Artipedia - Arts News

Gallery KIT

MORE THAN THIS-
Voices and Expressions on Sustainability.
Gallery KIT,
February 10-25, 2007
Opening: 2.00 pm, February 10
For more information, see http://www.promidnord.net

Exhibiton Tour Norway and Sweden:
Gallery KIT, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway February 10-25, 2007
Östersund, Sweden March 13-20, 2007
Steinkjer, Norway, April 14-22, 2007
Sundsvall, Sweden, 13 May – 3 June, 2007

Conference “Mission Impossible?”
Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway, February 14, 2007.

Workshop, “Art Through Ecology/Ecology Through Art”:
Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway, February 15, 2007

Participating artists:
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta - Kalleinen (FI/DE), Petra Lindholm (FI), Nina Svensson & Bernd Krauss (SW/DE), Tomas Eriksson (SW), Jussi Heikkilä (FI), Oskar Lindström & Martijn Van Berkum (FI/NL), Anna Ruth (CA/FI), Ilkka Halso (FI), Hans Kvam (SW), Sami Rintala (FI), and Svartlamon Project (NO)

Curator:
Rickard Borgström (FI/SW)

Exhibition: “MORE THAN THIS - Voices and Expressions on Sustainability”
This exhibition explores the role of art in relation to sustainable development. The artists offer their personal reflections regarding this issue. The pieces, created specifically for this exhibition, illuminate a wide variety of aspects; from our paradoxical relationship with nature, the role of technology in the environment, and the value of nature, to conflicts between center and periphery and questions concerning our lifestyles and urban developments. The exhibition even includes visions for sustainable development in the Mid-Nordic region as presented by leading government officials. The idea is to create a productive tension between the reflections of the artists and the visions of the government officials. The exhibition does not offer solutions to the many challenges we are faced with within the concept of sustainable development, but rather offers a space for reflection concerning this critical question.

Conference speakers:
Alan Boldon (UK), Rikke Luther/Learning Group (DK/SW/MEX/USA), Nils Rømer/ Free Soil (DK/DE/USA), Michael Lee Dudley (USA/SW), Sami Rintala (FI), Elin T. Sørensen and Erle Stenberg (NO), Håkon Grimstad (NO), Justin Carter (UK), and others.

Conference: “MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? - Art, Ecology, and Sustainable Development”
In relation to the exhibition, a one day conference will be held – Mission Impossible? – where British and Nordic artists have been invited to meet local researchers, politicians, and government officials to challenge each other’s thinking concerning the global environmental crisis, using the Mid-Nordic city of Trondheim as a starting point.
The conference presents artistic works that can be related to sustainable development in order to see which kinds of angles and approaches the artists may contribute to this complex topic. The hope is that the artists, researchers, government officials, and politicians, through presentations, group discussions, and panel debates, will initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue and find ways to cooperate.

Participants at the workshop:
Master students from Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Arts, Oslo Institute of Colour, and Nordic and British artists.

Workshop: “Ecology Through Art/Art Through Ecology”
This is a 3-day group workshop exploring the relationship between art and ecology. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on what forms an ecological practice might take, and test this in response to the wider Trondheim context. The workshop aims to support the development of individual and collaborative art practices in response to the exhibition ‘More Than This’. The resulting ideas and material from the three days will be presented at Gallery KIT at the end of the workshop. The workshop is led by Justin Carter, Glasgow School of Arts.

Contact: midnordic@gmail.com

The exhibition is supported by ProMidNord.
The conference and workshop is a collaboration between the British Council, the City of Trondheim, the County of Sør-Trøndelag, ProMidNord, and Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

For more information go to: http://www.promidnord.net

HAVE YOU SCENE & HERD?

SCENE & HERD AT THE AUCTIONS Artforum’s online diary takes you behind the scene at New York’s contemporary sales

11.17—SARAH THORNTON at Christie’s

“The large sums commanded a respectful silence, but when the hammer came down at $24.2 million ($27 million with the buyer’s premium), the room erupted in chatter so loud that you could barely hear the increments of the next lot. It was a world auction record not only for the artist, but also for any postwar work of art …”

READ ON http://www.artforum.com/diary/

11.15—SARAH THORNTON at Sotheby’s

“The laughs about last night’s less-than-spectacular Contemporary Art Evening at Sotheby’s started a couple of weeks ago when the auction house spammed the art world with a guided video tour of the sale’s highlights, hosted by its star auctioneer and worldwide head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer …”
READ ON http://www.artforum.com/diary/

