Diversas vistas de la Documenta12

Juan Davila y la Documenta12

Juan Davila

1946 in Santiago (CL), lives in Melbourne (AU)

Exhibitions: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006 (AU); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006 (AU); Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra 2002 (AU)

General Introduction

Since the early 1970s, Juan Davila has consistently interrogated cultural, sexual and political identities in his art and writing, drawing on lineages of art and representation in Latin America, Australia, Europe and North America. Central to his work is the revision of dominant histories through the language of painting. Davila had to leave Chile in 1974 and has lived in Australia since that time. He is committed to an active involvement of artists in public discourse in both Chile and

Australia, and he has a great political awareness. Davila is interested in immigration policy and in the myths of national identity. At the same time, he has transferred many elements of colonial painting to Australia.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Davila’s paintings utilised strategies of quotation and fragmentation, combining elements from British and American Pop art with images drawn from everyday life – folk art, pornography and political images – to destabilise the authority of received art-historical narratives.

From the late 1980s his works began to incorporate more Latin American references and motifs, as they investigated the legacies of colonialism and the development of local modernity and its relationship to Indigenous culture.

More recently, Davila’s painting has operated in the stylistic mode of French salon painting, exploring a moment when academic painting fractured into modernity. Translating this to the contexts of Australia and Chile, Davila locates modernity beyond the European centres, arguing that this fragmentation occurred not only in Paris but also in Chile, influenced by the country’s Indigenous culture. At the same time, Davila re-establishes realism and figuration as means with which to convey political ideas and emotional impact.

Documenta12 Works

A selection of Juan Davila’s paintings from 1979 to 2003 is presented at documenta 12, displayed in each of the exhibition’s four central venues.

In the Aue-Pavilion, Hysterical Tears (1979) is a key work featuring Davila’s quotation method, presenting fragments of British and American Pop in a form of comic strip, indexed with a list that suggests a work with multiple authors. As a painter from Chile working in Australia, the problem of producing meaning was tackled directly through a dismantling of unity and a refusal of originality. Untitled (1986) continues this mode by locating a pornographic nude on an Allan D’Arcangelo highway painted in the manner of American Pop artist, balancing a Pop still life on his back.

In the documenta-Halle, The Lamentation: A Votive Painting (1991) references ex-voto painting, a form of painterly religious offering translated from Europe to the New World and widespread throughout Latin America. The paintings often incorporated mixed media and different scenes within the work, locating Davila’s use of fragmentation and collage within a Latin American modern history. With its references to torture and poverty, Davila delivers a scathing critique of politics and class in Latin America (and elsewhere, as the Australian references attest!)

In the Fridericianum are featured two paintings that draw on the scale and form of history painting: Schreber’s Semblance (1993), and The Arse End of the World (1994). Both works present a psychoanalytic reading of national identity and affiliations. The former relates the case of Dr Schreber, an important reference case of paranoid schizophrenia for Freud, to that of militarism and nationalism; the symbols of fascist and nationalist ideology appear in different forms around

Schreber like phantasms. The latter painting links the Australian mythic tale of the 19th century explorers Burke and Wills, who died while trying to cross the desert, with a 1990s political wrangle between the then-prime minister and his predecessor. In both cases a perverse relationship to the land is expressed; displaced and ambivalent. Also in the Fridericianum is a small work on paper, The Refugee Camp Condom Vending Machine (2002), with its use of a modernist grid lined with barbed wire suggesting the barbarism that underlies modernity and its desire for order.

A group of works in the Neue Galerie go deeper into Davila’s investigation of modernity; The Liberator Simón Bolívar (1994) presents the Latin American founding father as a working class prostitute of ambiguous gender and race, going to the heart of colonial anxiety around racial mixing and social hierarchies and tapping into the fragility of nationalist mythologies. The two recent paintings, On the Fringes of Melbourne (2003), produced in Davila’s realist salon mode, depict the intervention of modernist architecture into the Australian landscape, its blankness and phallic heroism erasing any sense of history or local knowledge in pursuit of a generic ‘international style’.

