Wednesday, March 4, 2009

critics and media on DEEP STORAGE ART PROJECT



Deepest storage on Earth

Danish conceptual artist gathers Bangkokian blood to send it to the bottom of the ocean

By: ANDREW J. WEST
Published: 12/03/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Outlook

' Welcome to eternal life," smiles Danish artist Kristian von Hornsleth as he poses for the camera with a contributor clasping a certificate stained with a sample of their own blood. The participants had just donated their DNA to be included with a sculpture that will be exhibited at the bottom of the Mariana Trench - the deepest destination on Earth.

Hornsleth, a conceptual artist with a controversial reputation in his own country for provocative art antics, is visiting Thailand for a live event as part of the "Deep Storage Art Project" world tour. He made international headlines in 2006 for his Hornsleth Village Project, which involved exchanging pigs and goats with 300 residents of a Ugandan village in exchange for changing their name to Hornsleth with the slogan, "We want to help you, but we want to own you."

This project goes with the tag line "There is no product, there is only marketing". Indeed, there is no art as such for sale as the 5x5x5m chemically enhanced steel sculpture, which will resemble something like a supernova and encapsulate 5,000 samples of DNA, is intended to be dropped at 12 55' 25" N / 166 11' 59" E (between Japan and the Philippines) in November next year.

You might ask, what's the point of making a sculpture no one will be able to see? Well, the answer is simply conceptual art is the art of ideas - not objects - or, as Hornsleth puts it, "intellectual merchandising".

"I want to make a monument to humanity. In this world there is a lot of thinking about high places like Everest and outer space, but not low, so I wanted to do something downward, with connotations of being deep not only physically and geographically, but mentally as well," said Hornsleth, speaking on Saturday night at Gallery Soulflower at the first of two scheduled live events.

"This project is about eternal life on both a scientific and poetic level. I want the people who donate their blood to have a relationship with the sculpture that is lasting. They will always know that they have a part of themselves in the deepest, darkest, furthest possible place on Earth it could be. It's possible that sometime in the future the sculpture could be returned to the surface and the DNA inside used to recreate the donors as new human beings," he said.

"Another aspect of the project is we are collecting stuff, not distributing it as artists normally would. This is a simulation of scientific research and how scientists research and exhibit," he added.

Of course, when selling ideas and not objects it makes it more difficult for a post-modern conceptual artist such as Hornsleth to make a living. To overcome this economic hurdle, Hornsleth markets posters he defaces with his trademark "paint ball" technique of confused colours and "Hornsleth" signature that he emblazons across the middle.

These posters usually sell in Denmark for 5,000 (229,000 baht), with one larger poster selling for a record price of 150,000 (6.85 million baht). However, the artist has adjusted the price to suit the circumstances here, where he is not yet well known. Also, only 1,000 of the 5,000 donors having their blood dropped to the depths will receive a certificate signed by the artist for free - everybody else has to pay $1,000 (36,100 baht).

Not bad for an idea.

Later, sculptures and bronze models of the 5m sculpture will also be for sale.

"Really, the idea of all my work is to hold a mirror up to people. I'm a provocateur, but I'm not mocking. My point is that now society has become a "Dictatorship of the Consumer". The consumer decides everything and has the power to change the world - to stop war, to stop famine, to stop all the social evils, but the consumer doesn't use that power," said Hornsleth.

This conceptualist has begun his own branch of post-modern art he calls "Futilism", which deals with the frustrations of our time and is complete with its own manifesto, the Futilist Manifest. The introduction reads, "Art is art when it's not art. As soon as it's defined as art it's dead."

In the first line he writes, "Futilism is the philosophy of opening doors to the hidden, to the illicit, and to what is beyond the obscure, the rational and apparently meaningful aspects of culture."

Bangkokian blood will continue to flow tonight between 5 and 8pm at Gallery Soulflower, Silom Galleria. But with only 50 of the 100 free contributors allocated to Thailand in the project remaining, you had better be early if you wish to avoid paying in more than blood to have a part of you sunk to the bottom of the sea - not to mention achieving immortality.

If you're concerned that Kristian von Hornsleth's invitation for you to make art with your own ichor is not fine art, don't worry; just follow one of the maxims brazenly displayed on an earlier painting that reads, "Don't Worry This Is Art", which, because it isn't, is. Or is it?

The second stage of 'Deep Storage Art Project' will be held tonight between 5 and 8pm at Gallery Soulflower, 309 Silom Galleria. Call 02-630-0032 or visit http://www.gallerysoulflower.com/.

No comments:

Post a Comment