the building
1. The building is pleased to present the oracle, e-flux video rental, Fruit & Flower Deli Berlin, the reading room, Snöfrid bar, films by Lawrence Weiner and more… The building will open on Sunday, September 7th at 4pm, film screening starts at 6, Snöfrid bar opens at 7 till the last person leaves.
2. the program:
3. e-flux video rental (EVR) is an ongoing work by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, comprising a free video rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of over 850 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with more than 400 artists, curators and critics.
In the 1960s and 70s, artists were drawn to working with video in part because it was cheap to use and easily reproduced and distributed. But video art has become increasingly assimilated to the precious-object economy of the art market. EVR is a poetic exploration of alternative processes of circulation and distribution, and it is structured to function like a typical video rental store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a new member fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and viewed at home. Originally presented at a storefront in New York, in 2004, EVR has traveled to art venues in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin, Budapest, Boston, Antwerp, Berlin, Miami, Lyon and Lisbon. EVR will travel to Cali, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo later this fall. Having outlived the technology that made it possible (VHS video tape players), the project will be permanently archived with the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut and Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, in 2009.
Every time EVR opens in a new city, local artists, curators and writers are invited to serve as selectors, choosing artists whose work is added to the collection. Initially brought to Kunst Werke by Hila Peleg several years ago, EVR is returning to Berlin having more then doubled in scope. This new installment will include selections by Anri Sala, Magdalena Magiera, Ellen Blumenstein, Tanja Leighton, Solmaz Shabazi, Nicolas Siepen, Florian Wüst, Nanna Heidenreich, Adina Popesku, Renate Wagner, Paz Aburto Guevara, Maike Cruse, Adnan Yildiz, Clara Meister, Dieter Roelstrate, Monika Szewczyk, Severin Dünser, Florian Zeyfang, Cosmin Costinas and others.
EVR will host a program of special screenings and talks with participants of the project, starting with a double feature of films by Lawrence Weiner: Water In Milk Exists and A Bit Of Matter And A Little Bit More, selected by Monika Szewczyk and Pierre Huyghe.
(with many thanks to Noritoshi Hirakawa)
Sunday September 7th, 6 PM
4. Water In Milk Exists
2008, 22:52 min, color, sound
SITUATED WITHIN A LANDSCAPE OF HUMAN INTERACTION THOSE ACTIVITIES THAT LEAD TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURES NECESSARY TO DEAL WITH OR CO-EXIST WITH THE FORCES OF NATURE, WATER IN MILK EXISTS ATTEMPTS TO PRESENT VARIOUS CHARACTERS AT A POINT OF DISJUNCTIVE BUT SIMULTANEOUS REALITIES. IF THE CONCISE PLACEMENT OF STONES LEADS TO A STRUCTURE (A TRUISM POSED BY MIES VAN DER ROHE) THEN PERHAPS A CONCISE PLACEMENT OF PERSONS CAN LEAD TO A STRUCTURE NOT BASED UPON PARALLEL HIERARCHIES. THE ACTIVITIES OF THE PLAYERS FIT WITHIN THE GENRE OF ADULT FILMS. IN FACT, THE PLAYERS ARE ADULTS.
Lawrence Weiner
A Structure of Lawrence Weiner. Players: N Beckwith, Lesny Jn Felix, Cleo Fishel, Taka Fukuya, Jonathan Hokklo, Joann Kim, Lucca Jean Lax, Kristen Lorello, Zaza M., Christopher Mitchell, Natalie S. Mignon, Kitao Sakurai, Ryan Scanlan. Director of Photography: Kiki Allgeier. Producer: Noritoshi Hirakawa. Executive Producer: Edi A. Stockli. The Swiss Institute, New York. Curator: Gianni Jetzer. Editors: Kiki Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Graphics: Bethany Izard. Melodic Noise: Kim Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Henry the Navigator, copyright Lawrence Markey and Lawrence Weiner.
