The Spanish artist group Democracia and the Romanian artist duo Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor (Revolutie) use artistic experiments to explore means of dealing with reigning social conditions and inequities in order to navigate a way out of powerlessness. With accompanying program Polizey.
Curator: Holger Kube Ventura
Concept POLIZEY: Felix Trautmann
Economic crises, floods of refugees, climate change, and terrorism. Every day the media
report on crises, catastrophes, and global hazards. In the face of such media-driven and real
threat scenarios arises a diminishing sense of trust in the capacity of governments to act.
Political control mechanisms are apparently insufficient, and political alienation is on the
rise. The result is a feeling of powerlessness, produced both by the impression of ongoing
governmental malfunction and sustained social injustice as well as seemingly unresolvable
catastrophe scenarios. The powerlessness of a society can lead to dictatorships and wars.
For the individual, powerlessness can foster internal withdrawal or political radicalization.
Media reports contribute significantly to this powerless view of the world and to skepticism
towards the leadership capacity of the state. In the competition for attention the media
must obviously inflate the relevance of events or situations, speculating about their threat
potential and creating monsters in the process. Mistakes thereby become scandals, partial
successes turn into failures, accidents are made into catastrophes, crises are billed as global
crises, and news becomes a negative sensation.
According to Guy Debord the society of the spectacle is characterized by a successful blinding of the
populace through consumption and the satisfaction of individual desires. In the present, one might
view the core of the spectacle as situated in catastrophe and in aporetic skepticism. The question of
exploring contemporary forms of Situationist experiments thus becomes a relevant issue for critical
cultural projects. In the face of a superior power, how can powerlessness become a situation that
reopens the game?
POWERLESSNESS, A SITUATION consists of the two exhibitions DEMOCRACIA and REVOLUTIE
as well as the accompanying program POLIZEY. The Spanish artist group Democracia (Madrid) and
the Romanian artist duo Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor (Bucharest) use artistic experiments to
explore means of dealing with reigning social conditions and inequities in order to navigate a way out
of powerlessness. The event program organized by Felix Trautmann (Frankfurt) examines the role of
the police in the assertion and transformation of the prevailing order.
DEMOCRACIA
The Spanish artist group Democracia was founded in 2006 in Madrid by Pablo España
and Iván López. Its projects are a continuation of the activities of the renowned group El
Perro (1998–2006). Democracia’s artistic practice is based on interventions in the social
and political fabric. Drawing on Situationist strategies, Democracia stages prevailing social
conditions that function as trial situations and process-driven scenarios. They are conceived
as participatory works in order to test the potential for active involvement. The projects
consistently focus on the manipulative potential of media images and appropriate popular
and propagandistic strategies of mass communication. At times the artistic approach of
Democracia recalls the provocative projects of Christoph Schlingensief. Using the gesture of
irony, Democracia exaggerates given social circumstances as a strategy to raise awareness
for problems. Particularly through the experimental and playful nature of their work the
Spanish artist group challenges viewers to reflect on their political, social, and media habits.
They address a wide range of issues, from the approach to ETA terrorism in the Basque
Country to the self-sufficient strategies of the poor in a consumer society. To realize their
ideas the members of Democracia work with various segments of the population, for
example with radical football fans, adolescent Parkour athletes, and inhabitants of poor
neighborhoods.
The artistic work of Democracia usually takes the form of large-scale installations of
multiple-channel video projections in combination with photographs, objects, banners, etc.
Sometimes they also produce large-scale bronze sculptures. Their monumental sculptures,
seldom exhibited, will be on view in the exhibition at the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
REVOLUTIE
Mona Vătămanu (*1968 in Constanţa, RO) and Florin Tudor (*1974 in Geneva, CH) have
been working as an artist duo since 2000. Their artistic practice includes film, photography,
painting, performance, participatory and site-specific projects, and installations. Working
with themes related to architecture and urbanism, Vătămanu/Tudor combine abstract
history and concrete memory in poetic acts and performative gestures. Social or political
issues are not directly represented in pictures or shapes; instead the fictional and
constructed character of representation is emphasized. They often situate historical
fragments in paradoxical contemporary narratives, first making a political context visible
and then enabling its analysis.
In “Democracia, Revolutie & Polizey” works of Vătămanu/Tudor are presented that relate to
upheavals in social systems in recent decades, in particular the ideological consequences of
the Romanian Revolution that ended on December 25, 1989 with the execution of the
Ceausescus. These works by Vătămanu/Tudor address “revolution” (in Romanian:
“revolutie”) as a concept onto which associated ideas are projected: its promise of liberation
from powerlessness as well as its potential and inspiration as a form of romantic
transfiguration.
First shown at the Venice Biennale in 2011, Vătămanu/Tudor’s super-8 film “Rite of Spring”
(2010) depicts a typical, almost ritualistic children’s game on the streets of Bucharest. The
game is played every spring, when the poplar trees bloom and their seeds are blown by the
wind into large piles that collect in the gutters of the streets. Children have great fun
igniting the soft flocks with a lighter to see how far the fire will continue down along the
curb. Flames sometimes dart up from large piles, and with a bit of luck the blaze even
spreads. The image of this children’s game seems to harbor dangerous and revolutionary
potential—even more so when one learns that the film was shot along the dilapidated streets
that still persist in the center of Bucharest, near Ceausescu’s “People’s Palace,” which now
houses the Romanian Parliament. The children’s playful act of arson is a poetic and
provocative gesture that bears the promise of renewing the established system. Yet it also
has a melancholic note: the cute little fire quickly extinguishes, and the children burn no
more than a finger in the process. This ambivalence is underscored by the film’s lack of an
audio track—there is neither ambient sound nor a voiceover.
POLIZEY
The preservation of a political order and the enforcement of its laws always seem to require
an organization that can be relied upon in case of doubt. This organization continues to be
the “police.” Everyone knows the police or how they look. However, a few people in uniform
alone do not constitute a police force. The policing practices of prevention, control, and the
prosecution of criminals—whether carried out in a visible or concealed manner—permeate
all aspects of society. The history of the modern police and the adaptation of police work to
the given conditions of changing historical eras demonstrate its close correlation between
the police force and social conditions. Policing not only influences political, social, and legal
coexistence but also the self-understanding of every individual, from everyday habits to the
expression of political will. What conditions govern to what extent the police is established
as this power in society? Who are the police? Who calls them? Who contradicts/confronts
them and who takes on this profession and for what reasons? Subjective experiences with
the police as well as everyday police work equally raise questions as to the social role and
function of the police.
The police become a subject of criticism as soon as they fail their mandate, for example by
exacerbating a state of insecurity or overstepping their jurisdiction. As both an armed force
and a power of government, the institution of the police gives rise to the unsettling question
as to whether there is an inherent element to the police that can never be sufficiently
civilized—a question that then undermines the legitimation of the police as a govermental
instrument for preserving the established order.
“Polizey” is a program of events that addresses these questions and issues through a range
of formats. It includes artist talks, panel discussions, lectures, performances, and film
screenings.
Image: Democracia, "FCGB Merchandising Stall", 2009
Press contact:
Anne Kaestner Replacing Head of PR & Marketing +49 (0)69 219314-30 presse@fkv.de
Press preview: Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 11:00 am
Opening Wednesday, June 12, 7 pm
9 pm DJ-Set On Police with Felix Trautmann, his friends and helpers
Frankfurter Kunstverein
Steinernes Haus am Römerberg, Markt 44, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
Hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 11 am – 7 pm
Wednesday: 11 am – 9 pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10 am – 7 pm
Monday closed
ENTRY: 6 € (reduced: 4 €)