FROM THE SCREEN TO THE FIRELIGHT

Laura Preston

visual essay – talk followed by film screening and drinks

Within the European Capital of Culture 2014 project Waiting for… (Archeology of an Idea)

A collaboration between kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga), Rupert, Centre for Art and
Education (Vilnius), Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association and Top Association for the Promotion of Cultural Practice in Berlin
July 29, 7pm
kim? Contemporary Art Centre

In writing about an art object, an alteration is made. Something of its atmosphere is taken into account.

Art criticism by its very nature, in the very expectation to document elaborates on the work’s object-ness; showing the object as adaptable to the situation of being made public (transformed into words, talked about as though heresy) and operating in a feedback loop of call and response. Similarly, in identifying written criticism as expanded reportage the ways of seeing and naming objects and more broadly, the dynamics of power circulating within the ecosystem of contemporary art production of which it is part, are put into question.

Documentation of Richard Frater’s exhibition project Retouch some real with some real, Alterations, 2010

As a beginning point for the Ringa workshop, this talk will spark discussion on the writing of art criticism as fiction placed in circulation and will be followed by a screening of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film essay Reassemblage, shot in Senegal and released in 1982. This film was part of a three year project of ethnographic field research in West Africa through the University of California, Berkeley. In Reassemblage, Trinh explains that she intends “not to speak about/just speak near by” images caught as document of this culture.

Ringa: A Migrating Art Academies Workshop in Riga, conceived and curated by Alex Davidson and Jacquelyn Davis, center on art writing, and the potential of writing as an art-making process giving special attention to the process of excavating the literal, and historical meanings and resonances of words, as a way to deviate from dominant interpretations, as well as the relationships between the past and present of these words and their relationship to specific places and cultures – in particular, Riga.

Participants: Lina Albrikienė, Nick Bastis, Patrick Buhr, Kris Dittel, Stefanie Hessler, Ainārs Kamoliņš, Jana Kukaine, Elizabeth McTernan, Will Pollard, Sebastian Rozenberg, Lina Zaveckytė. Guests: Virginija Januškevičiūtė, Kaspars Groševs, Ieva Kraule, Gaile Pranskunaite, Anda Lāce. The workshop takes place from July 27 to August 2.

Laura Preston

Laura Preston’s writing practice relates to her role as an art critic and curator. She is currently developing a series of fiction related to film criticism. She has contributed to Artforum and May contemporary art journal, Paris; and the programmes at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and Artspace, Auckland.