Artipedia - Arts News

Hank Willis Thomas

FROM TABOO TO ICON: Africanist Turnabout
Curated by Sophie Sanders & Shervone Neckles

This exhibition presents artwork in all media that explores the concept of Africanist aesthetics and the taboo or iconic aspect of these influences in contemporary western culture.

Ice Box Projects Space
Crane Arts Building
1400 N. American St
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Phone: 215 232 3203
www.cranearts.com

Exhibition Dates: January 10, 2008 – February 10, 2008 *
Reception Date: Thursday, January 10, 2008 6-9pm*
Curator / Artist Talk: Friday, February 1, 2008*
Exhibition Hours: Every Wed-Sun 12-6 pm

The Townhouse Gallery

Photo: Susan Hefuna

Cairo Interview Project
Public Interview
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Gallery, London

Sunday, Dec 24, 2007, 4pm - open

As a continuation of the groundbreaking interview project held in major cities including Stuttgart, London, Kassel, Cagliari, Beijing and Dubai, Hans Ulrich Obrist will visit Egypt from December 24th to the 27th for the Cairo Interview Project, an idea conceived with Susan Hefuna.

The contemporary art scene in Egypt is proving to be one of the most diverse in the region, stimulating both controversy and debate and the interviews will engage a selection of young artists whose works have been internationally recognised. The conversations will take place in the Townhouse Gallery’s Factory space, which opens onto a popular lane in the heart of Downtown Cairo, to engage the widest public audience. At 4 pm on the afternoon of the 24th the Swiss curator will, for 6 to 8 consecutive hours, discuss with the artists both their cultural practice and the context from which their art is derived. Visual artists, curators and film makers will take part in the interviews offering a unique insight into their work and the position of contemporary art as it is played out today. Participants include Lara Baladi, Amal Kenawy, Hassan Khan, Ahmed Khaled, Mona Marzouk, Bassam El Baroni, Mahmoud Khaled, Basim Magdy, Huda Lutfi, Rana El Nemr, Shady El Noshakaty and Susan Hefu
na.

Factory space
The Townhouse Gallery
10 Nabrawy Street off Champollion Street
Downtown, Cairo, Egypt
[t] +2 (02) 2576 8086
info@thetownhousegallery.com
http://www.thetownhousegallery.com

Circa Art Magazine

front cover: Laura Gannon: A house in Cap-Martin, 2007, film stills; courtesy the artist

Circa Issue 122, Winter 2007
Circa Art Magazine
43 / 44 Temple Bar
Dublin 2
Ireland
Phone: +353 1 67 97 388
editor@recirca.com
http://www.recirca.com

subscriptions / purchase / PDFs:
http://www.recirca.com/subscribe

The winter issue of Ireland’s journal of record for contemporary visual art is now on sale. The 112 full-colour pages include news, feature articles, reviews, a host of images, and advertising from Ireland’s main art spaces.

Feature articles

Artist-writers, writer-artists: An anonymous vox pop - how do artists who also write about art think and feel about working in those two differing domains? Anonymous | Space, time, and a house by the sea - an interview with Laura Gannon, whose recent work explores Eileen Gray’s E.1027 Vincent Honoré | James Coleman: Absent works - two extraordinary takes on site-specificity Chris Clarke | “2, 3, 4…” Garrett Phelan - an examination of the artist’s recent output Graham Parker | Who makes place? Architecture and public sculpture (whose job is it anyway?) - the new Anthony Gormley commission prompts speculation on the role of ‘signature’ sculpture Gemma Tipton | Postcards from everywhere - a look at a Circa competition | Letter from St Louis - art in a city with some remarkable demographics Sydney Norton |

