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SURVEY4Q
Delicate Questions
Contemporary Art Survey
2006-2007, e-mail project
1. What makes art art?
Which qualities do you require in a fine art piece to evaluate it as an artwork of high quality? Good idea, clear position of the artist, enchantment at first sight, appropriate form, contribution to a “hot” topic, new perspective, spontaneity, provocative nature…?
2. Art and politics
What is your perception of the not uncommon connection of art and politics? Do you consider the engaged position of an artist to be a sign of truthfulness and authenticity or to be necessary to the communicative quality of the work; or on the contrary, are you sceptical and surprised by the naivete with which the artist overlooks the vulnerability of his/her zeal for justice to abuse?
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Explicit and unrestrained expression of the artist’s sexuality, communicated in various forms in contemporary art, can be hardly called taboo. Much greater embarrassment is caused when artists concentrate their gaze on the intimacy of spiritual life or religion. Why do you think this is so?
4. What project are you working on at present?
Please tell us something about your plans for 2007.
Katarína Bajcurová
General Director Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
Ingried Brugger
Director BA-CA Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria
Jan Hoet
Director MARTa Museum in Herford, Germany
Barbara Holub
President Secession, Vienna, Austria
Radek Horáček
Director House of Arts, Brno, years 2002 – 2006, Czech Republic
Enrique Juncosa
Director Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Milan Knížák
General Director National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
Yvon Lambert
Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris, France
Małgorzata Ludwisiak
Executive Director Lodz Art Center and Art Biennale, Lodz, Poland
Enrico Lunghi
Director Casino Luxembourg – Forum d'art contemporain, Luxembourg
Václav Macek
Director Central European House of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia
Gerald Matt
Director Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Lars Nittve
Director Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Roman Popelár
Director Medium Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
Jérôme Sans
Director of Programme Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead / Newcastle, United Kingdom
Sabine Schaschl
Director Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland
Gijs van Tuyl
Director Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holand
Katarína Bajcurová
General Director Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
1. What makes art art?
You have listed quite a number of characteristics. All of them are adequate, correct, and we could add more and more words, terms, definitions, formulas. We spend our whole lives studying, learning, looking around, so as to be able to do that much.... But I don’t know if one can approach the very “quintessence” of art: I mean to verbalize, to express in words what makes art art. I am quite sceptical about that, just like many art historians before me. The snag is that we have only a word for it – and so willy-nilly we have to translate what is secret, specific, ungraspable, what the artwork depicts in a visual, pictorial language, into a different language. And distortions, simplifications are certain to arise in this process of “transmission”. Another thing is that some works are only fully "unpacked" after a lapse of years. What I mean is that at present we see certain things rather differently from the way we will see them a few decades from now, or how others will see them after us. What now seems a "work of genius" may fade away and something completely different may strike us, something that we specifically have not noticed. This may be the fate of art (and art historians and art critics). To put it subjectively, purely for myself and from my own experience: an artwork should grip me as a viewer before I start to analyse it as a professional. For instance, it is not enough for me if an artwork is just "quite witty", as some of my younger colleagues like to say; I expect more from art, it must enthuse me, shock my feelings, surprise me, 'electrify' me by its power. And only then can I reflect on why it is so...
2. Art and politics
I believe that there has always been such a connection and it does not depend on our wanting or not wanting it, whether we are glad to see it or not. Even in such an "age-old" connection, however, there may be plenty of ballast, posing, external effect or conjuncturalism, but it also may be the result of inner dedication, the need to express an essential position. Occasionally it can be the artist’s conscience and character that makes him/her express a position on important political issues by means of the artwork. If it is an “inner” voice, I wouldn’t reproach the artist for that, even though we know of many tragically abused as well as unheard, or 'naive-sounding' voices in history. However, this aspect in itself tells us nothing about the artistic quality or unique character of the statement. On the other hand, the connection of art and politics is often quite an exciting adventure for us art historians – step by step to reveal the apparent and less apparent social and political intentions in the ever-ambivalent relationship between an artist (his/her work) and the (political) society in which the artist lived and worked.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Perhaps because this is an area where, on the one hand, it is easy to sense a lack of sincerity, posing, pathetic attitudes and, on the other hand the fact is that today it is extremely difficult to express oneself on this theme in a new way, differently but powerfully. This topic runs through the history of art like the fabled red thread and at first sight it may seem that art has said on the subject all. Even though it certainly hasn't. I firmly believe it is one of the hardest paths for a contemporary artist, insofar as we live in a world of unstable values where the principles of faith, spirituality, are pushed away into a narrow intimate sphere (and maybe for this reason they tend to be replaced with the presentation of other private, sexual or physical taboos), or on the contrary they are abused in major, global ‘civilization-induced conflicts’.
