Artipedia - Arts News

Star Trails over Mono Lake by David Muench

Boundless Vision is a unique look at our natural world through the eyes of six accomplished photographers. Although each artist differs in composition, technique, and style they are all bound by the same vision, to promote nature conservation and education through photographing stunning images of natural environments from around the world. Top environmental photographers Larry Ulrich, Jim Stimson, David Muench, Marc Muench, Thomas Mangelsen, and Frans Lanting will be on exhibit through September 14th. Photographer Jack Dykinga will join the exhibit in August. Proceeds from sales will be donated to the Friends of Ballona Wetlands

G2 Gallery
1503 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
www.theg2gallery.com

Opening Reception
June 6, 2008
6:00 - 9:00pm

FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN

AURÉLIEN FROMENT
“Théâtre de poche”, 2007
Video Still, Video HD
Courtesy STORE and the artist

THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION –
ART AND TACTICAL MAGIC
June 7 - September 7, 2008

Opening: June 6, 2008, 7 pm

FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN
Steinernes Haus am Römerberg,
Markt 44, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
phone: +49.69.219314–0
fax: +49.69.219314–11
post@fkv.de
http://www.fkv.de

The group exhibition ‘The Great Transformation’ presents works by a group of international artists who are interested in magic as a semiotic exercise. The show sets out to document a new interest that contemporary art production has taken in magic and the occult. Magic is presented here as a ‘tactical’ subject that can help us to understand the role of the artist and that of the viewer as a participant in the production and mediation of knowledge.

Beside works of well-known artists such as Allen Ruppersberg and Mike Kelley, ‘The Great Transformation’ presents numerous works of younger artists, who will develop new works for this exhibition. The artists articulate how magic can be employed as a methodology with a critical potential to challenge our views on society and notions of communication. Through a subject like magic, we gain a new perspective into the organization of social space, into the existence of grey zones between the rational and the irrational. In search of new ways of seeing and new channels for communication and cultural action, contemporary art production is conscious of the present ideological difficulties that deal with magic or the occult.

The Berkeley-based art collective ‘Center for Tactical Magic’ (CTM), founded by Aaron Gach, for example, aims to activate energies towards “positive social transformation” with the help of community-based projects and workshops in the public sphere. The direct involvement of the audience plays a significant role for this group of activists. Using practical aspects of ‘tactical magic’ as a fusion of different forces, CTM actively addresses individual, collective and transnational communities.

The French artist Aurélien Froment investigates disparate personal portraits and refers to aspects of magic and analyses special professional skills of handling images. Froment’s film Théâtre de poche, which was produced in November 2007 is linked to a comprehensive book project. In the film a magician introduces a series of card tricks and pictures, which seem to hover in a black environment. In the same way in which the magician is shifting his photos, cards and pictures above an invisible area, he and his surrounding become displaced on an imaginary axis in the film.

The works featuring in ‘The Great Transformation’ confront the spectator less with the visible but rather with the sensual and intuitive. The exhibition thus establishes a narrative of various possibilities for
cultural analysis.

‘The Great Transformation - Art and Tactical Magic’ features works by Jonathan Allen, Marcel Breuer, Center for Tactical Magic, Erich Consemüller, Roberto Cuoghi, Claire Fontaine, Aurélien Froment, Mike Kelley, Joachim Koester, Maria Loboda, Goshka Macuga, Michele di Menna, Eduardo Navarro, Olivia Plender, ride.1, Allen Ruppersberg, Kerstin Stoll, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan, Banks Violette and Adrian Williams.

The exhibition has been produced in collaboration with MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, where it will be on view from September 19, 2008 to January 11, 2009.

SPONSORS: ‘The Great Transformation’ was made possible by the support of the American Center Foundation and by the Hessische Kulturstiftung. Partners of the exhibition are BDAP - bureau des arts plastiques, CULTURESFRANCE, Ambassade de France en République Fédérale d’Allemagne and The Danish Arts Foundation.

CATALOGUE: A catalogue with contributions by Lars Bang Larsen, Simon During and Chus Martínez will be published in German and English on the occasion of the exhibition.

VENUE: MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo (19 September 2008 - 11 January 2009).

CURATED BY: Chus Martínez (Director Frankfurter Kunstverein)
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday–Sunday, 11 am–7 pm
INFORMATION: http://www.fkv.de
PRESS CONTACT: Julia Wittwer, Melanie Räuschel, phone: +49.69.219314–30/-40, fax: +49.69.219314–11, e-mail: presse@fkv.de, http://www.fkv.de
(texts and images for download under PRESS)

Pushwagner, Detail from “Klaxton”, 1990, acrylic on canvas, private collection (Oslo)

Opening on Saturday, June 14
June 15 – July 27, 2008

Yael Bartana, Gregg Bordowitz, Heman Chong, Ciprian Muresan, Deimantas Narkevicius, Redza Piyadasa, Pushwagner, Anatoli Osmolovsky, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor

Curated by Cosmin Costinas

The Attali Report (or the Report of the Commission for the Liberation of French Growth), commissioned by President Sarkozy, was published half a year ago, provoking a long series of discussions, mainly confined to the French public arena and mainly focused on the report’s concrete proposals, set to implement a neoliberal model for the French economy and society. But the Attali Report is a surprisingly interesting text, especially in its emphatic high brow literary introduction, being one of the first major instances where the neoliberal system is asserted beyond the rather discreet discourse of the “necessary reforms” through which it has insinuated itself since the eighties. It is now invested with the value of a concrete historical paradigm, of a describable era of revolutionary novelty, making the Attali Report a relevant document for the current attempts to imagine a dominant narrative representing and organizing the scope of our global system.

