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Prospect.1 New Orleans

Prospect.1 New Orleans

Announces Participating Organizations and Preview Events Schedule

Website Launched

Preview Events Held on October 30 and 31, 2008
http://www.prospectneworleans.org

With less than a year before the inaugural launch of Prospect. 1, Dan Cameron has announced an initial list of eleven organizations with which it will partner in hosting the biennial, which will be on view November 1, 2007 through January 18, 2008. The venues are among New Orleans’ most prominent and beloved cultural institutions, and will form the hub for exhibitions during Prospect.1.

Participating Organizations (in alphabetical order):
The Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans
The Historic New Orleans Collection
L9
Louisiana Artworks
The U.S. Mint Louisiana State Museum
The National World War II Museum
The Louisiana African American Museum
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts|Riverfront
The New Orleans Museum of Art
The Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art

With a total of over 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, the biennial will have a visible presence across the city throughout its eleven-week run. On view will be work by 75 local, national, and international artists most of whom are creating new, original works that respond both to the locations in which they will be installed and to the city of New Orleans as a whole.

“It’s a sign of the community’s support for Prospect.1 that these eleven institutions have already joined us as exhibition venues. It speaks very strongly to our shared belief that the biennial can play a leading role in rejuvenating both the contemporary art scene and the economy of the city of New Orleans,” said Dan Cameron, Director of PROSPECT.1 New Orleans.

Opening Events
The vernissage of Prospect.1 will take place on October 30th and 31s, with private previews to be held at all participating venues. A Gala Opening Ball to help underwrite the costs of presenting Prospect.1 will take place on the evening of the 31st. The biennial will open to the public with a ribbon cutting ceremony on November 1, 2008 and will remain open from 10am to 8pm throughout the weekend. Prospect.1 will be on view until January 18, 2009, Tuesday through Sunday, 12pm to 8pm.

Website
Prospect.1 has just launched its website http://www.prospectneworleans.org The site will act as a resource for information on the biennial, venues, artists, events, and the city as a destination and will be updated regularly.

About Prospect.1 New Orleans:
Dan Cameron conceived Prospect.1 New Orleans to reinvigorate the city, a historic regional artistic center, following the human, civic, and economic devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The primary goal of the biennial exhibition is to redevelop the city as a cultural destination where the visual arts are celebrated and can once again thrive. New Orleans was the first U.S. city to host a recurring international art exhibition, beginning in 1887 with the Exhibition of the Art Association of New Orleans. In this tradition, Prospect.1 will provide the public with new work by 75 artists conceived and developed for the city. The largest international art biennial ever held in the United States, Prospect.1 will reach an estimated audience of one quarter million visitors, half of which will likely be Louisiana state residents.

Prospect.1 is founded on the principle that art engenders social progress, so the exhibition and all related events will be free to the public. The biennial will be open every day except Monday, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and visitors can see the exhibition in any order they choose and as many times as they like. There will be daily guided tours of the biennial venues.

Fore more information on Prospect.1 New Orleans, please visit http://www.prospectneworleans.org or contact U.S. Biennial, Inc. at (212) 686-5305
or info@prospectneworleans.org.

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Media Contacts:
For further information, interviews, and images, please refer to the following contact:

Kellie Honeycutt
Blue Medium, Inc.
T: (212) 675-1800
F: (212) 675-1855
E: kellie@bluemedium.com

The State Tretyakov Gallery and Kolodzei Art Foundation

Olga Bulgakova. # 9 from the series Matriarhat. 2007.
Oil on canvas. 140 x 140 cm.
Alexander Sitnikov. Kassandra. 1966.
Oil on wood. 41 x 37 cm

Olga Bulgakova and Alexander Sitnikov. Paintings and Objects
November 1 - 25 2007
The State Tretyakov Gallery
Krymsky Val 10
Moscow, Russia

http://www.KolodzeiArt.org

The State Tretyakov Gallery and the Kolodzei Art Foundation present the exhibition Olga Bulgakova and Alexander Sitnikov. Paintings and Objects. Olga Bulgakova and Alexander Sitnikov belong to the generation of artists beginning in the 1970s. Their works have been exhibited widely in Russia, Europe and the United States and are in the permanent collections of major museums, including the State Russian Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery. This is the first joint retrospective exhibition for the couple. This exhibition is accompanied by two catalogues.

