re.act.feminism #2 is a continually expanding, temporary, and traveling performance archive. Making stops throughout six European countries from 2011 to 2013, it will be coming to Berlin at the Akademie der Künste from June 21 to August 18. Re.act.feminism presents feminist, gendercritical, and queer performance art by over 120 artists and artist collectives spanning from the 1960s to the 1980s, as well as some contemporary positions. The project continually expands by traveling through cities and using local research and cooperation with art institutions and academies. Also contributing to the archive are exhibitions, screenings, performances, and discussions held in each city along the way.

Ghazel – “Black Hole II” (2011), (extract) beta digital video, 04 min. 22 sec.; Images courtesy of Carbon 12 Dubai

For its stop in Berlin, re.act feminism brings together the results from past cities with an additional open space for lectures, performances, workshops, and screenings. This space serves as a public work space for Berlin based artist groups, student seminars of universities and art academies, and the re.act. feminism jour fixe for joint viewing and conversation.

Events in Berlin begin Jun. 21 at 7pm with Screenings, Performances, and an opening talk by Nele Hertling, vice-president, Akademie der Künste, as well as Curators Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer. Various events will be held until the 18th of August with a Finissage including special guest a.o. Faith Wilding.

A few particular events in the program have come onto our radar. On Jun. 22 at 4pm Genderoriented performative practices in the MENASA-Region presents screenings and an artist talk moderated by Kathrin Becker (D) with a.o. Ghazel.

On Jun. 29 at 3pm, the first segment of “Feminist Performance and Performance Practices in Latin America” hosts a performance lecture and screenings. The second segment will be the next day, Jun 30 at 3pm.

On Jul. 14 from 12-7pm Schwarze Schokolade will present artist performance group 1983-2013, with contributions by Chris Werner, Rotraud von der Heide, Roswitha Baumeister, Renate Hampke, Ute Wigand, Ursula Bierther, Anne Jud and Monika Funke.

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Additional Information

Participating artists and artist groups as well as a schedule of events in Berlin can be found here .

Find more information and visit the ongoing exhibition and archive program here .

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Blog entry by Sarah Gretsch, Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Article by Pip Jones, photos by Rebecca Capp; Tuesday, Jun. 18, 2013

Brand new Neukölln project space, Bootsbau may have taken its namesake from water, but directors Bárbara Fonseca and Natalia Blanco’s 48 Hours Neukölln exhibition is more interested in land. The (Un) Natural History of Plants, their 4th project, serves as an enquiry into the human preoccupation with personal plant life and how these leafy organisms came into the home and gallery spaces.

In built-up cities such as Berlin, the domesticated houseplant performs a variety of functions–edible, decorative, providing privacy–and it’s widely understood what a positive impact a bit of greenery can have on humans. Plants decrease stress and increase productivity; we give flowers with congratulations and sympathies. As the exhibition statement reads, “A plant doesn’t talk to us, it doesn’t tell us what it needs, what it desires… However, its shape, its state and its decay warns us about whether it suffers or if it is happy.” The plants’ dependence upon its owner for survival creates a sense of symbiotic responsibility and companionship, and these are the interactions explored in the Bootsbau project.

The exhibition will feature a selection of visual and sound artists’ responses to ‘plant stories’, acquired from an open call on the Bootsbau website. Some of the plants in question will appear as part of a botanical passage to the project space, posited as works in their own right. “The “un” in the title refers to the layer of significance that we as cultural beings attach to the plant,” says gallery director Bárbara Fonseca. “We give them a special meaning in our lives, one that is not a part of the plants nature in itself. Of course, the way we want to show the plants in a gallery environment, an “un” natural and sometimes almost aseptic one, accentuates the decontextualization of this natural being and elevates it to the state of the art.”

Only fifty years ago, the pairing of plant and gallery wasn’t so unnatural. Pot plants were common interior design features of galleries and museums, lining passageways, standing in windows and leaning towards artworks like so many other visitors. Even the introduction of the white cube and its tomb-like coolness didn’t deter the occasional green design element. In the late sixties, the scope of potential usable materials exploded, prices boomed, and isolation and preservation of artworks became key. Plants were ditched in favour of humidity meters and artificial lighting. Decorative organic matter, and the worrisome variables it brought to the increasingly controlled gallery environment, had completely disappeared by the mid-eighties.

