Warhol, Newman, Wool “Barney is now at another party.“ When exhibitions show artistic developments in a larger context, it is a good thing for every visitor. Such an exhibition can be seen at the moment at Kunsthaus Graz. Under the curatorial direction of Peter Pakesch, the exhibition “Warhol, Wool, Newman” bridges the gap between abstract American expressionism, minimal and pop art, and some of the art of our time.

[6:02 min] herunterladen auf: Handy | Computer & iPod | Feedback senden

Abstract American expressionism brought a new image and understanding of space into the world of art. The viewer played a central role here, because the work was no longer possible without his/her presence. In Barnett Newman’s work, this becomes noticeably clear. It positions the viewer as the counterpart and participant in the space of the image and confronts him/her with a physical reality.

Andy Warhol built upon Newman’s understanding of space, according to the director of the Kunsthaus Graz, Peter Pakesch. Pop art – when Warhol is considered to be its most important representative – is, to that extent, not a reaction to American abstract expressionism, but rather, the logical extension of a continuous development. Peter Pakesch has been following this theory for a long time. After a ten-year preparation period, he can now publicly confirm this theory on the basis of original works.

Like Newman, Warhol also plays with the perception of space and time. Through his silkscreen images, which often use newspaper images as source material, he demonstrates that it is pointless to look for references that correspond to reality. There is no independent reality behind these pictures.

He tries to dispel the meaning out of the pictures and thereby produce a counterbalance to mass-media reporting, “Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel.“

By contrast, in his films, Warhol tries to set the illusion machinery of Hollywood against disillusionism by bringing the films back into the physical. He slows them down, plays with time, and thereby creates a new space of perception for the viewer. Christopher Wool also works in this context. For him, original painting no longer exists. The prototypes are stamped, the writings are painted along with the template. The motif is endlessly repeated. It is exactly through this repetition of the same that identity develops, and this connects Wool with Warhol.

In the word paintings of the New York-based painter and photographer Wool, condensed slogans and shortened messages from the present media world are featured. There often exists a gap thereby between the signs and the original “SENSEISNOLONGERTOBEMADE”. The randomly placed empty spaces obscure meaning and put perceived reality into question. It produces a disturbance and represents an alternative world to the determined everyday life of the media. (jk/jn)

This podcast was made possible with the generous support of UNIQA ArtCercles. The pictures of Warhol, Wool and Newman are on display at the Kunsthaus Graz until January 10th, 2010.

The American sound artist, Douglas Henderson, studied composition and theory at Princeton University under Milton Babbitt, a pioneer of synthesizers and Pulitzer Prize winner, Elie Yarden, and J.K. Randall, co-editor of the magazine, Perspectives of New Music.
Henderson currently resides in Brooklyn and, after receiving a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service in 2007, in Berlin. His artistic work has been supported by renowned foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Foundation of Contemporary Art New York, and numerous other grants; his list of exhibition activities and performances is as noteworthy as it is international. His compositional work has been presented at countless computer and new music festivals ranging from Seoul to New York. He has collaborated intensely with modern dance choreographers, composing for the likes of Jeremy Nelson, David Zambrano, and Meg Stuart, as well as for numerous dance theatres across Europe and the US.

Visible Sound

[17:09 min] download for: mobile, computer and iPod | send feedback

Part 2. Playback

[23:11 min] download for: mobile, computer and iPod | send feedback

The work of this composer and performer is located somewhere in the scope of multi-channel electro-acoustic composition. However, he is not only concerned with purely acoustic work, rather, he is consistently devoted to making sound visible. He didn’t really want to begin, says the artist, with the common perception of music, and wanted to be less concerned with how music sounds than how it looks. This does not mean that the acoustic intensity would be negligible, but rather that it would serve as a reference that determines which approach his compositional work takes. His recording, “Icebreaker”, performed at the Hudson Opera House, awakes paranoid feelings in the listener, who feels as if a sheet of ice is cracking underneath his/her own feet and shattering into a million tiny bits. His loudspeakers, painted in swimming-pool blue and filled with water, lean once again in a more visual direction. Henderson compares this 2003 piece with abstract painting, and as a composer, he considers it representative of a large part of his work.

