The June 2020 monthly Cover Story ‘Mataró Chauffeur Service, since 2010’ is now up, check our website www.lttds.org
“The premise was simple. Latitudes needed to get to Tate Modern and so Martí Anson was going to drive us to London and back. He would form a one-man one-car taxi company in his home town of Mataró, pick us up early in the morning in Barcelona and we’d head for the ferry. Mataró, Barcelona, Santander, Portsmouth, London, ‘No Soul for Sale’ festival, happy 10th birthday Tate Modern. Pim pam. His great-grandfather had been a taxi driver in Montevideo and his father-in-law a driver for the boss of Schweppes.”
Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.
After weeks and long hours facing the screen and mining hard disks, we've uploaded Latitudes' redesigned portfolio, at last! Go to download page and choose format:
The pdf gathers a selection of projects produced since 2005 and includes a refreshed version of our biographies – which have also been updated on our website.
We have also included shortindividual biographies available for download as pdf – see below highlighted in yellow.
PDF designed and edited by Latitudes. RELATED CONTENT:
early October: Final touches to 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition curated by Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill. Show opened 6 October 2010. (+ installation images)
21 October 2010: Presentation of 'Vic Cambrils Barcelona...' project at the Midway Contemporary Art's library, Minneapolis. A selection of 50 self- and micro-published books and paper editions by Catalan artists, designers, curators... (+ images) 22 October 2010: Yves Klein gala dinner at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
13 November 2010: final checks of issue #7 'The Last Evening Sun' with the brilliant TLN part-time staffers Janine Armin and Greg Barton. (+images of the exhibition) 18 November 2010: 'The Last...' graphic designers Chad Kloepfer and Joel Stillman discussing with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and Latitudes' the final bits & pieces of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue.
24 November 2010: Issue #8 'The Last Journal' delivered! Won-der-ful cover by Fernando Bryce.
late November 2010: Checking the headlines of 'The Last Times' (#9) featuring Peter Piller, Robert Gober, Andrea Bowers, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere amongst others. Late November: The board is almost filled with the weekly mini-posters with 'The Last...' headlines. Underneath pictures of the team that made TLN possible.
10 December 2010: This is how 10 weeks of full-time work look like when you pile them up. 10 December 2010: Packaging the 10 newspapers + cover/index with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and the ever helpful Irina Chernyakova.
early January 2011: Delivery of our copies of 'The Last Newspaper' to our home, what-a-moment! (+ images)
Roman & Christina installing 'End of Life - Contribution to the inefficiency of poetry' (2010). They know what they are doing! 21 January 2011: Leaving our cozy temporary homes before the opening of the exhibition.
Amikejo wonderful helpers Pilar and Maria from the Escuela de Arte Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales, León. Gracias for being there!
Unpacking bits and pieces of Sarah Ortmeyer'sVITRINE MAURICE (2011). Lunch break with Maria Loboda, Martí Anson and Max of Latitudes. Eating delicious baguettes from next door's deli.
Placing Maria Loboda's new pieces in the Wunderkammer.
23 February: Placing Martí Anson's furniture on the (finally dry) platform. 2 March 2011: Studio visit with Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum in Rotterdam deciding the display of their forthcoming exhibition at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. Above: home-made maquette of the Laboratorio. (+ images)
2 March 2011: Klaas van Gorkum grandfather's lathe in action in the artists' studio (+ info) 2 March 2011: Trying out different displays and selecting the objects made by Klaas van Gorkum's grandfather for the exhibition, would they all fit in the platform?
5 April 2011: Installation day 1 of Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum show at the Laboratorio 987. Tricky part: placing the platform on the wooden legs manufactured by the artists using Jos van Gorkum's lathe.
Klaas discussing with über-fabulous 'Amikejo' coordinator Carlos Ordás, 'Amikejo' helpers Pilar and Maria and the technicians from Artefacto how to install the photographs on the wall.
8 April 2011: Press conference at the Laboratorio 987 (+ info) 9–13 May 2011: Week-long seminar with A-Study participants discussing curatorial practices. Photo: Gerda Kochanska. 20 May 2011: Studio visit with Lee Welch at Piet Zwart in Rotterdam, to discuss his ideas for the final Amikejo show (opening 24 September) at the Laboratorio 987 in collaboration with Fermín Jiménez Landa.
21 June 2011: Unwrapping Irene Kopelman's sculptures to be exhibited as part of Uqbar's exhibition, the third chapter of Amikejo at Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.
