Review: Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture
September 2nd 2010 06:21
:
Reviewed by David Jobling
Link: www.phaidon.com/
Review: CREAMIER: Contemporary Art in Culture
Up there with the Victoria and Albert Museum's publishing activities is Phaidon Press, easily one of, if not the leading publisher of art books in the world at this moment. Phaidon create edgy and lush tomes filled with the history of art, and in the case of CREAMIER Contemporary Art in Culture, they are also probing the now and the future.
CREAMIER: Contemporary Art in Culture, is the latest in Phaidon's Cream series, following Cream (1998), Fresh Cream (2000), Cream 3 (2003) and Ice-Cream (2007).
Ten prominent international curators were invited to select one hundred contemporary artists who they consider to be the most exciting working today. Innovative design continues to be a key feature of the series, and CREAMIER is no exception it's printed in an unbound, broadsheet newspaper format and packaged in a luxurious portfolio.
Essentially this book is more like an artist's portfolio than a book because of this lack of binding. The global recession and its effect on the world of contemporary art is examined from the perspectives of these curators who come from several international leading arts organisations including Tate Modern, London, MACBA, Barcelona and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Those among us who love the textural feel of high quality paper will be flushed with sensation when they start to explore this volume. It feels quite wonderful at the fingertip, sexy even. The way the book can be spread out on the bench or floor of a studio makes it expansive on the physical level and provides opportunity for perspective to be appreciated.
It obfuscates the problems associated with a bound book as far as - you do not worry about breaking the spine because there is no spine to break. As simple as that sounds it really is useful when it comes to show and tell with a design or art class or even the individual who simply wants to shift things around a little to make comparisons between the art works inside.
Taking a fairly dangerous choice like this opens the publisher up to criticism from the old school who do not always respond brilliantly to innovation, but I think the gamble has paid off well. Having an unbound text book or novel would probably be more problematic than it is worth, but in this case where the art can be brought out to breathe and pulse in your direction seems fresh and rich with possibility.
So, how does the art content look? Great! There is a broad range of work from all over the world and it certainly provides the viewer with a cache of inspirational and confrontational work. By no means is it all one stream of art. The material includes post-modern work that draws on classicism, but twists it into an almost Home Beautiful make-over from Pablo Bronstein, and Cyprien Gaillard's observations of the relationship between the old and new. Adrian Villar Rojas' ceramics smashed and strewn through the craftsman's studio look like some kind of archaeological dig.
Multimedia, film, photography and light plays a big role, but not an overpowering one.
Artists such as Noguchi Rika and Tris Vonna-Michell are represented with some complex images that look simple at a glance, while Aida Ruilova's images reflect classic portraiture subject matter in a video format tempered with anti-film-making quality that creates a tension between the viewer and subject.
Art is usually a debate, in the eye of the beholder, interpreted individually by each viewer and resonating on a different level for each person it touches so when all of these curators' choices are assembled in one place it requires some caution. I do not think this is a book you would sit and read from cover to cover easily.
It's very well written, and everything makes clear sense in context, however I found it was easier on the brain to move through the book one curator at a time. That way I could absorb something of the writer, the work they are writing about and of course the actual art.
In the hopes that it is not taken the wrong way, you need a bit of an empty head to ingest this material because it is so very detailed and complex from the process and creativity side of things.
It's not difficult at all to flip each page and simply enjoy the art, but when it's time to start reading, get ready for some true head-spins.
For example, and this could be considered a lighter weight example, Chto Delat is not an individual artist, it is a collective of Russian philosophers, poets, critics and artists with the desire to explore political activism and performative art. They have used agitprop dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht's work to create situations where people in public spaces must take a position relative to the art. Not a new idea, but newly ideated and unexpectedly whimsical.
Believe me I have observed many a turgid rendition of a Brechtian idea, and whimsical is not how it left me feeling. So, a fresh perspective, perhaps assisted by the passing of time takes what may seem to many dry old rhetoric and repositions it culturally.
