interview 2005

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Javier Tellez, One flew over the Void (bala perdida), 2005. Still of single channel video installation, project for inSite 05, San Diego / Tijuana.
Courtesy the Artist & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.

CT Large international survey exhibitions like the first Torino Triennial, which you are co-curating with Francesco Bonami, serve as a way for artists and curators to explore the frontiers between object and process, research and culture, interrogation and audience, technology and politics. Don’t they also function as a transnational marketplace for elite consumers preparing for the onslaught of corporate imperialism?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: I don’t think, nor speak, in terms of “corporate imperialism” and I don’t believe curatorial or artistic practice is immediately a political act. I’m interested in how knowledge is constructed—to observe art on the micro level of a single artwork and see how it’s negotiated in the world.

At the same time, everything we do, including art, is political, one way or another.

The exhibition/biennial, as we know it, emerged from a democratic impulse. Before the French Revolution, there were only private exhibitions, which then developed into the public arena, the museum. Today, however, the public exhibition is on a decline due to the increasing cultural legitimization of the art fair. This can be traced back to the 1980s and to the increased presence of curated projects within art fairs.

Recently, I believe that large international exhibitions have at times become cynical, postmodern visions embracing a pop Andy Warhol attitude.

CT Why do you say that?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Because some projects are based on a naïve idea that if you get a larger audience you can achieve more of a cultural impact.

CT With regard to patronage and collectors, some might think that there’s a conflict between your two roles: one a curator for a major museum, the Castello di Rivoli, and the other a co-curator of the Turin Triennial.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: I don’t think there is a conflict—I don’t deal with patronage and collectors in my museum work. There is no conflict. All I am saying is that I think that in international exhibitions, more depth is needed—these exhibitions are usually researched and prepared too quickly for that depth to be achieved. I too have put together the Triennale too quickly, for example, but my museum experience of organizing large exhibitions with a certain thoroughness has made it a bit easier to avoid the typical pitfalls of the Biennales.

For this show, The Pantagruel Syndrome, I use a strong narrative—something I often implement in group shows. Pantagruel is a literary figure created by François Rabelais [c. 1494-1553], a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and humanist. He is regarded as a proto-modernist writer of fantasy, with rude, heroic and humorous giants perpetually traveling in a world full of greed, stupidity, violence and grotesque jokes. The character Pantagruel is of gigantic proportions with a voracious appetite and incredible power—characterizing the fragility between a healthy form of desire and a sense of imminent disaster and out-of-control voracity.

CT Yes, this seems an appropriate reflection of our consumerist society. Does this poetic device also move our focus away from the curator?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Yes. I’m intentionally moving the attention away from the auteur/curator. At the panel discussion held during the opening, few of the ten invited curatorial correspondents talked about whether it made sense to discuss Pantagruel as metaphor. They instead wanted to talk about innovation of process, venue, and curatorial practice.

CT Innovation in the practice is a legitimate concern among curators today.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Well, I do believe the group exhibition is in crisis also because of too much attention paid to curatorial practice. However, it’s interesting to note that in the mid-19th century, the salon emerged from the model of the trade fair. For example, at the first Venice Biennial of 1895, the art was labeled and priced, and the show’s success was measured by how many works sold. So from this point of view, the rise of curatorial practice as a field has been positive, moving exhibition-making away from the old fair. With the modernist impulse of the 20th century as well as the autonomy of the artwork and the rise of the radical curator, the exhibition began to slowly detach from the marketplace. And so at the end of this history, we have returned to the beginning, the exhibition as art fair.

CT So let’s return to the late 19th century, where the biennial begins not only as parallel to the trade fair but also as a time when artists were breaking away from the salon, progressing on their own.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: But the Impressionist shows also marked the birth of the marketplace and the galleries.

I believe we’re at a point where the system is in crisis. The people who organize and curate feel they need more depth, and this impulse has brought a lot of interesting curatorial experimentation in the 1990s. Hans Ulrich Obrist, for instance, is a curator whose genius and frustration with the traditional group exhibition compelled him to experiment with its form throughout the 1990s. He learned from the artist Alighiero Boetti that to invent new rules of the game would move it to innovative terrain.