5. A Bit Of Matter And A Little Bit More
1976, 23 min, color, sound
The male/female, subject/object investigation in A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More has no titillating introduction; the appetite is not whetted beforehand. Hardcore, the opening shot, shows the crotch areas of a male and female body engaged in coitus. At the end of the tape a male voice says, “Some questions and five answers relative to moved pictures, five questions and some answers relative to moved pictures—” a reference to the artists’ book, 100 Rocks on a Wall.
Produced by Moved Pictures, New York, in cooperation with Fifi Corday Productions. Videophotography: Michael H. Shamberg. Music: Marzette Watts. Voices: Azw Bentley, Lawrence Weiner. Players: Martine Rapin, Cynthia Pattison, Mike Grotto, P. Hoenderdos, D. Kaplan, Susan Davis, Ms. Tacks/Takes. First Presentation: The Kitchen, New York City, December 9, 1976.
***
6. The letter:
August 26, 2008
Hi Anton [1],
It’s time now for one of those emails from the Keeper. I was trying to write to you yesterday, over the Atlantic, which I suppose you were crossing as well on a different plane. If this is so, then the Oracle’s new thesis of synchronicity is more than adequate: it is not a coincidence… The flesh is the mind.
I had a very vivid dream tonight about Fruit and Flower Deli Berlin, and Snöfrid Bar [6], and The Building. The whole place was so present: I could see the rooms and the surroundings. It all merged with our late common history and the maps you are making of Platz der Vereinten Nationen: I clearly saw the stone — the gigantic Crystal Rock in the middle of the Plaza. I could also see David’s [2] axes and the black carpeted platform, Ylva’s [3] tondo boxes – peep shows in miniature, Julieta’s [4] infinite monkeys, evaporating the space, and Jota’s [5] brightly colored pillars of toilet paper rolls and light-boxes. The dark and the light: the cement grey, fire-singed basement mirror-bar and the luminous white reading room upstairs… from space to space and room to room, everything seems to open up and nothing seems to end.
My flight yesterday was very interesting as well: while a part of it was devoted to you as I was trying to write you an email…. in this way… meaning trying to bypass the expected, as both you and I had talked about me sending you an email …. I succeeded with this email and not at the same time … next to me sat a journalist, Folke Ryden. He was on his way to the States to finish a film about the current elections. He made a similar film when Clinton won and was now interviewing the same group of people (again synchronicity!) The conversation with him was very enlightening and it gave me a perspective of a country’s psychology: the composed fragmented body of a nation … natural and frightening and ordinary…
And so the change, or the move to Berlin, temporarily or as long and settled as anything could be — it is already leaving its marks: the time spent there, the dinners, the drinks, the vodka, the lunches, the coffees, Mr Cookie and, later on, Plastique — again some kind of synchronicity…
I was thinking also how absurd the world can be, thinking that the gigantic Lenin statue was replaced by a bunch of stones… what is the symbolic of this? Some water pouring out… a small spring came out Lenin with his big foot was keeping it from running ….
I woke up not so long ago, and wanted to print this incoherent note before getting back to the other email, not that the other email will reveal much new… but as a start, as a letter, and always trying to avoid representation.
So from one reality to another or two simultaneous realities, or synchronized ones: in New York you open OUT NOW! at e-flux next Friday, and Trong Nguyen opens in Fruit & Flower same day … then we meet in Berlin again, only two days later… once again synchronicity, who knows, maybe we end up on the same flight…
Let me know if you are in NY yet,
Best,
Rodrigo
Keeper of Fruit and Flower Deli
Rodrigo for – Fruit & Flower Deli
rodrigo@fruitandflowerdeli.com
phone +1 6464135390
Fruit & Flower Deli
53 A Stanton Street
10002 New York, NY
ed.
