13 October 2009
Le Printemps de Septembre
‘Là où je suis n’éxiste pas’. ‘Here where I am doesn’t exist.’ It’s not a comfortable translation – I had to read it twice – but the subtitle to ‘Le Printemps de Septembre’ (Spring in September) is not intended to be a tidy, comfortable idea. It responds in part to the equally gnomic strap-line of the 2008 edition of this yearly contemporary art festival (which was also under the artistic direction of Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, director Christian Bernard): ‘Wherever I’m going, I’m already there.’ Bernard and associate curator, Jean-Max Colard, were keen to downplay the…
Categories: Art, Biennials, Cities, Events, Museums
by Jonathan Griffin
| No responses 23 July 2009 At Wysing Arts, in rural Cambridgeshire, the Danish art collective A Kassen have been producing their new video work, Minus Roof, which will be unveiled this Saturday. They enlisted the help of a pilot at the local airfield, who supplied them with a plane from which they filmed Wysing’s gallery from the air. Meanwhile, a camera inside the space filmed the Cambridgeshire skies through a wide gap that the artists had made in the roof. The two videos will be shown side by side, the roof having been replaced. Categories: Art, Events
by Jonathan Griffin
| No responses 13 July 2009 At the weekend I traveled up to Cumbria for the grand opening of Grizedale Arts’ new home, Lawson Park. Part artists’ residency centre, part experimental self-sufficient farm, Grizedale’s spanking new premises are the result of architects Sutherland Hussey’s redevelopment of a near-derelict hill farm overlooking Coniston Water. Now, in the interests of full transparency, I should disclose that I used to work at Grizedale Arts and that I’ve just finished editing a book about their programme over the past decade (‘Grizedale Arts: Addding Complexity to Confusion’) so I’ll stand back and let the pictures do most of the talking. Categories: Art, Design, News
by Jonathan Griffin
| No responses 04 June 2009 Of course Venice is incredibly beautiful, and we’re all lucky to be here, but boy are we tired, and hot. Our minds are saturated with images and ideas and names and associations. A far from ideal state, in other words, in which to look at art. I wonder, therefore, whether it’s a coincidence that some of the most popular pavilions are those that provide the more comfortable viewing conditions. The first that springs to mind is Roman Ondák’s blissful Loop (2009) – a garden growing within the doorless walls of the Czech Pavilion. It’s not just a joy to…
Categories: by Jonathan Griffin
| No responses 23 March 2009 Rumour and hearsay buzz around Dubai like flies in a jam jar. Speculation, once what developers did, is now what people there do about developers. Answers to the questions, however, that visitors here seem unanimously to be asking – ‘Is it true? Is it over? Has the project failed?’ – are nowhere to be found. This is perhaps to be expected. We’ve seen again and again the contagious and corrosive power that lapses of confidence can have in financial enterprises around the world, and it is not surprising that people here are keeping their cards close to their chests.…
Categories: Art, Biennials, Cities, Events
by Jonathan Griffin
| 1 response 
Heavens Above
Perhaps…
Alt. Country
Postcards from Venice - pt. 2
The Cultural Desert
