Artipedia - Arts News

Galleria Gottardo

Reliquary Figure
Gabon, Kota, Africa
Wood and Brass
Height: 57 cm
Copyright: Paolo Manusardi, Milano

Ethnopassion
Peggy Guggenheim’s ethnic art collection
28 May - 23 August 2008

http://www.galleria-gottardo.org

From 28 May to 23 August, the Galleria Gottardo in Lugano will be holding the world’s first exhibition of the ethnic artworks collected by one of the twentieth century’s greatest art patrons: Peggy Guggenheim. The idea behind the exhibition is to display the “exotic objects” that embellished the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni during the collector’s lifetime. Since her death, they have been carefully restored and examined by scientific researchers. The restoration project was jointly launched by Galleria Gottardo, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Museum of Cultures in Lugano with the aim of rediscovering the specific meaning of each object in itself and in the context in which it was purchased.

Peggy Guggenheim’s passion for ethnic art dated back to the period of her tempestuous relationship with Max Ernst, who was a keen collector of this kind of art. When their relationship broke down in 1943, the artist left with all the works in his collection. After settling permanently in Venice and opening her collection to the general public, Peggy rekindled her interest in ethnic art, and, from 1959, she began to acquire works and exhibit them in her home, mixing them with contemporary artworks as she felt inclined. She developed a genuine passion, an involuntary, unconscious attraction for these objects, which was rooted in purely phenomenal interest: she never felt a great need to find out more about their meaning and value. She appreciated their decorative nature, using them as a means of enhancing her interior design and keeping up with the latest fashions.

Based on photographs from the period and the scarce information available on the subject, it is thought that her private collection consisted of around 50 artworks, mainly from Africa and Oceania; 35 of these remained in the estate of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, where they have been conserved in the museum’s art storage.

The exotic artefacts had always been considered valuable as part of Peggy’s collection, but with uncertainty about the intrinsic value of the items in question when examined outside the classical canons of conventionally understood art in the West.

One of the aims of the “Ethnopassion” exhibition is to transform this view, giving these objects not just the value that they have in the intellectual context that fanned Peggy Guggenheim’s interest for ethnic art, but also an anthropological value arising from the study of the objects and their links with various periods and cultures.

The mandate for the scientific analysis of the collection was given to the
Museum of Cultures of the City of Lugano, under the direction of Francesco Paolo Campione. Thanks to him and his staff, in-depth analysis, including the accurate restoration of the objects, the creation of frames and supports, philological research and scientific classification of the works, visitors to the Galleria Gottardo can admire these artworks in their new found splendour and let their imaginations wander in the magical atmosphere that reigned in Peggy Guggenheim’s palace on the banks of Venice’s Canal Grande, where art, style, passion and creativity met.

The exhibition is curated by Franco Rogantini, Director of Galleria Gottardo and by Philip Rylands, Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
Exhibition design and graphic design of the catalogue by Theredbox.

Press conference: Tuesday 27 May 2008 at 11 am
Vernissage: Tuesday 27 May 2008 from 6 pm to 8 pm
Exhibition dates: 28 May - 23 August 2008
Opening hours: Tuesday 2 pm - 5 pm; Wednesday - Saturday 11 am - 5 pm
Closed Sunday and Monday. Admission free
Catalogue: Ethnopassion – Peggy Guggenheim’s ethnic art collection.
(Italian/English) edited by Francesco Paolo Campione
published by Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta s.r.l.
(ISBN 978-88-202-1879-9)

Galleria Gottardo a cultural foundation of Banca del Gottardo has been organising exhibitions since 1989, with the collaboration of museums, cultural institutions and collectors. In over 15 years of quality exhibitions it has explored human activities pointing at the innumerable facets of art and photography, of ethnography and archaeology, of design and peculiar objects that throughout the years have become the fount of interesting collections and publications. Bearing in mind the geo-linguistic position of our region, the Galleria Gottardo sets itself as a meeting point, a crossing and exchange point between Northern and Southern cultures. Its publishing activity has attained great importance within the framework of its production especially as far as texts and page proof are concerned and the quality of its catalogues. The Galleria Gottardo’s strong point is its availability to dialogue which allows it to find important partners for the realisation of new projects and st
art long-lasting collaborations.