18–22 July 2011: Mariana invited by the Mondriaan visitors programme to tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht's galleries, museums, art centers and artist studios. Above poster campaign signed by 'Disgruntled Dutch Artists' posted in several institutions in relation to the HUGE change Dutch arts will suffer due to unprecedented cuts. (+ images)
29 July 2011, 19.30h: Display of the projects and ideas-in-the-making developed during 'Campus'. After 5 weeks of group talks, video screenings, tutorials and production, a one-month exhibition opens at Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the same space occupied by 'Campus' during the last five weeks.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted in the photo caption).
Editado por:Latitudes Publicado por: Save As... Publications Textos: Martí Anson y Latitudes Diseño gráfico: ferranElOtro Studio Formato: 210 x 150 mm tapa rústica y poster semicubierta / 59pp / offset, negro y dorado Idiomas: Edición trilingue Inglés, Español y Catalán Tiraje: 500 Imprenta: Cevagraf SCCL; Gràfiques Macià Fecha publicación: enero 2011 Precio: €16 a través de La Central ISBN: 978-84-936956-9-9 La publicación 'Mataró Chauffeur Service', documenta la colaboración entre Latitudes y Martí Ansonel pasado Mayo en ocasión de la participación en la edición londinense de 'No Soul for Sale'. Para la ocasión, Anson inició su propia empresa de chófer ‘Mataró Chauffeur Service’ y condujo al dúo curatorial de Barcelona a Tate Modern y de regreso. (+ info...)
Coinciding with the end of our New Museum editorial project we'd like to share these great shots of what has been our working space during the past 10 weeks at the New Museum: our micro-newsroom during the night. The photos have been taken by New Museum night guard and photographer Steven Slawinski during the third week of our editorial residency – when 'The Last Register' (#3) was the newspaper of the week.We would like to thank Steven for sharing his archive, and to New Museum guard Carol Fassler for putting us in touch.
We would like to express our thanks to everyone at the New Museum. Thank you to Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, and The Last Newspaper co-curators Richard Flood, Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, and Benjamin Godsill, Curatorial Associate, for hosting us and inviting us to collaborate in this expansive and timely project. Our sincere gratitude and praise are due to Richard and Benjamin for their support and trust and for the brave exhibition whose works have become our local community. Thank you to Joshua Edwards, Exhibitions Manager and Shannon Bowser, Chief Preparator for sharing expertise on producing Luciano Fabro’s Pavimiento-Tautologia. Praise is due to Desiree B. Ramos, Curatorial Fellow; Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director & Curator of Education & Public Programs; Cris Scorza, Manager of Tours and Family Programs and Joseph Keehn II, Associate Educator; to Gabriel Einsohn, Communications Officer and Annie Wachnicki, Marketing Manager for their help in many ways. We are most grateful to each of the inspiring New Museum guards and guides for their support and interest in our weekly progress and for taking care of our working space. We would like to express our gratitude to Marta Rincón and Eloisa Ferrari for securing the financial support offered by The State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX), which has made it possible for us be in New York during these months. The graphic design of the newspapers has been an absolutely critical element to the tone of the project and we salute Chad Kloepfer and Joel Stillman, who have been so generous with their time and incredible talent in establishing the visual identity of The Last... newspapers, and in giving up their weekends laying them out. Thank you to Daniel Thiem, Retail Operations Manager at the New Museum, for taking care of the afterlife of this print adventure, and to Tammy Lin at Linco Printing for making the printing and delivery run smoothly. Sharing the third floor of the New Museum with the other partner organizations has been a memorable experience and we are particularly appreciative of Alan Rapp as well as Virginia Millington and Natalia Fidelholtz – our temporary neighbors at the New City Reader and StoryCorps respectively. The project would also not have been possible without the assistance of our news team, who have been crucial in their dedication and good humor, and in toiling late hours, and while juggling other commitments, in writing sterling words. Kudos to Editor-at-Large Janine Armin, to Greg Barton, Irina Chernyakova, Collin Munn and Gwen Schwartz. We would also like to highlight the generous contributions of Adam