Wood Street Galleries

Informationlab, Cell Phone Disco, 2006

SIX INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS EXPLORE TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN NEWEST EXHIBIT AT WOOD STREET GALLERIES:
“URBAN LIVING”
January 25 - April 5, 2008

http://www.woodstreetgalleries.org

Wood Street Galleries, presents “Urban Living” featuring participating artists: France Cadet, Pascal Glissmann & Martina Hofflin, Informationlab, Roman Kirschner, and Sabrina Raaf. The exhibit opens on Friday, January 25, 2008, in conjunction with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s quarterly Gallery Crawl, with a free reception from 5:30-9 p.m. France Cadet will give a free artist talk at Wood Street Galleries on Saturday, January 26, at 1 p.m. The show ends Saturday, April 5, 2008.

“With numerous construction projects underway, Pittsburgh’s new downtown residents look forward to many options for shaping their domestic, professional and social lives. Urban Living offers perspectives and propositions spanning technological and environmental issues that impact and energize urban culture,” writes Murray Horne, curator of Wood Street Galleries.

FRANCE CADET

France Cadet (Artist / Robotic Teacher), born in 1971, is a French Artist whose work raises questions about various aspects in science debates: danger of possible accidents, observation of animal and human behavior, artificialisation of life, side effects of cloning… She has run several robotics courses for many years now and teaches robotics at Fine-Arts School of Aix-en-Provence. She first studied sciences before coming to fine arts. Her work meets those two interests. She had shows in Tokyo, ARS Electronica Linz, Lille2004, ARCO 04, Roger Pailhas gallery, La Vilette and Palais de Tokyo. She was awarded the VIDA 6.0 competition in Madrid (1st Prize) and Digital Stadium Awards in Tokyo (1st Prize). MEIAC, the Badajoz contemporary art museum, Spain, bought from her a robotic piece. http://cyberdoll.free.fr/cyberdoll/index_a.html

PASCAL GLISSMANN & MARTINA HÖFFLIN

Pascal Glissmann is a professional artist and designer. He holds a BFA in communication design from the University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf and an MFA in audiovisual media from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. After working as an art director and freelance designer he joined the faculty of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne as a researcher and teacher. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Media Art, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptiste University. http://www.subcologne.com

Martina Höfflin, born 1971 in Kenzingen, Germany, studied Computer Science at the Academy of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen and the San Francisco State University focusing on interaction design, usability and internet applications. After 2 years of freelancing as a media designer for different companies and customers in Berlin and Munich, she is now working in research at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne since 2002. She is also the co-founder of the Büro für Brauchbarkeit, a studio for media, art and fashion in Cologne. http://www.m-phasize.de ; http://www.brauchbarkeit.de ; http://www.autohimmelmode.de

Martina and Pascal are working together at the Academy of Media Art Cologne. After several workshops with students on the topic of experimental electronics and simple robotics, they developed the installation elf - electronic life forms and exhibited the work in international shows and festivals in Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Korea, Austria, Finland, Japan, Germany, Canada and the
United States.

INFORMATIONLAB

Auke Touwslager received his design degree from the Design Academy http://www.designacademy.nl/ in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 2001 he co-founded Anderemedia http://www.anderemedia.nl/ , a Dutch design studio dedicated to designing innovative concepts, web applications and information mapping tools. In the same year he became a principal affiliate of Govcom.org http://www.govcom.org/ , an Amsterdam-based foundation dedicated to creating and hosting political tools on the Web. Some of these tools where featured at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie http://www.zkm.de/ in 2005, in an exhibition entitled “Making Things Public http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de/ ,” curated by Bruno Latour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour . In 2004, Auke Touwslager founded Informationlab http://www.informationlab.org/ . The group was initially meant as a reflection of his personal interests, but has grown into an international network for research, collaboration, exchange
of knowledge and concept development. Its main goal is to create new ways of interfacing the diversity of information flow and the public space and its constructions as architecture. http://www.informationlab.org/