With the support of The Australian Government through the Australian Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

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Fuente: Documenta12

Juan Davila en Documenta12 - Fotogaleria I

Estas son fotografías cortesía de Documenta12

Davila_01, Hysterical Tears, 1979
Öl auf Leinwand | oil on canvas 1
78 × 661,5 cm

Courtesy Juan Davila;
Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

Davila_02 The Arse End of the World, 1994
Öl und Collage auf Leinwand | oil and collage on canvas; 240 × 305 cm
Courtesy Juan Davila; Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

Davila_04 Juanito Laguna, 1995
Öl auf Leinwand | oil on canvas
123 × 107,5 cm
Courtesy Juan Davila; Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

Davila_07 Hysterical Tears, 1979 Ausstellungsansicht │
Exhibition view
Courtesy Juan Davila;
Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art Photo: Frank Schinski / documenta GmbH

Ines Doujak en la Documenta12

Ines Doujak

*1959 in Klagenfurt (AT), lives in Vienna (AT)

Exhibitions: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2007 (DE), Salzburger Kunstverein,

2005 (AT); MAC – Miami Art Central, 2004 (US)

General Introduction

In her photographs, posters, collages, installations, and performances, Ines Doujak examines stereotypical notions and constructions of genders and identities. She asks how attributions, clichés, norms, and marginalisation come about, what it means, for example, to be a woman, a homosexual, a migrant, or a Jew. She addresses political issues and image politics from a feminist perspective. Her analysis of the racist and sexual manipulation of images is visual. At the same time, she analyses the power structures that have been dominant for centuries.

The expansive modern colonialism produced the normative gaze that “determined what is human, beautiful, cultivated, and intelligent [...] The abject self was displaced onto the exotic other, and deported to the colonies: the always unfinished, always creative, that which always disrupts its own limitations, the copulating, being pregnant, giving birth, dying, eating, drinking, and secreting.” Doujak disrupts the authoritarian collective regimes of the gaze. Struggles are fought on bodies. Suppression is linked to the potential of resistance and rebellion. This is also true for images. They can never be completely appropriated, but are always crossed. Apart from that, staged, forceful visual ideas characterise her work. Against conventional, idealised images of women, strong, lusty images prevail. Activity is eroticised. Gay, lesbian, or heterosexual relationships overlap and live the confusion of genders. They revoke the usual images and thus also have the potential for producing political pleasure. Her work moves in the field of tension between artistic production and political action, renouncing conventional notions of oeuvre.

Documenta 12 Works

In her Siegesgärten (Victory gardens; 2007), Ines Doujak examines the neo- colonial practice of “internal land-grabs” after the “external land-grabs” of colonialism. The aesthetic as well as ethical “diversity of life” becomes a factor of economic value-creation, and capitalisation has destructive effects on local communities. In a bed with shaky legs, a small natural landscape is thriving. Many colourful seed packets are stuck into the soil. However, the pictures and texts are quite explosive. On the front are plant photographs and collages that also show a queered sexuality.

The description on the seed bags: “autonomous service for intellectual property“, “non-coded DNA”, or “biodiversity”. The conditions and consequences are printed on the back. So biodiversity is going to be destroyed by the inclusion of genetically altered plants, through monocultures and the trade with endangered resources. “Biopiratism/external and internal land-grab“ are the major themes: “the appropriation of nature and the knowledge about its use are currently operated by trans-national corporations” – and that without consent or financial compensation. Market interests do not allow it. The botanical gardens, too, work with resources and make them available for commercial uses. The first partially patented human will have equally few rights of profit participation. The originals of the collages will also be shown: floral patterns are the background in front of which sexually charged women, men, and animals roam about in exotic nature pieces. Next to it, a wall collage shows colonialism, and its current continuation, from a second perspective. Certain motifs are carried on chic bags.

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Fuente: Documenta12

Ines Doujak en la Documenta12 - Fotogaleria I

Estas fotos son mias, colocaré posteriormente otras proporcionadas por Documenta

Ines Doujak en la Documenta12 - Fotogaleria II

Jo Spence en la Documenta12

Jo Spence

*1934 in London (UK), died 1992 in London (UK)

Exhibitions: MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005 (ES); Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, 2005 (UK)

General Introduction

Jo Spence intensively examined the question of construction and representation of sexual and social identities; in this context, she made photography a means for rebellion and therapy. She researched the political in her biography as well as of her social surrounding and explored processes of becoming a subject. Political transformation is only possible on the basis of a transformed subjectivity. The Personal is Political, this was the major catchword of the women’s movement. It

is evident, she writes, “that part of my identity has been formed from within a specific set of cultural debates and clashes in relation to visual representation, which embrace feminism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.”

