`Photo: © Panos Kokkinias

Established as a nonprofit foundation by art collector Dakis Joannou, DESTE is located in a former socks factory building, in the lovely Nea Ionia suburb, north of Athens.

See? Lovely area, even under the rain:

The old factory has been completely re-vamped. The main entrance to the gallery, designed by the architects of divercity, is particularly spectacular. You enter the building through a wooden crate that evokes the ones used for the transportation of art pieces.

Photo: © Charalambos Louizidis & Katerina Glinou

Detail of the entrance

Each year, a show at DESTE focuses on the collection of Dakis Joannou, the industrialist who established the foundation in 1983. New acquisitions are standing side by side with older pieces, making emerge new meanings and relationships between the artworks.

This years' exhibition A Guest + A Host = A Ghost borrows its title from one of Marcel Duchamp's mixed-media works. The play on words was inscribed on candy wrappers that were handed out during an opening in Paris in 1953.

The show is conceived as a series of solo exhibitions by some of today's most popular artists: Pawel Althamer, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Chan, Nathalie Djurberg, Urs Fischer, Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Seth Price, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Andro Wekua, etc. You might know all the names and you might even like some of them but that won't prevent you from being surprised by the exhibition. It's an exciting show. Both provocative and satisfying.

Installation View, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection

"Over the past few years, the exhibitions displayed at DESTE have been the result of many people getting together. They are not thematic in the traditional sense. But one could say that the latest exhibition looks like a compilation of solo displays by the specific artists who are represented in the collection by many works. Creations by other artists have been placed within these 'sub-groups,' hence creating parasitic relations between the exhibits," explained curator Massimiliano Gioni.

I'm just going to highlight a couple of works:


Installation Views, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

One of the most eye-catching pieces on the ground floor is a sinister structure that cuts through the ceiling. Once you walk upstairs, you discover that the cast aluminum structure is actually a grave being dug up. Urs Fischer's overwhelming Untitled (Hole) takes the whole room, leaving only little space to walk around and admire Kara Walker's gouache on paper works.


Installation Views, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Now i almost got knocked down the stairs on my way to the first floor. As i raised my head i was unsettled by Maurizio Cattelan's Ave Maria. Translated as Hail Mary, the title refers to the catholic tradition of revering the Virgin Mary. The right-armed salute is nowadays synonymous with right-wing or extremist political movements. The image brought to my mind the little plastic statues of Benito Mussolini one can sometimes find in Italian highway shops and the content face of Gaetano Saya. And then there's the 'legendary' grip that the Catholic church is said to have on the whole country. So, yes, i smiled broadly when i saw Ave Maria then i remembered that Europe is not always that open-minded, democratic, cultivated place that i love so much. Anyway, I'm probably seeing way more politics here in there than i should.

Maurizio Cattelan, Ave Maria, 2007

In the adjacent room, Paweł Althamer (people in Milan might remember the inflatable giant that floated above the Parco Sempione) had some stunning dolls, spineless leather-clad mannequins and a self-portrait as an old man.

Installation Views, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Cattelan followed in the next room, this time with a self-portrait sticking his head through a hole in the floor (yes, another one). The figure is staring at Paul Chan's charcoal portraits of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, My Laws Are My Whores that hints at the relationship between sex and law.

Paul Chan's portraits of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, "My Laws Are My Whores" (2008)

The best part for me was on the top floor. A fantastic series of sculptures by Urs Fischer, including a Ghost Chair:

Installation Views, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, DESTE Foundation. Photo: Stefan Altenburger

I took pictures for you!

A Guest + A Host = A Ghost - Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection is on view at DESTE Foundation until December 31st 2009. New Museum curator Massimiliano Gioni acted as curatorial advisor with the collaboration of Maurizio Cattelan, Urs Fischer and Cecilia Alemani.

The exhibition takes place at the Natural Science Museum, a seventeenth-century building which used to be the main hospital of the center of Turin. Although i like the museum a lot i must say that the atmosphere of the show was pretty gloomy. The exhibition rooms are below the ground and the lighting is spectacularly bad. Still, there's some very good pieces that need to be seen. I found Ralf Baecker's Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space) particularly intriguing.

Seen from afar, Calculating Space looks like a sculpture made of toothpicks. It's made of sticks, strings and little plumbs. This fragility and transparency give a physical presence as much as they hide the logic and functioning of the machine. Its units operate like a very basic artifical neural network.

Through its strict geometric and otherwise very filigree construction, the observer is able to track the whole processing logic from every viewpoint around the machine. This disclosure of the machines core is enforced by an uncommon distribution of its constructing elements: a nine angled architectural body forms a torus. In contrast to an ordinary alignment of a hidden logic and an outer user facing display its geometric basis is turned inside-out. The core of the machine, with all its computing elements, is shifted outwards on the surface, while the "display" which indicates the results of the tasks is displaced into the center of the system. Even though the tasks and their logic runs directly in front of the viewers eyes and even if one is long sinking into the interaction of the elements which is accompanied by a polyphonic but steady and reassuring buzz, it is not possible to follow the succession of the single conditions of the machine. (...) The results of the computations are sent inwards -into its own center- they are not intended for the viewer.

Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space) was nominated for the Share Prize. You can visit the exhibition until November 8 at the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali in Turin.

And of course i took a few pictures of the exhibtion.

(image Deweer Gallery)

The VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd. is Adam Zaretsky and Waag Society's temporary research and education institute on Art and Life Sciences. It's free, open to the public and i hope you'll allow me to remind you how much we enjoy them:

Day 1 at the VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics: Seed broadcasting workshop
Image of the day
Tissue Culture Lab at the VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics (part 1)
Tissue Culture Lab at the VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics (part 2)

Wednesday 11 November

Body Art Lecture with performance artists: Kira O'Reilly, WARBEAR, Jeanette Groenendaal and Boryana Rossa.

The artists will speak/perform together about: the body in performance and stressed physiology as personal or public shock chemistry; pure culture technique in science and its effect on the making of clean and dirty bodies; artist's input on future body aesthetics during the present genetic reproductive redesign of the human form; erotic containment and the thrill of contagious patients exploding; experiments, lab animals and the distance (or presumed distance) that objectivity implies, etc.

Thursday 12 November and Saturday 14 November

Body Art Lab which, i'm told, will involve blood and sex performances in the Glove Box. "Various performance artists will be ritually cleansed and enter the glove box one or two at a time. Various performance artists take turns in the box interacting with the public or other actors reaching into them with the gloves. This is experimental Body Art with a biological theme that references experiments, lab animals, the pure and the impure as well as the distance (or presumed distance) that objectivity implies. "

The Vivoarts Performance in the Glove Box, is a Mason Juday and Adam Zaretsky Production and will feature Boryana Rossa, Oleg Mavromatti, Zoot Derks, Jeanette Groenendaal and WarBear.

Tuesday 17 November

Animal Personality Art and Science Lecture and Lab with Dr. Kees van Oers or one of his colleagues and Koen Van Mechelen.

Dr. Kees van Oers studies the genetic background, physiology and fitness consequences of variation in avian personality. In 2005 he obtained a personal VENI-grant to study the evolutionary genetics of personality using a linkage study in a natural population. This work is currently extended in collaboration with the Animal Breeding and Genomics Center in an NGI-grant on songbird genomics.

Koen Vanmechelen is a Belgian conceptual artist whose work engages with issues of genetic manipulation, cloning, globalisation and multiculturalness. The artist is currently working on The Cosmopolitan Chicken project, an experiment to develop a super-hybrid chicken.