Reviews

Antrim Sandra Kerr: Pain in the neck David Hughes | Belfast Belfast 3-13 September 2007 Slavka Sverakova | The double image David Hughes | Berlin Art fairs in Berlin David Ulrichs | Birr Synesthesia sat Jason McCaffrey | Cork Cicada Elaine O’Sullivan | Radio ON Matt Packer | Dublin Play safe: Battlefields in the playground Tim Stott | Ronan McCrea: Medium (the end); Medium (upside down) Tim Stott | Marcel Van Eeden: The archaeologist - the travels of Oswald Sollmann Chris Fite-Wassilak | Karl Grimes: Dignified kings play chess on fine green silk Sherra Murphy | Alice Maher: Bestiary Jennie Guy | Galway Women war photographers Aileen Blaney | Kassel Documenta XII Fergal Gaynor | Limerick Michael Minnis: Here, and nowhere else Karen Normoyle-Haugh | Linz Ars electronica Paul O’Brien | London Mamma Andersson Cherry Smyth | Venice Sophie Calle: Prenez soin de vous Susan Thomson | Wexford Mary Ruth Walsh: Still life Gemma Tipton | Book Critical mess: Art critics on the state o
f their practice Brian Curtin |

Also available for online purchase: Space: Architecture for Art, a Circa book on the theory and practice of art spaces; it includes a comprehensive directory to visual-arts spaces throughout the island of Ireland. More information at http://www.recirca.com/space

Buy or subscribe to Circa Art Magazine at http://www.recirca.com/subscribe (you can also buy gift subscriptions and PDFs here).

Scans of the pages of the first 110 issues of Circa are now accessible online at http://www.recirca.com/scans

Circa is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and Culture Ireland.

Stroom Den Haag

Marcel van Eeden, Untitled, 1993,
oil on canvas.

EMPIRE OF ISLANDS
until January 27, 2008
Stroom Den Haag
Hogewal 1-9
2514 HA The Hague
The Netherlands
Opening hours: Wednesday-Sunday 12-5 pm
T +31-70 3658985
info@stroom.nl

http://www.stroom.nl

Stroom Den Haag sets out on a quest for the cultural soul of a city and presents the true atmosphere and character of The Hague through the eyes of both its well-known and its unsung artistic heroes. Some of the highlights of the exhibition include a number of never before shown large paintings by Marcel van Eeden, internationally known for his oeuvre of drawings. Philip Akkerman, on the other hand, who is acclaimed for his impressive oeuvre of painted self-portraits, presents a collection of black and white pencil drawings he made of special places in The Hague at the start of his career in the
early 1980s.

The art scene of The Hague is often described as a conglomerate of separate entities. Nevertheless this particular artistic constellation has given birth to various important artists. Some of them are deservedly well-known, some of them most certainly deserve wider recognition. Together they form an Empire of Islands. Other artists in the exhibition include a.o. Livinus van de Bundt, Marius Quee, Willem Hussem and Pieter Ouborg. Special attention is paid to the underground movement in The Hague in the period 1965-1975.
Curated by Gerrit Jan de Rook.

The exhibition was made possible in part by the Mondriaan Foundation.

COMING SOON:
‘After Neurath: The Global Polis’, February 9 thru April 6, 2008
There has been a renewed interest in the work of the Austrian utopian philosopher Otto Neurath (1882-1945), in fields as various as fine art, design, philosophy, cultural theory and urban studies. With this new installment in its ongoing ‘After Neurath’ project, Stroom Den Haag poses the question what Neurath meant for the concept of the ‘global polis’ — its meaning, its presuppositions, and its history.
Curated by Nader Vossoughian.

The exhibition program of Stroom Den Haag is made possible in part by the
Mondrian Foundation.

Stroom Den Haag focuses on the urban environment from the viewpoint of visual arts, architecture, urban development and design.

Best Art Practices

Frontera project
René Hayashi, Eder Castillo, Antonio O’Connell
guatemex, 2006
Installation view

Best Art Practices
International award for young curators

First edition theme
projects in non-conventional spaces

Announced by
Italian Cultural Office of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano — South Tyrol

Curated by
Denis Isaia
http://www.bestartpractices.it

The first edition of Best Art Practices for young curators has come to an end. The purpose of the Award, announced by the Italian Culture Department of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (South Tyrol), is to reward the best contemporary art projects that have been completed in the last five years by curators under forty years of age in non-conventional spaces.