ROMAN KIRSCHNER

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1975, Roman Kirschner has studied philosophy and art history at the University of Vienna and has attended the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Together with Tilman Reiff and Volker Morawe, he co-founded the artist collective fur in 2001. In 2005, he became a research artist at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. He currently lives and works in both Cologne and Vienna. http://www.romankirschner.net/

SABRINA RAAF

Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago-based artist working in experimental sculptural media and photography. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at Mejan Labs (Stockholm), Stefan Stux Gallery (NYC), Ars Electronica (Linz), Opel Villas Foundation Art Center (Rüsselsheim), Museum Tinguely (Basel), Espace Landowski (Paris), Artbots 2005 (Dublin), San Jose Museum of Art, Kunsthaus Graz, ISEA (Helsinki), Klein Art Works (Chicago), The Lab (San Francisco) and Painted Bride Center (Philadelphia). She is the recipient of a Creative Capital Grant in Emerging Fields (2002) and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship (2005 & 2001). Reviews of her work have appeared in Art in America, Contemporary, Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, Leonardo, http://www.lab71.org , The Washington Post, and New Art Examiner. She received an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1999) and is currently Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at the Unive
rsity of Illinois at Chicago. http://www.raaf.org/

Located at 601 Wood Street above the T-Station in downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, the Galleries are FREE and open to the public Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. For more information, call Wood Street Galleries at (412) 471-5605 or visit http://www.woodstreetgalleries.org

Support for Wood Street Galleries has been provided by the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Additional support provided by the Port Authority of Allegheny County and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Wood Street Galleries
601 Wood Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
T(412)471-5605
F (412)232-3262
A project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
http://www.woodstreetgalleries.org

Gallery Hours
Tuesday -Thursday 11:00 - 6:00
Friday - Saturday 11:00 - 8:00

Tate Modern

Gérard Fromanger, Le Rouge, 1968.
Courtesy the artist.

Paradise Now! Essential French
Avant-garde Cinema, 1890-2008
14 March - 2 May

Tate Modern
Starr Auditiorium
Bankside
London SE1 9TG

http://www.tate.org.uk

To coincide with the major exhibition Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, this landmark series presents over 60 films, most of which have never been shown before in the UK. Marking the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 protest movements that sparked a revolutionary shift which resounds today, the series demonstrates the political vitality and formal diversity of the French avant-garde from the beginnings of cinema to the present day.

The series includes pioneering films by Christian Boltanski, Alberto Cavalcanti, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Epstein, Gérard Fromanger, Philippe Garrel, Jean-Luc Godard, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki, Ange Leccia, Maurice Lemaître, Rose Lowder, Louis Lumière, Étienne-Jules Marey, Chris Marker, Georges Méliès, László Moholy-Nagy, Pierre Molinier, Marylène Negro, Man Ray, Carole Roussopoulos, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Ben Vautier, René Vautier and many more.

Visit http://www.tate.org.uk for full details of screenings.

Curated by Nicole Brenez, Michael Temple, Michael Witt, Pierre d’Amerval and Laurent Mannoni in association with Tate Modern and La Cinémathèque Française

Invitation for Opening February 7th

Opening reception Thursday February 7th 6-8pm
111 Front St Suite 208 Brooklyn, NY 11201
(t) 212.796.2707

This collection of award-winning images by renowned photojournalist Tyler Hicks explores the raging path of conflict that defines our national policy today—from September 11 through Afghanistan and into the streets of Iraq. Hicks’ pictures became internationally known in the pages of The New York Times, as well as in Paris-Match, Stern, The London Sunday Times, and other publications. Last year Hicks was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University, and last year he was awarded the Photographer of the Year Award by the Pictures of the Year International competition for his work.

