Interview: Orit Hofshi

Datum Collectanea, 2005. Installation view at the Herzliya Museum.

Last week I traveled to Israel to install an exhibition of Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz at the Herzliya Museum, which opened last Saturday. I took the opportunity to meet with Orit Hofshi, who, like Muñoz, will take part of Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious. Orit Hofshi studied in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, and last year showed at the Print Center in Philadelphia. Hofshi works by hand on a very large scale, achieving monumentality while retaining an intimate quality in her prints. I had visited her last year in her studio near Tel Aviv where she was working on new woodcuts for an ongoing series, and what struck me most, knowing the scale of her prints in advance, was the tiny size of her working space (which was half-occupied by shelves of materials, prints, and books). This tension between grandeur and intimacy is, in my opinion, an important feature in her work, since her prints, which can be viewed from a great distance, have the ability to lure the viewer close to the surface, where their surface texture becomes apparent.

Hofshi works primarily in woodcut, a technique that has experienced a revival in contemporary printmaking in recent years; its atavic associations (woodcut is arguably the oldest of the printing techniques) contrast with the visual output of the technologically driven society we live in. Hofshi usually works in a fixed format, using standard-size sheets of pine from a builder’s supply store. She creates varied horizontal and vertical matrices with the panels, adding to or subtracting from the grid as she works on the image. Pine is soft but tends to have knots although the artist doesn’t see this as a drawback. Rather, she takes it as a positive condition of the material, and uses it to shape her compositions.

Once the matrices are carved, Hofshi inks the panels and lays Okawara paper down on them with utmost care so that the paper does not become soiled. Then she uses a wooden spoon to rub the back of the paper to pick up the ink. This technique allows her to control the intensity of the line in a process somewhat akin to painting or drawing. Sometimes she integrates the yet-to-be-printed matrix as part of the work, displaying the wooden boards adjacent to the prints.

This interview started via email and was completed with notes from conversations held in Tel Aviv and Herzliya, as well as excerpts from an article I wrote for Art on Paper magazine.

J. Roca.





Orit Hofshi in her studio, March 2009.

Jose Roca: Why did you choose xylography, one of the oldest printing techniques, as your primary medium of expression?

Orit Hofshi: As a woodcut artist I am drawn by the simplicity of process, a seemingly contradictory preference to the textual challenges I choose to confront in my work. A board, a knife, a brayer and ink make the art form possible. The self-reliance on the actual pressure of the hand, releases me from dependency upon the mechanics of the press. In fact, the directness and immediacy of the media lend to a clearer and more expressive creative process. I typically print very small editions (4-6), allowing the intensity and detailed process I feel necessary for each print produced.

Cutting and carving pine boards and printing on paper, is like experiencing a micro reality in itself. I am most conscious of the properties of my materials and their relationship. Particularly the inherent texture and patterns of the wood combined with the effects of the carving and sculpturing tools, all becoming an integral part of the woodcut’s message. I see woodcutting as a physical as well as an emotional challenge, enjoying the negotiating and testing of the board’s resistance to the sharp gouge plowing its path through a wooden earth... There is always the sense of wood, ink and paper, rigid and soft, not antithetical but merging together.

JR: Landscape appears prominently as the subject of your compositions, and so are isolated figures. Do you work from photographs of actual places and people, or are they imagined? Or both?

OH: Landscapes and at times figures are definitely a prominent subject in much of my work. There is the "technical" aspect in addressing this subject and there are the interpretation and subjective processes, which are driving motivations in my creative process. I spend a great deal of time in various natural settings and am attracted to extreme and rugged landscapes, taking numerous photographs, which nourish my thinking and processing in the studio. In such dramatic natural contexts I find an emphasized sense of evolution, time and struggles, not only as records of natural phenomenon but also as reflections of human history.

I was totally engulfed by the volcanic terrains in Iceland as an example. I think that for the most part, I am inspired by such natural topographies, as well as by my personal recollections and imagination, but I rarely look to depict any particular landscape. The following comment by Simon Schama in "Landscape and Memory", captures the essence of the complex conscious as well as subliminal feelings and thoughts evoked by nature, as part of my on going journey.

"There was, I knew, blood beneath the verdure and tombs in the deep glades of oak and fir. The fields, forests and rivers had seen war and terror, elation and desperation; death and resurrection […] It is a haunted land where greatcoat buttons from six generations of fallen soldiers can be discovered lying amidst the woodland ferns."


JR: How does working in such a politically charged environment like present-day Israel influence your practice?

OH: It is, in fact, very difficult to work in. The human condition has a constant presence in my work, whether actually depicted in the work and even if not. Preoccupied with the current and past socio political realities I do not rely only on my immediate experience or surroundings, but am obsessively aware of the broader human circumstances at a given time. I look constantly for images of people in daily newspapers as well as images from archives. Similarly to my processing of natural impressions, I do not focus on the literal content or meaning images. I am fascinated by expressions and disposition portrayed in images as a source of inspiration. My frequent depiction of isolated figures refers primarily to the notion people need to face challenges, as well as the consequences of their actions and decisions as individuals. This does not minimize in any way my deep sense of society as a most significant environment and context for the individual, as is referred to in my work. But despite the fact we are so affected by social and political contexts, the reality is that ultimately the individual needs to make decisions, balancing apparent practical and specific dispositions with more complex moral parameters; and become responsible for any outcome of such decisions.




JR: You showed me a sketch of the work you are planning to do for Philagrafika, and it involves creating a physical space for the viewer to enter. Had you worked tri-dimensionally before? Can you talk a bit about this new project?

OH: Tri-dimensionality and physical space have been present conceptually in my thinking and creative process for quite a while. In previous works I proposed monumental spaces conveyed to the viewer by large scale and size, while relying primarily on apparent two-dimensional formats. In this project I wish to create an actual tri-dimensional space formed by several elements which render a new physical presence. These elements will be the combination of materials and formats from diverse worlds, yet mutually-enriching, also manifesting the different stages and processes of print making and drawing: the work on paper, the use of wood, the manual aspects required, the attentiveness to the material's innate rhythm (textures, fragility, etc.).

