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.interview with Vasif
Kortun was recorded at Platform´s Garanti residency studio Istanbul.
may 2006.
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mh. you follow sport?
i mean football?
vk. yes.
mh. which is you favorit team from istanbul?
vk. galatasaray, of course.
mh. why of course?
vk. i mean of course. there is no other team here.
mh. so you won this year?
vk. yes we won.
mh. that´s good.
vk. of course.
mh. and the second questions is... or... we talked with Halil Altindere
about the art-system, about being in it and working against it alias being
in it and trying to improve it and about this positions...
vk. oh god. yes.
mh. well since the begining of my relationship with contemporary art I´m
living this east-west theme, this dualism, this positioning alias basicly
in this debate how we on the east have no art system and how we should
get, have, develop one. till now i saw only three art-fairs and one was
this years arco and i was super happy and proud how the slovenian artist
where coming and being mention at the arco´s panel discussion all
the time. so good art is coming out of slovenia as good art is coming
out of turkey although you can all the time hear how we don´t have
the system. so my question is, if the east produce good art, do we really
don´t have an art-system alias do we need it? don´t we have
it? should we develop one or should we just take the one from the west?
vk. i mean this... i would never start a question there. this would not
be mine question. on one side for me is the system in ljubljana which
for me is like a small village or something a littel bit bigger then a
village but the scene is super good. there are great places as moderna
galerija and mala galerija, galerija skuc and amazing amount of good artist
and philosophers. it´s a great system.
mh. yes, but we are constantly crying that we have no system.
vk. yeah, but i mean. you know, i think this thing about system or no-system
is a mis-construct. this is not the place where we should look at. the
place where we should look at in this moment is, one, that everything
is in a super fluxs and that we´re going through a complet transformation
of the art world in the recent years, the hole thing is being changed
from bottom up and for top down. there is no similarities between the
art system now and that one of the 10-15 years ago. everything is changed
and everything is changing so fast, that it is almost impossible to project
about the system at the moment. i mean what are we talking about. what
is the europe´s art system? or west´s system? it´s nothing.
i mean europe is a fucking disneyland.
mh. i did my art studies in vienna and the situation there at the art
school was like this, that i got impulses from my professors to which
private gallery i should try to get in for my career to begin and... you
know, from the point of my art-practise i don´t see this as a positive
situation, i see this only as a managers-buisiniess strategie and if i
think about the "no-system" situations in ljubljana and istanbul
i think it is...
vk. better to stay that way.
mh. yes.
vk. i don´t even think that, that´s a system. that´s
a pure market. and the market situation right now is, it became a hyper-market
at the moment. there are all this schools around the world which are producing
students and befor the students are graduating and making their final
show, the galleries and individuals are already in and are buying from
their final shows at prices like crazy at the moment. 5.000, 7.000, 10.000euros.
as said it´s a hyper-market. on one end of the market there is an
amazing demand. because, the art-world has got global, it´s true,
but the market has become much more global. so you have the russians buying,
the chanies are buying, die middeleast-the dubai money is buying in the
last 10years a lots of braziliens, argentiniens were buying. everybody
are buying like crazy and they come with lots of money, with hot, big,
fast money. this oil economy, you know... the crazy situation is going
on at this moment. we´re in the world where museums now can not
buy anything, everybody else are buying. the privats , the individuals
are buying and the galleries are selling and all seems to be super fine
and well. but this is like changing so fast and the profit is handling
everything and it is going completly out of control. the big museum, some
of them are now charging 20-30dollars for entrance. so if you have a family
with one child is 50-60dollars for a visit what means you´re giving
a day of work, labour for a visit to a public institution.
.then vasif takes a phone call and couple of seconds later...
and then is going on. this money thing. everything is becoming privatized.
artist are becoming, escpecialy contemporary artist are becoming a huge
comodity all around. it is spectacular, it´s more global, it´s
all around the world and more people are coming to the museums and meanwhile
we´re at the other end of the spectrum. i´m not going to think
about what local means, i´m only thinking what me and my little
institution in istanbul could be to a institution like moderna gallery
in slovenia or... you know. different kind of alliances, different ways
of doing things together, working to stay out side this gotdamnt thing.
and you can not stay out side of it, because is always around you.
