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GET
TOGETHER
August 3 - 27, 2006
Janfamily (Denmark)/
Nina Jan Beier, Marie Jan Lund, Chosil Jan Kil;
Jiří
Kovanda
(Czech Republic);
Otis Laubert (Slovakia)
Curated by Dunja Kukovec
and Josephine Jan Michau
Chance as collective intelligence /
Destiny as collaborative and related acting / Private can be
public, but public can't be private
Winter, 2006, emails written by Nina, Josephine and Jiri:
January 22, 2006
Dear Nina,
In 1997 I
had a one-man exhibition in Prague. It was entitled "Nina
pri praci"
(Nina At Work) without any logical reason. I understand it
much better now.
Kiss, Jiri
January 23, 2006
Dear Jiri,
Meeting you
was the best thing on our tour.
In LA we met
a girl called Adele. I thought I saw her in your book.
Here is a
picture of her.
X Nina
January 25, 2006
Dear Nina,
Your mail
pleased me greatly. Again I regret that I didn’t spend more
time with you in spite of my very bad English...
I hope your
stay in Bratislava was pleasant. Centre of the town is
little, but quite nice - maybe it’s better in summer.
The girl on
your photo only resembles the one from my documentation. But
I have the impression that I saw her somewhere, I don’t
know...
I think of
you,
Kiss, Jiri
January 27, 2006
Dear Jans,
So where
were you in these sunny, but very cold days? Cesky Krumlov
or Sumava? Or both?
Your book is
really good. I like most of the pieces. I think some of your
works are quite close to some of mine, at least for me
(sorry, if you do not agree). I regret that I am not able to
speak with you much more...
I wish you a
nice stay in Bratislava.
Thank you
and all the best,
Jiri Kovanda
January 28, 2006
Hello Jiri,
We are still
in Bratislava. We never got to any of the places you
recommended us, because it took too long to go there. We
went to visit a local artist today Otis Laubert, who showed
us his work in his studio. It was very impressive because he
has so many things - I think he calls himself a junk artist
and that's very precise, I guess. It has been very
impressive to meet both of you - who are from another time
and another place - and to still feel so related with the
work you do. We are hoping to be able to do something with
you some time in the future...
enjoy,
Josephine
28. January, 2006
Dear
Friends,
Today we had
a fantastic experience. At the opening of our show in
Priestor Gallery in Bratislava we were introduced to an
older Slovakian artist, Otis Laubert. He showed us a book
that had just been published on his work and we showed him
ours. We asked if we could come to visit him at his house
and he seemed happy to have us. The other Slovaks were very
impressed that he allowed us to come since he usually lets
no one in.
When we
arrived he seemed happy and had prepared. He collects
things, and arranges them. Small plastic things, glass,
pictures, fabric… He is not educated from the art academy
and during the communist regime he didn’t work
professionally as an artist. His first exhibition was in 89.
Before that, he and his friends held private exhibitions and
events at their own houses. It was amazing to see how he,
without money, fame or other recognition of his work he
continued with such inspiration.
He unpacked
images, and showed us things. The entire house was filled
with boxes of stuff, one with yellow plastic things, one
with wooden spoons, metal things, blue fabric etc. When we
left he gave each of us a small art piece, a small post
card, which he had prepared and put in an envelope. He told
us he hadn’t shown that much work to any visitor before. We
thanked him and told him how big the experience was for us
to see his work, to feel this special relation to something
that had been made before we were born, in another time and
another place. He said he too felt this connection. I think
we were all so taken by the situation, and didn’t say much.
We exchanged books and promised to meet again.
It is very
cold here, but we are warm,
Marie
February 2, 2006
Dear Jans,
I spoke
about your exhibition and book with our students on a
meeting. They had very good responses. As far as I know,
many people like your work.
Did you see
Cafe Bystrica in Bratislava? The strange one resembling UFO
on the bridge... My quite recent "action" in elevator was
there.
As regards
the future, it would be perfect to do something with you.
