Artipedia - Arts News

Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center

Subtracting of Zeroes
Mladen Stilinovic
September 6 - November 3

Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center
Istiklal Cad. No: 136, Beyoglu,
Istanbul, 34430, TR
T: 90 212 293 23 61
F: 90 212 293 30 71

http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com

Mladen Stilinovic lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia, and has been exhibiting since 1975. Researching the interactions between visual and verbal signs and intervening on inexpensive and found material, his projects have assumed a variety of forms including installations, collages, artist books, video, and performance.

In recent years Stilinovic has participated in exhibitions at the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Essl Collection, Vienna; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Tate Modern, London; Apex Art, New York and in the 2003 Venice Biennale, the 2006 Sydney Biennale, and Documenta XII.

The exhibition at Platform will pivot around the issue of economy with reference to the building’s previous life as a bank during the 1980s. A selection from Stilinovic’s personal production of over 70 artist books, dating from the 1970s to today, will be exhibited in the mezzanine.

Platform has produced a publication in collaboration with Van AbbeMuseum that focuses on Stilinovic’s practice with artist books. In early 2008 the exhibition will be reconfigured for the museum in Eindhoven.

Subtracting of Zeroes is realised with the support of the American Center Foundation.

Other events at Platform:

September 7, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Late Afternoon - a farewell event to the Platform building before it closes for renovation.

Book launches - Ahmet Ögüt’s Today in History, a co-publication with Book Works, followed by We all laughed at Christopher Columbus and The Mousetrap.

UTURN SLOW SHOW! - Artistic co-director Solvej Helweg Ovesen introduces U-TURN Quadrennial for Contemporary Art.

Projects and performances by Istanbul Residency Programme artists - Justin Bennett (NL), Osman Bozkurt (TR), Asl? Cavusoglu (TR), hazavuzu (TR), Fahrettin Örenli (TR), Jooyeon Park (KOR), Canan Senol (TR), Kilian Rüthemann (CZ) and Mark Aerial Waller (UK).

NEKROPSI 4/4 - Unforgettable band of the Istanbul music scene will perform a unique piece created for the day. Each of the four members of the band will play their instruments separately on different floors of the Platform building.

For more information go to: http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst

Kutlug Ataman: Küba/Paradise
2 September - 16 December 2007

Opening:
1 September 2007 at 17.00 hrs

For more information please visit:
http://www.bak-utrecht.nl

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst presents the solo exhibition Kutlug Ataman: Küba/Paradise by Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman. Two major video installations by Kutlug Ataman are on view. Each work examines a community striving to construct an ideal place in their own way, although from radically different political, social, cultural, and economic points of departure. The opening takes place on Saturday 1 September at 17.00 hrs at BAK, and from 19.00 hrs at BAK’s temporary venue for this exhibition, De Uithof (Laagbouw Zuid, Heidelberglaan 2).

Küba (2004) is a communal portrait of the inhabitants of an area in southern Istanbul known by this name, which emerged towards the end of the 1960s as a hideout for left-wing militants, and gradually became a haven for people with different backgrounds who did not fit the society’s standard definition of a citizen. Ataman spent over two years studying the mental and physical terrain of Küba from within; the result is an assembly of forty individual portraits of its residents. Embedded in an installation of as many domestic television sets, as well as simple cabinets and armchairs of various sizes and styles, the engaging voices speak to us insistently about their sense of belonging, solidarity, freedom, and the contradictions their pursuit of happiness necessarily contains.

Paradise (2007) turns our attention to America–specifically to the Southern California of today. This time, a selection of twenty four citizens is brought together in an "ad-hoc community" to confront us with the notion of paradise as both a vital promise and a banal myth. The installation unfolds on flat-screen monitors mounted on stands arranged in two U-shaped formations, the central figure of which changes every day. Each monitor features a video portrait of a single person, audible through earphones, who shares his or her obsessions with the viewer in a one-to-one encounter.

BAK is pleased to present the European première of Paradise. The commission and presentation of Paradise is the result of a unique and ambitious international partnership between BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Treaty of Utrecht, the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, with assistance from The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks, Istanbul. The presentation of Küba in Utrecht is generously hosted by Utrecht University.

A full color catalog of Paradise is available featuring photos of the interviewees taken on location by Kutlug Ataman. It also includes new essays by Aimee Chang, Curator of Contemporary Art at OCMA, Newport Beach; Norman Klein, cultural critical and urban historian, Los Angeles; and Irit Rogoff, critical theorist and art historian.

Opening hours:
Wednesday - Saturday 12:00 - 18:00 hrs
Sunday 13:00 - 18:00 hrs

Venues:

Paradise (2007)
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst
Lange Nieuwstraat 4, Utrecht

Küba (2004)
De Uithof (Laagbouw Zuid)
Heidelberglaan 2, Utrecht

Entrance fee (valid for both venues)
discount (students, seniors, groups min. 10, children <12, U-pas)
BOOKS@BAK members: free

For the duration of the exhibition bus tickets for travel between
both locations are available for a special price at BAK and De Uithof.

