The Museum of Arte Útil, Tania Bruguera, bike theft, and spring fever

This past Friday some of the fine arts students went on a trip to Eindhoven to visit the Museum of Arte Útil at the Van Abbemuseum. This was a trip I was incredibly excited for, as I had already intended to visit the museum as soon as I learned I would be studying in the Netherlands. Arte Útil is a project (concept, museum, process...) initiated by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, whom I greatly admire and whose work has been very influential for me. She has worked in Cuba and around the world, including in Queens, where she has an ongoing project called Immigrant Movement International, an "artist initiated socio-political movement" in conjunction with the Queens Museum. She is known for starting socially-engaged projects within specific communities that respond to the needs of that community, that result in a collaborative work that belongs to the public as much as to the artist, and can operate on its own out of the artist's hands. Arte Útil is another project with the Queens Museum, which I wanted to see or participate in (I actually submitted a piece, it didn't make it) but I am missing it studying abroad. Coincidentally, the other half of Arte Útil is based in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands! Whaaaat!

So we all hopped on the Intercity train to Eindhoven, a small city southwest of Rotterdam, paying sky-high prices to travel a little over an hour. The Van Abbemuseum is a forward-thinking institution laid out in a non-historical, non-traditional approach with a great collection in its main museum. Of course, I spent most of my time in the Museum of Arte Útil- almost the entire day, from open to close! It was a very unusual exhibition in that it was almost entirely collaborative work but did not attempt to name any particular artist or describe any piece, with the exception of Laurie Jo Reynolds who was in residence at the museum for the Tamms project. One room was filled with sheets of paper posted on wooden structures detailing hundreds of projects by different artists that fit into the Arte Útil library- artists involved in politics, education, making inflatable shelters for people without homes, artist collectives starting farms and gardens, and the Rolling Jubilee from Occupy Wall Street that buys up personal debt. To better understand Arte Útil, here are the criteria written by Tania Bruguera to decide if a project is "useful":

 1- Propose new uses for art within society

2- Challenge the field within which it operates (civic, legislative, pedagogical, scientific, economic, etc)

3- Be ‘timing specific’, responding to current urgencies

4- Be implemented and function in real situations

5- Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users

6- Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users

7- Pursue sustainability whilst adapting to changing conditions

8- Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation

I read this list more than a year ago as I was just beginning to make socially-engaged work and craft work that suggests utility, and I return to it frequently when I feel I've lost focus or need direction. I found the work of Tania Bruguera and Arte Útil at a time when I was struggling to reconcile making work in an art world that can be highly exclusive to anyone who is not upper-middle class, educated, and metropolitan, and making work with a basis of utility and inclusive engagement with the public presented a viable path to subvert this norm.

The best part of the museum visit was when I heard that Tania Bruguera was at the museum that day, and that she would be having an open discussion with visitors. This was completely unexpected, and I felt a bit star-struck. She explained the intent of the Museum with 20 or so people and responded to our questions and comments, and I was glad to find that she is very open and friendly and thoughtful when she speaks, even when she's had the discussion hundreds of times. I loved knowing that she is still heavily involved with the public coming to see her work, and that she must have to constantly share her ideas for Arte Útil with people so that it is always alive and functioning and never stagnant.

Some photos of the Museum:

A great little stool

A graphic mapping the effects of oppressive legislation in a minority neighborhood in Rotterdam, and possible solutions via a lively localized marketplace. 

Stop and Frisk is not exclusive to Harlem and Brooklyn, I was disgusted to find out.

This was highly disappointing in light of the Netherlands' progressive stereotype.

One of the main works in the Museum of Arte Útil, showing the process of shutting down Tamms, a supermax prison facility in Illinois which had been holding prisoners in solitary confinement for years on end.

Workshops and talks were held here, including a discussion with Tania Bruguera the day we visited.

The Light Therapy room, where workshops were held and people could get a happiness boost from the simulation of natural light.

While at the museum I also got to talk to a Dutch WdKA student named Eveline, who also works in fibers and socially engaged art and who enjoyed Arte Útil as much as I did. We seem to be on the same wavelength with our artwork, to the point where I'm afraid I might accidentally copy her work- the highest form of flattery. We talked about a work week she is initiating at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium, where 20 or so fine arts students would go live for a week, making art, cooking for each other, sleeping in tents, and tending to the grounds in an exhibition space with fields and warehouses and gardens. It's everything I could ever wish for, it's so much like summer camp or a retreat, so much like what I wanted Art Camp to be, and therefore there is SO much potential that I'm bursting at the seams. 

After the most wonderful day, I got off the train at Rotterdam Centraal Station to find that my bike had been stolen. It's never happened to me before and therefore I denied it at first, thought I was going crazy and couldn't remember where I locked it up, and wandered around anxiously. I walked a couple miles home, finally disappointed with the city that had, up until then, never failed me. It was a smack in the face after weeks that were too good to be true, and I thought, well, something shitty's gotta happen sometime. 

The very next morning, I had scavenged for a new bike in the pile of long-deserted bikes in the cellar of my building, and got the flat tires fixed. Good as new for 40 euros! The sun shone all weekend and into Monday, and it reached 65 degrees Fahrenheit- t-shirt weather, spring has officially sprung! Some internationals and I went to lounge in the Kralingen park all day Sunday and I don't think I've ever had spring fever so bad.

I have now been in Rotterdam for over a month, and I think it's starting to feel like home. I've started to form a schedule with my few workshops and a lecture each week, and I'm learning how the studio works with showing up every day to work and finding a different teacher there to talk to you if you need them. Every other Monday is Group Critique meeting with Juan, where we bring in food and drinks and give each other feedback on projects. Every Tuesday is Dutch Culture, which is really a class on semiotics and international ideologies with a focus on art, followed by an elective workshop Cadavre Exquis, in which a classmate Ellen and I are designing a way to post wishes on sticky notes inside bathroom stalls. Fridays we will meet at the studio with Rolf to talk about his two projects, The Book (collaborative or individual), and The Meal (socially engaged/public). 

It seems that though I chose the Netherlands almost randomly, without many choices from SVA or preference on my part, I am right where I need to be and everything about WdKA, the fine arts program, and Rotterdam seem to sync with what I want from my artwork and my life at this moment.

Doei,

Maggie