Artipedia - Arts News

Public Art Fund

Public Art Fund presents
Nina Katchadourian
Office Semaphore

At One Chase Manhattan Plaza
Lower Manhattan, New York
http://www.publicartfund.org

November 16 - January 14, 2007

Ever spot someone in a distant office window and wonder what is going on in his or her life? Part message decoding, part small-scale reality show, artist Nina Katchadourian’s Office Semaphore is a signaling system in which one person, who works on an upper story of an office building, communicates messages to people outside on street level. A telescope is installed on the northeastern corner of One Chase Manhattan Plaza in a canyon of tall office buildings. Peering into the telescope, viewers will find it is trained on an office in a building a few blocks away. Each day, the person who works in that office – the anonymous protagonist of the piece – arranges a group of objects in his window. Each combination represents a specific message, which viewers down at street level can decode using a visual key located beside the telescope. The objects themselves – office supplies and personal knickknacks found in the participant’s workspace – form a portrait of this individual, althou
gh he will remain largely unseen. Over time, these daily dispatches will register shifts in the mood in the office and in the person’s workday life.

Office Semaphore is an adaptation of traditional marine flag signaling systems, which are used by ships at sea to convey urgent messages to one another such as “I require a tug,” “Directions received but not understood,” or “Must alter course.” Noting the day-to-day relevance and poetic resonance of these standard nautical messages, Katchadourian has used them as the basis for the project. Some are borrowed with little or no change, while others are written by the artist in the same language and tonality. The phrases, both existing and created, were chosen and developed with the office worker in order to express the kinds of problems, victories and challenges he might encounter in a day on the job. The work also relates directly to its site, which is in a neighborhood with a rich maritime history.

Bridging public and private realms, as well as the distinct activities of sightseeing and working, Office Semaphore draws together Katchadourian’s interests in communication, urban experience and everyday interventions. It offers the viewer a glimpse into one of the countless worlds that exist within the city’s many office buildings, which typically seem so impersonal and impenetrable when seen from the outside.

About the artist
Nina Katchadourian’s wide-ranging, inventive conceptual practice encompasses sculpture, photography, video, sound, and public projects in which she highlights and alters familiar systems with unlikely observations, interventions and “improvements,” resulting in irreverent, memorable works that are at once philosophical and accessible. She has created several works that relate to language, codes and translation, including Talking Popcorn (2001), a machine that uses Morse Code to interpret the sound of popping popcorn, and her ongoing series, Sorted Books (1993 - present), in which she selects books from a library or collection and orders them so that their titles communicate a broader message when taken together.

Katchadourian was born in Stanford, California, and lives and works in Brooklyn. She received a BA from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (1989); an MFA from the University of California, San Diego (1993); and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program (1996). Her work has been presented in several solo exhibitions including a ten-year survey entitled “Opener 11: Nina Katchadourian: All Forms of Attraction” at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York (2006); “Please, Please, Pleased to Meet’cha” at Wave Hill, Bronx (2006); “Nina Katchadourian: Natural Misunderstandings” at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2006); “Works Made in Finland by Nina Katchadourian,” Turku Art Museum, Finland (2006); “The Geneology of the Supermarket and Other New Works” at Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York (2005) and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco (2006).

Location
The telescope will be installed on the northeastern corner of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, which is bordered by Pine, Liberty, Nassau and William Streets in Lower Manhattan. Stairway entrances to the plaza are located on Pine Street (at William Street), on Nassau Street (at Cedar Street), and on William Street (at Cedar Street). This exhibition is free and open to the public at all times. Subways: 2, 3 to Wall Street; 4, 5 to Wall Street; J, M, Z to Broad Street.

Sponsorship
Office Semaphore is a project of the Public Art Fund program In the Public Realm, which is supported by the Starry Night Fund of Tides Foundation and, in part, by public funds from National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, A State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Special thanks to Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, JPMorgan Chase, The Law Offices of Michael E. Pressman, and Time Equities.

Public Art Fund is New York’s leading presenter of artists’ projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in public spaces. For almost 30 years, the Public Art Fund has been committed to working with emerging and established artists to produce innovative exhibitions of contemporary art throughout New York City. By bringing artworks outside the traditional context of museums and galleries, the Public Art Fund provides a unique platform for an unparalleled public encounter with the art of our time.

Recent and current critically acclaimed exhibitions and presentations include Sarah Morris’s Robert Towne at Lever House (on view through December 3, 2006); Alexander Calder in New York at City Hall Park (on view through March 18, 2007); Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center (2006); Sarah Sze’s Corner Plot at Doris C. Freedman Plaza (2006); Nancy Rubins’s Big Pleasure Point at Lincoln Center (2006).

Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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Press contact:
Anne Wehr or Jane Koh
212-980-4575
press@publicartfund.org

For more information go to: http://www.publicartfund.org

SAIGON OPEN CITY

SAIGON OPEN CITY
FIRST CHAPTER: LIBERATION

26 Nov 2006 – 31 Jan 2007

3A Ton Duc Thang Street
Ben Nghe Ward, District 1
Ho Chi Minh City
Tel: +84 8 9129337
Fax: +84 8 9103277

info@saigonopencity.org
http://www.saigonopencity.org

Saigon Open City is pleased to present its first international show entitled Liberation. Curated by Thai curator Gridthiya Gaweewong and Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, the project is being conceived of in three chapters and will run for a two-year period. With a series of large-scale exhibitions and a rich program of accompanying events, the first chapter focuses on social reality as portrayed through the daily life of Vietnamese people during the Liberation period from 1946 to the present. It looks at how social reality was addressed by local and international artistic practices, and at how the Liberation theme, then and today, resonates locally as well as globally.

Three generations of artists from Vietnam and its Diaspora will be showcased together with a broad range of internationally renowned artists from the surrounding region and abroad. In venues across the city, Veteran Vietnamese artists of the ‘Resistance Class’ are shown alongside young emerging artists experimenting in contemporary media, methods still relatively new to the country’s art community. The juxtapositions allow the work of different periods to enter a dialogue with each other, providing the audience with an opportunity to visualize how different artistic approaches negotiate and reflect the condition of society. Many of the international artists are showing in Vietnam for the first time, and the project presents a landmark on the country’s contemporary art scene.

Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1975, is the Southern commercial and cultural center of the rapidly transforming Vietnam. Saigon Open City, a metaphor for the potential of a city just opened to the world, is serving as a forum for artists and professionals working in the field to interact and exchange ideas. The first chapter of the project uses four of Saigon’s existing institutions as exhibition venues, the War Remnants Museum, the Southern Women Museum, Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum and the memorial Ton Duc Thang Museum. By showing contemporary artwork alongside the permanent displays, the exhibitions takes place close to the everyday life of the city and its people. Alongside the exhibitions, a salon display will contextualise the work and provide a reference library. With its long-term commitment, Saigon Open City acts as an opportunity to stimulate Vietnam’s arts infrastructure and organizational processes, and to develop more critical art audiences in the count
ry. Its second chapter will focus on unification, and the third chapter on the (re)construction of contemporary Vietnam.

Participating artists include: Bang Lam, Chinh Le, Co Tan Long Chau, Dang Tran Son, Dao Anh Khan, Dao Minh Tri, Dinh Q. Le, Do Hien, Do Thi Ninh, Doanh Than, Duong Sen, Giang Khich, Hoang Duong Cam, Hoang Tram, Huy Toan, Huynh Thi Kim Tien, Le Duc Hai, Le Ngoc Thanh, Le Quy Tong, Le Thanh Tru, Le Vinh, Le Vu, Ly Hoang Ly, Nguyen Dang Khoat, Nguyen Manh Hung, Nguyen Quang Huy, Nguyen Sien, Pham Do Dong, Pham Minh Sau, Pham Ngoc Doanh, Phan Huu Tien, Quach Phong, Thanh Chau, Tran Hoang Son, Tran Luong, Truong Tan (Vietnam), Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba (Vietnam/Japan), Sue Hadju (Australia), Henning Christiansen, Ursula Reuter Christiansen (Denmark), Guy Debord, Christelle Lheureux, Chris Marker (France), Jean-Luc Godard (France/Switzerland), Thomas Bayrle, Joseph Beuys (Germany), Nindityo Adipurnomo (Indonesia), Yoko Ono (Japan/USA), Nur Hanim Mohammad Khairuddin (Malaysia), Po Po (Myanmar), Mella Jarsma (Netherlands/Indonesia), Chumpol Apisuk, Montien Boonma, Kamol Phaosavasdi (Thai
land), Liam Gillick (UK), John Giorno, Martha Rosler, Nancy Spero, Mary Stevenson (USA), and others to be confirmed.

Gridthiya Gaweewong has curated a number of international exhibitions in major art centers such as Tokyo, Singapore, Berlin, Barcelona, Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and has provided an important contribution to the development of Thai contemporary art. Rirkrit Tiravanija has exhibited widely, and in 2004 received the Hugo Boss Prize for his profound contributions in art. In 2003, he co-curated the exhibition Utopia Station for the 50th Venice Biennial. Guest curator for Yoko Ono’s work is David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Saigon Open City is funded by the Ford Foundation, American Center Foundation, The Vietnamese Foundation for the Art and the Video Data Bank.

For more information go to: http://www.saigonopencity.org

Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie

Hermann Nitsch
Orgies Mysteries Theatre
German retrospective in the
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

Nov 30, 2006 - Jan 22, 2007

>From 30 November 2006 to 22 January 2007 the Nationalgalerie Berlin will be the guest of the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. The Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie is staging the first retrospective in Germany devoted to the complete works of the Viennese Actionist. Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938) has developed the Orgies Mysteries Theatre, a theatrical form that combines painting, music, drama and performance with liturgical-religious elements. One of the key fundaments of the Orgies Mysteries Theatre are the mystery feasts of antiquity, which enacted a purifying catharsis – a pivotal concept that continues to significantly influence the artist’s work today.

