History
FOR LOVE NOT MONEY is intended to present a timely reflection on the state of contemporary art production, presentation and reception — during a period of world financial crisis. It also encapsulates a reflection of the status of ‘printmaking’ within the hierarchy of contemporary art practice and production. Continuing a process started in previous triennials the 15th Triennial will present art works made using a range of mechanical and digital reproduction and print techniques, including camera and computer based technologies.
In the English language the aphorism “for love not money” describes any labour that is undertaken for passionate and not pecuniary reward — it is almost interchangeable with the equally aphoristic “a labour of love”. At its domestic basis is the care of small children and elderly people. In a larger social frame it refers to people who work in volunteer, community, and health services in those sectors that are financially under-nourished and socially under-valued, such as working with the homeless or drug addicted. The phrase also possesses a distinct cultural mien as it can be used to describe the plight of the young and/or struggling artist be they an actor, visual artist, director, or writer. Any person that sets out on a career in-the-arts knows that just making-a-living at what they have trained to do represents a modicum of success. They make their art — for love not money. Of course boom times, such as the art world has experienced from 2000–2008 (and earlier in the mid-1980s) turn this ingrained logic around and visual artists can be catapulted to levels of richness they can hardly have imagined: even if they dreamed about it. With those dreams and monetary values arrives an expansion — even excess — of scale, production budgets, and output often in conveyer belt or “factory” mode. In this phase, art often moves closer to other forms of cultural production such as architecture, automotive engineering, cinema, and fashion — as artists obsess about technics and means/modes of production that those other cultural sectors [or industries] offer them. The language associated with objects made in this way is equally transformed as the resulting artworks are no longer ‘original’ inasmuch as they become ‘one-offs’ or ‘limited editions’ or props within ‘an event’.
Then the bust, as has happened in 2009. Attenuation is required — modesty even. The times invoke a return to the circuits of love from those of money. And reproducible art — that Walter Benjamin robbed of its aura and its essence in the 1930s — becomes the perfect vehicle for Zeitgeist expression. Within the ecology of the art market small multiple objects begin to make sense again: within the ecology of artistic diminution they also make sense.
Thematically the 15th Tallinn Print Triennial will explore a range of concepts embodied within the project's title, including: addiction, desire, dedication, duty, family, love, lust, objectification, romance, religion, political commitment, and sex. Theoretically it will encourage reflexive examinations of these concepts from perspectives such as Walter Benjamin on reproducibility in art, Marx and Freud's theories of fetishism, Aquinas, Pascal and Montaigne's theories of faith, Roland Barthes, Michael Fried and Susan Sontag's descriptions of the camera's role in prescriptions of the public imaginary and its links to consumer culture, and Sean Cubitt and Boris Groys’s writing on the aesthetic and cultural affects of digitization.
As reproducibility is now manifold in the digital era the exhibition will aim to present artworks that — working within the thematic — reflect upon their technical status: and develop a relationship or refer to earlier modes of production (such as “printmaking”). Seriality is one of the key markers of this reflexive condition, whether it is played out in stop-animation or in photographic series, etc. Of course artists that are applying themselves to block-printing, lino-cutting, press-printing will be given special consideration — especially artists that are moving these techniques into a conceptual demesne. Explorations of more recent, but out-moded, technologies will also be encouraged as times of hardship often encourage recycling. The ‘confessional’ nature of the exhibition theme is apposite to expression in book form; and artist's books continue to be a vehicle for experimentation and expression. This confessional modality might also spill into the new zones of mediation associated with digital communication and the Internet.
PRESENTATION: In a shift from previous years the 15th Tallinn Print Triennial will be held exclusively at Kumu Art Museum — to deliver a more focused and thematically integrated exhibition. This strategy will also capitalize on Kumu’s status as Tallinn's most visited exhibiting institution.
