Kendo's research on Rirkrit Tiravanija, Sophie Calle

Rirkrit Tiravanija

                              Biography

Rirkrit Tiravanija is a contemporary artist residing in New York, Berlin, and Chiang Mai. 
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1961. His installations often take the form of 
stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music; architecture or 
structures for living and socializing are a core element in his work.

His Work

Director, Glenn Lowry: In 1992 Rirkrit Tiravanija created a show entitled Untitled (Free) at 303 Gallery in New York. Interested in exploring the possibility of creating congenial social spaces in places usually reserved for the quiet contemplation of art, Tiravanija transferred everything from the gallerys back office—even the dealer and her staff—to the exhibition space. He then converted the empty office space into a kind of restaurant, where he cooked curry and rice, serving it to visitors free of charge.

Interview

Artist, Rirkrit Tiravanja: So when you first walk in, what you see is kind of haphazard storage space. But as you approached this you could start to smell, the jasmine rice. That kind of draws you through to the office space. And in this place I made two pots of curries, green curries. One was made how Thai restaurants in New York were making it. To counter that, on the other pot was a authentically made Thai curry. I was working on the idea of food, but in a kind of anthropological and archeological way. It was a lot about, the layers of, taste and, otherness.

Glenn Lowry: Untitled (Free/Still) features that back office curry kitchen replicated to scale. Working with The Museum of Modern Art, Tiravanija has developed a way to show the work in an active state with curry prepared and served by the Museums restaurant staff and in a passive state.

Rirkrit Tiravanijia: The work is a platform for people to interact with the work itself but also with each other. A lot of it also about a kind of experiential relationship, so you actually are not really looking at something, but you are within it, you are part of it. The distance between the artist and the art and the audience gets a bit blurred.

Glenn Lowry: Equally interesting to Tiravanija is the dynamic quality of the work. Tiravanija encourages you to not simply observe or pass through Untitled (Free/Still), but to explore it.

Rirkrit Tiravanijia: I would like you to spend some time because there are details that may not necessarily look so important. They might be a trivial, or they might not even be beautiful. There are little things that one should think about when experiencing the work.

Looking at the work itself every day is a different experience. The curry is the curry but it's not some kind of time stop-motion, it's actually moving, and from one day to the next, a lot of things happen externally from it that affects what happens internally. How one approaches it, how one thinks of it shifts.

Sophie Calle

                Biography

Sophie Calle (born 1953) is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist.Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing.

Her Work

In this remarkable artist's book, French conceptual artist/provocateur Sophie Calle presents 107 outside interpretations of a "breakup" e-mail she received from her lover the day he ended their affair. Featuring a stamped pink metallic cover, multiple paper changes, special bound-in booklets, bright green envelopes containing DVDs and even Braille endpapers, it is a deeply poignant investigation of love and loss, published to coincide with the 2007 Venice Biennale--where Calle served as that fair's French representative. All of the interpreters of Calle's breakup letter were women, and each was asked to analyze the document according to her profession--so that a writer comments on its style, a justice issues judgment, a lawyer defends Calle's ex-lover, a psychoanalyst studies his psychology, a mediator tries to find a path towards reconciliation, a proofreader provides a literal edit of the text, etc. In addition, Calle asked a variety of performers, including Nathalie Dessay, Laurie Anderson and Carla Bruni, among others, to act the letter out. She filmed the singers and actresses and photographed the other contributors, so that each printed interpretation stands alongside at least one riveting image of its author, and some are also accompanied by digital documentation. The result is a fascinating study and a deeply moving experience--as well as an artwork in its own right. Already a collector's item, this is a universal document of how it feels to grieve for love.

Inspiration

  the inspiration regarding Rirkrit and Sophile’s work, the idea of creating congenial social spaces in places and platform for people to interact with the space. The main focus is on the experiential relationship for the user.
- unconventional and anomaly
- conflicts the norm
- learning people interaction