I have nothing to say, and I am saying it 
In an text I wrote about the art biennial in Lofoten (LIAF) I claimed that two of the earlier issues (the 1999 and 2004 one) was both a disaster. The text is in Norwegian language if anyone wonder.
The co-curator of both 1999 and 2004 LIAF - Norwegian artist Tor Inge Kveum replied (can be read in the same link as the text, just scroll down). Kveum claims that I am a lose cannon, and that it made him feel quite upset. But he was reminded on the English saying: Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. and that this is the way it goes when one publish harsh conclusions faster then arguments that are based on research and facts.

Now, this is not my best piece ever. And he did arrest me on the money flow from the state of Norway to LIAF. I am very glad he did that, because it
a) taught me a lesson
So now I am double-cross-checking my sources on that.

But, the way he called me a dilettante was not very sophisticated and clear. Obviously, he is really eager to defend his curatorial choices, as am I to attack them, but there is something that is bugging me about this, and that is:
what do you do when you argue with someone?


I have been thinking quite a bit about the way I attacked his festival and the way he replied to that (not to mentioned my 2400 words long reply were I claim that his last effort in 2004 killed every opportunity the festival ever had to become international acclaimed - in contrast was the review only 1500 words long).

and here is what I am thinking

In a situation of debate, think fast and write or speak slower then you think.

be true to your first reaction
- ask yourself why you react this way

Do start with acknowledge the good points made by your opponent.

Always make a point out of your initial critique, and repeat, if possible more elaborated, what your arguments and opinions are.

Remember that opinions are a part of the stuff we bread (stole that one from Roberta Smith) and not a part of our bodies. there are no way around your own opinions, but do treat them with respect, always respect your own as well as other opinions, and do not think that just because someone got a good argument, you have to agree with them.

There are no way, not even in a parallel universe that I would give Kveum right in his argument that his version of LIAF (called Human, Fucking Human) was a good exhibition with a mixed reception. As far as I am concerned, it did not get any reviews, not really. Daniel Birnbaum asked what is the difference between art criticism and propaganda and suggested that a mind being sceptic. I like that.

Now, I do not wish the person Tor Inge Kveum any harm, and I can believe that espescially the last festival he curated have been a drag (really bad organised, unclear structures, changing director at least two times just before the opening, hard and long evaluation process with the municipality owning the festival - and on top of that, me, more than two years after claiming that it sucked - big time).




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Art Review goes digital 
Art Review goes online and offers obviously subscription, because it is for free the first six issues if you register. That should mean that it is either cheaper than the printed issue or completely different to the printed issue, but both is a problem in general; if the printed and the online issue are different, then where do you place your best pieces? and if they are the same, why do people want to pay for the online version when things online in general is free of charge?

anyway, I signed up.


Register at www.artreviewdigital.com



[ 1116 comments ] ( 47228 views )   |  [ 55 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1778 )
seminar workshop in norway: A Framework for Modern Cultural Activism: Does Art Create A Public Sphere in Itself? 
Seminar and workshop, Saturday, Oct. 21, 10:30 AM -- 4:00 PM
The National Museum, 8th floor lecture hall. Kristian Augustgate 23.
Free entrance. Light lunch served.
Relevant texts can be downloaded in advance from the National Foundation for Art in Public Buildings' website:
click here
--the link does not work, but it came with the press release--

Program:
10:30 AM -- 11:00 AM: Coffee
11:00 AM -- 11:15 AM: Introduction by Cecilia Widenheim and Tone Hansen
11:15 AM -- 11.30 AM: Per Gunnar Tverbakk/Tone Hansen
11:30 AM -- 1:00 PM: Martha Rosler
1:00 PM -- 1:30 PM: Quick, free lunch
1:30 PM -- 2:15 PM: Cornelia Sollfrank
2:15 PM -- 2:30 PM: Short break
2:30 PM -- 2:50 PM: Ane Hjort Guttu,
2:50 -- 15.10 PM: Søssa Jørgensen
Discussion until 4:00 PM.

The seminar is organized by Tone Hansen, research fellow at the Oslo National
Academy of the Arts, and Cecilia Widenheim, Curator at Moderna
Museet (Stockholm) and responsible for the Norwegian Sculpture Biennial
2006, Oslo.

[ 637 comments ] ( 7271 views )   |  [ 47 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1989 )
Heman Chong 
Finaly Untitled (chong) got a web page where he puts all his works online. The newest is this one:

Untitled (A woman walks into a multi-storey library. She searches for a man reading "what we talk about when we talk about love" amongst the shelves. She slaps him in the face. He looks at her in disbelief.)

(It shows a woman walks into a public library, finds a man, slaps him in the face and leaves - the video is repeated repeted 10 times. This is the very same book that my blog refers to. )



© Heman Chong, 2006


[ 722 comments ] ( 42940 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1860 )
Remembering MoMa and Nasjonalmuseet 
Calvin Tomkins wrote a piece on MoMa for the New Yorker Sept. 25 (small detour; this is the best I-hate-blog I have found. someone is intensely hating this magazine, but still uses a lot, a lot of thinking about and reading it ). Tomkins is almost 80, something you do notice in the article (somehow I miss marc spiegler's touch on a subject like this, but I guess it is not of his interest), takes us on a tour trying to, like the old man he is, finding piece with the new MoMa instead of remembering the past when everything was so much better.

This is the type of piece me myself would like to write about the National Museum in Norway and it's founding director Sune Nordgren. The newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (Financial Times of Norway) produced a major piece of journalism when the showed in a long feature how a small group of men did an intensive effort to discover and expose how Norgren in his role a director squeezing the National Gallery, The Contemporary Art, The Architecture and the National Museum of decorative art and design under one administration, banned part of his staff - did a bad job at Baltic etc. The feature expose who these men are, how they fed a few major norwegian art critics with material. This material was again used by the critics without exposing it's source.

The feature shows that in every witch hunt, this one as well used slight, doubtful and useless evidence. The mafia standing behind this tried to feed journalists and editors with the same material, but it never stood ground when they dug deeper into it.
This case is a very complex case, and even though the article was explosive when it was published, it show many a great gap in the structure and history.

BAck to MoMa, Tomkins have spent almost half a century at MoMA and has a memoryt about it before most of today's artists and curator even could spell 'art'. He talks about the new museum, takes into consideration some rumours and lies that have been said about MoMA, about the curatorial staff, its director etc. and then talks to all involved. This is what I would like to do about the National Museum in Norway: talk to those involved. No one ever talked to the curators at the museum, they never ever entered the debate. neither did other museums directors. IT is all so quiet.

So why is this something?
Norgren resigned - something I do not think would have happened it a bigger country.




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