The Radicant part 1 & 2

jason rhoades


Kim soo ja


miltos maneta


mike kelly


Laszlo moholy


richard prince


Julie Mehretu


mark dion


Gabriel Orozco


-response-

Baurriaud mentioned that it is important to embrace the globalism and reconstruct the future of art that we, as the generation of artist who has willing and power, take such a responsibility to construct the form of art that is unified and accepted globally. As much as I would like to meet the agreement of his suggestion, I am very much disinterested about many altermodern artists that he presumes. Of course, we are living in an art world where things are in the melting pot. Today’s history, both socially and politically, affected artists to encourage juxtaposing different elements together. This juxtaposing action can be viewed as though they are literally duck taping different cultures together forcefully. Internet made everything faster and quicker and we don’t feel distant with other culture as before, and there is certain occurrence where different cultures are slowly breaking their boundary and willing to be harmonized. In the result of that, we might gain the singularity that can be communicated fluently to one another but we will lose the unique sense of its variety. For example, worldcup is a global sports festival that invites millions of people in earth to an event that generates every kind of emotions. It unifies everyone across the globe and creates humanism, what is important is that they celebrate the uniqueness of their own nations. How sad it would be, if someone questioning and creating an argument about the reason for such occasion. As much as Bourriaud tries to embrace movement of the art in global contexts, he is still talking about very specific group of artists that can potentially generate next post postmodernism which he already coined the name and that is altermodernism. I see this very ironic. It doesn’t feel truthful to me.

“We no longer live in a place where time is generous. The idea of globalism became the transformation of tourism into everyday phenomena. Technology enables us to have instant accessibility. There is conflation of space and time. We are haunted by the multiplicity and complexity. No matter how bad it might look, whether art is losing its originality and its aura or not, the fact is that we can’t go back. We are responsible for the future and should act on it.” Simply, this is Bourriaud’s interpretion of where art stands today. No wonder how precarious it looks! And radicant art, to me, does looks pretty precarious. Radicant art was born in anxiety.

Today, nothing considers as a “new” art. We don’t talk about certain art unless it’s THE game in town. I don’t think Bourriaud is any different than any other art critics from the past. To be against what is new is not to be modern. This is a fundamental idea that drives modernism and continues to breathe in same way today. Bourriaud, to me, is also carrying this idea with his support in the context of globalism. The only possible strategy to counter a new style which one critic detest is to jump over the previous style. I mean that is how modernism demolished realism, pop art demolished abstract expressionism, and so on. Now, where accessibility is only one click away that you have excess to any information you can pull, thus this infrastructure influence art and its environment, globalism and its radicality makes sense. Is Bourriaud trying to fix the value in radicant art with the name of althermodernism? Does Bourriaud think that radicant art rejuvenates today’s art scene?

POSTPRODUCTION

The meaning of Tiravanija’s work depends on the people who uses and deal with its display. His work is a serious attempt at reshaping social space, turning gallery to a place that has totally different goals and activities. I really appreciate his innovation using the context of art in different way. As a craft artist, although I am keenly interested in contemporary art movements, this kind of display creates certain degree of frustration if I was to relate my own discipline with a conceptual artist like Tiravanija. He is clearly not interested in the artwork that their purpose was to offer its visual quality. It is not an important aspect in his works that creates dialogue within the viewer’s mind which leads to its visual appreciation. His art world, to me, seems like a complete departure from visual art. What would be the significant turning point of the way he approach this kind of enterprise of art making? How did the “relational aesthetics” born? furthermore, if the relationship and the relationship only can be consider as art, what other elements that can be considered to qualify as an art? It seems like anything can enter the gallery door with the name of "art".

Marcel Duchamp showed the way to a new kind of art. and the importance of the imagination and the intellect one should carry in creating so call "new art" has been well embraced. All the duchampian after duchamp continues to carry this fundamental theory until today. Is it a cultural and social effect that art became highly conceptual and literary? These kinds of works exist mostly to illustrate the text. this is ironical because art before modernism should be consider literary ( all those realism paintings) didn't modernism started with the idea of rejecting litarary? I look at relational aesthetic artworks and start wandering, searching, struggling to find its contexts. For the most part, I would need texts that explain the concept behind the work. When I look at this art world with cultural perspective, I see the huge respect that is for elaborated ideas. Is art becoming more like a literature and philosophy? Where is the notion of beauty in postproduction era? Or what can be defined as “beauty” in our time?

Rirkrit Tiravanija



Pierre Huyghe



Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster



Liam Gillick



Maurizio Cattelan



Philippe Parreno

A work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

According to Benjamin, aura is ritual; it is unique existence in time and place. It is about its inherent uniqueness within a work of art.
Interestingly, photography and film are their own form of arts today. Benjamin believed that the reproductions (photography and film) destruct the aura of art (traditional art) which is true but also a revolution of new technology. The accurate and perfect computerized system of reproduction might have influence the hand makers. This leads to certain degree of depression when artists use their hand skill to approach realistic painting that is highly labor intensive thus the painting became more and more abstract to distinguish the humanism against machine.
Benjamin stated that the mechanical reproduction emancipated the work of art from its cult ritual quality. In other words, since this reproduction method has emerged, the authentic quality of the original art work no longer has a same value and aura that it used to have in ritual manner. The significance of the original work of art became less important as the core purpose of art has been altered. We see the copies and copies of art today easier and faster. The aura of the art work that can only be experienced in front of the original work of art is no longer there. Instead, the exhibition value has increased to the public to engage with.
Today, since Benjamin’s departure, there are endless source of abundance in our technological world. It is not surprising now that many artists approach the technology for the money, not for the art. CAD program elevated the computerized art forms to another level, digital media and internet created whole new genre of viewing and observing art. Without any doubt, reproduction process will become much more sophisticated that is beyond our knowledge. But, is it only me that I feel much more attracted to those arts that are hand-made?

list of "post"

post industrial
post structuralism
post humanism
post postmodernism
post minimalism
post pop
post black
post modern classicism
post analysis
post capitalism
post idealism
post utopia
post 9/11


art for art's sake?

I think it is still feasible to approach the "pure visual" characteristic of art that separate from the everyday world of social and political life. but we are all informed by the history and culture which can only be altered and refined in one's mind in order to create the unique result of a unique temperament. speaking of my own works, the idea often comes alive when my mind operates internally. I try to play out this vague idea both consciously and unconsciously; it is the act of balancing. Surprisingly, even when I put most of my priority in aesthetic quality, I would have to agree that it shows its social or political relevance. I am informed by things that i see, hear, and act upon. It cannot be disregarded.