QUESTIONS TO
THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
OF THE BIENNALE

These towns, and also Bönen, Hamm and Fröndenberg, are part of the Hellweg region, a region in flux and bordering on the urban agglomeration of the Ruhr area. They are peripheral small towns undergoing structural changes similar to Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund and Oberhausen. The difference is that they are more assessable and that identity problems, architectural eyesores as well as embodied utopia and the urban structures associated with them – old ones as well as new ones – are more clearly visible.

 

For instance in Bergkamen: This town was founded in 1966 by the amalgamation of six communities, which is why it never had a grown historic town centre. Everything we perceive as the centre today was built after this date. At the same time, new housing developments and typical detached houses characterize the townscape, as in other mining towns, as well as oversized shopping centres and pedestrian areas. In addition, a marina was built with an almost southern flair against the background of steaming power stations and industrial buildings. There is a very fine line between hope and decline, utopia and entropy.
The experimental character of each change shows more clearly here than in the big cities, testimonies of medieval foundations line up with those of early industrialisation, village structures with those of local assertiveness – with all the typical classifications and urban planning and development objectives of the past 40 years. As a consequence, processes of permanent cultural, social and spatial reconstitution are launched and the respective towns and their surrounding countryside articulate themselves as spaces of change and transgression. However, since these towns do not have pre-defined identities, and precisely because their hybridity and contrariness, their cultural and spatial plurality are inherent, they have so many more possibilities for development in a region that is open, fluid and constantly reconstituting itself. As a matter of fact, this can be found everywhere in Germany and even all over the world. But since this region is definitely undergoing change, it is exemplary, thus creating an excellent basis for artistic intervention and discussion. I am interested in the dialogue between art and urban life.

Why were private spaces chosen as venues rather than a museum or an exterior space?

The art project HELLWEG – ein LICHTWEG (a path of light) has existed since 2002 and is taking care of exterior spaces in Hellweg and other towns in the region with light art projects – by now 25 works in all. In Unna, the Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst deals with outstanding works by international artists, let’s say in a museum context, although these are not typically spaces that follow the White Cube pattern. Public spaces, i.e. museums and exterior spaces, are already being utilized or, in other words: This region was chosen as it has over the past years distinguished itself with regard to the theme of light in NRW, and the Biennale’s very concept was developed out of these past activities. In addition, giving access to private apartments and houses creates a public atmosphere in private spaces, thus addressing a shift in the perception of these notions.

What is the reference to the exhibition Chambres d’Amis directed by Jan Hoet in Gent in 1986?

At the time, Chambres d’Amis had a lasting impression on me as a visitor – I myself was an art student then – both with regard to the works of art themselves, the personal contacts with the hosts and the opportunity of getting to know a city. It was significantly more than an art exhibition, just as this first Biennale for International Light Art means to be more than an exhibition on the topic of light. 24 years after Hoet’s brilliant project the context is completely different, the avenues of thought and spaces for experience are different. And yet, much of what we are doing today is based on previous work. Remembering to appreciate this previous work afresh and in retrospective and to be able to fall back on a horizon of experience such as that of Jan Hoet, led to the idea to win him as honorary president fort his Biennale – which he now is.

The Biennale is to be more than an exhibition on the subject of light. As is well known, quite a few exhibitions made this medium their central theme in the past, and the ‚biennale format’ has become very popular everywhere, to the point of degenerating into arbitrariness. What will be different and why this format?

Let me first say something about the significance of light, not about the subject of light and its influence on our cultural history: the physical phenomenon provokes a high state of excitement – by stimulating the senses from outside and emotions and feelings from inside. Thus, our attention is tied up to a high degree. However, attention plays a central role in managing the processing of information, as it controls the selection in a competition of stimuli hitting the brain as well as of those areas assimilating them. Every artist is interested in, one might even say dependent on, getting people’s attention for what he or she does and later on publicises. This is why I believe that light in art is a suitable medium for being able to deal critically with social contexts, general economic conditions and presentation systems – such as event formats or creative presentation. In this regard, this Biennale will differ considerably from exhibitions pretending to be superlative overall shows or creating more of a happening by incorporating illumination and light design. Regarding the event format, this Biennale does not adhere to static concepts, is not orientated to biennales with a concrete location such as Venice or Shanghai, but rather more to the Manifesta – European Biennale of Contemporary Art, at least with regard to its flexibility and mobility. Once again: the concept of this Biennale stipulates that it must be held in places where there is a substantiated need. Establishing a predetermined location is not the issue.

Few of the artists chosen by you can be unambiguously related to light art. Which were the criteria for selecting them?

Apart from a concrete examination of current and historic hybrid structures and particularities of the spaces in towns and country, the motto requires a precise reference by the artists and/or their works to the respective rooms and the persons inhabiting them or working in them. This is why the chosen artistic positions, apart from the rather more typical representatives of the genre of light art such as James Turell, Dan Flavin, Michel Verjux and Francois Morellet, also and purposely include artists using light as basic material, as component or carrier of meaning for complex artistic questions with reference to past, present, social and individual processes and phenomena.
Their works show reflective dealing with cultural differences, with monopolization by politics, the media and economy, with a private and social culture of remembrance. Well-defined attributions and typecasts are dissolved, leading to references that are rooted in the history of architecture and design and in everyday culture and do not exclude entirely personal circumstances of working or living.
In this respect, the artistic and curatorial interest does not only focus on a shift in the notions of ‚public life’ and ‚private life’, but also on that of the notion of light art.

What is more, I did not make the selection on my own. The Biennale has an artistic advisory board that is perfectly familiar with present contemporary art. The colleagues involved in the advisory board have different backgrounds, know about topics and debates on art in public spaces, light art, urban life, cultural territories, the heritage of modernity and visionary urban planning. Together we decided to include existing works that could find a new context in inhabited spaces with their individual flair.