Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Zero"
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sanja Ivekovic at BAK, Utrecht and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
From 18 April to 2 August 2009, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven present Urgent Matters, a two-part solo exhibition by Sanja Iveković.
Sanja Iveković (born 1949, lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia) is one of the key artists of her generation working today. Her work can be characterized as a critical artistic practice, invested in the politics of image and body and an analysis of identity constructions in the media, employing strategies of political engagement, solidarity, and activism. Since the 1970s, Iveković works in a range of media such as photography, performance, video, installations, and actions. Since 1989, Iveković mainly deals with the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the consequences of the triumph of global capitalism on living conditions, particularly of women. In her persistent exploration of the border between the public and private self, Iveković subtly insinuates the collective responsibility we share for the things that take place around us.
From her early photography and performance work through to the major collaborative and public projects of recent years, the constraints of politics, economics, and gender consistently serve as an inevitable backdrop to Iveković's works—a position that survives the political changes of 1989 altered but intact. The two parts of the exhibition are organized around this turning point, which marked the end of real existing socialism in the Eastern Bloc and, though not properly recognized in the so-called West, also the end of a particular understanding of social democracy. It also underlines the different ways in which the notion of the political is established through Iveković's practice.
The exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum casts a retrospective view, focusing on historical work from mainly before 1989 consisting primarily of photographic series, collages, and filmed performances. The works are installed around the large vertical space of the museum tower, where a newer monumental sculpture, originally realized as a public art project in Luxemburg in 2001, Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, is reconstructed. At BAK, a selection of more recent work is shown, including a number of productions realized for this occasion, among them a new version of Iveković's well-known work Women's House, a collective portrait of women from local shelters for abused women. The exhibition is also planned to extend into the public realm with the artist's proposal to rename a city street in Utrecht after theUnknown Heroine. During the opening of the exhibition, the performance Übung Macht den Meister(Practice Makes a Master), originally realized by Iveković in 1982 in Berlin, will be re-enacted by dancer Sonja Pregrad, at 20.00 hrs.
Symposium: When is Feminism in Art? The Case of Sanja Iveković
28.05.2009, 11.00–18.00 hrs
On Thursday 28 May 2009, BAK and the Van Abbemuseum organize When is Feminism in Art? The Case of Sanja Iveković. This one-day symposium aims to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the history of art in the Central and Eastern European region through a concrete case of the evolution of a feminist position in a particular cultural and political topography.
Speakers include: Katy Deepwell, founder and editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, London; Tom Holert, art historian and cultural critic, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna/Berlin; Nataša Ilić, curator and member of the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom/WHW, Zagreb; Bojana Pejić, art historian and curator, Berlin; and Georg Schöllhammer, writer and editor-in-chief, Springerin, Vienna.
The project is curated by Maria Hlavajova.
Sanja Iveković (born 1949, lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia) is one of the key artists of her generation working today. Her work can be characterized as a critical artistic practice, invested in the politics of image and body and an analysis of identity constructions in the media, employing strategies of political engagement, solidarity, and activism. Since the 1970s, Iveković works in a range of media such as photography, performance, video, installations, and actions. Since 1989, Iveković mainly deals with the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the consequences of the triumph of global capitalism on living conditions, particularly of women. In her persistent exploration of the border between the public and private self, Iveković subtly insinuates the collective responsibility we share for the things that take place around us.
From her early photography and performance work through to the major collaborative and public projects of recent years, the constraints of politics, economics, and gender consistently serve as an inevitable backdrop to Iveković's works—a position that survives the political changes of 1989 altered but intact. The two parts of the exhibition are organized around this turning point, which marked the end of real existing socialism in the Eastern Bloc and, though not properly recognized in the so-called West, also the end of a particular understanding of social democracy. It also underlines the different ways in which the notion of the political is established through Iveković's practice.
The exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum casts a retrospective view, focusing on historical work from mainly before 1989 consisting primarily of photographic series, collages, and filmed performances. The works are installed around the large vertical space of the museum tower, where a newer monumental sculpture, originally realized as a public art project in Luxemburg in 2001, Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, is reconstructed. At BAK, a selection of more recent work is shown, including a number of productions realized for this occasion, among them a new version of Iveković's well-known work Women's House, a collective portrait of women from local shelters for abused women. The exhibition is also planned to extend into the public realm with the artist's proposal to rename a city street in Utrecht after theUnknown Heroine. During the opening of the exhibition, the performance Übung Macht den Meister(Practice Makes a Master), originally realized by Iveković in 1982 in Berlin, will be re-enacted by dancer Sonja Pregrad, at 20.00 hrs.
Symposium: When is Feminism in Art? The Case of Sanja Iveković
28.05.2009, 11.00–18.00 hrs
On Thursday 28 May 2009, BAK and the Van Abbemuseum organize When is Feminism in Art? The Case of Sanja Iveković. This one-day symposium aims to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the history of art in the Central and Eastern European region through a concrete case of the evolution of a feminist position in a particular cultural and political topography.
Speakers include: Katy Deepwell, founder and editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, London; Tom Holert, art historian and cultural critic, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna/Berlin; Nataša Ilić, curator and member of the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom/WHW, Zagreb; Bojana Pejić, art historian and curator, Berlin; and Georg Schöllhammer, writer and editor-in-chief, Springerin, Vienna.
The project is curated by Maria Hlavajova.
COMMA 03/04: Jose Davila and Jaime Gili at Bloomberg SPACE
COMMA
A dynamic new series of monthly commissions
http://www.bloombergspace.com
COMMA focuses entirely on the commissioning of new work providing exceptional opportunities for artists to experiment and expand their practice in relation to the particular nature of Bloomberg SPACE.
Twenty of today's most outstanding established and emerging international artists have been invited to create new work, installations and architectural interventions in a fast paced succession of exhibitions created in response to Bloomberg SPACE and seen there for the first time.
The new programme continues Bloomberg SPACE's reputation for presenting the unknown alongside the very well known drawing on a group of artists from across the globe. The programme spans a wide range of media – during the year painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, performance and film are all featured – and retains the potential for one-off or performative events.
COMMA 03 Jose Dávila
In the front gallery Mexican artist Jose Dávila has created a dramatic sculptural presence and architectural intervention. The Sierpinski Variable (2009) presents an eloquent large-scale constellation of suspended geometrical shapes which explores Dávila's recurring fascination on levitating and disintegrating structures.
The basic units of the composition are hexagonal frames made of wooden hardboards. The inside of these frames are illuminated with fluorescent tubes, somehow reminiscent of corporate office light fixtures. Each one of these hexagons is missing at least one of its sides, giving way to the visual permeability of the group. Partly because of this, light becomes the inter-connective tissue between the fragments of this suspended labyrinth.
COMMA 04 Jaime Gili
Jaime Gili has animated the rear gallery and atrium with a dazzling prismatic display, reminiscent of both a Modernist structure and a medieval cathedral. Using coloured vinyl on the interior windows ascending seven floors, he has transformed the space with his trademark geometric reflections. Gili combines references to Latin American Modernism with a Venezuelan tradition of mass-produced print media, particularly posters, placed within architectural spaces.
About Bloomberg SPACE
Bloomberg SPACE is a gallery based at Bloomberg's European headquarters in London and is dedicated to commissioning and exhibiting contemporary art. It welcomes visitors six days a week and admission is free.
A dynamic new series of monthly commissions
http://www.bloombergspace.com
COMMA focuses entirely on the commissioning of new work providing exceptional opportunities for artists to experiment and expand their practice in relation to the particular nature of Bloomberg SPACE.
Twenty of today's most outstanding established and emerging international artists have been invited to create new work, installations and architectural interventions in a fast paced succession of exhibitions created in response to Bloomberg SPACE and seen there for the first time.
The new programme continues Bloomberg SPACE's reputation for presenting the unknown alongside the very well known drawing on a group of artists from across the globe. The programme spans a wide range of media – during the year painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, performance and film are all featured – and retains the potential for one-off or performative events.
COMMA 03 Jose Dávila
In the front gallery Mexican artist Jose Dávila has created a dramatic sculptural presence and architectural intervention. The Sierpinski Variable (2009) presents an eloquent large-scale constellation of suspended geometrical shapes which explores Dávila's recurring fascination on levitating and disintegrating structures.
The basic units of the composition are hexagonal frames made of wooden hardboards. The inside of these frames are illuminated with fluorescent tubes, somehow reminiscent of corporate office light fixtures. Each one of these hexagons is missing at least one of its sides, giving way to the visual permeability of the group. Partly because of this, light becomes the inter-connective tissue between the fragments of this suspended labyrinth.
