Artipedia - Arts News

daadgalerie Berlin

João Penalva
The roar of lions (2006)
Single channel video projection, colour, sound, 37 minutes

Opening: 2nd of February, 7.00 – 9.00 pm

daadgalerie Berlin
Zimmerstrasse 90/91 10117 Berlin
February 4th – March 10th, 2007
Screening times: 11:15h, 12:00h, 12:45h, 13:30h, 14:15h, 15:00h, 15:45h, 16:30h, 17:15h

On the occasion of the 2007 Berlinale, João Penalva will present his most recent videowork in the daadgalerie. The roar of lions was filmed in Berlin during the long, cold winter of 2005, at the centre of the frozen lake known as Grunewaldsee, on the greenbelt surrounding the city. A forest rich in history, the Grunewald is also a leisure spot and the residential area of an affluent class. Penalva says that his work “[…] could almost be seen as the documentary of a bucolic place and its population of grown-ups, children and pets at play at a certain time, on a certain day. But while the projected image remains familiar, the narrator will lead the viewer to visualize other images of other places, people and sounds, and question how much it takes for all that seems familiar and safe to become unknown and menacing. Could it be that parallel worlds co-habit our minds? Where does dreamland begin?”

Spoken in Mandarin Chinese, the 37 minute long film is subtitled by Penalva’s own English text, which is spoken in translation. In a more disturbing reversal, Penalva also comments that, “The understanding of how time has been compounded here hinges on only one word — the last to be heard. It functions as the folding where the end of the film is actually its beginning.”

João Penalva was born in Lisbon in 1949 and has lived and worked in London from 1976.

In 2003-2004 João Penalva was awarded the Berlin DAAD Artists Residency.

He represented Portugal in the XXIII Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo, 1996, and in the Portuguese Pavilion, XLIX Biennale di Venezia, 2001. He exhibited also in the Berlin Biennale 2, 2001, and the Biennale of Sydney, 2002.

Solo exhibitions include Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, and Frac Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, 1999; Camden Arts Centre, London; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius; Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; Tramway, Glasgow, 2000; Rooseum Centre for Contemporary Art, Malmö, 2002; Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and The Power Plant, Toronto, 2003; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, and Ludwig Museum Budapest, 2005; Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2006.

For further information: http://www.daad-berlin.de

Press contact: Ute Weingarten — artpress
Tel : +49-30-2196-18-46 ;
Mobile : +49-175-2221561 ;
artpress@uteweingarten.de

For more information go to: http://www.daad-berlin.de

PARACHUTE

PARACHUTE 125 LA HABANA

JAN. FEB. MARCH 2007

Out now!

“How are we to perceive contemporary art in a setting such as Havana? This island nation has been living under Fidel Castro’s regime since 1959, and yet it is not cut off from international movements.

The geopolitics of contemporary art can no longer ignore what has been happening in Havana over the past two decades. Many artists even emigrated, especially in the 1980s and 90s; today, the art scene is increasingly diversified, with influential figures choosing to stay and work in Havana, principally, whether or not they also pursue an “international” career.

The present moment is particularly interesting because it clearly occupies an “in-between” state politically and socially. The recent health problems of the country’s famous and omnipresent leader have brought about a delegation of power which suggests that a period of change is imminent. But what kind of change? No one is willing to risk a prediction in the current climate. Havana, a white and dilapidated stain facing the sea, lashed by immense waves licking at its ramparts, exists in a sort of suspended time, in a withering socio-political project increasingly overrun by the tourist industry and global culture.”

(excerpt from Chantal Pontbriand’s editorial)

SUMMARY
PARACHUTE 125 LA HABANA

page 10
La habana
language-education–counter-utopia
by Chantal Pontbriand

page 18
The Art Victims of Havana
by Orlando Hernández

page 34
The Streets Appear to Be Quiet:Contemporary Cuban Art’s Texts
and Contexts
by Magaly Espinosa

page 56
Horizontal Interactions:
Pedagogy and Art in Contemporary Cuba
by Eugenio Valdès Figueroa

page 88
Alternative Projects in Lapses of Hostility and Turbulent Times
by Magda González-Mora Alfonso

page 100
An Unpleasant Lucidity: Juan Carlos Alom, Manuel Piña, Felipe Dulzaides and Moving Images in Havana
by Antonio Eligio Fernández (Tonel)

page 118
visual essay
La escritura
by Carlos Garaicoa

page 126
Glimpses of Eduardo Ponjuán’s Latest Images
by Elvia Rosa Castro Martin

page 137
Adonis Flores
Farce de guerre au cœur de la chose publique
by Héctor Antón Castillo

page 144
Les intuitions illogiques de Wilfredo Prieto
by Dalila López Arbolay

page 150

The documenta 12 magazines project and parachute
by Chantal Pontbriand

page 157
Books and Magazines
by Jacinto Lageira, Rachel Lauzon, Marie-Christiane Mathieu, Frédéric Maufras, Pablo Rodriguez

para-para 025

page 2
Vered Maimon > PIERRE HUYGHE / CELEBRATION PARK, Tate Modern, London
Vesna Krstich > THOMAS DEMAND, The Serpentine Gallery, London

page 3
Ed Krcma > TACITA DEAN / ANALOGUE: FILMS, PHOTOGRAPHS, DRAWINGS, 1991–2006, Schaulager, Basel
Brian Curtin > BELIEF, SINGAPORE BIENNALE 2006, Singapore

page 4
Mason White > CITIES: ARCHITECTURE AND SOCIETY, 10th International
Architecture Biennale, Venice
Benjamin Thorel > LE MOUVEMENT DES IMAGES – ART ET CINÉMA, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

page 5
Vanessa Morisset > CINDY SHERMAN, RÉTROSPECTIVE, Jeu de Paume, Paris, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Humlebæk, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

page 6
Tammer El-Sheikh > ANDY WARHOL / SUPERNOVA: STARS, DEATHS AND DISASTERS, 1962–1964, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Nathalie Côté > HABITER, ÉVÉNEMENT D’ART PUBLIC, Quartier Saint-Roch, Québec + LES CONVERTIBLES, Parc des Champs-de-Bataille, Québec

page 8
Julie Matte > MATHIEU BEAUSÉJOUR / 11/2 MÉTRO CÔTE-DES-NEIGES + ALAIN DECLERCQ / EMBEDDED VERSUS WILDCAT, VOX, centre de l’image contemporaine Montréal

For nearest outlet :
http://www.parachute.ca/diffusion.php

PARACHUTE
T. 514-842-9805
F. 514-842-9319
info@parachute.ca
http://www.parachute.ca

For more information go to: http://www.parachute.ca

Tate

Tate
Curator - International Art
c.£30,000 pa + benefits
London, UK

At Tate Modern our aim is to provide public access to some of the most interesting and ground-breaking modern and contemporary art in the world. To ensure the collection keeps developing and reflects the most outstanding art of our time we’re currently seeking a Curator of International Art to join the team.

You’ll have a broad knowledge of modern and contemporary international art as well as specialised knowledge of at least one area beyond Tate’s traditional knowledge base in Western European and North American Art. You’ll take a lead in researching and acquisition of new works of art for the collection and contribute to the formulation of acquisition strategy by collaborating with other members of our team. Your first class research skills will enable you to find and propose new acquisitions and your established network of contacts will allow you to advise the Head of Collections, International Art on developments in the field. You are able to write authoritative texts for a specialist readership, along with more accessible texts for the public and will have the confidence to be an articulate spokesperson representing a high-profile organisation.

While the emphasis is on acquisitions, you’ll make a valuable contribution to the programme of exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern. Working to ensure that the most important modern and contemporary international art becomes part of the public domain, this is a rare and exciting opportunity to play a leading role in our organisation.

For an application pack and more information, please visit our website http://www.tate.org.uk or email jobs@tate.org.uk quoting ref: 6149/TM. Closing date: 5 February 2007.

Our jobs are like our galleries. Open to all.

For more information go to: http://www.tate.org.uk

Portuguese Ministry of Culture – Institute of the Arts

ÂNGELA FERREIRA
PORTUGUESE PAVILION
VENICE BIENNALE 2007

Exhibition:
10 June – 21 November 2007
Venue:
Fondaco Marcello

http://www.iartes.pt/veneza2007

Ângela Ferreira to represent Portugal at the 2007 Venice Biennale

Ângela Ferreira has been selected to represent Portugal at the 52nd Venice Biennale 2007. The Portuguese Pavilion, produced and organized by the Institute of the Arts of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, is curated by Jürgen Bock. The Portuguese Pavilion will be located at Fondaco Marcello, on the Canal Grande, between the Academia and Rialto Bridges, a 2-minute walk from Palazzo Grassi.

