Uses and Abuses of Art History

Methods and modes of working, games played in an era where everybody forgets everything, historicity is considered a faux pas. ‘In an age that has forgotten how to think, first of all, historically,’ (Jameson) it is refreshing to discuss the application of history, or in this case art history within the field of play- contemporary art. My point of view is a personal one, built upon years of working that involves aspects of decolonization, displacement mappings, ersatz notions organized within a semi ‘pataphysical nomenclature in a process, a labour of love.

Suprematism (White Cross) Alexander Brener’s dialogue with Kazimir Malevich

In a quasi-archival logic, I rework history and art history in contemporary practice and part of this process is the outcome of a new ‘archive’, or rather platform or podium, installation or staging, which all seem to contain those things that are ‘found yet constructed, factual, yet fictive, public yet private.’ (Foster)
By re-appropriating the past into the present, art history is still alive; reworked, reorganized, recycled and its dilemma of being forgotten as quickly as it is made, is all part of the process.

editor’s note: I have seen the Malevich in the Stedelijk before and after Brener’s intervention. I could swear that I saw a dollar sign (or is it the aura?) appear after the restoration.

Panel: Writing Histories of Contemporary Art, AAH conference

April 8, 2006
University of Leeds
Leeds, U.K.

From September 1 to October 15 2005, I continued working on my ‘Manhattan Project’ during a residency at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York. Interviews, images and text form the basis of my research and use the medium of internet as a space Mohawk Valley

On October 12th I launched the website with an opening in the White Room Gallery. For the presentation I asked visitors to vote on the sketches I was making in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish), a misnomer. I then told the Amish how people had voted but they still choose a different design and a new quilt will be produced, by hand, in the coming months.

Dutch-American Day

On November 16th, 2005 the work Boogie Woogie Migration, a quilt combining the Dutch and American flags, inaugurated Dutch-American Day at Utica, NY city hall. The quilt disappeared after two days, as veterans working in the building challenged my usage of the flags and complained about the apparent deconstruction of the American(not the Dutch?)flag. They didn’t listen to the explanation of my conceptual approach, nor the reference to Piet Mondrian (Dutch/American), nor to the Betsy Ross myth (scraps of red, white and blue) for that matter. I didn’t even have time to arrange a photographer. So much for freedom of speech in the land of the free and the home of the brave.