Koen Vanmechelen, The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project

Koen Vanmechelen's The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project chickens will be installed from Nov 5 to Dec 6 at the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in Amsterdam. Vanmechelen is also having his first solo exhibition in a U.S. gallery at Conner Contemporary Art in Washington.

Featuring live chickens, the exhibition also includes taxidermy and blown-glass sculptures, video, and photography, as well as drawings and paintings in tempera made from eggs laid by chickens bred by the artist.

The Finnish pavilion might be smaller than most -barely the size of a container- but its location and quirkiness makes it one of my favourite in the Giardini of the Biennale. It was designed by Alvar Aalto in 1956 as a demountable wooden structure to be packed up after each Biennale. However, the wrong bolts and fasteners were shipped with it and it couldn't be dismantled. Since the city bans buildings made of wood, the fire marshals had to bend the rule. The temporary pavilion is still standing in the Giardini.

The Aalto Pavilion in 2007. Photo by Kaisa Hein‰nen

Building of the pavilion in 1956. Courtesy of Museum of Finnish Architecture (Suomen rakennustaiteen museo)

Fifty years later, firemen are entering the Finnish pavilion. Visual artist Jussi Kivi has turned the whole pavilion into a very personal "Fire & Rescue Museum". You can find all sorts of knickknacks and memorabilia he has been collecting since he was a kid: vintage extinguishers, gas masks and helmets, scale models, postcards, posters, technical firefighting literature, personal drawings, figurines and toys, boardgames and souvenirs.

Kivi 's collection gained gravitas and a new significance last year when the artist discovered the content of an abandoned Soviet underground nuclear bomb shelter in eastern Estonia. Scattered on the walls and floors were partly moldy Soviet information boards and posters presenting civil defense and fire fighting procedures before and after a nuclear fallout.

Jussi Kivi: Soviet poster from the series "Civil defense & Fire service, poster nr. 3", detail of the installation: "Fire & Rescue Museum", 2009 (photo: Filippo Zambon)

Contaminated hands, an educational model from the Soviet era illustrating the symptoms of chemical weapons on skin. Discovered in an Estonian bunker in 2008

Kivi's childhood adoration for rescuers takes a darker meaning when confronted with propaganda material that warns of the threat of an attack with weapons of mass destruction.

Fire & Rescue Museum, 2009, detail of installation (photo: Filippo Zambon)

The project's precarious position between the artist's personal need for order and safety and the disorder and chaos of the surrounding reality presents in miniature the situation we are facing in the world at large. In the safety provided by the walls of the small wooden pavilion in Giardini, designed in the period of reconstruction after WW2 by Alvar Aalto, Fire & Rescue Museum reminds both of the need of caring and the need of forecasting. If the preconditions of life at a time of world-wide environmental deterioration and widespread poverty are neglected, any rescue plans toward threats of future conflicts stand helpless.

Details of the installation: "Fire & Rescue Museum", 2009 (Photo: Jussi Kivi)

The Venice Art Biennale runs until the 22nd of November 2009.

Other artists who collect: Fabiola by Francis Alÿs, Parrworld. The Collection of Martin Parr (Part 1) and Parrworld. The Collection of Martin Parr (Part 2).

I'm having a fairly busy week but i promised myself i wouldn't abandon my blog as i tend to do when i'm on the road. So... quick post about an installation i was hoping to see earlier this month at Vooruit's festival Almost Cinema in Gent. Sadly, i couldn't make it to Belgium that week. But, youpiiie! Feedforward. The Angel of History, the exhibition that LABoral which opened last Thursday, gave me a second chance to finally get to see Smoke and Hot Air.

Designed by Iranian artist Ali Momeni and Robin Mandel, with participation of artist Matthew Brackett, Smoke and Hot Air reflects Momeni's concern about the relentless threats that Iran has been receiving from many other countries in recent years.

The system searches for sentences including the words "attack Iran" on Google News. The sentences go through a text-to-speech synthesizer. The voice is in turn picked up by a microphone, analyzed, and translated into rhythmically corresponding smoke rings from a quartet of wooden smoke ring makers.

Reflecting on the perception of countries as they are shaped by the news and media landscape, Smoke and Hot Air reverses the general view of Iran, which is frequently depicted as aggressor. The recent global support for the uprising after the 2009 Iranian election showed how quickly the general attitude towards a country can shift. Translating the news into old-fashioned smoke signals, Momeni's and Mandel's project illustrates how the complexities of national and political identity can get reduced to false impressions, deceit, and posturing.

I found the artwork particularly moving. Is simplicity can only be equaled by its efficiency and its peacefulness by the distressing political situation in the Middle East. The quiet and smoky atmosphere incites you to make a pause and reflect on the issue at stake.

Also in the exhibition: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad 1798-2006.

FEEDFORWARD - The Angel of History is on view until April 5, 2010 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón, Spain.

Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Over the last few decades, a rich and increasingly diverse practice has emerged in the art world that invites the public to touch, enter, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on city streets, or in the landscape. Like architecture, many of these temporary artworks aspire to alter viewers' experience of the environment. An installation is usually the end product for an artist, but for architects it can also be a preliminary step in an ongoing design process. Like paper projects designed in the absence of "real" architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture's material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives.

The first survey of its kind,Installations by Architects features fifty of the most significant projects from the last twenty-five years by today's most exciting architects (...) Projects are grouped in critical areas of discussion under the themes of tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Each project is supplemented by interviews with the project architects and the discussions of critics and theorists situated within a larger intellectual context.

Asher DeGroot, David Gallaugher, Kevin James, and Jacob Jebailey, Walking in the Park. Photo credit: Andre Forget (via)

You probably saw many examples of architects installations if you attended the latest Biennale of Architecture in Venice. They provide new platforms for innovative perspectives, ideas and experiments in the field of architecture. Some of these installations will remain at the experimental stage, others might later be implemented into built work. Installations, especially when temporary, enable architects to work outside the constraints dictated by clients and city regulations. The main purpose of installations is not necessarily to be useful but to generate conversations, to invite viewers to reflect on the role and essence of architecture. Installations are also vehicles for teaching and research as the Bauhaus was one of the first schools to demonstrate. Finally, young studios can find in installations a fantastic opportunity to advertise their talent.

Haus Rucker & Co, Oasis for Documenta 5, Kassel, 1972

I expected Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building and Design to be one of those fancy volumes you open to find big, glossy photos and little text to comment on them. I was expecting a beautiful book that lingers on the coffee table for your guests to admire. There are loads of images in the book indeed but there are even more essays by critics, by theorists and by the authors (Bonnemaison is an associate professor of architecture at Dalhousie University and Ronit Eisenbach is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Maryland). Architects get to give their own view as well. The book is divided into five chapters that explore a different area of discussion. Each of them is illustrated by 8 to 10 architectural installations (this post picks up one of them for each chapter):

1. Tectonics: by exploring new modes of assembly and materials, this section reminds us that architecture doesn't stop at the facade.

Mette Ramsgard Thomse, Vivisection

Mette Ramsgard Thomse's Vivisection is a spatial experiment that explores how a techtonic surface can embed a capacity for sensing and actuation. The silk and steel fabric is conductive thereby allowing the architects to pass electronic signals through it. By using antenna based sensor chips the fabric "feels" the presence of the audience. The sensors inform a network of distributed micro-computers, that in turn control the fans, inflating and deflating internal bladders in the structure.

2. Body examines the relationship between human body, spatial experience and design.

Thom Faulders, Mute Room (image)

Thom Faulders covered with pink Memory Foam (as used in the earplugs that expand to fill the cavity of the ear) the floor of his Mute Room, a temporary listening environment for experimental electronic music. The foam's surface operates as a sound baffle to enhance acoustical clarity. Similar to the way that musical notes 'decay' in the air before dissipating, this surface has a transitory quality - impressions linger until fully erased by the slowly acting foam.