COMMA 04 Jaime Gili
Jaime Gili has animated the rear gallery and atrium with a dazzling prismatic display, reminiscent of both a Modernist structure and a medieval cathedral. Using coloured vinyl on the interior windows ascending seven floors, he has transformed the space with his trademark geometric reflections. Gili combines references to Latin American Modernism with a Venezuelan tradition of mass-produced print media, particularly posters, placed within architectural spaces.
About Bloomberg SPACE
Bloomberg SPACE is a gallery based at Bloomberg's European headquarters in London and is dedicated to commissioning and exhibiting contemporary art. It welcomes visitors six days a week and admission is free.
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
THE SCHIRN'S "PLAYING THE CITY" PROJECT TURNS CENTRAL FRANKFURT INTO A SHOWPLACE FOR NUMEROUS ACTIONS AND PERFORMANCES
How does the public participate in political dialogue? What constitutes public opinion? What do people understand "public space" to mean? The significance of the social plays a central role in the discourse on art. Concepts such as participation, collaboration, the social turn, and community-based art have clearly influenced both the production and the reception of art. The exhibition project Playing the Cityreveals public space to be a collective, free, and designable space. From 20 April to 6 May 2009, twenty-three international artists, such as Ulf Aminde, Dara Friedman, Dora García, Cezary Bodzianowski, and Sharon Hayes, will turn central Frankfurt into the site of countless activities and situations, ranging from performances by way of installations to "guerrilla actions" that involve the audience in a wide variety of ways. Playing the City can also be followed on the Internet, as a digital extension of public space: the Web page http://www.playingthecity.de—created especially for the show—brings together all the video, text, and visual materials, an exhibition calendar, and a blog. It is thus a catalog and exhibition forum in one. An office and exhibition headquarters has been set up in one of the Schirn's gallery space where the exhibition team can do its work in public: fine-tuning the Web site, answering questions about the exhibition, and organizing, commenting on, and documenting all the actions. In addition, works by Rirkrit Tiravanija and Nasan Tur, among others, and videos of the actions that have already taken place will be shown in the gallery as a film loop.
The idea that Playing the City realizes on various levels is a continuation of the ideas of important avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Dada movement rejected "conventional" art and art forms as well as bourgeois ideals, taking instead to the street. Movements such as the radical leftist intellectuals and artists from the circle around Guy Debord's Internationale situationniste operated on the line of intersection between art and politics, architecture and reality from the late 1950s onward. The Situationists developed, among other things, a concept of the "theoretical and practical production of situation" in which life itself was supposed to become a work of art. In the 1960s the Fluxus movement proposed the maxim of art and life as a unity and thus considered the diverse processes of everyday life to be as relevant as the banal. In parallel with that movement, action art, happenings, and performance art strove to bring art and the reality of life closer together. Especially when art was combined with politics—which along with the employment of the body represented an important strand of action art—collaboration and the incorporation of the public played important roles.
Since the 1990s, under new social conditions, a practice of art based on participation has become increasing important, in parallel with an increase in the interactive and collaborative media forms on the Internet and the realities of the nomadism of contemporary globalism. The viewers are integrated into the production of art works in many ways, and the division between traditional roles of the artist as producer and the audience as recipients are being broken down as much as possible. This has produced diverse forms of interactive, cooperative, and interdisciplinary approaches, though they resist clear categorization. In L'esthétique relationnelle from 1998 (translated as Relational Aesthetics), the French theorist Nicolas Bourriaud developed a fundamental theory of these art forms, which he subsumed under the concept of "relational art." He sees utopian potential in their developing of alternative spaces in which other forms of social relationships, critique, and sociability can be tried out. By opening up a new possibility for communication through common activities, relational art can counter social alienation.
The exhibition project Playing the City offers a current look into the wide-ranging varieties of participatory and collaborative art and is itself an experiment. As a clandestine "guerrilla tactic," spectacular surprise, or temporary place of encounter, it makes central Frankfurt its own. In several of the works Playing the City, production and reception are closely connected or even identical. Nearly all the works of this exhibition project will be realized within a limited time frame. When the project is over, the Web site will also be taken off the Internet and hence the trace of the event erased—at least to the extent new paths through the Internet have not be established.
WEB SITE, CATALOG, AND CURRENT SCHEDULE at http://www.playingthecity.de
How does the public participate in political dialogue? What constitutes public opinion? What do people understand "public space" to mean? The significance of the social plays a central role in the discourse on art. Concepts such as participation, collaboration, the social turn, and community-based art have clearly influenced both the production and the reception of art. The exhibition project Playing the Cityreveals public space to be a collective, free, and designable space. From 20 April to 6 May 2009, twenty-three international artists, such as Ulf Aminde, Dara Friedman, Dora García, Cezary Bodzianowski, and Sharon Hayes, will turn central Frankfurt into the site of countless activities and situations, ranging from performances by way of installations to "guerrilla actions" that involve the audience in a wide variety of ways. Playing the City can also be followed on the Internet, as a digital extension of public space: the Web page http://www.playingthecity.de—created especially for the show—brings together all the video, text, and visual materials, an exhibition calendar, and a blog. It is thus a catalog and exhibition forum in one. An office and exhibition headquarters has been set up in one of the Schirn's gallery space where the exhibition team can do its work in public: fine-tuning the Web site, answering questions about the exhibition, and organizing, commenting on, and documenting all the actions. In addition, works by Rirkrit Tiravanija and Nasan Tur, among others, and videos of the actions that have already taken place will be shown in the gallery as a film loop.
The idea that Playing the City realizes on various levels is a continuation of the ideas of important avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Dada movement rejected "conventional" art and art forms as well as bourgeois ideals, taking instead to the street. Movements such as the radical leftist intellectuals and artists from the circle around Guy Debord's Internationale situationniste operated on the line of intersection between art and politics, architecture and reality from the late 1950s onward. The Situationists developed, among other things, a concept of the "theoretical and practical production of situation" in which life itself was supposed to become a work of art. In the 1960s the Fluxus movement proposed the maxim of art and life as a unity and thus considered the diverse processes of everyday life to be as relevant as the banal. In parallel with that movement, action art, happenings, and performance art strove to bring art and the reality of life closer together. Especially when art was combined with politics—which along with the employment of the body represented an important strand of action art—collaboration and the incorporation of the public played important roles.
Since the 1990s, under new social conditions, a practice of art based on participation has become increasing important, in parallel with an increase in the interactive and collaborative media forms on the Internet and the realities of the nomadism of contemporary globalism. The viewers are integrated into the production of art works in many ways, and the division between traditional roles of the artist as producer and the audience as recipients are being broken down as much as possible. This has produced diverse forms of interactive, cooperative, and interdisciplinary approaches, though they resist clear categorization. In L'esthétique relationnelle from 1998 (translated as Relational Aesthetics), the French theorist Nicolas Bourriaud developed a fundamental theory of these art forms, which he subsumed under the concept of "relational art." He sees utopian potential in their developing of alternative spaces in which other forms of social relationships, critique, and sociability can be tried out. By opening up a new possibility for communication through common activities, relational art can counter social alienation.
The exhibition project Playing the City offers a current look into the wide-ranging varieties of participatory and collaborative art and is itself an experiment. As a clandestine "guerrilla tactic," spectacular surprise, or temporary place of encounter, it makes central Frankfurt its own. In several of the works Playing the City, production and reception are closely connected or even identical. Nearly all the works of this exhibition project will be realized within a limited time frame. When the project is over, the Web site will also be taken off the Internet and hence the trace of the event erased—at least to the extent new paths through the Internet have not be established.
WEB SITE, CATALOG, AND CURRENT SCHEDULE at http://www.playingthecity.de
List of artists: Artists Anonymous, A Wall Is A Screen, Ulf Aminde, Cezary Bodzianowski, Robert Ladislas Derr, Dara Friedman, Dora García, Wiebke Grösch and Frank Metzger, Yolande Harris, Sharon Hayes, Tony Hunt and Christian Pantzer, Allan Kaprow, Leopold Kessler, Mads Lynnerup, MOMUS, Roman Ondák, Raumlabor, Bernhard Schreiner, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Nasan Tur, Silke Wagner, Elizabeth Wurst
DIRECTOR: Max Hollein
CURATOR: Matthias Ulrich (Schirn)
DIRECTOR: Max Hollein
CURATOR: Matthias Ulrich (Schirn)
Nuno Ramos at Anita Schwartz Galeria de Arte
Anita Schwartz Art Gallery proudly presents the Mar Morto (Dead Sea) exhibition with Nuno Ramos´s new works. One of the most inventive artists of the contemporary Brazilian scene, and exponent of Geração 80(Generation 80´s) Nuno has been taking part in important exhibitions since 1983. Nuno participated in the 1985, 1989 and 1994 editions of the Biennial of São Paulo, and represented Brazil in the Venice Bienale in 1995. He was awarded the Grand Award of the Barnett Newman Foundation for the ensemble of his work in 2006.
