Artipedia - Arts News

Sharjah Biennial

SHARJAH BIENNIAL 8 PRESENTATION AT ARCO, MADRID
15TH FEBRUARY 2007, 11:00 – 13:00

STILL LIFE – Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change
Sharjah Biennial 8 (SB8),
United Arab Emirates
4 April – 4 June 2007
http://www.sharjahbiennial.org

Director: Hoor Al Qasimi
Artistic Director: Jack Persekian
Curators: Mohammed Kazem, Eva Scharrer, Jonathan Watkins

ABOUT PRESENTATION AT ARCO:

Jack Persekian, Artistic Director, SB8
Will speak about Sharjah as a context for the Biennial, give a brief history of the Biennial, and introduce its 8th edition: curators, artists and theme.

Lara Almarcegui, Artist, participating in SB8
Will speak about the context of Sharjah in relation to her practice and speak about her work in progress for her Sharjah Biennial 8 commission.

Max Andrews & Mariana Canepa Luna
(from Latitudes Curatorial Practice, Barcelona), co-curators of the SB8 Symposium
Will speak about the theme of art and ecology, particularly in relation to the SB8 Symposium.

Location: Room N -111
Address: ARCO, Ifema - Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I, Feria de Madrid, 28042 Madrid, Spain

ABOUT SHARJAH BIENNIAL 8

The Biennial’s theme proposes art as a way of creating a better understanding about our relationship with nature and the environment, whilst considering its social, political and cultural dimensions in an interdisciplinary way.

The SB8 programme will include exhibitions, performances, a film programme curated by Mark Nash and a symposium organised in collaboration with the American University of Sharjah, RSA (London) and curatorial practice Latitudes (Barcelona). The entire city of Sharjah is being offered to artists for site-specific work, and other SB8 activities will take place across a wide range of venues including the Sharjah Art Museum, the Expo Centre, the Heritage Area of Sharjah, the American University of Sharjah and others. The SB8 Art Prizes will be awarded to two winning artists by a jury composed of Charles Esche and Geeta Kapur. Furthermore, UNESCO will award their Prize for the Promotion of the Arts & the Young Digital Creator Award, in collaboration with the Sharjah Biennial 8.

SB8 will present works by more than 80 international artists. Those developing new site-specific commissions include Graham Gussin, Lara Almarcegui, E-xplo, Tue Greenfort, Marjetica Potrc, Tomas Saraceno and Marya Kazoun. Artists presenting existing work of relevance to the Biennial’s theme include Rirkrit Tiravanija, Zineb Sedira, Gustav Metzger and Lara Baladi among many others.

Several artists such as Ranjani Shettar and Luca Vitone have chosen to develop works for the Heritage Area of Sharjah – a complex of restored historic, low-rise buildings in the traditional architecture of the Emirates.

Initiated in 1993, the Sharjah Biennial is produced by the Department of Culture and Information of the Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. It occupies a key position in the region in the production and presentation of art and is an active player in the international art arena. The Biennial strives to encourage dialogue between artists, art institutions and organisations locally, regionally and internationally. It seeks to promote cross-cultural exchange whilst fostering experimentation and the production of site-specific work for Sharjah.

For more information contact:
Mahita El Bacha Urieta: mahita.elbacha-urieta@sharjahbiennial.org - M. + 971 504 825552

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

Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart & Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Stan Douglas
Past Imperfect
Works 1986 - 2007

September 15, 2007 – January 6, 2008
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart & Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

From the September 15, 2007 until January 6, 2008, the Württembergischer Kunstverein and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will be presenting within a space covering 4,000 sq. metres the first comprehensive exhibition of the works of Canadian artist Stan Douglas. The exhibition will encompass fourteen video and film installations, as well as numerous photographs.

Born in Vancouver, in 1960, Stan Douglas ranks among the most important of contemporary artists. He has participated in the Documenta three times (1992, 1997, 2002) as well as in the Venice Biennale (1990, 2001, 2005) and his works have been shown at numerous additional biennales and prominent exhibition houses. It is in Stuttgart that his principal works of the last twenty years will be shown and experienced for the first time in a large-scale show. Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ (Directors of the Württembergischer Kunstverein) developed the exhibition in close collaboration with Stan Douglas.

As no other artist, Douglas has been able to enlarge in both a sensual and intellectual way the experience of the cinematic and museum space. With recourse to the intellectual, cultural and ideological traditions of modernity, his works exemplify a critical revision of Western history, past and present. It is the failure of modern utopias and the “ghosts” they spawned which form some of the artist’s central themes.

Behind almost all the works is an examination of a particular place – Potsdam, Vancouver, Cuba or Detroit –, the respective histories of which are reflected along the various literary, filmic or musical references the artist uses: as, for example, E.T.A. Hoffman’s “Der Sandmann” (Der Sandmann), Melville’s “The Confidence-Man” (Journey into Fear), the Grimm fairy tales or Marx’s “Capital” (both in Suspiria).

Both his most recent video installations, Klatsassin and Video, revolve around two fields of analysis which Douglas has reflected since the 1980s and that substantially shape his oeuvre: the emergence of Western empires in the “New World”, on the one hand and the work of Samuel Beckett on the other. For instance, Douglas already curated an exhibition on Beckett’s “Teleplays” in 1988. His recently produced video installation, Video, refers to Beckett’s film “Film” starring Buster Keaton, and to Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial”.

Taking place at two locations, the exhibition is conceived as one project and is to be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue.

Opening: 14th September, 2007
Press conference: 13th September, 2007, 11 am

Curators
Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler

in cooperation with
Sean Rainbird, Gudrun Inboden

A joint project of
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Addresses

Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Schlossplatz 2
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 - 22 33 70
Fax: +49 (0)711 - 29 36 17
http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse 30-32
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 – 47 04 00
Fax: +49 (0)711 – 23 69 983
http://www.staatsgalerie.de

Contact Press
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Yvonne Mielatz
Schlossplatz 2
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 - 22 33 721
Fax: +49 (0)711 - 29 36 17
mielatz@wkv-stuttgart.de

Download press material: http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/press

Sponsored by
The Ministry for Science, Research and Art BW
The Embassy of Canada, Berlin

For more information go to: http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de