There is a good deal of playfulness among contemporary artists here. Spartacus Chetwynd has developed her work through photography, painting and performance. She creates theatre and puppet shows that play out in art galleries and explore the relativity of interactions in the process. Once, back in the early 1970's something like this work would probably have been very monochromatic and kind of twee but Chetwynd seems to reflect a more colourful spirit drawn from glam-rock-pop (possibly of the 70's).
Nothing strikes me as dry or overburdened in Creamier, so I give it two Salmons and a Tuna up, or for those of you unfamiliar with surrealism, ten out of ten. Libraries, art galleries and art collectives would be wise to install this portfolio of the now and not too distant future.
Final words, Creamier is one of those books you will be sifting through for a long time. Highest quality, deepest insights and astonishingly amusing at the same time as being thoughtful and intelligent, pretty good for something without a spine.
Authors
Douglas Fogle - Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Elena Filipovic - Previously the co-curator of the 5th Berlin Biennial and co-edited 'The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe' (2006).
Yukie Kamiya - Chief Curator of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan.
Ines Katzenstein - Independent curator based in Buenos Aires. She was co-curator of the 6th Mercosul Biennial, Brazil and formerly Curator of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).
Chus Martinez - Chief Curator of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and formerly the Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
Kitty Scott - Director of Visual Arts, the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Banff International Curatorial Institute at the Banff Centre, Canada. Formerly Chief Curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London and Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada.
Debra Singer - Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen, New York and co-curator for the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
Adam Szymczyk - Director of Kunsthalle Basel. He was co-curator of the 5th Berlin Biennial and the former Curator of the Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.
Catherine Wood - Curator of Contemporary Art and Performance at Tate Modern, London where she was co-curator of 'Pop Life: Art in a Material World' (2009) and 'The World as a Stage (2007).
Tirdad Zolghadr - Independent curator and writer based in Berlin. He curated the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Venice Biennale (2009) and was co-curator of the 2005 Sharjah Biennial.
Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture
Contributors
Douglas Fogle, Elena Filipovic, Yukie Kamiya, Innes Katzenstein, Kitty Scott, Debra Singer, Adam Szymczyk, Catherine Wood, Tirdad Zolghad
ISBN - 978 0 7148 5683 4
296 Pages
Retail Price - $59.95
Binding - Unbound broadsheets in card portfolio
Publication Date - June 2010
Illustrations - 700 colour illustrations
Size - 16 and a half inches x 11 5/8 inches
Up there with the Victoria and Albert Museum's publishing activities is Phaidon Press, easily one of, if not the leading publisher of art books in the world at this moment. Phaidon create edgy and lush tomes filled with the history of art, and in the case of CREAMIER Contemporary Art in Culture, they are also probing the now and the future.
CREAMIER: Contemporary Art in Culture, is the latest in Phaidon's Cream series, following Cream (1998), Fresh Cream (2000), Cream 3 (2003) and Ice-Cream (2007).
Essentially this book is more like an artist's portfolio than a book because of this lack of binding. The global recession and its effect on the world of contemporary art is examined from the perspectives of these curators who come from several international leading arts organisations including Tate Modern, London, MACBA, Barcelona and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Those among us who love the textural feel of high quality paper will be flushed with sensation when they start to explore this volume. It feels quite wonderful at the fingertip, sexy even. The way the book can be spread out on the bench or floor of a studio makes it expansive on the physical level and provides opportunity for perspective to be appreciated.
It obfuscates the problems associated with a bound book as far as - you do not worry about breaking the spine because there is no spine to break. As simple as that sounds it really is useful when it comes to show and tell with a design or art class or even the individual who simply wants to shift things around a little to make comparisons between the art works inside.
Taking a fairly dangerous choice like this opens the publisher up to criticism from the old school who do not always respond brilliantly to innovation, but I think the gamble has paid off well. Having an unbound text book or novel would probably be more problematic than it is worth, but in this case where the art can be brought out to breathe and pulse in your direction seems fresh and rich with possibility.
So, how does the art content look? Great! There is a broad range of work from all over the world and it certainly provides the viewer with a cache of inspirational and confrontational work. By no means is it all one stream of art. The material includes post-modern work that draws on classicism, but twists it into an almost Home Beautiful make-over from Pablo Bronstein, and Cyprien Gaillard's observations of the relationship between the old and new. Adrian Villar Rojas' ceramics smashed and strewn through the craftsman's studio look like some kind of archaeological dig.
