Dance with Daemons
This is the second of a series of short texts by Erich Weiss, where he discusses contemporary artists and their practice.
It gives an impression of his interests as curator/artist and function as an introduction both for the artists partcipating in the Barcelona residency/exhibition and for a wider audience.
The subject of this text was the exhibition "Dance with Demons", which Eric visited at Foundation Beyeler in June, 2024.
It gives an impression of his interests as curator/artist and function as an introduction both for the artists partcipating in the Barcelona residency/exhibition and for a wider audience.
The subject of this text was the exhibition "Dance with Demons", which Eric visited at Foundation Beyeler in June, 2024.
Dance with Daemons
August 07, 2024
Erich Weiss
curator, external advisor of DOM Art Residence
'From19 May – 11 August 2024 the Fondation Beyeler’s entire museum and its surrounding park will be transformed into the site of an experimental exhibition of contemporary art. The project is organised by Fondation Beyeler in partnership with LUMA Foundation and the show will bring together the work of 30 participants from different backgrounds and disciplines, including Michael Armitage, Anne Boyer, Federico Campagna, Ian Cheng, Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, Marlene Dumas, Frida Escobedo, Peter Fischli, Cyprien Gaillard with Victor Man, Dominique Gonzalez- Foerster, Wade Guyton, Carsten Höller with Adam Haar, Pierre Huyghe, Arthur Jafa, Koo Jeong A, Dozie Kanu, Cildo Meireles, Jota Mombaça, Fujiko Nakaya, Alice Notley, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno, Rachel Rose, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Adrián Villar Rojas.
The experiment is developed and guided by Sam Keller, Mouna Mekouar, Isabela Mora, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno and Tino Sehgal in close collaboration with all the other participants.'
This is a fragment of the press text of the exhibition I visited at the Beyler Foundation in Riehen during the Art Basel Art Fair in june.
The exhibition, who is an attempt to stimulate artistic freedom and question certain rules defining our traditional museum system created a lot of expectation and provoked different reactions, both positive and negative.
The project is indeed experimental and asks the participation of the visitor. It is an interdisciplinary offer, shortlisting well-known names of the presnt art scene, that request a special attention and demands the visitor an effort to spend considerable time in the museum space - inside the museum but also in its surroundings.
The experiment is developed and guided by Sam Keller, Mouna Mekouar, Isabela Mora, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno and Tino Sehgal in close collaboration with all the other participants.'
This is a fragment of the press text of the exhibition I visited at the Beyler Foundation in Riehen during the Art Basel Art Fair in june.
The exhibition, who is an attempt to stimulate artistic freedom and question certain rules defining our traditional museum system created a lot of expectation and provoked different reactions, both positive and negative.
The project is indeed experimental and asks the participation of the visitor. It is an interdisciplinary offer, shortlisting well-known names of the presnt art scene, that request a special attention and demands the visitor an effort to spend considerable time in the museum space - inside the museum but also in its surroundings.
The show is a dynamic experience, where one explores at the same time a lot of different ‘voices’. We could compare the proposal with a living organism, that constantly transforms and changes.
The title - for example - never is the same. I happened to see an edition that was called ‘Dance with Daemons’ but later in the week it became ‘Echoes unbound’. Tickets to the show include the possibility for a second visit, inviting the audience for a second, new experience. There will be 16 in total to choose, if you want to try them all. This way the artists seem to ask us in how far a title can be a trap to ‘read’ or ‘understand’ a museum visit and how it is essential for the interpretation we make of what we see.
What the works inside the show concerns, they are not labelled. No names, references or explanations. Just a small guidebook to take you around and makes it possible to guess what is what.
Outside the building we find for example a small greenhouse with strongly smelling plants and with live exotic butterflies. The work is a creation of poet-artist Precious Okoyomon. It is not just a botanical garden folly : all the plants are in fact in some way toxic. And the precious butterflies won’t live long either. The work is called ‘The sun eats her children’.
Maybe this is a single thing that some of the works in the show have in common : most of the artists seem interested in science or our relation with the environment or refer to it in one way or another. “Membrane 2” (2024) for example is the imposing antena- tower by Philippe Parreno that also looks a little like a fairground attraction, as it moves and flickers. It is connected with sensors that detect and apparently replay in certain ways several stimuli in its surroundings, like the movements of the ducks on the Beyeler’s pond.
There is also the mysterious fog (a new work by Fujiko Nakaya), that emerges from a sophisticated pump system outside the building and that can entirely cloud the museum garden's grounds.
The fog functions also powerful when seen from inside. Its ephemeral appearance is a kind of metaphor for the rest of the quickly changing things happening around us.
What the works inside the show concerns, they are not labelled. No names, references or explanations. Just a small guidebook to take you around and makes it possible to guess what is what.
Outside the building we find for example a small greenhouse with strongly smelling plants and with live exotic butterflies. The work is a creation of poet-artist Precious Okoyomon. It is not just a botanical garden folly : all the plants are in fact in some way toxic. And the precious butterflies won’t live long either. The work is called ‘The sun eats her children’.