For further information please contact:

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst
Lange Nieuwstraat 4, 3512 PH
Utrecht, the Netherlands
info@bak-utrecht.nl
http://www.bak-utrecht.nl
t: 31 (0)30 2316125
f: 31 (0)30 2300591

For more information go to: http://www.bak-utrecht.nl

Witte de With

BODYPOLITICX
EXHIBITION
8 Sep - 16 Dec 2007

Witte de With
Center for Contemporary Art
Witte de Withstraat 50
3012 BR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
+31 10 411 0144
info@wdw.nl

http://www.wdw.nl

"A censor is someone who knows more than he thinks you ought to."

Why does pornography have such a bad reputation? Everybody has an opinion about porn. Most profess not to like it and many claim to have never even seen any. Yet, beyond a simple or dictionary definition, the question "what is porn?" remains almost impossible to answer. Even a Supreme Court judge was stumped, saying of pornography: "I don’t know what it is, but I recognize it when I see it".

This group exhibition does not seek to provide one simple response. Nor does it take sides in the for-or-against debate about pornography. Instead, BODYPOLITICX poses further questions: Does porn symbolize patriarchal structures and the oppression of women? Are porn films a reflection of existing socio-sexual relationships? What is taboo when everything around us is sexualized and yet sexual practices remain un-discussable? Is pornography to blame for the destruction of sexuality?

In Europe during the Middle Ages, sexuality was an unknown concept. Sexual intercourse and masturbation were not stigmatized with shame. Irrespective of gender, satisfying one’s desires was seen as a way to remain healthy. Not until the 16th century — with the beginnings of industrialization, the division of labor and hence a greater emphasis on social- and self-control — was a lack of sexual discipline declared taboo, and sexuality banished to the private domain.

The concept of ‘modern pornography’ arose with the expansion of printing during the 18th century. Initially it was used by free-thinkers as a tool to criticize the religious and political authorities, and was not primarily intended as a means of sexual stimulation. Only with advancing industrialization and the invention of photography did pornography become a category in its own right.

With a focus upon the 20th and 21st centuries, this exhibition takes a contemporary look at an age-old fascination, seeing sex through the eyes of over 70 artists, filmmakers, activists, photo-journalists, musicians and magazine editors. By means of visual juxtaposition, the exhibition sets out to examine the demarcation of the sex industry, subculture, pop, performance and art.

BODYPOLITICX asks: If we have learnt from Shakespeare what love is, what can we learn from the cultural practice of pornography?

Artists
48, Louisa Achille, Nic Andrews, Joanna Angel, Kenneth Anger, Fernando Arias, Martin Arnold, James Avalon, Fiona Banner, Thomas Bayrle, Willem van Batenburg, Belladonna, Andrew Blake, Bruce LaBruce, Angela Bulloch, Tom Burr, Butt Magazine, Marc Bijl, Marilyn Chambers, Larry Clark, Gerard Damiano, Nathalie Djurberg, Rinse Dream, Marcel Duchamp, Elmgreen & Dragset, Andrea Fraser, General Idea, Jean Genet, Girls Like Us, Garry Gross, Guerrilla Girls, Sachiko Hanai, Roswitha Hecke, Hustler Magazine, Dorothy Iannone, Robert Indiana, Jenna Jameson, William E. Jones, Richard Kern, Edward & Nancy Kienholz, Terence Koh, Bernd Krauß, Stanley Kubrick, Yayoi Kusama, Michael Laub & Dean Proctor, Zoe Leonard, Joep van Lieshout, Tracy Lords, Joseph Maida, Robert Mapplethorpe, Dorit Margreiter, Dona Ann McAdams, Malcolm McLaren/Vivienne Westwood, Eon McKai, Olaf Metzel, John Miller, Jim & Artie Mitchell, Robert Mueller, Otto Mühl, Bruce Nauman, Henrik Olesen, Fritz
Ostermayer, Panik Qulture, Haris Pellapaisiotis, Richard Prince, Iwata Roku, Martha Rosler, Doug Sakmann, Carolee Schneemann, Brooke Shields, Snoop Dogg, Valerie Solanas, Annie Sprinkle, SUPERM, Paul Thomas, Erik Visser, Lawrence Weiner, Octavio Winkytiki, Johannes Wohnseifer, Nick Zedd, Jack the Zipper.

Curated by
Florian Waldvogel
Thomas Edlinger

Opening
Friday 7 Sep 2007
6:00 p.m. Exhibition opens
7:30 p.m. Welcome by director Nicolaus Schafhausen and introduction by the curators.
8:00 p.m. Roundtable discussion with Thomas Bayrle, Jürgen Brüning, Thomas Edlinger, Olaf Metzel, Eon McKai, Panik Qulture and Florian Waldvogel.
10:00 pm The Porn Ensemble presents The Porn Dialogue.
11:30 pm Party with DJ Fritz Ostermayer.

BODYPOLITICX is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and September in Rotterdam.

Restricted to visitors over 18 years of age.

For more information go to: http://www.wdw.nl