Curating and writing about art
By: Per Brunskog
"What does it take more than fantastic artists to create a really good exhibition? Maybe a strong title too? Infinity and Selected Things in Between are curated from this point of view. Or ass a homage to the Eric Andersen's work: opus 51 - I have confedense in you. Since I selected the artists and set the title; one artist dropped off, one has been added, and the artists have changed my title."
This was my short presstext for a exhibition I curat in the begining of this year: Infinity and Selected Things in Between, at Til Vægs, Copenhagen. Whit: Sonja Lillebæk Christensen, Stine Kvam, Mitra Saboury.
This text could also serve as a curatorial statement for me.
The reason for that I am in the art world is: the awesome and sometimes absurd ways of thinking, that grate arts give me.
I have no need to persuade the world of anything - at least not my opinions.
Therefore will I never make an exhibition that tries to inform the audience about a topic or a problem. Perhaps I would like to confuse them - in order to make them view there daily life from a slightly different angle. But to convince them that my perspective on the world would be the right one, feels foolish - as I know that I will soon look at things from a different angle and have different opinions.
When I plan an exhibition, I primarily put my energy into choosing the artists I want to collaborate with. And I like to put together artists who work in very different ways, to create collisions and fragmentation between the artworks.
Another part of the curation that I consider to be important is the spatial structure of the exhibition. Here I think I have been greatly influenced by the Brazilian artscene, which I often think works more consciously with this than the European. Creating own small macrocosms; breakdown and other spiritual movements; and where art is as much a bodily experience as pure interlektual. ( I have long been fascinated by both Brazil as country, and the Brazilian art scene. And written articels about several of the major Brazilian artists, from the 1950s onwards, for a Swedish encyclopedia, as well as a number of other articles about Brazilian artist for other media.)
In my role as art critic I see it as my most important task to immerse myself into the artists I write about, that I understand - the individual artist's fascination for what she or he do
This strategy for my writing comes largely from the fact that I have the larst ten year written short biographies about contempoary artist for a Swedish encyclopedia. A format of writing where the text must be short, but at the same time give a clear picture of the artist - and I can only get to that point if I have a complete overview of the artist.
No matter how uninteresting I experienced the artist at my first glance. -- When I have received or given myself the task to write about a artist - I really try to read, twist and turn my thinking until I find the artist's passion for her or his work.
Nonsense
One topic I keep coming back to both as a writer and curator - and this is probably the only subject that could make me return to university to write a PhD is nonsense or non- sense - in a significance that slides into nothingness.
This topic was included in an exhibition I created with: Annika Ström. Where the movie we see her comes from. [https://vimeo.com/100715884 ] [http://www.perbrunskog.info/annika-stroumlm-nothing---ingenting.html ]
And the topic of non-sens / nothing was included in a large exhibition I curated in Malmö, Sweden 2012; with London based curator Hans Askheim: Uncertain Triolectics and A Very Short Introduction to Nothing. [http://www.perbrunskog.info/uncertain-triolectics--a-very-short-introduction-to-nothing.html]
The nonsense that facionate me breaks down all forms of normality. Nonsense as opposition to everything that is claimed to has a value.
- Nonsense as a light prisma - filtering out bullshit.
- Nonsense as a game with nothingness - in the knowledge of the emptiness of "this life". The assurance of death. The knowledge that there is an end - where everything that we give meaning in or life - will disappear. A knowledge and at the same time, the reason to why we have to fill our lives with meaning every day.
- And a all-encompassing nonsense - a zero point. A starting point where no predictable conclusion exist.
- Nonsense as an unstructured mass with far too much meaning. For that we call nonsense is mostly not empty, but often holds meaning that struggles in different directions.
- A 'Pataphysics nonsense. A game of thoughts; a fascination for the inability and possibilities of human thinking. How we can play with the language and in this way throw around and twist the things that creates meaning.
- Nonsense as a proper punk attitude a ridiculous answer to anyone who has opinions on how to think or live my life.
- Or a complete nonsense - which makes us laugh at our petty-pathetic-lives.
The Glorious Ways of Unproductivity
The book: The Glorious Ways of Unproductivity was created in close collaboration between me and Eric Andersen.
Eric Andersen who is the last of the original participants, from the legendary European Fluxus events, that took place in the early 1960s, which is still active as an artist.
