Artipedia - Arts News

B.P.S.22 space for
contemporary creation

Copyright of the image:
Wang Du, Post Reality at the B.P.S.22
Copyright: Leslie Artomonow

Wang Du
Post-Reality
March 8th - May 25th 2008

Curator: Pierre-Olivier Rollin

http://bps22.hainaut.be

Since its opening in 2000, the B.P.S.22 space for contemporary creation of the Province of Hainaut, in Belgium, has always given priority to the forms of contemporary expression that focus on our current society. Therefore, the exhibitions programme attaches particular importance to those artists who treat global issues or socio-cultural phenomena, typical of our time (e.g. Jota Castro, Patrick Everaert, Johan Muyle, Kendell Geers or Fernando Alvim and Simon Njami’s project Next Flag. Reexistencia
cultural generalizada).

Conscious that curatorship today depends upon a local re-contextualisation of global issues, the B.P.S.22 team approaches its projects from a critical perspective of the world we live in today. This concept of culture as a vector of democracy also determines the museum’s acquisition policy. The collection is not only comprised of old art (e.g. Constantin Meunier) or modern art (e.g. René Magritte), but also a number of contemporary works (e.g. Félix Gmelin, Art & Language, Deimantas Narkevicius). This mutual relationship offers an original perspective. By the end of 2009, the B.P.S.22 will become a permanent contemporary art museum.

Currently the B.P.S.22 is hosting the first institutional exhibition in Belgium of the artist of Chinese origin, Wang Du. Born in 1956, in Wuhan, the capital of the province of Hubei, in the centre of eastern China, the artist arrived in France at the beginning of the 1990s, where he has made his home. The exhibition Post-Reality confronts the visitors with the monumentality of the works and offer them an active discussion concerning the role and the influence of the media in our lives.

Production : B.P.S.22, Galerie Baronian_Francey and Galerie Laurent Godin

Contacts and information also available at our website:http://bps22.hainaut.be

B.P.S.22 space for contemporary creation
22, boulevard Solvay
6000 Charleroi, Belgium
Phone: 00 32 71 27 29 71
Fax: 00 32 71 27 29 70

Art Athina

ART ATHINA
23 - 25 MAY 2008
OPENING/PREVIEW: 22 MAY
HELEXPO PALACE CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION CENTRE ATHENS, GREECE

RESTARTED

http://www.art-athina.gr

Art Athina successfully launched its restart in May 2007.

This year, the fair makes a dynamic comeback, after having received warm feedback from international and local galleries. The fair will collaborate once more with Greek and international art professionals, among them Marina Fokidis, Bettina Busse, Sarah Belden, Isabella Bortolozzi, in order to deliver a rich, stimulating programme of projects and events that balance a commercial and curatorial approach.

Basic Plan
The main fair section includes participations from Greek and international galleries:
a.antonopoulou.art (Athens, GR), AD Gallery (Athens, GR), Agathi (Athens, GR), Astrolavos Art Galleries (Athens, GR), Athens Art Space (Athens, GR), Batagianni Gallery (Athens, GR), C. Grimaldis Gallery (Baltimore, USA), Centre of Contemporary Art Diatopos (Nicosia, Cyprus), Cheapart (Athens, GR), Christian Nagel Gallery (Cologne/Berlin, Germany), Dollinger Art Project (Tel Aviv, Israel), Ekfrasi - Gianna Grammatopoulou (Athens, GR), Eleni Koroneou Gallery (Athens, GR), Federico Bianchi Contemporary art (Gorgonzola (MI), Italy), Francoise Heitsch (Munich, Germany), Frissiras Art Gallery (Athens, GR), Groeflin Maag Galerie (Zurich, CH), Habres & Partner Gallery (Vienna, Austria), Heinz Martin Weigand (Ettlingen, Germany), Kalfayan Galleries (Athens/Thessaloniki, GR), Loraini Alimantiri/gazonrouge (Athens, GR), Marcdepuechredon (Basel, CH), Mot International (London, UK), Medousa Art Gallery (Athens, GR), Mirko Mayer (Cologne, Germany), Mirta Demare (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
, Monitor (Rome, Italy), Nice & Fit (Berlin, Germany), Peres Projects (Berlin, Germany), Perugi Artecontemporanea (Padova, Italy), Potnia Thiron (Athens, GR), QBox (Athens, GR), Reinhard Hauff (Stuttgart, Germany), Rodeo (Istanbul, Turkey), The Apartment (Athens, GR), The Breeder (Athens, GR), Tint Gallery (Thessaloniki, GR), Titanium Yiayiannos Gallery (Athens, GR), Tsatsis Projects (Thessaloniki, GR), Vamiali’s (Athens, GR), Wohnmaschine (Berlin, Germany), Xippas Gallery (Athens, GR), Zina Athanassiadou Gallery (Thessaloniki, GR)

