Download - Never odd or even ebook
01nome
01.10>20.11, 2011 13.01>08.04, 2012
02 never odd or even 03nome
Mariana Castillo Deball Never odd or even, Book, 2011 Tangram Table(photo by Laura Gianetti)
never odd or even nome
Exhibition
Artistsrosa barba
erik beltrán
nanna Debois buhl & brenDan FernanDes
Mariana Castillo Deball
siMon evans
Peter FisChli | DaviD Weiss
János FoDor
lise harlev
FerDinanD kriWetJán ManCuška
tris vonna-MitChell
CiPrian Muresan
henrik olesen
aDaM PenDleton
Pablo PiJnaPPel
sebastián roMo
DMitry vilensky (Chto Delat?)PhilliP ZaCh
CuratorsolveJ helWeg ovesen
Director GrimmuseumenriCo CentonZe
Assistant Curator, Gr immuseumMario Margani
Exhibi t ion Coordinator at Solvej ovesen Curator ial Projects for Grimmuseum and Museum of Contemporary Art , Roski lde: Mette Woller
Documentat ion, photolaura gianetti WWW.lauragianetti.CoM
Director Museum of Contemporary Art Roski ldesanne koFoD olsen
Assistant Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art , Roski ldeMette truberg technical Director, Museum of Contemporary Art , Roski ldeenriCo Passetti
E-book
PublishersolveJ helWeg ovesen
Concept e-bookanDrea niColò, solveJ helWeg ovesen
Graphic designanDrea niColò
WWW.anDreaniColo.CoM
Documentat ion, photolaura gianetti
Documentat ion, f i lm never odd or even performanceChristoPher heWitt
Documentat ion, f i lm Machine Vision Seekers hagen DöCke
PrefaceenriCo CentonZe, sanne koFoD olsen
Authors , in terviews: Mariana Castillo Deball, János FoDor, Mario Margani, solveJ helWeg ovesen, Pablo PiJnaPPel & Mette Woller EditorsolveJ helWeg ovesen
Assist ing edi torMette Woller English language proof readingCarrie haMPel
Distr ibut ionGrimmuseumwww.grimmuseum.com
Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde www.samtidskunst.dk
Solvej Ovesen Curatorial Projects www.solvejovesen.com
ContactGrimmuseum: Fichtestrasse 2, 10967 Berlin – DEwww.grimmuseum.com
Museum of Contemporary Art: Stændertorvet 1, 4000 Roskilde – DK www.samtidskunst.dk
Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Atelier Werk, Schwedterstrasse 36A, 10435 Berlin - DE [email protected]
inDEx
06-07PrefaceText by Enrico Centonze,
Sanne Kofod Olsen
09-012 Never odd or even — an introductionText by Solvej Helweg Ovesen
014-027PhotosViDEo 021Machine Vision Seeker
029-069Mariana Castillo Deball,Solvej Helweg Ovesen— The Exhibition Never odd or evenInterview by Mette Woller
ViDEo 055Ingo Niermann's Performance
071-081Pablo Pijnappel— Quirijn 2011Interview by Mette Woller
083-096János Fodor — a written conversationInterview by Mario Margani
097-103Artists
never odd or even nome
Never odd or even curated by Solvej helweg ovesen is an exhibition
that reflects the goals of the Grimmuseum.
histories unfold to build an expanded meaning, in which sense the
museum is like a book containing many stories, ideas and mediums; all artists
and curators working with us are co-authors of our identity. Grimmuseum fo-
cuses on an interdisciplinary approach of promoting performance, sound, and
visual art, much like the profile of Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde.
A co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art made this
exhibition project and the publishing of the ii Volume of never odd or even
possible, an experience that has allowed two institutions to share the joy of
language and text in interdisciplinary approaches.
the co-existence of viewers, artists and artworks generates a univer-
sal space for individual reflection. in many ways the exhibition is interactive,
in which way Grimmuseum invites its viewers to co-author their own per-
spective of our collective history.
berlin, January 2012
Enrico Centonze
Founder and Director of Grimmuseum
It is our great pleasure to host the exhibition never odd or even at the Mu-
seum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde this Winter, 2012.
the exhibition never odd or even is a collaboration between freelance
curator Solvej helweg ovesen, the Grimmuseum in berlin, and the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Roskilde.
in 2010 Solvej helweg ovesen approached me with the suggestion of
co-producing this exhibition with the Grimmuseum in berlin. it seemed an
obvious thing to do considering the similar orientation of the Museum of Con-
temporary Art and the Grimmuseum in our common focus on conceptual prac-
tices, performance and sound art.
however, what i found most intriguing was the concept of the exhibi-
tion, and most particularly the collaboration between curator and artist: cura-
tor Solvej helweg ovesen has borrowed the exhibition title from a pre-existing
work of art from Mariana Castillo Deball, which is also a significant and signify-
ing part of the exhibition. in some ways, this work —the book by Mariana Cas-
tillo Deball— is a passage to the process of the exhibition, while it’s concept
also unfolds the curatorial concept. the exhibition is both an invitation to the
viewer to write a story through the narrative of their experience of the exhi-
bition, and in the same way, to participate in the art works as written stories
themselves. Everything has a story.
Finally, i would like to extend my thanks to Solvej helweg ovesen for in-
cluding the Museum of Contemporary Art in this exciting collaboration, to Mari-
ana Castillo Deball for offering to produce volume ii of the never odd or even
book, to all the participating artists, as well as Enrico Centonze from the Grimmu-
seum, and to all co-workers who have contributed to this exhibition production.
Roskilde, January 2012
Sanne kofod olsen,
Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
08 never odd or even 09nome
Never odd or even— an introduction
Text bySolvej Helweg Ovesensebastián roMo
Limite! (det.) 2004 (photo by Laura Gianetti)
010 never odd or even 011solvej helweg ovesen
The Never odd or even e-book has been published on
the occasion of the exhibition Never odd or even that
took place in Berlin Grimmuseum from the 1st of Oc-
tober till the 20th of November, 2011, and will now take place in
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde from the 14th of Janu-
ary till the 8th of April, 2012. For these wonderful opportunities to
present the exhibition I would like to extend a heartfelt thank-you
to the participating artists, especially Mariana Castillo Deball, who
inspired the exhibition title with her artwork Never odd or even,
and to the museum directors, Enrico Centonze and Sanne Kofod,
as well as their teams, thanks to whom the exhibition and the new
Volume of Never odd or even by Deball could be printed and co-
produced. This exciting collaboration between two institutions in
Berlin and Roskilde, both so passionately committed to present-
ing and documenting sound art, performance and conceptual art,
have been valuable supporting structures for this exhibition and in
the idea of inspiring visitors ‘to becoming the exhibition’s devoted
readers’.
Never odd or even is a text-spaced exhibition that unfolds
in mental and architectural chapters through perspectives created
by textual artworks. The artworks presented derive from Concrete
Poetry, Dadaist and Futurist Manifestos, as well as techniques of
mind mapping. The exhibition structure is inspired by the format
of a book or perhaps more specifically a ‘walk-in’ anthology on
a human-scale, formatted in spatial chapters that, in effect, invite
the visitors to become co-authors, as their imaginations co-produce
stories by filling in both the gaps left open by the artists and in the
spaces between their works. Imaginary space is rendered tangible
through text and movement. Artworks appear as wall texts and text
installations, as well as projected, spoken, enacted and filmed prose
in a way that activates the architectural space to amplify the mean-
ing of the words and the worlds inside them.
The point of departure of the exhibition and it’s title come
from the legendary book and performance project, Never odd or
even, 2005 - 2011, by Berlin-based artist, Mariana Castillo De-
ball (Mexico, 1975). Her project consists of ‘a book of unwritten
books’—30 book covers designed by creative producers selected by
the artist and published as one book. A new edition of the Never
odd or even book has been invented and published for this exhibi-
tion (by Bom dia boa tarde boa noite). The imagined content of
these ‘unwritten books’ was and will be performed during the ex-
hibition by well-known authors, poets, and artists like Ingo Nier-
mann, Cia Rinne, and Jens Blendstrup.
The present Never odd or even e-book evokes and explores
the celebration of the precision of language and expression, reading,
the historical transformation of images to signs and alphabets, and
words to images in the exhibited artworks. Never odd or even is a
slow exhibition with manifold performative elements —clearly best
documented with a combination of photos, text and video, which
is of course what makes the format of an e-book so inviting. The
book presents a comprehensive interview with myself and Mariana
012 never odd or even 013nome
Castillo Deball by Mette Woller contextualising the Never odd or
even exhibition and originating artwork, as well as the Never odd
or even performance video documentation in which Ingo Niermann
reads from the Ronald Reagan biography: Where is the rest of me?
Furthermore Mette Woller interviewed Pablo Pijnappel, a most ar-
ticulate author and filmmaker, whose film Quirijn appears in the
exhibition, and who here investigates the pleasures of laziness, and
defying the daily pressure to perform. Finally the book presents
a written conversation between Mario Margani and participating
artist János Fodor about his sci-fi archaeology of alphabets as it ap-
pears in his sculptures and visuals.
FerDinanD KRiWEtRundscheiben (det.)
1960-63Offset print, 10 parts
Each 60,9 x 588,4 x 1,3 cm
Edition of 30Courtesy BQ Galerie,
Berlin(photo by Laura Gianetti)
never odd or even 015nome
sebastián roMoLimite!
2004Museum board
Variable dimensions(photo by Laura Gianetti)
henrik olesen
Portraits/Alphabet (version)2008/2011
8 digital prints on paper each 29,7 x 21 cm
Courtesy Daniel Buchholz, Köln/Berlin
(photo by Laura Gianetti)
Peter FisChli | DaviD Weiss
How To Work Better1991-2000Screenprint on paper69,8 x 49,8 cm (unframed)Private collectionCourtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin/London, Matthew Marks Gallery New York, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich.(photo by Laura Gianetti)
never odd or even 017nome
siMon evans
Symptoms of Loneliness 2009
Pen, paper, scotch tape, correction fluid72 x 99 cm
Copyright the artistPrivate collection, São Paulo
(photo by Laura Gianetti)
aDaM PenDleton
Black Dada2008
Vinyl foilVariable dimensions
(photo by Laura Gianetti)016
018 never odd or even 019never odd or even
Ján ManCuška
In Memory, 2006(10 x 10 x 10 of reality 6/10)
10 xerox copies, framed individually
Each 29 x 21cmCourtesy Meyer Riegger,
Berlin/Karlsruhe(photo by Laura Gianetti)
DMitry vilensky (Chto Delat?)Century of the Manifesto.
Play for a few actors2009
video 8:03 min.
Music by Mikhail Krutik(photo by Laura Gianetti)
János FoDorMonolith (All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa, Attempt No Landing Here, Use Them Together Use Them In Peace)2011Black plexiglasCourtesy Kisterem Gallery, Budapest(photo by Laura Gianetti)
020 never odd or even 021never odd or even
rosa barba Machine Vision Seekers
200416 mm film, colour, moving projector
6’ 45’’edition of 1/3 + 1 a.p
Courtesy of the Artistand carlier | gebauer, Berlin
and Gió Marconi, Milan(video by hagen döcke)
rosa barba Machine Vision Seekers200416 mm film, colour, moving projector6’ 45’’edition of 1/3 + 1 a.pCourtesy carlier | gebauer, Berlin and Gió Marconi, Milan(photo by Laura Gianetti)
eriCk beltrán Die Morelli Zeitzeile
2009Print on foil
(photo by Laura Gianetti)
023never odd or evennever odd or even022
nanna Debois buhl & brenDan FernanDes In Your Words2011HD Video projection 10’ 27’’ loopAnimations: Hisao IharoSound: Pejk MalinovskiVoices: Karen Blixen, Nanna Debois Buhl,Brendan Fernandes, Irungu Mutu(photo by Laura Gianetti)
FerDinanD KRiWEtRundscheiben1960-63Offset print, 10 parts Each 60,9 x 588,4 x 1,3 cmEdition of 30Courtesy BQ Galerie, Berlin(photo by Laura Gianetti)
025024 never odd or evennever odd or even
026 027never odd or evennever odd or even
lisa harlev
Dear Hairdresser (det.)2009Plexiglass, woodDimensions variable (photo by Laura Gianetti)
PhilliP ZaCh
Untitled (det.)2011Vinyl foilVariable dimensions(photo by Laura Gianetti)
CiPrian Muresan
Dog Luv2009Video30’ 56’’Courtesy Galeria Plan B, Berlin/Cluj
028 never odd or even 029nome
Mariana Castillo Deball,Solvej HelwegOvesen— The Exhibition Never odd or even
Interview byMette WollerMariana Castillo Deball
Never odd or even, Book, 2011 (photo © BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE and Manuel Goller)
030 031mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
Solvej, the exhibition Never odd or even is inspired by Mariana
Castillo Deball’s book and performance project Never odd or even.
When did you see it the first time and in which ways did it inspire
you? in other words, what potential did you see in the project?
I saw it at her presentation for the 9th Baltic Triennial, BMW
(Black Market Worlds), not as a book, but as posters presented
on freestanding walls. Never odd or even then became the title
of the book project in its current form, which was developed
between 2004 and 2006 and published by Revolver. The po-
tential I saw was in the act of giving a kind of imaginary space
to other people by inviting them to make a cover of a not yet
existing book. The title Never odd or even has a mystical energy from having the reverse read-ing effect of a palindrome and because of the ‘in-between’ zone it describes. I think the authors
who get invited to make contributions and covers of these im-
aginary books almost get some of that energy: they suggest, or
take on other stories and they most likely give completely dif-
ferent input than if they’d written a whole book. I think that’s
my main inspiration as well — the possibility or idea of putting
your own ‘author’ ego aside and being anonymous by either
conceiving a book cover for another author, or writing the text
of a book with a title you didn’t invent yourself.
Mariana, how did you come up with the title: Never odd
or even?
Never odd or even is, as said, a palindrome, a sentence
whose letters can be read both forwards and backwards.
The project consists of a compilation of 30 covers of non-
existing books for which content is created or imagined
through a series of performances. I thought the title Never
odd or even was a precise metaphor for a process that goes
back and forth. As a publication composed of non-exist-
ing books, it triggers the reader’s imagination, inviting him
or her to lucubrate on its possible contents. In that sense
Never odd or even is always incomplete and needs a dia-
logue in order to exist.
is this a way to place it in-between definitions?
For me, it is important to focus on the trajectories of the dia-
logue between people rather than seeing it as a product in itself.
Mariana Castillo Deball Never odd or even, Book, 2011 (photo © BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE and Manuel Goller) mette woller mariana castillo deball solvej helweg ovesen
032 never odd or even 033mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
Solvej, is what Mariana is saying here related to the choice
of using the title for the entire exhibition?
I think it’s the idea of a book in a book in a book that is crucial,
similar to the idea of ‘mise en abyme’, this kind of endlessness
of the project; I mean, it’s infinity. Visually I connected it to
the space of Grimmuseum, where one goes deeper and deeper
into the space with a view of one door opening after the other.
I should also mention that Never odd or even is conceived as
a slow exhibition. Almost like a small bookstore where you
rediscover the joy of reading. The title is also inspired of a kind
of freedom of not having to relate all the artworks directly, but
being able to give each of them their own chapter. The authors
who enact one of the book covers from Marianas’project Nev-
er odd or even can choose any cover and then put a story to it
from their imagination, which they present to an audience who
is totally unprepared. I hope that the audience in the exhibi-
tion gets into a kind of reading/listening mode from where the
stories can gain space. What I really love about the connection
between the book project and the exhibition is that, in a way, it
allows the exhibition to host quite different stories next to each
other, and that the artists offer a whole story so that each visi-
tor can decide if they dive completely into that one piece exclu-
sively and spend ages on it, or if they dive into all of them.
In terms of curating I don’t think an exhibition always has
to support the same narrative. It can be an endless book that
might meet further down the interpretive strands, and in that
way inspires the chapters of the exhibition.
sebastián roMo Limite! (det.) 2004 Installation view Grimmuseum
(photo by Laura Gianetti)
034 never odd or even 035mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
So in which way are the different stories connected within
the exhibition ?
It’s a ‘text-spaced exhibition’, which means the
artworks are connected through the archaic human desire of
expression in verbal and phenomenological forms. It is an exhibition about the joy of expressing the hu-man inner world to the outer in a precise, not necessarily efficient, but eloquent way.
Can you elaborate this a little more? is it, despite the dif-
ferent stories within the exhibition, still possible to talk about an
overall narrative?
The narrative is connected to a feeling and related to the way
Mariana conceived of the Never odd or even project. The ex-
hibition hosts many chapters about mental states and percep-
tions that are are neither odd nor even and express these psy-
chological nuances, stories and little secrets. If you take the
chapter or work, Limite! by Sebastían Romo, you dive into
a subjective portrait of Mexico city originally gathered after
he came back from a year aboard. He collected a lot of adjec-
tives and words describing the city from different people and
put them in a sculptural, three-dimensional crossword. It is
like a verbal trajectory of Situationist derivés where people
wandered through a city in a spontaneous way and thus re-
discovered it. Romo asked people about adjectives describing
Mexico City and placed them on a table that sometimes makes
sense and sometimes doesn’t — so in a way, it is like a ‘pop’
impression of Mexico City, but still shows the complexity of
emotions and ideas of the city at a certain moment.
is the work by Sebastían Romo then a very literal way of
understanding the text-spaced part of the exhibition?
In a way it is an opener. For example, János Fodor’s work is
a more complex body of work about the alphabet, the an-
thropological role of signsand how letters originally come
from images, to become images again in different ways —
for example in advertising and art. Disk is a painting about
the Greek Phaistos Disc from 2nd millennium BC contain-
ing about 45 un-decodable and unique signs that might be
one of the first alphabets, but researchers can’t break the
code to find out what the signs on the discs mean. The signs
look like images of, for example: a fish, but in the moment
sebastián roMo Limite! (det.) 2004 (photo by Laura Gianetti)
036 never odd or even 037mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
they become some abstract letters, they reveal an impor-
tant anthropological transformation, which is what inter-
ests Fodor. The exhibition recalls how different linguistic codes come out of signs that come from images like in Concrete Poetry, where the surface becomes the main playground of the typography, which becomes an im-age and then the individual letter becomes something that we as human beings see as representing a sound.
And you also included works from the Concrete Poetry
tradition in the 1960s…
Ferdinand KRIWET is represented with 10 works that are
called Rundscheiben, which means ‘roundels’ — boards with
words spiralling into the centre made between 1960-63. They
are from a moment when he, as well as many other Concrete-
as well as Visual- Poetry artists from all around the world,
left the idea of having to create a narrative behind. He gave
up semantic responsibility as an author and began presenting
text in typographic streams or verbal disorder that implied
a kind of ‘Dadaistic lack’ of adherence to societal conven-
tions. The visual part presented sounds in the way they are
performed — such as absurd noises, conscious stuttering,
animal sounds repeated incessantly, or just taking intonations
to an extreme in a way — mimicking the way that society,
economy, machines, passing time, and human alienation from
nature, program our life and language. There is a surrealistic
element in the Rundscheiben, they are definitely dizzying to
read and they don’t focus at all on semantic structure, instead
describing the ‘nonsense’ of things he had to do, like travel-
ling around to German provinces as an artist.
How is the exhibition related to your curatorial practice in
general? You once told me that it’s important for you that the ex-
hibition performs itself; can you explain what you mean by that?
I would like an exhibition to perform itself instead of merely illustrating a theme, which means that it should invite exactly those ac-tions from artist and viewers, that it means to reflect, in this case, the joy of language and text.
