Artipedia - Arts News

Magda Audifred, ‘Blues Town’, mixed media on paper, 27 in x 34 in, 2007 — courtesy of Albertini Arts & the artist

ALBERTINI ARTS PRESENTS ‘MORE THAN RED CARPET’ A GROUP EXHIBITION FEATURING ‘BLUES TOWN’ BY MAGDA AUDIFRED

‘Blues Town’ is a mixed media series of works on paper that enchants viewers senses taking their imagination to a vibrant world of random thoughts precisely and spontaneously created by her compositions transparent overlapping strokes of color.

As part of the intensity of her work Audifred constantly builds upon the luminosity in her backgrounds. Her ‘Blues Town’ series are compositions full of elements deliberately arranged to capture the exact moment in which events unfold. A combination of time and space where the mind connects them as the artist materializes them.

Audifred describes her art as “a blessing of consciousness in which imagination and conceptualizations create a bonding of humanity between a painter and a viewer”

Audifred’s works can be viewed as part of the permanent collections of ‘The Huntington Collection of Latin American Art’, ‘The Housitonic Museum of Art’ as well as several Universities nation wide. She has also been showcased in various national and international institutions such as ‘The Antiguo Museo de Arte Contemporaneo’ in Madrid and ‘The Glasgow Print Studio’ in Scotland.

Albertini Arts are active participants in ‘The Wynwood Art District Second Saturday Gallery Walk’ hosting monthly cocktail receptions allowing patrons an opportunity to mingle with the artists & discuss the featured works.

Albertini Arts is located at 190 NW 36 Street in ‘The Wynwood Art District’ just south of ‘The Miami Design District’ and 2-blocks west of ‘The Midtown Mall’. Normal hours of operation are Tuesday through Friday 11am - 5pm and Saturday 12noon - 7pm.

For additional information please call (305) 576-ART1, visit http://AlbertiniArts.com or email AlbertiniArts@bellsouth.net.

OSRAM

From upper left to lower right:
Haubitz+Zoche (Munich): 2027
ART+COM (Berlin): Reactive Sparks
Diana Thater (Los Angeles): OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
Mader/Stublic/Wiermann (Berlin): reprojected
Copyright: OSRAM ART PROJECTS, photographers:
Haubitz+Zoche, Stephan Kausch, Mader/Stublic/Wiermann

ART-BREAKS IN PUBLIC SPACE
http://www.osram.com/art

In late 2006, the project, SEVEN SCREENS, a platform for digital art projects in pubic space, was established in Munich. Seven light stelae – situated on one of the main arteries of this major German city – are equipped with state of the art LED technology. They create the site-specific context for temporary projects, which probe the most varied interactive, media and artistic concepts in an urban setting. The artistic concept of a variable platform within a clearly defined and permanent framework is what renders the SEVEN SCREENS unique in the world of art in public space. Since their construction, Munich has had a new landmark.

The format of the SEVEN SCREENS places high demands on artists: The individual stele can be interpreted as a fragment (of a vision field), as an autonomous image carrier, as a monument (in the sense of a sculpture) or as an architectural element. As an ensemble the seven stelae refuse to provide the viewer with an ideal vantage point: There is no spot from which the seven image screens can be fitted together to form a whole. It is the viewer’s own perception – insofar as the specific works allow for this – that enable the individual image elements to appear as a closed entity.

Two internationally acclaimed video artists have developed an installation for the SEVEN SCREENS in Munich for 2008: Anouk de Clercq, a Belgian artist, who unites different art forms, such as images, texts, music, animation and architecture, in her video works, and Bjørn Melhus, a Berlin video artist, whose favored materials are the television films and series that influenced his childhood in the 1970s.

On view until April 2008 is the installation Reactive Sparks designed by the creative Berliner studio, ART+COM, which includes Joachim Sauter and Sebastian Peichl. More than 200,000 vehicles are tracked everyday for this installation. Their movement energy is then transformed into a digital reaction, which is discernable as a visual equivalent – as an impulse frequency – on the screens. Every driver participates and is (unintentionally) involved in the reactive light installation. Through the interplay of architecture, an urban context and art, ART+COM created the first reactive installation on the
SEVEN SCREENS.

The SEVEN SCREENS are a permanent feature of the OSRAM ART PROJECTS and OSRAM LIGHT CONSULTING developed the technology used in them. The project’s curator is Christian Schoen (director of CIA.IS, Center for Icelandic Art, Reykjavík, and commissioner of the Icelandic pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2007 and 2009.

