Tactical Museum

Fumio Nanjo new Director of Mori Art Museum Tokyo

Hi. I have just this minute been informed that Fumio Nanjo was today formally appointed as the new Director of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. David Elliott moves on to become Director of Istanbul Modern. Artnet News has reported on this.

Couple of biennale media

The Singapore Biennale has been open now for over two weeks, and writings, reviews and opinions are slowly emerging. A couple worth checking out are: Tetsuya Ozaki's diary-like review of Singapore and Gwangju at Real Tokyo. Also, Jennifer and Tien from P-10 space in Singapore have been writing and pod-casting about the biennale on ArtSingapore. The podcast is a nice listen.

Post-Biennale

Just returned from Singapore a few days ago, exhuasted but happy that the biennale opened almost totally on time and with no major problems. The opening days were a haze - strange days, as most artists and visitors are there to enjoy themselves, see the exhibition and talk to us, and yet I found myself checking and double-checking installations, calling artists about small details and generally not being able to relax. I suppose the time and energy invested in such an undertaking makes you want to follow things through to the end. The third and final opening night though, was the beginning of a 'post-biennale' period for me. After a high brow French themed party at one of the venues, Tanglin Camp, artists and friends moved into Federico's Herrero's Hammock lounge to continue drinking and partying. I took my i-pod and Director Fumio Nanjo's Bose speakers, as I knew there was no music there, and we set up a wonderful house party, in the true spirit of the term. Now back in Tokyo, it is taking a little time to find my pre-biennale life. Its funny writing this and using terms like post and pre-biennale!
AIT is now working hard on co-organising a closed think tank session this coming weekend together with curator Clementine Deliss, Documenta 12 and the Mori Museum. Topic is The Future Academy, and I have been writing a short text and preparing a 'performance' for this. Over sixty participants from around the world are taking part. I understand that Documenta 12 curators are also here, and will give a small private press briefing. Posts on this later.
Oh yes, Singapore biennale-wise, we are producing a post-exhibition catalogue, and the curators will be in conversation with participating artist Luchezar Boyadjiev via a blog for the next week or so. This is closed, but the resulting conversations and musings will be edited into the catalogue. Related to this, has been my ongoing mammoth image sorting task - I took  nearly two thousand images of the entire process and reviewing them and editing has been something like confrontation therapy.
Teaching begins again this evening.

Paper Pavilion

The Singapore Biennale ticketing, information and press centre will be housed in Shigeru Ban's paper roll pavilion. It is being constructed on the green of Singapore Management University now. Construction seems to be like making a huge LEGO kit.

 

 

 

 

It's about to start.

The barren postings of late are largely due to the imminent Singapore Biennale. I moved to Singapore on July 23, and stay through to the opening of the exhibition on September 1. Although things are still relatively calm at the moment, the momentum is slowly increasing. The first artist I am working with, Takafumi Hara from Japan, arrives tommorrow. Imran Qureshi from Pakistan has been here for nearly one week working on site at the Sultan Mosque. As with these things, it is once artists and assistants start arriving that one begins to enter a swirling zone of seemingly perpetual questions. Works and projects which engage sites and communities invariably start installing early, and these artists will stay in apartments for nearly one month. The big wave then starts arriving from around August 17 onwards, with the final 'assault' arriving August 27 or so. These kinds of exhibitions are truly amazing feats of logistics and micro tactics - and the installation period seems at times like a test of endurance. One thing I learnt from my first experience working on large scale exhibitions (Yokohama Triennale 2001) was to rapidly develop a sense of knowing what to choose to do at any moment. I remember trying to answer every request from artists during the first days of installation, frantically scribbling each question onto a small notepad. Clearly, after a few hours this approach became ridiculous, as each new entry was superceded by another, faster than I could answer them. So, physically unable to proceed, I was forced to learn to 'let go'. What I know is that artists will find ways to realise what they need, even in the most extreme situations. Now, several years on and about to go through a similar 'trauma', I hope that I am a little more prepared - things to remember: never raise one's voice, listen carefully at all times, greet people, eat and drink, remember that it's finally only an art exhibition and generate love.

Famous Faces on Rickshaws

I am working now with Shahidul Alam and DRIK  from Dhaka, Bangladesh for the Singapore Biennale. One of their plans is to ship several rickshaws to Singapore and collaborate with rickshaw painters. Shahidul sent me this rather interesting image recently, of a rickshaw in Dhaka with a double portrait of Osama bin Laden on its rear canopy.

An Oracular Insight: Interviews (Singapore)

I was interviewed on Skype messaging yesterday by Dr Rajinder Jit Singh, who runs An Oracular Insight, a blog about art in Singapore. Raj has been interviewing a number of participating Singapore biennale artists and you can read these interviews and mine HERE.