This extraordinary compilation of documentary photographs taken over the last several years shows us the war up close—soldiers from all sides, destroyed cities, palaces and archaeological treasures, refugees and battered civilians, and the shocking images of reprisal that have brought home the savagery of emotion that defines this conflict.

Show runs February 7th - March 22 2008

Institute of Contemporary
Arts, London

Double Agent
Pawel Althamer / Nowolipie Group
Phil Collins
Dora García
Donelle Woolford
Christoph Schlingensief
Barbara Visser
Artur Zmijewski

Curated by:
Claire Bishop / Mark Sladen

http://www.ica.org.uk

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London: 14 February - 6 April 2008
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre: 26 April - 28 June 2008
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead: 21 May - 17 Aug 2008

Double Agent is a group exhibition featuring artists who use other people as a medium. All of the works raise questions of performance and authorship, and in particular the issues that arise when the artist is no longer the central agent in his or her own work, but operates through a range of individuals, communities and surrogates. The show contains works in a variety of media, including video and live performance – works which are often slippery in meaning or disquieting in effect. The exhibition tours to three venues in the UK, and includes the British premieres of a number of significant works, as well as new commissions specific to each venue.

A number of the works in Double Agent explore the ethics of performance and representation, including the power relations involved in the use of non-professional subjects. Artist, filmmaker and theatre director Christoph Schlingensief (German, born 1960 in Oberhausen, lives in Berlin) is represented by a video installation, one that uses footage that the artist gathered in 2005 as part of his project The African Twin Towers – the story of a megalomaniac theatre director attempting to stage the 9-11 story in Namibia, shot on location with a cast of locals as well as Schlingensief’s regular ‘family’ of performers.

Another artist to explore the ethics of representation is Artur Zmijewski (Polish, born 1966 in Warsaw, lives in Warsaw). In his video Them (2007) the artist contrives a series of confrontations between Christians, Jews, Young Socialists, and Polish nationalists; the tensions build between the groups and culminate in an explosive impasse. Phil Collins (English, born in 1970 Runcorn, lives in Glasgow) shows images from you’ll never work in this town again (2004-ongoing), a series of photographic portraits of curators, critics and others in the art world – photographed on the understanding that their image would be taken immediately after he had slapped them.

Other works were made by – or feature – figures who operate as extensions for the artist. The works of Pawel Althamer (Polish, born 1967 in Warsaw, lives in Warsaw) are frequently based on his identification with marginal subjects. For many years he has led a ceramics class for an organisation in Warsaw called the Nowolipie Group, for adults with multiple sclerosis, and the exhibition includes a display of their works. Barbara Visser (Dutch, born 1966 in Haarlem, lives in Brussels and Amsterdam) shows the video installation Last Lecture (2007), a multi-layered work which draws on footage of lectures in which actresses have been presented as Barbara Visser, sometimes receiving instructions from the artist through an earpiece.

A final pair of contributions brings a live component into the exhibition. Dora García (Spanish, born 1965 in Valladolid, lives and works in Brussels) exhibits Instant Narrative (IN) (2006-2008), which involves an observer positioned within the exhibition space, making clandestine notes on visitors to the exhibition – notes which are revealed to members of the public during the course of their visit. As his contribution to the exhibition, Joe Scanlan (American, born 1961 in Stoutsville, OH, lives in New Haven, CT) presents the up-and-coming artist Donelle Woolford (American, born 1980 in Conyers, Georgia, lives in Harlem, NY), who at set times is using one of the ICA’s upper galleries as a studio to construct her own sculptures.

For further information, please contact:
Natasha Plowright, Head of Press
Tel: 020 7766 1404
Email: natashap@ica.org.uk

Double Agent has been curated by Claire Bishop (Assistant Professor of History of Art at Warwick University) and Mark Sladen (Director of Exhibitions, ICA). It is an ICA touring exhibition supported by Arts Council England. Additional support has been provided by SEACEX (State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad), the Mondriaan Foundation, and the Polish Cultural Institute.