I have gone through a gradual transition process from strictly two-dimensionality, exhibiting prints and drawings on paper and then adding carved wood panels, as well as framed and non-framed works. In fact, over the course of the years I had carried the sense that even panels, which I had used for prints, therefore darkly tinted by ink, embed significant content and statements, beyond their being just a phase in the printing process leading to the traditional final outcome, the print on paper.

The concept of acknowledging the process and recognizing the significance of its specific phases, fuels a broader motivation in this project. Sections of the work are set to be newly carved elements, but others, forming the tri –dimensional structure, will be comprised of panels which were the reliefs used for a print also included in the complete work. The viewer will be exposed to the print as well as its suggested "echo" or elusive mirror image, in the form of dark carved panels. Evolution of time, remnants and recorded natural or human footprints, which have been a focal point of much of my recent work, take more center stage also formalistically in this project.

I hope that the introduction of the structured space and the dialogue and sub context suggested by the elements rendering the work will stimulate motion and create varied observation points of view, enhancing the viewers' experience and insight.

Interview: Tromarama

Tromarama is a collective including Febie Babyrose (1985 Jakarta, Indonesia,) Herbert Hans Maruli (1984 Jakarta, Indonesia) and Ruddy Alexander Hatumena (1984, Bahrain). Formed in 2004 and based in Bandung and Jakarta, Tromarama has been interested in contemporary urban culture, inserting itself beyond the art scene into the larger cultural fabric of Bandung. I saw their work Serigala Militia (actually a music video for the thrash metal band Seringai) at the 2008 Singapore Biennial. I was captivated by the rawness of the image, a stop-motion animation where the actual process of the carving of the wooden boards is taken as a theme in itself, along with the inking of the boards, exposing the process of woodcut in all of its directness and materiality. Tromarama has since produced other videos in the same technique but not print-related, as well as several editioned multiples.

The following interview was done via email.

J. Roca.

Jose Roca: Why did you choose woodcut as the medium for the video Serigala Militia?

Tromarama: We felt that the woodcut medium suited best to represent the character and attitude of the band, and also the roughness of the music.

JR: Had you worked before with other printing techniques?

T: Nope, this is our first time combining printmaking technique with stop-motion animation.

JR: But you have done multiples and other editioned work, right? Why?

T: We hadn’t done any multiples and other editioned work before the Serigala Militia Video. Serigala Militia was our first video, and it was not a difficult choice for us to use a printmaking technique in it. We did the video while we are studying at Bandung Institute of Technology, Faculty of Visual Art and Design. Studying different majors, Febie was in the printmaking studio. Herbert studied visual communication design, focusing in advertising. Ruddy studied visual communication design, focusing in graphic design. Many printmaking techniques were a part of our daily life at campus. Even though we come from different majors, you just can’t separate graphic design and printmaking. Some people have said that graphic design is applied printmaking. You can’t separate graphic design history from Gutenberg, the father of mass-production printmaking. Printmaking had a big influence in our works not only visually but also in the number of editions for our videos, which are produced in a specific numbered edition -a common thing in printmaking.

JR: How would you describe the current local scene you work in?

T: We studied, live and work in Bandung, a small city full of Do-It-Yourself spirit. This ethos was triggered by the big economic crisis back in 1998. When everything got very expensive, people tried to produce things by themselves. There are many local bands trying to make their own CDs, and many independent record labels supporting the local music industry. Economic crisis drives creativity in this town. We can see the emergence of many local clothing companies, as a result of the crisis. When people can’t afford imported clothes and apparel, they try to produce their own. Bandung is a city well known by the creativity of its people. People here appreciate differences and are very open to all kind of new things happening. Maybe the existence of three art schools in Bandung helps people to be more welcoming with new, creativity-driven events. Video is already quite common in Indonesia as a new media in contemporary art. People can see video art in galleries and also at screenings initiated by art communities, whose intention is to introduce the video art itself to a larger public. Furthermore, this is a way for local artists can develop their art so that it can be enjoyed by many without decreasing the meaning of the work itself.

JR: You were recently invited to the Singapore Biennial. Where you able to establish ties with other artists of the region and beyond?

T: After the Biennale, we did not establish ties with artists from other countries, but some curators contacted us, asking about our work, and possibilities to show our work at their gallery (one of them is you). We are thankful to Pat Binder and Gerhard Haupt from universes-in-universe, for spreading our existence to the world.

JR: What are you planning to do for Philagrafika?

T: We plan to do a stop-motion animation with the etching technique, as well as showing our woodcut video and the whole installation. As with Serigala Militia, the video will also be displayed with all of the etching plates as an installation.

One Year Off!

Dear friends:
Many have debated on the etymology of the word "curating", with Harald Szeemann providing a long list of tasks for the exhibition organizer: administrator, emphatic lover, writer of forewords, librarian, representative, bookkeeper, entertainer, financial advisor and diplomat—but it ultimately boils down to "selecting". That is, deciding what practices are more precisely addressing the topics one wants to discuss, among many other works and artists that might be equally interesting. Curating is exclusive as much as it is inclusive, because as you select you exclude by necessity many other possibilities that might be equally strong and interesting. That is the difficult task, and in order to be fair you have to try and be as comprehensive in the research process as rigorous when the time comes to make the selection.

After a three-year long process of traveling to more than thirty countries in five continents, and much heated discussion, the curatorial team of Philagrafika selected the artists that will make part of the core show of Philagrafika 2010, titled The Graphic Unconscious. Many more will be participating in parallel shows that are currently being organized by more than 30 partnering institutions. In January 2010 the city of Philadelphia will be the world hub for all things print, with The Graphic Unconscious providing a forum for the discussion on how concepts and processes associated with printmaking—accessibility, democratization, dissemination, multiplicity, repetition—are informing practices as diverse as video, painting, sculpture and performance-based work, all while expanding the realm of printmaking itself.