3. Nature might help shape a more responsible attitude towards nature.

Anderson Anderson with Cameron Schoepp, Prairie Ladder

The Prairie Ladder was commissioned by the Connemara Conservancy (Texas) to preserve, protect, and honor the prairie landscape.

The ladder introduces a veritcal axis, making a departure from the natural horizontal axis of the prairie. The ladder also proclaims human defiance of the horizontal limitations of the earth.

4. Memory engages with the collective memory and its relationship with space.

24260 in "art and Economy at Deichterhollen, Hamburg, 2002

Since 1960, Detroit has lost half of its population and demolished over 200,000 housing units. Kyong Park's 24620: The Fugitive House (2001-), is an abandoned house from Detroit that has been dismantled and reconstructed in several European cities. 24620 is looking for a new home in a 'kinder and gentler" city than Detroit. Europe, however, is becoming just as neo-liberal and neo-con as in the USA

With its pieces misplaced and their incisions permanent, the house, when re-assembled, replicates the condition of a dysfunctional city in the violence of dismembered spaces. Wherever it may go, the house takes the ideals and failures of modernism with it, creating discourses on the cultural state and destiny of each community.

5. Public Space offers citizens new ways to inhabit or relate to the city.

Usman Haque, Sky Ear, 0n September 15, 2004 at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Park, London

Sky Ear, by Haque Design + Research, contains miniature sensor circuits that respond to electromagnetic fields, particularly those of mobile phones. When activated, the sensor circuits in the clouds co-ordinate to cause ultra-bright coloured LEDs to illuminate thousand glowing helium balloons.

Related book reviews: Bright: Architectural Illumination and Light Installations, Spacecraft Fleeting Architecture and Hideouts and Ground-up City. Play as a Design Tool.

Image on the homepage: land(e)scape (Savonlinna, Finlandia - 1999) by Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala.

I avoid writing about artworks and exhibitions i haven't actually seen but there must be exceptions to the rule. Especially if the exception is ¿De qué otra cosa podríamos hablar? (What Else Could We Talk About?), Teresa Margolles' solo show at the Mexican Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. I read about it the day after my return from Venice. Not only did i miss it but apparently i passed by it twice.

I discovered the work of Margolles last year in the exhibition Emotional Systems at the Strozzina, Florence. Her installation filled an empty room with air humidified using the water that had previously been used to wash the corpses of people found dead in the street and brought to public mortuaries in Mexico City. For the Biennale, the artist left the morgue where she had located her studio to explore the urban territory, in search of material traces and residues of the street crimes.

The Mexican press reports that in 2008, over 5.000 people were killed due to violent clashes and executions among criminal gangs, and in operations of the security forces in the country. Approximately 2.800 died in similar circumstances in 2007.

Margolles and her assistants went to the scenes of the executions and soaked pieces of cloth with the mud or blood they found there, they collected fragments of windshield glass after a shooting, they also copied narcomensajes -the messages left by drug lords over the corpses of beheaded victims.

Teresa Margolles, Jewels, 2009. Jewels made with gold and fragments of windshields collected at murder sites in Mexico. Documentation of the Jewels in Culiacan city, Mexico, Spring 2009

The artist transferred the substances of so much sufferings, violence and social waste into the Palazzo Rota-Ivancich, a Sixteenth Century Venetian Palace located near Piazza San Marco. Just like the exhibition in Florence, the show requires you to pay extra attention. At first, all you see is jewellery, embroidery, wet pieces of fabrics drying on the wall and maybe you'll arrive when someone is cleaning the floor of the exhibition room. You might even pass by one of the flags that hang over the canal and ignore it.

The jewels, however, were made with fragments of windshield glass (Ajuste de Cuentas). The gold embroidery on fabric are copies of narcomensajes - "Hasta que caigan todos tus hijos" ("Until all your sons have fallen"), "Así terminan las ratas" ("This is the way rats end"). The flag is dyed with the blood found on the site of shootings and decapitations (Bandera.) And then of course there's that disturbing smell...

Every afternoon, someone cleans the marble floors of the Palazzo with a mop dipped in water mixed with the blood found on the site of murders committed during the drug wars in Northern Mexico. How long will traces of it remain on the sole of your shoes?

Image woki-toki

In a time where borders are no more able to contain the plague, when politics are mobilized by the ideological uses of fear, and where global capital is accompanied by a whole epidemic of violence, What else could we talk about? would want to suggest the need to politicize discontent and disgust, rather than falling prey of the strategies of a new world order erected over the ruins of the perpetual wars and infinite crusades of the powers to be, concludes curator Cuauhtémoc Medina in her statement.

The works presented at the Mexican Pavilion make tangible to a foreign audience the vicious circle of prohibition, addiction, accumulation, poverty, hatred and repression that transmogrifies the transgresive pleasures and puritan obsessions of the North into the South as Hell.

A performer uses golden thread to embroider a narcomensaje on a bloodstained fabric in Venice (photo)

Related: Emotional Systems, at the Strozzina in Florence.
You might also be interested in the following articles: México, ¿una sociedad decapitada?, Réplica21's review of the pavilion and The war we gave Mexico.

Nathalie Djurberg looks like a porcelain doll. She makes candy-coloured plasticine puppets who have orgies, who torture each other and suffer alien, abusive relationships. Sometimes they have fun but that involves a tiger licking a girl's bottom or a father who will eventually be killed by his own daughter. Djurberg, who won the Silver Lion award for best young artist at the Biennale, was the super star of Venice. I went to see her video installation three times and the room was always jam-packed with people drooling over her animations and taking photos of her monstruous sculpted flowers as if their lives depended on it. Not that i acted any differently.

Experimentet is an installation recreating a Garden of Eden from hell. It's a garden covered with creepy flowers. They are so big they dwarf visitors, their colours and shape are nauseating. Sun never lights up the garden, it's set in a perpetual crepuscule, in the basement of the Padiglione delle Esposizioni (the ex-Padiglione Italia in the Giardini of the biennale.)

Nathalie Djurberg, Experimentet, 2009. Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

A music composed by Hans Berg contributes to the uncomfortable atmosphere. On the screens, 3 merciless and erotic stop-motion animations.

One tells the story of a puppet who battles her own aggressive limbs. The second one features puppets who resort to all sort of brutishness in order to escape a hostile forest environment and the third one follows the sexual foreplay of various puppets, some of them Catholic ecclesiastics. Their sexual and sacrilegious encounters are just pretexts to highlight perverse games of power and submission.

Image from Halvor Bodin's flickr page

As the catalog of the biennale says: Through these minutely composed sequences of stop-motion animations, Djurberg toys with society's perceptions of right and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arises when we are confronted with these emotions.

Video of the installation. Designboom has more images.

Related: Nathalie Djurberg solo show at the Fondazione Prada.
The Biennale di Venezia runs until November 22 in Venice, Italy.

Hasan Elahi (you probably know his ongoing project Tracking Transience) Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad 1798-2006 (2009)

Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad is a transparent map that documents the use of U.S. Armed Forces by means of 22LR caliber bullets. Shooter from the Olympic Society of Shooting in Gijón shot from a distance of 25 meters (the Spanish law wouldn't allow for a closer shot) into the polycarbonate map at the precise location where each incursion has occurred since 1798. According to Congressional Research Service report for Congress, Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2006, there have been approximately 330 instances "in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes", or more than 1 per year.

In places, the resulting map is a literal wreck due to the number of incidents in certain areas. It is also a map of the expanding sphere of influence of the United States, as its military reach matches its economic scope of activities.

