John Francis Peters ” Guizhou, A Precious land”

Ice Box Project Space
1400 North American St
Philadelphia PA 19122
www.cranearts.com

February 23, 2008 - March 16, 2008, Wednesdays – Sundays 12 pm to 6 pm

Jocelyn Firth presents You Might Find Yourself – an exhibition of photographic works by three artists documenting their travels – through America, Europe and Asia. These three distinct series of photographs allow for exploration of similar yet sometimes divergent themes in travel, and self discovery.

Ian Baguskas’ series, Search for the American Landscape, surveys man’s relationship with nature. These images were inspired by Carlton Watkins and other photographers who explored and documented settlements in the Old West and photographed landscapes not only for their beauty but as a record of places that few people had seen before. Today, the landscapes are in well traveled and already documented areas. Baguskas records the changes that have been made since these areas were first photographed. The series was taken from 2004 to 2007 during trips to Utah, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Baguskas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Guizhou, a Precious Land is a series by John Francis Peters. The artist, currently based in Mid-Hudson Valley, NY, was inspired to focus on Guizhou province [of China] by its unique attributes in existence with the direction of contemporary China. Guizhou has an uncommon blend of traditional minority culture, communism, rapid modernization and growing western tendencies. This mix of ideologies and added tension of China’s progressive surge has created a dynamic transitional environment. This series is comprised of images which intuitively explore this transition through conveying the personality of Guizhou’s people and the interaction with their evolving home.

Thomas Prior’s series simply titled Color Photographs 2003-2007 documents his life over the last four years. For Prior, this time was disjointed and transient–the only constant was the impulse to make pictures. Elements of mystery and distance in these carefully selected stark moments allow him to understand and remember. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Monika Schwitte, O.T., 1989, filmstill

GALERIE IM TAXISPALAIS

MONIKA SCHWITTE
17th February – 30th March 2008

Monika Schwitte works on the interface of film and painting. She blurs the boundaries of the film medium and crosses over them by intervening by hand into found footage of diverse origins. In a time-consuming, step-by-step process, she uses painterly elements – marks and streaks – in order to cover or emphasise specific colour tones on the individual frame and to concentrate pictorial elements. In addition to this, she works with the celluloid material directly by making perforations or cuts into it; both methods serve her aim of directing the projector’s light onto the screen in precisely the way that she wishes. Cutting technique is a further process by means of which Schwitte lends complex rhythmic structures and pictorial sequences to her short films.

“I recommend to the viewers of my films”, Monika Schwitte says, “that they simply watch, without wanting to understand anything, and go on an optic trip with these silent, often very rapid images. Colours, people, animals, plants and rivers, even perforation holes and many beautiful but invisible images play a part in my films, which appear both narrative and abstract, without telling a story at all.
Ultimately, I was led to paint on my material by the idea of directing the light on its way to the screen, by the fact that I am the one who determines at which point and just how the projected light passes through the image. Painting with brush and black ink also turned out to be the ideal method of erasing unwanted pictorial content.”

In her exhibition in the Galerie im Taxispalais, Monika Schwitte is showing a selection of her films, which are always silent and made – with one exception – on 16mm film, including Untitled (1989), the first film that she painted onto continuously, frame by frame. It will also be possible to see Self-fulfilling Prophecy (1994) and Untitled (1999), for which she used film strips from television series. “On the one hand – rather scanty material, but again, I had all that I needed; colours, movement, time.”

Her latest film Anagram (2006) is being presented to the public for the first time in the exhibition. Schwitte spent three years painting on this 35mm film, which – at 26 minutes – is her longest, and another two years on the montage.

In the text he wrote for the exhibition catalogue, Klaus Theweleit writes: “So what do we see when Anagram is played through? When it is played through the projector, we see primarily the jumps between the images. The black track changes from frame to frame; we see this constant change and only rudiments of the image itself. No eye is capable of seeing twenty-four images per second. Our perception of complete images and people in the cinema is based on this fact. From the cinema, we are accustomed to ‘a single image’ lasting several seconds and thus coming together to form an entirety. In older cinema, there were seven to eight seconds per take; today the average duration of a feature film take has shrunk to just under two seconds. Our capacity to perceive and process has become four times as fast, but no person can see 24 different images per second, which is the reason for the flickering: the jump from image to image, made visible to our eyes by Monika Schwitt!
e’s
interventions, runs or even races towards us, right through us – it jitters, flickers, glimmers in jumps – or past us, if we close our overtaxed eyes and/or look beyond the images.”

