Collecting, Labelling, Mumbling

Having begun Moving Collection, the significance of collecting has become a clear issue. In particular, I have begun by inviting artists whose works I have liked. This is not unlike the way a collector of art goes about collecting, but crucially in Moving Collection none of the works are bought by me and therefore owned by me. I am not sure how significant this may be, but certainly the works are not hung or displayed in my home. They are rather kept primarilly for exhibition, a kind of source material. By November 2002 nearly forty artists have contributed small works to Moving Collection. From the start I had not directed the collection towards any specific theme or concept, rather inviting artists whose works I felt strongly I wanted to exhibit. Yet, at this stage it is possible to see types of works, or clusters of works that share similar concerns and qualities. I suppose in a museum my role then would be to begin a process of categorising and labelling the works into their respective (presumed) clusters. What Moving Collection enables, due to its framework and direction, is precisely not to do this. In certain instances parts of the collection could be exhibited according to a specific curatorial idea, like in a museum, whilst at other moments it could manifest itself as an un-edited, potent mass. There is then the question of content as something imposed from a curatorial point, and content as something more specific to each individual work in the collection. At different times and places, Moving Collection can manifest different contents, and different meanings. Perhaps we can think about it as an exhibition in some fermenting stage or perhaps as an exhibition in some drugged state. Up until now Moving Collection has been vectored around its format, as a mobile and suit-case based exhibition, and its meanings have been largely generated from this. Perhaps there is always some need to name, and to label works so that we feel comfortable. This is a particularly interesting thing for curators to think about because curators tend to frame works and collections through ideas and structures. So this is something which is ongoing within my relationship to Moving Collection. How much should I explain? How much should I label? How much should I have to mould the collection? The mechanics of Moving Collection enable an ongoing research into such issues, which no doubt most museums and curators must think about these days.

Some of the references which I use in my research with Moving Collection are: the formats of improvisation as heard in the music of jazz or Indian ragas, the free structural compositions of Terry Riley or John Cage, the research into drug-induced and mystical states of consciousness by people such as Margarita Laski and Stanislav Grof, the enveloping of other artists works into their works by artists such as Franz West and Martin Kippenberger, the pleasure of dancing, Michel de Certeau's ideas about 'Making do', Genpei Akasegawa (Hi Red Centre artist) and his recent books on how elderly people invent ingenious routines to adapt to changing circumstances, Sarat Maharaj's writings and his notion of the international as a situation of entaglements and re-scriptings, the work of The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales,

Artists

Dinh Q. Le (Vietnam) Dinh Q. Le is a Vietnamese artist who lives and works between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and New York. We met when I visited Ho Chi Minh this spring. Dinh sent me a selection of plastic baby pacifiers, made in pop colours. Although at first Dinh's pacifiers look no different from ordinary products, on closer inspection it becomes apparent that some of the pacifiers have two sucking bits attached. The work reflects the fact that Vietnam now has the highest rate of birth defects in the world, and particularly of Siamese twins birth. This is due to the massive spraying of chemical defoliants and other toxins during the Vietnam War by the American military. Much of Dinh's work has dealt with issues of the Vietnam War, and he even set up a 'shop' selling Agent Orange related 'goods' in Ho Chi Minh City in 1998. On the one hand reflective of a very contemporary Asian kind of pop sensibility, the pacifiers also state in a direct way the ongoing effects of history within Vietnam today.

Yiso Bahc (S. Korea) Bahc Yiso is an artist living and working in South Korea. Yiso sent me a work consisting of four thin triangle shapes of veneer wood which are painted. The image resembles a flag and is made up of golden balls on a white circle. The instruction for installing the work can depend on the situation, but the four wedges should be placed on the wall to form a square flag shape. Yiso also specified that I could place newspaper beneath the wedges so that it is visible underneath the wood. In this World Cup year, the work is perhaps an ironical nod at the increase in national flag waving and mass support which has been especially strong in Korea, as their team progressed so far in the tournament.

