Thyssen-Bornemisza
Art Contemporary

Mario García Torres: Carta Abierta a Dr. Atl (Open Letter to Dr. Atl), 2005. Single-channel video projection (Super 8 Ektachrome film transferred to video). Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Filmstill: Courtesy of the artist / Jan Mot, Brussels

OTHER THAN YOURSELF–An Investigation between
Inner and Outer Space
February 8 - September 21, 2008

Thyssen-Bornmisza Art Contemporary
Himmelpfortgasse 13, 2nd floor, 1010 Vienna
T +43 1 513 98 56 29
F +43 1 513 98 56 22
press@TBA21.org
http://www.TBA21.org

A group exhibition with works by Janet Cardiff, Maurizio Cattelan, Emanuel Danesch / David Rych, Mario García Torres, Amos Gitai, Jenny Holzer, Dennis Hopper,
Jonathan Horowitz, Sanja Ivekovic, Amar Kanwar, David Lamelas, Ján Mancuska,
Paul McCarthy, Boris Ondreicka, Sergio Prego, Pipilotti Rist, Hans Schabus,
Cindy Sherman, Roman Signer, Monika Sosnowska, Salla Tykkä, Slaven Tolj

Other than Yourself–An Investigation between Inner and Outer Space presents a range of works, mostly drawn from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary collection, that reference either the immediate space that surrounds or serves the artists’ actions and experimentation or the space that unfolds through the artwork itself. These particular spaces allow for an examination of how various spatial orders are constructed along a shifting scale from intimate (body), to private (home), to interpersonal (social), to material/institutional (economic, political, cultural)—all based on an interdependent notion of the self.

The personal space provides us with a location in the world, by marking a barrier that distinguishes and can protect the individual from the outside world. Privacy can represent a disengagement from others, a nonrelatedness, but also rests upon the paradox that this space is provided by the recognition of others (audience, viewer). It is part of a person’s repertoire of communicative measures that have the potential of expressing and protecting an individual’s personal boundaries.

It marks a flexible potential space that allows for the creation of shared realities—that belong neither to the self nor to the other. Space in this context is understood as practice.

Other than Yourself–An Investigation between Inner and Outer Space introduces and juxtaposes diverse ways of using, unfolding or dealing with privacy/intimacy by contextualizing and addressing parameters such as specific times, sites, events and topics, thereby retracing an open and fragmented history of the private/intimate and its multilayered shifts in recent artistic practice.

With this exhibition Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary is setting forth its investigations introduced in earlier projects Küba: Journey Against the Current (2006) and Shooting Back (2007), continuing the foundations approach towards a more direct engagement with socio-political issues, exploring diversely coded cultural identities by the means and multiple expressions art allows for. While continuously expanding its collection since 2002, the foundation also enlarged its sphere of reach, strengthening a sense of responsibility through constant self-reflection and the exploration of curatorial practice.

Amar Kanwar’s The Lightning Testimonies, co-commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and presented at Documenta 12, will be installed in the foundation’s project gallery in the courtyard. In the 8-channel video installation the gendered (private) space of violence becomes a space of public appearance (Hannah Arendt), as a group of women disrobe in an act of public protest and lastingly alter the symbolic realm of social representation. Kanwar illustrates a process leading from embodiment of traditional roles and assigned scripts as wives, mothers, and victims to the emergence of transformative subjects in spite of the threat posed by their action.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and sponsorship:
The partnership of Wiener Städtische Versicherung AG Vienna Insurance Group with
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary was initiated in 2005. The Vienna Insurance Group is the leading Austrian insurance group in Central and Eastern Europe, supporting numerous projects in the fields of art and culture that encourage the cultural understanding over nations’ boundaries.

Opening: Thursday, February 7, 2008, 7pm
Press conference: Thursday, February 7, 2008, 11am

Lecture: Amar Kanwar The Lightning Testimonies
Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 6 pm

Duration: February 8 - September 21, 2008
Opening times: Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 6pm
(In July and August the exhibition is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.)

This exhibition is realized with generous support of

Arnolfini

Bill Owens
Suburbia 1970 – 72
Untitled (family with wagon and boat)
Courtesy: Bill Owens, CA and aMAZElab, Milano

Michael Stevenson
Persepolis 2530
2 February - 30 March 2008

Bill Owens
Suburbia Revisited
2 February - 30 March 2008

Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay
Bristol BS1 4QA. UK
Tel +44 (0)117 917 2300 / 01
info@arnolfini.org.uk
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk

Michael Stevenson
Persepolis 2530
2 February - 30 March 2008

The exhibition includes a major new commission by the artist Michael Stevenson, an installation that revisits the site of an infamous week-long party held by the Shah of Iran in 1971 amongst the ruins of the ancient Persian city of Persepolis. Meticulously reconstructing part of the temporary architecture built for these celebrations (itself now a ruin) Stevenson looks at this pivotal moment in Iranian history intended as a nationalistic gesture, but one which ultimately led towards cultural revolution.