FEEDFORWARD - The Angel of History is on view until April 5, 2010 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón, Spain.

Artwork by Alex Diamond

Because i had wrongly assumed in the past that the size of a German city was proportionate to the importance of its airport, i was astonished to read in wikipedia that Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany (after Berlin). Well, the place might not have Munich's fancy airport but it does have some arresting buildings in construction, an impressive warehouse district, the super popular Fritz drinks and a gallery which inaugurates a series of articles that will focus on some of the most exciting art galleries i got to visit over the course of my life as a happy blogger. I went to heliumcowboy only once. I read they had a show of Boris Hoppek's work, I won't fuck with you tonight, so i took the train from Berlin and on my way back i kept wondering "How come there's no space like that in the German capital?"

I doubt there are many galleries like heliumcowboy anywhere else either. First there's that name. Charming and puzzling. Not even an interview with the gallery director has helped me uncover its origin. Then of course there's the artists the space represents. Since its opening in 2003, heliumcowboy artspace has been showcasing artists 'who are capable of pushing boundaries, are a little underground and whose aesthetic is the forecast of art.' Click through their list of artists and you'll get the point.

Photo © 2006 heliumcowboy artspace

Finally, heliumcowboy does openings that go way beyond tepid wine, polite conversations and bags of crisps. Each new exhibition is accompanied by live music, multimedia and performance relating to the the themes of the exhibition.

Artwork from Alex Diamond's latest show at heliumcowboy

I asked Jörg Heikhaus, the gallery director (click this way if you read german), to tell us what makes heliumcowboy such a unique and fantastic art space:

The 'about' page of the gallery defines heliumcowboy as a "hybrid cross of traditional gallery and urban exhibition lounge". I hope you will excuse my ignorance but what is an urban exhibition lounge exactly? Which role does it fulfill?

We are a traditional gallery in terms of our understanding towards the representation of artists - supporting them in any way possible, establishing them in the art world and subsequently on the market. In this context, "traditional" means that we understand and respect the processes, the knowledge- and business-demands of the industry we're a part of. The "urban exhibition lounge" sounds a bit dusty after doing this already for 6 years, but it still stands for the way we present us and our artists whenever we do shows or fairs or any other kind of exhibitions: our guests shall feel comfortable in an environment we create jointly with the artists for a young, urban generation. But you are right, after 6 years of proving our point we could shorten this whole sentence to one word: gallery.

© Artwork by 56k. Photo © 2005 heliumcowboy artspace

Jörg Heikhaus, the founder of heliumcowboy is (along with many other talents) a graffiti artist himself. How does his practice inform/influence the selection of artists who exhibit at HC?

It's just history, the background we come from. I have no time to do art myself any longer, and the last time I stood at a wall is almost 20 years ago. So it is a "was", amongst many different things I did over the years. But because Graffiti has become a vital part of contemporary art, my past is helpful: I can fully appreciate what is happening on the streets today and how it has developed in the past years. For me, a deep understanding of the culture, ideally mixed with own experiences in Graffiti, are a prerequisite for working with Urban Art from a gallery perspective.

© artwork by Boris Hoppek. © 2009 heliumcowboy artspace

Many of the artists represented by heliumcowboy could lazily be described as 'street artist'. Do you think that this expression "street artist" does justice to the artworks the gallery exhibits and sells?

Many of our artists "could be lazily described as ..." doing what they are best at and what we think is extraordinary and exciting about these individuals. Only few have actual roots in street art. What they all share though is a new approach to what is contemporary art, and street art and the accompanying cultural and social effects are a part of it. We started to label this as "New Urban Contemporary". We feel that one sums it up best.

© Artworks by Nina Braun. Photo © 2008 heliumcowboy artspace

Did the recent obsession with all things Banksy have any effect on the gallery and the artists associated with it? Have these emerging artists become more appetizing for the art market? Did you get more attention from the more 'traditional' contemporary art press as well?

Urban art, Graffiti, Street art - the amazement started to cease once the markets crumbled. And traditional press is always just interested in big names, and we can't really offer celebrity hype. There are only few places reserved in the glamour section for the Banksy's of today, but there are enough deck chairs in the sun for the best, most unique and hardest working artists. We try to make sure that our artists get all support necessary to focus on their work. And besides establishing new voices in art we also know that successful communication and promotion is not a pure privilege of the "traditional" art media any longer.

heliumcowboy booth at Basel art fair. Photo © 2008 heliumcowboy artspace

How important is it for heliumcowboy to have a booth at the Basel art fair?

To be seen outside of Hamburg, to get to know international collectors and curators, to establish a world-wide reputation - fairs are a vital part of that. Basel, despite it's small town feeling (compared to the 2 other, most important art fair locations, Miami and New York), is like a magnet for the nomadic art enthusiast. Having a booth at a premium art fair in Basel like VOLTA or SCOPE is key to being successful in Europe.

© artwork by moki. Photo © 2008 heliumcowboy artspace

heliumcowboy artspace exhibits mostly emerging artists. Isn't that a bit risky for a middle-size city like Hamburg? Isn't the Hamburg public more used to traditional art and less likely to follow your more adventurous selection?

That's exactly why we do art fairs and exhibitions abroad. Hamburg is a good city to be headquartered with the gallery, but the contemporary art market focuses much more on exciting cities like New York, London, Berlin, etc. Also, we mainly work with international artists, this means we bring something to the city that helps improve Hamburg's reputation and is something people from here don't see that often, unless they travel.

As long as we get the visibility we need on a world-wide scale, we couldn't be happier than being in Hamburg - it's a fine city, with a vibrant art scene, good people and the best football club in the world (St. Pauli of course). There is no such thing as Hype, which is helpful if you want to develop something sustainable and of high quality. The only drawbacks are the many traditional art buyers (give 'em a painting of a ship in the harbour any time) and the lack of support from the public authorities. For the senate, contemporary art is never as important as the next musical.


© Artworks by Christophe Lambert. Photo © 2008 heliumcowboy artspace

heliumcowboy's website is in english. Does that constitute a clue of the international clients and audience the gallery hopes to attract?

For years now, heliumcowboy artspace is an internationally recognised gallery. We have almost 60.000 unique visits every month at heliumcowboy.com. Only 15-20 % are from Germany. Most of our artists are not German. The majority of our sales are to international clients. Since 2006, we attend three major art fairs in Miami, New York and Basel every year - but not one in Germany. Our newsletter is bi-lingual, but because our website is more like a magazine with new posts every other day it would be impossible to translate with the staff we have.

© Artworks by NeasdenControlCentre. Photo © 2007 heliumcowboy artspace

More generally how's the contemporary culture like in Hamburg? Does it work like some kind of satellite of trendy Berlin or does it have its own taste, drive and dynamics?

As I said - there is no Hype in Hamburg. It is calm and unagitated. But it definitely has it's own dynamics and flavours, and this created a unique, large cultural scene, be it in music or arts. Once you've tasted it, you won't be needing Berlin any more ...

But seriously: you can't compare these cities. Both are totally different. There seems to be more sugar in Berlin, that's why so many people move there ...

© 2008 heliumcowboy artspace. © photos by diephotodesigner.de

Can you explain us the name? heliumcowboy?

Over a couple of beers, because that's how it came up... however, I like the image of the hard-working, earth-bound cowboy in contrast to helium, an inert gas, that (at least as the result of a physical chain reaction) makes the stars shine ...

Artwork from Alex Diamond's latest exhibition at heliumcowboy

Thanks Jörg (and Nadine who helped me set up the interview!)

