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15/7/2011

Two exhibitions

Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz

AI WEIWEI

When Ai Weiwei was invited to mount a big solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz one and a half years ago, no one could have foreseen the present situation. At the beginning of April 2011, the artist was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport and, after two-and-a-half months of uncertainty, was released on bail. While Ai Weiwei is thus no longer being detained, he must nevertheless fulfill strict bail conditions. He is forbidden to leave Peking without permission for the next 12 months, to speak about his captivity, and to give press interviews. He is accused by the Chinese government of economic offences. According to a close friend, the tax authorities have imposed fines in the millions.

Many influential politicians including the American President and the Foreign Ministers of Austria and Germany protested in response to Ai Weiwei’s disappearance in April. Leading intellectuals, Nobel laureates, and a large number of cultural producers expressed support for the artist. Numerous art institutions also organized actions and petitions. A petition for Ai Weiwei’s release, which the Kunsthaus Bregenz supported both on its website and in an action at the Venice Biennale, was signed by more than 100,000 people. Now as then, in view of the travel ban and gag order, the KUB is actively campaigning for the artist’s release.
We have often been asked in recent weeks whether the exhibition will take place. In our view, it is more important than ever right now to show Ai Weiwei’s work, not only because the Kunsthaus Bregenz show concentrates on his architectural collaborations and hence deals with a hitherto undertreated aspect of his extremely diverse oeuvre, but above all because we are convinced that it is necessary to keep interest in and discussion of this major artist’s work and his persecution by the Chinese state in the public eye. While Ai Weiwei’s exhibitions have met with worldwide interest in recent years—at documenta 12 (2007) where he was one of the most noticed participants, or at big solo exhibitions/projects at the Haus der Kunst Munich (2009/10) and the Turbine Hall Tate Modern in London (2010/11)—the current gag order prevents him from making any kind of public statement.

Although the Kunsthaus Bregenz exhibition was not planned as a reaction to current events, it is nevertheless important, because the works and their spatial layout were selected and conceived by Ai Weiwei himself in close cooperation with the Kunsthaus. From the start, the artist and we agreed that not only formal criteria and the cultural positioning of his architecture, but also its social and political significance, should be dealt with, despite the fact that past involvement in the specific Chinese situation, in Chinese society’s structural and urban problems, has led to his repeated repression by the Chinese government. Two years ago, for instance, the artist received a serious head injury at the hands of the police while attempting to stand witness for a man who investigated into the collapse of school buildings that cost thousands of children’s lives during the Sichuan earthquake. The shoddy construction work that caused the accidents was attributable to corruption. Last year’s demolition of Ai Weiwei’s studio complex in Shanghai shortly after its completion was a further state attempt to pressurize and intimidate Ai Weiwei. However, the artist remained unswervingly critical and filmed the demolition, creating a video work that is part of the Bregenz exhibition. We are also showing his well-known videos documenting the ring freeways of Beijing with static shots that give an eloquent commentary on the urban situation in the city.

The KUB exhibition concentrates on Ai Weiwei’s major architectural collaborations developed with other architectural practices. The exhibition begins strategically on the first floor with architectural models, plans, photographs, and video documentations of specific building projects, then, on the next two floors, the concept of architecture becomes progressively more abstract. Alongside Ai Weiwei’s Shanghai studio, buildings jointly designed with the young Swiss architectural practice HHF are on show on the first floor. A highlight of the architectural collaborations is Ai Weiwei in his capacity as artistic advisor to Herzog & de Meuron for their famous Beijing stadium. We are also showing Jindong New District, not so well known as the stadium, but no less remarkable in its specific articulation, a collaboration planned by the Swiss duo in talks with Ai Weiwei. It was at the mediation of Ai Weiwei, who was initially engaged for the project, that Herzog & de Meuron received the commission for the growing city quarter of Jindong in the megacity of Jinhua in Zhejiang Province in south China. Ai Weiwei, however, gave priority to another collaboration with the Swiss practice in Jinhua itself, the birthplace of his father Ai Qing, a highly revered poet in China. A spectacular new work produced for the exhibition and covering the entire second-story floor space of 500 m2 is on show at the Kunsthaus Bregenz. The work’s hybrid aesthetic status alone—between an architectural model and a free work of art—makes it impressive.

The work has its roots in the architectural cooperation ORDOS 100 (2008) when Ai Weiwei devised a masterplan for which he invited 100 young architectural practices worldwide to design single-family houses. Moon Chest (2008) a work that was realized in relation to no specific building, is exhibited in a specially developed arrangement on the top floor. Although the work is a classical, autonomous sculpture in the tradition of Minimal Art, its elongated rectangular forms instantly remind one of highrise buildings.

Should the ban on travel and the gag order imposed on Ai Weiwei not have been lifted—as is unfortunately expected—by the time the exhibition opens in July 2011, the Kunsthaus Bregenz will utilize the popularity of the exhibition to support the cause of the artist. A variety of solidarity projects are planned.

Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is a Chinese conceptual artist, sculptor, architect and curator. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, amongst others at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2010), Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland (2010), Stiftung DKM, Duisburg (2010), Mies Van der Rohe Pavillon, Barcelona (2009), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2009), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009). He participated in the 48th Venice Biennale, Guangzhou Trienniale 2002 in China, Biennale of Sydney 2006 and documenta 12. For documenta he created the project Fairytale and the outside work Template, which collapsed following a heavy storm. Amongst his most important architectural projects are the Beijing National Stadium for the Summer Olympics 2008 and Ordos 100, both in collaboration with the Swiss architectural office Herzog & de Meuron.

