Art in America - Nancy Davenport

CONTINUED I>PUBLISHER: CYNTH IA ZABELSENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: LESLIE BERKERYWEST COAST MANAGER: CARA BARR ESESALES REPRESENTATIVES:SARAH BUTLER , VIVIEN MOSESEUROPEAN REPRESENTATIVE: ULI LANG ,HILI PERLSONSALES ASSISTANT: NATALIE UNDERWOODTEL: (212) 941-2854, FAX: (212) 941-2870ADVERTISING DESIGN DIRECTOR: MARTIN MINERVADIRECTOR OF MARKETING: JENNIFER WALLACEONLINE DIRECTOR: KELLY BRANTWEB EDITOR: ALEX GARTENFELDWEB PRODUCER: STACEY GEYERDIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING: PROVIDENCIA DIAZPRODUCTION DIRECTOR: CASEY HENRICKSASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER: MEGAN STEVENSONCIRCULATION: PRO CIRCCIRCULATION DIRECTOR: CARY ZELNEWSSTAND DIRECTOR: MARK PETERSONACCOUNTING STAFF: ELSA CAPALDI , DAVID KETNER,M.J. MACARAYA, GANESH ORILALL, EVELYN RIVERAVICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES &OFFICE SERVICES: MAR IE MASCAROASSISTANT TO COO, CFO: JOSHUA BRENTANCHAIRMAN: PETER BRANTCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: RYAN A. BRANTPRESIDENT: FRANCIS MALONECHIEF OPERATING OFFICER/CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER:DEBORAH A. BLASUCCIBMP MEDIA HOLDINGS, LLCBRANT ART MEDIA, LLC575 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10012TEL: (212) 941-2800, FAX: (212) 941-288512283343536578Art in AmericaDEPARTMENTSHOMEPAGEYOUR OWN PERSONAL JESUSBY MARCIA E. VETROCOLETTERSINSIGHTChristian Boltanski's mountain of lost souls; Vancouver's art scene gets a boost;Cy Twombly at the Louvre; the ShortlistEYE LEVELTHE WHITNEY VANILLENIALBY PETER PLAGENSBOOKSFranz Schulze on Why Architecture Matters by Paul Goldberger andHearts of the City: The Selected Writing of Herbert Muschamp.RE-CREATIONROBERT MORRIS: THE ORDER OF DISORDERBY RICHARD KALINAA reconstitution of Morris's landmark Untitled (Scatter Piece) of 1968-69 occasions arefiection on the picaresque story of the original.IN THE STUDIONANCY DAVENPORT WITH DAVID COGGINSThe photographer and video artist talks about her work's relationship to political activismand to filmic antecedents, from the Lumieres to Godard and Pasolini.FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS: 800-925-8059,OUTSIDE THE U.S. 515-242-0297WWW.ARTINAMERICAMAGAZINE.COMGENERAL INQUIRIES: INFO@BRANTPUB.COMVol. 98, No.5 (May) Art in America Is published monthlyexcept combined June/July by 8MI Media, 575 Broadway,New York, NY 10012. Tel: (212) 941-2800. Fax: (212) 941-2885.Contents Copyright C 2010 by Art in America, and may not bereproduced in any manner or form without permission. ISSN: 0004-3214. The opinions expressed, apart from the editor's comments,are those of the writers themselves and not necessarily those of thismagazine. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs.Art in America is Indexed in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Uteratureand the Art Index. Articles are abstracted and indexed in BHA (availableon-hne through Dialog and Ouestel) and in Historical Abstracts and/orAmerica: History and Ufe. Back volumes of Art in America are availableon microfiche from Bell & Howell, Att. Periodical Department, OldMansfield Road, Wooster, OH 44691. Mcrofilm copies are availablethrough Xerox University Microfilm, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Periodicalspostage paid at New York. NY, and at additional mailing offices.SUBSCRIPTIONS include combined June/July which counts as 2 out of12 annual issues: U.S. 12 issues $39.95.24 issues $70.00.36 issues$95.00; in U.S. possessions add $20 per year. In Canada, $79.95per year (includes GST); foreign, $95 per subSCription year, payable inadvance. in U.S. currency. SlNGLE/BACK lSSUE: Gall (212) 941-2806for pricing and availability. Domestic newsstand distnbution by CurtisCirculation Company, 730 River Road, N8IN Milford, NJ 07646.FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO ORDER A NEW SUBSCRIPTION'Write to ART IN AMERICA. P.O. Box 37003, Boone, IA 50037-0003, or call(toll·lree) 1·800·925-8059. Outs,de the U.S .. call (515)242,0297.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ART IN AMERICA,p.o. Box 37.003, Boone. IA 50037.-0003, and allow s~ weeks lor change.PRINTED IN USANancy Davenport, Revolutionary (night),2001, C-print, 34 by 38 inches.Courtesy Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York.See article beginning on page 78.150 REVIEWSNew York, Ridgefield,Atlanta, Miami, Chicago,Culver City, Seattle,Toronto, London, Montpellier,Otterlo, Basel, Rome,Berlin, Paris175 ARTWORLDDouglas Gordonand Rufus Wainwright;People; Awards;Museum News;Obituaries

