Modernism 2.0.
Meaning is back in fashion, courtesy of M/M (Paris)
Instead, the altermodern is emerging. This rejection of postmodernism (after modernism) is a rejection of ‘history as an arrow’, as Bourriaud put it in a recent Tate interview. Alter proposes ‘multiplicity, otherness.’ It’s the ‘re-loading’ of modernism for today’s context; global, nomadic, creolised but – crucially – connected. ‘Today we are living in a maze and we have to get meaning out of this maze and these are the big stakes around the altermodern,’ he claims. Meaning is back in fashion!
Altermodern runs until April 2009 at Tate Britain, based on four themes – ‘alter’, ‘exile’, ‘travelling’ and ‘borders’ –, which provide cluster points for Bourriaud’s Altermodern manifesto.
Bourriaud’s interest is in how artists can meaningfully connect across moments. A significance for designers is that this matrix of relationships – between people, contexts and medias – is one in which design was already embedded, long before the Bourriaud sound-bite machine came along. What then, can design gain by ‘reloading’ the latest art criticism?
A link here is M/M (Paris), the designers Bourriaud insisted be used for the show. M/M (Paris) have worked with him since he was director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he developed the curatorial practices that informed his first book ‘Relational Aesthetics’ (1998). This explored art which creates ‘scenarios’ and generates relationships between people. It was followed by ‘Postproduction’ (2002) which relocated – reconnected – the relational into the Internet age.
In ‘Part of the Process’ (Eye no. 59 vol. 15) we used this work to discuss what’s already going on in design, with reference to work by Ji Lee, Kenya Hara, Daniel Eatock and A2.
Paul Elliman, who works in both art and design, once noted (in correspondence with us) that if art adds or emphasises the relational ‘design, which is always already relational by definition, is a kind of super-relational [. . .] in terms of its production, not just its use or reception.’
M/M (Paris) provide a good example: their design often functions as co-ordinates, points at which the art, design and fashion communities meet. For them, the moment of intersection – of people, contexts, medias – is like a conversation which becomes the ‘engine’ to produce images.
The ‘solo’ show by M/M (Paris) in London (Haunch of Venison, 2006) was an installation-collage of preceding work. Uprooted from its original context, some of their visually baroque, story-building work lost its original meaning. In a parallel talk at Tate Modern they explained that to re-edit old images to ‘create a new history’ was a deliberate process. This is the sense of creole that connects them to altermodern – which is time, not site-specific. Modernism 2.0?
Graphic designers often view ‘theory’ as suspect. By the time art-cultural ideas such as Bourriaud’s begin to resonate in design, their moments have passed in the art world. And yet, Bourriaud’s starting question –how do we make sense of cultural chaos? – remains valid. If the art world looks to the way artists answer his questions, then the design world should ask the same of designers, too.
This year’s Tate Triennial will show how the design by M/M (Paris) – re-embedded in the ‘real’ networks of the show’s production – helps Bourriaud bring meaning to this chaos.
By Monika Parrinder + Colin Davies, Limited Language.
Tate Triennial 2009 / www.altermodern.com.
There’s a curator’s talk by Lizzie Carey-Thomas on 20 Feb 2009.
Limited Language blog on M/M (Paris) as Bourriaud’s ‘semionauts’.
Above and below: Front and back covers and spreads from Altermodern (Tate Publishing, 2009, £19.99). Design: M/M Paris.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:09 pm | by Joseph
“Graphic designers often view ‘theory’ as suspect. By the time art-cultural ideas such as Bourriaud’s begin to resonate in design, their moments have passed in the art world.:
The ‘post modern’ period was interesting because it was a time that GD felt it had found a (legitimate) place in visual theory - deconstructionism in particular, but also the whole death of the author rhetoric. But what is ironic, for me at least, is how it brought with it a specialised language which split the design community into two - those who felt in the know and those who did not trust the language of continental philosophy - especially the loss of a definitive ‘modernist’ GOOD and BAD design.
The return to late modernism allows this rupture to heal. People - via the relational - talk about design being a power for good (without irony) and the discourse is a more palatable - less specialised language: it is interesting that deleuze has not been taken up in GD circles to the same extent as in other visual realms.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:11 pm | by Joseph
‘Graphic designers often view ‘theory’ as suspect. By the time art-cultural ideas such as Bourriaud’s begin to resonate in design, their moments have passed in the art world.’
The postmodern period was interesting because it was a time that GD felt it had found a (legitimate) place in visual theory - deconstructionism in particular, but also the whole death of the author rhetoric. But what is ironic, fir me at least, is how it brought with it a specialised language which split the design community into two - those who felt in the know and those who did not trust the language of continental philosophy - especially the loss of a definitive ‘modernist’ GOOD and BAD design.
The return to late modernism allows this rupture to heal. People - via the relational - talk about design being a power for good (without irony) and the discourse is a more palatable - less specialised language: it is interesting that deleuze has not been taken up in GD circles to the same extent as in other visual realms.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:52 am | by Postmodernism is dead? Really? « Contemporary Art Criticism
[...] review http://blog.eyemagazine.com/?p=150 ▶ Comment /* 0) { jQuery(’#comments’).show(”, change_location()); jQuery(’#showcomments [...]