A tireless researcher of materials and artistic languages, Nuno Ramos creates tensions by using various elements, re-creating and questioning his own notion of space. The artist floats through different themes, medias and techniques. A careful observer of the "chemical" reactions between the selected materials, Nuno gives his objects physical strength: petroleum jelly, water, glass, felt, marble, sand, wood, soap react creating a powerful plastic tension.
For Mar Morto exhibition, Nuno created a large-scale installation, Soap Opera 2, in which two wooden boats are covered in soap - with 11 and 07 meters respectively - weighing two tons. During two weeks, the processes of melting and hardening of the soap took place at the ground floor of the gallery. The boats are crossed one into the other and in the nose of each one there are sets of speakers, also covered in soap, from where the Mar Morto text, made by the artist, will be heard – an actor´s voice recites the text while a masculine choir murmurs stretches of tragedies of Ésquilo and Sófocles.
Although the idea of soap is a recent theme, the boats allusion has been present in the trajectory of the artist in the same way as his connection with words. Besides the installation and two more large scale paintings, the artist presents Cascos (Hooves) – 18-minute video - which shows a "shipwreck ": sets of boats embedded in holes dug in the sand, on the beach, are modified by the tide as it goes up. Mixing boats and words, local fishermen guard the boats and recite texts written by the artist.
In Nuno´s words: "I would need my entire work, all that I´ve made and will make, to explain the importance of the word". "Whenever I produce a work, suddenly a verse, a phrase that I speak out loud, a piece of song goes to what I am doing and redistributes the forces, imposing itself. Without this, I feel that the work doesn´t operate correctly. The exception is the paintings, so proud of themselves that not even their own titles they say to me".
The fascination for the creative drive combined with the confidence in the potency of the Brazilian artistic production lends institutional value to the role of Anita Schwartz Art Gallery, going beyond the usual concept of the purely commercial art gallery, of simply buying and selling works. Through careful selection of represented artists and their works, counting with great names of contemporary Brazilian art as well as supporting emerging young artists, Anita Schwartz Art Gallery invests in the dissemination and propagation of Brazilian culture.
A tireless researcher of materials and artistic languages, Nuno Ramos creates tensions by using various elements, re-creating and questioning his own notion of space. The artist floats through different themes, medias and techniques. A careful observer of the "chemical" reactions between the selected materials, Nuno gives his objects physical strength: petroleum jelly, water, glass, felt, marble, sand, wood, soap react creating a powerful plastic tension.
For Mar Morto exhibition, Nuno created a large-scale installation, Soap Opera 2, in which two wooden boats are covered in soap - with 11 and 07 meters respectively - weighing two tons. During two weeks, the processes of melting and hardening of the soap took place at the ground floor of the gallery. The boats are crossed one into the other and in the nose of each one there are sets of speakers, also covered in soap, from where the Mar Morto text, made by the artist, will be heard – an actor´s voice recites the text while a masculine choir murmurs stretches of tragedies of Ésquilo and Sófocles.
Although the idea of soap is a recent theme, the boats allusion has been present in the trajectory of the artist in the same way as his connection with words. Besides the installation and two more large scale paintings, the artist presents Cascos (Hooves) – 18-minute video - which shows a "shipwreck ": sets of boats embedded in holes dug in the sand, on the beach, are modified by the tide as it goes up. Mixing boats and words, local fishermen guard the boats and recite texts written by the artist.
In Nuno´s words: "I would need my entire work, all that I´ve made and will make, to explain the importance of the word". "Whenever I produce a work, suddenly a verse, a phrase that I speak out loud, a piece of song goes to what I am doing and redistributes the forces, imposing itself. Without this, I feel that the work doesn´t operate correctly. The exception is the paintings, so proud of themselves that not even their own titles they say to me".
The fascination for the creative drive combined with the confidence in the potency of the Brazilian artistic production lends institutional value to the role of Anita Schwartz Art Gallery, going beyond the usual concept of the purely commercial art gallery, of simply buying and selling works. Through careful selection of represented artists and their works, counting with great names of contemporary Brazilian art as well as supporting emerging young artists, Anita Schwartz Art Gallery invests in the dissemination and propagation of Brazilian culture.
Beursschouwburg presents: Booom. Flu Power Flu
BOOOM is a celebration, an informal debate, a web radio.
It concerns the social role of art and artists and starts from the FLU POWER FLU public artwork byStefano Cagol as permanent installation on the façade of Beursschouwburg Art Center, Brussels.
The guests:
Cis Bierinckx, artistic director Beursschouwburg, Brussels;
Francesco Bernardelli, independent curator, Turin;
Gregor Jansen, head of dept. Museum für Neue Kunst - ZKM, Karlsruhe;
Esther Lu, independent curator, Taipei;
Michele Robecchi, Phaidon Press, London and Contemporary Magazine, London.
The idea:
Real and unreal fears, nationalism, economy, ART and global village.
… How art could take part in the state of things …
In September 2007 in the center of Brussels the 12 meters neon writing FLU POWER FLU by Italian artist, from Trentino South-Tyrol, Stefano Cagol highlighted physical and mental influences, positive and negative points of power in the capital of Nato and of Europe, in front of the former financial-market center, on the former casino, on the actual Beursschouwburg Art Center. Cis Bierinckx, artistic director of Beursschouwburg, wrote that "Stefano Cagol's light sculpture flashes day and night as a statement, as a 'Soziale Skulptur".
In 2009, after 574 days of never interrupted day & night light, of never interrupted message, of never interrupted public action, we would like to celebrate!
The event:
The celebration takes the form of an informal debate that is public and out of institutions as the FLU POWER FLU installation is. Then a web radio has the aim to spread the reflection out as wide as the FLU POWER FLU artwork does.
The date:
Stefano Cagol has decided to celebrate in Brussels just on April 25.
April 25 is a very symbolic day for Italians, the annual national holiday about the anniversary of the 1945 liberation. The War of Liberation that occurred in Italy during World War II, also known as ...
... the War of Resistance.
In collaboration with: Hoet Bekaert Gallery, Ghent
With the support of: Cultural Office, Autonomous Province of Trento
ArtBrussels 2009 Off programme: http://www.artbrussels.be/events.html
Web radio: http://www.flupowerflu.com/live.html
Info: info@flupowerflu.com
It concerns the social role of art and artists and starts from the FLU POWER FLU public artwork byStefano Cagol as permanent installation on the façade of Beursschouwburg Art Center, Brussels.
The guests:
Cis Bierinckx, artistic director Beursschouwburg, Brussels;
Francesco Bernardelli, independent curator, Turin;
Gregor Jansen, head of dept. Museum für Neue Kunst - ZKM, Karlsruhe;
Esther Lu, independent curator, Taipei;
Michele Robecchi, Phaidon Press, London and Contemporary Magazine, London.
The idea:
Real and unreal fears, nationalism, economy, ART and global village.
… How art could take part in the state of things …
In September 2007 in the center of Brussels the 12 meters neon writing FLU POWER FLU by Italian artist, from Trentino South-Tyrol, Stefano Cagol highlighted physical and mental influences, positive and negative points of power in the capital of Nato and of Europe, in front of the former financial-market center, on the former casino, on the actual Beursschouwburg Art Center. Cis Bierinckx, artistic director of Beursschouwburg, wrote that "Stefano Cagol's light sculpture flashes day and night as a statement, as a 'Soziale Skulptur".
In 2009, after 574 days of never interrupted day & night light, of never interrupted message, of never interrupted public action, we would like to celebrate!
The event:
The celebration takes the form of an informal debate that is public and out of institutions as the FLU POWER FLU installation is. Then a web radio has the aim to spread the reflection out as wide as the FLU POWER FLU artwork does.
The date:
Stefano Cagol has decided to celebrate in Brussels just on April 25.
April 25 is a very symbolic day for Italians, the annual national holiday about the anniversary of the 1945 liberation. The War of Liberation that occurred in Italy during World War II, also known as ...
... the War of Resistance.
In collaboration with: Hoet Bekaert Gallery, Ghent
With the support of: Cultural Office, Autonomous Province of Trento
ArtBrussels 2009 Off programme: http://www.artbrussels.be/events.html
Web radio: http://www.flupowerflu.com/live.html
Info: info@flupowerflu.com
Latin American Pavilion at 53rd Venice Biennale
Within the general theme selected for the 2009 edition of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, Fare Mondi/Making Worlds, the Pavilion of the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (IILA) representing Latin America will bear the name Mundus Novus - Contemporary Art of Latin America.
