The following is from Sylvain Levy, the founder of the dsl collection.  In one of my commentaries on Chinese Contemporary art, he sent me a particularly well thought out commentary that is worthy of publication.

Zeng Fanzhi's "We", Oil on canvas, Courtesy DSL Collection

The dsl Collection was created in 2005 and focuses on contemporary Chinese art since 2004. It is a private collection representing 90 of the leading Chinese avant-garde artists, artists having a major influence on the development of contemporary art in China today. Even though focusing on the contemporary production of a specific culture, the collection is nevertheless not guided by the search for otherness. It admits basic cultural similarities and dispositions, however, it goes beyond a simplistic approach that only looks for typical cultural signs and symbols.

The collection is limited to a specific number of art works – about 150 pieces – that as an entity is open to constant redefinition itself. Openness, movement and communication are basic qualities we want to promote

The collection is not only significant on a personal level, but also at a larger scale.  We start from a museum approach, which means that we are collecting a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, and photography.

But the dsl collection is more than a collection, it is a project.

The major tools to achieve these goals are new technologies, such as the internet and interactive programs and supports, like, for example, electronic books.

Why we collect?

1) Art is  the mirror of a Society

Even if art is more and more global, art is also a product of language, geography and history. Chinese contemporary art reflects Chinese modern life from every aspect including politics, economics and culture.

When we first came to Shanghai in 2005, I felt that there was another logic here; something that speaks of a very schizophrenic attitude towards economic development, the city embodies a ceaseless pursuit of the “superhuman” that redefines traditional definitions of humanity, sustainability, scale, speed.  Somehow these feelings were very inspiring and we wanted to find art and artists that express the relationships between contemporary art production and society.

2) China has a long cultural history

Culture has existed in China for more than 5000 years.

3) Collecting is the best way to connect to people

Through this collection, we were able to meet a lot of people in China and to better understand Chinese culture

JIN Jiangbo's "God chatting", Courtesy dsl Collection

What type of artists we are interested in ?

I am always keen to find individuals who are interested to see where the prevailing boundaries lie, either in terms of content, of materials, of disciplines and how they can push them open. That doesn’t just mean young artists.

I learned that contemporary Chinese art is as varied as its Western counterpart and, like that more familiar model, has its highly-visible personalities, auction house favorites and celebrities. But also, like the Euro/American scene, there are many Chinese, Taiwanese and other Asian artists who are laboring quietly in the vineyards, producing credible and beautiful work. Below I will mention some of the categories of artists that we are interested in and the most outstanding ones.

First, artists who remains individuals, autonomous persons and who are nevertheless decisive factors within this general movement. For example, Gu dexin.

Beijing-based Gu Dexin, this most enigmatic and evasive figure within the contemporary Chinese art scene. His distrust in all systems and his objection to live his life according to conventions set by any social milieu made him choose retreat as a strategy, a retreat from obligations and mainstream that actually advances him in a position of relative freedom and autonomy.  He is one of the most respected artist by curators of all of the world

Second, artists who can implant and advance Chinese traditional painting, traditional Chinese aesthetics and thought into a contemporary context and thus reaching an ideal model of “cultural and individual autonomy”.  For example, Yang Jiechang whose large inks are based on the traditional Chinese principle of the sublimation of the self to put forth the spiritual qualities inherent in the work and the material, which, on the conceptual level, means advancing through retreat and non-doing.

Third, artists who approach contemporary discourse by promoting local and vernacular culture. For example Zheng Guogu with Yangjiang Group.

Zheng Guogu who is one of the most famous artist from the young generation who has decided to live at Yangjiang and not in Beijing.  By retreating to Yangjiang, he, on one hand, creates a space for non-mainstream, locally-imbedded artistic imagination and creation. On the other hand, by including those local outcomes in his projects he advances the local onto a global platform.

“Chinese contemporary art reflects Chinese modern life from every aspect including politics, economics and culture, which is quite valuable in recording the past 30 years since the reform and opening up policy,” Wang has said.

Ye Yongqing, the artistic director of the institute, explains that the organization will dedicate itself to academic research as well as education on contemporary art. A systematic project to analyze and promote the contemporary art industry will also be established.  “Chinese contemporary art’s success and development to a large extent has depended on independent artists and collectors, but from now on, there is a new platform to do all things related to contemporary art.”   He adds that unlike many art organizations that gather artists together and benefit from works created by them, the institute is more like a think tank, with the hope that experts will contribute their ideas and reflections on Chinese contemporary art’s development.  “Only with a formal institute is there hope that systematic research on contemporary art can be done.”