FerDinanD KRiWEt Rundscheiben 1960-63 Offset print, 10 parts Each 60,9 x 58 8,4 x 1,3 cm Edition of 30 Courtesy BQ Galerie, Berlin (photo by Laura Gianetti)
038 never odd or even 039mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
Other exhibitions, I curated to perform danger or become
dangerous as in Quicksand at De Appel, Amsterdam 2004, or
to make the viewer consider a life strategy instead of merely a
lifestyle as in Life Policies in ZDB, Lisbon 2002, and finally to
perform a radical turn on an art scene to open its’ eyes to other
kinds of art, geographically, as in U-TURN Quadrennial for
Contemporary Art, Copenhagen 2008. For this exhibition to
be successful it should make people forget that they are read-
ing at all – that would be the optimal indirect performance of
the show, or rather, the outcome that the show provokes. The
subtitle of the exhibition is a “text-spaced exhibition”, as I men-
tioned before. This means that you are invited to go completely
into the text as expression, to space-out in it if you like, even
physically. It also means that the combination of space and text
meets your emotions and senses or activates them in a way to go
deeper into the matter. The visual and the aesthetic aspects of the
texts are very important, and in a way —though I did not for-
mulate this in any press release — I was really interested in the
transformation of the viewer into a reader and the suggestion of
a reading mood and mode. I was thinking a lot about how you
can create different experiences of depth in exhibitions, which
is connected with time and connected with human stories that
are somehow psychological. So, for example, Henrik Olesen’s
work in the exhibition, Portraits/Alphabet, is for him about
examining different concepts of the body and the attempts to
control it via language ‘machines’, and he presents them almost
like a deconstructive sound art work. With Simon Evan's work
Symptoms of Loneliness it’s about getting a psychological state
out on paper like a mind-map, and Pablo Pijnappel’s film is a
biography, where a central protagonist Quirijn, after whom the
work is titled, has decided not to work and perform in his life, in
the sense of a typical everyday way, as we understand perform-
ance by having to deliver something. Pijnappel makes a very calm portrait of Berlin as a city, but also of this guy. For me it is a statement against hav-ing to perform in a special way that particularly neo-liberalism requires you to do. The whole text
part of that work is the artist’s imagination of what’s going on
in the mind of someone who doesn’t want to perform; who has
a more elaborate, maybe philosophical approach to life. So the works are quite different, but they create some-
henrik olesen Portraits/Alphabet (version) (det.) 2008/2011 (photo by Laura Gianetti)
040 never odd or even 041mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
thing like a value of slowness. They are earnest and
precise in their formulation and expression.
is this based on a desire to create a ‘breathing hole’ or ‘hole
of escapism’ within the world?
In this case, yes, indeed — but I can also appreciate a vio-
lent exhibition or a fast exhibition, which I have also cu-
rated, but it’s more that the exhibition performs or invites
a certain performance that could be spiritually, socially
or intellectually relevant. I do think quite a lot about the
viewer in that sense. I don’t know if I’m always successful,
and in the end it’s always about the artworks and whether
they are interesting.
You also once told me that you do not want exhibition
themes to be merely illustrative. What do you mean by that?
I always wanted exhibitions to do what they claim to be. My
point is about this very used word: performative. I definitely
respect artists and audience very much, and I think the mo-
ment that the audience feel they are co-creating a show in-
stead of just reading it, they are definitely much more engaged
in the content, which isn’t something that always happens.
In this sense, the installation setting and the way the invi-
tation to the viewer is made, are both really important. In order to be the lungs of the city, an exhibition needs to be an atmospheric place for for ex-ample contemplation, and here the way com-plex matters attain physical representation is what makes the difference between whether the audience is actually absorbed, or just run-ning through.
Have you done exhibitions before that are based on or in-
spired by an artist’s work?
Not directly as such, although every day I keep trying to per-
ceive what is happening in the world through art. But I’m deep-
ly fascinated by your, Mariana, interest in history, in creating
mental and cultural genealogies and exploring other people’s
minds. It’s a deeply personal thing to suggest a book cover and
being able to do it anonymously even makes it more personal
in a way. It means that you can suggest whatever you’re won-
siMon evans, Symptoms of Loneliness, 2009, Pen, paper, scotch tape, correction fluid72 x 99 cm Copyright the artist Private collection, São Paulo (photo by Laura Gianetti)
042 never odd or even 043mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
dering about and put it out there for someone else to write —
imagine if you asked everybody on earth, how many of them
would have ideas for books? The Never odd or even book
covers aren’t about the topics you usually find on the shelf.
You properly wouldn’t get such imaginative or crazy ideas for
books, if you emphasized the value of authorship instead of
the extravagant pleasure of anonymously generating the idea
of a subject for a book without having to write it.
Mariana, how has your love of books informed your prac-
tice specifically?
For many years I have been very influenced by literature, and
especially the group Oulipo (Workshop for Potential Lit-
erature) who are mathematicians and writers, exploring the
possibilities of incorporating mathematical structures in liter-
ary works. Each piece is generated from a constraint, which
means a rule, method, procedure, or structure. So within these
constrictions there are certain rules that modify language and
result in crazy experiments, for example Georges Perec wrote
the novel La Disparition, without the letter E. Some of the
rules created by Oulipo are very difficult to pursue, so hard in
fact, that the author’s intentions disappear, becoming a writ-
ing apparatus driven by language. I was really interested in
this group when I started working on the Never odd or even
project, which is also based on a constraint: to invite a group
of writers, artists and intellectuals to create the cover of a book
that doesn’t exist.
Polish science fiction writer, Stanislaw Lem, also influenced
the project. His book A Perfect Vacuum consists of a compi-
lation of introductions and prologues of non-existing books.
Most of the time we describe books that are impossible to
write, because they are infinite, too ambitious, invisible, or
written by a machine. They are impossible tasks that I find re-
ally interesting: describing a work of literature made by some-
one who doesn’t exist or made in an impossible manner. So
in that sense the project Never odd or even started as an idea
to invite people to contribute with stories that are, in many
ways, unfinished, impossible or absurd. Within this invitation
I think people submit things they otherwise would never have
submitted, because they are anthropologists, writers or schol-
ars who usually deliver a complete novel, a paper, or a body
of work, but in this case it’s something very brief and concise,
where often contributors invent an alter ego, erasing their own
name. In this way they can take all the risks they want.
And why do you think that the authors are inspired to do
works they wouldn’t normally do?
Well, I think it has to do with the sort of economy we live
in nowadays, especially in the creative world, where you are
constantly producing ideas and proposals that so often never
see the light of day. Many people I know, includ-ing anthropologists, historians, writers and scientists, have many projects they will never finish, because the economy is based on the
044 never odd or even 045mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
constant delivery of proposals, and from all these proposals they are maybe able to bring one or two to an end product, and often the final result is not what you actually imagined anyway. In my own experience, I’m often in love or attached to certain ideas that never happened, because they have freshness due to their in-existence. I think that many disciplines can
identify with this project, because you can just present it as
an invitation, and at the same time it looks like an existing
book, but actually it isn’t, it is just a dust jacket.
What interests you about working with people from dif-
ferent disciplines?
I think it started when I was in High school. I was going
to study either mathematics, philosophy or art. I had a very
good mathematics teacher, who said to me “you need to study
mathematics, because it’s the only way you will learn how
to think. If you study philosophy, you will receive plenty of
knowledge, but you will not be able to make something out of
it. If you study art, you are just going to get lost in inventing
things, which are absurd and useless. But if you study math-
ematics you will learn to build systems of thought, which can
be applied to other disciplines and ways of thinking”. In the
end I didn’t study mathematics, I studied art and I chose to
study art because it was the only way I could bring together
all the things I like. In that sense art is a very generous pro-
fession, because you can bring things in from many different
fields and still be an artist. If I had studied mathematics and
started working with a historian they would say “hey come
on, this is not really your job, you’re straying off the track.
Come back to us.” With art I can work with different meth-
odologies and bring them together.
And how did you get to know so many authors, designers
and playwrights etc.?
In the new volume of the Never odd or even book, I invited
many writers I admired and read books of, but didn’t know
personally. And I often work with people from different dis-
ciplines who I collaborate with on a regular basis on diverse
projects. It was a funny activity with the Never odd or even
project because they were invited to do a cover of a non-
existing book and had so many ideas. Most of the people I
invited said: “yeah, but I have so many things I’d like to do. I
can’t choose.” As I said, there are many unfinished stories.
You once said: ”i am a bit like the person who hands out
flyers in the street, to repair your fridge or other stuff. i just
distribute”. is Never odd or even about appropriated authorship
or about letting chance play a role in your artistic oeuvre, or
is it for you more a social thing involving different people in
different parts of the process, so that we speak more of a social
sculpture that’s already been going on for years?
The project is an experiment in collaboration in that sense.
046 never odd or even 047nomeMariana Castillo Deball Never odd or even, Book, 2011 (photo © BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE and Manuel Goller)
048 never odd or even 049mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
I was trying to create a situation in which the notions of agency and principal swap from one person to another, resulting in a chain re-action. In this manner each book cover is neither attached
to the patron, nor the author, nor to the reader who imagines
its content. Around each book cover there is a kind of force
field, which is the potential territory of the project. With
Never odd or even the author has agency while doing a book
cover, but at the same time he or she allows other people to
elaborate on it. So I’m interested in this chain of events that
complete a story, because I don’t believe that anyone is able
to produce something on their own. We are always depend-
ing on others, on the world, on what we eat, on where we are
and it’s a reminder that we are not alone, that we need others,
in order to complete our sentences.
What are the book covers about? And are other topics
and information chosen when the ‘authors’ are able to remain
anonymous?
There is a lot of information hidden in the covers that depends
on the authors that have contributed. They have their own
agendas and their own books that they could never write but
always wanted to. For example, the cover Pour un tombeau
de Martine Roiseux – the author wanted to do a tribute to
someone who was not very well known and who had just
passed away.
And is it okay for you if people don’t get that information?
Some might and some might not….
Each book cover is an invitation.
That’s right. I really like the blue cover with the couple that
meet where both their relatives are part of their body and fig-
ure as ghosts by Alejandro Jodorowsky. There is a lot of nar-
rative; I mean it has a strong psychological content in terms of
how people from your past influence your person and how
they show up again when you are in an intimate relationship.
The cover already performed, “Where is the rest of me?”, is
also very intriguing. It was originally the cover of an autobiog-
raphy by Ronald Reagan and this also provokes some thought
about the relation between fiction and reality. The German au-
thor Ingo Niermann, who presented the book, took his point
of departure from a war film that Ronald Reagan really acted
in, where he woke up from a bad dream after both his legs had
been amputated, asking: “Where is the rest of me?” It was the
author, Niermann, who extended Reagan’s’ biography with his
presumed thoughts of today’s’ issues such as the ‘Occupy Wall
Street’ demonstrations and economic crises. In a way Niermann
imagined what a biography written by a ‘ghost writer’ would
sound like. As for himself, Niermann simultaneously got the
chance to explore his own interest in Phantom Limbs and the
question of what ‘a whole subjectivity or person’ means. The
covers meet the authors’ unconscious or their projects that are,
let say, half a meter outside of the brain.
050 never odd or even 051mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
I think Ingo said it was kind of a blind date. Because you
don’t even know who you’re dealing with, and who actually
wrote the book cover when you decide to work with it.