Monika Schwitte has designed another space in the exhibition together with Ernst Caramelle, who is transforming some of the gallery’s rooms with his wall paintings in a parallel show. Here, she presents sketches, drawings and film stills on acrylic glass.

Monika Schwitte was born in 1956. She lives and works in Frankfurt.

Catalogue
An exhibition catalogue including texts by Klaus Theweleit and Monika Schwitte is being published by Stroemfeld / Roter Stern.

Film presentation at Cinematograph
Friday, 29th February 2008, 7.30 pm
Short films by Monika Schwitte on 16mm and 35mm film
The filmmaker will talk about her works.
Cinematograph, Museumstraße 31, Innsbruck

Opening times
Tues-Sun 11 am – 6 pm, Thurs 11 am – 8 pm

Galerie im Taxispalais
Maria-Theresienstr. 45
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria
Phone +43 512 508 3171
Fax +43 512 508 3175
http://www.galerieimtaxispalais.at

Ernst Caramelle, o.t.m.f. (ohne titel mit figuren), 2007

GALERIE IM TAXISPALAIS

ERNST CARAMELLE
17th February – 30th March 2008

Ernst Caramelle is one of the most important representatives of international Concept Art.
In his works, he responds to media as diverse as drawing, mural painting, installation, photography, video, and language in order to investigate a pivotal aspect of art: the relation between the idea and the artistic product. Caramelle’s conceptual working method is oriented towards the creation of new, dynamic relations between objects, concepts, spaces and images by means of quite different perspectives, which he incorporates on intellectual, visual, linguistic and technical-material levels.

Since the very beginning, Caramelle has been concerned to raise questions in his works in a productive way, but not in order to provide seemingly correct answers to them. He rather seeks to maintain openness in the sphere of art – in the sense of a cognitive process, whereby the position of the artist and that of the viewer are continually at stake, like the concept of the artwork and of art itself. The aim is to facilitate a view of the − literal and metaphorical − blind spot that has evaded our perception and our insight, and to introduce perspectives that enable us to reflect on the process of observation itself. Caramelle starts out from precise ideas and concepts: he has developed an open system to formalise these, which allows him to investigate different contexts, shifting and often questioning them ironically, and so creating new networks of relations.

In 2006, Ernst Caramelle showed his “printed matters 1974 – 2006” in a large-scale exhibition in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum; here, he makes a conceptual investigation into the Galerie im Taxispalais and its rooms. He has designed mural paintings extending over two floors especially for the gallery space.

Usually, mural paintings are produced for a site from which they will have to disappear once again, i.e. under a new layer of paint that returns the exhibition space to its previous state. These mural pictures, which are realised in a time-consuming process – watercolour is applied to the wall and then partially washed off –, take up specific structural parameters of the space. However, Caramelle’s statement “(proportions lend wings to ideas)” does not refer to the proportions of the rooms alone, but also to another important factor in his work; the proportions of periods of time, which come into effect here.

For, in this context, the production process of his conceptual painting confronts its own disappearance, which Caramelle deliberately incorporates into his work as a structural element. Forms of documentation of the mural paintings, which represent a conceptual aspect of the work, are also involved in this process. Caramelle is producing a publication of his mural paintings in the Galerie im Taxispalais.

Caramelle has designed another room in the gallery together with Monika Schwitte, who is showing her films in a parallel exhibition. Here, he will be presenting project studies, drawings, Gesso Pieces (“Quasi Paintings”) and a new video work.

Ernst Caramelle was born in Hall in Tirol in 1952. He lives and works in Frankfurt, New York and Karlsruhe, where he teaches at the State Academy of Fine Arts.

