Sobre la arquitectura de los museos - Whitney Museum of American Art

Jack Manning/The New York Times

Jacqueline Kennedy attended the opening of the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1966.

The Controversial Whitney Museum

By Christopher Gray

Whiter the Whitney? Yes, it’s got a swell building designed by Renzo Piano under way in the meatpacking district, to be finished in 2015. But what about its structure at 75th and Madison, where Jacqueline Kennedy attended the ribbon-cutting in 1966? Ornery and menacing, it may be New York’s most bellicose work of architecture.

The artist, heiress and collector Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney established the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931 in back of her studio in some row houses at 10-14 West Eighth Street. In the 1950s the Whitney jumped to a small structure behind the Museum of Modern Art. In 1961 the museum enlarged its board — to include, for instance, Mrs. Kennedy — and began seeking a site for a larger building.

The board found just the spot at the southeast corner of Madison and 75th Street, which was owned by the developer and art collector Ian Woodner. He had cleared it of a lovely little group of houses, including a brick-and-brownstone Queen Anne, an Edwardian limestone and a demure neo-Federal. Mr. Woodner, who had intended to erect an apartment house, agreed to sell the property to the Whitney.

The board, despite a mission to encourage American art, hired the architect Marcel Breuer, who was Hungarian-born and Bauhaus-trained, to design a building.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

The Whitney today.

Municipal Archives

The southeast corner of Madison and 75th in 1940; the buildings had been razed when the museum bought it.

A 1963 rendering of the museum shows it almost as it stands, projecting out over Madison Avenue like a medieval fortress, with oddly shaped windows reminiscent of the gun ports of the Maginot Line. But in the rendering the panels of granite are variegated in tone, giving the building a life it does not have today with its more uniform masonry.

In an article Dec. 12, 1963, Ada Louise Huxtable, the architecture critic for The New York Times, praised the initial design, finding it “serious and somber,” and “sympathetic to its neighbors.” But harmony was not, apparently, Breuer’s intent, since in 1966 Newsweek quoted him as saying that the neighboring brownstones and town houses “aren’t any good.”

By this point the elite had accepted modernist architecture, and anyone who protested risked denunciation as a hayseed. But the art critic Emily Genauer, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, also on Dec. 12, cautiously ventured that the new building seemed “oppressively heavy.”

A fortnight later Mrs. Huxtable backtracked slightly, saying that “it might be too somber and severe for many tastes,” but was still “careful” and “conscientious.” Her description, however, used the words bulky, sunken, gloomy, stygian and Alcatraz within three sentences.

The Whitney opened in 1966, and the hayseed lobby had apparently made itself known to Mrs. Huxtable; while acknowledging that it was “the most disliked building in New York,” she still admired Breuer’s design.

But Miss Genauer called it “the Madison Avenue Monster.” And Thomas B. Hess, writing in Art News, was of the opinion that the granite gave the museum “a mineral, prison look.” However, the stark concrete interiors received wide praise.

In 1967 the brash new “A. I. A. Guide to New York City,” by the architects Norval White and Elliot Willensky, quipped that passers-by should “beware of boiling oil,” but also called Breuer’s work a must-see. It was as if, as Olga Gueft put it in Interiors Magazine, the high-culture stamp of the Whitney and its trustees made it “completely invulnerable.”

Most writers at the time expressed skepticism about the Whitney’s choice of a cramped site. And only a little more than a decade after opening there was talk of a critical need to expand. In the 1980s the architect Michael Graves proposed demolishing the flanking brownstones down to the 74th Street corner for a complementary addition.

But in 1980 the Whitney had been included in the Upper East Side Historic District, designed to preserve just those buildings that Breuer had deprecated to Newsweek. The landmark designation caught up good and bad alike, and Mr. Graves’s proposal was not the only one that failed on the grounds of either the loss of the brownstones, or the changes to the Whitney.

It is easy to imagine the conniption fits the Whitney of 1966 would meet if it were being built today; its threatening character spears every tenet of people-friendly cities now held dear. In comparison the reviled white brick apartment houses of the 1960s are absolutely benign.

Even in an age where traditionalism has triumphed, Breuer’s granite bunker is still aesthetically bombproof. If its architecture is like a horror movie, it is like a Stephen King horror movie, unimpeachably literate.

The Whitney hasn’t said what it intends to do with the old museum after it completes its downtown structure, and perhaps it will operate the two in tandem.

If it decides to sell, it will be offering a monument that is probably unexpandable, even unchangeable, and unmistakably the brand of a single famous institution. Even if Breuer’s building comes into other hands, the name Whitney will never be far removed from this singular edifice.

sobre los balances de seguridad + protocolo de un museo y la integridad y diversión del arte

Down From the Heights
By ROBIN POGREBIN

Take 6,800 bamboo poles, 70 miles of colorful cord and plans for an art installation that will change every day over a six-month period and ultimately grow to 50 feet high. Add two artists and a bunch of rock climbers who like to listen to the Rolling Stones while they add to the piece, and drink pilsner when they’re done working. And then stick the whole thing on the roof of the esteemed, establishment Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It was bound to be a combustible mix. “There’s the good and the bad,” Doug Starn, one of the artists, said last week while watching the piece, “Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t and You Won’t Stop,” being dismantled. (It closed on Sunday.) “People like us — and rock climbers — we don’t fit into the dead artist thing. As much as they welcomed us in” — he said of the Met — “there were struggles all the way through. Us and the climbers are part of the piece, part of the organism. We live in the piece. We need to enjoy what we make, and we need to enjoy ourselves while we’re making it.”