Lately, the artist has also turned his attention to constructing instruments in the form of space installations. Strings are stretched across the spaces and entire building structures are utilized as bodies of sound. They are activated by machines and challenge the movements of the visitors, who come to realize that they are triggering what they are hearing with their own bodies. (wh/jn)

In our age, identity has become something of an obsession. Andy Warhol predicted the perennial pursuit of one’s “15 minutes of fame”, and celebrity status represents the ultimate destination of success. The art world has been far from exempt from this trend: the persona of a well-known artist is often as carefully crafted as his artwork. The cult of personality can reap considerable profits, as the latest record-breaking artworks of Klimt, Picasso, and Pollock will attest to. The elusive nature of creative genius garners a level of worship that makes today’s museum as sacred a place as yesterday’s cathedral.

One of the most exciting tendencies of art is its ability to constantly upend itself. Styles are meant to be challenged, theories debunked, rules broken. In the end, the role of art is to make us see things differently, and just when we think we have done, shake up our world again.

Just as we read about the latest most expensive painting being sold, or the hottest young art star hitting the scene, a quiet countermovement is taking place. The cult of personality is making way for the quest for anonymity. Art collectives shun what they see as outdated values such as egoism, fame, and recognition. Avoiding limiting designations such as roles or credits, collectives bring the focus back to the work itself, art for art’s sake.

“The most radical gesture of art is its own existence,” is a key line in The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s (BHQF) artist’s statement. This young art collective, based in Brooklyn, NY, has successfully maintained a studio and “career” based on the spirit of collaboration. Although they have never cited any of their individual names in the press and until now, have not even really shown their faces, their philosophy is not necessarily about “obfuscating shit”, or strategically dodging identification. Their vibe is more about the “liberating qualities of fiction”, the principle that “facts” do not necessarily lead to the “truth”. BHQF’s avoidance of pin-down-able “facts” creates interesting challenges such as not qualifying for an official Wikipedia entry (Wikipedia requires “facts” that can be verified twice in publications), or often being “misrepresented” in the press.

But these aspects are all part of the fun. Perhaps it is not surprising that this (loosely defined) collective of young gentlemen are often characterized by a form of highbrow hijinks: playful references (e.g., superimposing “Bruce’s” face on famous artworks), wacky interventions (e.g., staging a “protest” at the Art Basel art fair in Miami), and mass open events (e.g., producing their own interpretation of “Cats on Broadway”). The work often resembles a form of fratboy pranks dreamed up by art school intellectuals.

But perhaps the most fascinating aspect of collectives is their will to exist and persist. According to “the Bruces”, their most commonly asked question is how long “the experiment” will last. Political projects could probably take a cue from the Bruces’ formula of success, which involves a combination of fluidity, openness, and genuine camaraderie. Until now, it’s been working and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. (jn)

We live in a visual age. Our pastimes are often dictated by those things we like to observe, in art galleries, at the cinema, at the zoo. In this surveillance-heavy era, our desire to watch often goes unchecked. Cameras dictate our day-to-day existence, we chase after images that fit our expectations and concepts of beauty, of nature, of gaze-worthiness. Our eyes are trained to seek out, capture, and fix on that which has meaning to us and could be potentially shared.

But are we critical enough of that which we look at and the position from which we look at it? We set definitions for the subject and the object, we break down the constructs of viewing in the hopes that we don’t fall into a pre-manipulated, voyeuristic trap. Men should not objectify women, tourists should seek the unbeaten path, no one should remain in the position of “the other”. It’s rude to stare.

Art has always offered the possibility of not taking these positions for granted. For as long as art and artists have existed, there have always also been the viewers. In this day and age, reflexivity has given way to self-reflexivity. Every voyeur is also a voyee. Through her art, Liselot van der Heijden explores these ever-evolving visual positionings. In her compact, spare, but multi-layered installations, the viewer always plays an integral part in the set-up and therefore, naturally, passivity is not an option.

