POSTCAPITAL or LET JEAN GENET DESIGN THE ARCHIVE
MORE MILK YVETTE A Journal of the Broken Screen
All images: Daniel García Andújar / Technologies To The People, Postcapital. Archive 1989-2001. Copyright the artist.
The images throughout this piece are press images for Postcapital. Archive 1989 - 2001, an art project by Daniel García Andújar / Technologies To The People (Nov 22, 2008 - Jan 18, 2009) at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart.
I'm puzzled by them, not so much because of their form, which reflects several ever present contemporary concerns: an interest in archives and the use of the gallery as a designed environment for perusal of the archive. No, what puzzles me about these images is something more specific about the kind of encounter they invite.
They highlight two contrasting kinds of space: the space of the gallery and the space of the images themselves. One is ordered, clean and clear, and at its best-worst can suggest the gallery as a kind of less crowded Apple Store. Within its comforts, on its tidy screens, the theoretical ideal is that we can look at all kinds of images, ranging freely across genocide, war, pornography, current affairs, leisure activities, anything at all, reassured and supported by the gallery setting...