Pablo Helguera » Lecturing

Exégesis del Conferencista (2008)

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:19:22 +0000

Exégesis del Conferencista

Performance-conferencia leída en el Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico, DF, con motivo de la Fiesta del Asno, que tomó lugar el 25 de julio del 2008. El siguiente es el texto de la conferencia-performance junto con las imagenes, varias de las cuales provienen de obras de la colección del museo.

Performance-lecture presented at the Museum Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, as part of the project The Feast of the Ass, which took place on July 25, 2008. Following is the full text of the lecture along with the screened images, many of which are from works from the museum’s collection.

Damas y Caballeros,

Los antiguos griegos tenían nueve musas: Caliope, la musa de la poesía heroica; Clío, de la historia; Erato, la musa de la poesía erotica, Euterpe, de la poesía lírica; Melpomene, la musa de la tragedia; Polimnia, la de la canción sagrada. Pero los griegos olvidaron una décima musa, que no era Sor Juana, sino la musa de los conferencistas de arte. Hablaremos hoy de aquella musa, y de como ella debe de ser invocada.

Qué significa dar conferencias sobre artes visuales? Puesto que el arte, es visual, cual es el objetivo de ponerle palabras, e inclusive, pretender que esas palabras explican, describen, o peor aun traducen, lo que uno esta viendo? Lo primero que debe de saber el conferencista es que el dar una conferencia es una tarea utópica, platónica, donde trazamos sombras de lo que es imposible entender de lleno. Hoy veremos qué debe de hacer el conferencista experto, como él se convierte en musa.

El conferencista experto entra a la sala de forma ceremoniosa. Su público lo aguarda, ansioso por una experiencia transformadora, a veces aburridos, porque otros los trajeron, porque necesitan una calificación, porque solo vienen a la fiesta, o porque son exploradores espirituales en busca de iluminación y de guía, o porque son críticos en busca de algo qué criticar. El conferencista sabe todo esto, y cuidadosamente, lentamente, seguramente, toma el escenario.

El escenario. El escenario se puede comparar a un acantilado, donde uno se siente desnudo como un pollo desplumado, siendo observado minuciosamente por el público. Es deber del conferencista el vencer este miedo y esta percepción.

El público por naturaleza es rebelde, y lo cuestiona todo. Por eso el conferencista debe de poner el orden estético, histórico, racional, entre la confusion intellectual que predomina en la sala.

Si el conferencista cumple su objetivo, logrará la confianza y la absoluta sumisión de su público, al grado que cualquier frase que salga de su boca sera considerada como una profesía sagrada.

El conferencista es un compositor, en el sentido clásico, construyendo su conferencia a la manera de una sinfonía, o de un edificio de corte clásico. Si está bien construida, la conferencia se vuelve un edificio perenne de memoria. Pero sin una fundación temática convincente,

una conferencia de arte se puede colapsar como una caja sin fondo, y el conferencista experto lo sabe. Algunas pueden estar huecas en el medio y quizá no sean de interés a nadie.

De manera que hay que hacer como haría un conferencista experto, y usar imagenes para hablar en metáforas, con el fin de entender qué es lo que constituye una gran conferencia y como se invoca a la musa de los conferencistas.

¿Qué es lo que espera el público de una conferencia de historia del arte? La respuesta es que muy poco.

La mayoría vienen con pocas expectativas, con la misma energía con la que uno asistiría a un velorio. Esto no es de sorprender, dado que la mayoría de los conferencistas, después de todo, muestran la misma pasión por su discurso que la de un cadaver.

Se tiene la preocupación entre el público que el conferencista lo cargue de datos, dándole toda clase de fechas, nombres, y definiciones extrañas de periodos y estilos y filósofos post-estructuralistas franceses para que los llevemos a cuestas indefinidamente, y los cuales se nos preguntarán al final de la presentación. Pero el conferencista experto lo sabe, y en vez de esto, se asegurará que la conferencia se sienta como

un paseo agradable por la playa, un viaje leve y refrescante a través de los horizontes y las sensuales olas de la historia del arte.

Pero esto no quiere decir que el proceso será fácil para el público. El buen conferencista se asegurará que el público se vea a sí mismo en el espejo, contemplando nuestros deseos, nuestros intereses y nuestros miedos, como explicaré.

Pero primero tenemos que determinar qué es lo que un conferencista experto NO debe de ser, y cómo podemos identificarlo. He aquí a continuación algunas categorías que hay que eludir.

Hay que cuidarse del conferencista autoritario, aquel con la voz monótona y dictatorial, con la cual nos da los datos, los títulos, las fechas y los estilos, la mayoría de los cuales olvidaremos después de algunos segundos. Cuando habla el conferencista autoritario, sentimos la presión de aprender por miedo. Nada de lo que le digamos al conferencista autoritario puede ser correcto. Aquellos que buscan una experiencia sadomasoquista, y sufren de síndrome de Estocolmo, quizá disfruten a este conferencista.

Está el conferencista miope, el que describe las imágenes tal cuales.

El conferencista miope tiene la dificultad de encontrar sus propias ideas, de manera que se se especializa en llenar sus conferencias de citas, y frases tales como “como Kant, diría, el arte es importante para la sociedad”, o “como estipula Gombrich, hay que analizar la pintura de hoy.” Al mostrarnos una pintura de una mujer de vestido rojo, el conferencista miope nos dirá: “esta obra representa a una mujer de vestido rojo.”

El conferencista solipsista tiende a ser un gran actor, que, como un mago, logra convencer a su público que solo él es su propio público, y que el publico que lo rodea no existe. Como resultado, el conferencista solipsista se abandona en los placeres de la autoescucha, elaborando y amplificando sus teorías. Debido a que los conferencistas solipsistas no se tienen que preocuparse de que sus conferencias le sean inteligibles a nadie mas que a ellos mismos, sus presentaciones adquieren un matiz curioso de fluir de consciencia, una lógica de sueño, moviendose de un tema a otro sin problema.

