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Roundup #13: What's happening this week on artreview.com

Posted by artreview.com on 30 July 2008 at 7:00pm

Laura McLean-Ferris, an independent curator, critic and regular contributor to ArtReview magazine, trawls artreview.com for the most interesting goings on this week.

Lisa Slominski, I feel better now, 2008

I feel better now. The Roundup has, with its provocative old subheading 'The Best Artists This Week on artreview.com', incited a few furious debates (alright, they were quite mild). Who is to say what the best art is? Some of the arguments and comments made were right enough, while some were downright bitter and twisted, and missed the point that was obvious to most: the selections were of course subjective – what else could they be? Perhaps the conflict came about because we have incompatible ideas about what kind of place the Internet (and the artworld) should be? Be that as it may, the advantage of the sub-heading was that so many checked in, and wondered whether, like shiny toys in an arcade machine waiting for the claw, they had been chosen. Because everyone wants to be the best artist (this week). Don't they?

Then, in a shoegazing moment, we wondered: are we giving in to the every-man-for-himself-ism on which the commercial artworld so successfully relies? Survival of the fittest, rampant capital, Death of a Salesman. Is this all there is? It's a burden on both artists' shoulders and ours trying to be 'the best', and picking 'the best' all the time.

It's time for a change, then, time to look more freely around artreview.com for interesting stuff. What is this network space, and what might it be? A community? An educational resource? A forum for discussion? In light of the current mood for manifestos, the theme for this year's marathon (after interviews and experiments) at the Serpentine pavilion, with our Habermas hats on, let's look this week at artreview.com as a public sphere of sorts and how a selection of members have chosen to use it.

Something I've personally been using the site for recently is watching videos of art exhibitions that I'm never going to be able to visit. For example, this (somewhat jerky) video by James Kalm, of the opening of Cancelled, Erased & Removed at Sean Kelly gallery in New York:

Kalm also bikes around Brooklyn to give us a look at Olafur Eliasson's $15 million dollar Waterfalls project, chatting to passers by about their opinions on the project.

Here's a quote from one of them: 'Awesome!'. The Art on YouTube group has more such videos, trawling, maybe even curating, the world's favourite video site for rare gems.

Collaboration has, for some time now, been burying its way into the establishment of important current practices, and causing the odd spat on the way, Nicolas Bourriaud vs. Claire Bishop being among the most well known. Of course, art that is collaborative is not necessarily more critically valuable, but certainly, in examining 'website as public sphere' it seems that working together is bringing successful relationships and projects to some of the online groups. Check out the Exquisite Corpse Video Project, run by Brazilian artist Kika Nicolela on the Video Art Group.

Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative game dreamt up by certain Surrealists, somewhat like the children's game 'Consequences' in which part of a drawing or a sentence is put on paper, folded over and hidden and continued by the next player. The name is purported to be taken from the result of the very first word version of the game: Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau' ('The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine'), and was been used as a curatorial gesture by Raimundas Malasaukas in the 2003 Prague Biennale. Here's Corpse #2, selected for its opening 'womb vision' sequence, and the female 'noir' element that this sets the rest of the pieces up for:

Applying this technique to video does create some nonsense, but like all the best nonsense, our brains make some narrative sense of the juxtapositions. Now, there's a physical multinational show of Exquisite Corpse videos, based on what one must assume started out as virtual relationships. The first videos were screened at Formwerk in Sweden, in June, and three more are planned to be finished in August. Perhaps this example provides an answer to the discussion group An internet presence – A waste of Time? If you don't end up with a show or a piece of work out of it, you might at least find a nice recipe for Lancashire Hotpot – I think Delia Smith's site is safe... for now.

However, lets prop those rosetints atop our heads for a moment as we go back inside a darker room – it's not all sunny idealism here. There's no escaping certain familiar capitalist creatures. Some members shamelessly spam every new member of the site (Beppe 'I'm from ITALY' Devoti: this means you.) Plus there's an 'art fair' kind of group that aims to sell pieces directly from the site, with carbon footprints in mind. And it's being run by the person with the hotpot recipe.

For more artworks picked out for the Roundup, see the slideshow.

More Roundup columns...

Tags: laura mclean-ferris, roundup

28 Comments

Comment by Mik Godley on 31 July 2008 at 12:51am: Bravo! It's a nice idea to highlight things happening on this site we might not have spotted - and there are things happening here...

Comment by yiannisz on 31 July 2008 at 1:58pm: ...bravo, beautiful idea...
and by the way, if any of you have a good film to submit for our festival in late September, we shall be very happy to screen it...check below details...and write me at azacinema@gmail.com AZAdigitalCINEMAfestival
2008

The second International Short-Film festival of our city,
the AZAdigitalCINEMAfestival will take place on
September 25,26,27 2008 and will be part of the
prestigious 43rd DIMITRIA Arts Festival of the Municipality
of Thessaloniki, the second biggest arts festival in Greece.

