The inauguration of the Art Encounters Biennial 2023 (19.05-16.07.2023 -Timișoara, Romania), which was put together by Swiss curator Adrian Notz alongside a board of local young curators (Cristina Bută, Monica Dănilă, Ann Mbuti, Edith Lázár, Cristina Stoenescu, Georgia Țidorescu) and included immersive and engaging installations created by regional and worldwide artists, and which invited active engagement and contact from visitors, was a treat for me to attend. Instead of going into each individual location and artist one at a time, I will discuss some of my thoughts concerning the theoretical framework underpinning the biennial.
Artists draw inspiration from scientific theories, discoveries, and phenomena. They explore topics such as post-colonialism, technology and science (Knowbotiq – Swiss Psychotropic Gold, 2017-2018), authenticity and ownership (Kazimir Malevich – Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10), AI/artist collaboration (Kata Geibl – Prometheus, AI, 2023), mysticism (Veronika Hapchenko – River 2021-2022), machine learning practices (Nora al-Badri – Babylonian Vision, 2020), biomedical engineering (Floriama Cândea – Sensitive dependence, 2023), ethics and hygiene (Maria Nalbantova – Cleanse 2020), hijacking narratives (Pipilotti Rist – Pickelporno, 1992), neuroplasticity (Alina Cioară – The Laboratory, 2023), ad-hoc sourcing setups (Sakib Rahman Mizanur- Fear of Social Bin, 2023), Sebastian Moldovan in collaboration with Lucia Ghegu and Albert Kaan – Post-world Undercover Guerrilla Fake Rock Manufacturing Facility, 2023).
It is difficult to discuss narratives, currents, and trends without recognising one’s own implication in the dialogue and one’s own side of the story when addressing these subjects. This is because it is impossible to have a discourse without acknowledging one’s own point of view. How much of what we consider contemporary art is just a response to recent happenings, reactionary, and lacking innovation?
Crafting an original perspective on the world is what art is all about. The goal of scientific inquiry is to provide an objective worldview. Now, more than ever, subjectivity makes its way into the mainstream, trumping biology and hard facts. Subjectivities are now increasingly more important than hard facts. Everything is centered on individual views. The fight is always personal, and accepting the “other” is secondary.
If you want to be ‘good,’ you have to make an effort, at the very least, to view the ‘others’ in all of their complicated glory. This calls for a consciousness motivated by generalist ideas rather than an infantile egocentric perspective of the world.
The Science of Rhinoceros
Although the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer never saw the rhinoceros he drew in 1515 in person, he was fascinated by the accounts and descriptions he heard. This case is crucial because it is part of the curatorial discourse of this year’s Art Encounters Biennial. Dürer created the drawing based on a sketch, written notes, and his own interpretation. As a result, the drawing deviates from the actual appearance of a rhinoceros, reflecting Dürer’s imaginative representation. The story behind Dürer’s Rhinoceros begins with a living Indian rhinoceros brought to Lisbon, Portugal, by the explorer and navigator Vasco da Gama. Then news of this exotic creature spread throughout Europe, capturing the imagination of people who had never seen a rhinoceros before. The most notable discrepancy in Dürer’s rhinoceros is the presence of an armored plate-like skin, resembling scales, covering the animal’s body. This feature, although inaccurate, became a defining characteristic of the image and contributed to its popularity. Dürer’s Rhinoceros was widely disseminated through prints and became a European sensation. It sparked curiosity and became a symbol of the exotic and the unknown. The drawing’s popularity was partly due to its inclusion in Dürer’s printed works, which were widely circulated during the Renaissance. His depiction stoked the creative fires of his contemporaries at the time, but it was eventually discredited as a viable scientific explanation.
According to the industrial designer Dieter Rams, improvements are essential. To contribute to a more profound comprehension, Rams is certain that designers should be held accountable for their work, but artists need to be exempt from such responsibilities. As Wilfred McClay points out, technology provides us with power, and with power comes responsibility, and with duty comes guilt: You and I see a photograph of a kid starving in Sudan, and therefore we instinctively know that we’re not doing enough to help them. This responsibility falls on the shoulders of designers as much as artists to properly make claims. The narratives used in history were developed by the people who, 500 years ago, produced painting, architecture, and sculpture. They were the ones responsible for providing the evidence used to write history. In addition to accurately representing the subject matter and possessing an inviting visual quality, the artists’ work was political in its subject matter. The artist’s role in his traditional sense is obsolete in today’s society and cannot be fulfilled. The human who creates the work is the content; the work itself is not made as something extraneous to the artist.
Industry, art, or mere decorum
No one would have permitted a modern artist to create an automobile, for instance, if they had submitted a blueprint for the project. Clearly, this was not the situation several centuries ago, when brilliant minds were deliberately recruited to change the environment. The perception that the beauty of human effort has evolved is what has altered. The separation of art and science has led to the collapse of this worldview as an alternative explanation. In the 21st century, a scientific, technological, or engineering endeavor is not considered aesthetically pleasing. It views it as a danger to (the existing) natural beauty. We live in an age of specialization. But too much specialization is harmful because it leads to a phenomenon that law enforcement calls linkage blindness: when they can’t connect crimes because they don’t share information and work together well enough.
Who decides what constitutes art—artists, museum curators, art collectors, or the art market? Is it possible that time itself played a role in creating something later deemed art? A plaster head left in the rain to acquire aesthetic value. An improvised chimney cleaning device from the 1940s or a grinding mill post from the 19th century is now in the collection of the American Primitive Gallery in New York. Where does utility turn into art? Marcel Duchamp saw in 1912 (in a Paris exhibition about the then-new field of aviation technology) a wooden propeller and came back home totally changed. In awe, he told Fernand Leger and Constantin Brancusi, “Painting is dead! Who can make anything better than that propeller? Tell me, can you?” (Excerpt From ART without ARTISTS, Roger Manley, John Foster & Toky). We are still grappling with what something is. Industry, art, or mere decorum. The fictitious separation of Art/Technology/Science is a recent phenomenon. The Sumerians, Egyptians, and Romans did not realize that the ziggurat, pyramid, and equestrian statues were all art. They were practical initially. Art and science five hundred years ago were understood as one. In the 21st century, technology is not art. Technology makes attitudes. And everything becomes an attitude.
Just about Power and Domination?
The concept of the curator Adrian Notz starts from a premise similar to the one stemming from the New Criticism. It accepts and validates the non-canonical narratives that define a phenomenon as true or false.
Because there are nearly infinite ways to interpret a complex set of phenomena, you can’t make the case that any of those modes of interpretation are canonical. And if they’re not canonical, which means they’re not grounded in some kind of reality, then they serve some other power structure. To me, this seems to be the central claim of postmodernism. You may ascribe everything to power and domination since there are unlimited ways to interpret anything, and none of these ways are considered official.
The worth of an artwork is not determined by its ongoing deconstruction and appropriation but rather by the degree to which creative interpretations can reconcile inconsistencies. An artist needs to have a toolset that includes attributing causation. Unending interpretations are not always the most productive approach to go ahead. For instance, artificial intelligence will not eradicate all of our ills and will not put an end to our species; instead, it will only bring about more difficulties.
