Dear Domenico and Crumbers,
I do not post very often on this list although I do
appreciate the quality of discussions.
I hope I am not breaking any list rules in making the
following comments :
- I don't know what "a generic contemporary art audience of
"non experts" is.
Are we talking about the people that go to contemporary art
galleries, museums and art fairs or about what we call the
"general audience" in France (that is people that usually
don't go to contemporary art exhibitions and think that
contemporary art could be done by their children and is no
art no matter what) ? Some of the later ones are however
going to blockbuster contemporary art shows and some of the
first ones are buying contemporary artworks because it is hype.
- In the early days of "new media art", there was no
"specialized media art events, usually attended by media
literate people who have no concerns
about technology and its legitimacy as an art medium" : only
curious, open-minded people that were trying to figure out
what it was, and what it was all about (artists, audience,
art critics and curators in the same boat). It is slowly
that some events or venues became "specialised".
- Mentionning Documenta VII, Les immateriaux, the 1986
Venice Biennal, Mediascape at Guggenheim Soho as
"exceptions" is interesting as they were a) the biggest art
fairs worldwide (Miami was not existing) and b) two of the
most important contemporary/modern art museums worldwide.
This shows that the divide between contemporay art and media
art was not existing.
- To the above and to what Andreas has already mentionned,
we could add (I hope Sarah, this is beyond the handfull of
usual events and curators) :
-> Cybernetic Serendipity, ICA, London, 1968, Jasia
Reichardt. ICA was (still is ?) a place for contemporary art
at that time
-> Electra, Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1985,
Frank Popper. Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris is
... modern art ! (and contemporary too).
-> In Paris, Jacques Donguy was running a private gallery
that showed those kind of artworks.
-> Jean-Louis Boissier ran the Galerie Virtuelle in the
early 90's at the Pompidou Center for something like 3 years
(the exact dates need to be check prooved).
- There were shows also in Japan (Tokyo) around 91/92 that
happened in contemporary art museums and if I remember
correctly the Museum of Photography (I can try to dig into
my documentation if somebody needs a correct reference).
But, we are not going on with lists or we put an database
together somewhere (could be a nice research project to be
funded by the EU ...).
- If I understand correctly the "curatorial" debate that
Domenico is refering to, it seems to me that it has always
been there.
In his essay, he writes : "But new media curating should be
reframed, in terms of mediating between two art worlds and
two different cultures, rather than mediating between the
art audience and technology. It should be about bringing new
media art to the art audience in a way that enables it to be
accepted as art, and also obliges people to reconsider their
preconceptions about what can be accepted as art. With or
without technologies."
I have the feeling that it is what people have tried to do
... since the origins. Curators and all other sorts of
cultural players were talking about the art and were thrown
back technology.
And it is because the "traditional contemporary art world"
at some point rejected "new media art" mainly because they
didn't know how to sell it that so many "specialized" places
emerged, not because the "curators" did not want to exhibit
in the "white cube".
And the "white cube" has been put in question by the
contemporary art artists and cultural players too.
- If it is of any relevance here, in 1996, I did a survey (I
guess we would call it benchmark in the new novlangue) for
the French ministry of culture about exhibiting and
curating new media art. It is in French, but still available
online for free here :
http://www.olats.org/livresetudes/etudes/monstration/presentationsite.php
I think some parts are still relevant.
- To end with a note about online curating, and with a
question :
In the early days (by this I mean 1996 when I curated a show
that included interactive artworks on CD ROM and online
works exhibited in a public space), the issue for me was to
find a way to exhibit artworks that were meant to be seen in
the private setting of a home and the intimate relation
between one person and her/his screen in a public venue,
which was somehow a contradiction. Curating the show then
was not only selecting good artworks but also providing the
"intimacy" for the audience in a public space.
Nowadays when public and private spaces have partly
dissolved, and where online works fit into your pocket on
your cell phone screens, how do you curate the works ? For
what kind of "spaces" ? The "non space" (ie the "non lieux"
of Marc Augé) of the waiting time (airports, train or subway
stations, traveling time, etc.) ? Are those shows curated
for "spaces" or for "times" ? And those times are mostly
"wasted" time, in between other occupations.
They are shows truly curated for one person at a time but we
know that people do share what they see on their cellphones
screen with others....
The above questions are the ones I am struggling with at the
moment.
I still have to read some of the posts on the "Curating on
and through web-based platforms" topic which I enjoy a lot.
Sorry for this too long email !
Best
Annick Bureaud
Le 12/12/12 11:23, Andreas Broeckmann a écrit :
> dom, my message to you was deliberately off-list - maybe i
> should have made that more explicit... i would have tried to
> be more articulate if i had protested via the crumb
> list-serve. alas. - i can now only hope that others will
> chip in more diplomatically ;-) and mention kaapelica, skuc,
> ujazdowski castle, steirischer herbst, INM, austrian and
> other pavillions in the venice biennial of the 1990s, wulf
> herzogenrath, anne-marie duguet...
> -a
>
>
> Am 12.12.12 09:26, schrieb Domenico Quaranta:
>> Dear Andreas,
>>
>> Il giorno 11/dic/2012, alle ore 19:24, Andreas Broeckmann
>> ha scritto:
>>
>>> dom,
>>>
>>> am i missing something, or is there an explanation why
>>> you do not mention the exhibitions of the ars electronica
>>> (since 1979), of V2 (since 1986), of the different
>>> festivals and biennials in europe, MUU media festival,
>>> WRO, Ostranenie, videofest/transmediale, DEAF, and then
>>> of course the ICC, the ZKM and the curatorial work of
>>> peter weibel, to name just a few? most of this was well
>>> under way before your american knights came on the scene.
>>>
>>> to present this story as something that was pioneered in
>>> the US and the UK in the early 2000s is - dare i say -
>>> ludicrous.
>>
>> thank you for taking your time to read the text, and to
>> send your reply. I really appreciate it and, as you
>> already know, I like your German straightforwardness :-)
>>
>> Ludicrous? Of course you would be right, if this was my
>> subject - which isn't. You can't blame me because I don't
>> talk about cows and chickens, if my subject is goat
>> husbandry. In this text, I'm not focusing on "curating new
>> media" in broader terms, but on attempts to bring new
>> media art in front of a generic contemporary art audience
>> of "non experts". All the events and venues you refer to
>> in your email are specialized media art events, usually
>> attended by media literate people who have no concerns
>> about technology and its legitimacy as an art medium.
>>
>> As far as I know, the presentation of new media art in
>> mainstream contemporary art institutions started, with a
>> few exceptions (Documenta VII, Les immateriaux, the 1986
>> Venice Biennal, Mediascape at Guggenheim Soho) in the late
>> Nineties, both in Europe and in the US. Probably my list
>> of "american knights" should be completed by Julian
>> Stallabrass (for Art and Money Online at Tate), Erkki
>> Huhtamo (for Alien Intelligence), Peter Weibel (for
>> coordinating and touring Net Condition) and a few others.
>> But again, my point was not making lists and my focus were
>> not exhibitions (that were discussed extensively in the
>> mentioned book), but the curatorial debate. And this
>> became aware of itself only later, and mainly thanks to
>> this list
>>
>> Hope this helps to clarify
>> domenico
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Domenico Quaranta
>>
>> email: [log in to unmask]
>> skype: dom_40
>>
>> http://domenicoquaranta.com
>> http://www.linkartcenter.eu
>>
>>
>>
>
--
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Annick Bureaud ([log in to unmask])
tel: 33/(0)1 43 20 92 23
mobile/cell : 33/(0)6 86 77 65 76
Leonardo/Olats : http://www.olats.org
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