I believe in intuition. Thinking about process is overly self-conscious, and analyzing everything contributed to the failure of postmodernism. Hans’ procedure was both intuitive and systematic, and helped open up the system.

CT Yes, but the artworks/artists as the propellants and ingredients of the curatorial process cannot be denied; it is the artist who is the seismograph of change in society.

In a discussion moderated by yourself and co-curator Francesco Bonami that took place during the opening, the ten correspondents were not only panelists but had also been asked to suggest artists for the Triennial and contribute to the show’s catalog. What could have been a lively discussion was squelched when you said you disliked the 2005 Istanbul Biennial—that those curators, Charles Esche and Vasif Kortun, were interested “in process and experimentation, not the excellence in the artworks.”

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: I did not dislike their Istanbul biennale. That is a misunderstanding of what I said. I meant that Charles prioritizes theory, the experimentation of curatorial practice and the political effect of art over the focus on art’s solitary and sensual adventure—over art for the artist’s sake, let’s say (a twist from “art for art’s sake,” and I think this procedure is ultimately political anyway, but in a different way from how Charles and Vasif may envision the political). The idea of their Istanbul Biennial 9 was to move curatorial practice forward, but not a lot of the art provided the emotion that brings new knowledge to me (it may well have to others). The art I love elicits an emotional and bodily reaction in the viewer. Harald Szeemann understood this, and I share that pleasure in embodiment through art.

CT Leo Steinberg in Other Criteria said, “The general rule is whenever there appears an art that is truly new and original, the people who denounce it first and loudest are the other artists.” This is also true of curators or others engaged in any profession who, when faced with the new, have the most anxiety.

Personally, I think Charles Esche has an amazing eye. While most of the art was neither pretty nor a commodity, what Charles and Vasif did at the Istanbul Biennial was to override conventional bourgeois thinking and move the Biennial to a less comfortable place, less attractive to the elite traveler but more engaging to Istanbul’s populace.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Charles and Vasif are great systemic analysts of constructive curatorial process and of art/politics relations; I respect their vanguard, activist position and the form of curatorial experimentation, which is not done for the sake of experimentation, but for that of social change. Their show represented an act of resistance, which I totally respect, but I personally don’t believe in acts of resistance. I’m a pacifist and a feminist and feel change can be achieved through more invisible and less confrontational means.

CT But acts of resistance can initiate change.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Each historical, social, political and technical moment in the history of mankind has determined different ways of resistance. Hogarth or Goya’s form of resistance, is not necessarily right for today. Failure may be more productive than success, withdrawal more interesting than attack. Again, this is my perspective, which comes from my personal experience.

I’ve worked both outside and inside the institution. In 1993, in Antwerp, where as young emerging curators, Iwona Blazwick and Yves Aupetitallot and I had been invited to curate a show (it really meant “bring in international artists to help launch the city into globalism”), we curated a project called On taking a normal situation and retranslating it into overlapping and multiple readings of conditions past and present. However, we did the opposite of what the conservative forces in the city really wanted us to do. They wanted a local, national show and we created a local exhibition indeed, however one which revealed an avant-garde and international history of Belgium. We chose artists from local collections: Lucio Fontana, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lawrence Weiner and others and placed them in the museum. Oddly enough, this extremely local show was therefore on the surface absolutely compliant with the right-wing nationalist politicians who were originally against our mission. In reversing the paradigm we gave them what they did not expect and revealed a culture (their own in the past) that was open, avant-garde and internationalist. This caused a short-circuit in Antwerp.

CT I see—you’ve worked both ways. Was capitalism, consumerism or spectacle an issue then as it is now?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Again, you use terms I do not. “Capitalism” is a reductive vision of the history of mankind. The Pantagruel Syndrome is about the effects of power in general, not just those of the phase of modernity we call “Capitalism.” Power is grounded on subjugation and it is manifest in many ways that go beyond economics and into psychoanalysis, for instance, the power of an adult over a child, or over the elderly, or a husband beating his wife, or of humans over other animals, etc. These are not “capitalist” issues only.