The pavilion will occupy 700 square meters in Artigliere dell'Arsenale, one of the most noble exhibition spaces in Venice, along with I Giardini (The Garden).
Following the lead set by the Biennale Art Director, Daniel Birbaum, the Latin American Pavilion, curated by Irma Arestizábal, will not be divided into sections but rather is a unique exhibition intertwining different themes in an organic unity, where the artworks will interact and dialogue among themselves and the space itself.
Artists from Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and the Dominican Republic will make up the Latin American Pavilion in 2009.
Alberto Baraya (Colombia) has worked on Herbarium of Artificial Plants for a long time; it is a work in progress which reformulates the scientific journeys of the XVIII and XIX centuries. At the 53rd Venice Biennale, Baraya will create an Expedition to Venice, gathering flowers produced at the Murano glass ovens or the ones that are sold in the tourist outlets of the City of Venice.
In Olimpo Fernando Falconí (Ecuador) explores the image of the Chimborazo volcano, a geographic and historic Latin American landmark. A video portrays the melting of the volcano´s snow cap.
The New World Gods are represented by Darío Escobar (Guatemala) in his Kukulcan Installation. Dominated by the tail of a red Quetzalcoatl, the mythical feathered serpent made out bicycle tires, which follows the artist´s longtime research project related to the re-contextualization of the object as a piece of art.
Paper Moon by Paul Ramírez Jonas (Honduras), that makes us think about how its crescent shape is perceived in various ways in the Southern Hemisphere, talks to us about recovering the meaning of words when he says: I Create as I Talk. His ABRACADABRA piece reconstructs the image conceptually.
The Cloud by Ramses Larzábal (Cuba) reinforces the constructivist vocation of Latin American art.
Such a vocation also guides the production of Luis Roldán (Colombia) who evokes a lyrical and existential dimension of urban life in his work that is made out of little fragments.
A different vision of a city comes from Carlos Garaicoa (Cuba), who plays with architectural renderings as if he was the biographer of a place made out of wax, light, bricks and paper.
A strange world populated by rare specimens and diverse ethnic Mutants is how Raquel Paiewonsky(Dominican Republic) fuses elements of urban life, stereotypes of all kind, nature, spirituality and instinct.
The pavilion will occupy 700 square meters in Artigliere dell'Arsenale, one of the most noble exhibition spaces in Venice, along with I Giardini (The Garden).
Following the lead set by the Biennale Art Director, Daniel Birbaum, the Latin American Pavilion, curated by Irma Arestizábal, will not be divided into sections but rather is a unique exhibition intertwining different themes in an organic unity, where the artworks will interact and dialogue among themselves and the space itself.
Artists from Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and the Dominican Republic will make up the Latin American Pavilion in 2009.
Alberto Baraya (Colombia) has worked on Herbarium of Artificial Plants for a long time; it is a work in progress which reformulates the scientific journeys of the XVIII and XIX centuries. At the 53rd Venice Biennale, Baraya will create an Expedition to Venice, gathering flowers produced at the Murano glass ovens or the ones that are sold in the tourist outlets of the City of Venice.
In Olimpo Fernando Falconí (Ecuador) explores the image of the Chimborazo volcano, a geographic and historic Latin American landmark. A video portrays the melting of the volcano´s snow cap.
The New World Gods are represented by Darío Escobar (Guatemala) in his Kukulcan Installation. Dominated by the tail of a red Quetzalcoatl, the mythical feathered serpent made out bicycle tires, which follows the artist´s longtime research project related to the re-contextualization of the object as a piece of art.
Paper Moon by Paul Ramírez Jonas (Honduras), that makes us think about how its crescent shape is perceived in various ways in the Southern Hemisphere, talks to us about recovering the meaning of words when he says: I Create as I Talk. His ABRACADABRA piece reconstructs the image conceptually.
The Cloud by Ramses Larzábal (Cuba) reinforces the constructivist vocation of Latin American art.
Such a vocation also guides the production of Luis Roldán (Colombia) who evokes a lyrical and existential dimension of urban life in his work that is made out of little fragments.
A different vision of a city comes from Carlos Garaicoa (Cuba), who plays with architectural renderings as if he was the biographer of a place made out of wax, light, bricks and paper.
A strange world populated by rare specimens and diverse ethnic Mutants is how Raquel Paiewonsky(Dominican Republic) fuses elements of urban life, stereotypes of all kind, nature, spirituality and instinct.
Von der Heydt-Museum
The Boros Collection in Berlin's Bunker is a household name in the art scene. However, very few people know that Christian Boros comes from Wuppertal. He built up his collection from here over many years. He belongs to a small but select group of collectors from Wuppertal who have contributed to the exceptional art tradition in this city.
The commitment of private sponsors and collectors is part of a special tradition in Wuppertal which developed a hundred years ago during the first Expressionist exhibitions. Shortly after the Second Wold War, Wuppertal became re-established as one of the focal points of the art scene.
The first important impulse came from the legendary Parnass Gallery which was founded by the architect Rolf Jährling in 1949 in war-ridden Wuppertal. To begin with, this gallery showed Art Informel with works by Bernhard Schultze, Emil Schumacher and Gerhard Hoehme. At the beginning of the 60's the gallery became an important venue for the Fluxus movement. This is where Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys and Bazon Brock met in 1965 for the "24-hour Happening". An exhibition in 1964 on "New Realists" showing Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Konrad Fischer-Lueg was a further outstanding event at the Parnass Gallery. It followed a highly unconventional "front garden show" which took place during the previous winter. Gerhard Richter's "Bomber" (1963) was among the pictures placed in the snow covered front garden.
In the 60's and 70's Gustav Adolf and Stella Baum's passion for collecting defined the city's art scene. They had already started buying important works by Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Gerhard Richter and Konrad Fischer-Lueg during the "early years".
In 2001 Hildegard and Dr. Jürgen W. Holze gave the museum their extensive collection of Concrete and Constructivist Art which they had built up over many years. Thanks to this donation, pictures by Jo Delahaut, Adolf Fleischmann and Richard Paul Lohse will be on display. Prof. Bazon Brock who is dedicated to research and teaching in the fields of aesthetics and cultural mediation, has loaned pictures by Gerhard Merz, Bernhard Blume, Werner Büttner and Wolfram Ebersbach from his collection. Hans-Georg Lobeck of Wuppertal will show works by Marcel Dzama, Rowena Dring, Sven Drühl, Melissa Gordon, Lucy McKenzie, Stefan Kürten and Michael Majerus. These contributions from his collection represent internationally discussed artistic approaches. Christian Boros who runs a communications agency and who has a pied-à-terre both in Wuppertal and Berlin, has selected photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans, aquarelles by Ulla von Brandenburg and Dirk Stewens, objects by Terence Koh and also works by Alicja Kwade and Daniel Lergon from his collection. Many works which once led a hidden existence in the hands of private owners from Wuppertal are now available in extensive museum collections and although quite a few of the exhibits in the show "Privat" still belong to residents of this city, they can now be viewed by the public for the first time.
The commitment of private sponsors and collectors is part of a special tradition in Wuppertal which developed a hundred years ago during the first Expressionist exhibitions. Shortly after the Second Wold War, Wuppertal became re-established as one of the focal points of the art scene.
The first important impulse came from the legendary Parnass Gallery which was founded by the architect Rolf Jährling in 1949 in war-ridden Wuppertal. To begin with, this gallery showed Art Informel with works by Bernhard Schultze, Emil Schumacher and Gerhard Hoehme. At the beginning of the 60's the gallery became an important venue for the Fluxus movement. This is where Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys and Bazon Brock met in 1965 for the "24-hour Happening". An exhibition in 1964 on "New Realists" showing Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Konrad Fischer-Lueg was a further outstanding event at the Parnass Gallery. It followed a highly unconventional "front garden show" which took place during the previous winter. Gerhard Richter's "Bomber" (1963) was among the pictures placed in the snow covered front garden.
In the 60's and 70's Gustav Adolf and Stella Baum's passion for collecting defined the city's art scene. They had already started buying important works by Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Gerhard Richter and Konrad Fischer-Lueg during the "early years".
