Sweet Sixties

22/09/2010

Sweet 60s workshop in Istanbul June 28-29, 2009

Events /

SWEET 60s

Istanbul workshop – June 28 to 29 2009

Summary

1st working meeting of SWEET 60s project took place in Istanbul and was hosted by DEPO (Tutun deposu) center for contemporary art.

Participants:

Ali Akay curator, sociologist, Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul

Emin Alper historian, Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul

Ruben Arevshatyan curator of the project, Armenian Open University, Yerevan

Keti Choukhrov philosopher, Institute of Philosophy, Moscow

Daho Djerbal professor of history, University of Algiers, director of NAQD magazine

Charles Esche curator, writer, director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Beral Madra art critic, curator, director of BM SUMA contemporary art center, Istanbul

Sohrab Mahdavi cofounder and English editor of Tehran Avenue magazine, Tehran

Erden Kosova art critic, editor of RED THREAD e-journal, Istanbul

Osman Kavala chair of the Board of Aandolu Kultur, Istanbul

Georg Schoellhammer curator of the project, editor in chief of SPRINGERIN magazine, Vienna

Christine Tohme curator, founder and director of Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association for the Plastic Arts

WHW ‘What, How & for Whom’ Zagreb-based curator collective: Ivet Curlin, Ana Devic, Natasa Ilic and Sabina Sabolovic, curators of 11th Istanbul Biennale

Guest participants

Marc Nichanian Philosopher, writer, the founder and editor of GAM, analytical journal, Paris
Anita Toutikian Artist, psychologist, Beirut

Not attending:

Nancy Adajanija; University of Delhi
Olga Bryukhovetska Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv
Tom Holert; Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Alexander Iskandaryan; Caucasus Media Institute, Yerevan
Toni Maraini; writer, Rome
Lukasz Ronduda; Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
Nermin Saybasili; Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul
Tirdad Zolghader; art critic, freelance curator, Tehran

1st session

Ruben Arevshatyan (R.A.) starts the session introducing the participants as well as giving a short overview about the concept. Then he continued with presentation about the 1960s situation in Armenia. 1965 as an important shifting point; the student upheavals in Yerevan in April 1965 heralded the beginning of a new cultural, socio-political and cultural situations conditioned by the process of individualization and right liberal course in public thinking, economics and politics. The genocide issue was reactualized after being a taboo under Soviet ideology since 1921. In 1967 the monumental statue of Mother Armenia substituted the monument of Father of the Nations – Stalin. That was the period of appearance of dissident culture that in Armenia was “legitimized” by state as an uprising nationalist political dissidence. In 1972 in Yerevan Museum of Modern Art was established which was the first and for a long time the only one in the Soviet Union. There was a breakthrough to new forms and contents in cinematography, visual arts, architecture and literature. It was a period of intensive repatriation of Western Armenians from all over the world. The urban situation of Yerevan and some other central cities started to change.

Beral Madra (B.M.) gave an overview of political and historical events in Turkey in 1960s that determined the cultural scene in Turkey. In 1959 Turkey applied to join European Economic Community (EEC). There was a military coup in 1960, as well as Ankara Treaty in 1963 which implied coming closer to Europe which reduced duties and implicitly recognized Turkey’s right to join EEC. In 1964 there was a crisis related with Cyprus immediately after being accepted by the European Parliament, etc. Another reaction was in 1970 when the Islamic oriented national party formed under the leadership of Netbettin Arbakan. So the fundamentalists entered into the scene.
The contradictions in politics, a strong control of the military, US manipulations in all affairs of Turkey, and strong democratization process which began in the 1960s, as well as socialist and communist movements were very strong though they were several times suppressed in 1970s-1980s. It was a state capitalism until 1985 but at the same time Turkey was importing cultural phenomena from US, not from Europe. The emergence of individualism in Turkey has created art and cultural production in literature, cinema, where in 1960s theatre was the most important cultural field. Until 1990s visual art was affecting only a small audience in Istanbul.
On the second part of her speech she questioned the role of really missing documentations. She had also mentioned that there are many archives in Istanbul, both official and private. But the access to them is not easy at all and perhaps the project can raise an interest to open these archives.

Christine Tohme (C.T.) continued discussing the problematic about archives telling about the similarities in the Lebanon situation. One academician in Lebanon talking about the artists of that period said that this area and this period are based on nothingness, on void. On the other hand this void does not mean an absence of artistic or cultural practice. It is important to look at the history comparing the situations in different parts of the world in order to understand the logic of the ruptures and the “sweetness” of dreams that were unifying different people and different societies from 1960s generations. That’s the reality and may be that rupture is the part of historical construct.

Charles Esche (Ch.E.) posed another question that the project besides exploring the unknown territories is also challenging the hegemonic narratives.

Emin Alper (E.A.) questioned that the difficulty of studying 1960s is related to grasping it as a global phenomena. He presented some comparative analysis where he put Turkey in the global context disclosing the problems of social segregation, new class forming trends, the evolution of nationalism, social movements and reorganization of political scene related to the Turkish context of 1960s.

Keti Choukhrov(K.Ch.) focused on the problem of incompatibilities within 1960s period like the unresolved dilemma if it was the end or the beginning of certain epoch. Referring to the famous exhibition in Manezh/Moscow in 1962, severely criticized by Khrushchev, she characterized the period in Soviet situation as a beginning of productive split that was also a split in total modernizing project. There was also a split between official and unofficial cultures in SU which is generally being wrongly associated by negative and positive division. While public purport is also a question to be discussed, the modernist movement that became the underground of Soviet space is really important.
The period was also distinct by the new class segregation that took place within “classless society” that established split and incongruence of social understanding between different social layers. That was the era of the shift from the left to the right wing dissidentship developing parallel to the gradual fading of ideas about universalism.
DSC_0506r
Daho Djerbal (D.D.) characterized 1960s as a period where the new image of a human being who is fighting for their emancipation, liberties was developed; a period of concretization, realization and verification of this humanity that was a void. The second problem was specified as a domination of epistemology and a question of producing of a new kind of a discourse, new narrative that is not a counter-discourse, not a counter-narrative, otherwise we find ourselves in the logic of domination.