In terms of introducing the element of chance in writing and jumping topics and chapters, I think of Raymond Roussel, who wrote the novel Impressions of Africa, where he in-vented several writing procedures, or con-straints. His method was like an onion: You have the different rings of an onion and in each ring there is a story and then he could go in and out of this onion throughout the novel, breaking up the linear narrative. It’s completely
crazy, but the idea that you are going into different narrative
fields throughout the book is really interesting. In that sense,
literature is very generous because you have infinite possi-
bilities for creating spaces and going into different language
mechanisms.
When i looked in the book i found myself trying to fig-
ure out which one of the little descriptions on the back cover
matched-up with which of the covers. in some way, i was try-
ing to figure out if there was any kind of system. On my way, i
stumbled across how you have played with some of the titles by
either swapping the words so they get new layers of meaning, or
by turning them into questions. i think it is inherent in human
nature that we try to organise the world in everything we do in
one way or the other. Can you tell us about the special kind of
typography you have developed, the way you have played with
order, and your role as “chapter manager”?
The icons are based on the Chinese game tan-gram, a puzzle that starts from a square com-posed of seven pieces with different shapes. The puzzle can form an infinite number of figurative and abstract icons. For the Never odd or even publication, I wrote an index with a sentence and a tan-gram icon corresponding to each book cover. Augusto Monterroso wrote what claims to be the shortest
short story in the world, which is: “When he woke up the di-
nosaur was still there.” I really like it, because there is so much
in this sentence. In the context of Never odd or even, I made a
‘Reductio ad absurdum’ experiment, first the book’s format is
reduced to its cover, then to a sentence (in other words: a title),
ending up as an icon that I then made on the main cover refer-
ring to the book. The icon I made for each book is a constella-
tion of the tangram shapes I mentioned above from which the
presentation table for the books is also made.
i also realised that you reversed some of the words, like
the title: The Girl from the Farm you reversed to: The Farm from
the Girl.
Ahh, but this was decided by the author of this specific book
cover. So on the front it says The Girl from the Farm, but on
052 never odd or even 053nomeMariana Castillo Deball Never odd or even, Book, 2011 (photo © BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE and Manuel Goller)
054 never odd or even 055nome
soPhie golZ, ingo niernaMM Never odd or even performance (photo by Laura Gianetti)
ana teixeira Pinto, arManDo anDraDe tuDela Never odd or even performance (photo by Laura Gianetti)
ingo niernaMM Never odd or even performance (video by christopher hewitt)
Mariana Castillo Deball (photo by Laura Gianetti)
056 never odd or even 057mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
the spine it says The Farm from the Girl and on the front the
author is Gertrude Dix, but on spine the author is Aubrey
Beardsley — and the publishing house is TIT FOR TAT.
(Laughs)
You seem to be obsessed with crazy narratives — of chang-
ing the order of things. Can you explain a bit about your inter-
est in narratives?
For me, the construction of narratives is not a simple linear process; it is an epileptic process in which the membranes of the individual and the transit of indigenous and alien elements are continually negotiated. Italo Calvino refers to
this movement when he speaks of the author as a ‘spasmod-
ic machine’ that attempts to reconcile chance and determin-
ism in a single mechanism. This ‘spasmodic machine’ is formed of a system of relationships among things that aspire to become a map – a catalogue
or encyclopaedia of the possible – attempting to liberate itself
from the density of facts and in opposition to them to con-
struct a cognitive tangle, a personal equation.
I talk about estrangement, as I have been thinking about it a lot
lately. The notion of the stranger refers to an individual who
has experienced a process of exclusion and is different from, or
alien to, a particular circumstance. On the other hand, the no-
tion of estrangement recalls a gaze that becomes diluted in an
undifferentiated territory, immersed in a moment in which the
cohesion of the individual disappears.
Estrangement is therefore the result of a meticulous gaze cast
onto things, discovering aspects never before seen. In this sense,
estrangement does not imply a distanced attitude, but rather a
continual and active observation of the surroundings.
I think that estrangement makes us conscious of the way we create narratives, discourses, and histories; it alerts us to the opposition between the fragmentary nature of knowledge and its inherent tendency toward completion.
the notion of the ‘spasmodic machine’ seems to correspond
to your ideas of the narrative within the exhibition, Solvej. What
role does the use of language and text play in the exhibition?
Yes, the ‘chapters’ or artworks in the show have a wild way
of relating and communicating and the combined result is un-
controllable. I In this exhibition it’s about presenting some-
one who actually took care of his or her story when it was
‘born’ into the world and you can feel this carefulness in the
passion and care for the language, which then actually makes
you forget that you are reading. Much text is written as fast as possible for example in emails, text messages and facebook announcements, all in the spirit of stress, whereas the joy of slow and deliberated articulation is what I am inter-ested in. I also appreciate the whole seductive
058 never odd or even 059mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
side of it and how artworks can expand your worldview. I often interpret the world through artworks
— I gain knowledge that helps me navigate my way in the
world much like I do from newspapers. I agree with what
Mariana is saying about how you should be careful about
how to represent either a fictional world or what we call the
‘real’ world. We get so many efficient press releases and so
much news that is more fictional than artworks sometimes
and it’s super hard to pay attention to it, to invest empathy or
to be impressed, which often leaves us numb.
Yeah, I agree, I think we need to be quite careful nowadays in
the way we play with language and not to become driven by ef-
ficiency. If you are driven by efficiency then everything becomes
so boring, so direct, so much the same. In order to preserve dif-
ference you need to pull back and slow down somehow.
Do you think that there is a way you could play with that
efficiency of language, the language of for example press releases?
For sure, one of the shows that inspired me the most is, as I
mentioned: BMW, (Black Market Worlds), that just gave like
a weird name on a card, and then because the curators ex-
pected that you would find your own way to the informa-
tion, if you really wanted it — since everyone googles every-
thing anyway. So the word was just Ultimere.com and then
you could go to a mind-map on the internet, where there
were these weird fictitious artwork descriptions and then
you would come to the fact that there would be a big exhibi-
tion, but the exhibition itself had lots of titles and, in a way,
it completely rejected efficiency, but on the other hand it was
working both with seduction and secrecy as a value. I think
that’s when I learned what I thought could be the vision of
the future where less information is more, sounds cliché but
I really believe in it. I mean to get more of the information
that you really search for or have more time for the things
you sense are important. I also think it is the competition of
attention we need to reduce – at least for our selves.
Do you both think that this tendency towards efficiency is
due to the fact that success is still measured by how many people
experience or see an exhibition?
Basically, the idea of efficiency is that the faster you tell people about your artwork or exhibi-tion, like a one-liner, the more you think you’ll sell the product and that more people might see it. But that’s, I think, definitely not the case anymore. There is a difference between looking and seeing.
Looking over it, meaning that you can say you have been there,
that you can tick it off in your calendar, and maybe other people
noticed you were there. Having seen an exhibition means that
you have understood it. And in a kind of larger extension of this
discourse are the phenomena, that when we have downloaded
an e-book or when we have copied a compendium, we have
‘consumed’ it and performing becomes a question of quantity.
060 never odd or even 061nomeMariana Castillo Deball Never odd or even, Book, 2011 (photo © BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE and Manuel Goller)
062 never odd or even 063mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
It makes me think of the Spanish writer, Enrique Vila-Matas. I
have read his book BARTLEBY & CO where he talks about
writers who stopped writing at a certain point in their careers.
Maybe they just wrote one book or one page, so it is a collection
of biographies of all these people who decided to stop writing.
It is inspired by the novel Bartleby by Herman Melville, where
the main character Bartleby is working in an office doing pa-
perwork. Bartleby never leaves the office. So one day the boss
comes in and says, “Hey you need to leave, you need to go and
sleep somewhere else.” And Bartleby replies, “I would prefer
not to.” “But why are you doing this?” “I would prefer not to”.
That’s the only sentence he pronounces in the whole novel “I
would prefer not to”. So in Enrique-Vila-Matas’ BARTLEBY
& CO, Bartleby becomes a metaphor for these writers who sud-
denly decide to stop writing for many different reasons. He also
presents the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo . He only wrote two
fantastic books and when people interview him asking why he
stopped writing, he answers, “Well because my uncle who told
me all these stories died, so I have no more stories to tell”.
(Laughs)
I really like these examples because they are examples of the
power of rejection.
Being able to ‘choose not to’ instead of always having to
‘choose to’?
Yes, instead of something being fragile, disa-bled or stupid, it shows how it can be a weapon to say “I would prefer not to.”
That is also what the film Quirijn by Pablo Pijnappel is about.
The main protagonist Quirijn is a guy who actually lives out
the practice that you are talking about, Mariana, I’m curious if
he read Bartleby, but I think, Quirijn manages to study at the
art academy for 10 years without producing more than one
artwork —a shower cabin for his own use. Pijnappel knows
Quirijn and says that he is a really low-maintenance friend.
Being low maintenance as a person also means that you don’t
depend on other people so much for their evaluation of your
actions. We are coming back to the resistance of performing or just being, if that is possible, I mean, imagine a whole life without dead-lines and without the idea that you have to convince other people in all kind of ways. The high performance lifestyle in itself has become a machine that is not convincing. That’s the point.
Bartleby, who has been a topic for the last decade in the arts,
inspires many nowadays. Yet it takes quite a lot to step back
and not even try and convince the viewer. I think a lot of insti-
tutions feel they are forced to explain the artworks really fast,
because the viewer doesn’t have time to really see the artwork
or understand it. I don’t know exactly what understanding an
artwork means anyway, because it can often be more like ask-
064 never odd or even 065mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
ing the viewer existential questions and considering the exis-
tential questions as some people do or did in church, making
you think or associate about things that touched you, but have
not been digested. There is also the element of hedonism in
the film, because Quirijn is a healthy guy in a kind of healthy
body, so he’s sleeping enough and he is not exploiting himself,
but the other way around. Everyone needs purposelessness,
escapism or hedonism in some degree, I believe.
As mentioned, The Never odd or even project consists of a
book of non-written books — 30 book covers. in another book
project you did, The Invisible Collection, some of the books start
on page 147 and finish on page 162. Some were almost empty.
And most of them didn’t have a cover, as if they’d fallen out of
other books or compilations. What is it about the absence (of
information) that interests you? Sometimes absence draws at-
tention to what is not there, thus making it more present in a
way. But do you think the brain is able to skip chapters and still
make sense of the whole thing? is there a chance that the project
appears hermetic more than open ended?