[2] David Adamo
[3] Ylva Ogland
[6] Snöfrid is Ylva’s mirror twin
[4] Julieta Aranda
[5] Jota Castro
[1] Anton Vidokle
***
7. The reading room
Having noticed a certain lack of public libraries on contemporary art, e-flux asked some of the museums and publishers it works with to give their recent publications for a public reading room in Berlin. The reading room will open with more then 2000 volumes provided by Irish Museum of Modern Art, Deutsche Guggenheim, The Sculpture Center, Archis Foundation, The New Museum, Locus Athens, Lehman College Gallery, Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, CCNOA Brussels, ICI, The Drawing Center, Shefield Contemporary Art Forum, Matt’s Gallery, London, National Sculpture FactoryIreland, Caja de Burgos Art Centre, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Parker’s Box, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Parasol Unit, Foundation for Contemporary Art; Public Art Lab / Mobile Studios; Villa Manin: Centro de Art Contemporanea; Austrian Cultural Forum; Office of Contemporary Art, Norway; La Maison Rouge; Frankfurter Kunstverein; National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST); Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site; Project Art Center, Essex/ Project Press; NADA; Serpentine Gallery; Via Farini; The Moore Space; Or Gallery, Vancouver; Villa Arson; Galerija Skuc; Artadia; Objectif Projects; Taipei Fine Arts Museum (Taipei Biennial and Taiwan Pavilion); Sala Rekalde; Portikus; I Sotterranei dell’Arte, Monte Carasso; Apex Art; Archis Foundation; Flintridge Foundation; Kunsthaus Graz; Institute National de l´Arte Contemporain; Redcat; tranzit, initiative for contemporary art; PS1; Vera List Center; O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartskunst; FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange; CAB; Kunstlerhaus Stuttgard; Siemens Arts Program; National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest ; Foundation Antoni Ratti; Art Box; De Appel; Queens Museum; GAK; Parkett; Parasol Unit; InSite/Installation Gallery; Dia Center for the Arts; Secession; Art & Industry Biennial Trust; Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; MUSAC; Weatherspoon Art Museum; Aeroplastics; Salzburger Kunstverein; Museion; Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein; SCI-Arc Gallery, Southern California Institute of Architecture; Art Forum; Public Art Lower Austria; SITE Santa fe; MDD – Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; Artspeak; Afterall Books; Black Dog Publishing; A prior; Middelheim Museum; KW, Berlin; Art Resources Transfer Inc.; Luckman Fine Arts Complex; Institiute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art; Americas Society; Stroom den Haag; Museum in Progress; Wyspa Progress Foudation; Museion; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art; Mobile Academy; Sternberg Press; DaimlerChrysler Contemporary; Umetnostna galerija / Umetnostna Galerija Maribor; MDD – Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; MUSAC; Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan; Monokultur; Blanton Museum of Art; GAK, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; Bidoun; Bonner Kunstverein and other institutions.
Should you wish to add a publication to the reading room, please mail it to e-flux at Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14A, Berlin 10249
Many thanks!
***
8.
Why are conceptual artists painting again?
Cause they think its a good idea!
A discussions series organized by Jan Verwoert.
Starts in October.
***
9.
Snöfrid Bar
No. -1
This time I am present as a liquid so that you can drink me.
I choose for whom I appear.
Pure liquid is supporting the health of the soul.
I am the revolution of seasons.
I am circulation.
Anton Vidokle is my third eye.
Rodrigo Mallea Lira is my eternity.
Julieta Aranda is my air.
Johan Hjerpe is my container.
Ylva Ogland is my earthly twin sister.
My mother is my mother.
The Oracle is my nave.
The bartender is my dancer.
My bar is in Berlin.
My walls and floor is e-flux.
My roof is Fruit and Flower Deli.
Pearl is for the connection to other dimensions.
Gold is for supporting the I.
Vanilla is for understanding the complexity of sex.
Birch is for remembering birth.
Amethyst is for not getting intoxicated.
And it is continuing.
To please the desire through pleasure.
Snöfrid
***
10. For more information about the park, the large rabbit hole, the cat, the supermarket, the bulgarian restaurant or any other matter, please contact Magdalena Magiera at
magdalena@e-flux.com
11. For questions regarding the oracle, please contact the Keeper at keeper@fruitandflowerdeli.com
the building
Platz Der Vereinten Nationen 14a
Berlin 10249
T: +49 (0) 30 28 04 79 73