Chadwick, Julienne Lorz, Andrew Losowsky and our London correspondent Lorena Muñoz-Alonso. We have been pleased to have been able to involve an incredible network of writers, curators, artists and journalists that week after week have graced, and been splashed over, the pages of 'The Last...' Visual artist Francesc Ruiz, project cartoonist with his series ‘The Woods’, and our advertising department, artist Ester Partegàs, we thank especially for their amazing work and for their stamina in signing up to the weekly deadlines. We are indebted to all of the participating artists and organizations as well as many other individuals for their efforts, for having trusted our editorial skills and for having given time and contributions pro bono – Ignasi Aballí; Lars Bang Larsen; Judith Bernstein; Dara Birnbaum; Pierre Bismuth; Andrea Bowers; Fernando Bryce; Luis Camnitzer; Sarah Charlesworth; Emily Cheeger; Doryun Chong; City-As-School class; Ana Paula Cohen; Scott Cole; Christine Cooper; Holly Coulis; Marc d'Andre; Chris Dercon; Patricia Esquivias; Jacob Fabricius; Luciano Figueiredo; Angela Freiberger; Jason Fry; Simon Fujiwara; Dora García; Martin Gran; Hans Haacke; Ilana Halperin; Rick Herron; Ridley Howard; Marcel Janco; Adrià Julià; Maria Loboda; Nate Lowman; Renzo Martens; Rob McKenzie; Simone Menegoi; Aleksandra Mir; Rodrigo Moura; Nick Mrozowski; Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere; Sophie O'Brien; Damián Ortega; Alona Pardo; Amalia Pica; Michalis Pichler; Ed Pierce; Peter Piller; William Pope L.; Michael Rakowitz; Christian Rattemeyer; Yasmil Raymond; Kolja Reichert; Mauro Restiffe; Kathleen Ritter; Kirstine Roepstroff; Julia Rometti & Victor Costales; David Salle; Mike Santisteven; Joe Saltzman; Ines Schaber; Paul Schmeltzer; Charity Scribner; Manuel Segade; Adam Shecter; Harley Spiller; Stephen Spretnjak; Alexandra Tarver; Mi Tijo; Wolfgang Tillmans; Rirkrit Tiravanija; Nicoline van Harskamp; Pablo Vargas Lugo; Sergio Vega; Marie Voignier; Mark von Schlegell; Haegue Yang; Carey Young; Sarah Wang; Warren Webster; and Jordan Wolfson. Thanks too the New Museum Facebook and Twitter contributors: aodt; Kristi Collom; Michele Corriel; djnron; Isadora Ficovic; A.J. Fries; Rachel Elise Greiner; Sioux Jordan; Eleanor Martineau; Acht Millimeter; Sofia Pontén; Jenny Pruden; Bonnie Severien; Kate Shafer; Liz Shores; Goso Tominaga; and Anne Wölk. We would also like to thank those who have helped us obtain images or permission to reprint texts: Barbican Art Centre, London; Edoardo Bonaspetti, Mousse magazine; Bugada & Cargnel, Paris; Janine Iamunno, patch.com; Nick Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com; Jeff Khonsary, Fillip; Lisa Middag at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; kurimanzutto; Michele Robecchi; Benoit Pailley; Peres Projects, Berlin; Katie Sokolor/Gothamist. – Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna), December 2010. Excerpted from 'FROM THE EDITORS’ DESK – Last words, clarifications, frequently asked questions, and thanks from Latitudes' originally published in 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue.
FINAL ISSUE! Issue 10: 'The Last Express' (READ IT ON ISSUU) Table of contents:
Cover: Hans Haacke News(1968–2008) Exclusive interview:Inhotim curator Rodrigo Moura talks to artist Mauro Restiffe Dirt Sheet column:Janine Armin on TLN Dexter Sinister's 'The First/Last Newspaper (November 4–21, 2009)' Report: 'Fit to Print?: The newsroom reinvented', conversation at the New Museum between ‘The Last...’ columnist Adam Chadwick and web veteran Jason Fry 100 years ago...:'Los Angeles Herald' (Los Angeles, California) 1900-1911, December 8, 1910 Focus: Blu Dot's self-assembly office furniture for the ‘The Last Newspaper’ partner organizations The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news): The Daily Focus: 'Do you love milk and honey?', Greg Barton on Emily Jacir's TLN work 'SEXY SEMITE' (2000-02) Picture Agent-Our singular picture agency: Simon Fujiwara Media Habits: Michalis Pichler 'Embrace the Ambiguity', ‘The Last Newspaper’ curators Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill reflect on the project’s journey. Focus:'Reading the Reader', Greg Barton and Irina Chernyakova on TLN partner organisation the 'New City Reader' Exclusive interview: 'The Wires', Janine Armin talks to TLN artist Hans Haacke Cartoon: 'The Woods: The End' by Francesc Ruiz Advertising Department: Ester Partegàs
27 November 2010: Public gathered for the talk on the 4th floor's 'Peace Arena'.
On November 27, Latitudes organized a conversation at the New Museum between ‘Fit to Print’ filmmaker (and ‘The Last...’ columnist) Adam Chadwick, and Jason Fry, an expert in the challenges faced by newspapers in the digital world.