4. What project are you working on at present?
As Director of a large institution I have little time for personal plans and projects. What I like best is for our gallery to do well – collectively, professionally, in attendances. At the moment I am participating in two projects that will introduce Slovak art abroad, even if it's more “past” art: setting up the Slovak collection for the great international show Europe-Russia-Europe in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and introducing the exhibition Slovak Myth in the Moravian Gallery in Brno. And then – in my computer (and in my head) I have several other projects, but the day would need to have twice the number of hours…
Ingried Brugger
Director BA-CA Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria
1. What makes art art?
I won't discuss this ancient topic on the basis of thousands of written papers, the way it has been done before from Plato to Adorno. As a member of the post-Beuys Generation, let’s keep it simple: For me, every creative process evokes art. Somehow. So there is only one answer to this question in your sense: The market makes art. As is well known, this is not always a matter of high quality, good idea, clear position of the artist, appropriate form and so on; this is the old love-affair between supply and demand.
2. Art and politics
In the sense that serious art as a mirror image is always the result of the society‘s environment, I personally think that there is no art without politics, as long as politics is defined as a common will to organize society. We shouldn’t forget that an engaged position – very often obviously practiced e.g. by the contemporary so-called figurative or media-artist – has to be understood politically in the same way as l’art pour l’art, against the background of an artist’s break from the mainstream. Both positions are political statements. And sometimes both could be intellectually strong, authentic and truthful; and sometimes both could be naive. But that is what art is for, isn’t it?
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Could it be that in our days the only difference in the globalized (wo)mankind is religion? What I mean is this: We all work the same way, we all eat the same way, we all have sex the same way; and there is poverty around the world. What makes us different is whether we do believe or not and in whom we believe. So it’s no wonder that the stupid always gets embarrassed. There is less left worth to fight for. – Hopefully this will have an end soon.
4. What project are you working on at present?
Until February we are featuring more than 100 masterpieces representing Marc Chagall's "Russian Years". This exhibition is a spectacular show with rarely-presented paintings from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, as well as the complete Chagall collection of the Russian National Museum in St. Petersburg, completed by loans from the Guggenheim Museum, the MOMA in New York and the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. Absolute highlight: the fragile Mural paintings of the Moscow Jewish Chamber Theatre. In Spring we present an extraordinary exhibition on one of the most crucial themes of the Modern: Erotics. We are devoting a comprehensive exhibition to the involvement with all forms and faces of eros – love, passion and lust, desire and sexual union. Various approaches to and developments in erotic art from the early modern period (among others: Klimt, Schiele, Cézanne, Matisse, Degas, Munch, Renoir, etc.), through the twentieth century (among others: Dali, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Yves Klein, Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray), and down to our own day (Arnulf Rainer, Cindy Sherman, Tom Wesselmann, Robert Mapplethorpe, etc.) will be presented in over 200 works. Nearly every medium employed in modern and contemporary art is represented in the show: painting and sculpture, video and film, as well as graphic art, drawing and photograpy. And from September 2007 to January 2008 we will feature approximately 100 oil paintings, drawings and sculpture by symbolist key-figures such as Khnopff, Ensor, Rops and others, to convey the full picture of the Symbolist world of aestheticism and mysticism.
Jan Hoet
Director MARTa Museum in Herford, Germany
1. What makes art art?
The goal of both art and deliberations on art is not merely to recognize the work of art, but rather to s e e it. When viewing a work of art, we are confronted with the mysterious in the world.
2. Art and politics
Every single view of art always brings new, unprecedented perception, thus formulating an esthetical form of recognition and criticism, society and politics. Art permanently calls itself in question – it is costantly criticizing itself, which makes the difference between art and society.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
The limits of taboos – be they spiritual or sexual – are consistently shifting further and still further – and thereby they themselves define new taboos.
4. What project are you working on at present?
Presently we are working on the exhibitions „Erik Schmidt. Hunting grounds“ and „Carla Accardi meets Lucio Fontana“ and for the summer, we are going to prepare the exhibition „MARTa falls silent. The emptiness, the silence, etc.“
Barbara Holub
President Secession, Vienna, Austria
1. What makes art art?
Taking risks, questioning systems and structures, actively participating in negotiating issues of non-commercial interest, participating in relevant questions of social/ political concern, questioning society, the art market, and emphasizing criticality. Even though the borders with other fields like design, architecture, urbanism, fashion design etc. are blurring (also in an active way, when artists challenge these borders), the unique position of the artist is to question dominant interests in our globalized society and to develop art products and projects which are not primarily geared to or do not fulfill market interests. To create poetic and disturbing situations of specific aesthetic value, contradicting or undermining mainstream interests.
2. Art and politics
Art is politics – in its best sense. Not necessarily that artists have to directly approach or deal with political questions explicitly, but to be conscious political subjects in our activity: how we place our pieces and how we deal with “forgotten” qualities and issues.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Art would not exist without its potential to seduce – to seduce in order to cope with personal or public lacks (in the life of the collector and society), to speculate on the value (for the collector), to gain significance – even the “purest”, conceptual approaches speculate on seduction on an intellectual level. Since there are no more taboos, there is the constant search for new potential taboos that may be unveiled.
4. What project are you working on at present?
I am working on a project on second-hand economy, dealing with questions of “taste” and the positioning of the individual – both in an aesthetic and a political/ socially conscious sense – in relation to the globalized second-hand clothing market.
As president of the Secession I am enthusiastic about realizing our new program, opening up the Secession more and more towards the urban space and an additional new public which so far might not have been interested in contemporary art – negotiating issues of broader relevance for the society as an aspect intrinsic to a multiplicity of diverse art practices.
Radek Horáček
Director House of Arts, Brno, years 2002 – 2006, Czech Republic
1. What makes art art?
First of all, an artwork is an act of communication. In any work I'm examining, if it's good, I look for how the artist speaks and what about. I have to find a strong personal dedication, marks of the artist’s personality, clear topic, unique association with the social and artistic situation, refined use of expressive means, as well as room for the viewer’s contribution in interpretation. An artwork should be unique in its special ratio of the above qualities – not by their balance but by their unexchangeable combination.
2. Art and politics
Art has never avoided political issues in any historical period. The difference lies solely in the conveyance of information. The fact that today we continuously observe what is going on in the whole world naturally intensifies the seriousness and the multiplicity, of political issues. By the time a Roman sculptor, working on a sculpture in the northern part of the empire, learnt of the fact that someone else had become the emperor, he might have finished his sculpture. But he too was alive to political issues.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
It was equally true in the past that a piece which communicated only through general symbolism and worked by suggestion could be as good and powerful a work of art, as a piece which was plainly open and absolutely unambiguous. And that’s where artists come in: they sometimes communicate with us in general symbols of long-term validity which we ourselves are not capable of creating or formulating, while at other times they confront us with aggressive exposures where there is no play of symbols or grave ideas, but only a kind of stripping-bare which the rest of us would never dare to do. But we should not let ourselves be deprived of the feeling that taboos exist even today.
