Archive for November, 2006

Boyce Cummings @ Winkleman / Plus Ultra Gallery

Thursday, November 30th, 2006


Winkleman / Plus Ultra Gallery is very pleased to present “Versus,” the first New York solo exhibition by Boyce Cummings.

In seven new paintings and a large mixed-media wall installation, Cummings explores the workings of conflict in both visual art and human endeavors. Whether “high vs. low,” “abstraction vs. realism,” or “formalism vs. narrative,” themes and constructs of visual art parallel personal conflicts in our day-to-day lives—such as “man vs. nature,” nature vs. machine,” “winning vs. losing,” etc. Cummings blends these parallel arenas, resolving elements that we expect not to work together through an exquisite sense of composition. Representational and abstract elements within Cummings’ paintings demand to be connected on an experiential human level. But they consistently defy any sensible narrative, eventually leading the viewer to the realization that it’s the very fact that the elements are at odds with one another that serves as the glue that holds the compositions together.

On one wall of the gallery, Cummings has also collaged drawings, framed and unframed, with knickknacks and other found objects, forming an extensive installation that serves as a legend to the vocabulary of his paintings as well as its own expressionistic composition. With a broad range of styles and subjects, his drawings are mixed to reflect his personal choices but—like his paintings—the juxtapositions eventually lead the viewer along just so far before some compositional roadblock places their growing narrative in limbo, highlighting the experiential impact of conflict itself.

Boyce Cummings received his BFA and MFA from the School of Visual Arts. As a 2005/2006 Rome Prize Winner, he spent a year in Italy, but now lives and works in New York.

For more information, please call 212-643-6152 or email info@winkleman.com.
Boyce Cummings
Versus

November 30, 3006 to January 6, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 30, 6-8 pm
Winkleman / Plus Ultra Gallery
637 West 27th Street (Ground Floor)
New York, NY
10001 T: 212.643.3152 F: 212.643.2040
info@winkleman.com
www.winkleman.com

Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday, 11am to 6pm or by appointment.
Directions: C or E train to 23rd Street. Walk North to 27th Street. Plus Ultra is between 11th and 12th Avenues.

Devoilement ENCAN 18 @ LE CENTRE D’ART ET DE DIFFUSION CLARK

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

Très chers amis de Clark,

Dans le cadre des célébrations de son dix-huitième anniversaire,
le Centre Clark a l’honneur de vous inviter à sa campagne de levée de fonds annuelle

ENCAN 18

- Vernissage et dévoilement des ¦uvres : Jeudi 30 novembre à partir de 20h
- Exposition : Jusqu’au 8 décembre
- Vente aux enchères : Samedi 9 décembre à 14h

Millésime 2006

Nicolas Baier
Mathieu Beauséjour
Nancy Belzile
Claudia Bernal
Patrick Bernatchez
BGL
Valérie Blass
Catherine Bolduc
Médéric Boudreault
Sylvain Bouthillette
Marie-Claude Bouthillier
Sébastien Cliche
Louise Coté
Sylvie Cotton
Patrick Coutu
René Donais
Michel deBroin
Gennaro DePasquale
Patrice Duhamel
Massimo Guerrera
Yan Giguère
Cynthia Girard
Pierre-Yves Girard
Michel Goulet
Sonia Haberstich & Eric Simon
Caroline Hayeur
Bettina Hoffmann
Éric Lamontagne
Raymond Lavoie
Marc Leduc
Marcio Lana-Lopez
Sébastien Lapointe
Chloé Lefebvre
Corine Lemieux
Emmanuelle Léonard
Paul Litherland
Jacques Marchand
Aude Moreau
Arthur Munk
Numa
Daniel Olson
Gigi Perron
Marie-Claude Pratte
Michael A. Robinson
Justin Stephens
Andrea Szilasi
Carl Trahan
Maryse Larivière
Max Wyse

Grâce à la générosité légendaire des artistes et des collectionneurs, Clark s’assure
chaque année d’un revenu autonome indispensable à son maintien et à sa bonne croissance.

Merci de magasiner chez Clark!

