London: Art Galore!

This weekend a short detour, from the edge of the European continent to the big island that is (in a special way) part of Europe but above all, its British. Why did I go there? To consume vast amounts of art together with some friends from Holland and Belgium. Besides the Frieze Art Fair there are lots of exhibitions running at probably the 100 plus gallery’s that London counts. So we rented some bikes -yes, we’re Dutch, so what!- and hopped from gallery-to-gallery-to-fair through central London. After so much art, in all its shapes and sizes, you don’t know anymore what art is or supposed to be (even if I ever did before). Especially after wondering around on a crowded, pressingly warm fairground, walking from stand to stand, gallery to gallery. They we’re all there from New York to Hamburg and Beirut trying to sell some artifact.

I wonder if Walter Benjamin could have predicted this phenomenon when he wrote ‘The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in 1935. At least ‘the exhibition value’ is something that gets an whole other dimension on fair than in a museum. Perhaps Rem Koolhaas’ remark in the talk show at his Serpentine Pavilion (designed together with Cecil Balmond) together with Jeff Koons and Hans Ulrich Obrist last weekend (wasn’t there though but Sam Jacobs was).Koolhaas replied after a list of what art did according to Koons, “Are collectors a fair representation of mankind?” There you have it, problem number one, which is even more present in an art fair than any other exhibition venue.

But lets not go into the ‘what is art’ elaboration, that’s more something for a PhD topic. So just some general observations about the arts.

art work by Julian Opie

There are always a fair share of art that revolves around the play/remixing/twisting with popular imagery and mainstream culture. Often effective I think, especially accessible for non-connoisseurs, although this ‘trick’ is wearing out, it has been around since the Andy Warhol.

There is also a some craftsmanship returning, very hard to capture in a photo, but I have seen some small surrealist oil paintings with a level of detail, and expressive use of the medium which echo’s the renaissance painters. But also innovation of the classic overwhelming sublime paintings of Romanticism. (image above)

And than the object, the immaculate shiny object is always close and attracts people like magpie. From Jeff Koons ‘Cracked Egg’ to this one that I liked most the hammer and sikle lying on a mirroring cube pedestole. Ambiguity of the ideal materialization of a fallen ideology, like a the Platonian shadow in the cave finally gets to see its original from the realm of the gods.

Finally one of the art works that made the biggest impact was one where you totally got immersed in the hidden world of outcasts. The ‘Iron mill’ in London was converted in a overpopulated shabby hotel with rooms populated with prostitutes, refugees, einselgangers, illegals, an electronics dismantling factory hall and some odd excavation site. Only all the inhabitants had left, and the art lovers were poking their nose into a world which blurred the boundaries between reality, the absurd and life in the margins of our society. Imagine yourself flipping through the agenda and checking the working hours of a prostitute’s bedroom.

Closer to home there is still enough inspiration in daily reality for art to protest, revolt and be critical. Gallery Sfeir Semler based in Hamburg as well as in Beirut showed work addressing war-struck Lebanon. The audience was walking over the art (after the first hesitation) which was the urban plan of Beirut cut from foam. This piece by Marwan Rechmaoui, combines the feeling ‘that it is inappropriate to walk on a piece of art’ with destroying a city through bombing it, through sharing the perspective of the bomb or rocket striking from above.

In the future more on Turkish artists for now enjoy the photo report of the London art circus

Genius Loci: 34?

Browsing the design magazines at the Robinson Crusoe bookstore in Istiklal, I found the magazine 34. An international design magazine based in Istanbul, which at first sight doesn’t seem to make much difference, just looks like your usual ‘design/lifestyle glossy’ but a closer reading exposes that the editorial approach is coloured by their editorial base in Istanbul.

