[spectre] We Are the World in Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia [u]

[Geert Lovink [c]]

> From: Alessandra <alesssandra at free.fr>
> Date: 4 September 2005 12:49:57 PM
> To: undisclosed-recipients:;
> Subject: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
>
> Artists:		
> Olga Adelantado (Spain)
> Daniel Blaufuks (Portugal/Germany)
> Jonathan Calm (USA)
> CaoFei (China)
> Oksun Kim (Korea)
> Olga Kisseleva (Russia/France)
> Fiorenza Menini (France/Italy)
> Lee Mingwei (Taiwan/USA)
> Ingrid Mwangi (Kenya/Germany)
> Mixrice (Korea)
> Patricia Piccinini (Australia)
> Mika Rottenberg (Israel/USA)
> Alessandra Sanguinetti (Argentina, USA)
>  Jun Yang (China/Austria)
> Kimiko Yoshida (Japan/France)
>
> Curator:	Elga Wimmer (Austria/USA)
>
> “One picture is worth a thousand words” is a timeless adage and 
> certainly applicable to this group of young artists from all over the 
> world, using video and film as their mediums.
>
> Kimiko Yoshida interprets ancestral customs in Japanese culture and 
> breaks them by becoming a modern-day vagabond and fugitive (“Birth of 
> a Geisha,” 2003, DVD). In the work “Birth of a Geisha” Yoshida 
> reconciles with her past by transforming herself slowly into a 
> ‘geisha.’
> Olga Kisseleva  explores the new phenomenon of international cities 
> looking alike (“Where Are You?” 2002, DVD) and finds a striking 
> resemblance -  hence the title “Where Are You?” Paris looks like 
> Moscow, London like Chinatown, Madrid like Harlem, Shanghai like 
> Manhattan, etc. Young protagonists defining their place in forgotten 
> suburbs and lost coastal towns are portrayed by Patricia Piccinini 
> (“Sandman,” 2002, film). The young blonde heroine has strange 
> incisions in her neck, the vestigial remains of an amphibian breathing 
> apparatus left over from our distant sea-dwelling ancestors. When she 
> goes down deep in the water she seems to float blissfully for a while, 
> then suddenly begins to struggle. She finds herself out of place both 
> on land as an angst-ridden adolescent and in water as an animal whose 
> evolutionary path has taken it elsewhere. Unexpected connections in 
> today’s global world are illustrated by CaoFei ‘s footage of  people 
> dancing hip hop in China (“Hip Hop,” 2003, DVD). On city streets, the 
> artist engages various individuals, ranging from a policeman to a 
> street vendor, and asks them to give their rendition of hip-hop, 
> proving that it has become a global form of performance. Another form 
> of both ancient and contemporary ritual is found in Olga Adelantado’s 
> “Grabando Mi Futuro/ Taping My Future” (2000-01, DVD), where 
> fortunetellers whisper promises, magic spells, and warnings, from slow 
> to accelerated speed. The artist sees this telling of the future as an 
> ironic self-portrait made during her two-year stay in Mexico. And Lee 
> Mingwei observes young African American girls in Harlem, NY, playing a 
> Chinese ball game quite ironically unfamiliar to him (“What would you 
> like to be when you grow up?” 2003, video). In “Yanhou” (“Fireworks,” 
> 2002, DVD) Jun Yang shows fireworks with subtitled commentaries by a 
> person watching them: “It is something like a special night – evening 
> day – like you wake up and it ‘just’ happened to be New Year’s Eve or 
> Independence Day – unfamiliar traditions and ceremony.” The work 
> questions the .relation of the watching person, who clearly 
> experiences feelings of displacement, both to the celebration and the 
> town. In a karaoke-like folk song, Mixrice describe how their native 
> Korea is being “invaded” by immigrants from other Asian countries, 
> gradually changing the previously homogenous population 
> (“Mixlanguage,” 2204, DVD). Jonathan Calm juxtaposes, on a screen, 
> divided like a diptych, two individuals of different economic and 
> social backgrounds headed in diametrically different directions—one to 
> suburban environment, the other to urban surroundings (“Delta” 2004, 
> DVD). Daniel Blaufuks takes us on poetic, meditative journeys into the 
> past through old postcards (“A Perfect Day,” 2004, DVD). Based on the 
> work of the French writer George Perec, “Two Hundred and Forty-three 
> Postcards in Real Color;” these short, happy messages, which sometimes 
> remind us of our daily e-mails, create a new reading of the original 
> words. Oksun Kim captures in her portraits the estrangement yet also 
> strong connection between couples with different cultural origins 
> (“Happy Together,” 2002, DVD). The story is based on the artist’s own 
> experience as well as that of Korean friends, male and female, of 
> being married to a Westerner. Mika Rottenberg sees the world upside 
> down through the eyes of an acrobat walking on her hands on ice, a 
> playful yet dangerous balancing act (“Julie,” 2003, DVD). The artist 
> focuses on women with extraordinary physical ability—for example,  the 
> acrobat “Julie,” whom she met on-line. By inverting the image, 
> Rottenberg makes something ordinary become uncanny. Ingrid Mwangi is 
> seen “wearing” various masks made out of her own hair that has been 
> draped, styled and braided over her face (“Neger,” 1999, video and 
> sound installation), recalling different images from an African mask 
> to a council bandit. In Fiorenza Menini’s “Variations on a Couch” 
> (2005, video), four people, one by one, settle down on a sofa. Being 
> strangers to each other, the four performers glide from one situation 
> into another – a narration seems to appear with little or no change in 
> position, psychology and motivation. In her video “On the Sixth Day” 
> (2004), Alessandra Sanguinetti unfolds a tale of humans and animals, 
> of their interaction and dependence, disclosing situations where she 
> invites the viewer to confirm the simultaneous appearance of natural, 
> social and symbolic phenomena.
>
> The fascinating link between the young artists in “We Are the World” 
> is that they all have multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-national 
> backgrounds, and none of them live more than a small part of the time 
> in their native countries. Each of them tries to deal with past and 
> present by telling stories (realistic and/or fictional) that reveal 
> their anxieties, hopes, cultural heritage, struggles with social and 
> political tensions, and, last but not least, their reaction to being 
> the first true generation of “global kids.” These artists define what 
> it means to be a young person living in the world of today and they 
> try to express a fresh outlook to overcome borders, nationalities, 
> differences -- hopefully this will be a step to a better future!
>
> http://www.museoreinasofia.es