David Goldenberg, Mobile Documenta

A public text
A public speech
A public sculpture

A public text

Mobile Documenta

A new work by David Goldenberg for Fordham Gallery

Poster for “The time of Post Autonomy,” 10th Istanbul Biennial, 2007

“The time of Post Autonomy” 2, Visualisation room, Your-space, Vanabbemuseum, The Nederlands, 2009.

The current project by David Goldenberg, the London based artist, curator and writer, continues ideas staged for Fordham at Netwerk, Aalst, Belguim 2006, 10th Istanbul Biennial 2007 (with k2 Info lab), and, Your-space, Vanabbemuseum, The Nederland’s, 2009; examining “participatory practices” and establishing a “new model” of contemporary art under the name of “Post Autonomy” through establishing a space beyond a Euro-centric tradition of art. The mental process for imagining and working through the stages for materialising Post Autonomy is via the methodology of a Visualisation room. The visualisation room offers the capacity for mentally inhabiting and working through a range of roles. This new project continues this visualisation process.

Mobile Documenta

Mobile Documenta is intended as a sequence of activities that takes place in a range of forms that question a stable and normalised reading of culture. What I understand by a Mobile Documenta is in the form of an “idea” and a “material form” that embodies a Mobile Documenta, so this text begins to sketch out some of these ideas. In both cases a Mobile Documenta encapsulates the disengagement of contemporary culture from its past function, and imagines the effect of staging a Documenta in different cultures and countries. The mental image of Documenta is intended here as a frame or limit that is necessary to traverse in order to develop another model of art, which, I want to claim here opens up into the space into Post Autonomy, where Post Autonomy exists as the language and agenda for mapping and recognising a new model of art.
Since Fordham gallery currently exists in a mobile form, it is suitable to begin to think about a Mobile Documenta here. [Please see programme notes and the post autonomy website for future events]. This sequence aims to piece together how it is possible to build a new Model. From the outset it is intended to chart a realistic picture of contemporary culture, the issues and problems faced in establishing a new model.

Diagram of floor drawing, produced for Your-space, Vanabbemuesum, The Nederlands, 2009.

Introdution

The current project by David Goldenberg, the London based artist, curator and writer, continues ideas staged for Fordham at Netwerk, Aalst, Belguim 2006, 10th Istanbul Biennial 2007 (with k2 Info lab), and, Your-space, Vanabbemuseum, The Nederland’s, 2009; “participatory practices” and establishing a “new model” of contemporary art under the name of “Post Autonomy” through establishing a space beyond a Euro-centric tradition of art. The mental process for imagining and working through the stages for materialising Post Autonomy is via the methodology of a Visualisation room. The visualisation room offers the capacity for mentally occupying a range of roles and what those roles involve. This new project continues this visualisation process.
[For more information please see http://www.postautonomy.co.uk]

Mobile Documenta

Mobile Documenta is intended as a sequence of activities that takes place in a range of forms that question a stable and normalised reading of culture. What I understand by a Mobile Documenta is in the form of an “idea” and a “material form” that embodies a Mobile Documenta, so this text begins to sketch out some of these ideas. In both cases a Mobile Documenta encapsulates the disengagement of contemporary culture from its past function, and imagines the effect of staging a Documenta in different cultures and countries. The mental image of Documenta is intended here as a frame or limit that is necessary to traverse in order to develop another model of art, which, I want to claim here opens up into the space into Post Autonomy, where Post Autonomy exists as the language and agenda for mapping and recognising a new model of art.
Since Fordham gallery currently exists in a mobile form, it is suitable to begin to think about a Mobile Documenta here. [Please see programme notes and the post autonomy website for future events]. This sequence aims to piece together how it is possible to build a new Model. From the outset it is intended to chart a realistic picture of contemporary culture, the issues and problems faced in establishing a new model, including the actual room for material change within the existing model, alongside locating and understanding those ideologies and claims that deny the possibility of change.

