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Mophradat’s homepage hosts an editorial project that publishes new and existing texts related to contemporary art practices and the languages used to discuss them. Over the coming months, the art collective Nile Sunset Annex (NSA) has been commissioned to be our editorial voice. NSA selects an art-related word each month that has a twist when translated between Arabic and English, and are finding, creating, or commissioning a text in both languages that relates to the selected word. NSA’s process is intended as self-educational and the glossary, rather than being prescriptive, will question the terms and their uses in both languages. As NSA describes, “the conversations that arise in attempts to find common ground or agree on the significance or etymology of certain words can be a space of potential.” NSA is working on this glossary with translator Ziad Chakaroun.
Nile Sunset Annex (NSA) primarily functions as an art space that puts on monthly exhibitions of artists’ work in a spare room in an apartment in Garden City, Cairo, but it also acts as a publishing house, a contemporary art collection, an archivist, an artist, an author, a bartender, a curator, and an installation team. Founded in January 2013, NSA is still evolving.
Huit Tableaux et un Prototype, exhibitions at Galerie Claude Givauden, Paris (1969 and 1970)
- STURTEVANT: Repeated—
- HAINLEY: Exactly.
- STURTEVANT: The same show.
- LOBEL: Is that one year after the other?
- STURTEVANT: Yes.
- HAINLEY: Yes.
- STURTEVANT: Yes.
- HAINLEY: Sixty-nine and ’70.
- LOBEL: So it’s the same show—
- STURTEVANT: Exactly the same show.
- LOBEL: —the following year. [Laughs.]
- STURTEVANT: The following year, yes. [They laugh.] Yes, very strong show.
- HAINLEY: Strong, and it’s so strong, you can do it twice. [They laugh.]
- STURTEVANT: You can do it twice, yes. Well, it was a very good way to demonstrate the power of repetition, you know, in a very simplistic way.
- America America, exhibition at Galerie J, Paris (1966)
- HAINLEY: And I just wonder, in terms of process, as something that goes on in addition to the physical process of making a work, how would you talk about the scene, the moment—
- STURTEVANT: You mean what was going on around us?
- HAINLEY: Exactly, as part of process or concept.
- STURTEVANT: Well, firstly process because it’s part of the creative process, so it’s very important. Then, yeah, because that must have been—at that time, things were really shifting from interior to exterior, or at that time, you would call it up to the surface. And so—and then all the mass—all the images were from mass society. Mass—what do I want to say?
- LOBEL: Mass media?
- STURTEVANT: Mass media, or mass—
- LOBEL: Or mass culture?
- STURTEVANT: Messy mass. [They laugh.] So this is very surface. You’re really going to the outside, and then all the collectors were very much into that, so then you had all those artists that were involved with the outside. And so the work became – it was still about beauty, but it was not about anything very profound other than, which is profound, a reflection of the society that we were surrounded by.
- LOBEL: Speaking of which, can you say anything about the title of the Galerie J show in 1966, which was America, America? Because […] you’re really thinking through the kind of, for me, the possibilities of this kind of process and practice. And to have it in Paris and call it America, America – it seems significant to me.
- STURTEVANT: Well that’s because it was all the works. I had Oldenburg; I had Lichtenstein—
- HAINLEY: Wesselmann.
- STURTEVANT: Wesselmann, and George Segal and [Frank] Stella. That’s America, baby. [Laughs.] I did all that work when I was down in the south of France. I had a studio in the south of France, and so it was on the street level in an old part of Antibes and there was a—it had a big window and because it was open, some guy— [laughs] —I’m sure I told you this story. So some guy stops by and he says are you Jasper Johns? [Hainley and Lobel laugh.] Because I was working on the Flag, and I said, “Yes.” [Hainley and Lobel laugh]. He said, “Oh.” “Here I am.” So I told that story to Jasper and he hated it. [They laugh.] He hated that story.
- Sturtevant: Studies for Warhol’s Marilyns, Beuys’ Actions and Objects and Duchamp’s etc, Including Film, exhibition catalogue (ed. Judson Rosebush), Everson Museum, New York, 1973
- LOBEL: […] one of the things I want to put on the record, because I think it’s something I had totally missed until Bruce pointed it out to me, and it gets back to the issue of copy, although in a much more pointed, technical way, is the catalogue to your 1973 Everson show, which, when I saw it originally, I saw it as a photocopy, and I thought, oh, someone Xeroxed this very poorly. And then, Bruce corrected me and said, “No, the catalog was actually printed.” Am I getting this right? The catalog was—
- HAINLEY: —Printed to look like a Xerox copy.