Nature plays a big part in van der Heijden’s work. Drawing from an archive culled from nature documentaries, sightseeing trips, and media footage, the artist repeatedly reminds us through her work that even in our idyllic reception of “nature”, our position is always complicit, our intentions are not necessarily “pure”. In exhibitions such as “Aporia”, in which we are confronted by the a drawn-out version of a zebra’s last breath, or “Primate Visions”, in which the fourth walls of zoo habitats are broken down, or “Natural History”, in which observers of the dioramas at New York’s Museum of Natural History unwittingly project life into the life-like figures, anthropomorphism becomes an outdated concept in a far more complex mediation between the natural and the un-natural.

Originally from the Netherlands, the artist has been dividing her time between Amsterdam and New York for the last 15 years, and her bewilderment during the Bush Administration also found its way into her work. Shortly after 9/11, when Ari Fleischer memorably warned Americans to “watch what we say”, van der Heijden turned a watchful eye and ear on Bush, creating two video pieces: one consisting of a State of the Union address that has been stripped down to the words “America” (61 times) and another focusing on phrases such as “evil is real” and “God is near”, respectively, in addition to their accompanying standing ovations. Reflecting on mediation and complicity inevitably leads to reflecting on the political, and van der Heijden’s critical negotiation of the viewer can, in this case, also be applied to the citizen. (jn)

The art world is one which takes itself very seriously. Whether it is in the hushed classrooms of art schools where aspiring students dutifully sketch nude models, or in the fancy words of the latest review in the glossy pages of a top art magazine, or in the hallowed, guarded, temperature-controlled halls of a prestigious national museum, fine art is nothing to be laughed at – apparently.

There was a time when William Anthony wanted to be taken “seriously”. But then came the day when he finally got through to his drawing students. He thought he would demonstrate the classic “don’t”s of figure drawing by incorporating them into one representative form. Then, something interesting happened. They laughed. He had somehow struck a chord. “Learning from mistakes” seemed to have made the greatest impact on his students.

From that moment on, Anthony decided to play the fool. If it wasn’t for Anthony’s subject matter, one would think that his “scrawl”-ings had been done by a child. But upon closer examination, they reveal not only a meticulously developed style based on intentional “errors” and deliberate erasures, but also an eclectic set of influences and inspirations that draw from many genres and famous works of art, as well as a broad base of historical and current events that lend themselves to being lampooned.

Taking a cue from the pop art movement that was in full bloom at the time of his own development, Anthony quickly learned to develop not only a keen eye, but also a keen ear for picking up on ridiculous occurrences. Strange magazine covers, art historical and cultural anecdotes, and of course, multitudes of both well- and lesser- known artworks became the fodder for his hilarious yet well-observed and insightful repertoire of satires.

The comic approach of his work has landed his works on the pages of Warhol’s Interview magazine and ArtForum, and in galleries and museums around the world, as well as being compiled in books that cover not only drawing techniques, but also such lofty subjects as World War II and the Bible. He is a favorite among art critics, as his witty references range from such diverse artists as Fragonard and Bosch, to Manet and Hockney. In Anthony’s world, no artist is too high to be sent up. Lucky for them, because this is where the fun starts. (jn)

At the ripe old age of 35, Francisca Benitez calls herself a “retired architect”. When the Chilean-born artist first arrived in New York ten years earlier, her experience as an architect permanently shaped her view of the city. What she imagined as a creative, intellectually challenging profession, turned out to be an exercise in municipal bureaucracy—much of her work was about interpreting building codes and zoning restrictions, cutting through administrative red tape, and facing the challenges of a complex system of rules, regulations, and protocol.

All of these obstacles, however, only served to further inform her unique perspective and conception of a sprawling urban landscape. She found that her attention was more and more drawn to those dimensions and spaces around her that may be overlooked, or taken for granted. Informed and inspired by her heroes, Gordon Matta-Clark and Ed Ruscha, she never lost sight of the bigger (or smaller) picture—that the jurisdiction of boundaries, lines, and interactions was a process that was constantly being defined, whether the results followed the modus operandi or not.

