Jagna Ciuchta

missing alina - archives

Jagna Ciuchta — 2012-05-16T15:44:56Z

Missing Alina. Archives

After the exhibition Alina Szapocznikow : Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972, WIELS, Brussels, 2012 ; curated by Elena Filipovic and Joanna Mytkowska, scenography by Kwinten Lavigne.

Exposition Missing Alina wood, plywood, paper, variable dimensions, La Fabrique, Toulouse, 2012.

see as well missing alina - introduction to leaf through

missing alina - three ceramic head-shaped vases

Jagna Ciuchta — 2012-05-16T14:45:44Z

Missing Alina. Three ceramic head-shaped vases with flowers.

After the exhibition Alina Szapocznikow : Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972, WIELS, Brussels, 2012 ; curated by Elena Filipovic and Joanna Mytkowska, scenography by Kwinten Lavigne.

What a strange thing to own a concept, a gesture, and to see its consequences slip away from our very hands.
Then, sometimes, I tell myself that both the works of art and the exhibitions should appear without decisions ; then, moreover, without ideas, should come up, with the evidence of leaves that grow up from a tree, with their own intelligence, with the necessity to inscribe themselves in a cycle, but without intentions. Because, as Baudrillard wrote, appearances are immortal, invulnerable to the meaning or of non-meaning itself.
I have got to gather a few thoughts about the context though, and to say again that art is a matter of imitation, often an imitation of art itself, for better or for worse ; and that it carries illusions, their correlative disenchantments, but also, of course, seduction.

Damien Airault

Exposition La Simulation, Jagna Ciuchta & Julie Vayssière, curated by Damien Airault, wood, plywood, aluminium, variable dimensions, Treize, Paris, 2012.

see as well missing alina - introduction to leaf through

missing alina - introduction

Jagna Ciuchta — 2012-05-15T16:25:12Z

Missing Alina - introduction to leaf through

image : website of WIELS, Bruxelles

see as well on this website :
Missing Alina. Three ceramic head-shaped vases with flowers.
Missing Alina. Archives.

when you see me... (all)

Jagna Ciuchta — 2012-03-26T15:11:25Z

when you see me again it won't be me - overview of the process

no title (63.), 2010. - perf

Jagna Ciuchta — 2012-03-20T15:16:47Z

no title (63.), 2010.

Brenda : Yes, the one I wanted to talk about, was the painting seen from the behind. And, but that's a double memory. It's when I saw it, I saw nothing, in the real sens of the therm, because, in fact, it is because there was nothing to see. I saw nothing and not long after John told me that it was the best thing which you had made and I suprised myself to have seen nothing. Well, it doesn't sound like anything, but it really… it really disturbed me.

Me : When you say you saw nothing, do you mean you missed it, you didn't notice, or, you saw nothing…

(...)

A performance written after a conversation with a friend and artist Maria Barthélémy, about a memory of a work of mine. Dream of Insomnia seminar, 2012, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy.

when you see me... (2)

Jagna Ciuchta — 2011-10-28T13:38:07Z

- WORKS

the grey room

Jagna Ciuchta — 2011-08-23T14:34:56Z

the grey room — Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy. 2011. With works by Marina Abramović, Eva Barto, Gerard Cuartero, Matthew Coombes, Dario D'Aronco, Roberto De Pol, Elif Erkan, Maria Elena Fantoni, Roberto Fassone, Yona Friedman, Sarah Fuller, Hamish Fulton, Giovanni Giaretta, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Kosuth, Carolin Koss, Marjetica Potrč, Gerhard Richter, Marta Roberti, Iacopo Seri.

27. 6. 2011

First day in FAR. I discover the Museo del Tessuto in a mess, the previous textile exhibition is being taken down. The black SF and minimal sculpture-like furniture teases me. All those textile-collection objects in disorder. The mixture of warm half-lights with the ambience of something weak and abandoned. I see the space several times and dwell on it for the next two days. It's a perfect place to disappear.

29. 6. 2011
I ask the administration to use one exhibition room and some furniture for a new project for Corso Aperto. And a permission to paint it. I invite the other artists to show their works within the arrangement.