The Award has achieved excellent international success with 132 participants from the five continents.

The project selection process was carried out collegially by an international Jury, which, besides indicating the reasons for choosing the winning projects, has provided some preliminary considerations on the status of young curatorial projects, of which the Award has proved to be the first catalyst.
The general considerations are as follows: among the critical points observed in many of the submitted projects was the lack of a solid theoretical foundation, which has driven many curators in the last five years to tune their research to the requirements of the cultural industry. This approach, judged negatively, was counterbalanced by the active position of many curators, who, through different types of public involvement, share an interest for activities that fit into the respective social and political contexts.

The jury, composed of Carlos Basualdo (curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Art), Marion Piffer Damiani (art critic and independent curator), Letizia Ragaglia (curator of the Museion of Bolzano), Montse Romaní (independent curator), Anton Vidokle (artist and founder of e-flux), Andrea Villiani (curator of the Mambo of Bologna), assigned the prizes as follows:

1st prize (10,000 Euro) to: FRONTERA - Laboratorio Curatorial 060, for the complexity of the themes touched upon and its innovative articulation. Special appreciation was expressed for: social relevance; the ability to involve tradition and the local population in the process of creation and fruition of the submitted works; the innovative nature aimed at surpassing public art practices of the Nineties; the theme and, in particular, the investigation on the frontier question in an area with scarce media attention; the unusual ability to arouse feelings of freedom, imagination and poetry.

2nd prize (3,000 Euro) to: THE PAINTING MUSEUM - Florin Tudor, for the clarity of the curatorial assumptions with respect to the contents proposed, their historic and geographic contextualization and the results achieved. Special appreciation was expressed for: the strong public impact and great media attention; the political and cultural importance in a rapidly evolving social context and the innovative approach to the work that investigates the relation between power and
art institutions.

3rd prize (2,000 Euro) to: LIMINAL SPACES - Eyal Danon, Philipp Misselwitz, Galit Eilat, Reem Fadda, for the curators’ ability to organise projects shared in highly problematic areas such as that between Israel and Palestine. Particularly appreciated was the project’s intent to create a discussion platform involving writers, artists and curators from Palestine, Israel and other parts of the world, as well as the curators’ ability to find support for other phases of the project in Europe.

Five mentions awarded ex aequo:
Wilson Diaz Polanco, Ana Maria Millan Strohbach, Jaime Andrés Sandoval Alba, Claudia Patricia Sartia Macias, Juan David Medina Jaramill with the project VI Festival de performance de Cali - Colombia.
Adam Carr with the project En Route: via another route. Jacob Fabricius with the project Sandwiched. Anna Colin with the project Radio Gallery. Emeka Udemba with the project Lagos Open.

Info: http://www.bestartpractices.it

Press office Best Art Practices, Carlo Simula, +39 0577 22 07 21, press@bestartpractices.it

Van Abbemuseum

Plug In #33: Igloo Nero
Mario Merz, Igloo Nero, (1967-1979), 1994
Collection Van Abbemuseum.
Photo Peter Cox.

Plug In
Re-imagining the collection
Van Abbemuseum
BILDERDIJKLAAN 10
EINDHOVEN - THE NETHERLANDS
+31 [0]40 238 1000
TU - SU : 11:00 - 17:00
TH: 11.00 - 21:00
info@vanabbemuseum.nl
http://www.vanabbemuseum.nl

In December 2007 the Van Abbemuseum opened eight new episodes of Plug In, Plug In #28.2 - #36. Plug In is the revolutionary way in which the Van Abbemuseum displays its collection of contemporary and modern art. Each space contains a single, specific ‘episode’, and has its own number and time span within the programme. By changing the spaces one by one and at varying speeds, Plug In produces surprising links, revealing contrasts and unexpected resonances that continually alter the relationship between past and present, old and new, known and unknown. Professionals, art experts as well as first-time visitors to the museum experience this new concept as positive and refreshing, which is one of the Van Abbemuseum’s objectives. Plug In started in April 2006, and will further develop with frequent changes and 10 to 15 new episodes a year.