11.14—Linda Yablonsky on John Currin at Gagosian

“‘I really wanted to hate this stuff,’ one painter confessed. ‘But I don’t hate it. In fact, I love it.’ The size queens had a field day comparing everything from rumps to reputations. Someone insisted that Jeff Koons was so jealous that Currin had pulled off such a rub-your-face-in-it triumph that he had to leave …”

READ ON http://www.artforum.com/diary/

ARTFORUM.COM
EVERYWHERE THE ART IS

For more information go to: http://www.artforum.com/diary/

Caderno Videobrasil

Caderno Videobrasil
art mobility sustainability – 2006

Editorial coordinator: Solange Farkas
Editor: Helio Hara

Collaborators: Grant H. Kester, Ricardo Rosas, Daniel Hora, Marisa Mokarzel, Maria Araújo, Hans Dieleman, Hildegard Kurt

Produced by Associação Cultural Videobrasil and SESC São Paulo

For more information on Caderno Videobrasil and other Associação Cultural Videobrasil activities, visit our Web site:
http://www.videobrasil.org.br

The second volume of Caderno Videobrasil discusses the challenges posed to art by such contemporary phenomena as intensified urbanization, ever-widening access to new technologies, and the constant redrawing of political, economic, and cultural maps. The relationship between art and sustainability and the uses to which artistic practices put the very mobility of the current scene are core themes of the publication, which offers a foretaste of the discussions planned for the 16th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (São Paulo, September 2007).

Caderno Videobrasil is an annual publication devoted to deepening reflection on recent artistic production through previously unpublished essays. In this second volume, Grant H. Kester, from the University of California in San Diego, speaks of the collaboration between art and social and political subcultures; the journalist Daniel Hora assesses the impact of the artistic residencies in their surroundings, while the Dutch researcher Hans Dieleman, from the Erasmus University (Rotterdam), and the German researcher Hildegard Kurt, from the und. Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability (Berlin), look at how sustainability has been making its presence felt in artistic practices for decades.

In other exclusive texts, the Brazilian theorist Ricardo Rosas examines artistic derivation from improvisation; Marisa Mokarzel, Director of Espaço Cultural Casa das Onze Janelas in Belém, in the Brazilian northern region, speaks of the reshaping of a context in Entre garças e urubus – A (in)sustentável arte produzida na Amazônia [Between Herons and Vultures—The (Un)sustainable Art Produced in the Amazon]; and Maria Araújo writes on the fine line between art and craftwork discernible in the wares of needleworkers who travel Brazil spreading their rich cultural heritage.

Produced by Associação Cultural Videobrasil in partnership with SESC São Paulo, Caderno Videobrasil maintains a close relationship with the themes of reflection chosen for the Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival, held biennially in São Paulo. The maiden edition, Performance – 2005, launched during the 15th Videobrasil Festival (2005), proposed an alternative to the official history of the genre that served as the Festival’s curatorial line. The contents included an essay by the art critic Guy Brett, an article by the Lebanese historian Rasha Salti, and the script for an audio performance by the American performer Coco Fusco and Mexican artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

Associação Cultural Videobrasil is an international center of reference in electronic art that runs activities designed to research and foster production in the southern circuit. In addition to Caderno Videobrasil and the Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival, the Association also produces the Videobrasil Authors Collection, a series of documentaries on artists from the southern hemisphere; maintains a four-thousand-title electronic art collection; curates national and international events; publishes the series of author portfolios, FF>>Dossier; and offers a vast on-line database on electronic art. Most of these projects are possible thanks to support from SESC, a hybrid cultural institute with nationwide presence.

For more information on Caderno Videobrasil and other Associação Cultural Videobrasil activities, visit our Web site: http://www.videobrasil.org.br

english version: http://www.sescsp.org.br/sesc/videobrasil/site/caderno/caderno02_en.asp

Press contact:
Teté Martinho
Communications Manager
55 11 9901 0375
tetemartinho@videobrasil.org.br

For more information go to: http://www.sescsp.org.br/sesc/videobrasil/site/caderno/caderno02_en.asp

ASIA HOUSE, LONDON

‘Through the Looking Glass: Korean Contemporary Art’
Curated by Jiyoon Lee
23 November 2006 – 4 March 2007
(closed 23 Dec 2006 – 2 Jan 2007)

Asia House
63 New Cavendish Street
London W1G 7LP
Tel. +44 (0)20 7307 5454
http://www.asiahouse.org
http://www.throughthelookingglass-exhibition.com

Artists: Kyuchul Ahn, Duck-Hyun Cho, Jeong-Hwa Choi, Yeondoo Jung, Beom Kim, Jiwon Kim, Sora Kim, Youngjin Kim, Yong-Baek Lee and Meekyoung Shin

Asia House is delighted to present the first major UK exhibition of Korean contemporary art in the year of Think Korea 2006, celebrating the diplomatic relationship between the UK and Korea. Through the Looking Glass derives its title from the second adventure of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’. In just the same way that looking at one’s reflection in a mirror can be exhilarating, enlightening and is always back-to-front, Through the Looking Glass challenges our preconceived image of Korea through an eclectic mix of ten internationally claimed Korean artists.

Korea a fast moving country which on a surface looks very similar to any country in the West, but where every object, every visual symbols are imbued with extra meaning and context. The exhibition looks at various happenings when two cultures meet and clash by facing the ‘looking glass’.

Ten Korean contemporary artists are invited to participate in this exhibition and their works challenge the traditional Western value implicit within the interior space of venue and transform it with their fresh view points. Some of the works are weaved through the Asia House building which is a traditional Georgian building. As Alice enters a new world via the looking glass in Lewis Carroll’s novel, the exhibited works at Asia House will invite us to enter the pre-existing place in different meanings and contexts. For example, Chinese imperial porcelain vases are not from Ming or Qing dynasty but from this year. A library is considered as a ‘sound poem’, and photographs shows overlapping time frames.

With the generous support from LG Electronics, Through the Looking Glass includes five new works by Duck-Hyun Cho (painting), Jeong-Hwa Choi (installation), Sora Kim (installation), Yong-Baek Lee (new media) and Meekyoung Shin (sculpture). These new commissions who the full diversity and innovation of Korean contemporary art, which has in recent years established a high profile in the international art scene. The exhibition includes bespoke furniture, ‘Room Salon’, in Café t at Asia House by Jeong-Hwa Choi, which will replace the existing chairs and tables in the café. These specially-designed works will be available for sale exclusively at Asia House.

The exhibition will be accompanied by panel discussion at 11am-1pm, on 25 November 2006 with the panelists including Beth McKillop, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Alessio Antoniolli and Jiyoon Lee and other lecture programmes.

Admissions: free to Asia House members and under 18’s

Press information and images Rami Kim, +44 (0)771 253 1704 / krami12@gmail.com
Korean media enquiries Jungwon Gu, +44 (0)779 543 6890 / jungwon.gu@gmail.com
Asia House enquiries
Sophie Persson, +44 (0)20 7307 5454 / sophie.persson@asiahouse.co.uk

For more information go to: http://www.throughthelookingglass-exhibition.com

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Munich

Cerith Wyn Evans
.. . . in which something happens all over again for the very first time
25.11.06 – 25.02.07

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Munich
Luisenstraße 33 . 80333 Munich . Germany

http://www.lenbachhaus.de

Cerith Wyn Evans’s artistic career goes back to the London underground scene of the late 1970s, when he worked closely with the British filmmakers Derek Jarman and John Maybury and was a protagonist in the avant-garde film movement known as the New Romantics. During the 1980s, Evans worked on a number of experimental 8mm and 16mm films, in which he broke with the ascetic language of conceptual film and introduced a new form of visual opulence, theatricality and symbolic physicality into film discourse.

In the 1990s, Cerith Wyn Evans extended his means of expression. He produced photo series and also sculptural and installation works, in which he further developed his interest in the multi-layered cognitive and semiotic structures of perception. Using references to works of literature, philosophy, music, the natural sciences, film and art history, and also pursuing an aesthetic form influenced by Surrealism, Pre-Pop and the situationist utopias of the 1960s and 1970s, Evans created visual and intellectual kaleidoscopes with a highly individual language. In his installations, text and light came to play an increasingly significant role alongside associative objects such as plants and design objects. Language and its translation became the vehicle for Cerith Wyn Evans to address the subject of identity, and light became the medium by which he seduces the viewer into irritating, psychedelic and bottomless worlds.

In the Kunstbau at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Cerith Wyn Evans is showing a choreography of works in which he combines chandeliers from different epochs with citations from literature, the natural sciences and philosophy. The texts are translated into Morse code and transmitted via the flashing lights of the chandeliers. At the same time the process of translation is screened on monitors in the background. The citations are taken from the artist’s own personal collection of texts, forming a polyphony of divergent genres: letters, poems, novels, conversations, science-fiction, scientific and philosophical works. The illegibility of the texts in the outdated language of Morse code shows that Cerith Wyn Evans is not concerned with universal readability but rather with deception, illusion and the loss of meaning, with those gaps in communication where the irrational, the disfunctional and the eccentric break through.