A year from now, Philagrafika 2010 will be already open to the public. Behind us lies the arduous process of deciding the conceptual framework, identifying themes and trends, traveling to exhibitions and biennials, and making innumerable studio visits. We also consulted the many curators and critics in Philadelphia, colleagues who selflessly shared their contacts with us and gave us thoughtful insights on the project. Ahead of us lies an equally daunting task—especially in the current financial climate: making this exhibition happen. But creativity need not be limited to the curating process, especially in difficult times (remember Szeemann): We are attempting to find alternative ways of financing such a complex show, relying on passionate individuals who are volunteering their time, contacts, efforts, and personal resources that go anywhere from donating airline miles to hosting an artist in their homes—in order to make this happen, something that would be difficult to achieve in a city that does not take brotherly and sisterly solidarity so seriously as our beloved Philadelphia. Many international funding agencies are actively supporting Philagrafika by funding partially or totally an artist's participation, and the artists themselves have been extremely generous with their own time and resources in order for Philagrafika to be successful.

We will be posting interviews with the artists as the process of developing new works for Philagrafika progresses, in order to provide insights on how they view their own practice in reference to print. Keep coming back!

Jose Roca.

Letter from Beijing and Seoul

Installation view of Monuments by Qiu Zhijie at the Long March Space, Beijing, 2007.

Dear friends:
In Beijing I met with Zoe Butt, Director of International Programs and Curator at the Long March Space. The Long March is a project that was started in 2002 by Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie, and has involved many of China’s most interesting artists. Their aim is to reach out to the community: “Mao's March symbolized the deliverance of the Communist ideal to the Chinese proletariat, it is with this symbolism in mind that we now choose to march contemporary art out to China's peripheral population." Qiu Zhijie is one of China’s foremost contemporary artists. He is also a curator and organizer of exhibitions, and has done several projects with the aid of students and volunteers. Their website shows all of their projects. There is an essay by Enhua Zhang that gives an overview of the Long March: http://www.longmarchspace.com/huayu/9.7/Zhang%20Enhua.htm
For Sao Paulo, the Long March project presented The Great Survey of Papercuttings in Yanchuan County (2004). This is an ongoing project that aims to document and highlight a tradition, which while still alive, is slowly but relentlessly disappearing. This was one of the highlights of our version of the Bienal, a very strong statement in the context of a show titled How To Live Together.

Qiu Zhijie is an accomplished printer. He studied the art of traditional ink rubbings with the renowned masters Xie Longshou and Wang Zuoren, and did a series of works based on steles or carved stones he discovered or visited in various archaeological sites. He printed these stones and presented as his work on preserving collective memory. In 2005 he salvaged a historical stele that had been uncovered by the construction workers of a huge real-estate compound in Shanghai. He persuaded the developers to preserve the stele, which was later collected by the Shanghai art museum, and made an imprint of it. Qiu Zhijie has also recently worked with the Singapore Tyler Print Institute on a series of lithographs, which are technically more conventional but nonetheless fascinating.

In 2002 Qiu did the performative work Left/Right: Long March, which involved re-tracing some sites on Mao Zedong’s historical Long March, with the Chinese characters for “left” and “right” etched on the soles of his shoes. The inscriptions were left at various historical sites. In a moment where China was debating about maintaining a political line while opening itself to the ways of Capitalism, Qiu Zhijie’s gesture is a poignant one.



Ink rubbing and concrete plate, Monuments (2007).

There is one of Qiu’s projects that I found especially strong in terms of reflecting on the tradition of the printed image in China, but more precisely, on how personal and collective memory intermingle, and the role of prints and the printed word in disseminating knowledge. It is called Monuments, and was exhibited for the first time on occasion of Qiu Zhijie’s retrospective exhibition -aptly titled Archaeology of Memory- at the Long March Space in 2007 http://www.longmarchspace.com/images/qiuzhijie/e_index.html. For this work, Qui collected many different forms of writing, something that he had been doing since he was a child. For example, he never throws away a piece of handwritten paper -no matter if it is a letter or a simple quotidian annotation. He is interested in how calligraphic characters evolve according to social and political history and are thus imbued with ideology. He is also interested in how every form of writing is a code that is readable by some at a given moment, but that these codes are contingent to time, historical and social context, and, more recently, to technology. In addition to historical books and documents, political statements, official papers and headlines from newspapers, which are public and more conventional sources of knowledge, Qiu Zhijie has also included very personal “documents” such as emails sent to him that appear as pure scrambled code, and also the contents of his own computer after a virus turned all of his documents into illegible text. Also integrated are texts from his own childhood diaries, which he had written in a code that he invented to prevent his parents from reading it. When he saw them again a decade later after graduating and coming back home, they were as cryptic to him as they would have been to anyone else.



Concrete plate and ink rubbings, Monuments (2007).

Qiu Zhijie selected the writings according to thematic categories: revolutionary slogans; Chinese views of foreigners throughout history; the genealogy of Chinese calligraphy; song lyrics; Chinese sayings; handwriting; scrambled code; and the aforementioned diary. For each form of scripture, Qiu Zhijie etched a "plate"(a layer of concrete). After the plate is dry the inscriptions are printed on paper, and a new layer of concrete is poured, upon which a new set of characters is then inscribed. Each new layer obliterates the previous one, burying the plate forever and replacing it with a new form of scripture; the only witness that remains is the single print, done with the traditional rubbing process that entails placing a sheet of paper on top of the stele (that is carved in bas-relief) and inking the paper with a handheld pouch filled with pigment. The resulting concrete monolith can be exhibited as a sculptural piece, alongside the set of prints that came from the plates it embodies and that are buried within it. Qiu Zhijie intends that these eight blocks become the pillars of a tower in a large-scale work that has the working title Constructing the Pagoda.
The Monuments series is condensed in a beautifully printed catalog, which includes images of each one of the blocks before the layer was obscured by the newer one, the printed image, and transcriptions of the texts with their English translation whenever possible. They range from the poetic (“Grief and happiness intersect”) to the political (“In order to fight against foreign invasion we must first pacify the internal” –taken from Chang Kai-Shek’s original handwriting), and from the practical (“Education should be oriented towards the world, the future, and modernization” –Deng Xiaoping) to the philosophical (“Life has a limit, but to serve people is eternal”). And, of course, the computer-scrambled texts, whose meaning is unfathomable. Even Mao Zedong’s famous dictum is also there: “The imperialist powers are all paper tigers”. The captions sometimes offer a bit of historical context that allows someone not versed in China’s political history to understand the historical significance of these phrases and words.