Ângela Ferreira is one of Portugal’s most engaging contemporary artists today. She has exhibited widely since the beginning of the 1990s. Driven by political issues, Ferreira scrutinizes the use of theories – in particular art historical theories – and their relationship with and impact on contemporary art, calling for art’s inherent communicative potential to negotiate complex subject matter.

Ferreira subtly stimulates the viewer to articulate questions in their encounter with her objects, which take the shape of skillfully executed and aesthetically appealing modernist sculptures, often combined with texts, photographs and videos. The questions instigated interrogate what we have come to consider as ‘given’ in art history; however, if we consider history is a construct, one might ask: which history, whose history and history to what purpose? Venice – a city with its own unique track record of more than a century of biennales, with its national presentations of art in a wide range of ‘national’ modern buildings and its never-ending negotiations with (post) modernity – is a perfect platform for Ferreira to tackle these issues.

Ângela Ferreira was born in 1958 in Maputo/Mozambique. She spent the 1980s in South Africa and has lived and worked in Lisbon since 1992.

Selected Solo Exhibitions in recent years include: “Random Walk”, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon (2005); “No Place at All”, Museu do Chiado – Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon (2003); “Private Views”, Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis, Porto (2002); “Zip Zap Circus School”, Institute of Contemporary Art, Cape Town (2002); “House Maputo: An Intimate Portrait”, Museu Serralves, Porto (1999).

Selected Group Exhibitions include: “(Re)volver”, Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon (2006); “L’Universel? Dialogues avec Senghor”, Joal Fadiouth, Dakar University, Senegal (2003); “Continuare”, Maia Biennial (2003); “Squatters”, Museu Serralves, Porto / Witte de With, Rotterdam (2001); “Total Object Complete with Missing Parts”, Tramway Gallery, Glasgow (2001); “Signs of Life”, Melbourne International Biennial (1999); Istanbul Biennial (1999).

For further information please contact:

Instituto das Artes - Press Office
gabcom@iartes.pt
Tel. +351 21 382 5200
http://www.iartes.pt/veneza2007

For more information go to: http://www.iartes.pt/veneza2007

ART for The World

COLLATERAL When Art looks at Cinema

CORY ARCANGEL, PIERRE BISMUTH, CANDICE BREITZ, BRICE DELLSPERGER, CHARLES DE MEAUX, OMER FAST, THOMAS G., LIAM GILLICK & PHILIPPE PARRENO, CHRISTOPH GIRARDET & MATTHIAS MÜLLER, PIERRE HUYGHE, RUNA ISLAM, MIKE KELLEY, DIMITRIS KOZARIS, MELIK OHANIAN, CAROLA SPADONI, CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER

Concept and Curatorship: Adelina von Fürstenberg,
in collaboration with Anna Daneri and Andrea Lissoni
Exhibition Design: Arch. Andreas Angelidakis
Catalogue: Charta

Dates & Time:
February 2 - March 15, 2007
Tuesday to Sunday 11am – 7pm,
Thursday 2.30pm – 10pm

Opening Reception: February 1, 7pm

Location: Hangar Bicocca
Via Chiese, Milan, Italy
http://www.hangarbicocca.it

Organization: ART for The World
http://www.artfortheworld.net
info@artfortheworld.net

What is the relationship between art and cinema today? At least a decade has passed since contemporary art first began to turn its attention to cinema, its imagery, its world and its techniques. What remains of this reciprocal fascination, and how has this sometimes fatal attraction been transformed?

COLLATERAL is the first exhibition in Italy to offer an in depth exploration of the many possible similarities between art and cinema. Video installations will be shown where the explicit subject is the imagery of cinema or its evocation. However COLLATERAL is also an exploration which, whilst not ignoring the spectacular element typical of cinema, allows us on one hand to outline an evaluation of that which has been undertaken so far, and on the other to theorise about the next developments of the artistic practice connected to the moving image.