4. What project are you working on at present?
The Brno House of Arts will hold an "ars viva" exhibition in April, which is a contest for artists up to 35 years of age living in Germany. Though this year's topic is "narration", it surprised me as a member of the jury that no painters were short-listed. The prevailing concept was about scrutinizing mainly social issues, relations, historical and sociological contexts. I think it is a remarkable "coincidence“ that no painters were in at the finale of the 2006 J. Chalupecky Prize either, and that both exhibitions are held in the same institution with a 4-month interval. In May the Brno House of Arts will present the Orbis Pictus project by Petr Nikl, which gives visitors maximum space for their active participation and creativity. Social issues and artists‘ attempts at inducing active participation of the viewers represent significant aspects of contemporary art.
Enrique Juncosa
Director Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
1. What makes art art?
Art is art precisely when it goes beyond all these things, although, of course, it may include them.
2. Art and politics
All art is political and it probably works better politically when it does not try to do so. Again, though, art has to be more than just political.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Each individual has different sexual and spiritual personalities, and these personalities are reflected in their work if he or she is an artist. The religious experience is by definition impossible to explain, and only great artists – Rothko, Tapies, Dreyer, Simone Weill…– are able to give a particular account of it which cannot be copied or probably even fully understood by someone else. I would say that to try to explain the spiritual poorly is very embarrassing. Sexual experience is probably easier to explain, although I admit not always. If badly done it is equally embarrassing. I guess that everybody has had sexual experiences but not necessarily spiritual ones.
4. What project are you working on at present?
I am curating three different large exhibitions for the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2007. These are a survey of the Irish painter Anne Madden, an exhibition of new works by Indian multimedia artist Nalini Malani, and another survey of Polish sculptor Miroslaw Balka. This year the museum is also presenting exhibitions dedicated to Alex Katz, Thomas Demand, Shazhia Sikander, Lucian Freud, Thomas Scheibitz and James Coleman among others. In April, I will also be publishing a new book of poems in Spain.
Milan Knížák
General Director National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
1. Čo robí umenie umením?
Frames, plinths, projectors and the like.
2. Umenie a politika
Politicians don't need art.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Spiritual shit is sexual.
4. What project are you working on at present?
I am working on hyperrealistic sculpture of liquid plasma.
Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris, France
1. What makes art art?
I expect a work of art to be a break. It does not need to be an enchantment at first sight; probably the opposite. It has to be tough, violent and unexpected. I always decontextualize the work to think what remains. Once again, for me what is most important in the end is not the gallery, nor the artist, nor the museum, it is the work of art.
2. Art and politics
This is an old subject, but I think that today there are too many works that are politically correct. Political awareness should not be the only thing, but just one of the things that can make a work of art authentic or truthful. It is just a plus. For me art is above the question of politics, and at the same time it sinks roots in these important issues.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
I don't agree at all.
In art there is no taboo, there is just an intense desire to reveal an unexpected desire and an unexpected form and language. What a dream, when an intimate singularity becomes a collective reality! That's the power of art.
4. What project are you working on at present?
I am opening a larger gallery in New York in February 2007 with a solo show by Richard Jackson; this is an important project and challenge. I will also have a solo show in my museum in Avignon with Cy Twombly, someone very important to me. But these are only two projects among the many that I am working on... I wish I could do more and more from one year to another, just to push the limits of art with the artists I respect and admire.
Małgorzata Ludwisiak
Executive Director Lodz Art Center and Art Biennale, Lodz, Poland
1. What makes art art?
A great piece of art is defined for me by
its visual energy, its inner hidden tensions
(of a formal, intellectual or expressive kind). If they are contained in a picture, film, installation etc. by an artist, it strikes you, shocks and leaves you so much enslaved that you sometimes can’t move, captured by what you see and experience, so that you never go away “untouched” after your contact with a good art piece.
2. Art and politics
Politics is just one of the elements of our reality, so if for some reason it is the important one for an artist or if he feels like it touches him in a special way – why shouldn’t he transform it into art? It irritates me only when art is used by an artist as a mere instrument to make politics or to simply comment on it.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
It’s because of the heritage of Enlightenment and post-Cartesian dualism between body and soul. Now we are living in times of the cult of body and also of “deep estheticisation” (Wolfgang Welsch) of ethical and spiritual values. In the one-sided rationalism in which man has an illusion about controlling everything, there is no more space for religion or spiritual life. God is de mode because you can’t experience Him in the same way you experience your body. And so an artist who tries to concentrate on the spiritual is often perceived as naive, as someone who can’t use his intellect properly.
