Why a curator? [2] (Following a query in progress) Exposing stealth action: pitfalls and paradoxes
(Compilation of texts and interviews to read on this site also)
In 1969, Vito Acconci, driven by a writing that went beyond the boundaries of poetic field, undertakes physically the streets of New York. Once a day for twenty-three days, he submitted his work to a daily pattern: where it is, it chooses a random person on the street and follows her until she disappears in a private place . Instead of writing a poem dedicated to the action to follow, after Acconci ( Following Piece ).
Vito Acconci, photography Action Following Piece, 1969 The following year, Bas Jan Ader Cycling plunges into a canal in Amsterdam, deliberately ( Fall II 1970). Jiri Kovenda in Prague shoot shoulder passersby who cross his path ( Kontakt , 1977). Following them, Diane Borsato decided a month to go deliberately bumping, rubbing, touching, fondling strangers in the street, subway, cashiers shops, Montreal and Vancouver (1000 Touching people , Montreal, 2000/Vancouver, 2003). The same year, New York, along a block on the 14 th Street between 5 th and 6 th Cristian Alexa seized the hand of strangers for a couple for a few seconds (ten second pair 2000).
These acts are what we call stealth action [1]. Action-oriented in any outcome or final production, turning, handling, reinventing existing uses, shifting them slightly, artists produce a gesture, which is that as an "event effectuation of its own" [2]. They invite us well to take seriously the ordinary activity, but also to question as possible fiction. Diverse contexts in which they operate, these acts can be distinguished easily, however. Taking place mostly in urban areas, outside the framework of Art [3], these actions are not perceived furtive as artistic unsuspecting passers-by, no spectators being summoned. They are seen but not distinguished as such. By concealing the status of their acts, the artists seek to touch so fleeting that they are the accidental witness, evading the injunction debilitating and protective of "it's just art." [4]
Therefore, how to expose (or dispose of them to put to ) action, which by their nature, disperses in the here and now of its appearance, and, moreover, goes unnoticed as artistic gesture? We went to interview curators having rubbed the year, pointing to the ethical paradox.
Bordato Diane, 1000people touching, 2000-2003
Paul Ardenne, art historian, critic, professor at the University of Amiens, curator in his spare time and author of A Kontextkunst [5 ] recognizes that this is a real problem, which marks the limits of curatorial work, when it wants to account for practices that are not intended to be exhibited in a museum. For him, the museum is the place "where the viewer's attention is primarily contemplative. [6] But the furtive acts oppose the regime spectatorial generalized works and, by metonymy, a contemplative order of receipt. In addition, "for reasons of territorial, first - the territories are not the same - [and] of temporality, on the other hand, it is absolutely impossible to restore the truth of the forms" of art real-space "within a white cube. Paul Ardenne concluded: "There is no hope in this area in terms of potential changes. It's a simple matter of physics, really. "[7]
But maybe he should turn the problem differently. An exhibition should it necessarily invite viewer to the contemplation of works? Can it take place in physical space and sustainable? Is there really "no hope"?
When Paul Ardenne has the trailer dealer orange juice Marc Boucherot, all right [8] , in exposure Experiencing real - Reality revisited in Albi in 2003, the Commissioner recognizes that "given the reality of art, it need not be shown (...). However, there is the pedagogical question "[9]. The mission of transmitting the art is also one of the fundamental concerns of Stephen Wright, critic, philosopher and curator, for which it is his responsibility as a historian (in this ) to the book so that these works are not lost to posterity [10]. Indeed, a basic problem is emerging: that of the validation action stealth. If, to use Berkeley "Esse is percipi" ("to be is to be perceived "), this is especially to be perceived as such, that is to say, as an artistic practice. "Because, ultimately, without public support, the artistic nature of the proposal, thus validating its claim to recognition (" this is art ") by a willing suspension of disbelief, the art can take place. [11] For art stealth "takes place", it needs to be validated, to be artistically. However, if the educational dimension is sufficiently prégnant in Paul Ardenne to encourage the artist to activate the trailer in a museum, even if it means "a misunderstanding on the phone and the" situation "of the work," knowing that this is an operation of translation that makes no sense, except that of betraying the original spirit of the work "[12], to Stephen Wright, one must respect the essence of these projects which deliberately evade. The latter nevertheless acknowledges that this amounts to want to square the circle ...
Bas Jan Ader, Fall II, 1970
The challenge for the Commissioner is then to reconcile the double bind by stealth action: validate their artistic character to an audience, to preserve their memory, without going against their bases. According to its etymology, "Trustee" comes from the Latin curator, "one who heals." If he must take care of the work, initiative, can it be to betray what constitutes it?
