Casey Kaplan
Okayama Art Summit 2016
“Development”
I chose the title “Development” and used that as a starting point for this exhibition. The word here should be understood in various ways. Okayama is an exemplary city. Its historical relationship to development in an urbanistic sense is very particular. Moving between the various site of the Art Summit the visitor will encounter the layering of change, renovation and rebuilding that is at the heart of the contemporary Japanese city.
All the artists involved in the exhibition play with structures – ideological, formal and political. They do this in very specific ways. Each artist layers their work upon what they encounter. They offer various levels of distance to the given structure. And leave us with different strata for encounter, examination and experience.
The word “Development” here also relates to my interest in pre and post production – in cinema, developed capitalism and strategic planning. Ideas in development always retain potential but development strategies are not value-free. Many of the artists here deploy modes of withdrawal and resistance in the face of the dominance of “ideas in development”. They work around preproduction and post-production games. Creating works that are in permanent development or constantly reflect back on the conditions of their production and reception.
At the heart of “Development” is a play with time as a component of artistic practice not reduced to time based media alone. This is where the visitor’s role becomes central to the project. Thinking about “Development” in its cinematic sense, the exhibition will offer two ways to encounter the various works.
Two routes will be mapped. Taking the first route, a single visitor can take the role of an individual ”camera” – seeing the city and the artworks from specific points of view. Taking the second route, groups of visitors function as collective subjects. A camera may pass a group and a group may pass a camera. This experience of the exhibition will be dependent on the hard work of a large number of local people who will guide the visitors as cameras or subjects.
In Okayama we will experience “Development” as camera and subject. A film in real time that places renewed focus on how artists play, produce and fight for and against “A world viewed without myself.” Liam Gillick Liam Gillick is an artist based in New York, his work has been included in numerous important exhibitions including documenta and the Venice, Berlin and Istanbul Biennales – representing Germany in 2009 in Venice. Solo museum exhibitions have taken place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate in London.