Rikrit Tiravanija

O artigo da Anna fala do trabalho dele

Rikrit Tiravanija
http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=5
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/context/artists/tiravanija/tiravanija1.html

It�s not exactly right to call Rikrit Tiravanija a "visual" artist. As he says, "it is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people." Tiravanija does not produce works so much as situations or events. Tiravanija�s art does not, strictly speaking, belong to him; it is not an object that anyone can possess. He sets a stage, offering an opportunity or a possibility -- the rest he leaves up to those who decide to participate.

An itinerant practically since birth, Tiravanija is always on the move and shows no signs of settling down. Travel, and especially the exchange between people while traveling, is essential to his work. Tiravanija�s life has been a perpetual negotiation of different cultures: he was born in Buenos Aires and raised in Thailand, Ethiopia, and Canada; he was educated in Chicago and New York; and his work has been exhibited across Europe, Asia, North America, and South Africa. He was constantly adjusting to different languages and customs, different modes of communication and interaction. As a result, he has a remarkable ability to strike up an intimate relation with anyone and an inherent love of dialogue, conversation, and human interaction.

Tiravanija has taken this talent and transformed it into art. Once he arranged furniture in an exhibition space, set up a temporary kitchen, cooked curry, and chatted with visitors while the gallery�s everyday business carried on all around him. In the Cologne Kunstverein Gallery, he created a makeshift rendition of his New York apartment, including a kitchen and bathroom, and simply invited people to set up camp. Equipped with camping gear and a portable stove, he rode his bike for five days across Spain and attracted crowds of people to visit and converse with him.

Everywhere he goes, Tiravanija creates a space of interaction and allows art to unfold as life, as communication, as "what happens between people." Perhaps no one else has so definitively destroyed the border between art and life -- he has integrated the flux of his itinerant life into the sedentary space of some the world�s most reputable galleries and museums.