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ANFANG GUT. ALLES GUT.
Actualizations of the futurist opera Victory Over the Sun (1913)

The Futurist opera Victory over the Sun, which received its premiere at the Lunapark Theater in St. Petersburg in 1913, attempted to “create a collective work based on language, painting, and music.” Its authors – the poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh, the composer and painter Michail Matjuschin, and the painter Kazimir Malevich – wished to construct an “anti-harmonious” work against the current of their time. This was in Czarist Russia in the years between industrial modernization and peasant ser fdom and after the attempted revolution of 1905. While in their enthusiasm for technology the Italian Futurists had already glorified machinery before World War I and brought it to bear against people, Russian Futurism took off from an idea of the future that seemed possible only by fundamentally deconstructing the as yet scarcely industrialized present.

Anfang gut. Alles gut. is the long-term project of an evergrowing group of currently forty international artists, musicians, architects, and writers who are picking up the threads of the past and actualizing them. Since 2008 those involved have drawn on the historical text and documentations of its performances as well as the opera’s reception history to develop formats translating the almost 100- year-old material in contemporary forms into the present. To begin with, the producers selected individual aspects of the opera, such as characters, costumes, stage set, text, music, or lighting and made them the starting point for their own artistic explorations.

The Futurist opera Victory over the Sun, which received its premiere at the Lunapark Theater in St. Petersburg in 1913, attempted to “create a collective work based on language, painting, and music.” Its authors – the poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh, the composer and painter Michail Matjuschin, and the painter Kazimir Malevich – wished to construct an “anti-harmonious” work against the current of their time. This was in Czarist Russia in the years between industrial modernization and peasant ser fdom and after the attempted revolution of 1905. While in their enthusiasm for technology the Italian Futurists had already glorified machinery before World War I and brought it to bear against people, Russian Futurism took off from an idea of the future that seemed possible only by fundamentally deconstructing the as yet scarcely industrialized present.
Anfang gut. Alles gut. is the long-term project of an evergrowing group of currently forty international artists, musicians, architects, and writers who are picking up the threads of the past and actualizing them. Since 2008 those involved have drawn on the historical text and documentations of its performances as well as the opera’s reception history to develop formats translating the almost 100- year-old material in contemporary forms into the present. To begin with, the producers selected individual aspects of the opera, such as characters, costumes, stage set, text, music, or lighting and made them the starting point for their own artistic explorations.

The exhibition at the KUB Arena from July–October 2011 shows the actualizations and/or new productions that arose above all during a one-month exhibition and event series at the basso Berlin in May 2011. In addition to presenting all the works hitherto produced – texts, installations, photographs, drawings, and compositions – an extensive accompanying program with performances, lectures, and workshops creates the opportunity to further explore the historical material in dialogue with the works and to grasp the contemporary relevance of Russian Futurism, its potential and its hazards.
The project Anfang gut. Alles gut. confronts the past with a present where nostalgia for revolutionary times is à la mode in high culture, exposing generally unfulfi lled political aims. Looking back to the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun is thus not looking back on a heroic event, for it did not herald the revolution four years before its provisional success. Rather the prerevolutionary Futurism the opera expresses is translated into the post-revolutionary mass-cultural present, where the clear outlines of artistic movements have long since ceased to be unambiguously discernible. Against this background Anfang gut. Alles gut. amalgamates individual artworks to explore the disharmonies of the Futurist original without staging it as a nostalgic glorification.

The producers involved: Katrin Bahrs (Hamburg), Thomas Baldischwyler (Hamburg), Roger Behrens (Hamburg), Mareike Bernien/Kerstin Schroedinger (Berlin/London), Ruth Buchanan (Berlin), Nine Budde (Berlin), Robert Burghardt (Berlin), Natalie Czech (Berlin), Yusuf Etiman (Berlin), Jean-Pascal Flavien (Berlin), Devin Fore (New York), Kirsten Forkert (London), Emma Hedditch (London), Fox Hysen/Susanne M. Winterling (Berlin), Oliver Jelinski (Berlin), Christiane Ketteler (Berlin), Anja Kirschner/David Panos (London), Kazimir Malevich (St. Petersburg), Nicholas Matranga (Berlin), Ruth May (Hamburg), Katrin Mayer / Heiko Karn (Berlin), Michaela Melián (Munich), Jan Molzberger (Berlin), Avigail Moss (Los Angeles), Andreas Müller (Berlin), Ulrike Müller (New York), Harald Popp (Hamburg), Johannes Paul Raether (Berlin), David Riff (Moscow), School of Zuversicht (Hamburg), Schroeter und Berger (Berlin), Jessica Sehrt/Jeronimo Voss (Frankfurt a. M.), Sieg of Sonne Orakel (Berlin), Amy Sillman (New York), Tillmann Terbuyken (Hamburg), Tschilp (Hamburg), Dimitry Vilensky (St. Petersburg), Marina Vishmidt (London), Peter Wächtler (Brussels), Ian White (Berlin / London).

The project was initiated by Eva Birkenstock, Nina Köller, and Kerstin Stakemeier.

A comprehensive catalogue supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin will document in book form with accompanying essays all the Anfang gut. Alles gut. projects, performances, and events to date (publication date: October 2011).

Image:
1 Ai Weiwei, The ORDOS-100 master plan (2008) designed by Ai Weiwei / FAKE Design
Courtesy of Ai Weiwei
2 Ai Weiwei, Site model of Ai Weiwei/ FAKE Design's master plan, awaiting the ORDOS 100 architects to insert their 1:500 design
proposal models.

Opening 16 July 2011

Kunsthaus Bregenz
Karl-Tizian-Platz, Bregenz
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
20.07. until 21.08. daily 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Assumption Day 15.08. 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Admission: Adults € 9, Reductions € 6,50

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