Curfews and adjusting music volume became part of the creative experience for Mr. Starn and his twin brother, Mike. But it wasn’t all tension and sticky red tape. There was also enormous success: 600,000 visitors (400,000 had been projected), international acclaim, six marriage proposals in the bamboo thicket, and famous climbers like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; the artists Martin Puryear and Francesco Clemente; Bono, Lou Reed, Paul McCartney, who went up barefoot or — as Mike Starn put it — “ ‘Abbey Road’ style.” And though the Starns had mapped out certain elements, like staircases and “living rooms” with benches inside the structure, plenty of things were unexpected, which was actually kind of the point. They hadn’t planned, for example, to have bamboo cup holders, which sprouted throughout the piece (the climbers put them in), or the cresting wave of bent bamboo at the top, or the spontaneous wind chime that turned up toward the southern end. They could not have predicted that the roof’s wisteria would wend its way all the way up the piece; that the red-tailed hawk Pale Male would regularly circle overhead; or how breathtaking Central Park would look from “Big Bambú” as the seasons changed. The installation had to close every time it rained and the climbers and the Starns had to stop work for a week when the artists ran out of cord, which was used to lash the poles together.

“We used up all the rope in the United States,” Mike said. “Then we had to wait for the ash cloud to pass so we could ship the rope from Switzerland.” Met officials last week seemed satisfied, if still catching their breath. It is certainly the most complex and ambitious project to date on the roof,” said Anne L. Strauss, an associate curator at the museum, who organized the installation. “Their project has brought our sculpture program on the roof to a new dimension and literally to great heights.” And the Met had to navigate some uncharted territory. To prepare for “Big Bambú” the museum secured approval from the city Buildings Department and ran its plans by several other city agencies, including the Fire Department. It plotted how people could safely go up the undulating sculpture, though the piece was a perpetual work in progress. And it came up with requirements that visitors sign waivers and follow strict rules (no sandals, no cellphones) as they ascended the installation’s winding walkways. And there was more: How do you handle a fleet of rock climbers who insist on listening to Jimi Hendrix while they help construct the sculpture? And how do you enforce museum operating hours if the artists have Friday-night parties atop the sculpture that stretch past closing time?

Standing on “Big Bambú” last week, sipping bottles of beer in T-shirts and jeans, the Starns said they thought the Met had responded like a pretty cool parent. “It’s amazing that the Met had the nerve to take on an evolving structure like this,” Mike said. “But we had to pull them along to create something about chaos. It’s a habitat. They wanted us out at 5 o’clock. But we’re not just here working. We’re a part of it. They didn’t like that — the beers. We finally got them to understand that this piece wouldn’t exist if it were too controlled. The vibe is important.” The music was clearly a flashpoint. Ms. Strauss said: “There might have been from time to time some volume issues, but then those were addressed. We’ve had a very collegial working experience with them.” When it came to the artistic side of the piece, the Starns were given a lot of rope (so to speak). “Big Bambú” took shape from one day to the next. Except for designated locations for the vertical poles to touch ground, placing each pole was largely up to the rock climbers. “That’s a moment-to-moment decision on their parts,” Mike said. The only time the artists exercised a veto is when “it wasn’t interconnected enough,” Doug said, “when it wasn’t part of the flow of the piece.”

The Starns ran out of bamboo after using 3,200 poles and had to order two more shipments of 1,800 each. (They said they had to share the cost of the bamboo and the extra cord with the Met, which declined to discuss the matter.) It was all worth it, though, according to many who waited hours for tickets or returned repeatedly because they wanted to see how “Big Bambú” kept changing. “It’s exciting for people to become part of an installation like this,” said Ryan Wong, one of the tour guides. “People are just exhilarated to be up there. You can see it in their faces. They say, ‘This is like being Robinson Crusoe or being on a wooden roller coaster.’ A melancholy hangs over the piece’s dismantling, which is expected to take two months. The Starns will cut out whole sections to keep as relics and are planning to gather the thousands of photographs they took of the piece into a pile, which will become an exhibition of its own. “It’s a lot of ambivalent feelings, conflicted feelings,” Doug said. “There is also an excitement taking it apart. I’m not quite sure why.” Many fans of the piece have suggested the Met make it permanent. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people talk about a petition,” Mike said. “But as far as I know, there isn’t one.” The Met, whose roof sculpture program is in its 13th year, does not seem to have considered the possibility. “We use that space for a rotating series of exhibitions, so every time we invite an artist to work there, they know it’s for a The rock climbers found it hard to go. One tried to sleep up there once — he just curled up until a guard discovered him and made him come down. The Starns said they understood the impulse. “If we could, we would camp out here,” Doug said.

“When we do this again,” Mike added, “we’ll definitely make living in the piece part of the contract.”

La Bienal de Sevilla no sobrevive a la crisis

El Gobierno autónomo de Andalucía ha retirado su apoyo económico a la Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, por lo que no habrá cuarta edición, ni en 2010 ni en 2011. La retirada del apoyo oficial es el tiro de gracia para un encuentro que logró atraer a más de 130.000 personas en 2008, y al que ya había dado la espalda la Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, que prometió en 2009 una aportación económica de alrededor de 2 millones de euros para la cuarta edición.

Qatar interesado en comprar la casa de subastas Christie's

El Gobierno del Emirato de Qatar quiere comprar la mayor casa de subastas del mundo, dentro de su ambicioso plan para afianzarse como un gran destino cultural. “Si se presenta la oportunidad, no lo dudaríamos", dijo el emir Al Thani al Financial Times.

"Estamos construyendo un nuevo museo y Christie´s tiene ver con lo que estamos coleccionando", explica el jefe del estado más rico del Golfo Pérsico, que tiene 58 años, y dirige con pulso firme un proyecto encaminado a sustituir el actual monocultivo petrolífero del país.

El jeque Hamad Al Thani explicó al diario londinense que no está interesado en seguir el camino de otros gobernantes de la zona, empeñados en costosos planes de rearme, aunque no niega su preocupación por lo delicado de la situación estratégica en la región.

Qatar es el mayor exportador de gas licuado del planeta, y ahora podría aprovechar el impulso de su nuevo Museo de Arte Islámico para adquirir una empresa que factura muchos millones de euros en ventas cuyo destino final es el propio emirato.

Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts

The Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts in San Francisco offers an expanded perspective on curating contemporary art and culture. Alongside traditional forms of exhibition making, this two-year master’s degree program emphasizes artist-led initiatives, public art projects, site-specific commissions, and other such experimental endeavors that have had a momentous impact in the last half-century. The program is distinguished by an international, interdisciplinary perspective, and it reflects San Francisco’s unique location and culture by placing a particular importance on the study of curatorial and artistic practices in Asia and Latin America. Our graduates have gone on to successful careers in the fields of independent curating, museums, galleries, public art agencies, and arts publishing.

