Worshop at the Athens School of Fine Arts

 You sit in an audience, legs crossed on a pillow, and look at the stage. Tall and lean woman with black curly hair is sitting with legs spread and elbows leaning on knees. On a chair next to her strongly built young man is casually leaning back. Gazing into the void both of them pretend to be oblivious to the looks of the audience. Poses change. The woman unbuttons her green shirt, and changes is against a yellow tee that her partner is wearing. Without making any physical contact slight flirtation between them can be detected. He is giving her a look, she turns away, his reacts by pretending not to care. She then makes initiative to reconnect . After the first session an audience members replaces one of them. Then there is a flow of people that step onto the stage and other that leave it, while the game continues. Clothes get changed, poses taken, looks given. Everyone on the stage looks art-school trendy, you feel like reaching for a camera. 

After a small break the task changes. Now people on the stage alter between scenes that depict pornography, violence and family photo. Every pose is directed towards the audience, scenes flow from one defined moment to the next. The ones that depict pornography and violence sometimes get intertwined. Partners do not always interpret each others motives. Family photos on the other had look like commercial fashion photographs. I feel like the only thing that is missing are lights and a photographer that captures it all. Otherwise, the setting is reminiscent to a performance of poses on a photo shoot. 

While initially it is easy to get mesmerised by the aesthetics of the setup, as the workshop evolves, the motives become questionable. Does it dismantle the beauty ideals and gender roles set up by media culture or does it play into them by reinforcing? What does the art contacts bring to the equation? Aestheticising violence, that has some sexual indications even becomes difficult to witness. 

Beauty VS Content

I don't think that beauty and content are mutually exclusive but does one need to balance the two; as one attempts to make something more aesthetically pleasing does it distract from the content? As one focuses more on one, do they have to focus less on the other? Does beauty become a facade to obscure substance? Does aesthetic value relate to how engaging something is? I don't want to create a post entirely of questions but I am finding the situation of super-produced art (as in examples seen during Documenta14) feeling like a theatrical production where image is the only goal and anything behind that feels like a lie. Beauty becomes misdirection, drawing one's attention away from meaning. I feel like this relates to the larger problem in the contemporary art world, now more than ever but certainly a growing problem in the past 2 or 3 decades, where celebrity and appearance is more valuable than what actually is, because that is what the market dictates.

The big picture

Altogether, the recent studies have shown that humans and aesthetics have histories that are deeply intertwined, and depend on each other for their own health and well-being as well as that of their environments. Although the researchers focused exclusively on human-aesthetic interactions, they expect that similar trends of codependency and symbiosis are universal among and between other groups, such as Archaea, fungi, plants, and animals.

Due to these symbiotic relationships, the academics here propose that the very definitions of an organism, an environment and a population have become blurred and should be reviewed. It may be, for instance, that humans are better viewed as host-sense ecosystems than as individuals.

In addition, the academics predict that the recent findings on human-aesthetics interactions will likely require artists to significantly alter their view of the fundamental nature of the entire cultural sphere. 

In the end, the academics hope that the results will promote more cross-disciplinary collaboration among artists, scientists and engineers from different fields to explore the new sensual frontier. They argue that these discoveries should revolutionize the way that art is taught from the high school level on up, by focusing more on the relationships between aesthetics, their human partners, and all other life forms.

https://phys.org/news/2013-02-bacterial-world-impacting-previously-thought.html

The Migrant, post colonialism and Europe in relation to Documenta 14 pt. 1

Art and politics, statements of the mentioned never mentioned

Documenta. When speaking of Athens. Now merely an excuse. Athens, Greece since TROIKA changed the discourse of Europe.

The school of fine arts Athens.

At the school of Fine arts in Athens; ASFA, has it’s origins in the Royal School of Arts established in 1836, in 1992 it was relocated to the former textile factory of the Sikiarides family in. When scouting the surface, you do not notice this hyped ”crisis” here,  but as a very present problem, scouting the surface is never enough and very often misleading.  Entering the open studios of the student’s and talking with people, gives a very different view. The students seem very aware and therefore very aware of politics, economics and the post-colonialist status of Europe. people are discussing politics in a a natural merge with their art as these clandestine dynamic spaces with wildgrowing graffiti, plants and art. They seem to have their very own opinion on both the debth-crisis and the relationship to Germany, (and German Documenta). ASFA is a Documenta venue, the first  space to engage in collaboration with Documenta, and since the fall of 2016, Arnisa Zeqo of aneducation (the public education program of Documenta 14) has led Elective Affinities, a seminar inviting students from various departments to engage with documenta 14 artists. Documenta displays an exhibition in the main exhibition space of the school, the Nikos Kessanlis hall, but the school in it self and the engaged students is as or if not more intriguing and present in its importance to the discussion of politics and arts.

