New Herald

On the 2nd of June it is Ladonia National Day but also the celebration of Ladonia as a free country since 1996, Ladonia is now 10 years as a remony.

 The celebration program will come later in July, on the 2nd of July the only thing that will take place is humble; the traditional Elephant Parade.

Today’s rehearsel of the Elephant Parade on the National Day
Photo: James Hartman

The Hedgehogger No 3, May 2006

The Hedgehogger is an unofficial magazine for the upcoming Biennale in Moss. Edited by Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks.

September in Moss, Norway, the Biennale Momentum

Over a quarter of a million people will experience the world in a different way when they attend Norway’s leading contemporary art event, the 2006 Biennale of Moss. This year’s free exhibition and associated events features 35 of the world’s most dynamic and provocative artists from many countries. All eyes will be on Moss as the Biennale claims the attention of people from all over the city and beyond when it opens in many venues from Jeløya to Moss Center.

One of the most challenging events of its kind, the Biennale of Moss celebrates its 4th exhibition in 2006, making it one of the most established biennales in the world. This year’s event provides a chance to experience some of today’s most exciting artists, many of whom will show in Norway for the first time. All of the 35 participating artists will be coming to Moss for the event and special programs will give Norwegians unique access to some of the most creative minds working today.
The 2006 exhibition, curated by two leading curators, Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen, pushes new boundaries with a strong representation by artists from countries and regions that are rarely represented in major international festivals and biennales. The breadth of the exhibition sees groundbreaking artists with connections to cultures as diverse as Bosnia, Malaysia, Palestine, Japan, India, Canada, Lebanon, Singapore, Israel, Britain, Egypt, Latvia, China, Serbia & Montenegro, Bahrain, Russia, The Netherlands, Brazil, the United States, New Zealand and Kazakhstan.
Artistic Directors & Curators of the 4th Biennale of Moss Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen, has travelled the world visiting over 40 countries in 18 months and meeting more than 1,600 artists. “Try again, fail again, fail better” is an exhibition about today. It deals with the issues of our time – the ideas and concerns that shape all our lives and our sense of the future” said Kierulf and Sladen. “There is a general global movement that is reflected in Try again, fail again, fail better: the experience of having one’s homeland occupied or of living in another person’s culture and the sense of physical, psychological and cultural displacement that arises, along with the impact it has on the land, environment and sense of belonging. The exhibition also celebrates the positive interactions between people, where connections are made and familiarity, understanding and intimacy are made possible.”
Chairman of the Biennale of Moss Vidar Hulaas, said, “The 2006 Biennale of Moss sets a new benchmark: Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen has brought together an astonishing range of artists whose works evoke, on the whole, a poignancy rarely encountered in art exhibitions. Moreover, in terms of logistics, it is manifest that an event of this scale and reach is only possible with the continuing support of our generous public and private sector partners, in Norway and overseas. We hope the wider public is as captivated as we are by what Annette and Mark have shown us so far.”

SYDNEY

Between now and September Sydney will have its biennale (June 8 – 27). The theme is Zones of Contact.

The Sydney biennale case

Never give up

Sydney has an opera house

Moss has an industrial tower

UPCOMING EVENT IN MOSS

One of the contributions that will be made by artist Lars Vilks and curator Martin Schibli is the seminar Biennale! Biennale! Burning bright/ In the cities of the night.

This seminar will explore international exhibition-making and current curatorial practices in contemporary art, the ‘Biennale Phenomena’ and issues surrounding the city and cosmopolitanism. Selected international speakers include Friedrich Nietzsche as Keynote Speaker (former professor, Basel, Switzerland) who will introduce his biennale books: The Birth of Biennials, 1872; Biennial, All Too Biennial, 1878; The Dawn of Biennials, 1881; The Gay Biennial, 1882/1887; Thus Spoke the Biennial, 1883-5; Beyond Biennial and Triennial, 1886; On the Genealogy of the Biennial, 1887; The Twilight of the Biennial, 1888; The Anti-biennial, 1888; Ecce the Biennial, 1888. Friedrich von Schlegel (Privatdozent, Jena, Germany) another Keynote Speaker who will present his work on biennales (only in German): Die Biennalen und die Triennalen, 1797; Geschichte der Poesie der Biennalen, 1798; Eine Biennale mit Lucinde, 1799; Gespräch über die Biennalen, 1800; Charakteristiken und Kritiken die Biennalen, 1801; Alarcos und die Biennalen, 1802; Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Biennalen, 1808; Biennalengedichte, 1809; Über die neurere Geschichte der Biennalen, 1811; Geschichte der alten und neuren Biennalen, 1812; Philosophie der Biennalen, 1828; Philosophie der Geschichte der Biennalen, 1829; Philosophische Vorlesungen über Biennalen aus den Jahren 1804-06, 1836; Prosaische Biennalenschriften, 1882; Briefwechsel mit Biennalencuratoren, 1923; Krisenjahre der Frühbiennalen, 1936-58; Kritische Biennalen, 1956.