4. What project are you working on at present?
This will be an important year with a lot of work. In June I’m planning to open a gallery called “Fabryka” (“Factory”) in Lodz Art Center’s post-industrial spaces to exhibit new art and young artists invited there for the “visual energy” contained in their works (see no.1.). And in October I’d like to hold an International Festival of Design – the first such event in Poland, and I think it is very much needed.
Enrico Lunghi
Director Casino Luxembourg – Forum d'art contemporain, Luxembourg
1. What makes art art?
Twenty years ago I thought I knew what is and what is not art, I believed I had mastered valid criteria to distinguish and to judge, an ability I acquired by study as well as through meeting artists and through following my own instincts. It's no longer the case nowadays: I distinguish less and less the difference between art and non-art (having in mind Marcel Duchamp, who asked himself whether it was still possible to create objects in the 20th century that were not pieces of art) and I must say that this judgement is not the most important for me. What matters to me is whether I am actually looking at something that does not leave me indifferent and cold.
2. Art and politics
I suppose that living in a society means to be engaged in politics, and everyone may take a more or a less active share in leaving things as they are or in transforming them. The museums and the art business are part of our western culture and they help to promote it, with both its positive and negative aspects. Art contributes to the dominant economy through the art market and to the dominant ideology through exhibitions in art galleries. I don’t know of any exhibition that would have helped change the world, since all an exhibition risks is no more than a negative critique from the art community and a couple of disdainful smiles from multinational corporations (or other dominant groups).
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
A follow-up to Question 2: if museums can still serve a purpose in our culture, it is that they are a place for individual free expression, free of all restraint and taboos. Anyone visiting a gallery should expect to encounter whatever an artist might take the fancy to express (and a gallery director to put on display). I cannot see why sexuality and religion should be exempt. The issue of tolerance should be dealt with within the realm of politics, not art. Unfortunately, it is clear that the dominant ideology attempts to infringe this freedom (which has always been only relative) of art and art galleries; to my mind, this is because the governing ideology is getting more and more totalitarian.
4. What project are you working on at present?
I am busy running and organising Casino Luxembourg with its rich programme. And I am also working with Jill Mercedes, an artist who will represent Luxemburg at the next Venice Biennale. It’s all very exciting!!!
Václav Macek
Director Central European House of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia
1. What makes art art?
Of importance to me is the festive quality, which is certainly related to originality, but I would like to emphasize the term "festive". The flood of triviality that prevails in many galleries is in direct contradiction to the "marvellous", which "for ages past" (since the 1970’s when I started to devote myself intensively to art) has represented the kernel of art for me.
2. Art and politics
There is no clear-cut answer to that. One always has to know the social context concerned. If an artist supports dictatorship and crimes with his/her works, I think that is just as depraved as if the artist personally had participated in committing those crimes. In such a period it is fitting and even necessary that an artist should not live isolated in a studio, but should perceive his/her artworks as part of the life of society. However, if the social situation is quiet and so-called normal, unaggravated, then I would be more sceptical of political 'engangement'.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
I have not come across a situation where "gazing on the intimacy of spiritual life or religion“ evoked embarrassment.
4. What project are you working on at present?
Apart from the 17th Annual Month of Photography, my top project is the three-volume book on the history of European photography in the 20th century. The first two volumes should be issued in November 2008. Already we have assembled almost a complete team of experts from the respective European countries and are focusing our efforts on raising funds for the project. I hope we will be able to work on the various texts in the second half of 2007.
Gerald Matt
Director Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
1. What makes art art?
For me a piece of art has to have a relation to its cultural and political environment / milieu – be it critical or affirmative. Art that does not respond to the world at large may be decorative or cute, but I don’t consider it to be a valuable statement. Art can be anything (painting, photography, video, installation, concept art, even immaterial like Timo Sehgal) but it should not be just a formal exercise.
