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San Francisco Art Institute

Still from Allora & Calzadilla’s Returning a Sound, 2004.
Single-channel video projection with sound (5:42 min.).

New Work by Allora &
Calzadilla at SFAI
until 15 December 2007
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
800 345 SFAI / 415 749 4500

http://www.sfai.edu

The third and final movement in a trilogy of site-specific sound-focused installations, Sediments, Sentiments (Figures of Speech), on view until 15 December 2007 at SFAI’s Walter and McBean Galleries, carries forward lines of investigation Puerto Rico–based artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla opened first in Clamor (at the Moore Space in Miami in 2006) and then in Wake Up (at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in the spring of 2007). The trilogy of exhibitions comprises a series of works that counterpose militarism and war with adroit manipulations of sound, music, and–in this new project for the first time–spoken word.

Strategically seeking out the sounds of combat as their sonic media, Allora & Calzadilla redeploy petrified, if still petrifying, riffs like reveille in ways that fundamentally challenge the ostensible glories the drumbeats of war traditionally encode. Part of their collaborative task has been to track such martial sound effects to their precognitive hideouts “under the skin,â€? where the body is agitated and stirred before the mind has had a chance to reflect–the hangouts, in short, of an unthinking patriotism. Allora & Calzadilla’s endeavor to reissue sounds whose meanings have grown far too familiar is an effort to restructure, at the source, those corporeal conformities, always marked in and on the body already, through which violent and potentially devastating action first becomes possible. In the new work for the Walter and McBean Galleries, this same system of undoing is set in motion against the equally inured fixations of the word–from the grain of the speaking
voice to the artificial diction of operatic language and political oration.

Never limiting themselves to a single medium, Allora & Calzadilla complement their far-resonating, site-sensitive interrogations of sound and word with a suite of recent works in video: Returning a Sound (2004), Under Discussion (2005), Amphibious (2005), Sweat Glands, Sweat Lands (2006), Unrealizable Goals (2007), and There Is More Than One Way to Skin a Sheep (2007), the last of which recently premiered at the 10th International Istanbul Biennial. As a literal testimony to their thematic precedence in Allora & Calzadilla’s oeuvre, these videos were placed on view starting 2 October in the Walter and McBean Galleries, two weeks before the opening reception of the exhibition itself on 18 October (the reception included, as a prelude integral to the full unfolding of the exhibition, a live operatic interpretation of texts selected by the artists and performed by students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music). The preemptive presence and visibility of Allora & Calzadi
lla’s video work–in particular, Returning a Sound–were meant to reinforce the deeper context of the ensuing installation, namely, Allora & Calzadilla’s active participation, from 2001 to 2004, in the acts of civil disobedience in Vieques (the island off Puerto Rico used by the US Navy as a weapons-testing range from 1941 to 2003) that eventually led to its partial evacuation by the US government.

Consistent with the comprehensive rearticulation of SFAI’s Exhibitions and Public Programs, which look beyond the traditional histories and narratives of exhibition and curatorial practice, Allora & Calzadilla were invited to exploit, as fully as possible, the intricacies of the SFAI campus, to conceive of it, in other words, as what Hou Hanru, SFAI’s director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, has called “a dynamic site of production instead of a static venue for mere representation.�

Sediments, Sentiments (Figures of Speech) occurs under the Global Figures component of SFAI’s Exhibitions and Public Programs, which is divided into five discrete but intersecting directions for investigating current constructions of contemporary global culture. Global Figures presents solo exhibitions of major artists from different cultures who have importantly influenced the current global art scene. The third and final movement in an ideologically critical, three-city trilogy, Sediments, Sentiments (Figures of Speech) could literally not have assumed the concrete, site-specific form it has in fact assumed anywhere else than at the Walter and McBean Galleries. The entire project will be captured and reflected upon in a joint publication slated to appear in 2008.

In addition to the installation in the Walter and McBean Galleries, Allora & Calzadilla gave a talk on 17 October as part of SFAI’s Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series.

Allora & Calzadilla first exhibited internationally in 1998 at the 24th São Paulo Biennial. In group exhibitions they have shown at the Tate Modern in 2003, the 2005 Venice Biennial, and the 2006 Whitney Biennial. In solo exhibitions they have shown or will show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2004); the ICA in Boston (2004); the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2006); the Serpentine Gallery in London (2007); the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2007); the Whitechapel Laboratory in London (2007); the 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007); and the
Lyon Biennial (2007).

Allora & Calzadilla’s work can be found in major public collections at the Tate Modern; the Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain (FMAC) in Paris; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC in Paris; the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) in Ghent (Belgium); the Dallas Museum of Art (Texas, USA); and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio, USA).

SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs are supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, and the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Sediments, Sentiments (Figures of Speech) is sponsored by the Franco Soffiantino Gallery in Turin, Italy, and is presented in collaboration with the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and the Moore Space in Miami. It is also presented concurrently with the exhibition Apocalypse Now: The Theater of War, co-curated by Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla, and Jens Hoffmann at CCA Wattis Institute in San Francisco, on view from 30 November 2007 to 26 January 2008.

San Francisco Art Institute

Founded in 1871, SFAI is one of the oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art in the US. Focusing on the interdependence of thinking, making, and learning, SFAI’s academic and public programs are dedicated to excellence and diversity.

SFAI’s School of Studio Practice concentrates on developing the artist’s vision through studio experiments and is based on the belief that artists are an essential part of society. It offers a BFA, an MFA, and a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Design+Technology, Film, New Genres, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, and Sculpture/Ceramics.

SFAI’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies is motivated by the premise that critical thinking and writing, informed by an in-depth understanding of theory and practice, are essential for engaging contemporary global society. It offers degree programs in History and Theory of Contemporary Art (BA and MA), Urban Studies (BA and MA), and Exhibition and Museum Studies (MA only).

For more information about this exhibition and other public programs at SFAI, please go to http://www.sfai.edu or call 415 749 4563.

The Ministry of Culture of Spain

The Ministry of Culture of Spain
is pleased to announce the opening of a contest to select the Director of the:
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Contest conditions and qualification requirements are available on:
http://www.mcu.es
http://www.museoreinasofia.es

The Ministry of Culture of Spain announces the opening of a contest to select the Director of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

Requirements and merits of the candidates
The candidates will have to fulfil the following requirements and merits:

a) To be Spanish or national of a country member of the European Union. In the case of nationals of countries non-members of the European Union, the appointment will be conditional to the obtaining of the legal residence in Spain.

b) To be in possession of a university degree with the graduate level or equivalent.

c) To accredit a significant trajectory and experience of direction or management of museums or centers of modern and contemporary art.

d) To accredit sufficiently the possession of knowledge as a specialist in modern and contemporary art, universal and Spanish, that guarantees the fulfilment on the part of the MNCARS of their function of support to the contemporary artistic creation, and to be able to turn the institution in a research center of international reference, able to develop a publication policy and exhibitions of excellence, within the scope of its specialty and its collections and in narrow collaboration with other scientific and museum institutions.

e) To accredit abilities of leadership, as well as dowries for the communication and negotiation, planning, determination of priorities, taking decisions, conflict resolution and evaluation of the efficiency and the organizational effectiveness.

f) To accredit sufficient knowledge of the economic agents susceptible to contribute with financial, human and cultural resources to the institution, as well as the capacity to develop programs that stimulate their sponsorship.

g) To present, in Spanish or anyone of the co-official languages in the Independent Communities, or English or French, the main lines of the Museum Plan for the Institution.

h) Excellent level of Spanish.

i) To have the knowledge and the capacity of negotiation and leadership necessary to articulate and to put into practice with the employees and the departments of the Museum the proposed Museum Plan, and to complete it organizing the Programs and the performance lines according to high-priority objectives and identifying the paper of the diverse departments in the attainment coordinated of such.

j) It will be the capacity to represent the Museum in the amplest spectre of scopes, to work in narrow relation with the Royal Patronage, and to construct and to develop networks of internal as well as external relations.

k) The knowledge of English and French, as well as of any other language will be valued.