Don't worry 'bout a thing (Being Alex Diamond) runs until November 13 at heliumcowboy in Hamburg, Germany.

There, i've said it.

The biggest sow at the Arsenale, however, is international and takes place at the spectacular building called the Corderie, a 319 metres long space once used to make ropes and cables for the Italian navy. The theme this year is a bit of a catch-all (as it is often the case in Venice). "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds is an exhibition driven by the aspiration to explore worlds around us as well as worlds ahead. It is about possible new beginnings--this is what I would like to share with the visitors of the Biennale," explained artistic director Daniel Birnbaum in his statement.

One of the most striking artworks for me was Pascale Marthine Tayou's installation Human Being which fills in a gigantic room with a bric-a-brac of objects, furniture made of recycled material, colourful figures, videos and urban noises that re-creates the activity of that small village that we call our world.

At first, the wooden huts on stilts evoke a shantytown or maybe an African village. As you come nearer, however, you realize that the windows of the dwellings act as screens that show activities taking place around the world, there are workshops, small manufactures, people walking down the street or sitting around a meal. It's both joyful and mysterious.

The space is inhabited by strange little figures. Their hair are masterfully entangled with lovely hairpins or feathers, their round bodies are wearing strips of old cloth or Flemish lace. Sometimes they also have bright jewellery on. They gather in little clusters. Each group following a different fashion. Some of them seem to be conversing in tight, knit clan as if they were plotting. Others seem to welcome you inside their circle.

Pascale Marthine Tayou was born in Cameroon, he now lives in Belgium but travels around the world with his artworks. He trained as a lawyer, not an artist. He's a nomad, his identity is split between locations and the paths he could have or did take. That's a condition that the installation tries to reflect.

Anyone know what this art work might be?

If you happen to be in Oslo this week, don't miss Hans E. Thorsen's re-interpretation of Edens Hage at the 0047 gallery.

Arne Lindaas in front of the original Edens Hage (image)

Last June one of Oslo's most well known public artworks, Edens Hage (The Garden of Eden) by Arne Lindaas, was removed from the walls of the Hammersborg tunnel in the center of Oslo. It was decided that the artwork, painted in 1972, could not stand pollution, graffiti and the passing of time any longer. Besides, a renovation of the tunnel was due. It has not been decided whether Edens Hage will reappear on the wall one day.

Young artist Hans E. Thorsen paid homage to the iconic public artwork by inviting the public to help him recreate the mystical figures of Edens Hage on the white walls of the 0047 gallery. The artist drew the outlines of the figures and gallery visitors were handed black paint and brushes to fill in the silhouettes.

With this project, Thorsen wishes to explore how the reconstruction of another artists work can be worked into ones own production and how the public artwork will transform inside the white cube, with its many corners and structures. Edens Hage - Inspired by Arne Lindaas, is a tribute to the original artwork and looks at the collective affection towards a public artwork.

Besides, the wall painting raises an issue much discussed in architects, artists and restorers circles: Is it better to recreate a building or artwork exactly as it used to be before its destruction or decay or should we instead choose to pay homage to the work in a more creative way?

Edens Hage - inspired by Arne Lindaas is on view until October 25, 2009 at the 0047 gallery in Oslo. More images in this lovely flickr set.

I'll kick off the Venice reports with the show MADDESTMAXIMVS at the Australian Pavilion. I wasn't expecting to like that one as much as i did. A 1:1 'sculptural' replica of the V8 'Interceptor' car driven by Mel Gibson in Mad Max and parked at the entrance of the show almost made me run in the opposite direction.

Still from Interceptor Surf Sequence, 2009

Still from Interceptor Surf Sequence, 2009

The vehicle started to make sense when i entered the pavilion. MADDESTMAXIMVS reflects Shaun Gladwell's addiction to extreme sports such as skateboarding, BMX bike riding and break-dancing. Instead of exploring the urban backdrop he has used his public to, the artist ventures into Australian hinterland and desert regions. All Gladwell knew about the location until then came from cinema and in particular the Mad Max movies.

The first video i saw in the pavilion was mesmerizing. A motorcyclist seemed to be surfing a running car as if he were on a wave. Although the car is following a seemingly endless road at very high speed, the images are shown in slow motion. "Slow motion gets away from the high-speed, high-impact imagery of MTV that was also part of the 'Mad Max' films. I'm more interested in distilling, slowing down," explained the artist.

Still from Apology to Roadkill (1-6)

Still from Apology to Roadkill (1-6)

A second video features the corpse of a kangaroo on the side of highways (one never thinks of kangaroos as roadkill, right?) The same motorcyclist appears again. He never removes his helmet, he takes the marsupial in his arms and carries it like a pieta to a more dignified place for burial.

The location to the Australian outback confers a haunting dimension to the videos. A political dimension too i suspect. It's hard not to think about the suffering of indigenous Aboriginal inhabitants, in particular the fate met by the Stolen Generations. Last year, the Australian government issued a formal apology for the mistreatment that the traditional owners of the land featured in the videos had been submitted to in the past.

Not only is the Mad Max-style car parked at the entrance of the pavilion (who would steal it anyway? The only vehicle you can drive in Venice is a boat), the motorcycle that stars in one of the videos has been implanted in the outer wall of the building. The videos were so good i think i should just ignore the vehicle antics.

Centred Pataphysical Suite, 2009

Downstairs, a tower made of monitors - Centred Pataphysical Suite (2009) - shows performers spinning on the spot either skateboarding, break-dancing, dancing on hig sticks or BMX riding.

The Arts Newspaper tv has a video interview with the artist, Australia Council for the Arts has another one featuring a journalist with a super quirky accent and Vernissage.tv had a long look inside the show.

The Venice Art Biennale runs until the 22nd of November 2009.

Ever since i found about his tattoos on the pin-ups and luchadores appearing in vintage Mexican magazines, i was in love Dr Lakra. The tattoo artist lives in Mexico. A couple of weeks ago i was in Mexico too and there was a solo show of Dr Lakra at the kurimanzutto gallery. I felt like the happiest person in the world. Now, in retrospect, i feel that i'd been happier had i not forgotten in a taxi my lovely camera with all the images i had taken at the exhibition.

Dr Lakra, Black Gordman, 2003

The Kurimanzutto exhibition shows a few framed ink on paper from the Health & Efficiency series. A few years ago, the artist was strolling around the Sunday market on Brick Lane in London. He bought for a few pounds a stack of nudist magazines. He brought the lot home and adorned the illustrations with gothic creatures, horny skeletons, penises on legs, SM accessories and of course the ladies get covered with tattoo and semen in the process. Planet mag has some images.

Dr. Lakra, Sin título (March 1950), 2008,

The rest of the exhibition, however, is drawn directly over the gallery walls.

Image Geraldine Juarez


Image Jamie Allen

Image kurimanzutto gallery

The characters, stylistic references, scenes, close-ups, expressions and texts of Dr Lakra's huge drawing come from all kinds of sources. There are female African figures, Japanese characters, scientific, medical and anthropological illustrations of the nineteenth century, 'porn' photo-novels, images in record covers, film scenes, publicity found in vintage magazines, and graffiti-.

Because i can not really afford any artwork by Dr Lakra, i bought the wonderful little book Dr. Lakra, Health & Efficiency, published by Editorial RM, Mexico City.

More images of his work at the Gallery Kate MacGary.

Related: Afterthoughts: Goth exhibit at the Yokohama Museum, Japan.

