Artipedia - Arts News

FOTOFEST2008

WU Gaozhong
Duck, reply is positive,
2003

FOTOFEST2008 – CHINA
March 7 - April 20, 2008
Houston, Texas

http://www.fotofest.org

All Houston art museums and 107 other spaces are celebrating photo-based art with FOTOFEST2008-CHINA, the Twelfth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-related Art, March 7 - April 20, 2008 in Houston, Texas.

Alongside FotoFest’s 10 exhibitions on Photography from China 1934-2008, 19 other spaces are hosting China-related exhibits and events. Eighty other spaces are working with the Biennial’s ancillary theme Transformations. Others are mounting shows independent of the two themes.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is hosting FotoFest’s public symposium on 20th century Chinese photography and a China film series. The symposium features two noted Chinese scholars and curators: GU Zheng, author/curator/scholar on Chinese photography at Fudan University in Shanghai, will speak on contemporary Chinese photography and CAI Tao, curator of contemporary art and photography at Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou, will speak on historical Chinese photography. The symposium takes place Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 7-8:30pm at MFAH. Admission is free.

The MFAH is presenting three new exhibitions for FOTOFEST2008 with exhibits by contemporary Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi, the 20th century modernist master Bill Brandt (1904-1974), and the documents of renowned photo-historian Beaumont Newhall (1908-1993). Ms. Yanagi’s three distinct series, Elevator Girls, My Grandmothers and Fairy Tales, confront and disrupt traditional perceptions of women. The Bill Brandt retrospective offers 50 prints, primarily from the MFAH collection, with examples from each of Mr. Brandt’s major series. A celebration of the life and work of Beaumont Newhall marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of this historian, curator, museum director, photographer, collector, critic, educator, mentor, and friend to many in the photographic world. http://www.mfah.org

Four other Houston museums are showing a wide range of conceptual and issue-based work. Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, presents a new exhibition of Chantal Akerman, widely regarded as one of the most important woman directors in film history. The exhibition presents five major works by the artist including a new project commissioned especially for the exhibition, January 19 - March 29, 2008. http://www.class.uh.edu/blaffer

In Apertura Colombia at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, 13 Colombian artists find the signs of social transformation amid mass graves, drugs, terrorism and death squads, March 8 - May 18, 2008. http://www.stationmuseum.com At the Holocaust Museum Houston eight international photojournalists document the war in Darfur, Sudan. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents a show by Dawoud Bey.

The transforming identity of Arab women is represented in Moroccan-born Lalla Essaydi’s large-scale, calligraphic works, Les Femmes du Maroc, showing at Anya Tish Gallery, March 7 - April 5, 2008. http://www.anytishgallery.com

Conceptual art referencing beauty and violence is featured by Sicardi Gallery with new work by internationally known Colombian artist Miguel Angel Rojas, March 27 - May 15, 2008. http://www.sicardigallery.com

Transformation of our environment is represented in Breaking Earth, the collaboration of video artist Alfred Guzzetti and composer Kurt Stallman that turns DiverseWorks Artspace into an immersive atmosphere of light and sound from March 7 - April 26, 2008. Loosely based on Thoreau’s Walden, Breaking Earth’s images and sounds carry us to a place where abstracted landscape becomes a landscape of consciousness, prompting reflection on the disconnect between our actions and our impact on the environment. http://www.diverseworks.org

Both man and nature’s transformation is explored in Branching Out, an exhibit of images by William Winkler and cast bronzes by Paul Winkler at mARCHITECTS, March 7 - April 27,2008. Man’s ancient relationship to nature and the evolved necessity of tools is explored in Paul Winkler’s bronzes. William Winkler’s photographs explore the relationship between a group of Live Oak trees and the radiant energy that surrounds them, transforming them into creations of reverence and honor. http://www.m-architects.com

The ten Chinese exhibitions presented by FotoFest present historical work made before and during the anti-Japanese war (1930s-1940s), the Cultural Revolution, the emergence of independent documentary photography in the 1980s, and contemporary staged and conceptual work from the mid-1990s through the present. http://www.fotofest.org

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and CalArts, have curated with the MFAH Film Department three weekends of New Chinese Cinema, March 8-April 6, 2008. The MFAH Film Department also hosts Imagining China - Short Films by Texas Filmmakers, April 5, 2008, sponsored by FOTOFEST2008 and Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP). http://www.swamp.org

For a full listing of FOTOFEST2008 exhibits and events, visit http://www.fotofest.org

Press contacts:
Vinod Hopson – 713.223.5522 x26, press3@fotofest.org
Janice Van Dyke Walden – 713.223.5522 x12, janice@vandykewalden.com

Artes Mundi 3

Artes Mundi 3
15 March - 8 June 2008

Lida Abdul
Vasco Araújo
Mircea Cantor
Dalziel + Scullion
N.S. Harsha
Abdoulaye Konaté
Susan Norrie
Rosângela Rennó

http://www.artesmundi.org

Artes Mundi 3 exhibition opens next month on15 March 2008 at National Museum Cardiff. It features major works from the nine artists shortlisted for the Artes Mundi 3 Prize - Lida Abdul, Vasco Araújo, Mircea Cantor, Dalziel + Scullion, N.S. Harsha, Abdoulaye Konaté, Susan Norrie and Rosângela Rennó. In addition, the exhibition will feature new works not seen before by Araújo, Harsha and Konaté. The winner of the Artes Mundi 3 Prize (worth 40,000 Pounds) will be decided by an international jury and announced on 24 April 2008.