Jason Fry: I started at The Wall Street Journal in 1995 when they were a single free section and after thirteen years I had seen it become a full paper and go beyond its roots of being a financial paper to become a source of general news. It became a subscription site far ahead of anyone else. One reason why so many jobs are disappearing in newspapers now is that some top publishing executives do not understand the business they are in and are only slowly realizing that is suicide. They have become very confused between the mission of journalism and the business of journalism. The business is decaying, leaving the mission looking for new financial backing.
Jason Fry during the talk
Adam Chadwick: How did journalism come to this breaking point? It began in the early 1960s, starting with how television affected the newspaper industry as it became the media where most people got their information from. Newspapers started changing their priorities back then...
Adam Chadwick during the talk
JF: Newspapers were mostly family-owned operations, others were true public servants. Soon after some became owned by corporations and that changed the calculus for the business and how they made money. They were depending on performance and shareholders. Even in the 1990s newspapers were making a profit margin of 30% year after year, without really understanding the business they were in. Television has certainly created a star mentality amongst reporters which is not entirely working to the benefit of journalism. Newspapers have been historically successful because publishers essentially had a localized monopoly on printing and distribution. Retail stores would communicate their products by placing ads in a newspaper – the publishers owned distribution mechanisms. In the last ten to fifteen years that has changed, as advertising has moved to the internet – everything from furniture to job listings. Advertising was the business that funded journalism – the financial underpinnings have been knocked down.
AC: 80% of the content that is broadcast on National Public Radio comes from newspapers. It’s the same with CBS News – Russell Mitchell, for instance, has told me they are pulling content from The New York Times and The Washington Post. So the erosion of the newspaper is also hugely affecting the TV.
Public watching the trailer of 'Fit to print' screened at the beginning for the talk.
JF: Newspapers used to compete with whoever started a new one locally; now they try to compete with the entire world. There is way too much content out there. How many thousands of movie reviews can you find online of the latest Harry Potter movie? And how many do we actually need?
AC: Is the web an echo-chamber of news, particularly with search engine optimization and ‘content farms’ dragging traffic? Or, if you boil it down, is it all only coming from The New York Times or The Washington Post? What is being lost now that the business model is broken? Investigative reporting?
JF: I’m not worried about journalism, I am worried about newspapers. We cannot confuse the two. The web has been wonderful to open up voices and to demystify reporting while letting a lot more people use their own expertise. But yes, investigative journalism is missing and it takes a long time and it’s very expensive. If The New York Times wants to cover a story on the dodgy doings of an organization, they will continue doing it, even if the organization goes into battle with lawyers, they won’t be intimidated. But that won’t happen if you are a blogger or freelancer no matter how smart or committed you are. I wonder if that kind of reporting has to be done institutionally though.
The public gathered for the talk on the 4th floor's 'Peace Arena'.
AC: ProPublica is one of the only models, they are a non-profit for investigative reporting organisation with about thirty reporters and editors. [See The Last Post, page 9] They have deep pockets which enable them to pay competitive salaries. Other smaller examples are Investigative Voice from Baltimore led by Stephen Janis, who started it with Alan Forman, a former Baltimore Sun journalist. It focuses on crime and corruption in west Baltimore, which if you’ve seen The Wire you’ll know about. They don’t compete with the Baltimore Sun, as they cover stories they wouldn’t. They also operate thanks to donations but don’t know for how much longer they can continue working like this. How sustainable this model is, nobody knows. Even with grant organisations like the Knight Foundation, there is only so much money they can throw in. Carmen, what is your experience at The Trenton Times?