‘1+9’
In this invitational section within Basic Plan Isabella Bortolozzi (Isabella Bortolozzi Gallery, Berlin) invites cutting edge international galleries.

Open Plan
Art Athina’s curatorial section, introduced in 2007, is brought back this year with a stronger exhibitional feel. Curator Bettina Busse (Berlin) invites interesting international art galleries to exhibit sculptures and installations, stretching the limits of the traditional art fair, offering new opportunities to buyers.

Focus: New York-Berlin - “First we take Manhattan then we take Berlin”
This year’s special tribute will focus on emerging, cutting-edge galleries from New York and Berlin, invited by Sarah Belden (Curators without Borders gallery, Berlin).

Parallel Plan
The fair’s parallel programme provides a platform for a number of curated projects and events, onsite at Helexpo and offsite in venues around the city, including exhibitions, performances, talks
and encounters.

This year’s Garage Project is curated by Marina Fokidis who will focus on local artistic production.

Marina Fokidis will also curate the project “Interventions”, with artistic projects especially created for various spaces around the fair venue.

The Art Athina Art Talks will feature discussions between art professionals on various subjects, such as narcissism, ownership, consumption and criticism. Among the participating speakers are Catherine David and Christian Viveros-Faune.

The offsite exhibitions include:
The exhibition “Five Seasons of the Russian Avant-Garde. Works from the Costakis Collection”, organized by the Museum of Cycladic Art, in collaboration with the State Museum of Contemporary Art and coordinated by ArtBOX.gr | creative arts management. This is the first time that part of the Costakis Collection is presented in Athens, after its acquisition by the State Museum of Contemporary Art.

The exhibition “Lion under the rainbow. Art from Tehran”, curated by Alexandros Georgiou, will present works by 19 artists based in Tehran. The exhibition is a production of D-ART –
Non-Profit Organisation.

Finally the exhibition “Elements of Light”, curated by Boris Manner, represents Art Athina’s close collaboration with Stella Art Foundation, that is establishing the first Contemporary Art Museum in Moscow. The exhibition is a co-production of Stella Art Foundation and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, organized in Greece by the Hellenic American University and coordinated by ArtBOX.gr | creative arts management.

Art Athina 2008

Under the auspices and with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture
With the support of the Cultural Organisation of the Municipality of Athens
Organizing institution: Hellenic Art Galleries Association

General Director: Michalis Argyrou (Sambo Events)
Artistic Director: Christos Savvidis (ArtBOX.gr)
Production Manager: Manolis Sardis (Pro4)

Press office: Alexia Korleti ( press@art-athina.gr )

Contact:
T. +30 210 756 7723
F. +30 210 752 6995

Mailing address: 217 Ymittou Str., Mets, 116 32, Athens, Greece
Venue address (fair dates only): 39 Kifissias Ave., 151 23, Maroussi, Athens, Greece

info@art-athina.gr
http://www.art-athina.gr

Sharjah Biennial

Alfredo Rubio of Maider Lopez’s
artwork during the Artist In Residence.