All the
best,
Jiri
Conceptualism is an opening
to a more possible world, a departure from the literalism of
everyday life. (Unknown)
A train ride is better than
most art . . . To enter the work must be possible anywhere,
as one gets on or off a train. It is possible, in fact, to
read this flyer on a train. (Paraphrasing of words from
The Grand Piano, a multi-authored account of poetry and
poetics, San Francisco, 1970)
Art as idea and
action (Lippard, 1973). Life is also an action, but
not an idea, on the contrary – it has to be a materialised
experience.
...I walk among acquaintances
and strangers, and sometimes meet someone who knows.
Sometimes I think that we all do, but it seems no-one knows
why everyone does not want to see. It is strictly and
philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no
such thing as chance or accident; it is being evident that
these words do not signify anything really existing,
anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event;
but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and
immediate cause. (Samuel Clark)
I have wished to meet Mikhail
Bakhtin several times, this time to hear him speak about the
Get Together exhibition. I listen to him by reading
him.
...Social and cultural
conditions of modernity encourage us to favour rational
relationship towards others and the environment we live in.
Thus we emphasise an instrumental and passive view of the
world, which is called theoreticism – the utalitarian nature
of modern science and technology, in which every activity is
justified by referring to the transcendent goal of technical
efficiency and control. Morson and Emerson understand
theoreticism as a rationalistic project, which structures
life as a formalised and metaphysical system.
Hypostatic and slow conscience
defies every experience or view, which it cannot assimilate
completely. Such 'trans-logic transcription' inevitably
negates events as such and the particularity of sensual
social existence and emphasises blind fate and 'technical'
legal system, which follows an inner logic. Our active
embodied conscience in the world of everyday values and
meanings are replaced by passionless distant contemplation.
This transcendence emerges from the desire to overcome the
contradiction and chaos of our everyday life. It enables us
to leave behind the existential and moral needs, which are
the burden of profane existence. As bodiless spirits we lose
our forced should-be relationship to the world and
particularly to its actuality. The wish to live such 'intangible
coincidental life' can result only in withdrawn illusionary
existence of restless spirits, which as indifferent being
are not rooted anywhere.
...In the beginning there was
action..., says Goethe. According to Bakhtin we must
understand the 'self' as a dynamic, embodied and continually
creative entity, who tries to give meaning and value to
their life and the surroundings… We are forced to transform
the given immanent necessity and the objective factuality of
our environment into a coherent 'world-for-me'.
We can change the everyday
world into a space full of meaning, in which personal values
are significant and an individual decides between active
engagement and complete non-engagement, constantly changing
himself/herself. An individual thus confronts a different
and changed 'self', while his/her life and situations which
emerge evolve. Everything is unfinished and open to further
alterations.
*Michael E. Gardiner:
Critiques of Everyday Life, London/New York, 2000
BIOGRAPHY
JANFAMILY
In January
2004 Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund founded the
London-based Janfamily art collective as a publishing and
exhibition platform. The collective, which is not a closed
circle but a flexible structure, constantly adapting to each
project, consists of members of different nationalities, who
collaborate and contribute individual work to events,
exhibitions or books.
Janfamily has published three artists' books,
including the last one “Plans For Other Days” which was
published by the internationally acclaimed publishing house
Booth-Clibborn Editions. Since 2004 their artists' book
project has been exhibited in M+R
Gallery / London, V1 Gallery / Copenhagen, Black Block and
Palais de Tokyo / Paris, Uniondocs / New York,
Queensnailsannex / San Francisco, Sundown Saloon / Los
Angeles, Display Gallery / Prague and Space/Gallery Priestor
/ Bratislava. Their work has been featured in some of
the most influential international culture and fashion
magazines such as Tank, Sugo, Sexymachinery and IDEA.
The Get Together exhibition presents
work by Nina Jan Beier, Marie Jan Lund and Chosil Jan Kil.
www.janfamily.com
Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund
study relations and spaces that form between people. They
work with staged photography and video to document the
situations created by individuals or groups. Toying with
social customs, manipulating identities and creating
situations in front of the camera they do not limit
themselves on documenting but also focus on attitudes and
reactions of involved persons. Creation, communication, and
working with people can take place by way of workshops
including a written or spoken manual. They also create
objects which they manipulate so as to present the audience
with their alternative uses, thus producing new situations.