Helmut Batista (Brazil) Helmut Batista lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The work he contributed to Moving Collection is actually a journal that he publishes in Brazil called ‘Capacete’. It is one of a few publications in Brazil that focuses on international contemporary arts and culture. Helmut agreed to print a short essay written by me in the latest edition of the journal, something which expresses the recycling nature of Moving Collection. As there is no constraint on catalogues for the project, I envisage different writings by different people to appear at different times in different forms. ‘Capacete’ is the first such catalogue ’squat’ for Moving Collection.

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Vietnam) Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba lives and works in Vietnam. ‘My Biennale Medals’ is an ongoing work for Moving Collection that shows Jun’s artists passes which he has been given when he participates in large scale international exhibitions around the world. At once a key into the privaleged spaces of the international art world as well as signifying the artist as a producer for these mega-events, these passes have come to define Jun’s practice over the past two years or so. He has asked me to accompany the passes with the text below:

Franco Fanelli: Do you think this rapid turnover in names, or works of art,
or tendencies, is a phenomenon of these past few years?
Francesco Bonami: It might have been different when the media were not so
developed. Today the art of being known is a fact of life, we have to accept
it, but I also believe that it is a necessity. Sometimes a fundamental
factor gets lost: art requires talent, it is a sport in which some are
champions and some less able. I don't know if you are good at tennis, but I'
m sure that if you and I were on a tennis court we would immediately find
out why neither of us can aim to be a professional. It is different in the
psychology of art because differences in talent are not recognized. In
contemporary art everyone wants to play at Wimbledon, when in fact the
majority of artists would be better off playing in their local tournament.
Franco Fanelli: But the "Grand Slam" players are always the same, as you can
see so clearly if you look at the lists of those invited to appear at
Biennales all over the world.
Francesco Bonami: It is true that there is a group of artists who make up a
kind of "international style", and who can be seen everywhere. However, each
biennale has its own identity, and in addition to those 50 or so famous
artists there are also about 80 new ones, who you don't remember or you don'
t recognize because they have not yet become part of the inevitable group.
The fact is, to continue with the tennis metaphor, if you want to attract
the public to a tennis tournament you have to have Sampras as one of the
players.
Excerpt from an interview with Francesco Bonami by Franco Fanelli (from The
Art Newspaper.com).

Roger Drew (Britain)Roger Drew sent me a series of ink on paper drawings. Roger is a professional comedy writer based in London who I have known for many years. His drawings are highly detailed, cross hatched, perhaps reminiscent of the etchings of Durer. He sent me a series of satirical drawings based on the history of war. Five eras of war are depicted from Roman times to present confilicts. Each is done like a boys own magazine, showing one comical episode in four scenes.

Titus Spree (Japan-Germany) "Since I arrived in Tokyo more then six years ago, I often made long walks crossing the city. Sometimes 3 hours sometimes an entire day. Without noticing it in the beginning, these explorations became my main tool for understanding Japan as they lined up the
complexity of Japanese culture like pearls on a string.
Crossing urban reality is a work that was created over a period of several years by taking notes while walking across Mukoujima, a neighbourhood that is part of the so called ‘Shitamachi’, the lower town of Tokyo.
To put it together in the form of a scroll has less to do with Japanese traditional art, but comes from the tool I used to make notes during my walks, a kind of portable desk with rolls on either side. While walking across Mukoujima I could scroll a map (a cross section) according to my position to take notes."

Chrysanne Stathacos (United States)Chrysanne Stathacos sent me a series of photographs.Chrysanne is an American artist who exhibits widely abroad as well sits on the editorial board of the art magazine TRANS. Chrysanne has worked for some time with an aura catching camera that captures colourful auras emanating from people. A camera is connected to a sensor device which the subject holds while being photographed. Chrysanne sent me a series of aura portraits of holy people and ordinary people she has worked on for some years in places such as India and Japan. The images show faces against a dark backgrounds, surrounded by colourful glows which range from deep reds to blues. Chrysanne also sent me a colour chart organised by the C19th Theosophist Blavatsky. The photographs can be arranged as single images or as a series, depending on the circumstance.

