Art, Intervention, and Ecology: From Tableau Photography to the Black Tides Disaster

Administrative Details and Logistics

Exercise Group Registration: * Students are required to register for exercise groups immediately if they have not done so. * The registration is currently open. Late registration causes delays during exercise classes as time is spent figuring out group compositions. * There are currently more groups created than students; students should join existing groups that are not full rather than starting new single-person groups. * Single-person groups will be relocated by faculty.
Excursion Information: * The price for the excursion is confirmed at $€15$ per person. * The faculty provided subsidies to keep the price at this minimum level. * Payment details and instructions will be provided in the near future.
Lecture Schedule Changes: * A break will occur at approximately $20$ to $12$ (early break). * This change is to accommodate the setup for Professor Verbesselt, who will deliver a lecture performance. * Professor Wuens will conclude the teaching session for the day.
Upcoming Exercises: * The exercise concerning the coyote piece by Joseph Boyce will occur during the opening debate of the class on $March \, 31$ .

Contemporary Art and Climate Change: Claire Bishop’s Analysis

Reference Book: Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today by Claire Bishop (History of Art Professor in New York).
Featured Work: Sun and Sea Marina. * Context: An opera performance first presented at the Venice Biennale in $2019$ . * Visuals: People lying on a beach (reproduced on the book cover). * Themes: An opera about climate change set in a theatrical environment. * Viewer Experience: Visitors often observe from above (e.g., a balcony) looking down at people sunbathing who seem to occupy a "suspended time at the edge of a climate abyss." * Function: Performances act as mirrors for the audience, reflecting human inaction and disconnection from the "slow violence" of climate change. * Conceptual Challenge: Visualizing the "hyper object" of climate change (the elephant in the room) and determining if art can meaningfully confront these realities.

Museum Architecture and Cultural Sustainability in Malaga

Museum of Contemporary Art (Malaga): * The ground floor features "Space Zero for a Sustainable Malaga." * Announcement: The space aims to highlight culture's role in sustainable development and serve as a meeting point for exchanging opinions and changing narratives. * Observation: The space is currently completely empty and dull, creating a strike contradiction between the grand statement and the lack of content.
Centre Pompidou Malaga (El Cubo): * The first international outpost of the Centre Pompidou; others include a forthcoming site in Brussels called Canal Saint Trois Pompidou opening in $November$ . * Design: Designed by French artist Daniel Bouerene; the structure is primarily underground with a glass cube ("El Cubo") emerging at ground level. * Statistics: It has welcomed $850,000$ visitors, significantly more than the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art across the street. * Current Exhibition: AMCB by French artists Annette Messager and Christian Boltansky. * Critical Debate: Concerns exist regarding whether these outposts represent an "imperialist move" by French cultural authorities to prioritize French art over local Spanish artists.

The Evolution and Market of "Museum Photography"

Andreas Gursky, "Rhyme two": * Large-scale photograph measuring $2 \, meters \times 3.5 \, meters$ . * In $2011$ , it was sold at Christie's in New York for almost $\$4,000,000$ . * It was the most expensive photograph ever sold at that time, reaching a "hammer price" previously reserved for paintings and sculptures.
Jeff Wall, "Dead Troops Talk": * Full Title: Dead Troops Talk, a vision after an ambush of a Red Army patrol near Makkor, Afghanistan winter 1986. * Created in $1992$ ; sold in $2012$ for a $\$3,000,000$ hammer price. * Representative of the shift toward large-format "tableau" or "picture" photography. * Involved early digital technology and Photoshop to achieve painting-like scale and presence.
Theoretical Context: * Julian Stallabras ( $2010$ ): Coined the term "museum photography" for the creation of "museum prose," placing photography alongside painting in terms of sophistication and presence. * Michael Fried ( $2008$ ): Published Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. * Jean Francois Chevrier: Introduced the concept of "Forme Tableau" in the late $1980s$ , describing photography that aspires to be large-scale painting.

Interpretive Models: Absorption vs. Intervention

The Absorptive Model (Example: Jeff Wall): * Characterized by the "Forme Tableau." * Composition: Often iconic and highly controlled. * Narrative: Epic dimensions; mastery over the subject/world. * Aesthetic: Single image, "synthetic" aesthetic. * Example Case: Morning Gleaning, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona ( $1999$ ). A transparency on a light box that uses digital manipulation to create a "clean view of modernism" where reality appears under total control.
The Intervening Model (Example: Alan Sekula): * Characterized by "pseudo-documentary" photography. * Focus: Indexicality; conveys a trace or inscription of a historical reality. * Presentation: Often messy, disordered, or part of a larger montage/sequence. * Aesthetic: Analytical perspective; often critical of everyday reality or focused on ecological critique. * Example Case: Shipwreck and Worker, Istanbul from the sequence Titanic's Wake. Displays a worker with a shovel who clearly cannot manage the vast disaster, highlighting a lack of control.

Philosophical Foundations: Walter Benjamin and Allan Sekula

The Angel of History: * Alan Sekula references Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History (published in Illuminations). * Benjamin owned Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus ( $1919$ / $1920$ ). * The Concept: The angel looks back at a piling catastrophe. While humans see a chain of events (progress), the angel sees a single catastrophe. * The Storm: A storm blowing from Paradise propels the angel into the future against his will. This is the "storm of progress."
Bruegel’s "Fall of Icarus": * Another reference for Sekula; depicts the tragedy of Icarus falling while life in the foreground (the peasant) continues, ignoring the event.

Case Study: Black Tides (Maria Negra)

Event Background: * The ship Prestige broke in two and sank off the coast of Galicia on $11/19/2002$ . * Released $76,000,000 \, liters$ of oil into the sea. * This was the largest environmental disaster in Spanish history.
Artistic Intervention: * Alan Sekula and journalist Carlos Guerra traveled to the site against official efforts to downsize or cover up the disaster. * They documented the cleaning of reaching the "chapapote" (oil dirt).
Sekula’s Observations (Interview Details): * Satellite Images: Downloaded EuroSat images showed a slick $30$ to $40 \, kilometers$ long, yet the scale was unreadable (could have been $1 \, meter$ vs $50 \, kilometers$ ). * Mass Ornament: The uniform groups of volunteers looked like a "Hollywood spectacle." * Evolutionary Regression: Workers were forced to use hands as crude shovels because the oil was too sticky for delicate tools; human hands were reduced to digging implements. * Sisyphean Character: Referencing Albert Camus, Sekula noted the futility of cleaning oil that would be replaced the next day, yet volunteers maintained a "good spirit" of freedom within abject circumstances. * Political Deception: The white uniforms disguised the difference between army conscripts and volunteers.
The Opera (The Libretto): * Alan Sekula wrote a text inviting an opera performance for $November \, 19, \, 2032$ . * Structure: Seven songs, including: * Song of the Collective Sisyphus. * Song of the Penguins at the San Francisco Zoo. * Song of the Necessity of Oil. * Song of Society Against the State (focuses on resisting "state brutalism"). * Quote: "You can't send a postcard from the bottom of the sea."

Theory of Interventional Art: Claire Bishop’s Five Definitions

Public Space: Artists utilize public areas for their work.
Unauthorized Nature: Interventions often lack official permission or are unauthorized.
Vernacular Visual Language: Employing everyday visual styles and opening up to polysemy.
Mediation/Circulation: Seeking circulation in media to spread a message.
Political Timing Specificity: An intuition that history is changing at the moment of the intervention (concept from Tania Bruguera).

Questions & Discussion

Q: Has anyone seen or read Claire Bishop's book before? * A: No hands raised; treated as new material.
Q: Has anyone visited the museums in Malaga? * A: One student confirmed visiting.
Q (Student Comment): The Centre Pompidou architect/artist cube is "out of place." * Response: Yes, it is set in a harbor where ships dock but most of the building is underground.
Q (Student Comment/Identification): Re: the comparison between the cleaning man in Barcelona vs the shipwreck: The one in Barcelona is an "ideal space," a retreat under control. * Response: Excellent. The Mies van der Rohe pavilion is a luxury-material space under full control, whereas the shipping worker is alone with a shovel in an outdoor public space.
Q: What is the topic of Alan Sekula's work? * A (Student): The Prestige disaster and Carlos Guerra.