El público que asiste a las conferencias solipsistas deben de apreciarlas por su calidad textural, y no preocuparse por sentirse expluidos, puesto que todos, de hecho, estan siendo excluidos.

El conferencista aprehensivo es aquel que ha aceptado dar una conferencia pero que tiene pánico escénico y animosidad ante el público, prefiriendo escapar de ellos. Tratarán de imaginar a su público desnudo, sin éxito. Buscarán protección con todo lo que tengan, escondiendose detras del podio, sus powerpoints y sus notas, donde esconderán su cara como protección.

El conferencista evasivo puede ser muchos a la vez, sin ser ninguno de ellos en algun momento en particular, sin comprometerse a idea alguna, usualmente bajo el argumento de que todo argumento es relativo. El conferencista evasivo por lo general viene de “buena familia” y por consiguiente tiene mala educación , por lo que suele ser desagradecido con sus anfitriones, diciendo por ejemplo que no sabe por qué ha sido invitado a hablar sobre este u otro tema, que su asistente o su galería se equivocó preparando el powerpoint, que la estática del microfono lo distrae, que el agua que le dieron para beber no es Evian, que la impresora imprimió las páginas de la presentación en el orden equivocado, o que su gato se paró en su computadora, escribiendo frases o afirmaciones que no está preparado a explicar.

El conferencista infantilista es bueno, pero quizá demasiado bueno, para su público, mostrando un tipo de condescendencia que es similar al de una madre amamantando a su hijo, dandonos a entender que quiza algun dia llegaremos a saber tanto como él. Si uno ha olvidado lo que representaba estar en primaria, o si alquien quisiera saber lo que es estudiar en un orfanato católico, esta experirencia la puede proveer el conferencista infantilista.

Esta el conferencista nihilista, que busca destruir las ideas de todos los demas, sin proponer ninguna nueva, dejando al publico en un estado de vacio existencial.

Y finalmente tenemos al conferencista fast food, o tambien conocido como el conferencista seductor, oradores talentosos que nos embelesan con sus complejas y hermosas frases que parecen tener sentido y perfecta claridad. Sus explicaciones parecen iluminarnos, pero como la comida rapida, el sabor inicial rapidamente se torna en grasa, y como ese beso furtivo pasa de darnos placer a darnos confusion. Hemos olvidado todo, y nos hemos quedado con la impresion de habernos perdido el platillo principal.

Pero el conferencista experto sabe esto, y por ello utilizará su conocimiento para prevenir estas fatales tendencias que hemos descrito. El deberá de luchar primero contra

los demonios del powerpoint. Una vez hecho esto,

El Habrá de utilizar sus habilidades para envolver a su publico gradualmente en un mundo de fantasia.

De manera que en vez del beso furtivo, el conferencista deberá de

coquetear con nosotros, aventándonos una sandalia de conocimiento para comenzar la seduccion.

Acto seguido, el conferencista nos hará sentir relajados, como si estuvieramos compartiendo la más casual de las intimidades.

Con el conferencista experto lograremos visitar los pasajes más recónditos de la historia del arte,

Su voz habrá de capturar completamente nuestra atención al grado de sumirnos en un estado totemico de total concentración espiritual,

El fluir de sus conceptos, cual prodigioso río que crece, nos ayudará a romper con nuestros prejuicios históricos,

Y el crescendo de su narrativa habrá de culminar, como una sinfonia, llevandonos a un éxtasis extremo, una explosión de claridades de relaciones entre ideas.

Sus palabras nos ayudarán a sentirnos para siempre transfigurados, como si hubiésemos pasado por un filtro de geometrías insospechadas,

El abrazo intelectual del conferencista no es ya el furtivo, sino el sincero, el cálido abrazo del verdadero amor por la historia del arte y sus ideas,

y al final de la conferencia, cuando el conferencista yace exhausto, podremos reflexionar sobre nuestra experiencia,

y como si despertásemos de un sueño, comprenderemos que una conferencia no es sino eso, una conferencia, y que la complejidad del mundo aún está ahí para que nosotros la desmenuzemos en persona,

al final del dia estaremos todos en el escenario, nutridos de los otros, y sabremos guiarnos a traves de nuestras circunstancias historicas y personales, apropiándonos del drama del arte como el nuestro, sabiendo que un mundo sin arte es un mundo sin ambiguedad,

La conferencia se convierte no ya en una hora de aire vacío, o un montón de palabras en un auditorio, sino en un lugar de la mente y del tiempo, donde se facilita una comunion de grupo.

Donde aprenderemos a usar nuestros ojos intensamente, sedientamente, obsesivamente, hasta que nos duela mirar,

Que compartamos por el momento la impresion de que somos parte de un juego de salon, en una conversacion con personas que vivieron muchos años antes y que sin embargo hablan de las mismas cosas,

Lo que el conferencista nos esta pidiendo que hagamos es que veamos por nosotros mismos. Mientras vemos a la obra y nos vemos a nosotros mismos, nos volvemos los actores, los modelos, y los narradores de la obra. Si en el mundo los roles siempre se alteran, por qué no en el arte? si al alterarlos descubrimos un poco más acerca de quienes somos.

Wittgenstein dijo que de aquello de lo que no se puede hablar, mejor es callarse. Pero si solo sabemos que no sabemos nada, y si sabemos que en el arte la verdad pura no existe, entonces hablar entre nosotros sobre arte se vuelve un proceso liberador. Y seamos quien seamos, nuestras palabras nos ayudarán a invocar a la musa.

aquella figura rara que debe de combinar conocimiento, ignorancia, teatro, magia, y sobre todo, sinceridad. Y sabemos que la hemos encontrado cuando e han invocado la fusion de las otras musas: la poesia heroica, la historia, la tragedia erotica, y la cancion sagrada.