In 2001 Hildegard and Dr. Jürgen W. Holze gave the museum their extensive collection of Concrete and Constructivist Art which they had built up over many years. Thanks to this donation, pictures by Jo Delahaut, Adolf Fleischmann and Richard Paul Lohse will be on display. Prof. Bazon Brock who is dedicated to research and teaching in the fields of aesthetics and cultural mediation, has loaned pictures by Gerhard Merz, Bernhard Blume, Werner Büttner and Wolfram Ebersbach from his collection. Hans-Georg Lobeck of Wuppertal will show works by Marcel Dzama, Rowena Dring, Sven Drühl, Melissa Gordon, Lucy McKenzie, Stefan Kürten and Michael Majerus. These contributions from his collection represent internationally discussed artistic approaches. Christian Boros who runs a communications agency and who has a pied-à-terre both in Wuppertal and Berlin, has selected photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans, aquarelles by Ulla von Brandenburg and Dirk Stewens, objects by Terence Koh and also works by Alicja Kwade and Daniel Lergon from his collection. Many works which once led a hidden existence in the hands of private owners from Wuppertal are now available in extensive museum collections and although quite a few of the exhibits in the show "Privat" still belong to residents of this city, they can now be viewed by the public for the first time.
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Each of the works in this exhibition articulates a double take by considering what it means to transform the self into another persona – as a doppelgänger, a karaoke performer, an avatar, a robot, or as a fantasy alter-ego. TV Moore, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano create private performances on video. Lisa Reihana's digital photographs present friends and family posing as ancestral Mâori spirit figures. Mari Velonaki creates robotic avatars, while Cao Fei and Phil Collins bring together loose collectives of people around a desire to adopt imaginary identities.
Such performances are not the pure fantasies we find in popular digital culture, where it is so easy to masquerade as another persona. Rather, these artists are more circumspect. Real time lurks within. This is the 'double', for the 'performances' have a presence in our everyday world while simultaneously engendering an imaginary guise. They shuttle between two worlds – reality and fantasy – inquiring in the prospects of a double life.
While the yearning to become someone else or to have multiple selves is not new, this exhibition approaches these age-old human desires in a new way, asking: How can we be both the self, and an other at the same time; both a self, and an out-of-body split self? What is lost and what is gained in such double visions? What is imagined and what is realised?
This reinterpretation of the self has further consequences. On the one hand, it is a way of accessing our alter-egos. At another level, it also strikes at the meanings of what it is to be different. We cannot really understand the 'other' until we acknowledge that we are all comprised of many selves. If we consider what it means to actually be an alternative persona, then the division between the self and the 'other' becomes more fluid.
This exhibition includes video, interactive robotics and digital photography.
The Anne Landa Award is the first biennial exhibition in Australia for moving image and new media work with an acquisitive award of 25,000 USD. The award was established in honour of Anne Landa, a Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW who died in 2002. The acquisitive part of the award applies to Australian resident artists only.
A fully illustrated catalogue is available with essays by Catherine Fowler, Hou Hanru, Geraldine Barlow, Glenn Phillips, Andrew Clifford and Anne-Marie Duguet
See artist interview videos:
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/doubletake
Become a Double Take fan on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Australia/Double-Take-Anne-Landa-Award-for-Video-and-New-Media-Arts-2009/38831152223
Follow Double Take on Twitter http://twitter.com/double_take
Artists:
Phil Collins
Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2006, UK artist Phil Collins has exhibited his videos and photographs world-wide. For his video trilogy, the world won't listen, 2004-07, Collins worked with local musicians in Bogatá to produce a fully functioning karaoke machine. The artist then spent extensive periods of time in Colombia, Istanbul, Jakarta and Bandung inviting fans to be filmed performing karaoke to the band's music. The exhibition includes the third and final chapter of the trilogy, dunia tak akan mendengar, 2007.
Cao Fei
Internationally acclaimed artist, Cao Fei, has had numerous solo exhibitions in China, UK, USA and Hong Kong. Her video Whose Utopia, 2006 is the result of a collaborative action the artist created in the Siemens OSRAM factory in Foshan, China. Workers express their dreams, fantasies and desires in the form of dance, song and performance against the spectacular proportions of the OSRAM factory.
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano
Identical twins, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano have shown their work in several group exhibitions in Australia. Their videos play on their double identity, as they perform in unison on video. Absence of evidence shows the artists transferring an ungainly, long stream of paper between them. This gesture comes to be a drawing in space.
TV Moore
TV Moore has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions in San Francisco, Berlin, The Netherlands and Sydney. His work considers altered states such as: being under hypnosis, group therapy, brainwashing, LSD experiences, trance and sleepwalking. Moore is creating new work for the exhibition.
Lisa Reihana
Since 2006, Mâori artist Lisa Reihana has had major solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Italy and been included in numerous international group exhibitions. Digital marae 2007, is conceived as a both a double and a transformation of the ancestral meeting house. Her life-size digital prints depict friends and family dressed as contemporary male deities (atua) that appear in Mâori creation stories.
Mari Velonaki
Mari Velonaki has worked in media art since 1995 and her works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally. Velonaki creates interactive installations which incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, light, text and robotics. Circle D: fragile balances 2008 consists of identical screen cubes that exchange wireless hand written messages of love.
Guest curator: Victoria Lynn
Victoria is an independent curator and writer based in Melbourne. She has recently been appointed the Visual Art Curator for the 2010 Adelaide Festival.
Such performances are not the pure fantasies we find in popular digital culture, where it is so easy to masquerade as another persona. Rather, these artists are more circumspect. Real time lurks within. This is the 'double', for the 'performances' have a presence in our everyday world while simultaneously engendering an imaginary guise. They shuttle between two worlds – reality and fantasy – inquiring in the prospects of a double life.
While the yearning to become someone else or to have multiple selves is not new, this exhibition approaches these age-old human desires in a new way, asking: How can we be both the self, and an other at the same time; both a self, and an out-of-body split self? What is lost and what is gained in such double visions? What is imagined and what is realised?
This reinterpretation of the self has further consequences. On the one hand, it is a way of accessing our alter-egos. At another level, it also strikes at the meanings of what it is to be different. We cannot really understand the 'other' until we acknowledge that we are all comprised of many selves. If we consider what it means to actually be an alternative persona, then the division between the self and the 'other' becomes more fluid.
This exhibition includes video, interactive robotics and digital photography.
The Anne Landa Award is the first biennial exhibition in Australia for moving image and new media work with an acquisitive award of 25,000 USD. The award was established in honour of Anne Landa, a Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW who died in 2002. The acquisitive part of the award applies to Australian resident artists only.
A fully illustrated catalogue is available with essays by Catherine Fowler, Hou Hanru, Geraldine Barlow, Glenn Phillips, Andrew Clifford and Anne-Marie Duguet
See artist interview videos:
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/doubletake
Become a Double Take fan on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Australia/Double-Take-Anne-Landa-Award-for-Video-and-New-Media-Arts-2009/38831152223
Follow Double Take on Twitter http://twitter.com/double_take
Artists:
Phil Collins
Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2006, UK artist Phil Collins has exhibited his videos and photographs world-wide. For his video trilogy, the world won't listen, 2004-07, Collins worked with local musicians in Bogatá to produce a fully functioning karaoke machine. The artist then spent extensive periods of time in Colombia, Istanbul, Jakarta and Bandung inviting fans to be filmed performing karaoke to the band's music. The exhibition includes the third and final chapter of the trilogy, dunia tak akan mendengar, 2007.
Cao Fei
Internationally acclaimed artist, Cao Fei, has had numerous solo exhibitions in China, UK, USA and Hong Kong. Her video Whose Utopia, 2006 is the result of a collaborative action the artist created in the Siemens OSRAM factory in Foshan, China. Workers express their dreams, fantasies and desires in the form of dance, song and performance against the spectacular proportions of the OSRAM factory.
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano
Identical twins, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano have shown their work in several group exhibitions in Australia. Their videos play on their double identity, as they perform in unison on video. Absence of evidence shows the artists transferring an ungainly, long stream of paper between them. This gesture comes to be a drawing in space.
TV Moore
TV Moore has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions in San Francisco, Berlin, The Netherlands and Sydney. His work considers altered states such as: being under hypnosis, group therapy, brainwashing, LSD experiences, trance and sleepwalking. Moore is creating new work for the exhibition.
Lisa Reihana
Since 2006, Mâori artist Lisa Reihana has had major solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Italy and been included in numerous international group exhibitions. Digital marae 2007, is conceived as a both a double and a transformation of the ancestral meeting house. Her life-size digital prints depict friends and family dressed as contemporary male deities (atua) that appear in Mâori creation stories.
Mari Velonaki
Mari Velonaki has worked in media art since 1995 and her works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally. Velonaki creates interactive installations which incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, light, text and robotics. Circle D: fragile balances 2008 consists of identical screen cubes that exchange wireless hand written messages of love.