LE CENTRE D’ART ET DE DIFFUSION CLARK
The Fashion Plaza, 5455 avenue De Gaspé, Suite 114
Montréal (Qc) H2T 3B3, Canada

Métro Laurier

Bureau + Galerie 514 288 4972
Du mardi au samedi de 12 à 17h
Tuesday to Saturday, Noon to 5pm

Atelier Clark / Woodshop 514 276 2679
http://clarkplaza.org

Lyon Biennial 2007: September 17 to December 31 2007

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006


Lyon 2007
There are now 103 biennials around the world, mapping news that is growing exponentially, apparently renewable at will, and interchangeable. Flux is prevailing over singularity. One hundred and three biennials, 103 lists of artists, 103 titles… a biennial opens roughly every three days, and they cover one another. Their mechanics inhabit and generate a perpetual present, stretching to infinity. How, then, can a biennial still have critical authority? In 2003 and 2005, we opened a debate on this new form of temporality – firstly on the programmed future, and then on duration.

And now the debate continues: starting with the conviction that there must surely be a history to news and an archaeology to the news of news (the undifferentiated present), I invited Stéphanie Moisdon and Hans Ulrich Obrist to reflect upon this challenge and conceive the 2007 Lyon Biennial. Their ambition is clear: to open the century and name the decade, but with humour. The 2007 Biennial will thus be a game, played as it should be with the utmost seriousness; it will explore issues to do with players, of course, but also with polyphony and, especially, the essential place occupied by the artist.

Thierry Raspail
Artistic director, Lyon Biennial

The 21st century hasn’t yet begun, the century has to begin!
Alain Badiou

The next Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art will open on 17 September 2007. The project devised for this 9th edition by Stéphanie Moisdon and Hans Ulrich Obrist is a history book written by a number of people. The history of a decade yet to be named; of a present that is endlessly arriving.

The project is structured like a grand game, with rules for selecting and casting the roles; a game in which some 50 “players” from around the world are invited to invite an essential artist of this decade. The ultimate purpose of this game, in which invitation is the rule, is to produce together an original landscape, to rethink the format and grammar of contemporary art biennials, and to create living matter from the archaeology of now.

This history book, published on the occasion of the biennial, is both the project’s origin and its horizon. It is conceived as a space open to different voices and trajectories. It will comprise essays by philosophers, critics and historians, and the manifesto texts of each player, centred on a particular vision of the present and of what is happening on the contemporary creative scene. The dynamic system which develops through the formation of this community, enables us to reach beyond generational, geographical and thematic axes and to shift the hierarchies and conventions of knowledge into a feedback loop.

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School presents talks on the Public Domain

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

This year’s cycle of talks on the Public Domain continues on

Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 6:30 PM
Radio Communities: The Other Side of the Electronic Divide

Monday, December 4, 2006, 6:30 PM
Open Source: On the Line

The New School
55 West 13th Street
New York City
http://www.nsu.newschool.edu/vlc/

Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 6:30 PM
Radio Communities: The Other Side of the Electronic Divide
The New School
55 West 13th Street
New York City

Radio has reemerged as one of the most accessible media. Cheap, omnipresent, and now low-tech, it is transforming the way we think of geography and public place in locations as disparate as Oaxaca, Beirut, and the Lower East Side. Radio has gained additional prominence and validity in politically charged situations which demand anonymity of dissenting citizens. What political, cultural and humanitarian goals can be served exclusively by this medium? How does radio function as a tool for shared information? This panel will discuss the ability of airwaves to keep the world connected near and far when other technology fails.

Panelists:
Khin Phyu Htway, student, The New School; Voice of America, Burmese service
William H. Siemering, President, Developing Radio Partners
Pete Tridish, Prometheus Radio Project
Gregory Whitehead, artist

Moderator:
Stephanie Guyer-Stevens, Producer, Outer Voices

• Monday, December 4, 2006, 6:30 PM
Open Source: On the Line
The New School
55 West 13th Street
New York City

Artists and technologists mine the promising aesthetic and political possibilities afforded by different open source systems, a powerful concept that is revolutionizing human interaction. In the open source concept, something given for free becomes, thanks to its ubiquity and utility, valuable and even indispensable. Panelists examine sites like Wikipedia and Digg.com, as well as p2p networks and social networking sites. They also explore offline artwork, arts institutions and businesses that have sought to adopt open source models and current challenges to its continuation such as “net neutrality.”

