Archive for the 'Artists' Category
August 19th, 2010 by nkatz22
“Hinterland”
Valentina Curandi – Sibylle Hofter – Nathaniel Katz
August 28th – September 26th.
Dada Post, Nordbahnstraße 10, 13409 Berlin, Germany
info@dadapost.com
The colonization of Berlin by a steady influx of artists from all over the world has resulted in a consequence where Berlin has become a new global center for contemporary art. Hinterland is a collaborative project consisting of one Berlin Based artist, and two artists living and working in Italy, one of which is from the United States. The latest result of their endeavors is “Hinterland”, a collaborative project that considers the previous history of (Kunstraum) Dada Post as a site of globalization, which was the more than 100 years old König Smoked Fish Factory.
The current Berlin art scene is intensely focused on the present, but it is not historically amnesiac. Hinterland is a site specific-complex of works that reflects upon local production in relation to the forms of globalization imagined by past generations. The former König Smoked Fish Factory, is represented by a recreation of Mr. Erich König’s upstairs conference room, which is relocated to a factory area downstairs that have been recreated as an art gallery. “Hinterland” can be both the silence behind the front and an economic base for warfare (originally it is a military term). Presently, our location in the Berlin-Reinickendorf district is mistaken for a variant of the silence in a hinterland, much like the former socialist version of Brandenburg. In the artificial economies of the Cold War, the East Berlin factories represented economical hinterlands, by creating a socialist version of an egalitarian utopia. While in West Berlin, the economy was propped-up by West-German government, and the West in general. Within a special kind of West Berlin melancholy, fish smoking was a strong local tradition – of bourgeois utopia.
Howard McCalebb
The Artists:
Valentina Curandi and Nathaniel Katz
Curandi and Katz are interdisciplinary artists, their practice is
realized in performance, video, and collaborative events.
http://nkatz.org
Sibylle Hofter
Sibylle Hofter is a Berlin based visual artist exploring film, text, site-specific sculpture, installation in public space, and photography. She is also a Curator of various projects, and co-founder of Büro Schwimmer, and initiator of Schwimmer Image Agency. Her working process usually includes extensive research on extra-cultural fields.
www.hofter.de www.buero-schwimmer.de
DIRECTIONS By S-Bahn:
S-1 (Direction Oranienburg) and S-25 (Direction Hennigsdorf), to the Schönholz station,
If you take the S-Bahn be sure to exit at the Schönholz station –
not the Wollankstrasse station.
www.dadapost.com
Follow Dada Post On Facebook
Dada Post is now featured on Sleek magazine’s selection of the city’s most interesting art spots, in the form of an iPhone application.
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April 2nd, 2010 by nkatz22
V and I were getting a bit frustrated with our attempts to realize some 1 hour art projects. Sure, we had one really nice experience with Enrico Bressan. But after that it seemed that all of these proposals to democratize and make available an art experience were actually completely impractical and unavailable to just about anyone with an interest. Regardless of the amount of effort that the curator was putting into the project, the many participating artists were just not available when there was an interest. We even had the absurd situation where we had scheduled a project with a particular artist, Rebecca Agnes, whose proposal was
“Reading a tale in the host’s house in a sunday afternoon. Rebecca Agnes project consists in transforming the narration code, the word, into an improper one, drawing. During the lecture of a book chosen by the host, the artist will extrapolate words which can be drawn. So people who will take part to the art hour (it may be individual or collective) will have a drawing pen to draw on two walls of the house.”
We got in touch with her a week before the appointment to let her know that since we are moving out of this apartment in two months we will stretch paper on the walls for the drawing. She replied that unfortunately due to this circumstance she could no longer realize the project even though she thought hard about an alternative, instead she suggested that if we were really interested we could repaint our walls after her visit… Now I am all about artistic integrity and respecting the wishes of the artist when it comes to realizing a work, but the complete inflexibility in realizing a project that is meant to occur in another person’s home just re-enforced to v and i the remoteness of any of these projects or artists from an appreciation of participation or interaction.
And then, Stefano Lupatini came along. Stefano is working in a variety of media and approaches on the subject of media control and manipulation with an emphasis on the concept of white noise. The project he proposed for 1 hour art is meant to provide information for his larger research. The proposal is:
“_Whitenoise chocolates_is a part of _Whitenoiseprojekt_, a project dealing with the word Information and that means to develop in an interdisciplinary way in the public and in the private sphere. 1 h art provides the artist the chance to know how people react in front of an artwork that call into question the usability of information. Whitenoise chocolates_ make the artist go to the host house with a chocolate candies and his camcorder. The idea is to gather the family around the chocolate candies, making them discuss about what the chocs raise and recording everything happens. Chocs are made of press clippings, and, focusing attention, you can see that there are some hidden messages. The artist is pushed by the desire to survey and document different reactions and discussions, thus filing new stuff to be used for other occasions. This operation is also a way to try to understand if it exists or not a direct relationship between art and information and to reflect on what is the art’s role in the topical debate on the expression freedom.”
