Artipedia - Arts News

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

APARTHEID
The South African Mirror
26th September, 2007 -
13th January, 2008

Press conference: Wednesday, 26th September at 12:00
Inauguration: Wednesday, 26th September at 19:00

Centre de Cultura
Contemporània de Barcelona
Montalegre, 5
08001 Barcelona
Phone 93 306 41 00
Fax 93 306 41 01
global@cccb.org

http://www.cccb.org

"Apartheid in South Africa can be seen, not only as an extreme manifestation of old, deeply-rooted Western racism, but also as a dramatic but clear precedent, metaphor and paradigm of some fundamentally inherent aspects of the current world order."
Pep Subirós, curator

The CCCB presents Apartheid. The South African Mirror, a conceptual and visual approach to the old and new forms of prejudice and racial discrimination, based on a wide selection of original artworks and documentary material.

The exhibition documents the main stages and characteristics of a tragically famous history and scenario which speak not only of the South African experience, but also of its European legacy, of racial ideologies and of the racist clichés and practices fed by Western modernism, and how these prejudices constitute even today a powerful instrument for justifying and maintaining the most arbitrary injustices as well as an important, almost impenetrable barrier for the construction of a cooperative social order, which is egalitarian and ultimately socially sustainable.

The exhibition begins with a historical approximation to racism, and documents the development of the ideologies and practices that establish different categories of human beings –the "races"– in the same period, paradoxically, in which modern ideas are established with regard to dignity and equal rights for all individuals.

Following this, and as its central part, the exhibition shows in detail the social, political, economic, cultural and territorial system of apartheid in force in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid as an extreme and transparent form of deeply-rooted Western racism.

Finally, the exhibition argues that over the last two decades new forms of racism and racial segregation have developed on a large scale, both within our democratic societies as well as, and especially, in the relationship between rich and poor nations.

To illustrate this historical narrative, Apartheid. The South African Mirror presents a wide selection of South African artworks from the nineteenth century to the present day, paying special attention to the period of Apartheid. As well as offering a panoramic view of the sensitivities and attitudes of the finest creators in relation to the themes addressed in the exhibition, it brings attention to how artistic creation has had and still has a major responsibility in and impact on the construction and consolidation of or the fight against prejudices and practices which, in the long term, dehumanize not only the victims, but especially, those who promote and are responsible for these attitudes.

The exhibition includes key works by the most internationally acclaimed South African artists - Jane Alexander, David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Santu Mofokeng, Berni Searle, Penny Siopis, Paul Stopforth, Sue Williamson, etc.–, but also many others of extraordinary importance and quality barely known outside South Africa: Albert Adams, Peter Clarke, Ernest Cole, Dumile Feni, Billy Mandindi, Ephrain Ngatane, Gerard Sekoto and Durant Sihlali, among others. The final sections of the exhibition include works by artists from the most recent generations, such as Conrad Botes, Churchill Madikida, Johannes Phokela, Nandipha Mntambo, Tracey Rose, Lolo Veleko and Donovan Ward, which demonstrate the continuous vitality of the South African art scene and the renewed commitment by many artists to their historical context. Some of the works, such as in the case of Jane Alexander, Conrad Botes, Nandipha Mntambo, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Peter McKenzie, have been especial
ly produced for this exhibition.

Apartheid. The South African mirror is a co-production of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and Bancaja. The exhibition is showing at the CCCB from 26th September, 2007 to 13th January, 2008. It has been organized by the writer, Pep Subirós.

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

Foksal Gallery Foundation

Edward Krasinski Studio opening / Warsaw

Inaugural conference Avant-garde in the Bloc: Aspects of the Oeuvre and Studio of Henryk Stazewski and Edward Krasinski.
5-6th October 2007, Warsaw

Foksal Gallery Foundation
Gorskiego 1A
00-033 Warsaw
T/F + 48 22 826 50 81
mail@fgf.com.pl

http://www.instytutawangardy.org

Foksal Gallery Foundation is proud to present the conference Avant-garde in the Bloc: Aspects of the Oeuvre and Studio of Henryk Stazewski and Edward Krasinski, inaugurating the public opening of Edward Krasinski’s studio under the name Avant-garde Institute.

