Arts Research? WTF?! Who the hell would consider bringing together such antipodal signifiers unless they were a bureaucrat or a pervert or both? Under what institutional conditions could such a rebarbative oxymoron even make sense? Surely the term freights all sorts of seamy occlusions and destructions? But perhaps my surprise—even shock and horror—at the very […]
The child is a born researcher. —Loris Malaguzzi The term ‘educational turn’ is gaining momentum in contemporary arts theory. Artworks within the definition seek to transmit or create knowledge from and between an artwork and its participants, the knowledge often stems from other disciplines such as sociology, science, history and psychology. This desire to learn, […]
I feel I’m in a beautiful private garden, in the middle of the city. I look up and see all the buildings and the beautiful sculptures. On Tuesdays, when the gallery is closed, it really does become our private space. It’s that sense of privacy in a public environment that I enjoy.[^1] —Isobel Crombie Throughout […]
Much of what I find funny in life emerges from the exhibitions I go to, so when the art’s humourless, I tend to feel a bit deflated. If work doesn’t have an element of humour in it, it’s hard for me to imagine the artist having any fun creating it, thus making it hard for […]
1. Sampling I originally tried starting this with a quote from Kenneth Goldsmith quoting Douglas Huebler but, as you pointed out, we ended up trying to start at a dead-end. Misquoting it, re-opens it: the world is full of objects, more or less interesting.[^1] An updated notion of genius would have to centre around one’s […]
What are these films, what outlandish name distinguishes them from the rest? Do they exist? I have no idea as yet, but I do know that there are certain very rare occasions when, without the aide of a single subtitle, the spectator suddenly understands an unknown tongue, takes part in strange ceremonies, wanders in towns […]
Two years ago, the word ‘philanthropy’ would have meant very little to many artists, particularly to those with emergent or experimental practices, however the way that we now think and talk about philanthropy has shifted. A combination of the recent rise of online crowdfunding platforms, high-profile philanthropic donations to public art institutions, such as the […]
In ‘The Artistic Mode of Revolution: From Gentrification to Occupation’, an article published in the March edition of e-flux journal about the relation between ‘creatives’ — artists, art writers, curators, artisanal brewers, bakers, and baristas (who have the social capital in Melbourne that philosophers have in France) — and the protests of the Occupy movement, […]
1 The cult of the dead was not alien to them, nor a certain respect for those who were absent. It seemed these people with their Slavic faces, fresh and cruel, slept in a photographer’s prayer-room.[^1] I’m where the light is black-orange. The city is known for its lack of Soviet infrastructure and staunch and […]
Whilst taking part in an MFA seminar discussion regarding Jacques Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster and using it as a model to understand an audience’s reception and production of an art experience — my thoughts became very literal.[^1] Could I have admitted to my 2002 Year-Eight metalwork class that I lacked oxy-acetylene welding experience and that […]
Social class (or simply ‘class’) is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory centred on models of social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories. — Jimmy Wales Just as I was considering it possible that the existence of the three-tiered class system I was […]
There’s materialism and there’s materialism. Some documents.[^1] It’s as though this writer is speaking to and on behalf of a public that thinks not-knowing about Adorno, St John of the Cross, Derrida or Lacan is a responsible ignorance. As though to know that double messages could displace and even replace an image or thing is […]
Few artists are independent. Almost all rely on or seek support of some kind. There are, however, certain artists that require particular types of support. In 2010 I became involved in a project called the Supported Studios Network (SSN). The working group that maintains the project consists mostly of artists who work within visual arts […]
Brad : So, Chris, let’s talk about anarchy. Or, more precisely: I was wondering if you could tell me about the ways in which anarchist or syndicalist principles inform your practice? Christopher : I’m not approaching it from a hard-line political position, but anarcho-syndicalism is definitely something I align my work with. I’m not a […]
1 It is in the social that painting finds criticality. Painting’s particular set of constraints, its two-dimensionality, its ‘faciality’, its frontal, pictorial flatness, do not detract from this function. Painting by its nature sits apart. In this way it is predisposed to make comment. At the recent Paul Taylor symposium,[^1] someone — I think it […]
It is often said that we live in an era of post-production, of just-in-time labour practices in which the raw materialism of an industrial era is superseded by the immaterial and affiliative labours of the entrepreneur and the consumer. We need only turn to the concurrent worlds of a multinational corporation’s sweatshops, like Apple’s subsidiary […]
Scanning the landscape of local contemporary art practices, the body in motion presents itself in a variety of different guises. As a doing-body that negotiates space in Bianca Hester’s constructed environments; a choreographed dancer’s body in Sriwhana Spong’s videos and collages; and a medium — literally, a communication vessel — in Adelle Mills’ short, edited […]
Once upon a time, Perth’s most ambitious graduates went travelling and then moved east, returning home once a year to see family and friends. In 2012, relocating to Melbourne is still their preferred ‘next step’, but in recent times their visits home have become more frequent.[^1] The vitality of the artist‐run scene in Perth, together […]
As I ponder how Scott Mitchell’s way of being in the world might be positioned or discussed in relation to broader frameworks of art and design, it becomes increasingly apparent that this distinction is an afterthought.[^1] He privileges neither art nor design, as such inhabiting a space where both modes of practice might in some […]
edited by: Chris Kraus Chris Kraus is a Los Angeles-based author and critic, founding editor of Semiotext(e)’s Native Agents imprint and onetime filmmaker in the New York downtown scene of the mid-eighties. Her novels — part-fiction, part-memoir and part-philosophy — include I Love Dick, Aliens and Anorexia and Torpor. Kraus has written three books of […]
Isabelle Graw is a Berlin-based art critic and author of High Price: Art between the market and celebrity culture, published in 2009 by Strenberg Press. She is the co-founder of art journal Texte zur Kunst in Berlin and professor at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Städelschule). Liang Luscombe — What were the circumstances and motivations […]
Having pedaled across the Yarra one Saturday morning in October 2011, I found my friend amongst a cluster of people waiting in the foyer of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. A few weeks prior, Julie had forwarded me an email invite to an art field trip to ‘investigate the influence of Australian farmer Percival Alfred […]
Like all productive collaborations, Open Archive is a discussion — a swirling, organic (a word used many times during our conversations), epistemic questioning, where utterances may stall and waver, and ideas are picked up later, the formation of ideas denying a definitive full stop. Jared Davis and Helen Grogan share an interest in performance, so […]
In an otherwise straightforward discussion of her curatorial practice, what stood out in Ute Meta Bauer’s presentation at the State Library of Victoria in March, was an improvised series of comments on the state of contemporary art.[^1] These comments followed a line of thought evident in a series of articles in e-flux journal published in […]