IN THE STUDIONANCY DAVENPORTWITH DAVID COGGINSNancy Davenport's work app'ears straightforward: sparephotographs of buildings, for instance, or dreamy videos offactory workers. Yet there's a sense of foreboding within herfinely wrought, socially observant works. There are historiesbehind these images- stories of crime, of violence, ofcorporate transgression. But this is hardly documentary journalism-nearly every scene has been digitally manipulated.We are left to find our version of the truth in images that areat once more and less than what they seem.Workers (leaving the factory), an ongoing video projectDavenport began in 2004, addresses the shift from heavymanufacturing in most Western societies. The multichannelinstallation which was shown at the 2008 Liverpool Biennialcombines footage of factories in Europe and their counterpartsin China, to which the Europeans' work will soon beoutsourced, edited together seamlessly so that the facilitiesbecome indistinguishable. On one channel, the camera movesacross the impassive faces of automotive factory workersfrom a Jaguar factory in England who sit around with aheavy air of exhaustion. The other channel moves along anassembly line as the gleaming cars glide by- the mechanizedambience is so pristine that when a worker appearswe are surprised by the intrusion. There is no place in thefactory, Davenport suggests, for the workers themselves. YetDavenport's concerns go beyond the socioeconomic; she isalso deeply engaged with the history of filmmaking, and heroeuvre references mainstays from Griffiths to Godard.Icons of power and authority, such as physically imposingarchitectural structures, often appear in Davenport'sphotographs; they are the focus of the "apartments"and "Campus" series (2001 and 2004respectively). Stillness is also a recurringtheme- Weekend Campus (2004)Nancy Davenportin her Romeis a digitally animated video in whichstudio. Courtesya camera seemingly moves across athe artist.still image, creating an uneasy frictionbetween motion and stasis. Davenport'suse of animation is soothing- it allowsher to create seamless tracking shotsthat are so languid they're almost hypnotic- yet shesets that against unexpected details like the unnervinglywide, blinking eyes of one of the workers.Davenport exercises complete formal control over her filmsand photographs, yet reality can intrude on the most carefullystaged work. This is most apparent in "apartments,"which debuted in Chelsea at Nicole Klagsbrun. The largephotographs of anonymous New York buildings were digitallyaltered to include reenactments of what Davenport calls"historical acts of resistance." Some are political, like thehostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics, others artistic,like Chris Burden's 1973 performance 747, in which he shot agun at an airplane in flight from a position on the ground. Theexhibition opened the week before Sept. 11,2001. WhateverDavenport's intentions, the meaning of the show was quicklyovertaken by events in Lower Manhattan. A photo depictingan explosion amid New York apartment buildings becameexcruciatingly timely in a way Davenport never anticipated, orsought. It was a paradoxical lesson in the power of topicality-somethingDavenport claims she seeks to avoid."Campus" is a series of photographs of university buildingsso visually stark and un welcoming as to seem inhospitable tohigher learning. Each school has been the site of past protests,some violent, mostly during the Vietnam War. Many ofthe structures were built after 1970, and they're designed likebunkers. There's a dissonance between the ideals of highereducation-curiosity, dissent, challenging received wisdomandthe hard facts of the world as it is. The buildings come torepresent a defensive status quo, a form of social stasis.Not all of Davenport's work is that fraught. She's currentlyworking on a film inspired by the animation of American cartoonartist Chuck Jones, to be permanently installed in theMuseum of Military History in Dresden, redesigned by DanielLibeskind and slated to open at the end of 2010. In this unfinishedwork, violence is exaggerated to comic effect, as I sawwhen she showed me some digital clips.Born in Vancouver, Davenport holds a BFA from Toronto'sYork University and an MFA from the School of Visual Artsin New York. She lives in New York and has shown at NicoleKlagsbrun since 2001. Her work has also been featured inthe 2007 Istanbul Biennial and the 2008 Liverpool Biennial.She is in residence this year at the American Academy inRome, working on a project about the Roma (gypsies) livingon the periphery of the ancient city. The project, still untitled,is influenced by the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, many ofwhich were shot in that area.We spoke in her airy studio at the Academy, which offersviews down the Gianicolo and across the domes and towersof the city's churches. Davenport keeps her studiospare- there were a few cameras and a computer, and thewalls were bare but for several digital stills and detailed mapsof the city.DAVID COGGINS Tell me about theproposal that won the Prix de Rome.NANCY DAVENPORT It was somethingI was thinking about for a longtime, independently of Rome; it didn'toccur to me to apply until a couple ofyears ago. The project that I proposedwas very specific-about the earlyworks of Pasolini, the journalism, thepoetry and especially the early films,like Mamma Roma (1962). I wanted togo back to those neighborhoods andexamine how the periphery of RomeMAno ART IN AMERICA 79