Panelists:
Cory Arcangel, artist
Joy Garnett, artist
Daniel Mayer, Co-founder, Wikipedia
Laura Quilter, Founder, Fair Use Network

Moderator:
Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts, The Whitney Museum of American Art

Co-sponsored by Rhizome.org.

For further information, contact kuonic@newschool.edu

Release Party / From Here to the Ocean with Los Super Elegantes / Dec 3

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Swiss Institute and Monkey Town invite you to

RELEASE PARTY
COMPILER*02. FROM HERE TO THE OCEAN
with LOS SUPER ELEGANTES & SERVICES

at MONKEY TOWN, Sunday, December 3rd / 8PM
admission: $10

Join the US launch of the DVD-magazine
COMPILER*02. FROM HERE TO THE OCEAN
with live-concerts featuring NY-locals, SERVICES,
and Los Angeles-based LOS SUPER ELEGANTES.

8 PM: doors open; cocktails hour / sponsored bar
9-10.45 PM: US launch of FROM HERE TO THE OCEAN
11 PM: live concert

COMPILER*02 FROM HERE TO THE OCEAN is curated by Daniel Baumann, Switzerland, and Champion Zero, Los Angeles, who have gathered a line of internationally acclaimed artists to participate in the project that is this time focused on ’the sea’ as a place of nostalgia for a pure experience of a perfect nature: a paradise for youth subculture, an abyss for numerous cliches and a space for absolute beauty.
FROM HERE TO THE OCEAN is an homage to George Greenough, a key figure of surf history and its most consequent outsider.

Compiler*02 is made possible by Scheidegger-Thommen-Stiftung, Swiss Federal Office of Culture/Sitemapping, Tweaklab and is co-produced by the Swiss Institute.

The participating artists are: OLAF BREUNING, TRISHA DONNELLY, DREW HEITZLER, EMILIE HALPERN, HANSPETER HOFMANN, MARIE JAGER, SHAUN GLADWELL, LOS SUPER ELEGANTES, HANS WEIGAND/HEIMO ZOBERNIG.

LOS SUPER ELEGANTES, who are also featuring on the DVD, will be giving one of their spectacular live performances. Due to their incredible ability to mix original music with theatrical stage improvisations, LOS SUPER ELEGANTES are among the most sought after live bands in the US.

“Globe-trotting emissaries of trash in translation, a refreshing brand of cross-cultural misprision… Talk about a surprise vantage on the touchy elisions of imperialist modernism!” ARTFORUM

SERVICES is a brand new project from two veterans of the NYC underground and “non” personality superstars of their own right, brought to you from A TOUCH OF CLASS USA that introduced bands such as Scissor Sisters, The Ones and Waldorf.

The party will take place at the Monkey town, Williamsburg that has become known for its unique mix of video art, live performance and experimental cuisine.

With generous support from SWATCH and BELEZA PURA

MONKEY TOWN
58 N 3RD ST (BTW. KENT & WYTHE)
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN 11211
www.monkeytownhq.com

A SWISS INSTITUTE / CONTEMPORARY ART PRODUCTION
Info at: www.swissinstitute.net

DAVE MULLER: Piles & Globes, Likes & Loves @ Blum & Poe

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006


Piles & Globes, Likes & Loves
Dave Muller
December 2, 2006 – January 13, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 2, 6 – 8 pm

Poor, poor pitiful Paranthropus. The genus of hominin lost out to the Homo genus, and in evolution, “losing out” usually means becoming extinct. Which is what happened to Paranthropus, roughly a million years ago.

Paranthropus robustus and other members of the genus were small, with small brains, but they had large jaws and big, flat molars. Those features have led scientists to assume that Paranthropus had a specialized diet, largely of grasses (which they could chew much like cattle chew grass). This specialization, the thinking goes, led to their downfall: unlike Homo species, which dined on a variety of foods including fruits and nuts, P. robustus could not adapt when a drying climate made grasses less prevalent.