In a city as densely packed as New York, public space is always an issue. An endless procession of building up and tearing down, moving in and moving out, rumbling underground networks and soaring stories of skyscrapers, is accompanied by a constant series of negotiations between people, places, and properties. It is a fluid, flexible entity, but there are still lines that are drawn and maps that are plotted. In an era when exploration seems to be a tapped-out enterprise, the artist still finds novus terra incognita.

For Benitez, these opportunities seem to be everywhere. Her work is not so much about confrontation or intervention as it is about observing, recording, noticing. A ride on her bike leads to the discovery of ancient religious architectonic rituals that subtly transform alleys, backyards, and balconies in Williamsburg. A trip to her roof reveals spellbinding pigeon formations that represent power struggles between former street gang-members. An experiment of simple floor rubbings unearths a vast grid of previously unnoticed property lines.

But these engagements are not just about identifying hidden territories and demarcating space. They are also about personal encounters, chance meetings, mutually verified acknowledgments of positioning and re-positionings. In the end, public space is not just about vacant lots, “keep off” signs, or property issues. It’s about the human element that underlies them all. (jn)

New York has always been known for its international flavor and background, but until only recently, Austrian and German culture was not at the forefront of this range, largely due to a complicated history that has taken half a century to resolve. Culture is inevitably wrapped up in its history, and Austrian and German culture are definitely no exceptions, given the events of the last century.

However, Austrian and German modern art of the beginning of the 20st century has found a new place and home in the US, and the location could not be more appropriate: on the Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York, a formally German neighborhood. The Neue Galerie is a small but opulent institution founded in 2001 by two great enthusiasts for this period in art in the US, Ronald Lauder, renowned businessman and philanthropist, and the late Serge Sabarsky, art dealer and pioneer of German and Austrian Expressionist art in New York.

The founding of the Neue Galerie.

[5:27 min] download for: mobile, computer and iPod | send feedback

The reemergence of German and Austrian Expressionist art in New York.

[7:16 min] download for: mobile, computer and iPod | send feedback

Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I”

[6:53 min] download for: mobile, computer and iPod | send feedback

The Neue Galerie has built its reputation on its meticulous showcasing of this previously underrepresented genre of art, which culminated in the history-making acquisition of its prize possession, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, which the museum proudly refers to as the “Mona Lisa” of its collection. Since then, issues of restitution and provenance of artworks have become an important part of the museum’s program.

Art and history can never be separated, and the Neue Galerie came into its own in the US based on this principle. Can a monetary value be placed on works of art whose history cannot be separated from their aesthetic worth? Has German and Austrian Expressionist art now come full circle in the US, due to the attention that the Neue Galerie New York has brought to it? Sitting in the flawlessly recreated Viennese-style café of the Neue Galerie, Café Sabarsky, CastYourArt discussed these and other questions with Scott Gutterman, deputy director of the Neue Galerie. (jn)

One of the earliest forms of art were frescoes, which were painted on the walls of caves, often featuring animals such as horses, bears, and lions. In ancient civilizations, frescoes would also be used to depict mythological figures, as well as religious scenarios, which evolved into the pinnacle of their magnificence in the chapels and cathedrals of the Italian Renaissance. Frescoes throughout all of these eras have been inspired by both the familiar and the sacred.

Roy Kortick, the New York-based artist who brings the fresco, as well as other artistic crafts—ceramics, tiles, tapestries—into the new millennium, is inspired by both the cuddly and the profane. In an age of sensory overload and broken-down taboos, Kortick’s deceptively innocent icons are singled out and thrown together in a mishmash of unlikely settings and combinations: a figure of Snoopy reclined on an airplane, bunnies lined up in a fresco motif on a band of ladies’ underwear, native Americans, polar bears, astronauts—even his own pet dogs serve as muses for a makeshift, jumbled, irreverent yet endearing memorial.