Hermann Nitsch remains one of the most controversial contemporary artists. His work provokes protest and antagonism. It polarises the public.

The curator Britta Schmitz (Nationalgalerie) has developed an exhibition concept tailor-made for 18 rooms of the Martin-Gropius-Bau, one which in particular creates an ideal setting for Hermann Nitsch’s large, multipart works. Loans from numerous museums and private collections abroad ensure that certain works can now be seen in Berlin for the first time in decades. The works on show include key pieces from Nitsch’s oeuvre, such as the “Existenzaltar”, 1960, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Vienna, nine “Stations of the Cross” and the “splatter paintings”, which determined the artist’s distinctive “signature” for decades and decisively shaped his style between Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting.

Other highlights of the exhibition are the famous “Geißelwand”, 1963, Museum Ludwig, Cologne as well as the “Asolo Raum” and the “Schömer Raum”, 1973 and 1998, respectively, from the Austrian private collection Essl. The Berlin exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau will also feature numerous musical scores and drawings, photo documentation and films of earlier actionist performances. A special music room as well as a fragrance-room complete the retrospective on the eclectic productivity of this exceptional artist. On a 18 meter screen the visitor will witness Nitsch’s 122nd action of the Orgies Mysteries Theatre in the Wiener Burgtheater (Vienna). The documentation of the action will be played in its full length of nearly four hours.

This first retrospective on the work of Hermann Nitsch in Germany provides the public and the media with a unique opportunity to appreciate in detail the complete works in all their diversity and the important positions of Viennese Actionism and the Orgies Mysteries Theatre in 20th century art.
A catalogue will be published by Verlag Walther König.

Press conference: November 29, 2006, 11 a.m.
Exhibition opening: November 29, 2006, 8 p.m.
Open to the public: November 30, 2006 - January 22, 2007

An exhibition by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, made possible by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie.

Press contact:
Goldmann PR & Kulturmanagement, Birgit Söllner, Zimmerstraße 11, 10969 Berlin, Germany
Tel.:+49-(0)30-259 357-0, Fax: +49(0)30-259 357-29, e-Mail: birgit.soellner@goldmannpr.de

For more information go to:

ARTEFIERA ART FIRST 2007

ARTEFIERA ART FIRST 2007
DISCOVERING THE LATEST TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL ART
Bologna, 26 - 29 January 2007

ARTEFIERA ART FIRST is a unique event where visitors can explore the latest trends in the world of modern and contemporary art through the proposals of more than 200 leading international galleries. At the same time it is a major opportunity to directly experience art in the exhibition centre and in the city of Bologna, which is hosting a wide range of initiatives specially for the more than 40,000 visitors to the show.

Organised by BolognaFiere, the 31st edition of the pre-eminent Italian exhibition of contemporary and modern art will be held in Bologna from 26 to 29 January 2007 and will feature an increasing number of events and initiatives.

The participating Galleries from all over the world will be selected by the International Committee and will provide a preview of the most innovative trends alongside the works of the leading Italian artists, who are also prominent figures at a world level.
Most importantly, however, ARTEFIERA ART FIRST is a meeting point between Italian and international art, a role that lends much to its appeal and makes it of great interest to collectors.

This edition of ARTEFIERA ART FIRST will be strongly exhibit oriented and will host more than 200 galleries (35% of which are from outside Italy) and about sixty publishers, museums and institutions.

Participants include LONGSTANDING AND FIRST-TIME EXHIBITORS
ARTEFIERA ART FIRST 2007 will see the participation of both longstanding and first-time exhibitors. One prestigious new entry is the JAMES COHAN GALLERY from New York, which will exhibit an installation by Bill Viola, an artist who garnered enormous success at the last Venice Biennale.

BOLOGNA ART FIRST, ART IN THE CITY OF BOLOGNA
At ARTEFIERA ART FIRST, international visitors will be able to admire modern/contemporary art works at the finest venues in the city of Bologna. The first BOLOGNA ART FIRST initiative in 2006 was highly successful and the event will be repeated at ARTEFIERA ART FIRST 2007 with an even broader programme.

>From 25 January onwards, the works selected by the Artistic Committee from the projects submitted by exhibiting Galleries will offer art enthusiasts a fascinating journey through the world of modern art and the architecture of the past.

A.B.O. (Art Before Obvious) AT ARTEFIERA ART FIRST 2007
For the 2007 edition of ARTEFIERA ART FIRST, Achille Bonito Oliva has organised three days of meetings for the A.B.O. (Art Before Obvious) stand where internationally renowned artists will put questions to other leading players in the art industry. This initiative underscores the fact that contemporary artists are both creators and thinkers and that, instead of providing answers, art constantly poses questions about the world in all its aspects.