Presentation of candidacies
The candidates will have to present all the documentation required in the notification, properly contrasted, directing it nominally to the President of the Committee of Experts, in a sealed envelope in which “Process of selection of the Director of the MNCARS” is indicated and that will be sent by certified mail to the following direction: Plaza del Rey, 1. 28004. Madrid, or presenting it directly in the Document Record Department of the Ministry of Culture (Plaza del Rey, 1. Madrid) or in the rest of the ways anticipated in the article 38,4 of Law 30/1992, of November 26th, of a Legal Regime of the Public Administrations and of common Administrative Procedure, modified by the Law 4/1999, of January 13th.
The dead line for the presentation of the proposals ends on November 15th 2007.

Further information on the contest conditions is available on: http://www.mcu.es and http://www.museoreinasofia.es

Zacheta National Gallery of Art

Janek Simon, Cracow Bread, 2006
Robot VJ Mixing One and Two, 2007
Zacheta National Gallery of Art

Janek Simon
Winner of the 3rd Edition of
the Competition:
Views 2007 - Deutsche Bank Foundation Award
Zacheta National Gallery of Art
pl. Malachowskiego 3, 00-916 Warsaw
phone (48 22) 827 58 54
Press: rzecznik@zacheta.art.pl
http://www.zacheta.art.pl

On 22nd October 2007, on the decision of the international Competition Jury, Janek Simon was awarded the title of the most interesting young artist of the Polish artistic scene. The winner receives an award of 10 000 Euros.

Janek Simon was born in 1977 in Cracow. From 1999-2001 he studied in the Sociology Department of the Jagiellonian University, and from 1997-2001 he also studied in the Psychology Department of the same university.

The artist creates surrealist mechanisms which relate to the wealth of absurdity that surrounds us. His calculators cheat us, and his printers are loaded with document destroyers and produce rubbish. He generates nonsense, organising for example the Polish Year in Madagascar, while the works he makes are synonyms of independence.

Janek Simon makes use of his constructor’s abilities in ever more unusual projects. Thus emerged the walking Cracow Bread, where single loaves, reminiscent of insects, helplessly walk around the other work he presented in Zacheta, Robot VJ Mixing Television Channels 1 and 2, an installation whose principal elements are an old television set and a video mixer: an object belonging to club culture which in the 1980s was an unattainable object of desire for school-kids. The mixer produces a mix of two television channels (in those days there were only two and it was they that formed the shape of the world). The mixing creates the impression of a shifting of reality, of a psychedelic disturbance of the obvious and everyday. Perhaps this work makes obvious reference to political realia and the metaphor of manipulation, but more important seems the theme of an experimentation with the everyday, of an activity beyond schemata. An activity which enchants the space of art, making of
the artist someone who moves in between, consciously avoiding easy definitions, who lives beyond the system…

5 individual artists and 2 artistic groups were nominated for this year’s edition of the competition:
- Galeria Rusz (Joanna Górska, Rafal Góralski)
- Rafal Jakubowicz
- Olga Lewicka
- Karol Radziszewski
- Sedzia Glówny (Aleksandra Kubiak, Karolina Wiktor)
- Janek Simon
- Michal Stachyra

Works by all the artists, prepared specially for this occasion, can be seen at the exhibition presented in Zacheta from 15th September to 11th November 2007. The exhibition curator is Monika Szewczyk — director of the “Arsenalâ€� Gallery in Bialystok.

The exhibition is organised by the Deutsche Bank Foundation, Deutsche Bank Polska S.A. and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, under the honorary patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

The Zacheta Gallery public also selected its favourite of the current edition of the competition. Their vote for the Public Award went to

Michal Stachyra

Michal Stachyra was born in 1981 in Lublin, where he still lives and works. He graduated from the Painting Studio in the Art Department of the Marie Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin in 2006.