23 March 2010

Flight Centre



"Against the explosion of 'self-expression' among many 'avant-garde' artists, 'New Measurement' proposed a principle of 'elimination of individuality', which has become the basis of their entire research. In this group whose membership has consisted, at different periods, of three-to-six artists, no room has been allowed for individual or personal ideas, experiences, and expressions. Instead, it undertakes collective work operating mechanically (measuring, calculating and drawing...) strictly respecting the collaboration rules based on 'numerical relationships' between things. The result of their work, then, consists of a large amount of rules, formulas and diagrams, signs and manuscripts, which record the discussions, calculations and presentations. Such a process, more importantly, has given birth to a 'non-art language' (or a 'quasi-language') situated between letters, mathematics and linguistic research. Hence, ideological problems or troubles have been transcended and even eliminated by a purely numerical, rational and un-individual research and the invention of its language."
–Hou Hanru, 1996

20 March 2010



Dear all, as I am sure you’ve probably guessed, this Pavilion show is not going to go through. There are two sides to this equation: Heritage Canada who initiated the project and asked if I wanted to do it and Cirque du Soleil which is in charge of the artistic programming and (I think is probably putting a lot of money into this pavilion because of their interests in China.)

I presented my proposal to Heritage Canada and to Cirque du Soleil a few weeks ago and they took forever to get back to me and when they did, they flat-out rejected it.

I am very sorry to have raised your hopes. The heritage Canada side lead me to believe that it was a sure thing but the curator from Cirque was not willing to collaborate. She basically had her own show planned and wasn’t willing to make the effort to include us.

Again I am very sorry to have wasted your time. Believe me I feel just as upset about this whole situation as you do.

I hope though, that we may have a chance to collaborate in the future!

19 March 2010

Campaign


"Termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art," Farber contends, "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."

5 March 2010