Dispositiv Workshop, part 6

A Retrospective Project, Rikrit Tiravanija

September 20 - September 26, 2004

With his process orientated art which problematises notions of travel, the everyday, cultural context and collaboration, Rirkrit Tiravanija (Buenos Aires / Bangkok / New York / Berlin) has set the tone for a way of work- ing, which in some hands today all too often appears as diluted, gestural and even formalist. Therefore it seems that the time is ripe to revisit his particular brand of socially interactive and situation-based art in order to discuss criteria of evaluation and related issues. This revisit will be in the form of a 'retrospective project' rather than as an exhibition.

As Tiravanija's work involves a great amount of openness, in the sense that a social situation is created and very much shaped by the participants, and focuses on new uses of space as well as the restructuring of everyday actions, a number of his earlier works will be discussed and explored by the artist in collaboration with art students in a six day workshop. The questions of how his work can be renegotiated in a new situation – a new time – with new people, but people of the same 'category' – students – with whom he has frequently worked in the past, will be addressed. As his work is exemplary, it will also be an investigation of how a certain type of site-specific, or rather context-sensitive work can – or cannot – be transferred in time and space.

In May 2004 a pre-meeting took place at Kunstverein München with students from art schools where Tiravanija has been teaching recently (Städelschule, Frankfurt, Copenhagen Academy; University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm), as well as students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In addition to them curators, critics and art historians, who are currently dealing with Tiravanija's work participated in the meeting. These participants are now returning to the Kunstverein München for a workshop (20 – 26 September 2004), which will explore the prob- lematics of a Rirkrit Tiravanija retrospective, as well as recreate his work Untitled – Angst essen Seele auf (1994). The work is based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 film of the same title.

A Retrospective Project is the sixth part of the project series Dispositive Workshop, where artists are invited to realise projects in collaboration with a group of people from Munich.