Ch.E. presented the content of two projects he is currently working on, that are about provicialization of West and Western discourse by challenging Western hegemonic narrative by so to say provincial narratives. 1960s in that sense represents the recognition of the cataclysm of Western hegemony that is no longer being Universalist narrative. He specified 1960s as the epoch of shift from genuine bipolar world model to the dominance of capitalist consumer model passing parallels between a symbolic victory of the American model by landing on the Moon in 1969 and Harald Szeemann’s exhibition “When attitude becomes form” where the idea of conceptual art had been defined as an Western project while the socialist part of Europe was totally excluded.

B.M. continued the idea mentioning that neither the history nor the art history books have been updated. It was also important to mention about epistemological differences in modernist production in Christian and Islamic societies of that time.

Sohrab Mahdavi (S.M.) built his presentation on thesis that 1960s in the West was the period of non conformist freedom seeking creative outburst. It was evolving parallel to the intensive refinement of advertisement industry that turned the apparatus of persuasion total in its hegemony by 1969. He drew also some parallels between the contradictory logic of liberation movements of that time making a particular focus on Iran stressing the fact how the advertisement world cashing in on the creative impulse of the 1960s and trying to use whatever it had in its power to dominate minds and hearts of people.

C.T. continued that thought saying that the art of seduction produced something like Hamaz and Hezboulah, and where, from her perspective, M. Foucault also did much of work.

Ch. E., K. Ch. and A.A. focused on the stagnation of the impossibility of the politics that had also started during the 1960s. K.Ch. gave the example of Prague as the ending point of the belief regarding the socialism with the human face, humanization and reformation of that steep state socialism. Prague was also the end of intelligentsia in Soviet Union. The same thing also happened in the West followed by the retreat of the political scene into violence in the 70s and the return of conservatives. But 1960s also brought in a radical change in social and ethical behavior, i.e. the discursive idea of the alternative life styles and the idea of the revolution moved from taking the power to taking over the means of production. The other specificity of that period was the inevitable shift from the macro politics to micro politics.
DSC_0496r
From Erden Kosova’s (E.K.) point of view 1960s weren’t such a determined period in Turkey, rather than it was more important period as 1950 and 1970s. As a complex overview on 1960’s in the Turkish context he pointed out a reflection back to 1950’s, the implantation of the Marshall plan in 1948-49, appearance of multi-party system in 1950, integration of Turkey into the NATO in 1952, creation of “one millionaire in every neighborhood”. Talking about arts and culture, the 1970’s were much more productive, e.g. appearance of true avant-gardist positions. In Turkey the 1960’s were much more important in terms of new political formation, rather than too much decisive in terms culture.

K. Ch. highlighted the 1960’s with the return of avant-garde and modernist aesthetics in Russia giving the example of groups like Dvizheniye with Francisko Infante, Lianozov group. Those groups were trying to resurrect from being forbidden starting from 1920’s (in official space), which produced a formation of artists’ own underground reality and return to the cultural space. She questioned the essence of avant-garde in regard to that re-interpretation of formal achievement of avant-garde or canonization of what have already been discovered by Russian avant-garde or constructivism. The strong rapture of abstractionism in Socialist space was connected with the liberation, but at the same time abstractionism was either extremely metaphysical or connected with cybernetic revolution, science revolution. But she observed that none of those strategies proved to be avant-garde until the conceptualism of 1970’s begun in Russia. The work with ideological space and what was conceptualism arrived at the end of 1960’s with Ilya Kabakov, when deconstructed and reconstruct the languages. That was related to the question that avant-garde forms had no continuation with the contemporary language, and on the contrary in conceptualism there was a discovery of the gap between reality, ideology, language and visual science. But avant-garde always means a great paradox and a great rapture. From this point of view there was the great break through politically in the conceptualism of the end of 1960’s and beginning of 1970’s. The conceptualism did not abstain from the ideology. In fact they could see the socialist bureaucratic ideological language as a pathetic meaning, but at the same time to show when, why, how it was empty. In case of Russian conceptualism it was great breakthrough in the socialist space, which brought lots of layers of deconstruction of bureaucratic reality. The conclusion brought by leaving an open question whether the formal copying of modernity can be modern or what is more modern, production of new irony, a new paradox or just re-getting back what was ideal form for modernization?

2nd session

For the 2nd session R.A. suggested to discuss questions concerning the archives. Motivations to include the archives in the project are that 1960’s period relates to the gap of certain accumulation of histories, archival materials and so on. How it would be possible to re-create that period, to re-actualize it and what role could contemporary art play in the formation of archive?

Referring to the question of archive Ch.E. observed that any archive needs an ideological frame in which it is being constructed. That is not a question but its already given that we are interested in the artistic outputs from this type, or may be optimistic output that relates to and the question is what kind of thread we need for those archives but the ideology of archive as such needs to be defined.

B.M. brought an example from one of her exhibitions when she was trying to collect 1980’s materials and it was very hard to find 1980’s materials concerning arts and culture even though the working team approached to the artists, painters, musicians and theatre people. One of her propositions was either to approach to the leftist parties or NGOs, but they are not open or to concentrate efforts to find a classification and to decide what would be concentration for Sweet 60’s.

On Ch.E.’s question what could be matched as an archive R.A. answered that beyond the known models of archives (accessible or closed, state or private etc) to use also archives developed as an artistic projects – artistic archives. Ch.E. also found the idea of artistic archives more interesting as it is much more accessible and it can also be much more fictional.

