Cover of the publication.

In the current Mousse Magazine #31 (November 2011) you can read the interview 'Nice to Meet You – Erick Beltrán. Some Fundamental Postulates' where Max Andrews converses with the Mexican-born Barcelona-based artist, about the artist's attempt to create the terms of a dictionary of multiplicity. Their conversation ends:

"In 1997 I was asked to define my work in ten lines, and I realised that was impossible. So I said to myself, okay, let’s just make it one word! So that word was ‘edition’ and from there everything expanded and exploded as I realised my work was about the question of how you select things – what is a choice? And that is a really difficult question."

The project will continue in 2012–13, with a series of 'assignments' to contemporary artists "a number of artists will be set the assignment of creating a work in the spirit of Smithson, whereby the landscape is viewed as a continual process that is constantly in a state of transformation due to the interaction between man and nature", to be curated by SKOR's curators Nils van Beek and Theo Tegelaers. + info...


Land Art Contemporary is an initiative of STICHTING LACDA, Drenthe, a foundation established in 2011 by the Sanders-Ten Holte family. The program has been made possible thanks to (content and financial) support from SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain, Province of Drenthe, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas (LEADER), Municipality of Coevorden, Municipality of Emmen, Cultuurfonds BNG and the Sanders-Ten Holte family.

Issue 8: 'The Last Journal'
(READ IT ON ISSUU)
 
24 November 2010

Cover: Fernando Bryce, from the series L'Humanité (2009–2010)
Feature: 'L'Humanité', Yasmil Raymond on Fernando Bryce
Feature: 'Independent Gazette', Lorena Muñoz-Alonso reports from London on two newspaper-inspired exhibitions: 'The Independent' (Damián Ortega at The Curve, Barbican) and ‘Can Altay: The Church Street Partners' Gazette’, The Showroom. Plus Damián Ortega exchanges impressions with curator Alona Pardo on his show.
Media Habits: Ester Partegàs, TLN advertising department artist
Brazil Focus: 'The Imaginery Newspaper', Chris Dercon on Luciano Figueiredo & Ana Paula Cohen on 'Jornal 28b', the newspaper produced during the 28th Bienal de São Paulo.
Focus: 'Boetti e His Double', Christian Rattemeyer on TLN artist Alighiero e Boetti's Corriere Della Sera (1976)
The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news): CROWD-SOURCING – SPOT.US / EMPHAS.IS
Exclusive interview: 'The Days of This Society...', Desiree B. Ramos interviews TLN artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
Focus: 'Paper view' Gwen Schwartz asked New Museum visitors about their experiences of TLN
Focus: 'What's CUP?' by Gwen Schwartz and Max Andrews
Picture Agent-Our singular picture agency: Adrià Julià
Focus: '29 Days Later', Sarah Wang on TLN work Untitled Green Screen Memory (2010) by Larry Johnson + 2009 California Fires by Collin Munn
Cartoon: 'The Woods' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising Department: Ester Partegàs












'THE DAYS OF THIS SOCIETY...' New Museum curatorial fellow Desiree B. Ramos meets ‘The Last Newspaper’ artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
 


Desiree B. Ramos: How did you become an artist?

Rirkrit Tiravanija: By accident! I actually wanted to be a photojournalist and then mistakenly took some art history classes and became curious about art. I left the university from the history department, and I went to art school and I went to talk to the counselor about the idea of studying art. So I had an appointment, I went to the meeting and I had to wait in this kind of lobby library. I was just standing there, looking around the shelf, and there was a book that stood out from the shelf from the Ontario College of Art, so I just pulled it out, took down the address and left. So it was kind of accidental.

DB: What was your first art piece?

RT: Umm, that’s a debate. It was actually an image that my father took of me; I made this plasticine sculpture on my ear, it was like an ear extension, so that I looked like a Vulcan. So I would say that was my first sculpture.

DB: Do you still have it, or a record of it?

RT: I have a picture that my father took, but I don’t have the actual plasticine. I guess I could always remake it.

DB: That would be fun...

RT: Yeah, that would be fun. Wow, you just gave me a new idea!

DB: What was your first political work?

RT: Well, it depends on what is political, you know, if personal is political. The first work I made in art school, officially made in art school, was about identity, about me being in the West and trying to figure out what that was. It was the first letter of the Thai alphabet drawn on cardboard, and then it had a Thai dictionary explanation with this alphabet in English. So in a way, that had a kind of cultural politics in it. I would say my work is always asking those kinds of personal political questions, I mean, about the self and about identity.

DB: What got you into cooking?

RT: It was the simplest thing I could do. I was working in Chicago on questions of, about, cultural artifacts. I worked on this conceptual work with the idea that these artifacts were displays, again, about identity also, and that they were missing; they were fragmented in a kind of gap, or there was a gap that I thought needed to be questioned.