Artists’ Question Time – Programme
• Friday 26 January 2007 – FABIO MAURI puts questions to collectors GUNTIS BRANDS and ENEA RIGHI
• Saturday 27 January 2007 – MAURIZIO MOCHETTI quizzes architects MARIO BOTTA and FRANCO PURINI
• Sunday 28 January 2007 – GILBERTO ZORIO talks to museum directors CRISTIANA COLLU and JAN HOET

YOUNG INTERNATIONAL GALLERIES AND NEW MARKETS
One of the key concepts behind ARTEFIERA ART FIRST is research, meaning by this all aspects of analysis of new trends and new markets.

Efforts to offer increasingly high quality research opportunities include initiatives such as ESPRIT NOUVEAU aimed at young international galleries (hosted in 2006 in the splendid Le Courbusier pavilion) and the initiatives devoted to new emerging markets.
In 2007, ARTEFIERA ART FIRST will again offer an interesting analysis of new trends, giving collectors and art enthusiasts a global picture of international artistic research.

The art community comprising collectors, enthusiasts, specialists, curators and directors of art foundations and museums will meet in Bologna from 26 to 29 January 2007 for ARTEFIERA ART FIRST, the first international appointment of 2007 devoted to modern and contemporary art.

Info: http://www.artefiera.bolognafiere.it

For more information go to: http://www.artefiera.bolognafiere.it

MAMbo

MARKUS SCHINWALD
Curated by Andrea Viliani

The exhibition is part of the Coming Soon MAMbo + Museum – Shows program
Concept by Gianfranco Maraniello and Andrea Viliani

Palazzo Poggi Museum
Via Zamboni 33, Bologna
Bologna University Library
Via Zamboni 35, Bologna

24th Nov 2006 - 7th Jan 2007
Opening 23 Nov 2006, 6:30 pm
Free Entrance

With the exhibition of the Austrian artist Markus Schinwald (Salzburg, 1973), at the Palazzo Poggi Museum and the Bologna University Library, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna continues to present its 2006-2007 program entitled Coming Soon MAMbo + Museum - Shows. Investigating the multiple personalities of the contemporary museum, this series of monographic exhibitions dedicated to the emerging artistic scene will accompany the upcoming move of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna to its new location in the former ‘Forno del Pane’, where in 2007 it will adopt the new identity of MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna.

At the time of their inauguration in 1712 in the halls of Palazzo Poggi, the collections of the Istituto delle Scienze e delle Arti di Bologna were neither exclusively scientific nor artistic. The archaeological finds, the anatomical wax figures of the ceroplastics Ercole Lelli and Morandi-Manzolini, the surgical instruments of the physician Giovan Antonio Galli, the 16th century “theater of nature” of the naturalist Ulisse Aldovrandi, the collections of mineralogy, botany, zoology and palaeontology, were gathered together as the instruments of a multidisciplinary research in ceaseless evolution.

These complex collections, with their continuous overlapping and integration, represent the ideal platform for the exhibition project by Markus Schinwald. Specifically conceived for the historical framework of the museum, it appears as a “fictitious archaeological excavation” within the museum’s itinerary. Borrowing from the mechanisms of performance and of theatrical and cinematic direction, Schinwald confers on the works displayed – paintings, wallpaper, prints, automated sculptures and billowing curtains – a continuous semantic and formal oscillation. Amidst the Institute’s antique showcases and in the frescoed halls that house today, in addition to the museum, the Bologna University Library, the works of Schinwald reflect almost mimetically the ambiguity of the artifacts that could be, at one and the same time, either ancient objects or contemporary artworks. I don’t want to be in conflict with the character or feeling of a museum such as this one. On the contrary, I wish
to incorporate its flow and overall atmosphere into the exhibition format. A contemporary format that reflects a type of ancient science fiction as if this were an exhibition in translation, as if someone were speaking today in an archaic language. (M. Schinwald)

With a lucid gaze at the fetishes and clichés of the society of consumption, the artist mingles fish taxidermy with shoes and handbags, using commercially available ones modified by him to create non sense objects that emphasize the affinity with and contrasts between different historical moments and cultural models. Exploring the contradictory evolution of modern knowledge in his continuous oscillation between discovery and error, reality and make-believe, science and art, the artist employs these logical détournements to undermine the principle of specificity of the artistic language and the modernist hypothesis that identifies the contemporaneous with the avant-garde, suggesting and investigating the possibility of new narrations that redefine the very concept of the contemporary cultural institution.

Markus Schinwald, born in Salzburg in 1973, lives and works in Vienna.

The artistic practice of Schinwald, one of the most interesting and acclaimed artists of his generation, moves among performance, theatre, cinema, fashion and psychoanalysis. Through historical, artistic and philosophical references, his works explore the boundaries between private and public dimension and cognitive and behavioural dynamics, with special emphasis on body gestures.

Among his most important one-man shows: CAC, Bretigny-Argos, Brussels (2006); Ausstellungshalle zeitgenossische Kunst Munster, Munster (2005-2006); tableau twain, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2004); dictio pii, Sprengel Museum, Hanover (2004) and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2001); Gap, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (1999).