[5:07 min] download for: mobile | computer & iPod | send feedback

In the end, the frescoes, both of Kortick as well as cave painters and Renaissance masters, are not only notable for their cultural and historical subject matter, they are also exceptional in their forms and techniques: the luminous color brought out by using paint on plaster, the use of resin to bring a glossy sheen to the surface layers. As much as we may conjecture over the meanings behind a fresco’s rich and dynamic imagery, be it ancient or contemporary, in the end, as Kortick points out, it’s about the work that goes into it that really matters. That said, Kortick can’t help closing that statement with a wink and a smile. (jn)

As you are looking at this podcast, you are looking into a monitor, be it on your laptop, your iPod, your mobile phone, etc. But how much time do you spend actually looking at your monitor, a physical object that one has come to take completely for granted? The point of a mobile world, in fact, is that these objects, through which we stay connected with an information-saturated world, are disposable—toys that we purchase and update on a regular basis, and, at the same rate, discard and forget about just as quickly.

In Noah Fischer’s work, one returns to looking at this neglected object, the monitor, in all its different versions and models over the ages—a technological “era” which only really covers about thirty years of time. The Brooklyn-based artist was first drawn to the monitor by noticing the predominance of them in trash heaps on the streets of New York. What was once a valuable, sought-out item as little as one or two years ago becomes worthless material for the junkyard today, and the cycle accelerates with the emergence of every shiny new model that appears in the store each year, month, week, even—as the regular lines of hungry customers at every new Apple store will attest.

[6:05 min] download for: mobile | computer & iPod | send feedback

Noah Fischer brings this frantically mass-produced object back to its simple lo-tech origins: as a relic, a piece of furniture, and most poetically, as a light source—a kind of simple lantern emitting a soft, ethereal light. He re-introduces the most basic structural and aesthetic features of the object in terms of its color, its material, its form. As the newest models of monitors become ever-more streamlined, flatter, smaller, trying to divert attention, in fact, from their condition of being actual physical objects, the obsolete models that once enjoyed such state-of-the-art status become ever more strange and quaint in their outdated bulkiness—a quality made even stranger by the fact that early models of monitors were once a product of designers who even marked each of their works with their signatures.

In an age when video art represents the most cutting-edge medium of young artists, Noah Fischer turns the ubiquitous monitor—both figuratively and literally—on its head, evoking a decidedly modernist, Duchamp-ian gesture in the process. In this case, the signature on the object is his. (jn)

In Amerika, Kafka’s unfinished novel, the sixteen-year-old Karl, after being seduced by a housemaid who then becomes pregnant by him, is sent to America, according to his parents’ wish. In New York, the boy, who has been cast out by his parents, begins his social downslide. In search of belonging, he experiences a world in which one only looks after oneself and which is calculated towards one’s emotional needs. He can only gain social acknowledgment and emotional intimacy at the price of subjugation and self-exploitation. In the last chapter of the never-completed novel, Karl discovers a poster for the Nature Theater of Oklahoma on the streets of New York, which promises work and a home for everyone. Karl signs up and heads west with the theater. According to Max Brod, who published the novel after Kafka’s death, the theater was planned as a place where Karl could participate and thereby find a home and himself.

[5:58 min] download for: mobile | computer & iPod | send feedback

“All welcome! Anyone who wants to be an artist, step forward! We are the theater that has a place for everyone, everyone in his place!” It is the obvious generosity that was communicated by the theater poster — in contrast to the calculating world of warped humanity that Karl experienced — that incites the spirit of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma theater group, led by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, and which inspired its name. Their theater is a place which invites participation, a place in which the scenes develop right in front of the audience. In Kafka’s Amerika, it is this inviting moment of the theater which increases the awareness of social indifference in everyday human interaction. The repertoire of the New York theater group also addresses everyday occurrences which are taken for granted, in order to direct attention towards them once again. The actors play out these scenarios. From these everyday movements, which are combined anew according to a random tossing of dice or dealing of cards, they create dances and new meanings and convert telephone calls into theater dialogues, as in the piece, “No Dice”.

These approaches of the theater group result in a completely unusual and humorous theater experience. In addition, they expand the meaning of and curiosity about the everyday gestures to which we have grown accustomed, but actually notice very rarely. The Nature Theater of Oklahoma was awarded the Young Directors Award at the Salzburger Festspiele 2008. (wh/jn)