B.M., Ch.E., Ivet Curlin (I.C.) and C.T. discussed the problems concerning the commercialization of the archives in their local situations and problems that occur with any attempt of rereading the history. From Turkey there were mentioned some very successful cases of archive formation (like Koch family, Pera Museum, Istanbul Modern, Platform Garanti, Carshisanat).

K.Ch. specified that the discussion about the archives also was about the political movements which were completely unknown to the general public of the Socialist space and which did not come up during the past of Socialist space. She paid attention to that there is another side of the question concerning absolutely open archives, which nobody dangers and actually nobody can interpret relation and meanings, decipher them. This also is a moment of not knowing what to find or what to catch.

Summarizing the discussion C.T. mentioned that her interests are based on the re-creating the archives through the nuances and keys able to read the history. So there is a need to deal with the present related to these archives. If in the Lebanese case people are trying to absent them and keep away, so her construct stands or animates from that absentia. She noticed that in this discussion everyone speaks about the same symptomatic closure, so this absentia turns to be a construct. The question comes, why to insist to go back to the dead, when we can recreate the living in the dead. Her concern is that in the case of Beirut when there is not one single reference to go back, which makes things difficult and burdening so maybe there is need to forget and try to create a buffer zone from the history that is weighty and so loaded.
DSC_0491r
Ch.E. proposed that history could be done through the idea of examples or collecting examples rather than thinking in terms of archives it is about cultural holders, the archive is always imposed trying to complete itself. Where there examples can be something very clearly and specifically chosen and for the specific reasons of the moment and somehow closed in between specific and universal. Maybe what had happened in Yerevan, in 1965 had nothing to do with anything else, but it could be an example of something that happened elsewhere, but it is not universalizing and it’s not saying that that was true for the rest of the world. So the state of the example might help to get away from these really heavy expectations around the archives the semantics of which is having certain terror, administration of bureaucracy.

K.Ch. brought an example of Monastirski coming from 1970’s/80’s to reflect on the case of Moscow conceptualism when conversation is about self-documentation as this type of published representation and immediate interpretation of their production was part and parcel of their artistic thinking, meaning production, their politics and their Weltanschauung as it was them to produce the view of the world and document it. In addition to this there is a huge archive or film and the media, which 50 years ago was interpreted in one way and 50 years later it is interpreted in completely opposite way. She stressed at the end that in fact it is also a question of those subjectivities, what you produce in attaching with the document, how you use and produce the same archive?

I.C. and Ana Devic (A.D.) observed that to recreate a certain period of time it doesn’t necessarily have to be from an archive. It could be one of the tools. And that it was a good point that each one has to be interpreted in a different way, but the question is how you meet with the historical work. And the crucial question is why certain aspect of the histories is being left out of the main narrative.

C.T. told about some artistic projects that were trying to create a data bank of modern history of Lebanon through the subjective histories. Those attempts created a strong resistance in the Lebanese society. But she considered that as a really important experience as it was really challenging the hegemonic essence of archive.

K.Ch. also questioned whether there should be a political conviction and what should be said from the sixties, what kind of the part should be said? If we take cinema from the sixties in the Soviet Union and the shift of the official cinema with the art scene now the interpretation is like – the birth of intelligentsia completed rejection of soviet politics, ideology and etc, and at last liberal-politics. But on the other hand there were double-bind directions even in the cinema. One direction was reanimating something that had been lost in twenties and in tens (a new generation trying to get back to this revolutionary spirit which had been completely contaminated and degraded by Stalinizm) and whether is possible to get back and so this inclination is also existed in sixties. But there is another inclination which produced de-politicization and the de-socialization so that complete inert attitude to work state politics which was anti politics of intellectual members and hyper-politics of the State. And there are a lot of things in which you need some kind of political conviction to interpret them.

B.M. proposed comparative methodology by presenting artists from the same period from different situations.

R.A. commented that the comparative methodology in fact lies in the very core of the project, but besides bringing different artists together it is important to try to display a certain position, to develop a Weltanschauung by comparing the remains of that period like architecture, design, etc as open archives.

Mark Nishanyan (M.N.)questioned the approach why there is a need retrospectively to reconstruct something that was supposedly there 50 years ago. If it was registered then it was an event. He proposed to go one step further beyond the registration itself and focus on the recording itself which could become more important than any political happening or event. He observed that the interest and reflection on the archives can begin from the point when one considers every recording is the beginning of art. In the case of 1960’s it would be the history of recordings starting from the KGB recorded interrogations as they were initiators of art in the Soviet Union and they did not understand any reflection on the archive that does not consider archiving as the event, that is to be explored. The political happenings and events are not so important, but very secondary, because what is important in the humans history it is means of the reproduction, which are the means of production”

Ch.E. agreed on M.N.’s point on archivization, the importance of the moments of making archive. But in the artistic archive, the creation of the archive is happening at the moment with the artist generates the archive, and particularly in the archives which does not exist or are hidden or getting inaccessible.

K.Ch. mentioned that for her one of the important things is this illusiveness of Soviet past that there are some kind of inevitable and unconscious things which perhaps have not been recorded or erased completely and this is a very strong layer and it belongs to philosophical perception.

DSC_0502r

3rd session

The session started from the brief introduction by Georg Schoellhammer (G.S.) about the planned and presumable developments of the project in 2010 and 2011 as well as the discussion about infrastructural possibilities. One of the most important organizational aspects of the project is that the one that supposes exhibitions and publications as near as it possible to the producers. The project in its institutional frame should think about distributing money from the sources to the local institutions/ producers. He mentioned that this project is about tracing and mapping via possible alter-modernities of entering that period in the regions from the perspectives and necessities of today’s art scenes. Invited people and participants of the project are not only from the region but both from the certain European and non European contexts that can create methodological entries and researches.

