Gallery Façade. November 2019.
Exhibition View.
Muntadas. Gestes: la edición. 2003 - 2019. 26 x 17 cm. Print on Hahnemuhle paper.
Marine Hugonnier. Art For Modern Architecture: Granma. Fidel Castro’s Mourning. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 de noviembre y 1,2,3 y 4 de diciembre de 2016. 2018. 47 x 38.5 x 4 cm (framed). Colored vinyl on vintage newspaper.
Nestor Siré & Julia Weist. ARCA [Sección]. 2016 - 2019. Variable measures. Mixed media installation, including a two-channel interactive custom digital operating system and a 64 TB network attached storage device.
Exhibition View.
Hans Haacke. News. 1969/2008. Variable measures. RSS news source, paper and printer, dimensions and choice of variable news sources.
Hans Haacke. News. 1969/2008. Variable measures. RSS news source, paper and printer, dimensions and choice of variable news sources.
Hans Haacke. News. 1969/2008. Variable measures. RSS news source, paper and printer, dimensions and choice of variable news sources.
Muntadas. Drastic Carpets. 1982. Variable measures. Video projection on carpet.
Exhibition View.
Dennis Adams. Double Feature. 2008. 89 x 67 cm (framed) each. 24 framed digital prints of archival pigments on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper.
Dennis Adams. Double Feature. 2008. 89 x 67 cm (framed) each. 24 framed digital prints of archival pigments on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper.
Dennis Adams. Double Feature. 2008. 89 x 67 cm (framed) each. 24 framed digital prints of archival pigments on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper.
Dennis Adams. Double Feature. 2008. 89 x 67 cm (framed) each. 24 framed digital prints of archival pigments on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper.
Exhibition View.
Margia Kramer. Essential Documents: the F.B.I File on Jean Seberg Part I (14 de diciembre de 1979). 1979. 60 x 318 cm. Printing on adhesive vinyl.
Margia Kramer. Essential Documents: the F.B.I File on Jean Seberg Part I (14 de diciembre de 1979). 1979. 60 x 318 cm. Printing on adhesive vinyl.
On Kawara. I Read (1966-1995). 2017. Variable measures. Set of six volumes - 28.65 x 23.1 x 5.1 cm each volume, a total of 3,272 pages, natural wooden box: 37 × 41 × 31.5 cm.
On Kawara. I Read (1966-1995). 2017. Variable measures. Set of six volumes - 28.65 x 23.1 x 5.1 cm each volume, a total of 3,272 pages, natural wooden box: 37 × 41 × 31.5 cm.
Aleksandra Domanovic. 19:30. 2010/11. Variable measures. 2-channel SD color video and sound.
Exhibition View.
Dennis Adams. Double Feature. 2008. 89 x 67 cm (framed) each. 24 framed digital prints of archival pigments on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper.
Exhibition View.
Hans Haacke. News. 1969/2008. Variable measures. RSS news source, paper and printer, dimensions and choice of variable news sources.
Information
The exhibition News, etc. takes as its inspiration a work created by Hans Haacke for the Prospect 69 exhibition at the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1969). Haacke’s News, tested the limits of both conventional exhibition and artistic practice by introducing extra- aesthetic concerns – what he called, “the rest of the world” – into the space of art, activating it as a site for political discourse explicitly. It brought a real-time news feed (in this case, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur) into the gallery with a teletype machine. Wire services then, played a large role in the dissemination of information, with reports most likely focused on Southeast Asia. The war in Vietnam has been called the first “television war.” News anchors often used wire feeds to inform their reports. Such broadcasts, it’s been said, had a huge impact in swaying public opinion against U.S. intervention. 1969 was a pivotal moment in that turn.
The wire services delivered typed messages through telephone lines and telex, or telefax, printers. This replaced the telegraph, which used Morse Code and required trained operators. Web-based RSS (Really Simple Syndication) have come to replace telex wire services. The rise of social media and email subscriptions seem to have diminished RSS use. News and information now come from numerous sources, which are often difficult to account for. With the ubiquity of information comes the withering of reliability. This multiplicity presents extreme challenges to democracy.
From Haacke’s 1969 work, the exhibition began to take form around questions concerning news, media, and information dissemination, as well as their impact on social formation and political discourse. Although the original intent was to focus on delivery systems – I thought to sidestep topicality – the “content” of information was impossible to avoid. Questions about the circulation and formation of public knowledge are inseparable from the particular histories inscribed in those systems. It became clear that information and knowledge are not generalizable concepts, but rather, are specific and bound to both their contents – it is always knowledge about what – and their particular forms of production and transmission. The message it is said, is inseparable from the messenger. Yet unlike its theological designation, the expression here does not refer to prophecy, but rather, to a technological effect. A genie, not a God. The plan developed organically, with works suggesting other works. The resulting exhibition presents a variety of artistic approaches across some 50 years, tracing a select group of artist’s thinking about information, media, and the roles they play in an ever more connected world.
Stephan Pascher, November 2019
Links
This activity is sponsored by the extraordinary grants for the promotion of Spanish contemporary art 2020.