A publication is appearing in conjunction with the exhibition.

Opening times
Tues-Sun 11 am – 6 pm, Thurs 11 am – 8 pm

Galerie im Taxispalais
Maria-Theresien-Str. 45
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria
Phone +43 512 508 3171
Fax +43 512 508 3175
http://www.galerieimtaxispalais.at

River Grace, a painting by Makoto Fujimura, Founder of International Arts Movement

NEW YORK, NY, January 31, 2008 – On February 28, 2008, an estimated five hundred artists and creative catalysts from over 30 states and eight nations will gather at Tribeca Performing Arts Center (Borough of Manhattan Community College) for International Arts Movement’s 2008 Encounter, “Generative Creativity: Transforming the Cultural River.” IAM’s annual encounter has become a high point for many members of the global creative community who are interested in exploring the deep questions of art, faith and humanity. Programming for the three-day encounter includes a juried art exhibit, juried music competition, curated film series, lectures, musical performances, poetry readings, topical workshops, and vibrant inter-disciplinary artistic collaborations aimed at inspiring the creative community to engage the culture that is and create the world that ought to be.

Presenters and performers will include Dick Staub (Broadcaster, Writer & Public Speaker), Terry Teachout (Wall Street Journal Drama Critic), Sarah Hanssen (Filmmaker), Tara Donovan (Artist), Barbara Takenaga (Artist), Micheal O’Siadhail (Irish Poet), Jeff Speck (Urban Designer, Former National Endowment for the Arts Design Director), David Miller (Yale Divinity School), Jerzy Sapieyevski (Composer/Performer), Miguel Sanchez Romera (Spanish Culinary Artist), Rob Mathes (Composer/Arranger), Makoto Fujimura (Artist, Member of the NEA National Council on the Arts & IAM Founder) and The Los Angeles Collaboration. Past presenters include Emmy-award winning actress Patricia Heaton, Yale theologian Miroslov Volf, NEA Chairman and poet Dana Gioia, and architect Daniel Liebeskind.

Artistic disciplines represented at the encounter include painters, directors, actors, authors, musicians, poets, sculptors, photographers, singers, journalists, theatrical crew, songwriters, screenwriters, dancers, designers, stylists, and curators, as well as patrons of the arts, architects, business people, and pastors. IAM, an arts advocacy movement founded by Makoto Fujimura in 1991, is a non-profit organization that equips artists to wrestle with questions of art, faith and humanity, engaging its community in both philosophical and pragmatic discussions about the role of the arts in creating “the world that ought to be.” While artists today are known mostly for their rebellion, alienation, addiction and apathy, IAM believes artists can be articulators of hope and integration to a broken culture and aims to catalyze a movement of artists to be agents of “cultural Shalom.”

In the past, IAM art exhibits in Manila, Tokyo, and New York have focused on peacemaking, reconciliation and poverty. According to IAM Director Bryan Horvath, “The desire to see culture transformed flows out of a compassionate, faith-centered worldview that presses us to care about art, human rights, social justice, equality, care of the environment, and creativity. We feel that these are human issues, so we want to find common ground to invite others who share our vision of the world that ought to be to wrestle through deep issues and questions with us, regardless of their faith perspectives.”

Registration for the Encounter is open at www.internationalartsmovement.org.

colourschool February postcard

Filling in a White Box | Mon Feb 4,11, 25 | 4:30 pm

For the month of February, Heidi Nagtegaal conducts a series of studies on how to fill a white box. Using textile traditions, knitting, and crotcheting, Heidi makes installations and sculptures that mix imagery, absurdity, and tradition. A recent project, Masks for Disappearing combines fashion and theft, social awkwardness and racial politics by knitting balaclavas in white, tailored to different social uses. In another work, needles are wrapped in rainbow, crotched tubes that cover 3cc syringes, “cozying” a very loaded, dangerous, and pokey object.

