athens beijing 20.9 - 20.10.05 - 2nd bienale of beijing

Two strangers in the same town. Biennale VC Convergence.
Written by Georg Georgakopoulos (Directly from Beijing)

The course of making a work of art is not a small-minded process. Other works or remains of work that may well hang in grandma’s dusty flowered living-room are not considered to be for an international exhibition. We can fool ourselves till a certain an extent. Fossilized artwork made by amateurs of all ages is something that requires a strong stomach to endure. See, to commend one’s soul is not always about art but often has to do with work therapy. The ‘well-established for life’artists as well as cheerleaders do not produce art, but waste their own time and ours by giving a detailed account of insignificate and boring stories. We witness artists (the kind that have the will of a sheep) marching up to the sound of the parade. We witness the chubby folklore shepherd-girl shouting toward the herd from under her cape. We witness the Greek-Turkish dispute redefining itself so as to contribute the most to art.
Soon we will be expecting to see ΜΟΒΑ’s (Museum of Bad Art, U.S.) newest additions. When there is little initiative combined with minimum effort in return for a single sentence added to the CV (to what use?) or a 5-day vacation in Beijing, then we are on the right track to laziness. Let us not sulk at the flowery living-room artwork when it returns to its original position more dusty and pitiful than before- it belonged there from the beginning.
Certain beings arise to the surface only when the dinosaurs become extinct. Machines begin to work elsewhere, silently in the beginning. The process of initiative and the mind, work- arm power and men produce collectively-systematically-succesfully. Dead factories come to life and the machine belts begin to roll. Here the dust does not settle on men and work, it circles in the air in a continuous movement due to the physical activity and the activity of the mind. One image succeeds the next, a sound invites you to move, play, observe,smell. The ‘strobe’ runs neither on lubricant nor sympathy. In order to play pool it is not required to have previous knowledge of it. And the fugitive’s arc should be near.
The national flag is not the artist’s identity. There is no ‘us’, ’them’ or ‘others’. We co-exist in order to make a statement, only when we have something important to say. In order to produce, prosper and promote creativity there is no need for a parade, triumphal hymns and of numb, monolithic mechanisms. There is need for initiative, flexibility and risk, and of financial sponsors- even when in most cases these are things we not easily confessed. The coarse men that are responsible for creating paintings that in concept ‘sleep idly’, eat and in this manner preserve these paintings up until their death without having to do anything else. It is the sole element that can be observed in those two strangers in the same town.