Jens
Haaning - Mehdi Chouakri
by Peter Herbstreuth
I wanted to book a flight to Venice for the Biennale and went to Mehdi
Chouakri. He had an installation by Danish artist Jens Haaning who
turned the gallery into a travel agency. A map of the world on the
wall. A rack full of travel booklets and hand-bills. A video with
clips from holiday resorts. Schedules and logos from air craft companies.
And an exotic plant for ornament near the window. Mehdi Chouakri sat
behind the desk, looked for my flight, recommended stop overs in Rome
and Milan, phoned an adjunct agency, and confirmed the flight I preferred.
The ticket is accompanied by a certificate by jens Haaning, saying
that in case I will not use the ticket paid in advance, it would get
the status of an art work after the day of departure. And because
in Germany taxes for art works are lower than taxes for travel tickets,
the difference of the money would be repaid.
Finally Haaning's contribution to this year's Biennale would consist
in not letting me go there. But if I use it, the ticket is seen as
a once possible art work: the journey could have been a matter of
imagination. Duchamp's strategy to turn everyday objects into objects
of aesthetic perception in defunctionalizing their usage, has been
seen as a critical intervention concerning the mechanisms of representation
and the re-evaluation of objects. But after decisions had been made,
things stayed as Duchamp wanted them to be: controlled by his artistic
will. Haaning accepts Duchamp's strategy not with objects, but with
real life situations, and gives them a change as well as offering
viewers the opportunity to decide for themselves about the value.
The frame of the work is open because of the customers, and it is
closed because of the limited space where the process of self-organization
takes place by means of communication. The functional and aesthetic
overlap. Active involvement is mandatory. The distinction between
social and aesthetic behavior is made manifest when the acts are placed
in a context with art; i.e. art in Haaning's work means transport
in the broadest sense of the term; it includes exchange between the
real and the unreal. This suits Venice well.
Originally published in Flash Art, vol. XXX n. 197, November - December
1997 |
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