Notes Towards a Model Opera

 William Kentridge ‘Notes Towards a Model Opera 2015’ is part of the Kinetismus 100 Years of Electricity in Art at the Kunsthalle Praga. The gallery is housed in a former electricity substation of the City of Prague. 

Kentridge never ceases to, or perhaps always will amaze and bewilder with his images and themes. 

The Opera takes its name from Chinese model operas developed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The work was first shown in Beijing and reflected Kenyridge’s extensive research into the political and social history of modern China.  

The work uses ballet, Chinese and African dance and text to evoke his understanding and appreciation of Chinese political, social , cultural experience.  

https://www.kentridge.studio/projects/notes-towards-a-model-opera/

https://www.kunsthallepraha.org/en/events/kinetismus-100-years-of-electricity-in-art

Void

 ‘Void’ is an experiential journey through ‘space, volume, matter and emptiness’. The work by Czech artist and architect, Jiri Prihoda, is a knockout! 

He creates this experience by inserting his architectural concept and then forms into the fabric of the Galerie Rudolfinum. He creates an Alice in Wonderland experience as you climb up, over and through his eclectic forms that  climb to the ceiling and break though the floor. 

The work is moving both physically and psychologically. You exit the gallery having passed through a spell binding array of forms that have intersected with the building and its past. 

https://www.galerierudolfinum.cz/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/jiri-prihoda-void/

MADe IN CHINA

‘MADe IN CHINA’ is a powerful and thought provoking first solo show by Badiucao, the pseudonym of a Chinese artist-activist known for his protest art who is currently working in exile in Australia. His works were shown in Brescia, northern Italy, despite the protestations of the  Chinese Government to the City mayor. 

Badiucao has established himself on the international stage through social media, expressing criticism and opposition to ‘ideological and moral control exercised by political power’, and constantly challenging the Chinese government. 

He expresses his commitment to political artivism through ‘participatory campaigns, posters in public places, illustrations and online activities, often constructed with a visual language that ironically evokes propaganda in a Pop vein, reproducing its graphic style, colours and tones’.

The new numerous works on display cover 4 levels and many rooms and display his skill across many mediums. His hard hitting commentary covers ‘violations of human rights, the censorship inflicted on Chinese citizens on the issue of Covid-19, the repression of dissents in Myanmar during the military coup in 2021, the forced cultural assimilation of the Uyghurs, the protests in Hong Kong and the war in Ukraine’. 

It’s powerful, proactive and political art here in Prague.

‘the art of subvertising’

 ‘the art of subvertising’ is on display at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien. 

The artists are described as a ‘motley crew of artists operating..in the countercultural public sphere’. Subvertising is described as the art of ‘rewriting a language using its own grammar to create spaces of possibility’. 

From Melbourne Central and the arrest of an artist spray painting advertising signage in the public realm, 

a facsimile of a supermarket shelf 

and a ‘how to’ on removing and replacing advertisements  in tram and bus shelters 

and the use of a watermelon logo in Israel to defy the authorities banning the Palestinian flag(red, white, green)

this is an exhibition that aims to alert us to the possibilities of returning public space to the public realm and examples of direct political action. 

It’s provocative, creative and informative. 

‘Get up’ in Australia features as an expression of what’s bad in advertising. Such acts are not new so we are also taken back to types on ‘subvertising’ initiated in the past. This is an exhibition for those who see our streets and footpaths as public space and not for billboards for profit.

https://www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de/english-info/

Global Berlin

The Humboldt Forum presents Berlin as a city of alternative stories from diverse perspectives and experiences. It asks the spectator to enter into the story telling by responding to a series of questions that seek to reveal their values, principles and feelings for Berlin and cities around the world. 

The indelible image of the wall coming down has a west but also an east side story. For those living in East Berlin it resulted in upheaval and for many a dislocation of their lives and an ignoring or often a denigration of their past. But this is just one of many images that can be interpreted from differing perspectives. Berlin owes it to itself and the world to be open and transparent. 

But Berlin is also a city of fakeness. It has been rebuilt from the  rubble of war to reflect the past and incorporate a future. New edifices do reflect an intent to present Berlin as a city that is the seat of power and influence nationally and internationally. Following the move of the German capital from Bonn to Berlin by a slim majority it has strived to reflect the nation’s aspirations as a global city. The new is big and bold incorporating the scale and grandeur of the past. The entrances to the new administrative buildings referred to as the ‘Federal Ribbon’ are supported by columns and plinths reflective of those built in the past.  

Berlin is certainly a city that ‘will always be pure potential’. Some say ‘Berlin ist zu gro für Berlin’! That may be a reference to it being a sprawling metropolis or maybe to its ‘burdensome past’ that today is overlaid by an ‘ultra cool city’.

