PHOTO: HARTMUT STOCKTER

Last weekend I went to the Super Market art fair and discovered the wonderful and witty inventions of Hartmut Stockter.

Hartmut Stockter is among other things the inventor of The Sloth-machine, a convenient vehicle for moving through dense European primeval forests, The Eavesdrop-leaves-machine which “raises the question whether listening to the wind in the trees is perhaps most conveniently done outside” and The Beehive-Hat which “invites to rest in the grass, in the shadow of its broad rim, and to listen to the humming of the bees”.

Stockters project documentary can be updated or printed in its entirety from his website, there are even instructions on how to bind it properly. Those who are too lazy to bind it themselves will be able to buy it at his upcoming solo show at DUNK! in Copenhagen, March 13th - April 24th 2008.

“Even in the perfect darkness there is always some kind of light.” (Färgfabriken)

The Gauntlet is an experience that to a high degree is influenced by the viewers knowledge about John Duncans previous works and the exhibition itself. You could argue that the exhibition will have a higher impact the less you know about The Gauntlet and the more you know about the artist.

Duncan is probably most famous for Scare (1976), a “performance” in which he approached the houses of people he knew well and, dressed in a full-head mask carrying a gun loaded with blanks, shot them point-blank in the face and took off.

Scare is certainly a controversial work but Blind Date (1980), which involves the sound recording of Duncan having sexual intercourse with a dead body in Mexico and his subsequent sterilization, is (for most people) even more upsetting and morally objectionable. In his comments to Blind Date Duncan says that he wanted it “to render any further self-torture of this kind, especially psychic self-torture, unnecessary for anyone to perform as a creative act.” (from Neon Gallery). The question is weather he really would have had to perform the act to achieve this objective. Would it not be enough to maintain the illusion that he did?

My friend took the opportunity to approach Duncan at the exhibition opening and confront him about Blind Date. Unfortunately Duncan avoided the subject and quickly excused himself. In his comments to Blind Date Duncan also says that “Since Blind Date, all forms of my work are created to raise questions”. He does obviously not intend to give all the answers…

The Gauntlet is exhibited at Färgfabriken from 2008-02-02 to 2008-03-02

I though I’d take the opportunity to spread the word about Lindsays Seers exhibition Swallowing Black Maria at the Smart Project Space in Amsterdam before it closes on the 18th.

Swallowing Black Maria (a title which refers to Thomas Edisons revolving film studio) is the kind of exhibition that shines if you take the time to read the exhibition brochure. In retrospective I wish that I had read through this one before I quickly rummaged through the exhibition stopping only too look at a pair of dolls who managed catch my attention. Luckily I picked up a copy on the way out…

According to the brochure Seers was born with eidetic recall, “the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme accuracy and in seemingly abundant volume.” (Wikipedia) Her memory was so perfected that she couldn’t see a difference between her inner world and the “real” world. As a consequence of this she lacked the ability to speak. When she at the age of seven for the first time saw a photograph of herself something happened and she gained the ability to speak but lost her eidetic memory.

To compensate for her loss of memory Seers started to photograph obsessively. Eventually turning herself into a camera, taking pictures by mounting a piece of film at the back of her throat, exposing the film through her teeth using the mouth as a shutter.

Upon discovering that another artist (in Dublin, I wonder who?) also took photographs with her mouth Seers turned to projecting her old identity as a human camera onto dolls such as the twin sailors on the picture above. The dolls, who act as Seers alter egos, are triggered by movement, rolling their eyes and opening their mouths to take photographs as you approach them.

But Seers story doesn’t end with the dolls, the next step for her was (of course) to transform into a human projector by attaching a pretty huge projector to her head. This is where I wish that I had taken the time to sit down and watch the videos that also were part of the exhibition…

Smart Project Space was overall a pretty cool place, we met a really friendly guy called Mauricio in the lobby and apart from exhibitions they have an artist in residence program and in a small building outside they have a free unmanned cinema with shows around the clock (all you have to do is to ask for the door code)…

Some art stands on its own while other require a frame of reference to be intriguing. The first kind is unfortunately quite rare and the other kind requires you to read a (usually) dull A4 or talk to the artist. Hidi Slimane is one of those artist whose work doesn’t need an explanation. Both Sweet Bird of Youth, a group exhibition compiled by Slimane for the Arndt and Partner gallery in Berlin, and Young American, a solo exhibition at Foam in Amsterdam, exuberate velvet undergroundesque avant-garde rock. Some people work very hard but they still don’t get it right, well I’m beginning to see the light…

I had intended to go and listen to Sally Mann this Saturday, but unfortunately when I got there it was already sold out. I ended up listening to Kentridge at Moderna Museet instead.

Kentridge mostly talked about Black Box / Chambre Noir, a mechanized theather and video installation which is currently exhibited at Moderna Museet. After his speech there was a short Q&A where Kentridge among other things was asked how he became an artist. Apparently this was not an active decision by Kentridge. He simply worked by exclusion and ended up being an artist because he failed with most other things that he tried.

In a similar manner his works are the results of experimentation rather than determination. Though Black Box / Chambre Noir is a political piece with a lot of historical references its message does not seem to have been clear to Kentridge when he started to work on it. Instead it is the result of creative experimentation with different media and techniques.

After the artist talk I spoke briefly to one of the theatre technicians who have designed the mechanics and the computer control system for Black Box / Chambre Noir. One subject that arose was how installations such as Black Box / Chambre Noir that are subject to wear and tear should be preserved for future generations. In Thruth, Beauty, Freedom and Money Michael Naimark notes that “Collectible tech-based art needs to be extraordinarily robust and archival” and that “Curators are caught in a dilemma, since one role of the museum is to build a collection of artifacts worthy of preservation in perpetuity, while another role is to present the fashion of the times.” The solution in the case of Black Box / Chambre Noir was, after some debate, to allow the installation to change appearance slightly over time as parts are worn out and replaced rather than to minimize its running time in order to preserve it in its original state.

Felice Varini paints intricate shapes and patterns on buildings and objects. When photographed or viewed from the right angles the figures, which are painted on three dimensional objects, look like they have been painted on top of the photograph, or like two dimensional paintings placed in the photograph. It’s hard to explain in words, to put it short it’s surreal. His site, www.varini.org, is in french, if you find it hard to navigate you can jump directly to the gallery here.