The research of artists using video shows the full attraction for the imagery and the structure of cinema, and at the same time makes use of the possibility to examine and show cinema in a new light. In the majority of cases for the generation of artists in the exhibition, the work consists in an intervention on a cult film, a key scene, the star or the gestures of the star, or is a work which changes the essence of the cinematic material and all the processes connected to it - that is, not only the film itself, its form and its possible memory, but also the cinema theatre, its scenery and even the method of projection.

Over the last few years, thanks to the possibility of directly accessing materials and manipulating them more or less freely, it has been possible to rediscover the history of cinema in all its episodes. Artists have been able to confront the myths and traditions with an independent approach, often going beyond the limits and freely re-inventing the emotions it evokes.

COLLATERAL, through the works of 18 emblematic international artists – and with its unique and original installation, both spectacular and respectful of the independence of each single work - offers a journey where works by artists from different generations, places, backgrounds and fields of training are shown next to the founding figures and guiding lights of the medium. Some are more connected to the tradition of “cult” cinema, some more to that of video art, some to an installation in the exhibition space, and some more to experimental cinema.

For further information please contact:
Laura Frencia, Coordinator
ART for The World
Via Darwin 20
20143 Milan – Italy
T. +39 02 36524881
Fax +39 02 36524171
info@artfortheworld.net

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

MAMbo, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS
For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 5)

curated by Gianfranco Maraniello and Andrea Viliani

c/o Galleria d’Arte Moderna
Piazza Costituzione 3, Bologna
tel. 051.502859 – fax 051.371032
Press contact: Giulia Pezzoli: ufficiostampagam@comune.bologna.it

January 26 – March 4 2007
Press conference
January 22 2007, 12 a.m.
Opening January 25 2007, 7 p.m.

The first solo show in an Italian museum by the American artist Christopher Williams (Los Angeles, 1956) will coincide and will celebrate the closure of the old venue of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (1975-2007). Specifically conceived as the very last show held in this exhibition space on the eve of its imminent relinquishment, Williams’s intervention comprises an organic project that links together the exhibition layout and its framework represented by the architecture of the building itself and its three decades of exhibition making.

Working directly on the structure of the building, Williams will allow the visitor to have access to the museum through its original entrance and by a balanced interplay of additions and removals he will partially rediscover the itineraries, disposition of masses, explanatory structures and original outlay as they were at the time the museum was opened (May 1st, 1975). In the galleries themselves, but also in the old entrance lobby, in the corridors and in the service areas normally closed to the public the artist’s works will outline the course of a unique journey “backwards in time”. By documenting the progressive transformations of the Gallery - designed by architect Leone Pancaldi adjacent to the pavilions of the Bologna Fair - the artist puts into mutual relationship the present and the past of the institution, its imminent closure with the events which politically motivated its creation and accompanied its inauguration, enabling these two opposite events – inauguration
and closure – as it were to discourse between themselves and almost merging the one with the other.

In his photographs, videos, films, installations, sculptures and performances Christopher Williams analyses the complex and stratified mechanisms by means of which contemporary communication and aesthetic conventions structure our ways of perceiving and understanding reality. Williams’s artistic work lies at an ideal meeting point between ‘60s and ‘70s Conceptual Art, concerned with critically deconstructing the instruments and the very context of artistic action, and the recovery of neo-conceptual strategies by the most recent generation of artists which began to emerge in the early ‘90s.

By means of the reciprocal impact of his works and that of the institutional context in which they are displayed, Williams underlines the critical relationship between the museum - the constant change and overlapping of its programmes, functions and ideologies - and the dynamics of communication in our society and in contemporary culture, shedding light both on the contradictory nature of the very idea of the avant-garde – the realisation of which modernism has often regarded as the function of contemporary art –and on the illusory idea of an objective authority normally attributed to the museum as an institution.

