Coulter, Gerry: Tadeo Ando, One World Trade Centre and “The Ground Zero Project”, 25.06.2014

I. Introduction

The recently opened One World Trade Centre (One WTC or “The Freedom Tower” as some insist on calling it) in New York City is a curious edifice. The building is the center piece of an ongoing effort to respond to the events of September 11, 2001. It is a remarkably unexceptional modern tower of glass and steel (104 stories) reaching a symbolic 1776 symbolic feet (541m) at the top of its 408 foot (104m) high tower. I am among those who did not think that anything would make us miss the architecture of the twin towers as much as this building does. America felt it had to respond to 9/11 with a big building and that is what it has done. Now that we have One WTC I wonder if anyone wonders what we might have had in place of this monstrous ode to architectural mediocrity and petty local politics.

Filho, Osmar Goncalves dos Reis: Die Inszenierung des Vagen: Notizen zu einer Ästhetik der Videokunst, 28.11.08

Eine zeitgenössische Kunst

Inmitten der Ungewißheiten, die die heutige Gesellschaft uns bietet, gibt es etwas Solides, etwas, über das keine Zweifel bestehen: Nie wurde so viel auf dem Gebiet der Kultur produziert wie heute. Jeden Tag überschwemmt uns die Mediengesellschaft mit einer Flut von Bildern, Videos, Hologrammen, Texten. Wie bereits Peirce voraussah, wurde die Welt zu einem Überfluß an Zeichen. Anders als in früheren Zeiten, als noch eine spezifische semiotische Chiffrierung herrschte, leben wir heute in einer Zeit der Konvergenz der Medien, der dröhnenden Sprachverschiedenheit, der ästhetischen Stützpunkte und Angebote.

Coulter, Gerry: In the Shadow of Post-Democratic Capitalism – A Fascination for China, 26.11.08

 

I. Introduction

The relationship between the art of China and Western Art Museums has changed noticeably over the past decade. Previously we could expect Chinese artworks to appear primarily in historical, archaeological, anthropological or textile museums but not in major art museums (many of which still do not own an important Chinese art work). Many significant Western art museums have tended to avoid Chinese art specifically and Asian art generally. This is because Chinese art has remained outside of the definition of “art” (which in Western museums has been focused on oil paint and not the use of ink on paper, or ink and colour on silk or bamboo).

In the past five years, through a series of traveling shows, and a re-envisioning of existing holdings, our exposure to Chinese art in Western museums has increased. In the next section I examine how these shows are broadening the scope of what is on view in the West. In the third section I examine the global cultural context of these shows given China’s entry into a unique historical position – the potential bearer of post-democratic capitalism to the New World Order.