- STURTEVANT: Well, it was a Xerox copy that I absolutely insisted had to be printed.
[…]
- LOBEL: I’m just saying that it was another way of thinking about this discourse around copy.
- STURTEVANT: Copy? What was another way?
- LOBEL: Making the catalog like—
- HAINLEY: Printing it rather than allowing it—
- STURTEVANT: No, no, no, because I don’t think trying—no, I don’t think that was based on copy at all. This is because this was based on the dynamics of repetition, which is nothing to do with copy. And so, repetition is—you have to—repetition is displacement; repetition is difference; repetition is—what else is repetition? Repetition is pushing the limits of resemblance and limitation— repetition is—it has some other factors or dynamics. So it’s not like—it’s not like saying you repeat. See, the interesting thing is, for instance, Andy Warhol repeated, but he did not do repetition. And his brilliance really lies in the fact that he was—because repeat is surface. You’re just talking about the surface. He managed to take repeat and make it into a very, very dynamic thing. So I mean, for me, that’s where his brilliance lies. But repetition has nothing to do with repeating. So I think that’s a basic premise that people do not—
But I’d like to get off this copy nonsense, if we could, because for me, that’s really a finished subject. And I don’t care whether they think it’s copy or not. You know, we’re moving ahead anyhow.
Excerpts from: An interview with Sturtevant conducted 25-26 July 2007, by Bruce Hainley and Michael Lobel, at the Archives of American Art in New York.
- ١. “ثماني لوحات ونموذج أولي”، سلسلة معارض في جاليري كلود جيفودان، باريس، 1969 و1970
ستورتيفانت: مكرر—
هينلي: بالضبط.
ستورتيفانت: نفس العرض.
لوبل: هل كان ذلك عامًا تلو الآخر؟
ستورتيفانت: نعم.
هينلي: نعم.
ستورتيفانت: نعم.
هينلي: في 69 و70.
لوبل: هو نفس العرض إذًا—
ستورتيفانت: نفس العرض بالضبط.
لوبل: —العام التالي. [يضحك.]
ستورتيفانت: العام التالي، أجل. [يضحكون.] أجل، عرض قوي جدًا.
هينلي: قوي، وهو قوي لدرجة أنه يمكنك عرضه مرتين. [يضحكون.]
ستورتيفانت: أجل، يمكنك عرضه مرتين. كانت طريقة جيدة جدًا لاستعراض قوة التكرار، بطريقة شديدة التبسيط.
2. America America, exhibition at Galerie J, Paris, 1966
HAINLEY: And I just wonder, in terms of process, as something that goes on in addition to the physical process of making a work, how would you talk about the scene, the moment—
STURTEVANT: You mean what was going on around us?
HAINLEY: Exactly, as part of process or concept.
STURTEVANT: Well, firstly process because it’s part of the creative process, so it’s very important. Then, yeah, because that must have been—at that time, things were really shifting from interior to exterior, or at that time, you would call it up to the surface. And so—and then all the mass—all the images were from mass society. Mass—what do I want to say?
LOBEL: Mass media?
STURTEVANT: Mass media, or mass—
LOBEL: Or mass culture?
STURTEVANT: Messy mass. [They laugh.] So this is very surface. You’re really going to the outside, and then all the collectors were very much into that, so then you had all those artists that were involved with the outside. And so the work became—it was still about beauty, but it was not about anything very profound other than, which is profound, a reflection of the society that we were surrounded by.
LOBEL: Speaking of which, can you say anything about the title of the Galerie J show in 1966, which was America, America? Because […] you’re really thinking through the kind of, for me, the possibilities of this kind of process and practice. And to have it in Paris and call it America, America – it seems significant to me.
STURTEVANT: Well that’s because it was all the works. I had Oldenburg; I had Lichtenstein—
HAINLEY: Wesselmann.
STURTEVANT: Wesselmann, and George Segal and [Frank] Stella. That’s America, baby. [Laughs.] I did all that work when I was down in the south of France. I had a studio in the south of France, and so it was on the street level in an old part of Antibes and there was a—it had a big window and because it was open, some guy—[laughs]—I’m sure I told you this story. So some guy stops by and he says are you Jasper Johns? [Hainley and Lobel laugh.] Because I was working on the Flag, and I said, “Yes.” [Hainley and Lobel laugh]. He said, “Oh.” “Here I am.” So I told that story to Jasper and he hated it. [They laugh.] He hated that story.
