Contents

Phone and desktop versions of michaelstevenson.info

differ according to their navigational system

this one’s a list—–the other’s a journey

Preface

In a 1964 article, Thomas Gladwin compares the navigation methods of the Chuukese & Europeans at sea. Europeans follow a predetermined plan based on universal principles, adjusting as needed to stay 'on course.' Chuukese, on the other hand, start with an objective & navigate ad hoc using the wind, stars, & waves. They can point to their destination at any time but cannot describe their course (Gerald Berreman, 1966).

an AI abridged version of the preface from - Plans and Situated Action:

The problem of human-machine communication Lucy Suchman 1985

Introduction

Michael Stevenson is an artist & educator from Aotearoa New Zealand who lives in Berlin.

His work has been shown widely in Europe, the United States, & Australasia, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; steirischerherbst, Graz; Museum Sztuki Łódź; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; MUMA, Melbourne; Biennale of Sydney, Sydney; Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; SculptureCenter, New York; Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool; Tate Modern, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Camden Arts Centre, London; Portikus, Frankfurt; Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Art Unlimited, Art Basel; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; & the New Zealand Pavilion, Venice Biennale.

Since 2010, he has held a professorship in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg.

Mind’s Eye

2024

an installation view...

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

(see fig.)

Mind’s Eye: v.

Reading Letter from Utopia

(version 3.3 2020)

2024

inc.

laser-engraved fabric & the peaceable kingdom

—the 3 charities read a post-dated

letter from their possible future selves…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

(see fig.)

Mind’s Eye: iv.

The Train to Crazy Town

(where do you get out?)

2024

inc.

laser-engraved fabric & a stress-test,

(an aside)

—charity's forsaken cat…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

(see fig.)

Mind’s Eye: iii.

E2G (had you not taken the job

a sadist or sociopath would have)

2024

charity leans in—

inc. laser-engraved fabric & the

counter-factual apologetics of

Earning-2-Give…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop:

seating proposals for a Grantmaker

2023

an installation view...

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

The Principles Chair:

Our Guiding Principles

2023

inc.

1 m³ of yielding soft-furnishings & the words

of a now defunct charity website

—everyone’s welfare matters…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

The About Chair:

Who We Are

2023

inc.

1 m³ of yielding soft-furnishings & the words

of a now defunct charity website

—our team & board members…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

The Apply Chair:

Apply for Funding

2023

inc.

1 m³ of yielding soft-furnishings & the words

of a now defunct charity website

—our funding round is currently closed…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

The Grantmakers Chair

2023

inc.

a 1 m³ yielding core & lining—

an aleatoric decision making matrix

for 6 outcomes…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2024

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

The Shallow Pond

2023

inc.

A door in a freestanding wall

with a moral imperative & post-modern

pretensions…

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023

(see fig.)

How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2030

Mental Health Telethon supporters aid

2022

a walking billboard, posterchild, or charnel house

for the AI soul—inc. ½ a RoboCop morph suit,

Teva sandals, baby bibs, a bunk bed &

goodnight rug—will we eat baby food forever?

Fine Arts, Sydney 2022

(see fig.)

How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2016

Mental Health Telethon supporters aid

2022

inc.

latex, net, webcam, biodegradable plastic bag

—effects for a fictional telethon with surprise

appearances & on-camera confessional…

Fine Arts, Sydney 2022

(see fig.)

Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief

(publication)

2021

a hardcover enclosing 2 documents

bound with a single rubber band,

upon opening they part ways—

cover, band, vol i: Cultural Dope

vol ii: Kayfabe Logic…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Sternberg Press Ltd, London

(see fig.)

The Cheap Heat

2021

inc.

camera plus effects for a telethon...

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

(see fig.)

Telethon Swear Jar

2021

inc.

a pantomime bird head, coin feeder mechanism

& water bottle of generous capacity—

cos... you say it, you pay it!

Galleria Frederico Vavassori, Milan 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

(see fig.)

S-team internal memo

2021

inc.

love or fear? Bezos & the missionary zeal

of Annie Vallatton composing

the Amazon.love list…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

(see fig.)