.another phone for a couple of moments and... some words about things
to do alias what went wrong in his "little institution" when
he was away and...
anyway. the hole system. in a way we´re failing. in a big global
view. we´re failing as an artist, as an institutions, as a museum,
because the system is completly taking us somewhere else. we can´t
find moments of resistance, we´re just working within it, we´re
almost turning into a "B" league, in a development league or
the big ones. this has happend in a last two, three years. i coudn´t
not fucking guest the speed of the change. now i know and i´m totally
convinced, but i couldn´t resist it, i thought that small institutions
can...
.he puts something under my computer for the heating problem and we laught
alias i say that he´s a control freak and he replys: "next
question."
mh. as being a part of this international residency programms here at
your institution in istanbul alias with the help of the american money
i feel really privileged. i have appartment, a studio, a monthly amount
of money,... there are also other artists from west european countries
here and their contries are paying for their stay. so how are you seeing
this exchange? as a kind of soft post-colonialismus? of expanding their
political power?
vk. i don´t think so, because they didn´t come to me, i went
to them.
mh. so, if you went to them why did you do so alias how does the local
art community taking all this artist being present in istanbul?
vk. well. it´s was a strategical move. i think we didn´t do
a good residency here. but the format was strategy. first i engage a very
respectable, which was the institution Fonds and they were supporting
PS1, Kunsthaus Bethanien and i said that are institutions i would like
to work with. because i would like our residency to be at those levels
eventually. so that was one. and then also the rest in a one year time
came in. the north-west europian countries came, the norwegians,.. but
you know if you do residencies like that, where only rich europian countries
with public founding culture come in, then you have a problem. you can
not do it like that. so what we did. we started this american center foundation
project. we applyed to the founding, so that we would get the money of
the third party, the founding body and we would invite the artists from
the balkan and the middel-east in general. now we have also „backyard
residency“ programm with Novi Sad and Istanbul. and we´re apllying
for another grant. the hole idea is to get, to have the large regional
network coming together, because if you have only artist from sweden or
norway you´ll get bored.
mk. your residecy programm and institution itself are very succesful.
there is a lot of foreign artist here in the city. in slovenia sometimes
i have a felling that we´re closed. of course we have a couple of
great festival and exhibitions happening, but artist for all over the
world are there only for three, four days and not like here where artist
are spending couple of mounths for their residency. so I´m still
interested in your projection, opinion what influence is this have on
the local scene, on the local artist?
vk. a lot of things are up to you. there is a limit to what i can do.
there are certian artist who are very open and then there are those people
who are very closed. eventually or what i would like to do is... i would
like to have normalization. ultimatly what residency can do. it can make
itself redondet, useless. because the next day you don´t have to
come to me to reach the artist from here. to collaborate, to work together.
you´ll have your independet course. if that kind of thing happend,
if the residency become much more organic, then we´re succesful.
i mean, that´s how we work. this is what i´m interested in.
because normally as a platform we don´t have nothing to show. what
can you show. you can´t show residency, you can´t show the
archive, you don´t show libary libary. this things are like a kind
of invisible stuff. it´s a kind of mediation. because istanbul is
a big, old cosmopolitan city.
mh. but i was really suprised how small the scene is. if we talked only
about the young or my generation of contemporary artist, curators, critics
working here in istanbul, there are almost always the same people at the
openings, discussions,...
vk. that´s true. but in the old day is was only like this only.
that was the hard time. now, this is nothing compare to then. at that
time, when i had to deal whith this old-art-mafia people and i had been
saying i don´t what to know you, i´m not interested in you,
in what you´re doing.
mh. but how do you see you connection with garanti bank? do you get any
founding from the city, the state?
vk. no. nothing from the state and the city. we have been able to get
some good money. not a lot of money, but enought to survive. but for example
this tabel. this is an old bank tabel from i don´t know 10 years
ago. the chairs, the hole crap in this room. that tabel are from one old
exhibition. i don´t spend much money and try not to spend money
on hardware. this is very important, but the result is very ugly.
mh. but as i heard the institution is movinh to a new location?
vk. we don´t know yet. there is a high possiblity that will move.
but garanti bank has been good. they are paying for all operating cost.
we don´t have to worry about saleries, we don´t have to worry
about electicety, about water, heating, cleaning, internet, lights and
the space, the building.
mh. but what about the content, the control over it?
vk. they´ve been great. abosolutly great, but also i have been very
careful.
mh. if i used the question of jens hoffmann, do you think next documenta
should be curated by an artist?
vk. yes. of course. why not. Artist curate also very conservative.
mh. vasif thank you. i´ll do the transscript and send it to you
that you edit, delete, confirm it. and it would be great if you could
send my your cv. thank you.
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