The place of the plant in a gallery context has seen a paradigmatic swing over the last couple of decades; the visual appeal of plants and our constant appropriation of their forms meant that the plant did not stay out of the gallery for long. Plants have made a slow return to the gallery, this time as artists’ materials–as art objects. From Marcel Broodthaers’ and Nam June Paik’s installations in the mid-seventies to the collection of plant, soil and seed-based works featured at Documenta (13)’s Ottoneum building last year, living organic matter has become workable material, already imbued with so much significance.

“We wanted to explore this relationship between people and an almost hybrid object, that is alive but is still quite static,” says Fonseca. The (Un) Natural History of Plants attempts to uncover this implicit connection, encompassing the plants’ influence as sentimental, a source for artistic response, and as art objects.

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Additional Information

Bootsbau Project
Richardstrasse 43
12045 Berlin

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Once again, the public contained in the urban space experiences the installation series titled “Entladung” by Andreas Greiner and Fabian Knecht, a series this time continued in the streets of Copenhagen. We were able to experience these explosions in Berlin, seen from the rooftops and disturbing the everyday skyline of the city.

This time the performance was displayed during the Distortion Copenhagen festival, an event where the streets of the city are filled with a young audience high on adrenaline anxious to enjoy open-air concerts and warehouse raves.
Bang! Suddenly the performance triggers and ends in an instant, interrupting the event and leaving an aggressive message to underline the present moment. The programmed explosion is not expected by anyone although a dense network of thoughts is left to linger amongst the people whilst time is halted.

This piece of work is photographed intensifying the fact that a change in the atmosphere has occurred. The validity of a harmless destruction brings into question the rule of destruction in the global context we live in. Both artists search to create an art piece in which the aesthetic is kept as a memory, what really matters is the attitude provoked and the arising thoughts that spark to question this as an artwork. So far Andreas Greiner and Fabian Knecht have attacked the cities of Berlin, L.A. and Copenhagen with their site-specific explosions; when and where will their next discharge occur?

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Additional Information

For more information about Fabian Knecht click here: www.fabianknecht.de
For more information about Andreas Greiner click here: www.andreasgreiner.com
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Blog entry by Alexandra Borras, photos courtesy of the artists in Berlin; Monday, June 17, 2013.

BLINK is a series of micro-posts that will focus on individual artists. Honing in on select work or works, each post will be a fleeting snapshot of art activity from around the world, one that hopefully inspires and prompts deeper investigations.
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Björn Dahlem, The Island (2009); photo: Roman März, Courtesy Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin

Berlin based artist Björn Dahlem creates large-scale installations from everyday found objects. His projects inspired by astrophysics illustrate abstract concepts of space and matter. The installation brings forward a sense of fragility relating to the human mind and its capacity to change. The neon lights are used to accentuate a sense of the immaterial, a cosmic imagery is presented to the viewer and symbolic objects, easily recognizable, offer an iconic translation of the work. Within his works we also find a likeness to the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities, encapsulating sculptures in their own space and always relating to mythology, astronomy, physics and cosmology.

Björn Dahlem, “Schaum” (2012), wood, steel, glass, venus statuette, lacquer ink, 186 x 140 x 84 cm, 70 x 140 x 90 cm (pedestal), photo: Roman März, Courtesy Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin
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Additional Information

See more work by Björn Dahlem: www.guidowbaudach.com

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Blog entry by Alexandra Borras in Berlin; Sunday, Jun. 16, 2013.

Introduction

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine, directed by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, is a journey into the work and psyche of an icon of modern art. As Bourgeois’ works are nostalgic, so too is the film; time vacillates from recalling memories, to biographical moments, to opening shows, to clips of interviews. A scene begins with a long look inside an installation or a panorama of a statue, letting the works speak for Louise and her life. Void of a definitive chronology or theme, it is the works that tell the story––a perfect depiction of an artist who made no distinction between art and life.

The Film was presented last week in Berlin by the Berlin Film Society. Berlin Art Link sat down with Amei Wallach, co-director of the film, New York art critic and historian to discuss the making of the film and her relationship with Louise.

Interview

SARAH GRETSCH: When a film is made about an artist, there must be a certain pressure or particular care taken on the directors’ part to meld those artistic forms––those of the artist and the film. Would you say there existed such a consciousness on your and Cajori’s part?

