|
Indepth Arts News:
"Awaiting a Call: Curated by Miguel Fernández-Cid"
2003-12-23 until 2004-02-29
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea
Santiago, ,
ES Spain
Esperando unha chamada (Awaiting a Call) gathers a series of works, in
which the central theme is the wait for something to happen. The
announcement of a change, of an imminent action, but also the tension of a
previously interrupted, detained, action. Many artists recreate these
situations, approaching cinematographic aesthetics, borrowing from the
universe of masters like Hitchcock, Orson Welles or John Huston; others
focus on analysing the tension and its proximity to intensity, the moment
in which the action is replaced by perception. Claude Chabrols films,
Antonionis Blow up, Godards universe and his continuous dates with
painting, are part of the intellectual and sentimental - and therefore
emotional - training of many creators.
The way in which Morandi paints the void between the objects in order to
represent them as light presences, both physical and mental, almost
immaterial, is not far from William de Koonings or Bruce Naumans thoughts
when they concede that in order to represent a chair the most important
fact is to measure the internal distance between its legs. After seeing,
living with objects, having them by our side day after day, we believe that
we know their internal order. With the same certainty with which Captain
Ahab proclaimed that he was not obsessed by Moby Dick but by its whiteness:
The whales whiteness.
There are few metaphors for contemporary creation as literal as those
offered by Edgar Allan Poe in his tales (alongside Hitchcock, whose work
is, by the way, a constant invitation to reinterpret 20th century art from
his viewpoint). If The Oval Portrait seduces us as the synthesis of the
Post-Romantic gaze, A Descent into the Maelstrom presents another way of
looking at things, based on a certain, perplexed and thankful, curiosity,
which leads us to observation as a source of knowledge: two seamen know
that at a given time they must avoid an area where the sea opens up and a
whirlpool swallows and destroys everything around. One morning, however,
they are surprised by the phenomenon in an unexpected place, but while one
tries to save his soul by escaping from the hole and falls into the void,
the other one accepts the inevitability of this imminent death and thanks
God for the vision he offers, with the sea opening up before his eyes. From
his curiosity, salvation arises, since he realises than certain objects
spin around the whirlpool, while others disappear inside it: he just has to
hold tight to one of the former in order to become a privileged witness of
something that nobody had been able to tell up to that moment? New
metaphors: measuring the void, perceiving the weight of a material.
The reading of A Descent into the Maelstrom reminds us of the words some
artists pronounced: The ungrateful role of the creator consists of
offering the world something nobody will ever thinks of demanding, but,
once received, turns out to be indispensable (André Lhote); Plastic
creation is the only way I know of understanding that which suddenly
intrigues me, like finding a sentence which goes Once upon a time there was
a dog who had a seaman (Juan Muñoz)? Art as curiosity, observation,
discovery: a way providing a fantasy with an image- with reality. Subtle
play on references: the sentence to which Juan Muñoz refers is the
beginning of a beautiful prose poem written by Herberto Helder, almost
hidden in the second edition of Os passos em volta (The Surrounding Steps).
Years ago, preparing an exhibition in which Jürgen Partenheimer was
involved, I came across his maelstroms, an intriguing series of drawings,
both dense and linear. I made a first selection of maelstroms searching in
my library and I guess that almost any curious artist or reader has been
attracted by Poes text. Some make maelstroms all their lives, even if only
part of their work is titled as such, like Yamandú Canosa. I even revised
my aesthetic weaknesses with regard to metaphor, finding that sense in the
work of artists on whom I was working at that time: the notes in Diego
Laras agenda, the impossible mondrians by Sánchez Calderón, the intriguing
series by Sophie Calle.
The history of the Maelstrom is certainly cinematographic, easily related
to Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Stan Douglas or Douglas Gordon, but a work by
Christian Marclay served as an axis for a possible exhibition. It is titled
Telephones and was completed in 1995. A telephone rings in the hall and
after some seconds a TV nearby turns on; we can see different actors
picking up the phone and answering. There is no continuous sequence or
closed story, only the intriguing beginning of the action, which is
repeated creating the feeling of an extremely plastic music. The key does
not lie in the phone call but in the wait for it, and hence the title of
the exhibition. After Telephones, there were a series of photographs by
John Divola on the breaks during film shootings, the fragmented Mexican
social portraits by Jonathan Hernández, the multiple interrupted tales in
Up in the Sky by Tracey Moffatt, the Russian films with double ending on
which Tacita Dean worked, the circular narrative by Xoán Anleo, the look of
Joyce or Cioran detained by Ana Teresa Ortega, the interrumpted letter by
Cabrita Reis, the pictures documenting the actions by Beuys, the dialogue
broken by Jonathan Monk in the series Separated, the harsh portraits made
by Sergei Bratkov to young lolitas waiting for a casting, Aernout Miks
video installations, the intense movement in dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y by Johan
Grimonprez or Impact 21.05.99, 11:02 by Marine Hugonnier, Patricia Hoeppes
subtle tone, the way in which feelings and humour are interwoven at a
frantic telephonic pace in that series which Lorna Simpson actually calls
Call Waiting? Images of an approach, of an approximation, of a way of
looking at things.
Awaiting a Call recreates situations of crossover dialogue: between the
characters involved in the action, between reality and fiction; it shows
stories in which logic depends, to a great extent, on the spectators
complicity. Open projects that allow us to witness how the solidity of a
tale transforms impossibility into certainty.
IMAGE
Christian Marclay
Telephones (Teléfonos), 1995
Related Links:
| | 
|