S.M. proposed as a subject for discussion to consider the histories of the modern art museums telling about the development of situation (Tehran Museum of Modern Art). He observed how museums’ function is not public education, but just a recording of what had been presented or happened from the particular point of view to elicit a particular world view. It does not pretend to present an alternative avant-garde or any such view point.

B.M. highlighted that this content with the museums which is not really showing the real points of rupture and transformation is maybe one common point. So may be this kind of project will tell the public much better story.

Osman Kavala (O.K.) considered it as a really interesting subject because non-European countries so far are familiar with the interpretation of late 1960s to cultural terms only for the movements in Europe and it is remembered more as a political moment. In the case of Turkey, Iran, the Soviet Union and other geographies people are aware that there are some interesting different cultural expressions/dynamics, but also not sure if there was a relationship or silence or counter position between those dynamics. He suggested to formulate some questions around those topics and to think about the existence of some interesting parallels in these specific experiences, as well as to question that maybe the references can be sought only in the contemporary art world or in the other forms of art as well?

G. S. regarded that as a really an issue of definition and added that considering 1960s there are many definitions that are around and might help. It is not just strictly refused that one can call it visual arts but rather than contemporary arts is broader then visual arts. From 1950s to late 1970s there were decolonization processes that happened and so called inner arguing that the peripheries started of the centers that started since the mid 1960s. For instance the creation of urban scenes, urban cultures in Soviet Union that somehow took postmodernities, production of modernism that came in as a liberating air from conservative nationalist paradigms from the late 1950s. That milieu was coming from the visual arts as well in 1960s namely Situationists or Fluxus, other practices that dealt much more with the social form then with the autonomous form. But both moves have been very important; the autonomous dealing with modernism and anti-modernism moves. He proposed to consider the tension between the modernism singularity of form and the neo-avant-garde plurality of idea and the social. The second interesting point about the urban spaces was that it was an international thing; it’s not true that they have been like in the 19th century or even in 1930s and 1940s being confined within constructive and reconstructive nationalisms but there has been an internationalism started since 1950s in both hemispheres, blocks and even in the 3rd world that was constructing itself which was so called “mahama art”. And that internationalism has been from the 1960s on in the decolonized world – Africa. Their modernism had a function. So it would be important to include in the consideration the architecture, urban form as modernism had double function being colonizer and decolonizer in one. There are social and political practices that also had a function, as well as there was conglomerate that came out of literature, film making and those visual art groups that produced urban scenes. He would be very much interested in that not just in the institutional theme which is highly informative and very important. He raised different questions about the institute of modernism and under what international model was that museum built. All these questions will be highly important to for considering and reconsidering and getting rid of the burden of that localized and nationalized histories. He proposed to think about the importance of bringing those localized and nationalized histories in when it comes to practices and how one should be careful in explaining what happened locally. For instance who had been communicating, what were the subjects to be able then to create something different picture from the normative canons of avant-garde that have been already established in Western avant-garde canons. In 1970s, in a lot of European, Soviet, South-Eastern Asian and for sure Southern America there have been a lot of different modalities of the paradigm of avant-garde and neo avant-garde that had conversations. For him it there is a lot to do, such as reconstructing institutional, what was institutional narrative, what was national narrative – Modernism. He questioned different situations connected with abovementioned like what besides that that been turning together trends that was trying to create something like an urban scene or what was the main function of that; who are the main personalities, and what have been there international channels. The third interesting thing he introduced about a political move in 1970s. He talked about how much it is possible to read it from the visual field and to see it in popular culture as cultural studies has developed a formal procedure to deal with that diversity. At the end he expressed that what participants have been doing with reconstruction of the exhibitions that could be raw models that could be brought in too. On the one hand to make a comparison of institutional and counter institutional moves, one the other to reconstruct almost on the level of crime scene what have been the milieu of the period. And on the third move which is very important is the linking between public and institutionalized space.

Ch.E. noticed that the interesting part about the 1960s was that unofficial culture generated in different milieus and conditions. It’s a birth of youth, innovation, originality, and birth of creative industry that is the part of that period compare to the 1950s. And in very different circumstance there is some thing that was happening globally not only in the hegemonic narrative but also elsewhere. He observed that unofficial culture is the place to find the most interesting comparisons (as official cultural institutions were very resistant if not completely censoring unofficial culture).

S.M. gave the example of the contemporary art museum in Iran that was commissioned by the queen (opening the door for modern and post-modern art) and how after the opening of the museum the unofficial culture also took ground.

G.S. noticed that it’s a very important reference point and there is a need to reconstruct constellations.

Ch.T. mentioned that in case of Lebanon when they don’t have institutional infrastructure, the alternative structures play a role somehow. In 1960s they had some major entities that were working on literature, poetry, visual arts supported by the French mandate. And there was always that seduction to the west (e.g. the schools being eloquent in French and how Arabic got completely marginalized). That time was when Abdul Nasser came in and all the issues of Pan Arab nationalism were affected. So it is nearly 20 years how the situation got really fluctuated in Lebanon. The same is about Syria, Amman and Jordan. It is quite difficult to produce art in the state of hegemony but it is absolutely insane telling that there is nothing going on there which is so often to be heard. In parallel to this situation she also mentioned how a certain exoticism was brought suddenly to the West (Shirin Neshat and other artists).