Carmen Cusido: I’m a full-time reporter now, we have five members in the staff – it used to be more than twenty. It does get tougher because we don’t have the resources to cover investigative stories. I have to pull out the resources on my own. I cover education, county news, and immigration news because I’m the only Spanish speaking reporter. When we were a larger organisation, we used to have lunch breaks and discuss things as a group, but now you really need to prioritise. It’s hugely difficult as you have to take work home with you and there are no boundaries with your private life; it’s a 24/7 job. Before you could go out and talk to people, get their trust and understand their perspective. Now I cannot even leave the desk, as I have to cover three stories and have to do everything over the telephone.
Carmen Cusido during the talk
Question: Do people really want hard news anymore? Do newspapers understand their readers?
JF: Take the recent health care discussion: a hugely complex issue to follow and one that matters to all of us. Newspapers would cover the most recent political victory, but never show the bones of the story. This isn’t easy stuff. To the shock of newspaper editors, a lot of people read Wikipedia to understand complex situations as you get a straight forward recitation of what’s going on. That’s a model newspapers haven’t done as they continue to follow a telegraph system for getting the news out. It’s not satisfying readers’ needs.
AC: Most people I’ve spoken to want the hard news, the meat and potatoes of good journalism. Readers have stopped trusting newspapers for various reasons, some felt they were not catering a certain demographic of people or literally because news organizations have removed the newspaper dispenser boxes from poorer communities, to reach out to richer ones that would potentially advertise with them.
Question from the audience: What is your view on paywalls?
JF: News organisations should realize they are competing with the web. The success of The Wall Street Journal’s paywall has been in that it is targeted mostly at business readers, yet The New York Times covers everything. You pay for something, therefore, you think it’s valuable. Paywalls are getting in trouble in two ways: the hassle of entering a password, finding a reliable payment method. It’s not very immediate. Secondly, in the way they are implemented. If you are seeing nothing of the content you are about to buy you’re taking a blind leap of faith in paying for something you are likely going to read only once.
AC: It’s not cheap to produce content for the iPad either. If you put up a paywall you are no longer part of the linking culture such as The Huffington Post.
IF: You cannot create a walled garden that nobody can get into. You have to tease readers and let them share. Question from the audience: Is hyper-local journalism the way to go? Or to be more brutal, what will ultimately save journalism?
AC: Paying reporters and establishing a sustainable business model. Does the non-profit model work? It does right now – but for how long?
Cover: Peter Piller, Pfeile (Arrows), Archiv Peter Piller 2000-2006. Exclusive interview: ‘Bedeutungsflächen, In Löcher blicken, Ortsbesichtigungen...’, Julienne Lorz talks to Peter Piller Focus: ‘Press Victim’, Collin Munn on TLN artist Mike Kelley's Timeless/Authorless Series (1995) + ‘Mike on Mike’, New Museum Guard & Tour Guide Mike Santistevan on Mike Kelleys's work Picture Agent: Pablo Vargas Lugo 100 Years Ago…: The Seattle Star (Seattle, Washington) 1899-1947, December 1, 1910 Next newspaper: Web aggregation Focus: ‘Sarah Sex Sport-Trait’, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso on TLN work Fat, Forty and Flab-ulous (1990) by TLN artist Sarah Lucas Media Habits: Carey Young Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on Allen Ruppersberg‘s TLN work Screamed from Life(1982) Focus: 'Dutiful Scrivener' by TLN artists Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere + Mark Twain’s ‘Amended Obituaries’ (1902) Focus and exclusive interview: ‘Graphite Testimony’, Greg Barton on Andrea Bowers’ work Eulogy to One and Another (2006) featured in TLN Exclusive interview: ‘Having It All’, Latitudes talks with TLN co-curator Richard Flood about TLN artist Robert Gober’s work Newspaper (1992) Cartoon: 'The Woods: Fahrenheit 451' by Francesc Ruiz Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Picture Agent: Our Singular Picture Agency Pablo Vargas Lugo, artist In 1996, NASA released images of the probable remains of extraterrestrial life in a meteorite of Martian origin found in Antarctica. Back then I quickly latched on to the enthusiasm caused by this news, and rather opportunistically used this image as part of an ambitious newspaper project. However, shortly afterwards, scientists disputed the authenticity of these supposedly fossilized bacteria, citing the possibility of an inorganic origin. Obviously, the said newspaper project lost its edge once the findings were disproved, and was shamefully filed at the end of my portfolio.