“There’s long been this idea that Paranthropus is a specialist, whereas Homo is a generalist, and that this was somehow crucial to surviving through climatic changes,” said Matt Sponheimer, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “It’s a seductive idea, but there have been chinks in the armor.”

Now Dr. Sponheimer and colleagues present what may be the biggest chink of all. P. robustus, they report in Science, actually had a varied diet, eating grasses as well as fruits, nuts and leaves. The researchers used a laser to ablate small layers of enamel from the fossilized teeth of a 1.8-million-year-old P. robustus specimen. By analyzing the concentrations of carbon isotopes in the enamel they were able to determine whether P. robustus was eating grasses or the fruits and leaves of trees and bushes. Grasses use a different photosynthetic pathway than trees and bushes and have a higher concentration of carbon-13, which gets incorporated in animal tissue when the foods are eaten.

Dr. Sponheimer said they discovered that P. robustus’ diet varied seasonally, or at least between years, perhaps as drought made certain foods unavailable. The research shows that “just because the morphology is specialized for just one thing, that doesn’t mean it can’t do other things,” he said.

And what does this new scientific discovery have to do with ‘Piles & Globes, Likes & Loves’, Dave Muller’s installation of new work at Blum & Poe?

Much like Dr. Sponheimer’s laser using researchers or a Mittyesque chemist whose job is to separate a substance into its constituent elements to determine either its nature or its proportions and then state these findings, Muller extracts, studies and mixes seemingly disparate random bits into open ended yet cohesive wholes. Piero Scaruffi’s A History of Rock Music, a mathematical proof, the US Postal Service, his daughter’s favorites, a moment from a wedding, all gather to be considered.

Mingling these moments with an archive of over 90,000 songs and counting, the artist extracts from his mine, tosses it toward a disco ball, takes note of the reflections that gleam from the pile, lovingly sets them down on paper and then blasts the gallery walls with the results of his investigation

Photography: Paul Hamann, William Jaeger, Stacey Lauren, Sarah Sterling at John Davis Gallery

Monday, November 27th, 2006

John Davis Gallery
Hudson, New York

On Thursday, December 7th, an exhibition of four photographers (Paul Hamann, William Jaeger, Stacey Lauren, and Sarah Sterling) will open at the John Davis Gallery. The work will be on display through December 21st with a reception for the artists on Saturday, December 9th from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m.

Working first with a 35mm camera, Paul Hamann began taking pictures in 1968 with an eye to the details and abstractions that captured the essence of what he saw. He soon began to explore the greater range and depth of large format negatives—first working with a 5×7 camera and later experimenting with 8×10 and even larger formats. The technical requirements of shooting with the larger format cameras as well as the resulting clarity and definition of the contact prints proved perfectly suited to the detail and precision of Hamann’s creative vision.

While he is essentially documenting what is found in the exterior landscape, he is also revealing an alternate landscape created by the methods used in composing and printing the photograph. The result is a sort of meta landscape, a stringing of the tension between what is perceived on the surface of the image and what might be hidden behind, around, beneath or within it—the landscape of the interior.

The subtle tension between what is seen and what lies beyond what is seen is at the core of what Paul Hamann’s images are about—revealing the ordered patterns in the chaos, the motion in the perceived stillness, the interior of the exterior.

William Jaeger has been photographing the Hudson River area for two decades. He received his M.F.A. in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1984. In addition to his photographic work, Mr. Jaeger is also a writer, having been the art critic for the Albany Times Union and, at present, New York Editor/contributor to Art New .

Mr. Jaeger explains, “My process can seem complicated if I think about it too much, but in short, I photograph what I find. The images here might have documentary, formal, or even (happily) poetic elements, but those are elements I can only intuitively understand. When I take a photograph, the event is something I don’t really want to probe beyond the results, which are here for you to approach much as I did.”

Stacey Lauren Is exhibiting a series of color photographs entitled “Liquid Flowers”. These perplexing images most often begin with a beheading and a placement in foreign environs of a flower. Her intention is never about taking this beautiful object and recording its beauty. It’s about process, about displacement, about the documenting of various transformations within new and disagreeable surroundings and the inevitable personification that occurs with the artist’s concerns: the destruction, the manipulation, the struggle. And yet, when the photograph is seen, it is about the viewer and what the viewer perceives. At this point, Ms. Lauren feels that she and her concerns become irrelevant. The attributes that she assigned vanish and with it, the angst of resolution.

Ms. Lauren states, “Most often, questions revolve around how certain effects are achieved, whether or not I alter my images after I shoot them. Rather than jettison all the magic, I’ll admit to this: I am a literalist on a powertrip. I take issue with post-production manipulation. It reeks of deception and frivolity and has the instant gratification of a McDonald’s Happy Meal. So yes, it all ensues before the shutter releases and outside a traditional studio setting. And the process always makes me giddy, like having a mouth full of pop rocks and cotton candy in both hands.”

These photographs of the seasons at Olana are part of a larger body of work that photographer Sarah Sterling has been working on for the past six years. The landscape provides a multifaceted canvas for her explorations into color and design. Each year is different with ever changing moods and Ms Sterling has become an expert at interpreting the beauty of one of the most spectacular settings in Columbia County. She reaches deep into unexplored territory, the unknown Olana, and brings her unique viewpoint to this exhibition.

Sculpture Garden & Carriage House:

The sculpture garden and carriage house will be closed for the winter, reopening in late May of 2007.

Gallery hours are Thursday through Monday, 10:00 till 5:30 p.m. For further information about the gallery, the artists and upcoming exhibition, visit www.johndavisgallery.com

or contact John Davis directly at 518.828.5907 or via e-mail: art@johndavisgallery.com.

Frac des Pays de la Loire presents 20th INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS

Monday, November 27th, 2006


This year’s event will bring together Melanie Counsell (Great Britain), Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain (Brazil), Patrice Gaillard & Claude (France), Knut Henrik Henriksen (Norway), Laurent Tixador & Abraham Poincheval (France), and Michael Wilkinson (Scotland). These artists will take up residence in the Frac studios at Carquefou for the months of September and October 2006. As a pioneer in this field, the Pays de la Loire Regional Contemporary Art Collection introduced the International Workshops in 1984, at Fontevraud Abbey. Through this exceptional experiment–and experience–in France, the Pays de la Loire Regional Contemporary Art Collection has been, and is, developing a support programme for creative work which is helping to enrich its collection in an original way.

As a place for research, exchange and production, these Workshops are like a laboratory that is both active and reactive. The invited artists offer the public a filtered reproduction of this energy-rich period in the form of a work and its extension in the exhibition, devised as a dynamic encounter.

The Frac’s 20th International Workshops will end with an exhibition of the works thus produced by the invited artists, which will open on 8 November 2006 and close on 14 January 2007.

Melanie Counsell
Born in 1966 in Great Britain, lives in London
Through her works, Melanie Counsell challenges contemporary sculpture. Her minimalist installations disturb space, alter its volumes, and produce unexpected interactions between the work, its environment, and the viewer. Melanie Counsell grapples with the configurations and features of a place, situation, or object. She analyses its space, light, and sound, as well as the activities past and present associated with it; and she takes an interest in the remembering and forgetting that are inherent to these activities. Based on this multiple identity of a context, she devises works which often take on the form of in situ interventions, and in some cases films.

Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain
Born in Brazil, in 1974 and 1973 respectively, they work in Paris and Sao Paulo.
Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain are artists and designers who have been working together since 1996, using different media such as installation, video, sound and graphics. They quickly made a name for themselves within the international art scene by developing a body of work that is analytical, precise, and extremely unusual. As designers, they have invented a vocabulary based on the modernist styles of architecture to be found in Sao Paulo and its spontaneous constructions, which crop up here, there and everywhere both in urban centres and in favelas.

By making a graphic rearrangement of informational signs, usually via the coding of the video image and the digital tool, these two artists question both representation and language.

Patrice Gaillard et Claude
Born in 1974 and 1975 respectively, they live and work in Nantes.
As a twosome, Patrice Gaillard and Claude work out pictorial and sculptural forms. Their recent works can be seen as mixed objects, sculptures and media involving representation and communication.

Their praxis develops with the pitch of a conversation, proposing very personal materializations and snapshots of the economic world.