(book repository)

2021

inc.

a collection of paintings & studies from 1987

oil on panel, ink on paper &

a structure from shrink wrap

encaptulated scaffold…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

(see fig.)

Hold-Up-To-Live-Camera

2021

inc.

marker pen on latex…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

(see fig.)

Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

2020

inc.

galvanised welded steel bike rack, locks,

& various species of inappropriate footwear…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020

(see fig.)

Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.1

Extravehicular Activity

2020

inc.

foldable Plexiglas shield, acoustic foam,

—lunar sample #15415 replica (Here I am,

Taketh Me)—electrolyte imbalance,

heart arrythmia, auditory verbal hallucination

—a cardboard ark, paws & hooves…

Museum Sztuki, Łódź 2021

Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020

Fine Arts, Sydney 2020

(see fig.)

Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.2

Philanthropy 101

2020

inc.

foldable Plexiglas shield, acoustic foam, cosplay

& a trial by jury backward-engineered—

Python Power bandana—oversized latex edition

—frozen in LN₂ & wrestled on the floor…

Museum Sztuki, Łódź 2021

Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020

Fine Arts, Sydney 2020

(see fig.)

Serene Velocity in Practice:

MC510/CS183

2017-

inc.

stretched, gridded airline blankets, scrap aircraft

tyres, finned aluminium heat sink, bird spikes—

a mini campus for 2 previously unrelated courses

connected via a walkway...

steirischerherbst, Graz 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

The Rules for Taking a City

2017-

inc.

V-form keyboard stand, scrap commercial

aircraft tyre, airline blankets, rain chains—

a teaching aid for spirit mappers & squatters

(who gain their rights thru deception)…

steirischerherbst, Graz 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

Anatomy of the Body

2017-

inc.

68kg solid plastic waste, bungee cord, scrap

commercial aircraft tyre, academic robe—

faith-healing & rudimentary physiology

just tell us where it hurts…

steirischerherbst, Graz 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

Building & Training a Demon Expulsion Team

2017-

inc.

chalk marked scrap commercial aircraft tyre,

scholars chair, DSM III—Sybil Isabel

Dorsett’s 16 selves, dental floss & a plastic

whistle for attention…

steirischerherbst, Graz 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

Chair for a Transhumanist

2017

Aeron chair chassis upgrade—

enhanced imperial proportions

—full morphological freedom…

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

The Aptitude Test for Green Ghosts

2017-

inc.

eggs, cigar cases, & tablets—placed with precision

on photovoltaic panels...

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

The Green Belvedere

2017-

an object lesson—

inc. Solyndra solar cell, stacked Solyent

ready-to-drink meal replacement,

tattered bandana & sunglasses...

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

MUMA, Melbourne 2019

Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017

(see fig.)

Transparency Masters

2016

near-miss events in congested skies (not

all of a material in nature)—inc. handset for an

unseen drone, magnetic tape, stacked wooden

aircraft wheel chocks & marshalling wands…

Art Basel, Basel 2016

(see fig.)

Signs and Wonders

2015

inc.

FAA approved fabric covering, airline blankets,

zinc chromate conversion coating on steel,

books, prayer cards, video projection...

Carl Freedman Gallery, London 2016

Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis 2016

Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen 2015

(see fig.)

Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare

2014-

inc

doors set in adjustable steel frames,

competing gaming bots—

the hiss of compressed-air lines releasing…

steirischerherbst, Graz 2023

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021

Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020

Liverpool Biennial 2014

(see fig.)

Michael Stevenson: An Introduction

(publication)

2013

a first published collection of practice

inc. science fiction, anthropology, philosophy

—a primer with page cutouts...

Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City 2012

Portikus, Frankfurt 2012

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne

(see fig.)

Animal Spirits: Fables

in the Parlance of Our Times

(publication)

2013

an artist book by Michael Stevenson

& Jan Verwoert—in times of uncertainity

financial—otherwise

a collaborative writing game

—"Give Me More!"

Published jointly by JRP|Ringier, Zurich

& Clouds, Auckland 2013

(see fig.)

A Life of Crudity, Vulgarity, and Blindness

2012

inc.

daylight, paper aircraft model, mirror,

lens, plexiglas & buttermilk…

Portikus, Frankfurt am Main 2012

(see fig.)