Spence intended to comprehend, which structures and relations the human being embodies, and wanted to encourage everybody to speak for themselves. Courageously, she gave an example as to how not to evade the questions to the individual self, and she explored the process of, “how I came to be formed psychically, how my subjectivity came into being, and how I had negotiated in the world to survive.” This was combined with a critical redefinition of documentary photography as a political instrument for self-representation – and for visualizing cultural and economic suppression, sexual harassment, racial discrimination and power struggles within the family. In her dramatic performances for the camera – some kind of photo-theatre – and the photo therapy developed by her, she was inspired by Berthold Brecht, and thus employed the scope of epic theatre.

Feelings were translated into thought and questions and were analysed. She understood her performances as “educational entertainment”. Spence experimented with visual, theoretical, educational, collaborative and political practices.

”As a practicing photographer and writer in the field of education, of course I have some power, even though I am often taking a critical stance and feel very vulnerable, ignored, and powerless for doing so. But I also speak as somebody who for many years has earned very little and who is ill, and in these other aspects of my life I have less power.”

Documenta 12 Works

Remodelling Photo History (1982) makes the daily, institutionalized and normalized practices and codes seem strange, by taking them out of their seemingly natural context. Bodies appear on the pictorial surface, which should not appear there in this form. The cooperation between Jo Spence and Terry Dennett questions the historical and contemporary genres of photography and how the female body is depicted. The photo series is structured into visual chapters like Industrialization, Colonization, Regulation, Victimization, Realization and Revisualization. Documentary photography, portrait-, still life-, fashion or nude photography as well as the different modes of employment in art, media, social institutions and medicine are revealed. In addition, Spence and Dennett re-examine and work on the relationship of the model – of the photographed object –to the photographer. This is connected with the acquisition and refusal of dominating structures, places, stories and cultural norms. At stake are the social and cultural-political constructions of femininity, family relations, the position in a hierarchic class society and problems of history.

The group of works The Picture of Health was created 1982–1986 in cooperation with Rosy Martin, Maggie Murray and Terry Dennett. In this series, Spence thematizes very offensively her illness, breast cancer. She does not show her naked body any longer, however, in order to state “something about the history of the nude”, but she documents the history of her own illness. The series contains both: Spence criticizes the social treatment of illness and draws the individual self into the focus of attention. In this way, she has defended herself against the “minefield of silence“ and against the loss of power of the ill individual. There is hardly anything throwing us as much back on mere life as illness. Spence learned about the individual situation as a powerless patient, as well as “about the

essence of the political power of the medical profession. I then needed to seek for other ways of representing that reality which, eventually, involved the staging of personal tableaux for the camera.” Her works show her struggle for survival – also through alternative healing methods of traditional Chinese medicine –, no matter, how wounded and hurt her body is. Besides this, the hospital world is depicted from the perspective of the patient and newspaper clippings are spread among the numerous photographs. Single words are also written onto the body and raise the question: how do you take responsibility for your body? Is she now “heroine or victim?”

Fuente: Documenta12

Jo Spence en la Documenta12 - Fotogaleria

No tengo los datos exactos solo esta informacion proporcionada por la Documenta12

Remodelling Photo History, 1982 © photo: Jo Spence + Terry Dennett

La aventura de llegar a Kassel y la Documenta12

Kassel es una pequeña ciudad alemana que está situada a unos 720 km al oeste de Paris y a unos 400 km de Strasburgo una de las ciudades francesas mas cercanas a la frontera con Alemania. No es tan difícil llegar ahí, pero no hay tantos trenes como a otras ciudades, el itinerario que yo hice fue desde Köln tomé un tren que pasaba por Frankfurt y luego hice un cambio para llegar a esta ciudad. Como llegué en domingo, el tren que me llevaría a la estación central no pasó, a pesar de que no había ninguna información, no fui la única sorprendida pues habían varios turistas como yo y otros ciudadanos que también esperaban. Finalmente tuve que seguir el consejo de uno de ellos que fue seguir la bola, jeje, pues como yo iba sin mapa y sin conocer no me animé a aventurarme a caminar por ahí. Bueno, tengo varios comentarios, para empezar a veces pensamos que todos hablan inglés en Alemania, pues no!! Algunos si, pero son los mas jóvenes, tipo veinteañeros o treintañeros, sino, es un poco difícil comunicarse, a mi me ayudaron unos chicos que venían de la exposición, uno parecía un poco artista.