So Sunday night Stefano arrived at our apartment with his partner Daniela and a big box of chocolates. After setting up his camera, V and I sat at our dining room table and unwrapped the box of chocolates to find meticulously created newspaper covered styrofoam chocolates. The styrofoam chocolates contained just a little bit of actual text and so was quite difficult to approach the actual content, but V and I spent the next hour or so engaging with the chocolates and practicing our abilities to build conversation, content and meaning from something that wasn’t giving very much. We looked for meaning in the text, noticed the over abundance of mentions of Berlusconi and started to separate the chocolates by “good” and “bad”. We then composed some dada poems from the chocolates with the larger text from headlines, where there were just a couple of letters of each word legible. We approached the chocolates with a discussion of current events, applied a formal critique to the objects, tasted (and chewed on) the styrofoam pieces to test their similarity to chocolate, we used them as madelines to instigate memory. We played for a while, and at the end Stefano seemed genuinely surprised, and happy, at how much we were able to generate from his little newspaper chocolates.
After the recording we spent some time conversing with Stefano and Daniela and hearing about his experience in Milan. He told us that his only valuable conversations about art come from meeting with curators, that we were the first artists in Milan that he has actually had a conversation about art with (!!!)
Before they left we agreed to meet again, and continue a conversation.
March 3rd, 2010 by nkatz22
A couple of months ago v and i were asked to participate in 1 hour art, an Italian/international project based in Bologna from the curators Viviana Checchia and Anna Santomauro. The project proposes the question “Have you ever thought about one hour of contemporary art at home?” and offers an index of proposals by Italian artists all over the world of a one hour art project that they will enact in your home if interested.
Looking through the website and proposals we realized just how distant they are from any actual person inviting them to their house. At the same time, since arriving in Milan we have felt quite isolated from any art community and wondering if one even exists in an Italian contemporary art scene that values commodity over exchange. In fact many of the artists listed are no longer even based in Italy, choosing instead the more fertile contemporary art grounds of New York, Berlin, London.
So, we decided as our proposal to create the conditions possible for the realization of the other 1 hour art projects by taking the role of the “ordinary” individuals being sought, and requesting the realization of a project for us. Through this we hope to get in touch with some artists and start a conversation about the potential for contemporary art practices in Italy.
While you would think that Milan would be a good starting place for having a project realized, we still have not been able to schedule a time when one of the artists are present and available. Possibly next week we will host a visit in our apartment.
However, while we were in Berlin we were presented with an option of three different available artists. Since we didn’t have a home to host the art in Berlin, we asked for an alternative proposal. Enrico Bressan proposed the following project for us:
“…a very short performance inside the Tacheles building.
The Kunsthaus Tacheles, constructed in 1907, is a former department store which now houses a self-organized collective of artists on Oranienburgerstr. 54-56a in Berlin-Mitte.
Though today Tacheles is a popular art center with a nightclub, the lease with the property owner expired with the end of 2008 and the future of the art house is uncertain.
After the many insistent voices about a probable demolition of the building I’d like to improvise a little tribute to this original art space.
The impression when you are inside the entrance hall is strange because you find yourself arounded by multi-colours graffiti, posters and writings.
But instead of joining to the writers and let my personal sign, I’d like to simulate a cleaning hour trying to dust and brush the stairs and the painted walls.
In this way I’m trying to increase the graffiti value of those who pass there and in that way to prepare Tacheles to an other (maybe the last) challenge.”
We enjoyed meeting Enrico and spending the morning together cleaning Tacheles. It was funny cleaning while people that worked there passed us without thinking twice about why or who was cleaning the space (though this is a phenomenon i appreciated in general about berlin, the ability to enter and move in spaces that straddle the public/private line without being questioned or asked to leave). Tourists that entered the building asked us questions, which we tried to answer as best we could. While the act of cleaning may have been a symbolic one, what i appreciated most was the absurdity of the gesture. there was really no point to pick up cigarette butts or broken bottles from a space that is defined by its irreverence. and it felt silly to sweep the dust from a floor that has years of dirtiness caked into its surface. but it felt nice to care for the space a bit. to think of the walls as needing some caressing, and the floor of some agitation. now, writing about it, i am thinking about shel silverstein’s book the giving tree. the tacheles has been that for a couple of generations of german and foreign occupiers, and maybe it needed a little bit of love in return.