The image/interface of Documenta is intended as an idea and a framework showing a total view of contemporary art, but also as a project we can point too that address’s the question of a Euro-centric tradition of arts relationship to a Global context, the Colonial mechanism of contemporary art, multiculturalism, the role of Politics within contemporary art. Our point of departure for understanding Documenta – i.e. contemporary art in its totality, is through a reading of Oliver Marcharts book examining the recent history and ideology of Documenta in the Belgian theorist and philosopher Dieter Lesage text “The next Documenta”. The text outlines a convincing analysis of the purpose of the existing structures for displaying and presenting contemporary culture, which in turn colours or influences any statement made by a work within that system. ”In his book Marchart describes museums, biennials, and other large-scale art exhibitions such model, including the actual room for material change within the existing model, alongside locating and understanding those ideologies and claims that deny the possibility of change.

Camp Aalst, Back to back by David Goldenberg, Fordham at Netwerk, Aalst, Belgium, 2006.

The image/interface of Documenta is intended as an idea and a framework showing a total view of contemporary art, but also as a project we can point too that address’s the question of a Euro-centric tradition, of arts relationship to a Global context, the Colonial mechanism of contemporary art, multiculturalism, the role of Politics within contemporary art. Our point of departure for understanding
Documenta – i.e. contemporary art in its totality, is through a reading of Oliver Marcharts book examining the recent history and ideology of Documenta in the Belgian theorist and philosopher Dieter Lesage text “The next Documenta”. The text outlines a convincing analysis of the purpose of the existing structures for displaying and presenting contemporary culture, which in turn colours or influences any statement made by a work within that system.

”In his book Marchart describes museums, biennials, and other large-scale art exhibitions such as the documenta as hegemony machines, functioning not unlike the World’s Fairs that have contributed significantly to the project of nation-building since the mid-nineteenth century. Following the reflections of Antonio Gramsci in Quaderni del carcere, Marchart defines hegemony as a precarious balance between dominant and subaltern forces that, through the networks of society’s institutions (museums, biennials, and large-scale exhibitions), establishes a momentary primacy of certain forces. These forces can always be overturned, depending on shifts in an ongoing “war of position.” The concept of hegemony can be explained as the way in which consensus is produced as a primordial means of securing the dominance of certain forces. Every institution, which may at some moment seem to consolidate dominant bourgeois culture, may at another point be useful for a counter-hegemonic project—one that could eventually establish another hegemony. Following Laclau and Mouffe’s radicalization of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Marchart points out that subjects and subject positions are only the effects of hegemonic discursive formations. The progressive and emancipatory potentiality of institutions as discourse producers provides the main reason why they should not be abandoned, as a great many leftists have done out of a belief that institutions as such necessarily consolidate petty bourgeois culture. Marchart strongly argues for such a potentiality, citing the hegemonic shifts in discourse that were successfully produced by Catherine David’s documenta X (which politicized the field of art) and even more so by Okwui Enwezor’s documenta 11 (which de-occidentalized the field of art). “
From eflux “The next Documenta” 2009.

This text provides the point of departure for a programme of online debates on the post autonomy website.

LETTERS ON THE AESTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN.

LETTER I.
By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the results
of my researches upon beauty and art. I am keenly sensible of the
importance as well as of the charm and dignity of this undertaking. I
shall treat a subject which is closely connected with the better portion
of our happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of human
nature. I shall plead this cause of the beautiful before a heart by
which her whole power is felt and exercised, and which will take upon
itself the most difficult part of my task in an investigation where one
is compelled to appeal as frequently to feelings as to principles.
That which I would beg of you as a favor, you generously impose upon me as a duty; and, when I solely consult my inclination, you impute to me a service. The liberty of action you prescribe is rather a necessity for
me than a constraint. Little exercised in formal rules, I shall scarcely
incur the risk of sinning against good taste by any undue use of them; my
ideas, drawn rather from within than from reading or from an intimate
experience with the world, will not disown their origin; they would
rather incur any reproach than that of a sectarian bias, and would prefer
to succumb by their innate feebleness than sustain themselves by borrowed authority and foreign support. In truth, I will not keep back from you that the assertions which follow rest chiefly upon Kantian principles; but if in the course of these researches you should be reminded of any special school of philosophy, ascribe it to my incapacity, not to those principles. No; your liberty of mind shall be sacred to me; and the facts upon which I build will be furnished by your own sentiments; your own unfettered thought will dictate the laws according to which we have to proceed.

