I recently interviewed Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto for ArtSlant. We discussed his latest show at Annet Gelink in Amsterdam, but we also talked about his work in general. Go read the full interview here.

Pierre Bismuth, An Ocean of Lemonade @ SMART Project Space, Amsterdam

Mick Peter, Tao Foam @ Grimm, Amsterdam

Folkert de Jong, The Man From Delft @ Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam

I’ve been writing quite a lot lately, you’ll see. In the meantime, here’s my Metropolis M review of Mark Wallinger’s solo show at De Pont, in Tilburg. Compared to the first time I saw him at Hangar Bicocca, in Milan, the show was a bit disappointing, but still worth a visit – if anything for the museum’s collection, featuring some great Kapoors. Have a read.

Karel Appel & Roberto Barni, Studio Toscane @ CoBrA Museum, Amstelveen

Vincent Vulsma, A Sign of Autumn @ SMBA, Amsterdam

Guido van der Werve, Emotional Poverty @ Galerie Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam

I was at the Venice Biennale in August, but I only wrote my ArtSlant report in mid-October. My article is focused on the main show curated by Bice Curiger, which I compared to the previous one by Daniel Birnbaum. Check it out here.

I’m happy to tell you that my review of No Order: Art in a Post-Fordist Society has just been published in the latest issue of Metropolis M, a great art magazine here in the Netherlands. Unfortunately for those who cannot read Dutch – which include myself – the article has been translated to Nederlandse. No worries, though, I’m posting the English version below. Check it out and, in case you do read Dutch, go buy the magazine.

No Order. Art in a Post-Fordist Society

The arts / politics debate in the Netherlands has become increasingly heated this year, even before the infamous arts and culture budget cuts were announced in June. Apart from these much-contested developments, in fact, the right placement (or replacement) of art within the realm of the contemporary capitalist society has been a popular topic throughout the year. In the past months, many of the most interesting actors in the Netherlands – from Amsterdam’s SKOR Foundation and SMART Project Space to Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum – have tried to critically address the issue through conferences, lectures, and exhibitions. These initiatives have asked crucial questions such as: How does art escape the logic of the capitalist regime? Or, more bluntly: What’s the use of art today?
No Order comes as a much-needed resource in tackling different aspects of this discussion: art and politics, the politics of art, political art. The yearly bookzine was coordinated by Italian critic and curator Marco Scotini, director of the MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA, in Milan. Published in both English and Italian, the first volume is a thick 400-page collection of articles – some written for the occasion, others collected or adapted from elsewhere – that embraces a variety of topics, all consistently related to the current role art is playing in the political and economic spheres. Its three confusingly-named sections – Time Zone, Play Time, and Time Machine – respectively address the issues of geopolitics, education and market, and archiving in the current contemporary art landscape.
The first part tries to outline an alternative geography of the international scene. After an introduction by map-expert Lorenza Pignatti, the contributions discuss the situation in emerging countries like Russia, Romania and Turkey. Although Vik Havránek praises the extraordinary alternative art scene in Czech Republic, the general impression is that public money is mostly supporting nationalistic art (Croatia), while the private remains on the safe grounds of commercial interest (Russia, Turkey). The articles alternate with visual contributions, ranging from tag clouds to infographics, from charts and satirical comics. To conclude the section, artist Minna Henriksson, in conversation with Jasna Jaksic, explains her own practice of mapping local art milieus.
The middle section critiques art from three perspectives: Education, Market, and Display. The first aspect is dealt with through the work of several artists: Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt explores George Maciunas’ obsession with archiving historical facts, while more contemporary artists like Chto Delat? and Etcetera… discuss social and philosophical issues as they mingle with theorists and grassroots activists. No Order’s take on art and the market is dominated by Italian writers, from Paolo Caffoni’s statement that art has the “symptomatic” potential for cultural self-determination, to Maurizio Lazzarato and Christian Marazzi’s analysis of art management and capitalism. Some of the most interesting contributions in this section are signed by magazine director Marco Scotini, who shares its two cents on both Market and Display. In one article the curator critiques the Manifesta foundation, which only works with curators and art professionals for a conveniently short amount of time, thus tapping into the creativity-infusion that increasingly appeals to European cities. In another he comments on the 11th Istanbul Biennial, which has proved its virtue by publicly declaring and explaining its financial structure for a true “politicization of culture.” On a lighter note, Parisian cooperative Société Réaliste offers a visual documentation of its “random curating” practice, a fun experiment for those willing to put their conceptual and art-savviness to the test.
No Order’s third and last section is focused on archives, documentaries, and their narrative potential. One of the most interesting features is probably the dialogue/retrospective on Angela Ricci Lucchi and Yervant Gianikian’s films, in which the videomakers discuss how old images can be used to talk about new events. Another intense contribution is Harun Farocki’s analysis of the footage showing Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s trial and execution, in which he breaks down how editing intrinsically is a political tool.
Given the wide variety of topics covered and the heterogeneity of the authors – curators, artists, theorists – No Order is a compelling read. Between a magazine and an anthology, the alternate density of visual materials and thick blocks of text might be a little off-putting at times, but it works. The questions I mentioned above find only a partial answer through the examples provided, which are in-depth and stimulating indeed, if not always immediately relatable to one another. Certain notions – such as art’s inability to become independent from the capitalist market – eventually become redundant, but there are a few hard-hitting quotes, like Roger M. Buergel’s “A good exhibition is supposed to provoke a crisis.” Maybe No Order doesn’t provoke a crisis itself, but is a good description of one.

Genius Without Talent @ De Appel, Amsterdam

Axel Hütte, Towards the Wood @ Galerie Akinci, Amsterdam

Nathaniel Mellors & Chris Bloor, :Hypercolon: @ SMART Project Spance, Amsterdam

As a precarious cognitive worker and art school graduate myself, this last post I wrote for the Impakt blog touches some personal issues. I’m sure some of you can also relate, so go read the full article here.

Jan Fabre, Hortus/Corpus @ Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

Shintaro Miyake @ Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam

David Lindberg @ NieuwDakota, Amsterdam

A little more than a month ago I went to Bremen and, as I usually do when in a new city, got my contemporary art fix. Except that time was spiced up by some unrequested thrill, chronicled here. Enjoy.