NUrope X:II

art, recent work, teaching, time-out

sketchbook pages; graphite pencil on paper, ca 30 x 20 cms each

As the “China goes Europe” oasis proceeds, a number of European artists, curators, academics and business people share their views on China. Nomad and artist Stella Fajerson adequately asks for the complementary perspective, but the Chinese persons involved are mainly invited to give their view on how Europeans could understand the Chinese mind – not their own European experiences.

Looking back, this appears as a want. Maybe this oasis serves just to prepare a common ground. Maybe it takes another one to actually address the theme.

The most significant experience to me was a short exchange on the subject of modesty and self-confidence.

modesty – self-confidence

NUrope X:I

art, recent work, teaching

During the presentations, I sit with my sketchbook open; making some quick drawings of people’s postures, hands, moves… as habitual. Afterwards, somebody approaches me and by gestures asks for the book. I lend it to him, and he turns the page to draw my portrait on it.

Next day, the programme goes on with a couple of lectures on the post-colonial theme. While opening the sketchbook, I hear the speaker say “How can we describe the other?”
Well, that question alone doesn’t seem functional any more; it was necessary, yes, and now it’s time to move on.

master narrative

catch-up

art, recent work, time-out

from Graz

From teaching and workshops in the city of Södertälje in mid-March, to Graz where the tenth oasis of NUrope took place. Back in Sweden just in time for spring’s arrival by Easter, then another short visit to Åbo/Turku.

NUrope X was dedicated to the theme of China goes Europe; lectures, workshops, encounters, walking and talking… and this is some of what I saw in the city of Graz.

The recent weeks, or months, have brought on a marked change, as a larger portion of my working time becomes tuned in the communicative field. Surprisingly (or not), this adds importance to the hours spent in the atelier.


Market/Supermarket 2010

art

Three days of art party at Kulturhuset, in the very heart of Stockholm; artist-run Supermarket Art Fair.
During the same three days, commercial prestige galleries have had their own fair, Market, at the Royal Academy of Art.
Visiting the two fairs, one can easily sense the difference. “We all want to have our art on Market, but we want to hang around at Supermarket“, one artist said; meaning – I guess – that all artists want to make big money and at the same time have a lot of fun, although there seems to be a choice between the two.
Who’s choice, then?

Maybe it’s not primarily about money and/or fun.
To me, the difference was rather the one between art represented as an individual expression and art happening as a social or communicative event.

If so, there is a complementarity, not a choice.

  • http://www.supermarketartfair.com/
  • http://www.market-art.se/

    • along the road

    art, beauty, time-out

    Today, the atmospherical sea is all white, as if coagulated light, and full of movement.

    Snow is knee-high in the fields, sometimes up to the thigh. A little less in the woods. In settled areas, it turns the cars, roadsigns and railings – the very streets – into organic sculpture, emphasizing the spatiality of all things.

    I need not borrow the eyes of Goethe or Wittgenstein. But I would have enjoyed their company in this surrounding whiteness.

    By the way, I am now – to my great surprise and joy – coordinator at the Nomadic University for Art, Philosophy and Enterprise in Europe. Whatever artistic faculties I possess, I will bring them into the process.

    brief stay in Turku

    beauty, time-out

    Going on a one-day trip to Åbo/Turku to see Bengt and Kim for a good day’s work. I walk along the Aura river from the harbour, pass the castle following the old Castle street to the marketplace and cathedral square.

    Weather has been less cold for a while now, at times even damp; since days, hoarfrost is building on any surface that isn’t covered with snow. Trees like birds ruffled up in down covering, sheltered in darkness.

    In Kim’s company, I experience the city by ear. It becomes an instrument, resounding people’s feet and voices, cars and church-bells and doors opening and shutting; all sounds muffled, all corners softened by the snow.