Famous artist Luo Zhongli, who is also the director of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, has been appointed director of the new institute.

We are used to China’s growing influence on the world economy—but could it also reshape our ideas about culture and specially contemporary art?

Why you should collect Chinese contemporary art ?

The market for Chinese contemporary art pieces shows great potential, but at the same time, it faces many questions that had never arisen before.  It is constantly initiating contemplation and inquiry.
There has been a lot of money flowing around the Chinese art scene over the past few years that has had a dramatic effect on the art scene and the nature of the art being produced.

Ai Weiwei's "Portable Temple", Compressed bamboo, Courtesy dsl Collection

The market has come to occupy such a dominant position in the art world, often deciding “quality” and “importance”, most obviously in terms of Chinese art works and a local scene that does not enjoy the sobering influence of meaningful critical debate. Yet, at the same time, Chinese artists are often criticised for being overly commercial, while their understanding of how the art market functions is informed by their knowledge and experience of Western models.

Chinese artists, especially those in the so-called “millionaire’s club of painters”, have re-invented the art world for themselves and may or may not reap the windfall. They have played dealers and auction houses off against each other. They have dropped their own works into auction with relish and have manipulated their markets with a degree of savvy and bravado that has left many dealers stunned. This art is here to stay and, in my opinion, while European and American markets may plateau or even fall, the Asian markets will continue to climb. Why should not the best Asian artists be priced at the same levels as their western counterparts?

There has been a lot of money flowing around the Chinese art scene over the past few years that has had a dramatic effect on the art scene and the nature of the art being produced. This volume of funds is going to fluctuate in the coming year or so, which is not a bad thing. It might make artists reflect upon the quality of the work they are producing, and encourage some of the new galleries to formulate more productive strategies to deal with a slackening off in the market. So, hopefully, these recent events will have a positive impact.

Many people in China today are only just becoming aware of the contemporary art produced by local artists.  As two years ago, few could name even a single Chinese collector of contemporary art. It was a truism that the Chinese preferred to spend their money acquiring antiquities and classical works. Since then several well-known mainland collectors have emerged on the scene.

Looking at the continued innovations of the older generations of artists, as well as the growing number of young graduates from art academies around the country, I think we can safely say that Chinese contemporary art is far from an imminent demise. It might have been a bit under the weather in recent months given the mood of the international and the domestic art markets (and the media), but it is still young and vibrant.

What are the difficulties in collecting Chinese contemporary art?

The biggest  difficulty comes in how to benchmark a work.  Art is always about quality. The quality should be evaluated by experts, scholars, curators, and critics. The weakness of Chinese art scene is that critics and curators do not have much power. So their influence is very limited within the recent art market.

To conclude, I shall say that the market for Chinese contemporary art pieces shows great potential, but at the same time, it faces many questions that have never arisen before.  It is constantly initiating contemplation and inquiry.  So even as the market stumbles, and even as we hear rumors that almost a third of the galleries in China there are headed for extinction in the coming months as rents rise and sales drop, I can’t help but feel optimistic for the future.

Bettina Pousttchi's "Sculpture Study #3", 2010, Photography, courtesy Buchmann Galerie, Berlin

On this year’s Armory Show Buchmann Galerie will attend at the featured section Focus:Berlin with a solo presentation of the Berlin based German-Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi (b. 1971).

On show will be three new large photographs which evolve out of the photo installation Echo, currently on view on the façade of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin. The installation, 2000 m2 in size, consists of 970 individual posters attached to the four outside walls of the Kunsthalle. The work echoes the “Palast der Republik”, a famous, now demolished building of the former GDR.

In the work presented at the Armory Show Bettina Pousttchi doubles references and crosses the lines between photography, sculpture and reality.  In earlier photographs she manipulated reality; with Echo she installed a subjective photographic perception of reality into the real world. She now crosses lines again and takes this installation back to the medium of photography.

