ROASTED PIGEONS or ART LEFT WORK

May 2

Written By Caesura

Last July, I was invited by Steffen Andrae, Hans Innenhof, and Günther Mailand to contribute a piece of criticism to the third edition of a series of concept shows organized by Mailand / Innenhof at Kontor 80, an experimental exhibition hall and event space in Leipzig, Germany. I was to be one of seven critics responding directly to an artwork on view. Each essay was then printed at large scale, mounted on boards, and placed in the exhibition space alongside the works they address, giving a physical presence to the spectre of criticism.

In the organizers’ words:

What is the relationship between art and critique? According to philosopher Robert Pippin, we are trappend in a historical dilemma since the historic failure of the global revolution in the early 20th century. Theory has not yet been able to fully comprehend this problem. Pippin claims that art might have the potential to bring the most fundamental social contradictions to the surface, and thus uncover new possibilities for theory. This also means that art needs a corresponding critique to unfold its very potential. But is this mutual relationship still up to date? Is current theory able to gain insight from works of art? And if so: is there contemporary art that enables such prospects? And what does such art look like?
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“ROASTED PIGEONS or ART LEFT WORK“ seeks to prompt discussion about these questions. Seven authors were invited to write on a series of selected artworks that can be considered revealing with regards to the historical situation of contemporary society. It pursues the fundamental questioning of the common sense prevailing in the current art world as well as in its predominant manifestations.

When they approached Caesura to republish the contributions, we agreed on the condition of adding our own meta-critique as an introduction to the series: Bret Schneider’s “Fellow Travelers — or — The Artist’s Artists.” Now, in celebration of May Day, we gift the whole lot to you, our faithful readers. May the ideas contained within edify your growth.

—Patrick Zapien

Artists: Annika Eriksson, Jonathas de Andrade, Minhye Chu, Artur Żmijewski, Elske Rosenfeld, Mailand / Innenhof

Critics: Allison Hewitt Ward, Patrick Zapien, Martin Dornis & Micha Böhme, Tobias Ertl, Steffen Andrae, Regine Prange

Posts

Martin Dornis & Micha Böhme

Tradition In Sour Times

Martin Dornis & Micha Böhme

The musicians’ interpretation of the song seems to combine tradition and modernity, with the brass band itself representing tradition and the adapted song representing the modern, contemporary. However, the brass orchestras appear oddly out of time, unintentionally comical. They seem to be enacting the funeral of what they represent—the postal service as a state enterprise, tradition, and society before globalization. Yet, for centuries, the postal service symbolized progress, innovation, and renewal.

Martin Dornis & Micha Böhme

Steffen Andrae

Making Mute Relations Speak

Steffen Andrae

If the forced collision of dramatic characters and public situations is understood as a metaphor for art, then according to Mailand / Innenhof, art’s role seems to be that of a troublemaker. However, the “theoretical and practical creation of situations,” which echoes a situationist self-understanding, doesn’t only target scientific or political events. It also aims at the so-called cultural sector, and thus at itself.

Steffen Andrae

Patrick Zapien

Terre Verte

Patrick Zapien

…what goes beyond the performance as surplus action becomes the real content of the film, its driving purpose. The actors don’t only play a version of themselves in Olho da Rua, they act at their acting as well and in such a way that the indications of confidence or doubt that flash across their features are never so clear. Is the feeling theirs or another’s? Is it real or feigned for the camera? Do they themselves know?

Patrick Zapien

Regine Prange

The Round Table and the German Revolution

Regine Prange

Rosenfeld’s treatment of Freimuth’s video recording, which is both poetic and critical, follows the notion of the historical materialist as presented by Brecht’s friend Walter Benjamin in his Theses on the Philosophy of History. Film as historical research does not mean recognizing “how it actually was.”

Regine Prange

Allison Hewitt Ward

On 80064

Allison Hewitt Ward

I do not like 80064. I do not like watching it over and over again for the purpose of this essay. It’s pornographic raw tape of the unmediated real deal. Bullying an old man is a lazy stand-in for the work of art. It would be better to live in in a world in which this video does not exist. But it does.

Allison Hewitt Ward

Tobias Ertl

The Poetics of Disassembly

Tobias Ertl

In Chu’s film, the dismantling becomes a metaphorical operation: it signifies a disassembly of reality into elements—akin to the montage character of film itself. But does this reveal the true reality of social labor? Hardly, because labor resists representation, both in its social function—as a source of surplus value—and in its everyday individual experience.

Tobias Ertl

Bret Schneider

Introduction: Fellow Travelers — or — The Artist’s Artists

Bret Schneider

Trotsky implemented the useful metaphor that art and politics are “fellow travelers". That is, they pursue the same goal of freedom, but by different means.

Bret Schneider

ArtEssayArt CriticismModernism20th Century21st CenturyAvant GardeArt and politicsMarxismVideoFilmMusicKontor 80Leipzig

Caesura

ROASTED PIGEONS or ART LEFT WORK

Denzil Hurley & Brian Sharp at Sebastian Gladstone

Tradition In Sour Times