NEW EPISODES OF PLUG IN
• Artist duo Bik Van der Pol previously shared their vision of how museums and their audiences deal with information in Plug In #28. Parallel to that they are showing a mural by Sol LeWitt in the new Plug In #28 Pay Attention. Act 2, together with the video Baldessari Sings LeWitt (1972) by John Baldessari.

• In Plug In #31 René Daniëls. The return of the performance, guest curator Frédérique Bergholtz highlights the work of one of Eindhoven’s key artists, René Daniëls. Daniëls recently won the Oeuvre Award of the Netherlands Foundation of Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB). Bergholtz has based her selection of works from this enormous reservoir on the notion of the artist as performer, while also creating a link to works by other artists in the collection.

• Christiane Berndes, curator of collections, uses these Plug In episodes to search for links between known and lesser known works in the collection as well as to do research on the use of space, both in the museum and in art. Plug In #32 One on one is the first of a series of presentations centring around a single work from the museum collection. The focal point of this Plug In is Frank Stella’s painting Tuxedo Junction, 1960.

• Plug In #33 Igloo Nero displays Mario Merz’s well-known work. The Igloo Nero’s black shape has the effect of shutting you out. In 1997, Merz added a second, ‘open’ igloo to the first. In this configuration, the work is a statement questioning the accessibility of museums and art alike.

• Plug In #34 Starting with Kandinsky highlights the first major international acquisitions made in 1951 by then director Edy de Wilde and includes works by Braque, Chagall, Kandinsky, Picasso
and Zadkine.

• In Plug In #35 Andre, Mondriaan, Ryman shows works in which geometric shapes and repetition play a key role.

• Plug In #36 From a to b brings together works that figure movement. The new acquired work I WENT by On Kawara, is on show for the first time.

NEW SERIES OF RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
The Van Abbemuseum has launched its own series of research publications under the name VAMPR (Van Abbemuseum Public Research). Recently the first edition of this series was published, the book Notes from the Future of Art; Selected Writings by Jerzy Ludwinski. Parallel to the publication of this book, Magdalena Ziólkowska, guest curator and editor, has arranged Plug In #30 around the differences and similarities found in the visions of the museum of contemporary art in Eindhoven and in Wroclaw, Poland, in the mid-1960s.

Plug In has been realised in part by a contribution by the Mondriaan Foundation.

MCA

Shahzia Sikander
27 November 2007 until 17 February 2008
http://www.mca.com.au

MCA presents the eloquent and intricately beautiful work of Shahzia Sikander

Sydney, Australia: This summer, discover the eloquent and intricately beautiful work of Shahzia Sikander at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Born in Pakistan, Sikander studied painting in the Indo-Persian miniaturist tradition, before relocating to New York in 1993 where further studies saw her develop a distinctive iconography referencing history, mythology and popular culture.

Curated by MCA Senior Curator Rachel Kent, the MCA exhibition will include a major site specific work which the artist will create directly onto the gallery wall. The work will be completed by the artist over a two-week period in the lead up to the opening of the exhibition on 27 November.

Sikander’s work is characterised by its precision of line and delicacy of touch: from tightly structured miniature paintings to larger, more loosely formed watercolours in which pigments stain and bleed into one another. Historical tradition meets contemporary interpretation, incorporating both figurative and abstract elements.

Since 2001 Sikander has also worked with digital animation, setting her miniatures into physical motion. Images break apart and reform in new hybrid permutations, while sound adds a further dimension.

Repetition of form and the overlaying of imagery is a recurrent feature of Sikander’s paintings and watercolours. These themes are likewise illustrated in her recent three-dimensional installations which incorporate suspended veils of semi-transparent paper upon which fragments merge in and out of
one another.

Sikander was recently awarded the prestigious MacArthur Award, from the Chicago-based Macarthur Foundation. The Award is given “to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits”. Sikander was recognised by the Macarthur Award for “merging the traditional South Asian art of miniature painting with contemporary forms and styles to create visually compelling, resonant works on multiple scales and in a dazzling array of media”.