Bettina Pousttchi's "Sculpture Study #1", 2010, courtesy Buchmann galerie, Berlin

Bettina Pousttchi's "Sculpture Study #2", 2010, courtesy Buchmann galerie, Berlin

G.R. Iranna's The Birth of Blindness, 2007 (Coutesy Aicon Gallery)

The Role of the Artist
The artist has taken a step into the role of authority on content and social commentary. Earlier postmodernism was described as exhibiting a sort of unabashed, and vicarious exploration of unrelated symbols. “Anything goes, and it doesn’t matter anyway” is an interpretation of postmodern art making that I often hear.

There is more and more evidence to suggest, that the role of the artist is shifting from that of the “replicator of symbols” to a role of social engineer and/or commentator. Artists now develop works that require viewer interaction in order to create the meaning of the work. In fact, I would argue that artworks are designed with the concept of how the viewer/user will interact with the artwork, now more than ever. Artworks take on the incorporation of a wide range of approaches to inviting user interaction. The question then becomes, “How does behavioral interaction by the viewer/user, with creative works, shape how the viewer/user thinks and emotes?” Culture industry and popular media are the most obvious examples. Toy designers study this issue extensively. Video game developers know how this changes the thought process of the user, to such a point that the U.S. military is intimately engaged in the development of combat strategy games (Aaron Ruby, Heather Chaplin, SmartBomb).

Miltos Manetas' "People Against Things", 2001

Population Management
One of the more disturbing trends in contemporary (recent postmodernist) culture, is the comprehensive effort to suppress the intelligence of populations. The torture, brainwashing and interrogation scenarios from the 1940’s through the 80’s have been exposed in the news media. But, all of these techniques have already been extrapolated to the wider population as control devices. Governments have a much easier time managing populations by maintaining a cult mentality among constituents and by waging information warfare on their own citizens. The election protests in Iran of 2009 would be a classic example: the Iranian government was blocking and posting disinformation about protest rallies on social networks. Web searches for “Tienanmen Square” are restricted if you live in China. Political party loyalties in the United States are now inseparable from cult mentalities as there seems to be a rabid push for a pseudo-polarization of what is supposed to look like a two party system. This cult mentality is on display as an accepted matter of critical discourse in the “news” media.

Cowboy George W Bush - Glebe, Sydney (the art has since been painted over)

In the latter stage of postmodernism, governments needed the military to control their own citizens. We currently attempt to use our military to control the citizens of other countries. In the United States, the last real protest (to my recollection) of a worldwide governmental/economic entity occurred in the late 90’s, in Seattle during the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference. The protesters were apparently calling for an end to police brutality, fair wages for workers and other similar issues. These messages seem to have emerged from individuals who possessed some understanding of global economics. You were able to find out about these issues just by reading the paper, or watching the news. More recently, in Pittsburgh, we had the G-20 Summit. Most of the media outcry brought forth headlines such as “What is the G-20″ and “Peaceful Protests at the G-20 Summit”. Coverage by the “local news media” showed protesters wearing masks and strolling down a street, some locals telling the “idiots” to go home. The “news media” didn’t convey that the protesters had any grasp on the socioeconomic issues at hand. As a final slap in the face, the President of the United States, thanked the city (a town with 2 major University Campuses) for a very “tranquil” hosting of the summit.

There is more evidence to suggest that debate and discourse surrounding serious macroeconomic and societal issues exists solely as a fictitious narrative in the media. However, this is an aspect of recent postmodernism. This writing isn’t an attempt to bring forth a complete overview.

Bogart clothes hanger, 1967

From Schizophrenia to Narcissism

One of the scenarios is the link between the mediated “Global Village” and schizophrenia. If the scenario of the mediated environment becomes interactive, using electronic media, the situation is transformed. The condition known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder mirrors the cultural environment resulting from this transformation. The earlier form of postmodernism, featured a perpetual series of content snippets that were never meaningfully tied together; the simulacra described by Baudrillard. From its inception, this media diet focused almost exclusively on propagandistic concepts related to “celebrity” and “opulence”. As Jerry Mander wrote about television in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, “it makes [you] watch it”, referring to the hypnotic state induced by staring directly at pulsations of phosphorescent light emitted by the CRT screen. The messages of “celebrity” and “opulence” were woven into our cultural fabric in a simultaneous rhythm for over 60 years.

With the propagation of personal computers and the internet, the culture industry (Theodor Adorno) has expanded to wide area networks whose viewers are behaviorally active “users”. This has made it possible for virtually anyone to contribute to the popular culture environment. While in the hypnotic state described by Mander, the viewer accepts the validity of the content conveyed. When users upload any content, it has the appeal of instant credibility, via mediation hypnosis. This environment, combined with repeated messages of “celebrity” and “opulence” lead to the recent development in the cultural and semiotic media environment; a shift from schizophrenia to a more pronounced narcissism.