I quote from from Qiu Zhijie’s long text in the catalog, which is a marvelous description of the process and contains his own views of China’s political history as well as his own views of the capacity of monuments of retaining memory: “If memories can only rely on medium to exist, where can we find such a permanent medium? And if a kind of medium can seal and thus preserve the memory, then it also possesses the capacity to forget. For these stone tablets which have not been preserved through rubbings, it is not necessarily that they have not been transferred to another medium that they are forgotten. After all although absolute memory is impossible, what happens in our physical body and internal spirit is in fact reality. Perhaps what is recorded should not be remembered, or are not the things that we would want to remember. What becomes memory are only those things that enter onto the stage of larger events. "



Korea foundation art handlers working on the installation of the Narcissi series, and the video installation Project for a Memorial.

Which brings me to my trip to Seoul, where I spent time installing Immemorial, Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz’ show at the Korea Foundation. For many years, Muñoz' work has dealt with the capacity of images to retain and evoke memory. His work is largely drawing and print based even if the end result is a video installation, and he has devised innovative processes like screen-printing on water, photoserigraphy on mirrors with a greasy "ink" resulting in images that only appear when they are breathed upon, or the dot-matrix pattern of commercial photolithography rendered with a burning tool on paper, to name but a few.
I have written about Muñoz for Working States, Philagrafika’s online publication, so more information can be found on this link:
http://www.philagrafika.org/workingstates-munoz-slideshow.html

J. Roca.

Letter from Japan

Studio wall, Montparnasse. Screen print based on frottage by Masao Okabe. Chihiro Minato showing one of his Phototypes.

Dear friends:
Roland Barthes analyzed the image as surface on “Empire of Signs”, and although Barthes’ Japan was a fictional one, his observations nevertheless reverberate when one confronts firsthand the primacy of the printed image in Japanese visual culture, both traditional and contemporary. The printed letter becomes pure (de)sign when the eye cannot decode, and every printed surface can be experienced in graphic terms: composition, balance, scale, color, etc.

In Tokyo I had a very interesting meeting with Chihiro Minato, who was the commissioner for the Japanese Pavillion at the last Venice Biennale. The pavilion consisted of a large-scale installation by Masao Okabe. This Japanese artist originally trained as a printer, and he has for the past decades, done a series of collaborative projects that involve taking the imprint of streets, sidewalks and buildings. Using the “urban environment as a plate," Okabe collects rubbings of the surfaces. In Venice he covered the interior walls of the pavilion with rubbings of the stones from a train station in Hiroshima, which was subsequently demolished. The rubbings were accompanied by some of the recovered stones from the station. The visitors were invited to make their own frottages from of the historical boulders. Okabe’s considers these rubbings as a way to rediscover the environment, and he likes to work with volunteers, not only other artists but ordinary people and children as well. There is information on this project at the Japan Foundation's website: http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/art/e/52/index.html

Chihiro Minato is also an artist, and he has worked with Patrice Forest in France, one of the few workshops in the world that still does phototype. This is a technique is similar to lithography but uses a plate of glass to render exquisite details in the print. He showed me Okabe's silkscreens, done from the frottages, and his own phototypes.

From Tokyo, I traveled to nearby Yokohama to see the Triennial. This year’s team had two local and three international curators, two of which are seasoned Biennale experts and stars of the curatorial Olympus: the peripatetic Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Daniel Birmbaum, who is curating the upcoming version of the Venice Biennale.



Shilpa Gupta, Don't See, Don't Hear, Don't Speak, 2008. Cerith Wyn Evans and Throbbing Gristle, A=p=p=a=r=i=t=i=o=n, (2008).

The Yokohama Triennial’s theme was time itself, or rather how art creates an instance “outside of time”. Time Crevasse (its title taken from a poem by Paul Celan), included more than 70 artists, which makes it the biggest exhibition of this kind in Japan. According to the artistic director Mizusawa Tsutomu, “The best art arises when different forms of time twist, swirl, and collide, creating unexpected paths and crevasses through which we can glimpse a deeper abyss. By revealing this abyss and courageously descending into the ‘time crevasse’, art has the power to give us a more sensitive understanding of differences between individuals, societies, nations, genders, generations, races and religions in the context of our present circumstances.”

Despite the artspeak on the opening text, the Triennale was a great show by any standards. I found the scale of this event to be perfect: two main venues housed most of the works, which were well displayed, each in its own space. The curators took the opportunity to give visibility to a historic site (Sankeien Garden) by placing five installations in different areas of this incredibly beautiful park. More works were situated in other urban sites that required traveling to other places in the city, but overall the Triennial relatively small and pleasurable to visit. There were just the right quantity of artists per venue, so as to maintain the visitor’s interest yet not overwhelm him/her with too many works. Since the theme was time itself, performance was a strong component of the show, but video documentation of time-based art or long-duration videos, which are almost impossible to experience within an exhibition context, were shown in a series of small auditoriums, where the visitor could relax and see them in a proper setting. Moreover, there was a program of happenings and performances every weekend for the duration of the exhibition.
The complete information about the Triennial can be found here:
http://yokohamatriennale.jp/2008/en/



Fujiko Nakaya, Fogfalls #47670: Tales of Ugetsu, (2008).