The exhibition presents Alexander Sitnikov’s works for the past 40 years. Sitnikov continuously experiments by searching for new forms of self-expression and themes in a socio-cultural environment. His paintings are metaphoric; he pays special attention to the game with the spectator and with forms of painting, creating an intellectual platform with humanitarian signs and symbols of civilization.

Before Sitnikov concentrated on expressiveness of colors and abstract paintings, his main themes were lyrical works, expressing his civic position in the spirit of 1960s in Russia. Starting from the end of 1970s, the dramaturgy of color became one of the important means of expression. The combination of heavily layered bright colors gave an insightful, auxiliary effect. Sitnikov combines his skills of plastic language with irreal images, accenting human experiences, creating intellectual space.

Music is the integral inspiration for Sitnikov in the series Concerto. Geometrical and amorphous forms confines a juxtaposition of intensive colors, and powerful splashes of paint interplay within the structure of painting surface, highlighting the transformed human body and the keyboard. It creates a human drama, dichotomy and a discord between the power of creative spirit and fragile human soul. The paintings are dedicated to the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, symbolizing the struggle for creativity
in Russia.

Sitnikov uses metaphors and mythology (with cultural or literary references) which emerge from the history of modern Russia. In a recent series, Native Speech, Sitnikov creates three-dimensional constructive compositions, influenced by the suprematist and constructivist movements of the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, updated by reflecting on events in modern Russia. Sitnikov uses red, black and white along with a circle, a square, a cross, a sickle, and a hammer, which bear the implied connotation, a vertical line-authority, horizontal line-society. The vanity and tragedy of the world is counterbalanced by the harmony of hope and love. Sitnikov’s works appeal on both analytical and emotional levels while illuminating many aspects of human experience. The various combinations-of traditional and innovative plastic language, emotional and rational, pagan and Christian, subject and non-objectivity, abstract and real-speak to today’s viewer.

The exhibition presents Olga Bulgakova’s artworks of different periods and traces all aspects of development and exploration of the artist, beginning from the themes of theatrical characters, up to the abstract series and cycles Names, Matriarchy and Bible Sketches. Her early works are richly filled with allegoric, metaphorical images searching for a code of visual language-allegories, transformations, and allusions-in a desire to tell more than what is noticeable at first sight. In her complex-built paintings, Bulgakova gives a great importance to fine details, executed with artistic meticulousness. The plastic language of the artist and the attitude toward subject and details becomes more varied. Bulgakova goes through an internally reflected cycle, from the detailed surface through fading and disappearance of a subject, before its occurrence in new a quality, brought in by new experiences.

Rich in imagery, Bulgakova’s works as a stop action frame capture a moment in a constant transformation of the Universe. Combining elements of symbolism and surrealism, Bulgakova constructs her paintings on the intensity of coexistence of opposite extremes and remains open to a multiplicity of interpretations, and reflect her own personal philosophy and private world.

Combinations of elegant fine details, textures, and elements of game, use of symbols, interaction of color and surprising imagination of the artist contributes to the unique character of her painting from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Bulgakova’s internal experiences and her own reconsideration of positions led to significant changes in her works starting at the end of the 1990s. Figurative elements are minimalized before fully disappearing in an abstract cycle. Eventually abstract experiences of the artist are transformed and the circle appears in a cycle of works Archaisms. Later the circle is reincarnated in a powerful plastic sign in the series Names. The Name as a symbol archetype appears already in the new quality, executed in color contrasts, expressive powerful brush strokes, simultaneously personifying concrete and infinite.

In her latest series, Bulgakova addresses the biblical theme of Return of the Prodigal Son (2007). Connecting abstract symbols and figurative elements, Bulgakova unites the creative explorations of last decades. Her art searches are very organic, as the primary motif is the internal need for the creativity which gives rise to an emotional condition, ultimately realized in paintings.

In conjunction with this exhibition, Olga Bulgakova (ISBN: 9780975482964) and Alexander Sitnikov (ISBN: 9780975482988) have been published in both English and Russian languages. These books include essays by Alexander Borovsky, Barbara Thiemann, Natalia Kolodzei, Alexander Rozhin and Natalia Sitnikova.