Teoria Del Vuelo

(publication)

2012

a short rumination on flight

on weight-reduced paper stock

—opened in the hand

its pages float while turning…

Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City 2012

Portikus, Frankfurt 2012

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne

(see fig.)

Persepolis 2530

2007

inc.

cardboard, wood, steel, fabric remnant, aircon

ducts, & avian remains…

Arnolfini, Bristol 2008

Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel 2007

(see fig.)

The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

Some Questions About Bananas)

2006

inc.

60-litres of circulating water denominated in

dollars, Plexiglas, steel, plasticine, string—

a calculator for total national income minus

—the drips, splashes & leaks onto

cinder blocks beneath…

MoMA, New York 2023

Regen Projects, Los Angeles 2017

Artgenève, Geneva 2012

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2011

ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe 2011

The Power Plant, Toronto 2008

Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg 2008

Tate Modern, London 2007

Vilma Gold, London 2007

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

San Francisco 2006

(see fig.)

c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala

(publication)

2006

inc.

primary source materials from the

Central Bank of Guatemala

—with the kind assistance of its

longest serving employees…

Capp St Project -

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts 2006

(see fig.)

The Smiles are not Smiles

2005

inc.

gold-leaf—bricks

chaos...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2010

Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005

Vilma Gold, London 2005

(see fig.)

Art of the Eighties and Seventies

(publication)

2006

dust jacket, hard-bound linen cover,

text descending the spine—

mimetic cravings for a certain Rizzoli catalogue

& the lost cause of its art collection

Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005

REVOLVER - ARCHIV FÜR AKTUELLE KUNST, Frankfurt

(see fig.)

Art of the Eighties and Seventies

2005

inc.

straw, mud, mica, withered rice cultivars, rusting

steel—a search for a pocket-sized private

apartment in a post-modern civic museum or

—an ode to collecting art…

Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005

(see fig.)

This is the Trekka

2003

inc.

sheet metal, Skoda powertrain, sheep

skins & butter—a white paper

for the coming nuclear winter…

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

City Gallery, Wellington 2005

New Zealand Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2003

(see fig.)

JD’s School Certificate Folio (after lost original)

2000

inc.

backwardated works in gouache, acrylic, ink,

graphite, marker pen—plus copious

double-sided tape & glue…

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2022

Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth 2000

(see fig.)

Practice

We move through the world in ways that are fundamentally ad hoc & responsive—planned yet unplanned. The stories we narrate, inhabit, maintain, place value & belief in begin as conversations in the mind, & come of age in the external world of material consequence. Michael Stevenson’s practice becomes a visual repository for the working stories we believe & tell ourselves, & each other. Infrastructural systems entangled in the mechanics & materials of everyday life. Unfolded in form, colour, mass, & energy, material qualities respond in a re-telling of their making, & doing.

Michael Stevenson
Berlin, Germany

Contact:
E-Mail: info@michaelstevenson.info

Responsible for content:
Michael Stevenson

Copyright:
All images and content on this website are protected by copyright law.

Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any content is prohibited without prior written consent.

Design: Michael Stevenson in collaboration

with Joseph Lanzinger

Text: Michael Stevenson with editorial assistance

from Habib William Kherbek

Built on Word Press xx.09.2024

60 litres of circulating water, plexiglass, steel, aluminium, brass, plasticine,

string and the sounds of drips and splashes on wet cinder blocks ...

—– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

Some Questions About Bananas) 2006

“It was not IBM compatible,” recalled Don Alberto Muñoz, when asked for his first impressions of a then novel computing tool: the MONIAC or Phillips Machine, when it arrived at the Central Bank of Guatemala in 1953. The machine was designed and built by the economist A.W.H. (Bill) Phillips in 1949 during his studies at the London School of Economics. He developed a water-based, large-scale analog computer for calculating a nation’s total income or, in other words, a physical model of the national economy. Water, Phillips' medium of choice, becomes money: dynamic, fluid, fixed in volume, but eternally changing shape.