In the exhibition, this choreography is accompanied by three neon texts by the artist. Cerith Wyn Evans has also invited the artist Florian Hecker to compose an acoustic piece for the exhibition. Asynchronous Jitter, Selective Hearing is a 37-minute long 4-channel composition in combination with a 14-channel computer-controlled spatialisation system. Staged literally in the center of the exhibition, the spatio- sonic structure of the piece re-reflects the wave-particle nature of the works surrounding it.

The Munich show in the Kunstbau is the “dark” counterpart to a “light” show in the daylit rooms of the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC, which took place this summer. The exhibition is accompanied by a book which was produced in cooperation with Paris-Musées and designed by the graphic designers M/M, Paris.

For more information go to: http://www.lenbachhaus.de

ArtReview:Digital

ArtReview:Digital — Same Magazine, Just Digital

Experience ArtReview:Digital. Since last month’s launch, thousands upon thousands of people from around the world have tuned in to the digital version of ArtReview magazine. Zoomable, searchable, easy to navigate and downloadable, ArtReview:Digital is available anytime, wherever you are in the world.

Try out ArtReview:Digital and receive six complimentary issues, including
Contemporary Collecting (January 2007) and
Future Greats (March 2007).

Register now at
http://www.artreviewdigital.com

In December, ArtReview explores the dirty, the challenging, the big, the bone-chilling and the overlooked.

Sterling Ruby’s Dirty Expressionism: We talk to the young and unpredictable Los Angeles-based artist about his fresh approach to the information age.

The Fischer King: Collector favourite Urs Fischer opens the doors of his Long Island City studio to ArtReview. Does he regret it?

Painting vs. Photography: Why so jealous? So insecure? We analyse the love-hate relationship between contemporary painting and photography.

Norwegian Art Scene: ArtReview goes to Norway for a comprehensive look at the country’s art scene. Find out who’s hot and where to go in the country once hailed as key to art’s ‘miraculous’ Nordic revival.

In Cold Blood: If you thought Funny Games and the Piano Teacher were hard to watch in places, you haven’t seen Michael Haneke’s first three films.

Plus previews, reviews, manifestos and books. It’s all in ArtReview and ArtReview:Digital.

ArtReview magazine is on newsstands from 23 November (International distribution dates subject to overseas delivery times).

To subscribe to the print version of ArtReview, visit http://www.artreview.com

For more information go to: http://www.artreviewdigital.com

Art Basel Miami Beach

Art Basel Miami Beach
Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach, Florida, USA
Entrances: Convention Center Drive and Washington Avenue
Duration and opening hours:
Thursday, December 7 through Sunday, December 10, 2006
Daily from noon to 8 p.m. Closing day from noon to 6 p.m.
http://www.ArtBasel.com

Art Basel Miami Beach
>From December 7 through 10, Miami Beach, Florida, USA, will be home to the leading international art show of the Americas. 200 of the most prestigious galleries from the USA, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa will be taking part. Picked by the Selection Committee from a record number of over 650 applicants, they will present works by over 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. 25 new galleries will be enhancing all the sectors, making the list of participants at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach more illustrious than ever (list see http://www.ArtBasel.com ). 22 young galleries are showing works in exhibition spaces created out of shipping containers on the beach (Art Positions). Following its success last year, the special «Art Nova» sector will be extended to comprise 62 booths presenting new works by 200 artists. An exciting program of special exhibitions, visits to private art collections, and crossover events will round out the varied presentation
s awaiting visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach.

New «Open Air Cinema»
Premiering this year, Art Positions is enhanced by the new Open Air Cinema under the starry skies of South Beach featuring samples from the rich history of music video. The musicians and artists represented in this program have dealt with sound, music and pop culture in a broad variety of ways and include Yello, Rineke Dijkstra, Meredith Danluck, Tony Oursler, Seth Price, Wiliam Wegman, The Residents and others.

New «Art Salon»
Art Salon is a new and open platform for discussion with an emphasis in current themes in contemporary art. Informal in its format yet international in scope, Art Salon encourages experimental round table discussions with an array of speakers ranging from artists, curators, authors, and architects. Art Salon’s daily program is located in the newly launched Art Guest Lounge, where it will also host book signings and museum groups. Participants include prominent art personalities such as Chuck Close, Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Birnbaum, Josh Baer, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Craig Robins, Jerry Saltz, Dennis Hopper, Bob Colacello, Jack Persekian, Michael Rush and many others.

«Art Kabinett»
«Art Kabinett» gives 14 participating galleries from six countries the opportunity to present small curated exhibitions. The chosen projects will be shown in a separate room of the exhibitor’s booth. The exhibition concepts for «Art Kabinett» are diverse, representing everything from thematic group exhibitions and one-person shows to installations and tributes. The spectrum ranges from modern masters to established artists and the youngest generation. «Art Kabinett» is an additional attraction for visitors and enables galleries to complement the arrangement of their booths with a curated exhibition. In undertaking this initiative, Art Basel intensifies its efforts to achieve a meaningful combination of commercial and cultural exhibition activity.

