Artipedia - Arts News

Insa Art Space of the
Arts Council Korea

“Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision”

May 8 - July 6, 2008
New Museum of
Contemporary Art, New York
http://www.newmuseum.org

July 16 - Aug. 24, 2008
Insa Art Space, Seoul
http://www.insaartspace.or.kr

Sangdon Kim
Koh Seung Wook
Rho Jae Oon
siren eun youg jung

Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea organizes “Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision,” a 2 year-long project for commissioning new art productions and cultural discourses on the local community of Dongducheon in S. Korea. This project is initiated from “Museum as HUB”, an inter-institutional network & partnership program by New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Composed of exhibition, workshop, symposium, lectures, talks & discussions, archive and film screening, “Dongducheon Project” presents 12 new artworks by 4 invited Korean artists, Koh Seung Wook, Sangdon Kim, Rho Jae Oon, and siren eun youg jung in exhibitions at New Museum
and IAS.

Dongducheon is a small city with 88,000 population in the land of 96㎢. Located halfway between the capital city Seoul and the South Korean Front Line to North Korea, the city has been allotted by the central government for stationing foreign military bases over the half century since the Japanese Colonial era. Almost the half portion of its territory is occupied currently by the US Army bases, and most of the rest land is taken by mountains. Squeezed in-between, people of Dongducheon have had rare options for their survival besides succumbing to the top-down policies made by mega-structural powers. The city has served-and been structured and represented- only as a “military camp town.” The problem here is not just the fact that there have been a series of whatever interventions, regulations and controls inflicted to the region by external invisible hands behind the scene, but also that the levels and means of the interventions were so fundamental and continuous as to in
terfere onto interpersonal and inter-communal recognition, communication and relationship. In these times of new world order, expansive global capitalism, corporate developmentalism and competitive privatization, the city stands bare in front of us as a site of collective negation, manipulation, elimination, exception, oblivion and non-visibility.

With the help of art and artist as creative public agents, this project suggests to be a medium of reinterpretation, articulation, communication, provocation and action on the region, all of which would eventually require us to critically reexamine the problems of our own minds and attitudes that have contributed to ongoing neglect and misunderstandings on the region. As the first attempt to locate Dongducheon in the structure of art production and cultural discourses, this project wishes to evoke diverse perspectives and discussions on other similar “neighborhood” regions, which is convinced to support autonomous local voices’ awareness and will to envision the future of Dongducheon.

Among numerous social apparatuses framing the contextual understanding of the region, this project claims to set the first priority on the subjects of local community. Artists, corresponding to each individual singularity, approach different communities of the region and develop different tools and ideas in dealing with their most urgent issues. Various forms of interface including casual dialogues over meals and walks, intimate/formal interviews, document/literary text research, field trips, and participatory educational workshop were contrived in this process and employed in final artworks.

In his single channel video “Dribbling Mouth” based on photo archives and literary text, Koh Seung Wook delves into the issue of “naming” the undocumented or misrepresented subjects of the past, and following difficulty in articulating the issues related to them in the present time. Strictly counting on talks and interviews, Sangdon Kim reveals the points of local subjects’ encountering with the external reality and their subsequent counteraction by inventing co-opted new languages and memory in his new pieces, “Little Chicago,” “Foreign Apartment” and “Hold your breath for four minutes.” In “The Narrow Sorrow,” siren eun youg jung, through a series of intimate dialogues with present club workers, illuminates unregistered invisible beings marginalized in contemporary Dongducheon by marking their places and relating their unheard narratives in present situation of the region. In his web publishing “Bite the Bullet!,” Rho Jae Oon addresses the issu
es of perception and recognition structuralized on a fundamental level by the media simulacra of past and future. He examines the key metaphoric images recurring in Hollywood movies on the war memory that have programmed even our future envisioning through fast image circulation and wide dissemination in common culture.

In conjunction to the exhibit, two artist books by Koh Seung Wook and Sangdon Kim are published. A Dongducheon project book compiling talks and lecture programs will be published by IAS, ARKO with more essays by international contributors.