Among the collective shows: I still believe in miracles II, Museé d’Art Moderne, Paris (2005); Lebt und Arbeit in Wien II, Kunsthalle, Vienna (2005); 3’ condensed information, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2004). He has also participated in Manifesta 5, San Sebastian (2004), the Venice Biennale (2003), and the Berlin Biennale (2006; 1998).

Contact MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna
tel. 051.502859 – fax 051.371032
ufficiostampagam@comune.bologna.it

For more information go to:

Witte de With

BRIAN JUNGEN
2 Dec 2006 – 11 Feb 2007
Opening: 1 Dec 2006, 6 p.m.

Witte de With
Center for Contemporary Art
Witte de Withstraat 50
3012 BR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
http://www.wdw.nl

Witte de With is delighted to present Brian Jungen’s solo exhibition this winter, his first on such a large scale in Europe.

Brian Jungen (b. 1970) is part of the generation of Vancouver-based artists currently bursting onto the international stage. Born to a Swiss-Canadian father and First Nations mother and raised in the Dane-zaa nation, his drawings, sculptures and installations explore elements of his own hybrid cultural identity. Yet his approach transcends questions of ethnicity, to reveal the complex exchanges of goods and ideas in our globalized world.

Jungen first came to public attention with his Prototypes for New Understanding (1998-2005), a selection of Nike Air Jordan trainers that he dissected and reassembled to resemble Northwest Coast masks. Conflating the transformative power of ceremonial masks with Nike consumers’ desire to become sport stars by wearing a particular brand of trainers, Jungen plays with economic and cultural values. In this and other pieces that adopt material from North American sports culture – baseball bats in talking sticks (2005) and mitts in The Prince (2006) – Jungen reveals the power of contemporary idols and links colonial history with today’s sweatshop labor.

His artistic reputation was secured by his magnificent whale ‘skeletons’ such as Cetology (2002): large sculptures made from cheap plastic deckchairs; endangered species rendered in non-biodegradable, mass-produced consumer objects. Stacking similar patio chairs in Structural Integrity Test (1999) and Mise en scène (2000), Jungen treats them as minimalist units and places his own work clearly in the lineage of conceptual art history.

Representing the postmodern, postcolonial world with a wry sense of humor, Jungen collapses stereotypes and embraces change, flux and instability. His practice approaches cultural difference as an unstable, reciprocal notion, using it as a starting point for creativity and critical reflection.

Brian Jungen at Witte de With is curated by Daina Augaitis, Nicolaus Schafhausen and Zoë Gray. The original show was organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery with the support of the Audain Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. In Rotterdam, it is supported by the Canadian Embassy, The Hague. Following its presentation at Witte de With, the exhibition will travel to the Villa Stuck, Munich.

The publication Brian Jungen produced by WdW Publishers features essays by critic Clint Burnham, Tate curator Jessica Morgan, and artist/writer Edgar Schmitz, plus an introduction by Nicolaus Schafhausen and an interview with Harvard professor Homi K. Bhabha, by Solange de Boer and Zoë Gray (ISBN: 978-90-73362-69-7, 10 euro).

For more information, please contact press@wdw.nl or call +31 (0)10 411 0144.

Accompanying events

1 Dec 2006, 5 p.m.
FIRST NATION SECOND NATURE
Brian Jungen in conversation with artist/writer Edgar Schmitz.

2 Dec 2006, 5 p.m.
WEST COAST SUCCESS STORY
Gallerist Catriona Jeffries in conversation with Nicolaus Schafhausen about the Vancouver art scene, past and present.

7 Dec 2006, 7 p.m.
ARTISTS AS CURATORS
Curator James Putnam, author of Art and Artefact: The Museum as Medium, in conversation with Zoë Gray about artists who explore museology.

14 Dec 2006 , 7 p.m.
CROSS CULTURAL FILM PROGRAM
Artist Melvin Moti presents a program of artists’ films, bringing together his own interests with those suggested by Jungen’s work.

11 Jan 2007, 7 p.m.
IS CANADIAN ART INTELLECTUAL?
Critic Clint Burnham places Jungen’s work within a broader picture of contemporary Canadian art.

18 Jan 2007, 7 p.m.
CRITICAL ETHNOLOGY
Professor Irit Rogoff gives a lecture on the idea of fieldwork.

11 Dec – 25 Jan
ART NOW: BRIAN JUNGEN
In collaboration with the Rotterdam Foundation for Culture (SKVR), the Cultuurtraject project Art now will see over 500 adolescents aged 14-15 participating in an intensive, interactive visit to the exhibition and a practical workshop. For information, see our educational site http://www.educatie.wdw.nl (Dutch only).

For more information go to: http://www.wdw.nl

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color
December 10, 2006 through April 1, 2007

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77005
http://www.mfah.org

For information call 713-639-7540
or e-mail at pr@mfah.org

Through its International Center for the Arts of the Americas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has undertaken a multi-year collaboration with the Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to document, conserve, and exhibit the work of the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980), one of the 20th century’s most innovative artists. The MFAH is committed to two exhibitions of the artist’s work, to the documentation and restoration of a large number of his works, and to the publication of a seven-volume catalogue raisonné.

Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color

The first Oiticica exhibition at the MFAH, The Body of Color, is also the first major museum exhibition to focus exclusively on the artist’s radical and uncompromising approach to color.

Curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Director, ICAA, at the MFAH, The Body of Color premieres December 10, 2006 and remains on view through April 1, 2007. It shows at the Tate Modern (London) June 7 through September 3, 2007.

The Body of Color traces the conceptual and technical processes that led to Oiticica’s emancipation of color into space. The approximately 220 objects represent the different series Oiticica created between 1955 and 1969, shedding light on the contexts and influences of their production, and demonstrating the rigor of his aesthetic inquiry. In keeping with the interdisciplinary scope of his production, the exhibition also includes documentary materials, films, and maquettes. Because Oiticica was a meticulous record keeper and didn’t sell his work, the PHO has about 95 percent of his lifetime production and a wealth of supporting material.

Oiticica’s exploration of color began with the paintings and gouaches he did with the Rio de Janeiro-based Grupo Frente in 1955-56. This early series, never shown before, reveals a highly subjective approach to the concrete art tradition practiced by Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo artists. The iconoclastic approach of the Grupo Frente led to the deconstruction of color grids embodied in the Metaesquemas series (1957-58). It also resulted in an extraordinary group of white on white paintings—never before seen and only recently restored for this exhibition—inspired by Kazimir Malevich. In 1959, after joining the Neoconcrete Group that included Lygia Clark and the poet Ferreira Gullar, Oiticica explored the retinal and physical experience of color in non-traditional paintings and objects that invited the viewer’s participation. Their work during this period resulted in the progressive deconstruction of the traditional components of painting—i.e. color and its support, the two-dime
nsional plane—and their reconfiguration. Hence, in Oiticica’s Spatial Reliefs, Bilaterals (1959) and Nuclei series (1960-66)—suspended double-sided painted wood constructions—the spectator is invited to move in and around the panels to discover color as an environment. Soon after, Oiticica started to work with ephemeral materials and became interested in incorporating the viewer into the art as a dynamic component. In this period he constructed Penetrables (1960-79), environmental pieces consisting of labyrinths in which the audience was invited to experience sensations through bodily contact with ropes, hanging fabrics, plants, sand, gravel, and everyday objects.

It was with the Bólides (1963-69) and Parangolés (1964-79) that Oiticica’s exploration of color achieved a radical and original formulation that set him firmly apart from his predecessors and contemporaries. The Bólides consisted of glass containers and wood boxes filled with pigments, coal, shells, and earth. These were meant to produce an “energetic” encounter between the viewer’s body and the psyche by means of direct visual and tactile stimuli; further, when exposed to light, they produced subtle chromatic effects that categorize them as manipulable light-boxes. With these objects, Oiticica began the gradual dematerialization of color into pure sensory stimuli that would culminate with the Parangolés (1964-79). The latter were colored capes, banners, and cloth objects displayed or worn as “habitable” paintings. Worn by anonymous members of the audience who moved to the rhythm of samba, the Parangolés activated the fleeting illusion of co
lor in motion.

Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Ramírez, Wynne Phelan, MFAH conservation director, and Luciano Figueiredo, director, Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica.

For information, call 713-639-7300 or see http://www.mfah.org.

For more information go to: http://www.mfah.org

DaimlerChrysler Contemporary

Photography, Video and Mixed Media III
New Acquisitions

Exhibition:
Sep 29, 2006 – Jan 8, 2007
Open daily 11am – 6pm, admission free

Guided tours:
Every first Saturday of the month, at 4pm:
Nov 4, 2006/ Dec 2, 2006/ Jan 6, 2007
Guided Tours "Art and Architecture at Potsdamer Platz" on request.

DaimlerChrysler Contemporary
Haus Huth
Alte Potsdamer Str. 5, D - 10785 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 259 41 42 0
Fax: +49 (0) 30 25941 42 9
kunst.sammlung@daimlerchrysler.com
http://www.collection.daimlerchrysler.com

DaimlerChrysler Contemporary proudly presents new collection acquisitions in the exhibition “Photography, Video, Mixed Media III”. In the early 1990s the DaimlerChrysler Collection began to broaden its focus, which had been on painting, to include photography, video and object art. The current exhibition, the third of its kind in Berlin since 2001, reflects the continuation of this orientation.

Sylvie Fleury is represented by six new films commissioned by the Corporate Art Department and DaimlerChrysler France and produced in 2005 for the Mercedes-Benz Brand Center in Paris. Known for her artistic positioning between the worlds of fashion, lifestyle and art, Fleury restates the myth of the Mercedes-Benz brand from unusual viewpoints: in showrooms, workshops and on test tracks, classic Mercedes-Benz cars become players in the game between the sexes. The film choreography places female models in luxurious, elegant or trendy, skimpy outfits in an environment occupied by male stereotypes: gentle hands wax and polish the car bodywork (“Swiss Polish Meditation”, 2005), Mercedes-Benz gullwings float up and down on lifting platforms like futuristic angels (“Cosmic Atelier”, 2005).