At Sankeien Garden there were only five works, but each one was carefully selected and placed so as to highlight a specific building or area of this wonderful setting. This garden was built in the late 19th century by a wealthy businessman who reconstructed important 16th and 17th century buildings and temples from Kyoto and Kamakura. The visitor had to make first a long parcours in the park before encountering the first work of art, which was British artist Tris Vonna-Mitchell’s musings about time, a sound-and-text piece. At a point the visitor found herself walking in the garden amidst a dense fog, which highlighted the dreamlike character of Sankeien Garden. The piece, which could (or not) be identified as an artwork, was one of Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya’s mist installations. Nakaya has worked with musicians and choreographers like Trisha Brown and David Tudor, so the placement of the nozzles was very precisely done creating a mise-en-scene of the garden itself (the trees, the creek, the bridges and paths). The mist flowed from the high part of a slope, followed a little creek and branched into several small paths. I can truly only describe the experience as magical.

Not far from this installation was Argentinean artists Jorge Macchi and Edgardo Rudnitzky’s installation Twilight, displayed at Yokobuean, a Tea-hut built in the rustic “Inakaya” style. The visitors entered in groups of twenty and were expected to stay for the duration of the work, which was very simple yet powerful: a bare light bulb slowly descended diagonally from the top corner of the building to the bottom corner opposite to it, with a musical score composed by Rudnitzky with traditional Japanese instruments and electronic sounds. Macchi, whose work has always dealt with the printed image and with language itself, whose work was prominently displayed at the Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil.



Reena Seini Kallat, Synonym (2007).

In Tokyo I visited a very interesting show about contemporary Indian art at the Mori Museum. I confess that besides Raqs Media Collective, Shilpa Gupta and Hema Upadhyay, I am not very knowledgeable about the contemporary art scene in India. This exhibition helped me to understand the current situation of a complex country that is grappling with rapid modernization in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, while struggling to maintain its identity and cultural traditions. Among the many interesting works, there was one that I found strongly print-related although it would not normally be considered a print: Reena Seini Kallat’s Synonym (2007), a series of sculptural portraits done with rubber seals. Each seal has the name of someone that has died in conflict. The pieces are visually striking, placed in freestanding frames taller than an average person. Kallat also does photographs of people's torsos with the shapes of a map inscribed with stamped names. The shapes vary, reflecting on the shifting boundaries of the territorial conflict.

J. Roca.

Letter from Taipei

Dear friends:
There has been much discussion in recent years about the pros and cons of the proliferation of Biennials and triennials, with a new one opening each year in a different place. Many of them respond to political agendas and/or efforts to boost the profile of a city through cultural tourism. But there are two things that remain valid regardless of the motivations behind a Biennial: one, they do provide the local artists with an opportunity to be seen in an international context, through exposure and new contacts; two, they provide the outside visitor with the opportunity to see a sizable group of artists from a given region, which allows him/her to catch a glimpse of the local and regional art scenes. Both have proven true in my visits to these events in Asia.

In Taipei I visited the Biennial, curated by Vasif Kortun and Manray Hsu. I met Vasif long ago, when we were part of the short-lived VOTI (The Vnion Of The Imaginary), an online forum for discussion about curatorial practice. I met Manray in Finland in 2005 when we were both doing research on art of the Nordic countries; at that time I was co-curating the Sao Paulo Bienal, while he was working on the Liverpool Biennial with the Cuban curator Gerardo Mosquera.

I arrived to Taipei last Tuesday, coinciding with a lecture that Vasif gave on the Biennial model. I decided to attend, because it is a rare treat to have a curator speak of the conceptual framework of his/her project as opposed to the slide walkthrough of the event (at worst) or a lecture on the chosen theme (at best).

Having curated two versions of the Istanbul Biennale, Vasif offered candid insights about the strengths, the dangers, the successes and the failures of these types of events—at least of the ones he has been involved with—and illustrated his arguments mixing images from Istanbul (a city he calls "contaminated") and from Taipei (where, according to him, it is still possible to create contamination).

He started by showing two meanings of the word Biennial: one was “something that happens every two years”; the other was “a plant that flowers at the second year.” He chose the latter to stress the fact that only after a two-year process—the process being what is really important—can something actually be achieved. If the plant is not well tended during the two years, it probably will not yield any flowers.

He contends that Biennales have turned into events, and the process tends to be neglected. And in most cases there is no connection to the host city. I completely agree; in most cases the curator does not spend significant time in the city that is hosting the event. These were concerns that we tried to address in MDE07, a six-month-long event that I co-curated in Medellín, Colombia last year: how to connect with the local scene in a way that was truly meaningful? We devised several ways to achieve this, with relative success. There is a link to the MDE07: www.encuentromedellin2007.com (sorry, only in Spanish).

Vasif proposed several guidelines for the curating of this type of events, although acknowledging that what might work for a given context might not be appropriate for another:

-Undo event culture: there should be a conscientious attempt at bypassing the “big and noisy event” syndrome in favor of something of a lesser scale that above all, serves the local public and the local arts scene. How to avoid “exhibition fatigue”? There is only so much a visitor can take, before one loses attention and interest. It is a question of scale, both of the scope of the event and in the size of the spaces chosen to house the exhibits.

-Institutional hospitality: one should strive to create the context so the city succeeds in articulating many other projects (in addition to those directly related to the Biennial) toward the same goal.

-Long-term residencies. A Biennial can be the ideal situation to invite artists to spend time in the city, mingle with the local scene, establish ties, and produce a meaningful work based on real involvement.

-Spanning the region: Vasif contends that biennials end up concentrating too much on the host city, neglecting the regions. In my opinion, this is true for certain contexts and not for others. Often when you try to cover too much ground you lose focus and become entangled in something that doesn't serve the local public and doesn't succeed in reaching a wider region.

-Rethink publications: instead of going for the usual catalog, it is important to think about what is really needed in each case, and how it should be designed and edited so it fulfills its role. I agree: too many trees have been felled to print fancy maps, flyers and guides that end up unused or thrown in the wastebasket.

-Ecology of the exhibition: in sync with the idea of only printing what is strictly necessary, an eye should be kept on the “carbon footprint” of the biennial: what is really needed? What is unnecessary, superficial or redundant? In Taipei they painted only those walls that needed to be a certain color for the sake of the work: the rest were left unpainted, in many places showing previous colors, the remnants of a side wall, etc.

