I was invited to participate in the international symposium "What’s Up Biennale?" that was hosted by the Busan Biennale. Including workshops, the event stretched across three days, but I only stayed until the morning of my own lecture/presentation on the second day. Among the presentations by the likes of Fram Kitagawa (General Director, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial), Elizabeth Ann Macgregor (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney) that I saw/heard up to that point, that of Gerardo Mosquera (on 5/21 at Busan Metropolitan City Hall) was particularly remarkable. A theoretical and practical supporter of the so-called "New Cuban Art" movement in the 1980s, Mosquera has been a founding member of the Havana Biennial, and is presently the director of the New Museum in New York.

 

Mosquera’s speech didn't really deserve to be called a "presentation", as it was probably shorter than ten minutes. Instead of talking extensively, the presenter opted to show a video and appeal to the audience’s senses of sight and hearing at once. The video (filmed by Rich Potter) was a documentary of the "ciudadMULTIPLEcity" event that was held in 2003 in Panama City, co-curated with the local resident Adrienne Samos. Included were numerous comments from the participating artists, foreign journalists, visitors, and the curators themselves, and of course footage of several artworks and performances. Altogether it was a film that showed clearly the structure, contents and concept of the event.

 

According to the documentary and Mosquera’s own supplementary explanation, the event was designed to take place not "in" but "with" the city. First there was a plan, and then the hosting city was determined. In other words, the event started with the selection of a place to host it, based on the idea to turn the usual pattern of events commissioned by the government or communal administrations upside down, and carry out the event where the organizers want to have it. What they wanted to do was to reveal structural problems of present-day cities through art, and try to find solutions. The place that was selected somewhat inevitably was Panama. On a superficial level it seems to be a free society, but underneath the surface exist political, social and economical problems, which are being attributed to the multiethnic, multireligious and multicultural nation (the combination of such diverseness and highrise buildings makes Panama look like a western version of Singapore or Hong Kong). Noticeable was also the little interest in ontemporary art (or actually culture in general). According to Mosquera, "there are few places in the world centered so exclusively on business, and where the dominant classes and the State have so little interest in culture."

 

The curators invited nine foreign and three domestic artists to participate. The foreign participants were assisted by local newcomers, and together they realized such things as building an ice-skating rink in the tropical Panama for kids to skate on, or have each of two rivaling streetgangs sing the same song, film them separately, and projected the results onto screens set up at outdoor locations. Visitors who gathered outside watched excitedly, and screamed "Repeat it!" as soon as the screening ended.

 

Especially controversial was the work of Egyptian-born New York resident Ghada Amer. The artist placed signboards carrying short comments on social issues at various places across town, and one pointing out the corruption of government officials that was installed in front of the Comptroller’s Office of the Republic was requested to be removed by the Comptroller to the Mayor’s Office. The Mayor’s Office had given advanced permission to display the board, but the same office now claimed that they "made a mistake", and ordered to remove the work. Several days later, two further signboards disappeared mysteriously. As those were huge boards, to tear them down or carry them away would have required careful preparations and time, so it’s hard to believe that they were just "snatched". Amer was almost glad about what happened, because it verified the significance of her work…

 

On the day after Mosquera’s presentation, I did my own, for which I had prepared the following text:

 

"What I wanted to see must have been what the local people wanted to see. They are something that can be provided only by the place. That is why people outside the area come and visit the place and find their trips worthwhile. The local people living there can enjoy the pleasure of rediscovery and the pride of reawareness through the event." "When tradition underpins a 'festival', the festival is closely bound with the temporal axis of the history without exceptions. Therefore, 'location-specificity' can be put in the same context as 'time-specificity'." "Whether it is held 'for local citizens' or 'to attract tourists' in the era of culture tourism, if the theme of an international art festival is not rooted in the history of the region and the locality, there is no point hosting the festival. We cannot expect that people will flock to the festival, nor can we expect any continuity." (The above is an excerpt, you can read the full text here.)

 

ehind the contemporary Panaman society there is of course a long and relentless history, and that’s why "ciudadMULTIPLEcity" was a small international event, but one to which all of the above applied. What’s more, on display were "works with various layers of meaning that would explore how well contemporary art can communicate with a wider audience, instead of its typically elite public." (Mosquera)

 

Mosquera has reportedly adopted the same concept also for the Liverpool Biennial 2006 (which I didn't have a chance to see). I thought the idea was similar to that of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru in "Cities on the Move", and upon inquiring about this, Mosquera stated, "I haven't seen it myself, but I think that’s an extremely interesting and important exhibition." Another event of this kind is said to be in preparation and will open in the near future in Amsterdam. "The city’s infrastructure, restrictions, and historical backgrounds are of course totally different from Panama…" said the Caribbean-born curator smiling in the East Asian harbor town.

Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO