dissertation. I've also attempted recently to get into contact with Rosler herself, but as of yet no response.

Garage Sale photogallery

Martha Rosler, Garage Sale, California, 1973 "It was advertised in local press as a jumble sale, and among the art community as an exhibition"

Postmodern generator

The Postmodern Generator: Communications from Elsewhere

Blurring the boundaries

"Postmodernism combines simultaneous fragmentation and blurring of boundaries in a universe where no absolute truth governs the definition of reality and morality. This is in contrast to modernism which emphasizes the coming together of the multifaceted, sometimes conflicting aspects of life into a unified whole that can be realized. Postmodernism accepts the conflicts as the standard mode of existence. Unlike the consensus sought by modernism, postmodernism accepts discensus, and even proclaims that one unified way of seeing things is impossible."

Turner Prize 2005

Turner Prize 2005 shortlist announced "Tate today [2 June 2005] announced the four artists who have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2005. The artists are Darren Almond, Gillian Carnegie, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling. The Turner Prize 2005 is supported by the makers of Gordon's." ME, a la Gilbert & George: because Gordon's makes us drink.

A very rough draft

The link below will take you to the beginnings of the draft, please excuse any grammatical errors or highlighted notes to myself, this is indeed "very" rough draft. I'm posting it for backup reasons, since right now there is only one copy of the file on the computer I use, and I haven't made any printouts as of yet. Tomorrow I will be printing a first copy out and will revise from that; I revise much better on paper than I do on a computer screen. I posted the draft in *.htm format on Villanova University's server (my undergrad uni), since I still have access to webspace there being an alumni. The *.htm was hastily converted with Microsoft Word, so also please excuse any formatting mistakes that was made in the transition from a *.doc file to a *.htm file. Pictures have also been omitted, but most can be found in previous blog entries. The word count is also inaccurate. The first draft will be handed into the department office this coming Tuesday, and I have the last tutorial with my tutor the following week to discuss my work-in-progress. I will post the official draft in a few days time. Also, the symposium in conjunction with the MASS and MAFEM programs has been canceled, hence there will be no public presentation of the project; this makes the blog even more important as the disseration's only method of public availability.

Wayne McGregor's Ataxia

Donald Hutera, "A Choreographer Uses a Limitation to Fuel an Inspiration" in The New York Times (17 July 2005).

Fireflies on the Water

Yayoi Kusama, Fireflies on the Water (2002), Mirror and plexiglass "In her most recent works Kusama continues to create reflective interior environments. Fireflies on the Water (2002) consists of a small room lined with mirros on all sides, a pool in the center of the space, and 150 small lights hanging from the ceiling, creating a dazzling effect of direct and reflected light, emanating from both the mirrors and the water's surface. Like her earliest room-size installations, Fireflies embodies an almost halluncinatory approach to reality, while shifting the mood from her earlier, more unsettling installations toward a more ethereal, almost spiritual experience."

Lights Going On and Off

Martin Creed, Work No. 227: The lights going on and off (2000), installation at Tate Britain for 2001 Turner Prize (winner), 5 seconds on/5 seconds off, Edition 2/electrical time switch

Sigur Rós, Lowry Theatre

sigur rós tour diary: 2005.07.09 manchester concert

More of my favorite artworks

Martha Rosler, London Garage Sale (2005) ICA, London Cameron Jamie, Maps and Composite Actions (2001-03) Muhka, Antwerp Mona Hatoum, Recollection (1995) Muhka, Antwerp Matthew Barney, Cremaster 5 (1997) Tate Modern, London Marcel Duchamp, The Fountain (1950, replicia of 1917 original) Philadelphia Museum of Art Banksy, Untitled Banksy rat (undated) Old street car park, London Rebecca Horn, Light imprisoned in the belly of the whale (2002) Hayward Gallery, London Michelangelo Pistoletto, Porte Spazio (2005) Leeds City Art Gallery Andy Warhol, Invisible Sculpture (1985) ICA, Philadelphia

Claire Copley Gallery

Michael Asher. Installation at Claire Copley Gallery, Sept. 21 - Oct. 12, 1974.

Some (unrelated) weblinks

Yayoi Kusama Official Site Ilya and Emilie Kabakov: The Empty Museum, 2004 - Sculpture Center, Long Island NY The Cremaster Cycle - by Matthew Barney Spotlight on Antony Gormley: Field for the British Isles - Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Scupture Park (9 July to 18 Sept 2005) Rebecca Horn Archives Liverpool Biennial - International Festival of Contemporary Art Fashioning Fiction in Photography since 1990 - MoMA, NYC

Shenzhen, China

Keith Bradsher, "Own Original Chinese Copies of Real Western Art!" in The New York Times (15 July 2005).

The Big Nothing

The Big Nothing: summer 2004 - ICA, Philadelphia

Project outline

Here is the current outline of my dissertation at its present point-in-time. I will post a more detailed version as soon as possible, which will have less shorthand and will be more readable. I will also post samples of the draft itself, after I clean it up a bit more. I've decided on two chapters, the first will be dealing primarily with the topic of the everyday, while the second will be focused on space and spatiality issues.