30. 6. 2011 – 1. 7. 2011

I prepare sixty litres of colour. Grey, a ‘non-colour' colour, neither white nor black. Grey like one of the greys in the terrazzo floor. Painting the walls takes two days. The Museo's administrators come here some times ; they look both worried and curious. I think about the plinths I was lacquering and polishing last year and then deconstructing a few month's later. Now I'm on the inside, the room is a plinth, but unfolded and refolded outside in. The pleasure of painting. A real-life, physical work, the immersion into the architecture. Through the body experience the space opens to something else.

2. 7. 2011

The room is ready. I rapidly arrange the furniture : an empty parallelepiped showcase, three round tables with showcase bell-glass, seven empty frames. A beautiful situation of something not achieved. The lights are left in their positions from the previous exhibition. The curtains are ready to receive Roberto DP's work. He installs his piece, with a windscreen wiper, in front of one of the windows. It creates an electric, slightly erotic, slightly psycho-thriller atmosphere. I find a title for this exhibition : The Horde of Splits is the first proposal I get from a random generator of titles for novels on the internet. It's the right one. Tonight the first official opening of Corso Aperto. During the buffet I go to check if everything is all right. Annie is there, we talk, she moves the parallelepiped showcase slightly to an orthogonal position, asserting "it's better like that". I like it.

3. 7. 2011

The artists are proposing works. I'm relieved. I'd been feeling nervous. I set up some rules : 1. I do not choose, but accept all proposals without judgement (please don't call me curator). 2. the artist decides where to put his/her work in the space - if he/she doesn't want to choose, I'll make a brief, practical decision. 3. the less I decide, the better. I let the others come and take their place. I don't entice or evaluate nor do I control. I try to be attentive.

4. 7. 2011

At the morning lecture, Jan Verwoert talks about Katarzyna Kobro and craft. I'm pleased. New works are installed in the exhibition ; Roberto F.'s messy Cross book, Iacopo's True Stories and autobiographical Traces by Maria Elena. Marta will possibly bring something. Tonight people are coming for a conference ; it's a kind of second opening.

5-14. 7. 2011

I have a look at it every day. Roberto's windscreen wiper installation has partly disappeared. For one or two days he has left only the wobbly display without the electric stuff in front of a messy curtain. For the public the exhibition continues, so it's like a self-running artwork. It makes me smile. New works are still arriving. I wonder how it's possible, because it's already crowded and yet people are still proposing works. I appreciate that. I ask myself if I would propose a work for such a project. I observe how something seems to be shifting from thoughts of display, appearance and representation to a kind of experience of playing, which is maybe the receiving and giving at the same time. Carolin changes the lights. The space is crawling with activity before the new opening. Other furniture turns up. It occurs without me. I rearrange the curtains.

14. 07. 2011

The Discourse of the Abyss Recapitulates the Fantasy of Disciplinary Boundaries is the new title. Thanks to the Chicago University website's generator of academic sentences. (Sounds a bit like a piece from Delia Derbyshire). It suits the new show today. All the works do as well. It's a bizarre exhibition that's just happened, but it could have been curated. Colourful. There are works in couples. Iacopo's work is itself a dual narrative. Dario's empty Schweppes deals with Roberto's book. Marta's weird, like-from-the-beyond video display and two hundred delicate drawings diagonally relate to Maria Elena's whole-life fragments of notebooks. Gerard made this libidinal-attraction-between-artworks assemblage, using work from Ratti's collection. I love this mise-en-abyme within my work (and I do appreciate having Kaprow & Co. here). Another diagonal force of attraction stretches between Giovanni's haunted houses and Carolin's beautiful grey video rectangle of yesterday's storm on Lago di Como. Elif's bad-taste colour psychoanalytic two chairs are already facing each other. I have never had this relation to an exhibition. The situation makes me think of dream mapping ; no hierarchy, no linearity, no time, (no self ?), but everything is related to everything, there is no separation. New artists : Carolin, Elif, Dario, Marta (with a glossy black piece of furniture), Giovanni (plus a new black plinth) and Gerard with guest appearances from Marjetica Potrč, Allan Kaprow, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Kosuth, Yona Friedman, Marina Abramović, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and Gerhard Richter. Roberto's wiper is now a white flag on the roof of Villa Sucota and will perform in Eva and Iacopo's performance. Where do I go with that ? Am I falling into the Abyss ? Tonight the second official opening of Corso Aperto, after Susan's exhibition opening and her lecture with The stirring Last Silent Movie.

