features 10.08.12 Dominic van den Boogerd
With major exhibitions in Madrid and Eindhoven, the highly self-reflective oeuvre of René Daniëls is once again attracting attention. The Eindhoven exhibition offers an opportunity for a review of Daniëls’ late work, which he produced early in his life, due to afterward suffered a stroke. (The full text is published in Metropolis M no. 2 - 2012)
07/01/11 Grant Watson
Business acumen and intellect are the two greatest talents of the art world in India. A report from the rapidly developing subcontinent.
07/01/11 Viktor Misiano
The art world in Russia is modernizing itself according to the capitalist model, while leaving the old power structures intact. Good art is especially art that sells well. So far so good, but the question is, for how long?
If desire is tragedy and love comedy, where does that leave pleasure? Aaron Schuster presents his thoughts on a life of pleasure, in art and beyond.
Between Goya and Kippenberger: there is no shortage of painterly virtuosity with the Rijksacademie alumnus, Pere Llobera, but this does not say a thing about the confrontational character of his painting.
By Blinking Flashlight through the Metropolitan at Night
Art in the Information Economy
12/04/10 Domeniek Ruyters
Amsterdam
De Appel
13/02/10 - 28/03/10
The art world is wrestling with the question of how to position itself in today’s economy. To take part or not – that is the question. An essay on the production of non-knowledge as a driving force, based on an exceptional exhibition at De Appel in Amsterdam.
How to Live in a Game
Harun Farocki’s War Games
22/10/09 Pieter Van Bogaert
Immersion, the recent work by the German filmmaker and artist Harun Farocki, shows therapists using game technology in the treatment of traumatized soldiers. Shown last summer at SMART Project Space, the film was previously presented in Leuven, together with two earlier works by Farocki. Here, it was clear that Farocki had previously used war as a game with analogue, electronic and digital media, blurring the distinctions between virtual and actual reality.
Homo Ludens 2.0
01/10/09 Joost Raessens
In 1938, John Huizinga characterized culture as a form of play and described man as a being at play, rather than knowing or working. In today’s media culture, his words seem to have become true. Everything seems more and more to contain play elements, from sports to Facebook, from the battlefield to the personal workplace. Is life really just a game?
The Past is a Choice
Indonesian Art is Freer than Ever
01/10/09 Nuraini Juliastuti
In Indonesia, engaged art is more popular than ever. After a rapid succesion of movements over the past decades, nowadays the participation of the public is predominant in art, as was recently seen at the Jakarta Biennial. Nuraini Juliastuti places this development in critical perspective.
Luxury, Commodity or Social Capital
The Fraught Relation between Art and Fashion
01/10/09 Domeniek Ruyters
After having sought out frequent collaboration on projects and presentations during the 1990s, in the past few years art and fashion have been on edge as of old. Yet both disciplines have more in common that is sometimes thought, argues Domeniek Ruyters in this preview essay from the book And… And… And… by Alexander van Slobbe.