Within extremely precise and ultra-stylized formal solutions, Patrice Gaillard and Claude compile fields of reference, ambiences and techniques, and manufacture complete compositions where values, scales, categories and extensions can be grasped at a level of equivalence as components of the aesthetic event.

Knut Henrik Henriksen
Born in 1970 in Oslo, Knut Henrik Henriksen today lives in Berlin.
His work questions and organizes relations between sculpture, graphics and architecture. He creates sculptures which underline the flaws and faults and «architectural doubts» of exhibition venues, in order to give them a different reading, and a new interpretation. Knut Henrik Henriksen’s sculptures have a high conceptual quality about them, illustrating an active understanding of present-day architectural languages, as much in their formal dimension as in their symbolic and psychological dimension.

Laurent Tixador & Abraham Pointcheval
Laurent Tixador was born in 1965 in Colmar, and today lives in Nantes. Abraham Pointcheval was born in 1972 in Alençon and lives in Marseilles.

The work of Laurent Tixador & Abraham Pointcheval can be likened to an adventure, which is to say to the act of discovery in the realization of an «extra-ordinary» act: «…what motivates us is discovery, and above all never re-doing the same experiments or re-living the same experiences. We spent a week on the island of Frioul, opposite Marseilles, like prehistoric people living off figs and mussels. We walked from Nantes to Metz, with a compass, in a straight line, between October and December. Laurent was the first artist to plant a flag at the North Pole. […] We are forever thinking about imagining itineraries and situations which we have never been involved in. In so doing we want to immerse ourselves in unknown surroundings which give rise to reflections, approaches and behaviour patterns which we would never otherwise have had.»

Michael Wilkinson
Born in 1965. Lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
Michael Wilkinson makes ambiguous objects which lie somewhere between pictures and installations and, by way of interplays of mirrors, transparencies and illusions, challenge the onlooker, and call into question the social and psychological space of the exhibition. Like many artists in his generation, he is interested in musical culture and underground artistic expressions. In recent years, cult labels have made frequent appearances in his work. He has created and documented his own disk collection, painting spare, abstract covers, devoid of any text. He has paid tribute to the Pink Floyd group and their album «The Wall», their masterpiece of depression. Hole in Wall (Pink Floyd) is a cardboard box on which bricks are drawn. One of them is missing and the hole thus made in the wall is a piece of mirror which allows curious visitors to see nothing other than their own image, implying that on the other side of the wall there is nothing that they are not already acquainted with. His recent works pursue a conceptual strategy that appropriates and questions popular culture: large posters from the 1970s, depicting chimpanzees dressed as human beings, hold out a cruel and weird mirror to the viewer, and define an artistic gesture that is at once lighthearted and extremely caustic.

Frac des Pays de la Loire
La Fleuriaye
44470 Carquefou
T 00(33)2 28 01 50 00
contact@fracdespaysdelaloire.com
http://www.fracdespaysdelaloire.com

opening hours:
wednesday- friday de 13h à 18h
saturday and sunday de 15h à 19h

HER NOISE ARCHIVE AND ‘WE’RE ALIVE, LET’S MEET!’ in residence at LANDMARK, BERGEN KUNSTHALL, NORWAY

Monday, November 27th, 2006


Electra opens up its extensive archive of sound based work by women and invites visitors to Landmark to take part in a range of events and to contribute to the archive.

ABOUT HER NOISE

Her Noise was an exhibition which took place at South London Gallery in 2005 with satellite events at Tate Modern and the Goethe-Institut, London, curated by Lina Dzuverovic and Anne Hide Neset of Electra. Her Noise gathered international artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. The exhibition included newly commissioned works by Kim Gordon & Jutta Koether, Hayley Newman, Kaffe Matthews, Christina Kubisch, Emma Hedditch and Marina Rosenfeld. A parallel ambition of the project was to investigate music and sound histories in relation to gender, and the curators set out to create a lasting resource in this area through building up an archive.

http://www.electra-productions.com/past/2005/hernoise/index.html

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ABOUT THE HER NOISE ARCHIVE

The backbone of the Her Noise project is the Her Noise Archive, developed by Electra with artist Emma Hedditch, comprising the collected research materials, interview and performance footage recorded by the curators and a number of guests during the development of the project.