- ٢. “أمريكا، أمريكا”، معرض في جاليري جي، باريس، 1966
هينلي: وكنت أود أن أعرف، من حيث المسار، بينما يحدث شيء بالإضافة إلى المسار المادي لصناعة العمل، كيف تصفين المشهد، هذه اللحظة—
ستورتيفانت: تعني ما يحدث حولنا؟
هينلي: بالضبط، كجزء من المسار أو المفهوم.
ستورتيفانت: حسنًا، المسار أولًا لأنه جزء من المسار الإبداعي، ولذا فهو شديد الأهمية. ثم، أجل، لأنه كان بلا شك—في ذلك الوقت كانت الأشياء تنتقل فعلًا من الداخلي إلى الخارجي، أو في ذلك الوقت كنت تستدعيها إلى السطح. وهكذا—ثم كل ما هو جماهيري من حيث—كل الصور كانت من المجتمع الجماهيري. جماهيري من حيث—ما الذي أريد قوله؟
لوبل: الإعلام الجماهيري؟
ستورتيفانت: الإعلام الجماهيري، أو جماهيري من حيث—
لوبل: أو الثقافة الجماهيرية؟
ستورتيفانت: جماهيري متجمهر. [يضحكون.] هذا سطحي للغاية إذًا. أنت تتجه إلى الخارج حقًا، ثم أعجب هواة الجمع كلهم بالأمر، ثم أصبح لديك كل هؤلاء الفنانين المهتمين بالخارج. وهكذا أصبح العمل—كان لم يزل معنيًا بالجمال، لكنه لم يكن معنيًا بأي شيء بالغ العمق سوى، وهو أمر عميق أيضًا، انعكاس المجتمع الذي يحيط بنا.
لوبل: بالمناسبة، هل يمكن أن تحدثينا عن عنوان معرض جاليري جي عام 1966 “أمريكا، أمريكا”؟ لأنك […] تفكرين مليًا في نوع، أو بالنسبة لي، إمكانيات هذا النوع من المسارات والممارسات. وأن يقام معرض كهذا في باريس بعنوان “أمريكا، أمريكا”—يبدو لي أمرًا مهمًا.
ستورتيفانت: هذا لأنه ضم جميع الأعمال. كان لدي أولدنبرج، وكان لدي ليشتنشتاين—
هينلي: ويسلمان.
ستورتيفانت: ويسلمان وجورج سيجال و[فرانك] ستيلا. هذه أمريكا يا عزيزي. [تضحك.] أنجزت العمل كله عندما كنت في جنوب فرنسا. كان لدي ستوديو في جنوب فرنسا، وكان بمستوى الشارع في جزء قديم بمدينة أنتيب وكان هناك—كانت به نافذة كبيرة ولأنها كانت مفتوحة جاء رجل—[تضحك]—أنا متأكدة أني حكيت لك هذه القصة. جاء رجل وتوقف ليسأل هل أنت جاسبر جونز؟ [يضحك هينلي ولوبل.] وبما أني كنت أعمل على “العلم” قلت “نعم.” [يضحك هينلي ولوبل.] فقال: “ياه.” “ها أنا.” وعندما حكيت هذه الحكاية لجاسبر امتعض. [يضحكون.] امتعض من هذه الحكاية.
3. Sturtevant: Studies for Warhol’s Marilyns, Beuys’ Actions and Objects and Duchamp’s etc, Including Film, exhibition catalogue (ed. Judson Rosebush), Everson Museum, New York, 1973
LOBEL: […] one of the things I want to put on the record, because I think it’s something I had totally missed until Bruce pointed it out to me, and it gets back to the issue of copy, although in a much more pointed, technical way, is the catalogue to your 1973 Everson show, which, when I saw it originally, I saw it as a photocopy, and I thought, oh, someone Xeroxed this very poorly. And then, Bruce corrected me and said, “No, the catalog was actually printed.” Am I getting this right? The catalog was—
HAINLEY: —Printed to look like a Xerox copy.
STURTEVANT: Well, it was a Xerox copy that I absolutely insisted had to be printed.
[…]
LOBEL: I’m just saying that it was another way of thinking about this discourse around copy.
STURTEVANT: Copy? What was another way?