«Art Perform»
«Art Perform» features daily performances by internationally renowned young artists such as Daria Martin, Robin Rhode, Spartacus Chetwynd, Gareth Moore, Carlos Amorales, and Joao Maria Gusmao & Pedro Pavia. «Art Perform» is curated by Jens Hoffman, Director CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco.

«Art Video Lounge»
American curator Michael Rush has put together three programs: «Surrender to Illusion: Video in a Time of War», «Aesthetic Field: No Appropriation: Directors Direct/Performers Perform», and «In Brevitas Formositas: Short and Beautiful», featuring two dozen works by seventeen internationally known artists. The pieces have been selected to offer a broad survey of contemporary trends in video art. In tribute to the late Nam June Paik videos by the father of video art will also be shown every day.

«Art Projects»
One of the most exciting platforms of Art Basel Miami Beach is «Art Projects», where 8 projects by internationally renowned artists are on show in public spaces in Miami Beach. These works engage directly with the spectator, interrupting the daily routine of passersby in poetic, alienating, or surprising ways. With its array of purchasable works by such artists as Michael D. Linares, Daniel Buren, Jonathan Monk, Tea Mäkipää, The Palm d’Or Social Club, Erwin Wurm, Sislej Xhafa, and Thorsten Passfeld «Art Projects» offers fascinating insight into leading contemporary artists’ interpretation of new art in public spaces. Most of the pieces are newly created or installed site-specifically for Art Basel Miami Beach.

«Art Basel Conversations»
The «Art Basel Conversations» forum organized in association with Bvlgari promises to be very exciting this year. Panelists include such top-flight artists, art collectors, and museum directors as, Richard Flood, Ryan Gander, Julia Peyton-Jones, Jennifer Allora, Lidia Leon, Ai Weiwei, Sebastian Lopez, Ramiro Martinez, Natalia Majluf, Virginia Pérez-Ratton, José Ignacio Roca, Ivo Costa Mesquita, Dan Graham, Jorge Pardo and many others. They will be discussing questions based around the subjects of «The Future of the Museum: Focus Latin America», «Architecture for Art: Artists Who Build» and «Art Collections: Collecting and Memory.»

«Art Sound Lounge»
With its «Art Sound Lounge», Art Basel Miami Beach presents a forum where visitors can take in music and audio pieces in the attractive surroundings of the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens. Listeners are provided with wireless headphones as they stroll through the gardens to a program featuring music and sound by and about plants, insects, and birds including tracks from John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Coffin, Terry Riley, Arto Lindsay, Shelley Hirsch and many others.

«Art Loves….»
Art Basel Miami Beach incorporates crossover events including film, music, and design. «Art Loves Music» presents a concert of the provocative singer «Peaches» with her band. «Art Loves Film» will feature an evening with director Dennis Hopper presenting his classical movie «Easy Rider». The «Art Loves Design Party» in Miami’s Design District will include exhibitions by Vitra Design Museum, Centre Pompidou, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and many others. The design show «Design Miami/2006» will feature 17 leading contemporary design dealers.

Please visit our website http://www.ArtBasel.com for the latest news.

For more information go to: http://www.ArtBasel.com

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

THE STUDIO
December 1, 2006 – February 25, 2007

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
Charlemont House
Parnell Square North, Dublin 1
T +353 1 222 5550
http://www.hughlane.ie

Participating Artists: John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Thomas Demand, Gerad Byrne, Urs Fischer, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, Isa Genzken, Andrew Grassie, Martin Kippenberger, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Perry Ogden, Martha Rosler, Dieter Roth, Frances Stark, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ian Wallace, Andy Warhol

Curated by: Jens Hoffmann and Christina Kennedy

Inspired by the presence of the studio of Frances Bacon, which is on permanent view at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, THE STUDIO sets out to investigate the role, the idea and function of the artist’s studio as the main space of activity in the making and production of art.

The concept of the studio has long captivated audiences with its associations of unbridled creativity, freedom from convention, bohemian lifestyle and struggle for success. THE STUDIO wants to offer an in-depth examination of the historic and contemporary role and function of the studio for artists. What does the studio mean for artists today whose creative production is based on ideas and process and for whom the notion of the permanency of the artwork is often redundant? Addressing this subject provides fascinating insights into art in the contemporary environment and the role and activities of the artist within those structures, social, economic and political, which inform society locally and globally.

