ARTISTS
Frieze Flash: Spotlight on Special Projects
This year's Special Projects segment of Frieze explores artistic narratives in contemporary society, and each artist interprets this relationship in a different way . We caught up with Dutch duo Bik Van der Pol in an exclusive interview, and give a sneak peak at the other artists showcasing their creations in this faction of the fair.
黑料不打烊
11 Oct, 2011
The Frieze Art Fair's 2011 Special Projects is a celebration of the old (history), the new (technology), and the role of the environment - and how all of this relates to modern culture. Each artist explores these interconnected themes in a different way, and reflects upon curator Sarah McCrory鈥檚 vision. 鈥淚 am specifically interested in artists working with new technology, especially those who inhabit both the Internet as well as the real world. I think we're going to see more artists working in this kind of close-knit-yet-worldwide community,鈥� the curator says.
"Scoreboard" (under construction; minus the human participants!) work by Bik Van der Pol, which will be displayed at Frieze 2011's Special Projects segment of the fair. Image courtesy of the artist.
黑料不打烊 had the pleasure of interviewing one of the artists presenting at this year鈥檚 Special Projects: Dutch artist duo Bik Van der Pol. Comprised of compatriots Jos and Liesbeth, the Rotterdam-based collaborators have worked together since 1995, creating a multitude of pieces that often fuse installation work and architecture. For this year鈥檚 Frieze, they will be making a 鈥榮coreboard鈥� of sorts, creating a narrative animated by live participants who will continuously reform text to spell out a variety of abstract messages to the audience. 鈥淭he texts will be sometimes humorous, sometimes very well known, sometimes total non-sense, and sometimes deep and thoroughly wise,鈥� the duo said cryptically. Check out our interview with this unique pair of collaborators, ahead of Thursday鈥檚 Frieze opening:
黑料不打烊: How did this project come about? What is the idea or the inspiration behind it?
Bik Van der Pol: We wanted to make something that is continuously changing and flexible and that is somehow reflecting the art fair itself as a flexible format, as well as reflecting on the economic, intellectual and passionate activities going on there. We were also thinking a lot of the aviary of Cedric Price. The temporary tent structure of the Fair in Regents Park is a little like the aviary he built in the nearby zoo: flexible and impermanent. Just like the Frieze art fair designed the tent structure for the art community that is gathering annually, the aviary was designed for a community of birds. Price's idea was that when the community was established, it would be possible for them to remove the netting, which was just temporarily, only needed just as long as the birds would start to feel at home. An extra skin around the Fair would however be problematic.
Then we saw an image of a live score-board, the one they use at cricket matches, and decided to use this as a starting point, since it is a temporary construction accommodating continuous change, is performative, and would be able to be a platform for reflection, and function as some sort of advert, some sort of billboard. The temporal provisional aspect is important, but also the visual aspect is. Thinking about time and movement, Mondrian's last painting Victory Boogie Woogie came in mind as a work that reflects the rhythm of jazz and frantic city movements, and we decided to incorporate this in our living billboard. Would [Mondrian] have lived longer, he might have ended up with a score-board, we imagined, taking also in consideration his studio environment and his definite affinities with architecture and urban life. We see this living billboard as a sketch board, a test site; continuously changing, sometimes to the point, sometimes off the point, and always entertaining.
The Artist's most recent work: As Above, So Below, by Bik Van der Pol, (2011) for Living As Form, organized by Creative Time; September 24-October 16, 2011, displayed in New York City (Essex and Delancey Streets)
MA: How is this similar or different to your other site installation and performance works?
BVP: We think this one is just bigger than many of our other works. We have reflected on advertising and billboards before, for example in our work Absolut Stockholm, where we took the Absolut billboard ad, furnished by IKEA, into the museum space as a 'vehicle' to open up the discussion on the importance of public space for the development of democratic space. Or the floating dock we built in a lake and recreational area, for the Lyon Biennale. This work hinted towards Paris 鈥�68 and the Lumiere brothers, who, as one of the early inventors of film, were also the first ones to not only record daily life, but also tourism on celluloid. Often we create discussion pieces, as we like to call them - discursive platforms that open up spaces (physical spaces, spaces of knowledge), and invite the audience to enter that space and engage with what it is offering, be it sleeping with a film, reading and buying books, doing walks in far-out urban developments, performing for a film, diving in the water, or hanging out in a kitchen...[Right now] we are working towards a big long-term project in one of the biggest mining cities in the world, in Canada, where we will develop a project dealing with the blackened (due to pollution) rocks, the impact of human activities on nature, and the impact of nature itself on life. We are also developing a project in the Netherlands in the Bijlmer, a 70-s newt-town and part of Amsterdam, on the issue of 鈥榬evolution鈥�.
MA: You've used people in some of your other works as well. What's it like using a "live" medium?
BVP: We feel we never 'use' people in our work. We mildly lure people into our work, which hopefully engages them to relate to the content, at some point in time. We always inform them, thoroughly. We give them something; they take something. That to us is more a reciprocity or exchange than a use, unless the economy of exchange is: using people - which also sometimes seems to be the case in daily life. We have worked with other live medium as well: birds, butterflies. The only way you can do that is doing it very precisely and very caringly. So in those cases we have worked with entomologists, bird-specialists and breeders, and people who informed the audience; and we make sure that the environment we build for them is generous, exactly the right climate, and that they are taken care of very well. However, despite all precautions, you do sometimes meet a lot of aggression, because people sometimes think you will abuse the birds or butterflies. (*See video, below) [And] there are always challenges and limits; space-wise, budget-wise, or in other ways. The public is an issue, perhaps more particular here than in other cases, though when you have been invited to think through a site-specific or site-sensitive project, or when you work on a project that is reflecting on urban developments, public is always a factor.
