Rirkrit Tiravanija

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Rirkrit Tiravanija was born in 1961 to a Thai family in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rirkrit Tiravanija currently divides his time between New York, Berlin and Bangkok. He attended the Banf Center School of Fine Arts and the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. He later enrolled in the Whitney Independent Studies Program in New York as well as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Tiravanija is currently on the faculty in the School of the Arts, Columbia University. Recognized for his site-specific performances and installations that question the social role of the artist, his work has been presented widely at museums and galleries throughout the world including solo exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York (2008), The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999); Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu, Japan (2000); Secession, Vienna (2002); Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2003); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (2003–04); and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (1999). He participated in the 27th Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, the Whitney Biennial and the 50th Venice Biennale. In 2004 he received the prestigious Guggenheim Museum Hugo Boss Prize.

Untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling) I-III 2008-2011 Digitally transferred actual size reproduction of artist passports-books I, II, III- dated 1998-2008,
offset lithography, color silkscreen, chine colleé Size variable.
Approximately 91.4 x 854.4 cm / 36 x 334.5 in. each
Set of 3 scrolls Edition of 40
Published by the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University

Moma Collection: http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147128

The Map of the Land of Feeling I-III is a groundbreaking print work that charts an artist’s entire career through the reproduction of a 10-year old passport and diaristic collage of the artist’s journeys. Primarily an installation artist, Tiravanija’’s early works involved cooking meals for gallery-goers and sharing music, which conceptually revealed the social role of the artist. Structures for living and socializing form a core element of his conceptual works, which have made profound contributions to contemporary art. In this work, each scroll contains an actual size reproduction of his passports, chronicling two decades of travel and foreign residency, with overlaid silkscreened images including diaristic notations in the artist’s own cursive hand, recipes, short stories and oversized maps alluding to historical memory, one of Tiravanija’’s favorite themes.

Faye Hirsch of Art in America, June 2011, writes: Embedding his passport in the mass of cultural information that determines and overdetermines historical and artistic subjectivity, Tiravanija charges the impersonal, bureaucratic document with meaning. He charts a borderless place—perhaps the land of “feeling,” but surely that of the contemporary “global” artist constantly on the move. Tiravanija only remarks that he has a “terrible memory,” and that the print was made to help him remember. It is a typically understated observation—one that leaves the complexities of interpretation to the observer, an active participant in Tiravanija’s’ sociable enterprise.”

Also exhibited at: The Map of the Land of Feeling I-III is currently on view in “Print/Out” Museum of Modern Art, New York 19 February – 14 May, 2012. Print/Out is the third in a series of large print surveys periodically organized by the Museum’s Department of Prints and Illustrated Books in order to assess the evolution of the medium.