THE STUDIO will look into the changes that the idea of the studio has encountered over the last decades and asks whether or not the studio is in fact still the main sphere of creative production for artists at a moment when art has become increasingly idea-based and less dependent on the notion of skill.

A publication, including installation photographs of all the works on display and texts by the curators on the participating artists will accompany this exhibition and can be ordered from the museum’s bookshop.

THE STUDIO is curated by Jens Hoffmann, Director CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and Christina Kennedy, Head of Exhibitions, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

In the framework of THE STUDIO a number of studio visits have been organised for the public to go to see the studios of artists living and working in Dublin. As numbers are limited (maximum six per visit), it is advised to book early.

As part of THE STUDIO a symposium on the role of the studio in creative production today, will take place on February 8 and 9, 2007. Speakers include internationally active artists, curators and critics such as: Sara Arrhenius, Iwona Blazwick, Daniel Buren, Thomas Demand, Liam Gillick, John Miller, Claire Doherty, Jens Hoffmann and Karen Wright.

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
Charlemont House
Parnell Square North
Dublin 1
T: +353 1 2225550
F: +353 1 8722182
E: info.hughlane@dublincity.ie
W: http://www.hughlane.ie

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Thursday 10am – 6pm
Friday & Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 11am – 5pm
Closed Mondays

For more information go to: http://www.hughlane.ie

NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art

Major Launch of the
Rethinking Nordic Colonialism
Documentation DVD & WEBSITE!

Saturday, November 25, 2006 in
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo & Stockholm
+
Nuuk, Reykjavik, Rovaniemi & Tórshavn

http://www.nifca.org

Kuratorisk Aktion and NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art are very pleased to invite the public to the launch of the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism documentation DVD and WEBSITE.

Both document the rich body of aesthetic and theoretical reflections generated during the exhibition project Rethinking Nordic Colonialism: A Postcolonial Exhibition Project in Five Acts, which took place in Iceland, Greenland, The Faroe Islands, and Finnish Sápmi earlier this year. In addition, they contain a series of essays and interviews produced specifically for these publications.

Rethinking Nordic Colonialism has attempted to write a first collective history of Nordic colonialism. The project combined exhibitions with workshops, conferences, hearings, and happenings and featured fifty-six artists, theorists, politicians, and grassroots activists from all over the world. Together, they examined why the history of Nordic colonialism has been widely forgotten and how it continues to reproduce itself as waves of intolerance, xenophobia, and nationalism.

The DVD and website contain general information about the project and allow viewers to navigate through the project’s five acts and access the following:

• Participant Bios & Project Descriptions
• Exhibition Video Tours
• Film Program Video Tours
• Public Events Audio & Video Summaries
• Behind the Scenes Photos
• Printable Essays & Papers
• Reports from the Act Locations
• Press Material & Press Coverage

The DVD and website are released on Saturday, November 25, 2006, during a series of simultaneous launch events co-hosted by cultural institutions, organizations, and magazines in the Nordic capitals. Please join us in one of the venues below for publication presentation, discussions, food, drinks, and music:

• Copenhagen, 5 – 8 pm @ Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden neden Vandet 17, DK-1414 Copenhagen K

• Helsinki, 5 – 10 pm @ NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art
Suomenlinna B28, FIN-00190 Helsinki

• Oslo, 5 – 8 pm @ Torpedo Kunstbokhandelen
Hausmannsgate 42, N-0182 Oslo

• Stockholm, 5 – 8 pm @ Konsthall C
Cigarrvägen 14, S-123 57 Hökarängen

• Nuuk, 1 – 3 pm @ Greenland’s Cultural Center Katuaq’s CafeTuaq
Imaneq 21, GRL-3900 Nuuk

• Reykjavik, 4 – 6 pm @ The Reykjavik Academy’s Dagsbrúnar Library_
JL-house, 4th floor, Hringbraut 121, IS-107 Reykjavik

• Rovaniemi, 4 – 6 pm @ Arktikum Library
Pohjoisranta 4, FIN-96200 Rovaniemi

• Tórshavn, 2 – 4 pm @ The Faroe Islands Art Museum
Gundadalsvegur 9, 110 Tórshavn

A preview of the website is available on http://www.rethinking-nordic-colonialism.org after November 14. Free DVDs are available at the launches or can be purchased 10 by contacting Kuratorisk Aktion at info@kuratorisk.org.