MA: After watching and participating in your piece, what message do you want fairgoers to walk away with?
BVP: We hope the audience will see the work, that they will think about time, about labour, about pace, about human activities, including those at the fair and including their own activities. And we hope they will smile, not only once in awhile, but often! (*Check out the video from Bik Vand der Pol's 'Butterfly Pavilion' - "Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?" at the Macro Museum in Rome).
...And be sure not to miss the other artists in the Special Projects sector of Frieze:
Christian Jankowski: German artist Christian Jankowski's work is all about collaboration: his performance, video, and installation art require participation from subjects in order to construct his artistic narrative. True to his form, his 2011 Frieze project is executed in partnership with a luxury yacht company; a boat dealer will sell a full-sized yacht from a traditional gallery stand, and all visitors can enter the boat, hear about its features, and become potential boat buyers themselves. It's a double treat: a luxury yacht and a genuine Jankowski artwork, all rolled into one.
Pierre Huyghe: Also exploring the collaborative process is French artist Pierre Huyghe, who's live marine ecosystem illustrates a complex narrative enacted by his unknowing participants: the marine life in his aquarium. Pierre's sea-creature "players" are part of a site-specific work created especially for Frieze, and will illustrate an intimate aquatic reality that is in stark contrast to the rest of the fair scene.
Peles Empire: Formed by German artists Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff, Peles Empire is a veritable 鈥渒ingdom鈥� created by these two collaborators in 2005. The inspiration? Peles, a Romanian castle built between 1873 and 1913 at the bottom of the Carpathian Mountains. A joyful cacophony of architectural styles (from Renaissance to Art Deco and Gothic Revival) distinguish this abode from other run-of-the-mill palaces. The two artists have reconstructed nine different rooms of the castle with photocopied montages, and will install a functioning bar inside the work. 鈥淧eles Empire's bar will be open all fair for you to take down a glass of Romanian Schnapps in their 19th Century Romanian Castle environment,鈥� says McCrory. All that鈥檚 happening inside this copied castle - from the serving of guests, to the replicated room and its elaborate furniture - is part of the installation piece. Enjoy a tasty drink and become part of this innovative work! (Above: Peles Empire Amygdala, 2009, 'Friendly Takeovers, GAK Bremen)
Oliver Laric: Audience members can also participate in Oliver Laric鈥檚 project - without even setting foot in the Fair. Laric, a German artist based in Berlin, will be utilizing specialized high-resolution cameras to create a digital cinematographic portfolio that will be displayed on the web. The images will be captured from in and around the fair, giving viewers across the world access to Frieze from their computer screens. Typically this footage is only available for purchase, to be used by corporate firms, but thanks to Laric鈥檚 innovative idea, the best of Frieze will be reconceptualized in his vision, and available for all to experience.
Laure Prouvost: Exploring social environments through her often humorous narratives, Laure Prouvost鈥檚 works聽are typically centered on single events, but the responses they elicit are always complex. Her works are witty, at times sarcastic, and always thought-provoking, and the pieces produced for Frieze follow along this vein. Her hand-painted signs playfully examine issues of language, environment and orientation, incorporating the Fair鈥檚 architecture into her artistic responses.
Lucky PDF: Artist group Lucky PDF is comprised of James Early, John Hill, Ollie Hogan and Yuri Pattison. This team of 25-year-old artists has been working together since 2008, and collaborate with an ever-changing crew of emerging artists to produce online TV shows, events, and interventions. For Frieze, Lucky PDF stays true to their trademark camaraderie and will invite other artists to create new work for a sequence of live broadcasts from the fair, produced daily. Talking about the group, McCrory says, 鈥渢hey are a four man team, who are producing a daily live television show from the fair, which you can watch live, or online. There are over 50 artists involved, screening film, performing, and making projects ranging from Takeshi Shiomitsu's Art Karaoke, to Paul Richards' performance with wrestlers in the fair, and Rafa毛l Rozendaal's one question interviews.鈥� Visitors can witness the production first-hand with open rehearsals in the project studio, and watch art become reality on the numerous screens placed throughout the fair. Like Laric鈥檚 work, Lucky PDF鈥檚 Frieze piece will also be accessible to viewers at home, through the Frieze Foundation website.
Cara Tolmie: 鈥�Cara Tolmie will be worth keeping an eye open for. She'll perform outside, once a day, and is an amazing young Scottish artist,鈥� raves McCrory. And Tolmie certainly is a jack-of-all-trades: her body of work covers performance, video, music, text, installation and spoken word. Tolmie鈥檚 producing a new performance piece especially for Frieze, which will focus on oral narrative mechanisms to create a figurative space, outlined through music, song, and spoken word. This unique artist extrapolates manifold meaning by analyzing a single reality or landscape, which she then transforms into a film, performance, or song. (Above: 'Chronicle,' video, 2011, by Cara Tolmie)
Written by 黑料不打烊.com writer Lauren Meir