The Ministry of Future Science James Hartman has with his space telescope taken this picture of Ladonia from outside our galaxy.

Prince George C. Nelson has been appointed as Consul General to the State of Pennsylvania.

Consul George’s working area

Pictures and tv from the new presentation of the new EU-flag. Responsible minister Fredrik Axwik together with Hans Tapper from Gallery Tapper-Popermajer.

http://hd.se/inrikes/2006/05/10/flaggan_hissades_och_togs_hem_igen

Note the webb-TV link at the bottom of the article.

http://hd.se/webb-tv/2006/05/09/webb_tv_nya_eu_flaggan_hissad

Eternal Minister of Dubious Anthems Walter has for some time been using his right to remain idle. Now he is making a strong return, inspired by Minister of Art & Jump Fredrik Axwik:

“Hola from Austin, Texas, Cabinet Members:

I have emerged from seclusion upon hearing about the momentous,
groundbreaking (literally) performance that our esteemed Minister of
Art & Jump has planned for August of this year*.

Billed “A Jump into Past Waters”, the brave minister will
purportedly fling himself from a tower of his own construction into
Lake Lahontan in the Black Rock Desert during the annual Burning Man
arts festival in Nevada.

Lake Lahontan was once a vast prehistoric lake that encompassed much
of the North American southwest. Were our minister to have jumped
into it at that time, he would no doubt have been converted into
icthyosaur dung posthaste. However, due to the current state of the
lake site, our intrepid minister will be diving 150 feet onto a hard
alkali playa. This is cutting edge! This is committment!

I will be there, sir, to cheer you on and hand you a final
libation. All hail Minister Fredrik and his bold artistic vision”.

*There will be a great celebration of Ladonia 10 years anniversary in the end of July with minister of Art & Jump and music by Neurobash. More information will soon be available.

Minister Walter with viking horns

Flag manifestation in Ladonia disorder in EU

The new EU flag could be seen in Ladonia today. It is designed by the artist Maarten Vanden Eynde from Holland. The disorder in EU is a fact, Ladonia is needed as a new European center.

The much waited report from the Censors in Aix-les-Bains has arrived from Minister Taru:

Aix-les-Bains 2006.5.6. 14:58

We arrived to Aix-les-Bains yesterday after spending Friday recruiting plumbers from Poland and organizing Ladonian airforce to transport them to France. Facing advancing army of Polish plumbers the European Union Commission leading the EU forces was totally split by controversies about whether or not to accept them. Just as planned. Watching through telescope to the EU headquarters on the hillside we saw Chirac to grasp Barroso’s shirt and Tony Blair trying to hit Chirac with a briefcase. As EU troops had to fight without operative leadership, our troops of Polish plumbers and Ladonian pygmy elephants had no problem in defeating them. (Our inside source of information tells that now the Commission, not yet aware of its military loss, is trying to formulate a directive about the limitations for the use of pygmy elephants in warfare.)

However, now we have another problem: French villagers seem to be grouping nearby to drive the Polish plumbers from their country. Now we need to organize a hasty getaway, to satisfy both the French villagers and Ladonian military needs.

Ants

Post-colonialism is past and as the first country to follow a new possibility is Ladonia deciding of several reasons to strongly upgrade its colonial ambitions. The main target for this neo-colonisation is EU. In collaboration with the artist Maarten Vanden Eynde and the Gallery Tapper-Popermajer Ladonia will hoist the new EU flag made by the artist. With this symbolic action Ladonia will start colonizing the whole area of EU.

We also include the war against the Swedes in this action. If you rule EU, Sweden will become a small fish, easily captured.

Ladonia, ruler of EU

If you want to see the flag in a live event go to Ladonia on Sunday 7th of May. A delegation from the Ministry of Art and Jump will bring the flag and celebrate the occasion together with the state secretary. Around 13.00

The Biennial in Moss, “Momentum” will begin in September this year. The Hedgehogger is an art project that is introducing the upcoming exhibition and the complexity of the art world of biennales.

Curatorial
The exhibition Momentum Try again, fail again, fail better unravels as a novel, a story involving different characters and individualities, dissecting their private destinies and universal fears.
In order to capture and amplify these tensions, the curators of the 4th Moss biennial have selected an array of exhibition sites, all concentrated along one street and an island, in the heart of Moss.
Choosing these venues as both an example and an archetype, Try again, fail again, fail better leads its viewers across a variety of environments and experiences. The artists in “Try again, fail again, fail better” were asked to intervene or present their works in places that represent the every day that is our common ground: offices, galleries, trailers, and former factories.