For information and images, please contact:
Natalia Kolodzei - Kolodzei Art Foundation, Inc. (USA) Tel. 1-732-545-8425; Fax: 1-732-545-8428 Moscow 7-495-952-0277 Kolodzei@KolodzeiArt.org http://www.KolodzeiArt.org

The Kolodzei Art Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public non-profit organization founded in 1991, organizes exhibitions in museums and cultural centers in the United States, Russia and Europe, publishes books and catalogues on Russian art, and conducts Russian-American cultural exchanges.

PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli

FASTFORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART
SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM
11.22.07 - 11.24.07
Meetings, debates and performances from 10.00 am to 10.00 pm
PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Via dei Mille 60
80121 Napoli
P +39 081 795 86 04-05
F +39 081 795 86 08
info@palazzoartinapoli.net
forum@palazzoartinapoli.net

http://www.palazzoartinapoli.net

Contributors include:
Alex Adriaansens, V2 - Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam
Paul Brown, Computer Art Society, London
Mario Costa, Artmedia, Salerno
Geoff Cox, University of Plymouth, Plymouth
Amanda McDonald Crowley, Eyebeam, New York
Dieter Daniels, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media Art Research, Linz
Kelli Dipple,Tate Modern, London
Michele Emmer, Leonardo - ISAST, Roma
Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, Laboral - Centro de Arte y Creacion Industrial, Gijón
Jon Ippolito, University of Maine, Orono
Yael Kanarek, Upgrade!, New York
Simona Lodi, Share, Torino
Barbara London, MoMa Museum of Modern Art, New York
Emma Quinn, ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Wonil Rhee, Curator, Seoul
Yuliya Sorokina, Curator, Alma-Ata
Christine Van Assche, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Valentina Valentini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, Roma

Scientific committee
Laura Bardier, Julia Draganovic, Marina Vergiani

The second edition of the INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTWORWARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART includes a number of events and debates designed to explore the analysis of the relationship between new media art documents and works. The commitment of the PAN Documentation Centre to set up an art archive — and in particular to establish a collection of digital art works — is combined to the goal of promoting a reflection on the variety of experiences and on the subjective nature of research in the field of new media. Today, manifestations of digital arts concern disciplines, works, museum institutions, research and documentation centres, but also methods and instruments for communication and education to art. This year the INTERNATIONAL FORUM widens its scope and becomes one of the cultural initiatives promoted by the city in the framework of participation in the Universal Forum of Cultures of Monterrey. The venue has not changed, but the contents have grown and look fast forward, indeed FASTFOR
WARD: ON NEW MEDIA ART, to 2013, the year for which Naples has submitted its candidature to host the major event promoted by the Unesco.

It is a choice which goes hand in hand with the will to record informed experiences and opinions on the development of production processes, archive systems, curators’ approaches and exhibition projects dedicated to the new media arts. In particular, in this edition contemporary art merges with other art languages and touches the most urgent issues of the contemporary world, mixing its experimental and multimedia languages and collecting contributions distributed across the four themes which constitute the conceptual core of the Universal Forum of Cultures: peace, sustainable development, cultural diversity and know-how.

The working sessions on the agenda at the SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART relate the four lines of research of the PAN with the four themes of the Universal Forum of Cultures:

PEACE / NARRATIVE STRUCTURES
“love is a better teacher than duty” Albert Einstein
It is necessary to keep a constant thread, to carry out research on the function of Art in contemporary society, on the artist’s role in social formations, on the ability of works and documents to communicate the ‘common good’, to re-create the positive conditions of individual and collective experience, in a language that uses visionary tools to express feelings, stories, emotions completing the rational sharing of will and ethics. About art creations, one may say what Jacques Monod said about science “the candour of a new look (the look of science always is) can sometimes shed new light on
ancient problems”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / PROSPECTIVES AND LIMITS OF PRODUCTION
“They would saw the branches on which they were sitting and shout out their mutual experiences on how to saw faster, and they hit the ground with a crash, and those who saw them shook their heads while sawing and carried on sawing” (Bertold Brecht)
In modern debate, the role of technologies in bringing about transformations into our present is widely recognised: material conditions of everyday life, political and social relations, cultural exchanges between different subjects and contexts — they are all simultaneously structured and de-structured as a consequence of the massive introduction of variable instruments and media. The deep involvement of the institutions working in the different fields of contemporary art becomes thus evident. The challenge is a major one, as it concerns above all the possibilities of spreading and circulation offered by technology (thus possibilities which involve creation, use, preservation) and, more in general, the visions which can make a cultural medium relevant and devastating in a media-saturated world!