2. Art and politics
Art does not necessarily have to emphasize political issues; on the other hand, every form of art that claims to be more than just a nice artefact for the taste of the well-to-do has politics inscribed in its form and content – sometimes with artists like Santiago Sierra or Hans Haacke it’s straight on the surface, sometimes it’s hidden behind a veil of complex theory or aesthetic exuberance, like in the work of Atlas Group or Assume Vivid Astrofocus. Anyway: You can’t leave politics behind if you want your art to manifest more than its sheer physical existence.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Sexuality is nowadays – 40 years after the so-called “sexual revolution”- rather commonplace – you really have to confront a fundamentalist conservative person with sexually explicit art to generate some sort of spark. Religion and spiritual matters – that has not been so much of an issue in the past decades; however, at present it is rather a contested area. We know why: 90% of contemporary warfare is acted out on behalf of religious issues – be they authentic or just pretensions to hide other more mundane desires.
4. What project are you working on at present?
At present I am working on a show that is called “Viva la Muerte – Art and Death in Latin America“, which tries to uncover the fundamental difference in the handling of Death in the Northern and the Southern hemispheres. Whereas Death is excluded in the clean and antiseptic milieus of prosperous western Societies, Latin American cultures try to embrace it as part of the human condition. This dialectic will be played out in the display of art work both by European and Latin American artists.
Lars Nittve
Director Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
1. What makes art art?
What makes art art is an easy one. Art is something defined as art by a person who by the art system is seen as an artist. What defines an artwork of high quality is immensely more tricky to answer. To begin with, because the word “quality” of course is a problematic one, unstable and volatile as it is. I am not even sure that I would call a work that I find good, a work of “quality”. What constitutes a good artwork has to do with a wide range of properties that can be named: complexity, some sort of “uniqueness” (I mean, what’s the point of reinventing the wheel?), congenial choice of medium etc, etc. But ultimately I think that we are talking about properties that just are there, attracting you and disturbing you – the latter not least because of the impossibility of defining what it is…
2. Art and politics
In this area I have a definite “no rules” position. I don’t favour art that is overtly “political”, but nor do I think it is a problem. In a sense it is all, to such a large extent, in the eye of the beholder – and you can of course, if you like, easily claim that all art is political, or not. In a sense I find the distinction irrelevant.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
From a northern European perspective, I can’t really see the “embarrassment” caused by the artist’s engagement in things spiritual or religious. I don’t recognize that there is an issue here. And at the same time, you only have to move from Sweden to the UK to find sexual taboos and censorship, in active play.
4. What project are you working on at present?
The main exhibitions are with William Kentridge, Robert Rauschenberg, Karin Mamma Andersson and Olle Baertling. And in our series called The 1:st at Moderna we have Heavy Industries, El Perro and Thomas Ruff coming up next. All in all, the Moderna Museet are planning 19 exhibitions for 2007. Another important project is The Second Museum of Our Wishes, a campaign focussing on gender issues in relation to the collection – especially its more historical part 1900-1970. This includes conferences, fundraising, acquisitions and more working towards a shift in the gender balance in the collection.
Roman Popelár
Director Medium Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
1. What makes art art?
In its broadest sense I consider a work to be a piece of art if it has been tested over a long time, 'holding out against' the pressures and critical polemics of the given period. In contemporary art in the Euro-Atlantic zone the emphasis is laid mainly on regional peculiarities and related authenticity of the statement. Hence, on a strong and definable concept. Needless to say, in terms of the final product the artist must have perfect mastery of the chosen medium.
