Artipedia - Arts News

Fundación Telefónica

International Competition on
Art and Artificial Life. VIDA 10.0

http://www.telefonica.es/vida

Fundación Telefónica is attempting to promote the convergence of Art, Science and Technology by holding an international competition which rewards those works of art developed using Artificial Life technologies.

At previous editions, prizes were given to art projects created with robots, electronic avatars, chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automatons, computer viruses, virtual ecologies which evolve by interacting with the participant and works which delve into social aspects of Artificial Life.

Selected Projects

A total of 20,000 euros will be awarded to the projects selected by the jury:

First prize: 10,000 euros
Second prize: 7,000 euros
Third prize: 3,000 euros

Exhibition

The selected projects will be exhibited at the International Contemporary Art Fair (ARCO) in Madrid in February 2008.

Incentive for Production

The competition’s second category will help finance Artificial Life art projects (and those of associated disciplines) that have not yet been made. The competition is open to participants from anywhere in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Jury

The works submitted will be examined by an international jury that will be meeting as of November 7, 2007. The prize winners’ names and special mentions will be announced at an award ceremony.

Members of the Jury
Mónica Bello Bugallo, Spain
Daniel Canogar, Spain
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Canada/Mexico
José-Carlos Mariátegui, Peru
Nell Tenhaaf, Canada
Simon Penny, USA/Australia

Dates:
Project submission dates:
September 17-October 22, 2007.
Deliberation by the jury:
November 7-9, 2007.

You may send your proposal in along with the application form and required materials to any of the following addresses:

SPAIN
Ángeles Pérez Muela
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundación Telefónica
Gran Vía, 32. 5a planta
28013 Madrid, Spain
Phone: 34 91 584 23 05
Fax: 34 91 584 0656

PERU
Ana María Castañeta
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundación Telefónica
Av. Arequipa 1155
Santa Beatriz
Lima, Peru
Phone: 511 210 1544
Fax: 511 419 0501

ARGENTINA
Silvana Spadaccini
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundación Telefónica
Arenales 1540
1061 Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Phone: 5411 4333 1317
Fax: 5411 4333 1307

CHILE
Claudia Villaseca
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundación Telefónica
Providencia, 111 - P. 25
Santiago, Chile
Phone: 562 691 3741
Fax: 562 236 7138

BRAZIL
Adriana Lomonaco
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundação Telefônica
Avenida Brigadeiro Faria Lima, 1188 — conjuntos 33 e 34
CEP 01451-001 São Paulo-SP, Brazil
Phone: 5511 3035 1956
Fax: 5511 3035 1950

MÉXICO
Francisco Mijares
VIDA 10.0
International Competition 2007
Fundación Telefónica
Av. Prolongación Paseo de la Reforma, 1200 — piso 08
Colonia Cruz Manca. Cuajimalpa de Morelos
C.P. 05349 — México D.F. México
Phone: 5255 1616 7587
Fax: 5255 1616 8053

For further information on the competition, please write to:
Ángeles Pérez Muela: angeles.perezmuela@telefonica.es

Applicants may consult the winning projects from previous years at the VIDA website, http://www.telefonica.es/vida in order to determine whether their projects fit in with the philosophy
of the prize.

For more information go to: http://www.telefonica.es/vida

Kuenstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral

You are cordially invited to the vernissage

Kunstportale: Balmoral at Galerie Nord

Sonja Alhaeser, Goez Diergarten, Stefan Ettlinger, Natalie Bewernitz / Marek Goldowski, Misha Le Jen, Martine Locatelli, Ingeborg Lockemann, Cornelia Rössler, Christiane Schlosser, Nicola Schudy, Anja Teske, Barbara Thaden, Myrtia Wefelmeier, Renate Wolff

On August the 1st 2007, 19.30 at Galerie Nord — Kunstverein Tiergarten, Turmstrasse 75, Berlin

Works by 14 artists from the artists’ residence, Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral in Bad Ems (Rhineland-Palatinate), will be exhibited at Galerie Nord from the 2nd of August to the 31st of August 2007. The exhibition presents what proved to be a particularly diverse scholarship year in 2006/2007, due to a variety of awards by Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral, residency awards, the project award and international scholarships.

The exhibits, which were created from the artists’ impressions of the various places they were staying during their scholarship, illustrate a multitude of artistic viewpoints. While Goetz Diergarten discovered visual motives reminiscent of colour-field-painting in London’s underground stations, it was the noise of the New York subway that inspired the media artists Bewernitz/Goldowski to create a sound installation.

The performance and drawing artist Sonja Alhaeser used her project scholarship to construct buffets with no apparent connection to a place. The latest "Emsrausch" event at Balmoral could have taken it up with lavish baroque festivals. Lockemann, Wolff and Locatelli were inspired by their surroundings: Ingeborg Lockemann followed the tracks of old German buses in Accra. The video shows a high-contrast superimposition depicting the German and African history of the bus. The spatial painter Renate Wolff ventured to make a photographic excursion in Bad Ems to photograph the life of the spa town as seen in the shop-windows. A confusing puzzle is brought about on various spatial levels by virtue of fusing the interior with the mirrored exterior of the windows. Martine Locatelli was fascinated by sunsets and has assembled 100 photographs in a romantic embodiment of the sky, that expresses a desire for graphic effects.