The program was established in 2003 by the curators Kate Fowle and Ralph Rugoff. It provides practical training in curating and organizing exhibitions as well as rigorous study in the history of the discipline, modern and contemporary art history, theory, and criticism. Close, ongoing partnerships with outside organizations (such as SFMOMA and the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts) bring students into direct contact with artworks, archival materials, and artists, and allow them to engage in original research and collaborative projects. CCA offers many opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange, and we privilege collective forms of practice. The program also organizes numerous exhibitions, lectures, and symposia.

Our core faculty members include curators, art historians, and other art professionals from prominent Bay Area institutions. More than 200 curators, critics, scholars, and artists from around the world have taught courses here since the program was launched.

* NEWS: CURATORIAL PRACTICE WITH A CONCENTRATION IN ARCHITECTURE or DESIGN
CCA has extremely strong graduate programs in Architecture and Design, and students interested in pursuing curatorial avenues in either field can now apply for an MA in Curatorial Practice with a concentration in one or the other. The curriculum combines core courses in Curatorial Practice with a selection of theory and practice courses (including possibly a written thesis) in the second discipline. Applicants who wish to pursue this should indicate their interest in the personal statement that accompanies the application.

101 WATTIS CURATORIAL FELLOWSHIP
The Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, in collaboration with the CCA Wattis Institute and the 101/Artnow Collection, supports one paid, nine-month, postgraduate curatorial research fellowship each year. In addition to regular curatorial duties at the CCA Wattis Institute, each fellow organizes an exhibition of works from the 101 Collection and proposes works for acquisition. This multiyear commitment on the part of the 101 Collection recognizes the importance of offering young curators professional opportunities as well as our program’s dual emphasis on academic knowledge and practical experience.

QUALIFICATIONS FOR ADMISSION (deadline: January 5, 2011)
• Undergraduate degree in the history of art, fine art, or other appropriate area of the humanities or social sciences
• Relevant practical experience in the visual arts and a demonstrated commitment to curating
• Strong interest in contemporary art

For full details on the application process and requirements please visit www.cca.edu/admissions/grad. Our program manager, Sue Ellen Stone (sstone@cca.edu or 415.551.9239), is always happy to answer questions.

OPEN HOUSE & INFO NIGHT: NOVEMBER 3, 2010
Prospective applicants are invited to attend our open house and info night at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, November 3, 2010, where they can meet the program chair, faculty, and current students. For more information or to RSVP please contact Sue Ellen Stone at sstone@cca.edu or 415.551.9239.


Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at
California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco CA 94107-2247
T: 415.551.9239
http://www.cca.edu/curatorialpractice

EL Pais ::: Joyas de Artista

'El ojo del tiempo', de Salvador Dalí, en la exposición del MNAC "Joyas de artista. Del modernismo a la vanguardia"- CARLES RIBAS

Joyas de Artista

Las joyas que diseñaron a lo largo de su vida artistas como Josep Llimona, Manolo Hugué, Pablo Gargallo, Alexander Calder, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí o Pablo Picasso se confrontan y ponen en diálogo con sus pinturas, esculturas, fotografías y tejidos en una exposición única en el Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña (MNAC), que abre sus puertas mañana hasta febrero de 2011.

Bajo el título Joyas de artista. Del modernismo a la vanguardia, la exposición, que reúne 340 piezas, explora por primera vez el acercamiento al ámbito de la joyería de los artistas que encabezaron los principales movimientos de las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Tanto la directora del MNAC, Teresa Ocaña, como la comisaria de la exposición, Mariàngels Fondevila, han resaltado lo "inédito" de la propuesta, tanto por la lectura que se podrá hacer sobre el contexto en el que se realizaron las obras, como porque se exhiben piezas muy difíciles de ver y reunir.

Algunas proceden de colecciones privadas y otras son de instituciones y museos como el Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York, el Victoria and Albert Museum de Londres, el Reina Sofía de Madrid o el Musée d'Orsay de París. La idea es mostrar cómo los grandes de la Historia del Arte en el último siglo se acercaron de forma abierta a una disciplina como la de la joyería creando obras artísticas, muchas veces con materiales nada nobles como el latón e incluso obtenidos de los contenedores por parte de un escultor como Julio González.

Piezas singulares

Reivindicando la "singularidad" de cada una de las piezas así como su aspecto fetichista en ocasiones, Fondevila no ha obviado que el "espíritu lúdico" también está muy presente y no ha escondido que algunos de los artistas acabaron moldeando pequeñas joyas, porque así lo aconsejaban sus problemas de salud, como la artrosis.

La exposición, dividida en tres ámbitos, se abre con una selección de piezas realizadas por "joyeros artistas", entre las que destacan las elaboradas por el francés René Lalique, algunas de ellas adquiridas en su momento por el Museo de Hamburgo para la Exposición Universal de París de 1900, o el colgante inédito que el industrial catalán Antoni Amatller compró para su hija Teresa. También se muestra la obra con ricos esmaltes y variadas gamas de colores del barcelonés Lluís Masriera.

El corazón de la exposición late, sin embargo,gracias a las joyas concebidas por artistas no joyeros como Manolo Hugué, Herich Heckel, Pablo Gargallo, Julio González, Josef Hoffmann, Joaquim Gomis, Charlotte Perriand, Alexander Calder, Henri Laurens, Hans Arp, Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Antoni Gaudí o Salvador Dalí. Colocadas en unas vitrinas con cuidada iluminación, las joyas se contraponen con pinturas o esculturas que se exhiben a unos metros y que se reflejan en los cristales con el objetivo de establecer un paralelismo entre las diferentes disciplinas que cultivaron todos ellos.

