INDEPENDENTCURATORSINTERNATIONAL

Post
Praxis:ArtinTimesofUncertainty
Posted on September 16, 2011
The investigation of the influence of social change in artistic creation and the detection
of critical research shifts towards issues of collective interest oriented the curatorial
direction of Thessaloniki Biennale. In 2009, the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of
Contemporary Art, organized by the Greek State Museum of Contemporary Art,
attempted to record the state of art in times of uncertainty focused on a dialogue
between artists from prominent geopolitical centers and their colleagues from distant and
not easily accessible areas an aim well inscribed within the broader agenda of
Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. The 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale, curated by
Gabriela Salgado, Bisi Silva and myself, attempted to bring together in one exhibition the
work of artists from Latin America, Africa, West Europe and the Balkans. Based on the
work of the English theorist, Terry Eagleton, After Theory, the exhibition Praxis: Art in
Times of Uncertainty tried to trace the emerging sense of awakening that seems to
follow the lethargy of uncritical and total disregard of ideologies and sociopolitical
systems. Wondering whether the time for the reexamination of the inherent value of
artistic practice has come, whether the moment to explore art as a privileged space for
relatively free expression of ideas and for an alternative view of the world has arrived,
the exhibition presented groups and single artists whose art returned back to life, back to
praxis and to collective creation contributing to the formation of a political view and
proposing new ways of coexisting with the other. \n\nThe Thessaloniki Biennale
guarantees the internationalized character of the visual arts in Thessaloniki. Among the
150 artists and groups that were chosen for their quality of transforming contemporary
sociopolitical questions into visual art, were Chto Delat? (What is to be done?), a
contemporary Russian collective of intellectuals and visual artists. Named by Lenins
homonym manifest published in 1902, which claimed the need for the formation of a
revolutionary party, their film, Perestroika Songspiel. The Victory over the Coup, a
heretical hybrid between ancient tragedy and musical, recomposed lyrically the recent
history of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Identifying the heroes of the new
era: the idealist democrat, the gentle businessman, the revolutionary, the nationalist, and
the woman who found her lost voice, the chorus in the lyric interludes deconstructed the
illusions of the protagonists for justice within the capitalist system in an ironic manner.

Chto Delat, Perestroika Songspiel. The Victory over the Coup, 2009. Video still

In her video projection Mumbai: A Laundry Field, Kimsooja takes us through the slums
of Mumbai, contrasting the seductive colorful laundry to the tragic poverty of the

abandoned social strata, the bad

plumbing system, and the
suffocative accumulation of
people in the settlements.

Kimsooja, Mumbai: A Laundry Field,

20078. Video still

In All that is Solid Melts into Air,

Mark Boulos suggests an
alternative reading of the Marxist
notion of commodity fetishism
focused on the metaphysical
qualities of petroleum. One
screen projects scenes from the
activities of the Movement for
the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta against the international
corporations that steal the
petroleum from the natives with
the collaboration of Nigerian
state, while another screen
shows scenes from the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange during the
period of the recent financial
crisis.

[left] Mark Boulos,

All that is Solid
Melts into Air,
2008. Chicago
Mercantile
Exchange. Video
still
[right] Mark Boulos,
All that is Solid
Melts into Air, 2008. MEND fighter, Niger Delta. Video still

Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, in their video work A New Silk Road:
Algorithm of Survival and Hope, attempt to recompose the contemporary economic reality
focused on Kyrgyzstans role in the conduct of international trade and the dramatic
changes effected in the lifestyle of the people of Central Asia after the collapse of Soviet
Union.

Gulnara Kasmalieva, Muratbek

Djumaliev, A New Silk Road: Algorithm
of Survival and Hope, 2007. 5 channel
video installation, photographs

Jodi Bieber, in her photographs

from Las Canas series, portrays
stories of degradation from the
everyday life of drug users in
Spain.

Jodi Bieber, Las Canas, 2003.

Photographs

While the complexity of the

experience between individuals,
groups, nations, social categories,
genders and religions has been
interwoven with globalization and
more recently, the economic
crisis in Greece, encounters of
personal narrations with collective
experiences, traumas,
expectations, and losses, as well
as the profound political and
economical changes that
jeopardize social cohesion, has
formed the canvas on which the
narrative of contemporary art is
unwrapped. This narrative is
structured around the axis of the
urban experiences of a medium
sized Greek urban center, namely Thessaloniki: a city with complex social tissue and a
multinational character enriched by the latest immigration of people from the regions of
the former Soviet Union, rich historical heritage, and cultural stratification. Ottoman
monuments, covered markets, museums of Byzantine and Modern art, open places,
stores and warehouses in the port all these composed the topography of the exhibition
spaces of the Biennale in an attempt to incorporate organically contemporary art into the
urban fabric through the selection of different institutional and alternative spaces.
Posted to
2010 NYSE Dinner with Nancy Spector