Camera Austria International
73 | 2001
- PIERRE BOURDIEU
An interview by Cathren Müller - MARTIN HERBERT
Marine Hugonnier - MARINE HUGONNIER
- ANDREAS REITER RAABE
An Interview with Sol LeWitt - SOL LEWITT
- KOBENA MERCER
Postkolonialer Flaneur. Ein Interview mit Iké Udé - IKÉ UDÉ
- STEPHEN WILLATS
Macro To Micro. A Report
- ROLF SACHSSE
Marginalien zur Fotografie. Vom Erkennen und Anordnen der Bilder
Preface
The concept of every issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA is accompanied by the wish to offer the featured artists a maximum of space to present their ideas and to offer their works and concepts a theoretical, philosophical or literary accompaniment in the form of articles written at the invitation of the magazine or the artists. The concept of every issue, however, always involves critical self-reflection: what are the motives that accompany us in our work, and how do they differ, for example, from other media equally devoted to observing contemporary art? In the twenty years since the first issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA appeared in spring 1980, one of our main concerns certainly has not changed: the idea of direct exchange with the artists, temporarily getting involved in the process of magazine-making with their own ideas.
This continuity can not only be seen in the 72 issues that have been published so far, it has been safeguarded to date particularly by the interest of the artist Manfred Willmann, CAMERA AUSTRIA publisher, in the form of constant correction, closely observing our “interactive” work process. This continuity also becomes clear against the background that many of the co-operations were the result of exhibition projects or symposiums initiated by us: a form of deeper exploration of specific issues in art beyond the concrete exhibition context, which is, however, not unlike curating exhibitions in that the artists are equally offered a place to present their own work.
In this issue we have invited, among others, a number of artists and theorists who are themselves “publishers” or who occupy themselves with problems of editing books in the field of artistic production: In an interview conducted by the sociologist Cathren Müller with Pierre Bourdieu – following on from Bourdieu’s article in the last issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA – Bourdieu not only highlights the way he sees himself as a sociologist with political intentions beyond the realm of academic self-admiration, but rather, among other things, argues against relinquishing public support for advanced art and against abolishing fixed book prices: only in this way can we safeguard the autonomy of the field of art – an autonomy gravely challenged by neoliberalism. This discussion will need to be held in future, particularly if the substitution of public subsidies with private sector funds (from UNICEF to art sponsoring) threatens to curtail freedom of expression, as Bourdieu observes in his analysis.
Camera Austria International 73 | 2001
Preface
The concept of every issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA is accompanied by the wish to offer the featured artists a maximum of space to present their ideas and to offer their works and concepts a theoretical, philosophical or literary accompaniment in the form of articles written at the invitation of the magazine or the artists. The concept of every issue, however, always involves critical self-reflection: what are the motives that accompany us in our work, and how do they differ, for example, from other media equally devoted to observing contemporary art? In the twenty years since the first issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA appeared in spring 1980, one of our main concerns certainly has not changed: the idea of direct exchange with the artists, temporarily getting involved in the process of magazine-making with their own ideas.
This continuity can not only be seen in the 72 issues that have been published so far, it has been safeguarded to date particularly by the interest of the artist Manfred Willmann, CAMERA AUSTRIA publisher, in the form of constant correction, closely observing our “interactive” work process. This continuity also becomes clear against the background that many of the co-operations were the result of exhibition projects or symposiums initiated by us: a form of deeper exploration of specific issues in art beyond the concrete exhibition context, which is, however, not unlike curating exhibitions in that the artists are equally offered a place to present their own work.
In this issue we have invited, among others, a number of artists and theorists who are themselves “publishers” or who occupy themselves with problems of editing books in the field of artistic production: In an interview conducted by the sociologist Cathren Müller with Pierre Bourdieu – following on from Bourdieu’s article in the last issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA – Bourdieu not only highlights the way he sees himself as a sociologist with political intentions beyond the realm of academic self-admiration, but rather, among other things, argues against relinquishing public support for advanced art and against abolishing fixed book prices: only in this way can we safeguard the autonomy of the field of art – an autonomy gravely challenged by neoliberalism. This discussion will need to be held in future, particularly if the substitution of public subsidies with private sector funds (from UNICEF to art sponsoring) threatens to curtail freedom of expression, as Bourdieu observes in his analysis.
The work of the artist Iké Udé is also marked by political awareness: as founder and publisher of the magazine aRUDE, he reacts with his art to the culture of glossy magazines, and attempts in his series “Cover Girl” to formulate antitheses to the ways in which these media work by means of hidden allusions. On the face of it, the borderlines between art and fashion, commercialism and conceptualism would seem to be fluid in his work, when you consider, for example, that Udé sees fashion as a glossary or index containing powerful symbolic counterparts of each particular period. For CAMERA AUSTRIA 73, Iké Udé has designed the cover for the magazine with his “Self Portait”, and the six new works from the “Beyond Decorum” series were also specially created for CAMERA AUSTRIA.
Stephen Willats, artist and publisher of Control Magazine, has been a critical authority in British art since the sixties. His latest work, featured in this issue and evolved over a period of two years, “Macro To Micro”, testifies to his interest in societal processes and their symbolic representation in art. With the aid of the media film, photography and language, in a process-oriented collaboration with film-makers, actors and writers, “Macro To Micro” was created as an exemplary showpiece on the relativity of observation. The artist’s role is not that of the author, but rather that of a mediator initiating and accompanying processes: Stephen Willats’ article in this issue also deals with the cancellation of authorship.
