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| Altermodern – Tate Contemporary Art Triennial Ilze Strazdiņa, Art Critic Altermodern. Tate 4th Contemporary Art Triennial 03.02.-26.24.2009. Tate Britain | |
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From 3 February to 26 April Tate Britain is holding its fourth con-temporary art Triennial. This year the author of the concept for the event is the French curator and culture theoretician Nicolas Bourriaud, who in the Triennial is seeking to explain his latest theory - Altermodern. "Altermodern is an in-progress redefinition of modernity in the era of globalisation, stressing the experience of wandering in time, space and mediums. The term ‘altermodern' has its roots in the idea of ‘other-ness' (Latin alter = ‘other', with English connotation of ‘different') and suggests a multitude of possibilities, of alternatives to a single route. It suggests that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end, symbolised by global financial crises." - Nicolas Bourriaud. This time Bourriaud, whose 1998 concept of Relational Aesthetics made him one of the most influential contemporary art theoreticians of the last decade, is challenging the art world to reevaluate Postmodernism, which is perhaps already "getting rusty", as he puts it himself. He argues that the nomadic art of today is rooted in a global, not local point of origin, it is immediately accessible and mobile, thus revealing a new state in the human condition. He draws parallels with the oil crisis of 1973 and argues that the Postmodernist discourse emerged precisely within that particular context, marking the end of superabundance and endless progress. He writes: "The oil crisis swept away the economy that was founded on an unlimited confidence in the availability of energy, and culture on an infinite projection into the future. Capitalism has since disconnected from natural resources, reorienting itself towards technological innovation - the choice of Japan - or "financiarisation the route adopted at the time by United States. And now, when the economy is cutting its ties with concrete geography, culture for its parts divorcing from history; to parallel processes tending towards abstract" In the context of today's economic and ecological crisis, Alter-modernism is the story of the reassessment of these two parallel processes, and the possibility of a new modern movement based on constant diversity, a common perception and the freedom of exploration. As a cultural provocateur, with the use of theory Bourriaud is trying to sketch in some starting points for this new narrative for global culture, pointing out that the British art triennial is the best place and the way to illustrate this theory: "Where better than London to feel the energy of nomadism and to experience the experiences that may have started somewhere else?" One cannot disagree with this, as London is truly like a magnet. It attracts those who have been introduced to western Modernism in other geographic locations, thus overturning any notion about the possibility of a single, universal modernist experience. In order to better illustrate this theory, Bourriaud has included in the exhibition not just artists born in Great Britain, or ones who currently live there, but also those who visit on a regular basis. Upon entering the gallery it is impossible to miss the 10 m nuclear mushroom constructed out of stainless steel pots and pans - the work of Subodh Gupta, one of the most distinctive Indian artists of the moment. Called Line of Control, it is a symbol of tension, conflict and explosion, while the pots and pans evoke thoughts of everyday peace and harmony. Accessibility, and the potential for a variety of interpretations within different geographical contexts make Gupta's work fit in well with this narrative of alternative Modernism. The inclusion and the positioning of this particular piece in the exhibition creates a heightened sense of expectation, while it also reveals the curator's emotional game when arranging the layout of the exposition. | |
 Spartacus Chetwynd. Hermitos Children. DVD. TV Wall. 2008. Courtesy the artist, Herald St.Gallery. (C) Tate Photography | |
| The exhibition is divided up almost imperceptibly into four zones, in which the works complement each other in an attempt to address the themes posed by the theory of Altermodern. The first dimly lit room of the exhibition contains Bob & Roberta Smith's textual intervention, in which the artists interpret weekly conversations with the curator; Ruth Ewan's giant accordion, intended for playing protest songs of various eras and cultures; David Noonan's object - a group of protesters or perhaps raver figures; Spartacus Chetwynd's TV wall which plays Hermitos Children, a fictional TV drama; and Mike Nelson's Projection Room (2004), which, unlike his customary site-specific installations, is best viewed from a distance. Rebelliousness, the underground, obscenity, defiance, paranoia - the common, the collective and, at the same time, the different.