When I started, I was mainly writing and producing artist’s
publications, but I wanted to find a way that I could also ac-
tivate a space and bring in a performative element. In 2003,
I did the project Interlude: The reader’s traces, an interven-
tion in public libraries in Berlin, New York and Paris. I was
interested in how a library functions as a public space. Books
in libraries are public items; many different people read the
same copy. Each reader leaves their own traces and marks:
a piece of paper used to separate the pages, a note, a train
ticket; all become unresolved texts, hinting at something to
be disclosed. The discovery of such traces creates an open-
ing, occupying an intermediate space. These interrup-tions suspend the continuous accumulation of knowledge and force us to enter a new time that has been cut from its original moorings. For one moment the database structure of the library and the
narrative experience of reading come together.
Based on this idea of the reader’s traces, I asked artists, de-
signers, writers and theoreticians to develop a piece. Each
contributor was asked to produce a nomad text, a loose page
to be inserted into library books. Each contributor was also
responsible for their own strategy of distribution within the
library: whether it was made for a particular section, a partic-
ular selection of books, a specific page, or if it was to be given
to all the readers on one day, etc. All the inserts were printed
and distributed according to the contributor’s instructions in
the public libraries in Berlin, Paris and New York. There is
no way of tracing the final outcome of the action; the inserts
should be found by accident.
And what is your interest in leaving traces?
The project contains ten different pieces that allowed me, as
the official distributor of the project, to explore the libraries
and disrupt them in a variety of forms and to observe phe-
066 never odd or even 067mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
nomena that otherwise would have passed unnoticed.
Harry Mathews made a handwritten love letter to be inserted
in The principles of quantum theory, Peter Piller selected a
single photograph from a large archive, showing a photo of a
house taken from the sky, for books about architecture, town
development and paranormal phenomenon; Dario Gamboni
gathered three quotations that relate to chance, something
like a forgotten page-marker that could then be reused, giving
an active turn to chance; Ian Monk took one of his working
notes to be distributed in pages 45; Enrique Vila-Matas wrote
a tale about a lost and irreplaceable text; Manuel Raeder used
unexposed photography as a bookmark for the short story
by Jorge Luis Borges The Book of Sand; Steve Rushton wrote
The tale of the talking ape and the talking baby, and as an ex-
tra story for the Thousand and one nights; I gathered a series
of photographs associated to an archaeology of modernism
from the Bauhaus building in Dessau; Raimundas Malasaus-
kas submitted an apparently random list of acknowledg-
ments; Paul Elliman made leather bookmarks to bear in mind
the books from where Frankensein’s creature learned to read
and Hubert Czerepok used the last scene from Antonioni’s
film Zabrinski Point for a screen saver to be installed in the
computers.
After finishing the project, I realized that it functioned in the
inverse way to common publishing strategies. Firstly, each
insert is dependent, in the sense that it is made to disturb
other texts, to be a parasite on them, but at the same time, in
the moment of being placed in a volume, it becomes unique,
it cannot be searched for, and is only accessible by accident.
This fact puts an accent on the paths that lead the reader from
one text to another and to how much chance is responsible
for these connections.
Apart from the gathered documentation there is no other
way to follow the reaction or the actual consequences of this
vast and secret gesture, the intention was to open a space in people’s imagination, to make them expect
the possibility of finding a trace or simply to consider the
reactions of other readers.
Solvej, what does it mean to you if people don’t see the rela-
tion between the work of Mariana’s project and the rest of the ex-
hibition: How does it branch off into the rest of the exhibition?
I think the Never odd or even art project is more clearly pre-
sented in this exhibition than before, where all the books are
now lying on the tangram table that Mariana designed with the
covers around antique books, so you are really focused on the
covers as potential books. Since the exhibition bears the title I
guess some visitors will try to find the link, but I don’t think
everybody needs to know that the exhibition is conceptually
inspired by this book in order to enjoy the atmosphere or dive
into the individual artworks. The individual artworks are actu-
ally curious enough on their own as well, which is what the
visitors of the exhibition in Berlin convinced me of — most
visitors stayed for hours and came back several times.
068 never odd or even 069mariana castillo deball - solvej helweg ovesen
It is a moderately sized group show so I don’t intend to over-
estimate the role of a small exhibition, but it is about the hu-
man ability to express what’s on your mind and the different
forms at hand that can include a high level of complexity —
like mind-maps for example. Never odd or even is about the
theatrical skill that all humans have to express their interior
externally and about how they do it. It is about the relief you
can feel when you bring a matter to external perception. And
about co-authoring, so the form you give the story, the form
you give the sign, the text, and that all of that together is telling
us a lot about ourselves as humans, sides of our inner world
that are beyond the symbolic, but that we as an audience, eas-
ily sense.
i experienced that many got confused about how the cov-
ers are wrapped around the already existing, antique books, as
Solvej mentions. i think you once said that you like this confus-
ing part of the project, Mariana?
I’m not interested in confusing people, but I am interested in
metaphors and how the reader can make up their own story.
So in a way Never odd or even is a very simple way of do-
ing that, because it is just a cover of a book, where you read
the title and maybe realise that it doesn’t really exist, which
due to the questions that arise about who made it etc., maybe
leads to the beginning of building up a story. So it’s just a
target, or a way to start a history. It is like when someone
starts telling you a joke and you ask yourself: “Do I know
the end of the joke or not?” Therefore it’s a way to activate
the imagination of the viewer, but I’m not trying to confuse
people — not at all.
It was also a pleasure for me to work with Solvej to see how
she uses the idea of the book as a metaphor for something
else, which is completely different, with her own references,
so again it was a reading that lead to another thing, which was
a very gratifying experience for me.
070 never odd or even 071nome
Pablo Pijnappel— Quirijn 2011
Interview byMette Woller
Pablo PiJnaPPel Quirijn 2011 16 mm projection 15:00 min. 2/5 + 2 APCourtesy of the artist and Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam
072 never odd or even 073pablo pijnappel
value words and language as fundamentals of coexistence
with other people, and therefore survival. To know the local
language, to know the right thing to say (i.e. savoir-faire), to
understand the right key word, is what makes the difference
between outsider and friend, rejection and seduction, igno-
rance and insight. The world of the words is communication,
while the world of images is a more personal world.
Because of the linguistic confusion those comings and goings
brought me as a child, I was left very much in my imagina-
tion, in ‘a world of my own’. Making art was an attempt to
materialise this world, but in art school I realised that it could
only be successfully bridged to the other in combination with
language, which holds a common meaning to all. Images are
always fleeting and idiosyncratic until they are pinned down
with language — I guess I just somewhat contradicted the
quote from my book above, but what I mean to say is that
images have a very established meaning in my head, even
subconsciously, but to others they are enigmatic until I cir-
cumscribe their approximate meaning with language; but a
language as a common set of codes is also elusive until one
masters it.
in your work Quirijn, which is part of the Never odd or even ex-
hibition, we follow the life of your Dutch friend Quirijn drifting
around against a backdrop of Berlin. the story seems to follow
a narrative, however incomplete, that is fragmented and looped.
Although the story doesn’t appear to be based on a rollercoaster
I still can’t really get a firm grip on words, they remain like slippery bars of soap or cumbersome wooden blocks that I drop from my hands and stumble upon clumsily. It is only on paper or on my laptop screen after an exhilarating chase, that I sometimes manage to pin them down with my pencil or squash them flat with my fingertips.
the above excerpt is from your autobiographical book A Vision
in Time published to coincide with the exhibition Fontenay-aux-
Roses at carlier|gebauer and Juliette Jongma this year. Can you
elaborate your slippery relationship with words? How has lan-
guage and the written word come into play in your practice?
I guess words became very present in my life exactly because
of their ‘absence’. With my constant comings and goings
through many countries since I was a child (Paris, Rio, New
York, Amsterdam, Berlin), I was excluded from the world
of words every time I moved. Because of that I learned to
“
074 never odd or even 075pablo pijnappel
of dramatic pathos, it nevertheless offers exit-
ing moments: We are told that you are look-
ing for your friend Quirijn without revealing
how or whether you find him, while images,
text and time sometimes become parallel
worlds. Can you tell about your interest in
narrative and about never concluding a com-
plete picture?
I think each of us perceives each narrative
differently — there are some people that
can’t follow narratives at all — because of
our history, or the associations we make
and so on. To present an incomplete story
is to get close to the substratum of a nar-
rative, something that contains the basic
elements for anyone to complete a story
in their own mind, which in turn empha-
sises the particularity of interpretation.
It’s also a way of giving the viewer the
role of an investigator who has to put the
evidence together and draw conclusions — while everything
somehow remains very elusive and volatile. Nothing can be
pinned down for certain, like trying to complete a puzzle in-
side a bus driving in a very bumpy road, the pieces continue
to jump from one place to the other, the picture remains for-
ever incomplete... That’s how we witness real day events as
they unfold before our eyes.
Pablo PiJnaPPel
Quirijn2011 , 16 mm projection , 15:00 min. , 2/5 + 2 AP
Courtesy of the artist and Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam(photo by Laura Gianetti)
How is the use of the black ‘gaps’ — the frames between the film
sequences, consisting of a black screen with white text — related
to this?
The constant use of ‘gaps’ in my work has the function of
making ‘splices’ that fragment the narrative and give the
viewers cues to use their own ‘interior world’ to complete
that segment. Something also gets inverted there: instead of
076 never odd or even 077pablo pijnappel
many ways, he capitalises on time by not pursuing what most
people desire — to keep up with the pace of modern society
(for instance). He has no problem in waiting for a letter to ar-
rive because in the meantime, he might read a book, go for a
stroll or contemplate the clouds. He found a way of defying
the pressure of our high-tech capitalist society and staying
true to his own rhythm.
It’s maybe interesting to note that some people regard laziness
being exactly that: a capitalisation of action. One restrains
themselves from acting on something and procrastinates in-
stead, but you could also argue that the ‘lazy’ individual is
actually accumulating his surplus-value of time. Is not a coin-
cidence that Paul La Fargue, son-in-law of Karl-Marx, wrote
the manifesto “The Right to be Lazy” which became vitally
important in creating the eight-hour working day (at a time
when a 14-hour day in the factory was commonplace) by de-
fending the right to be idle.
