The Marx Lounge

Last updated

The Marx Lounge at the 2010 Liverpool Biennial. The Marx Lounge.jpg
The Marx Lounge at the 2010 Liverpool Biennial.

The Marx Lounge is an art exhibition by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar. [1] [2] It was first presented at the Liverpool Biennial art exhibition in England in 2010 and was later shown at the Biennial again in 2016. [3] [4] [5] The exhibit has subsequently been presented at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam's SMBA space and the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art (CAAC). [6] [7] [8] For the exhibition a large space was transformed into a red reading room with sofas, reading lamps and a large reading table on which a large collection of books was installed. [9]

The texts displayed included about 350 publications concerning topics such as marxism, capitalism, neoliberalism, postcolonialism, politics, globalization and philosophy. Visitors were invited to sit and read the presented literature and the intent of the exhibition was to provide "a direct response to the financial crisis and to the fundamental questioning of the capitalist system it has elicited." [7] Amongst the books were, apart from Marx’s work, books by Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière, Antonio Negri, and Slavoj Žižek.

Of the exhibition, Jaar has stated that "I wanted people to stop in their tracks, because you can access the internet in your home and on your phones. There is so much technology today, but I think the book has this value of stopping you in your tracks of asking you to go deeper inside. I have the impression that technology keeps us on the surface." [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Performance art</span> Artwork created through actions of an artist or other participants

Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a public in a fine art context in an interdisciplinary mode. Also known as artistic action, it has been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an important and fundamental role in 20th century avant-garde art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walker Art Gallery</span> Art gallery in Liverpool, England

The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biennale</span> Event occurring every two years

In the art world, a Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally international event goes back to at least the 1851 Great Exhibition in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liverpool Biennial</span> Contemporary art festival in Liverpool

Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom.

Martha Rosler is an American artist. She is a conceptual artist who works in photography and photo text, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler's work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women's experience. Recurrent concerns are the media and war, as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to places of passage and systems of transport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Lewis</span> English painter

William Lewis is an English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer. He was a founder-member of The Medway Poets and of the Stuckists art group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jens Hoffmann</span> Costa Rican writer and educator (born 1974)

Jens Hoffmann Mesén is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. He is the former director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art from 2007 to 2016 and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at The Jewish Museum from 2012 to 2017, a role from which he was terminated following an investigation into sexual harassment allegations brought forth by staff members. Hoffmann has held several teaching positions including California College of the Arts, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as others.

Raúl Zamudio is a New York-based independent curator, art critic, art historian and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfredo Jaar</span> Chilean-born artist, architect, photographer and filmmaker

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, photographer and filmmaker who lives in New York City. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war—the best known perhaps being the 6-year-long The Rwanda Project about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He has also made numerous public intervention works, like The Skoghall Konsthall one-day paper museum in Sweden, an early electronic billboard intervention A Logo For America, and The Cloud, a performance project on both sides of the Mexico-USA border. He has been featured on Art:21. He won the Hasselblad Award for 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan Gander</span> British artist

Ryan Gander is a British artist. Since 2003, Gander has produced a body of artworks in different forms, ranging from sculpture, apparel, writing, architecture, painting, typefaces, publications, and performance. Additionally, Gander curates exhibitions, has worked as an educator at art institutions and universities, and has written and presented television programmes on and about contemporary art and culture for the BBC.

<i>Park of the Laments</i>

Park of the Laments is a public artwork by Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, located in the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The artwork consists of an enclosed park space in the form of a square placed within a square, the inner parameter being made from limestone-filled gabion baskets, and the outer from indigenous trees and shrubs. The park space is only accessible by a concrete enclosed tunnel. The installation has a landscape design that consists of over 3,000 individual plant species from 53 different genera.

Akram Zaatari is a filmmaker, photographer, archival artist and curator. In 1997, he co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury, and Samer Mohdad. His work is largely based on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Arab World.

Adriana Valdés Budge is a Chilean writer essayist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eduardo Navarro (artist)</span> Argentine artist

Eduardo Navarro is a contemporary Argentinian artist. He lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2002, he has worked in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, collage, performance and installation.

The Sharjah Biennial is a large-scale contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The first Sharjah Biennial took place in 1993, and was organized by the Sharjah Department of Culture and Information until it is reorientation in 2003 by Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi.

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA) is a project space for contemporary art in Amsterdam, Netherlands. SMBA was founded in 1993 and is part of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. It is the uccessor of Museum Fodor, a platform for young Amsterdam artists that ceased to exist in 1992. The goals of SMBA are to stimulate and signal contemporary art in Amsterdam and to create an international stage for this. SMBA organizes eight to ten solo and group exhibitions annually. The current head of Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam is Jelle Bouwhuis.

Project 1975 started in 2010 as a two-year project based in the Netherlands with the intent to explore the relationships between contemporary art and postcolonialism. Through this project Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA) explored the role of art and visual culture in the context of colonial practices. The project consisted of multiple exhibitions, seminars, reading groups, articles, and a blog. "1975" in the title refers to the year that Suriname gained independence and the Netherlands thus became to some extent "postcolonial".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priscilla Monge</span> Costa Rican installation artist

Priscilla Monge is a Costa Rican artist. She is one of the best-known female artists from Central America.

Banu Cennetoğlu is a visual artist based in Istanbul. She uses photography, installation, and printed matter to explore the classification, appropriation and distribution of data and knowledge. Her work deals with listings, collections, rearrangements, and archives. Cennetoğlu co-represented Turkey at the 53rd International Venice Biennale with Ahmet Öğüt in 2009. Her work has been shown at numerous international institutions such as Musée cantonal des Beaux-arts, Lausanne (2022); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2020); Ständehaus, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Düsseldorf (2019); SculptureCenter, New York (2019); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2018), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2018); documenta14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2011); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014), Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010); Walker Art Center (2007); Istanbul Biennial (2007); and Berlin Biennial (2003). She is the founding director of BAS (2006–ongoing), an Istanbul-based artist-run initiative that collects and displays artists’ books and printed material as artwork. In Turkey, she is "best known as an apostle of the artist’s book."

Yeni and Nan are a team of Venezuelan artists. They were featured in exhibitions across the United States and Latin America. Yeni-Jennifer Hacksaw, developed a creative partnership with Nan González, under the name Yeni and Nan, carried out artistic performances and multimedia installations, which identified with 1980s conceptual art.

References

  1. Wendt, Selene. "The Art of Storytelling". ArtPulse Magazine. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  2. TÉLLEZ, JUAN JOSÉ. "El 'Marx Lounge' instala su artillería en Sevilla". Diario Público. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  3. "Alfredo Jaar". Liverpool Biennial. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Artist's Statement: Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar explains The Marx Lounge at Liverpool Biennial". Culture24 . Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  5. "Latinos dan estilo a la Bienal de Liverpool". El Universal. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  6. "Arco abre sus puertas a la reflexión y el debate creativos". Diario de Sevilla. 17 February 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  7. 1 2 "The Marx Lounge". SMBA. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  8. "Alfredo Jaar: MARX LOUNGE". CAAC. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  9. "Bibliografía para cambiar el mundo". El País. Retrieved 27 June 2015.