28 Sep 2010

Public interview: Rirkrit Tiravanija, is there a revolution?

This discussion with Rirkrit Tiravanija will concentrate on the relationship to the spectator as an 'actor' (without the representational connotation - can we call him/her an activator?). From there, we will make a verbal itinerary through Tiravanija's work and through crucial moments in art: from Schindler, Mies Van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Prouvé, to Smithson, the minimalists, and there on. Tiravanija is an extrordinary critic of modernity and contemporaneity and this conversion will enhance that point in discussing the contemporary and its main problematics. He has had an ongoing close relationship to the French artists, Parreno, Huyghe, and we will seak out what that has meant to him. We will also discuss the transformation Tiravanija's work has operated upon institutions, and his relationship to them. We will talk about the immense changes that have gone on in the last twenty years in art practice in general and the shift from object to idea that seems to be now top of the agenda. How does this affect artists and viewers alike?


Rirkrit Tiravanija
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija is widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His work defies media-based description, as his practice combines traditional object making, public and private performances, teaching, and other forms of public service and social action. Winner of the 2010 Absolut Art Award and the 2005 Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Guggenheim Museum. Tiravanija was also awarded the Benesse by the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum in Japan and the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lucelia Artist Award.
He recently had a retrospective exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld along with previous retrospective exhibition at the Museum Bojmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam that then was presented in Paris and London. Tiravanija is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts at Columbia University, and is a founding member and curator of Utopia Station, a collective project of artists, art historians, and curators. Tiravanija is also President of an educational-ecological project known as The Land Foundation, located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and is part of a collective alternative space called VER located in Bangkok - where he maintains his primary residence and studio.


Chantal Pontbriand
Chantal Pontbriand, is Head of Exhibition Research and Development at Tate Modern. She is founder-director of PARACHUTE and has curated numerous international contemporary art events, exhibitions, festivals and conferences, mainly in photography, video, performance, and multimedia installation. From 1982 to 2003, she was president and director of the FIND (Festival International de Nouvelle Danse), in Montreal. Selected publications: Fragments critiques, Éditions Jacqueline Chambon, 1998, Communauté et Gestes, PARACHUTE, 2000. Last exhibition : at the Jeu the Paume, HF| RG [Harun Farocki | Rodney Graham], in 2009. Exhibition projects in 2010 : Higher Powers Command (after a work by Sigmar Polke, 1968), and The Yvonne Rainer Project, at the BFI Gallery, London.
Upcoming publications: Jeff Wall, the non-spaces, with Flammarion, an anthology of chosen texts from PARACHUTE, with JRP/Ringier (English), as well as an anthology of her own essays on contemporaneity and the common (2000-2010).

Interview conducted as part of The Research Project 'Practicable - The Work of Art as Dispositif: Setting the Stage for Audience Participation' (DALMES - ANR-08-CREA-063) with Support from the French National Research Agency (ANR). A Research Project of The Universities of Valenciennes and Lille (Calhiste, Ceac and Geriico Laboratories) and The Maison Européenne des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société (MESHS-CNRS) of Lille.
Coordination : Samuel Bianchini
Thanks to Chantal Crousel Gallery, Paris

With the partnership of EnsadLab, laboratory of The École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, Paris.