Does Quirijn’s lifestyle in some way conceal some of your own
hopes and desires in relation to today’s society? in other words:
how do your own thoughts and history come into play in the
intimate narrations you create about your family and friends?
I think every work of fiction is somewhat autobiographi-
cal. Hemingway preached to “write about what you know”,
which is what writers do most of the time: they write about
the city they live in, or the time when they were younger, etc.
That auto-biographical aspect of fiction was not only very
the text help giving meaning to the images, the images help
the viewer get a grip on the text, much like illustrations in
children’s book. By the end of the viewing, many gaps and
fragments later, once the narrative is somewhat rendered as
a whole in someone’s mind, the story is as much the viewer’s
as it is mine.
in a text related to the film, you write about how Quirijn per-
sists in living like we were still in the 1990s — by not having a
cell-phone or a computer, or that he never uses any other forms
of technological communication such as email etc. Somehow
Quirijn’s Spartan lifestyle and phlegmatic nature is embedded in
the pace of the movie and the entire viewing experience, provid-
ing a kind of breathing hole in time. What are your considera-
tions in relation to time?
Well, in that film I try to illustrate what I perceive in the ‘real’
Quirijn, (though the film is as about as fictive as a newspaper
snapshot of a soccer game might be when compared to the
actual 90 minute game that took place in the field). This ‘real’
Quirijn has a relationship with time that is not marked by
goals and achievements; time for him is more of a continuum,
like a time-illusion instead of an optical-illusion — where in-
stead of not knowing whether an object is close up or far
away, big or small, time seems to be neither long or short,
slow or fast... Let me put this another way: Q is by defini-
tion not a capitalist because he doesn’t accumulate capital, he
only works enough for his subsistence, more or less, while in
078 never odd or even 079
later writing under the influence of ‘junk’, the text becoming
a translation of that experience; Kerouak defended writing
spontaneously without much mediation, much like an art-
ist might sketch a street while sitting on a café terrace; and
then later with Charles Boukowisky in the 60’s who, among
other things, wrote novels about someone, well,
someone just like himself (famous-old-alcoholic-
writer), with his infamous fictional pseudonym
Henry Chinaski. But somehow nobody likes to
put too much emphasis on how much they’ve
taken from their own lives in their books, almost
as if it would depreciate their creativity by calling
the material autobiographical. There is a thresh-
old where simply changing characters names or
changing the order of events (something that nu-
merous documentaries, both film and books, do)
turn a non-fiction to fiction.
It’s an inherent part of my work: this deconstruc-
tion of fiction by making ‘documentaries’ that,
although they use real names and real places,
are more fictive than most novels. Godard of-
ten called his films “documentaries of fiction”
because he created fictional situations (he often
doesn’t use a script), but on some level the situa-
tions became real once they’re played out. In my
case at least, this way of making ‘documentaries’
evident with Hemingway, but in modern American literature
at the beginning of the 20th century as a whole: most notably
with Henry Miller, who wrote a trilogy based on his experi-
ence in Paris in the 1930s; and then the beatniks in the 50´s;
Borroughs writing about his experiences of taking ‘junk’ and
Pablo PiJnaPPel Quirijn , 2011 , 16 mm projection 15:00 min. 2/5 + 2 APCourtesy of the artist and Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam
080 081never odd or even pablo pijnappel
is something that has happened spontaneously because it’s a
cheaper way of making fictional films, and perhaps more di-
rect as well: without always having the mediation of writing
a complete script — I just film it and edit it. Which brings
me to why I have been making 16 mm films instead of HD
videos. The 16mm forces me to have some kind of plan (be-
cause of the costs involved and the length of each roll, which
are sometimes only 3 minutes long), I have to edit the scenes
in my head before I even start filming, so in a very Deleuz-
ian (or Bergsonian) sense1, I have already made the film in
my head before picking up the camera. And voilá, after the
film is developed, my recollection of what I’d shot is turned
upside down: with the lapse of time between shooting it, and
developing and printing rushes, it had already been rendered
to fiction in my mind. Besides, the quality of film pushes this
cinematic atmosphere into reality that no HD can emulate,
it’s very visceral, it’s real cinema making.
is the documentation of Quirijn’s life (and his conservation of
time) a way to preserve him from being lost in memory?
We live in a time where memory is dramatically changing in
function and perhaps even in meaning. Things about our past
that we might want to forget can forever dwell in the sub-
conscious of the internet only to surface later to haunt us.
At the same time collective memory in the physical world is
fading. People have less need to be cultivated because they
can google anything at any time, which annihilates the kind
of distortion that occurs when we reccount a narrative from
our internal world with our own personal interpretation ...
To hear about the French revolution from a friend who’s
read or heard about it is very different to someone reading
it out quickly from their i-phone. That’s one of the reasons
why the analogue medium fascinates me: this noise produced
from copy to copy until it is rendered into something else,
while each copy remains unique. Our memory does some-
thing similar: whenever we remember something, we create a
new memory of an existing memory, which might have been
already a memory of a memory... And it is somewhat sad, but
at the same time very interesting, that this analogue world is
already a memory of itself...
1. I refer here to Cinema 1: Image-Movement, where Deleuze quotes Bergson’s Matter
and Memory (where he formulates a philosophy of the universe as being constituted of im-
ages ) in order to build his own theory of cinema as a sort of phenomenological device: “‘We
take snapshots, as it were, of the passing reality, we have only to string them on a becoming
abstract, uniform and invisible, situated at the back of the apparatus of knowledge. . .
Perception, intellection, language so proceed in general. Whether we would think becoming
or express it, or even perceive it, we hardly do anything else than set going a kind of cin-
ematograph inside us.’ Does this mean that for Bergson the cinema is only the projection, the
reproduction of a constant, universal illusion? As though we had always had cinema without
realising it?. . .”
082 never odd or even 083nome
János Fodor — a writtenconversation
Interview byMario Margani
János FoDorScharfes S2011Courtesy Kisterem Gallery, Budapest (photo by Laura Gianetti)
084 never odd or even 085jános fodor
The work Disk is a print of the unencrypted Phais-
tos Disk (from II millennium BC), whose alpha-
bet, purpose, meaning, dating, manufacture, and
in fact even its authenticity, remain widely dis-
puted. Fodor uses the MasterCard logo as a shape
to connect the current financial collapse and
incomprehensible financial market mechanisms
with the most discussed example of an indecipher-
able object within the field of Linguistic Anthro-
pology. In Fodor’s work the phrase “Master the
Possibilities” used by the giant of the debit and
credit system in its promotional campaigns, sounds
a bit like a hoax.
Fodor’s works in Never odd or even are conceptu-
ally constructed through research in alphabets and
cultural contexts, each piece itself becoming a ve-
hicle through time and culture.
The Hungarian Berlin-based artist
János Fodor’s (1975) practice encompasses draw-
ing, photography, sculpture, video and painting.
His works deal with topics such as material cul-
ture, mainstream and kitsch, and use languages as a
point of departure for his artistic production. Fodor
presents objects that raise questions of mystery, in-
terpretation and meaning from examples such as the
Klingon alphabet, the Rosetta Stone and misquoted
proverbs, produced through translation and the
mix-up of cultures, languages and common sense.
The re-contextualization of quotes and archaeo-
logical finds shape his works as he utilises quotes
and interpretations of ancient models to shed light
on modern day practices. Since alphabets, lan-
guages and signs often reflect social, cultural and
technological changes, texts are excellent instru-
ments for analysing cultural processes.
intro
086 never odd or even 087nomeJános FoDor, Disk, 2011, Courtesy Courtesy Kisterem Gallery, Budapest (photo by Laura Gianetti)
088 never odd or even 089nome
Behind their elegant and sober appearanc-
es, your works in Never odd or even seem
to be born of a deep interest in history and
popular culture, producing some rather
unexpected formal compositions. Why
have you chosen to play on boundaries,
both between real, forgotten and fictional
Alphabets, and between subcultures and
mainstream?
Texts, like languages themselves, are
products of abstraction. Abstracted
elements can be positioned more eas-
ily into other systems of understand-
ing as separated signs, which opens
new dimensions for fiction. My artistic
practice is following a micro sampling
method of reflecting on diffused ele-
ments of cultural history. I try to re-
interpret well-known connections by
developing new contexts. It’s a way of
better understanding the past, or at least of looking at our
time from a distance. Knowing about the past could help us
build a better present. According to the head-hunters of Pa-
pua New Guinea and other indigenous cultures, our future
is behind us, since we cannot see it, while the past is what we
can observe, therefore it’s front of us.
János FoDorMonolith (All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa, Attempt No Landing There,
Use Them Together Use Them In Peace)2011, Black plexiglas, Courtesy Kisterem Gallery, Budapest (photo by Laura Gianetti)
in your work Monolith you apply a strategy of re-contextualising
a well-known relationship to the Rosetta Stone (from 196 BC, dis-
covered in 1803), the interpretation of which led to the first de-
coding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Monolith is a plexi duplicate of
the shape of the archaeological find, engraved with a sentence
from the sci-fi film 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984, Peter
Hyams): “All these worlds are yours except Europa, attempt no
090 never odd or even 091jános fodor
landing there, use them together, use them in peace”. this was the
message relayed by the computer HAL, a figure in the movie, back
to humanity on Earth. Eventually you translate this sentence into
Hungarian runes, which are nowadays experiencing a revival, es-
pecially through the web-based Hungarian nationalist subculture.
What are you expecting from the viewer who faces your Monolith,
which preserves only the remnants of an archaeological value in
combination with elements of such various origins?
I would like to imagine this as layers of possible readings,
one after the other. It’s not necessary to go all the way to find
some kind of final result, it’s more like an invitation to an
adventure through cultural heritage. The final context is in-
fluenced by the viewer’s actual time as well. Apart from that,
artefacts can be objects of contemplation and beauty without
any previous comments, in the same way that it’s possible to
like something without understanding it. I was also attracted
by the fact that according to some semi-scientific research,
aliens’ language sounds Hungarian.
Another alphabet that can reflect this mix of scientific research
and fictional origin is the ‘Klingon alphabet’ that you use in the
work Supplement. it is a language developed off gibberish in the
1980s by the American linguist Mark Okrand for the Star trek
sci-fi series. in your artwork the sentence: “the Right to Refuse
to Kill” is engraved in Klingon on a plastic duplicate of another
well-known archaeological find, the Cyrus Cylinder (6th cen-
tury BC). the ancient clay cylinder with inscriptions in cunei-
form script represents an object that was interpreted in several
and conflicting ways. in 1960s the cylinder was interpreted as an
early "human rights charter" by, amongst others, the last Shah
of iran. Although the relationships between quotes, objects and
languages change, Supplement uses the amalgam of archaeol-
ogy, fictional elements and alphabets to shape an ironic clash of
meanings. What relationship do you see between the Cyrus Cyl-
inder and the Klingon alphabet?