As a rule, their work is a study of identities, and the
pursuit of collectivism through adaptation and appropriation.
www.ninajanbeier-mariejanlund.com
Chosil
Jan Kil
observes
everyday life and associations connected with it. She
interprets them and interweaves them into her artwork. She
illustrates the process of digesting the everyday world by
domesticating and appropriating it. Her world begins to grow
and becomes her own domestic environment which she can
control. Through her approach, she is actively involved in
her own personal environment, and expands the development of
a personal experiment and intervention into a new social
setting. She replaces the inability to function inside the
enclosure, she has either created or chosen for herself,
with a certain level of freedom in order to be able to
honestly and directly express her frustration. In the space
which opens up between structured intervention and the
freedom arising from suspending her own reality, she
develops the mystery of storytelling.
Jiří Kovanda
(born 1953, lives and works in Prague)
Jiří Kovanda
first appeared on the art scene with the second generation
of Czech „actionism” in the late 1970s. Kovanda’s ephemeral
activities focused on the discovery of new types of
relationships, which the artist adopted with his friends as
well as with anonymous passers-by in the streets. His
performances take place in public space, without a stage and
often without an audience. Since the mid-70s he has made
small incursions into what we perceive as normal behaviour
by inserting an element of uncertainty. Kovanda’s minimalist
actions and interventions were often so subtle they were
almost imperceptible. The observer finds himself in a
situation that is open to various interpretations and
possibilities. Through methods that are as minimal and
poetic as they
are down to earth, Jirí Kovanda provides an alternative view
on our surroundings. In the eighties he painted and drew and
in the nineties he worked with small suspended objects of
used pieces of furniture. His work, be it installation,
public performance or artist's book, appeared at numerous
exhibitions including Prague Biennale 2, Cordially Invited
in Centraal Museum / Utrecht, Nejsem proti in Dům pánů z
Kunštátu / Brno, Parallel Actions in Austrian Cultural Forum
/ New York, Body and the East in Exit Art /New York, Aspekte/Positionen.
50 Jahre Kunst aus Mitteleuropa 1949–1999 Museum Moderner
Kunst Stiftung Ludwig / Viennna, ...He is interested in what
is defined as low or private.
Otis Laubert
(born 1946, lives and works in Bratislava)
Otis Laubert represents one of the few authentic values, an
isolated and specific Slovakian artistic phenomenon of the
conceptual art, visual poetry, ready-made and found objects
in particular. By its style and means of expression his work
created an artistic parallel to everyday life. His creation
has a high degree of summarizing and complexity that
relates and reacts to each other, comments and complements
to each other while expressing various aspects of the artist's
interest in mutual relations. We could say Otis' major
summarizing work is his archive (Otis calls it deposit) -
the collection of various objects, originating around 1965
and containing thousands of things ordered according to
certain rules. In 1986 he staged a fascinating and
progressive series of installations in the basement of a
house which culminated in 1988 with the outstanding
exhibition Avcájder (a phonetic rendering of the English "outsider"),
and few months later he initiated the group exhibition
Basement in the same place. Similar project is the
exhibition Drawings for which he founded A Branch of
Guggenheim Museum in Europe in the flats in Moskovská Street
and Železničiarska Street in Bratislava. He conceived the
exhibition’s visual impact by himself, and dedicated it
above all to the presentation of his own work and the work
of his friends. Laubert works with everyday objects, and the
materials themselves often determined the direction each
piece is taking. At the same time, the gallery space itself
is often used as a source of inspiration. His work was also
showed at Prague Biennale / Prague, in Mattress Factory /
Pittsburgh, O Zwei / Berlin, Slovak Paper Art / New York,
Walter Gropius Bau / Berlin, in SPACE/Gallery Priestor /
Bratislava, ...
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