Introduction to
“Vacation with Curator”:
Project by Tanja Ostojic
Vacation with curator is the fifth and
attending to be the closing project in series with artist-curator relations topic I deal
with since 2001. The whole series is named “Strategies of success / Curator
series”.
1) The first one, “I’ll Be Your
Angel” (June 2001, 49th Venice Biennale) was durational performance in
collaboration with Mr. Harald Szeemann the “loaded name”, the director of the
Biennale. “Venice Dairy” book and “I’ll Be your Angel” video came
out of this project, showing me in the role of angel escort of the curator…
2) “Be My Guest”
performance/installation was developed in the collaboration with Mr. Bartolomeo
Pietromarchi chef curator from Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Roma – I had elegant
dinner with this young perspective curator that was followed by erotic Jacuzzi bath with
Mr. Lodovico Pratesi art critic (Coriere de la sera, Venerdi…) and independent
curator from Roma. “Be My Guest” video was produced from the documentary
material from this performance that was executed in the “Gravita 0”
exhibition in the Pallazo delle Espozicioni in Roma (June 2001).
3)
Multimedia installation “Strategies of Success” (September 2002, “22nd
Memorijal of Nadezde Petrovic”, Cacak, Serbia) and (“In Tranzit” festival
in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, June 2003). The installation forms elegant room
with scarlet lights where one can lay down on bed and look at videos; sit at elegant
cosmetic table and reed Venice Diary; take one of 2150 condoms - “This is exact
amount of condoms that I used during my carrier in order to serve curators who helped me
becoming famous” …
4) “Sofa for Curator”
performance and video (Balkan
Konzulat, Graz, Austria, October 2002) was the act of hosting and washing feet to
Stevan Vukovic curator from Belgrade... |
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"Vacation
with Curator” Project description:
Mr. Edi Muka, director of the second
Tirana Biennale, influential and perspective curator from National Gallery in Tirana,
Albania, accepted to collaborate with me on the “Vacation with Curator” project
and he is willing to presented it on next Tirana Biennale that will open September 12,
2003. So we spend couple of days on Albanian coast in Ionian Sea. We were relaxing,
swimming, enjoying sunshine, local food, we talked, danced and had fun. Many of those
intimate moments were “by chance” captured by leading Albanian paparazzi.
Paparazzi photos will be sent accompanied
with appropriate constructed texts to art magazines around Europe, as well as to the
“yellow” magazines such as: German Galla, British Sun… I’m interested
to see how they will react on the proposed materials. Skills of journalist are needed for
producing “scandalous story”.
Book “Strategies of success /
Curator series”, extensive documentation on project (including Vacation with
Curator), extracts concerning the project from art and other magazines, theoretical texts
written by philosopher, art historians and artist will be published by end of 2003.
Project goals:
Why such a radical strategy? The personal
contemporary space of individuals and human relationships, in and out of art circles is in
crisis. How can one revitalize essential human values through art?
This piece, integrated in everyday life,
poses potential ambiguous narratives concerning the scandalous artist and curators. It
provokes an invitation/invasion, and questions the power structure in the art world.
Speculations of morality, and artworld strategy are spining out; while the press
possibly constructs a media support for this. The structure of the piece is the process of
mystery, both personal and public, encased in the glossy gossip of artworld whispers.
The opportunity to make an
active/interactive artwork out of curators proves infinitely rich and complex. It allows
me to blend the intellectual in a process-oriented work that snakes in and out of the
language of the art system.
With this project I am very much
interested to confront male domination in art system and the meter of mediation,
interpretation and reinterpretation of artistic ideas, while working with PRESS and
printed art media directly.
Time table:
The first part of the project, the vacation it self was
executed during summer 2003 on various locations on Albanian seaside coast.
Second part of the project: mediation, will be executed
during summer and autumn 2003, in collaboration with art magazines. Web site is already
available on: http://www.tiranabiennale.org
(Under Free proposals link)
Third step exhibiting of the project, autumn 2003. (venues in France and Albania
confirmed).
Book: “Strategies of success / Curator series” will be published by the
end of 2003.
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