Cierto, rara vez esta musa aparece, cada vez parece más extinta, a veces nos sentimos abandonados por ella, pero de vez en cuando, cuando al ver una obra nos entra un mensaje a la mente, cuando oimos un comentario y nos estremecemos levemente y nos inpiramos por algo que vimos u oimos, es entonces cuando sabemos que está ahí.

Lyra Kilston- This is Not a Panel Discussion (2009)

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:47:52 +0000

This is Not a Panel Discussion: Pablo Helguera’s Pedagogical Follies
Lyra Kilston

Afterall magazine
11th July 2009

I recently witnessed the following exchange at a panel discussion on the life and work of the artist Juvenal Merst. The dialogue was between two curators: Sonja Stillman, a discreetly dressed, intellectual woman in her late 40s, and the panel’s moderator, Clifford Barnes, a slick and fashionable man in his early 40s. After a long-winded disagreement about Merst, their dialogue devolved into this:

Barnes: I don’t define what art is, I just show it as it is.

Stillman: I won’t even bring up your current associations with commercial galleries, which I see as a huge conflict of interest as a curator. What good is professional honesty as a curator if your commitment has been to treat art as an unthreatening, uncritical product, as a happy and pleasurable and entertaining thing to the market?

Barnes: Why should I apologize if the artists I work with are successful? That’s ludicrous. You, in contrast, treat artists as game pieces of bogus curatorial hypotheses that try to be a soothing balm to our social problems. Not only does it not work as exhibition premise – it is also bad art.

Stillman: It’s bad art for those, like you, who do not wish to think of the world at large.

Barnes: It’s bad for everyone beyond your tiny circle of friends at Bard.

Stillman: I’m sorry – I can’t do this anymore. [She stands up and starts to walk away from the panel.][1]

While a tad more vicious than the subdued tones of most panel discussions, its contrapositions are timeless. Yet the whole thing is fiction, and in fact farce. The above lines were performed for a rehearsal I attended of The Juvenal Players, a new play by New York-based artist Pablo Helguera that premiered at Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 13, 2009. The play presents a public discussion between a cast of art world archetypes – curators, a collector, a thwarted artist and an arts administrator – as they meet to discuss the life and work of the artist Juvenal Merst, a character that Helguera named after the early second century Roman poet Juvenal, who is credited with developing the nascent genre of satire.

The play’s premise is that Merst’s last artwork before his untimely death was to request that these particular people gather to discuss his life and work seven years later. As Clifford Barnes relays, Merst had specified the following in writing: “I want you to be at that moment where the memory of me has started to vanish, but not too much, with the purpose that you may still retain the most important aspects of those memories and have eliminated by now the incidental and unimportant details. You all will be the players of my own life, the narrators of my story, and to you I trust and I wish I was there to see my life be told.”[2]

What ensues is a Rashomon-style comedy of errors, in which each character is at odds with the others about who Merst really was. This is further complicated by the fact that Helguera wrote Merst as a classic conceptual trickster, and during the discussion doubts are raised as to what Merst actually made and said versus what was secretly a spoof. We are even led to wonder if Merst was simply playing the role of the artist as orchestrated by someone else, calling to mind the hoaxes of Andy Warhol and Maurizio Cattelan, both of whom would occasionally send other people to impersonate them at lectures.[3] In Helguera’s play, it soon becomes clear that Merst’s mischievous projects employed art world players as pieces in a chess game, and their willingness to occupy those positions is underscored by their obedient presence, seven years later, at a public discussion about him.

The Juvenal Players is the second theatrical panel discussion that Helguera has written and produced, but only one of his many projects that mock pedagogical conventions and art world posturing. Over the past two decades of his artistic career, Helguera has made collages, drawings and videos; written books (fiction and nonfiction); created installations; conducted tarot readings (he revealed my past to be very solid, but predicted that my future held some disaster); and performed in a variety of guises, from opera singer to mustachioed art world gadfly. Concurrently, he has worked in the education departments of major museums in the United States and Mexico, and is presently Director of Adult and Academic Programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Few artists have spent more time witnessing the performance of art historical expertise than Helguera. He has organized and attended over 1,000 lectures, panels and events, and must daily grapple with the vectors of communication and pedagogy between an authoritative institution and its thirsting public. His day jobs have become the material from which many of his artworks stem. As he notes in the introduction to his collection of published performance texts (Theatricum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures), 2009), “In my role as a programmer, I have frequently been frustrated by the low or nonexistent public-speaking skills of those who lecture and participate in academic discussions…. Wouldn’t it be great if panels were like theater works, where drama has its hand in conveying the message? I thought, why aren’t there dramaturges for art lecturers? And I set out to become one.”[4]

Translating stilted art discourse into theater opens a rich vein of satire that Helguera deftly exploits. There’s a scene in The Juvenal Players where the panel discusses Merst’s first work, a film titled both Work Number 1 and Artmaking. Each participant interprets the piece differently. Due to technical difficulties the film is unable to be screened (a detail of sharp veracity), so the panelists must describe the work, arguing for a range of references from Antonioni to 1960s social uprisings to Minimalism to Robert Irwin. One participant even claims that the piece operates to “foretell the realities of the post-9/11 world.” Yet, after the panel members finish arguing about what the film meant, some resign themselves to admitting that they never really understood or liked it anyway.