Young Indian artist Shilpa Gupta presents an interactive video animation that explores the phenomenon of fashion as style, expression and personal protest. Young women in military fatigues move about in response to computer-programmed commands that can be controlled by viewers in the video installation. Though the poses of the figures are reminiscent of military drill, the video’s music and language articulate a message about resisting uniformity and standardization. Here the military clothing, freed from its original purpose, clearly expresses a new style of appearance adopted by the young generation of Indians to dissociate themselves from the commercialization of the world in which they live.

The works by Guy Tillim, winner of the DaimlerChrysler South African Award 2004, are impressive examples from a new series of photographs taken in Malawi. Tillim’s works are complemented by a video work by Berni Searle, another artist living and working in South Africa. In his photographs, Tillim portrays everyday life in the small village of Petros in Malawi. With his analytical yet emphatically penetrating gaze, he sees through the clichés surrounding poverty and Aids and reveals how they affect individual fates. Berni Searle explores the situation in South Africa after the end of apartheid in a very specific, highly personal way.

With Justin Ponmany and Pamela Singh, the exhibition again turns to India’s exceedingly vibrant art scene. Singh’s many years as a photojournalist took her to several continents and her photographic eye, trained in trouble spots around the world, is now guiding her in her artistic work. The series of “Jaipur Self-Portraits” (2003) show the artist herself superimposed on Hindu social scenes still based on the caste system, demonstrating a belonging but one that is beyond social precepts. Justin Ponmany, on the other hand, continues the tradition of abstract-geometric Indian art including the influence of artistic ornament, in his paintings.

Ina Weber, Bernhard Kahrmann and Heimo Zobernig complete the exhibition’s thematic circle: all three artists take European modernism and postmodernism as the basis and departure point for their work. With “Nest of Tables” (2006) Ina Weber makes reference to the formalistic glass and wood furniture designed by Josef Albers during his Bauhaus years and now being rediscovered. Bernhard Kahrmann’s “uncertain memories” (2006) portray his investigations into time and space: instead of offering an insight into past moments, the indistinct, floating images of his video work convey a loss of “event”, depriving us of our ability to participate in concrete memories. The themes of Heimo Zobernig’s film and video works, hitherto rarely exhibited and comprising some fifty titles produced since 1983, are contemporary figures from the art context, his private milieu and important cultural and art historical texts. Heimo Zobernig’s films are in video portrait style and mostly show the artist
himself in various roles and disguises, and in interview situations with a variety of interlocutors. The artistic treatment casts doubt on the credibility of the film portrait format as a per se authentic document about people and places. Placed in sequence, the videos are not only documentary but also a fiction and a commentary.

Artists:
Sylvie Fleury (CH), Shilpa Gupta (India), Bernhard Kahrmann (D), Justin Ponmany (India), Bernie Searle (SA), Pamela Singh (India), Guy Tillim </B(USA), Ina Weber (D), Heimo Zobernig (A)

For more information go to: http://www.collection.daimlerchrysler.com

LAXART

LAXART PRESENTS LOS ANGELES SOLO DEBUT OF NEW YORK-BASED LISA TAN AND LOS ANGELES PREMIERE OF NIAGARA, A VIDEO BY MARK BRADFORD

Opening reception November 11, 2006 6-8 PM
Exhibition runs November 11 – December 31, 2006

Lisa Tan: One Night Stand

For One Night Stand, New York-based artist Lisa Tan travels to a major international city, in this instance Paris, for a night, taking only a notebook and a change of clothes. Documenting the experience through the task of writing (as inspired by the “nouveau roman” style particular to names such as Alain Robbe-Grillet), One Night Stand is an opportunity to see the world through an intimate lens.

Text that mimics the strategies of image captions features prominently in the projected work, however, here these texts lack their visual support. The passing standardized subtitles are derived from Tan’s writing during her trip, and float in a projected field of monochromatic black that is devoid of moving image. This form of representation – both literally descriptive and visually oblique – competes with a myriad of easily conjured iconic images of Paris as experienced by a history of representation through film and photography. Willfully dislocating and disorienting herself, Tan observes the city’s surfaces, evoking her voyeuristic connection to the environment. In this way, Tan’s intention is to see how words themselves become iconic, and how they can support a vision of the intangible feelings associated with place through personal memoirs.

A site-specific sculptural installation, Roman Lovers, that includes a lamppost, plant and wrought-iron fence will complement the silent, moving textual installation. This environment is restaged from a photograph and engages the significance of both photographic memory and psycho-social projection, while investing mnemonic and emotional importance into inanimate objects. This urban moment is captured photographically and then theatricalized in the space of the gallery—the installation representing a cross-section of urban space as well as a psychological moment of suspension and longing.