Rethinking Nordic Colonialism has been realized with generous financial support from: Nordic Council of Ministers, The Living Art Museum, Stooir hf., The Reykjavik Academy, Greenland National Museum and Archives, Teachers’ Training School of Greenland, The Faroe Islands Art Museum, The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands, Finnish Railways, The Arctic Centre, The European Cultural Foundation, The Danish Arts Council’s Committee for International Visual Art, Nordiska Museikommittén, Svenska kulturfonden, IASPIS – International Artists’ Studio Program in Sweden, Mentanargrunnur Landsins, Arts Council of Lapland, FRAME: Finnish Fund for Art Exchange, Færøernes Landsstyri, NACS: Nordic Association for Canadian Studies, Det Kongelige Grønlandsfond, Kulturfonden Danmark-Grønland, Embassy of Canada in Finland, OCA (Office for Contemporary Art Norway), Atlantic Airways Ltd., Icelandair, Hotel Hans Egede, Puukeskus Oy Rovaniemi, Air Logistics Aps, Skipaf
elagio, Ljóo-Tøkni, Royal Arctic Line A/S, Hotel Føroyar, The Nordic House on Iceland, Hótel Leifur Eiríksson, Dronning Ingrids Hospital – Central Laboratoriet, Nuuk Værft A/S, U.S. Overskudslager, Dansk Veteranbiludlejning, Den Danske Trådvarefabrik, Beredskabsstyrelsen, Rovaniemi Art Museum, and KNR (Greenland National Broadcasting Company).

Kuratorisk Aktion is a platform for curators engaged in a critical practice along the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The platform was founded by Danish-born curators, Frederikke Hansen and Tone Olaf Nielsen, in spring 2005. Merging feminist, queer, and activist informed approaches, Kuratorisk Aktion pledge themselves to raise consciousness on the politics of representation and translate this consciousness into practice. We attempt to achieve this through a 65/35 percent representation of minoritarian and majoritarian subjectivities respectively in all our productions, at the same time as we open this procedure up to critique as part of the curatorial methodology. In this way, Kuratorisk Aktion hope to demonstrate a politically correct practice – one, however, that steers clear of tokenism and allows alternative thinking to be the dominant trait, not only in terms of the identity politics of the participants but more importantly in terms of their practice. Since
August 2005, Kuratorisk Aktion have been employed by NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in Helsinki. Their employment will end in December 2006, upon which the collective hopes to establish a research institute for long-term aesthetic, theoretical, and activist interrogations into global socio-political issues. Kuratorisk Aktion is presently also working on realizing the project What’s Left of the Left? Rethinking Left-Wing Politics in the Age of Globalization. Websites include: http://www.kuratorisk.org, http://www.rethinking-nordic-colonialism.org.

For additional information, please contact Press Coordinator Aura Seikkula, tel: +358 9 686 43 106, mobile: +358 50 501 5121, aura.seikkula@nifca.org, http://www.rethinking-nordic-colonialism.org, http://www.nifca.org

For more information go to: http://www.rethinking-nordic-colonialism.org

Centre international d’art et du paysage de l’île de Vassivière

My private escaped from Italy
19 November 2006 to 28 January 2007
Curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Anna Daneri

Centre international d’art et du paysage de l’île de Vassivière
Ile de Vassivière F - 87120
Tel: ( 33) 05 55 69 27 27
Fax: ( 33) 05 55 69 29 31
e.mail: communication@ciap-iledevassiviere.fr

Tuesday to Friday 2 pm to 6 pm
Sat. from 11 am to 1 pm, 2 pm to 6 pm

Artists: Francis Alÿs, Micol Assaël, Kris Martin, Michael Sailstorfer, Hans Schabus, Gregor Schneider, Patrick Tuttofuoco

How do you show and yet not show a private collection? How do you give a public exhibition the dimension of a domestic space, given the collector’s obsession for monumental sculptures and installations? And how do you deal with the fact that he wishes to remain anonymous, but not invisible? The exhibit-project MY PRIVATE – conceived by Barbara Casavecchia, Anna Daneri and Paola Manfrin – tries to confront these questions and their multiple paradoxes.

In a game of role reversal, the collector is thus transformed into the commander not of unique works of art – as one might expect – but of unique solo-shows, set up by guest artists, regularly, once a year. For the ephemeral moment of a private opening, these site-specific exhibitions abusively ‘squat’ different places, very often ‘work in progress’ and with no relation to art. Everything is thought out for a single evening, as if it were a furtive intrusion into a bank vault. The only evidence that testifies to the event is a bilingual publication in a limited edition, unveiling private aspects of the artist’s work and documenting its presence in the collection.