The enigma of Merst and his work is the perfect foil for revealing the power struggles at play in constructing the narrative of art, or any, history. With Merst, Helguera is able to set up the follies inherent in panel discussions with particular complexity, since Merst’s antics often ended up complicating or transgressing the hierarchies of the art world and thus the very roles played by the panelists. For example, for one project Merst allegedly hired a detective to shadow a prominent collector, and thereby publicly exposed the collector’s adultery. Great scandal, which the panelists continue to squabble about, ensued.

Several artists come to mind as possible source material for the character of Merst, who appears to be a clever mash-up of some of the more notorious cultural producers of our day. Andrea Fraser’s Untitled (2003), for which she accepted money in exchange for having sex with a collector, is a close analog in its blunt distillation of the artist-collector relationship; her project ultimately investigates the control of power and privilege in the art world. Christoph Büchel’s recent hijinks at Mass MOCA could be seen as the blueprint of an artist’s insistence on biting the hand that feeds him – and receiving critical acclaim for it.[5] Damien Hirst offers more possible fodder for Merst’s genesis, as his career is yet another illustration of the art world’s adoration of bad boy tricksters. Some critics claim that Hirst’s overexposed oeuvre employs the art world’s permissiveness and excessesas material. Hirst has admitted: “I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. I’ve found out there aren’t any. I wanted to be stopped but no one will stop me.”[6] His well-circulated quote speaks less to the thrilling boundlessness of contemporary art production and far more ominously to the reality that there is simply no one around who dares protest. This condition implicates the brokers of discourse and commerce around Hirst (and similarly, Merst) far more than it implicates the artist himself, and as such offers the perfect catalyst for Helguera’s pointed critiques.

In the book Prospects of Power, literary critic John Snyder writes, “Satire, it would appear, thrives either when there is little credence in public standards of morality and taste … or when morality and taste attenuate to superficial, arbitrarily strict codes of decorum….”[7] The first clause corresponds neatly to Hirst’s lament that “no one will stop me,” and the second to Helguera’s manual of etiquette. An amusing corollary to his pedagogical performances, Helguera wrote and published The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style: The Essential Guide for Artists, Curators, and Critics in 2005, just as the seemingly endless proliferation of global art fairs and biennials had reached its apex. The book sought to offer art world players their own combination of Emily Post etiquette with Machiavellian strategy, replete with chess piece graphics (lest one forget that there are most definitely winners and losers). One memorable section offers a play-by-play guide for a gallery opening, capped by a breakdown of totem pole hierarchies to diagram who you should talk to first, who you should avoid or ignore, and what to say if you are trying to get a studio visit or remind a collector of your existence. Other chapters answer the big questions, including, “Should one sleep with an artist whose work one does not like?” and “What do you say to a good friend who is exhibiting horrid works at his opening?”

As Juvenal wrote circa the late first century/early second century AD, “It’s hardnot to write satire. For who could be so inured to the wicked city, so dead to feeling, as to keep his temper…?”[8] These words ring as true today, and his astute observations of class hierarchies in Rome (one section of his writings focuses on the inferior types of seafood served to members of the lower classes at a formal dinner) resonate keenly with Helguera’s observations of art world conventions. Today’s VIP rooms at art fairs or the sequenced opening nights of biennials (from most exclusive on Tuesday to mere hoi polloi by Friday) are two pertinent examples; the best people are still served the best alcohol. The panelists in The Juvenal Players may be actors, but ultimately Helguera’s latest effort pulls back the curtain with a theatrical flourish to reveal our own collusion – through vocabulary, sartorial choice, gesticulation or egotistical promotion of our hard-earned roles – with the chain of command.

Notes

1 From the script of The Juvenal Players by Pablo Helguera, 2009.
2 Ibid.
3 See George Pendle’s article “How Unlike You” in Modern Painters, January 2009, p. 69.
4 Pablo Helguera, Theatricum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures) . New York: Jorge Pinto Books, 2009: p. xiii.
5 Büchel’s demands for an astronomical budget resulted in the museum halting his installation and opening it unfinished to the public against his will, which led to a legal battle. He later framed and exhibited the furious emails between himself and the director of Mass MOCA at Art Basel Miami in 2007, causing some to speculate that the entire undertaking was planned by the artist as a way to limn the boundaries and limits of exchange between artist and institution.
6 http://www.artquotes.net/masters/hirst/damien-hirst-quotes.htm (last accessed July 9, 2009).
7 John Snyder, Prospects of Power: Tragedy, Satire, the Essay, and the Theory of Genre. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991: p. 100.
8 Juvenal, The Satires. Translated by Niall Rudd. Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 4.

Images

1 Pablo Helguera, The Juvenal Players, Grand Arts, 2009. Pictured: Clifford Barnes and Sonja Stillman.
2 Pablo Helguera, The Juvenal Players, Grand Arts, 2009. Pictured: Elmer Schafroth, Rosaura Valparaiso, Clifford Barnes, Sonja Stillman and Miranda Sak.
3 Pablo Helguera, The Juvenal Players, Grand Arts, 2009. Pictured: Sonja Stillman and Miranda Sak.

The Enneatype Conference (Script) (2009)

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:28:38 +0000

THE ENNEATYPE CONFERENCE

The Enneatype Conference was a performance presented on May 9, 2009, at Lisa Ruyter’s studio in Vienna, Austria, per invitation of Parabol Magazine and curators Jasper Sharp and Elsy Lahner. The days of May 8th and May 9th I spent the time in Café Sperl, conducting “art personality assessment tests” using a system of my own making although inspired in the Enneagram Personality theory. Participants would respond to a questionnaire about their personal relationship to art, after which I would provide a diagnosis of their artistic personality type using enneagram categories.

While the enneagram test in fact turned out very accurate assessments of each individual’s attitude towards art, I wanted to stress the fallibility of any system that claims to provide “answers” about an individual’s personal situation. Thus the system, which at first was presented to all participants as an authentic scientific method developed in Vienna, was later unveiled as a complete fabrication.