Landscape is also the subject chosen by Nicola Schudy and Stefan Ettlinger. Nicola Schudy’s water colours show segments of landscapes and make visible the destructive traces of human intervention in the natural idyll. Stefan Ettlingers paintings are assembled landscape panoramas comprised of video stills from the mass media as well as his own photos of his environment. Through montage and cross-fading surrealistic, almost intangible scenarios are created.

The works of the Paris-based artist Barbara Thaden (guest at Balmoral) can also lay claim to be surrealistic. Sewing pieces of clothing together she makes art objects which as Dress-Art confound their original function, and gain a new aesthetic status in a different context.

A series of works concentrate on the human body, which is expressed in a variety of disciplines. The texture Cornelia Roessler explores in her light boxes is the human skin, its structure, tangibility and changeability. More cheerful appear the photographs by Anja Teske: intimate pictures of a transsexual friend, "Juwelia", whom she observes closely, but from a respectful distance. The series represents the complexity of his existence and points to the discrepancy between desire and reality. Myrtia Wefelmeier paints children from historical photographs that she places in staged architectural backgrounds and woodland sceneries. At the same time, the atmosphere oscillates constantly between familiarity and alienation and directs you into an uncanny visual space.

For the winner of the arts prize awarded by the Balmoral 03 e.V. (registered fundraising association), the action artist Misha Le Jen, it is the body that is the instrument of his actions, which mainly feature the element of water. In Bad Ems he realized the work "Becken", which alludes as well to the womb as to the basin.

The abstract pictures by Christiane Schlosser are distinguished by their lightness and rhythm. Often assembled into installations, it is a work that inscribes itself in the flow of time, an ornament that picks up on its own rhythm. As a result of this sensitive, discursive textures and colour annotations arise.

For more information consult our homepage http://www.balmoral.de

Kuenstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral
Villenpromenade 11
D — 56130 Bad Ems
Email: info@balmoral.de
T. +49 2603 9419 0
F. +49 2603 9419 16

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

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

RED HOT — Asian Art Today from
the Chaney Family Collection
July 22 - October 21, 2007

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005
713.639.7300

http://www.mfah.org

RED HOT — Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection, which opened July 22, 2007, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a sweeping overview of the spectacular rise of Asian contemporary art. It introduces a series of exhibitions and gallery installations the MFAH will devote to Asian art over several years and provides Houston with its first major look at contemporary art from the region. An international phenomenon, literally "red hot" in its energy and rapid development, Asian art has redefined the parameters of today’s contemporary art scene. Drawn from the extraordinary holdings of Houston collectors Robert, Jereann, and Holland Chaney, many of the works have not been seen outside of their home countries. The exhibition runs through October 21.

The Chaney family has assembled one of this country’s foremost collections of the art and technology of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Among the collection’s strengths is its representation of today’s pre-eminent Asian artists. This body of over 120 works reflects the powerful economic shifts and social changes that have influenced a rapidly growing class of young artists, making the nations of East Asia leaders in contemporary art. With a commitment to the cutting-edge, the Chaney Family Collection embraces this radical and exuberant flowering in painting, sculpture, photography, video, and digital media.

The exhibition focuses on artists who emerged after the political and economic upheavals of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Many artists of this generation were forced to find new homes abroad; the exhibition also traces how recent waves of migration have contributed to the globalization of Asian culture.

Dr. Peter C. Marzio, MFAH director, comments, "These works of art have been culled from Pop culture, politics, societal change, and technology in fascinating ways, and challenge us to regard the world afresh. They range from an unqualified optimism to a dystopian realism, expanding our visual vocabulary into the new century."

Robert Chaney adds, "As major collectors of new contemporary art, we are constantly exposed to opportunities from around the world. We always focus our attention on the most fresh and innovative art movements we see, and Asia has clearly been the most important over the last few years."

The exhibition opens with examples of new sculpture from China, including works by Chen Wenling, the Luo Brothers, and Sui Jianguo. This segment of the installation is complemented by a selection of other Chinese artists who have embraced Pop aesthetics, including Feng Zhengjie, Wang Guangyi, and Zhao Bo. Japanese Pop is introduced by Takashi Murakami’s Tongari-kun (Mr. Pointy) Costume, along with examples by Chiho Aoshima, Chinatsu Ban, Yoshitomo Nara, and Yumi Karasumaru. Portraiture is represented in the work of Yang Shaobin, Yue Minjun, Fang Lijun, and Zhang Huan, while the new urban landscape is the chief theme of artists Miao Xiaochun, Weng Fen, and Zhang Dali. Major installations by Korea’s Do-Ho Suh dominate two galleries, and works by Vietnamese-American artists Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba and Dinh Q. Le address the darker chapters of recent history.

Alison de Lima Greene, MFAH curator of contemporary art and special projects, and coordinating curator for the exhibition, states, "The Chaneys have achieved a remarkable feat. Their ambition, genuine curiosity, and ready understanding of new concepts and means of expression consistently animate their collection."

RED HOT — Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Generous support is provided by Sotheby’s and Compass Bank Wealth Management Group.

This Dramatic Exhibition Initiates New Direction for MFAH

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