The following projects have been presented on the SEVEN SCREENS:

Mader/Stublic/Wiermann (Berlin): Reprojected – November 2006 thru April 2007
Haubitz+Zoche (Munich): 2027 (after Fritz Lang’s film METROPOLIS) – April 2007 thru November 2007
Diana Thater (Los Angeles): OFF WITH THEIR HEADS – June 2007 thru July 2007
ART+COM(Berlin): Reactive Sparks – November 2007 thru April 2008

New: the recently published catalogue: “OSRAM ART PROJECTS – SEVEN SCREENS – GALLERY – COLLECTION 2007“

Additional information at: http://www.osram.com/art

Press information:
Goldmann Public Relations, Barbara Zmeck, Bruderstraße 5, 80538 Munich
Tel.: +49 (0) 89 / 211 164 14, Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 211 164 29, E-Mail: bzmeck@goldmannpr.de

New York Public Library

SPRING 2008 SEASON

LIVE from the NYPL

LIVE is Ripe, Rigorous
Real Debates & Performance

LIVE is Salty Conversations

LIVE is Cognitive Theater

The New York Public Library
Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street
New York NY

http://www.nypl.org/live

Tuesday, Jan 29
KRISTA TIPPETT & STUART BROWN in conversation with Paul Holdengräber
For Play
None of the murderers studied by Dr. Brown, founder of The National Institute for Play, had ever engaged in pleasurable, purposeless activity. Krista Tippett, host of public radio’s Speaking of Faith, joins Stuart Brown to discuss relationships between the vitality of living life and of religious practices. Are faith and playfulness connected? Can healthy play be the basis for healthy spirituality?

Wednesday, Jan 30
BERNHARD SCHLINK in conversation with Paul LeClerc
Homecoming
In his novel Homecoming, set against the background of postwar Germany, Bernhard Schlink, the author of The Reader, tells the story of one man’s odyssey and another man’s pursuit. Addressing moral questions that confront the children of World War II, Schlink’s book reveals the humanity that survives the trauma of war. Bernhard Schlink is in conversation with Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library.

Thursday, Feb 21
SAMANTHA POWER
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
Pulitzer Prize-winner of A Problem from Hell, Samantha Power examines the humanitarian work of Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in a 2003 terrorist attack on the UN headquarters in Iraq. Power addresses the question, “Who possesses the moral authority, the political sense, and the military and economic heft to protect human life and bring peace to the unruly world order?”

Tuesday, Mar 18
COLM TOIBIN & others on JAMES BALDWIN
The author of five novels, including The Master and Mothers and Sons, Colm Tóibín leads a discussion on the great American prose stylist James Baldwin. In this examination of Baldwin’s large body of uncollected works, a new light is cast on his views on writers and writing, his politics, and his vision for the future of the United States.

Thursday, Mar 20
NICHOLSON BAKER
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
In Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker, author of The Size of Thoughts and Double Fold, weaves together a chronicle of the beginnings of World War II, and presents an indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and 40s. Human Smoke offers a new perspective on the political, social, religious, and economic events of the years preceding World War II.

Friday, Apr 11
PICO IYER in conversation with Paul Holdengräber
The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Observer of globalism and Buddhism, Pico Iyer gives us the first serious consideration of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s work and ideas as a politician, scientist, and philosopher. Iyer illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of this global icon. Pico Iyer is the author of Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, and Abandon.

Programs begin at 7 pm

Made possible with generous support from Celeste Bartos and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.

STAY TUNED! http://www.nypl.org/live

MuHKA

Ramkinkar Baij, Santhal Family, 1938, photo Samiran Nandy

SANTHAL FAMILY
positions around an Indian sculpture
01.02 - 04.05.08

MuHKA
Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Leuvenstraat 32 2000 Antwerp Belgium
T +32 [0]3 260 99 99
info@muhka.be
http://www.muhka.be

Ramkinkar Baij, Santanu Bose, Matti Braun, Calcutta Art Research, Ritwik Ghatak, Sheela Gowda, Boran Handsa, N.S. Harsha, Reba Hore, I.P.T.A., Kerala Radicals [inc. Anita Dube, C.K. Rajan, K.R. Karunakaran, Alex Mathew, Reghunadhan K., Jyothi Basu, K.P. Krishnakumar], Valsan Koorma Kolleri, K.P. Krishnakumar, Goshka Macuga, Melvin Moti, Meera Mukherjee, The Otolith Group, Sudhir Patwardhan, Juan Perez Agirregoikoa, Ashim Purkayastha, C.K. Rajan, N.N. Rimzon, Raqs Media Collective, Ravi Shah, Vivan Sundaram, Klaus Weber. Curated by Grant Watson in collaboration with Anshuman Dasgupta and Suman Gopinath.

SANTHAL FAMILY positions around an Indian sculpture is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art that takes as its point of departure Santhal Family, a work made by Indian artist Ramkinkar Baij in 1938.