THE STRUCTURE: The exhibition will be divided into international and Baltic sections, including:
LAUREATES OF THE LJUBLJANA GRAPHIC ARTS BIENNALE: Now in its 28th inception (opening September 2009), the Ljubljana biennale that was established in 1955 is the world's premiere graphic arts festival. The list of artist's who have won the laureate award at the Biennale reads like a roll-call of great figures of art from the post-war period: Robert Rauschenberg (US) 1963, Joan Miró (ES) and Victor Vasarely (FR) 1965, Hans Hartung (FR) and Antoni Tàpies (ES) 1967, Victor Pasmore (UK) 1977, Eduardo Paolozzi (UK) and Shusaku Arakawa (US) 1983, Susan Rothenberg (US) 1985, David Salle (US) 1991, Max Bill (SU) and Frank Stella (US) 1993, David Hockney (UK) 1997, Richard Hamilton (UK) and Sang-Gon Chung (KO) 1999, Damien Hirst (UK) 2001, and Raymond Pettibon (US) 2003. Curator of the exhibition is Lilijana Stepančič, the collaboration with Ljubjlana will be lead by Kumu Art Museum and its Senior Curator, Eha Komissarov.
MONEY PROJECT*: Designed to be a distinctive and high-profile public project within the scope of the Tallinn2011 festival — requiring substantial logistical and financial support from the Tallinn2011 Foundation in association with other governmental agencies and private donors — the concept is to commission four artists to produce a banknote each to be used as Tallinn2011 tender. That is, these bank notes can be purchased at a one-to-one Kroon value at Tallinn2011 Ticket and Information bureaus for use at Tallinn2011 events (ie. the purchasing of tickets for exhibitions, performances, and events plus the purchasing of special Tallinn2011 promotional products; such as, catalogues, t-shirts, programs, and guides). Importantly, the note can operate as special "anniversary" mementoes, or collectibles, for the people of Estonia (and international visitors to the event).
Specifically, the artists should work with the same technical advice and facilities as those graphic artists who design the Kroon for the Eesti Pank. Monetary design is one of the most culturally important, but largely under-scrutinized, aspects of printmaking. (Historically, stamp design and production is the field of printmaking that garners public attention). It is also a field of design that many artists, especially since the pop-era, have referred to art making, including: Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Jeon JoonHo, Komar & Melamid, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol.
Potentially, this aspect of the project can generate wide international media attention — as it will establish a precedent for artists working with the technical facilities (and support) of the State. It would be an ambitious and adventurous project in this regard.
Ideally, the four artists would be:
One senior Estonian artist,
One artist from the other Baltic states (or Poland and the Scandinavian-Nordic countries),
One United States artist,
One artist from ‘the rest of the world’.
Conceptually, it would behoove the organizers to commission artists whose work had a pre-existing relationship with concepts of value, exchange, consumption, excess, market-logic, commodities, and so forth. International artists who work within this ambit, include: Billy Apple, Bigert & Bergstrom, Jakob S. Boeskov, Chicks On Speed, Jeremy Deller, Jim Dine, Tino Djumini, EAT, Matias Faldbakken, Sylvie Fleury, Simryn Gill, Liam Gillick, Jens Haaning, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Matthieu Laurette, Josephine Meckseper, Rob Pruitt, Julika Rudelius, Sean Snyder, and Superflex.
* The project will only be realised if sufficient funds are raised.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THE CONCEPT: Simon Rees is Senior Curator at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius. In that role Rees is co-editor of the journal CAC INTERVIU the quarterly conversation about art and is convenor of the monthly international lecture series the CAC Café Talks that brings internationally renowned culture professionals to Vilnius. In 2007 Rees was Commissioner for artists Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas at the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 52nd La Biennale di Venezia – that was recipient of a special biennale jury award for National Pavilion. In 2007 he also presented the exhibition Chicks On Speed: Shoe Fuck! at the CAC that was the all-girl ensemble’s largest gallery based exhibition to date. Working with curators Beatrice Josse and Florence Derieux he in 2008 he presented a six city French-Lithuanian exchange project (a partnership between the CAC and the FRAC Grand-Est network). Recently he curated CODE SHARE: 5 continents, 10 biennales, 20 artists as part of the Vilnius European Capital of Culture festival. He is now working on the co-production of the Frieze Commissions for the 2009 Frieze Art Fair (the first such project from Eastern Europe), and on producing two new artists films with Deimantas Narkevicius (LT) and Yael Bartana (IL) that will be presented later in the year at the British Film Institute and in a special screening event at the London Film Festival (alongside the work of Miroslav Balka [PL] and Marcel Odenbach[DE]).
Rees writes regularly about art from Eastern Europe for international press and publication, including Frieze magazine, and has forthcoming chapters in books being published by art and University presses in Lithuania, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States.