Shahzia Sikander runs at the MCA from 27 November 2007 until 17 February 2008. Shahzia Sikander will discuss her work in conversation with MCA Senior Curator Rachel Kent on Wednesday 28 November. For further information on special talks and events associated with this exhibition visit http://www.mca.com.au/events

- Ends -

About the MCA:
The MCA the only museum in Australia dedicated to exhibiting, collecting and interpreting contemporary art from Australia and throughout the world. Located on one of Australia’s most iconic sites on Sydney’s West Circular Quay, it was voted by Sydney residents as their favourite museum or gallery in an independent poll conducted by the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, in March 2007

The MCA is open 7 days, 10am - 5pm. Admission is free. http://www.mca.com.au

MEDIA ENQUIRIES:
Gaby Wilson | 02 9245 2434 or 0416 748 791
gaby.wilson@mca.com.au
http://www.mca.com.au

The Museum of Contemporary Art is assisted by the NSW Government through ARTS NSW and by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

sala rekalde

Jan Swidzinski at his studio (1975)
Photo: Zbigniew Dlubak
Courtesy CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

1,2,3… Avant-Gardes - Art as Contextual Art
Film/Art between Experiment and Archive
20 December 2007 to 30 March 2008
sala rekalde
Alameda Recalde 30
Bilbao 48009, Bizkaia (Spain)

http://www.salarekalde.bizkaia.net

Curators: Lukasz Ronduda, Florian Zeyfang and Leire Vergara

1,2,3… Avant-Gardes - Art as Contextual Art is the next stage of an exhibition and research project that explores the “continuous” history of experimentation in film and art and the interaction of both fields.

Grounded in the extensive Polish experimental film output of the 1970s, 1,2,3… Avant-Gardes will offer a selection of films mostly produced by Polish artists from that period, whilst including contemporary international artistic proposals that constitute a challenge for the interpretation of the history of experimental cinema. The exhibition follows a schema structured under the following headings: Analytical Strategies. Games and Participation. Political Film and Soc Art (Socialist Art). Image and Sound. Imagination. Consumption. This specific disposition will structure the works with the aim of analysing both formally and conceptually the use of experimental strategies within visual production.

The show at sala rekalde is a new contribution of 1,2,3… Avant-Gardes entitled Art as Contextual Art. It departs from main ideas developed by Polish conceptual artist Jan Swidzinski, who in the early 1970s wrote manifestos and produced art works based on radical ideas about the importance of working within a specific socio-political context. His proposition for producing Contextual Art instead of a more universal Conceptual Art was crucial for the Polish art of the 70s. The exhibition will try to analyse the political, aesthetical and theoretical implications of working with the context of some Polish artists active in the 1970s and will also set out the different ways of negotiating with this issue in contemporary art production.

Understood in a “horizontal” way 1,2,3… Avant-Gardes points to different ideas of modernism and the pluralism of conceptual film and art production which existed parallel to one another during the Cold War period and still exists today. Read in a “vertical” way, it stands for the search for a possible historicisation of Polish avant-garde art and film, a linearity, to be discovered and reconstructed against many distortions in Polish history over the last 80 years.

The Polish film selection from the 1970s includes works by the following artists and producers:

Akademia Ruchu, Antosz & Andzia, Kasimierz Bendkowski, Bogdan Dziworksi, Marcin Gizycki, Janusz Haka, Oskar Hansen, Tadeusz Junak, Jacques de Koning, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Zofia Kulik, Pawel Kwiek, Przemyslaw Kwiek, Natalia LL, Jolanta Marcolla, Ewa Partum, Andrzej Pawlowski, Zygmunt Piotrowski, Józef Robakowski, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Zygmunt Rytka, Jadwiga Singer, Zdzislaw Sosnowski, Mieczyslaw Szczuka, Michal Tarkowski, Teresa Tyszkiewicz, Ryszard Wasko, Jan Stanislaw Wojciechowski and Krzysztof Zarebski.