April 5th, 2009 at 11:42 am | by Paul Matosic
Altermodern.
when I first heard about this exhibition my initial thought was that this must be a continuation of that work made by the Chapman brothers when they defaced Goya prints with their juvenile scrawls; that due to the credit crunch artists had been buying up cut price modernist works and altering them in some way. Adding an extra square to a Malevich or Mondrian, or a witty pair of spectacles to a Picasso. Of course such alteration of existing artwork owes much to Duchamp, if only he had used the real thing instead of that cheap reproduction.
But no, imagine my disappointment when I looked around the turgid sterility that constitutes Altermodern. The premise of the exhibition seems to reside with some random thoughts from Nicholas Bourraiaud, a French critic. The premise being that we live in a globalised world and art reflects this.
There were few exhibits that caused more than a faint stir of seminal thought the majority being a rehash of the insularity common to most capital cities where art seems to exist outside of the real world. It is duly noted that although making claim to a global perspective the majority of the artists live and work in London.
There is an immediacy of the central , and largest of the exhibits, Line of Control an installation by Subodh Gupta. A mushroom cloud comprised of stainless steel cooking utensils, this seductive material reflecting the well positioned lights. but then the dialogue stops, this is more theatre than engaged visual art,.
Throughout this exhibition as with much work produced in these ‘research’ justified times all the work is quantified through the back story. Very few exhibits can exist within their own capacity.
Take away these philosophies and reasoned methodologies and there remains very little visually engaged work.
The script to this exhibition purports to the notion of journeys to the greater globalised world in which we reside. The free exhibition guide being the equivalent to the Sat Nav style of travel. The most expedient and straightforward functionality of getting from A to B, gone is the romance of the battered road atlas, pages scrunched and bits missing, the stain of spilt tea, testimony of the road side picnic where the map doubles as tablecloth. gone is the notion of getting lost and exploring, of discovery, of encounter, Sat Nav does away with the detail of landscape the character of place names, and indeed any sense of place, and all too often dumps you in deep water or down a dead end.
It would be churlish of me to single out the most despicable examples of misplaced ideas over philosophised notions of what art is or should be. Even the few works that I could engage with were let down by inadequacies either in execution or by accompaniment.
I enjoyed the Tacita Dean photographs, but the witty legends labels etc. were for the most part illegible, perhaps this was to do with the post production enlargement of the postcards by 300% or so. What might have been readable on a smaller scale became blurred beyond comprehension. perhaps this was intentional, it was not mentioned in the back story.
The Fedex boxes by Walead Beshy were in my humble opinion the best work in the entire exhibition. These minimalist cubes and the random line of broken glass, exhibited upon their transport cartons were a testimony to travel and the flagrant disregard to care taken by this most esteemed of shipping companies. I am sure that Fedex have a back story of their own to explain the erosion of perfection within these glass cubes. Without their input the work would be insignificant and unaltered and therefore a cheap imitation of the real thing.
Incidentally this was not the only exhibit using packing cases Simon Starlings desks were also shown on their packing cases, might I suggest that these too be sent by Fedex next time!
however Beshys boxes were let down by the rather inane, very large photos purporting to come from X ray machines at airports, these were extraordinary in their lack of content and unfortunately reminded me of Ikea decorative wall panels.
Gustav Metzgers Liquid Crystal Environment were beautiful, I am not sure what they had to do with the premise for the exhibition but the sheer quality of this work made up for this lack of continuity.
And of the rest of the exhibition…… I remain unimpressed and for the most part There were some buckets covered in paint, yes some good old fashioned paint. which were okay, Loris Greauds installation Tremors where Forever was sensational, in that it created a sensation well a vibration underfoot. not particularly visual, but much art gave up on visual some time ago.
Overall however there did seem to be a lack of colour throughout this exhibition, perhaps presciently reflecting the bleak times ahead.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:44 pm | by Monika Parrinder
Paul,
I enjoyed re-visiting the show via your review. Having been asked to (p)review the Bourriaud ‘backstory’ before the show opened, I found myself visiting it after the event. And I agree with your overall sense of the experience of the art being (although I still feel the Altermodern manifesto itself captures my imagination beyond this work, as it did before it).
The modernism re-loaded you found yourself expecting reminds me immediately of
Robert Raushenburg’s Erased de Kooning (1953). http://blog.sfmoma.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/web-rausch.jpg
For me this is less the erasure of the genius artist hand than a re-assertion of another (male) one on top.
I find this Western-centric double bind revisited me at the show …as you pointed out…. “It is duly noted that although making claim to a global perspective the majority of the artists live and work in London.”
This is why the Fedex boxes are so strong. Their sense of travel is immediate, but also endlessly ponderable. This work needs no ‘author’ or ‘text’ to make sense of it. Fedex becomes the author and their delivery team write the text. What could be more relevant for our Sat Nav times?
March 25th, 2010 at 11:39 am | by Limited Language » Counter Form
[...] written an article on the Eye blog about M/M’s catalogue. Curious. Counter [...]