D.D. focused his attention on the question of periodicity. He presumed that the periodicity of the Western world and Soviet Union with the Eastern block was not the same as the rest of the world. For Non-Western countries periodicity is constituted by rupture. The emergence of the new kind of individuality is not at the same time constitutes individuation. In Non-Western countries there is always in the kind of community or in a kind of individual collective and the process of individuation is not in function. But in the period of 1960s we were in the period of intoxicoze. In the same time the problem was – who is the actor, who is the subject of the history,, was it a community or it’s the party, the party of federation, the communist party or the kind of individual political actor? Or is individual an actor or history is the stage? At the same time he raised the question of public space or a political space and particularly the meaning of it in 1960s where there was no individual expression and democracy like in western world. Why do we ask was there a museum of modern art if the museum of modern art is a result of civil society and division of social work. In the case of Lebanon he observed that there is not official statistics of the population and in the same logic there is no modern art in Beirut. He gave his opinion that for the project there is a need to take into consideration the difference of periodicity, temporality and emergence of difficulty. After that it is possible to talk about the question of archive because archive and the modern state is one thing, and the archive of pre-politic, pre-state communities it’s another thing. He proposed as one of the options to work with oral resources/archives and to open up the perspective for all kinds of levels of histories for the 1960s because 1960s are not the same for British for South Africa, for North Africa.

A.A. suggested problematizing the concept of universality because 1960s was the period of the censor of the concept of universality. In Turkey for example there are some new problematizations of the locality vis-à-vis of the universality (the example of a novelist Capcemal Tahir). That was the time of decolonization and decolonization shows us multiplicity of experiences and perhaps universality can help us to develop something like this multiplicity of the experiences in the colonial vault, or the empire situation like Ottoman, SU, Iran.

K.Ch. said that she would be very cautious with this quite direct division on “unofficial” and “official” art. In case of Soviet situation there is a very mainstream kind of studying and analyzing of unofficial art and unofficial soviet archive (e.g. Norton Dodge collection). But as she mentioned before if you take the non-conformism of 1960s, 85-90% of it will be mainstream old fashioned modernism. Only few works at the end and in the beginning of 1960s would be the real rioters. She talked in details what can be called official and “official” or how there is very obscurantist “unofficial” and there is very breakthrough “unofficial”. There is quite progressive official if you take filming (they were nominally official) but they contained more contemporary and modernizing practices in filming which were more or less officially acknowledged then if you take for instance the some kind of conformist esoteric kind of circle or quasi-religious circles of unofficial soviet art. So these differentiations should also be made.
She also mentioned an important thing that some practices in conceptualism were not considering themselves as underground art but rather then that they were ahead of everybody. That is why they were not seeking success in the official circles because they thought that the strength is with them. Another point is that they were very avant-garde thinking people but partly collaborated with the government and with institutions that produced fantastic avant-garde products in film (e.g. Larissa Shepitko, “The wings” film that comprises modernity, avant-garde legacy and future perspective).

G.S. talked about a project on what he is working with such an archive in Poland of 1960s. For him one of the interesting parts is the synchronicity and reconsideration the moment of universalism, as Katie mentioned before. This is needed in the West too as that homogeneous talk comes out of Europe, the one from the West in the 1960s and it was so differently formatted. He gave the example of Gratz in regard to Fordist system that was as stratificatory then any socialist system would be. This is just a mere misconception that all the possibilities of individuation already could have been displayed in the 1960s. That was the 70s much. He found out that that formation of Fordist state in a lot of social democratic realms in Europe could be another point again to talk about the “peripheries”. But to talk about what has been the modalities of certain European realms as well and then from that point create junctions and possibilities of comparisons. What one said about formation of the state as the individuator or the driver, or what so ever, it is possible to say that even in elaborate party systems social democratic states like Sweden, Austria and part of Denmark in the same period. The media apparatus had formatted different game and the tension between urban and rural cultures have been differently set because of European industrialization since the 18th century; so there is this difference that exists elsewhere. He found very interesting to think that it highly interesting to reconsider certain narratives of individuation or possibilities of universalist perspectives within European 1960s and certain countries as well.

Ch.E. expressed that simply filling these historical gaps that is not being written is not useful expenditure remedy; it’s only if we using in that the process of rewriting hegemonic narrative by doing some of those researches. These gaps are also appeared in the Western countries as much as they can be others. He commented to Keti’s observation about official and unofficial cultures by saying that it should be discussed how to define if those cultures are progressive or interesting in a way which we can also share and identify. Is it something like anti or antagonistic modernism some other; antagonistic towards modern project coming out of the West 1945 particularly, or even earlier. Is it that anti-universalizing tendency?

K.Ch. and G. S. discussed universalizing tendency and calling it emancipatory perspective which is half enough to explain what one could try to deduct.

A.A. on the one hand brought example of French socialist theoreticians like Lévi-Strauss talking about the end of universality, and on the other hand “Anti-Oedipus” by Deleuze and Guattari in 1972 is discussing one universality that is capitalism.

K.Ch. observed that criticism of universality can be universal as well. The question is to search for the method in which it is done. In terms of philosophical intensity – it’s the question of a term.

A.A. argued that universality for French sociologists was progress, question of colonialism, etc.

K.Ch. answered that they kept the term revolution, and they kept the emancipatory strategies which can’t help being universal. So it’s the matter of terminology.

G. S. focused on the term of “archeology” that is something that they would really need. As the project talks about the differences and it aims to reconstruct the systems somehow. He proposed to start from reconstructing of certain situations otherwise there it will get drown in the terminological syllogisms or it becomes a mere phraseological misunderstanding. Some archeology of that period within certain constellations at distinct localities that had been doubled by certain ideology strata or hegemonically set circumstances. This is a prior and then it is possible to speak about production.

