September 2007 in Artforum
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Does the money-drenched condition of contemporary art spell the end for the kind of curatorial irreverence and ingenuity that transformed the art world in the 90s into a truly global affair? Do the mordant and even hostile responses to this years Venice Biennale, Documenta, and Skulptur Projekte Münster on the part of professionals and general audiences alike signal that the paradigm of the large-scale show has hit an iceberg and is about to sink? –Okwui Enwezor
And: Artist Charles Ray talks to Rachel Kushner about Hinoki, 2007. Recently on view at Regen Projects in Los Angeles, the carved-wood sculpture re-creates a found (and then stolen) thirty-two-foot-long fallen tree. The artist recounts the decadelong creative process, from the initial inspiration to the traces of all these different peoples hands left on the final work.
People talk about architecture, placement in a room, but I think the artfulness of a work is how its spatially embedded. There are some great David Smiths whose spatial embedment makes you feel that if you were to turn them, the whole world would turn with them. Maybe the tree is like that. –Charles Ray
Also in September: Testing Your Patience. Scott MacDonald interviews filmmaker James Benning, whose practice grows out of structural film. Benning discusses his recent works, including casting a glance, a 16-mm film about Robert Smithsons Spiral Jetty that debuts at Documenta 12 this month.
It always pleased me when people would tell me theyd almost left my film but instead had stayed and felt that the experience had taught them to look differently, to become more proactive as a viewer. –James Benning
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