Nagtegaal puts into play potential forms and functions of specific materials within colourschool’s space during her research. Visitors are welcome and encouraged to stop by during the course of her project, which will culminate in… something.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/filling-in-a-white-box

D&G Reading Group or How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Colours? | Tue Feb 5 | 7 pm

colourschool’s D&G Reading Group regularly meets to read and discuss texts from One Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s landmark work, which continues to challenge the terms of debate in various disciplines including philosophy, psychology, culture, politics, economics, and art among other fields.

During D&G meetings participants receive excerpts to read and discuss as a group. In addition, all are welcome and encouraged to bring sections to share. For this meeting, we continue our discussion of Chapter 1: Rhizome.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/dg-reading-group-3

Open Hours | Wed Feb 6,13, 27 | noon to 4 pm

colourschool’s doors are open for research, reading, and screening.

Everyone is welcome to stop by Wednesdays, noon to 4pm or by appointment.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/open-hours

Brown Bag Lunch with Brendan Fernandes | Fri Feb 8 | 12:30 to 2 pm

colourschool’s Brown Bag events comprise a series of lunch time discussions focused on a given subject or range of subjects. Participants may bring their lunch or take a brown bag provided by colourschool.

For this session, New York and Toronto-based artist Brendan Fernandes speaks about his recent work, which deals with notions of identity through post colonial discourse.

Born in Kenya of Indian heritage, Fernandes immigrated to Canada in the 1990s. He earned his MFA (2005) from The University of Western Ontario and his BFA (2002) from York University in Canada. Accolades include: grants from The Ontario and Canada Councils for the Arts including the International Residency in Trinidad and Tobago. He has exhibited across Canada and has recently shown in the Western New York Biennial through The Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Fernandes completed the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007), and is participating in The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Work Space Residency program. He also holds the position of Artist in Residence at The School of Visual Arts, NY, in the graduate program for computer arts.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/brown-bag-lunch-

Listening Lab: Indians, Cavemen, and Ancient Civilizations with Raymond Boisjoly | Tues | Feb 12 | 7 pm

A look at various ways artists have dealt with the past and primordial origins within popular music. The effect is both satirical and earnest in turn, from the Cramps silly fun to the anger of Eugene McDaniels. This listening lab spans notions of historic time in a short sweep starting up in the 20th century. Guests are invited to bring song and sound files, titles, and videos for collective aural enjoyment.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/indians-cavemen-and-ancient-civilizations-pop-musics-mythic-past

White Reading Group with Eryne Donahue | Sat | Feb 16 | 1 pm

Taking Richard Dyer’s White as its object of study, the white reading group meets to discuss Dyer’s work, which traces representations of whiteness in Western visual culture through photography, fine art, cinema, television, and advertising.

In this session, the group continues discussing excerpts from Chapter 2: Coloured white, not coloured. Note that participants are not required to read the text before meeting as copies of the text are available during the session and are read during the meeting.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/white-reading-group-4

Colour Exchanges: Johan Lundh interviews Nathalie Melikian | Mon | Feb 25 | 7 pm

In place of the artist talk, colourschool presents an ongoing series of artist interviews conducted by Johan Lundh, whose practice adopts the “art of conversation” as a starting point for more dynamic explorations. Johan Lundh interviews Vancouver and Malmo-based artist Nathalie Melikian for this session.

Since the late 1990s, Melikian has been creating videos in which she calls into question and analyzes the narrative structures of various film genres. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at the MuHKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Belgium, and the Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden, in 2002, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany, the Centre pour l’image contemporaine Saint-Gervais Genève, Switzerland, and the IASPIS, Sweden, in 1999. She has also participated in a number of group shows in Canada and in Europe, including Shadows of Productions at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2004, Thriller at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 2004, and Melodrama at the Centro José Guerrero in Grenada and at the MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, Spain, in 2003.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/colour-exchanges-interview-with-nathalie-melikian

An Open Studio in Two Parts with Heather Keung | Tues & Wed | Feb 26 & Feb 27

colourschool and Western Front Media Arts co-present:
Researcher-in-Residence, Heather Keung

Keung will be taking a two-pronged approach to her research in Vancouver. First, in Part One (Tue, Feb 26, at 7 pm), she will be developing concepts and execution plans for two new video series: The Little Things and The Power Of Scale. Her body of work and these new projects will be presented in the form of an in-progress presentation/artist talk.