The director of the Biennale de Paris [13] Alexander Gurita says here that, facing a new reality art - or, for him, artistic activities that do not manifest themselves as works of art - the traditional conceptions of curator seem obsolete. Thus, whether we agree on the fact that artists are themselves to meet an audience (admittedly, that does not perceive as artistic gesture) and do not need to be integrated into the framework of the art, which then leads to the outright cancellation of the concept of curator, or we are looking at another "interface" between these practices and the public. In the latter case we have to reinvent the curating.
theorists cited here agree in unison to say the preponderance of the document. The salience of the referent, beyond any code and any effect mimesis, as an intrinsic value to these artifacts, the exhibition of documents, like a smell that enables the association to an object, stimulates affiliation, and led the public to represent the action. Indeed, with paperwork, we wonder what they have. Such vectors - the Latin vector of vehere "drive" - The document used to convey the act, which is then seen post as artistic intent, with a second receiver, a public art. In the absence of work, the documents reveal beyond its ephemeral presence, "as a second tier of itself" [15]. Necessary for memory and "conservation" of the work, they do not just refer to the action, but there are equally as art. In this they are performatives [16], the status of the action is transformed therefore in symbolic activity. This raises obviously the question of the place of activation of this documentation. If, in the words of Paul Ardenne, the expectation of the audience at the museum is contemplative, the exhibition of documents can be highly deceptive. The risk is also to see the document to replace what he is supposed to document the fact of being exposed. It is indeed commonly happened in the history of art that the document loses its referential value in favor of aesthetic value only, and thus becomes an object contemplative, non-activated, reified. By cause and effect, we seeing as "the subordination of the action in implementing the work-[17].
Cristian Alexa, 10seconds couple, 2000
The challenge for the Commissioner, would be to specify precisely where the art takes place, "none of n'entretenir ambiguity between the place of art and the location of its becoming-visible. [18]. It therefore seems necessary to remove architectural structures and ideological cultural institutions dedicated to the showing of works-objects, so as not confuse the work and its documentation. The conference artist, increasingly common in recent years, is an example of activation of the documentation that escapes the exhibition of objects (and reification of risk that goes with it), and invites the public including speech, vigorously stimulate his imagination to picture the action. It also helps define the place of art, without confusion.
Thus, exposure of covert actions, which would participate as much as she would seek to adapt to turmoil ontological presuppositions Art, must necessarily be considered in other formats than the demonstration of objects in a sustainable institutional premises. Investing in new places, entirely dedicated to the activation of non-object-practices through their documentation, would perhaps avoid the growing confusion between art and documentation. To avoid any reification absurd, detach from the showing of artifacts is still the most radical solution. Substituting the conference at the exhibition of objects, the paradox facing the Trustee acts of stealth is resolved. Thereby threaten the legitimacy of the museum's architecture by "exposure" itself, the conference enables the heuristic capabilities of stealth action, participating in questionings made, implicitly, by the work itself. As for the practice of committee, if one agrees that his main task is always to take care of the work and its qualities, it must splash, redefine themselves. His role here - which can also be applied to other areas of performance - is to create conditions to enable stealth and action artistically preserve, while also avoiding the pitfalls of reification fatal.
----------------------- [1] "Stealth" means clandestine, secret, which is done by stealth, so unnoticed, fleeting, discreet. During the Gulf War, ie "stealth" was used to designate the American hunters undetectable by radar. Borrowed from the book in Patrice Loubier commensals "When art becomes circumstances the term" art stealth describes how certain practices entering public spaces and social and then interrogates the concept of ideal spectator and waited.
[2] ZERBIB David, "From performance to" performance-oriented "," Contemporary Performance Art press2 , No. 7, 2007, p. 11-14.
[3] We refer here to the theory of Erving Goffman which in frames experience (1974), analyzes how social activity lends itself to several versions or framings that would set the representation of reality, guiding perceptions. A business [...] is generally separated from the flow of current events by parentheses, conventional or marker. These conventional brackets delimit the activity in time giving a before and after. "(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1991, p. 246). However, we may wonder if the artists of the stealth action does not play a certain elasticity of these frames of art.
[11] Stephen Wright, "Places to continue? Reflections on the Critical Art Ensemble and Case Kurtz "in Sylvette Babin, Places and non-places of contemporary art , Editing Esse, Montreal, Canada, 2005, p. 88.
[13] The Paris Biennale aims to "identify practices and start breaking with the established values of art / an alternative to the established art / Prefiguring a new status of art, notably through seminars and publications.
[15] DUPONT Agathe ephemeral or intangible creations and their tracks from the 1960s to today, in the collections of the Centre Pompidou-National Museum of Modern Art: paradox of the artist over his creation, Memory Applied Research 2 nd year graduate of the Ecole du Louvre, Editor Didier Schulmann, 2004-2005, p. 36. [16] From English to Perform or perform, execute, enable. We borrow this concept to Stephen Wright, who took over the theory outlined performance of John L. Austin (1911-1960) in When that is done ( Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1979) to apply to documents to provide visibility to artistic works "low coefficient of artistic visibility .