Information:

Galleria Gottardo
Viale Stefano Franscini 12
6901 Lugano, Switzerland
Tel. +41 91 808 1988
Fax +41 91 808 2447
galleria@gottardo.com
http://www.galleria-gottardo.org

Uessearte
Via Natta 22
I - 22100 Como
Tel. +39 031 269 393
Fax +39 031 267 265
uessearte@tin.it

Horsecross

Vuk Cosic
Still from Kong Kong ASCII, 2008.
22-channel video installation.
Courtesy the artist and Horsecross

Horsecross presents

PRIMARY INGREDIENTS
curated by Iliyana Nedkova
21 May - 31 August 2008

Threshold artspace
Horsecross, Mill Street
Perth, PH1 5HZ, UK

http://www.horsecross.co.uk

This summer, Horsecross presents Primary Ingredients, a major new exhibition at Threshold artspace which premieres five new commissions by Vuk Cosic, Alec Finlay, Clive Gillman, Katja Loher and Valentin Stefanoff showing alongside works by Perry Bard and Krassimir Terziev in the context of twelve works drawn from the Horsecross collection. Featured are sixteen artists from nine countries who employ text – anything from letters and symbols, poems and stories to books and films – as primary ingredients in their visual grammar. Their works allow us to go beyond the omnipresent debate whether text gives artists the opportunity to be more direct than they usually are with images. A fresh opportunity to test our assumptions that words have cognitive primacy in the brain of the viewer.

Artists from the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art featured include Claude Closky, Lei Cox, Dan Perjovschi, Janek Schaefer, Thomson & Craighead and Mare Tralla.

King Kong ASCII Vuk Cosic (Born 1966 in Belgrade. Lives and works in Ljubljana)
A sample of the artist’s signature retro-futuristic ASCII aesthetics featuring the archetype of the giant ape monster. Cosic runs visual havoc by mastering a character encoding paradigm based on the English alphabet but applied to a popular culture icon.

Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. Leading up to Cosic’s first major solo exhibition in a public institution in Scotland at Threshold artspace in 2009.

Cantus Alec Finlay (Born 1966 in Aberdeen. Lives and works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
An endless circle poem inspired by the falling rain and Arvo Pärt’s Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten. Finlay interfuses poetry, music and nature in a video loop reminiscent of John Cage’s experience of listening to the sounds of the woodland while playing records in his cabin at Stony Point.

Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first major site-specific commission for Threshold artspace.

22 Letters Clive Gillman (Born 1965 in Liverpool. Lives and works in Dundee)
Taking its cue from the 22 video channels of the Threshold Wave, each screen becomes host to a word from an artist’s poem about the bond of trust that exists between artist and audience.

Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first site-specific work created for Threshold artspace.

Video Optica Katja Loher (Born 1979 in Zurich. Lives and works in New York)
A trilogy of artist’s films where a giant weather balloon meets motion choreography meets Pablo Neruda. Some of the 74 poems and 316 playful questions about life, death, nature and rebirth, which Neruda wrote in the last year of his life, come alive. If the color black runs out where will the stars live?

Commissioned as part of Players – an ongoing strand in the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art exploring the relationship of contemporary art and gaming culture. Showing at Threshold Stage area. This is the artist’s first exhibition in the UK.

How to Read Between the Lines, or Method for Self-Education Valentin Stefanoff
(Born 1959 in Sofia. Lives and works in Paris)
The mystery and power of reading are captured in a series of single, continuous shots gliding along the gap between lines of newsprint in French, English and Bulgarian. The rhythm of text and image is syncopated by a specially composed soundtrack by Dan Senn.

Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Scotland.

Man With A Movie Camera. The Global Remake Perry Bard (Born 1944 in Quebec. Lives and works in New York)
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 classic film Man With A Movie Camera enters the twenty first century as a database cinema. Built upon the fundamental constituents of a scene index and shot list, Bard’s work prompts a participatory global remake where anyone can upload their footage to become part of a
worldwide montage.

Exhibited as part of an ongoing strand in the Threshold artspace programme exploring the relationship of live Internet transmissions and contemporary art. This is the first presentation of Bard’s evolving project in Scotland, initially commissioned by The Bigger Picture, Manchester.