In Part Two (Wed, Feb 27, noon to 4 pm), Keung will be conducting studio visits with Vancouver-based artists for media/installation presentations at the Reel Asian International Film Festival (Toronto, November 2008). Interested parties are encouraged to arrange times in advance by contacting Heather Keung directly at programming@reelasian.com.

Keung’s residency at Western Front Media Arts takes place from February 18, 2008 – February 29, 2008.

http://www.colourschool.org/events/an-open-studio-in-two-parts-part-one-artists-presentaion

colourschool is located @ [IDS] ECIAD,1399 Johnston Street, Vancouver, BC, V6H 3R9 or online at www.colourschool.org
Email: info@colourschool.org

colourschool is a school within a school dedicated to the speculative research and exploration of five colours: black, white, brown, yellow, and red. Providing a free and open space for critical investigations of colour, identity, artmaking, and knowledge production, colourschool attempts to develop a collaborative colour consciousness through a variety of events including reading groups, film screenings, listening labs, interviews, roundtable discussions, brown bag lunches, performances, and installations among other activities. All are welcome.

Cleotronica: a media festival set in Egypt’s second largest city

CLEOTRONICA 08
Festival for Media, Art, and Socio-Culture
Dates: January-May 2008 (program announced monthly)
Locations: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Azarita, Alexandria & the Goethe Institute, 10 El-Batalsa Street, Azarita, Alexandria.

Cleotronica 08 is a context responsive festival for media, art, and socio-culture organized by Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF). Cleotronica runs from January-May 2008 and features a consecutive series of public art projects, workshops, lectures, performances, exhibitions and an international seminar in May. January saw the launching of Philadelphia based artist Jeremy Beaudry’s project and related workshop Place in Place of: Alexandria www.alexandria.placeinplaceof.net February’s program will include projects by Olia Lialina (RU), Dragan Espenschied (DE), and Jonathan Puckey (NL/UK).

CLEOTRONICA 08 FEBRUARY PROGRAM
————————————————————–

RICH USER EXPERIENCE: an Exhibition of Projects by Olia Lialina + Dragan Espenschied
Dates: 14-28 February 2008, Opening 14 February, 7 pm
Location: the Goethe Institute, 10 El-Batalsa Street, Azarita, Alexandria.
Lecture by Olia Lialina: 13 Fenbruary, 7 pm at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Form (ACAF)
Lecture by Dragan Espenschied: 15 Fenbruary, 7 pm at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Form (ACAF)

In their first exhibition in the Middle-East, Stuttgart based pioneer net artist Olia Lialina (RU) and artist/musician/programmer Dragan Espenschied (DE) present an exhibition of 6 net-based projects that reflect their research on a wide array of net culture related issues from ‘interactivity’ to ‘digital folklore’, and from the ‘vernacular web’ to ‘web 2.0′. The project will also feature two lectures/artist talks which will take place at Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) on 13 February for Olia Lialina and 15 February for Dragan Espenschied, both start at 7 pm. The project comes as part of the Cleotronica festival organized by ACAF.

WE ARE THE POSTER MACHINE: A Workshop Project with Jonathan Puckey
Dates: Workshop: 24-27 February - Lecture/Artist Talk: 29 February 7pm
Location: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Azarita, Alexandria.

Innovative Amsterdam based designer and artist Jonathan Puckey will be setting up an intensive 4 day workshop at ACAF focusing specifically on poster design that goes beyond advertising and enters the realm of visual and conceptual communicative experimentation. About his design process, Puckey says “I want the viewer to recognize the process, understand the problem and become aware that a human being was involved in making the product. I am not my machine; maybe my machine can become me”.
To apply send a short CV/Bio and three low-resolution Jpeg images of your design work to office@acafspace.org by 15 February 2008, please write ‘Design Workshop’ in subject box. Applicants from other cities are welcomed to apply although they will have to finance their travel and accommodation in Alexandria if accepted. Puckey will also be delivering a lecture about his practice and design tactics on 29 February, 7pm. Related links: www.jonathanpuckey.com

The Lab Sessions 2.0 - Pants And Tie Performing (Photo Credit: Darren Wong)

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Lab Sessions are a series of themed interactive art parties hosted and curated by Labspace Studio.