Talk Programs
Artist Talk & Public Discussion, Thursday, May 8, 7:30 p.m ., New Museum Theater
Moderated by Heejin Kim (Curator, IAS) & Lee Daehoon(NGO Studies, Sungkonghoe Univ., Seoul)

Public Forum, Friday, May 9, 7:00-9:00pm, AiCenter, NY
Hosted by Nodutdol activists for Korean Community Development

Lecture #1 : Theodore Hughes, Saturday, May 10, 3 p.m., New Museum Theater (Korean Literature & East Asian Studies, Columbia University, NY)

Lecture #2 : Hyun Sook Kim, Saturday, June 7, 3 p.m., New Museum Theater (Sociology, Wheaton College, MA)

Dongducheon Project Symposium, July 16, 2008, IAS, Seoul
- “Museum as HUB”(New Museum, Vanabbe Museum, Museo Tamayo, Townhouse Gallery, IAS)
- Lecture # 3 : Brian Holmes (Cultural Critic, Paris)
- Artist Talk & Public Discussion
Artists, Hwang Sejun (Art Critic), Kang Hong-gu (Co-Director, Dongducheon People’s Coalition)

Insa Art Space, ARKO (Arts Council Korea)
90 Wonseo-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea, 110-280
tel. 82 2 760 4728, fax. 82 2 760 4725
http://www.insaartspace.or.kr
http://www.arko.or.kr
Contact: Heejin Kim, hjk@arko.or.kr
ias@arko.or.kr

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
tel. 1. 212.219.1222
http://www.newmuseum.org/
http://www.museumashub.org/

Kunstverein in Hamburg

Sharon Lockhart
Untitled, 2007
courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

SHARON LOCKHART
Through June 15, 2008

Kunstverein in Hamburg
Klosterwall 23
20095 Hamburg
T. 0049-(0)40-33 84 44
F.0049-(0)40-32 21 59
Tue-Sun 11-18
Thu 11-21

http://www.kunstverein.de

Kunstverein in Hamburg is pleased to present a major exhibition of the work of the American artist Sharon Lockhart. This exhibition continues the Kunstverein’s series of wide-ranging solo exhibitions of outstanding artists who work predominantly in the media of film and photography, including Yael Bartana, Willie Doherty, Andrea Fraser, Mark Lewis, Paul McCarthy, and others. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by DuMont Verlag with essays by Diedrich Diederichsen, Yilmaz Dziewior and Mark Godfrey.

Born in 1964, Lockhart lives in Los Angeles. She is best known for producing works in series, often consisting of both photographs and films, that she develops slowly over time, often after substantial research. The earliest work in the exhibition is Audition (1994), a series of 5 color photographs. Resembling film stills, these photographs show pairs of children reenacting the “first kiss” scene from François Truffaut’s film L’argent de poche (Small Change). This work explores a host of issues that Lockhart would develop further in subsequent works, including her interest in the tensions between photography and film, documentary and art, analytical distance and subjective empathy, socially engaged subject matter and rigorously conceptual form, and the transitional period between childhood and adulthood.

The exhibition continues with works from the late 1990s and 2000s that Lockhart shot in museums. These include Enrique Nava Enedina: Oaxacan Exhibit Hall, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City 1999 (1999), a series of photographs focusing on sculptures by the artist Duane Hanson (2003), and a group of photographs picturing an art conservator attempting to re-create the process by which the artist Morris Louis Art created his famous Color Field paintings. These works explore the space of a museum as a site where cultural meaning is produced, the differences between photographic and other modes of representation, and the nature of work.

The exhibition also includes a film and series of photographs that Lockhart produced in Japan based on her interest in the cultural phenomenon of NO-no Ikebana. A working-class response to an academicized art form, NO-no Ikebana is a radical genre of flower arranging in which the artist draws inspiration from vegetables and other items grown on farms—a medium that farmers could practice because they grew the materials. In the film NO (2003), two farmers spread hay across an otherwise empty field, creating what resembles a landscape painting in real time. The related photographic series NO-no Ikebana (2003) consists of 19 photographs divided into 4 groupings depicting the life cycle of an arrangement of brussel sprouts over the course of one month.

One of Lockhart’s most recent series, Pine Flat (2005), is featured in the exhibition in depth. Consisting of a film and a series of photographs, these works developed from her multi-year collaboration with a small community in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The film is presented as a feature-length film consisting of 12 10-minute segments, which is screened theatrically, and a film installation, which is presented in the museum. In the museum, the film is broken down into its segments, which are shown as individual loops over a period of days. Shot in a portrait studio the artist set up in the community, the photographs feature portraits of the children with whom she worked. She encouraged the children to act within the studio’s stark theatrical setting, giving them space to create individual personae for
the camera.

Lockhart’s works have been presented in major solo exhibitions at museums including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and Kunsthalle in Zurich, as well as in renowned international film festivals in New York and Berlin.

Thanks to the CORA-Kunststiftung, Hamburg for supporting the exhibition.