Finally, he ended with a truism: biennials are a bundle of intelligent questions, at best an interesting narrative; they cannot purport to provide answers, nor to be conclusive about a subject.



The Biennial site (http://www.taipeibiennial.org/2008/index.aspx), provides a wealth of information about this event, although I personally find Universes-in-Universe’s coverage easier to navigate: http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/taipei_biennial/2008

I found the Taipei Biennial a particularly pleasurable event to experience, with strong works that related with the others but not in an illustrative way. It was cleverly articulated in spatial terms so as to provide a varied viewing experience, with long-duration video installations being followed with paintings or sculpture, intimate works providing respite from overwhelming works, and humorous works providing a light note, in a conscious reminder to both artists, curators and the public to not take oneself too seriously.

J. Roca.

Letter from Singapore and Shanghai

Dear friends:
I just visited Singapore, where the 6th Singapore Biennale is being held. The Biennale, curated by Japanese curator Fumio Nanjo (director of the Mori Museum in Tokyo) for the second time, was hosted in three main venues, with other projects also located on alternative sites. Here’s a link to the official website:
http://www.singaporebiennale.org/
And to Universes in Universe coverage of the Biennale:
http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/singapore_biennale/2008

The 2008 Biennale is based on the concept of “wonder”, both in its demand for amazement and for questioning. The theme lent itself to a rather simplistic approach to the selection of works, all of which had, for the most part, some kind of spectacular or gimmicky character. Many pieces moved one to ask “how did he do it”? Large-scale, labor-intensive works coexisted with works that invariably had a trick, but all of them were intended to awe you in some way. For example, Zhan Wang’s Stone To Fill the Sky features a vitrine with a hovering silver rock that defies gravity; Marielle Neudecker’s piece is a striking model of a mountain range in a water-filled glass case with milky water that suggests clouds; Jane Lee’s impressive large-scale tapestry-like painting was done directly on the wall with paint flowing from a tube; Lee Yong Deok made bas-relief paintings,that appear convex to the eye if viewed from the right direction and thus seem to move as the viewer approaches them; Sergio Prego’s video is of a firework-induced cloud of smoke that was photographed simultaneously from all sides by an array of cameras, resulting in a video with a continuous shot around the cloud that allows the viewer to experience it in a quasi-sculptural manner; or Leandro Erlich’s twin barbershop rooms, one the exact reflection of the other, trick the eye into thinking that one of them is merely a reflection on a mirror. This quality of trickery made the event read very much as an archetypal Biennial: a theme-based, well-funded, cultural-tourism-driven event composed of spectacular rather than meaningful works. However, even despite this catering to tourism, the Biennale included many interesting artists.



Among the most beautiful works were Ben David Zadok’s Blackfield, a field of plants and flowers etched out of metal, inserted one by one on a sand carpet. The motifs for the plants were taken from 19th-century botanical illustrations, multi-colored on one side and completely black on the other. The resulting effect caused the viewer to witnesses the “field of flowers” as it came to life or died out, depending on which side he or she approached the work from.



Another work that interested me was the one by Indonesian collective Tromarama’s Serigali Militia, a fast-paced music video done entirely with woodcuts that were animated with the traditional step-frame method. Visually it was very effective, and the raw quality of the woodcuts reinforced the band’s punk attitude. The video showed various steps in the carving of the wood, and, as the image developed and morphed into something else, the viewer witnessed the carving of the wood incorporated in the video, which in terms of process was very engaging and self-reflective.


Joselina Cruz, on eof the co-curators, comments on this work in universes-in-universe, the leading website for the often-overseen art from Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific. It can be found on this link (there is even a snippet of the video):

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2008/tromarama

Also, on Tromarama’s blog, there are some images of the process of turning a live performance into frames that were then carved one by one and then animated:

http://tromarama.blogspot.com/search/label/BEHIND%20THE%20SCENE

Scroll down to: Behind the Scenes Serigala Militia.



While in Singapore I visited the world-famous Singapore Tyler Print Institute (SITP), a veritable cultural center devoted to the print medium, which was conceived by the American master printer Kenneth Tyler, who for more than 40 years collaborated with artists such as Josef Albers, Anthony Caro, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella and Donald Sultan. I saw Sema Upadhyay‘s exhibition there, which featured large-scale prints in mixed media, often incorporating sculptural elements like Chinese wooden puzzles. Here is the link to the STPI site:
http://www.stpi.com.sg/

The STPI also hosts a residency program. The current resident was Japanese artist Tabaimo, whose work was prominently displayed at the last Venice Biennale.
Tabaimo is known for her references to Japanese Manga culture, which are often displayed as animations on video installations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYL-9A5SZag&NR=1

She was working on several projects at the STPI, most of which involved collaborating with the Institute’s two main strengths: etchings and paper-making. Tabaimo’s drawings of different types of insects were printed in lithography on a gossamer vellum-type paper, which were then incorporated in a single sheet in alternating layers: printed vellum, paper pulp, another printed paper, another layer of pulp, etc. With the paper still damp, Tabaimo proceeded to cut “windows” on the paper, thus revealing motifs hidden under the paper pulp. The results were large-scale prints with round “potholes” that reveal fragments of insects, delicate and poetic, yet powerful and visually striking.

From Singapore I traveled to Shanghai, to visit the 7th Shanghai Biennale. The Biennale was curated by a team composed of Zhang Qing, Julian Heynen and Henk Slager.

Here’s a link to the official website:
http://www.shanghaibiennale.com/

And to UIU’s coverage:
http://universes-in-universe.de/car/shanghai/eng/2008/index.htm

Like the Singapore Biennale, the Shanghai Biennale had a distinctive title and theme: Translocalmotion, which demands a sense of migration in the featured works. But, unlike in the Biennale in Singapore where the works themselves were strong and varied, in Shanghai it was difficult to find truly engaging pieces because most of them tended to be subsumed in the illustration of the all-encompassing thematic premise of mobility and migration. There were many videos that tracked the experience of migrants in different contexts around the world. Other works showed different aspects of displaced cultural groups clinging to tradition as a way to maintain a connection with their homeland. The wall texts tended to give a reductive view of the works by attempting to tie them too tightly to the curatorial premise. They lead so often into the same argument that in most cases any given text would have worked equally well for any given work of art.