Tracey Emin's "My Bed", 1998

The Mayo Clinic describes patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder as exhibiting these qualities:

• Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
• Exaggerating your achievements or talents
• Expecting constant praise and admiration
• Believing that you’re special and acting accordingly
• Failing to recognize other people’s emotions and feelings
• Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
• Taking advantage of others
• Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
• Being jealous of others
• Believing that others are jealous of you

There are other qualities exhibited by NPD patients. Social networking websites succeed based on how well they manage narcissistic tendencies in their target user groups. Developers and software engineers know that people will work for more “social status”, and the result will be that they will be able to gather more reliable statistical marketing data, if engineered correctly. Some of the particulars about the semiotic environment of narcissism are explored in the section “the user’s identity”.

The User’s Identity
Previously, the viewer related to works of art, which provided a metaphorical mirror for the self and the world to which we might or might not relate. With a mediated environment of unrelated images, it was close to impossible to navigate systems of signs and signifiers, in order to derive meaning from them. As our societies became used to this environment, the semiotic environment became more understandable. We could begin making sense of artworks again. We still have the mediated environment (which is much more mediated). However, we are now feeding our personal iconography directly into the semiotic system, as well as content about our lives, real and imagined. The work of amateurs is juxtaposed with that of professionals. Amateurs are given templates with which they can display their media. The juxtaposition with the professional or celebrity reinforces the power or status fantasy, or the exaggeration of achievement. As stated before, there is the instant sense of validity given to the amateur content, when placed in the same context as that of professionals. Voting on the amateur content, the push to display banality, forming “groups” and requests to “join” them, all reflect narcissistic qualities.

Much of this can often be seen as the equivalent of scribbling some idiotic drivel on a piece of paper, going to the museum and taping it to the wall, while making claims to have exhibited at the MoMA. Plato’s “Cave Allegory” provides an excellent portrayal of this predicament. The enlightened one who has left the cave, comes back to see that the prisoners have taken to giving each other awards for guessing which shadow will pass against the cave wall next.

An advantage to the immediacy with which users can upload content, is that it has become easier for individuals to gain recognition for legitimate scholarly and critical work.

Richard Serra's "Sequence" 2006, "Torqued Torus Inversion" 2006, and "Band" 2006, Museum of Modern Art: "Richard Serra's Sculpture: Forty Years." Photo: Lorenz Kienzle

An attempt to define a cultural state that is completely beyond postmodernism is premature. While the qualities that exist now are quite different than those that were dominant 10 or 20 years ago, the condition seems to have taken on a more acute stage of postmodernism.

Earlier postmodernism exhibited some of the following traits:

1. Global Village (Marshall McLuhan)
2. Viewer of artworks is a passive reader of signs and signifiers
3. Cultural and semiotic environment resembles the psychological state of schizophrenic personality disorder (Lacan – The New School)
4. Viewer’s identity is related metaphorically to scenarios expressed in artworks
5. The artist is a replicator of content
6. Populations are managed by international paramilitary organizations

Recent developments in postmodernism present a slight paradigm shift, but not a drastic change from this scenario:

1. Global Village (Marshall McLuhan)
2. Viewer of artworks is an active replicator of content – viewer is now a “user”
3. Cultural and semiotic environment resembles the psychological state of narcissistic personality disorder
4. User’s identity is assimilated into a semiotic environment and regurgitated back as part of the simulacra of popular culture
5. The artist creates scenarios or environments that engage the “viewer’s/user’s” decision making process
6. Populations are managed by the use of information and entertainment media

I won’t get into extensive explanations on postmodernism, because there is more than enough literature on the subject. Given the nature of what content currently exists, it seems that an assessment of the present situation, in some kind of general form may be due. I’ll try to describe the differences as I see them.