CT By enlisting parables and fables in her performances, Joan Jonas illustrates these power relationships.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Yes, and I love Joan’s art. I often talk about power and human survival in general terms rather than speaking about capitalism, which describes a subcategory of power relations. Art has a more direct influence on the world than politics often do; Masaccio changed the world because he changed the way we see the world: his brutal figures reversed the social hierarchy and thus the power relations in Florence in his time. In the long run, art has a deeper effect on human beings who are trying to understand the issues of their times than direct political actions do.

CT Each new exhibition can be a laboratory, informing strategies that combine with obligations for new communities of discourse. Some specialists make the distinction between curating within the canon or within the culture.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: I think the need for curatorial experimentation has become canonical, not radical! We are years after those radical experiments of the early 1990s.

CT It’s an interesting dichotomy for today’s practice; you talked about what you did in Antwerp in the 90s, curating outside the canon and now that’s no longer remarkable to you.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Yes, canons change, and if the experimental has become the canonical today, it is then the most cliché and obvious thing you can do. I’m not trying to work in the canon of experimentalism now, and this is how The Pantagruel Syndrome needs to be understood. As a non-experimental, ultimately boring, endeavor. It does not engage in curatorial experimentation.

For me personally, I believe in making decoys, but let me explain. Some of the young curators at the aforementioned panel discussion remarked that the Pantagruel exhibition was traditional rather than innovative. They questioned it as theme, which did not get us out of the syndrome. For me, however, the show is only a decoy. It offers a spectacle that distracts everyone, so artists and intellectuals can get on with what they do, in the gaps of the spectacle. I don’t try to beat the spectacle, I just work in the sidelines of it.

CT The subject matter is important, but whether this show actually proposed anything different from a typical biennial is questionable.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: I think that one of the only ways you can beat the beast is to not deny it. In this age where everything is revealed, the only interesting sphere is what is invisible. The exhibition itself is the decoy and nothing has to be revealed: for me, that’s the secret.

CT Like a virus?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: No, it’s an agent. It is about shifting information for certain objectives. In art history, when the church’s power was very strong, patrons commissioned an artist to do a fresco of the Virgin Mary, for example. Giotto, Masaccio or Fra Angelico did this but more—something else, something secret.

Today the self is being poached. It is so because of the large space occupied by the public sphere of politics, economics and entertainment in the global universe. There is a need that humans have—such as the freedom of the small gesture in daily life—that is slowly being eradicated by reality TV. The same is true of some relational art: many works speak about life but actually take space away from the self, because relations become part of an official discourse and a spectacle.

Michael Rakowitz, Michael McGee’s paraSITE shelter, 2000.
Courtesy the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects, New York.

Edgar Allan Poe was interested in secrets, and there are many purloined letters in the art world—but they aren’t discussed, because they haven’t been experienced publicly. Javier Téllez navigates the beast with his installations and Mike Rakowitz with his plastic houses for the homeless, which may never be an art project. Once involved in the gallery system, the artist must survive, but I try to find artists who make decoys/parallel artworks. Tiravanija established a community in Thailand of people who create things/props that are useful, not commodities. I believe that the best artists are touching on the cultural need for finding a space for the self.

CT At the art fair in Torino that piggybacked the Triennial, I noticed a work by Pascale Marthine Tayou—a heap of dirty socks. “Very difficult to purchase,” I prodded. “Oh, if you like his work,” replied the gallerist, “let me show you Pascal’s crystal African masks.” Illustrating your point, Carolyn. [Note: Pascale now incorporates glass heads within his installations.]

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Yes. In the Middle Ages, art was in service of the church; the decoy was the church and the artist was exploring the construction of knowledge. The dialogue was an esoteric one of which the church was unaware.

CT This church art was also unsigned.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: And so the artists were explorers in the realm of the invisible, and this is interesting to me. Today, we’re living in a consumer culture where I believe the self has no space. The only thing of any importance is to find a way to be autonomous selves. So what does a curator do?

CT It appears that in this moment, the way we make exhibitions is probably coming to an end. Some may see this as an opportunity for transformation. Ralph Rugoff is curating a show about invisibility. Do you think it is possible to do a show about this?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: If I were to do a show about invisibility, I would do a show with the material, physical object as a decoy, and I would not say the show was about invisibility.

CT For your show, you created a network of correspondents—ten young curators, most under thirty-five…

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Their youth makes them sensitive to the Pantagruel syndrome. They grew up with overload and are thus tuned in to this affect. Sophia Hernandez said that the overload of experience in and out of exhibitions leads to the study of boredom.