Stevenson also investigates how Western contemporary art and culture was in a long-running relationship with the Iranian monarchy, and was very much present at this event. Some of the biggest names of the Western canon including Merce Cunningham, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Andy Warhol were known to participate regularly in festivals in Iran. Warhol in particular had a close relationship with the Shahbanou - the Shah’s wife - and was appointed as an official portrait artist of the monarchy. Persepolis 2530 includes Warhol’s portrait Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (Shah of Iran), ca. 1978.

Described as an ‘anthropologist of the avant-garde’ Michael Stevenson investigates the mythology that surrounds some of the most renowned and controversial events which have been significant in the spheres of both art and politics. Predominantly creating sculpture and installation works, Stevenson looks for, and pieces together, relationships between the myth and the reality of these particular occurrences, which despite seeming unlikely, often invite a suspension of disbelief. Visitors to his exhibitions are left to negotiate the factual elements he reproduces and weaves together.

A special publication is also being produced to accompany the exhibition.

Michael Stevenson was born in New Zealand and now lives and works in Berlin. His work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries around the world. In 2003 Stevenson represented New Zealand at the 50th Venice Biennial, and presently has work on display at Tate Modern. He has had solo exhibitions at the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen; Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; CCA Wattis Institue, San Francisco; and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.

Bill Owens
Suburbia Revisited
Sat 2 February - Sun 30 March 2008

Bill Owens, one of the most established artists of his generation, is highly influential for an entire generation of American photographers in the lineage of social documentary.

Gaining much acclaim for his now iconic series of black & white photographs entitled Suburbia, Owens documented the birth of newly-built suburban neighbourhoods in California during the early 70s.

A newcomer himself to one of these districts at the time, Owens’s Suburbia is a landmark chronicle of residential explosion. The burgeoning suburban culture that was quietly, but rapidly, expanding at the time is candidly and charmingly portrayed in Owens’s photo essay. With images of families, furniture, lawns, tupperware parties and formica, these photographs offer an insight into aspirations for the domestic American dream at the time

Alongside Suburbia, Owens will be presenting his more recent series New Suburbia, which documents his return to some of the same locations as his original series. Offering a more contemporary insight into these particular American communities, Owens provides a unique sociological perspective on how these suburban regions have developed and matured.

The exhibition is in collaboration with aMAZElab, Milano and Claudia Zanfi, curator Bill Owens archive.

Bill Owens was born in San Jose, California, and lives and works in Hayward, California. He received a B.A. in Industrial Arts from the California State University in Chico, California, in 1963 and entered the San Francisco State College in 1966 to study photography. His images have been widely reproduced in book form and in such publications as Rolling Stone, Bomb, Esquire and Newsweek. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Art Museum; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; among others. A retrospective of Owens’ work was organized by the San Jose Museum of Art in 2000.

Contact details
Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA. UK
Tel +44 (0)117 917 2300 / 01
info@arnolfini.org.uk

For further information visit http://www.arnolfini.org.uk

Arnolfini is open 7 days a week, 10am - 6pm every day.
Admission free.

MCA | Museum of
Contemporary Art

Callum Innes Untitled 2002
oil and shellac on canvas
Private collection
Copyright the artist

Callum Innes: From Memory
until 5 March 2008

MCA | Museum of
Contemporary Art
140 George Street
The Rocks
Sydney, Australia

http://www.mca.com.au

This summer the MCA presents the first solo show in Australia by Scottish painter Callum Innes, with a major exhibition from Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery.

Curated by Fruitmarket Gallery Director, Fiona Bradley, Callum Innes: From Memory brings together a diverse selection of paintings which trace the development of this acclaimed British artist.

Since the 1990s, Innes has emerged as one of the most single-minded and successful painters of his generation. His work has a visible presence at the forefront of the international art world, hanging in many prestigious public and private collections including the San Francisco MOMA and TATE Britain
in London.

Innes explores the possibilities of paint on canvas. Seemingly simple to the eye, his works are a complex process of addition and subtraction. His paintings are created through the application and removal of paint – a systematic layering and dissolving that has come to typify his practice. He often paints a canvas in one colour before using turpentine to wipe away sections of paint from the surface. In short, he paints and ‘unpaints’ several times. The end result encapsulates this action: the paintings always bear traces of their chaotic production. Simultaneously, they are absorbingly calm
and authoritative.

Innes believes it is his manipulation of this painting process that gives his work its complex beauty. He says: ‘I know now how I want a painting to look, and how to achieve it: it has to have a rhythm, a natural rightness when things start to flow together. You have to edit – it’s not enough to rely on the process, though I always know what the process is doing.’

In 2002 Innes was awarded the Jerwood Painting Prize and in 1995 he was short-listed for the Turner Prize. He lives and works in Edinburgh, and it could be suggested that his paintings draw on the clarity of the light associated with his homeland.

The exhibition incorporates the ‘Exposed Paintings’ series, as well as the seminal ‘Monologues’ and ‘Identified Form’ paintings. Working in series, Innes has developed a unique painterly language. The exhibition can also be considered an installation - each work has been carefully placed in relation to the architecture of the space. The earliest work ‘From Memory’ 1989 lends its name to the show’s title.

Callum Innes: From Memory runs at the MCA from 11 December 2007 until 5 March 2008.

- Ends -

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

MEDIA CONTACT
Kym Elphinstone, 02 9245 2434
kym.elphinstone@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.