'El ojo del tiempo'

Entre este ámbito y el último, en el que domina la fotografía y una exhibición de vestidos procedentes del Museo del Traje de Madrid, llama la atención una imagen de Salvador Dalí, realizada por Philippe Halsman, donde lleva tapado uno de sus ojos con la joya El ojo del tiempo, un icono omnipresente desde la primera página del catálogo-libro que se ha editado para esta exposición.

En la última de las salas se explora la relación existente entre "cuerpo y joya" y, además de mostrarse una selección de trajes, uno de ellos de Coco Chanel, de 1939, hay fotografías de los años treinta de autores como Man Ray, Edward Steichen, George Hoyningen-Huené y Horst P. Horst, todos ellos alejados del mundo de la moda pero que ofrecieron "visiones rutilantes y evocadoras, en las que el cuerpo y la joya forman una estrecha alianza".

Crítica de arte ::: Nuevos Descubrimientos

Nuevos Descubrimientos

Mirado con reluctancia y aprensión por la mayoría de los ciudadanos de los países latinoamericanos desde casi el mismo momento de lograr su independencia, los cuales preferían afincar sus respectivas identidades en el patrimonio histórico-artístico anterior al descubrimiento de América, el llamado arte colonial posee un inmenso valor que desborda cualquier estrecha visión política. También la retórica política afectó a España, que quiso usarlo, principalmente durante el franquismo, como una trasnochada reivindicación del finiquitado Imperio y de las glorias de una raza hispánica. Ambas son visiones caducas, que es imprescindible superar, porque, a la postre, ni benefician a los que las promueven, ni, sobre todo, al conocimiento de un maravilloso y muy singular fenómeno cultural, de interés universal.

De entrada, hay dos hechos que caracterizan la exploración y conquista del continente americano y otras tierras de ultramar por parte de los españoles: el primero y más importante es el mestizaje, que, desde luego, no se limitó al simple cruce racial; el segundo, que el afán de explotación no impidió el desarrollo de una formidable política de infraestructuras locales, que, por ejemplo, apenas si existió en los territorios norteamericanos bajo dominio británico. Las razones que explican este comportamiento colonial tan desparejo son diversas y complejas, pero su raíz última quizá obedezca a una concepción del poder imperial más medieval por parte de los monarcas españoles, frente a otra imperialista propia del moderno capitalismo anglosajón. Sea como sea, lo cierto es que en los territorios ultramarinos dependientes de la corona española, entre los siglos XVI y XIX, se lleva a cabo una formidable labor constructiva y artística, que no sólo forma una parte sustancial del arte de la época moderna, sino que posee una personalidad única, al surgir del entrecruzamiento de las culturas más diversas.
Nuevos Descubrimientos


Tan sólo acotando el tema al terreno de la pintura, como lo hace la exposición titulada Pintura de los Reinos. Identidades compartidas en el mundo hispánico, el resultado de lo exhibido es, se mire por donde se mire, de un interés y una calidad asombrosos. Sorprende, por tanto, que, con semejante acervo patrimonial, ninguno de sus protagonistas hayan sabido sacarle su extraordinario rendimiento potencial, empezando por lo más básico, que es explicar su auténtico sentido y su importancia, más allá de oportunistas retóricas políticas.

En el caso español, es muy elocuente la inveterada pésima gestión de lo atesorado en nuestro país de este increíble legado histórico-artístico. Hasta 1941, por ejemplo, no se crea una nueva institución del así llamado Museo de América, ni se inaugura su nueva sede física propia hasta 1965, habiéndose cobijado sus tesoros hasta entonces en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional, fundado casi un siglo antes, en 1867. Ubicado en la zona de Moncloa, muy cerca de la Ciudad Universitaria, el nuevo edificio, diseñado por los arquitectos Luis Feduchi y Luis Moya, y sus fantásticas colecciones no fueron adecuadamente dotados y promocionados. No se ha producido tampoco nunca una reflexión y un debate serios sobre cómo ordenar y distribuir sus tesoros, en los que se mezclan las obras precolombinas, el arte colonial, las artes populares e industriales, los documentos de la índole más diversa, etcétera. Por otra parte, no se ha llevado una duradera política de exposiciones temporales, ni la programación de otras muchas actividades que podrían haberlo convertido en el centro de la atención pública nacional e internacional. Con un poco de imaginación y medios, se comprende, en fin, lo que podía dar de sí una institución como ésta, hoy todavía muy poco conocida por la mayoría de los españoles, aunque debería ser uno de los cauces para que se produjera un nuevo descubrimiento de América, que sería simultáneamente también el descubrimiento de nuestro pasado y de nosotros mismos, y, por supuesto, por lo mismo, el de los pueblos americanos.

El Pais ::: Babélica Manifesta

Instalación Assembly instructions: (Tangential Logick, tangential Magick), de Alexandre Singh, en Manifesta 8.-

Babélica Manifesta

El artista Thierry Geoffroy (Nancy 1961), reconocido bienalista, lo tiene claro: "Hay mucha más gente viendo la televisión que visitando museos". De ahí que se haya uniformado de reportero colonialista (pantalón corto caqui, salacot y pajarita) y, desde hace algunas semanas, recorra las calles de Murcia y Cartagena interrogando y grabando (emergencyrooms.org/manifesta.html) a todo tipo de gentes sobre "el diálogo con el norte de Europa". Un corresponsal que no deja de cuestionar el porqué del argumento que plantea la última edición de Manifesta, la nómada bienal europea de arte contemporáneo con sede administrativa en Ámsterdam y que en esta su octava edición se traslada a esta región levantina. Desde su espacio-celda en la prisión de San Antón (una de las 14 ubicaciones de Manifesta 8), Geoffroy proclama con una pintada en la pared que cede el lugar a cualquier artista africano. Lo tiene difícil: de los 110 artistas de la sección oficial solo ocho han nacido o residen habitualmente en el norte de África.