Artists List for Singapore Biennale 2006

A press conference was made in Singapore last Friday, March 24, where we announced 85 artists participating in the Singapore Biennale 2006. Here is the full list of names:

Bani Abidi
Aida Makoto
Vyacheslav Akhunov
Jane Alexander
Brooke Alfaro
Jonathan Allen
Eugenio Ampudia
Nuha Asad
Agathe de Bailliencourt
A. Balasubramaniam
Shigeru Ban
Yason Banal
Lars Bergström & Mats Bigert
Johanna Billing
Scott Bowe
Luchezar Boyadjiev
Sheba Chhacchi
George Chua; Alwyn Lim; Yuen Chee Wai
Com & Com – Johannes M. Hedinger Marcus Gossolt
Santiago Cucullu
Muratbek Djumaliev; Gulnara Kasmalieva
Drik Picture Library Ltd
Ebtisam Abdul Aziz
Simryn Gill
Khaled Hafez
Usman Haque
Takahumi Hara
Federico Herrero
Ho Tzu Nyen
Jenny Holzer
Hu Fang (Curator) & Zhang Wei (Curator)
Jeon Joon-ho
Jin Shan
Charles Juhasz-Alvarado
Eduardo Kac
N.S. Harsha
Otto Karvonen
Amal Kenawy
Amanda Heng
Shin Il Kim
Barbara Kruger
Zai Kuning
Kuo I-Chen
Vladimir Kuprianov
Takashi Kuribayashi
Yayoi Kusama
Learning Group – Brett Bloom; Julio Castro; Rikke Luther; Cecilia Wendt
Jose Legaspi
Lim Tzay Chuen
Liu Jian Hua
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Mohammad Kazem
Julio Cesar Morales
Mariko Mori
Carsten Nicolai
Tomás Ochoa
Donna Ong
Prachaya Phinthong
Thiago Rocha Pitta
Jaume Plensa
Wilfredo Prieto
Ana Prvacki
Chatchai Puipia
Rizman Putra
Imran Qureshi
R&Sie(n) + D -François Roche Stephanie Lavaux  Jean Navarro; Benoit Durandin
Younès Rahmoun
Rashid Rana
Gustavo Romano
Iepe BT Rubingh
Roy Samaha
Handiwirman Saputra
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Ashok Sukumaran
Nakhee Sung
Agus Suwage  & Titarubi
Erika Tan
Brian Gothong Tan
Ana Maria Tavares
James Turrell
Mark Wallinger
Jason Wee
Jagath Weerasinghe
Xu Bing
YKON – Tellervo Kalleinen Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen ; Sasha Huber & Petri Saarikko

'Gospel Magician' Jonathan Allen and Singapore

I am in Singapore again for a big press conference on Friday the 24th March...we announce the almost full list of artists and exhibition sites and acompanying programmes. I got in on Sunday night and headed to the usual apartment rented for us by the biennale and where Fumio Nanjo (the Director) and I usually stay. It's far nicer than staying in a hotel I think.
Several artists are coming for site visits, among whom is British artist Jonathan Allen. Jonathan gave a great slide talk on Monday evening (see image above), about his practice as a 'Gospel Magician' called Tommy Angel, explaining the historical roots of magic in the European context, the sub-lineage within magic of 'Gosel Magic' which is magic and illusions used by preachers and evangelists for the purposes of imparting religious messages, and introducing his interests in the obvious links between magic, the rise of evangelical Christianity now and the neo-Conservative movement in the US. Jonathan is participating in the biennale, and his art practice engages with our thematic of 'Belief' in incredibly diverse yet central ways.

Just before the Singapore Biennale Rush...

Preparations for the first Singapore Biennale continue at an increasing pace. The opening is on September 2. The curators are now trying to work on a final selection of artists for a press conference to be held March 24 in Singapore. I think we all know what's coming - in a few weeks, things will start to get busy. For me, this means being a hub for approximately twenty or so artists and collectives, thinking through projects and works with them. Its one of the best bits, second only to the whole installing phase prior to the opening. I have noticed that there are curators who prefer to stay behind desks and look on from the sidelines, and then there are those who spend time in the exhibition spaces with the artists - I think I am of the latter persuasion, although scared of heights.
I will have to get my 'installing' trousers out from the bottom of my cupboards soon - a pair of grey mountaineering slacks which have streaks of white paint across the shin areas from a last minute Franz West sculpture painting episode during the 2001 Yokohama Triennale. The remit was to re-paint a Michaelangelo Pistoletto steel slab which formed one part of Franz's sculpture. It was too large to paint by simply leaning over it, so my shins kept scraping its newly painted edges.