AMEI WALLACH: When we started, we thought that we would build the film around Louise Bourgeois being the choice of the Venice Biennale. So we shot a lot of footage in Venice. It went on so long because we couldn’t raise the money to actually process [the film footage]. Actually, It would have been unfortunate if we had actually done the film we meant to do, because then it would have been a record, more of a documentary of a significant moment in Louise’s career. But instead it was an experience.

The Review in Art Forum said: “A work of art in itself”, which is my favorite review. That is really what we were trying to do. A film is not an encyclopedia. It is not wholly accurate about every art historical thing that ever happened. For one thing, you are interviewing people and memory is a very slippery thing. We were very conscious of trying to make a work of art, about an artist. I am very aware that as a writer about art, your job is to translate one medium to another. But it is often inadequate. Whereas film is actually a visual medium, so you really have a leg up. We wanted to be insightful; we wanted to find a way into her and into her art. Which meant that you didn’t use everything she said, but you found a way to juxtapose words, images, scenes, and objects.

I am curious about this “unparalleled access” aspect of the film. What makes this documentary so unique is surely for this reason. How did all of this begin?

As a journalist, I had been writing about Louise from time to time. But at the same time I was doing television. I was doing what is now called the PBS News Hour. And [Louise] wanted to be on television. She is an actress, if there ever was one. So I said, “You know, you would make a great film.” And she responded, “Sure.” I did not know how to make a film, but the Metropolitan Museum had a program of art and film, in which they were experimenting with ways to make films about artists. They put me in touch with Marion Cajori who had made a beautiful film about Joan Mitchell, and who had filmed [Louise's] work but was not getting access to [her]. So we started working together. Since we filmed together all those years, I learned about filmmaking from Marion.

She was filming in film, which is a huge production. You have to rent everything, you have to have crews… and we would go to Louise’s studio and she would be ready for us, she would have props or she would be doing this little performance for us. But sometimes she refused to do anything. And we would lose the whole day. As the years went on like this, we still did not have the money to process any of this. Marion and I would just visit her from time to time, every 8 months or so, with Marion’s Hi8 camera and sit across the table from her. And that was when the real intimacy began. We had amazing access at that point.

With such a long time frame (1993-2007) your relationship with Louise must have developed significantly. I would assume Louise was a difficult person to gain the trust of, yet this seems to be achieved. How hard was it to get what seems to be a very private person to open up and how did this relationship develop?

One of the times I went to see her, the day before, Michael Kimmelman had been there, who is an art critic for the New York Times, and she had gotten very hostile with him. So when I was with her that day, she was feeling very bad about that. She was not frightened of me from the very beginning. Also a big part of it was because I was not, in her world, too powerful. I was just a girl. That really helped.

She also plays games with people. She could really play games with Marion and me, because Marion had children and I did not. So she spent a lot of time talking about how a woman who did not have children was not really a woman and things like that. But I never had it so much that I got angry or hurt by her, I didn’t have anything at stake.

Another very important part of this access is Jerry Gorovoy. He found her in 1978, when her work wasn’t out there; it was really all still in the basement. And he––for the rest of her life––helped her organize, helped her interface with the world. He would be the go-between; he would arrange the interviews and set her up that morning so that she knew we were coming. He made it all easier.

In a few scenes Louise is heard in the background shouting that she is not an actress, that you misquote her. I am curious how you balanced the project of making an informative documentary film with its subject as a constant conscious and judging presence. How much did you direct or control?

Oh, you can’t control Louise! There are whole scenes, with the ones at the table, Marion with the Hi8 camera, when she would not let us film her face. So there are a lot of shots with hands. In fact, Ken used that. He made the hands a motif. You do not direct Louise. You can only use the questions to maybe lead her in certain directions…

So did you think especially about where the questions might lead?

You could try, but she often came in with her own idea of what she wanted this session to be about, and you did not realize it until halfway through and you would just let it go because if that is where she wants to go, you are going to get someplace good.

I used as much as I could, such as her saying in the background, “don’t do this”, because it reveals her. She is so raw and so present. It is as if she doesn’t have a layer of skin. I don’t know very many people who are that forthright, with the pain at the surface.

There are many difficult moments in the film. Painful memories surface and complex subject matters are addressed. Louise reveals such stories as that of the mistress, the twisting fabrics as inspiration for her spirals, the painful memory with the tangerine and its reconciliation through a dream, as well as the significance of the temperament of spiders.