PH conducting art personality tests at Cafe Sperl, Vienna, May 8, 2009

Sample of one of the art enneatype tests

The culminating event of the project was the performance, in the form of an academic lecture, that explained the various componens of the Art Personality Enneagram. What follows is the abbreviated text from that presentation.

Characters:

Rupert Steiner

Pablo Helguera

Steiner

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the closing event of The Enneatype Conference, a unique occasion to celebrate the launch of The Enneagram of Vienna and celebrate the new issue of Parabol Magazine. My name is Rupert Steiner and I am the director of the Psychological Association of Art Therapists here in Vienna. Our mission is to study the ways in which art can reveal the potentiality of the individual. And, as such, it is an immense honor to me to present to you the work of Pablo Helguera, a Mexican artist and educator whose work has centered for many years on the very subject of the artistic personality. Helguera is the director of the Helguera Center for Artworld Studies, which has as its mission to understand the sociology of art and to propose the emergence of a new field of study, which he has described as artworld studies, using elements from social anthropology, biometrics, personology, economics, culinary theory, and of course psychology.

First we should explain what is an enneagram. The Enneagram is a nine-pointed figure inscribed in a circle. The meaning of the symbol itself, together with the personality types organized around the nine points, shows a system of knowledge about nine distinct but interrelated personality types, or nine ways of seeing and experiencing the world. The Enneagram of Personality is generally presented as a psychospiritual system for mapping and understanding nine possible personality types. Each personality type associated with the Enneagram represents a map of traits that highlights patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

The notion of the artistic personality enneagram emerges from the work of Dr. Ingrid Lipsky. Dr. Lipsky was a student of Theodor Meynert at the psychiatric clinic of the university of Vienna, alongside with Sigmund Freud and other eminent psychiatrists and neuropathologists. She was also involved in hypnotism and spirituality, which led her to research the enneagram.

Dr Lipsky died at age 52 in 1910, in a safari accident in Africa, just before she got to publish her research. It was shortly after that one of her students, Eberhard Klopstock, who inherited her research papers, took her theories and attempted to develop them.

He tragically burned her original works in order to claim them as his own, then publishing a book in 1935 inspired on her ideas, titled “The Enneagram and the Artist’s Mind”.

Unfortunately, the book did not do well, and it was never reprinted. There are no known surviving copies.

It was thanks to Pablo Helguera, who while doing research in the museum of Modern Art in New York, found a letter from Klopstock to the then director, Alfred Barr, mentioning his research on this subject. Helguera has researched this information to update the original ideas of Ingrid Lipsky and thus bring the Enneagram of Vienna back to life.

He is here to tell us about the various categories of the Enneagram and share with us a system that studies and analyses the artistic personality of the contemporary art world. Please help me in welcoming Pablo Helguera.

[PH arrives onstage]

Pablo, we are enormously grateful to have you amongst us tonight.

Thank you, so am I. I am delighted that we can share the knowledge of the enneagram tonight.

Steiner

Can you please tell us how you developed the enneagram?

Well, I had to work from very initial information that was left from the notes of notable enneagramists, including Dr. Lipsky, as well as other psychologists and psychiatrists that have focused on the typology of the artist, not excluding Carl Jung and Hermann Rorscharch, who was very much interested in art as revealing issues of consciousness.

Steiner

So what is the difference between the personality enneagram and the artistic enneagram?

The personality enneagram is something that was developed by many new age psychologists to explain the kinds of personalities in the world. The artistic enneagram focuses on figuring out specifically the kind of artistic sensibility that one has, and it is a very helpful way to understand one’s own relationship with art, your potential, and also to address your shortcomings as an arts professional. I believe that once you go through the process of learning your enneatype you will be able to become a much more successful individual in the art world.

Steiner

And I understand that you will now do a demonstration?

Indeed. I now illustrate the way in which the enneagram works.

First I will conduct an act of group hypnotism which is desired to attain collective attention to a given subject, particularly when one is giving a boring lecture.

You all will look at my hand, moving like a pendulum. You all will fall in a state of deep sleep and peace, of full attention of everything I will say from now on.

Good, we are ready to go now.

I first would like you to consider a question, and choose the answer that most accurately reflect your way of feeling about art. After you have made your choices, you should remember the letter and we shall find out what each of your art personality types are.

When you see an artwork at a contemporary art gallery, list the impulse that is most likely to come to you first:

a) Thinking about how this artwork makes you feel

b) Asking to yourself what is right or wrong with this artwork

c) Trying to evaluate the artwork as good or bad

d) Wanting to know who the artist is

e) Wanting to know how this artwork was made

f) Wanting to know the back story of that art work

g) Wanting to know what the idea behind the work is

h) Remembering other pieces similar to that one

i) Non thinking, simply experiencing the work.

When you see a contemporary artist or arts professional of your same age and background receive a certain recognition that you could technically be in the same position to receive, your most likely reaction is:

a) Happiness for this person

b) Envy, wondering why you did not receive such recognition yourself

c) Thinking on what kind of friendships and professional contacts you need to make in the future to receive that same recognition yourself

d) Indifference

e) Thinking of what kind of work you need to make to receive such recognition in the future

f) Wanting to know the reasons for such recognition

g) Figuring out an innovative way to attain similar attention

h) Depression

i) Simple admiration for this person

Following you will hear about the different kinds of art personality types. If you chose, for instance, “h”,

you are

TYPE 1: THE NOSTALGIST

Nostalgists are in touch with their feelings, are sensitive, and highly perceptive of their environment. The nostalgist is inquisitive and likes to attain a lot of knowledge about an artwork. They can become very erudite and knowledgeable about a subject.

On average, they tend to emphasize too much the notion of biography, the context in which something was made, they draw lots of historical connections.