Guest curator: Victoria Lynn
Victoria is an independent curator and writer based in Melbourne. She has recently been appointed the Visual Art Curator for the 2010 Adelaide Festival.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Mladen Stilinovic at Index the Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation
Index presents artist's books by the Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović, with a focus on works from the period 1972 - 2006. In his extensive oeuvre and in various media Stilinović mirrors and questions the ideological signs which condition a society. Active in former Yugoslavia during the socialist regime, Stilinović in his art exposed the symbols which at the time were the ideology's strongest expressions. In agreement with the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin's, "Language is the ideological sign perexcellence", the artist's interest in language remains at the centre of his activities.
In the mid-1970s Mladen Stilinović's work was often showed in outdoors exhibition actions arranged by the Group of Six Artists, where Stilinović was a member. Later his books have been exhibited in galleries, museums and in the artist's apartment. Only a few were printed but in connection with the exhibition Index publishes an edition of My Sweet Little Lamb, an artist's book from 1993.
Stilinović's early activities in poetry and film made way for an interest in artist's books. The artist still manufactures them by hand, in small editions and in simple materials like photographs, newspaper clippings and writings in crayon or pencil. They can be seen as a timebased medium where a dramaturgy or anti-dramaturgy is formed. A conventional narrative is never in focus: if a story is immanent it rather develops intuitively and in the mind of the reader. Often, as for instance in My Sweet Little Lamb, a leporelo format is used, unfolding to a filmic sequence of pages.
Throughout Stilinovic's oeuvre an interest in history and time can be found. His critical position points with sadness and subtle humour to the absurdities and rigid structures in society. His position can be seen as one of a conscious insistence on the freedom of art and its possibility to offer a radically different perspective. One of the quotes from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, used by the artist in My Sweet Little Lamb, reads: "Everything we see could also be otherwise".
Among the signs that Stilinović has investigated in his art is the notion of work and the colour red. During the socialist regime work had strong symbolic connotations. One of the artist's books included in the exhibition is entitled Artist at Work (1978). It consists of a series of images of a sleeping, or maybe contemplating artist. In his text Praise of Laziness from 1993 Stilinović states: "There is no art without laziness".
The colour red held a unique position among signs in the socialist state thus the strong symbolic value of red is the starting point for many of Stilinović's works. For Stilinović the opposite of red is pink and, interpreted as the colour of the bourgeoisie, it has also been subject for the artist's interest. During the years of war, when the state of Yugoslavia fell apart, he produced a series of objects in white, a colour representing pain and grief. After the downfall of the socialist rule the artist directed his interest towards more contemporary hegemonies as expressed through the English language. A renowned work has the title An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist (1994-96).
Mladen Stilinović was born 1947 in Belgrade. He lives and works in Zagreb.
29 April 6 pm, at Index. Lecture by Branka Stipancic, art critic and curator Zagreb, on the work of Mladen Stilinović with a focus on the artist's books.
12 May 7 pm, at Iaspis. Lecture by Ana Janevski, curator at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, on the Croatian experimental film scene in the 1960s and 70s. Films by, amongst others Mladen Stilinović, will be screened. The event is a collaboration between Index and Iaspis.
In the mid-1970s Mladen Stilinović's work was often showed in outdoors exhibition actions arranged by the Group of Six Artists, where Stilinović was a member. Later his books have been exhibited in galleries, museums and in the artist's apartment. Only a few were printed but in connection with the exhibition Index publishes an edition of My Sweet Little Lamb, an artist's book from 1993.
Stilinović's early activities in poetry and film made way for an interest in artist's books. The artist still manufactures them by hand, in small editions and in simple materials like photographs, newspaper clippings and writings in crayon or pencil. They can be seen as a timebased medium where a dramaturgy or anti-dramaturgy is formed. A conventional narrative is never in focus: if a story is immanent it rather develops intuitively and in the mind of the reader. Often, as for instance in My Sweet Little Lamb, a leporelo format is used, unfolding to a filmic sequence of pages.
Throughout Stilinovic's oeuvre an interest in history and time can be found. His critical position points with sadness and subtle humour to the absurdities and rigid structures in society. His position can be seen as one of a conscious insistence on the freedom of art and its possibility to offer a radically different perspective. One of the quotes from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, used by the artist in My Sweet Little Lamb, reads: "Everything we see could also be otherwise".
Among the signs that Stilinović has investigated in his art is the notion of work and the colour red. During the socialist regime work had strong symbolic connotations. One of the artist's books included in the exhibition is entitled Artist at Work (1978). It consists of a series of images of a sleeping, or maybe contemplating artist. In his text Praise of Laziness from 1993 Stilinović states: "There is no art without laziness".
The colour red held a unique position among signs in the socialist state thus the strong symbolic value of red is the starting point for many of Stilinović's works. For Stilinović the opposite of red is pink and, interpreted as the colour of the bourgeoisie, it has also been subject for the artist's interest. During the years of war, when the state of Yugoslavia fell apart, he produced a series of objects in white, a colour representing pain and grief. After the downfall of the socialist rule the artist directed his interest towards more contemporary hegemonies as expressed through the English language. A renowned work has the title An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist (1994-96).
Mladen Stilinović was born 1947 in Belgrade. He lives and works in Zagreb.
29 April 6 pm, at Index. Lecture by Branka Stipancic, art critic and curator Zagreb, on the work of Mladen Stilinović with a focus on the artist's books.
12 May 7 pm, at Iaspis. Lecture by Ana Janevski, curator at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, on the Croatian experimental film scene in the 1960s and 70s. Films by, amongst others Mladen Stilinović, will be screened. The event is a collaboration between Index and Iaspis.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Antony Gormley and Susan Philipsz in Helsinki
FIRST EVER IHME PRODUCTIONS TAKING PLACE IN HELSINKI
IHME Project Clay and the Collective Body challenges Helsinki residents
The first cluster of IHME productions include IHME Project 2009: Antony Gormley's Clay and the Collective Body in Helsinki and the IHME Days, forum for discussion in April.
Antony Gormley's (b. 1950) participatory work Clay and the Collective Body brought to Helsinki a giant cube of clay for the public to mold. Shaping the cube is a shared challenge for the participants, and also a collective bodily experience. Almost 2000 people can participate over a period of ten days. The public is given a chance to work with clay, to make something big or small, alone or together.
The key element in Gormley's piece is clay and its transformation. In the course of the project, the material is being transformed from something natural to a product of culture; from uniform mass into a multiplicity of forms, mirroring the mindscape of those who shaped it.
The result of this work can be viewed by the public until 7 April, 2009 or by visiting the IHME Productions website.
IHME Days for Art April 3-5
The first IHME Days by Pro Arte Foundation Finland will be held at the Old Student House in Helsinki from 3 to 5 April, 2009.
The IHME Days lectures and discussions deal with eg. the questions surrounding Antony Gormley's IHME Project: Who makes art? Who is art made for? In addition to Gormley, the IHME Days speakers include art historian Paulo Herkenhoff from Rio de Janeiro; director of Artangel James Lingwood from London; the museum director Françoise Vergès from Saint-Denis; and the ceramist and doctor of fine arts Elina Sorainen from Pernaja, Finland.
There is also the IHME Marathon, which will introduce 16 Finnish artists.
Susan Philipsz is the artist to execute the IHME Project 2010
The Scottish artist Susan Philipsz (b. 1965) will execute the IHME Project 2010 in Helsinki. She´ll also conceive the IHME Edition 2009 that will be produced in collaboration with YLE Teema TV Channel in the fall.
Pro Arte Foundation Finland has chosen Philipsz because during the last few years she has proved to be a highly interesting and original artist that in her work combines elements important to the foundation's agenda: community and the interest in public space.
Philipsz creates sculptures using sound. She is interested in the values related to space and how sound can define architecture. The psychological effects of song and the way songs can trigger emotions and memories are some of the building blocks of Philipsz' approach.
In addition to museum and gallery exhibitions, she has also created several sound pieces in public spaces. In these works location and context are an integral part of the artwork.
Philipsz often uses popular music and film themes as the basis of her art. In her works, she sings – usually a cappella – melancholy tunes that deal with absence, loss and longing.
In Scandinavia Susan Philipsz' works have been heard in a private exhibition at Malmö Konsthall in 2005 and the Jarla Partilager gallery in Stockholm 2008-2009. In Finland Philipsz' sound installation Four Part Harmony (2006) was featured in the ARS06 exhibition at Kiasma.
IHME Project Clay and the Collective Body challenges Helsinki residents
The first cluster of IHME productions include IHME Project 2009: Antony Gormley's Clay and the Collective Body in Helsinki and the IHME Days, forum for discussion in April.
Antony Gormley's (b. 1950) participatory work Clay and the Collective Body brought to Helsinki a giant cube of clay for the public to mold. Shaping the cube is a shared challenge for the participants, and also a collective bodily experience. Almost 2000 people can participate over a period of ten days. The public is given a chance to work with clay, to make something big or small, alone or together.