Also on show are works by the following contemporary artists:

Pawel Althamer/Artur Zmijewski, Bernadette Corporation, Matthew Buckingham, Discoteca Flaming Star, Jon Mikel Euba, Iñaki Garmendia, Judith Hopf/Katrin Pesch, Joaquim Jordà, Igor Krenz, Jonathan Monk, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, Wilhelm Sasnal, Sra. Polaroiska en Sillón de Taller and Florian Zeyfang.

1,2,3… Avant-Gardes Film/ Art between Experiment and Archive, initiated in the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in December 2006, was curated by Lukasz Ronduda and Florian Zeyfang. The exhibition, following the divisions and theoretical background described above, brought together for the first time the idea of combining archive material based on Polish experimental film production of the 1970s with contemporary artistic proposals.

In the Künstlerhaus in Stuttgart, the exhibition, curated on this occasion by Lukasz Ronduda, Florian Zeyfang and Axel John Wieder, was inaugurated in June 2007. This time, the exhibition concentrated more extensively on the experiments of Polish architect Oskar Hansen and his concept termed Open Form, which was originally developed within the context of international late-modernist debates on architecture in the 1950s and later taken up and further pursued in the direction of film and performance.

In sala rekalde, the exhibition now curated by Lukasz Ronduda, Florian Zeyfang and Leire Vergara extends the initial structure presented in Warsaw with a new list of artists from the Spanish and Basque context. In addition, the symposium Art as Contextual Art, organised as a parallel activity to the exhibition, proposes to analyse the artistic potentials from the past and present time of working with specific contexts. Ideas like universality versus singularity will be developed critically. The activity will be divided into two different sessions: on 15th January 2008 with Carles Guerra, Jan Swidzinski and Jan Verwoert and on 8th February 2008 with Judith Hopf, Asier Mendizabal and Rachel Weiss.

The exhibition is accompanied by the book 1,2,3… Avant-Gardes. Film/ Art between Experiment and Archive published by CCA Ujazdowski Castle and Sternberg Press. For the occasion, sala rekalde has published for the occasion an extended edition of Spanish and Basque translation booklets.

For further information, please contact:
Press Office
Tel: (+34) 94 406 87 07
Fax: (+34) 94 406 87 54
salarekalde@bizkaia.net

Australian Centre
for the Moving Image

Replay Marclay
Thursday 15 November -
Sunday 3 February
10am - 6pm Daily, Late Night
Thursdays until 9pm
Free exhibition
Australian Centre
for the Moving Image
Federation Square, Flinders Street
Melbourne Australia
+61 03 86632200
info@acmi.net.au
http://www.acmi.net.au

The acclaimed videos of artist and musician Christian Marclay feature in an Australian exclusive survey exhibition, Replay Marclay, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) until
February 3, 2008.

Developed by the Cité de la Musique in Paris, Replay Marclay is the first major exhibition presented in Australia celebrating the work of the New York-based moving image artist, and is the first solo exhibition to be staged in ACMI’s Screen Gallery.

Christian Marclay’s astonishing work explores the overlapping of aural and visual realms in popular culture through a variety of mediums including video, film, sculpture, photography, music and DJ performances. By reframing the media landscape, he challenges us to consume the sounds and images that form our cultural landscape in a new way.

Marclay draws from a range of influences, from 1970s punk rock to the tradition of avant-garde artists such as John Cage, Laurie Anderson and the Fluxus Group. As a musician, he’s collaborated with Sonic Youth, the Kronos Quartet, Elliott Sharp and John Zorn; as a DJ and sound artist his experimental improvised turntable performances continue to push boundaries.

Since Marclay turned to video in the 1980s, his work has featured extensively across the globe including at two Venice Biennales and at the Tate, Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim. This exhibition featuring large-scale projections and dramatic sound is a rare opportunity for audiences to experience Marclay’s stunning moving image work including the Australian premieres of Video Quartet (2002), a four-screen display of music-related scenes from feature films and Crossfire (2007), a symphony of gunshots compiled using excerpts from Hollywood films.

