La incertidumbre del contexto. Entrevista a Rirkrit Tiravanija

A.- It has to do with my personal experience, because I have always worked in these conditions. I have always had to get visas to move five inches next door, I have always lived in that shadow. Consequently, I think it is quite ironic to hear that we all live in a globalised world. This is not a globalised world; it is only globalised for some people, who are actually far from the majority. Despite the fact that nowadays everything is circulating, there are also a lot of barriers. In fact, if you are not in some kind of "peripheral" space, you do not have to deal with these issues. Now Europeans have to queue up to get a visa to go to the United States. I think this topic should really be thought about. We should discuss how we really "coexist." Anyway, I have always worked in this kind of "space," which I think people do not notice. It is not easy for me to come here, or to travel from Paris to Berlin. Even now it is not so easy for me to get to London, for example, which surprises many people. Those little things are realities that affect me and, by doing so, affect my work. There are many people who are trying to transgress those boundaries, and I think those transgressions are interesting. We cannot help having this image that in fact there is no real border, no line; that the world is much more open than that. However, I constantly think more and more borders are being built all the time. The fact that now the us Government can tap your phone line is a good example of that. (They can tap anybody 's phone line, it does not mean you are doing anything wrong; they just have the legal authority to spy on you.) The fact that I live in Thailand, but also in New York and Europe, helps me perceive all those things with a certain degree of clarity... We may not be able to change anything, but at least we need to raise our voice, which is already a way of transgressing those closures.

Q.- In this sense, you have defined yourself as a "moderate Buddhist," as someone who is capable of living in a system like the one that prevails today. Yet, how can that very position be compatible with the rebellious, anti-establishment attitude you now defend, over apathy or taking a comfortable distance?

A.- Well, I definitely never stayed quiet about those important issues. Yet you are referring to two different trends in my attitude. I do say that you should have compassion for the human being. Consequently, I cannot avoid compassion for both George W. Bush and for Osama Ben Laden. That is to say, I would not kill them, and I would feed them if they needed to eat, but that does not mean I would sit next to them and say they are good people or that they do not act wrongly. I would talk to them, because debates are needed to reflect on the things that affect other people. To be a Buddhist does not mean that you do not see injustices in the world.

Q.- Going back to your recent installations, I find the way you treat certain "decorative" elements very interesting, elements like plants or "untitled" photographs, which are not attached to a specific work, but to the exhibition itself.

A.- Actually, I would not say that they do not mean anything themselves: in fact, in a way, they mean quite a lot. The plants address the context of the work itself, and the discussion on it. Again they are a sign to recognize the space one is in, which is still a gallery, which still has its functions, and its relationships with its actual concept and with the way it works in the world. Plants are seemingly decorative, but they also refer to the environment we are in. This also echoes Broodthaers' work: it is not just that I put the plants there, but that they refer to something that one has to identify to see the meaning of the work. I have usually had a difficult time making exhibitions for galleries, because everything takes on a certain meaning there -influenced by the space, by the series of things that are on show, etc. Galleries also impose a certain use and certain limitations. In a way, a gallery is a funny space: you can enter the exhibition and then go back outside, without a transition, and that implies certain limitations. What I am interested in now is addressing the different layers of that particularity.

Q.- Your recent work also involves a kind of return to representation. The toilet inside the cubicle, for example, is not real , you cannot actually throw immigration applications in there, or urinate in it. This contradicts your old declaration, when you said your gesture would be to take Duchamp's Urinoir out of the museum and urinate in it...

A.- This time I did not think about the possibility of throwing the application in the toilet, but only that it would be a place where one could contemplate the idea of applying for an entrance into a country in those conditions. It is a place in which to think about this situation. In fact the toilets we have in Thailand are like these. Americans would be shocked to see toilets like those in their country, so their presence also has a specific meaning in this sense. However, it does not mean it is a turning point for me concerning representation , it is more like a fork in the road; there is more than one way to take from here on. Anyway, in this case it is very significant that the toilets do not work. So is the fact that I have included paintings, because I do not paint. There is more than meets the eye, and each of us has to deal with that in our minds. Maybe today it is not so fashionable to talk about "Otherness," but it is still there, and not very far away.

Q.- The sentence "Freedom cannot be simulated" appears in one of your latest works. I wonder if freedom is not always a simulation, or a utopia, in your works.

A.- It is very difficult to think about freedom unless one considers it as a form of utopianism. Things like these can easily become mere simulacra. The statement comes from a protest in East Germany, so it is quite old. I had to translate it from German so I do not know if it is really precise. I think it is very specific with regard to the situation it referred to originally, but, in any case, it is a statement that we have to think about, because people are going on about this idea of being free and they are using it as a kind of excuse to face reality in a superficial way.

Q.- Your actual physical presence in exhibitions always plays a "problematic" role. What does being present in your own work mean for you now, at this time?

A.- It does not only have to do with the possibilities of the presence itself; it is also related to identity . I do not like to be in the middle, and I usually discredit such attitudes. Once again, Broodthaers' attitude is interesting in this sense: his presence in the work was not recognized as an actual work. When he created his "museum," he appointed himself the director, so he positioned himself in the middle of it to show the pieces. Yet, nobody saw him as an artist, he could not be associated to the way the work had been made. Broodthaers played with "disappearance" and, now that he is not there at all, one can contemplate the work without him having to be there.

Q.- Your retrospective Tomorrow is another fine day was also presented in Thailand. How is your work received over there?