It was basically an aesthetic decision; to me the letters of an-
cient Sumer have a similar kind of appearance to Klingon.
I am also interested in looking at political fiction as being a
driving force in the immediate future. In the U.S. more peo-
ple speak Klingon than Russian. This sounds like proof of
the power of imagination to me. Talking about the UDHR
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights), as I noticed, there
are at least two criticisms of the declaration, one from a con-
servative and one from a left wing point of view. In this case
I chose to work with the libertarian criticism that says that
‘The Right to Refuse to Kill’ is painfully missing from the
original text. The Star Trek Klingons seemingly personify
a classically rigid and authoritarian culture based on heroic
values, and in terms of universality, I thought this peculiar
artwork would maybe even better describe general human
values, since they also reflect individual rights.
in the 1960s, the Revolution in iran also tried to claim the im-
portance of the Cyrus Cylinder as a precursor to the UDHR, in
092 never odd or even 093jános fodor
János FoDorSupplement (The Right To Refuse To Kill)2011Courtesy Private Collection, Budapest(photo by Laura Gianetti)
094 never odd or even 095nome
order to associate the figure of the Shah with the monarchy of
Persia’s past and with Cyrus in particular. in your piece 1 Picture
says more than a 1000 words, we can find the appropriation of
the past in the field of advertising. in 1921 the publicist Fred R.
Barnard used the title “One look is worth a thousand words” in
the advertising trade journal Printer’s Ink to promote the use of
images in advertisement on the side of streetcars. in 1927 in an-
other advertisement in the same journal Barnard attributed the
phrase “One Picture is Worth ten thousand Words” to an un-
specified ‘famous Chinese philosopher’, to give his words added
value. For many years later it was believed that the phrase truly
came from some Chinese tradition. Why have you decided to re-
present Barnard statement?
From a logical positivist point of view, languages are im-
perfect tools for description. Poetry can probably go fur-
ther. In reality, the description of an image could say more
than the image itself, but only in the given context. Images
are predators for contexts otherwise they’re not much more
than illustrations. Art has its own language that is continu-
ously overwritten according to the latest developments in art
theory and practice. I found it a bit similar to this static rela-
tion to reality. The text in this work is an authentic American
proverb, developed by a salesman, whose later intention was
to introduce it as a ‘Chinese proverb’ so people would take
it more seriously. In some extent this story even recalls the
responsibility of the scripturists for me.
János FoDor
1 Picture Says More Than 1000 Words2008, Mirror
Courtesy Kisterem Gallery, Budapest (photo by Laura Gianetti)
096 never odd or even 097nome
Your works are deeply rooted in real events or tendencies, but
using the process of decontextualisation, they also convey a feel-
ing of extra terrestrial provenance. the Rosetta Stone represents
the real monolith of knowledge, without which Egyptian hier-
oglyphics would have remained an unencrypted and therefore
an alien alphabet. the piece Forward to the Past reminds us that
the collective imagination of future and past are tightly related.
What role might text play in the imagination of the future?
Texts are codes, therefore only open to the privileged mi-
norities who are able to decode them. Seeing the expansion
of images in communication, I’m expecting the devaluation
of written text, and a development of a more complex vis-
ual language. It seems that contexts are inexorably becom-
ing more important than texts themselves. Shorter texts are
faster messages, and since our attention is on auction, shorter
texts could be more effective in describing context. The capa-
bility of reading the synonym of recorded knowledge, pos-
sibly with math and art, are the only heritages that make us
different to animals.
Artists
Text by
Solvej Helweg Ovesen (SHO)
Mette Woller (MW)
Mario Margani (MM)
rosa barba
erik beltrán
nanna Debois buhl & brenDan FernanDes
Mariana Castillo Deball
siMon evans
Peter FisChli | DaviD Weiss
János FoDor
lise harlev
FerDinanD kriWetJán ManCuška
tris vonna-MitChell
CiPrian Muresan
henrik olesen
aDaM PenDleton
Pablo PiJnaPPel
sebastián roMo
DMitry vilensky (Chto Delat?)PhilliP ZaCh
098 never odd or even 099nome
rosa barba (1972, IT-DE) – based in Berlin
Machine Vision Seekers (2004)A sci-fi story written by a moving
projector on the wall. Almost as if it is seeking its audience, the moving projector aggressively throws words onto the walls, making the surroundings part of a frag-mented sci-fi story about 5 people walking through a tunnel and describing the physical and mental sensation. The story is authrored by Rosa Barba and stops when the light hits at the end of the tunnel. The two-dimensional screen is abandoned and images are replaced with text fragments, thus making the script both image and storyteller. Instead of trying to conceal the source of the projected image, Rosa Barba transforms it into the centre of attention, making the sound of its 16mm pulse and mechanical movements part of an envelop-ing, kinetic, imageless cinema. In this way, Barba uses the materiality of film to go beyond normal cinematographic means.
MW
eriCk beltrán (1974, MX) – based in Barcelona
Die Morelli Zeitzeile (2009)Individual timelines. What would
happen if history were ‘written’ through the comparison of personal timelines based on knowledge collected throughout one’s life? Erick Beltrán’s “Morelli Timeline” constructs a narrative of the total history in his mind, a story in which Adam and the dinosaurs as well as Asterix and Obelix, Christ, the Big Bang, Obama and the artist himself coexist. But a lot of events, places and people are missing.
The action of collecting, order-ing, mapping and comparing was the foundation of the 19th century Italian
art historian and connoisseur, Giovanni Morelli’s theory, the ‘Morellian’ technique. It consisted in identifying the ‘hand’ of a painter through minor details reveal-ing artists’ conventions of portraying, for example, ears. Interpreting this theory from an anthropological point of view, every single timeline in the world could be different and represent one’s own beliefs, experiences and preferences.
MM
nanna Debois buhl & brenDan FernanDes Nanna Debois Buhl (1975, DK) – based in New York & Brendan Fernandes (1979, KEN) – based in Toronto and New York
In Your Words (2011)A film on the migration of words.
Nanna Debois Buhl and Brendan Fern-andes link literature, visual art and the need to adapt their own languages to the differ-ent home bases (Kenya, Denmark, USA) in a multilingual dialogue with the Danish author Karen Blixen (Out of Africa, 1937). The uninterrupted comparisons and con-trasts in the translations of birds name’s and of different expressions for introductions and greetings in Swahili, English and Dan-ish take the shape of an increasing waterfall of words. This turns into a refrain, which bridges gaps between different cultures using the concepts of flying and migrating as metaphors reflecting post-colonialism. Focusing on the elusiveness of the spoken word, the film unfolds themes of identity and underlines the value of difference. At the same time the latter becomes an obstacle or even a boundary whose crossing always entails a loss.
MM
Mariana Castillo Deball
(1975, MX) – based in Berlin
Never odd or even (2011)A book in a book in a book. The point
of departure of the exhibition and it’s title comes from the legendary book and performance project, “Never odd or even”, 2005-2011, by the Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball. Her project consists of a book of ‘unwritten books’ – 30 book covers designed by authors, artists, and graphic de-signers selected by the artist and published as one book. A new edition of the “Never odd or even” book has been invented and published (by “Bom dia boa tarde boa noite”) for this exhibition. The imagined content of these book covers of ‘unwrit-ten books’ will be performed during the exhibition by authors, poets, theoreticians, and artists, who all choose a cover made by another author or designer to present. The installation of this exhibition is inspired by the mise en abyme effect also present in the “Never odd or even” book.
SHO
siMon evans
(1965, UK) – based in Berlin
Symptoms of Loneliness (2009)Mind mapping. Whatever is on Simon
Evans’ mind is often on a map in his artworks. Mental states, personal stories and belongings are ordered on the visual mappings of disparate hospital floor plans, a city, a church, or a set of hands. Symptoms of Loneliness was created as the artist found himself generally alone when he first moved to Berlin. The following symptoms were observed – “The people you end up with stink”, “Saying what I don’t fully believe and expecting you to ignore it”, “Looking for Love in Business (Shop People, People in Art Galleries etc.)”
– and given a spatially structured ‘residue’ on a map of a set of hands, on a paper.
SHO
Peter FisChli | DaviD Weiss
(1952, CH /1946, CH) – based in Zurich
How To Work Better (1991-2000)Instructions. Originally, the ten-point
manifesto How To Work Better served as a freestanding signboard in a pottery factory in Thailand (both in Thai and English), photographed by Fischli & Weiss in 1990. “Accept change as inevitable”, “Admit mistakes”, “Say it simple”. Is this all meant seriously? The simplicity and common sense of the text instructions may generate a wry smile of acceptance when we read them. Maybe it’s the longing for tangible facts and rules in our daily work life? The text is hard to disagree with. Seen from a global perspective, the artists hold up a mirror to the peaceful sounding, corporate motivational strategies intended to govern lives and work ethics today. MW
János FoDor
(1975, HU) – based in Berlin
Monolith (All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa, Attempt No Landing There, Use Them Together Use Them In Peace) (2011) Supplement (The Right To Refuse To Kill) (2011) Forward To The Past (2011)N. Carolina (2009) 1 Picture Says More Than 1000 Words (2008) Scharfes S (2011)Less (2010)Disk (2011)
Alphabets and cultural context. Lan-guage plays a significant role in Fodor’s
0100 never odd or even 0101nome
works. Through the observation of kitsch and mass culture he detects associations and accidental occurrences, which are capable of connecting historical moments in the anthropology of writing with today’s ex-amples of sophistication, exaggeration and camp attitude. The silhouette of the Mono-lith is a plexi-copy of the Rosetta stone, a discovery that opened to the comprehen-sion of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fodor also quotes a text in old Hungarian runes, which nowadays are living a popular revival that is turning them into an element of ideological nationalist subculture. This constant Post-modern exchangeability of meaning and reference can lead to a watered down and vulgarized verbal culture. Text, context and sign are thus playfully reconnected to past, present and future in this artistic oeuvre.
