David Goldenberg 

David Goldenberg, (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, UK) is an important English Conceptual artist.

His research is concentrated on the Post Autonomy concept, which he has developed in a number of shows held at important international institutions: America is the best form of Marxism, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury, Kent, UK [2019]; Granulation, Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent, UK [2019]; This Historic Moment, 5 Years Gallery, London, UK [2018]; Distributing Obsolescence:  Art bank, Food bank, data bank. Curated by Camilla Boemio, Villa Caprile, Pesaro, Italy, [2017]; “The loss of arts image”, Centre for Contemporary art, Vargi IV, Gijlan, Kosovo [2014]; The scenarios of Post Autonomy, The studio: Glenda Cinquegrana, Milan, Italy, (2012); The Space of Post Autonomy, Arts Depot, Vienna (2011); Plausible Artworlds, Basekamp, Philadelphia, USA (2010); The Time of Post Autonomy is Now, Your space, VanAbbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland (2009); The Space of Post Autonomy, Local Operations, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2007); Century City, Tate Modern, London, UK, (2001); Out of Space, Kolnischer Kunsterverin, Cologne, Germany, (2000).

Group shows of international stature, July 2020 – Feb 2021 When the Globe is Home, Gallerie Della Prigioni, Trevisio, Italy. Finite/Infinite, 51zero Festival of Contemporary Art and moving image, Rochester and Canterbury, UCA, UK [2019]; Join the dots, Imago Mundi – Art Theorema #1 New Highlights of the International art scene, Salon degli Incanti, Trieste, Italy [2018]; Practice – Process – Collaboration, VVM7, Tate Liverpool Exchange, Liverpool, UK [2018]; Posters, NgbK, Berlin, Germany [2018]; Decreation, Rochester Arts Festival, Rochester, UK [2017]; Turbulence, 5th Odessa Biennial, Ukraine. Special section: Distributing Obsolescence: Food Bank, Art Bank, Technology Bank curated by Camilla Boemio [2017]; Here, there and everywhere: Eurasian Cities. Chapter 1. Curator Jiho Lee, project director Kyong Park. Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea (2016); Dispositions in space and Time, NMCA, Bucharest, Romania (2014/15); The Caspian Biennial Convention, Baku, Azerbaijan, (2013); Venice Biennial collateral exhibition, Personal Structures, Palazzio Bembo, Venice, Italy (2013); Berlin Biennial (2012); the 2nd Land Art Biennial of Mongolia (2010); 10th Istanbul International Biennial, Turkey (2007); 6th International Biennial of Sharjah, UAE (2003).

Summary

David Goldenberg is a UK based artist. He was educated as a painter at Wimbledon School of Art and at KIAD in Art theory, Art and Architecture. In 1992, at the Museum of Installation, he exhibited “Microwaves and Frozen Stills”, his first fully realized work, which crystallized threads of ideas he would develop for the next twenty years, whether the spatial role of art, the relationship between art and its architectural setting, the role of the audience, to problems in locating adequate narratives to make sense of the role of art, globalization and colonialism. The work was included in two Thames and Hudson books – Installation Art and New Media Art. The following year he started to exhibit outside the UK with the group show Sei Dabi in Hamburg, Germany which included Walid Raad, then 50X50 at the Schipper Krome Gallery, Cologne, Germany, and Printed Matter in New York, USA. Throughout the 1990’s the MOI exhibition was adopted as the principle template for a series of shows in the UK (funded by ACE), Europe and the USA, which allowed the opportunity to test out the conventions of staging art. Towards the end of the 1990’s the projects took on a more experimental nature culminating in the “Homeless Project” in London, which looked at “an art that has no fixed site”. The material that came out of this and subsequent projects can be found in the Curating Degree Zero archive in the library of the school of art in Zurich, Switzerland. The two key ideas examined during this time are Steven Willet’s concept of Participatory Practices and Ute Meta Bauer’s idea of curating as an extension of both an art practice and as a critical practice. Towards the end of the 1990’s he was introduced to the German theorist Michael Lingers concept of Post Autonomy. From 1998 he started part time lecturing in curating at Goldsmiths University leading to the ACE funded symposium on “Curating post institutions” at the ICA, London. Followed by part time lecturing on Post Autonomy, Curating and Art theory at KIAD, Wimbledon School of Art and St Martins School of art; Public talks at Iniva, SLG and the commemoration of Gustav Metzger’s work “Conference in a fork lift truck”, then as a Part time critic for London Arts with Sacha Craddock. From 2000 following his inclusion in Tate Modern’s Century City he started to exhibit in Museums in Europe that included Kolnisher and Bonner Kunstvereins, Shedhalle, Zurich, Switzerland and outside Europe at the ICA, Philadelphia, USA, from 2002 he started to take part in Biennials first with the Sharjah Biennial, followed by the Istanbul Biennial, Berlin Biennial, Venice Biennial, Mongolian Biennial, Caspian Sea Biennial, Bodrum Biennial and the Mobile Biennial of Southern Romania. During this time, he established close links with the new media project The Thing, Frankfurt who organised the launch of the first website dedicated to Post Autonomy. The site became the platform for in-depth discussions on Participatory practices, Globalisation, Colonialism and the theorisation of Post Autonomy. 2000 also saw a substantial shift in focus towards a more critical treatment of Participatory Practices and gravitation towards Post Autonomy as the nucleus of subsequent thinking and practice, these experiments in participatory practices led to texts for Fillip magazine in 2008 and 2010. Further shifts occurred in 2010 and 2013 with the development of “Post Autonomy as a practice to test out Biennials”, as outlined in a text delivered for the Mongolian Land art Biennial in 2010, then the clarification and expansion of Post Autonomy through introducing the second term – Participating Cultures – and a fundamental rethinking of the role of art in a Global context by using the platforms of biennials and exhibitions, as developed in shows in Milan and “The Transformation of Art” installation for the Venice Biennial in 2013 [which can also be seen as a response to the MOI show of 1992]. This was followed by a new concerted effort to locate new terms and concepts for new platforms to stage art, culminating in conferences to rethink the Biennial form at the Caspian Sea Biennial conference, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2013, and the text “Between Revolution and Heresy”, published in the Bucharest Biennial reader in 2014.