Chandraguphta Thenuwara (Sri Lanka) Chandraguphta Thenuwara is a Sri Lankan artist based in Colombo. Much of his works - sculpture, installation and images - depict barrels. Sri Lanka has until very recently been fighting a bloody war. I was fortunate to visit Colombo in March this year and met Thenu in Colombo. Barrels have a certain symbolism in Sri Lanka. They were used as anti-terror measures, camouflaged and placed across streets and in front of government buildings to prevent car attacks etc. Barrels therefore became a visible feature of Sri Lankan life, a new kind of architecture even. Thenu has sent me three drawings on paper, depicting three periods in this recent history. We see barrels from before 1983 when there was no war and barrels were just barrels, after 1983 when barrels became camouflaged and effective military barriers, and finally Now, when many barrels have been removed or lie idle on the streets in relative peace.

Reinhard Bernsteiner (Austria)
Reinhard Bernsteiner lives and works in Vienna, Austria, and like Peter Hoell is a long term assistant to Franz West. He sent me a series of photographs documenting molehills. Reinhard has been interested in animal sculptures or architectures and considers them as a kind of ready-made sculpture. He is also interested in mole tunnel systems, their random but ordered nature. The photos range from small sizes to large A0 sized panels and can be installed in any formation, depending on the situation. This is an ongoing work, begun in 2002.

Matthew Hunt (Australia) Matthew Hunt lives and works in Australia and was in Tokyo for several months during this summer. Matthew sent me a work he made in 1999 as part of a mail art project between Australia and Indonesia, in which artists from the two countries sent each other semi-finished art works to be completed by artists in their respective countries. Matthew’s works directly reference the political upheavals which were happening in Indonesia at that time with the overthrow of the Suharto regime. They are small, humorous kits which could be used at demonstrations, suggesting ingenious ways to respond to authority.

Peter Hoell (Austria) Peter Hoell lives and works in Vienna, Austria. For the past few years he has worked as an assistant to the sculptor Franz West, and we had the opportunity to work together through the Yokohama Triennale 2001 when he and Reinhardt Bernmeister came to Japan to install Franz’s large outdoor sculpture piece. Peter has sent a poster piece. On a yellow ground are printed the words "FAELLT EINEM VON EUCH EIN TITEL EIN?" which means something like "does anyone of you know a title". In 1999 Peter and other artists working with Franz were preparing for a group exhibition in Vienna and they began a conversation about how they would begin. Franz West sent Peter a fax with these words on it and Peter has directly copied this fax onto this poster piece. When I began Moving Collection I was also asking artists for suggestions for names. Peter tells me that he read this and thought about this small statement by Franz, which now acts perhaps as an advertisement of sorts for further names.

Arham-ul Huq Chowdhury (Bangladesh)Arham ul-Huq Chowdhury is an artist I met in Dhaka Bangladesh on my research trip there this February. Arham works with traditional Bengali calligraphy, a tradition which, he told me, has not really been taken up or explored by younger artists in Bangladesh. The work for Moving Collection are quickly written calligraphic strokes in different bright colours written on Bangladeshi newspaper triangles. These triangle shapes can be hung on string and made into banners, similar to ones I saw in Dhaka during festivals. Arham told me that he wanted to make these banners for National Language Day in February, when the Bengali language is celebrated through poetry readings and street festivities.

Almut Rink (Austria)Almut Rink is based in Austria. I met her when she was living in Tokyo for a few weeks last year. Almut often works with images of suburban nature, parks and landscape in photographs and video. For Moving Collection she sent me a small installation comprised of several C-print photographs of windows in Austria and a trophy. The work is titled 'Home Advantage' and explores the changes in urban scenery which have happened in Vienna. The prints are to be hung on the wall in small frames and the trophy placed in front of them.

Peter McDonald (Japan-Britain) Peter McDonald was born and brought up in Japan and now lives in London where he paints. Peter’s recent paintings have depicted rock concerts, festivals and stadiums, contemporary sites for electronic sublime experiences, but rooted in the gatherings of the 1960s. For Moving Collection he has contributed two paintings on paper. One shows an outdoor festival, painted in a loose psychedelic way, while the other depicts a lone drummer against a blue background. Such festivals, like the Moving Collection, also emerge temporarily and Peter said that the drum kit for him represented a similar situation to this exhibition: easily moveable, but hopefully with presence when initiated.