Louise Bourgeois's "Maman" at Rockefeller Center in New York, 2001 (Courtesy National Gallery of Canada, Cheim & Read)

The Role of the Viewer
Some writers note that in earlier postmodernism, that the viewer is an active reader of content. I differ with them in terms of referring to the viewer as “active”. While compared to the modern era, the viewer had to be more engaged in order to gain an understanding of the work, the level of activity this required was significantly less than it is now. Users, in the larger scope of cultural communications, are more active than they have ever been before. The type of activity in which they are engaged is different, however. The earlier postmodern scenario engaged the viewer in an active pursuit of synthesizing and following the string of concepts presented before them. This was a highly cognitive action. The level of activity that has changed, surrounds the fact that “users” participate in a form of the creative process. Contemporary artworks engage (what Richard Serra has called) the “behavioral space” of the viewer; making the viewer an active participant in the “performance” of an artwork. Viewers are continually made unwitting participants in works of art. To use the example of Serra’s sculpture, the work becomes a performance piece, a sculptural form designed to provoke or invite “user” participation; making the viewer a participant in the performance of the work. This becomes the environment that the artist has orchestrated. The content in publishing, popular film and television depends more and more heavily on marketing research data, which is perpetually harvested from an array of internet-based social utilities (data given voluntarily and unwittingly by the user).

About Tom Estlack:  Tom is an intermedia artist with an international exhibition record. He works with “new media”, sculpture, drawing and painting. Tom’s work incorporates video, animation, music, interactivity and multisensory stimuli. He holds a bachelors degree in painting from Columbus College of Art and Design, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Tom has been teaching foundations, web authoring and design since 2002.

Ahtila's "Consolation Service" (Courtesy of DHC/ART FOUNDATION)

John Zeppetelli is the curator of DHC-ART Foundation for Contemporary Art founded in Montreal by Phoebe Greenberg in the Fall of 2007.  Eija-Liisa Ahtila is an internationally renowned video artist and photographer.  Her exhibition (curated by John Zeppetelli) is on from 29 Jan – 9 May.  The following is John Zeppetelli’s take on the work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

Ahtila's "Hour" (Courtesy of DHC/ART Foundation)

After a two or three year courtship, I officially fell in love with Eija-Liisa Ahtila in 1999 when I first saw a staggeringly intense two-screen work which seemed to combine both  documentary realism and cinematic flourishes called Consolation Service.  A couple, J-P and Anni, are in the throes of a bitter divorce, and so the two screens come together in a kind of spectacular failure, rupture and division – while at the same time are united like two hands playing the piano in serene counterpoint. There’s an unforgettable scene of amorous discord during the course of the couple’s therapy session where the marriage counselor instructs them to speak to one another without using words, so they begin to bark in a violent, primal and ultimately cathartic exchange. This occurs while variously afflicted patients in the waiting room file invisibly into the therapist’s office to silently witness the proceedings. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to be able to present this project at DHC/ART in Montreal, along with many other major film installations in what is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in North America.

Ahtila's "The House" (Courtesy of DHC/ART Foundation)

The title of the exhibition INT. STAGE-DAY is taken from a scene heading in a screenplay and beautifully sums up the working method of Eija-Liisa Ahtila, whose video installations are highly staged constructions concerned with the interior life of her characters. The Finnish artist is known mainly for her complex multi-screen narratives which address the fragile psychological states of her protagonists and the tenuous line separating fantasy from reality. Ahtila’s work is conceptually organized around the construction of image, narrative and space, while exploring issues of subjectivity, loss, madness and violence. The many unsettling emotions in her work are also leavened by a gentle humour and absurdity, and are presented in dynamic and considered environments which engage the viewer both physically and intellectually.

John Zeppetelli
Curator, DHC/ART Foundation

The important point, for me, resumes at before and after 1989, a turning point in the Romanian history, a year which marked the official break down of communism in the country.

Claudiu Presecan's "Reeds III", 2009

For those who didn’t live the 80s in Romania, for those strangers to Romania who cannot imagine what “darkness” we lived in, I can say that even now, after more than 20 years, I still notice the same thing: the degree of ignorance and isolation the authorities kept us in. I do not refer to the material deprivations, but most of all to the spiritual and cultural ones. It was an ignorance of contemporaneousness, of information, of everything that happens in the free world. There is much to discuss about this subject and maybe it is well-known what the communist propaganda and politics meant, but I am referring to the inner moral support of my defense in front of this invasion, menacingly to the escape in nature (a still powerful and yet slightly altered nature, by the modern man) and to the deepening in the freedom offered by books. Returning to art, I well remember all the pleasures offered by the well-structured library of the fine arts school and especially of the Art Institute to a young high-school boy , the biographies I read, the painting in plein air, in the impressionist manner. In fact, the whole art history stopped for us in the 40s’. Everything that succeeded to reach us from outside were the few magazines, out of which we could vaguely create some opinions, without being able to draw any conclusions though.

