NEW YORK, NY.- This panel attempts to examine the idea of ‘perfection’ as it is embraced or rejected in the practice of contemporary artists. The topic is related to technical skill and craft versus a deliberate renunciation of these. The artwork as a contained entity with a distinguishable form has been questioned since the inception of Modernism when impressionists were accused to paint merely in stains.
Conceptual art’s progression towards a “dematerialization” of the object has offered the leverage to deepen the cleavage between artistic approaches that pursue a labor oriented mode of production and others that use a minimal effort in the creation of the object. In fact, this panel is centered at a notion of perfection that aims at the enchantment of form and material, while simultaneously acknowledging the limits that are implicit in the processes of rendering an idea or applying a technique.
The failure or plain impossibility of either an artistic or philosophical endeavour to get closer to the idea itself in both visual and spiritual terms is alluded to by the term “aporia” in the title for the panel. In order to provide a creative opposition of terms, the moderation is based on the contrast of “perfection” and “deskilling”, or, drawing on more musical terms, “pop” and “punk.”
The polemic presupposition for the panels discussion is a presumed development in artistic practice away from completion or ostensibly accomplished practice to more interventionist strategies and esoteric presences, thus allowing for the aesthetics of a 'New Poor,' a new form of arte povera, to develop, independent of the current recession.
In yet another set of a binary opposition, this panel seeks to find out when or where the actual turn happened from where attitudes become form (Harald Szeemann, 1969) to where forms become attitudes (Massimiliano Gioni, 2009).
Moderator: Lukas Baden (GER, Curator, Ferenbal Gurbruestation), Darren Bader (NYC based Artist, Writer, Curator), Glen Baldridge (NYC based Printmaker and Artist), Christian Ertel (GER, Artist), Christian de Vietri (AU, Artist), Shana Moulton (NYC based Artist)