The archive contains books, fanzines, records, CDs, catalogues and other ephemera, as well as exclusive on camera interviews and concert footage with artists including Pauline Oliveros, Maryanne Amacher, Diamanda Galas, Else Marie Pade, Jutta Koether, Marina Rosenfeld, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Kevin Blechdom, Kembra Pfahler, Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch, Peaches and others.

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HER NOISE ARCHIVE AT LANDMARK, BERGEN KUNSTHALL

The Her Noise Archive will take up residence at Landmark between 27 November and 1 December. Combining a research area, listening posts and a viewing space, the archive is open for audience to browse books, catalogues and magazines, listen to records or view videos.

In addition, London based artist Emma Hedditch will present ‘We’re Alive, Let’s Meet!’ - a series of ‘Get Togethers’ to exchange knowledge, discuss and contribute to the Her Noise Archive. These meetings will take the form of discussions and screenings with specially invited guests and visitors. All events are free and open to everyone.

‘WE’RE ALIVE, LET’S MEET!’ EVENTS:

Tuesday 28 November, 6 - 8pm
HER NOISE DOCUMENTARY
Duration: 90 minutes
Followed by discussion with Emma Hedditch, Lina Dzuverovic and Irene Revell (Electra)
The video documents the development of the Her Noise project between 2001 and 2005 including interviews with a range of artists involved in the project including Diamanda Galas, Lydia Lunch, Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether, Peaches, Marina Rosenfeld, Kembra Pfahler, Chicks On Speed, Else Marie Pade, Kaffe Matthews, Emma Hedditch and the show’s curators. The documentary features excerpts from live performances from Erase Errata, Kevin Blechdom, Lydia Lunch and events during the exhibition at South London Gallery: Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether and Jenny Hoyston (Erase Errata), Christina Carter, Heather Leigh Murray, Ana Da Silva (The Raincoats), Spider And The Webs, Partyline, Marina Rosenfeld’s “Emotional Orchestra” at Tate Modern, and footage compiled for the “Men In Experimental Music” video made during the development of the Her Noise project by the curators and Kim Gordon.

Wednesday 29th November, 6pm - 8pm
HOW AND WHAT ARE WE DOCUMENTING?
Introduced by Emma Hedditch
A discussion of the politics of documentation – looking at history, representation and visibility. Participants are invited to bring their own materials to show and explain, or donate a copy to the Her Noise Archive.

Thursday 30th November, 6pm - 8pm
HERE? HAPPENING?
An invitation for local organisations and artists to share their knowledge of women working within experimental sound and music. A discussion of local conditions in comparison to what is perceived to be happening elsewhere.

Friday 1st December 6pm - 8pm
CLOSING AND TEA PARTY
A reflection and conclusion on the days of the Her Noise Archive at Landmark. Audience are invited to bring materials to be catalogued, play records, dance, show video clips, bring books, photocopy, socialize, drink tea and eat cake.

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ABOUT EMMA HEDDITCH

Emma Hedditch (1972 Somerset, England) is a visual artist and writer living in London. Her productions include: “A Pattern” (since 2000), an ongoing collectively shot and edited video; “This Is What We Have Done, And This Is What We Are Doing” (2005), animated drawings by persons in the context of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; “Video Home, Come On” (2004), a home-video viewing session and archive, with Electra and Electric Studios, Brixton; “A Political Feeling, I Hope So” (2004), Cubitt Gallery, London, a social situation exploring conditions of belonging. Ongoing research into Feminist thought and writing has informed much of her activity, as well as a desire to expose the economics of art production. She has been engaged in collaborative dialogue with The Copenhagen Free University since 2001, and has worked for Cinenova Women’s Film and Video distributor since 1999.

http://www.andiwilldo.net

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ABOUT ELECTRA

Electra is a London-based contemporary arts agency founded in 2003. Electra commissions and produces artworks across sound, moving image, performance and the visual arts, which it presents in the UK and internationally. Recent projects include a film/performance commission “Perfect Partner” by Kim Gordon, Tony Oursler and Phil Morrison (Barbican Centre), group exhibition “Her Noise” (South London Gallery), “Sound And The Twentieth Century Avant Garde” lecture series (Tate Modern and Stavanger, Norway), soundtrack consultancy on films by Daria Martin working with composers Zeena Parkins and Maja Ratkje respectively, “The Sounds Of Christmas” installation by Christian Marclay (Tate Modern), “Emotional Orchestra” and “Sheer Frost Orchestra” by Marina Rosenfeld (Tate Modern), “Once Seen” Programme for The British Council (Oslo and Tromso, Norway).

