New Parkett with Ai Weiwei, Cosima von Bonin, and Christian Jankowski and more
Parkett’s explorations and investigations of leading international contemporary artists continue in vol. 81, featuring Ai Weiwei, Cosima von Bonin, and Christian Jankowski.
Additional texts feature Keith Edmier (by Christian Scheidemann), Tino Sehgal (by Reimut Reiche), and Jules Spinatsch (by Martin Jaeggi). Two leading editors,Tim Griffin and Jennifer Higgie, contribute a commentary for the Garderobe section;. Cumulus texts are by Nico Baumbach and Adam Szymczyk. The Spine is by Ulla von Brandenburg and the Insert by Heimo Zobernig.
Ai Weiwei, known for his multifaceted range of projects in art and architecture, including his contribution to the design of the Olympic stadium in Beijing, candidly discusses and shares his views in an interview with renowned architect Jacques Herzog. Charles Merewether mines Ai’s early, decade-long stay in New York, pondering the simple conceptual twists of some of his seminal works, including the antique Chinese urn with the omnipresent Coca-Cola logo painted on its side. A richly atmospheric piece by Philip Tinari traces Ai’s key role in China’s present artistic movement. For his Parkett edition Ai Weiwei made a handy, gilded brass
fly swatter.
Behind Cosima von Bonin’s immense stuffed dog sculptures, oversized mushrooms, and colorful, fastidiously tailored fabric works, there is a dangerous tension, a volatility that, while hard to pin down, links her abstractly to a tradition of edgy, irreverent artists. According to Bennett Simpson, all her forms express control, domination, and subordination, but camaraderie as well–like that one might have for ones K-9 muse. Diedrich Diederichsen suggests that von Bonin’s diverse repertoire of materials and subjects all lead back to “some kind of grass-roots rural drama”–one both ancient and kitsch. A third text on the artist was written by German rock star Dirk von Lowtzow, and for her Parkett edition von Bonin has created a stainless steel rolling pin painted in a camouflage rainbow of teen-spirited colors.
Jörg Heiser reflects on Christian Jankowski’s THE HOLY ARTWORK (2001), describing the artist’s transformation into the “‘plaything’ of a Texan televangelist, by coming forward with his video camera during a live broadcast of a religious service, and falling to the ground at his feet.” This piece vividly illustrates what Harald Falckenberg recognizes as Jankowski’s chameleon-like blend of “actor, performer, magician, seducer, thief, and charlatan.” His ability to seduce and bluff on the spot continues to play out with precision and charm on the ever-shifting game board of international contemporary art. A third text on Jankowski is written by former Parkett editor Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, and his edition consists of fifty unique portraits taken by fifty different photographers of himself in different places and locations reading some of his favorite artists texts
in Parkett.
For more details on the new Parkett, its artist editions, as well as for subscriptions and back issues, please go to www.parkettart.com
