ephemeropteræ 2015/03 – Chus Martínez | Anselm Franke
CHUS MARTINEZ – Metabolic Era
Chus Martínez, curator and head of the Institute of Art at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, introduces her idea of the Metabolic Era. In her talk, Martinez focuses on the transformation of life through physical and mental ingestion—from diets to procrastination—and explores how such metabolic processes can potentially inform the future of art. Art is not a practice but a metabolism that is slowly transforming the DNA of culture, of the social body. Art is, in other words, a new organ that will transform the way we feel and think about matter and nature but also about technology. Art, in this understanding, is not a tool but a third gender that is already expanding life.
Chus Martínez (born 1972) is a Spanish art historian and curator. She worked as chief curator at El Museo del Barrio, NYC. Prior to that she was head of the department of artistic direction and a member of the core agent group for dOCUMENTA(13). In her former capacities as chief curator at El Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA (2008–10) and director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005–08) she has organized numerous exhibitions and publications with contemporary artists. Martínez curated the Cypriot Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale (2005), and in 2010 she was curatorial advisor for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo.
Chus Martínez (born 1972) is a Spanish art historian and curator. She worked as chief curator at El Museo del Barrio, NYC. Prior to that she was head of the department of artistic direction and a member of the core agent group for dOCUMENTA(13). In her former capacities as chief curator at El Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA (2008–10) and director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005–08) she has organized numerous exhibitions and publications with contemporary artists. Martínez curated the Cypriot Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale (2005), and in 2010 she was curatorial advisor for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo.
ANSELM FRANKE The Fossil Called Art—Alienation and Its Aftermath
I thought the New Wave, at the time, was a beginning. . . . Now I think it was the door closing. —Jean-Luc Godard
What does it mean to think with art today, when art is no longer an escape from alienation? In this presentation, Anselm Franke speculates on the future of art and suggests that it is necessary to invent new weapons against clichés of thought that proliferate at a time of neopositivism. The notion of neopositivism pertains to the transformations of the social and mental at a time of algorithmic governance and deep market ideologies. Neopositivism is ubiquity of media without mediation as due process. To Franke, we can yet be sensitized to its frontiers of capture as they affect both art and each individual’s personal life. Will it be able to produce different states of mind and a new kind of use value?
Featuring excerpts from works by Harun Farocki, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Otolith Group, Ashish Avikunthak, and more.
Anselm Franke (born 1978) is an exceptional curator, who is currently head of visual arts and film at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin where he has organized The Whole Earth (with Diederich Diederichsen, 2013), was part of the curatorial team of the extensive Anthropocene Project (2014) and most recently Ape Culture (with Hila Peleg 2015) testing out how human “nature” might be constructed anew. Franke curated exhibitions such as Animism (2010 later reinstalled world-widely), was a co-curator of Manifesta 7 in Trento, Italy (2008), curator of Taipei (2012) and Shanghai (2014) biennales and was part of the curatorial team of the Forum Expanded of the International Filmfestival Berlin since 2005.
What does it mean to think with art today, when art is no longer an escape from alienation? In this presentation, Anselm Franke speculates on the future of art and suggests that it is necessary to invent new weapons against clichés of thought that proliferate at a time of neopositivism. The notion of neopositivism pertains to the transformations of the social and mental at a time of algorithmic governance and deep market ideologies. Neopositivism is ubiquity of media without mediation as due process. To Franke, we can yet be sensitized to its frontiers of capture as they affect both art and each individual’s personal life. Will it be able to produce different states of mind and a new kind of use value?
Featuring excerpts from works by Harun Farocki, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Otolith Group, Ashish Avikunthak, and more.
Anselm Franke (born 1978) is an exceptional curator, who is currently head of visual arts and film at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin where he has organized The Whole Earth (with Diederich Diederichsen, 2013), was part of the curatorial team of the extensive Anthropocene Project (2014) and most recently Ape Culture (with Hila Peleg 2015) testing out how human “nature” might be constructed anew. Franke curated exhibitions such as Animism (2010 later reinstalled world-widely), was a co-curator of Manifesta 7 in Trento, Italy (2008), curator of Taipei (2012) and Shanghai (2014) biennales and was part of the curatorial team of the Forum Expanded of the International Filmfestival Berlin since 2005.