Alberta Artist Copyrights Land as Artwork to Keep Oil Companies At Bay

Alberta artist Peter van Tiesenhausen has provided an interesting legal precedent in his long-when he was a boy. Over time, he has watched industry transform that landscape. “I grew up there, and the oil and forestry industries have just devastated it,” he said in an interview with fellow artist Marina Black in May of last year.

Of course, artists transform the landscape in their own way, calling into question the relationship between people and nature, whether it’s Robert Smithson with his “Spiral Jetty” or Frederick Law Olmsted with his careful designs for Central Park and Mount Royal.

Realizing that mining companies can legitimately lay claim to any land underneath private property to a depth of six inches, van Tiesenhausen contacted a lawyer who drew up an intellectual property/copyright claim that said that if the oil company disturbed the top six inches in any way, it would be a copyright violation.

This is eerily similar to the defense Portia deploys against Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” in which he is legally entitled to extract a pound of flesh from a debtor who can’t pay, so long as he doesn’t extract a single drop of blood or marrow or bone.

“The oil company wanted to come across with a pipeline,” said van Tiesenhausen. “And I said: No! And they said that I don’t have any choice because we own the top six inches and they own everything else underneath, the mineral rights, etc. That’s the way it works in Canada. And I said: you can put your pipeline as long as you don’t disturb the surface. Of course, it’s pretty much impossible or very expensive. But it’s not a field or just a forest, it is an artwork! And they realized that I have a case. So for last 15 years they have left me alone.”

Shylock’s reply to the judge, after realizing he wouldn’t be able to claim his debt was, “Is that the law?”

We Invented Halloween – Michael Fortune (IRL, 1975)

We invented Halloween is the title of a multi-channel video installation recorded on Halloween night, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the artist’s family home in rural County Wexford.

Each year a central activity of the night involves the artist’s mother dressing up in an improvised manner with anything that will disguise her identity, and calling to his granny’s house, which is next door. Prior to calling to the house we see his mother getting dressed, with the aid of his sisters, who dress and undress her with layers of coats, socks, tights and plastic masks.

The work, which involves long, hand-held takes, follows her along the road and into the grannies house. In both recordings, his granny ignores the camera and welcomes his mother, though she is unaware of her identity, thinking instead that she is one of her great grandchildren. Each of the three films finishes when his mother leaves the house, delighted that she has fooled his granny once again. By revisiting this annual practice the viewer is offered an insight into the immediate environment of family life, human relationships and contemporary ritual.

For more work, sources and info on Michael’s work see: http://www.michaelfortune.ie

Sirkus

Frieze Projects 2008

Kling & Bang

Sirkus, a bar in the scruffy downtown area of Reykjavik, was demolished this spring after serving for nine years as a living landmark and the hub of the city’s alternative arts scene. Kling & Bang, a gallery run by eight enthusiastic artists, not only helped the owner save the bar’s façade and interior, but also resolved to bring it to the UK and re-erect it at Frieze Art Fair. In an echo of the travelling circus invoked by the bar’s name, this place of celebration and creation moved town for a few short days.

Kling & Bang was set up five years ago and has since hosted and collaborated with a wealth of renowned international and Icelandic artists, consistently presenting challenging works of art. But like many downtown institutions, not least Sirkus, its life has always been on the brink, waiting for the day the bulldozers come. After months without a roof, Kling & Bang had to move into new temporary premises earlier this year.

But change has come to be an accepted part of the Reykjavik art scene, and last summer Kling & Bang played on its transient existence by setting up temporary headquarters in Berlin. And now, instead of exhibiting in a white box, it is coming to London with its very own building, placing a Sirkus in the heart of the art fair. But ultimately what Kling & Bang will be bringing to Frieze is not simply a physical construction – an erstwhile façade gauchely painted with palm trees and a crumbling interior with its years of accumulated detritus – but the aura of the bar and the values it embodied. A programme of performances by artists, writers and musicians invited by Kling & Bang will take place inside Sirkus during the fair, bringing some of the character and atmosphere of the bar to the fair.

FROM http://www.friezeprojects.org/commissions/detail/kling_bang/
(there is a video there too)
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