DSC_0492r

A.D. continued to comment on what Charles said about that resistance and to try to define what is emancipatory or progressive in a certain type of cultural scene. In Yugoslavian cultural scene of 1950s and 1960s this progressive cultural input can not be disconnected from leftist ideas that were quite well defined in the realm of contemporary art and also culturalized. In that sense it is very interesting to observe that curriculum In 60s the most progressive ideas in ex -Yugoslavia and Croatia found their infrastructure and institutional support. Like, one of the most important movements in Zagreb was organized by the museum of contemporary art in Zagreb and coincided with the first conference of Non-Aligned Movement that happened in Belgrade in 1961. She spoke also about the coincidences like Summer School on the Island of Cotua and its long term political Marxist magazine Praxis. She concluded that they raised crucial questions that today are also viable about the social role of art in society. In that sense that our generation had experience a huge gap in 1990s it is extremely relevant to revisit this period.

4th session

G. S. returned to what in the previous session Ch.E. proposed to find out what the regional focuses would be in order to start some key studies around certain topics. The possibilities are; to do an exhibition, to prepare a small methodological sketch-out of that exhibition or as E.K. said a certain internet platform to feasibility in sense of communication. There was also a suggestion coming from C.T. to organize a meeting of the group during Homeworks in 2010. He also suggested that group would come up with some questionnaires developed after the meeting which would become a starting point for certain researches and define the subjects of the presentations for the 2nd meeting.

B.M. mentioned that the questions being touched a day before had been widely covered by many academicians. So she proposed to invite some of those people who produce a lot of texts about the developments in 1960s not only in the political, but also in cultural scope (e.g. there is a book about the pop culture).

K.Ch. proposed to have a small conference and Ch.E. asked about a possibility to choose a particular key study which can outline the general idea and the case.

G. S. proposed to create a framework of methodologies that may appropriate the scope and the area that participants are exploring. What is the main topic/debate of their research that was discussed during the last session (neo avant-garde, individuation in terms of political movements of 1960s, etc)? Otherwise it will be stuck in academic discussions about regional modernisms. He proposed in terms of methodology to create a space for research, to define the key studies, even more comparative ones, afterwards to develop the ideas of their interests. Another suggestion for the next round was to develop a paper and questions coming from participants, what research topics could be what kind of academic studies about each other’s regions. He found interesting the idea to create a historical map with the events, personalities, publications, exhibitions, etc. As for the second round suggestion was to come up with some interviews too.

O.K., K.Ch. and C.T. discussed the possibility of a paper within the next two/three months, which would be about the periodization and note or juxtaposition of problematics and specific events.

S.M. wondered about curators’ personal view on Sweet 60s personally, because the ideological framework should also be transparent.

O.K. stressed that during the 3rd session it was mentioned that they consider it as an “emancipatory experience”.

G. S. answered that even that emancipatory power created a rhetoric that they use, even those days created a kind of universalism of partiality; and in all his researches he did with the people from the generation they felt the possibility of suddenly entering international (so to say) channels of communication with artistic practitioners from even different hegemonic and political fields creating something from the first time after the modernist movement (after 1920s). To create something like an idea of particularity that could work at home but as a methodology it was usually politicized conceptualism. He gave the example of Toni Mariani when she talks about the migrant situations and how it was much more modernism in literature that created those ties of trans- and international, trans-cultural reference; trans- block idea of possible collaborations and be able to create emancipatory political action within artistic field.

S.M. recalled that according to some researches there were parallel movements in 1960s totally in the different field. It used the same characteristics of creativity, non-conformist freedom seeking all the nice things associated with the 1960s, but to start something which was the apparatus of persuasion and advertisement. Even if it is to focus on the positive aspects of the 1960, it should be made known within the ideological framework.

O.K. mentioned that it could be both. From Turkish experience the social political dynamics had emancipatory characteristics but in forms of art that developed immediately afterwards they were very restrictive.

G.S. recalled an example in Latin American art where they had that rather orthodox realistic representational art coming with the leftist movement which also bound to the idea of movement organized in the academic type of structures. It usually created totally different kind of arts. He gave the example of Chile how two types of movements were present in the narrative of 1960s there; apparatus/cadre orientated type of artistic practice that followed the soviet model of practice and the avant-garde practice that was modeling contentment technologies that was coming from avant-garde movement of 1960s. In Western European countries like West Germany, Austria, Scandinavian countries there it is rather orthodox organized leftist circles including the arts as well and then neo-avant-garde circles in communication that totally worked against the dictate and restrictions of those people.

DSC_0510r

Ch.E stressed that the point was because the crisis of individuation happening in Algeria and North Africa, and to share the crisis of number of territories they have those two competing elements. One is that idea of liberation – alternative life style is as political and cultural vapor, toleration of different life styles, and also the right to be creative and self expressive to move out of this, that idea about third class structured. Those parts were against all party’s structures since 1960s were the end of party structure of communism as being defective way of leading the proletariat. Proletariat got diversified, became individual and it also got in that third kind of groups. And those groups then becoming the niche markets of growing advertising industry as now you can started to talk to feminist, or gay community. But you can also start to talk to the bourgeoisie that are little higher then average but not by the size of top. 1968 was the turning point where these tendencies become feasible in a very direct way. He gave Liam Gillick’s example. It’s difference between pre- 1968 and post- 1968, relationships between the students and intellectuals of the world. That division also opens social frameworks and at the same time it is liberation of personal behavior, identity and life. And it also allows this consumer society.

G.S. continued mentioning that H. Lefebvre was quite clear about the situation in the 1960s. There are a lot of researches in the West about the 1940s which is the end of this huge modernism paradigm and decline of the welfare state in the 1970s. But their discourse goes with the main discourse of the transformation of the society. He concluded that he is more interested in retelling stories of emergence of moments that one can put together, then mosaic the things because big narrative is somehow established in academic studies.

K.Ch. suggested speaking about the shift between dominating modern stylistics and neo-avant-garde activities/practices which were more dispersed. Maybe it is a period in terms of socialist part of birth of contemporaniety in juxtaposition to the modernity. The emergence of term “contemporary art” is also connected with 60s because 50s are still modern art and modernist traditions. She described how in this kind of breakthrough the soviet people learned about abstract expressionism, pop art in America, but there was a birth of this contemporary art scene on the same type territory which brings contemporaniety, which is still modern but which is also the path to postmodernity in a way. So it’s the turning point of the term.