CT—boredom as a consequence of excessive stimuli?

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: The Stendhal syndrome refers to a story about Stendhal who, after a heady trip to Santa Croce in Firenze, fainted and lost touch with reality; it is also like the way a newborn baby falls asleep when shocked.

CT Adam Szymczyk said that to avoid excess, he curates only solo shows. Instead of the supermarket, he says, you go only to an apricot farm—it’s a way to address the beast. Raimundas Malasauskas from Vilnius proposed that every edition of this Triennial could be held with the same artists and the last show would be with the last survivor, like a solo exhibition in Death Valley.

Abraham Curzvillages, Patriotismo (Patriotism), 2004.
Courtesy the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: It’s interesting to note that his vision would end with a solo exhibition.

CT The biennial, in its traditional form or not, benefits art communities outside the more traditional international zones. Kathryn Smith, a South African curator, Gridthiya Gaweewong from Thailand and Joseph Backstein from Moscow each refer to their countries’ thirst for the dialog international exhibitions present.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: That’s the other positive side of things; the exhibition, as opposed to a fair, is still a space where people try to organize elements in a meaningful way and to dialogue with others.

CT And, by introducing the works of younger, lesser-known artists, the exhibition shows what is bubbling to the surface.

Tamy Ben-Tor, Hitler Sisters, 2005.
Courtesy the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery, New York.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: It is also about geography and age. Young people working in far-off places participate in the dialogue of these shows, and you learn from them. Globalization is decentralization, and that’s the good side.

Hans Ulrich Obrist employs a Boetti strategy, providing simple rules to produce a kind of chaos, and another order arises. This is creative curating; taking over the creative side too much, the curator may seem to become the artist and the artworks may seem to be illustrations of his or her idea, but in reality, the curator is playing a game, creating a decoy which may seem protagonistic but is actually a a device, a magic trick to keep the interface between the world at large and art in a state of positive misunderstanding.

CT At the Triennial, most of the artists, like Abraham Cruzvillegas or Tamy Ben-Tor, were lesser known than Murakami and Salcedo, whose inclusion seemed like two solo exhibitions. What was this about?

Doris Salcedo, Abyss, 2006.
Courtesy the artist.

CCB Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: These two mid-career artists were chosen as the slower moment of concentration. They are opposite to each other and suffer from the Pantagruel syndrome in different ways.

Salcedo presents a silent, heavy abyss that speaks of the impossibility of the monumental, of centers of detention and the impossibility of travel and communication. It is the dark side of globalization and an anorexic digestive-system metaphor of the Pantagruel syndrome. She concentrates on the themes of imprisonment, displacement and grief in the contemporary world while exploring the territory of violence and its relationship to politics.

Murakami unites historical analysis and his sociological interests with the superficial style of today’s consumer cultures. Through a pop strategy using new technology, he celebrates and questions, focusing on the constant flux of information, the speed of perception and communication, the hybridization of signs, and the high and low. He is the bulimic character in the play.

Takashi Murakami, Dob in the Strange Forest, 1999.
Courtesy the artist.

Salcedo celebrates the individual gesture. Murakami exposes the loss of the individual. She is the celebration of life. He is the airport culture.

END OF SAMPLE ONLINE CHAPTER

Javier Tellez, One flew over the Void (bala perdida), 2005. Still of single channel video installation, project for inSite 05, San Diego / Tijuana.
Courtesy the Artist & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.

Michael Rakowitz, Michael McGee’s paraSITE shelter, 2000.
Courtesy the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects, New York.

Abraham Curzvillages, Patriotismo (Patriotism), 2004.
Courtesy the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City.

Tamy Ben-Tor, Hitler Sisters, 2005.
Courtesy the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery, New York.

Takashi Murakami, Dob in the Strange Forest, 1999.
Courtesy the artist.

Doris Salcedo, Abyss, 2006.
Courtesy the artist.

Abraham Cruzvillegas
100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta Series 52

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Title List at ARTBOOK.COM

Documenta 13: Catalog II/3, The Logbook

Documenta 13: Catalog I/3, The Book of Books