With regard to the ideas which predominate in the practical part of
Kant’s system, philosophers only disagree, whilst mankind, I am confident of proving, have never done so. If stripped of their technical shape, they will appear as the verdict of reason pronounced from time immemorial by common consent, and as facts of the moral instinct which nature, in her wisdom, has given to man in order to serve as guide and teacher until his enlightened intelligence gives him maturity. But this very technical shape which renders truth visible to the understanding conceals it from the feelings; for, unhappily, understanding begins by destroying the object of the inner sense before it can appropriate the object. Like the
chemist, the philosopher finds synthesis only by analysis, or the
spontaneous work of nature only through the torture of art. Thus, in
order to detain the fleeting apparition, he must enchain it in the
fetters of rule, dissect its fair proportions into abstract notions, and
preserve its living spirit in a fleshless skeleton of words. Is it
surprising that natural feeling should not recognize itself in such a
copy, and if in the report of the analyst the truth appears as paradox?
Permit me therefore to crave your indulgence if the following researches
should remove their object from the sphere of sense while endeavoring to
draw it towards the understanding. That which I before said of moral
experience can be applied with greater truth to the manifestation of “the
beautiful.” It is the mystery which enchants, and its being is
extinguished with the extinction of the necessary combination of its
elements.

LETTER II.

But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I
were to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of art. It would
appear to be unseasonable to go in search of a code for the aesthetic
world, when the moral world offers matter of so much higher interest, and
when the spirit of philosophical inquiry is so stringently challenged by
the circumstances of our times to occupy itself with the most perfect of
all works of art--the establishment and structure of a true political
freedom. It is unsatisfactory to live out of your own age and to work for other times. It is equally incumbent on us to be good members of our own age as of our own state or country. If it is conceived to be unseemly and
even unlawful for a man to segregate himself from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, it would be inconsistent not to see that it is equally his duty to grant a proper share of influence to the voice
of his own epoch, to its taste and its requirements, in the operations in
which he engages. But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself boldly above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its
prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and
not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, that
prevails, and lends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utility is
the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all
subjects are subservient. In this great balance on utility, the
spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all
encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. The
very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one
promise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed in
proportion as the limits of science are enlarged.
The eyes of the philosopher as well as of the man of the world are
anxiously turned to the theatre of political events, where it is presumed
the great destiny of man is to be played out. It would almost seem to
betray a culpable indifference to the welfare of society if we did not
share this general interest. For this great commerce in social and moral
principles is of necessity a matter of the greatest concern to every
human being, on the ground both of its subject and of its results. It
must accordingly be of deepest moment to every man to think for himself.
It would seem that now at length a question that formerly was only
settled by the law of the stronger is to be determined by the calm
judgment of the reason, and every man who is capable of placing himself
in a central position, and raising his individuality into that of his
species, can look upon himself as in possession of this judicial faculty
of reason; being moreover, as man and member of the human family, a party in the case under trial and involved more or less in its decisions. It
would thus appear that this great political process is not only engaged
with his individual case, it has also to pronounce enactments, which he
as a rational spirit is capable of enunciating and entitled to pronounce.
It is evident that it would have been most attractive to me to inquire
into an object such as this, to decide such a question in conjunction
with a thinker of powerful mind, a man of liberal sympathies, and a heart
imbued with a noble enthusiasm for the weal of humanity. Though so
surprise to have found your unprejudiced mind arriving at the same result
.
Once is nothing, Individual systems, Exhibition of an exhibition. Brussels Biennial, 2008. Curated by Charles Esche & Maria Hlavajova.

David Goldenberg is a London based independent artist, curator and writer, who has examined the new concept of art post Autonomy since 2000. Detailed information, texts projects and online debates can be found on the Post Autonomy website http://www.postautonomy.co.uk.

Forthcoming projects

10.10, examining new models of art, New Delhi, India; 2009/10, Plausable artworlds, Basekamp, Philadelphia, USA; Ex-territory, Alexandria, Eygpt; Tour of Romania 2010.