The next room, which holds an installation by the German artist Franz Ackermann, consisting of large-scale paintings in bright fluorescent colours à la kinetic sculpture and watercolour sketches, the mental maps of some geographic location, is like a prelude for the part of the exhibition that attempts to discover the influence of mobility and artists as tourists/travellers on contemporary civilisation. Here we also see the photogravure The Russian Ending (2001) by Tacita Dean. A series of enlarged old photographs, bought at flea markets all over Europe, show natural and human-made catastrophes in various geographic locations. The photographs are accompanied by a commentary, notes on the sound and the movement of the camera, and scratchings of short stories, which all together create an impression of various potential movie screenplays. The printed materials of the exhibition explain that Dean created the work in Copenhagen, and that it was inspired by an early 20th-century Danish film industry tale about films made with two endings. A happy ending for the American public, and another, a tragic one, for Russian viewers. Dean's textual intervention is witty and rich in metaphor, but all of these fictional scenarios are united by a common - tragic - ending. The mobility of objects and people, as well as global abstraction, are also at the centre of Walead Beshty's art. The starting point of Beshty's works is the photographic process. At this exhibition he presents large-scale photograms, created by running photo-sensitive paper through airport X-ray machines. These abstract images are accompanied by another of his works FedEx Large Kraft Boxes 330508, International Priority, Los Angeles-Tijuana, Tijuana-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-London, 2008. Beshty used these FedEx boxes to ship fragile class cubes of the same size. Each impact during the transit had left obvious marks on the walls of the boxes. The fragility of glass unwittingly provokes thoughts of endless global movement and its brutal effects, to which we, like objects, are subjected at the time of transportation. | |
 Walead Beshty. Installation of FedEx Large Kraft Boxes 330508, International Priority, Los-Angeles-Tijuana, Tijuana-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-London, October 28, 2008 - January 16, 2009. Glass with safety glass laminate, silicon, cardboard. 2008. Courtesy Wallspace, New York and China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles. (C) Tate Photography | |
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The next section of the exhibition is marked by the freedom of exploration mentioned previously, characterized by the artists' interest in various research processes. This idea is outlined by the works of Joachim Koester and Olivia Plender. Koester's installation The Hashish Club consists of an abstract 16 mm film with cannabis plants as its main characters, with photographs of decadent 19th-century interiors and the subdued light of Moroccan lanterns. These three elements by themselves do not reveal much, perhaps only creating some intrigue. As with the majority of contemporary art, be it Postmodern or Altermodern, additional information is needed to understand the thought processes and revelations of the artist. The exhibition catalogue informs that The Hashish Club is a reference to Le Club des Hashischins, a group of Parisian intellectuals from the 1940s; at its core was a collective fascination with the effects of drugs and the way they affect creativity. The members of this group gathered in the lavish interiors of Hôtel de Lauzun, where the "green paste" was served in Oriental china dishes. The hashish was supplied by Dr Jacques-Joseph Moreau, a psychologist who likened the effect of drugs to the symptoms of mental illness. Olivia Plender's work Machine Shall be the Slave of Man, but We Will Not Slave for the Machine, in turn, attempts to understand historical veracity and the romantic concept of returning to the era of pre-industrial civilisation. Exploring the nearly-forgotten British youth movement of Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, the artist draws parallels with historical times of crisis and the glorification of the national past. The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift organisation started in the 1920s as a leftist leisure time education programme. Later, during the crisis of the 1930s, the group was radicalised and transformed into a political movement called The Green Shirts, which campaigned for Social Credit - economic reform - and was linked to several public incidents at the time. Plender's installation consists of a museum-like display case filled with various mementos, clothing items and letters. The monitor of an outmoded computer plays a video of Plender's notes from travels in time and history. After seeing the exhibition up to this point, I couldn't shake the thought that Bourriaud's theory really is a true description of many of the processes of art and its production over the last decade. Within the context of