1. Introduction (max. 2 paragraphs)—definition of the everyday, framing, space
2. Chapter 1: the everyday
3. More about the everyday, discussed through one of the artists (perhaps Arman)
4. Brief instance of the history of the everyday throughout art history, with conceptualism
5. Arman, Kounellis, Rosler (3 countries? Globalization of conceptualism)
6. Rosler = performance, anti-expressionist, feminism, southern California
7. Arman = new realism, Yves Klein, Iris Clert, France
8. Kounellis = Arte Povera, Italy, representation, natural materials, performance?
9. Chapter 2: space and place
10. Space and the art gallery—use Inside the White Cube here, demise of the frame
11. Deleuze and repetition and difference: the difference in gallery space
12. Historical context of 60/70s, counter-culture
13. Foucault’s heterotopias, the museum—ex: the Mona Lisa, but it is a real place; the ICA
14. The out of place/space (ex: Manet), what is art gallery space, discuss through all artists
15. Contemporary = Patterson, Hirst, Kusama, Emin …
16. Conclusion (one paragraph)

Internet is back

The internet at my flat got switched back on today, but only after roughly 5 or 6 phone calls of complaints. I have a 1 gig limit now, so i shouldn't have any problems over the remainder of the dissertation process.

Williamburg, Brooklyn

Holland Cotter, "Add the Fireflies and It's a Summer Idyll" in The New York Times (13 July 2005). Also see www.cindersgallery.com for the gallery's website.

Iris Clert 2

Iris Clert ställde ut och sitter i en stol av vitlackerat trä tillverkad 1961 som konstverk av Friedeberg från Mexico City. Foto: Gunnar Larsen

Iris Clert

"Iris Clert, a Greek national active in the French Resistance during WWII, had opened, 'the smallest art gallery in Paris' at 3, rue des Beaux-Arts. It was only one small room, but it had the advantage of a large picture window, was just down the street from the Ecole de Beaux Arts, and directly across the street from the Minotaure, a surrealist bookstore, and the offices of the Pataphysics Society, whose membership included the cult figure Alfred Jarry ... In addition to his participation in the group show, Clert arranged for Klein to have a one-man exhibition from May 10-25, 1957. Klein's childhood friend Arman relates that Iris Clert was a dealer unlike others of the time and that, 'She introduced modern techniques for the presentation of art into a business that was more like antique dealing. She was a pioneer in this.' She was not above shocking the bourgeoisie, and like Klein, was enamored of publicity and spectacle. It is not surprising then that the opening of the exhibition featured a march from the gallery to the popular Left Bank café Deaux Magots, where they released 1,001 blue balloons before an indifferent public, but an attentive film crew, who recorded the event for posterity."

Internet update

My flat should have internet by sometime this Thursday, I will post more paragraphs from the rough draft on that date, and probably a more extensive outline of the project.

Internet down

Post will be a little less frequent over the next day or so, the internet is down in my flat, although it will probably be fixed by tomorrow (knock on wood). Currently, I'm working on the rough draft, posts of its progress will be made shortly. It's going okay, will be submitting it to Gail Day (my tutor) in a week's time; I have plenty to do until then. I am running into some small theoretical snags, but nothing that sitting down, having a cup of mint tea, and a good think can't solve.

Like You

likeYou.com: guides to contemporary art culture

Blindman

Henri-Pierre Roche, Beatrice Wood, and Marcel Duchamp (editors), Blindman (No. 2, New York, May 1917).

Giving up on the avant-garde?

Margo Jefferson, "The Avant-Garde, Rarely Love at First Sight" in The New York Times (8 July 2005).

Sample from first draft

It may be initially apparent that the everyday--as a word--is self explanatory, the words 'every' and 'day' obviously denoting something that occurs not only once, but each day hence thereafter, hence repetition. However, to write of 'the everyday' as opposed to an 'everyday' (no 'the') perhaps encompasses a much more vast spectrum of complexity and analysis. What exactly is meant by the everyday and what is its effect on art, or vice versa even? Ben Highmore writes of the surrealists, and how they [the movement] sought to change, or perhaps overcome and alter and disrupt the routiness of the everyday experience ... However, I am exploring a strand of art history that is perhaps the opposite of the surrealist history/movement: rather, how the everyday disrupted and altered art--i.e. the hetertopic (see Foucault) of the art gallery space--specifically in mind a few conceptual artists practicing during the 1960s through 1970s ... These artists practice an alternative reading of dadaism (surrealism as another yet different reading); as well as linked genealogically to the practice of certain [their] future contemporary artists ...

New build

Tatlin's Tower and the World

Europe travel 2

Just got back today from traveling in Holland, Belgium, and France. Went to the following exhibits and museums, some were useful for my dissertation work, at least in regards to a thought process of ideas: Populism - Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Ed van der Elsken: Mijn Amsterdam - Foam, Amsterdam Ensemble! - Muhka, Antwerp Fotomuseum, Antwerp Big Bang - Centre Pompidou, Paris Ellen Von Unwerth - Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris Translation - Palais de Tokyo, Paris Musée Rodin, Paris Musée du Louvre, Paris

Europe travel

No posts for a few more days. I'm currently in Antwerp (Belgium), just arrived here by train from Amsterdam. Tomorrow afternoon I will take a bus or train to Paris, and will stay there for almost a week. Returning to Leeds on 7 July.