Examples of David Goldenberg’s work can be found in: “Whose afraid of Red, White and Blue – British art from 1989-98”; Thames and Hudson books “Installation art”, and “New Media in Late 20th Century art”; Artanthology, Dumont literature und kunst verlag, Cologne; postautonomie reader, Gutleut verlag; Writings can be found in Fillip no 8 & no 10, Atlantica, summer/autumn 2009 edition; Control Magazine no 16, AND, MKKM, and London art online.

He co-organised the symposium “Curating post institutions” (ACE funded) ICA, London, UK, 1999. During the1990’s he curated a number of projects, including “Martin”, 1998, Atlantis Gallery & Commercial Gallery, London, and Waygood gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK & Catalyst arts, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Homeless projects, 1998-2000, London & Germany; “Happy shopper”, 1996, Elephant & Castle, London, UK; “50X50X50X50” (ACE funded), in collaboration with John Roberts, 1994, Schipper Krome gallery Koln, Germany; “Flexible Response” (ACE funded), 1993, Atlantis Gallery and F-stop, Bath, UK.

Recent exhibitions include:

2009, Your-space, Vanabbemuseum, The Nederlands; 2009, interpretations and translations, Shedhalle, Zurich, Switzerland; Avantgarde below zero, Antwerp, Belgium; 2008. Agitpop, printmakers studio, London, UK; 2007, 10th Istanbul Biennial (in collaboration with k2 info lab); 2007, The Space of Post Autonomy, Local operations, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; 2007, Locally Localised Gravity, Plausable Artworlds, ICA Philadelphia, USA; 2006, Fordham at Netwerk, Netwerk vzw, Centrum voor hedendaagsekunst, Aalst, Belgium; 2006, Jump into cold water, Shedhalle, Zurich, Switzerland; 2006, Art Anthology, Kunst und Austellungsshalle der Bundersrepublik Deutscland, Bonn, Germany; 2005, Les Merveilles Du Monde, curated by Peter Fillingham, Museum of Fine Art Dunkurque, France; 2005, Open Congress, Tate Britain, London, UK; 2004, Copyfight, Centre d’art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain; 2004 ,Softlogics, kuenstlerhaus, Stuttgart, Germany; 2004, STRUCTUR, Artist network, New York, NY, USA; 2003, Ram 4, Nifca, Helsinki, Finland. 2003, 6th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emerates; 2003-07 Curating Degree Zero – European Tour; 2003, Art Anthology –Tour; 2002-06, How to be a perfect guest? (Version 1), Museum of Modern art, Arnhem, The Nederlands; Flexplek, in collaboration with Wim Salki, BAK, Utrecht, the Nederlands; 2001, Century City, Tate Modern, London, UK; 2000, What’s to be done? Arts depot, Vienna, Austria; 2000, Infection manifesto, Bonner Kunstverein, Germany; 2000, Out of space, kolnischer kunstverein, Germany.

Fordham gallery

The artists and artworks the Fordham gallery has worked with over the past 10 years are as diverse and challenging as the physical spaces the gallery has been occupying. Starting in 1999 the gallery first opened in a rented Whitechapel sweatshop.Four years and thirty shows later the gallery forced it’s way into a disused warehouse on Princelet street (off Brick Lane) where it remained for nearly three years, staging shows such as “So far So Good” group show involving thirty homeless artists and a retrospective show of the work Marcel Broodthears. From there the gallery moved to it’s current location on Whiteccross Street in 2007.
The gallery market stall gives the artists and viewers an opportunity to reflect on artistic propositions in an unconfined way, often just one work on show, no walls, open to discourse with chance passers by.
What brings everything together, are the artist’s and gallery’s ability to raise and push through some important artistic issues in a constructive manner.

How does this material assist in constructing a Mobile Documenta?

Open call

We are looking for articles, texts, project proposals and participants in the online debates that address the following -

- Idas for relocating Documenta to the UK
- Ideas and images visualising a Mobile Documenta
- How can we use the idea of a Mobile Documenta to imagine a
practice that disengages from consolidating Nation States, Idedities,
Colonisation.
- How can we use the idea of a Mobile Documenta to rethink another
system and model of art?