For further information or image material please contact
Kunstverein in Hamburg, Meike Behm, T. 0049 – (0)40 – 32 21 57, behm@kunstverein.de

Flag Metamorphoses at: Urban Screens Manchester 2007

CALL FOR ENTRIES:

http://www.flag-metamorphoses.net

Next deadline: August 30, 2008 (and ongoing)

Flag Metamorphoses is a participatory art project - a continuously growing series of animations with many authors: The flags of every nation in the world will transform into each other through flash animations. Between each two flags, scenes appear to show an aspect of the relations between the two countries - an exploration into the meaning of imagery on flags, aiming to create interrelated associations through questioning, reassessing, fluidizing and re-mixing of diverse national iconography.
Flag Metamorphoses lays stress on the relations between nations as changing ones: Only in the permanent re-creation of values, symbols and ways of life, in mixing with others and differing from others, identities, cultures and societies stay alive. Each artist who creates a flag animation expresses such a relation in his/her own way. You too can contribute!

To find out how to participate (concept + call in 8 languages), to see Flash flag animations and the list of exhibitions and festivals, please visit: http://www.flag-metamorphoses.net
________________________

Myriam Thyes
Himmelgeister Str. 107 F
40225 Dusseldorf
Germany
Tel: +49-211-9053500
myriam@thyes.com
www.thyes.com

Video still from ‘Intervju med Saskia Holmkvist’ (2005) by Saskia Holmkvist.

Manon de Boer (Brussels, BE), Miriam Bäckström (Stockholm, SE), Kajsa Dahlberg (Malmö, SE and New York, US), Saskia Holmkvist (Stockholm, SE), Kristina Lee Podesva (Vancouver, CA), and Kerry Tribe (Berlin, GE and Los Angeles, US)

Curated by Johan Lundh

Opening reception Friday May 2, between 5 pm and 8 pm, Svarta Havet, Konstfack, (Stockholm SE)

Saturday May 3 and Sunday 4, between 3 pm and 5 pm, Svarta havet

Free admission

‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ features six performative film and video works which investigate notions of subjectivity and identity through strategic use of the camera. Ranging from experimental self-portraits to hands-on interviews, the artists explore how the moving image can be used both as a self-reflexive tool and a reciprocal form of representation. The artists draw upon the genealogy of video art, as an interdisciplinary medium ideal for examining narrative structures.

Manon De Boer’s ‘Sylvia Kristel — Paris’ (2003), elicits the intricate relationship between identity and memory through recollections of an actress looking back on her earlier career and life. In Miriam Bäckström’s ‘Rebecka’ (2004), the artist considers the ambiguous arena between reality and fiction in a staged interview with an actress. Kajsa Dahlberg’s ‘20 Min (Female Fist)’ (2005), investigates representation and identity through the eyes of a feministic activist. In ‘Intervju med Saskia Holmkvist’ (2005), Saskia Holmkvist focuses on the fabrication of the interview situation itself. Kristina Lee Podesva’s ‘Holiday’ (2007), problematizes the role of the artist and documentary form vis-a-vis themes of globalization, labor, and personal narrative. In ‘Double’ (2001) Kerry Tribe undermines the self-portrait as an artistic genre in a playful way.

The works are unified by a thoughtful concern for the philosophical and cultural possibilities of self-understanding and social interaction in a time when identity often is reduced to a product for consumption or an arbitrary sign. Ultimately, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ sheds light over the contingencies and confinements of self-reflexivity and dialogue in a globalizing, capitalistic, world.

For more info about the project and high-resolution press images, contact Johan Lundh at: iwillbeyourmirror@gmail.com

Konstfack
LM Ericssons väg 14
126 37 Hägersten
P: 08-450 41 00
F: 08-450 41 29
W: www.konstfack.se

VOLTA4

VOLTA4 – Basel
June 2nd- June 7th, 2008

http://www.voltashow.com

After the brilliant U.S. debut of the Basel show with VOLTA NY, the engines barely have time to cool as VOLTA gets revved up for its traditional stop in Switzerland in June. VOLTA4, the fourth edition of Basel’s cutting edge art fair, brings several positions in new and emerging art from 63 galleries around the world. The ULTRA BRAG facility at the Basel harbour is the place to be this June during the Basel Art Week.