For the show, the curators aspire to put together a story that follows different plotlines and open-ended narrative passages. Not a theme show nor an exhibition with a thesis, “Try again, fail again, fail better” poses questions about birth and loss, death and surrender, grief and nostalgia.

Taking its title from a novel by 20th century Irish writer Samuel Beckett Try again, fail again, fail better stages a theater of the absurd, in which animals, humans and ghosts all play their tragic parts. But it is also a day in life of the inhabitants of Moss and a stroll along the spaces that punctuate our existence.

The exhibition, Try again, fail again, fail better will include more than 20 artists spanning generations and working in a variety of media and techniques from conceptual art, animation to still photography, role-playing to team building. Unlike the prevailing biennial tendency to debut the latest talents and movements, this show draws connections across time and throughout the past and present, rather than just concentration on the fleeting trend or tastes. And the context within the heart of the city of Moss brings with it the undeniable weight of countless histories and manifestations, triumphs and failures.

Moss has with Momentum created a tradition of co-opting and transforming existing buildings and structures into venues for temporary art shows. In Moss an artist can turn his or her apartment into a gallery or opens an independent exhibition space. Learning from this experience, the curators recognize the specificity of Moss’ art scene and the vast quantities of unoccupied space. That space is both a blessing and a curse: it offers up exciting and fresh venues for presenting art, however it also symbolizes the failures and consequences of the city’s powerful and persistent memory and history.
The Moss biennial is the only biennial in the world that changes locations and venues according to the exigencies of the exhibition. Try again, fail again, fail better will thus become a strange carnival or street fair, following a jagged descent into the spirals of time.

THE MATCH: MOSS VERSUS BERLIN

Enter the authors to assist the art events. In the blue corner Moss is matching Samuel Beckett, while Berlin brings forward John Steinbeck with Robert Burns at ringside.

THE BELL TOLLS (Like the curfew tolls the knell of parting day)

I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along.

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.
On. I’ll say on. (Let “on” be said.) I’ll go on somehow. Till nohow on. Till I say “nohow on”.

Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world . . . They don’t belong to no place.

Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.

Let’s Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamble (photo: James Hartman, Highland, Indiana)

I don’t like this place, George. This ain’t no good place. I wanna get outa here….they go inta town and blow their stake…

I’ll say there’s a body (where there isn’t one). I won’t say there’s a mind (where there isn’t one). That at least is true. I’ll say there’s a place (where there isn’t one) for the body: for it to be in and move in, and to move out of and move back into again. No: the body doesn’t move out or move back. It stays in, it stays on in - unmoving.

Guy don’t need no scuse to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other. That means we’ll be bucking grain bags, bustin’ a gut….beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle up near the water

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

S’pose I went in with you guys. . . . I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some. How’d that be?

Everything is as it was of old. There’s never been anything else. I’ve never tried anything else, never failed at anything else. But it doesn’t matter: I’ll try again, I’ll fail again. I’ll fail better than I did before.

We gotta house and chickens an’ fruit trees an’ a place a hundred time prettier than this.You got your work slips? Well, that glove’s fulla Vaseline. An’ I bet he’s eatin’ raw eggs and writin’ to the patent medicine houses.

He’s got the punch (photo: James Hartman)

First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all.

On mice and men…

Said nohow on. I have said “nohow on”.

IT WAS ALL OVER EVEN BEFORE IT STARTED. MAN! SHOW SOME RESPECT!

The Hedgehog is reflecting on the state of affairs after the great match:
This the way to the mossyroom. Mind your hats goan in! Now yiz are in the Sqoor. This is a Buddegunn. This is a Sweed. Tip… This is the triplewon hat of Vincentium. Tip. Vincentiumhat. This is the colonelium on his same white harse, the battleharse. 1716. This is the big, grand and magentic in his goldtin spurs and his ironed dux and his quarterbrass woodyshoes and his magnate’s gharters and his bangkok’s best and goliar’s goloshes and his pulluponeasyan wartrews. This is his big wide harse. Tip. Goan to Balaklava. History as her is harped… Tantris, hattrick, tryst and parting, by vowelglide! I feel your thrilljoy mouths overtspeaking, O dragoman, hands understudium… Every third man has a chink in his conscience and every other woman has a jape in her mind. All hath here, elk and convention busted to the wurld at large, on the table round in Ande Mundie 1814. Tip.