Hasta su clausura, el 9 de enero, podrán ser visitados en la ciudad de Murcia tradicionales espacios expositivos y arrumbados edificios, abiertos expresamente para albergar esta babélica Manifesta. Emblemáticos inmuebles como la antigua oficina de Correos y Telégrafos y los dos primeros pabellones militares del cuartel de Artillería, se encontraban en estado ruinoso tras más de treinta años de abandono. También en Cartagena se ha abierto al público la prisión de San Antón, que este mismo año ha dejado de funcionar como tal. Las obras de arte se han acomodado en los desconchados interiores, lugares inhóspitos que el arquitecto Martín Lejárraga ha tenido que vehicular con escuetos remoces a las líneas argumentales de los tres equipos curatoriales para crear burbujas creativas en edificaciones que rezuman disciplina, reeducación y control moral. Hay cruces simbólicos entre espacios y okupas: los artistas exponen en el campamento militar y la cárcel y las imágenes digitales de los presos se proyectan en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Murcia.

Country Europa es el trabajo colectivo de autorrepresentación fotográfica, resultado de un taller impartido por Marcelo Expósito (Puertollano, 1966) y Verónica Iglesia (Buenos Aires, 1972) en el Centro Penitenciario de Murcia, en el que también ha intervenido Nada Prjla (Sarajevo, 1971), quien ha logrado que los presos se grabaran sin abandonar los muros. Otro artista, David Rych (Innsbruck, 1975), reproduce el encuentro entre presos y jóvenes ingresados en reformatorios. El resultado subraya las nuevas formas del poder: vigilar (sin) castigar.

La Fundación Manifesta, que ha dispuesto de un presupuesto de tres millones de euros para producir la programación, ha encargado a tres colectivos independientes la selección de artistas. Los proyectos anteriormente reseñados pertenecen al programa de Chamber of Public Secrets (CPS), amparado por Khaled Ramadan y Alfredo Cramerotti. Desde Copenhague y Oriente Próximo, a través de prácticas de producción en los mass media, fomentan diálogos que trasladan al dominio público el periodismo estético donde la realidad deviene artificio. "El resto es historia", es el lema de la estimulante propuesta que podemos iniciar en Cartagena desde el pabellón de autopsias con El proyecto de las baterías, de Laurent Grasso (Francia, 1972), artista que disecciona en sus trabajos los dispositivos de control y vigilancia, por lo que ha recorrido el litoral cartagenero buscando los emplazamientos militares que lo jalonan. Las vigilantes baterías observadas desde la costa y el zumbido de un submarino se transfiguran en inquietantes situaciones sociopolíticas. CPS también ha logrado abrir las puertas de la prisión de San Antón a los artistas con un permiso especial de la Secretaría General de Instituciones Penitenciarias. En la primera celda, un documental de Abed Anoud (Líbano, 1963) revela la sórdida historia del enclave con aportaciones de diversos protagonistas, entre los que destaca la erudición del historiador Pedro Egea. Este documento sirve de base para el recorrido guiado de Khaled Hafez (El Cairo, 1963), quien también presenta dos narraciones radiofónicas cuyo guión recorre la biografía de dos murcianos universales: los místicos sufís Abbul Abbass al Murci e Ibn Arabí. Podemos seguir hacia el fondo de la galería observando los murales pintados por los presos, allí nos encontraremos con la atronadora propuesta de Brumaria (Madrid, 2002). Descargas de metralletas, silbidos de ambulancias, turbias imágenes de guerra y un libro: Violencias expandidas. Lo resumo con la frase de Bertolt Brecht que fulminó a sus gestores: "La violencia es necesaria para cambiar este mundo asesino".

En la asociación de vecinos de Santa Lucía se exhibe una ampliación del Archivo FX de Pedro G. Romero (Aracena, 1964), seleccionado por los asamblearios Tranzit.org (Austria, República Checa, Hungría y Eslovaquia) cuyo plan expositivo se estructura en torno a un cuestionario de cuarenta preguntas denominado CET: Constitución para una exposición temporal. Sus conclusiones poscolonialistas y poscomunistas pueden verse en el cuartel de Artillería, cuyos pabellones han sido desescombrados por presos sujetos al tercer grado penitenciario que, en su programada readaptación social, han trabajado para la organización de Manifesta 8, según nos confirma la coordinadora general Esther Regueira.

Las propuestas de artistas más mediáticos se encuentran en el centro de Murcia en Correos. El irlandés Willie Doherthy (Derry, 1959), candidato en dos ocasiones al Premio Turner, ha presentado una decepcionante videocreación resuelta con una cincuentena de anodinos planos cortos grabados bajo uno de los puentes que cruza el río Segura, mientras Simón Fujiwara (Londres, 1982), ganador del Premio Cartier 2010, se acomoda a una arquitectura que rezuma tiempo por su deterioro para integrar una de sus falsas narraciones basadas en el descubrimiento arqueológico de un falo gigante hallado en el desierto. Estas propuestas son parte del comisariado de Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, representados por Bassam el Baroni y Jeremy Beaudry, quienes rubrican su discurso electivo con el título Overscore (tachadura).

www.manifesta8.com

Roberta Smith, crítica de arte del NYT, opina sobre la pieza de Ai Weiwei en el Tate Modern

La más reciente comisión de Unilever para el Turbine Hall en el museo Tate Modern en Londres es la instalación "Sunflower Seeds" del artista chin Ai Weiwei. La instalación levanta tanto polvo de la cerámica que, por razones de salud y por posiblemente afectar a los pulmones, se ha limitado el acceso al público. Ahora, en vez de poder caminar, tocar y recostarse sobre la instalación, se debe observar a la distancia. La crítica Roberta Smith escribe sobre las consideraciones que un museo debe tomar al presentar este tipo de trabajo y comparte su opinión sobre el dilema actual:

At Tate Modern, seeds of discontent by the ton

LONDON — Last Wednesday I had a close encounter with “Sunflower Seeds,” the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s oceanic new installation piece in the cavernous Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern here. The work consists of roughly 100 million hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds covering a vast expanse of floor to the depth of about four inches, and visitors were invited to wade right in. The black-and-white seeds crunched delightfully underfoot, and the whole thing resembled an indoor pebble beach, with people strolling about and then plunking down to sit or recline. One young man had buried himself.