Labspace Studio is looking for artists to present their work(s) for the third installment of The Lab Sessions 3.0: Chemical Nation.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
“Chemical Nation” is a show about dependency and control. Submissions should explore the relationship between the human body and its dependency on chemicals and/or pharmaceuticals. Some examples: our dependency on pills to kill headaches, control pregnancy, ease anxiety, and induce sleep; our dependency on pesticides, plastics and synthetics.

In a Chemical Nation, are we in control of our bodies? What have we gained? What have we lost? What are you on?

SUBMISSION CATEGORIES:
-Painting, Collage, Photography, Drawing
-Video, New Media
-Writing, Spoken Word, Text
-Performance
-Dance
-Installation
-Music, Sound

Work will be displayed at Labspace Studio on the night of April 12, 2008. All artists are expected to financially support their projects. We will facilitate required technologies and assist in the installation process to the best of our ability. Keep in mind that The Lab Sessions is a party environment! Artwork may need to be tailored to suit the atmosphere.

To submit your work please email a brief description of your proposed piece(s) along with supporting/portfolio material of the described work or other work recently completed in a similar media to info@labspacestudio.com.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 23, 2008

For more details or to submit contact:
Labspace Studio
276 Carlaw Ave (Suite 202)
Toronto, ON
info@labspacestudio.com
www.labspacestudio.com

GAK

JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER
15TH FEBRUARY - 4TH MAY 2008

GAK GESELLSCHAFT FÜR
AKTUELLE KUNST E.V. BREMEN
Teerhof 21
D-28199 Bremen
Phone +49 421 500897
office@gak-bremen.de

http://www.gak-bremen.de

“Josephine Meckseper’s insertions into the ideological frameworks of the politics of commodity become more than the mere commentary of political speech, and witty, harmless gestures of designed radicality. What is most obvious is that Meckseper never attempts the conflations she engineers as a form of nostalgic return to a more simpler time of artistic engagement in the political sphere. She engineers her critical methodologies, first by recalling the Brechtian usage of the form of defamiliarization. In doing so, she makes us aware that the task of the politics of form towards which political art directs its forces of designification of the ideological code lies not in historical return, but in the excavation of the genealogy of artistic forms that have their roots in critical projects beginning with the early 20th century avant-gardes to the ones of the sixties.

The logic of the display surface (be it shelf, window, or vitrine) is that it is merely a container for a range of viral transmutations of use and exchange value of the artistic object into the social function of signs as a generator of another kind of political and cultural capital.”(Okwui Enwezor)

Meckseper created the print series “Quelle International” specifically to be displayed in the showcases outside the gallery of the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst. Instead of the usual exhibition posters, the artist has mounted large-scale reproductions from pages of the now almost legendary “Quelle” mail order catalogue from the year 1976, on silver polyester film.

Curator: Mona Schieren

Special edition
The hand-signed artists’ book “Quelle International” will be published on the occasion of Josephine Meckseper’s exhibition at the GAK this spring with essays by Sylvère Lotringer, Gabriele Mackert and Mona Schieren. For more information contact the GAK.

Josephine Meckseper was born in Germany and received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1992. In 2007 Meckseper had a survey exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, accompanied by a monograph published by Hatje Cantz. Her work was featured in Brave New Worlds, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Resistance Is, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art: Footnotes about Geopolitics, Markets and Amnesia. In 2006 she participated in Media Burn at the Tate Modern, London; USA Today, New American Art from The Saatchi Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville, Fundación Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, Seville and the Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She lives and works in New York.