21. 07. 2011

I ask Roberto F. if he has an idea what title I could give to the grey room. I don't want to use generators anymore, I don't like routine. "The Grey Room", he says, "everybody calls it like that". There is hardly economy-class space left. Yet there are still artists wanting to show new works. I keep wondering why. I fantasize for my Grey Room a dew point, or an other atmospheric saturation phenomenon that occurs when the humidity reaches 100% with a precise temperature. But it will never be. Tonight is the last night. Giovanni's work and Iacopo's one increase and spread, while I keep falling. New works : Sarah's photographs of the Ratti textile factory on the windowsill, Eva's dislocated image-frame-glass with black flag on the floor, Matthew's photograph of an open hand with sparkles set on a Richter within Gerard's work. Gerard & Roberto DP.'s collaborative A4 prints which are, once again, a google algorithm-generated mise-en-abyme of an image. One casualty : Marta's new work fell over and broke. The third official opening of Corso Aperto follows Alexiei Penzin's lecture. Stefan offers to help me with re-painting the walls white tomorrow.

22. 07. 2011

I don't see how or when works disappear. Those remaining I remove. Quickly done. It falls back to incompleteness. Like a hotel room. I feel at home. I take photos, I linger. Paolo tells me that I don't have to paint the walls. At first I'm disappointed. Then I hear they have decided to paint all the Museo exhibition spaces the same grey colour. The grey room again slips out of my hands. Disappearing and widening at the same time.

Thanks to Paolo, Iacopo and Stefan for their help.

detailed documentation here

luck is a form

Jagna Ciuchta — 2011-08-23T13:23:31Z

luck is a form — On Wednesday 20th of July 2011 at 3p.m., I drew 3 cards from amongst 19. On each card there was a name of one of the artist participants of The Dream Seminar II. The operation was done in the office of Ornella Pizzagalli (Administration of Fondazione Antonio Ratti) and witnessed by herself and Cristhian Raimondi, the photographer, according to the protocol of an official draw. Three times I drew a folded card, giving it to Ornella Pizzagalli, which she unfolded, reading the name out loud. The 3 drawn cards were those of Roberto De Pol, Marta Roberti and Giovanni Giaretta. The documentation of the performance (photography of the performance and the 3 drawn cards, framed) were exhibited at the entrance hall of Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Villa Sucota, Como, Italy.

when you see me... (5)

Jagna Ciuchta — 2011-03-02T22:44:51Z

when you see me again it won't be me - an overview of the cycle

when you see me again it won't be me. again. — (partie 1 - le projecteur)
Un socle de l'exposition when you see me again it won't be me déconstruit, une photographie découpée, dimensions variables.
exposition when you see me again it won't be me. again., pointDom, Toulouse, 2011.

when you see me again it won't be me. again. — (part 1 - the projector)
A deconstructed plinth from the exhibition when you see me again it won't be me, a cut-out photograph, variable dimesions.
exhibition when you see me again it won't be me. again., pointDom, Toulouse, France, 2011.

when you see me... (4)

Jagna Ciuchta — 2011-03-02T22:36:09Z

when you see me again it won't be me - an overview of the cycle

when you see me again it won't be me. again. — partie 2 - la projection.
Les composants de deux socles (de l'exposition when you see me again it won't be me) déconstruits, sont utilisés pour esquisser une composition dans l'espace, proposer une grille, un simulacre d'exposition. Vimensions variables.
pointDom, Toulouse, 2011.

when you see me again it won't be me. again. — part 2 - the projection.
All the elements of two deconstructed plinths (from the exhibition when you see me again it won't be me), are used to sketch a composition in the space, to propose a grid, a simulacrum of an exhibition. Variable dimesions.
pointDom, Toulouse, France, 2011.