LOBEL: Making the catalog like—
HAINLEY: Printing it rather than allowing it—
STURTEVANT: No, no, no, because I don’t think trying—no, I don’t think that was based on copy at all. This is because this was based on the dynamics of repetition, which is nothing to do with copy. And so, repetition is—you have to—repetition is displacement; repetition is difference; repetition is—what else is repetition? Repetition is pushing the limits of resemblance and limitation—repetition is—it has some other factors or dynamics. So it’s not like—it’s not like saying you repeat. See, the interesting thing is, for instance, Andy Warhol repeated, but he did not do repetition. And his brilliance really lies in the fact that he was—because repeat is surface. You’re just talking about the surface. He managed to take repeat and make it into a very, very dynamic thing. So I mean, for me, that’s where his brilliance lies. But repetition has nothing to do with repeating. So I think that’s a basic premise that people do not—
But I’d like to get off this copy nonsense, if we could, because for me, that’s really a finished subject. And I don’t care whether they think it’s copy or not. You know, we’re moving ahead anyhow.
- ٣. “ستورتيفانت: دراسات عن مارلينات ورهول، وحركات وأغراض بويز، وأعمال دوشومب، إلخ، تتضمن فيلم”، كتالوج المعرض (حرره جدسن روزبوش)، متحف افرسون في نيويورك، 1973
لوبل: […] من ضمن ما أود تسجيله في حديثنا، لأني أظن أني أغفلته تمامًا حتى نبهني بروس إليه، وهو أمر يعود بنا إلى موضوع النسخ، وإن كان بطريقة أكثر حدة وتقنية، هو كتالوج عرض افرسون الخاص بك في 1973، والذي رأيته، عندما رأيته في الأصل، كنسخة مصورة، وقلت لنفسي، ياه، لقد صنع أحدهم نسخة ردئية للغاية بماكينة تصوير. ثم صحح لي بروس الأمر وقال: “لا، بل هذا الكتالوج المطبوع.” هل فهمت ذلك بصورة صحيحة؟ هذا الكتالوج كان—
هينلي: مطبوعًا ليبدو كنسخة مصورة.
ستورتيفانت: الحقيقة أنه كان نسخة مصورة أصررت قطعًا على طباعتها.
[…]
لوبل: ما أريد قوله إنها كانت طريقة أخرى للتفكير في هذا الحديث حول النسخ.
ستورتيفانت: النسخ؟ أي طريقة أخرى؟
لوبل: صنع الكتالوج مثل—
هينلي: طباعته بدلًا من تركه—
ستورتيفانت: لا، لا، لا، لأني لا أرى أن محاولة—لا، لا أظن أنه كان قائم على النسخ على الإطلاق. وهذا لأنه كان يقوم على ديناميكيات التكرار، وهو أمر لا علاقة له بالنسخ. وهكذا، فالتكرار هو—لا بد لك—التكرار ترحيل. التكرار اختلاف. التكرار—ما التكرار غير ذلك؟ التكرار هو دفع حدود التشابه والقيود—التكرار هو—به بعض العوامل أو الديناميكيات الأخرى. ولذا فهو ليس مثل—ليس مثل أن نقول إنك تعيد. انظر، الأمر المثير للاهتمام، على سبيل المثال، أن آندي ورهول قد أعاد، لكنه لم يقم بالتكرار. وإن عبقريته تكمن حقًا في أنه كان يفعل ذلك—لأن الإعادة هي السطح. أنت تتحدث عن السطح وحسب. لكنه تمكن من أخذ الإعادة وتحويلها إلى شيء ديناميكي جدًا جدًا. أعني أن هنا، بالنسبة لي، تكمن عبقريته. لكن التكرار لا علاقة له بالإعادة. ولذا أظن أن الافتراض الأساسي الذي يعجز الناس عن—
لكنى أود أن نتجاوز سخافات النسخ هذه، إذا أمكن، لأني أرى أن هذا موضوع منتهٍ حقًا. وأنا لا أبالي سواء ظنوا أنها نسخة أم لا. كما تعلم، نحن نمضي قدمًا على أي حال.
Excerpts from an interview with Sturtevant conducted in 2007 by Bruce Hainley & Michael Lobel at the Archives of American Art, New York
مقتطفات من: حوار مع ستورتيفانت أجراه في 2007 بروس هينلي ومايكل لوبل في أرشيف الفن الأمريكي في نيويورك