Artipedia - Arts News

Bonnefantenmuseum

Copyright: 2007 Sidney B. Felsen

John Baldessari laureate for
Bonnefantenmuseum art award
http://www.bonnefanten.nl

In December, the American John Baldessari was selected as the B.A.C.A. Laureate 2008. According to the jury, which was made up of Bice Curiger, Robert Storr and Alexander van Grevenstein, Baldessari forms an important bridge between the visual culture of Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme and the crop of artists/photographers who belong to a
younger generation.

The B.A.C.A. International 2008 is intended for an artist’s artist; i.e. an artist who has fully made his/her name in the world of visual art but is not necessarily familiar to the general public. He or she is also regarded as a focus and driving force of new developments, and this has prompted the addition of a Masterclass, which will take place in Maastricht at the beginning of October 2008, following the award ceremony.

B.A.C.A. Laureate 2008: John Baldessari
John Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City (California) and lives in Santa Monica (California). He has taught in several places in and around Los Angeles, and is currently associated with the University of California.

The jury believes that in John Baldessari they have found an artist who forms a bridge between the visual culture of Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme and the crop of artists/photographers who belong to a younger generation. Baldessari is one of the major protagonists of Minimal Art and Concept Art. He is the artist who, in the world of photography, confronted seriality and mathematical sequences with subjective moments of choice and ambiguous layers of meaning. His ars combinatorial with photographic means has resulted in an oeuvre that has developed along free, self-generating and poetic lines. The enormous boost that photography has received in art is therefore partly due to Baldessari.

Masterclass
Baldessari has been influencing younger generations of artists for many years, partly through his teaching. The museum is therefore very proud that Baldessari will be giving the B.A.C.A. Masterclass, shortly after the award ceremony. As part of this, the work of four to six young artists from various post-graduate and second phase courses in the Netherlands will be included in the exhibition. The names of these artists will be announced before the summer of 2008.

About the jury
The American Robert Storr is a freelance exhibition maker, critic, artist and writer of monographic studies. From 1990 to 2002, Storr was a curator at MoMA, New York. In 2007, he led the Venice Biennial and he has been Dean of the renowned Yale School of Art since 2006.

Bice Curiger, from Switzerland, is mainly known as the editor-in-chief of the art journal Parkett and the publisher of the museum journal TATE ETC. Curiger combines these activities with those of her job of curator at Kunsthaus Zürich.

The initiator of the B.A.C.A. is Alexander van Grevenstein, director of the
Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht.

Support
For the organisation of the B.A.C.A. International, the Bonnefantenmuseum has been able to count on the generous support of two leading multinationals that have roots in Limburg. A sponsor agreement has been concluded with Océ NV and DSM NV for the organisation of several editions of this ambitious award. The B.A.C.A. International also receives support from the Maastricht Council and the Province of Limburg, who are thus both underlining the international significance of this art award for the city and the whole province.

______________________________
Note for the press:
For further information, please contact the press department of the Bonnefantenmuseum
Avenue Ceramique 250
P.O. Box 1735
NL-6201 BS Maastricht
T +31 43 329 01 90
T +31 43 329 01 99
E: pressoffice@bonnefanten.nl
Contact: Esther Saris
direct number: + 31 43 329 01 09
GSM + 31 6 21 58 23 42

Bergen Kunsthall

Mark Manders “Isolated Bathroom”, 2003,
Sammlung Goetz, Munich

Mark Manders
The Absence of Mark Manders
18.01. - 16.03.2008
Opening Friday 18th of January at 8. pm
BERGEN KUNSTHALL
Rasmus Meyers allé 5
N-5015 Bergen, Norway
Tel: +47 55559310
E-mail: bergen@kunsthall.no
http://www.kunsthall.no

Mark Manders has developed his sculptural installations since the end of the 1980s. His extensive production can in many ways be understood as one overall work in which each exhibition is a fragment of what the artist himself describes as a self-portrait. Self-portrait in this context must be understood as a comprehensive, continuous project, in which the artist attempts a translation of his own existence and feelings into wordless, three-dimensional pictures rich in associations. The relationship between thought and the materially present is at the core of Manders’ work. As though the power of thought can physically manifest itself in space, the sculptures are like a network of an individual’s thoughts, presented for viewers as thought materialised.