How were you able to weave all the truths her artworks reveal into an insightful but still impartial portrait––a kind of explanation for an artist and her body of work––while also remaining sensitive to the vulnerability of your subject?

Well I do not think we cared about how she would be affected by this work, because frankly, as a filmmaker, what I have discovered is people never object to the things you think they are going to object to. It is never: “Oh I’ve revealed too much,” because they have. She knows that is who she is, and she reveals it in the work. So that was not an issue. But every time you moved a scene next to another one, it revealed something new. It was like shuffling a deck of cards. I knew that the climax of the film was the tangerine scene. So bit-by-bit these revelations unraveled and built to the point where you’re ready for that scene.

I’d like to touch a bit on this aspect of editing. I understand that Marion Cajori died before the film came out. How was this process managed, especially after her death?

First I must say, this is a different film than what Marion Cajori would have made. Hers would have been much more poetic than this. Marion was a master at filming the art work, from every angle, especially with lighting it.

Marion loves a very slow pace, being in the moment, and taking her time. I get very impatient. I want the shot to end; I want to get to what’s happening. With Marion, this dream-like quality is very important. It is brilliant. But I cannot do that. In the end, it was not Marion’s cut. It was Ken’s and my cut. But I think the way the work is filmed is so much hers.

After Marion died we had all these different media, and we had to find a way to make them work together. We had hundreds and hundreds of hours of film. The editor, Ken Kobland, has a specific way of working, which is to collage. He doesn’t like to start with a structure. I would give him a text and suggest images. He would make it filmic. We put the whole film together like that and were left with a rough cut. It was really intuitive how we collaged these scenes with what she says, layering the words with the art.

Also the more you take out of a film, the better it is. Sometimes the scenes you love the best (they are now under extras on the DVD, so it wasn’t entirely lost) do not work. For instance, all the times Louise would put up her arm in front of her face and say to me: “Oh, you’re so wrong! ” or “don’t do this to me”. We cut these scenes together, but they did not work in the film. They were too intrusive. Although, I do love making the process of the filmmaking be part of the story. It makes you aware that this is a film––this is not real life––and it is very revealing.

Last question, which I must ask. What was Louise’s reaction to the film?

She never saw it. Jerry never showed it to her. We kept showing it to Jerry all along the way, but she was in her 80s and she was very cranky. All of us feared that when she saw it, she was not going to let us show it. And so she saw parts of it. He showed her the parts which he thought she could see. I do not know what they were, but she never saw it.

Amei Wallach in Berlin; photo by the Berlin Film Society

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Sarah Gretsch is living in Germany since January 2012. Originally from the United States, where she pursued her Bachelor’s in Art history, she is now continuing her studies in Berlin.

Fitness for Artists TV, leaders shot, courtesy of Helga Wretman

Helga Wretman may have invented the very first art-discourse-based fitness regime. Over the course of a work-out, Wretman interviews artists in their studios, discussing their work and ideas between squats and star-jumps. For the second episode of her Fitness for Artists TV series, Wretman interviews the artist Aleksandra Domanović. Domanović, who works across digital media and sculpture, is interested in themes around collective identity, nationalism and monumentality. Her work “19:30″–titled after the time-slot for the nightly news in the former Yugoslavia where she grew up–grapples with the changing nature of communal experiences, from news broadcasts to techno raves. The work-out proves to be less distracting than you’d think–imbuing the discussion with humor and energy. Who ever said you couldn’t combine your interest in art with your need to get fit?

You can watch the interview here.

Watch the first episode with Egill Saebjornsson here.

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Blog entry by Jessyca Hutchens in Berlin; Tuesday, Jun. 11, 2013.

Jeremy Deller, English Magic, British Pavilion 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Corte

Article by Ally Bisshop; Wednesday, Jun. 12, 2013

You don’t need to have witnessed the immolation of Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man to appreciate the grand British shamanic histories alluded to in Jeremy Deller’s English Magic. But, rather than heralding any continuing tradition of mastery and conquest, Deller’s works point to the places where the idea of grandeur has failed us.

For the British Pavilion at the Biennale, Deller created a clever play on the notions of magic–drawing on England’s myths, folklores, symbols and mysticisms – and replanting them in the contemporary, by making pithy and playful associations with war, with real and imagined revolution, with gross economic imbalance. English Magic is a punned title, immediately apparent as a tongue-in-cheek, even playful ribbing of the notion of England’s grandeur, traditions and masteries.