Let this portrait not delude you: Fernando Llanos usually wears no moustache

Fernando gained fame with the films and messages he projects over public spaces around the world. He carries all his equipment on his back, on a bike or on a skateboard. His projections are site-specific. For his first video performance, he projected airplanes crashes on the airport of Porto Alegre in Brasil. He built a superhero aura and mythology around his performances. When he screens, he's not Fernando Llanos anymore, he is Videoman. He's got the posters, the figurine, the attire, the cool gadgets, he even has the superpet. As he says: Just like Batman has his robin, Superman has his dog Krypto, Videoman has Chamaco!! Recently Videoman was at the Mapping Festival in Geneva and introduced the crowd to the Videohuahua, a chihuahua screening angry chihuahua barkings outside an art gallery in the center of the Swiss city.

I'm glad i'm gettting back on the interview road (the last one dates back to March) with Fernando Llanos:

I read somewhere that one of your moto is "Se feliz: consume vídeo". Which kind of video could make us happy? And how?

The slogan of my website has been, all along those 9 years BE HAPPY CONSUME VIDEO.

Ten years ago or so, when i was starting to do some widespread cultural spam in order to promote my video exhibitions, i was looking for a sentence that i could identify with and that people would remember easily. There are slogans in Mexican publicity that promote the consumption of vegetables or water (healthy things): "Eat fruit and vegetables", for example. So i decided to create mine, right from the start i wanted it to kick off with two concepts that are important to me: To BE (to be something in life, whatever you like as long as it enables you to exercize your existence) and HAPPINESS (i see myself as a hopeless eudaimonist).

The slogan contains two intentions. The first one is to underline with humour the consumption of what i produce: video, and i do it using the same sentence tone as advertising, at least the one legally handled in here. Here slogans such as "eat fruit and vegetables" can only be part of some advertising campaign.

But the real motivation is also a more complex one, or at least one that is more refined, it is the one i mention in the conclusion of my thesis "Video online: New Spaces, New Narratives" where i summarize the work i made with video and internet. I do it this way:

"The video format online becomes more flexible and participatory, and this concerns as much the artists as the public itself.

I'm looking for new strategies that would connect my production with people, it seems to me that the abyss between the sacred art of the museum and the oi polloi is getting wider. I think that art needs to connect more directly with all kinds of people or at least that art should be looked at with new eyes, and to achieve that we need new, less complacent and less passive strategies.

Mi battle cry has been so far "Be happy, consume video". If the word "video" takes its origins in the first person of the indicative present of the latin verb and means "I see", the proposal is therefore that everyone consumes what they want to see and share online their own iconosphere. Besides, in a country without memory, we should make our own history and show it online to the whole country and to the rest of the world. Let's stop importing references and which medium is more adapted to that than video?

I'm interested in shared reflections. Over the past four years i found confirmation of my belief: over 1000 persons, of any type of profile, from every part of the world, have received video each week by email. And over 3 millions visits on my webpage make me think that there are ways to achieve this.

The future cannot be only for artists, nor can thesis be solely for university graduates or members of ecclesiastical councils."

The funny thing is that i wrote this text just as i was working on the first drafts of Videoman. Somehow i see similar intentions and common grounds.

During one of your presentations at the festival arte.mov in Brazil you defined your video performances as 'urban acupuncture.' Can you explain us what this involves? Do cities really need to be submitted to acupuncture?

What i do is indeed a performance but i would rather call them Video-interventions. They consist in the projection of moving videos in the city. I chose specific location where a dialogue between the space and the screening can take place. I've done over 30 video-interventions in 5 different cities in 3 yeas. Each of them aims to be different from the others, to show a peculiar way to interact with people or with a specific zone, you can watch the videos online.

This is how i describe them in the catalog:
Series of video-interventions in public space: avenues, monuments, squares, shopping malls, etc. Such acts aims to grab the attention of passersby in a direct and surprising way. They are ephemeral because of their mobile nature and they are mobile thanks to a personal harness designed to enable me to transport and use all the equipment necessary.

These video-interventions and their recording create new materials that, in their turn, become into the raw material that starts to process, exhibit and broadcast online in order to give way to a shared reflection with people who may or may not be related to the art world.

I called Videoman's video interventions "urban acupuncture" because i thought it was a good metaphor of the way they work in the city. They are short, sometimes they are disturbing and are a bit incisive. I believe that in some way they can help to make public space a "healthier" place through a brief catharsis. This "cure" can be a very subjective apreciación but it seems to me that it can be applied to anyone who works in public space and believe that they can contaminate the public with something of their proposal.

The term was inspired by one of Guillermo Gómez-Peña's performances, the Mad-mex. We met in the Bienal de Mercosul in 2005, when i was presenting the first version of Videoman, he was 'de-colonizing' the body of a woman who was holding the flags of the countries that invaded with acupuncture needles. That's where i first thought of calling my interventions that way.

Let's remember that the original and full name of the project is:

[ vi video ]
Mobile video-intervention in specific urban contexts.

Later on, however, the project was more closely related to the terms Videoman and urban acupuncture.

Obviously i believe that cities need this sort of urban acupuncture. Graffiti, sticker guerrilla, radio pirate, etc. Each of these manifestations that co-exist in a city and that take place without asking for the permission of the authorities are, in my view, necessary to the development of a healthy cultural life. If one only relies on the established channels and spaces, where and how can new discourses be inserted that are likely to refresh the existing ones? I believe that our megalopolis needs some kind of participative cure. How can we appropriate spaces and make them ours if everything is left in the hands of the government or of corporate advertising? As i explained in one of my talks, i believe in the sentence of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: "The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It". That's how public space should be understood, at least as far as people who dedicate their life to art and interested in sharing it with new audiences are concerned.

One takes some actions, even if they scandalize or make people feel uncomfortable, that's a sign that something is happening and it is better than to resign yourself to the indifference or the polite silence of the public who visit museums. I think that the punk voice, the voice of denunciation, of the DIY spirit can help understand the nature of that acupuncture.

Our cities are overwhelmed with visual stimuli: billboards, neon signs, information boards, etc. How do you compete with that and get passersby attention during your video performances?

The starting point is not to regard them as competition, artists use other elements such as physicality or movement to attract the attention. Sometimes even the outfit or the means of transport can be used to leave an indentation in the memory.

We can not discuss in terms of competition because the advertising world always has had much higher budgets. One has to be able to turn things upside down. Unlike publicity, Videoman's video projections are site-specific, they tie in better with their context and exploit scandal better. A publicity is most often visible in many places and they will eventually be replaced by others. The projections i make attempt to attache themselves and explode within a very concrete space.

Besides, as far as attracting the attention is concerned, i have an advantage. I can be politically incorrect and show things that publicity can't show. For example, i can project pornography in the street or a kiss on the prostitutes working in the red district of a city, or the planes that miss their landing in the airport. This is a discursive luxury, not anyone can use it, you have to be cynical and have guts to do something like that. You have to embrace the challenge and very often even risk your body in order to create an action so deeply poetical that it will remain in people's meme, turn into a myth and almost become word of mouth.

The most fascinating characteristic of Videoman for me is all the mythology you build around it: the figurines, bicycle, posters that end up in movie theater, etc. Is this part of a larger strategy?

Exploring this mythification of the character has been extremely fun and constructive, i was able to broaden the imagery of Videoman's field of action. The project is in fact based on highlighting ideas, it's not as if i'd spend my life projecting images. I do the projections and then document them (both on line and off line) and that's what gives a sense to the whole research behind the project, but i've enjoyed very much the possibility to lucubrate and expand myself further in the mythification of a super-hero.

Besides, working along these principles has enabled me to copy marketing strategies that help superheroes maintain their image.