DB: So it was natural for you to mix cooking with art?

RT: Exactly, because I was looking at pots, bowls and plates, and Buddha statues, and these were all objects of everyday use in my culture, so first I basically decided to just cook so that these things would always be in play and from that it became, well, it was always about the people. Of course these are things that were used everyday, which have been taken out of context, put onto display because they were valued in a different situation, and looked at through the Western eye as if they were somehow valuable in relation to the idea of culture. But for me it was really about the life around the object.

DB: What’s your favorite thing to cook?

RT: I don’t have a favorite thing to cook.

DB: Nothing that gets you more into the act of cooking and engaging with people?

RT: It’s not so much about the cooking, not about the food or any particular dish; it’s about the act and then ... I think it’s always more communal to cook a big pot of curry than to make a piece of steak. But I actually just recently cooked a lot of steak for 2,000 people so I’m actually wrong, I could cook steak for a lot of people but, of course, it’s about the activity of cooking. When we made this kind of barbecue grill, Argentinean style, the asado, it’s a communal activity in itself. So, it was just a matter of scale. People normally do it with families but here we extended it so we could involve even more people at the same moment, so it became something else.

DB: Where do you get your ideas from? Are you inspired by something in specific or do they randomly come to you? Do you get them from looking at things, reading, or conversing with people?

RT: I think it’s all of that. It’s an ongoing process that I have and I think many artists have, which is like you’re always thinking, looking and everything that you experience becomes a question or a possibility. It’s a combination; I’m looking at certain things that I’m interested in but, on the other hand, I’m always very receptive to what is happening around me, and that becomes a trigger for other things.

DB: I’m wondering how you go on varying so much in terms of media when it comes to your work. Is it difficult to maneuver all these different types of expression, ranging from cooking to investigations about architecture... ?

RT: I’m not interested in style, I’m interested in content and if all the elements make sense, they all have certain roots or they all certainly have a relation to each other. It could be an eight hour video or a ten hour cooking session, yet they all bring people to the same place.

DB: Do you consider your piece now on view in The Last Newspaper at the New Museum, Untitled (the days of this society are numbered/September 21, 2009), part of a series along with other text works you have recently produced?

RT: I consider them like signage, like stop signs, road signs. They form a series but they can make you pay attention to a certain place and a certain moment when you are confronted by them. I think about that layering of the newspaper, which is an activity I’m very interested in, and in the activity of information being gathered. There are just a lot of layers there for me, from the ads to the typeface of the newspaper itself. There’s a lot of coincidence – or accidents, or maybe even intentions – in the way that certain things get laid out on these pages. The sign makes you stop and pay attention to the other things happening behind it.

DB: Would you be able to explain further how that text in particular explores the social role of the artist?

RT: ‘The days of this society is numbered’ is attributed to the situation in 1968; obviously, at that time it was a provocation within the context of a manifestation against the society, or rather of society against a particular group of people, the institution, people in control. And I would say that, of course, those moments reoccur, those conditions can still exist.

DB: I’m sure everybody asks about the grammar…

RT: Yes, well, it’s a bad translation of French. The mistake makes people react.
 
DB: And the dates on the newspaper…

RT: Well some in the series do make a reference to, for example, the market crash of 2008, just at the end of George Bush’s presidency. It has all been a commentary about the Bush years and certainly in conjunction with the market crash.

DB: What will we see from you in the near future? What are you working on now?

RT: I’m working on a film which will be about a retired Thai farmer in the countryside, and I hope that people will get to see it, or that it’s good enough for people to see it.

Frieze Foundation has recently announced the 2010 Cartier Winner: Berlin-based British/Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara (1982). The prize is addressed to artists not living in the UK and covers coproduction costs of up to £10,000, a £1,000 artist’s fee, per diems, travel expenses and a studio residency at Gasworks in London from August to October 2010.

According to the press release "at Frieze Art Fair 2010 Fujiwara plans to present a new site-specific work, Frozen: an installation based on the fictive premise that an ancient lost city has been discovered beneath the site of the fair."


Fujiwara presented 'The Museum of Incest' during the 2009 Frieze in the newly inaugurated section FRAME (see Latitudes' post here) with Frankfurt–based gallery Galerie Neue Alte Brücke.

Before then, a version of the museum was presented at the Latitudes-curated exhibition 'Provenances' at Umberto di Marino, Naples, during which 'The Incest Museum: A Guided Tour' was published by Archive Books.



Fujiwara will participate in the forthcoming 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo (25 September–12 December 2010), Manifesta 8 in Murcia (2 October 2010-9 January 2011), Performa, the 2011 edition of the New York performance biennial and a solo exhibition at TATE, St.Ives (2011).