Mariele Neudecker (Germany-Britain) In 2000, over four days, Mariele Neudecker made a video work ('Another Day') which simultaneously recorded the rising and setting sun on opposite sides of the globe. Using complex sun calculators from the US Naval Observatry and HM Nautical Almanac Office as well as satellite phones, the sun was filmed from Ponta Negra in the Western Azores and Wilson's Promontory, the southern most lighthouse in Australia. For Moving Collection Mariele has made a small portable flip book prototype with colour prints outs of the rising and setting sun from this project. Mariele's work often deals with nature in various forms, re-inscribing earlier C19th traditions of the sublime in contemporary forms and ideas. She took part in The Yokohama Triennale 2001.

Guy Mayman (Japan-Britain) Guy Mayman lived and worked in Tokyo for three years until this September when he returned to UK. He studied at The Ateliers in Amsterdam for some years, working on large scale sculptures in carpet, wood and other cheap materials. Since moving to Tokyo Guy’s sculptures have shrunk in size, a consequence of the small apartments in Tokyo, which Guy was keen to explore and exploit.He has contributed a sculpture made from matchboxes. Four ordinary matchboxes have been painted white and the words 'Gallery Hell' stencilled on to each one in a different font. The match boxes are fully functional and full of matches. The work can be set up in various formations, and lined up, they tend to resemble a minimal sculpture by Donald Judd or Carl Andre, but with the un-minimalist elements of functionality and black humour. Guy's instruction with the work is, if possible, to use the matches to burn down each venue the Moving Collection is held in.

Makoto Honda (Japan)Makoto Honda is a painter living and working in Tokyo. Makoto paints many different types of images, often incorporating cut outs from magazines which are pasted into his paintings and merged with paint. His paintings have a certain hand drawn or often coarse quality about them. For Moving Collection he has contributed one small canvas work titled 'The Violin Player'. It shows a few violin players cut out from a magazine, swirling around in an area of pink paint.

Koji Setoh (Japan)

Pol Malo (Germany-Japan) Pol Malo was born in Europe but has lived in Tokyo for the last few years. As well as making art works Pol also works as a sound artist, making performances and releasing CD's on his own label, Chabashira. For Moving Collection Pol contributed a hanging sculpture made out of cut out paper. The exclamations 'OH' and 'AH' have been carefully cut out in varying sizes and linked together with thread. When hung from the ceiling the sculpture makes a kind of pillar of laughter or words floating up into the air. The work can be viewed from any angle and folds up into a small size. The work reflects Pol’s interests in sound poetry, as well as his experiences of moving house recently, due to a major construction outside his window, which left him lying in his futon at night laughing at the absurdity of his situation.

Naotaka Shimamoto (Japan)

Satoru Aoyama (London-Japan) Satoru Aoyama lives and works in the UK. His works comprise highly delicate and technically fine embroidery work on thin lace fabrics which are then framed. Satoru has worked mainly on embroidering close-ups of friends faces, exposing wrinkles and blemishes through layerings of coloured thread, but for Moving Collection he has embroidered a common packet of Sony CD-R discs. The image juxtaposes the speed and convenience of copying data onto these digital discs with the careful hand crafted labour of embroidery, presenting this very ordinary object for closer scrutiny.

Superflex (Denmark)

Les Joynes (United States)Les Joynes lived in Tokyo for several years, after studying at Goldsmiths College in London. he currently lives and works in New York. Les has been pouring sculptures made from polyurethane packing foam. The process requires speed and skill, as once the chemicals are mixed, the material begins to expand and harden. His sculptures take on primitive, blob-like shapes which he speaks about in terms of 'un-forms' or primal shapes that have yet to become form. For Moving Collection he has made a small sized wall sculpture, dripped with bright colours and reminiscent of candy or a frozen psychedelic moment.