Murat Patavi (for the Turkish among us:ekisisozluk.com) owner of Republica (founded in 2000), a Istanbul based advertising firm, founded 34 with as first director editor John Weich, Dutch/American writer on design and travel (former Wallpaper editor) in 2004. This summer they have published their 8th Issue but Weich has left 34. Now Adam Eeuwens is at the helm of the magazine. Dutch and also with one leg across the Atlantic in the States. Together with Aaron Betsky (former director of the Dutch Architecture Institute, he resigned very recently to become director of the Cincinnati Art Museum) he edited the book ‘False Flat, why Dutch design is so good’, haven’t read it but it is undoubtedly a very nice addition to the propaganda of Dutch design and architecture.

The cross-breeding of the Turkish, the Dutch with the American lifestyle glossy becomes clear when you browse through it’s content. Featuring Turkish designer Yves Behar and his practice, next to Dutch trend forecaster Li Edelkoorts, this all embedded in a lush bed of the overly familiar lifestyle glossy format (design snapshots, architecture+fashion+travel hot spot features). The tone of the articles is describing and praising design and its designers just like the editorial is an ode to design and cosmopitainism, and of course (quoting): “the world of design beats throwing bombs any day”. But it overlooks that this magazine magazine is for the ‘lucky few’ who should’t need self-congratulation and affirmation. Cosmopolitanism can be much more than a gated community of hip urban hot spot.

The most delightful part of the magazine is a short interview with Bob Partington, a Canadian working in exile in Istanbul. Just simple and upfront, and like me an expat in Istanbul, so there is also a recognition factor at work I have to admit.

But anyway, still I think 34 could embrace the potential of being in Istanbul a lot more. A little bit of international exposure for local design talent (and not all the obviously succesful-working-abroad-Turkisch-designers), and an effort to go beyond the drained ‘east meets west’ metaphore for Istanbul would help. A good refernce would be Bidoun, a magazine which manages to go beyond any orientalist stigma surrounding culture from the Middle East. Another example is Pages Magazine. The typical thing is they are doing a better job from respectively New York and Rotterdam than 34 is doing from their own genius loci: Istanbul. I just see lots of potential un-adressed, a change up for grabs …

Is there room for the alternative…?

This week I met Orkun, the owner of the record shop Room Recordings. We had a nice talk about the music scene in Istanbul, it’s clubs, festivals etc. Although our conversation was very enjoyable the conditions for a diverse music scene wasn’t. The initiaves for alternative music genres and artist’s were coming from guys such as himself, enthusiast who love music and follow the global scene very closely. bringing for instance Miss Kittin & The Hacker to Istanbul. One of the problems he says is that club owners don’t have a cultural mind-set. “the clubs and festivals it’s all about sex”, artist should have a sex appeal to male and female audiences. Sex sells, seems to be a universal law, but a pitty the first subroutines in the mind of club owners/programmers is commercial instead of cultural. My flat mate later explained that perhaps the sex part had something to do with a concept that is still very dominant in mainstream Turkish culture, namely keeping virginity until your wedding night. This makes concerts an event where the crowd can gaze and fantasize about the voluptuous flesh dancing on stage. So the erotics of the performance is dominating. He illustrated this with getting your hair cut at the barber (a men’s domain, ladies go to the coiffeur), where all heads suddenly turn when an attractive woman passes in the street.

Then again it’s hard to get alternative scenes from the ground in Istanbul. He tried it with some different electro acts but, Istanbul didn’t seem ready for it. The fertile ground for this is too small even in Istanbul. Saddly enough Orkun had also given up his record shop, the shelves were almost empty, in the already extremely small shop (maybe 15m2). Besides the clubs funding is always hard. The state has practically no funds for supporting cultural life, “so when we get an artist from outside Turkey, we have to get funding through the clubs and commercial parties or the Goethe Institute or the French Consulate (two other mayor cultural platforms in Istanbul).

Perhaps the launch of MTV Turkey can stir things up, probably this fall MTV Turkey will be Launched, apparently there is enough capital in the Turkish market to start an local MTV version. But where the Dutch MTV gives relatively quite some room for the alternative, for MTV Turkey this is to be seen.