Among the works that I found most interesting was media theoretician and artist Harun Farocki’s video on immigration, a fast-paced slide-show narration done entirely with ideograms and charts taken from German official documents.



Two other videos also based on graphic illustrations were visually and conceptually interesting. The first one was Bu Hua‘s Savage Growth, an animation whose aesthetics reference woodblock-printed children’s books; the other is Huang Hsin-Chien’s Shanghai, Shall We Dance?, a three-screen video interactive installation in which the viewer feels completely immersed. The animation reacts to the viewer’s movements, mimmicking the viewer’s shadow with computer-generated images of buildings. It thus comments on the rapid urban development of China through this flowing dance of images.



The Biennial was full of young people on a Sunday morning, and in this sense, it seems to be capable of fulfilling its role of creating a new audience for art. The “pièce de résistance” was Yue Minjun’s impressive cavalcade of dinosaurs, which referenced the famous display at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Each one of the dinosaurs had a human head that boasted Yue‘s signature grinning smile, and could be interpreted as an ironical commentary on China’s happy and relentless “evolution” towards globalization. Take cover: the dinosaur is waking up…

José Roca.

Letter from L.A.

Dear friends of Philagrafika:
For those of you in the West coast or planning to go there in the coming months, there is a wonderful exhibition at the Hammer Museum. Curated by Allegra Pesenti of the Grunewald center, the exhibition, titled Gouge: the modern Woodcut 1870 to Today traces the evolution of the woodcut as a distinct art form. From Gaugin's rediscovery in the late nineteenth century to the present day, so many artists are using it because, as I have written elsewhere, its atavic associations (being arguably the oldest of the printing techniques) contrast with the visual output of the technologically-driven society we live in.

The show includes wonderful works, some of them rarely seen. They range from one of the few Matisse's woodblock prints with the only known block (a strong sculptural presence that contrasts with the seeming lightness of the resulting line) to anonymous Indian printers from the 19th century. It also includes an impressive group of artists such as Vallotton, Munch, Nolde, Picasso, Kollvitz, Beuys, Baselitz, Kiefer and, more recent artists like Terry Winters, Christiane Baumgartner or Zarina Hashmi.

The exhibition is divided into themes that address issues like the re-emergence of the medium after it had fallen into oblivion due to the developments in etching; the presence of the grain of the wood as an important component of the work; sacred imagery, a section that brings together works from India, Korea, and a series of German expressionist woodcuts; and the role of woodblock printing -accessible to anyone with a carving tool and a sheet of wood- in social struggles. Indeed, one of the most striking pieces is Carmelo González-Iglesias' The Pseudo-republic and the Revolution, an enormous seven-block woodcut done in 1960 in the wake of the Cuban revolution.



One of the most beautiful pieces is Artemio Rodríguez' The Triumph of Death, inspired equally by Brueghel's work as for Mexican calavera woodcuts. Rodríguez, who did the linocuts for Juan Devis' award-winning online video game Tropical America (www.tropicalamerica.com) has a project called Graficomovil, which is, in his own words, "a traveling mural, a mobile cinema, gallery and print studio dedicated to promoting the graphic arts and independent filmmaking". Rodríguez's activist attitude is an example of the only thing lacking in the exhibition, namely the current activist woodcut scene better exemplified in collectives like Cannonball Press or Drive By Press and artists like Swoon. One could imagine a lively room filled with these strong works and their creators staging interactions with the public, but it would have certainly required a far bigger space and maybe would have offset the grave tone that this wonderful and tightly curated show has.

Jose.

Philagrafika trips: Argentina and Chile

Dear friends of Philagrafika:
As part of the research for Philagrafika 2010 I have been traveling in different countries, giving public talks about the festival and making studio visits. My recent trips in Argentina and Chile were very productive both in getting to know artists that are working with expanded forms of printmaking, and visiting artists or collectives that we have already invited to Philagrafika.
In Argentina I had a long conversation with Javier Barilaro, the founder and leader of the Eloisa Cartonera group. Eloisa Cartonera has been working with cardboard recyclers, some of whom are homeless, providing them with a means of expression as well as a means of survival. When we invited them to the Sao Paulo Bienal they replicated the project, and have done similar projects in Bolivia and Peru, among other cities.



Barilaro is the only one who studied art and works in the artistic realm proper; the other members are more poets, social workers or activists, and of course the cartoneros themselves.
Javier told me that the experience they had had in first world cities was completely different than in Latin America.

Barilaro has a very interesting practice of his own. I am enclosing some images.
He recycles printed materials, some of them done by him or Eloisa Cartonera, or replicates the printed look with drawing and painting. He has been doing large works or installations.



In Santiago I visited Eugenio Dittborn, one of the key figures in Latin American conceptualism, and very well known for his Airmail paintings (the New Museum in New York devoted him a retrospective some years ago). He had prepared a mini-display of his work for me to see, which was a treat since most of his works I know from books, since they spend most of the time either traveling or folded in the envelopes, awaiting to embark in a new trip.










The person in the photo with Dittborn is Alexia Tala, who is the author of “Installations and Experimental Printmaking”, a handbook soon to be published by A&C Black in London. Alexia had put together a very intense studio visit program for me, focused in alternative forms of the print. I did see some interesting work, some of it historical like Dittborn’s or Lotty Rosenfeld’s, who was invited to the last Documenta. Since the beginning of the dictatorship in Chile, Lotty has been marking the territory with crossing lines, sometimes done in tape, sometimes imprinted on the road. The message is at the same time subversive and poetic, and has never ceased to acquire new meanings whenever it is done/shown.

I saw works by other interesting artists:

Graciela Sacco.www.gracielasacco.net
She etches Perspex sheets and hangs them in various positions. Projected light creates the image by casting shadows on the wall.