Jeremy Deller – “A Good Day for Cyclists”, painted by Sarah Tynan, British Pavilion 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Corte

To label the work playful, though, is to risk missing the point; it’s a sinister joke, and potent with mockery and pretence. The ‘magic’ that Deller references is a call to attention to the larger failings of Empire, and of capitalism at large, in what has been referred to as a declaration of ‘war on wealth’.

There’s a strange narrative at work here, a play between the composition of past relics, contemporary history, and imagined futures. Through the pavilion’s open doors (flanked by yew trees pruned to resemble hedges) a giant mural is visible; a bird of prey gripping and crushing a Range Rover (that potent symbol of wasteful wealth) in its talons. This symbolism is carried through in a video work which documents the crushing of two more of these suburban tractors, coupled with rather majestic imagery of hawks and harriers, the Lord Mayor’s procession through the streets of London, and all accompanied by a steel drum orchestra playing Vaughan Williams and Bowie. It sounds messy, but it comes together–a showcasing of England’s finest.

Jeremy Deller – “Tea Room”, British Pavilion, 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Corte

Neolithic and Palaeolithic axes from the Museum of London appear, highlighted in bright neon spray-paint. Paraphernalia from Bowie’s 1973 tour of Ziggy Stardust is juxtaposed against images of industrial labour disputes in Northern Ireland in the same year. In another room, we’re guided back to our contemporary anxieties via drawings made by British soldiers convicted after the war; naive portraits of Tony Blair, David Kelly and their cohort, which serve to document the personal legacies and miseries of war.

Elsewhere, a future insurrection is imagined (which brought to mind J.G. Ballard’s dystopic Millennium People), in which the tax haven of the Isle of Jersey is attacked and its capital, St Helier, put to the fire–a social uprising against corporate wealth. The imagined protest flags of this fictitious movement are also featured–bright and comical in design and colour. Here again, Deller’s playful aesthetics belie a darker intonation, perhaps a call to arms. Is he tapping into a collective unrest, or hoping to conjure one?

Jeremy-Deller – “You Have The Watches We Have The Time”, installation view, British Pavilion, 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Corte

As it happens, the implied aggression of one of Deller’s intended works–a banner entitled “Prince Harry Kills Me”–lead to its exclusion from the Biennale. The intended meaning of the banner is somewhat obscured; it could exist as that great (arguably British) contribution to humour, the pun–i.e., “Prince Harry makes me laugh”. Given the repetitive symbolic use of birds of prey in the pavilion–and cited by Deller as the source for the banner–it could also be read as a reference to an incident where Prince Harry was implicated in the shooting of endangered hen harriers. More concerning to the British Government, however, was a possible reading in reference to Harry’s tour of duty as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, and the rather uncomfortable references he made to ‘taking out’ the bad guys.

There is also a reference to the usurping of the Venice foreshore by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovic, who at the 2011 Biennale parked his behemoth yacht Luna (and its attendant security detail) beside the Giardini, thus appropriating and occluding a rather spectacular view–an unnecessary and enraging flexing of fiscal power. In English Magic, Deller has invoked the ‘ancients’ to deal with Abramovic–a large-scale mural depicts the social reformist William Morris hurling the Luna into the Venetian waters.

Jeremy Deller – “We Sit Starving Amidst our Gold”, painted by Stuart Sam Hughes, British Pavilion, 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Corte

Attending to topics of gargantuan wealth (and its social miseries) is perhaps awkwardly appropriate at la Biennale, which had its beginnings as an Art Fair; a site for the marketing, sale and exchange of art and capital. One could argue that this is still one of its primary purposes, if not overtly expressed as such.

Deller is largely artistically uncategorisable in the most contemporary of ways; as an artist, he doesn’t work with mediums–he neither draws, paints, or sculpts. He creates juxtapositions, interventions–and as such has sometimes been labeled a ‘curator’, rather than an artist. While I’m not interested in drawing out a dialogue on the bifurcations between artists and curators, his approach is interesting in that–not being wedded to medium or particular skill–it allows his works to perform a broader, overarching perspective, rather than exist as a showcasing of intensified skill (c.f. Sarah Sze at the American pavilion, for example, whose work is brilliant and magnetic in a completely different, meticulous and formalistic way).