In his project Williams also explores the contemporary legacy of that long period of political, social and cultural experimentation which in the late ’60s and throughout the ‘70s made Bologna a point of reference on the international level: from the research into mass communication debated, for instance, in Umberto Eco’s University courses at the D.A.M.S. (founded in 1971) to the broadcasts of the first free Italian radios, among which was Radio Alice (which started broadcasting on January 26 1976), to the town planning projects – as the ones that involved the Fair District where the Gallery is located - aimed at connecting economic development, social integration and cultural progress in a metropolitan organism which tried to sweep away the divisions between the various means of production as well as between centre and suburbs. A process which eventually involved intellectuals and students in a debate which, during those years, stretched far beyond the context of the institu
tions until in the spring of 1977 it invaded the streets and piazzas of the city (“The Skank Bloc Bologna […] now they’ve got a notion and they’re working on a hope, a Euro-ruled vision and a skank in scope”, Skank Bloc Bologna, Scritti Politti, 1978).

In this sense the exhibition of Christopher Williams is to be regarded as a conscious act of ‘divestment’ not just of an exhibition building but of an entire cultural project destined to be carefully studied and reconsidered in the programme of the future MAMbo-Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, which will open in the spring of 2007 in its new venue at the former ‘Forno del Pane’.

A monographic catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition, containing photographic documentation of the show in comparison with visual documentation of the museum’s history. In addition to critical essays by architectural historian Mark Wigley and critic John Kelsey, the catalogue will include an introduction based on the collaboration between the artist and the Director of the Istituzione Galleria d’Arte Moderna Gianfranco Maraniello and a detailed documentary apparatus edited by Andrea Viliani with the collaboration of Alessia Masi and Uliana Zanetti.

Conceived independently by the artist and dedicated to the memory of the French film director Danièle Huillet (1936-2006), a play list project curated by Williams and John Kelsey will be broadcast throughout the period of the exhibition by Città del Capo – Radio Metropolitana.

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

For more information go to: http://www.galleriadartemoderna.bo.it/

Tate Modern

Matt Mullican Under Hypnosis
Saturday 27 January 2007, 22.00–23.30

Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG
Booking recommended
Call: + 44 20 7887 8888
Visit: http://www.tate.org.uk

American artist Matt Mullican will give a performance while in a state of hypnosis at Tate Modern on Saturday 27 January as part of UBS Openings: Saturday Live, a dynamic and ground-breaking programme of live performances and film at Tate Modern every two months.

Matt Mullican (b. 1951), whose work also includes drawing, sculpture and installation, has been using performance since the 1970s and hypnosis since 1978 to investigate the nature of reality, behaviour and association. His performances under hypnosis deal with questions of who he is and what lies within him and how hypnosis alters his identity in so-called reality.

He has also long been fascinated by the relationship between information and perception as it is filtered through emotive or unconscious associations. The symbols, shapes and repetitive patterns that he paints during these highly concentrated performances focus on such concerns. Mullican likens the focused, deliberate act of artistic creation with the state of trance under hypnosis, since he regards actions and processes of which we are not aware as fundamental for all artistic creative processes.

Although these events are unpredictable by their very nature, painting under hypnosis is often only a part of the performance. In previous events Mullican has interacted with the audience and for this performance furniture and large sheets of paper will be available for the artist to work with.

In his interview with Vicente L. de Moura, professional hypnotist, Mullican states: “(….) I feel more like an archaeologist. I’m digging into my brain and I’m kind of unearthing these states of mind that I don’t think are at all alien to everybody else. I think everybody deals with these states of mind but they don’t recognise them. They happen too quickly perhaps.”

The performance will take place under the bridge in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and the artist will work mainly in black acrylic paint on large sheets of paper (approximately 2 x 3 metres). He will be hypnotised by a professional hypnotist.

UBS Openings: Saturday Live, Matt Mullican under Hypnosis, is co-curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Tate (Contemporary Art and Performance) and Marc Pérennès, Independent Live Art Producer. The Arts Council England has provided additional support for this event.

Coming Next in the UBS Openings: Saturday Live series:

Actions and Interruptions
Saturday 10 March 2007, 11.00 – 21.45

The next UBS Openings: Saturday Live is Actions and Interruptions, a day-long exhibition of live works at Tate Modern, exploring performance that interfere with the visitor’s normal experience, creating unusual encounters. Some works operate as a form of ‘invisible theatre’ that blurs the lines between reality and fiction, such as Good Feelings in Good Times 2003/4 by Roman Ondák, a choreographed queue played out by actors.

The programme will feature performance works by Roman Ondák, Dora Garcia, Marie Jan Lund and Nina Jan Beier, Jiri Kovanda and Mario Garcia Torres that will erupt in various locations in the museum’s public spaces or in the galleries, often at unexpected moments.

For more information log on to http://www.tate.org.uk or for tickets call + 44 20 7887 8888.

UBS Openings: Saturday Live is a new strand of programming at Tate Modern which began in May 2006, presenting live art events, performance and film every two months. Events take place in the Turbine Hall, the Starr Auditorium, Level 2 Café and throughout the main galleries on Levels 3 and 5. The highlight of the programme is UBS Openings: The Long Weekend, an annual four-day festival taking place over the final bank holiday weekend in May.

For more information go to: http://www.tate.org.uk

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

I Remember Heaven:
Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol
January 26 – April 8, 2007

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
3750 Washington Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
phone: 314.535.4660
fax: 314.535.1226
http://www.contemporarystl.org

On the surface it may seem that Warhol and Hodges are polar opposites. Warhol is popularly portrayed as the ultimate cynic who “played” the art world for fame and fortune. By contrast, Hodges’s work can seem almost too likeable, openly tender and emotionally charged. I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol reconsiders these characterizations of both artists through a series of carefully choreographed installations that juxtapose their works.

I Remember Heaven aims to evoke the side of Warhol that loved beauty and found it everywhere, in the bodies of beautiful boys and the silvery surfaces of the Factory’s space-age décor; who made art that embodied empathy and emotion; and who exposed himself in the self-portraits he made throughout his life. At the same time, the show seeks to amplify interpretations of Jim Hodges’s work beyond that of personal expressions of longing and loss, and explore his embrace of cheap means of adornment as well as the sexy, visceral quality of his work.

This exhibition creates a dialogue between the two artists, showing many shared motifs and materials—flowers, camouflage patterns, silvery surfaces, references to death. However, these resemblances are only part of the picture. On a deeper level this cross-generational study looks at the artists’ works within a continuum of art production that finds history in everyday artifacts and uses aesthetic representation as a means to understand visibility/invisibility, sexuality, selfhood, love, and death. I Remember Heaven aims to create a context in which Warhol’s work may be read retrospectively through the work of Hodges, and Hodges’s through the work of Warhol.

I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol is organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and curated by Susan Cahan, guest curator.

Catalog
Accompanying the exhibition will be a fully-illustrated catalog. Essays by Susan Cahan and José Esteban Munoz will be included. It will be distributed internationally by D.A.P., New York.

Artist Edition
The Jim Hodges special edition wallpaper featured in the exhibition is available for purchase from the Contemporary. Based on Hodges’ delicate, lyrical drawing From This Way Through (1999), the wallpaper fills the wall with a repeating pattern of hand-drawn plants and flowers sensuously rendered in charcoal and embellished with metallic gold stars. This wallpaper is available for purchase by contacting Lisa Grove at 314-535-4660 or at lisa.grove@contemporarystl.org.

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
A leading center for contemporary art, the Contemporary is a non-collecting institution located in the heart of St. Louis’s cultural district. Founded in 1980, the museum presents an ongoing schedule of exhibitions of new and innovative work and maintains an active program of community partnerships, educational offerings, and visitor activities. The museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108. For more information, call 314.535.4660 or visit http://www.contemporarystl.org .

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

Galleria Civica di Modena

SGUARDI DA NORD/NORTHERN LIGHTS. Reflecting with Images
Curated by Filippo Maggia

Galleria Civica di Modena
c.so Canalgrande 103, Modena
Tel. +39 059 2032911, 2032940,
fax 2032932
http://www.comune.modena.it/galleria
galcivmo@comune.modena.it

The relationship between man and his surrounding environment is the theme behind the exhibition Sguardi da nord/Northern Lights. Reflecting with Images, opening on 27th January 2007 at 12 pm until 6th May 2007.

Curated by Filippo Maggia, the exhibition will be held in the two exhibition venues of the Galleria Civica di Modena: Palazzo Santa Margherita and Palazzina dei Giardini, organised and produced by the Galleria Civica di Modena and by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena.

Nature and the domestic environment are seen here from the North of Europe, starting from North Italy: in fact, the show includes the research work of several of the most interesting artists on an international level: Salla Tykkä (Helsinki, 1973), Elina Brotherus (Helsinki, 1972), Annika von Hausswolff (Gothenburg, 1967), Walker and Walker (Dublin, 1962), Sarah Jones (London, 1959) and Walter Niedermayr (Bolzano, 1952).

Their research ponders the relationship that man has with the range of realities found all around him, from the domestic environment to that of nature, meant here as a place in which to reflect and gather one’s thoughts. The human figure is always a key element of these works, a protagonist even when it is not physically present. These photographs, videos and films are supposed to work like evocative paintings, drawing in the spectator with their charms, coaxing the onlooker to let himself become involved, to try and fathom the solitude of the protagonists. We question their state of being just as we would our own up to the point in which we share the same haziness, the same sense of searching, that same world-weariness that hangs over them. The natural setting, common to many of the works on show, is considered here not as a classical landscape, nor as a field in which to explicate our experiences, but rather as a place where that which is all too often oppressed by reason m
ay emerge.

In the film by the brothers Pat and Joe Walker, we witness the solitary journey of a man at dusk, who walks down to the edge of a lake and, once aboard a boat, starts to row towards the centre of the lake. It is then that another man appears, identical to the first, and goes through exactly the same motions. Like in a Schnitzler story, we are no longer able to distinguish between the truth and the fruit of our own imagination. A thin veil of worry covers the faces of the adolescent girls photographed by Sarah Jones, be they lying on a bed or leaning against a tree they seem to stare at us inquisitively from their emblematic waiting, their stillness within a time charged with unresolved silences. Annika von Hausswolff exploits the senses – first and foremost that of touch – to try and translate the physical relationship that binds us to that which is familiar. The photographs of the Swedish artist unleash sudden and profoundly intimate emotions, giving weight and sense to thos
e stories of real life that have penetrated the very walls around them, that have seeped into the warm wood of the floor, just like the tears and cries accompanying them. In both video and photography, Salla Tykka tends to choose women as her protagonists: be they adolescents or mature ladies, they always discover something about themselves through events that would appear to occur by chance, but which in actual fact they bring about themselves. In the films, the final outcome, the ending to the mystery which initially appears complex, is not as important as the attitude of the protagonist: little by little she lays herself bare, growing up and revealing herself through her physical relationship with a time, a place, other people. Little details and fragments come back in her black and white photographs: traces of thoughts and souls in the form of snow, trees, leather.

Elina Brotherus, protagonist of many of her own works, takes on a similar approach to the world: intimate and personal, yet though herself. She perfectly blends anthropological and cultural reasons which underline the identity and characteristics of a natural desire to understand and discover, almost infantile in its immediacy and spontaneity. Silence reigns supreme in the photographs of Walter Niedermayr, dictating the distinctions between man and nature. The latter is awarded a recognition of reality which has never really been lost or doubted, but rather which calls on human presumption to undertake a new form of dialogue to understand it.

The images, which depict the world around us like never before, speak of the world by translating its contemporary spirit into colour, without overlooking any aspect of it, for the very nature of the colour means that it is not reproduced but reflected, forcing man to finally become aware of himself and the ever-changing reality all around him.

Palazzo Santa Margherita and Palazzina dei Giardini
corso Canalgrande, Modena, Italy

27 th January - 6 th May 2007
Opening Saturday 27 th January 2007, 12 pm
Tuesday - Friday from 10.30 am to 1 pm and from 3.30 pm to 6.30 pm
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays 10.30 am to 6.30 pm
Closed on Mondays

For more information go to: http://www.comune.modena.it/galleria

la criée center for contemporary art

Jocelyn Cottencin
Just a Walk

http://www.justawalk.com

Exhibition 26 January – 11 March 2007
Opening Friday, 26 January, 6:00 p.m. at the CCNRB / 7:00 p.m. at la criée

la criée center for contemporary art
place Honoré Commeurec – halles centrales
35000 Rennes
France
tel.: (+33) (0)2 23 62 25 10
fax (+33) (0)2 23 62 25 19
la-criee@ville-rennes.fr
http://www.criee.org

In 2005, la criée center for contemporary art initiated a program of European residencies in the cities of the Atlantic Arc. Just a Walk is a project created by the artist and graphic designer Jocelyn Cottencin that began in March 2005 and will continue its development through January 2007 between Bilbao, San Sebastian, Glasgow, Porto, Lisbon and Rennes. The project involves an Internet site, periods spent in residency, work sessions between artists and art professionals, and an exhibition.