Reflections on the Reichstag

 Reflections on the Reichstag

The Reichstag stands out across the Berlin relatively low skyline with its glass dome atop the rebuilt Reichstag and the home of the German Parliament, the Bundestag. 

It is an ‘accidental’ building designed by British architect, Norman Foster, whose winning design had 27 alterations, the most contentious the return of the dome before being adopted. 

The dome which had been seen to represent the Monarchy was seen as inappropriate but in a vote of the Bundestag the decision was made to have the dome incorporated into the design of the building. It sours above the Bundestag chamber breathing in air and lighting the proceedings. 

It is a chamber that houses the political spectrum from the extreme right, to the extreme left with the middle ground, referred to as the traffic light coalition occupied by the SPD, Liberals and Greens who form the governments of the German Republic. It’s a tenuous coalition and certainly a source of discussion given the Liberal Party has the Finance Ministry and the Greens the environment. It may not end well for the Liberals or the Greens as each are having to play hostage to the other’s agenda! 

The tour of the Reichstag provided an insight into its history including the liberation of Berlin from the Nazis by the Russians. The tagging by Russian soldiers on the walls of the Reichstag with expressions of  victory, has been conserved and forms part of the history of the building. Ironically the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been justified as having to liberate the country from the Nazis. Many Russians are reminded through annual re-enactments of the WW2 sacrifices made by Russia in liberating Berlin as justifying their war with Ukraine. 

The French artist, Christian Boltanski, in one of many art works on display,  provides a ‘Archive of German Members of Parliament (1999) in the basement directly underneath the Bundestag chamber. The 5000 metal boxes are labeled with the names of all members of the Reichstag and German Bundestag democratically elected between 1919 and 1999. Each member is provided with same amount of space, including Adolf Hitler. However those murdered by the Nazis are recognised by a black label - ‘Victims of National Socialism’. A single black box represents  the period, 1933 - 1945 during which time there was no democratically elected German Parliament.

‘Germany’s recent history is inscribed into the very fabric of the Reichstag Building. The traces of the past can still be seen. They just have to be found and interpreted’. This is Berlin!

Documenta 15 - stimulate or stultify?

 

Documenta 15 is underpinned by the term ‘lumbung’ that is a concept of collective sharing. The term in Bahasa Indonesia refers to ‘a rice barn where a village community stores their harvests together, to be managed collectively, as a way to face an unpredictable future’. ruangrupa an art collective established in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2000 e were invited to make a proposal for the fifteenth edition of documenta’ and instead of integrating ourselves into the long established documenta system we decided to stay on our path…asking documenta to be part of our journey’. 

The impact is obvious; a focus on the global south, on a mapping and exhaustive explanatory process, on works that stimulate and some that stupefy, on trial and error, on a reliance on a handbook for insights and understanding (sold out of the english edition), on a non static exhibition, and on text reliant works. 

Documenta has had many guises over many years from Joseph Beuys at documenta 7 and his refusal to be exhibited in the Fridericianum and instead planted 7000 oak trees in the streets of Kassel that still stand today, to the opium poppy field outside the Fridericianum at documenta 12 by Sanjay Ivekovic that failed to bloom due to the weather, to Marta Minujin’s Parthenon of Books built to scale and consisting of 67,000 books that had ben banned at some time in history, to Ai Wei Wei’s sculpture made out of century old doors and windows of demolished Chinese houses, which when it collapsed in a storm noted that it looked a lot better, and an unauthorised ‘exhibition‘ outside the Fredericianum by artists a opposed to the role of curators! 

Documenta is not for the feint hearted or the art conosieur.  It’s for those who want to see or grapple with what the future holds for art and society and reflect on the failure of society to recognise its failings, inequalities and dysfunction and an art scene captured by the global north that benefits the few.

It was worth the train ride and outside the documenta forums, venues and workshops we met many documenta wanderers from many parts of Europe as confused, frustrated and talkative as us. It is a confluence of art tragics and those who are there for the ride. It turns a small city with its

day to day challenges into an art space covering a myriad of venues some of which seem overwhelmed by the invited artists. 

The Friedrickplatz becomes a hub with out door food stalls and overflowing cafes, restaurants and buskers fill the streets with chit chat and debate. It happens every five years so the locals can get some normality into their lives and ponder a future that seems bleak and overcome by war, climate change and the pandemic. 

Art is not an antidote but at least it provides an expansive canvas to question and debate our lives.  And we were able to bask with the locals in Germany’s win in the EUFA Women’s EURO semifinal to revitalise our efforts on the day 3.