As it turned out, my timing was lucky. By the next day “Sunflower Seeds” — the ninth in the Tate’s annual series of large-scale installations known as the Unilever commissions — had become the third to run into significant safety problems. In consultation with the artist, the Tate decided that people would no longer be allowed to enter the work, saying that the dust they stir up posed a health hazard. Now it can be viewed only from behind ropes or from the bridge that spans the Turbine Hall one floor up.

I could say I told them so, except I didn’t. I merely commented to my husband, as we looked down from the bridge a few days earlier, that the piece looked like an upper-respiratory disaster waiting to happen. It had not yet opened to the public, and was empty — except for one person off in the distance who was raking the seeds and wearing a surgical mask. That was a big clue.

My inkling was confirmed during my Wednesday visit, as I watched kids dashing through the seeds, followed by little clouds of dust, like Pigpen from “Peanuts.” And as other visitors settled into or sifted through Mr. Ai’s creation, we soon noticed our hands turning gray, as if we’d been reading a newspaper for hours.

What is the dust? The seeds, cast in porcelain, are painted with black slip — essentially liquid clay — and fired. (Some 1,600 residents of a village that once provided porcelain to the imperial court produced them over the course of several years, as documented in a video that accompanies the piece.) This process yields a matte finish that looks exactly like that of real sunflower seeds, but slip lacks glaze’s imperviousness to wear and tear.

The use of slip without glaze is highly unusual on porcelain, although typical on stoneware, with which it bonds more completely. But “stoneware” lacks the cultural resonance of “porcelain,” which refers to a form the Chinese invented, and using glaze would have made the seeds less seedlike and probably very slippery, creating a different problem for the public. All this suggests that Mr. Ai and the Tate must have known that his piece was something of a gamble from the start; so far, it appears that they took it and lost.

Holding the seeds in my hand, I found one already worn white by the friction of all the rubbing together and wondered if the entire expanse of them would have lost their markings by the end of the exhibition. Now we’ll never know, and a lot of lungs are probably the better for it.

As the perils of participatory art go, at least at the Tate, this latest example is probably the most profound. The problems in the other pieces were more easily avoided by visitors: In 2006 Carsten Höller’s enormous spiral slides reportedly caused a few injuries, and a year later three people got too close to Doris Salcedo’s “Shibboleth” — an extended, widening crack in the floor — and fell in.

Perhaps the Tate will finally learn its lesson about due diligence. For now, it is consulting with the artist about widening a pathway that runs along the long side the piece to allow more viewers to get close. It is also having what it calls the “ceramic dust” tested for its level of danger, in hopes that direct access can be restored to some extent.

Meanwhile, experientially, “Sunflower Seeds” has been severely curtailed, stripped, really, of the most appealing qualities of the work: not just the crackle produced by moving through the seeds, but also the way they slow your progress. Their quite un-sunflowery weight in your hand. The slightly overwhelming sense that each one is unique, like a fingerprint or a grain of sand, thanks to the three or four strokes of hand-painted black on both sides. None of this can really be experienced at a remove. All that remains is the vast grayness, stretching into the distance like a congealed sea, and of course the idea: the quantity, the labor, the care.

Before my Wednesday afternoon visit, I had watched a video segment on the Tate’s Web site, tate.org.uk, in which a curator cautioned people not to take the seeds. Until then, I had assumed that pocketing a few would be part of the experience, as with Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s piles of brightly wrapped candy.

And maybe now it should be — perhaps Mr. Ai and the museum should reconsider the prohibition, and hand out (or sell) little packets of the seeds. That way people could have some immediate contact and get a better idea of what moving across their gray terrain might be like, without putting their health at risk.

En Berlín, una exhibición sobre Hitler propone repensar el rol del pueblo alemán en un momento de creciente rechazo a los inmigrantes

An advertisement for the Hitler Youth program.

Hitler exhibit explores a wider circle of guilt

Slide show

BERLIN — As artifacts go, they are mere trinkets — an old purse, playing cards, a lantern. Even the display that caused the crowds to stop and stare is a simple embroidered tapestry, stitched by village women.

But the exhibits that opened Friday at the German Historical Museum are intentionally prosaic: they emphasize the everyday way that ordinary Germans once accepted, and often celebrated, Hitler.

The household items had Nazi logos and colors. The tapestry, a tribute to the union of church, state and party, was woven by a church congregation at the behest of their priest.

“This is what we call self-mobilization of society,” said Hans-Ulrich Thamer, one of three curators to assemble the exhibit at the German Historical Museum. “As a person, Hitler was a very ordinary man. He was nothing without the people.”

This show, “Hitler and the Germans: Nation and Crime,” opened Friday. It was billed as the first in Germany since the end of World War II to focus exclusively on Adolf Hitler. Germany outlaws public displays of some Nazi symbols, and the curators took care to avoid showing items that appeared to glorify Hitler. His uniforms, for example, remained in storage.

Instead, the show focuses on the society that nurtured and empowered him. It is not the first time historians have argued that Hitler did not corral the Germans as much as the Germans elevated Hitler. But one curator said the message was arguably more vital for Germany now than at any time in the past six decades, as rising nationalism, more open hostility to immigrants and a generational disconnect from the events of the Nazi era have older Germans concerned about repeating the past.

“The only hope for stopping extremists is to isolate them from society so that they are separated, so they do not have a relationship with the bourgeoisie and the other classes,” Mr. Thamer said. “The Nazis were members of high society. This was the dangerous moment.

“This we have to avoid from happening.”

Increasingly, Germans have put the guilt of the past behind them, reasserting their pride in national identity in many positive ways. But there also have been troubling signs seeping from the margins into the mainstream.

A best-selling book by a former banker promoted genetic theories of intelligence and said that Muslims were “dumbing down” society. A leading politician condemned “alien cultures.” A new right-wing party recently attracted hundreds to a speech by the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Even government officials say that immigrant children are picking on native Germans. The media is filled daily with reports of conflict between immigrants, especially Muslims, and Germans.

The planners began discussing this kind of show 10 years ago, Mr. Thamer said. An expert committee viewed it as part of a continuum of penance and awareness that historians say began with the Auschwitz trials.