Lida Abdul presents a selection of her filmic works including The Brick Sellers 2006 and Clapping with Stones 2006, where men are seated within the space once occupied by a Buddha destroyed by the Taliban. Abdul’s work speaks of violence and devastation but also survival and rebuilding.

Vasco Araújo presents a selection of films and installations including Augusta 2008 that will premiere at Artes Mundi 3 and Hereditas 2006, a work that muses upon childhood and fragility. Using allusion, he explores social behaviours, cultural stereotypes and sexual identity.

Mircea Cantor presents a series of works including the haunting Deeparture 2005 where a wolf and a deer circle each other, subverting our understanding of a predatory scenario. Cantor is interested not in creating images for their own sake but more for what they can say or suggest.

Dalziel + Scullion present two major installations - Source 2007, and More than us 2007 that explores the habitat of a rare day-flying moth. The artists use a range of media to explore the complex relationship between humankind and the natural world.

N.S. Harsha presents a series of large-scale paintings including Come give us a speech 2007/8, a new six-panel work to be seen for the first time at Artes Mundi 3. Harsha will also create a new floor painting in the gallery. Harsha has turned the Indian tradition of miniature painting into a unique commentary on contemporary life.

Abdoulaye Konaté presents a selection of textiles including a new large scale work Le dos à l’Âme 2008 measuring 4 x 2.4m. His work is embedded in the West African tradition of using textiles to communicate and commemorate, and initiate discussions of wider issues.

Susan Norrie presents Havoc 2007. Filmed in East Java, Havoc depicts a town made uninhabitable by the ceaseless eruption of hot mud. The work reflects the resilience of people confronting disaster and the town’s thermodynamics become a metaphor for our turbulent times.

Rosângela Rennó presents a series of photographic works including Farewell Ceremony 1997-2003 - thirty-nine photographs of Cuban newly-weds from the 1980’s. The captured moment loses its intimacy when seen repeated. Rennó uses found photographs and texts to re-present and re-invent the past.

Artes Mundi Wales International Visual Art Exhibition and Prize celebrates outstanding emerging artists from around the world who discuss the human condition. Every two years its programme of art, education and work in communities culminates in the Artes Mundi Exhibition and Prize.

Selectors Isabel Carlos and Bisi Silva.

Curator Tessa Jackson Assistant Curator Liberty Paterson

Artes Mundi 3
National Museum Cardiff
Cathays Park, Cardiff,
Wales, UK CF10 3NP

+44 (0)2920 397 951
Open 10am-5pm Tuesday to Sunday and Bank Holidays
Admission Free

Artes Mundi core supporters: Welsh Assembly Government, Cardiff Council, Arts Council of Wales, BBC Wales, National Museum Wales and The Derek Williams Trust.

Artes Mundi 3 major sponsors: St Davids 2, Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, Gerald Eve and Arts & Business.

Media sponsors: Western Mail and Sky Arts.

Image above:
(clockwise from top left): Lida Abdul The Tree 2005 Courtesy the Artist / Giorgio Persano Gallery. Rosângela Rennó Blind Wall 2000, Private Collection 1992-1995. Mircea Cantor Diamond Corn 2005 Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert, Paris / New York. Abdoulaye Konaté Les Marcheurs 2006. Vasco Araújo L’inceste 2004 (detail) Courtesy Gonçalo and Madalena Reis. N S Harsha We come, we eat and we sleep (Panel 1) 1999-2001 Courtesy Queensland Art Gallery. Dalziel + Scullion Source 2007 Courtesy the Artists. Susan Norrie Havoc 2007 Courtesy the Artist.

Magasin 3
Stockholm Konsthall

Annika von Hausswolff
”Untitled ”, 2006
Collection Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall

ANNIKA VON HAUSSWOLFF
”Ich bin die Ecke aller Räume”
9 February - 8 June 2008
Curators: David Neuman and Tessa Praun

Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
Frihamnen, SE -115 56 Stockholm
Phone: +46 8 545 680 40
art@magasin3.com
http://www.magasin3.com

This spring Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall has the great pleasure of showing a wide selection of work by Annika von Hausswolff, an artist whom Magasin 3 has supported for many years.

Contradictory feelings of unease and curiosity evoked by her macabre stories and glimpses of the unexpected in the everyday have been characteristic of von Hausswolff’s work since the 1990’s. In her carefully composed photographs the human body is often physically present or tangible in the traces left behind: naked, abandoned bodies in picturesque landscapes, covered, lifeless bodies, children with chainsaws, or the reminders of human presence in the form of dust bunnies, empty chairs and discarded shirts. Using well-known motifs and art historical references Annika von Hausswolff’s work exists on the border between the documentary and the staged. In the last few years her world of images has increasingly taken physical shape in the exhibition space through the use of objects
and props.

This exhibition includes over 50 of von Hausswolff’s works, all from Magasin 3’s collection, as well as a large-scale installation specially created for the space.

Artist’s book:
During the spring a comprehensive publication on Annika von Hausswolff will be produced for which the artist will personally document the exhibition at Magasin 3. The book will also include a catalogue raisonné section comprehensively listing and illustrating all of von Hausswolff’s work to date.

Annika von Hausswolff was born in 1967 and lives and works in Gothenburg. Since the 1990’s she has had many solo exhibitions and been included in group shows at institutions such as the Musée d’Art Moderne de Ville de Paris, the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst in Copenhagen, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and Fotomuseum in Winterthur. For the 1999 Venice Biennale Annika von Hausswolff represented Sweden at the Nordic Pavilion. Her work has previously been shown at Magasin 3 as part of the group exhibitions “Weegee, Jane & Louise Wilson and Annika von Hausswolff” (2000), “Extension” (2002) and most recently in “Works from the Collection of Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall” (2005).