Month: April 2012

notes from a meeting, on homing in on conclusions…

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March Meeting Sharjah 2012 Every which way… Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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As I home in on conclusive thoughts, the first must be an acknowledgement of the fifth March Meeting as such. It brought together over 80 speakers plus audience to talk, listen, and exchange over 3 long and short days -as well as film screenings, exhibitions and musical performance. Inevitably, it generated brain-burn, the occasional misfiring or abbreviated note, and the expressed desire for either longer sessions at times or a pause button to reflect at others.

However, the intensity was generative of wide ranging conversations, links and relinks, discovery and trust, committedness and complexities. It’s a risky venture, with all sorts of intellectual and creative risks talked of and engaged, by practitioners with experience of or aspirations for just such frontier activity. The scent of new and different futures is in the air as is impatience to get there ASAP… Continue reading “notes from a meeting, on homing in on conclusions…” →

notes from a meeting, from hubtastic to actual costs of moving, making, showing… [day 3]

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Eungie Joo New Museum Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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A consequence of trying to write about the MM while presenting at it as well as attending panels, films and exhibitions [to say nothing about the barely glimpsed wonders of downtown Sharjah itself!] was that I missed some sessions. It would be invidious to select any that I particularly regret missing, especially as the quality of presenters and presentations was so high this year, so I will resist.

My Meeting day began with an in-conversation between Eungie Joo from the New Museum and William Wells from the Townhouse in which they talked about their Museum as Hub initiative. Continue reading “notes from a meeting, from hubtastic to actual costs of moving, making, showing… [day 3]” →

‘i am running in ramallah and it is painful…’ in manifesta journal #14 online & at genk

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I am running in Ramallah and it is in audio in the current issue of Manifesta Journal #14 which you can read online here, download the complete pdf here, or go straight to the Translated By pages here. Scroll down to where it says ‘You pick a random number’ and 3, etc., and listen to the audio of my excerpt. All this running makes it a bit less painful -and In Ramallah, Running proper will be here soon!

Do have a look at MJ14 edited by Rasha Salti et al and with some great sections; conversation with Naeem Mohaimen, and  one on Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Lebanese Rocket Society, the main monument of which stands today in a public square in downtown Sharjah -a SAF commission from 2010’s Biennial. Manifesta as such kicks off in Genk, Belgium this year of course; end of May slash start of June. Be there!

‘i am running in ramallah and it is painful…’ at SALT galata 06.04.12-08.07.12

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Translated By in a new configuration and new location. I’ve not made it yet but hope I might. There is also a new version of the book, edited by Shumon, Charles and Suna Kafadar and designed by Zak. I’ve not seen it yet, etc.!

Meanwhile, In Ramallah, Running has been painful too, but advances are promised by the publisher very soon now and I will of course share confirmed publication and other dates when I have them. Meanwhile, very good bound proofs are available for review and related purposes. Contacts are here in the pdf button at the top. Be in touch!

notes from a meeting, artists on the frontier; resident or nomad? [day two pt2]

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Sejla Kameric 1395 Days on the Frontier Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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Sama Alshaibi moderated a panel on Artists as Nomads, describing herself as the least “nomadic artist on the panel, relatively speaking,” secure in a US Professorship. Basma Alsharif, a Palestinian who “can’t really base myself in Palestine” settled in Egypt before “moving based on projects”, a process that has now been formalised through International residencies. “So then my life became a residency” with obvious costs and which have rendered her almost homeless at times -all of which she was quick to qualify too.

Ziad Antar fizzed on stage, to the audience’s amusement, relaying a similar tale of struggling to “create a point of view” in the churn; “when you live nowhere” there is a price to pay. Sejla Kameric introduced a note of caution by asking “is it a life we choose or is it by necessity… there’s a fine balance between a need and a choice.” She said she had also moved a lot on what can appear to be a circuit, but increasingly found she needed a strong working base at home in Sarajevo. [I’ll return to the screening of her version of the 1395 Days Without Red film in Bait al Shamsi later in the evening when I post a substantial interview soon; see Appendix 1 Sejla Kameric & I Go East [to Kalba]. Continue reading “notes from a meeting, artists on the frontier; resident or nomad? [day two pt2]” →

notes from a meeting, on throwing forth – artists and audiences [day two pt1]

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Murtaza Vali Artists & Audiences Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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Murtaza Vali moderated another of the central panels during this March Meeting; Artists and Audiences. One which spoke from the UK, the USA/Dubai, Palestine, Taiwan and Qatar to an audience far more diverse in its locations. Vali spoke of a radical “rethinking of the artwork as a situation that requires an audience to complete it”, something which new media has helped generate as well as being some of its sites. As he said, this raises many issues but “the really big one [is] what is it exactly that we mean by the word audience?” If audience activates the artwork then how does the artist/artwork/institution ‘activate’ the audience? How is theory made new practice?

It’s a tough question which the panel bounced around but didn’t ‘dunk’. Louise Hui-Juan Hsu from the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taiwan, for example, reminded us that the “translator in this case, is beyond the translation of words”. Abed al Ju’beh, who runs the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, Palestine, spoke of the singularity of his literally captive audience. I’d not seen him since the leaving party at his home in the South-east of England 5-6 years ago when he took up this post. Ramallah is at the heart of a giant open air prison where, he said, the audience comes looking for confirmation of their existence. It’s an audience which the Sakakini reaches out to with a residency programme strictly for local artists. Continue reading “notes from a meeting, on throwing forth – artists and audiences [day two pt1]” →

notes from a meeting – on commissioning and reconfiguring risk [day one pt 3]

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Shezad Dawood Framed Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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Continued…

Highlights of other sessions included Samar Martha’s marshaling of interesting tales from the frontline of smaller organizations, including MASS, the space that Wael Shawky -Abraaj Prize Winner 2012- created from his old studio in Alexandria. Run on a shoestring, it’s now in its second year with twice as many students covering a wide age range. An inspiring story, presented by Daniella Rose King, I hope to watch it survive and flourish. This is when and how artists can generate step changes… Continue reading “notes from a meeting – on commissioning and reconfiguring risk [day one pt 3]” →

notes from a meeting – on commissioning and reconfiguring risk [day one pt 2]

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Hans Ulrich Obrist/Edgeware Road Project London Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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Day One unfolded in celebration of a range of curatorial and cultural risks taken [actual and potential], from large European and North American institutions through more wide-ranging, smaller and artist-led institutional initiatives to a single artist’s practice.

Judith Greer from the SAF gave a bold preface about the events that led to the removal of a piece of work from the Biennial last year swiftly followed by the removal of its Director Jack Persekian. It was a welcome account of what she described as “an extremely difficult time for us” which caused much reflection Continue reading “notes from a meeting – on commissioning and reconfiguring risk [day one pt 2]” →

notes from a meeting – on the small matter of everything [day one pt 1]

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SAF March Meeting 2012 Photo G Mannes-Abbott

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Salah Hassan, venerable Cornell Professor, followed the UAE’s Minister of Culture in delivering a keynote speech. He began with an apology in Arabic; “as an African Arab” who has been “living in the Frank’s territories for a long time” and familiar with a certain “morphology of fear … please allow me to speak in English.”

I like a barb like that and it makes a point, excepting that we are in Sharjah where the simultaneous translation is excellent and I’d anticipated relying on it myself in 2012. A cusp, especially on a global scale, is always hard to identify [!] but I would suggest this might be an anxiety from before the cusp that, it seems to me, we all occupy. Not easily, not fully, not formally but actually… Continue reading “notes from a meeting – on the small matter of everything [day one pt 1]” →