Children Make the Decisions
Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg will soon be unveiling a controversial work of art. It does not exist materially. It is you and 1,500 local children who will create it.
Does something that does not materially exist, but rather only in the experience and memory, have any value? Does anything of value actually have to be measured and weighed? What would happen if the hierarchy were turned upside down and children did the decision-making?
These are some of the questions that the world-famous German-indian artist, Tino Sehgal poses with his live artwork. It is a work that will hopefully make a profound impression on our feelings and consciousness, but will leave behind no tangible traces: no photo documentation, no written rules, no physical painting - just the experience as it takes place.
Tino Sehgal is regarded as one of today’s great proponents of live art. His art will not only take over Kunsten in the physical sense of the word, but also our consciousness.
The work is entitled This success/This failure, 2006. Tino Sehgal will involve museum visitors and local children, who will meet up and play in the Museum’s Main Gallery.
It may sound simple at face value, but there are major considerations involved:
Tino Sehgal focuses on human resources in an age dominated by materialism, documentation requirements and digitisation. The work is fluid and open, inviting us to notice what happens if we focus only on relationships, discarding mobile phones and other objects we normally use when in contact with each other. At the same time he subverts the usual hierarchies between adults and children by posing the radical question: What if children did the decision-making? says Stinna Toft, Chief Curator at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art.
The Here and Now
Tino Sehgal wants visitors to experience the work spontaneously and with no preparation. Accordingly, there is no traditional, concrete description of what to expect when the exhibition opens on 11th of October. The artist wants a fluid work that involves people: a work that evolves in the here and now. In other words, school is out.
The work is only based on live situations, which can change from moment to moment. There is no choreography as in a dance performance or a set design as in the theatre. The work is living and surprising, created by children and the way they form themselves into various relationships and situations. The work is open and unpredictable - just like life. That is emphasised by the title: This success/This failure, says Stinna Toft.
Tino Sehgal carefully selected the work for Kunsten, because of the Museum’s reputation for getting children involved in art.
I feel honoured that Kunsten has acquired one of my works and that it will be presented in this extraordinarily beautiful setting created by Alvar Aalto. In This Success/This Failure I attempt to convey the basic premise that underlies my artistic work for children: What can we do when just with ourselves and beyond things and technology? I know that Kunsten has a strong relationship with the local community, and I look forward to taking advantage of their impressive track record of public engagement, and hopefully contribute to it too, says Tino Sehgal.
The ambitious artwork, This success/This failure involves more than 1,500 children, who will take turns at constructing it during the exhibition’s six-week run. The exhibition runs from 11 October to 25 November 2018.
The New Carlsberg Foundation has donated the work to Kunsten’s permanent collection to mark the occasion of the exhibition.
Kunsten operates on the basis of three themes: Contemporary, The Past Retold and the pARTicipate series. Tino Sehgal’s work is part of the pARTicipate theme, which features direct visitor involvement in their encounter with art.
The press preview of the exhibition is 10th of October at 3 – 5 pm. Please contact Kunsten regarding interviews with Tino Sehgal.
About the Exhibition
The exhibition at Kunsten will feature a total of four works. The central work, This success/This failure, 2006, has been acquired for Kunsten’s permanent collection and will be realised in close collaboration with
more than 1,500 local children who will take turns at constructing the work with about 25 children at a time. Visitors to the museum will become involved in a playful universe ruled by children.
Three other works will also be shown. Together they will provide a broader impression of Tino Sehgal’s oeuvre: Kiss, 2002, This is propaganda, 2002, and This is new, 2003. The works involve dancers, singers and the museum’s hosts.
About the Artist
Usually works of art are more or less physical objects, which are observed by an audience. The German-indian artist, Tino Sehgal (b.1976 London) sees things differently. He does not create objects. He creates encounters and experiences. There are not any written rules about how to execute the works, and the works may not be photographed or documented. Everything is transferred orally from the artist to chosen ‘interpreters’ who enact the works, be they dancers, singers, children or museum hosts. The outcome of the work is then based on human memory and initiative. And the encounter that follows between the museum visitor and one of the work’s ‘interpreters’ is what Tino Sehgal refers to as a ‘constructed situation’.
Tino Sehgal lives and works in Berlin. He studied Political Economy, Choreography and Dance at the Humboldt Universitet of Berlin and Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen. When Tino Sehgal represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2005 he was the youngest artist ever to have done so. He has since had solo exhibitions at major museums and exhibition venues all over the world. These include: the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.