Gerardo Repetto. Lives in Córdoba.
His work is closer to photography. People send him images taken with cell phones, which he then enlarges and prints digitally.

Patricio Larrambebere. He founded “ABTE” a real/fake association (the acronym stands for Agrupación Boletos Tipo Edmonton, which translates as Association of Edmonton-type Tickets). Edmonton was the inventor of the classic train (and metro) ticket that is used everywhere, the small cardboard rectangle. In reclaiming these tickets as a collector, Larrambebere is referring to the history of trains in Argentina, which were instrumental in the development of the country but that have almost disappeared because of corruption and, more recently, privatization. The ABTE organizes events in train stations, shows their collection of tickets, and published tiny “catalogs” the size of a ticket that opens like an accordion.

Agustín Blanco. www.Blangustin.blogspot.com
He has been working with stencils like the ones used in schools in Argentina. They provide the students with stencils of the faces of national “heros” (e.g. Bolívar), and all you have top do is draw with the stencil as a guide. It’s an interesting commentary on the role of education in the shaping of political ideology early on. He has taken other educational materials such as “simulcoop”, a letraset-type system used in public schools in Argentina, as with the stencils the public is encouraged to print their own images.

Eduardo Molinari. Has an ongoing Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne-type project titled Archivo caminante, which is quite interesting conceptually although visually not very compelling.

Camilo Yáñez. He is an artist and a curator, he will curate the upcoming MERCOSUR Bienal.
He recycles soviet graphic imagery and replaces the political signs for quotes to art history such as op-art. He then prints the images as large digital prints. He has also worked with catalogs of household objects of the Allende era.

I will be posting soon from Brazil.

Jose.

Post from José Roca: Philagrafika trip to Brazil

José Roca, the Artistic Director for Philagrafika is going to begin a series of posts from his curatorial travel to South America and Asia. This travel was funded by a grant by the Warhol Foundation.

Dear friends of Philagrafika:
In Brazil I installed a small show in which I had been working for more than two years, and that was finally realized this past month. There is more information on the website(http://www.nararoesler.com.br/exposicoes/otras-floras)





It is a reconsideration of the scientific traveler, and the relationships between botanics and politics, and includes older artists such as Arnulf Rainer, Mark Dion, Roxy Paine, Jan Fabre and Maria Fernanda Cardoso. There are also younger artists like Jaime Tarazona and Miler Lagos, whom we have invited to participate in Philagrafika 2010. Miler created an 8-foot tall tree made of stacked newspapers, which he then carves to create the sculpture. I am enclosing some photos of the installation.



The Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, has a beautiful show of Maria Bonomi, a highly respected artist here in Brazil who has worked in xylography (spanish for woodcut) since the sixties. I also visited Regina Silveira's exhibition at Brito Cimino, and later her studio (http://www.britocimino.com.br/en-exposicoes-presente.html). The show looks amazing, and has everything to do with our ideas for the festival in Philadelphia in 2010. I am also enclosing photos. The current show is about the biblical plagues; some of them are all types of bugs, that were gleaned from old engravings and illustrations and either blown up and rendered in plotter-cut vinyl, or screen-printed on decals that were then applied to white china (for the table service visible on one of the images).


For those of you that might not be so familiar with her work, since the seventies, Regina has been working in alternative forms of printing, using toner in lithographic stones, distributing flyers, applying screen-printed decals on various three-dimensional surfaces, and eventually taking this work to the public sphere by intervening façades of buildings. I did a survey show of her work last year at my (ex) museum in Bogotá.

The opening of the Bienal de Sao Paulo was a success. As the curators Ivo Mesquita and Ana Paula Cohen (whom I invited last year to co-curate the Encuentro de Medellín) chose to discuss the ideas associated with the void, the space looks, well, empty.

Prior to curating this show, I first saw this space completely empty when I met with my fellow co-curators in 2005. Yet, it’s breathtaking to see this immense building with hardly any works of art installed as part of a curated statement.



Here’s a link to the curatorial statement:

http://bienalsaopaulo.globo.com/english/fundacao/noticias/noticias_evento.asp?IDNoticia=154

There are works, of course, but most of them are almost imperceptible, since they either reflect on emptiness of the space or on the idea of the archive. One of Ivo’s ideas was to use this biennial as a think-tank to reconsider Biennials and “Biennalism”, so there is a large archive with catalogs of all the past and current biennials, triennials, quadriennials, etc, and many artists working on personal or public archives.

There is a very beautiful work by Dora Longo Bahía. She has been an artist concerned with counter-culture in Brazilian poorer neighborhoods, especially the alternative rock scene in Brazil.

She has done several works where she sets up a radio station in the gallery.She is also a painter, and calls her large-scale paintings “scalps”, as they seem something that has been pulled off with force and scarred, a bloodied trophy of sorts.

For the Bienal she covered the whole floor of the third level (more than 12.000 square feet) in screen-printed self-adhesive tiles, which will be walked upon by visitors, slowly revealing the red paint underneath and in doing so, mapping the various patterns and intensities of the circulation of the visitors of the exhibition.





Another project that interested me was Erick Beltrán’s “The World Explained”, an encyclopedia that is done in real time with the definitions provided by the public. I worked with Erick in San Juan and Medellín, and each time he pushes his ongoing project of mapping the way thought functions, a little further. For the Bienal he set up a sort of edition house in real time, with tables where people write their definitions, his assistants transcribe them, a designer does the mise-en-page, and the page is immediately printed on an offset press. By the end of the Bienal we will have a 200-page encyclopedia. On the third floor of the Bienal there is a structure that tries to represent visually and spatially the processes of thought.



At the Pinacoteca I saw Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias’ show. It was a series of large-scale installations; models of site-specific projects and public art commissions; and some interesting printed works related to the installations. There was a labyrinthine installation done with tresses made with braided wire, and a very beautiful suite of prints based on photographs of this installation. The technique was described to me as this: she takes photographs of the installations, which she prints digitally on a metal plate and etches, then reworks directly on the plate with drypoint.


There were also two large-scale screen prints on copper plates done from images of the models for her installations.



More to come.
Jose.