A selection of the impressive best short-films from the first AZAdigitalcinemafestival 2007 were shown at “special”
screenings at the LISBON FILM Festival in Lisbon and Porto, in Athens and Thessaloniki at the Art Hall of IANOS bookshops and the FILM ACADEMY in Belgrade, Serbia.

Films can be shot on any digital camera up to 15min,
but we are flexible for films of exceptional quality!
Films shot with cell-phones are especially welcome!
Deadline for submissions is Sept. 15, 2008 on DVD to:

AZA cinema club
5, p.p.germanou st.,
Thessaloniki 54622 Greece

Please write for details: azacinema@gmail.com
Phone: +30 2310 284748 +30 6944 207007
Submission form at www.azafestival.com

This year’s films will be even more impressive, from Brazil to Australia, all over Europe, with special screenings for Balkan & Basque cinema, and more to be announced later, revealing new talented directors, while at the same time offering again the city’s demanding cinephiles a special cinematic fiesta.
Yiannis Zachopoulos, festival director

Comment by Tim Pickerill on 31 July 2008 at 8:12pm: The new heading is a nice idea, just as long as in the end the intent is to highlight the best, the brilliant, the interesting new idea, the revolutionary etc. For me this blog is a handy way of finding some clarity through masses of crap to some actually interesting art. There will always be a crank and bitter punter in the lot. Keep up the good work.

P.S. seems there will always be SPAM as well, argh!!

Comment by kika nicolela on 1 August 2008 at 4:58am: I think this is a very good proposition - to just highlight some interesting stuff floating around is this ever growing site. I never liked very much the "Best artists this week on artreview" stuff, but maybe that's because I was never selected... ;) Anyway, it's wonderful to see how you (Laura&artreview people) are paying close attention and reflecting on what's going on on artreview.

About the Exquisite Corpse Video Project, it's something born totally here, online, on artreview. It started as a simple "let's do something together" and evolved a lot, in a unexpected and delightful way. It definitely is a great response to "An internet presence – A waste of Time" discussion group. Not only we got to work together (now we are 25 artists from 13 different countries working together in a total of 6 videos), but we are also becoming friends. Real friends. We are making real connections. We are meeting each other in "real" life.

Many of us, including me, have manifested in our discussions how much this project is affecting us - inspiring us in our work, instigating us to create other collaboration projects, stimulating us creatively.

So this project goes beyond the making of videos. It's about creating a community which is getting closer and closer every day. And I have to thank you, artreview guys, for making all this possible.

Comment by Marty McCutcheon on 3 August 2008 at 6:30pm: Just to clarify: The Exquisite Corpse Video Project is indeed run by Brazilian artist, Kika Nicolela, but not in the group 'Video Art.' The project and its ongoing 'story' can be found in the group, Video Artists.

Comment by Tim Pickerill on 3 August 2008 at 7:07pm: Wow, how bitter and cynical. Someone needs to grow up, or maybe just play by themselves. I am not in favor of Freud but I think Esdale needs a little couch time to sort out all this hatred and insecurity. Why the need to attack and insult people. Being an open platform, (and the only good network for artists on the net,) it is what you make of it. I can't wait to see what the next roundup is like. Keep up the good work Artreveiw.

p.s. subjective? why not? we are humans not machines...

Comment by Alex on 3 August 2008 at 8:29pm: What do you consider a real artist then William? Someone who makes a living from their art? What about a professional photographer? How about Van Gogh who painted as a hobby for years or Kafka the insurance officer? Are we to suppose you have researched every person who has been mentioned in Roundup? It seems to me you are much more personal in what you write than ArtReview/ Laura has been, so perhaps it is in fact all of us whom has been picked for RoundUp who should sue you for slander?

Comment by Alex on 4 August 2008 at 7:32am: Here's the thing William: I am much more concerned about what art is than what an artist is. I judge art solely on my own experience of it. This is not math, there is no true result. We can only experience the world based on our own senses, knowledge and experiences: the experience of art can only be a subjective one.
The only reason I asked the question "what do you consider a real artist" is because you said none of the Roundup bunch would ever qualify as one.

C.J.Hobby & R.J.Morey - re. the use of the word slander, I would never sue, I am not American, but rather someone who uses irony (look it up): I was merely replying to William who said he might sue for slander because of the lines he quoted from Roundup 13#. Those lines in my opinion were not aimed at him at all, and in my opinion were also meant in a joking way. But perhaps there are a few people here who have lost their sense of humor completely?

Comment by Ulf Kristiansen on 4 August 2008 at 9:20am: Thank you Laura McLean-Ferris for writing about The Exquisite Corpse Video Project and thank you William Esdale for your kind support.

Comment by Alex on 4 August 2008 at 10:57am: I think it would be very interesting to see WJHEs Roundup. What a great idea! But isn't it already free for everyone to do one, really? We can all do as many blogs as we like!!

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