In reserve or flowing across a series of interconnected plexi tanks, drains, and chokepoints, the water disperses into discrete volumes to be quantified and calibrated as dollars. Phillips' choice was pragmatic - in earlier days he’d been an engineer on a hydroelectric dam. Deeply enchanting the MONIAC may be, but compatible with the imperatives of the tech titan IBM it was not. Phillips envisioned the device as a visual aid for the classroom. Why a central bank would need such a tool remained unclear even after it was ensconced in Guatemala. What’s more, it leaked.

To say its record of achievement is mixed would be an overstatement: It was barely used. It could not predict. It did not model useful data; however, these capacities obscured what its primary role turned out to be: the machine was a witness to extraordinary times. In 1953 just eyeballing the MONIAC may have given rise to hope. Its imposing (if complex) presence represented the incarnation of an independent Guatemalan economy ...

(continue)

60 litres of circulating water, plexiglass, steel, aluminium, brass, plasticine,

string and the sounds of drips and splashes on wet cinder blocks ...

—– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

Some Questions About Bananas) 2006

(continue)

—a counterweight decoupled from its troubled empirical rival: the seething mess of American corporate interests swallowing the country’s GDP. This was not simply a metaphorical swallowing: the revolutionary government of Jacobo Árbenz recently had begun a programme for agrarian reform, upending the dominance of the United Fruit Company, the world’s largest banana producer. For some 15-months the MONIAC witnessed this geopolitical standoff before in 1954, a CIA-led coup toppled Árbenz. Soon after the machine disappeared, its fate today remains unknown. As a promissory note betokening a different future, the MONIAC turned into a kind of sunk cost fallacy of the past.

IN EXHIBITION:

2023 »Chosen Memories, Contemporary Latin American Art from the
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond« Museum of Modern Art, New York

2017 »Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar

Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas –

Pedro Salazar Torres (Partido Socialista Trabajador)« Regen Projects, Los Angeles

2012 »Magic Love Trade Objects« Artgenève, Geneva

2011 »The Global Contemporary, Kunstwelten nach 1989«

ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe

2011 »Michael Stevenson« Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

2008 »History Acts« Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg

2008 »Not Quite How I Remember It« The Power Plant, Toronto

2007 »The Irresistible Force« Tate Modern, London

2007 »Answers to Some Questions about Bananas« Vilma Gold, London

2006 »c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala« CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts,

San Francisco

IN EXHIBITION:

2023 »Chosen Memories, Contemporary Latin American Art from the
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond« Museum of Modern Art, New York

2017 »Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar

Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas –

Pedro Salazar Torres (Partido Socialista Trabajador)« Regen Projects, Los Angeles

2012 »Magic Love Trade Objects« Artgenève, Geneva

2011 »The Global Contemporary, Kunstwelten nach 1989«

ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe

2011 »Michael Stevenson« Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

2008 »History Acts« Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg

2008 »Not Quite How I Remember It« The Power Plant, Toronto

2007 »The Irresistible Force« Tate Modern, London

2007 »Answers to Some Questions about Bananas« Vilma Gold, London

2006 »c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala« CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts,

San Francisco

Think of it as Gaming the System in a transcendental sense: lots of rules, mercy as a liability, zero sum. To counter these spatial possessions, the rules of common property law are applied. Curiously, the demonic hierarchies comply.

The ramshackle assemblage that composes this instruction appears to be little more than an aircraft tyre, an electric piano stand, and an in-flight blanket. But those who have knowledge can see more. It may well pass as a wishing well, but wishes run in multiple directions. It is a well that foments its own rules, order, and worldview.

IN EXHIBITION:

2023 »Humans & Demons« steirischerherbst'23, Graz

2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

2019 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« MUMA, Melbourne

2018 »SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement« 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney

2017 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland

Michael Stevenson is an artist & educator from Aotearoa New Zealand who lives in Berlin.

Since 2010, he has held a professorship in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg.

—­­­– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

Some Questions About Bananas) 2006

—­­­– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

Some Questions About Bananas) 2006

IN EXHIBITION:

IN EXHIBITION:

IN EXHIBITION:

—– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to

—– The Fountain of Prosperity (Answers to