"THE ART WORLD SOMETIMES FINDS MY WORK TOO POLITICAL BUT ACTIVISTSDON'T THINK IT GOES FAR ENOUGH ."Bombardment, 2001, C-print,38 by 50 inches,Right, Weekend Campus,2004, DVD, approx, 4 minutes,All photos this article,unless otherwise noted,courtesy Nicole KlagsbrunGallery, New York,had shifted, and how the populationshad changed. I was also interested infinding people who had been extrasin his fi lms. There's a certain generationof Romans who all claim a kindof relationship with Pasolini. Youwouldn't believe how often people inthe fi lm community here say, "I knowsomebody who worked with Pasolini."A lot of people have this connection.I'm interested in examining the generationof men who were boys at thetime of his films. As I've been here,80 ART IN AMERICA MAno

since September, my ideas have beenchanging very quickly.DC Is th at how you typically workstartingwith a general idea andchanging as you go along?N D Yes , that's pretty consistent.Workers , the project I showed at theLiverpool Biennial [2008], changeseach time I show it in terms of thenumber of projections, and becauseI film workers from the city where thepiece is to be shown.DC How do you prepare?ND I do a great deal of research .For this project I've been readingabout the development of Romanurbanism. Much has been writtenabout the re lationship between cinemaand architecture in Rome, andabout the failures of certain housingprojects. Rome developed very differentlyfrom other cities-it didn'thave the industrialization of Milan orParis. But there were moments historicallywhen populations were pushedout, literally, in one big shove to theperiphery-for example in 1925, whenMussolini demolished the medievaland Renaissance houses around theColosseum and the Forum . So theperiphery itself developed in a way differentfrom that of other cities.More and more I'm going back toPasolini's journalism, too. In addition toa regular column in the Corriere dellaSera , he wrote editorials, essays andfilm reviews for other papers, includingOfficina , Vie nuove and many others,from the '50s through the '7Os . It'shard for us' to understand his importancein Italian culture because we'venever had a figure like that; he was soprophetic about the culture of globalismand consumerism. Sometimesyou can read his columns and, if youcrossed out specific names of neighborhoods,it could be something youwould read today in the New YorkTimes. Now the tensions at the peripheryare different-it's more aboutissues of immigration and racism thanclass conflict.In terms of research , I'm also goingaround Rome to different neighborhoodsand interviewing people. Themore I learn about the specific developmentand the politics of this situation,the more the issue of the Romacomes up. For example: Pasolini shotAccattone [1961] in II Pigneto, a neighborhoodthat was a slum. Its historyis sort of like that of the East Villagein terms of how it developed: it's acool place to live now, and much morediverse than the city's center-yousee African people and Chinese restaurants.The wife of Pasolini's titlecharacter, Accattone, lived in II Pigneto,and it's exactly in that place that theRoma had a temporary encampmentfor a while in 2007. The issue of whatis happening with the Roma right nowis historically specific and complex,and the geography of the peripheryis very different and expanded, butmuch of what Pasolini was concernedabout is relevant today in relation to theRoma community. Although my workIN THE STUDIOwill probably not address the Romaissue directly, it seems very importantto consider as I think about Rome'sdeveloping periphery, Pasolini 's methodof representing spaces of social subjectionand the city's failed attempts atrenewal and reform .DC What is your studio practice like atthe Academy?ND At this stage, I'm collecting materialand experimenting. At the beginningof all my projects, I do a lot of notationalwork, shooting with a small digitalcamera, trying different variations inPhotoshop and After Effects. ThenI go back to a site and shoot with alarger format camera. At first it's justmapping out what I want to go backto. Everything is on the computer rightnow. I didn't bring a lot of equipmentbecause I wanted to be less reliant onall the stuff that I usually use.DC At what point does the final shapeof the work become clear-whether itwill have multiple projections, say, orbe a 15-minute film?ND It depends on the project, ofcourse. Some commissions are veryspecific about what they entail. TheDresden project I'm currently workingon , for instance, has to be a certainlength and a self-contained projection.It 's inspired by Chuck Jones.DC Tell me more about that.ND The commission is for the newDresden Museum of Military History.My piece-which is still very muchin progress, so some things mightchange-will be based on one fictionalMAY'1O ART IN AMERICA 8 1