With its starting point in India, the exhibition is in line with earlier MuHKA-projects such as Alles onder de hemel (All Under Heaven) 2004, which looked at China, Intertidal, 2005, which looked at Vancouver and Moussem, 2007, which looked at Morocco. But unlike these projects, SANTHAL FAMILY Positions Around an Indian Sculpture goes beyond the model of a regional exhibition to focus on the legacy of a single work.

Starting with Santhal Family, the exhibition will radiate outwards: first, from the state of Bengal, where the sculpture stands, drawing historic links between left wing politics and the arts; then through the work of contemporary Indian artists familiar with this iconic work; and finally, through the intervention of diasporic and non-Indian artists who will consider the sculpture’s importance from afar. The exhibition will consider Santhal Family as a work that links the art histories of different continents and provides an entry point into the complexity of India’s cultural and political scene. It will also question how aesthetic gestures can speak beyond their immediate circumstances and how both political and formal elements can coalesce within a single work.

Considered to be the first modernist public sculpture in India, Santhal Family combines an interest in the forms of modernism and temple sculpture with a concern for ground level reality. Depicting a family group from the Santhal tribe carrying their possessions with them to a new place of work, it is a portrait of labour that presents the complexity of its subject without heroism or pathos. Little known outside of his native country, Ramkinkar Baij was a revolutionary in his own time, celebrated for his experimental use of materials and for the way that he drew freely on several artistic traditions at once.

SANTHAL FAMILY Positions around an Indian Sculpture not only includes archival material and existing works but 14 artists (including artist groups)were commissioned by the MuHKA to produce new work for the exhibition with several artists travelling to India to see Santhal Family on location. In addition, the museum has taken this opportunity to acquire a number of works from India – including collages by C.K. Rajan (which were recently shown at documenta 12) drawings by K.P. Krishnakumar and terracotta sculptures by Boran Hansda.

SANTHAL FAMILY is curated by Grant Watson in collaboration with Suman Gopinath and Anshuman Dasgupta. Watson and Gopinath work together on an ongoing basis and have produced exhibitions with amongst others inIVA (London) Project Art Centre (Dublin) and the Crafts Museum (New Delhi). Anshuman Dasgupta teaches at the Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan and is a specialist on Ramkinkar Baij. The Polish artist Goshka Macuga has designed a layout for the exhibition that allows its various concepts and histories to become accessible to the public. The entire 2nd floor of the MuHKA has been opened up to make one space in order to accommodate SANTHAL FAMILY.

The exhibition comes at a time when there is a growing interest in contemporary Indian art with many Indian artists being represented in international exhibitions. documenta 12 featured work by, amongst others, Sheela Gowda, C.K. Rajan, Nasreen Mohamedi and Amar Kanwar; Amrita Sher-Gil exhibited in 2007 at Tate Modern; Suman Gopinath co – curated Horn Please, an exhibition of Indian art at the Bern Kunstmuseum; in 2006 Subcontingent: The Indian Subcontinent in Contemporary Art brought artists from the Indian subcontinent together in a group show in Turin; and India Contemporary [Icon] was an Indian exhibition at the Venice Biennial in 2005. The work of Indian artists is also shown at major international art fairs. Khoj International Artists Association of Delhi showed works by Subodh Gupta, Anita Dube, N. Pushpamala and Ravi Agarwal at the Frieze Art Fair 2007 in London; Subodh Gupta’s work was present in 2006 at Art Basel; and the gallery Bodhi Art [which supports SANTH
AL FAMILY] has participated at international art fairs including Art Chicago, ShContemporary Art Fair in Shanghai and Art Brussels.
____

Publication
The book Santhal Family: Positions Around an Indian Sculpture co edited by Grant Watson, Monika Szewczyk and Anshuman Dasgupta, is published to coincide with the exhibition at MuHKA. It contains commissioned texts from amongst others Will Bradley, Sivakumar and Stephen Morton, the writing of Mahasweta Devi and visual essays by artists including Sunil Gupta, Matti Braun, Sheela Gowda, Juan Perez Agirregoikoa and Raqs Media Collective.

Schedule
THU 31.01.08 at 8.30pm
OPENING
SAT 02.02.08 at 2pm
In conversation with Geeta Kapur and Irit Rogoff
FEBRUARY
MuHKA_media will organise a programme of films by Ritwik Ghatak
Check for more information:
http://www.muhka.be

SANTHAL FAMILY is produced in association with Bodhi Art, and supported by the British Council, Kunststiftung NRW and the Provence of Antwerp.

MuHKA is an initiative of the Flemish Community and supported by the Provence of Antwerp, the City of Antwerp, the National Lottery and Klara.