EXIT # 13 “Sense of Humor”
EXIT
Main artists: Teun Hocks & Erwin Wurm
Cover: Urs Luthi, Trademarks for Venezia, Placebos & Surrogates series, 1973/2001
San Marcelo, 30
Madrid – 28017
Spain
It has been written that it is impossible to fathom a world without laughter, that only fools and tyrants lack senses of humor. Some even say that laughter, like sex, is one of the best and most satisfactory physical exercises, and yet it is not a part of any set of gym drills. Perhaps laughter is an irresistible attack on a society with strict bourgeois customs, a sort of individual terrorism without any specific target. And art, especially contemporary art, has a lot to do with that method deploying both narration and terrorism.
Humor, dressed as irony, as biting criticism, as disguised rudeness or visual ingenuity, has been present in art for a long time, but the difference is that today the framework for art has expanded to such an extent that virtually everything fits. Artistic media and materials, especially photography and video, have broadened their possibilities of direct expression or subtle strategy so that humor has benefited and has been reinvented progressively as a narrative element.
In this issue of EXIT, in addition to the articles by Rosa Olivares, Jose Maria Parreno, Luis Francisco Perez and Ana Vigara, more than 20 international artists offer diverse approaches to sense of humor through their works. The two main artists pose very different ways of facing the world with a smile. Never with a burst of laughter. Teun Hocks’ melancholic gaze, which is inevitably linked to painting and surrealism, contrasts with the post-colonial irony linked to sculpture, film and performance, with which Erwin Wurm expresses a critique of contemporary society and (why not?) contemporary artistic forms themselves.
And there are more artists: Anna & Bernhard Blume, Olaf Breuning, Miguel Calderon, Carles Congost, Wim Delvoye, Elliot Erwitt, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, Pedro G. Romero, Tybor Gienis, Karen Knorr, Peter Land, Marcos Lopez, Urs Luthi, Isaac Montoya, Yoshua Okon, Martin Parr, Plonk & Replonk, Liliana Porter, Philippe Ramette, Paul M. Smith and William Wegman all participate in this volume full of humor and irony, demonstrating to us that every one of them laughs or smiles at what they want and with what they can.
EXIT. A quarterly thematic publication on image and culture, photography and contemporary art. Bilingual edition with articles in English and Spanish. Published by Olivares & Asociados.
San Marcelo, 30 Madrid 28017 Spain Tel. + 33 91 404 97 40
Upcoming issue, for May, EXIT # 14 “Abstraction”
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Available at museums, art centers, specialized bookshops in major cities in the international art circuit. International distribution by Idea Books: info@ideabooks.nl
Also published by Olivares & Asociados: Exit BOOK, an annual magazine on books about art and contemporary visual culture, and Exit EXPRESS, a monthly newspaper with information and debate on contemporary art. (Published in Spanish).