The key element in Gormley's piece is clay and its transformation. In the course of the project, the material is being transformed from something natural to a product of culture; from uniform mass into a multiplicity of forms, mirroring the mindscape of those who shaped it.
The result of this work can be viewed by the public until 7 April, 2009 or by visiting the IHME Productions website.
IHME Days for Art April 3-5
The first IHME Days by Pro Arte Foundation Finland will be held at the Old Student House in Helsinki from 3 to 5 April, 2009.
The IHME Days lectures and discussions deal with eg. the questions surrounding Antony Gormley's IHME Project: Who makes art? Who is art made for? In addition to Gormley, the IHME Days speakers include art historian Paulo Herkenhoff from Rio de Janeiro; director of Artangel James Lingwood from London; the museum director Françoise Vergès from Saint-Denis; and the ceramist and doctor of fine arts Elina Sorainen from Pernaja, Finland.
There is also the IHME Marathon, which will introduce 16 Finnish artists.
Susan Philipsz is the artist to execute the IHME Project 2010
The Scottish artist Susan Philipsz (b. 1965) will execute the IHME Project 2010 in Helsinki. She´ll also conceive the IHME Edition 2009 that will be produced in collaboration with YLE Teema TV Channel in the fall.
Pro Arte Foundation Finland has chosen Philipsz because during the last few years she has proved to be a highly interesting and original artist that in her work combines elements important to the foundation's agenda: community and the interest in public space.
Philipsz creates sculptures using sound. She is interested in the values related to space and how sound can define architecture. The psychological effects of song and the way songs can trigger emotions and memories are some of the building blocks of Philipsz' approach.
In addition to museum and gallery exhibitions, she has also created several sound pieces in public spaces. In these works location and context are an integral part of the artwork.
Philipsz often uses popular music and film themes as the basis of her art. In her works, she sings – usually a cappella – melancholy tunes that deal with absence, loss and longing.
In Scandinavia Susan Philipsz' works have been heard in a private exhibition at Malmö Konsthall in 2005 and the Jarla Partilager gallery in Stockholm 2008-2009. In Finland Philipsz' sound installation Four Part Harmony (2006) was featured in the ARS06 exhibition at Kiasma.
Jorge Pardo at K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
The exhibition is being organized in close collaboration with the artist. The core of the pres-entation is formed by three new pavilions designed by Pardo and his team, structures based on an architectural type found frequently in the tropics, the so-called "palapa". Open at the sides, the roofs traditionally covered in palm leaves, these huts provide shelter from the sun while serving as gathering places. In Pardo's exhibition, these accessible palapas serve as display cases and cabinets. While the outer boundaries consist of airy curtains, a central in-terior space is formed by ornamentally perforated wooden walls. Containing objects drawn from three different working phases of this artist's career, the palapas thematize conceal-ment and disclosure, a synthesis of function and presentation that is emblematic of Jorge Pardo's artistic intentions.
During his studies in the 1980s at the Art Center of Design in Pasadena/California, Pardo became one of the first artists of his generation to exploit the computer in his creative production. Pardo's pieces are produced in a workshop that is organized like a manufacturing unit, where he collaborates with artistic assistants, experienced craft experts, and architects. In the Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio in Los Angeles, craft techniques are combined in a singular way with digitally-guided production. The objects, pictures, and forms created there suspend the boundaries distinguishing design, architecture, sculpture, and painting from one another, effacing the line between autonomous and applied art while es-tablishing unexpected links between the various media.
In formal terms, Pardo's work is strongly indebted to the vocabulary of Classical Modernism (from Hans Arp to Henry Moore) and to design history (from Charles Eames to Verner Pan-ton). Influences derived from Conceptual Art and from practices of institutional critique (from Daniel Buren to Michael Asher and Heimo Zobernig) also play a vital role. Pardo refers to himself as a sculptor, and his field of activity is the space within which the viewer moves. His oeuvre's most conspicuous feature is the seductiveness of its extraordinary coloristic splen-dor and formal variety. But standing behind these effects is an artistic approach that brings together art and life in order to radically interrogate the forms and functions of design and decor with regard to their contemporary societal significance.
Oval spots in pale green, yellow, and orange bubble across the reddish-brown walls and onto the ceiling, while a band of light composed of green and blue blades bisects and accen-tuates the tall room. The Bar am Kaiserteich in the K21, designed by Jorge Pardo in 2002, is a much-favored Düsseldorf meeting place. The K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the first European museum to devote a solo exhibition to this Cuban-American artist. En-compassing approximately 80 objects, paintings, and sculptures, it provides an overview of Pardo's production over the past 15 years. At the center of interest are Pardo's virtuosic de-signs of surfaces, which take the form of pictures, wall objects, and relieves, all of them of-fering a profusion of opulent and sensuous impressions.
Jorge Pardo, born in 1963 in Havana/Cuba, lives and works in Los Angeles.
A wide-ranging program accompanies the exhibition, and includes lectures, discussions, seminars, and workshops as well as excursions to the Düsseldorfer Stadtwerken (Düsseldorf Municipal Utilities), whose historic turbine hall has been decorated by Jorge Pardo with enormous murals and a floor mosaic. Excursions are scheduled for April 25, May 9, and June 20, 2009.
During his studies in the 1980s at the Art Center of Design in Pasadena/California, Pardo became one of the first artists of his generation to exploit the computer in his creative production. Pardo's pieces are produced in a workshop that is organized like a manufacturing unit, where he collaborates with artistic assistants, experienced craft experts, and architects. In the Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio in Los Angeles, craft techniques are combined in a singular way with digitally-guided production. The objects, pictures, and forms created there suspend the boundaries distinguishing design, architecture, sculpture, and painting from one another, effacing the line between autonomous and applied art while es-tablishing unexpected links between the various media.
In formal terms, Pardo's work is strongly indebted to the vocabulary of Classical Modernism (from Hans Arp to Henry Moore) and to design history (from Charles Eames to Verner Pan-ton). Influences derived from Conceptual Art and from practices of institutional critique (from Daniel Buren to Michael Asher and Heimo Zobernig) also play a vital role. Pardo refers to himself as a sculptor, and his field of activity is the space within which the viewer moves. His oeuvre's most conspicuous feature is the seductiveness of its extraordinary coloristic splen-dor and formal variety. But standing behind these effects is an artistic approach that brings together art and life in order to radically interrogate the forms and functions of design and decor with regard to their contemporary societal significance.
Oval spots in pale green, yellow, and orange bubble across the reddish-brown walls and onto the ceiling, while a band of light composed of green and blue blades bisects and accen-tuates the tall room. The Bar am Kaiserteich in the K21, designed by Jorge Pardo in 2002, is a much-favored Düsseldorf meeting place. The K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the first European museum to devote a solo exhibition to this Cuban-American artist. En-compassing approximately 80 objects, paintings, and sculptures, it provides an overview of Pardo's production over the past 15 years. At the center of interest are Pardo's virtuosic de-signs of surfaces, which take the form of pictures, wall objects, and relieves, all of them of-fering a profusion of opulent and sensuous impressions.
Jorge Pardo, born in 1963 in Havana/Cuba, lives and works in Los Angeles.
A wide-ranging program accompanies the exhibition, and includes lectures, discussions, seminars, and workshops as well as excursions to the Düsseldorfer Stadtwerken (Düsseldorf Municipal Utilities), whose historic turbine hall has been decorated by Jorge Pardo with enormous murals and a floor mosaic. Excursions are scheduled for April 25, May 9, and June 20, 2009.
Art Chicago 2009
Art Chicago, the international fair of contemporary and modern art, returns May 1 - 4, Opening Preview April 30 with an exciting series of exhibitions, programming and 110 premier galleries from around the world.
Offering a comprehensive survey starting with early 20th Century modern masters up through the most celebrated artists of our times, Art Chicago includes works in a wide range of media. International in scope, the fair will host galleries from Spain, England, Germany, Canada, India, Korea, France, Mexico, China and Japan, as well as dealers throughout the US.
In an exceptional alliance with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Art Chicago coincides with the opening of Take your time: Olafur Eliasson and will host a special First Focus preview to benefit the museum.
Onsite Exhibitions
An original Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome will be on site, courtesy of Max Protetch Gallery. A representation of his influence on art, design and architecture, it also serves as a complement to the MCA's concurrent exhibition Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe.
Partisan, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, School of Art Institute of Chicago, features work that addresses social and political ideas. With hopes of initiating continued dialogue about art, activism and social change, Partisan provides a critical space of thought-provoking, highly-charged works.
