Project 2009
Theory
The project explores outer and inner journeys in and as art, their psychic effects and the sensual stimuli on which they rely, first of all by identifying and looking at a field with many examples of relevant artworks, (experimental) films and music.
Departure point of the project is the observation that today’s art reconnects with the optical and kinetic art of the 1960s. Art with a sensorial/physiological basis is revisited today, think of Op Art and Bridget Riley’s recent exhibition in Frankfurt. Critics come to new conclusions as to how this art connects to today’s experiential array. The visual language of the late fifties and sixties is rediscovered by a younger generation of artists. Chrissie Isles, in her contribution to the catalogue of the exhibition “The Summer of Love”, states that only now we are ready to process the crux of the psychedelic art of the 1960s; in the historical perspective psychedelic art came at the “wrong” moment, in the era of reconstruction after World War II, that demanded a pragmatic positivism.
The ambition of the project is to redeem the concept of the trip, and bring it to the art discourse of today. In current art theory, the trip is a suspect concept. It is associated with the generation of the 1960s focused at an inner fantasy world, and not taking into account the parameters of the world at large. Today we see a re-evaluation of art ideas of those times notably Op Art and Psychedelia, that at the time spread out in a large context and became cultural/societal movements.
The question how artists use the trip in their practices to trigger to convey experiences, is at the core of this project. Trips involve mental movement and they relate to notions such as sensorial stimulants, travel and isolation. Trips can occur when a body is exposed to inducing substances or strong sensorial stimuli, at a given place and time, in a given timespan. The notion of “the trip” seems more than only an apt metaphor to describe how art lives within us, how it leads to inner responses, triggers affects and fosters the growing of new ideas. Therefore it is a relevant issue for today’s art and art discourse.
Relevant works (a small selection):
Gino de Dominicis,
Second Resolution of Immortality (The Universe is Immobile), 1972;
János Sugár,
The Bull of Irreversibility in the China Shop of Present (Exhibition Set), 1985-2007;
Rodney Graham,
SOFTCORE. More Solo Guitar Music for the Sex Scene, Zabriskie Point, 2001;
Harmen Brethouwer,
The Cares of the Pagans, 1984 - 1989 (2008);
Frans Zwartjes,
Spectator, 1970;
Roger Corman (dir.),
The Trip, 1967 (script by Jack Nicholson);
Paul Morrisey and Andy Warhol (dir.),
The Chelsea Girls, 1966;
Tony Conrad,
Flicker, 1967;
Brion Gysin,
Dreamachine, 1958;
Bruce Nauman,
Rotating Glass Walls, 1970;
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard & collaborators,
Silent Sound, 2006;
Andrej Tarkovski,
Stalker, 1979;
Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point, 1970.
Relevant artists (a small selection):
Henri Michaud; Sture Johannesson; Øyvindt Fahlstrom; Lygia Clark; Helio Oiticica; Ira Cohen; Livinus van de Bundt; Dick Raaijmakers, Mark Boyle / The Boyle Family; Gustav Metzger; La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela; Jayoi Kusama; Pawel Althamer; Roland Schimmel; Richard Wright; Jaroslaw Flicinski; Joan Jonas; Pierre Huyghe; Eduardo Paolozzi; Chuck Close