Andersen's artwork encompasses everything from simple postcards with nonsense instructions, to the creation of a completely technically feasible proposal for the manufacture and distribution of three new stars in the night sky. Andersen has created a helicopter ballet (it was before Karlheinz Stockhausen created his helicopter concert). He have make a proposal to distribute the Danish monarchy, so that in five hundred years, all citizens will become kings and queens over their part of Denmark. He has converted a confessional into a kitchen, where the priest can prepare various dishes based on tongue - and in this way created a artwork that encompasses the entire of Catholic liturgy. He has created a vending machine, where you put in four kronor, to get four kronor. And moved London to the German village Bad Salzdetfurth on a microbiological level of consciousness.
Andersen start to work with computers in the mid 1960s and have since that time created artworks based on algorithmic thinking. He was one of the most important in creating a bridge between avant-garde in Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War. A world pioneer in intermedia - but still, quite unknown in Denmark.
There is thus no medium to summarize his production, which is one of the meanings of intermedia. But his method is often to examine the internal traditions, the conditions and methods used in the tradition he enters into. Like when he worked with a museum at one time: he transformed this into a place for production of artifacts (which was signed by the museum visitors) and then sent to the art gallery - quite opposite of how a museum institution normally works, a final destination for atifacts and other inanimate objects.
Or, like almost all his compositions (The only education he has, is as a private student, for different composers), is based on twisting and reversing the traditions that exist in creating and performing music.
In the same way, it was clear from the start that if I were write a book about Eric Andersens universe, would I not create something reminiscent of an artist's biography, but turn upside down and in and out of the category. The book that in the end took shape was a textbook in intermedia for the level of primary school to PhD (and more). And it's based on about fifty works from his over fifty years as an artist. Where my goal was to describe all works as if they were natural phenomena.
During the writing process Andersen never interfered into how I described his work, even if he was always the first to read all texts. But it was he who asked me to describe the works as if they were natural phenomena (an almost impossible task), and he came up with that I shud not use the words "art" or "artwork", likewise he instructed me not to mention Fluxus or Eric Andersen by name.
The book is divided into different forms of phenomena such as: algorithms, sounds, smells, films, music, orchestra, museum, sports, festival, universal, etc. In addition, it consists of an exercise task, which Eric created for each phenomenon. And the book contain a preface about intermedia of Hannah Higgins, Professor of Art History at, University of Illinois, Chicago. (She is probably one of the researcher who has the most knowledge about Fluxus and intermedia - when she was born right into it, as the daughter of Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins.)
The last image here, is the patitur to Eric Andersens composition opus 51 - I have confidence in you. A patitur that is based on the musicians' free interpretation and their professionalism. A composition they are never allowed to perform twice in the same way - even when the orchestra rehearse the piece.
http://www.perbrunskog.info/the-glorious-ways-of-unproductivity.html
The Worlds Larst Exhibition
Part: I & II
I will now talk about the project I worked on here at Despina:The World's Last Exhibition, part II. Which is a follow-up to my most recently curated exhibition: The World's Last Exhibition.
The background to these two exhibition is mainly the apocalyptic rhetoric that both right-wing and left-wingers use and witch overflows the media image we are served on a daily basis.
Here is the presstext for part one:
"The democratic system in the Western world has entered the stage of a death struggle. No one, longer believes that capitalism, socialism, liberalism or other ideologies can save the civilisation, except those wearing a tin foil hat. The world is controlled by lunatics like Trump, Putin and hidden powers in an uncontrollable and unmanageable information society." [Of course, I could also mention: Bolsonaro in this text; Or Denmark's current prime minister: Mette Frederiksen who is a right-wing populist socialist - that continued the"state racism", which has been built up in Denmark over the past twenty years - just because she wanted to come to power. But when I first write this text I consciously chose to not mention Erdoğan - because of the safety of the participating Turkish artists.]
(back to the presstext) "We live in a frustrate present of posttruth - where all dialogue with people who have different opinions is locked. Racists ugly faces are no longer outsiders at the political arenas, but present in the tower of power where they now are abolishing basic human rights and dignity. The temperature of the earth accelerates uncontrollably and this is just one of countless threats to our habitat. Refugees, pandemics and terrorists. People build walls against a threatening surrounding world or begin to prepare for disaster in their homes." [today Security- or Fear Aesthetics feels more relevant than Relational Aesthetics].
"Regardless of political affiliation; it is evident that the end of humanity is near. Ragnarök is approaching soon - very soon." [Ragnarök - was the ancient Nordic name of the end of the time].
"Every day we are drained from doomsday scenarios. It is easier to imagine a collapse of civilization, than to see opportunities for mankind to coexist, take responsibility and act on our shared problems. It will be up to future generations to judge if the zeitgeist of our time is apathetic, paralysed or paranoid because of these threats.
