Showing posts with label Focus on places. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Focus on places. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Hello reader! Coming back to the first lines of this blog in November 2007, I made the choice of focusing on the cultural differences that may shake the contemporary art galaxy, rather than writing lines about the last exhibition I did not go to anyway. This covers the viewers, the artists, the intermediaries and all the different media that allows information transfer between them. Today’s post is going to focus on an aspect of this last particular point.
In an attempt of modernisation, to stay in touch with the general mood, the church often commissioned artists to 'communicate'. Sometimes political ideals, sometimes to say "hey!! we went through the middle age to come to meet you!"... But here, I m just being cynical. But contemporary art is more often associated with the idea of Church (the one with a big 'C' which is related to the people, the dogma…etc.) when it comes to architecture. I have seen some stunning things around there and would definitely recommend you to go to see the Liverpool modern cathedral that looks like a nuclear reactor from the outside, or Notre Dame de Ronchamps from Le Corbusier.
In an attempt of modernisation, to stay in touch with the general mood, the church often commissioned artists to 'communicate'. Sometimes political ideals, sometimes to say "hey!! we went through the middle age to come to meet you!"... But here, I m just being cynical. But contemporary art is more often associated with the idea of Church (the one with a big 'C' which is related to the people, the dogma…etc.) when it comes to architecture. I have seen some stunning things around there and would definitely recommend you to go to see the Liverpool modern cathedral that looks like a nuclear reactor from the outside, or Notre Dame de Ronchamps from Le Corbusier.
Liverpool cathedral - Photograph: Me!!!
What about having a contemporary art exhibition in the church? Well, it is a church not a gallery... But there is the trick: To include the work of art in the decoration features such as the windows. Chagall's windows in St Etienne cathedral in Metz are great examples that come to my mind, a bit dated though... 
Chagall's window in Metz cathedral
So is there something really contemporary edgy, happening somewhere at the moment in our churches? Probably not... But look, we've seen so many weird stuffs recently in the art world. First, there is this story of this student with her performance art piece in which she artificially inseminated herself repeatedly and then self-aborted for the sake of art then Guillermo Habacuc Vargas who chained a dog and used it as “art”. He told everyone not to feed the animal which eventually died in the gallery.
Then, are the edgy things, the most simple artworks the one that belongs to a temple? I believe so... and then comes this marvellous artwork commissioned for the St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London to Shirzeh Houshiary:
Then, are the edgy things, the most simple artworks the one that belongs to a temple? I believe so... and then comes this marvellous artwork commissioned for the St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London to Shirzeh Houshiary:
The simple idea of a monochrome stained window that mixes the symbols of the cross and the grid to make a powerful statement about the place of races and gender differences within the Church (the one with a big 'C' literally crystallized by a church feature, the one with a little 'c' this time which only describes the construction).I think it really makes it. The Guardian goes to qualify this artwork as 'gynaecological reworking of Christian symbols'. Do you understand it better? Sure but there is no need to shock anybody by inserting the word 'gynaecological’ in a description of a stained glass in a church. But there again… it s contemporary art and it is traditionally shocking.
Last questions: Does the nationality of the artist (Iranian) adds value to the overall quality of the artwork? What if I tell you that Shirazeh Houshiary was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1994? In the author's death, Barthes criticizes the reader's tendency to consider aspects of the author’s identity—his political views, historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes—to distill meaning from his work.
It seems a good PR operation to me that eventually leads the commissioning team to declare to the press: "The fact that we are standing now in a church, in front of a window designed by an Iranian woman artist, at the beginning of the 21st century, is truly significant". Sure it is but it seems to me that this cosmopolitan attitude towards contemporary art and especially artists becomes another fashion that will soon be outdated. Will people qualify what we should call 'cosmopolitan art' as the art of the years 2000 as 'extreme art' is now sometimes used to qualify the 90's as the last years of the age of 'controversy as a trend'? Controversy for the sake of controversy>>> cosmopolitan for the sake of postmodernism.
It makes sense, doesn't it? ;-)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Growing gossip in Metz Metropolis, some of the city inhabitants witnessed Parisian tourists taking pictures of the protestant temple... Did this time-space compressor called TGV brought tourists from the French capital with him? Most of us thought the TGV was only selling tickets from Metz to Paris! Well it may be official now: Metz is in the center of the European Union.
It Might have been a hell gate for all of those who had to enter in the army (Do you remember that it was compulsory?), Metz is now a multi-awarded city of flowers, of history and now it is getting in trouble with contemporary art.
It Might have been a hell gate for all of those who had to enter in the army (Do you remember that it was compulsory?), Metz is now a multi-awarded city of flowers, of history and now it is getting in trouble with contemporary art.
© CA2M / Shigeru Ban Architects Europe & Jean de Gastines / Artefactory"The Centre Pompidou-Metz will present the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne, Europe’s largest, to new audiences and offer an original programme of exhibitions. It will increase the power of attraction of a region located at the crossroads of major North-South and East-West routes, leading in particular to Germany and Eastern Europe". (Press release: http://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/upload/file/ext_pdf_file_en_29_CPM%20FC%20CP%20ENG%2016jan07.pdf)
© CA2M / Shigeru Ban Architects Europe & Jean de Gastines / Artefactory
Historically/Architecturally designed as a fortress, Metz is getting experience in developing massive military infrastructures of all kind and this last one is loaded by the Centre Beaubourg (Paris) war machine itself. But let's have a look onto the technical features:
- The Magazine: A virtual capacity of 58,000 artworks that compose the biggest European contemporary art collection (Just for you to remember that France still get the first place on the podium concerning worldwide transactions weighted by countries with an astonishing 18,8% of the volume for the year 2006!!! (source artprice report http://img1.artprice.com/pdf/trends2006.pdf))
- A Barrel made of cultural decentralisation initiated in 1997 by Jean-Jacques Aillagon who wanted to fight cultural prejudices or something like that...
- Hammer: Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres head from the ministry of culture. Hmmm... Is this whole project only a strategy to knock over the dinosaur Jean-Marie Rausch at the head of the city since 1971!!!
- The design: Shigeru Ban... The best is simply to have a look on the result... A world class architect! "profiled by Time Magazine in their projection of 21st century innovators in the field of architecture and design".
The Target? You... Paris, the French reputation for cultural matters (which is rather bad especially since François Pinault the most influential figure of the contemporary art world, abandoned in Paris a full bag of amazing projects for purchasing the Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal in Venice... Ok fair enough...) This is not Tate Modern, nor beaubourg but it does not have any pretension... I believe this Chinese hat will have a lot to say to the people of Metz. Let's hope that the audience will be responsive! Good Luck!
OPENING IN 2009
The bullets? well let' s dream:
Francis Bacon, Three Figures in a Room, 1964, oil on canvas, 198 x 441 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris.
Dream on.............
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