It is only now that I realize the tragedies lived by the elder artists, the helplessness independent of their will, due to the fact that they were on the unwanted side of the curtain and could not travel free, the barriers, the jury and the existent censorship.

The psychosis of “running-away” in the Occident comes from those times, and it is felt acutely up to now, many times from the same reasons as then, including the helplessness of the place we live in. A distinction should be made here between the Romanian totalitarian art from its different periods and the art of the other communist countries. They shouldn’t be regarded as a whole, as each of them has its own individual identity.

There are three main periods to be noticed in Romania: the first one, realist-totalitarian of the 50s – 60s (the socialist regime applied for us, too), followed by an official art. An alternative art appears beside this official art  and it develops in the second level, oriented towards the Occident arts and the neo-avant-garde  of the post-war arts.

The 70s were full of the visions of the same conglomerate. This dualist situation continues in the third period, at the end of the 70s and 80s-90s. when the antagonisms already existent between the official and subversive, independent painting, deepen.

Claudiu Presecan's "A Path on Water", 2009

For us, the young ones, the opening offered by the “revolution” was welcome; it was like a new breath. The contacts with all that represented contemporary Occidental art became more powerful, we could “escape” to see live works and museums which we only knew from books or albums. The 90s were the “pioneer” years, I could say, when we learned everything on the fly and entirely without the help of the state and its instruments.

These were years when we searched for levers of support and promotion. The same almost taboo vision still remains today upon galleries and gallery owners who “make” artists by promoting and selling them at higher and higher quotations.

The Romanian art scene still stays behind, it struggles behind an emergent economy and a generalized lack of interest. Most of the artists, at least those who want to create and tell their story, are themselves curators, managers and gallery owners. The private system, still developing, supports too little the art, even if there are a few who sustain artists or cultural non-governmental associations. Unfortunately, the state is still far away from this, even if there are some changes in attitude. In fact, and this is the most important thing, the attitude and the mentality of those on board of the art institutions, is quite poor.

Romanian society today is changing, or at least trying. There are a lot of things to be mentioned here about mentality, our way of being, but also about a certain helplessness in recovering in a short time a viable and sustainable assertion systems. It all resumes at the economic and financial national power, at the galleries and museums which consecrate, at the collectors who purchase the artistic product.

Alexandru Pasat's "Folding"

We still live in an individualist stage of small groups who have succeeded in making a breach in the system and have become international in some parts of the country. In Romania, unfortunately, the artist remains the main actor or pawn, a soldier on this chess table which is called the art scene, without any other “officers” to help him, a kind of Don Quixote of nowadays, or maybe since always.

‘Doing squats’, as an exercise, is the action of fluctuating between (nearly) sitting down and standing up without staying in one position for too long.

The Home Squat Residency Program is a DIY approach to finding art opportunities and disseminating work in a suffering economy for artists and patrons alike. Anyone can follow this model. It combines the ideas of a home stay, a residency program, and ‘squatting’. ‘To squat’ can imply a number of different actions from hunkering down in a crouching position to settling on or occupying property that belongs to someone else (without paying rent). But I like thinking of the ‘squat’ in this project as a physical and mental exercise of being between positions…

Melissa's Sculpture with Rug and Boot (Courtesy of the Artist)

Melissa Wyman's Dreamland (Courtesy of the Artist)

With loose ideas of what makes a residency program, i.e. a space and context within which to create art, a question or challenge to ponder as an artist, the option of a support system through the host/ patron/ collaborator in the form of a place to sleep, work and a possible meal, I put the word out… “Host me for a squat at your place…”

The responses to my callout have taken me to numerous homes in California, Chicago, Florida, South Korea, and Chile. At each location I revisit my question ‘What does home look like to the moving body?’ This is a theme I’ve explored in various forms over the years while moving countries and finding myself in different cultural contexts. As part of my home squats, I work with each new environment as an interactive (re)construction of home.  I document my work along with the conversations and other relative thoughts about the project. All these elements create a construction or idea of home that changes over time. At the end of the squat I leave something, from the work I created, behind for my host and carry the rest with me to the next squat.  The works vary from conceptual to material, but they are all more or less ephemeral.