MY PRIVATE was inaugurated in 2003 with a labyrinth intervention by Gregor Schneider inside the building site at via Pasteur 21 in Milan, followed in 2004 by a neon installation, video and light show by Patrick Tuttofuoco at the same address, later on transformed into a residential complex. In 2005, MY PRIVATE moved to a 2000-m2 industrial warehouse under construction at Cernusco sul Naviglio, in the Milanese hinterland, to house the ironic, monumental works of Michael Sailstorfer. This year instead, MY PRIVATE migrates to Turin with a bewildering new performance by Pietro Roccasalva (11 November), hosted under the dome an old Baptist church downtown at via Lagrange 13.

However something unexpected has happened. The phantom collector has fallen for the charm of the Centre international d’art et du paysage de l’ile de Vassivière and the insistence of Chiara Parisi, who, since her appointment as director of the Centre d’art, has dedicated herself to making Vassivière a place of production detached from the traditional art circuits. A germinal place through which new energies are developed and emerge, capable of shaking up the waters of the lake where Vassivière Island and this symbolic place of art stand.

MY PRIVATE ESCAPED FROM ITALY is the first group show of this cycle whose duration is prolonged (from 19 November 2006 to 28 January 2007) and which takes place in an institution. In respect to the original format, the artists were invited to work in relation with the existing architecture and to present works tied to the idea of privacy. In the installation by Francis Alÿs, Closed Circuit, the Centre d’art itself “unveils” its most private aspects by exposing its working/producing mechanisms, which are usually hidden in the wings. A system of closed-circuit video surveillance transmits the day-to-day activities of the office over a screen to the inner spaces of the library.

Patrick Tuttofuoco confronts Aldo Rossi’s lighthouse through the light ray of Follow the Sun!, and with the welcoming "passage" Y, a light-and-sound installation carried out in collaboration with the musical group BHF (in line with the artist’s predilection for team work, shared experiences, and rhizomic practices, as opposed to individual creation).

To show the works of Gregor Schneider, the majestic spaces of the nave convert themselves into an obligatory and confined passage, hosting an invisible piece, as well as photographs, sculptures and a large double projection, which ‘stalks’ the artist around his meandering home in Rheydt and its doppelganger, rebuilt by Schneider inside the German Pavilion at 2001 Venice Biennale (Golden Lion).

Micol Assaël’s sound installation Your Hidden Sound is the recording of noises from a bird who took shelter in the artist’s studio. In the empty space echoes only the flapping of the wings and the artist’s steps who tries to catch the bird, with no success. A situation of suspense then occurs, a frightening atmosphere from some psychological thriller that arouses mixed feelings in the viewers who, as often in the artist’s works, are empathicaly involved.

Zentrale (Tisch) by Hans Schabus is an “animated” table that miniaturizes and metaphorically recreates the space of his studio, understood as a place dense with drawings, instruments and individual fantasies. The exhibition also offers the first showing of the work Leck mich am Arsch (Teppich), a “carpet” made by sewing together all the clothes thrown out when the artist last moved house.

Kris Martin exceptionally lends to MY PRIVATE a gift offered to his son at birth: the volume on which he transcribed in handwriting all of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, as well as the desk that he used to accomplish this work. His intervention extends into the sculpture garden of Centre d’art (which welcomes environmental works by A. Goldsworthy, I. & E. Kabakov, O. Mosset, M. Pistoletto and others) with Conductor.

A slim conductor’s wand fixed to a branch moves at the whim of the wind and progressively rises to the crescendo rhythm of the tree. Michael Sailstorfer recreates in the gardens his first work Waldputz, until now only documented from the perspective of photography: a perfectly clean rectangle of forest, delimited by four trunks, marks out the space – individual, mental, abstract – by which the artist’s work takes shape. Sailstorfer also takes over the upper rooms of the Centre with a slide projection recording the transformations of bus stops in his native Bavaria into temporarily habitable, comfortable, human-size spaces.

The exhibition, following the path of the 2005 exhibition Strictly Confidential. From the collection of Marc and Josée Gensollen proposes to sketch a portrait of the private collectors’ personalities and social behaviours inside system of contemporary art, putting forward their ambiguous relationship towards the works but also towards the artists that they appeal to. Hans Schabus’s "rug" is in that regard an eloquent metaphor of the intimate and somewhat morbid relationship between the artist and his work and consequently between the artist and the collector.

On the occasion of the exhibition, the catalog My private escaped from Italy is edited by Silvana Editoriale (Milan) under the artistic direction of Paola Manfrin and Dario Villa.

The Centre international d’art et du paysage enjoys the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication / Drac Limousin, the Limousin Regional Council, the Creuse General Council and the Vassivière en Limousin Regional and Inter-departmental Mixed Syndicate (SYMIVA).

For more information go to: