jiri kovanda
www.flashartonline.com/
extract from frieze interview
JM I’m very interested in the transition that occurred between the performance of your actions and their translation into documentary photographs. There are no audiences present at some of your actions. The only people who know they’re art are you and the photographer. But the resulting photograph isn’t the art work, it’s the action, isn’t it?
JK The question is when communication takes place. I think it’s at the moment when the thing is referred to as art. That means that if an action has an audience, it happens straight away. If no spectators have been invited, however, I think it doesn’t take place until afterwards, in the artistic space – in other words, either at an exhibition, or in print, it doesn’t matter. In short, when it’s presented as art.
JM In retrospect, then?
JK Yes in retrospect, although you can’t draw a clear dividing line. Without the action, it wouldn’t exist. The action has to take place.
JM In this respect time has quite a particular status. In the act of documentation, you’re calling attention to something that happened earlier: the action without an audience.
JK But the action has to be there. An idea isn’t enough, it has to really take place.(*) I’ve had many ideas and scripts for different actions that I haven’t carried out, but I’ve never published the ones that didn’t happen.
JK The question is when communication takes place. I think it’s at the moment when the thing is referred to as art. That means that if an action has an audience, it happens straight away. If no spectators have been invited, however, I think it doesn’t take place until afterwards, in the artistic space – in other words, either at an exhibition, or in print, it doesn’t matter. In short, when it’s presented as art.
JM In retrospect, then?
JK Yes in retrospect, although you can’t draw a clear dividing line. Without the action, it wouldn’t exist. The action has to take place.
JM In this respect time has quite a particular status. In the act of documentation, you’re calling attention to something that happened earlier: the action without an audience.
JK But the action has to be there. An idea isn’t enough, it has to really take place.(*) I’ve had many ideas and scripts for different actions that I haven’t carried out, but I’ve never published the ones that didn’t happen.
*why does it have to take place, can art exist in an iddea only?
but if you tell your idea the tellig of it is the art and not the idea? so you couldnt present an idea only as art?
hi eileen, i like this!
ReplyDelete