But in the same way: the apocalypse has been a significant story humans have told each other at all times and is present in every religion. It's actually a part of the human condition and, maybe the only thing we all can agree on. This is also the fact the seven artists relate to, in their presented works - of the world's last exhibition.
The chosen artists for this task is: Åsa Maria Bengtsson, Ida Brockmann, Sidsel Christensen, Therese Frisk, Emma Hart, Oda Projesi, and Sara Ramo"
The World's Last Exhibition Part: I, was a pure video exhibition. An exhibition I created for the outdoor screens at Til Vægs. An exhibition forum based on seven silent screens, scattered around in a residential area, at Norrebro, in Copenhagen.
The exhibition I am now working on in part II, will be able to contain all forms of expression, and will be placed in a white cube gallery. The basic idea is that the exhibition should appear as the-pre-apocalyptic-party. A massive chaos of spreading impressions, with an atmosphere of a tivoli -- a burlesque cabaret - or a carnival where normality is turned upside down.
In order to create this apocalyptic atmosphere, I would like to invite artists who have wildly different working methods and expressions, and with so many works (maybe 100) - that the overall experience becomes as importen as the individual works.
I am not mainly interested in the underlying factors that create our fear of the downfall: environmental threats, pandorms, terrorism, etc. But the dystopical in humanity. The destruction as a human condition - something we all have in common.
"We crucified Jesus - because we had sinned against each other. And then we built our culture out of this metaphor"
The exhibition will be based mainly on artists from Brazil - but not only. Mostly for you have the best artist in the world, but even - there is something in the Brazilian society that appeals to the subject. An ever ongoing apocalypsic party. A constant presence of utopia and dystopia, a human paradise and hell on earth.
The end....
http://tilvaegs.com/the-worlds-last-exhibition-3/
The Ice-hockey bourgeois, boat constructions, and a little bit about urgency
This is the other main project I have work on here at amazing and loving Despina.
It is a book project, ore at list a writing project. A project where I try to combine my passion for art, writing with my passion for sailing and boat building. The project is really in its start-up and I don't know where it will end.
But what I am doing right now is to try to find literature and read absolutly everything that relates to - building and boat construction, navigation, and maritime history; hear in Brazil and in the rest of the world.
A big thank you for taking your time and listening, and a huge thank you to Frederico, Consuelo and Paublo, and Agnes for welcoming us to Despina.
By: Per Brunskog
"What does it take more than fantastic artists to create a really good exhibition? Maybe a strong title too? Infinity and Selected Things in Between are curated from this point of view. Or ass a homage to the Eric Andersen's work: opus 51 - I have confedense in you. Since I selected the artists and set the title; one artist dropped off, one has been added, and the artists have changed my title."
This was my short presstext for a exhibition I curat in the begining of this year: Infinity and Selected Things in Between, at Til Vægs, Copenhagen. Whit: Sonja Lillebæk Christensen, Stine Kvam, Mitra Saboury.
This text could also serve as a curatorial statement for me.
The reason for that I am in the art world is: the awesome and sometimes absurd ways of thinking, that grate arts give me.
I have no need to persuade the world of anything - at least not my opinions.
Therefore will I never make an exhibition that tries to inform the audience about a topic or a problem. Perhaps I would like to confuse them - in order to make them view there daily life from a slightly different angle. But to convince them that my perspective on the world would be the right one, feels foolish - as I know that I will soon look at things from a different angle and have different opinions.
When I plan an exhibition, I primarily put my energy into choosing the artists I want to collaborate with. And I like to put together artists who work in very different ways, to create collisions and fragmentation between the artworks.
Another part of the curation that I consider to be important is the spatial structure of the exhibition. Here I think I have been greatly influenced by the Brazilian artscene, which I often think works more consciously with this than the European. Creating own small macrocosms; breakdown and other spiritual movements; and where art is as much a bodily experience as pure interlektual. ( I have long been fascinated by both Brazil as country, and the Brazilian art scene. And written articels about several of the major Brazilian artists, from the 1950s onwards, for a Swedish encyclopedia, as well as a number of other articles about Brazilian artist for other media.)
In my role as art critic I see it as my most important task to immerse myself into the artists I write about, that I understand - the individual artist's fascination for what she or he do
This strategy for my writing comes largely from the fact that I have the larst ten year written short biographies about contempoary artist for a Swedish encyclopedia. A format of writing where the text must be short, but at the same time give a clear picture of the artist - and I can only get to that point if I have a complete overview of the artist.
No matter how uninteresting I experienced the artist at my first glance. -- When I have received or given myself the task to write about a artist - I really try to read, twist and turn my thinking until I find the artist's passion for her or his work.