Después de esperar casi una hora entre que el tren y demás, tomamos una especie de tranvía que nos llevó al centro de exposiciones de la Documenta12!! Al fin!! me dije yo, pues antes ya había cometido un error, me medio dormí y no puse atención y no me bajé en la estación que debía, jaja, y entonces me puse nerviosa pensando ¿ahora a donde será la siguiente parada? Como se trataba de in Intercity, no paran en cada pueblito!!! Bueno para mi ventaja la próxima parada era como en treinta minutos, así que me bajé en Göttigen y de ahí tuve que tomar otro tren de regreso a Kassel. Afortunadamente solo esperé como 15 minutos, pues en realidad tratándose de domingo casi no pasan y lo hacen con mas frecuencia en la mañana que por la tarde!!! Qué bueno que me levanté temprano 5 AM!!! Sino imagínense!!

A las tipo 11 AM llegué al centro!! Cuando había previsto hacerlo a las 9.30 AM bueno no fue tanto, solo como 1.30 mas de tren para ver otros paisajes !!!

En otra sección les platicaré la Documenta, la aventura del transporte no paró ahí pues para llegar al Hostal en el que había reservado una habitación, estaba en una colina a donde nadie sabia llegar!! Para colmo como era domingo, casi no había buses, así que lo único que pude hacer fue tomar un tren que me acercara un poco y caminar y caminar y subir una colina!! Ah pero antes afortunadamente encontré a dos personas muy simpáticas en un restaurante quienes hablaban italiano y un poco de español, una era brasileña y el chico italiano, gracias a ellos di con la dirección. En el camino encontré a dos alemanes a quienes les pregunte si hablaban inglés y me dijeron “a litle, litle, litle!!” pero era mas bien casi nada así que medio me entendí con mi “englisch” y mis poquitas palabras de alemán como “rechts” – “links”, en fin a las 10.30 llegué súper cansada pero lista y sedienta para tomarme una cervecita, que me tomé para festejar mi aniversario!!!!

En Köln esperando mi tren como a las 6.00 AM

Esta es una vista de la herreria de la estacion en el fondo se puede leer "Kölnische Wasser" - Agua de colonia, de la que les platicaré después ;-)

Aqui ya en la estacion de Frankfurt

Un trenesito de la Deutch Bahn

Aqui ya en la via esperando mi tren que me llevaria a Kassel

Upssss!! Llegué a Göttingen!!! En vez de Kassel

El tren que me llevo de regreso con destini a Stuttgart!! Ya no podia dormirme, sino terminaria en Colonia otra vez ja ja ja

Ehhhhh!!! Por fin en Kassel aunque sin tren que me llevaba al centro!! Uf en fin hacia la Documenta12

Lazos familiares y nuevos encuentros afectivos

Fue un viaje muy interesante y enriquecedor culturalmente, pero sobre todo afectivamente. Tuve el gusto de conocer a Mademoiselle: Alelí Gomez (jijiji) quien es mi prima, hija de un primo-hermano de mi papá, pero no voy a describir aquí la historia, para no cansarlos. Ella tiene dos hermanos uno que se llama Marcel y otro Víctor, a quienes no he conocido y tal vez pueda conocer pronto. Su mamá se llama Aleksandra Stankiewicz a quien verán a continuación, de origen polaco. Ella habla desde luego alemán, polaco su lengua natal y un poco de ruso, según me lo comentó Alelí. Mi prima también habla varia lenguas, obviamente el alemán, el inglés y actualmente está haciendo sus estudios en Lengua Española, como licenciatura, lleva dos años y la verdad habla muy bien.

Aquí les dejo unas imágenes de nuestro encuentro de visita en su ciudad: Köln, Colonia o Cologne a la francesa. Si tienen dudas pueden preguntar :-)

Alelí y su mamá Aleksandra cuando llegué en la "Hauptbahnhof"

Aqui con Aleksandra cuando comenzamos nuestro paseo a pie en el centro y en la ciudad vieja. Como ven estamos afuera de la Catedral y yo extendí mi mano para tomarnos la foto !!!