Mark Bradford: Niagara

Mark Bradford, a Los Angeles based multi-media artist, will mount his L.A. debut of a new video entitled Niagara. Based on the 1953 Marilyn Monroe film of the same name, Bradford aesthetically documents a local flâneur sauntering down the sidewalk of Los Angeles. Niagara continues Bradfords’ examination of the city, attempting to represent the dynamism and diversity of the local landscape.

LAXART’s programs are made possible with generous support from Avalon and Maison 140, Grimm|Rosenfeld Gallery Munich & New York, James Irvine Foundation, JET, La Colección Jumex, Helen Lewis, Larry Mathews and Brian Saliman, Max Mara, Peter Norton Family Foundation, Peter Remes, Debra and Dennis Scholl, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Voce and Volume.

Ruben Ochoa: Extracted
LAXART Public Art Initiatives
A project of Creative Capital
Launch November 19th 11am-1pm
On corner of N. Soto Street and Marengo Street
Eastbound on 10 freeway
Los Angeles

Join REGROUP – LAXART’s new collector’s group at membership@laxart.org.

Support LAXART’s programs through purchase of limited editions by Edgar Arceneaux and Ruben Ochoa at editions@laxart.org.

About LAXART: Responding to Los Angeles’ cultural climate, LAXART, a non-profit contemporary arts organization, questions given contexts for the exhibition of contemporary art, architecture and design. With a renewed vision for the potential of independent art spaces, LAXART provides a center for interdisciplinary discussion and interaction and for the production and exhibition of new exploratory work. LAXART offers a space for provocation, dialogue and confrontation by practices on the ground in LA and abroad. LAXART is a hub for artists based on flexibility, transition, spontaneity and change. The space responds to an urgency and obligation to provide an accessible exhibition space for contemporary artists, architects and designers.

LAXART is located at 2640 S. La Cienega Los Angeles, CA 90034
T.310.559.0166 F.310.559.0167 office@laxart.org http://www.laxart.org
LAxART is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 AM - 6 PM

For more information go to: http://www.laxart.org

Centre pour l’image contemporaine

Centre pour l’image contemporaine
Saint-Gervais Genève
5, rue du Temple
1201 Geneva, Switzerland

SHOW AND ANIMATED FILMS
>From October 18 to December 17 2006
Tuesday to Sunday 11am – 6pm
Bac - Bâtiment d’art contemporain
28, rue des Bains, 1205 Genève
http://www.centreimage.ch/version.php

Version animée
7th edition, the Animation in Contemporary Art

The Centre pour l’image contemporaine Saint-Gervais Geneva is pleased to present Version animée, 7th edition, the Animation in Contemporary Art, an international group show which features 30 artists from all around the world, curated by Laurence H Dreyfus (invited curator) and Isabelle Aeby Papaloïzos (assistant curator).

About fifteen installations are shown with animated film programs and one musical clip program.

About the Exhibition
Version Animée is an exploration of new forms of narrative and new ways of installing moving images.

“Drawing and animated works are currently popping up and invigorating contemporary artmaking. A practice based on the gesture is coming back with a vengeance and is assuming the status of a work of art. Drawings are no longer viewed as preparatory works. In the field of animated cinema, they are enabling practitioners to break down technological and spatial limits and expand what is possible. Drawing is being done directly on walls and finding a place in installations and environments. Painting is coming alive. Animation is now being projected on oiled paper, designer furniture, or architectural structures. All of the artists featured in Version Animée have explored singular ways of diffusing their work and are developing new paradigms. The appearance of these modalities, which bring together drawing and the moving image, springs from the mastery of several technological layers (interactive strolls, animated films, “cut scenes” of video games, scratch films) combined w
ith an influence of music video culture.” Laurence Dreyfus.

Artists in the Exhibition
Gabriel Acevedo Velarde (Peru,/ USA), Francis Alÿs (Belgium / Mexico), Carlos Amorales (Mexico), Qin Anxiong (China), Marta Colburn (USA), Arthur de Pins (France), Kota Ezawa (Germany / USA), Camille Henrot (France), Michel Huelin (Switzerland), Tami Ichino (Japan / Switzerland), Susi Jirkuff (Austria), Avish Khebrehzadeh (Iran / USA), Kolkoz (France), Jochen Kuhn (Germany), Zilla Leutenegger (Switzerland), Marie Maillard (France), Novarina et Croubalian (Switzerland), Gökhan Numanoglu (Turkey), Jacco Olivier (Netherlands), Hans Op de Beeck (Belgium), Jenny Perlin (USA), Qubo Gas (France), Koka Ramishvili (Georgia / Switzerland), Christine Rebet (France / USA), Robin Rhode (South Africa / Germany), Pia Rönicke (Denmark), Georges Schwizgebel (Switzerland), Patrick Tschudi (Peru / Switzerland)

With the support of the American Center Foundation
The Cultural affairs department of Geneva
The State Public Instruction departement of Geneva

For more information go to: http://www.centreimage.ch/version.php