An unprecedented territory for the propagation of Art in the Middle East and beyond
http://www.sharjahbiennial.org

Sharjah Biennial launches the production programme as a vehicle for the realisation of artists’ projects

As a first step for the Sharjah Biennial to break free from the traditional genealogy of biennials, comes the announcement of Sharjah Biennial’s Production Programme which develops its relationship with artists and engages them on joint productions with the biennial in the long term.

The launch of the Sharjah Biennial Productions Programme is a timely experiment that will explore the shifting spectrum of creative practice and try to identify marginal processes of thoughts, relations and acts arising from art and its vicinities.

This programme is a natural extension to the Biennial’s work in progress, which has so far charted unprecedented territories for the propagation of art in the region and beyond, and is determined to remain the artists’ vehicle for the realisation of their projects.

This step also comes in light of the Sharjah Biennial’s endeavor to find new possibilities for production of art in the Arab world, expand and facilitate encounters among art practitioners as well as to assist artists and encourage collaborations with other institutions. The Biennial envisages its pioneering role as an intellectual hub, stemming from its long history of dedicated and committed support to the development of art and the expansion of the horizon of possibilities and capabilities for productions and presentations. Its position at the international art circuit cross roads enabled it to expand on its legacy and promote interaction by periodically organizing opportunities between artists, producers, curators, commissioners, sponsors, collectors and museum experts from all around the world. The Sharjah Biennial will be eventually composing with every organized encounter, meeting, exhibition and production the bigger picture of what a biennial ought to be about.

Sharjah Biennial aims not to pose as the locus of your dreams but to adapt rather, to your dream of
a locus.

Empowered by this vision, the Sharjah Biennial is reaching out to all artists and non-artists to submit their ideas and proposals, and collectively venture on joint production projects with the biennial slated for its coming ninth edition in March 2009.

For more information about the Production Programme, contact
Maya Nasser,
Maya.nasser@sharjahbiennial.org

About the Sharjah Biennial

The Sharjah Biennial is one of the most celebrated cultural events in the Arab world. Since its inception in 1993, it has formed a cultural bridge between artists, art institutions and organisations locally, regionally and internationally. Produced by the Department of Culture and Information in the Emirate of Sharjah, the Biennial now occupies a key regional position in the production and presentation of art and in fostering experimentation.

The Sharjah Biennial’s track record clearly indicates its defining role as one of the few art institutions in the region leading a programme of support for artists’ productions, and offering access to their presentation and actively assisting in their dissemination. This support, in light of the current developments in art and the incessant pursuit to define and re-define the role of the now indefatigably mushrooming biennials all over the world, needs to be sensibly extended to artists operating in the region (where support plays a vital role in the development and sustainability of a budding yet vibrant art movement). It also needs to reach those working in other parts of the world, who do not necessarily need the Biennial’s support, but can positively contribute to the crucial dialogue among artists and practitioners, and the sharing of experiences in the progress of knowledge.

The ninth edition of the Sharjah Biennial can be seen as a laboratory within which undistracted experimentation, investigation and liberated manifestations are tried out. It is where experience and knowledge are tested against new realities and challenged by certainties and uncertainties. The Sharjah Biennial’s role will be gauged by its contribution towards empowering individuals (artists and non-artists) and initiatives to pursue their creative work undisrupted by the market and other pressures.

The Sharjah Biennial has launched several initiatives that attempts to solidify its relationship with artists and art organizations, engaging them on joint productions with the biennial and long term collaborations; The Sharjah Biennial Production Programme, the March Meeting, and the Artist-in-Residence Programme.

For general inquiries, please contact:

Mariam W. Al Dabbagh
Head of Communication
Sharjah Biennial
Tel: 009716-5685050
E: Mariam.aldabbagh@sharjahbiennial.org
Box 19989, Sharjah - United Arab Emirates
http://www.sharjahbiennial.org