—————————————————————————————

Martin Schibli visiting THE BERLIN BIENNALE

A couple of weeks ago, the Berlin biennale opened, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni och Ali Subotnick. The general theme, as in most biennales, is about life: you are born; you die, and in between
(traumatic) thing happen. Unusually for a major biennale, this one is possible to see in just one day, i.e. most films and videos are just a few minutes long. And for most of the presented works / projects, the visitor doesn’t need the information from the catalogue. This has been seen as a critique of the third biennale.
The biennale is located along the Auguststrasse, the same street as Kunst-Werke is to be found; the used spaces are old stables, a basement, a container and an old non-renovated mirrored ballroom. Even private inhabited apartments are used, which for me is a bit nostalgic on a personal level, because some of the apartments was in the same spirit as my own M Art In(n) gallery project, that I initiated 2000 - 2003 in Helsingborg, Sweden.
One problem with the used spaces, which is common with spaces that have a significant history, is that the space easily becomes more interesting than the presented artworks. Many artists are not experienced enough to work in such environments, a serious critique, but not very surprising. Most Art Schools teaches how to make art, not visual presentations of their work from a given situation.

During the first weekend, Robert Kusmirowskis full size replica of a polish boxcar, placed in a room in a former Jewish girls-school, was one of the talked about works. Understandable, it had an instant impact on the viewer, the wagon fills the whole room with its own presence, combined with a significant reference - a Jewish school. Combined it seems like a powerful force, history that explodes, and break the walls.
Another work that got attention was Reynold Reynolds film Burn. A man is pouring petrol on a bed, where a woman sleeps, and then lights it. At the same time, some other sequences show another couple that doesn’t seems to care that their home is on fire, they continue with their daily things.
Several artists show personal mythologies. Michaël Borremans, one of the few painters, shows a little model on a house, reminding somewhat of Kafka, shown together with several painting that depicts the house in different art-historical settings.
Personal, I was fond of Aneta Grzeszykowskas photo album, placed on a dining table in one of the apartments. At the start, the photos looked liked ordinary family photos, but there is something disturbing.
It turned out that the artist has digitally edited her own family album, making she disappear from the photos, taking away the photo as an idea of a personal materialisation of a memory.

Significant in the biennale is the use of a symbolic visual language, often sentimental, and with a small hashing to surrealism. Especially a visual language that is common in Eastern Europe presented; several of the artists are also from Eastern Europe. This kind of art is not common in the biennale culture and within major institutions of contemporary art. Often it is overlooked as somewhat traditionally, modernist and illustrative. Even, black/white Polish graphics are exhibited at the biennale (Dorota Jurczaks mythical images of birds picking on heads). This kind of art has been seemed as hopeless. After the wall, there were several artists from Eastern Europe that became well known within a western art-world hemisphere. But often, it was with presented in a western framework of aesthetics.

There are four artists from the Nordic countries. All of them seem to manage quite well in the competition. The Danish artist, Sergej Jensen presented the installation “The waiting room” in one of the apartments.
Three Swedish artists are participating. Most hype has Nathalie Djurberg, with her remarkably strange animations, which move from humour to dark fairytales like the Grimm brothers. Felix Gmelin shows a film from the seventies, showing sexual education to young blind persons, and how they studying by touching young naked models. In a video, Klara Liden is dancing in a subway car, in Stockholm. It is not seducing; on the contrary, it has humour and is rebellious.
Too sum up, in general terms, it seems in this biennale, that the social critique has gone from a quantitative method, that has an ambition of social studies and to reflect upon reality, to a more qualitative method, there the personal narrative is dominating. Maybe, this in an expression for an urge for the existential and authentic.

In German media, and elsewhere, the biennale seems to be well received, and the visitors like it, despite there are no artistic representation from Asia, African or South America. The fact that only 20% of the participating artists are women is not a big issue, and barely mentioned. At least in Sweden, the lack of women would be a scandal, but in Germany they look at gender issues in a different way.
The fact that Berlin Biennale is concentrating on Eastern Europe is understandable, and probably, it is also an expression of Easter Europe’s increased importance in politics and in the economy. But one thing is sure; the Berlin biennale is in many ways different from other biennales. The curators have found a neglected visual aesthetics/concept of art in the artworld. The core question is if it will have a long term effect on the artworld, and change the idea of quality, or if this biennale is too different from the others? But, if this is an ongoing trend, the Nordic artworld will probably change within 2 or 3 years, and change the cards, and celebrated artists, when new ideas of quality hits the market. The Berlin biennale could, after Momentum 2006, turn out to be one of the most important biennials this year.

The best, the safest and the most comfortable way to go to Ladonia:

USE LADONIA AIRWAYS!

Either go to St James’ Airport in Hartmanburg or to Omfalos East Ladonia Airport.

We got wings! Ladonia Airways!
(Photo: James Hartman)