Already in an early work, Self-Portrait as a Building (1986), we can see this project demonstrated by the then 18 year old artist. A floor-plan for an imagined building is constructed out of personal possessions and writing materials. Scissors, glue sticks, pencils and similar objects form a plan spread out on the floor in which a rectangular building is flanked by two round forms on either side. We find here elements which are repeated in many of Manders’ sculptures: Ideas concerning space, building construction and the combination of materials. In addition we find a duality in which aspects of planning and construction meet an abstract idea about human consciousness. The floor-plan, with its two circular shapes, has a form like that of a two-headed human without arms and legs. Figures such as this, made up of torsos with heads of different shapes, are another element repeated in many of
Manders’ sculptures.

For this exhibition tour the artist presents new work, which together with work from 1990 to 2005 forms a comprehensive presentation of Manders’ artistic production. The artist has also in earlier works made site-specific adjustments to accommodate the work for an exhibition. Elements and fragments have been put together in new ways from place to place. It is precisely in the fragments, and in the combinations of different materials and objects that Manders creates a dialogue and a dynamics in his exhibitions. His work is often referred to as a meeting place for sculpture and poetry. The sculptures can be understood as poetry given physical form, where the contact which arises from the juxtaposition of different objects creates a wide range of associative connections – like the stanzas of a poem.

The Absence of Mark Manders is realized in collaboration between Kunstverein Hannover, S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Kunsthaus Zürich, and Bergen Kunsthall.

The exhibition premiered at Hannover Kunstverein (16.10 - 25.11.2007), and will also be shown at SMAK in Ghent (Belgium, 12.12.2008 - 22.2.2009) and the Kunsthaus Zürich (20.3. -14.6.2009).

Canadian Cultural Centre

From left to right:
Lisa Klapstock, Still from Ambiguous Landscapes, 2003-2005
5 channel video installation
Paulette Phillips, Still from It’s about how People Judge Appearance, 2001
Single channel video installation

Lisa Klapstock / Paulette Phillips
November 29th, 2007 to February 2nd, 2008
Canadian Cultural Centre
5, rue de Constantine 75007, Paris — France
General Information: +33 (0)1 44 43 21 90
http://www.canada-culture.org

Programmed as part of the Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid - one of Europe’s most important new cinema and contemporary art events - (November 22nd - December 1st, 2007 in Paris), the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris presents the first large exhibition in France by Canadian artists Lisa Klapstock and Paulette Phillips. Composed of video installations and photographs, this exhibition brings together major works by these two Toronto-based artists.

Lisa Klapstock’s work confronts the viewer with empty or occupied everyday places that are rendered eminently ambiguous. Her artistic practice investigates mechanisms of seeing and the role of the camera in affecting and challenging the way we view and experience our surroundings.

The exhibition is centred upon a series of five small video works entitled Ambiguous Landscapes (2003-2005) and Threshold (2001-2002), a photographic series revealing the hidden environment of Toronto’s urban laneways, drawing attention to the fragile and mutable interface separating public and private realms. The Canadian Cultural Centre will also present the world premiere of Field Studies (2007) a video installation that plunges the viewer into a completely new visual and sound experience: a double projection creates an unsettling translation of the relationship between the individual and the crowd, in an abstract and blurred public space where the human figure is reduced to a shapeless blur of movement.

Paulette Phillips’ video creations explore drifting behaviour and thought that transform everyday situations (walking through a crowd, observing a landscape, visiting a tourist site) into mysterious events. Paradox, trauma, displacement and discomfort are recurring elements in her work. Presented for the first time in France, four video works engage the viewer in latent dramas structured upon both perceptual and emotional tension: It’s about how people judge appearance (2001), The Floating House (2002), Crosstalk (2004) and Monster Tree (2006) associate diverse forms of voyeurism with a paradoxical approach, bringing together urban indifference and non-differentiation, as well as a curiosity of the spectacular generally associated with suspense cinema.

Press contact:
Visual Arts department
T. +33 (0)1 44 43 21 49 / +33 (0)1 44 43 21 55
F. +33 (0)1 44 43 21 99
E. patricia.quevedo@www.canada-culture.org

http://www.lisaklapstock.com
http://www.paulette-phillips.ca