2. Art and politics
The art that survived decades and centuries was often a political instrument in the service of religion, ideology, power politics. It called forth respect, enthusiasm, polemics, animosity, resistance – in short, emotions. In the era of parliamentary democracies, politically engaged art runs the risk of misinterpretation or abuse. In Slovakia this type of engagement has so far concerned more the persons actually involved and their immediate environment. Political activism here comes across as a way of trying to be seen, but it is next to impossible to induce a nationwide discussion in this way. My greatest future concern is that legislation will be adapted to political correctness and anyone overstepping these limits will be penalized.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
It's about the continuity of social development. Art depicting religious (spiritual) topics prevailed in Western civilization until the coming of philosophical rationalism and the subsequent scientific and technical development. Till then anything sex-related was taboo in social discourse. At a certain point the tide began to turn and nowadays it's the other way round. But in each epoch there have been and there will be rebels who systematically transgress the current taboos, and certainly there's no shortage of them...
4. What project are you working on at present?
Last month the Gallery Board approved
twelve exhibition projects for 2007. I participate to some extent in all of them, as regards organizing and guaranteeing, so I only occasionally work on my own curator’s projects. One of those that I'm looking forward to is the Bio-Power Project in the Medium Gallery: the exhibition concept is by Zuzana Štefková, the title is taken from Michel Foucault’s philosophical essays, and it's dealing with the relationship of body and power.
Jérôme Sans
Director of Programme Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead / Newcastle, United Kingdom
1. What makes art art?
If one could draw a recipe of what a fine art piece should be, that would be a disaster; art has no formula and has always reversed all the so-called successful new formulas. Formulas mean academicism. What exactly is meant by good ideas, what is “clear” position, what is new perspective? The only obvious answer I could give to your question is: I am looking for what I do not expect: a unique way to reverse certitudes, to create doubts, fears,… for me artists are troublemakers.
2. Art and politics
Art and politics have lived a long history together, since they have always been linked. It is a natural relationship. Every artist is engaged. Being an artist is already a choice to live on the margin of the society to better infiltrate it. Artists are hackers of the real.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Sex and religion have always been part of art history, but Islam and especially childhood are more-than-sensitive issues nowadays. The very interesting exhibition at the Capc in Bordeaux in 2000 called “Presumed Innocents – contemporary art and childhood” was brought to court by an active association for childhood protection, after a father was shocked by some of the works on show (Nan Goldin. Annette Messager,…) The exhibition was accused of pedophilia, and specifically the directors, curators and some of the artists on show; the entire French art world’s intuition was in shock. The Renaissance period is full of young children, naked or not. By coincidence, it doesn’t shock anybody. So, why should some exhibitions or artists’s works now be condemned, censored, because their content is real?
4. What project are you working on at present?
After co-founding the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, I am now working in the UK to shake the tree and develop Baltic, the largest contemporary art centre in Europe, located in Gateshead/Newcastle; making the second album of my rock band Liquid Architecture; working on the rebranding of the Merdien hotel chain…
Sabine Schaschl
Director Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland
1. What makes art art?
For me, an art work is considered a good art work if the things and ideas it wants to reveal or achieve are formulated in a conceptual and visual language which coheres with its own demands. Besides coherence there is of course also a question of “newness”. I find it problematic if works of art ignore the history of art. There has to be an awareness of the context in which the work is generated, context not only meaning the work's specific context and one’s own, but also on a broader and historical scale.
2. Art and politics
A political attitude and an engagement is something I like to find in artistic positions, but I don’t expect to find it everywhere. It is not per se a criterion of a good art work. Of course, art is somehow political per se, but the argumentation for this point can be widely discussed.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
I don’t think that there is a “versus” between spiritual and sexual. Taboos are defined by the social, cultural and political conditions a society finds itself in at a specific moment of time.
4. What project are you working on at present?
We are currently showing an exhibition by the Turkish artist Esra Ersen. Planned projects are solo shows by Jordan Wolfson and Eric Wesley, both from the United States. Our international group show for 2007 is entitled “A Project about Failure”. Failure is a very interesting human condition and applies as well to the artistic process as to life in general.
Gijs van Tuyl
Director Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holand
1. What makes art art?
Plain and simple: Artists.
2. Art and politics
Art gets into politics and interacts with it.
3. Spiritual versus sexual taboo
Art knows no taboos.
4. What project are you working on at present?
Our most important plan: reopening
the museum.