Last year the original scientific team found traces of organically produced materials on their treasured meteorite, using more potent microscopes; but the cheers didn’t last for long, as their evidence was contradicted by another group working in a lab across the hall, and headed by the brother of the leader of the first team. As questions on the urgent matter of extraterrestrial life are appropriately resolved between siblings in close quarters, and hoping for further validation of the original findings, I file this picture in this other newspaper project, as a personal reminder of the troubled relationship between art, trustworthiness and whatever we choose to call news.
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
Above and below: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (the days of this society is numbered/September 15–October 12, 2008), 2010. Acrylic and newspaper on linen. 13 parts, all measuring 86 1/8 x 84 1/8 x 1 inch each. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brownʼs enterprise.
There I am; it’s 5pm sharp, and I have just arrived at Gavin Brown’s newly-expanded Meatpacking District art gallery. I’m checking out the new space while I wait for Rirkrit, who suddenly pulls up around the back door with a few groceries; turns out he’s cooking a paella dinner for a few friends. We walk around the space for a few minutes and before heading towards the kitchen in the back of the gallery. There I see a few art handlers setting up pots, tables, and chairs for Rirkrit’s guests. “We don’t have much time, fire away,” he says, looking at the recorder and the paper I am holding in my hands. We sit on a wooden bench and start our conversation. I have met with Rirkrit several times, and besides being a great artist he is really down to earth and approachable. Every time I talk to him it is quite a busy scenario all around.
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 counsellor 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 artefacts. I worked on this conceptual work with the idea that these artefacts 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 every day, 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 manoeuvre 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 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.
Cover: 'Without Rain Partial Nights Aerial Days', a special cover by Julia Rometti & Victor Costales (continues page 12) Feature:Artist and writer Kathleen Ritter misreads the incomprehensible newspapers of Mark Manders Focus: Simone Menegoi on Pavimento, Tautologia(1967) by Luciano Fabro; plus notes on 'Fabricating Fabro' by the New Museum Chief Preparator, Shannon Bowser Special pull-out poster: Installation pictures and a checklist of 'The Last Newspaper' and New Museum's Facebook fans and Twitter followers reporting a sentence of personal news Feature: 'Thomas Hirschhorn ♥ Queens' Charity Scribner on Thomas Hirschhorn Feature: 'Red and black all over, again' Irina Chernyakova follows the design and production of 'The Last Evening Sun' Focus: Inaba/C-Lab's 'Cloudy with a chance of Certainty' Media Habits: Michael Rakowitz The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news): WikiLeaks Dirt Sheet column: Janine Armin at the Taipei and the Gwangju Biennials Picture Agent-Our singular picture agency: Maria Loboda 100 years Ago…: 'Palestine Daily Herald' (Palestine, Texas) 1902-1949, November 17, 1910 Cartoon: 'The Woods: Flavor of the month' by Francesc Ruiz 'Advertising Department': Ester Partegàs
Joshua Edwards, Exhibitions Manager at the New Museum, mops the floor and lays the previous day’s New York Times to create Fabro’s Pavimento, Tautologia (1967). Photos: Latitudes
FLOOR TAUTOLOGY Curator and writer Simone Menegoi on Luciano Fabro’s ‘Pavimento–Tautologia’, the earliest work in ‘The Last Newspaper’ My grandfather had a sports car, a Lancia Fulvia coupé. He always kept it polished and would only use it on certain occasions. He was so afraid of getting it dirty that he never took off the plastic wrapping that covered the seats when he bought it, even after years of use. His zeal was not particularly unusual in Italy those years (the 1970s), as many people left on the protective plastic film that brand new sofas or chairs would have when purchased. This habit came from two decades earlier when memories of war and poverty were still lurking. The first consumer goods purchases were the result of laborious saving, so things had to last for as long as possible. Pavimento–Tautologia (Floor–Tautology) by Luciano Fabro is based on the same logic that drove people like my grandfather to keep the car seats wrapped: a logic that gave up the pleasure of being able to touch the leather or the fabric of the seat in exchange for the satisfaction of knowing that, beneath the protective plastic, the surface was kept intact. In Fabro’s work, a portion of the floor (sometimes an entire surface) is cleaned, polished with wax and then covered with newspapers. Beyond the ephemeral protection of paper – “a cheap and lightweight Carl Andre” as Jörg Heiser has written – the floor disappears, we cannot appreciate its lustre, but we know it’s being kept immaculate, and we know this will be preserved, even if we walk on the papers. In 1978, a decade after presenting the work for the first time in Turin, Fabro wrote "in my town... the floor is cleaned and then covered, at least for the first day, with papers, newspapers or rags to avoid getting it dirty... on that first day, in those two or three days that it was covered with paper, no one saw the floor clean. This particular way of accounting for the labour and its preservation, not for ostentation but as a private affair, seeks to ensure that the effort made doesn’t end up in anything too quick.”