D.D. preferred to talk about the influence of the modern schools in Moscow and Yugoslavia.

G.S. found it interesting to do for the architecture, and it is really formative. There were traveling modernisms around. Czechs continued the critical architecture developed in 1920-1930s, and during 1960s applying it in the office architecture and design of Northern Africa, Syria, Libya. He talked about the late Czech modernisms that developed in postcolonial Northern African architecture. So it very interesting how that architecture drifting from socialist countries to postcolonial situations created “paramodernisms” that was quite different from American or any other international modernisms. Another subject for the research is about the double face of decolonization when the colonizing gesture writes itself again in decolonization movement.

K.Ch. found that film archives could be also a good testimony of those urban shifts.

S.M. stressed again as D.D. mentioned the search of the authentic when both movements were there. That expression of “true self” is very 1960s that you can see in different forms in all advertisements (you be you, find your authentic self,…), notion of discovering yourself as if yourself is different from yourself. That was in Iran too and 70s was the real obsession with “what is Iranian”.

Ch.E. mentioned that there are a lot of significant changes in 1960s in terms of the subjective psychology actually played out especially in visual culture in that period and particularly in the beginning of 1970s. Where the idea of the life style has changed, where the idea of true self actually became visible? The shift was made in the individual psychology in the process of 1960s getting spread throughout the whole Europe.

R.A. thought that would be important to focus on certain cases that determined the whole paradigm.

G.S. mentioned that in the West there was a crisis of 1973 that changed a lot in sense of fantasies and Vietnam also.

C.T. continued that the loss of Abdul Nasser in 1967 was very important for Arab region.

G. S. mentioned about Afghanistan in 1979.

C.T. thought that it is difficult to define whether you want to look at the 1970s but you can still look at the 1980s or even 1990s.

B.M. suggested using the facilities of Istanbul 2010 in organizational terms.

O.K. asked if it is feasible to write a certain periodization in our countries what was 1950s and when the changes started to take place which could go parallel with the social and political dynamics of the period. Maybe no need of strict conclusions or to suggest causality, not a time line but major events or trends that also includes the influence of some schools or marginalization of them.

G.S. found it a very good idea to map it that way, as well as suggested to think about the identification of main actors/key figures; first key events and then key figures (still living) in regard to oral research.

K.Ch. mentioned that in the “post-Putin” Russian context there are interesting reconsiderations of 1960s in soviet context with the special focus on the heroic aspects of that period, breakthrough to the cosmos, scientific optimism, heroic imagination of the generation, side waves started from the dissident movements, etc. There are many of such kind of heroic mythologies made not in a bad way but in a post Stalin way. She gave the example of a film called “Paper soldier” by the son of Alexey German, where he tries to completely reinterpret 1960s in a discourse that suppose of conquering the space, like scientific innovations that are led to improve conditions for humanity presenting all this as a complete trash which is based only on the ideas. So the problem of human is becoming the main concept of the 1960s. This is also the liberal esthetics and liberal politics. So this film is trying to reconsider the film in a very liberal intelligentsia way in order to produce a new understanding of the period. There is that shift that cozy intelligentsia dissent atmosphere was the main discourse of the 1960s and the heroic position is being regarded as something really negative.

R.A. suggested during the structuring of the “timeline” not only to focus on the local situations but also the connections with the distant situations effecting the development of the local context.

K.Ch. mentioned to do the mapping of the terminology and to suggest a series of key words. So far it is like universality, emancipation, drifting, individuation, public-private, official – non official.

C.T. recalled one incident related to the 1960’s. That was a project when she worked together with Rabih Mroué and how he reenacted the performance in a video representation related with one protest action by the group of hippies in the 1970s
She recalled it in regard to the whole emancipatory demonstrations that took place that time and open space issues.

G. S. suggested considering also another topic concerning the changes of the materiality of our surroundings. 1960s at least in the west was the approach of the epoxies, plastic, of the architecture that was not bound to the steel-glass architecture of the 1950s but would transit as it was the time of the inflatable. The idea of the mobility that came out in the 1950s changed radically and that was over with all plastics because epoxies suddenly had something else. There was an ecological movement coming in 1970s that was materialized in 1960s, so called phantasmagorias. For a lot of actors it was a time of not just gates out to divers but also gates from outside to oneself via acids, drugs… All this came out from the scientific experimentations in the 1950s into mass counter culture of the 1960s and the same was for 1970s as we had first people dying from heroine and so to say the drop of paradigm was traumatized by all this. So the question of material surrounding is quite important. The astronauts’ and pilots’ helmets for instance – is the idea of being encapsulated as an individual; that image – in outer space alone, with technical sources but without the society. That was the image which was very much visible in all the narratives. 1960s created something distinct, something specific in western world. It comes out from the rather modernist research of 1950s and enters in the everyday of the 1960 and you have the same in 1970s making a shortcut – from plastic to drugs.

O.K. mentioned that there is one asymmetry because there are many academic researches made in the west concerning the 1960s, and possibility to draw some parallels, identify some contrasts but he doubts that participants have enough study on academic level or intellectual study about this period in this part of the world.

C.T. supported this idea and found good for the research. She is more interested in bringing the key figures from that period representing a whole era. She preferred to go somewhere else rather than to academic research or to the families of the artists who are already passed away.

R.A. recalled the question of archives and that there is a big gap of the researches and considering those situations from the present conditions.