The Return of the Beast 1933-2005 Krassimir Terziev (Born 1969 in Dobrich. Lives and works
in Sofia)
Part of the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the basic elements of cinematic grammar, this work superimposes subtitles of the three film versions of King Kong (1933, 1976 and 2005) while questioning our perceptions of time and narrative, the remake and the voiceless protagonist, our collective imagination and memory.

Exhibited as part of an ongoing strand of single-channel works showing at the Threshold Flush areas on eight flat screens. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Scotland.

Primary Ingredients produced by Horsecross for Threshold artspace in partnership with 55degrees and Perthshire Visual Arts Forum.

New commissions supported by the Scottish Arts Council.

Accompanied by new issues of Read More – Horsecross journal of critical writing ISSN 1755-0866 (Online). Specially designed, each issue features a newly commissioned essay about a selected work from the collection.

Launched in September 2005, Threshold artspace is about positioning Perth and Scotland within the contemporary art world at large through commissioning, exhibiting, publishing and collecting.

Horsecross is a new agency delivering cultural activities at Threshold artspace, Perth Concert Hall and Perth Theatre. Threshold artspace and Perth Concert Hall sit on the site of the original Horsecross – Perth’s 17th century horse market. The name is synonymous with bustling regeneration activity in the heart of the city.

For further details please contact Iliyana Nedkova, Horsecross Creative Director (New Media Art) tel: +44 (0)1738 477743 e-mail: inedkova@horsecross.co.uk or iliyana@arcprojects.org

The Showroom

Sebastian Buerkner
Emotion Machine
[co-commission with Animate Projects]
14 May - 22 June 2008

Opening
Tuesday 13 May 19.00 - 21.00 hrs

First Thursdays Late Night Opening
5 June until 20.30 hrs

http://www.theshowroom.org

The Showroom is delighted to announce that it is working with Animate Projects on a co-commission of new animation works by Sebastian Buerkner. The resulting show Emotion Machine will be presented at The Showroom through May and June this year.

Buerkner is one of the most innovative artists working with animation today. His sophisticated visual language, elaborately drawn in Flash, is preoccupied with the creation of parallel or fantasy worlds that often defy logic and challenge our understanding of space and time. Buerkner’s layered and fragmentary imagery seems to suggest incomplete memories, or provide tantalising glimpses into the artist’s subconscious through the perspective of his films’ subjects. The effect is a dizzying sense of disorientation, often augmented by Buerkner’s use of split screen or multiple projections which, combined with his use of repetition and almost stroboscopic editing, mean that the viewer is left trying to grasp or piece together an elusive narrative thread.

His work for The Showroom and Animate Projects will comprise a series of newly commissioned monitor-based works and a large-scale projection. These works will attempt an analytical investigation into the presentation of emotional states using animation – Buerkner will draw from his visual lexicon to create associations between particular emotions and values such as speed, weight, colour, form and sharpness. Through the process of editing together rapidly changing, rich and complex imagery, Buerkner’s aim is to disrupt the viewer’s ability to read and process the images presented thereby unlocking the door into their own subconscious.

Sebastian Buerkner has made projects for Kohlenhof Kunstverein Nurnberg, Whitechapel Project Space, London and LUX at Lounge Gallery, London. He has also participated in group shows and screenings at Site Gallery, Sheffield, Tate Liverpool, Barbican, London and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. His film Purple Grey (2006) was broadcast as part of AnimateTV on Channel 4. Sebastian Buerkner currently lives and works in London.

For further information please contact Natasha Tebbs at The Showroom ( 020 8983 4115, natasha@theshowroom.org ) or Emma Pettit at Margaret London ( 07852 196539, emma@margaretlondon.com , http://www.margaretlondon.com ). For Animate Projects visit http://www.animateprojects.org

The Showroom is financially assisted by Arts Council England, London Office, Moose Foundation for the Arts and the many members of the gallery’s Friends Scheme.

The Showroom
44 Bonner Road
London E2 9JS
T. +44 (0)20 8983 4115
F. +44 (0)20 8981 4112
Wednesday - Sunday 13.00 - 18.00 hrs
tellmemore@theshowroom.org
http://www.theshowroom.org