Yumi Furukawa (Japan)

Kate McMillan (Australia) Kate McMillan was in Tokyo on an Australian Arts Council Residency grant this year, where I met her. Her interests focus on issues of global transportation and movement in its various forms. For Moving Collection Kate has carefully made small carts which homeless people in Tokyo push along, piled with their belongings. There are many homeless people living around Tokyo, one of the more conspicuous being Ueno Park, where a ‘blue-tent’ city has been situated for some years. Kate has not used any nails or staples in her carts, using only the same materials that the homeless use to make their carts, perhaps an apt symbol of Moving Collection itself.

Ren Yamazaki (Japan) Ren Yamazaki uses Gameboy machines to create his own image and text based works. This particular model has a digital camera attachment with which Ren takes low resolution photographs of various situations he finds himself in. He incorporated these images with text and loads them into the Gameboy as ‘unofficial’ pages. Gameboys are normally highly controlled and prescribed, but Ren actively uses the machine as a simple editing technology. The module shown here is a proto-type, and Ren continues to develop new messages and frames in other Gameboys.

Koki Tanaka (Japan) Koki Tanaka lives in Japan. ‘Grace’ shows a basketball bouncing endlessly, emitting a hypnotic low beat. Koki’s video works often sample and remix sequences from familiar films, taking one scene and transforming it into a looping episode that also warps the original meanings of the images. Once the DVD begins, time becomes an endless loop, a kind of video minimalism that is at once perfect in its circling simplicity and utterly broken down in its resisting of forward movement.

Yuna Kanazawa (Japan)

Sharmila Samant (India) Sharmila Samant lives in India where she has been working on a series of works based around the snake symbol we see here on the T-shirt and coasters. Using distribution and production methods from advertising and product design, Sharmila has made a ‘brand’ of various objects all bearing this logo. She has distributed them through galleries and local community networks in Mumbai. At a time of tensions both inter-ethnically and internationally in India, Sharmila’s work states a simple message of tolerance and respect for one another. As well as making art works, she is also involved in running Open Circle, an alternative arts space in Mumbai which organises exhibitions, exchanges and political actions in communities.

Mayumi Kuronuma (Japan) Mayumi Kuronuma embroiders life sized tape-worms in soft threads. The fish tapeworm lives in the human intestines, feeding off its nutrients. In Japanese, tape-worms are called “sanada-mushi’, derived from ‘sanada-himo’ a strongly woven cord that was developed by a Masayuki Sanada in the nineteenth century. Mr Sanada was the first person to use this cord material to cover the grips of samurai swords. Kuronuma lives and works in Japan.

Hiroaki Morita (Japan-London)

Cecilia Mandrile (Argentina/UK) Ð introduced by Sharmila. Cecilia Mandrile is an Argentinian artist who lives between the United States and Argentina. Much of her work, like the Moving Collection, is light-weight and highly portable. Cecilia sent a small doll together with a ID card which are elements from earlier works. On a cloth is printed a digital self portrait of the artist, and this has been wrapped around an object to form a simple doll. Many of Cecilia's works have a ritual aspect to them, including acts of washing or resonating with a sense of memorial. In past installations, the dolls have been placed in discrete corners or on the street, like discarded or forgotten amulets.

Tushar Joag (India) - introduced by Sharmila. Tushar Joag lives and works in India, where he has been making works with a social and political impact. For Moving Collection Tushar sent me many paper tags with the instruction to hang them on as many places as possible both inside and outside the gallery space. On each tag is printed the words, ‘Can you have his cake and eat our bread too?’, a reference to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which Tushar critiques. He writes ‘The WTO claims to be the instrument of globalisation, however there is enough statistical substantiation to suggest that rather than benefiting the poorer nations through fair trade; it is committed to advancing the commercial interests of the representation of the northern countries.’ Tushar collaborated with Oxfam UK for this project, selling his tags in their shops and giving a share of the proceeds to Oxfam campaigns for Fair Trade.

Claudia DeMonte (United States) Ð introduced by Cecilia. Claudia McMonte lives in New York and has been making works over thirty years in a variety of mediums and styles. For her work here Claudia has written: ‘My MANO DI MIRACOLI, is influenced by my Catholic background where the faithful put images of thing prayed for onto objects. The hand represents many things to me, identity , friendship and communication.’ With her husband Ed McGowin she also owns an Outsider Art collection which toured Europe for three years.