When they are unhealthy they can be depressive, self-destructive, obsessed with being up to date with the latest news of the art world, overromanticize everything, they can become delusive.

Examples: Many famous art historians are nostalgists. Janet Cardiff (on the photo), Matthew Buckingham, Mark Dion, Janet Cardiff, Sophie Calle, Christian Boltanski, Yinka Shonibare

if you chose “g” you are,

TYPE 2: THE CONCEPTUALIST

As its name indicates, conceptualists are abstract thinkers, capable of powerful synthesis, focused, and able to quickly grasp and advance the art discourse.

On average, they overemphasize theory, cause and effect, and argumentation in a work. They cannot fully enjoy a work unless they have clarified in their mind the main issues that the work addresses.

Bad conceptualists become out of touch with their feelings and have a difficulty sharing their emotions, are introverted, are desensitized toward art which arises emotions, can become aggressive and pretentious.

Examples: Joseph Kosuth, Allan Kaprow, Jacques Rancière, Daniel Birnbaum, Rosalind Krauss, Luis Camnitzer, Roberta Smith, Richard Serra, John Baldessari, Lawrence Weiner, Martin Creed

TYPE 3: THE TALKER

At their best, Talkers are able to translate the visual into words, becoming eloquent and able to put things in perspective. Gregarious and friendly, talkers have an ability to bring people together and become important spokespersons for large interest groups and gain access to important positions in the art world. Many performers and architects are talkers.

On average, Talkers can come off as superficial, saying a lot but without great substance, emphasizing hyperbole and syntax instead of content, can draw exaggerated relationships, and feel that they always have to say something even if it is unnecessary.

When they are unhealthy, they have a burning desire to protagonize everywhere, taking other ideas as one’s own, gossip too much, exaggerate reality to the point of becoming a storyteller, becoming a bit of a clown.

Examples: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jerry Saltz, Marina Abramovic, William Kentridge, Robert Hughes, Maurizio Cattelan, Kirk Varnedoe

(e) is

TYPE 4: THE FORMALIST

Formalists are highly visual people, design-oriented, perfection-driven, with a great appreciation for craftsmanship and neatness. Organized, they are punctual, keep their word, and generally maintain a good balance of art and life.

On average, Formalists can be anal retentive, extremely demanding to others and to themselves, to the point of paralysis, it can take them time to make decisions and have anxiety in unresolved situations; they have no tolerance for ambiguity.

When they are unhealthy, they can be manipulative, easily irritated, dismissive of anything which may not be clear-cut, conservative, and materialistic.

Examples: Rachel Whiteread, Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Hannah Darboven, Michael Snow, Walead Beshty, John Cage, Gabriel Orozco

TYPE 5: THE BOHEMIAN

Bohemians are those capable to enjoy the art experience to its fullest degree; they are relaxed, open individuals who are highly receptive to other’s art and ideas and are contagious in their pleasure and enthusiasm, sharing their innovative thinking. They are friendly and accessible and can be very inspiring.

On average, They are abstract thinkers who can sometimes get too ambiguous and contradictory in their actions; they may lack personal drive to do things; can take them a long time to do a project, can be noncommittal.

However, if they are unhealthy, they Can be lazy, or falsely modest, boring, inattentive to detail and poor executors of projects.

Examples: Rirkit Tiravanija, Basquiat, Pippilotti Rist, Vito Acconci, Helio Oiticica, and others.

TYPE 6: THE SHAKER

Now, Shakers are very perceptive of social contexts and can influence social structures to their advantage. They are brilliant, highly diplomatic, alert, shrewd, and reliable. They excel in organizing and administration, as well as in making interesting connections and bringing people together. They can orchestrate large projects and usually are good with money. Many museum directors are shakers.

On average, Shakers can be social climbers and careerists; they can put the carriage before their horse and do things entirely out of self-interest. They can be a powerful ally and supporter but can also be a dangerous enemy.

At their worst, they can be Egotistical, with a problem with authority, extremely proud and manipulative, delusional and self-aggrandizing.

Examples: Thomas Krens, Olafur Eliasson, Christo, Jeffrey Deitch, Larry Gagosian, Okwui Enwenzor, Francesco Bonami, Mary Boone

TYPE 7: THE CONTRARIAN

Contrarians are the ones who usually open a debate. They have an innate ability to detect and question the status quo, and activating spaces of discussion and experience for others. They have sharp minds with complex perspectives and inspiring thoughts.

Generally, contrarians can be dogmatic, self-centered, and have a difficulty to relate to others who don’t share their views. Narcissistic, they are well-grounded, independent, and strong, although they resent not being given their due credit and always act as if they have a chip on their shoulder.

When unhealthy, beware: they can be extremely aggressive, dismissive of others, overly negative, insensitive to others, power-hungry, and snob.

Examples: Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, Martin Kippenberger, Terence Koh, Jens Hoffmann, The Guerrilla Girls, Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince, Donald Kuspit.

TYPE 8: THE SPIRITUALIST

Spiritualists are self-fulfilled people who can extract the best of every art experience and bring it to a higher realm. They are people in peace with themselves, who think with clarity and lucidity, and for whom art is a vehicle to attain illumination.

Spiritualists usually see beyond what the normal viewer seees, thus can be treated as delusional (and may actually be); can be sentimental and new-agey. They can act as shamans or evangelists.

If they are unhealthy, however, they can be naïve, delusional in believing that they are the new Buddha, condescending, passive-aggressive, resentful and insecure.

Examples: Bill Viola, Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Dan Flavin, Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, James Turrell

TYPE 9: THE ADMIRER

Admirers are centered individuals who can look at art in a balanced way and appreciate its strengths and weaknesses without falling prey to their emotions. At their best they are intelligent, self-effacing, extremely reliable as supporters, collaborators or allies.

