Naked City

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Eisa, Ali and Rees, Sebastian. 2022. Naked City. In: Melanie Buhler, ed. The Art of Critique. Milan: Lenz Press / Frans Hals Museum. ISBN 9791280579102 [Book Section]

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Official URL: https://www.lenz.press/products/the-art-of-critiqu...

Abstract or Description

Naked City is a commissioned artwork for a chapter in the publication The Art of Critique. It comprises of a pencil drawing, collage and text that runs across 6 pages. This drawing was produced as sketch for a large scale, site specific, public art installation which was commissioned by the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (and realised in November 2023)

The drawing depicts interlinked Heras Fence units with street notices (flyers, banners, stickers) affixed. These street notices were collected by the artists from streets in Haarlem, Amsterdam and Rotterdam during 2 research residencies in Netherlands during July 2022 and 2023). The drawing is influenced by Christo and Jean Claude's installation work The Running Fence, reimagining this piece within an urban setting and in the context of rapid urban development and gentrification. Street notices were collected as a material culture that disclosed how publics were exchanging and communicating messages and viewpoints during periods marked by the coronavirus pandemic. The drawing depicts a kind of conflicted landscape of the city at this existential moment of crises, juxtaposing street notices with often conflicting, oblique and humorous relationships. Alongside the drawings are texts that bring together further research and context for specific street notices, in addition to texts written by the artists that articulate critical observations on urban development, everyday street life, community and alienation in the city.

More information on The Art of Critique publication:

We live in a moment in which institutions, including those central to the art world, are facing a surge of public scrutiny. Propelled by social media, profound questions about how institutions operate—whether structurally, politically, or financially—have become an increasingly prominent part of public life and discourse in recent years.
In this context, The Art of Critique revisits the artistic practice of institutional critique to ask what it means today, and to consider its ability to respond to the urgent social, political, and economic issues of our time. Taking works by Tracey Emin, Andrea Fraser, and Sarah Lucas in the collection of the Frans Hals Museum as a departure point, The Art of Critique uses a feminist approach to broaden and challenge traditional art historical definitions of institutional critique. These expanded forms of critique function as precursors to the practices of the contemporary artists presented as part of this project. Collectively, the contemporary works shed a new light on the legacy of institutional critique while addressing structural issues as wide-ranging as labor practices in the creative industry, city development, gender inequality, and the intertwined histories of capitalism and colonialism.

The publication documents the long-term project at the Frans Hals Museum (2019–22)—a symposium, Color Critique (chapter one); an exhibition, Image Power (chapter two: Image Critique); and artist commissions (chapter three: Structure Critique)—together with artworks, conversations, and newly commissioned and translated essays.

Item Type:

Book Section

Keywords:

Critique, Drawing, Installation, City

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Art

Dates: