Artipedia - Arts News

Icelandic Pavilion

Icelandic Pavilion
52nd International Art Exhibition –
La Biennale di Venezia
Steingrimur Eyfjörd:
The Golden Plover Has Arrived

Exhibition:
10 June – 21 November 2007

Special opening hours:
7 – 10 June 2007, 9 am – 6 pm
11 June, 10 am – 18 pm

Palazzo Bianchi Michiel
Cannaregio 4391/A / Strada Nova
Ca’ d’Oro vaporetto/waterbus stop (line no 1)

http://www.cia.is/venice

Steingrimur Eyfjörd is Iceland’s representative to the 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The artist will present a group of 14 new works collectively entitled The Golden Plover Has Arrived, commissioned by Christian Schoen, Director of the CIA.IS -Center for Icelandic Art and curated by Hanna Styrmisdottir, an independent curator based in Reykjavik.

Steingrimur Eyfjörd is one of the foremost of a generation of artists who came to prominence in Iceland during the 1970s. His prolific output over the past 25 years draws on his experience not only as artist but as a comic strip author, magazine editor, writer, curator and teacher. His work employs a wide variety of media, including photography, comic strip, video, painting, sculpture, performance, writing and installation. His art may appear equally diverse conceptually: founded on influences as disparate as folk tales, Icelandic sagas, women’s fashion magazines, religion, superstition, critical theory and many other current topics, Eyfjörd’s chains of association intersect at a nodal point of multiple meaning, forming a body of work that is multi-layered and complex yet always reveals an articulate and unexpected approach to the issues at hand.

The Golden Plover Has Arrived
The golden plover is a small wading bird, regarded as the harbinger of spring in Iceland. Its arrival in the country in late March, early April, is invariably announced in the local media.

The Golden Plover Has Arrived brings together seemingly arbitrary threads of culture, economy and politics in a discerning analysis of contemporary Icelandic society.

As part of the work, Eyfjörd consulted and collaborated with people from all walks of life, among them artists and academics. He also visited a medium who put him in contact with an elf or hidden person, normally invisible to human eyes, a common and still popular myth in Iceland. The purpose of this was to buy an elf sheep for The Sheep Pen, the central work in The Golden Plover. This somewhat surreal act highlights one of the most intangible concerns in Eyfjörd’s work: his interest in the function of consciousness in the construction of physical reality. This aspect of Eyfjörd’s work is also a reflection of a belief and culture particular to Iceland, and can be further explored in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition.

For further information on the Icelandic presence in Venice, please visit
http://www.cia.is/venice

Commissioner:
Christian Schoen

Curator:
Hanna Styrmisdóttir

Commissioning institution:
CIA.IS – Center for Icelandic Art
Hafnarstræti 16
IS-101 Reykjavík
Tel: 00354-562 72 62
Fax: 00354-562 66 56
info@cia.is
http://www.cia.is / http://www.artnews.is

Curator’s assistant:
Rebekka Silvía Ragnarsdóttir

Press contact:
Brunswick Arts (London)
Benjamin Ward
+44 (0) 20 7936 1297
bward@brunswickgroup.com

Brunswick Arts LLP
16 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London. WC2A 3ED

Catalogue:
Ed. by Steingrimur Eyfjörd and Hanna Styrmisdóttir, published by Lóan er komin ehf, CIA.IS – Center for Icelandic Art and the Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavík 2007

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Baugur Group; Landsvirkjun, Landsbanki, Glitnir and the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs

As well as Tryggingamidstodin, Icelandair, Islandtours and Vodafone, Germany.

For more information go to: http://www.cia.is/venice

unitednationsplaza

Martha Rosler Library
June 2 - August 31, 2007

unitednationsplaza is pleased to announce the opening of Martha Rosler Library on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 19:00. Comprised of approximately 7,700 titles from the artist’s personal collection, the Library was opened to the public by e-flux in November 2005 as a storefront reading room on Ludlow street in New York City. It has since traveled to Frankfurter Kunstverein and MuHKA, Antwerp. The library will remain on view in Berlin through August 31st and will travel to Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris in November.

"In an act of incredible generosity, one of America’s most important living artists temporarily dispossessed herself of the vast majority of her personal library so that it could be made available for consultation. No borrowing was possible, but the eclectic ensemble of books on economics, political theory, war, colonialism, poetry, feminism, science fiction, art history, mystery novels, children’s books, dictionaries, maps and travel books, as well as photo albums, posters, postcards and newspaper clippings could be studied at will. Smart, decidedly political in orientation, often funny, and all over the place (in that way a perfect mirror of its owner), the library is packed with essential reading and titles that even your better bookstores would love to get their hands on. As the product of decades of avid reading, the contents of the library are both the source of Rosler’s work and an installation/artwork that continues many of the concerns – with public space, acces
s to information and engaged citizenship – that traverse her entire oeuvre."

photo-london 2007

photo-london 2007
London’s international contemporary photography fair

May 31 to June 3, 2007
at Old Billingsgate, London, UK

Opening night (by invitation only):
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m

http://www.photo-london.com

photo-london 2007 : Programme of talks

In less than 3 weeks, Photo-london will open its doors from 31 May to 3 June 2007 at Old Billingsgate. The 2007 edition brings together a potent and refreshing mix of 56 exhibitors from 10 countries. Present at the fair will be the work of some 400 international photographers and artists, providing an unprecedented panoramic view of contemporary photography and its development since 1970. Among the special events, there will be a programme of talks bringing together leading international experts to explore the questions of how to build a collection, the evolution of contemporary photography and the influence of photojournalism, the importance and future of the photo-book and the growing interest in non Western photography.

The programme of talks is free of charge with access on a first-come-first-served basis for photo-london visitors and will take place at Old Billingsgate, 1st Floor, from 31 May – 3 June, 2007.

Thursday May 31st

4:00 - 6:00 pm : How to collect contemporary photography
Discussion moderated by Anna Somers-Cocks, Founding Editor of “The Art Newspaper”, with :
Francis Hodgson, Head of the Photographs Department, Sotheby’s London
Jeffrey Boloten, Partner, ArtTactic
Greg Hobson, Curator of Photographs, National Media Museum Bradford
William Hunt, Leading Private Collector

Friday June 1st

2:00 - 4:00 pm: The evolution of contemporary photography since 1970
Discussion moderated by Vicente Todoli, Director, Tate Modern, with:
Charlotte Cotton, Head of Cultural Programmes at Art + Commerce in New York and author of several books, notably The Photograph as Contemporary Art.
Paul Graham, British Photographer
Mark Haworth-Booth, Former Curator of Photography V & A
Marta Gili, Director Jeu de Paume, Paris

4:00 - 6:00 pm : The influence of photojournalism
Discussion moderated by Sophie Wright, Head of Exhibitions and Print Room, Magnum with:
Tanya Barson, Exhibitions and Collections Curator, Tate Liverpool
David Campany, Lecturer, University of Westminster
David Hurn, Leading British reportage photographer
Timothy Prus, Director of the Archive of Modern Conflict
This talk is organised in cooperation with the British Journal of Photography

Saturday June 2nd

4:00 - 6:00 pm : Photography Books and the Future of Publishing
Discussion moderated by Gerry Badger, historian and writer with:
Irène Attinger, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris
Michael Mack, Managing Director of Steidl
Denise Wolff, Commissionning Editor of Photography at Phaidon.
Gigi Gianuzzi, Publisher Trolley Books

Sunday June 3rd

4:00 – 6:00 pm: Non Western Contemporary Photography: India
Discussion moderated by Mark Sealy, founder of Autograph with:
Peter Nagy, Founder Nature Morte Gallery.
Gayatri Sinha, Independent lecturer, curator and writer
Sunil Gupta, Photographer, curator

photo-london details

Dates: 31 May – 3 June, 2007
Preview by invitation only: Wednesday 30 May from 7pm to 10pm
Venue: Old Billingsgate, 16 Lower Thames Street, EC3R 6DX, London
Opening hours: Thursday 31 May to Saturday 2 June from 11am to 8pm
Sunday 3 June from 11am to 7pm
Information : http://www.photo-london.com

For travel arrangements and accommodation
Turon Travel Inc.
Tel: +1 212 925 54 53
E-mail: photolondon@turontravel.com
http://www.turontravel.com

Organisation:
Reed Expositions / photo-london
52-54 Quai de Dion-Bouton, CS80001
92806 Puteaux Cedex
Tel: +33 (0) 1 47 56 64 70 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 47 56 64 78
E-mail: photolondon@reedexpo.fr

Media Liaison :
For France and international
Guillaume Piens
E-mail: guillaume.piens@reedexpo.fr
Tel: +33 (0) 1 47 56 65 08
For UK
Philippa Neave
E-mail: pneave@wanadoo.fr
Mobile : +44 79 74 93 47 88

For more information go to: http://www.photo-london.com