Jeremy Deller, English Magic, installation view, British Pavilion, 2013; courtesy British Council, photo: Cristiano Cortey

My sheer enjoyment of the pavilion may well have been coloured by the fact that during my viewing of the video work English Magic in a crowded room at the rear of the pavilion, a group of people entered, all bedecked in t-shirts proclaiming their membership in the “Melodians Steel Orchestra”. I turned to the red-cheeked and jubilant woman standing beside me, who at that same moment appeared on-screen, artfully rolling a stick around a steel drum. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I whispered. She smiled and winked. “Great job!” I offered. The room was full of smiles and applause–and perhaps our shared benevolence at that moment eclipsed and softened the video’s more bellicose message.

Incidentally, Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” proved to be the Biennale’s most-enduring earworm–even more so than the Ravel adopted by Anri Sala–as I caught myself humming it this morning whilst in the queue at Pennymarkt. Deller’s imagery has stayed with me also. While it had neither the longest queues nor the most attention, Deller’s offering at the British pavilion is most definitely worth an extended visit.

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Additional Information

Jeremy Deller’s British Council commission is at La Biennale di Venezia until 24th November and will tour national UK venues in 2014. www.britishcouncil.org/visualarts.

LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
The British Pavilion
JEREMY DELLER
Exhibition: Jun. 01 – Nov. 24, 2013
Venice

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Ally Bisshop is an artist and researcher from Australia. She is currently completing a Ph.D. through the National Institute of Experimental Arts in Sydney, while living in Berlin.

This weekend brings 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin’s annual art festival created to be open to everybody. The event’s ongoing mission is to include everyone who consideres themselves an artist or a citizen of Neukölln and to represent every possible art form, from theatre to music to exhibitions.

For the first time, festival entrants must adhere to the theme “Change of Perspective!”. The event developed from a local festival to a Berlin wide institution, especially since 2008 when it was awarded for its social-political activity. This 15th edition will include 400 events in 250 different locations.

The festival features a variety of curated events, as well as amateur and outsider art. Curiosity might be the dominant feeling as you walk around the shows. This is a chance to get in touch with some of the famous subcultures of Berlin when scouring through countless private rooms, gardens, courtyards, cellars and churches that open their doors to the public.

Two special projects of this edition are “Art and Cult – Voices of Religions”, that deals with religious rituals practiced by the five largest religious communities in Berlin-Neukölln and “Urban Aging Laboratory”, dedicated to highlight transcultural and intergenerational ideas to bring individuals together.

A detailed program with tours, open ateliers, galleries and venues is provided on the website. Not to be missed is the Ships-Shuttle onboard the Spreeprinzessin where bands will play music from all over the world. The shuttle leaves every hour from the Wildenbruchbrücke and entrance is free.

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Additional Information

48 Stunden Neukölln
Exhibition: Jun. 14 – Jun. 16, 2013
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Blog post by Andrea Ongaro in Berlin; Tuesday, Jun. 11, 2013

Located on Hall street a stone’s throw from Pratt institute is an enclave of studios within a repurposed industrial building––another victorious acquisition of real-estate for the Brooklyn artist community. Down a winding hallway, past screen printers and painters, you can find James Clar’s studio. It is an ordered space naturally lit and outfitted with the tech world’s crown jewel: a 3D printer.

Our discussion about James’ work began with marveling over the possibilities of such a technology, especially in light of the ongoing debate about the file sharing of working plastic firearms. Resting on his desk was a miniature version of a pistol, he had found a file for the original working plastic firearm and created a miniature version as an experiment. Rather than creating the object as a sensational act, it serves as a focal point for philosophical analysis.

This analytic thought process has been a constant thread in the creation of James’ work, even in the earliest stages of his career. Beginning as a film-studies student at NYU, he found that the unknown variables of life on a movie set were less preferable to the world of computer animation, which could afford a more controlled recreation of environments. Transitioning to a program at ITP and steeping himself in media theory led to an interest in the physical aspects of screens as a delivery system for the stories and emotions presented through a visual narrative. “These systems run on projected light, so I thought it would be interesting to break down the media and control light itself.” After arriving at this realization and a series of travels from a residency at Eyebeam in New York, a two year stay in Tokyo, and five years spent in Dubai, he was left with a defined visual language of light to describe a uniquely macro view of the world.