The 2009 Cartier Award winner was Jordan Wolfson (New York, 1980) – see Latitudes' post here and an exhibition review by Max Andrews' from Latitudes here) and the 2008 winner was Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto (1978) (see Latitudes' post here and artist profile here).

The Falmouth Convention took place last weekend (20–23 May) in and around Cornwall, UK. This three-day conference put "an emphasis on artists as participants and on exchange of views and experiences. Conceived as an international meeting of artists, curators and writers to explore the significance of time and place in relation to contemporary art and exhibition making, it will begin by examining its own locale, with field trips led by artists, curators and local experts, looking at particular geographies, histories and narratives in Cornwall." + info...

The programme opened with a keynote by renowned curator and writer Lucy Lippard titled 'Imagine Being Here Now: Towards a Multicentered Exhibition Process' and included field trips to the Gwennap Mining District, walks along St Just, boat trips, visits to the St Ives artist colony legacy, screenings of experimental cinema, interviews, etc. + info...

On Saturday 22nd Max Andrews' of Latitudes, gave a presentation on the Rotterdam commission series 'Portscapes' to the Curatorial Practice MA students at the University College Falmouth (where he did art foundation studies in 1995).

Participating curators, writers and artists included: Lucy R. Lippard; Max Andrews (Latitudes); Bassam el Baroni (Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum and Manifesta 8); Xavier Douroux (Le Consortium and Nouveaux Commanditaires); Tom van Gestel (Foundation for Art and Public Space, SKOR); Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Gallery); Solveig Øvstebø (Bergen Kunsthall); Andrzej Przwyara (Foksal Gallery Foundation); Kitty Scott (Banff Centre for the Arts), Kader Attia, Adam Chodzko, Steven Claydon, Tacita Dean, Geoffrey Farmer, Simon Fujiwara, Lucy Gunning, Jeremy Millar, Paulina Olowska, Steven Rowell.

The Convention has been developed in response to a series of forums and conversations held in 2009 between artists, curators and writers based in Cornwall to consider a bid to host the international exhibition Manifesta in Cornwall in 2014. The Convention was convened by the independent curator Teresa Gleadowe, coordinated by ProjectBase, hosted by University College Falmouth and supported by Arts Council England, South West.

Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

On Sunday 18th October and as part of Frieze Projects, Max Andrews of Latitudes participated in Fia Backström's project 'Studies in Leadership - The Review' at invitation of Filipa Oliveira and Miguel Amado. Four art critics and writers – Amado, Michele Robecchi, J. J. Charlesworth and Andrews – worked with a professional voice coach to publicly read one of their recent exhibition reviews, and together consider the implications of performance and the author's 'voice'. See images above.



Above a selection of images of some of the exhibitions and events that took place during Frieze week – 'How it is' Miroslaw Balka's enormous steel chamber for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, the Serpentine Gallery pavilion by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA pre-poetry marathon, Nils Norman and Dave Hullfish Bailey 'Surrounded by Squares' exhibition at Raven Row and of course Frieze Art Fair itself.

All images Latitudes | www.lttds.org

Recent publications – catalogue essays by Latitudes' Max Andrews:

•‘Untitled (You Are Good For Me Because You Destroy Me)’, Henrik Håkansson: Novelas de la selva / The Jungle Novels, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, 2009 (Spanish and English)

•‘Towards Haegue Yang’s ‘Blind Rooms’’, Haegue Yang, Artsonje Center / samuso, Seoul, 2009 (Korean) & forthcoming in Symmetric Inequality: Haegue Yang, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, 2009 (Spanish, Basque and English)

This April marks four years since we started working as Latitudes. Coinciding with next year 5th anniversary, we will produce a small booklet comprising a selection the projects we've been involved in.
We would like to thank our families and friends for their ongoing support and for offering a spare room whenever needed ;-)

Max & Mariana

Opening today, Håkansson's exhibition at the Museo Tamayo (until 20 September) is the outcome of recordings carried out at the Montes Azules, El Triunfo, and Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserves, and photographs and videos obtained over four weeks by twelve remote cameras placed by the artist in different spots throughout the southern Lacandon Rainforest, Mexico.

Curated by Tatiana Cuevas for the Tamayo, the catalogue features an extended essay by Latitudes' Max Andrews.

Update 25.08.08: Read about the show on ARTFORUM critics' picks

Our shots of the 55th installment of the Carnegie International, curated by Douglas Fogle, which was unveiled last Thursday 1st May and runs until January 11th 2009. Latitudes's Max Andrews contributed to the catalogue, designed by COMA, with texts on 20 of the 40 participating artists, including Carnegie prize winners Vija Celmins and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. There's more about the opening on Artforum Diary...