Nonsense
One topic I keep coming back to both as a writer and curator - and this is probably the only subject that could make me return to university to write a PhD is nonsense or non- sense - in a significance that slides into nothingness.
This topic was included in an exhibition I created with: Annika Ström. Where the movie we see her comes from. [https://vimeo.com/100715884 ] [http://www.perbrunskog.info/annika-stroumlm-nothing---ingenting.html ]
And the topic of non-sens / nothing was included in a large exhibition I curated in Malmö, Sweden 2012; with London based curator Hans Askheim: Uncertain Triolectics and A Very Short Introduction to Nothing. [http://www.perbrunskog.info/uncertain-triolectics--a-very-short-introduction-to-nothing.html]
The nonsense that facionate me breaks down all forms of normality. Nonsense as opposition to everything that is claimed to has a value.
- Nonsense as a light prisma - filtering out bullshit.
- Nonsense as a game with nothingness - in the knowledge of the emptiness of "this life". The assurance of death. The knowledge that there is an end - where everything that we give meaning in or life - will disappear. A knowledge and at the same time, the reason to why we have to fill our lives with meaning every day.
- And a all-encompassing nonsense - a zero point. A starting point where no predictable conclusion exist.
- Nonsense as an unstructured mass with far too much meaning. For that we call nonsense is mostly not empty, but often holds meaning that struggles in different directions.
- A 'Pataphysics nonsense. A game of thoughts; a fascination for the inability and possibilities of human thinking. How we can play with the language and in this way throw around and twist the things that creates meaning.
- Nonsense as a proper punk attitude a ridiculous answer to anyone who has opinions on how to think or live my life.
- Or a complete nonsense - which makes us laugh at our petty-pathetic-lives.
The Glorious Ways of Unproductivity
The book: The Glorious Ways of Unproductivity was created in close collaboration between me and Eric Andersen.
Eric Andersen who is the last of the original participants, from the legendary European Fluxus events, that took place in the early 1960s, which is still active as an artist.
Andersen's artwork encompasses everything from simple postcards with nonsense instructions, to the creation of a completely technically feasible proposal for the manufacture and distribution of three new stars in the night sky. Andersen has created a helicopter ballet (it was before Karlheinz Stockhausen created his helicopter concert). He have make a proposal to distribute the Danish monarchy, so that in five hundred years, all citizens will become kings and queens over their part of Denmark. He has converted a confessional into a kitchen, where the priest can prepare various dishes based on tongue - and in this way created a artwork that encompasses the entire of Catholic liturgy. He has created a vending machine, where you put in four kronor, to get four kronor. And moved London to the German village Bad Salzdetfurth on a microbiological level of consciousness.
Andersen start to work with computers in the mid 1960s and have since that time created artworks based on algorithmic thinking. He was one of the most important in creating a bridge between avant-garde in Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War. A world pioneer in intermedia - but still, quite unknown in Denmark.
There is thus no medium to summarize his production, which is one of the meanings of intermedia. But his method is often to examine the internal traditions, the conditions and methods used in the tradition he enters into. Like when he worked with a museum at one time: he transformed this into a place for production of artifacts (which was signed by the museum visitors) and then sent to the art gallery - quite opposite of how a museum institution normally works, a final destination for atifacts and other inanimate objects.
Or, like almost all his compositions (The only education he has, is as a private student, for different composers), is based on twisting and reversing the traditions that exist in creating and performing music.
In the same way, it was clear from the start that if I were write a book about Eric Andersens universe, would I not create something reminiscent of an artist's biography, but turn upside down and in and out of the category. The book that in the end took shape was a textbook in intermedia for the level of primary school to PhD (and more). And it's based on about fifty works from his over fifty years as an artist. Where my goal was to describe all works as if they were natural phenomena.
During the writing process Andersen never interfered into how I described his work, even if he was always the first to read all texts. But it was he who asked me to describe the works as if they were natural phenomena (an almost impossible task), and he came up with that I shud not use the words "art" or "artwork", likewise he instructed me not to mention Fluxus or Eric Andersen by name.
The book is divided into different forms of phenomena such as: algorithms, sounds, smells, films, music, orchestra, museum, sports, festival, universal, etc. In addition, it consists of an exercise task, which Eric created for each phenomenon. And the book contain a preface about intermedia of Hannah Higgins, Professor of Art History at, University of Illinois, Chicago. (She is probably one of the researcher who has the most knowledge about Fluxus and intermedia - when she was born right into it, as the daughter of Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins.)