NASDAQ Recursive Loop (2012); Fluorescent Lights, Filters; 220 cm diameter

The first light sculpture James described during the visit was NASDAQ Recursive Loop, a circle of florescent tubes which track the cyclical nature of stock values during the turbulent years of 2007 and 2011 when recession forced a halt to many construction projects in Dubai. James describes that living there during this time had a consistently political atmosphere. “Dubai itself was really made through PR. They built their society based on communication and technology. It wasn’t until I moved there that I saw this was not the city they presented. I expected everything to be futuristic, but it was entirely taken over by construction and changing from week to week. Until the crash. Then people thought, okay, let’s try to fill the buildings we already have.”

“Global English” (2011); Acrylic box, LED lighting; 110 x 30 x 10 cm

Transitioning from a focus on economic effects to a focus on the effects of language on thought, James spoke briefly about another project titled Global English. This phrase is displayed and written phonetically in multiple languages, back lit by LEDs, and housed in acrylic boxes for comparison. “The structure of language forces you to think using a different logic. I can’t not think in English. If you’re born in another country, your logic is slightly different depending on that language, and I think that’s important for the creation of ideas. Through globalism, everything is beginning to even out, and it becomes important to preserve the nuance of cultural difference.” The mixture of light and language alerts viewers to a connection between information and technology in their most elemental interplay. In this way, many of James’ light art works deal with the simplification of reality when viewed through the lens of technology.

Adam Curtis’s mini series, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, was brought up as a congruent view, noticing disconnects between the chaos of naturally occurring systems versus the attempts to algorithmically account for reality. Through a series of works utilizing the geometric simplicity of florescent tubes braced by custom made 3D-printed plastic joints, a world view is analyzed where chaos of rain and lightning become an easily plotted rendering of the original phenomena––such a rendering does not account for the diversity of it’s inspiration. Like the nuance of languages which inform thought patterns, the delicacy of natural structures are up for preservation.

“The Difference Between Me & You” (2010); 2 TVs, DVD players, Acrylic Edition of 3 + 1 AP; 30 cm x 66 cm x 145 cm

Orchid (2012); Fluorescent Lights, Filters, Metal, Rubber, and 3d Printed Orchid; 70 X 55 X 55 cm

Originally James traveled to Dubai through his work as a designer for an architectural lighting firm, but came into contact with the gallery scene there later. His desire to present works that dissect media and technology were met with a mixture of support, but also a more traditional and conservative view of what is considered art. In his opinion, “art is allowing anything to happen. Any conceptual idea can be produced.” One of the reasons for his moving back to New York was an interest in finding a freedom from the conservative context that binds many artistic communities. While the city scene is much more saturated, it also affords a possibility to be seen as a member of the global community. This intent to make work that stands on its own, also extends to encompass a view of political events that may shape his work. “In New York I’m trying to allow the work to become more abstract and aestheticized. You can’t get really exact about certain events because news becomes old. You have to think of the macro view of events to make a more timeless statement.”

“Portal” (2008); Diffusion screen, Side emitting fiber optic Installation, 3m x 3m x 3m

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Additional Information:

See more of James Clar’s work:

Artist Website:
www.jamesclar.com

Carbon 12 Dubai
carbon12dubai.com

Upcoming and ongoing Exhibitions:

GALERIA SENDA
Solo Exhibition – JAMES CLAR
Exhibition: Oct. 23, 2013 – Jan. 18, 2014
Consell de Cent, 337
08007 Barcelona

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Lucia Love is an NYC based multi media artist with an eye for the whimsical. Be on the look out for her weather reportage, paintings, sculptures, and musings at www.lucialoveart.com

Kristy Leibowitz has been capturing and enveloping the essence of people through her portrait photography. Kristy began her career as a photojournalist working with news media companies including, The New York Daily News and Getty Images. Continuing on to become the photo editor at companies like the NY Daily News, The Mail Online and Bloomberg LP. While working in the news media world her true passion for the art world started when she was the in house photographer at the former Deitch Projects Art Gallery. Kristy has been involved in countless exhibitions, including Womanizer, The International Fair of New Art, The Armory Show and Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2006, Kristy was commissioned by the New York City Housing Authority to direct a mosaic revamp of public parks between the Bronx and New York. Prior to beginning her freelance career, Kristy attended Parsons School of Design in New York.