Just a Walk is not in itself a direct questioning of European space, however the practice of displacement, with the connections it creates between ideas, individuals, artworks and structures, tests the notion of "territories". This notion must be considered at once in terms of its geographic reality and the imaginary and utopian dimension it generates, the relationship the individual constructs with her environment, a nation, an identity, a private or shared space.

Jocelyn Cottencin’s artistic practice associates photography, video, installation and graphic design. Because of this, the work shown at la criée may seem very diverse, however rather than an installation of a group of works, what Just a Walk invites the visitor to discover is the relations that make up a coherent space for reflection with its own specific temporality. Here, images are not simply to be seen but to be experimented with in an environment of waiting, suspension or latency.
Just a Walk creates a space dedicated for the ramifications of visual resonances. Like the hyperlinks of the Internet site where the exchanges of the artists participating in the residencies appear, the works presented in the exhibition refer back to and illuminate one another (in both the literal and metaphorical sense since they produce their own light). They function by stratification, circumvolution, dispersion or reassembly and offer multiple possible readings that one can make one’s own for as many different discoveries of the same project.

Videos show scenes of human crowds and urban masses that at first seem easily identifiable but little by little uncertainty sets in. The contact that takes place between individuals – exchanges, frictions, encounters, avoidance – may influence our perception of their environment, unless it is the environment that gives new meaning to their behaviour.

Views of natural sites, void of human presence, are displayed in large-format photographs and videos. Subtle details, such as variations in light, relief or atmospheric conditions, cause these spaces to take on an enigmatic presence.

Sentences written directly on the wall or in neon lettering are revealed through a font that proliferates until it becomes itself landscape. The graphics are in resonance with the meaning of the proposition, since Jocelyn Cottencin’s work as a graphic designer is indissociable from his artistic practice.

In other photographs, our attention focuses on beings engaged in concrete physical actions such as walking, or, on the contrary, lost in thought, unconscious of their bodies. The actions here are not defined in terms of their purpose (the possibility of a narrative is left to the viewer) but rather in terms of flux and rhythms.

At the heart of Jocelyn Cottencin’s creative process is an abandonment of control over the gaze in order to attempt to create images that contain something other than what they show us: another place, a different temporality…

Beyond the contemplation they originally provoke, Jocelyn Cottencin’s works escape us. Often imposing but never spectacular, they leave room for doubt and uncertain perception. Through these unstable situations, through the slowness of a movement, the roundness of a form, a critical position emerges that resists all forms of facile seduction, and all claims to authoritarian truth.

Further information about Just a Walk and events organized around the exhibition :
http://www.criee.org and http://www.justawalk.com

Exhibition with the participation of Tiago Guedes :
Vocabulario, video installation by Jocelyn Cottencin and Tiago Guedes, at the CCNRB (Wednesday and Thursday from 14:00 p.m. to 18:00 p.m.).

Matériaux divers, solo by Tiago Guedes, Wednesday, 7 February, 7:00 p.m. at the CCNRB. http://www.ccnrb.org

Residencies and Internet site in collaboration with Roderick Buchanan, Carla Cruz, Marcel Dinahet, Tiago Guedes, Jean-Marc Huitorel, Alain Michard, Nuno Sacramento, Loïc Touzé, Sébastien Vonier.

Just a Walk has received special support from the Brittany Regional Council, and from CULTURESFRANCE in the framework of an agreement with the City of Rennes.

Sponsors: Tramway, Glasgow – CCNRB, Rennes – Frac Brittany – RE.AL Lisbon – la criée center for contemporary art

Exchanges and Collaborations: Just a Walk has benefited from exchanges and collaborations with the following European structures specialized in contemporary art: Institut Français (Bilbao, Spain), Serralves Foundation (Porto, Portugal), Frac Pays-de-la-Loire (Carquefou, France).

Admission free
Tuesday to Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Closed on Mondays and public holidays

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