The studio, situated on the 11th floor of an apartment block in downtown Warsaw, discloses an unwritten history of local modernist tendencies that blurs the binary oppositions between private and public, history and memory, exterior and interior, illusion and reality.

From 1962 on, Henryk Stazewski shared the studio with Maria Ewa Lunkiewicz-Rogoyska and Jan Rogoyski, and from the beginning of the 70s with Edward Krasinski. The studio became an important venue for Polish avant-garde artists and critics of different generations, a space for meetings, discussions and artistic interventions. In 1974 Daniel Buren taped his in-situ striped panels onto the studio’s windows. After Stazewski’s death in 1988, the studio became an important element of Edward Krasinski’s work, a surface inscribed with his signature blue scotch tape that connects objects, representations and memory traces. After Edward Krasinski’s death in 2004, Foksal Gallery Foundation decided to maintain the space almost unchanged, but have commissioned from the architectural studio BAR an extension of the apartment’s terrace that will serve as a multifunctional pavilion, housing exhibitions and seminars, and serving as a studio for visiting artists.

The aims of the inaugural conference are threefold: to summarize research on Krasinski and Stazewski’s oeuvres, and to challenge them with contemporary approaches; to reflect on the artistic and social phenomenon of an artists’ studio; and to discuss the potential of this new institution focused on counter-education and counter-distribution of knowledge.

Conference Program:

5 October 2007 (Friday)
10. 15. Andrzej Przywara (Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw), Welcome of conference participants and guests. Introduction.
10.30. Sabine Breitwieser (Generali Foundation, Vienna), Edward Krasinski: Les mises en scène.
11.00. Blake Stimson (University of California, Davis), Krasinski and Totality.
11.30. Adam Szymczyk (Kunsthalle Basel)
12.00.-13.00. discussion, coffee break

13.00.-15.00. break

15.00. Maria Matuszkiewicz (University of Warsaw), Karol Sienkiewicz, Alternative Topographies. Henryk Stazewski and Edward Krasinski — Between the Studio, Gallery and Café.
15.30. Anka Ptaszkowska, A few secrets of continuity and temporariness
- from the artists who lived in this place,
- for those, who are here.
16.15. Rachel Haidu (University of Rochester), Edward Krasinski’s Home Work.
16.45. - 17.45. discussion

18.30. Public opening of Henryk Stazewski’s and Edward Krasinski’s studio.

6 October 2007 (Saturday)
10.00. Pawel Polit (Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw), Rhetoric of the Blue Stripe.
10.30. Luiza Nader (University of Warsaw), Heterology of the Blue Line.
11.00. Klara Kemp-Welch (University College London), Articulating the "Between": Stazewski’s Critical Spaces.
11.30.-12.30. discussion, coffee break
12.30. Piotr Juszkiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan), Life line. From Clair-voyance to blindness.
13.00. Alexander Alberro (University of Florida, Gainsville), Edward Krasinski’s Dynamic Line.
13.30. - 14.00. discussion

14.00.-15.30. break

15.30. Andrzej Turowski (Université de Bourgogne, Dijon), From Zmijewski, to Stazewski
16.15. Museum in the Bloc. Discussion.
Moderator: Joanna Mytkowska (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw)
Participants: Charles Esche (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven), Maria Hlavajova (BAK, Utrecht), Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (University of Warsaw, Collegium Civitas, Warsaw), Artur Zmijewski

Place: Kino Paradiso, Al. Niepodleglosci 62, Warsaw

The conference Avant-garde in the Bloc is organized by Foksal Gallery Foundation and supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage founds, in the framework of the programme Cultural Education and Popularization of Culture.

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

Kunstverein in Hamburg

GESELLSCHAFTSBILDER.
ZEITGENÖSSISCHE MALEREI
(Images of Society. Contemporary Painting) Minerva Cuevas, Caroline von Grone, Eberhard Havekost, Victor Man, Gunter Reski, Wilhelm Sasnal, Dierk Schmidt, Wawrzyniec Tokarski, Corinne Wasmuht and Johannes Wohnseifer
through 30 December 2007

David Maljkovic. Almost Here
through 18 November 2007

Insert 5: Olaf Nicolai
Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete?
through 28 October 2007

http://www.kunstverein.de

GESELLSCHAFTBILDER. ZEITGENÖSSISCHE MALEREI
(Images of Society. Contemporary Painting)