The last image here, is the patitur to Eric Andersens composition opus 51 - I have confidence in you. A patitur that is based on the musicians' free interpretation and their professionalism. A composition they are never allowed to perform twice in the same way - even when the orchestra rehearse the piece.
http://www.perbrunskog.info/the-glorious-ways-of-unproductivity.html
The Worlds Larst Exhibition
Part: I & II
I will now talk about the project I worked on here at Despina:The World's Last Exhibition, part II. Which is a follow-up to my most recently curated exhibition: The World's Last Exhibition.
The background to these two exhibition is mainly the apocalyptic rhetoric that both right-wing and left-wingers use and witch overflows the media image we are served on a daily basis.
Here is the presstext for part one:
"The democratic system in the Western world has entered the stage of a death struggle. No one, longer believes that capitalism, socialism, liberalism or other ideologies can save the civilisation, except those wearing a tin foil hat. The world is controlled by lunatics like Trump, Putin and hidden powers in an uncontrollable and unmanageable information society." [Of course, I could also mention: Bolsonaro in this text; Or Denmark's current prime minister: Mette Frederiksen who is a right-wing populist socialist - that continued the"state racism", which has been built up in Denmark over the past twenty years - just because she wanted to come to power. But when I first write this text I consciously chose to not mention Erdoğan - because of the safety of the participating Turkish artists.]
(back to the presstext) "We live in a frustrate present of posttruth - where all dialogue with people who have different opinions is locked. Racists ugly faces are no longer outsiders at the political arenas, but present in the tower of power where they now are abolishing basic human rights and dignity. The temperature of the earth accelerates uncontrollably and this is just one of countless threats to our habitat. Refugees, pandemics and terrorists. People build walls against a threatening surrounding world or begin to prepare for disaster in their homes." [today Security- or Fear Aesthetics feels more relevant than Relational Aesthetics].
"Regardless of political affiliation; it is evident that the end of humanity is near. Ragnarök is approaching soon - very soon." [Ragnarök - was the ancient Nordic name of the end of the time].
"Every day we are drained from doomsday scenarios. It is easier to imagine a collapse of civilization, than to see opportunities for mankind to coexist, take responsibility and act on our shared problems. It will be up to future generations to judge if the zeitgeist of our time is apathetic, paralysed or paranoid because of these threats.
But in the same way: the apocalypse has been a significant story humans have told each other at all times and is present in every religion. It's actually a part of the human condition and, maybe the only thing we all can agree on. This is also the fact the seven artists relate to, in their presented works - of the world's last exhibition.
The chosen artists for this task is: Åsa Maria Bengtsson, Ida Brockmann, Sidsel Christensen, Therese Frisk, Emma Hart, Oda Projesi, and Sara Ramo"
The World's Last Exhibition Part: I, was a pure video exhibition. An exhibition I created for the outdoor screens at Til Vægs. An exhibition forum based on seven silent screens, scattered around in a residential area, at Norrebro, in Copenhagen.
The exhibition I am now working on in part II, will be able to contain all forms of expression, and will be placed in a white cube gallery. The basic idea is that the exhibition should appear as the-pre-apocalyptic-party. A massive chaos of spreading impressions, with an atmosphere of a tivoli -- a burlesque cabaret - or a carnival where normality is turned upside down.
In order to create this apocalyptic atmosphere, I would like to invite artists who have wildly different working methods and expressions, and with so many works (maybe 100) - that the overall experience becomes as importen as the individual works.
I am not mainly interested in the underlying factors that create our fear of the downfall: environmental threats, pandorms, terrorism, etc. But the dystopical in humanity. The destruction as a human condition - something we all have in common.
"We crucified Jesus - because we had sinned against each other. And then we built our culture out of this metaphor"
The exhibition will be based mainly on artists from Brazil - but not only. Mostly for you have the best artist in the world, but even - there is something in the Brazilian society that appeals to the subject. An ever ongoing apocalypsic party. A constant presence of utopia and dystopia, a human paradise and hell on earth.
The end....
http://tilvaegs.com/the-worlds-last-exhibition-3/
The Ice-hockey bourgeois, boat constructions, and a little bit about urgency
This is the other main project I have work on here at amazing and loving Despina.
It is a book project, ore at list a writing project. A project where I try to combine my passion for art, writing with my passion for sailing and boat building. The project is really in its start-up and I don't know where it will end.
But what I am doing right now is to try to find literature and read absolutly everything that relates to - building and boat construction, navigation, and maritime history; hear in Brazil and in the rest of the world.
A big thank you for taking your time and listening, and a huge thank you to Frederico, Consuelo and Paublo, and Agnes for welcoming us to Despina.