Admirers can be calculating, materialistic, acquisitive, constantly amusing themselves with new things and experiences. They have a need to be loved.

When unhealthy, they are Impulsive and infantile in what they want. Can become offensive and abusive. They act on impulses rather than dealing with their own anxieties or depressions, so they can end up spent and despondent.

Examples: Charles Saatchi, Peter Norton, the Rubells

To finalize, I will show a few graphs that exemplify demographic research of the artworld using enneagramatic types.

Here is a sample of an unhealthy enneagramic art community, with an excess of Bohemians and talkers, and yet few admirers (which translates on scant collecting) and too few conceptualists.

In this other sample, one can appreciate the behavioral trends amongst art types who are inclined to switch galleries after being selected into the Venice Biennial. Shakers and Formalists are more likely to switch galleries given their acute sense of opportunity and order, respectively; contrarians will switch only because they like to switch, nostalgists are too attached to the past, and bohemians are not able to switch because they don’t have galleries in the first place.

so as you can see, there is a lot to be learned from this system, which can be mastered with enough study and analysis.

Any questions?

Steiner

Pablo, I do have a few comments.

Go ahead.

Steiner

I have been listening to your presentation, and I am realizing that none of these statements have any scientific basis. Looks like you made them up.

I think you are confused.

Steiner

I am starting to suspect that you fooled me and that actually Dr. Lipsky never existed. If you look closely at that photo of Dr. Lipsky that you gave me to show for the presentation, that looks like an old photo that you found in a thrift shop. And the guy that you showed in that picture is not Eberhard Klopstock. He looked too familiar to me. He actually is the singer Richard Tauber.

You are wrong, Rupert.

Steiner

I think that your whole theory is bullshit. It is like all that new age philosophy that gives you a false sense of worth, that gives you false hopes, making you believe that there are powerful spiritual forces that will make you succeed. But the truth is that when we try to hard to search for that success we loose the sense of who we are and what we believe in. You have played with our feelings. Shame on you.

I am sorry you feel this way. OK, something has gone wrong here. Maybe it is time to end this demonstration.

You may remember that you all are under hypnotic trance. So when I snap my fingers, you will not remember any of this conversation. The Enneagram of Vienna will completely vanish from your memory, the same way it came, it will vanish from everyone’s memory the same way it was gone before— it will never have existed. We will not think of who we are but only go about our lives, and our art, withholding judgment. We will simply try to survive, and be at times tortured and at times happy, not entirely sure why, and let our identities, and our relationship with art, remain a mystery, where it belongs.

[making another hypnotic gesture]

Nine, Eight, seven, six, four, three… two… one… welcome back. And thank you.

[they exit]

We All Are Streeter (2006)

admin — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 21:50:24 +0000

Scott Vehill in We All Are Streeter, Hyde Park Art Center, April 2007

We All Are Streeter is a scripted symposium (ubeknownst to the audience) about identity, locality, and the notion of second city complex, a subject very much implicit in the cultural dynamics in Chicago. The “panel” was composed of a critic and an artist from Peoria (a city in Illinois that regards itself as a “second city” to Chicago). The debate between the panelists was intertwined with a lecture about the real life of Captain George Wellington Streeter, an eccentric sailor whose boat crashed onto the shores of downtown Chicago and thus tried to claim the area as his own. He was eventually evicted, but the area where he once claimed as his own is now known as Streeterville.

read the full text:

Script of We All Are Streeter (2006)

Captain Streeter

Parallel Lives

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 06:07:59 +0000

Parallel Lives exhibition at Julia Friedman Gallery, 2003

Vidas Paralelas (Parallel Lives), was an attempt to reinvent the form of the biographical exhibition through uncommon associations between parallel biographies and objects. The project consisted in a peformance piece and an exhibition. In the exhibition, a collection of objects at a particular site is displayed, however, with the option of five alternative narratives in an acoustiguide (narrated by Fred Wilson) that describe the specifics of five completely different lives: (Giulio Camillo, Florence Foster Jenkins, the Shakers, Ward Jackson, Friedrich Froebel). The project tried to prove how in the exhibition context objects tend to become receptors, not containers of meaning when they interact with a verbal interpretation, and also seeks to trace visual connections between the lives of five people who could have not been more different in life and events but whos sensibility somehow shared elements in common.

The performance version of this project was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in December of 2003.

Rehearsal of Parallel Lives, Sept. 2003

Fred Wilson recording the acoustiguide for Parallel Lives, San Francisco, 2003

Primer Congreso de Purificación Cultural Urbana

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 05:37:50 +0000

La Jornada Newspaper, Mexico City, July 13, 2003

The Primer congreso de purificación cultural urbana de la ciudad de México (First Congress of Urban Purification of Mexico City) was a collaborative project by Ilana Boltvinik and Pablo Helguera made in response to the increasingly conservative climate of government-run cultural policy—or lack thereof— in Mexico. The project took form of an actual conference in the Hotel de la Ciudad de Mexico in downtown Mexico City in May of 2003. The project was never advertised as an art project but as a real conference with a call of papers that insidiously claimed that “culture, like the environment, is polluted”, and invited submissions as to how to “purify” it. Many submissions were received from as far as Colombia, and 6 were selected for the conference, while 6 others were written as scripts and read by actors, unbeknownst to the audience. The 6 “scripted” submissions were in a sense a response to the 6 “real” submissions, formulating statements or points of view that are rarely expressed in academic or public forums. The following two scripted papers here include the one read by the Mexican curator Marco Barrera Bassols, calling for the complete elimination of national arts funding —arguing that most of that funding goes to support a bureaucratic apparatus and too little to actual art making. At the time, Rudolf Giuliani had been hired by the Mexico City government to be a security advisor. The paper read by performance artist Ryan Hill, who was introduced as director of a pro-Giuliani organization, proposed a US-run cultural policy program for Mexico inspired in Giuliani’s own conservative view of culture (not to long ago Giuliani, while New York City mayor, had sought to take away funding from the Brooklyn Museum for the display of Chris Ofili’s painting).
This last paper generated a media blitz and outrage over the notion of an US-led cultural policy, published by the papers La Jornada, Reforma, Universal, Milenio and others, which in turn led to a public debate on cultural policy as originally intended.