Electra gratefully acknowledges support from Arts Council England

This residence is a collaboration with British Council Norway

http://www.electra-productions.com

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía presents First Generation: Art and the Moving Image, 1963-1986

Monday, November 27th, 2006

First Generation: Art and the Moving Image, 1963-1986 has the intention of presenting in a contextualized manner the historic core of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía’s video collection. It has been built up in recent years with the goal of laying solid foundations upon which the collection could grow. Curated by Berta Sichel, director of the Museum’s Audiovisual Department, the exhibition aims to reconstruct a history which has been neglected for a long time via the acquired works and with the support of a small yet significant group of works on loan to cover existing gaps. The exhibition has been organized around the different approaches and ideas of the artists who worked with video during the first 25 years of this medium. These include the inspiration of Fluxus, the critique of commercial television, the relationship between the medium and the viewer, feminism, performance and the legacy of minimalism and conceptual art.

Not a thematic exhibition, it does not try to follow a strict chronological order either. Rather, it is a vision of how and why a technology of recording, broadcasting and reproducing sound and images, which emerged in 1950 —and technically different than cinema— became an artistic medium. It is also a “study” of the influence technology and mass culture on the social and artistic changes of an era, at a time when cultural acceleration and the cross-pollination of ideas was beginning. In this sense, the year l963 is a landmark for the history of video. Wolf Vostell showed for the first time the installation 6 TV Dé-Coll/age at Smolin Gallery, New York City. Nam June Paik, then living in Germany, had his first exhibition at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal. Music Electronic Television consisted of twelve altered TV sets, four adapted pianos in the same spirit of John Cage and, in the most genuine Fluxus Spirit, the head of a freshly-slaughtered ox hanging above the g allery’s entrance.

1986 was not chosen randomly as the final year. In this timeframe a group of artists from the first generation had achieved international recognition and the young artists started to work in much larger media arts practices, using a wide range of hybrids which have opened a new chapter in the history of art and moving images. The mid 1980s also reflected a change in criticism, with theories of postmodernism and post colonialism raising questions of historiography and subjectivity. Consequently, the year this exhibition closes the term video art was already considered historic.

To tell this story, the exhibition diplays 32 video installations by the main artists belonging to this first generation: Eugènia Balcells, Dara Birnbaum, Jaime Davidovich, Juan Downey, VALIE EXPORT, Rafael França, David Hall, Gary Hill, Takahiko iimura, Joan Jonas, Shigeko Kubota, Thierry Kuntzel, David Lamelas, Mary Lucier, Antoni Muntadas, Nam June Paik, Ulrike Rosenbach, Carolee Schneemann, Ira Schneider, Bill Viola, Wolf Vostell, Roger Welch, Robert Whitman and Hannah Wilke; as well as 14 single-channel projections by: Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Peter Campus, Douglas Davis, Anna Bella Geiger, Joan Logue, Ana Mendieta, Marta Minujín, Bruce Nauman, Otto Piene and Joan Rabascall/Benet Rossell.

The exhibition closes as it opens: with works by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. Mirage Stage (1986) by Paik, and a video recording of his performance with the cellist Charlotte Moorman, made by Otto Piene the same year; and New York Stuhl (l976) by Vostell that immerses us in a state of total amnesia about the origin of information.

A reference area consisting of 80 single-channel videos in a database complements the content of the show. This format allows visitors to make their own connections and discoveries, to interpret and reinterpret the history of the first generation of video artists, and to arrive at a new understanding of video work from its beginnings up to 1986.

For more information and photographic material please contact:
e-mail: prensa3.mncars@cars.mcu.es, tel: +34 91 774 1005, fax: +34 91 774 1009