PRAXIS FOR IMAGE AND WORDS
Maria Tsantsanoglou, art historian
Director of the State Museum of Contemporary Art & of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art
Between the early ‘70s and the late ‘90s an art born out of words and context flourished in Moscow. An art based on the soviet communications system, on the methods of publicizing information but also of secretly spreading rumors. This peculiar aesthetic phenomenon of combining word and image, named in 1979 by philosopher Boris Groys “Romantic Conceptual Art of Moscow”, implicated at least two generations of Russian artists. The conceptual art of Moscow reflects the extrovert complexity of communications in everyday soviet life, and thus differs from the northern American or western conceptual art which reproduces the message in minimalist way, aiming to cause a self-psychoanalytic introversion (Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry, Roman Opalka and others). Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Viktor Pivovarov, Oleg Vassiliev, Sergei Onufrief, Edward Gorochowski, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Irina Nachova, Viktor Skersis and Vadim Zacharov, Nikita Alexeev, the couple Zhigalov – Abalakova (TOTART) – they all give their own versions of conceptual art, while the first artists groups with permanent core members since the time of the historic avant-garde are formed. The relationship between word and image implicates in the conceptual art scene both visual artists and poets, who become closely connected with artists, even attempting visual versions of their poems (Dmitry Prigov, Lef Rubinstein).
The creation of a platform that will bring closer the common language of visual art with the different languages of poetry, but also Greek and Russian poets is not a figure of speech and theory. It is a constructed platform, a genuine artistic Praxis. The 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art sets one basic goal: it invites the viewer to a public dialogue on contemporary art, aiming to reinforce the collective conscience of something that until now has not been clearly inscribed in our active interventions as citizens of Thessaloniki: I am referring to the need for broad accessibility to contemporary culture, but mainly also to the need of safeguarding a contemporary culture of high quality, leaving aside didactic intentions and allegories or attempts to define right and wrong.
On the contrary, our intention is to enrich, to deepen and expand the field of what we call “contemporary culture”, aware of the fact that contemporary culture is not precisely taught; it is fluid, it is inspired by the manifestations of the everyday, and thus it exists not only to entertain us and to free us from our problems, but also to pose issues and to help us realize, even communicate, what we have not been able to express until now on the level of the social and political everyday and news. For this, accessibility to contemporary art for all social groups and increased participation to the events are among the basic goals of the Thessaloniki Biennale.
Titled “Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty”, inspired and borrowed by Terry Eagleton’s “After Theory”, the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art documents some difficult, often risky, gestures by the artists: it invites them to talk about the failure of politics to offer the desired peace, justice and prosperity for all citizens, the depreciation of ideology unable to raise its voice regarding the economic and social crisis, that affects mainly those who did not cause it, within the plethora of ambiguous and contradictory views… Noone is that naïve as to maintain that the role that the artist claims for himself can offer solutions to the mentioned deadlocks. However, s/he can proof a “savior” for some people, in relation to the redefinition of a stance towards life that art can insinuate or even expressly suggest:
Because Art is Praxis.
The creation of a platform that will bring closer the common language of visual art with the different languages of poetry, but also Greek and Russian poets is not a figure of speech and theory. It is a constructed platform, a genuine artistic Praxis. The 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art sets one basic goal: it invites the viewer to a public dialogue on contemporary art, aiming to reinforce the collective conscience of something that until now has not been clearly inscribed in our active interventions as citizens of Thessaloniki: I am referring to the need for broad accessibility to contemporary culture, but mainly also to the need of safeguarding a contemporary culture of high quality, leaving aside didactic intentions and allegories or attempts to define right and wrong.
On the contrary, our intention is to enrich, to deepen and expand the field of what we call “contemporary culture”, aware of the fact that contemporary culture is not precisely taught; it is fluid, it is inspired by the manifestations of the everyday, and thus it exists not only to entertain us and to free us from our problems, but also to pose issues and to help us realize, even communicate, what we have not been able to express until now on the level of the social and political everyday and news. For this, accessibility to contemporary art for all social groups and increased participation to the events are among the basic goals of the Thessaloniki Biennale.
Titled “Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty”, inspired and borrowed by Terry Eagleton’s “After Theory”, the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art documents some difficult, often risky, gestures by the artists: it invites them to talk about the failure of politics to offer the desired peace, justice and prosperity for all citizens, the depreciation of ideology unable to raise its voice regarding the economic and social crisis, that affects mainly those who did not cause it, within the plethora of ambiguous and contradictory views… Noone is that naïve as to maintain that the role that the artist claims for himself can offer solutions to the mentioned deadlocks. However, s/he can proof a “savior” for some people, in relation to the redefinition of a stance towards life that art can insinuate or even expressly suggest:
- If art reacts against the unifying plethora of theories and through the familiar method of abstraction is lead to a clear presentation of basic concepts, such as love, poverty, pain, justice, beauty… then it will point the attention of theoreticians, critics and public towards the vital human problems.
- If art restores, deconstructs and transforms the theories which, from the ‘50s until now, classified and still classify it in schools, groups, techniques and methods, starting from the heroic era of the movements and manifestos, then Art will assume the innovative role of classifying theory and not being classified by it.
- If art involves and suggests ideas that cannot be reconciled with the socio-political reality, then it will animate protests, mass demonstrations and –why not– even revolutions.
Because Art is Praxis.