CULTURAL DIVERSITY / MAPPING AND NETWORKING
“A landscape is made up of processes more than of places. The true essence of the landscape entails interaction and integration” Frederick Steiner
New media art is the expression used to define works which are created, related and, however, used through innovative and unstable technologies since the mid- 20th century. The disciplines usually included in the expression new media art are: cell phone art, computer art, digital art, electronic art, finance art, generative art, hacktivism, information art, interactive art, performance art, robotic art, software art, sound art, video art, video game art.

KNOW - HOW / SHARING KNOW-HOW
“Latent meaning becomes the expression of a more general cultural and cognitive process, in which objects gain significance through the association with know-how rather than with sensitivity” Masao Yamaguchi
Even art expressions give rise to aesthetic forms which can be referred to the potential and varieties of the so-called new media. As in a response to these transformations, the very approach to art history and criticism changes due to the appearance of new forms of ‘global and cyberspace culture’ and to the impact of digital media on the very concept of intellectual property. The whole range of art expressions identified by the new media is among those effects of technological innovation which is based on the application of contemporary scientific research.

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FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS
08.11.07 - 03.12.07

France Cadet, Christian Faubel, Pascal Glissmann e Martina Hofflin, Ken Goldberg, Leonel Moura, Keneth Rinaldo, Robotlab

curated by Laura Bardier
supervisor Julia Draganovic

On the occasion of the 2nd International Forum Fastforward On New Media Art, the PAN | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli presents FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS.

A recurring image in contemporary society is the growing speed of digital information. Technology evolves and absorbs information at a dizzying speed, whereby knowledge is transmitted to “intelligent machines” in a process which seems to be leading us towards a post-human hybrid state. The exponential evolution of information technologies may produce the means by which artists will be able to create beyond their own vision and knowledge. On this occasion, the PAN has turned its attention to research and production in the field of robot art. “Intelligent machines” — once an oxymoron — are becoming commonplace. Robots are present in science and technology as well as in our homes, in art, in cinema and literature. Their importance is growing in diffuse sectors like industrial production and entertainment. At a deeper level, indeed, robotics raises fascinating cultural issues involving philosophers, artists, scientists and technologists. Experiments in this field started as ear
ly as in the 1950s with, for example, Edward Ihnatowicz’s Senster or Cybernetic Serendipity at London’s ICA, and are hosted also in the main contemporary art events, as it happens at the Mexican pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Contemporary robotics is the field in which the comprehension of human intelligence materialises; it is a topic that has always been transversal to scientific and human disciplines alike, and that has brought together research fields into neuroscience, engineering, computer science, biology, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Transferring the processes of animal and human brain to robots is an ongoing effort which, besides technical difficulties, raises crucial questions on more general issues too: can an “intelligent” robot also imitate and learn, experience the world and become aware of it? What social status, what rights, what responsibilities will this and other types of “artificial life” have? What relationship will such a robot be able to establish with human beings? Will it be possible to design creative robots, able to act in a drama together with actors or to become recognised authors? How will aesthetics theories have to renovate themselves to account for this n
ew dimension of art, where the artist can become a robot designer and the creation can eventually be a work and a process at the same time? These are the questions which the artists invited to FASTFORWARD ON NEW MEDIA ART: ROBOTS try to give an answer to, discussing many of these issues with varying experiences and results.

The exhibition hosts artists such as Moura and Robotlab, who propose robots that create art, or as Rinaldo, Glissmann and Faubel, who present robots that are works of art themselves or, finally, as Cadet and Goldberg, who create works inspired from the imaginative world related to robots
and electronics.