In an interview conducted by Andreas Reiter Raabe, the American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt gives details on the contexts in which he creates his artists’ books, that are of interest in several respects and in the current context: in terms of their design, they correspond to the artist’s formally stringent conceptual methodology, as expressed in his sculptures, but equally so in his writings on conceptual art. But his use of photography also opens up new possibilities of introducing the dimension of time, narration, in a sequence of individual images, of addressing affective and visual aspects in the description of a landscape, or of marrying the emotionality of memory in the description of a habitat with the formal clarity of conceptual art.
As co-founder of the New York outlet Printed Matter, Sol LeWitt began very early to do what he could to see that artists were offered a professional marketing structure for their artists- books, a structure that conforms to the democratic principle of the artist’s book and allows dissemination of information within and beyond the field of art. This is, incidentally, equally a major concern of ours at CAMERA AUSTRIA; in addition to our magazine we also publish books by artists, for example most recently by the artist couple Rosa Brueckl and Gregor Schmoll, and by the German photographer Michael Janiszewski.
We are presenting the French conceptual artist Marine Hugonnier in this issue, featuring her first monographic publication: we have invited her to feature in this issue because we feel that it is important always to display our interest in conceptual methods and the related critical awareness when dealing with technical image media, in a comparison of different generations of visual artists. What is interesting in the discussion of conceptual art is the changed methodology of a younger generation that could be described by a “conceptuality of grand emotions” – to cite the title of a previous article: a realm of art theory for which it would be worthwhile developing a new vocabulary. In her contribution, that works like an insert, Marine Hugonnier has not only made another statement on the conceptual methods of a younger generation of visual artists but, above and beyond that, has taken up an (at least at second glance) evident link between the individual positions of this issue by developing a separate “catalogue” in our magazine with her insert.
CAMERA AUSTRIA is the result of an artistic/strategic idea of circulating and publishing artistic – aesthetic and theoretical – statements with the aid of the “magazine” medium. Meanwhile, CAMERA AUSTRIA boasts a global network of readers, writers and artists as its partners. This demonstrates the sustained topicality of the “magazine” medium and its significance for artists and writers – even in the face of intensified electronic communication. The artistic, theoretical and historical exploration of the mechanisms of the media, the reaction of current art to change in terms of society, information technology and aesthetics is at once the pre-condition for publishing the magazine as well as its focal theme, thus allowing a constant review of our work in terms of media and art.
To start off the year, the international face of our magazine is not only reflected by the programme, as it always has been, but also by our opening a branch office in Berlin: as of now, our editor Maren Lübbke will be representing CAMERA AUSTRIA’s interests and concerns from our base in Berlin.
Christine Frisinghelli, Maren Lübbke, February 2001
Entries
Forum
TRISH MORRISSEY
DAN HOLDSWORTH
MARKUS HUEMER
ROLAND ISELIN
SEJLA KAMERIC
CLAUDIA PILSL
JARO STRAUB
GUDRUN F. WIDLOK
LORETTA LUX
Exhibitions
Gordon Bleach: Taken from Point G.
University of Florida, Gainesville
Robert Frank: Hold Still – Keep Going
Museum Folkwang, Essen; Museo Nacional, Madrid, et al.
CAROLIN FÖRSTER
Doug Aitken
Wiener Secession, Wien
ANDREAS SPIEGL
Hers – Video als weibliches Terrain: Frauen, Mediengeschichten, Medienräume
steirischer herbst 2000, Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz
REINHARD BRAUN
Lebt und arbeitet in Wien: Gemeinschaftliches Zelten in der Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle Wien
SØNKE GAU
Vivências / Lebenserfahrung – Kunst aus Lateinamerika
Generali Foundation, Wien
BRIGITTE HUCK
Europäische und amerikanische Fotografie 1998 – 2000: AutoWerke
Deichtorhallen Hamburg
KRYSTIAN WOZNICKI
Helmut Newton: Work
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
CAROLIN FÖRSTER
Jitka Hanzlová: Fotografien
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
BURCU DOGRAMACI
David Deutsch
Gorney Bravin + Lee, New York
NADJA ROTTNER
Karl-Heinz Klopf / Sigrid Kurz: Expand
Galerie Grita Insam, Wien
RIKE FRANK
Ganz Paris in den Armen der Fotografie
Mois de la Photo, Paris
MARLENE SCHNELLE-SCHNEYDER
STANDORTE: 24. Duisburger Filmwoche
JAN VERWOERT
Christopher Williams: Couleur Européenne, Couleur Soviétique, Couleur Chinoise
Haus Lange, Haus Esters, Krefeld
Hans Schabus: Nur weil ich Paranoia habe, heißt das noch lange nicht, dass mich niemand verfolgt
Galerie Luis Campaña, Köln
MAREN LÜBBKE
Andree Korpys & Markus Löffler
Grazer Kunstverein, Graz
ULRICH TRAGATSCHNIG
Books
Best of straight 2000: How we look at it
Oktagon Verlag, Köln 2000
THILO KOENIG
Robert Smithson: Gesammelte Schriften
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln 2000
STEFAN NEUNER
Imprint
Publisher: Manfred Willmann. Owner: Verein CAMERA AUSTRIA, Labor für Fotografie und Theorie
Sparkassenplatz 2, A-8010 Graz
Editors: Christine Frisinghelli, Maren Lübbke, Edith Winkler
Translations: Wilfried Prantner, Richard Watts