New Insight returns as an exhibition of top MFA students from influential graduate art programs such as Yale, Hunter, RISD, UCLA and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Curated by Susanne Ghez, the Renaissance Society, New Insight is a platform for innovative ideas and fresh talent.
The Hairy Who and Imagist Legacy in Contemporary Art will honor Chicago's legendary artists best known for a colorful, irreverent and often vulgar aesthetic. Curated by Lynne Warren, MCA Chicago, the exhibition will include contemporary artists who demonstrate such influences in their work.
Offering a comprehensive survey starting with early 20th Century modern masters up through the most celebrated artists of our times, Art Chicago includes works in a wide range of media. International in scope, the fair will host galleries from Spain, England, Germany, Canada, India, Korea, France, Mexico, China and Japan, as well as dealers throughout the US.
In an exceptional alliance with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Art Chicago coincides with the opening of Take your time: Olafur Eliasson and will host a special First Focus preview to benefit the museum.
Onsite Exhibitions
An original Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome will be on site, courtesy of Max Protetch Gallery. A representation of his influence on art, design and architecture, it also serves as a complement to the MCA's concurrent exhibition Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe.
Partisan, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, School of Art Institute of Chicago, features work that addresses social and political ideas. With hopes of initiating continued dialogue about art, activism and social change, Partisan provides a critical space of thought-provoking, highly-charged works.
New Insight returns as an exhibition of top MFA students from influential graduate art programs such as Yale, Hunter, RISD, UCLA and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Curated by Susanne Ghez, the Renaissance Society, New Insight is a platform for innovative ideas and fresh talent.
The Hairy Who and Imagist Legacy in Contemporary Art will honor Chicago's legendary artists best known for a colorful, irreverent and often vulgar aesthetic. Curated by Lynne Warren, MCA Chicago, the exhibition will include contemporary artists who demonstrate such influences in their work.
Americas Society
Mexico City based artist Thomas Glassford's objects and large-scale projects are distinguished for their engagement with the layered materiality of the modern urban milieu. Often located in politically charged spaces — the US-Mexico Border, the Tlatelolco Housing Project in Mexico City - Glassford's public projects forge a relationship between the artist's interest in the history of our materiality and definite physical places. In so doing, Glassford transforms sites coded with violence, suturing their wounds or giving them new "skin". These exquisite corpses establish the conditions for a new functionality without eviscerating memory or fetishizing trauma.
Glassford will discuss the process of working with the politics of place with the Art Historian Mary Coffey (Assistant Professor, Dartmouth University). How does the artist bring his personal aesthetic into a meaningful relationship with social space, popular memory, and the built environment? The dialogue will emphasize the creative process as well as the political, economic, and logistical challenges involved in executing public commissions within a transnational art market.
This program is organized in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute and Sicardi Gallery.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION AT AMERICAS SOCIETY
DIAS & RIEDWEG
… and It Becomes Something Else
Curated by Gabriela Rangel
On view Tues. May 12 - Sat. August 1, 2009
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm
Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg, a duo of artists based in Rio de Janeiro, have fused visual and performance art to develop a cohesive body of video installations that delves into the poetic and critical potential of the moving image. The works featured in the exhibition, their first solo show in the United States, reflect on the role of film and video as time-based devices and media for the discussion of global issues such as cheap labor, immigration, and displacement.
This exhibition will be accompanied by a series of Public Programs and a publication. For more information please visit our website.
Americas Society gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of the exhibition Dias & Riedweg…and It Becomes Something Else, and accompanying public programs: Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council; Consulate General of Brazil in New York; and Consulate General of Switzerland in New York. These programs are also made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS
The Visual Arts Department will launch the following publications this spring:
- Carlos Cruz-Diez: (In)Formed by Color (Distributed by DAP)
- The Painted Photographs of Melvin Charney
- Paula Trope: On Collaboration
For more information please contact us at culture@americas-society.org
All of our programs are free of charge, open to the public. We are located at 680 Park Avenue at 68th Street in New York City. To arrive by public transportation, take the 6 train to 68th Street / Hunter College. For wheelchair access, kindly call in advance.
Americas Society members enjoy advance priority reservations and priority seating at our culture programs. To reserve your place at our culture events this season, please call the exclusive members-only reservation line at 212.277.8333 or email membersres@americas-society.org.
Glassford will discuss the process of working with the politics of place with the Art Historian Mary Coffey (Assistant Professor, Dartmouth University). How does the artist bring his personal aesthetic into a meaningful relationship with social space, popular memory, and the built environment? The dialogue will emphasize the creative process as well as the political, economic, and logistical challenges involved in executing public commissions within a transnational art market.
This program is organized in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute and Sicardi Gallery.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION AT AMERICAS SOCIETY
DIAS & RIEDWEG
… and It Becomes Something Else
Curated by Gabriela Rangel
On view Tues. May 12 - Sat. August 1, 2009
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm
Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg, a duo of artists based in Rio de Janeiro, have fused visual and performance art to develop a cohesive body of video installations that delves into the poetic and critical potential of the moving image. The works featured in the exhibition, their first solo show in the United States, reflect on the role of film and video as time-based devices and media for the discussion of global issues such as cheap labor, immigration, and displacement.
This exhibition will be accompanied by a series of Public Programs and a publication. For more information please visit our website.
Americas Society gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of the exhibition Dias & Riedweg…and It Becomes Something Else, and accompanying public programs: Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council; Consulate General of Brazil in New York; and Consulate General of Switzerland in New York. These programs are also made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS
The Visual Arts Department will launch the following publications this spring:
- Carlos Cruz-Diez: (In)Formed by Color (Distributed by DAP)
- The Painted Photographs of Melvin Charney
- Paula Trope: On Collaboration
For more information please contact us at culture@americas-society.org
All of our programs are free of charge, open to the public. We are located at 680 Park Avenue at 68th Street in New York City. To arrive by public transportation, take the 6 train to 68th Street / Hunter College. For wheelchair access, kindly call in advance.
Americas Society members enjoy advance priority reservations and priority seating at our culture programs. To reserve your place at our culture events this season, please call the exclusive members-only reservation line at 212.277.8333 or email membersres@americas-society.org.
2da Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe
The 2da Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe has reinterpreted the notion of the poly/graphic proposed by its first edition, in 2004. For this Trienal the poly/graphic unfolds into multiple experimental and marginal, printed and graphic practices, encompassing a diverse range of poly/graphic platforms such as artists' books, posters, magazines, wallpapers as well as a large-scale multipart exhibition. A special focus is given to publications, which lie at the very center of this Trienal and are displayed in the reading room at the exhibitions spaces at the old Arsenal de la Marina, located in old San Juan.
Complementing the publications, the 2da Trienal expands to offer a constellation of solo exhibitions of artists whose work examines graphic design, printed matter and typography alongside a number of group exhibitions that revolve around the poly/graphic: money bills (Marginal Money), newspapers (Journals), the archive (Personal Records, Public Histories), flags (Vexillology), as well as books as objects (Literary Forms).
A larger and comprehensive catalogue, published in Spanish and in English, will follow, documenting the entire exhibition and its publications, including images of the works on view as well as texts by the curators and interviews with participating artists and desginers.
Solo Exhibitions and Solo Projects
Abdiel Segarra
Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck
Carlos Amorales
Christopher Cozier
Dr. Lakra
Erick Beltrán
Eric Schroeder
Gabriel Sierra
Gastón Pérsico & Cecilia Salkowitz
José Carlos Martinat
Julieta Aranda
Luis Romero
Mario Ybarra Jr.
Mauricio Lupini
Miler Lagos
Publica
Runo Lagomarsino
Sandra Cinto
Taller Popular de Serigrafía
Complementing the publications, the 2da Trienal expands to offer a constellation of solo exhibitions of artists whose work examines graphic design, printed matter and typography alongside a number of group exhibitions that revolve around the poly/graphic: money bills (Marginal Money), newspapers (Journals), the archive (Personal Records, Public Histories), flags (Vexillology), as well as books as objects (Literary Forms).
A larger and comprehensive catalogue, published in Spanish and in English, will follow, documenting the entire exhibition and its publications, including images of the works on view as well as texts by the curators and interviews with participating artists and desginers.
Solo Exhibitions and Solo Projects
Abdiel Segarra
Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck
Carlos Amorales
Christopher Cozier
Dr. Lakra
Erick Beltrán
Eric Schroeder
Gabriel Sierra
Gastón Pérsico & Cecilia Salkowitz
José Carlos Martinat
Julieta Aranda
Luis Romero
Mario Ybarra Jr.
Mauricio Lupini
Miler Lagos
Publica
Runo Lagomarsino
Sandra Cinto
Taller Popular de Serigrafía
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