Alexander Scrimgeour

 Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff,  Paradise  (2020–)

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, Paradise (2020–). All photos: Maksym Biilousov, PinchukArtCentre 2021

Not another article about Kyiv as the new Berlin! On the occasion of the Future Generation Art Prize, Alexander Scrimgeour wonders about how the twentieth-century phenomenon of international contemporary art changes under the pressure of good old-fashioned geopolitics.

 Arthur Jafa, Apex, 2013, Video, 8’22’’, colour, sound

Arthur Jafa
Apex (2013)
Installation view

By Alexander Scrimgeour

 Neïl Beloufa Exhibition view of "Global Agreement" (2018) Photo: Marc Krause

Neïl Beloufa
Exhibition view of "Neïl Beloufa. Global Agreement" (2018)
Photo: Marc Krause

By Alex Scrimgeour

August 11 2016, with Tilman Baumgärtel, Josephine Bosma, and Stephan Schwingeler

Fulvia Carnevale, part of the Paris-based collective Claire Fontaine, and theoretician Rory Rowan, have a number of complaints. Art is increasingly becoming a job, there is too little time left for thinking, and artists have to act like rock stars to please collectors. Is there still hope?

 Christopher Williams, "Model-Nr.: 1740, Rotznasen - Kinder Model Agentur, Liesegangstr. 7A, 40211 Düsseldorf, Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf, January 28, 2016", 2016 © Christopher Williams, Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin & Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

Christopher Williams, Model-Nr.: 1740, Rotznasen - Kinder Model Agentur, Liesegangstr. 7A, 40211 Düsseldorf, Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf, January 28, 2016, 2016 © Christopher Williams, Courtesy Capitain Petzel, Berlin & Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

A walk around Berlin galleries by Alexander Scrimgeour

With Fabrice Stroun, Alexi Kukuljevic, Yilmaz Dziewior, Nik Kosmas, Masha McConaghy, and Dirk Paesmans

 5000 Feet is the Best, 2011 Digitalfilm / Digital film, 30 min.

5000 Feet is the Best, 2011 Digitalfilm / Digital film, 30 min.

The perfectly crafted, deeply unsettling films of Omer Fast revolve around the traumatic experiences of refugees, soldiers returning home from war and drone pilots. In a constant interplay of immersion and alienation, they turn filmic illusion against itself.

Alexander Scrimgeour talks to Ben Vickers about networks and institutions, new community-based social models, and the London post-Internet scene.

 From left to right: Alexander Scrimgeour, Contant Dullaart and Toke Lykkeberg. Photo: Rita Vitorelli

From left to right: Alexander Scrimgeour, Contant Dullaart and Toke Lykkeberg.
Photo: Rita Vitorelli

The artist Constant Dullaart has a dream to come true. Curator Toke Lykkeberg wants to show the world how it really is. One has founded a company, the other has brought an everyday commercial aesthetic into the Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris. What role do artists play in start-up culture? Are we experiencing a rematerialisation of the art object?

 From left to right: Alexander Scrimgeour, Tom McCarthy, Nicolas Bourriaud

From left to right:
Alexander Scrimgeour, Tom McCarthy, Nicolas Bourriaud
Palazzetto Bru Zanie, Venice 2015
Photos: Marina Faust

U., the (anti-)hero of Tom McCarthy’s new novel Satin Island, is a 21st-century Man Without Qualities. This “corporate anthropologist” has been given the job of writing the “Great Report” – the “First and Last Word on our age”. The ambition is similar to the task faced by artists today, the near impossibility of mapping the contemporary landscape. What forms can resistance take, if it is even still possible? Spike’s editor-at-large Alexander Scrimgeour talks with Tom McCarthy and curator Nicolas Bourriaud.

 Still from Home , 2014, by Metahaven & Mat Dryhurst

Still from Home, 2014, by Metahaven & Mat Dryhurst

If techno had its origins in the industrial sounds of Motor City, what sort of music corresponds to the screen-mediated environment we live and work in today? Maybe the haunting, radically anti-escapist collages that have brought Holly Herndon to fame since her debut album Movement in 2012. Listening to Herndon’s new album Platform, Alexander Scrimgeour considers our changing relationship with machines.

 BMW Tate Live 2015 – "If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?" Olivia Hemingway ©Tate Photography

BMW Tate Live 2015 – "If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?" Olivia Hemingway ©Tate Photography

Last weekend, dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz hypothetically transformed Tate Modern into Musée de la danse. Our editor-at-large was harbouring some reservations about this new democratic participatory art, but found it surprisingly moving.