Above, Study (Dresdencommission), 2010.Courtesy the artist.Opposite top and bottom,stills from Workers (leaving thefactory), 2007, multichannelvideo installation.character who is completely obsessedwith carrying out a series of quasisituationist,quasi-UMTV's Jackass"schemes inspired by the classic ChuckJones Road Runner/ Wile E. Coyotecartoons. Like Jones's Coyote, mycharacter is luckless and inept, andhis violence always bounces back tohimself- back to some self-inflictedchaos. But unlike the Jones cartoons,my proposed animations will have noRoad Runner. My coyote subject willoperate schizophrenically from bothsides. He will be stalking himself andmultiplied in every role. The backgroundfor his actions will be the verymuseum where it will be shown-anincredible building designed by DanielLibeskind and currently under construction.So, the action in the piecewill be taking place in the Libeskindbuilding while it's being built.DC Shifting gears from animation , canyou talk about your relationship withdocumentary film? Is that an associationyou resist?ND That's something I think aboutall the time-creating something thatcomes from a documentary traditionbut isn't concerned with conventionaldocumentary structure or style. I thinkabout ethics and power relationships.Very few of Pasolini 's actors wereprofessionals, and he always shot onlocation, as opposed to Fellini, whobuilt an entire section of the Via Venetoon the set. Pasolini grew more andmore allegorical, so his realism refusednaturalism. I'm interested in that aspectof his legacy. I'm certainly strugglingwith ways to represent these nomadicpopulations without falling into easilyconsumable cliches. Pasolini'swork expressed the contradictions ofthe time. I keep hoping that, in thatspirit. I can show the contradictions asopposed to a simple political viewpoint.It's almost a cliche about political art: ifit embraces openness and ambiguity,then people tend to read into it whatthey want. The art world sometimesfinds my work too political but activistsdon't think it goes far enough.DC Does even calling a work politicalchange the audience's expectations?ND I don't know.DC Do you consider yourself political?ND I wouldn't use that term. I've beenthinking about the territory betweenphotography and film, the impact ofdigital technolog'y on the temporalityof the photograph- that photographyis a medium in transformation and that82 ART IN AMERICA MAY'lO

IN THE STUDIO"I'M INTERESTED IN THE CONGESTED TEMPORALITY OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS.WHAT HAPPENS WITH THIS NEW ESTHETIC OF SMOOTHNESS AND ERASURE?"it 's important to consider the shiftingboundaries between different technologies.In terms of my own work,I think the opposition between the stilland moving image provides an interestingway to explore certain changingsocial oppositions-like progress versusthe experience of social paralysis.I'm drawn to depicting subjects thatemphasize opposed or seemingly contradictoryideas.DC Your work includes many referencesto the history of cinema, andyet you're often addressing very contemporaryissues, like migration andglobalization.N D Each reference serves its ownpurpose. In Godard's Weekend [1967],that long tracking shot was an incredibleinventory of 1967 French societyright before the events of 1968. Thereare significant changes in my videoWeekend Campus: instead of theFrench countryside it's a university, andinstead of a country population it's astudent body. References focus atten ­tion on different layers in the work.Louis Lumiere's film Workers Leavingthe Lumil3re Factory [1895] representsan emerging class in motion-atthe very historical moment so oftendescribed as the beginning of themodernization of urban experience. Itdirectly reflected an uncertainty andfluidity of class boundaries that wascharacteristic of the late 19th century.I also had stylistic and structuralinterests: my piece Workers has aclear reference, when the workersare sent into orbit, to another seminalfilm of the same period-GeorgesMelies's Voyage to the Moon [1902].The Lumiere brothers and Melies formone of the original polarities in film history-adichotomy often expressed as

the tension between the actual andthe fantastic, between documentaryrealism and expressionism, betweenthe "cut" and "objective" or straightdocumentation. I feel that these arefalse dichotomies- or, at least, thatthese things do not have to be mutuallyexclusive- which certainly relatesto my interest in Pasolini's realism .By referencing aspects of these twoiconic films within a transformed andcontemporary framework, I wantedto evoke maybe a tiny bit of the complexityof our globalizing culture andeconomics, this constantly changingsystem of delocalization and laborflows. I wanted to raise questionsregarding our present moment of capitalistdevelopment, but with humor.I wasn 't interested in making a moralizingpiece nor, of course, some naivecelebration of this complex issue.I also hoped to raise questions aboutthe historical representation of labor.I really hoped to