After the performance we presented Enrico with a certificate that we created for the actualization of a 1 hour art project. It is the way we hoped to insert our intervention, to acknowledge the mutual exchange necessary for any shared artistic experience.
Enrico documented the project here.
Since then we have e-mailed a bit, most recently I explained to him why v and i were interested in getting in touch with other artists, and that it was unfortunate that he wasn’t actually in Italy anymore. Enrico responded thoughtfully that “As you know, artists need to be in movement trying new experiences and collaborations. The geographical area where I come from (Veneto) is economically very rich but, about art, remains a desert (with only few exceptions). So I decided to move away trying to make a step longer, so I went outside Italy.”
So after the first 1 hour art, our question is still open, whether there is a potential for art community in italy that is engaging with challenging (social) issues in creative (artistic) modes from within.
February 26th, 2010 by nkatz22
in berlin v and i met up with ana and andres of helena producciones with whom i collaborated in cali on la vida es un teatro.
the day before we met daria (sorry no link). we worked with her at manifesta. we went for a walk whilst she recorded me for possibly maybe a romanian radio broadcast on art with bicycles. will post here when it is aired.
seems like everyone is in berlin at this moment.
February 25th, 2010 by nkatz22
while in berlin we visited with our friend gisela whom we met this past summer in the czech republic, we bonded over cow projects. she taught cows lessons in manners (though i can’t find the documentation on her site).
February 9th, 2010 by nkatz22
>Master Photographer Steve McCurry Teaches You How
Steve offers some insight on how you can enhance your exotic portraiture.
which is why i’ve been avoiding going to see this, although it is the talk of the town…
but his photos are beautiful in the exoticisation of war and poverty and third world people kind of way, and he offers some sound advice on his blog:
“I am often asked by photographers just starting out what advice I can offer. Here are some tips which might be a good start.
Insatiable Curiosity
Being curious about life and things around you is an essential part of being a good photographer.
Hard work
Any endeavor, any profession requires a serious commitment and effort and hard work. Unless you are willing to commit to that, it’s best not to begin the journey.
Leave home
Leave home or leave your comfort zone. Being a good photographer doesn’t necessarily mean you travel to distant places, but you do need to get out of your comfort zone and explore, wander and observe.
Fortitude and Determination
At times, there’s a lot of pick and shovel work to photography or any other profession, and you have to be ready to work your way through these tedious times.
Dig Deep
The process of learning never stops, but at a point it’s all kind of automatic in a way. If you look at the photographers whose work is widely admired you’ll see that they’ve found a particular place or a subject, dug deep into it, and carved out something that’s become special.
Evolve, reinvent yourself, grow
You need to keep your heart and mind open. Life is flowing in front of your eyes and you need to be open to respond and allow yourself to be touched by things which are extraordinary and let it change you.
Don’t wait for the phone to ring
Regardless of how successful you are, it’s important for you to spend your time photographing things that matter to you. You need to understand the things that have meaning to you, and not what others think is important for you. Make things happen; don’t wait for others to offer opportunities. Follow up. Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Pick up the phone and call.”
November 23rd, 2009 by nkatz22
i made it to the bienale before its closing.
been meaning to blog about rangar kjartenson and the iceland pavilion.
will do soon.
October 17th, 2009 by nkatz22
my girlfriend, and talented artist Valentina Curandi is featured on flash art online!
the interview is in italian so maybe you will have to put it through a translator, or i’ll try to work on a translation soon…
September 29th, 2009 by nkatz22
On Friday Valentina and I attended the performance “Individual Utopias” by Bosnian artist Lala Rascic & Vuneny at Galerie Zero. The performance is a retelling of an experience the artist had a couple of years ago when she was invited by the Italian artist Cesare Pietroiusti to participate in a project with mental health patients in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a accompanied by an edition of 500 artist books with the script for the story as well as drawings of the cast of characters involved. The story is a funny account of the missteps and miscommunications between artists, arts organizations, social organizations, and the beneficiaries of social projects. Rascic highlights, through various voice impersonations, sound effects and clean sound design by Vuneny, the absurdity of the situation and vis-à-vis offers an institutional critique of the naivete of artist social projects. In her story everyone is uninformed, unable to communicate, and looking after their own interests only. Throughout, Rascic is at a distance, not aligning herself with the artists or with the locals, seemingly the only objective observer able to note the ridiculousness of the situation. It was a funny story, as those stories tend to be, and Rascic is a good storyteller. It was the kind of story you can imagine began over drinks at a bar, impersonating and laughing at the situation and then the idea occurred to make it into a performance. I have an interest in storytelling as a mode of performance and documentation, however in this case I wished the story would have remained a story told in the bar over drinks. As a performance it offered nothing further toward an analysis of the situation, it gave no new meaning or an opening for meaning, there was no room for side effects. The act of telling the story and the meaning contained in the story were synonomous. It was the kind of performance that you enjoy but wonder how or what this does to further a dialogue. Cesare Pietroiusti when discussing modes of documentation speaks about the potential for side effects, “Maybe we can imagine a situation where a message, working on a symbolic level (so, conceptually, on a different level than a direct ‘real time’ experience), does not determine only the fixity of a specific meaning, but also ’side’ meanings.”