Opening hours:
Tuesdays – Sundays 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Thursdays until 9 p.m., closed Mondays

Underline:
“Quelle International (Marlboro Boys),” 2008
Copyright Josephine Meckseper/VG Bild-Kunst

Kölnischer Kunstverein

Concepts of Love
Group exhibition
February 9 - March 30, 2008

Kölnischer Kunstverein
Die Brücke - Hahnenstraße 6
50667 Cologne
Tuesday to Friday 1 to 7pm
Saturday and Sunday 12am-6pm
info@koelnischerkunstverein.de

http://www.koelnischerkunstverein.de

With Gerry Bibby, Bless, Keren Cytter, Ekkehard Ehlers, Stephan Geene, Frauke Gust, Judith Hopf, Francesca Lacatena, Henrik Olesen, Monika Rinck, de Rijke/de Rooij, Jörg Rode, Deborah Schamoni, Klaus Theweleit, Florian Zeyfang invited by Judith Hopf, Kathrin Jentjens and Anja Nathan-Dorn

Concepts of Love is an exhibition that pursues artistic discourses, productions and discussions thematising or – more precisely – thinking proactively the experience of „falling in love“ as a radical form of movement.

The experience of “falling in love” cannot be drawn up as it lies beyond rational options of resolution. But love itself is not seen as irrational. It is linked with uncountable political, aesthetical and desire-related projections, compositions and concepts. The lovers’ talks, products and analyses of these love concepts stand for the most part in contrast with a capitalistic logic of reference. They might be stoked up, inhibited, manipulated, or psychoanalytically explained but cannot possibly be “calculated” in a success-oriented way. Only when the lovers succeed in accepting the difference between each other or when he/she is able to – as author Monika Rinck words it – “think the You beyond the I” can love
take effect.

If one follows for example the theses and experiences of Roland Barthes, hypersensibility, transgression, prodigality, acceleration and deceleration as well as unforeseeable agitations against the functionalization and instrumentalisation of the subject are common acts and experiences of lovers. The inability to “please oneself (and fall) in love” and to adjust to the conditions and demands of everyday and of working life is not regarded as a weakness but instead is deliberately seen as (a likewise political) strength. In spite of lovelorn blindness, one is able to see clearly, reaches most tender insights and acts radically and – in social consensus – mostly incorrect.

Starting point for Concepts of love is the work of Judith Hopf with whom we developed the exhibition. The question of the impulse and social sense of a possible productivity that can – or cannot – be communicated and negotiated in polity plays an important role in her works. Along with her own works, a large number of co-productions came into being, some of which, like for example the video Bei mir zu dir (tv.Low-dunkel), 2005, realized by Hopf and Stephan Geene or Elevator Curator, 2005, and Hospital Bone Dance, 2006 which Hopf produced together with Deborah Schamoni will be shown. With the works of Bless, Gerry Bibby, de Rijke/de Roij Eckehard Ehlers and Jörg Rode, Francesca Lacatena and Florian Zeyfang, Concepts of love is an exhibition showing different attempts to find a language for these movements of love. In terms of a moment of intensification and dissipation, artist such as Keren Cytter and Henrik Olesen will develop own satellites or small universes within t
he exhibition. A lecture by Klaus Theweleit and a reading by author Monika Rinck will expand the array of events within Concepts of love. A catalogue is forthcoming.

So the question is - for more than four thousand years: Is Eros love for nothing or for something?
Frauke Gust and Judith Hopf, L’s Karte, radio play

Accompanying Programme Lecture: Klaus Theweleit Liebesinszenierungen in Andy Warhols Factory, March 7th, 2008 6 pm. Klaus Theweleit, author of Männerphantasien (Male Fantasies) and Das Buch der Könige (Book of Kings), will talk about the staging of love in Andy Warhol’s Factory and the paintings that emanated therefrom. Theweleit’s book Objektwahl, All You Need is Love! shows likewise his fine view on why and how people turn towards each other.

Reading: Monika Rinck Ah, das Love-Ding March 8, 2008 at 8 pm. What happens when people do something together? “In her poetic essay, Berlin lyricist Monika Rinck writes in such a breathtakingly inventive style that one almost forgets that it is a theoretical text” (Denis Scheck). The reading takes place in cooperation with lit.Cologne.