In reality, as i said in the talk, i always wanted to be a superhero. When i was a kid i used to collect the comics of Superman, Batman and Spiderman, my first drawings represented this kind of warriors, a mix between super-heroes, Mad Max and the luchadores. When i was 9, i was selling at school the reproductions of drawings i was making of He-Man and the Transformers. If you analyze Videoman, you will see that he was be as basic as Batman, he's a guy with tools, discipline and a lot of guts.

Therefore i already had the fascination for these stories, those media, those objects when i was just a kid. Expanding the project using objects that respond to this sort of marketing strategy has enabled me to broaden the spectrum of fascination and empathy that the character can generate.

I think that's the reason why people associate the project more with the word VIDEOMAN than with its original name, it is easier to associate the whole project with the images of the character in action than with the interventions themselves.

Or are these declinations of your persona just ideas you get 'on the spur of the moment'? My favourite were the moustache and the figurine episodes. Would you mind elaborating on those two?

As i explained you in the previous question, when i started working on this project, i was convinced that the most important element was the projection of the video in the street, but i gradually realized that the character of VIDEOMAN was taking the lead role, that many of his intentions could be summed up in his harnesses and his equipment, that's how i started thinking i should give way to the desire i had always had to be a superhero. It was very simple, as a kid, i used to read many comics and i always aspired to be a superhero. As time passed i realized that in the art world one can invent whatever they want and as one generate their own bubble and enjoys staying inside it, why shouldn't i create my own superhero?

But that was a slow and gradual process. The first version just coined the name VIDEOMAN, and it fits the postcard quite well. After that i started working more on the idea of a garment and attire that would befit a superhero, borrowing from the strategies of the superheroes i found most interesting: the poster, the figurines, a comic to explain the project, etc. I would like to keep on following along those lines. I'd like to shoot a trailer in 35 mm of a film that doesn't exist and keep on building fiction around the character.

In the beginning, the moustache was a tribute to Felipe Ehrenberg, the first conceptual artist in México, i was curating his 50 year retrospective for the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City and it seemed to me that after 3 years of work, it was high time to come up with an action that would draw attention to the complicity we had together. His moustache is a key characteristic of his personality. I kept it and shaved it only the day after the inauguration.

One day i read that his moustache was a tribute to Emiliano Zapata, then somehow I also felt it had some similarities with the character of Videoman. I therefore decided that for some versions, the character would wear this kind of revolutionary emblem, as the majority of Zapatistas wore moustaches and fought in guerrilla.

The figurines of Videoman that we issed were commissioned to someone whose sole occupation is to make superheroes. He sells them at the exit of Metro stations or on the main square, he has Superman, Batman, but also some Mexican superheroes such as El Santo, Chapulin Colorado, etc. I asked the sculptor to adapt in figurine the pictures in which i appear as Videoman, i loved the way he enlarged my features and misinterpreted concepts. I think that there is some beauty in the way knowledge or concepts can be adulterated. A + B does not always equal C, it can be Ab or aB. I like to see the subtle conceptions that an unofficial expert of heroes can have being reflected in an object that reminds me of the cult we raise to those characters. The ones of Starwars, the Marvel or the Manga. People do not collect figures of saints anymore, nowadays they almost pray to these new icons.

You collaborate also with commercial brands. Can you give us a couple of examples and explain the kind of limit(s) you impose on those collaborations? When do you accept a purely commercial commission and what makes you reject another one?

I do a lot of commercial works, i call them creative exercises, they help me stay in shape. Making a DVD for a client like ABSOLUT requires a rigor and technical ability that i might not look for otherwise. Creating a tv programme that both the producer and the channel will like is a big challenge, because in the art world, people tend to answer only to themselves, no matter how good or bad that can be. I think that making exercises that start with limits is always healthy from a creativity point of view, and the world of advertising is full of those limits, themes and contents.

I have a video production company that allows me to undertake any type of commercial work, designing web pages, shooting video clips or making of for movies. I don't put the Fernando Llanos firm under these works. I don't want to associate any brand or commercial project with my name nor with my artistic projects. Nike wanted to hire me to use Videoman as part of a strategy of guerrilla advertising. I obviously declined. I don't think these things and worlds should mix up. Instead, i sold them a videoclip and everyone was happy.

Of course the main reason why i accept these work is the budget they give me access to. It feels like going to school and being paid huge amounts of money so that i can learn and train. Making this kind of concessions allows me to increase the competence and freedom i have for my own artistic projects. Working one week on a commercial project enables me to live well during 3 months while working full time on my projects as an artist or cultural producer. The most important thing is that you never lose sight of your priorities, that you are aware that your production as an artist is above everything else.

You are preparing a book on Ciudad Satélite. Can you tell us what the book will be like? How you came to be interested in this suburban area?

Satélite, the book (Historias suburbanas de la Ciudad de México - Suburban stories of Mexico City) is a publishing projects that touches upon themes of architectural, artistic and scientific popularization. Its aim is to investigate the destiny of an emblematic suburb for the middle class, a pioneer at its origins but which grew more conservative over time. It seeks to crystallize the history and memory of its people, places, idiosyncrasies and identity. This is illustrated with the collaboration of artists who live in that area.

The publishing projects hopes to contribute to the awareness of an urban phenomenon, the middle class suburb, created as a progressive and modern challenge by one of México's most famous architects. It did however evolved into a serial and uniform city, based on maximizing the rent and on a conservative social project with a dose of political innovation.

It aims to enrich the visual, architectonic and cultural landmark that is the Ciudad Satélite for Mexico City. Ciudad Satélite, almost 50 years after its construction, features a peculiar wealth that has been scarcely identified and valued: its architectural legacy and its complex urban planing, the iconography of the so-called "spatial era" that lead to its foundation, its aesthetic that blends modernism and consumer kitsch.

The idea is to crystallize the memory of the area, through the story and history of the life of its inhabitants, but also the advertisements that promoted the communities at the end of the '50s, as well as the narratives of "external observers" of this new suburban culture. All of that will undoubtedly contribute to the promotion to the enrichment of local cultures.

Eight years ago i decided to propose the realization of an experimental documentary about the Satellite City, as a thesis project, in order to graduate from the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Fine Arts. My interest for the theme was at first to get to know my roots and reconcile myself with my origin. But i was also fascinated by the fact that in a city of something like 20 million inhabitants, one of the biggest on the planet, there is a specific way of being that can be identified, mythified inside and by Mexico City. It is something that, in my view, reveals a cultural contribution that many Chilangos are not ready to acknowledge yet.

I was born in D.F., but from zero to 10 year old i was living in Valle Dorado, a satellite city of Satélite. I grew up, as some say, inside the aegis of the satellite culture. Before i started investigating the issue, satellite was for me a symbol of the promises of development that were never realized (the beginning of the famous post-modernity), exquisite ambassadors of the kitsch and the suburban aesthetics, the part of Mexico City that most aspired to be yankee and the characters with their provincial aura who go through the capital as satellites.

I had a series of abstract beliefs that did not really fit into the picture, the only thing i knew for sure was that inhabitants of Satellite city were among the few easily recognizable people in this big city: the way they dress, talk, even their hair was peculiar, different and identifiable, just like people from Tepito or Coyoacán (other neighbourhoods with a strong personality in DF.) A 'being' distant from the omnivore and homogeneous fauna of Mexico City.

In order to realize the documentary i mentioned i worked on a little book i called "satellite logbook". It's a booklet where i wrote down the information i was gathering: cuttings, drawings, statistics, drafts, ideas that would help me unfold the mysteries of Satellite City. A mere depository of information without any form nor pretense.

