art4d: Why did you get involved with the 'Cities on the Move' exhibition? Ole: Before getting involved with 'Cities on the Move' I wasn't really working with exhibitions as such. But over the last few years I've been getting closer and closer to spaces that would contain art, or show art. For example, when I was living in New York we were involved in some work with the Whitney Museum and PS1, and before I was dealing with the extension for the MoMA museum. Then in London there was a discussion with Hans Ulrich about an informal art space. For myself, there was a series of projects or moments dealing with these questions of how these things could work together. And there was some frustration on my part from visiting galleries and museums and seeing how these things are displayed, and what kind of minimal effort is made to transgress almost moral boundaries in this field. On the other hand, the artists may be many steps ahead of this phenomenon and the context they inscribe themselves in. In some sense, I think for me there was a clear lack within - if you want, architectural practices, as much as it was involved in the question of how art could be shown, and how maybe a new concept could be thought to do this that drove me closer and closer to the subject. But then I followed the 'Cities on the Move' at most of the previous places. And when I was working with Hans Ulrich the show came to London and we got together to do the show and it was the first opportunity where designers were asked to completely remodel and reshuffle the exhibition. Yung Ho Chang was involved in Louisiana before, but he could more or less provide a minimal system that the show could adopt and operate with. It was not really a complete design of the show. Also then within the discourse I had with Rem, Hou Hanru and Hans Ulrich Obrist on how to do it, it was a fairly interesting question of how we could work such a project. And it's clearly linked with the content of the show. Quite interesting in its content and even scale and dynamics and how it tries to reach a similar density maybe as the urban conditions that it talks about. So it was an interesting show to start experimenting with these questions. art4d: As far as I know, 'Cities on the Move' is the biggest travelling art show on earth. What do you think is the big difference between the London version and the previous versions? Ole: I have to think it was different because it was our target to do so. (Laughter) Our goal was to reconstruct or construct an environment that was like the Asian city that the show ultimately talks about. And just trying to reach a state of complex totality, or an entire organism, that would then develop some of the mechanisms that the city itself has. I think it was less about mimicking an Asian condition and trying to look like it, but I think we really tried to employ certain mechanisms of the city to use as tools of operation for ourselves to construct the show. So the question was not so much what the show would look like, but what kind of elements, and what kind of tools and mechanisms could we use to produce the show. So the process of bringing these things together was the really crucial thing for the entire venture. As for the differences, through the travelling the show adapts to the specific venue and context. The show in Louisiana was probably the most different to the London version in terms of being spread out, but becoming more an accumulation of single art objects that deal autonomously with very specific questions of the city. But we had the feeling that it was not only the situation of London and the situation of the Hayward Gallery and the Southbank, this concrete 60s, very powerful and very urban environment had a very strong influence. But also in general, and conceptually, we felt that it was interesting to redensify the show and move things closer together so maybe they reach this kind of critical mass, which would produce more than just the singular object. art4d: It seemed that the London version of the exhibition really came together as a whole and as an event. Ole: In that sense, maybe the aim was to make it as little an exhibition as it could be in contrast to the previous ones. This is something that becomes even more relevant for our current situation here in Bangkok. Now that this show is coming into the Asian context for the first time and being actually within the environment that it talks about, it automatically takes on much more the question of how to reinvent itself in the dynamic system of a city rather than this kind of display of an object. And I think the whole notion of the object is more and more a very critical question - not only within the exhibition, but within architecture and urban terms in general. art4d: Had you ever been to Bangkok before the exhibition? Ole: No, I never came here before 'Cities on the Move'. art4d: So when you heard the exhibition was coming to Bangkok, what was your first impression? Ole: In general, I thought the exhibition was coming into its own context for the first time. Bangkok is fairly specific but also a fairly general situation for an Asian city. art4d: It's a big mess. (Laughter.) Ole: A big mess: a lot of density, a lot of speed, to the point where it actually slows itself down. And this applies to traffic or even the building activities themselves. In London, returning to your previous question, the exhibition was about trying to connect this mass of events and installations and objects to the structure of the city, and I think it was very much about the institutional framework of the gallery. But at the same time, seeing how one could transgress this institutional framework and go beyond it and connect it to the city. As opposed to London, here we're right in the middle of the city we're talking about so there's a blunt necessity to include the city itself in the show. art4d: So what's the plan? Ole: It's a big hypothesis of many, many elements. The plan is here I'll open the map and we'll look at it while we talk. An important starting point for this show was while asking the artists to participate for the sixth staging of the show, I thought it would be quite important to be more precise in terms of describing an outline for the show - the different spaces, the different scales, and the different situations the show would try to operate in to trigger a more precise response to a very concrete environment. It's a very difficult question for the program of 'Cities on the Move'. How to negotiate between itself as a structure of events or as an accumulation of singular works, objects, and very personal ways of looking at things. And I think the strength of the show in general is that it manages, in certain instances, to bring both things together. The accumulation of all these singular views started to create something that by far exceeds the relevance of the singular piece involved. So now, looking at Bangkok, we don't even have this institutional framework that we were talking about before. There is not one museum with its entire structure behind it to contain the show, but there's a series of small galleries (partly privately run, some of them public) spread throughout the city that might form already the core of the art scene in Bangkok. But at the same time seem to be, as much as they're connected, fairly dispersed and independent. So the idea is to involve all of these spaces, together with the people that run them and form some big team and try to connect this dispersal, within the network, and under the umbrella, of 'Cities on the Move'. And to use 'Cities on the Move' as a hyper-structure if you want to connect existing places and structures rather than impose one system inside one contained environment. So automatically the question comes up of how to connect these different points and travel from one place to the next. art4d: This could be a big problem. (Laughter) Ole: It could be a big problem, but at the same time, like all problems, it could be an advantage. So it's very ambiguous, and a positively ambiguous situation, where, for example, the dispersal of all these small venues, and how to get to them, makes for an automatic involvement of the city within the show. So the different gallery spaces play very different roles within the organism of Bangkok. Then the second step is the urban infrastructure and transportation systems to link these different venues. These things connect to some of the different artworks of the show like Nawin's tuk-tuk project. And we're working with him on how to use the tuk-tuks in the way they've always been used; and to use them as a flexible structure that could be assigned to different priorities, creating temporal connections between these different spaces. But other transport systems like the boats, regular taxis and buses, maybe the train system, and eventually the new sky-train. So we're also talking to the BMA to see if it would be possible to employ, at least for the short time sequence of the show, some of these infrastructure projects to include the experience of moving through the city, and the speed. Next to the dispersal of the show, the question of time is also a very important issue for the show in Bangkok. So in a way the understanding of how the dispersal of space, and a certain delay and time go together to create a mechanism that gradually starts covering the city. Besides the spaces and the transportation, we may involve other real places like a shopping mall and the skeleton of an abandoned building, which could remind us of the boom and the economic crisis. We will also have some sort of small film and video festival that will take place in a commercial cinema. So we hope the show will be accessible to a local audience too. At the previous exhibitions in self-contained spaces, there wasn't the real conflict of having to connect with someone you're actually talking about. art4d: But is there a danger here that the original content of the exhibition may be superseded by the method of installation? Ole: I think it rather should be added on to. The show still consists of singular, independent works but I think that to have the simultaneity, the autonomous position of each work, but placed in a context where it develops multiple relationships to its environment and other works in the show might be the target. So I see this as an addition to the singular piece and not working against the show. I think it will be important here in Bangkok to develop more of a specific dialogue between European and global projects and local ones. So certain projects will have to connect locally and reinscribe themselves in a global context. to be continued... |
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