The idea of “transitstation” exhibition as an event, started with the image of a German “Rummelplatz” (a “fun-fair” in English).  From there, it developed into a multiplicity of images and small event places – huts, wagons, platforms – all within the confines of the Gallery Space and beyond its doors.

The fun-fair offers a huge and overwhelming impact of different activities that challenge the visitor. The Gallery Space was envisioned with different temporary structures. Artists could temporarily occupy places to counter-act with the idea of entertainment. Like in a mirror maze, the viewer and artist alike were imagined to partake, share and search ways through the different positions and places, walking up and down, through doors, climbing ladders, standing on platforms. …Imagine Rumpelstilzchen on the Rummelplatz after all the people have left, he is dancing alone, talking to himself: “hi hi hi, no one knows where I hid the art!”

The traveling fun-fair or even a traveling circus have the fact that they are nomadic and transient in common. Their “home” is indeterminate and temporary. People working and living with the circus or fun-fair are in a binary position in regards to the idea of “home”. They are traveling and establishing an alien temporary position.

Apart from the initial images of “staging” an exhibition like that, it became more important to experiment and research the idea of transience and to engage with the notion of “the nomadic artist”. Artists on the road, artists transporting their work, artists searching for destinations and places.

The idea arose between stations en route; there is a train moving between destinations and different cultures. The station became the transitstation. The work and exhibition concept developed in the process of production on a transient route.

Kabakov, “the Palace of Projects” ( 1995-1998)

“In principle, such a Palace can … be disassembled and assembled in any other place, similar to a traveling circus.“

Kabakov’s work consisted of 65 staged, themed and constructed projects, known, created and invented by the author. (reference: http://www.artangel.org.uk/projects/1998/the_palace_of_projects/introduction_to_the_palace_of_projects/page_3)

Over the years, since 2003, it seems that the process of moving is governed by networking with new artists, regional artists’ organizations, host-city partners, host spaces and the organization of funding for each event. The procedures embrace the methods of synchronized encounters, snow-balling, idealism and a systematic sensitivity to meet with interested audiences and people from everyday and professional lives.

transitstation stop Copenhagen 2010 has a total of 62 participating artists performing and exhibiting individual work, during the 24 hour weekend. 22 regional Scandinavian and Danish artists are greeting and hosting 40 visiting artists. They are coming together uniquely to present their art work within the week-end of April 17-19 in 2010. The work of transitstation is seen as  “Gesamtkunstwerk”, it begins to shape itself only in the duration of a 24-hour non-stop action of art in action.

The process of nomadic moves between host cities, their partners and foreign spaces, foreign languages require several visits and negotiations. Three production teams conquer language difficulties in a slow process until they are able to communicate a language which is foreign to society but familiar to artists.

The invention of transitstation is dealing with the kind of mastery of chains of situations. Situations occur during the transitstation weekend with a privilege to devoid rules and boundaries of assumed categories. If the attempt is made to capture a definition or a category of genre or conventional differentiation, the moment of experiencing Live Action is lost.

Where is the art? In a place with situations that change according to perception and interaction.  Presence, endurance and witnesship provides the chance to capture a total image of transitstation as “Gesamtkunstwerk”.

Artist next to artist next to artist next to viewer next to viewer next to object next to object next to viewer next to artist.

The gravitational code of artistic genre within continuous, overlapping actions has been redefined and apparently the center of assumed genre is off-balance. The project is everywhere, the places are everywhere and the “author” is visiting with its foreign “bundle” moving between strange locations. Though the structures are clear and the margins are lit on the outskirts of the transitstation space suggested by the scaffolding, the space with continuous Actions of the moment remains in the constant state of change.

A world within a world defines itself through the live experience, audience and artists alike: the transformation of ideas, re-directing the expectation level for completeness into the permissiveness of curiosity and surprise. Artists and viewers alike are amenable to possibilities of dis-categorization between performing art and fine art, between classical music and fashion, between film and theatre, between projection and speech. The experience itself offers change.

During the transitstation week-end the idea of freedom and the expansion of social or personal opportunity in a mixed inter-disciplinary and inter-active context opens the door to a live experience. The audience –artist relationship neglects the untouchable distance between work and artist and creates a platform of immediacy and intimacy in unpredictable situations.

The viewer’s position is one of discovery.

Follow transitstation train to the next stop Copenhagen 2010 at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art.