The Tate Triennial is opening in London this spring, put together this time by the French curator Nicolas Bourrioud who became renowned for conceiving the term 'relational aesthetics'. He has seized the exhibition as an opportunity to further explore his newest art historical concept: altermodernity.
Today, there is great interest in the 1980s, in its music, fashion and art. As then, a flourishing alternative scene exists in which artists have taken initiative into their own hands and are active in small, temporary locations. Even in W139, now back on the Warmoesstraat, we see a revival of the mentality of ‘making and doing’ that gave the 1980s their colour. Tineke Reijnders sketches a comparison of then and now.
Postmodernism managed to dump any trust in past and present. Then or now, neither or either – both were a post-modern ‘whatever’. But not to Marta Kuzma, one of the two curators of Manifesta 5, who, in a trusted modernist manner attempts to restore a historical consciousness, as a lesson for the future.