Newspaper placed on top of the mopped floor. Photo: Latitudes
The comparison between the newspapers on the floor and plastic on the new car seats, however, applies only within certain constraints. There is a fundamental difference between the work required for you to buy a car and the work involved in cleaning the floor. In Italy, in those years, the second had a clear gender dimension: it was a domestic job regarded as part of the housewife’s duties. Fabro was fully aware of this and it is no accident that he presented Pavimento for the first time in a gallery inside a private apartment, a space that preserved a domestic environment. Fabro was also aware of the position he was adopting as a male artist presenting it as a piece. The sculptor sided with the housewife, with her modest and under-appreciated task that was repeated daily. "We experience seeing our work destroyed daily" Carla Lonzi, a friend and admirer of Fabro, wrote in 1970 in the Manifesto di rivolta femminile (Manifesto of feminist revolt), a key text of Italian feminism. Forty years onwards, what is the effect of Pavimento in the context of an American museum, one so different from when the work was presented for the first time? Is it still effective? The vernacular appearance of the work, its provincial and quotidian dimension is probably hard to grasp today, particularly outside Italy. The political aspect – gender politics – is certainly less visible now than it was in the late 1960s, although its historical importance cannot be questioned. Pavimento remains current with the idea of "care", caring as an essential dimension of the relationship with a work. Pavimento consists only of this: in taking care. "Every experience related to this handmade piece is linked to maintenance," Fabro wrote in 1967. A piece that is not to be contemplated, but to be done. Its only legitimate spectator is the one who realised it and looked after it. In short, perhaps it is its only spectator. (Since to the rest of us, the polished floor remains invisible.) Fabro referred to caring in a material sense, as a symbol of all the other ‘cures’ that a piece would require: of a critical or political kind, for instance. In this sense, Pavimento was for him a sort of manifesto, as he stated that a work can never be taken for granted, but must be constantly redefined, reiterated, and defended. In its ‘infrathin’ layer of paper and floor wax, Pavimento–Tautologia guards a surprising depth of meaning. – Translated from Italian by Mariana Cánepa Luna. (sidebar) FABRICATING FABRO
Installation view of Luciano Fabro's Pavimento-Tautologia (1967) on the 4th floor of the New Museum. Courtesy of the Luciano Fabro Estate. Photo courtesy: Katie Sokolor / Gothamist.
Shannon Bowser: "I've been installing the piece every weekday since the exhibition opened in October. The layout uses all the pages of an issue yet the arrangement can be a little haphazard. We can lay the pages facing different directions and it doesn't need to be too precise or follow a set dimension, even though the barriers that surround the piece help as a guide to square it up to the wall. I throw down extra sheets here and there but it usually works out to be the same size each day overall no matter how many pages there were in the previous day's issue. We have a specific subscription for the New York Times for this piece. Every morning I pick up a copy to keep it for the following day and I have with me the one from yesterday ready to go. I find myself reading the news while installing the work and so sometimes I have to pause to read properly, and I end up finding out about stuff that I would normally wouldn't. I wish I had time to read the New York Times every day because there are so many good articles. Sometimes I flip through pages when I'm laying them down, so if there's an annoying full page with glaring women facing upwards I can choose to turn it around. It's really interesting to see yesterday's newspaper all laid out on the floor and realize the actual physical size of it because you cannot really read TheNew York Times on the subway for example, because it's so big – it's so impractical! Doing it definitely adds time to my morning routine so I've been coming in early every morning to be able to install the Fabro and then get everything else sorted as all these shows require a lot of maintenance. But it has been really interesting, I definitely feel like I'm participating in an artwork."
Watch a 'making of' video of the piece here. Shannon Bowser (Chief Preparator) installs Pavimento–Tautologia on Wednesdays, Thursday and Fridays. Victoria Manning (Registrar) takes charge on Saturdays and Joshua Edwards (Exhibition Manager) on Sundays.