Curated by Emma Lavigne, Cité de la Musique, Paris.

Replay Marclay is possible thanks to Christian Marclay, the owners of the artworks and the Cité de la Musique, Paris.

For more information visit http://www.acmi.net.au or contact info@acmi.net.au

Witte de With and
Kunsthalle Zürich

LIAM GILLICK
Three perspectives and a
short scenario
Witte de With
19 January - 24 March 2008
Opening: Friday 18 January, 6 p.m.

KUNSTHALLE ZÜRICH
26 January - 30 March 2008
Opening: Friday 25 January, 6 p.m

Three perspectives and a short scenario is a year-long project by Liam Gillick. It will take place at four institutions in four different countries, adopting a different form at each station.

The first station is Gillick’s solo exhibition at Witte de With, running in parallel to his solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich. In June 2008, a “scenario” will be held at the Kunstverein München. And in January 2009, he will have a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, accompanied by a publication on his practice.

The first two stations — taking place at Witte de With and Kunsthalle Zürich — consist of three inter-related levels:

an architectural meta-structure
For the gallery spaces of these two institutions, Gillick has designed a structure comprising numerous black screens. These create corridors and semi-permeable galleries, while closing off other spaces, altering the visitor’s sensation of space, direction and perspective. They lead the visitor along a labyrinthine route, past a vitrine designed by Gillick — featuring a personal archive — to a screening room at the heart of the exhibition.

a documentary film
Gillick’s first documentary film acts as a reframing of all his previous work, derived from documentation of projects dating from 1988 to the recent unitednationsplaza, and encompassing projects that range in scope from the artist’s many lectures to his architectural designs. The film guides the viewer through a series of images accompanied by a voiceover. Rather than employing the usual format of a retrospective exhibition, the film itself is Gillick’s retrospective.

“institutional zone”
The remaining space within the galleries is categorized by Gillick as the “institutional zone”, which he has offered back to the two curatorial teams. This gesture can be seen as one of generosity or provocation, designed to highlight the division of responsibility between artist and institution in the creation of any exhibition. This comes back to Gillick’s own practice, a practice that questions the conventions of exhibition design and modes of display; and that asks if and how an entire artistic practice can be represented.

Witte de With’s director Nicolaus Schafhausen has decided to use the institutional zone to present the work of other artists during Gillick’s solo exhibition, considering Gillick’s architectural meta-structure as a given. They have not been invited in order to comment upon Gillick’s work, although certain parallels may emerge regardless. Any resulting ambiguities or misunderstandings will raise questions about the roles of art institutions and the expectations of artists and visitors.

Kunsthalle Zürich’s discussions with Gillick have focused on whether an institution is defined by insitutional policy, or is permanently being re-defined by the series of exhibitions and the intentions of the artists whose practice they present. The “institutional zone” at Kunsthalle Zürich will be a collaboration between director Beatrix Ruf and the artist to present a sequence of his lesser known ephemeral and conceptual pieces. Several events, lectures and symposia will also highlight the collaborative and discoursive elements of Gillick’s work.

Liam Gillick (born 1964, UK) lives and works in New York and London. Recent solo exhibitions include Palais de Tokyo (Paris), MOMA (NYC), Powerplant (Toronto) and Whitechapel Art Gallery (London). He is nominated for the 2008 Vincent Award, Amsterdam.

Supported by: The British Council; The Henry Moore Foundation; Volume Magazine; Casey Kaplan; Esther Schipper; Eva Presenhuber; Air de Paris; Corvi Mora; Micheline Szwajcer; Meyer Kainer; Präsidialdepartement der Stadt Zürich; Luma Stiftung; Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung.

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

KUNSTHALLE ZÜRICH
LIMMATSTRASSE 270
CH – 8005 ZÜRICH
SWITZERLAND
+41 44 272 1515
http://www.kunsthallezurich.ch
info@kunsthallezurich.ch