VOLTA4, the 2008 edition, will take place once again at the ULTRA BRAG premises in the Basel Harbour. VOLTA4 is proud to continue its partnership with Sallfort AG, one of Basel’s most reputable asset management firms, and Helvetia Versicherungen, insurance leader in the European market, who will return to sponsor the VIP Lounge. This year the Sallfort/Helvetia VIP will further be furnished by London-based design studio Rabih Hage, who will equip the Lounge with furniture pieces by some of today’s most cutting-edge designers. Further adding the the atmosphere will be the large-scale installation by German artists Wolfgang Winter + Berthold Hoerbelt who will design a waterside pavilion for visitors to eat and relax whose central focus will be the artwork Mensa, a die-cut steel table, long enough to accommodate 120 guests.

As instituted in 2006, the VOLTA4 selection was made with the input of the Curatorial Board to guarantee an independence of choices. The members of the VOLTA4 Curatorial Board are Christoph Doswald, Art Critic; James Elaine, Curator, Hammer Projects; Francesco Manacorda, Curator, Barbican Gallery; Chus Martinez, Director, Frankfurter Kunstverein; and Jasper Sharp, Curator and Writer. The Curatorial Board – together with founding gallerists Kavi Gupta, Friedrich Loock and Uli Voges and VOLTA’s Executive Director Amanda Coulson—have invited following galleries to Basel
for 2008:

Alkatraz | Galerija | Ljubljana Slovenia
ASPN | Leipzig | Germany
Galerie Anne Barrault | Paris | France
Bendixen Contemporary Art | Copenhagen | Denmark
Bertrand & Gruner Galerie | Geneva | Switzerland
Josée Bienvenu | New York | USA
Bischoff/Weiss | London | U.K.
Spencer Brownstone Gallery | New York | USA
Cardenas Bellanger | Paris | France
Cohan and Leslie | New York | USA
Galerie Conrads | Düsseldorf | Germany
COSAR HMT | Düsseldorf | Germany
Dogenhaus | Leipzig | Germany
Domobaal | London | U.K.
galerie frank elbaz | Paris | France
Eleven Rivington | New York | USA
Derek Eller | New York | USA
f a projects| London | U.K.
FEINKOST | Berlin | Germany
Vera Gliem Gallery | Cologne | Germany
Green on Red | Dublin | Ireland
Christopher Grimes Gallery | Santa Monica | USA
Andreas Grimm Gallery | Munich/New York | Germany/USA
Galería Enrique Guerrero | Mexico | Mexico
H’art Gallery | Bucharest | Romania
Galerie Michael Janssen | Berlin/Cologne | Germany
Kavi Gupta | Chicago/Leipzig | USA/Germany
galerieKleindienst | Leipzig | Germany
Galeria Leme | Sao Paulo | Brazil
Grace Li Gallery | Zurich | Switzerland
Galerie Loevenbruck | Paris | France
Magnan Projects | New York | USA
Maisterravalbuena | Madrid | Spain
Taro Nasu | Tokyo | Japan
Newman Popiashvili | New York | USA
Helene Nyborg Contemporary | Copenhagen | Denmark
One in the Other | London | U.K.
Galerie Birgit Ostermeier | Berlin | Germany
PIEROGI | New York/Leipzig | USA/Germany
Alexandre Pollazzon Ltd | London | U.K.
Prometeogallery | Milan | Italy
Sandroni Rey | Los Angeles | USA
Riflemaker | London | U.K.
David Risley Gallery | London | U.K.
Roebling Hall | New York | USA
Galeria Nara Roesler | Sao Paulo | Brazil
ROKEBY | London | U.K.
Galerie Gabriel Rolt | Amsterdam | The Netherlands
Rotwand | Zurich | Switzerland
Samson Projects | Boston | USA
Alon Segev Gallery | Tel-Aviv | Israel
Seventeen | London | U.K.
Silverman Gallery | San Francisco | USA
Galerija Skuc | Ljubljana | Slovenia
Steinle Contemporary | Munich | Germany
Michael Stevenson Gallery | Cape Town | South Africa
Jiri Svestka | Prague | Czech Republic
Tache-Lévy Gallery | Brussels | Belgium
Travesía Cuatro | Madrid | Spain
V1 Gallery | Copenhagen | Denmark
galerie nadjaVilenne | Liège | Belgium
Voges + Partner Galerie | Frankfurt | Germany
Wohnmaschine | Berlin | Germany
ZieherSmith | New York | USA

VOLTA4 will open doors on Monday, June 2nd. The Professional and Press Preview will take place from 2 to 4 pm. Regular Opening Hours: Tuesday June 3rd to Saturday June 7th from noon to 8 pm.

VOLTA4 Press Contacts:
Amanda Coulson
Executive Director
Creixell Espilla-Gilart
Project Manager & PR
press@voltashow.com