Alexander Dorner

[Carlos Basualdo <agent@blast.org>]

<<"With the courage of the
unacademic and the radical, according to the necessities of contemporary
art". >>
 
To the excellent account that Hans-Ulrich Obrist has done I would like
to add a couple of people from the Americas: Catherine Dreir (promoter,
curator, institution maker) and Jorge Romero Brest. Brest was the
Director of the Visual Arts Department of the Di Tella Institute in
Buenos Aires in the sixties. The Di Tella was an interdisciplinary
exhibition space and laboratory for contemporary music, art and theater.
In a country like Argentina, where the institutions are usually very
weak and the general political climate is, to say the least, adverse to
contemporary art, Brest managed to create a space that was both a
museum  and a lab. He combine more traditional exhibitions of modern
artists never seen before in the country with extraordinary experimental
events like Marta Minujín's early installation "La Menesunda" in 1964
and, later the series of shows "Experiencias" (Experiences) 67 and 68,
involving some of the most interesting Argentine conceptual artist of
the period. By 68 Romero Brest had decided to began working in
collaborations with artists, designers, architects and video makers. In
1969 the Di Tella institute was closed down, as a result of the combined
effect of the Onganía dictartorship and a strong cut in the funds. Brest
had to abruptly interrupt his investigations.

This leads us to the urgency of developing a institutional model that
could be adjusted to the conditions of both the countries of the center
and the periferies. I would like to suggest here that the exhibition as
a model of understanding of art production should probably be
emancipated from the museum and be considered an institution of its own.
Hans-Ulrich Obrist has mentioned tyhe example of Alexander Dorner. I
came to know about Dorner through a lecture that Obrist gave in Madrid,
in the context of a forum on curatorial practice organized by ARCO. In
his lecture, Obrist explained very precisely Dorner's position regarding
the museum as an self-transforming institution and argued passionately
and convincingly about its current relevance. I would like to suggest
here that in order to realize Dorner's ideas the museum as an
institution would have to become the exhibition as a temporary (urban)
museum. More than turning art into everyday life it would be a question
of turning everyday life into an architecture of situations.

 Hans-Ulrich also mentioned the name of Feneon, better known for his
political practice than for his esthetic position. This leads us to the
political implications of any institutional model. I am willing to hear
more about Feneon and how he combined -or not- his esthetic activism and
his political anarchism.

Carlos