Maybe this is a single thing that some of the works in the show have in common : most of the artists seem interested in science or our relation with the environment or refer to it in one way or another. “Membrane 2” (2024) for example is the imposing antena- tower by Philippe Parreno that also looks a little like a fairground attraction, as it moves and flickers. It is connected with sensors that detect and apparently replay in certain ways several stimuli in its surroundings, like the movements of the ducks on the Beyeler’s pond.
There is also the mysterious fog (a new work by Fujiko Nakaya), that emerges from a sophisticated pump system outside the building and that can entirely cloud the museum garden's grounds.
The fog functions also powerful when seen from inside. Its ephemeral appearance is a kind of metaphor for the rest of the quickly changing things happening around us.
As visitors we are asked to become active participants. Our thinking and participative interpretation is necessary to make the process function. We are confronted and connected with the strategy of Tino Seghal, who invented a new, extended presentation and always changing way of presentation for works belonging the museum’s permanent collection.
At first we discover how the first exhibition spaces mostly empty. There are only hooks and nails visible here and there on the white walls.
Only some classic pieces we remember are still hanging : a small Picasso, a Paul Klee or a famous Mondriaan. Then - to our surprise - we witness suddenly how some museum staff members appear, transporting an unpacked artwork.
At first we discover how the first exhibition spaces mostly empty. There are only hooks and nails visible here and there on the white walls.
Only some classic pieces we remember are still hanging : a small Picasso, a Paul Klee or a famous Mondriaan. Then - to our surprise - we witness suddenly how some museum staff members appear, transporting an unpacked artwork.
Huyghe refers in the catalogue of the show to Lacan’s "Le Réel" and to Beckett’s "The Lost Ones" (1966-1970).
They move along the visitors and hang it close to another piece, already on show.
More than 70 pieces are thus part of this ‘cycle’, constantly being presented and rehung. The museum technicians are the performers of this game and present us sometimes incredible ‘confrontations’ or ‘dialogues’. Gerhard Richter’s ‘Clouds’ are for example paired with Monet’s ‘Cathedral’.
More than 70 pieces are thus part of this ‘cycle’, constantly being presented and rehung. The museum technicians are the performers of this game and present us sometimes incredible ‘confrontations’ or ‘dialogues’. Gerhard Richter’s ‘Clouds’ are for example paired with Monet’s ‘Cathedral’.
When I visited, these included a room where the three panels of Francis Bacon’s triptych, “In Memory of George Dyer” (1971) were separated and each of them placed next to crumpled canvases by Rudolf Stingel. Alberto Giacometti’s “Large Standing Woman” bronze sculpture (1960) was moved in front, to witness this. weird new combination.
Immediately around the corner a new museum truck stood waiting, loaded with paintings by Marlene Dumas and Wilhelm Sasnal. Every where in the first part of the show these connections and interactions continued and involved mayor works by Warhol, Gerhard Richter and others.
Immediately around the corner a new museum truck stood waiting, loaded with paintings by Marlene Dumas and Wilhelm Sasnal. Every where in the first part of the show these connections and interactions continued and involved mayor works by Warhol, Gerhard Richter and others.
A kind of climax is probably a room where we can take a rest on some sofa-sculptures and listen to a voice performance offered by Tino Seghal’s female performers.
They bring us variations on ‘Ode an die Freude’ - in a capella improvisations, with the women singing alone or in chorus, and appearing and disappearing in a subtle way from the room. As a viewer it is never clear if the person next to you is an actress taking part in the concert or just an accidental visitor humming the tune.
They bring us variations on ‘Ode an die Freude’ - in a capella improvisations, with the women singing alone or in chorus, and appearing and disappearing in a subtle way from the room. As a viewer it is never clear if the person next to you is an actress taking part in the concert or just an accidental visitor humming the tune.
From this performance space you have direct access to a courtyard at the back of the building. Here Rirkrit Tirivanija has installed one of his food performances. It is a minimal bar, where a professional bartender enters in dialogue with the audience and offers you to taste a special secret recipe Negroni. In the meantime in a corner a cook from a prestiguous Basel restaurant is preparing some smoked salmon for later in the afternoon. The interactive installation is called ‘Old Smokey Lounge’.
Another inspiring installation was Carsten Höller’s display of a mountain of placebo pills. Every two seconds a new pill was falling on the every growing amount of medecine. As visitors we were invited to take the pill (for an unknown disease) by getting water for free at a sink placed in the same room.
Around the corner a realistic ‘painter’ sculpture (1977) of Duane Hanson seems to have started a pretentious ’Stingel’-like intervention, that continues over several walls of the museum.
Another inspiring installation was Carsten Höller’s display of a mountain of placebo pills. Every two seconds a new pill was falling on the every growing amount of medecine. As visitors we were invited to take the pill (for an unknown disease) by getting water for free at a sink placed in the same room.
Around the corner a realistic ‘painter’ sculpture (1977) of Duane Hanson seems to have started a pretentious ’Stingel’-like intervention, that continues over several walls of the museum.
In my opinion the whole exhibition gives the impression of a welcome and brave experiment, showing how difficult and hermetic conceptual art can be made accessible, without becoming cheap entertainment.
It is in my opinion essential that the choice of artists was very well made and selective, bringing together some of the most intelligent and brainiest in their field today.