avoid cliches in representinglabor, like the heroic worker,the redemption of labor, or, on theother side, the victim , the exploited.For the first iteration of Workers ,the project focused on two locations:I visited the Ardal factory in Norwayright before it closed down. The townof Ardal is completely dependentupon the auto industry. In China, Ivisited the company's new factory inXi'an, which is now experiencing thesame kind of economic boom thatShanghai and Beijing went througha few years ago. So, for the firstsequence of Workers , I made a kindof virtual rest area, incorporatingphotographic elements from the twolocations-portraits of the Norwegianworkers whose jobs are being phasedout and portraits of the Chinese workerswho are just starting at theirs.DC How has being at the Academyaffected your work? What 's it li ke beingThis spread, stills from Workers(Liverpool animation), 2008,multichannel video installation.DAVID COGGINS is awriter who lives in New York.84 ART IN AMERICA MAY'10

"WORKERS CHANGES EACH TIME I SHOW IT, BECAUSE I FILM WORKERS FROM THE CITYWHERE THE PROJECT IS TO BE SHOWN."with historians and other scholars?ND It 's been a wonderful surprise.I didn't know that Luca' Caminati wasgoing to be here- he's a film scholarwho wrote a book about Pasolini. He'sbeen an incredible resource.DC And what effect has living inRome had on your work?ND Being here, I've become veryinterested in an age-old problem withthe city-the relationship betweenthe centro and the rest of the city.There is a Byronic approach, theromantic approach, to the ruins ofthe city. Lampedusa was alienatedby the center. For years people havebeen writing about this Disneylandand consumer place. This is not justa question that arises in the '50s- it'sbeen an issue for centuries. Even inthe Academy's relationship with thecenter, there's a kind of distance. It 'sdifficult to be unaware of the privilegeof li ving in this villa in the richestneighborhood versus the walls or barriersbuilt around the Roma people,isolating them in camps.DC Tell me about the Roma.ND I'm still in the process of learning,but the terms gypsy or nomadiare considered derogatory. Theyrefer to themselves as Roma. That'snot a refere nce to Rome; the literaltranslation is "man ." It 's a diversegroup of people, not just Romanians.There are 14 camps spread aroundthe city- yo u can see them onGoogle Earth-and they have differentlevels of legitimacy. Some arevery barrackslike, some are temporary,some are not recognized by thegovernment at all. As the peripheryhas turned into the suburbs, there'smore of a right-wing feeling in a lot ofplaces. That's a generalization, butjust driving by Corviale, an infamouskilometer-long failure of a housingproject built in the '70s along whatwas then the periphery, you can seethat the fourth floor, which was supposedto be shops, is occupied bysquatters. But there's also a rightwingpolitical party based there.DC What happens when realityintrudes on your projects? Can youtalk about "apartments," and howSept. 11 affected interpretations ofthe work?ND That body of work is about therepetition of social crisis and how,with the rise of digital photography,there was a certain loss of thereal - or lost illusions of the real. I wasinterested in how those lost illusionsof the real related to lost politicalillusions. It was right after the antiglobalizationriots in Seattle, and itwas a very specific political moment.I wanted to explore this ever-repeatingsocial crisis, the history of terrorismand even the history of performanceart. I can speak about those intentionsand those references until I'mblue in the face, but in the end theinterpretation of my work is out ofmy control. That work wi ll probablyalways be seen through the lens of9/11 . It was also shown in Italy [atPhoto & Contemporary, in Turin, in2002], which has its own history ofterrorism, so the interpretations keepchanging.DC When these changing associationswere made, did it feel like yourwork had become impossibly fluid?ND Yes. It was a really important lessonabout the quagmire of topicality.I'm not making work about Berlusconior something like that. I don't meanfor my work to be topical, but itbecame so. And I think that is a hugeproblem and hugely limiting.DC Can you talk about working indigital photography as it relates to"lost illusions of the real ," as you putit earlier?ND I'm not thinking about the work interms of a social witnessing function .Everything I do is highly manipulated.I think it's a generational thing- this isthe new normal photography. I'm notso nostalgic for the darkroom. I stillshoot on film because I think it looksbetter. There are important shifts ingoing from analog to digital. I'm interestedin the congested temporality ofdigital photographs. Anyone can readthem as digital collage and yet thereare no seams, there's no rupture.What happens with this new estheticof smoothness and erasure? It 's veryinteresting how you read that. Whatkind of temporality does a digitalphotograph have? 0