The process did not always go smoothly. A 1995 exhibition in Hamburg was widely condemned for showing that the Wehrmacht, or regular army, committed atrocities on the eastern front, just like the SS, the Nazi special police. The public was not ready to widen the sense of responsibility for Nazi-era wrongs.

But for this show, museum officials thought the time would be right. And in the end, they said, the timing added special value.

“It would be presumptuous to say that an exhibition could counter the radiance of populism,” said Rudolf Trabold, spokesman for the museum. “We try to achieve what we can afford, and to achieve our mission. But if that outshines the populist power of a Geert Wilders, I myself would not presume to say.”

As he walked through the exhibit on Friday, Eric Pignolet, a Belgian who has lived in Berlin for 22 years, said he was pleased that Germans were no longer saying, “I didn’t know.” But he said he was troubled by parallels between then and now.

“I think if you had someone like him today, it could be very dangerous,” he said halfway through his walk through the displays about Hitler. “There are a lot of people out there who want jobs, who are not happy with the political leadership, who would vote for someone like him if he came along.”

The line had already formed when the museum doors opened at 10 a.m. An estimated 3,000 visitors paid the $8.40 admission fee to see the nearly 1,000 items, including photographs, videos, uniforms and a narrative that explained the early appeal of a man and a party that offered jobs, pride and a sense of purpose, while employing wholesale violence and brutality to those who did not go along.

“This exhibition is about Hitler and the Germans — meaning the social and political and individual processes by which much of the German people became enablers, colluders, co-criminals in the Holocaust,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin. “That this was so is now a mainstream view, rejected only by a small minority of very elderly and deluded people, or the German extreme right-wing fringe. But it took us a while to get there.”

The museum placed the display downstairs, below street level, so it was dark and silent. Three images of Hitler projected on a mesh screen opened the show; behind them were pictures of cheering crowds, marching soldiers and other demonstrations of popular support. Around the corner were details of how Hitler was embraced early on, by the elite in Munich. “The wives of entrepreneurs, such as Elsa Bruckhmann, vied to be the first to drag Hitler” to a social event, one display said.

“Our teachers in the past, were integrated in that system, and I can remember they wanted to tell us that the German people became the first victim of Hitler, that they were practically mugged,” said Klaus Peter Triebel from Seefeld, near Munich.

The exhibit explains the early appeal of the Nazis, who demonstrated a keen appreciation for the politics of populism’s creating a sense of unity and purpose: “Attending popular sports events, film premiers, they dedicated autobahns and new industrial builds,” read a display.

There were also the familiar striped uniforms forced on prisoners in the concentration camps, and the cold calculation in maps that showed the division of Poland between Germany and Russia.

But over and over, the point was spelled out clearly in the exhibit’s plaques like one, near letters written by children who were sent off to concentration camps, that said: “Hitler was able to implement his military and extermination objectives because the military and economic elites were willing to carry out his war.”

The exhibit, with all its photographs of young and old adoring Hitler, also sought to dispel the notion that the Nazi spirit was simply impossible to resist. It held up Johann Georg Elser as proof that “it was possible for an individual to develop into a resistance fighter.”

Mr. Elser was a carpenter who tried to kill Hitler at the outset of the war and was hanged for his actions.

His story, however, left some viewers to wonder why their parents and grandparents had not rejected Hitler. Why everyone went mad.

“My father was a Hitler Youth,” said Gutfreund Keller, as she walked through the exhibit with her husband and two daughters. “It’s hard to understand.”

Stefan Pauly contributed reporting.

Arte contemporáneo en Venecia, Italia

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo's studio at Palazzo Fortuny.

In arts capital, galleries fill a void

Venice has no permanent museum of contemporary art. Perhaps it has not felt the need for one because every two years the contemporary art world descends en masse for the Visual Arts Biennale, which for months occupies scores of locations all around the city.

In any case, there’s something paradoxical about a contemporary art museum. The longer a collection sits around, the less contemporary it becomes. The French multimillionaire François Pinault took over Palazzo Grassi, the Fiat Group’s flagship exhibition space on the Grand Canal, in 2005 and added the refurbished Dogana, or Customs House (on which he flies his own Breton flag), to his empire last year. He uses both spaces primarily to showcase his own collection of post-modern art. Some pieces on display at Palazzo Grassi go back nearly 50 years.

All of which is not to say that the city does not have a homegrown contemporary art scene, and much of it can be found in areas that have been steeped in art and artists for centuries.

Many of Venice’s commercial art galleries are concentrated in the central San Marco district, in a triangle of streets and squares between Palazzo Grassi, the Fenice Opera House and Palazzo Fortuny. There’s a cluster of galleries around the Fenice and another in and around the tiny San Samuele area behind Palazzo Grassi.

Veronese had his studio-house on the now gallery-lined Salizzada San Samuele. Casanova was born here, the illegitimate child of an actress and an aristocratic theatrical entrepreneur, and played the violin in the San Samuele theater where his mother performed. Byron lived here with his menagerie of exotic animals and mistresses. (At various points in its history, San Samuele was chiefly famous for its prostitutes.)

Fiat’s acquisition of Palazzo Grassi and the nearly 20-year run of blockbuster exhibitions it held there brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to San Samuele and encouraged the blossoming of the neighborhood’s cosmopolitan gallery scene. This was also a period when Venice’s stores were closing as the population declined and children became reluctant to follow their parents into family businesses. The spaces left vacant attracted a new generation of aspiring gallerists.

The galleries are small, and some represent only one or a limited range of artists. This is partly due to the economic squeeze: galleries fall back on reliable sellers to pay the rent rather than taking risks by showing untried artists. Italy’s arcane, restrictive licensing laws are another factor: it is easier to open an “artisanal” outlet authorized to display only one type of product, which, when applied to art, means the work of a single artist.

While the opening of a Palazzo Grassi show during the Fiat days was an event, as any of the San Samuele galleries will tell you now, Mr. Pinault has so far failed to create the same buzz. The number of visitors appears to have dwindled to a trickle — hardly surprisingly given the present show has been going on there since the last Visual Arts Biennale in 2009 and will remain in place until April, when it will have run for nearly two years. How edgy is that?