I interviewed some personalities living in the region. I managed to get fragments of documentaries and tv programs in which Satellite City appeared. I read in the Hemeroteca Nacional all the Ecos de Satélite (Satellite's Echo), the mythical newspaper of the area. The investigation grew so much that i never shot that video and graduated with another project.

Four years later the start of the investigation i met Uriel Waizel and we founded Satelín Torres, a project of urban renovation using the enhancement of local culture, a space within which unravel and promote everything about Satellite, an initiative which, in some way and 8 years later, has triggered this editorial project.

I must admit that what i admire the most among your artworks are the drawings. Can you select 3 of them and comment briefly each of them?

Thank you Régine, i'm happy that you like the drawings. I've been drawing as far as i can remember and i love to "think with the hands", as Ehrenberg called the act of drawing. Even if i've always drawn, it's only recently (and thanks to the publication of Cursiagridulce) that i've been invited to do exhibitions of drawings and not only of my work on video or online.

I'm going to comment three drawings from two different projects. The first one is a drawing about Videoman, it's called "Mapa mental" (Mental Map), the second and third one are from my book Cursiagridulce, one is called "Corazón" and the last one "Software included".

Mapa mental

The first one, Mapa mental, is a drawing that helps me explain what comes into play in the version 4.0. of Videoman, the one i presented at Madrid Abierto. Drawings help me in my projects because i like fluid sketches and diagrams, they help me see all the information in just one look and help me give space to the complexity of the idea to be developed. In this specific case it helps me communicate with the rest of the team with whom i developed the harness. The engineer and the stylist rely on this drawing, it explains the concepts and the functions it should embody and from there they can make a proposal to me.

This drawing has three parts: the central one shows the breakdown of the equipment and the way it connects to its electrical electrical autonomy or dependence. On the left side, at the bottom, there is a proposal about how the system, in particular all the devices, can fit into the bicycle. On the right side are notes related to the outfit over a lucha libre doll.

This version in Videoman is particularly ecological, the electricity is generated by a dynamo activated when i pedal which, in turn, charges the battery. For this and with the intention of engaging further the public, a microphone enables people to talk and an open Bluetooth network enable the sharing of videos, speech and thoughts bubble appear just like in comics.

This is a large format drawing, the first drafts of the project were small but because the booklet had to move to the exhibition space, i decided to give more graphical formality (technically they are more sophisticated than a draft made with more spontaneity) and a larger dimension. In this way, the drawing kept its function, but it looks much better.

Corazón

The drawing "Corazón" (Heart) is one of the oldest of Cursiagridulce, i made it while i was still at college. I decided that during one year i would stop to use big framed formats, and that i would focus on developing ideas that would work on the format of a book or notebook. It was the beginning of the 13 booklets i made over the course of 7 years and from which the book Cursiagridulce was born.

The blue and green marks are the impression of my nipples. Therefore the representation of the heart aims to be more or less at the 1:1 level. That would be the real size of my heart and above my breast-notebook float the women whom, until that day, i had loved the most. These are very synthetical drawings that where lights are contrasting on their faces and profiles.

Software included

Finally "Software included" is a drawing in which Ana Lucía is seen sleeping, she is the woman i have loved the most in my life, i was in love with her for 9 years, in a series of ups and downs i kidnapped her in France (where she was living with her boyfriend) and brought her to Barcelona to spend Christmas with me and then New Year's Eve in París, it was in 2001. The drawing represents a moment when she is sleeping and i feel deeply in love. I could not stop looking at her, i could spend hours watching her. I think that my way of misunderstanding love, the act of never being tired of contemplating is a ritual goes further than the intellect and it brings us up to the most basic of the world of encounters. The divine perception, in the communion with the other, and the unexplainable surprise they arise in us, a suspended sigh.

Because the theme of love and sex is a constant in my work, Ana Lucía appears in probably 70% of my works, not only in the Cursiagridulce drawings, but also in the videos of Videomails and Videoviajes. I should add that i immediately apply ink, without ever making any draft with a pencil. What is in the process of being built exists. That's why i like it, it's like video, raw, without rehearsal. Life doesn't allow a second take.

Your project Videoman has toured the world, not only because you were invited to show your work in many prestigious museums and cultural venues around the world but also because Videoman has inspired other works. Could you tell us something about the projects that owe so much to Videoman? Do not omit the naked version of your performances, please, please!

I like to share. The reason for that is very simple: i feel like i'm the result of other people who have shared with me. While growing up, i believe i acquired moral debts to other personalities and i'll probably never repay them enough. When i made the Videomails in 2000 several artists copied the model and referred to me in their websites.

With the Videoman project several artists did indeed ask for our advice, others just copied the model, not only the model of the device but also the structure deployed when selecting some spaces (as in the case of the Spanish naked "Videoman", see the newspaper cover below). We uploaded online right from the start all the information about the way to prepare the harness and how it works. Several people suggested i should patent or copyright it, but i always thought that the best thing that could happen would be that other people would copy and improve the model. After all, what matters isn't mostly the technological novelty but rather to be able to make the most of technological goodies that are already there. My contribution or stamp had more to do with the situations and contents generated than with the equipment only.

Mexico city is North America's oldest city. Nowadays, foreigners like me associate it with lucha libre, pulquerías, the Metropolitan Cathedral, traffic jams, etc. But why should we put the city on the new media art map? Can you name us a couple of events, galleries, institutions that support media art?

DF has a very vibrant life in terms of creation just like in any other megalópolis on the planet. The reality is that we have to fight for every square centimeter with the effect that the production has maintained a remarkable vitality. I'd say that as far as media art is concerned, we have key actors who keep on raising interests well beyond our frontiers. Arcangel Constantini has just been awarded the support of VIDA, Gilberto Esparza obtained it last year. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Manuel de Landa are other examples of key figures in new media, they are Mexican but have spread their wings in other countries.

There are spaces such as Laboratorio Arte Alameda that weaves wonderful links with other latitudes (for example the Video Game exhibition that Laura Baigorri curated for Laboral), and it acts as a space to get to know the local scene.

The Festival TRANSITIO is the strongest event of art and technology that we have and it seems to me that it is growing and improving with each editiion, let's see what they will propose us in 2010.

But most of all what i would like to highlight is that in general the technological discourse of the peripheries seems to be more critical and intertwined with real necessities of protest or almost survival, because one starts with lack, rather than with the excess. To give you an examples, Arcangel Constantini's famous Atari-noise which won the Festival Interference in France in 2001.

And more importantly can you think of other artists (using technology or not) from Mexico that i should add to my 'interview candidates' list?

Arcangel Constantini. Our most famous net artist.

Hector Falcón. Excellent multidisciplinary artist who works mostly with his body.

Rogelio Sosa. Great sound artist who likes noise.

Ivan Abreu. Cubano-Mexican artist who works fantastically with data and cables.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. You already know him, maybe you've even interviewed him. You can't go wrong with him :-P

Gilberto Esparza

Felipe Ehrenberg

Any upcoming project you could share with us?

Yes, this year i'd like to make a record with my band, mi:reyna. We've been rehearsing for a year and we want to start playing live. It's a challenge because i can't play the guitar and i'm learning how to while we are getting ready and rehearsing the songs. I want to believe that i can build something interesting and nice from my limits. I'd like to end this interview with that because i believe that this profession is full of freedoms and it's both fun and healthy to enjoy them. That's how i jumped from being a painter to being a video artist, that's how i started a book but ended up publishing 3 (two others are scheduled to be published.) I started doing video because it was the medium that joined image and sound and i want to see how far i can go with music. It's going to be one of my creative priorities in 2009.

Mi Reyna. Photo credit: Atonatiuh Bracho

Thanks Fernando!

Portrait on the home page stolen from Lucas Bambozzi's place.