Multimedia, film, photography and light plays a big role, but not an overpowering one.
Artists such as Noguchi Rika and Tris Vonna-Michell are represented with some complex images that look simple at a glance, while Aida Ruilova's images reflect classic portraiture subject matter in a video format tempered with anti-film-making quality that creates a tension between the viewer and subject.
Art is usually a debate, in the eye of the beholder, interpreted individually by each viewer and resonating on a different level for each person it touches so when all of these curators' choices are assembled in one place it requires some caution. I do not think this is a book you would sit and read from cover to cover easily.
It's very well written, and everything makes clear sense in context, however I found it was easier on the brain to move through the book one curator at a time. That way I could absorb something of the writer, the work they are writing about and of course the actual art.
In the hopes that it is not taken the wrong way, you need a bit of an empty head to ingest this material because it is so very detailed and complex from the process and creativity side of things.
It's not difficult at all to flip each page and simply enjoy the art, but when it's time to start reading, get ready for some true head-spins.
For example, and this could be considered a lighter weight example, Chto Delat is not an individual artist, it is a collective of Russian philosophers, poets, critics and artists with the desire to explore political activism and performative art. They have used agitprop dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht's work to create situations where people in public spaces must take a position relative to the art. Not a new idea, but newly ideated and unexpectedly whimsical.
Believe me I have observed many a turgid rendition of a Brechtian idea, and whimsical is not how it left me feeling. So, a fresh perspective, perhaps assisted by the passing of time takes what may seem to many dry old rhetoric and repositions it culturally.
There is a good deal of playfulness among contemporary artists here. Spartacus Chetwynd has developed her work through photography, painting and performance. She creates theatre and puppet shows that play out in art galleries and explore the relativity of interactions in the process. Once, back in the early 1970's something like this work would probably have been very monochromatic and kind of twee but Chetwynd seems to reflect a more colourful spirit drawn from glam-rock-pop (possibly of the 70's).
Nothing strikes me as dry or overburdened in Creamier, so I give it two Salmons and a Tuna up, or for those of you unfamiliar with surrealism, ten out of ten. Libraries, art galleries and art collectives would be wise to install this portfolio of the now and not too distant future.
Final words, Creamier is one of those books you will be sifting through for a long time. Highest quality, deepest insights and astonishingly amusing at the same time as being thoughtful and intelligent, pretty good for something without a spine.
Authors
Douglas Fogle - Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Elena Filipovic - Previously the co-curator of the 5th Berlin Biennial and co-edited 'The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe' (2006).
Yukie Kamiya - Chief Curator of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan.
Ines Katzenstein - Independent curator based in Buenos Aires. She was co-curator of the 6th Mercosul Biennial, Brazil and formerly Curator of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).
Chus Martinez - Chief Curator of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and formerly the Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
Kitty Scott - Director of Visual Arts, the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Banff International Curatorial Institute at the Banff Centre, Canada. Formerly Chief Curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London and Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada.
Debra Singer - Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen, New York and co-curator for the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
Adam Szymczyk - Director of Kunsthalle Basel. He was co-curator of the 5th Berlin Biennial and the former Curator of the Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.
Catherine Wood - Curator of Contemporary Art and Performance at Tate Modern, London where she was co-curator of 'Pop Life: Art in a Material World' (2009) and 'The World as a Stage (2007).
Tirdad Zolghadr - Independent curator and writer based in Berlin. He curated the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Venice Biennale (2009) and was co-curator of the 2005 Sharjah Biennial.
Contributors
Douglas Fogle, Elena Filipovic, Yukie Kamiya, Innes Katzenstein, Kitty Scott, Debra Singer, Adam Szymczyk, Catherine Wood, Tirdad Zolghad
ISBN - 978 0 7148 5683 4
296 Pages
Retail Price - $59.95
Binding - Unbound broadsheets in card portfolio
Publication Date - June 2010
Illustrations - 700 colour illustrations
Size - 16 and a half inches x 11 5/8 inches
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