When talking to the students at the ASFA I heard various oppinions but mainly a disengaged attitude constituting the superficial occupational program from the Documenta progam.  This is a shame I think as kept in mind that Documenta state that they have worked 4 years of the progress of establishing relationsships in Athens, how come you don’t see any events or workshops arranged but local students or professors? That is for the workshops, the next matter of subject is the main documenta exhibition at the ASFA:

Documenta is, to put it promptly, a political art event, by staging itself in Athens it has all ready claimed its agenda, commenting on a Europe of determisnitic crucial financial politics and the battle of etics in relation to migration and custom barriers.

Regarding the wholeness of the exhibition and the quality of many of the installation, I will not elaborate here, because one piece, the centre-piece of the exhibition is so strong that it justifies Bouchra Khalili “the tempest society“. This movie is the strongest piece of art, I have seen, -commenting on the state of Europe and it’s ethics and lack of same, implemented as a consequence of protectionist financial politics, in perspective to immigrants coming to Greece -their personal stories, becoming the new Epos of a Europe.

We heard later in the evening an amazing talk from the programme of Documenta:  “Black Athens” with Indian professor Ranabir Samaddar and comments from Rwandian philosopher Isaïe Nzymana titled:”

Debt and Migration in the Postcolony. An Enquiry into Greece’s Crisis”.

( I will return to the talk in pt2.) 

Ranabir Samaddar was, with wit and a sharp metaphorism and economical knowledge, giving an analysis regarding capitalsms' reduction of labour to a fluctatious commodity that has no permanent rights. 

-->To return to the video, explanation would fill various pages or not do justice to the elaborate research, proximity and inevitable points of the piece. It was concerning Europe and refugees, and the state of the migrant within EU. The nature of borders in Europe where the nationalist state and borders are at the commands of neo-liberalist politics. I cannot do justice with my own words to describe this piece so I  show stills from the movie, and encourage everyone to see this piece of art. It will make us all more human.

Day 1 in 4 points

1) A workshop that irritated me

2) A video that moved me

3) A lecture that puzzled me

4) A city that heartened me



Its good to be back. 

Is it possible to be true on the stage?
Is it possible to be true in politics?
...true with other people with respect and acceptance for who they are, regardless of the race, social status, nationality, wealth, beauty, coolness or whatever drives the world around. Listen, communicate in being true?

Go fight your fear, be angry, be disappointed, depressed, anxious... be, towards others.

Quoting the singer from Bouchra Khalili's movie: "Sometimes laughter, sometimes tears; Oh my Heart, please be patient; Oh my Heart, have mercy"

Have mercy and be true.

aneducation: from serious reflection and beyond

Post-reflections on 'The School of Gestures'

What was described as...

Gestures include a wide spectrum of codified behaviors and communication—from the simple and unintentional to the complex and mimetic. Together with students from various institutions and over a period of one week in May 2017, the School of Gesture introduces specific histories of the body and examines how power is inscribed on it. Participants engage in a series of gestural exercises, read texts, and take part in both conversations about the archeology of gestures with contributors to documenta 14 and guests.

...quickly descended into a mass of bodies, partially participant driven and partially directed by the artist. Loftily written but,what was in actuality a superficial experience with the apparent end goal of producing beautiful documentation of bodies undulating, isolated, interacting, en masse and very often hyper sexualized. The humanity of the situation was very limited as self assured individuals got up to be photographed and perform as one would in something more closely aligned with high-fashion, with few traces of self consciousness. Reminding of an elaborate Instagram shoot where attractive and relatively homogeneous amateurs become models and the end product was more important than the process. Organizers introduced the "workshop" by talking about the "tasteful" end documentation and that participants should be "present in the moment" and not take any photos but the subtext I gathered from this was that this emphasis on the final documentation and the participants inability to participate its co-creation therefor placed total ownership of final documentation on the organizers. What could have been a participatory, relational, empowering event was reduced to a staged, pseudo-fashion shoot where participants could embrace their inner narcissists as they performed in front of an audience as well as the camera, ultimately to be exploited by the artist/organizer(s) for their future gains.