Filmprogramme curated and organized by the Filmclub 813
Sa, 9.2. , 8 pm Un Chien Andalou (F 1928) and L’Age d’Or (F 1930, both by Luis Bunuel)
So, 10.2., 8 pm Vivre sa vie (France 1962, by Jean-Luc Godard)
Sa, 23.2. , 8 pm Toute une nuit (Belgium 1982, by Chantal Akerman)
So, 16.3. , 8 pm Die Geliebte des Französischen Leutnants (UK 1981, by Kare Reisz)

Concepts of love was realised with kind support by Kunststiftung NRW and HDI Gerling.

ART SHEFFIELD 08

ART SHEFFIELD 08:
Yes, No & Other Options
16 February - 30 March 2008

City-wide Contemporary Art Event

+ Symposium 28 & 29 February

http://www.artsheffield.org

Contemporary art festival ART SHEFFIELD 08: Yes, No & Other Options takes place from 16 February - 30 March 2008 in venues across the city including Bloc, End Gallery, Millennium Galleries, S1 Artspace, Site Gallery, Yorkshire ArtSpace, Sylvester Space, The Winter Garden and the public realm.

Taking as its foundation a specially commissioned text by art critic Jan Verwoert, this city-wide exhibition addresses the fact that in a post-industrial condition, one particularly pertinent to Sheffield, we have entered into a service culture where we no longer just work, we perform in a perpetual mode of ‘I Can’. (Even advertising tells us that ‘Life gets more exciting when you say yes’).

Verwoert asks, “What would it mean to put up resistance against a social order in which high performance and performance-related evaluation has become a growing demand, if not a norm? What would it mean to resist the need to perform?” He suggests that certain means of resisting are in themselves creative - that as well as embracing exuberant performativity, art has also used the ‘ I Can’t’, by creating moments where the flow of action is interrupted, established meanings are suspended and alternative ways to act become imaginable. He suggests that as well as yes and no, there may be other options.

A mix of both emerging and established Sheffield-based, nationally and internationally-based artists were selected for ART SHEFFIELD 08 as their work was felt to have a close relationship to this contextual text. In a range of media, from site specific to painting, sculpture and video, the pieces examine the issues raised by Verwoert.

Artists include Tomma Abts, Michal Budny, Phil Collins, Andrew Cooke, Kerstin Kartscher, Silke Otto Knapp, Július Koller, Jiri Kovanda, Ruth Legg, Hilary Lloyd, Deimantas Narkevicius, Ines Schaber, Sean Snyder, Frances Stark, Mladen Stilinovic, Esther Stocker, Nasrin Tabatabai, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tsui Kuang-Yu, Gitte Villesen, Eveline Van Den Berg, Ryszard Wasko, Nicole Wermers and Xu Tan.

For the event there will be new commissions from Katie Davies, Annika Eriksson, Tim Etchells, Vlatka Horvat, Host Artist’s Group, Janice Kerbel, George Henry Longly, Roman Ondak, Kirsten Pieroth, Paul Rooney, Dexter Sinister, Esther Stocker, Neil Webb, Katy Woods and Kan Xuan.

Symposium - Thursday 28th & Friday 29th February
Speakers: Jan Verwoert, Nikolaus Hirsch, Deimantas Narkevicius, Babak Afrassiabi, Irit Rogoff, Jennifer Johns, Annika Eriksson, Nasrin Tabatabai, Stephen Beddoe & Russell Martin, Jeanine Griffin & Katy Woods, Cylena Simonds. Chaired by Jan Verwoert & Becky Shaw.

Tickets: See http://www.artsheffield.org for details

ART SHEFFIELD 08 is the fourth city-wide event organised by Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum (SCAF) and is co-curated by Berlin-based critic and art historian Jan Verwoert & SCAF. For further information please see www.artsheffield.org
The project is funded by Arts Council England Yorkshire, Yorkshire, The Henry Moore Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Goethe Institut.

SHEFFIELD CONTEMPORARY ART FORUM
PO Box 3754, Sheffield, S1 9AH
http://www.artsheffield.org