Update 27 August: Jorg Heiser's review on Frieze (Issue 117, September 2008)

(Latitudes' Max Andrews gave a talk for the Hans Schabus's new commission 'Next Time I’m Here, I’ll Be There' last weekend at The Curve Gallery, Barbican, London. Exhibition runs until 1 June 2008).

Hans Schabus
Next Time I’m Here, I’ll be There, 2008
The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery
Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery
Photo © Lyndon Douglas

Max Andrews contributes with an essay called "Hold the front page gizmo: Kirstine Roepstorff’s Where the world wander – the Road to Excelsior" to the inaugural issue of Fleur du Mal, produced under the auspices of DADDY magazine.

Kirstine Roepstorff's work integrates a variety of content ranging from daily newspapers, scientific journals, political weeklys and other found imagery. Fleur du Mal is a reference book for her source material co-opting the specific experience of reading a luxury women's magazine.

DADDY is available at Printed Matter, Inc. (New York), Art Metropole (Toronto), ICA Bookshop (London), Artwords Bookshop (London), a+m bookstore (Milan), The MOCA Store (Los Angeles), PRO QM (Berlin), and at Peres Projects, Los Angeles Berlin.
more...

9 June Update: Here is an-Issuu hosted version of the article

Max Andrews's Frieze (Issue 110, October 2007) review of: 'With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East' edited by Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver and Markus Miessen and published by Bidoun and Moutamarat, Dubai, 2007.

Bidoun sub-site here.

Brian Dillon reviews LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook in the summer issue (#108) of Frieze, devoted to ecology.

There is also a feature article by Latitudes' Max Andrews entitled 'The Whole Truth' featuring the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller, Maria Thereza Alves, among others.

Courtesy Latitudes | www.lttds.org, photos: Robert Justamante

The book is finally a reality! Coming soon are images of the reception at the London School of Economics and Political Science last Tuesday. The book was officially launched by the UK's Culture Minister David Lammy during the No Way Back? conference that morning. You can purchase the book direct from the distributor's Cornerhouse here, or from amazon here.

'There are plenty of known knowns in what John Kørner has recently painted: ships and trees, men and women, crocodiles and birds, town and country—and most apparently in'2006 Problems', factories and bicycles. These are modern things that we know we know. And as this commandeered logic continues, we know there are some things we do not know (known unknowns), and still others we don't yet know we don't know (unknown unknowns). It's the known unknown phenomena that belong to the realm of Kørner's sustained symptomatology of problems. Visible in paint as coloured blot marks shaped like elongated eggs or dropped-in droppings, problems often line up in Kørner's works as if notes on a musical stave or blobs of clay on wobbly shelves, latent undifferentiated tissue that's waiting to become more specific. Of course how to paint a problem must have been in itself a problem. We may presently be dealing with the problems of this year, or equally, it could be that there is a host of two thousand and six of these quandaries. Kørner makes paintings and painted ceramics, while, as he insists, he is not really a 'proper' painter. His often vast canvases are foremost a way of communicating through a very direct means and are only paintings later, almost by coincidence. All of this is, needless to say, problematic.'

Edited extract taken from the catalogue essay '2006 Problems: John Kørner' by Latitudes' Max Andrews.
'2006 Problems' by John Kørner
Victoria Miro Gallery, London
25 November – 22 December 2006
Exhibition catalogue: Paperback, English, 44 pages, 30 x 23 x 0.6 cm, ISBN 978-0-9554564-0-4

 

Here is the postcard for the publication we've been editing for a year now! Its launch will on the 12 December in London, over a press breakfast coinciding with the RSA/LSE international enquiry 'No Way Back?' (11-12 Dec). The book is going to print in Italy in two weeks, so soon you will be able to see more on these pages'LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook'
Edited by Max Andrews
Published by the RSA in partnership with Arts Council England17 x 24 cm, 248 pages, colour throughout
ISBN 0 901469 57 2
Design by SMITH
Distributed by Cornerhouse Publications

Aquí tenéis la postal de la publicación en la que hemos trabajado a lo largo de este último año! Su presentación oficial se hará el 12 de Diciembre en Londres durante un desayuno para la prensa que coincidirá con la conferencia internacional organizada por la Royal Society of Arts (RSA) y la London School of Economics (LSE) titulada 'No Way Back?' (11-12 Dic). El libro se imprimirá en dos semanas en Italia, así que pronto podréis ver más información en estas páginas
[Image on the postcard and on the book cover: Henrik Håkansson, Untitled (Khao Nor Chuchi), 2003, offset print on paper, 70 x 100 cm. Courtesy the artist; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Galleria Franco Noero, Torino.]