MM
lise harlev
(1973, DK) – based in Berlin
Dear Hairdresser (2009)Typography tells its own story. In the
work of Lise Harlev, colourful shapes, signs and forms merge together on what seems to be a meticulously arranged working table. Three letters written from the artist to shop owners using the very conventional, yet world famous Helvetica font, draw atten-tion to their choices of typography on their outdoor signs. Like tickling movements, the personal letters from the artist to the ki-osk owner, reverend and hairdresser stress how text becomes both an autonomous image and carrier of message simultane-ously and reading and seeing parallel ways of understanding.
MW
FerDinanD kriWet(1942, DE) – based in Dresden
Rundscheiben (1961-1963)Concrete Poetry. Poetry of the surface,
the literal sound of the letter and text as image characterize the series Rundscheiben (‘Roundels’, 10 offset prints), by Ferdinand KRIWET. These phonetically functioning text circuits that implode for the eye, free the narration from chronology and allow the reading eye to jump according to visual measures and listen according to the sound of the words and letters. Concrete Poetry is an artistic tradition, where the relation between the visual appearance of the text (the text image) and its content is essential. Artists such as Dieter Roth, Daniel Spoerri, Emmett Williams and Öyvind Fahlström are often credited in regards to the tradition. KRIWET had a breakthrough in the age of 19 for his first book “ROTOR” (1961) written, freed from semantic rules, as one long text without capitals, full stops or commas. Later his artistic invention is the “programmatic poetry” expressed on the extended series of Rundscheiben.
SHO
Ján ManCuška
(1972-2011, SK)
In Memory (2006)A space in reality for the projection of
memories. Jan Mancuška’s oeuvre, which includes film, light and slide projections, theatre plays and paper work focuses on the reception and conception of space and text, on multiplying the role of the author and involving the audience in creating the narrative content. In memory consists of 10 Xerox copies, where the sentence “In Memory thought doesn’t turn to reality itself, but how that reality was
recorded.” appears and disappears fragment by fragment. Thus, the artwork performs its content in terms of the textual presentation when activated by the readers’ movement and projection of their own sense of memory.
SHO
CiPrian Muresan
(1977, RO) – based in Cluj
Dog Luv (2009)Discourses corrupting the mind.
Literature are translated into images in the work of Ciprian Muresan, in which a group of five anthropomorphic dogs recite the history of human cruelty from Ancient Greece to present – in order to better understand their social behaviour. Initially, the members of ‘The Republic Dog-machina’ laugh of the seeming ludicrous-ness of what their leader, the bulldog ‘Mad Dog’ tells them. The irrational and animal manner of the brutality seems perplexing. However, at the end of the lesson a new awareness of jealousy, fear and bigotry and persuasive convictions influences the dogs’ behaviour. In this way Dog Luv stresses the fragile yet compelling thread between self and the world and how knowledge may corrupt one’s mind and actions when paired with uncertainty and division.
MW
henrik olesen
((1967, DK) – based in Berlin and Florence
Portraits/Alphabet (version) (2008/2011)
Body build by language. The print series Portraits/Alphabet is inspired by the idea that power relations and hierarchies of the body exists in the very structure of language. The collages function as portraits of different bodies. Gradually an alphabet
and a portrait through body parts, such as “head”, “knee”, “foot”, or “thumb”, “penis” builds up in the series. Parallel to the construction of a language, it breaks it’s own logic. The letter typography come from Olesens’ adaptations of the handwriting of Francis Picabia in his ‘machine-portraits’ (1916-1918). And thus he performs an automation of the subjective. In the ‘machine-portraits’ Picabia portrayed his friends as machines such as Guillaume Apollinaire and Tristan Tzara.
SHO
aDaM PenDleton
(1980, US) – based in New York
Black Dada (2008)Black Dada absorbs the rhythm
of life. The “Black Dada” manifesto is seductive, profane, critical and bouncing when you read it or Pendleton performs it. “Black Dada” softens the edges of Concrete Poetry and adapts Art history using language to create new sensational or profane images inside the absurdity of the traditional use of Dada language. Pendleton lyrically sings another Dada deriving from the breath of his life, the traditions of soul music and what is considered ‘a matter of fact’.“Black DadaThe Black Dada must…The Black Dada must use irrational language.The Black Dada must exploit the logic of identity.The Black Dada’s manifesto is both form and life.can you feel it?does it hurt?is this too soft?do you like it?”
SHO
0102 never odd or even 0103nome
Pablo PiJnaPPel
(1979, FR) – based in Berlin
Quirijn (2011)Histories with a small ‘h’. Pablo
Pijnappel is interested in the stories people tell about themselves and each other, the adventures of outstanding individuals and biographies mixed with fiction. Often using 16mm film, Pijnappel follows the nomadic life of his own family and friends in a format between a filmed novel and documentary. His latest work follows his friend Quirijn, for whom being lazy or doing nothing (not working, and although educated as an artist, not making one piece of art) is almost a political and philosophical statement, against efficiency, as he hangs around in Berlin. Pijnappel has written the voice over ‘mindset’ for Quirijn (appearing as subtitles) trying to imagine the self-dialogue or self-telling of his friend, the main protagonist in the film.
SHO
sebastián roMo
(1973, MEX) – based in Mexico City
Limite! (2004)Mexico city build by sensations and
ideas. Limite! is a sculptural work, where the cityscape of Mexico city becomes text and text becomes the architecture of subjec-tive views on the city. It is concerned with how one gets reconnected to a city. For years Sebastián Romo has collected words suggested by various inhabitants of Mexico City in order to gather ideas and feelings that shape the perception of the city. After living in New York post September 11th, his coming back to Mexico City inspired a rediscovery of this urban landscape. Each time Limite! is displayed, Romo replaces the old words with new ones or moves them modifying the composition and mir-
roring the changes that take place day by day in Mexico City. Connecting micro and macro worlds, Romo’s sociological research unfolds as a community-based landmark, where the ‘bricks’ carry subjective views. Mexico city is in fact build on a lake thus the metal surface of the installation.
MM
DMitry vilensky (Chto Delat?)(1964, RU) – based in Skt. Petersborg
Century of Manifestos. Play for a few Actors, (2009)
Century of Manifestos. Play for a few Actors is a manifesto on the inner logic of the 20th century manifestos presented as a constructivist film collage. Inherently Vilensky’s quotes from the manifestos reveal, amongst other things, his own sub-jective manifesto – for example against the transformation of reality into art. Dmitry Vilensky is also working with performanc-es as filmmaker and editor of the infamous Russian produced RU/ENG newspaper “Chto Delat? (What is to be done?)” on the political transformation in Russia, and matters of engaged art.
SHO
tris vonna-MiChell (1982, GB) – based in Stockholm
Tris Vonna-Michell is a storyteller and
a performer and as part of doing and being
so, he photographs. He makes slide photos
and has a great passion for this low-tech and
tactile photographic medium as well as the
projectors themselves. His artworks appear as
spoken word performances (live or recorded)
accompanied by slideshows. With an insisting
rhythm and inspired by concrete poetry as
well as streams of urban impressions, Vonna-
Mitchell speaks as a mesmerising oracle of
selected internalised subjects. The stories he
tells are about urban history e.g. of Detroit,
Berlin – of places, events and their creation –
often guided or interrupted by lapses into his
own associations and childhood memories
from Essex, Great Britain.
SHO
PhilliP ZaCh
(1984, DE) – based in Frankfurt am Main
Untitled (2011 and 2012)Displaced quotes. The quote-based
intervention by Phillip Zach arises from unused spots and corners, wittingly and ironically subverting contemporary rheto-ric and the politics of dividing and sharing exhibition territory or practise. Using these niches between rifts, cracks or the works of others, Zach draws attention to his silver-foil texts quoting a vast range of written matter collected through disparate contexts. Quotes from newspapers and lit-erature as well as his own words compose a corpus of mental cracks in the exhibition walls, which easily leads to interpretive dis-tortions and inserts thoughts in the place of classical art.
TexT shown in Grimmuseum, Berlin, mirror foil:To tell the truth, I rarely did portraits.Those of my mother and father are now at the Metropolitain Museum, in one of the main painting galleries on the second floor. Well, all of my paintings are now in those galleries in the Metropolitain Museum.What i did was stand them between vari-ous canvases in the permanent collection, wherever there was sufficient wall space. Some few overlapped those others, but only at their lower corners, generally.
Very likely a certain amount of warp has occurred in mine since, however. From hav-ing been leaning for so many years rather than being hung, that would be.
TexT shown in museeT for samTidskunsT, roskile, almond coloured shiny
foil, red parTs in red shiny foil:Meantime that question of things existing only in one's head may still be troubling me slightly, to tell the truth.Moreover, what is really in my head is not a fire, but a painting by Van Gogh of that fire. Which is to say the painting by Van Gogh that one can see if one squints just a little. With all of those swirls, as in The Starry Night. And with anxiety in it, even. Even if a certain amount of anxiety may be simply over the likelihood that the paintingwill not sell, of course. Although as a matter of fact what has now suddenly happened is that I am not actually seeing the paintingitself, but am seeing a reproduction of the painting. In addition to which the repro-duction even has a caption, which says that the painting is called The Broken Bottles. And is in the Uffizi. Now obviously there is no painting by Van Gogh called The Broken Bottles in the Uffizi. There is no painting by Van Gogh called The Broken Bottles anywhere, in fact, including even in my head, since as I have said what is in my head is only a reproduction of the painting.
MM
0104 never odd or even
Never odd or eveN A te x t spAced e x hibit ion
curated by solvej helweg ovesen
with Rosa barba, erick beltrán, nanna debois buhl & brendan Fernandes,
Mariana castillo deball, simon evans, peter Fischli | david Weiss,
János Fodor, Lise harlev, Ferdinand KRiWet, Ján Mancuška, ciprian Muresan,
henrik olesen, Adam pendleton, pablo pijnappel, sebastián Romo,
tris Vonna-Michell, dmitry Vilensky (chto delat?) , phillip Zach
01. october > 20. november, 2011_Grimmuseum, berlin, Germany
13. January > 08. April, 2012_ Museum of contemporary Art, Roskilde, denmark
Museet for SamtidskunstMuseum of Contemporary ArtStændertorvet 3ADK-4000 [email protected]
GrimmuseumFichte Strasse 210967, [email protected]
the exhibition is co-produced by Grimmuseum Berlin and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark
Cover image by Mariana Castillo
Deball, Never odd or even, 2011