Akane Nakamori (Japan) introduced by Fumihiko Sumitomo. Akane Nakamori used to work as a bento (lunchbox) delivery person in Kanazawa city, Japan where she lives. One of her deliveries was to a textile factory, where scraps of cloth and coloured thread would be scattered around the floor. Akane began collecting bits from the factory and started binding small objects with thread. She told me that she wanted to find a practice that could fill her limited time in between looking after her children and required minimum means. The results are these tightly spun balls of coloured thread in pine wood sake cups, which bear some resemblance to traditional Shinto ritual objects.

Takako Kimura (Japan) Takako Kimura is a 2002 graduate of The Tokyo University of Fine Arts, where I first saw her works. She lives and works in Tokyo. Takako has contributed sticker works. These are small, B5 size paper works made up of little stickers which are very popular in Tokyo. The stickers are of all kinds of things - cute animals, panda bears, butterflies etc. These stickers are popular amongst high school girls, who stick them all over their school bags. Takako collects the same type of image stickers (all pandas for instance) and sticks them on the page to make a collage type image of the sticker image itself out of the stickers. The works use cheap mass produced pop items to create dense and complex images.

Junko Yuhara (Japan)Junko Yuhara lives in Japan. Trained as a designer, I saw her paintings at her final degree exhibition earlier this year. Coming from a design background, her paintings had been largely ignored by her tutors and fellow students. Junko selects images from fashion magazines, mostly of women models posing, and references them to make her paintings. The painting here shows the face of a young woman with piercing eyes, surrounded by what appear to be auras or energies. I was reminded of the naïve mystical images of the C19th English romantic artist Samuel Palmer when I first saw these.

Johannes Wohnseifer (Germany) Johannes Wohnseifer is a German artist living and working in Cologne. Johannes works in many different mediums, from sculpture through to installations and paintings and even commisioning techno records which are sold in record shops during his exhibitions. For Moving Collection, Johannes sent me an instruction. It is inspired by a novel written by the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, together with Hosoe titled 'Killed by Roses'. The work must be made and photographed in Tokyo. It involves buying roses and putting them upside down in a glass vase. This is to be photographed against a white background. The photo should be enlarged to a big poster size and pinned to the wall. The colour and number of roses can change according to each situation. The work is titled 'Killed Roses'.

Juha Valkeapaa (Finland) Juha Valkeapaa is an artist from Finland. For Moving Collection Juha sent a CD work made for a series of talks made in Zagreb in the summer of 2002. The piece is called 'Mama'. For approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds we hear a voice repeating 'Mama' in various ways, after which there is 30 minutes of silence. The recording should be looped and place in the corner of a space, if possible facing a doll of any kind.

Sophie Buxton (UK) Sophie Buxton lives and works in London. She has sent a small book of drawings done on a duplicate book, which makes two copies of everything drawn via carbon paper. Over a period of two weeks during which Sophie walked up the River Thames she sketched and drew scenes and episodes that caught her attention. Some of the drawings were given at the time to people she had drawn and others sent later to friends as a way to record her experience. The work perhaps has some resonance with earlier British artists like Richard Long who also used walking as a primary action, but in Sophie's work this leads to unexpected encounters with people or acts of giving during the course of her journey. What is shown in Moving Collection is the remaining copies or 'reciets' from this process.

Jacqueline Fraser (New Zealand) Jacqueline Fraser lives and works in New Zealand. Her works take the form of intricate installations using wires, ornate fabrics and poems. As an artist working from a Moari background, Jacqueline's works have variously explored issues of identity and current social and political concerns, weaving together rich narratives from traditional myths, stories, current affairs and the world of high fashion. For Moving Collection she contributed a small textile work. On a piece of rich French fabric is drawn a woman's high heeled shoe (taken from French Vogue), under which are the words "Fentanyl derivative'. This is the gas used by the Russian government in the theatre siege in November 2002. She has recently shown in The Yokohama Triennale 2001 and in New York, where her exhbition was highly received by critics.

Babak Ghazi (UK)