Notes on Whitechapel Gallery artist’s talk between Jens Haaning & Nicholas Bourriaud / 11 Sep 08

Artists and Institutions and the changing nature of Institutional Critique

Bourriaud suggested that the kind of institutional critique that emerged in the 1960s has come to an end. He felt that art galleries were no longer considered as representative of an authoritarian political system as they once were, therefore, making them the subject of work has becomes less relevant for artists. He suggested that the art gallery was seen as ‘one more thing among many things’.

Also, such is the fluidity of galleries now in modes of presentation and engagement (e.g. smaller but no less institutions such as Gasworks, ICA (as seen in their recent Nought to 60 program and Whitechapel itself) means they often think with the contingency and lightness that would classically be the domain of the artist. In the past there has been more of a tension between the dense, heavy (both architectural and ideologically) institution and the nimble, protean artist. However as more and more gallerists, curators and creative producers adopt the mobility of thinking more commonly associated with the artist the innate antagonism between the two has lessened.

Working in/out an institution, working with(out) an institution

Asked how he dealt with the initial invitation to be part of Whitechapel Gallery’s project The Street:
(“Seven artists/artist collectives have been commissioned to take part in The Street, a year-long project by Whitechapel Gallery launched on 30 March 2008. Each were asked to develop seven week-long projects focusing on a disused shop space on Toynbee Street just off Wentworth Street, as well as to develop projects relating to the place on and around Wentworth Street, E1. Projects will usually have some manifestation throughout the rest of the year so that The Street will have an accumulative presence up until March 2009. Writers Lars Bang Larsen and Clare Cumberlidge from General Public Agency have been invited to contextualize The Street throughout the year. A publication will follow in 2009.” Curator, Marijke Steedman)

Haaning confessed to finding it quite difficult. The reason being that it was important to him that the decision to work beyond the walls of an institution is his artistic choice. Whereas with ‘The Street’ the work being external to Whitechapel Gallery itself was part of the structure of the project. From his perspective he felt the gallery had made inroads into the nature of the work, before he had even contributed anything. This stance became clearer in mind of his suspicion of artists who claim to work ‘outside of the institution’ he felt this was naïvely revolutionary, or at worst, a faux-stance of independence, he admitted the importance of, and attraction to, galleries for him, lay in the power of their networks, both in communicating the project to the public, media and others in the professional arts community.

‘Baghdad Time’ (2008) was the produce of Jens Haaning’s commission for The Street…A clock set to Baghdad time has been mounted to the side of a Brick Lane restaurant; “thus acting as a reminder of a situation occurring in another time zone – a situation that society has the power to influence despite its geographic distance… it highlights economic and diplomatic relations between the UK and Iraq - with British participation in the Iraq conflict acting as the main connection” (as described on the Danish Embassy website). This description and commentary complements what Haaning disclosed of his strategies on the evening of the talk.

Other works

Other works which Haaning presented included: “Afghanistan 5012 km” (at Leidsche Rijn, in Utrecht, The Netherlands). A piece commissioned for a new housing estate. The work takes the form of a road sign placed by the motorway, with the lettering ‘Afghanistan 5012km’. This functions as a joke while remaining factually true. Haaning talked about wanting people to consider why this road sign had been sited over any other, as a means of opening up broader considerations. He went on to explain that he saw the work as a response to expansive housing developments occurring in the Netherlands at the time, that were economically related to Holland’s military engagement in Afghanistan.


Another striking work was ‘Arabic Joke’ (2006); this work took the form of numerous posters disturbed throughout New York in October and November 2006: “interspersed among the movie and club posters, the typical joke offers a laugh to those who can read it, and may evoke feelings of dislocation and confusion among those who cannot”. (Who Cares? website). Bourriard talked about other contexts in which he’d seen this work and variations of it, in which the jokes are broadcast, for example. He talked about how ‘Arabic Joke’ created a micro-community for the duration of the joke’s presence in the cityscape – around which those who ‘were in the know’ could enjoy the work. By presenting the ‘insider’s joke’ with the insider being the ethnic minority or marginal community, subversions of the relationship between access to knowledge and authoritarian power were put to work. Finally in Redistribution (London-Karachi), 2003, all the chairs from the ICA, London were shipped to Karachi, Pakistan. They were then left on the street for passers-by to use or take as they wished. Haaning recounted how there had been great excitement at the Karachi end in the lead up to the project, at the prospect of ‘designer chairs from London’, however when the chairs actually arrived there was great disappointment with their aesthetic. He found it humorously revelatory about the expectations of one culture and its produce of another – and the notion of taste and fashion – how in this particular case it definitely did not translate.

One lens through which to view the works mentioned here is through their spatial-temporal-displacement strategies. Baghdad Time, suggest a mini-time zone in the midst of Brick Lane. This asynchronicity could be seen to mirror the culture of population demographic of the Brick Lane area in relation to London’s population at large. Likewise to make the link between the Dutch housing estate and Afghanistan may have had a real-time relevance at the time of its execution – but as Haaning himself said, he is equally interested in a motorist 50 years from now passing the sign and being curious enough to investigate a connection that has become historical, that is not ‘live’. Issues of displacement are explicit in Arabic Joke and Redistribution, in the former the artwork i.e. the poster activates and engages with those communities which have been displaced – alienating those who do not know the language, in the latter it is the objects which have been displaced: two simultaneous situations of the same logic – but not identical events had been created. Here the displacement is not loaded in one community’s favour, or to the exclusion of another. I was made particularly curious about the act of swapping, specifically the moment mid- swap when both parties have nothing and are awaiting the arrival of something.