We would like to introduce the team behind 'The Last...' newspaper project, part of 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition at the New Museum on view until 9 January 2011. During 10 weeks, editors-in-chief Latitudes are producing and publishing ten 12-page weekly hyper-local newspapers 'The Last...' (Post, Gazette, Register, Star-Ledger...) from the third gallery floor at the New Museum. Latitudes is closely collaborating with the following individuals...
'The Last...' News Team:
Janine Armin's art writing and book reviews appear in The International Herald Tribune, Bookforum, Artforum.com, Saatchi Online, Artslant, The Architect's Journal, and The Globe and Mail among others. She is New York editor for fiction/non-fiction hub Joyland.ca, and an M.A. 2012 candidate at the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies.
Greg Barton is currently helping with the New Museum's Public Programs archive in addition to assisting Triple Candie in Harlem. Previously he worked for Independent Curators International as well as the National Gallery of Art in D.C.
Irina Chernyakova is currently part of the news team for 'The Last...' project. In May she earned her Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. Most recently, she worked as a teaching associate for an introductory architecture program.
Collin Munn is currently a student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, concentrating in 'Critical Curating'. His interests lie primarily within curating and critiquing contemporary art, specifically work that addresses broader social and cultural issues. In addition to working with Latitudes during the fall, Collin is also a founding member of the Makeshift Collective, and is working on several curatorial ventures of his own.
Gwen Schwartz is an artist and writer who is based in New York City. She grew up on an island in Maine where her talents flourished, however it wasn't until she came to New York City four years ago to get her BFA in Fine Arts that she began to fully realize them. Now, nearing her graduation, Gwen has a new goal in life: to be a rock star.
'The Last...' Graphic Design team:
Chad Kloepferis a New York-based graphic designer. He was Senior Graphic Designer at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, for seven years where he worked on projects including exhibition publications ('The Quick and the Dead' (2009); 'House of Oracles, A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective' (2005); 'How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age' (2003)) as well as various print materials, and the Walker Expanded identity. He is currently Art Director of Artforum magazine. superserious.net
Joel Stillman is a Graphic Designer and an independent publisher living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He is currently 27 years old. His practice examines linguistic definition. http://www.normalnumber.com/ 'The Last...' 'Advertising Department':
Ester Partegàs is a Spanish-born visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Partegàs is the 'Advertising Department' of 'The Last…' newspaper project, for which she collaborates with other artists in the production of weekly (anti)adverts. Partegàs currently has a solo show at Foxy Production, New York (on view until 27 November 2010) and in 2011 will participate in a group show at the Whitechapel, London. www.esterpartegas.com 'The Last...' weekly cartoon: Francesc Ruiz is a visual artist based in Barcelona, Spain. Ruiz is 'The Last…' newspaper project weekly cartoonist. He recently participated in the Philagrafika show at Temple Gallery, Philadelphia (2010) and is currently exhibiting 'The Paper Trail' at the Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo (on view until 20 November 2010). Ruiz is currently preparing 'Gasworks Yaoi', his first solo show in London. + info: Photo tour of 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition here Read reviews and press release here
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21 June 2011: Unwrapping Irene Kopelman's sculptures to be exhibited as part of Uqbar's exhibition, the third chapter of Amikejo at Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.
22 June 2011: Irene Kopelman and Mariana Castillo Deball unwrapping Mariana's sculptures.
23 June 2011: Installing Uqbar, stairs going up and down...
24 June 2011: Final piece to install. Mariana and Irene Kopelman giving 'left, right, up...' instructions to Artefacto crew member. (+ images)
25 June 2011: Uqbar presents their show to the press and museum staff.
29 June 2011: Third day of 'Campus'. Participants chat outside and look at the project vinyls placed on the façade. (+ images)
4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Mapping participants to ideas, mapping ideas to participants.
4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Ólafur and Antoine see the world in 3D.
11–15 July 2011, week #2 with Renata Lucas.
18–21 July 2011, week #3 with Peter Piller.
18–22 July 2011: Mariana invited by the Mondriaan visitors programme to tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht's galleries, museums, art centers and artist studios. Above poster campaign signed by 'Disgruntled Dutch Artists' posted in several institutions in relation to the HUGE change Dutch arts will suffer due to unprecedented cuts. (+ images)
25–29 July 2011, week #4 with Adrià Julià.
29 July 2011, 19.30h: Display of the projects and ideas-in-the-making developed during 'Campus'. After 5 weeks of group talks, video screenings, tutorials and production, a one-month exhibition opens at Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the same space occupied by 'Campus' during the last five weeks.