There was a moment in Rascic’s story when she told of the complete breakdown of the project. According to her account the director of the project is complaining to Pietroiusti about the failure, the artists are not connecting with the mentally ill, the hospital director is hijacking the materials, and “art” has not transformed the lives of the patients. At which point Pietroiusti states that this is an experiment, that there is no way it is supposed to turn out, but rather that the situation itself for him is the project. He is conducting research, and the process as it unfolds informs his research. While this quotation may have been meant to place Pietroiusti also in the absurdity of the situation, it functioned as a nice reflection on the role and goals of the artist in social practice. Pietroiusti understands very well that the intention or even implimentation of an art project into a social context does not translate into social transformation. His goals are often to see what happens in the encounter between art and social realities, his research is to see what the potential of art is in such situations.
At work a couple of days prior to the performance, Laura, the other art teacher asked me about my practice. I told her of some of the participatory projects that I was involved with Cali, Colombia and in Bologna, Italy. She asked me about responsibility; she told me of having attended a talk by an artist who had done a workshop with immigrant children. The artist showed pictures of himself interacting with the children and also some of the drawings that the kids had made. Some of the drawings represented scenes of domestic abuse and she was appalled that the artist casually displayed these very personal drawings and did not address how he dealt with this. When she asked whether he had a strategy, support system, or training to deal with these things, he said that he did not. What was my position on this Laura wanted to know. I answered first that having an institutional support system (as we do in a school) does not necessarily offer any kind of better support, it just takes the responsibility off of us. I recounted a time when I was teaching in the Bronx and a students assumed my confidence to confide to me that she was abused by her father. I had to inform her that legally I have to report this to the school psychologist and beyond that there is nothing that I can offer. In this situation I was completely rendered paralyzed, whether I was able to deal with it or not. I was put in a place as a teacher where students could grow confident and safe in my presence but that when anything at all private came up I was no longer an autonomous acting agent. In the Bronx case I knew that the school psychologist would completely neglect or botch the entire issue, but that she was the one in the legal place to respond.
As an artist working in a social practice I state very clearly my area of research and the framework of each individual project; this is no different from an artist working in any other media. By being clear I am able to explore with specificity and intention my interests while allowing for new discoveries and unexpected outcomes. My interest is not solely to work with people, and what comes out comes out. I am specifically interested in the potential to imagine alternative realities and relationships. Each of my projects in some way addresses this specifically and the as people are participating in the project they are participating within a tightly defined frame. There is always a potential for unexpected outcomes, especially when working with people. However, since I have defined for myself what my area of research is, I also know what my capacities are, and how to deal with the unexpected within my framework. Like Pietroiusti, I view the process of people coming into encounter with art as research, and the potential “failure” as equally valuable as some pre-ordained idea of what success may be. In the mode of representation that a project assumes after its completion it is important that it act in a way reciprocal to the way a project unfolded. Allowing for meaning to be generated instead of illustrated, and that in this phase of the project there is still potential for new meaning and side effects.
June 28th, 2009 by nkatz22
I will have two videos in the Oh Cow! exhibition at the Crossing Art gallery in Flushing, NY.Learning How to Milk a Cow from my Father and My Father was a Dairy Farmer.
The press release reads:
What makes the cow ever so popular, from the dawn of civilization in the ancient cave painting of Bulls in Lascaux to the contemporary graffiti Ox, to the conceptual notion of being the Cow? Come find out at “09 Oh Cow!”
Artists include: Mieko Anekawa, Seong Auh, Linda Bluml, Colette Copeland, Evelyn Davis, Nancy Dunn, Craig Hawkins, Gloria Houng, Nathaniel Katz, Elizabeth Leader, Dorothy McGuinness, Jake Menichino, Edie Nadelhaft, Aleksandra Razin, Boris Shpeizman, Tami Suez, Robert Waldeck, Steven Walker, and Wendi F. Weill, Felix Beyreuther, Elizabeth Kursch, Lin Shih Pao, Quan Handong, Xu Deming, and Andy Warhol
The opening will be on July 18