Ch. E. suggested choosing a particular key study which could signify a certain point of division, drifting. For example Harald Szeemann’s exhibition “When attitudes become form” (1969) when there was claimed a division between East and West, and which emphasized in a sense the capitalist nature of contemporary art, particularly conceptual art, which was not previously but which was claimed partly by the sponsorship of Philip Morris, partly by Harald Szeemann’s. That could be an interesting study for the west defining itself. There was another moment related to the “provincialization of the West” when they focused on a very small geography and they claimed that geography as an extremely international at the same moment.

G.S. said that 1960s were also significant with the emergence of big international forums like Basel, Cologne, etc. Here the key studies – international arenas where people meet, and bring something with them.

D.D. mentioned about the first Pan-African festival happened in 1969.

I. C. mentioned about the musical biennial in Zagreb throughout 1960-1970s which was important meeting point for musicians from East and West because it was to get the visa.

R.A. and K.Ch. discussed about the academic music situation in the period of 1970s. The connections were taking place in different terrains. K.Ch. stressed that music was a separate thing like a reconsideration of dodecaphonic traditions which was completely excluded from the soviet space; it was only in underground when it was done secretly and was specific. She continued saying that contemporary music was coming from the West. In Soviet Union the unification and that huge internatioanlisation of the music movements like rock music. It was also a hugs planetary expansion.

G.S. mentioned about development of the certain junction of technical sciences (sounds) and avant-garde electronic scientific movements and the flux movements.

E.K. talked about music as a certain alternative internatiolizing culture that was connecting different regions. He asked again about geography of the project.

O.K. suggested starting to explore the relations regional or otherwise. But it would be useful to understand what was going on in Algeria, Lebanon, Soviet states, etc… also Erden’s point that the Mediterranean sub region certainly would be very important.

E.K. answered that he named it because he realized how Turkey was isolated in this politics of nationalist parties and it was also true that elitist self positioning in relations with Middle East or Europe and so on. But what interrupts that logic was that Mediterranean kind of link or the other – getting the education in Paris, and the other link which was “guest workers” situation that reminded him the situation of the 1960s.

B.M. mentioned that there are also Diaspora artists in Berlin

O.K, E.K and B.M. discussed that what was going on in 1960’s was only political matter not cultural matter and they are not sure if there were any interactions through artistic practices between neighboring regions.

B.M. mentioned that in 1960s and 1970s society people from Turkey went to Beirut.

C.T. recalled big Turkish community living in Beirut related to the literature. But that international awareness around the region came out from the internationalism in this decade. She stressed that 1960s was something else for the West and something else at least for the Arab world by giving an example of how gay communities in Lebanon appeared in 1970s.

R.A. mentioned that there was also an international exchange at least on a migration level but it was being isolated and localized.

C.T. expressed that she is interested in the key studies which could show the nuances or may be seeds that started in the 1960s and are emanated in Amman, Syria in Lebanon now in 2007.

G. S. talked about creating a common ground and a map of interests of the group. He suggested also taking micro studies of certain urban milieus trying to reconstruct certain situations where all of things will come in. In order not to focus on the local situations but also make some cross sections, he thought about to create certain compatibility in the key studies. Things that were touched during the sessions in a different ways were touching the issues of internationalizations on different levels, like institutional internationalizations (forums, festivals, biennials) that tried to establish international arena but there was also informal internationalization as well in terms of communication that happen in the milieus. This could be another subject of the key studies in order to disclose the broader picture of interconnections of regional and local activities; to get at least a second level. So mapping should start from the identification of the interests, events, persons, thematics in order to go to the second phase of the key studies. He even thinks about an exhibition – deconstructing something into that and then map some relations on a problem scale. Reconstruct certain urban milieus that stand for distinct thing and then to reconstruct the flaw of ideas, flaw of communications, certain material and political surrounding that was formative.

K.Ch. asked about the term “Revolution” which caused so much preoccupation.

DSC_0500r

Ch.E. mentioned that they should deal with the term but be very careful in a way with the relations that built particular events, accounts and meetings. This means to think about in terms of transnational and trans-local so other milieu should practically reflect in the mirror of other people coming, impressing and connecting somewhere. The mapping should be maybe on the national level but the key studies should be more on the transnational mode. The other thing concerns the revolution – in order to suggest something about 1960s. Maybe they need a kind of horizon or they need an effect so it’s the meeting of certain events which had some consequences whatever they are. But the other thing is that in itself it had an ambition to look towards the horizon. It is actually saying that we want to come together because we want to think about urban development, architecture, other aspect of cultural-political activity in the particular context, in terms of its development, in terms of its 1960s ideas and there is when the “revolution” comes in. In term of changes that 1960s might introduce from where we are now and where we want to get to. Those kinds of criteria would be useful to agree on in order to go on.

5th session
The group discussed some organizational questions

A.D. suggested having a meeting around 26th of October.

G.S. suggested having series of four or five meetings in different regions.

B.M. suggested using the Synop biennale for the next meeting.

E.A and C.T. considered how and which resources should be used for making the mapping.

K.Ch. mentioned that she is much more in 1960s in the context of that counter-relation or interrelation between the privatization of art practices within the private spaces and breakthroughs into the open space of the human public and public drifting elements.
Maybe she is also interested in “ universality” in terms of when we say that there are many modernities we also say that there are several universalities as well. Its oxymoron like universalities or a paradox like how much universality can exist at the same time; it’s a power discourse and emancipatory discourse at the same time and international mapping and production of universality themes in different local situations is also painful and problematic and interesting.

I.C. and A.D. suggested making a meeting in Zagreb in the second half of 2010.

G.S. suggested preparing statements for the next meetings, next meeting should also discuss possible formats of the project.

No Comments »

Sweet Sixties / a blog by tranzit.at

MOVEMENTS AND PLACES

Activities and Vocabulary, discussing and sharing art projects at large

Sweet 60s workshop in Istanbul June 28-29, 2009

Introduction

Archive