exploration, I am reminded of the Critical Art Ensemble's campaign of 2005-2008, Research is Not Terrorism, or in the context of mobility - the countless works of local media and network art. Bourriaud deliberately ignores media art, searching for the representation of these ideas in installations and in painting. I personally find it difficult to understand this unwillingness to enter the debate of art and medium, because to some extent the works of the exhibition have been reduced to something like a clumsy visual interface for Bourriaud's ideas, while leaving undisturbed the relationship between art and the market. It seems that Gustav Metzger's Liquid Crystal Environment has been included in the exhibition as a counter-argument to such thoughts. For many years Metzger's work has balanced on the borderline of art, science and politics. Known as the initiator of the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium, Metzger, now 83, has come to symbolise the steadfastness of the free spirit of an artist in the face of the establishment. His Auto-Destructive art projects and performances have not produced any ob-jects that could be preserved for posterity in collections, therefore it is always a treat to see the reconstructions of his works in real life. Liquid Crystal Environment consists of five projectors, each of which projects a small amount of liquid crystal pressed between two glass slides. As the crystals heat up or cool, they create psychedelic effects of colour and shape. This work was first made by Metzger in 1966 and was shown at a concert by Cream and The Who. This work marks out very clearly another aspect of the Altermodern theory - it is not just based in today's reality, or indeed is something completely new. It has existed in parallel to other movements, and, as Bourriaud himself points out, in his opinion even "Queer theory is more Altermodern than Postmodern." The final part of the exhibition stresses the importance of the post-colonial heritage in Altermodern theory. The curator illustrates this section with Shez Dawood's zombie Western movie Feature. In the film, Hindu deities and cowboys enter into mutual pacts and solve the issues of the end of the world. A mixture of Western and Eastern cultures and identities has long been part of Dawood's works, while its focus is kept on the theories of image and representation. Culture and identity is also at the core of Navin Rawanchaikul's work. One of the films documents the artist's return to his ancestral country, Pakistan, another portrays several elderly Indian immigrants' memories of life in their birthplace and their current home, Thailand. Another touching piece is Rawanchaikul's letter to his daughter, who was born and lives in Japan. It explains the artist's own childhood identity troubles. However the most striking representatives of the ethnic and postcolonial struggle are the artist and documentary filmmakers - Black Audio Film Collective. Founded in the 1980s, their work event today best represents troubles of British postcolonial past. Although the Triennial will only last three months, curator Bourriaud has envisaged events, debates and activities spanning the entire year, making this exhibition just one of the reference points in the exposition of the concept. The published catalogue documents the events taking place over the year, and also includes writers' and theoreticians' views on the question posed by the curator. Okwui Enwezor's article Modernity and Postcolonial Ambivalence analyses the feasibility of Altermodern and brings us back to the definitions of Modernism within the context of the aforementioned post-colonial discourse, while The End of Exile: Towards a Coming Universality by T.J. Demos draws attention to the subject of mass migration and the nomadic identity. Interestingly, unlike a customary exhibition catalogue, where the descriptions of the artists' works are usually the curators' interpretations, this publication presents the artists' own thoughts on the works and their context, as well as transcripts of conversations and e-mails, and quotes from other catalogues. Textual and conceptual polyphony resonates in the ideas of multitude and hybrid identities of the Postmodernist theoreticians like Hardt and Negri. However, in his Altermodern theory Bourriaud does not deny the significance of those. He reworks them with the aid of post-colonial theories, with their different starting points, and contemporary network theories, to provide the option of returning to a reevaluation of the basic principles of Modernism and once more addresses the question of the future. Time will tell if this "other" Modernism can change our understanding of contemporary cultural processes, but one thing is clear - Bourriaud has set the fire to the ideas of the latter half of the 20th century and has highlighted the wish of the first decade of the 21st century for a new, future-orientated beginning. Lets hope there will not be a tragic ending. /Translator into English: Līva Ozola/ | |
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