–

(exerpt from the performace script:
Ryan Hill’s paper)

Thank you for coming today to this event. As assistant director of the department of cultural services and assigned representative of the Rudolph Giuliani Commission for this congress, I would like to start my presentation by speaking about our current positions and our projects related to our improvement of the cultural life of Mexico City. After that, I will get into th specifics of our cultural program, known as PROLICU.

As you may or may not know, the Commission is an independent, not-for profit, organism of philantropic nature, which focuses its energies in solving the current problems experienced in Mexico City in what culture is concerned. The Culture Department, which was created at the beginning of 2002, with the intention to increment the range of action of the Commission, is based on the same theorical principles, that is to say, to “condemt and do everything that could be done to abolish all and every one of the abuses towards life and humanity”, followed by various accords such as “ bringing to light and clean all the physically hazardous practices to mental health, and preserving such cleanliness”. Of course, it is of utmost importance to consider cultural practices as part of mental health.

From its very beginnings, the members of the commission have made an uninterupted stand against the brutal treatments and criminal practices and abuses against social and cultural human hygiene, following as its main principle the emphasis of moral renovation implemented by Rudolf W. Giuliani as major of the City of New York. The Commission has become a really effective force in the promotion of changes in this area.

Our program known as PROLICU is dedicated to the research and identification of any violations to cultural hygiene, both in the psychiatric and physical sense. Although it is a relatively young organization, it has already accomplished a profound cultural study with the help of many national and international experts in order to present, in the most complete way possible, the action plan that we plan to follow to implement the cultural cleaning of this city.

I will now describe the Program of Cultural Cleanup (PROLICU) in its first stages and Characteristics.

Program of Cultural Purification (PROLICU)

The international program for the cultural purification of Mexico City, better known as PROLICU, was launched in 2002 by the Commission. The project, carefully developed with the objective of completely reforming the life of Mexico City through a thorough cultural cleanup, consists in a series of key steps that need yet to be implemented.

First Phase: Case Study and Cultural Evaluation
The general comission of PROLICU, composed by those members of the government who may consider themselves knowledgeable in the field of arts, will carefully analize the cultural program of each one of the city’s museums, houses of culture, universities, schools, galleries, and activity centers open to the public, identifying where they can, those instances in which the activities may be considered immoral — which is not the case of every institution, although it is estimated that 78% of cultural centers in Mexico City have such condition to some extent and need of profound renovation in this aspect.

Second Phase: Cleanup and Renovation
All the directors, curators, museum administrators, and employees of government-run galleries, cultural centers and community centers whose cultural discipline and challenge to authority will be immediately dismissed, without any previous notification.

Third Phase: Reprogramming, Regulation, and Quotas

After the selection of the new group of directors from all cultural spaces in Mexico, a new Organization will be announced, known as the Comission of Morality and Public Decency (CoMoDePu), a principal organ of PROLICU, which will be in charge of supervising all the cultural entities in Mexico City, ranging from public dependencies to private ones, with the objective to approve any artistic proyect on the basis of its civic decency. Every exhibition project, concert, publication, or expression that shall be transmitted to a public larger than 8 people should be presented to the authorities of the CoMoDePu and meet the following requirements:
1)    To promote a positive image of Mexico City;
2)    Completely lack any reference to sexual acts or attack to morality,
3)    Not use bad words,
4)    Not utter the name of God or Mexico in vain, nor in a profane way under any circumstance;
5)    Not use foreign words unless to announce commercial products; local indigenous languages also excepted

Those cultural producers and/or administrators who would participate in works supposedly of an “artistic” nature that would not follow the previous rules, will be immediately subject to fines and quotas of up to $10,000.00 U.S. dlls. Additionally, any other work that would be considered to make reference, either directly or metaphorically, to any slanderous attack of political, social, religious or economic nature will be confiscated and examined by the CoMoDePu until deemed appropriate or not for public viewing. Exempted from this rule are all the artists and creators who may have received lifelong scholarships by CONACULTA.

Fourth Phase: Education and Progress
The Commission will simultaneously establish a renovation program in the artistic curriculum in Mexico City schools, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.
In this program, ellaborated by experts, the lacks in the current educational system will be addressed and there will be special classes given for the training of future artists.

Fifth Phase: Unforseen Changes
The Commission will take on the task of replacing any directive whenever necessary, without making any explanations for the reasons of his or her dismissal. Possible reasons for such dismissal may include:

1)    Expressing aesthetic points of view which may differ from the preestablished guidelines for the artistic advancement of the city,
2)    Unnanounced activities,
3)    Collaborations with international institutions that are not sanctioned by the government.

Sixth Phase: Social function of Museums and Others
The commission will establish a special calendar of availability of all the cultural centers in the city, wether public or private. Under the instructions of CONACULTA, these spaces will make their locations available to realize, in strict order of priority:
1)    government-related and official events,
2)    official exhibitions and events organized by CONACULTA,
3)    exhibitions, lectures, and events by government-approved artists.

These few steps, which are only the first ones to accomplish a true renovation of the management of culture in Mexico City, will no doubt bring an immediate benefit to all the audiences and the people who appreciate art in the city, and will also provide a more efficient mechanism for the development of the cultural program in the city. ****