Personal Structures SYMPOSIA

Symposium “Matter” during the 53 rd Venice Biennale The Symposium “Matter” will be held on June 4 2009 from 13.00 to 17.00 at the Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti as part of the 53 rd Venice Biennale in Italy. The Symposium is open to the public and has free entry. MATTER Matter is everywhere. Matter is anything that has mass and therefore takes up space. Materials to create art works, are chosen for very specific reasons. The materials used by artists are chosen consciously for their properties, these properties support the idea which the artists wishes to communicate. Why certain artists prefer specific materials for the objects they create,  will be one of the topics discussed at the Symposium “Matter”. Participation confirmations from several artists are pending, but a.o. the speakers list  might include, Tony Cragg, Dan Graham, Joseph Kosuth, Peter Lodermeyer, Giuseppe Penone and Rene Rietmeyer. Symposium “Infinity” during the 53 rd Venice Biennale The Symposium “Infinity” will be held on June 5 2009 as part of the exhibition “In-finitum” at the Palazzo Fortuny during the 53 rd Venice Biennale in Italy. This symposium will be taking place in the form of a discussion around some presented questions, during a lunch from 11.00 until 14.00 h. at the Palazzo Alvera of Mr. Axel Vervoordt. The Symposium can be attended by not more then 25 people and is therefore by invitation only. Confirmations from several artists are pending, but a.o. the participants list  might include: Anish Kapoor, Joseph Kosuth, Tatsuo Miyajima, Roman Opalka, Giulio Paolini and Rene Rietmeyer. The symposia are organized by GlobalArtAffairs Foundation, in cooperation with local institutions and with the assistance of the curators Sarah Gold and Karlijn De Jongh as well as the art historian Peter Lodermeyer, and the artist Rene Rietmeyer. In September 2009 a  book, containing 400 pages, on all symposia with additional artists interviews, will be published by GlobalArtAffairs Publishing, New York, 15.000 copies, distributed by Cornerhouse Publications, England.     CONCEPT: By abandoning the representation of external reality, artistic parameters themselves (such as color, size, composition, material, etc.) have become themes of non-representational art. The more non-representational art makes the work processes a subject and includes the viewer and his/her receptive activities in the works, the more the basics of production and reception of art come into focus.   Artworks are created, exist, and recognized in time and space. This seems so obvious that its actual meaning is often overlooked. Therefore, time, and space as ”forms of intuition(Anschauungsformen)“ (Kant) as well as existence (of the artist, the artwork and the viewer) are the themes of the three ”Personal Structures“ symposia. Even though Time, Space, and Existence are inextricable, the ”Personal Structures“ symposia in Amsterdam, New York and Tokyo will each focus on one of the three terms as the major subject.   In Amsterdam the center of discussion was: TIME Time always implicates movement or change. The way we experience, think, and perceive time is in constant flux, i.e. depends on time. This also applies to artistic concepts of time: The possibilities for visualizing time using artistic means unavoidably change over the course of time. ”Personal Structures“, as a forum for artists working in a non-representational manner, focuses on art which favors a concentrated, but subjective, form language. Hereby, directly or indirectly, time-concepts play an important role. In Amsterdam, several artists will speak for whom the subject “time” is of great importance. Artists, art historians, and museum people are invited to join the discussion about time and time concepts in non-representational art.   In Tokyo the center of discussion was: EXISTENCE. Existence, in the strictly philosophical sense (for example, as it is used by Heidegger and Sartre), is the “kind of being” that exclusively applies to humans. “To exist” does not merely mean being present but rather “self-design”, being open for possibilities, and freedom. We live in a thoroughly-organized world under constant pressure – the pressure to perform, the pressures of time and conformity – as well as pressures stemming from the influence of the mass media. Given these circumstances, art can bear, regardless of purpose, the function to articulate existential topics and create the possibility for moments of intensified self-awareness. Therefore, one’s own existence, with its particular terms and conditions, can become an artistic subject and thus, serve as model for the self-encounter of the viewer.   In New York the center of discussion was: SPACE In his very last text in1993, Donald Judd stated that until that time there had been virtually no discussion of space in art. “After a few thousand years space is so unknown that a discussion of it  would have to begin with a rock”. Consequently, for the second symposium, basic artistic questions related to space and spatiality will be discussed. On the one hand, “space-relatedness” means the three-dimensional body of the artwork itself or its aesthetic interaction with the actual space in which it is placed. On the other hand, “space-relatedness” means the various notions of space depending on personal, cultural, and social circumstances. These become visible in the artist’s specific choice of his or her means of expression.

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