The concern of the exhibition GESELLSCHAFTSBILDER. ZEITGENÖSSISCHE MALEREI (Images of Society. Contemporary Painting) is to explore the relation of painting to society. To what extent art represents society, or subjects it to documentary treatment, or resorts interventionistically to social strategies are some of the questions it raises. The works exhibited include politically motivated murals in the tradition of Latin American mural painting, pictures that take their lead from history painting, and projects in public space. While the murals of the ’20s and ’30s still communicate unambiguous, sometimes party-political messages, the pictures of the young artists shown here, applied direct to the exhibition space walls, have the character of an appeal but resist being pressed into the service of a definitive statement. The works that engage with the tradition of history painting do so at various levels. Yet they consciously repudiate historicizing detachment to examine eve
nts for their current political relevance. The documentary content of what is depicted is not thereby denied, but its claim to authenticity is relativized and receives media-critical scrutiny. That painting arises not only in and for the immediate art context is evident from the urban projects, whose approach in the plein air tradition is nevertheless tested for its social potential.Whether easel paintings, murals, or installational arrangements, all of the exhibited works draw their subjects from daily life, science, and politics, often translating them, despite the recognizably non-subjective nature of their contents, into the artists’ sometimes highly subjective worlds. The involvement developed in the process goes beyond documentarism of the present, countering the official visual language of the mass media with artistic positions that have a clear social underpinning.Curated by Yilmaz Dziewior

David Maljkovic. Almost Here

In his installations, videos and collages, the artist, David Maljkovic, born in 1973 at Rijeka in Croatia, engages with aspects of the chequered history of his country. Above all, the far-reaching consequences of the transformation from a communist form of society to a capitalist one, and the associated economic and cultural ramifications, form the subtext of his artistic production. The places to be seen in his works are frequently deserted buildings and monuments from the 1980s which impressively reflect the promise of a better future and, simultaneously, because of their ruinous state today, also the melancholy failure of this promise.

The presentation Almost Here unites the tripartite video series, Scene for New Heritage, in a large, encompassing installation which has been especially conceived for it. In addition, it is presenting his collages that have arisen in this context, along with two architectural models from the 1970s of the monument of the Petrova Gora Park, which is to be seen prominently in the videos and collages. The combination of the historical models with his own, present-day works makes an exemplary basic trait of David Maljkovic’s procedure apparent, for which the integration of research also counts, along with the interweaving of past, present and future.

A catalogue will be published by DuMont Literatur und Kunstverlag containing articles by Yilmaz
Dziewior and Anselm Franke, as well as an interview by Natasa Ilic.

The exhibition and catalogue are being sponsored by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung.

Curated by Yilmaz Dziewior

Insert 5: Olaf Nicolai
Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete?
A room as display
Interior design in collaboration with KUEHN MALVEZZI

For Insert 5 Olaf Nicolai chose the title of the work he presents, Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance, Or: Can art be concrete? (2007), in its iridescent form between statement and question, as the motto for a room as a display for various forms of activity. The furniture and basic design of the room which came about in collaboration with KUEHN MALVEZZI, refers to the work by Max Bill System with Five Coloured Centres (1979). In the room, Olaf Nicolai’s work, Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete? (2007) is presented, an installation consisting of books and posters made using iris printing technique. As a further fixed element of the installation, Bruno J. Böttges’ film, I See It That Way from 1958, is shown, an animated film from the Defa Studios in Dresden whose subject is the transition from education to workers’ education.

The room is conceived as a display for a series of interventions for which the title, Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete? poses the question whether the ‘concrete’ element of art can be its commitment, its politics, its autonomy or a new configuration of experience and perception. To this end, persons from the areas of production of art, design, literature and politics have been invited to lectures and discussions. Each of the events will be recorded and later integrated into the room as a further position.

Conception by Olaf Nicolai, Maria Muhle and Corinna Koch

Kunstverein in Hamburg
Klosterwall 23
20095 Hamburg
phone +49-40-33 83 44
fax +49-40-32 21 59
Tuesday - Sunday 11 am - 18 pm
Thursday 11 am - 21 pm
hamburg@kunstverein.de
http://www.kunstverein.de

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