El viernes de paseito en Köln con Aleksandra, quien me llevó a conocer toda el centro viejo de la ciudad y me llevó a las orillas del Rhin, bueno "al malecón"

Esta es una cervecería super tradicional, ahi se reunen todos los coloneses a tomarse su chelita o sease su "Kölsch" la cervecita tradicional, por supuesto nos tomamos algunas :-)

Aqui es una de las vitrinas dentro del bar, que no recuerdo como se llama, ya de regreso a ver a Aleli quien se habia ido a trabajar. El vasito que se vé del lado dereche de ella, es el típico vaso para beber ahi, de hecho TODOS casi sin excepcion beben en él!!



Este es el dia después de cuando nos fuimos de fiesta, desgraciadamente de esa noche no tengo fotos pues me olvidé de la camara. Después de visitar el museo Ludwig, nos fuimos a un parque a echarnos una jetita reparadora, pues si estabamos, bastante cansadas!!!

Mientras hablabamos en español, nos escuchó una chica, quien dijo reconocer "nuestro acento mexicano" y nos ofreció tomarnos una foto juntas. Ella es de Venezuela y nos dijo que cuando escuchaba las canciones de Luis Miguel, las rancheras, se sentia en Garibaldi con un Tequila!! Jajaja y que casi se sentia mexicana, yo solo pensé que a mi megustaría ir a ver en vivo a Oscar de Leon, pero ya no me dio tiempo de decirle, je je.

Aqui, Aleli festejando los 350 escalones que habiamos subido para tener acceso a la vista panoramica de Colonia, desde la Catedral.

Una fotito el dia de mi partida, chequen el mobiliario y "pared colage", ¿chidote no?

Y aqui el dia de mi partida, cuando me acompañaron al tren, como caprichito, me comí una salchicha bien buena y luego nos tomamos un café con un pastelito delicioso en una tienda que vende café pero ademas otros accesorios, una especie de cafeteria tienda, vaya con el marketing!!!

Y esta es la última foto antes de dirigirnos a recoger mis cosas de una archi-moderno sistema de guardaequipaje que funciona con túneles subterraneos, de lo cual después les hablaré. Ahi pueden ver en el fondo los articulos que se venden, lo que no se alcanza a ver es el mostrador para el café.

Muchas gracias Aleli y Aleksandra, pasé unos momentos super agradables!!!

Fotogaleria arquitectural de la ciudad de Cologne - Colonia - Köln - I

Llegando a la ciudad me recibió gentilmente mi prima Aleli Gómez, quien me llevó directamente a la salida de la estacion donde se puede ver la impresionante Catedral.

Esta es una vista del centro de la ciudad, al fondo se ve la catedral, que es la mas grande de Europa (estilo Gotico) Tomada desde el Tranvía, tipo metro pero en su tramo exterior.

Este es el detalle de uno de los extremos de la Catedral, la mas visitada de Alemania, desgraciadamente en la fotografia no se aprecian totalmente sus impresionantes dimensiones.

Otra vista de la Catedral desde abajo, saliendo de la " Hauptbahnhof" - Estacion central


Se puede subir a la torre si se tiene verdaderamente valor, son unos 360 escalones, mas o menos a unos 120 metros de la superficie!!!


Esta es una vision ya desde la torre de la Catedral, por supuesto que tuvimos el valor, es mas nosotras queriamos seguir subiendo pero se nos acabaron las escaleras!!!

En el fondo vemos el Rhin y con un poquito de curiosidad veran que ese puente que se ve es donde tomé la foto inicial, desde el tren, en una visita a los barrios mezclados de Colonia, donde cohabitan, alemanes y turcos, mas adelante, algunas fotos de ese barrio, pero no es el "Belleville" de Köln ni el "Lavapiés" de Madrid, digamos que es una version chic ;-)

Fotogaleria arquitectural de la ciudad de Cologne - Colonia - Köln II

Evidentemente no me subi a un avion para tomar unas buenas fotos, pero para que se den una idea mayor de lo impresionante de la iglesia, aqui tienen la liga de la Catedral con videos. Dentro de ella, se encuentran joyas de los Reyes magos, solo pude observar el cofre. Y por el tiempo no observé todas las pinturas que hay adentro, es enorme!!!

Pero esta si la tomé yo, es el cofre con los regalos de Melchor, Gaspar y Baltazar

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