This lapse has spurred the galleries of the triangle to initiatives of their own. Fifteen of them put on “Three Days in September,” a jamboree to coincide with the opening of the Architectural Biennale and the Venice Film Festival, with late-night openings and drinks parties.

And Palazzo Fortuny, at another corner of the triangle, has become ever more lively. Shows and featured artists change frequently. At the moment there are seven simultaneous temporary exhibitions (continuing until Jan. 9) across its four floors.

The palazzo itself was once the working space of an artist. Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo arrived in Venice from Granada in 1899, four years after the first Venice Biennale, and took a studio in the attic of the 15th-century building that now bears his name. Painter, engraver, sculptor, photographer, fabric-maker, fashion and theater designer, inventor of a theatrical lighting system and stylish domestic lamps, he gradually took over the rest of the palazzo, floor by floor, to accommodate his pursuits.

At the time of his death in 1949, it was Fortuny’s hope that Palazzo Fortuny would become a Spanish cultural center, but his homeland refused the legacy and, when his widow, Henriette, died in 1956, the palazzo and its contents were left to Venice’s municipality.

Since then the palazzo has gone through phases of revival and neglect. But under the leadership of its current director, Daniela Ferretti, the Fortuny has been reborn. Over the past couple of years Ms. Ferretti has curated a series of colorful and entertaining exhibitions, increasingly mixing them with the Fortuny’s permanent collection — a successful formula, both enhancing the contemporary pieces and highlighting the collection.

Among the shows have been ones devoted to the Art Deco designer George Barbier, the sculptor and couturier Roberto Capucci, and the sculptors Isabelle de Borchgrave, working with painted papers, and Francesco Candeloro, with laser-cut plexiglass.

The current exhibitions open on the ground floor with the furniture, fabrics and portraits of the Irish artist Nuala Goodman. On the second floor, the works of two contemporary artists — the painter Marco Tirelli and the sculptor and jewelry maker Alberto Zorzi — are integrated with a rich variety of Fortuny pieces, including some beautiful examples of his fashions from two private collections. Two side rooms host a score of still-lifes by Giorgio Morandi, some on public view for the first time.

On the floor above are large canvases of Mr. Tirelli’s subtle monochrome images of geometrical forms and architectural spaces. The top floor is shared by 11 installations in glass, copper, gold and found objects by Giorgio Vigna, and by “My Wild Places,” 40 magnificent photographs by the Venetian-born Luca Campigotto, of mountains, deserts, polar wildernesses and oceans.

There are also, inevitably in Venice, artists pursuing their work, still unknown, but undaunted. On a recent Saturday morning stroll around the warren of narrow alleys near by, where the ladies of the night used to dwell, I came across an artist whose name you likely haven’t heard: Paolo Paitowsky. He was shaping his latest compositions: arrangements of carrots and apples in the iron window grills of his house, which he photographs — and then enters his work in competitions.

Noticias :::

A close-up of Ai Weiwei' sunflower seeds, which were handcrafted by a team of 1,600 artisansPhoto: GETTY

The floor of the gallery's vast Turbine Hall has been carpeted with 100 million porcelain seeds in a new installation by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Visitors are encouraged to pick them up and crunch them underfoot for an interactive art experience.

However, Tate bosses have issued a stern warning after visitors on launch day said they were fighting the urge to take home a seed as a memento - raising the possibility that the 1,000sq metre work could be significantly smaller before the year is out.

"We are encouraging people to walk on them - but certainly not to take them," said Juliet Bingham, the curator.

The artist himself appeared tickled by the notion of his work spreading across the world via the pockets of visitors. But he said: "For the museum's part, the argument is very clear. This is a total work and we want people to see the full effect of 100 million seeds."

He was more worried about somebody mistaking them for the real thing. "People might also like to eat them. That's a safety issue. They might try to sue the Tate for that."

The installation is the latest in the Unilever Series. Previous works include Carsten Holler's giant slides and Olafur Eliasson's fake sun.

MAS INFO SOBRE LA EXHIBICION :::

The Turbine Hall at Tate Modern has been carpeted with more than 100 million "sunflower seeds" - the latest commission in the gallery's popular Unilever Series. Visitors will be able to walk on and touch the seeds - the brainchild of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei - which are in fact made of porcelain. Each imitation seed husk was individually handcrafted by skilled artisans and now covers 1,000 square metres of the London gallery's Turbine Hall. The ceramic seeds were moulded, fired at soaring temperatures, hand-painted and then fired again over the course of two years.

Sunflower seeds are a popular Chinese street snack but also hold another meaning for the artist, a political dissident in China. During the Cultural Revolution, propaganda images showed Chairman Mao as the sun and the mass of people as sunflowers turning towards him.

Chief curator Sheena Wagstaff said of the new work: "It's a beautifully simple idea that belies an extraordinary rich layer of meanings and references." Curator Juliet Bingham added: "To touch one seed is to touch the whole. It's a poignant commentary on the relationships between individuals and the masses."

More than 150 tonnes of seeds have been used for the 10cm (4in) deep, "extremely costly" installation produced by 1,600 people in China. The seeds were made over a process of 20 to 30 steps in the city of Jingdezhen, which is renowned for its production of imperial porcelain. Ai Weiwei said: "I made three or four seeds. I couldn't really make them. They picked them out and threw them away saying 'It looks so bad... It's no good'" At the end of the show all the seeds will be returned to the artist's studio in Beijing, as long as they have not broken under the weight of visitors' feet. Asked what he would do with the seeds afterwards, he joked: "I'll try to cook with them. Maybe some new product will come out." He said the artisans were surprised to have been asked to make the seeds, saying: "They are used to making practical objects" and that if he had explained the end result "nobody would believe it".

LINKS

• Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern

• Ai Weiwei and The Unilever Series

• Tate Modern covered in seeds

• Ai Weiwei: setting a new benchmark

• Ai Weiwei: the artist who took on China