However, this exhibition is neither about the Attali Report nor is it a report itself. It does, nonetheless, try to unfold fictions and images that offer an insight on different narratives that have been overlapping for the past decades in our thinking of politics, at different times and in different localities. It refers to the disintegration of the communist utopia and some images, passions, stories and reactions that came along with this process; it visits the meeting of fiction and Utopian thinking on both sides of the Iron Curtain; it mentions some processes of exoticization and nation building; it acknowledges the formation of communities of struggle and resistance. But the works don’t passively present such narratives, they alter them and participate - albeit indirectly - to their fabrication. The exhibition works at this point of interaction between story telling and political imagination, a knot that encapsulates the political potential of art as an agent of represe!
ntation.
It brings together these occurrences and positions, sometimes contradictory, sometimes doubtful and sometimes passionately engaged and determined.
The reference to the Attali report on the state of France, a highly specific and local anchor, is used to take the discussion into a wider perspective, to mark the moments and the blockages - as well as some parallel areas of articulation - that have contributed to the current crisis in the imagination of a language and a scope for politics.

The exhibition is accompanied by interventions of writers and critics and by a film program that reiterates a few lines of the exhibition, using the cinematic language and its potentials.

KADIST ART FOUNDATION
19bis-21 rue des Trois Frères
F-75018
Phone/Fax : +33 1 42 51 83 49
contact@kadist.org
www.kadist.org

Opening hours
Thursday – Sunday, 2pm to 7pm

Accompanying program

Saturday, June 14, 11am
Interventions by Sven Luetticken and Simon Sheikh.

Saturday, June 14, 1pm
Screening of the film «Fast Trip, Long Drop» (1994) by Gregg Bordowitz, with an introduction by the artist.

Friday, June 20, 8pm
«Agitators» (1971) by Dezso Magyar.
«Family Nest» (1979) by Bela Tarr.

Sunday, June 22, 8pm
«I am Cuba» (1964) by Mikhail Kalatozov.

Tuesday, June 25, 8pm
«Out of the Present» (1995) by Andrei Ujica.

The film program and the talks will take place at the cinema Ciné 13, located in the vicinity of Kadist Art Foundation.

Ciné 13
1 ave Junot
F-75018 Paris
Phone : +33 1 42 51 13 79
http://www.cine13-theatre.com/

The exhibition is generously supported by Plan B, Cluj; OCA - Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo; Royal Danish Embassy in Paris; Lithuanian Institute, Vilnius.

Frieze Art Fair
16 - 19 October 2008

Regent’s Park, London

http://www.frieze.com

Tickets Now on Sale

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s Frieze Art Fair. Visit Frieze Art Fair, from 16 - 19 October, in London’s Regent Park and take part in the contemporary art event of the year. Focusing on the most interesting galleries today from Brazil to India and the USA to China, the fair introduces and showcases new and established artists.

In addition to being able to see and buy art by over 1000 of the world’s leading artists, visitors can experience Frieze Projects, the fair’s unique and critically acclaimed programme of talks and
artists’ commissions.

With 68,000 visits to the fair in 2007, advanced booking is highly recommended. Ticket numbers will be limited to ensure the best experience for all visitors.

Guarantee your ticket. Book before 1 October and benefit from discounts + fast
track entry.

See Tickets + 44 (0) 870 890 0514
http://www.seetickets.com/frieze

Booking fee applies

Opening Hours
Thursday 16 October - Saturday 18 October 11am - 7pm
Sunday 19 October 11am - 6pm

For further details on Frieze Art Fair visit http://www.frieze.com

maxine hicks

Huntington, N.Y.: Fotofoto gallery presents the results of its 4TH Annual National Photography Competition, “Your Best Shot”. The competition was open to all U.S. residents 18 years or older. Any photographic medium was accepted. The “Best in Show” winner will receive a $200.00 award. The juror was Constance Schwartz. She is the Director and Chief Curator of the Nassau County Museum of Art in Rosyln Harbor, New York.

FOTOFOTO GALLERY
372 New York Avenue, Huntington, New York 11743
www.fotofotogallery.com
631-549-0448

OPENING RECEPTION: June7, 2008 5-7P.M.
EXHIBITION DATES: June 6 – July 13, 2008
GALLER HOURS: Fri. 5 8 P.M.; Sat. 12-8 P.M.; Sun. 12-4 P.M.

Vancouver Art Gallery

Rebecca Belmore, Rising to the Occasion, 1987-1991
mixed materials
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Gift from the Junior Volunteer Committee, 1995

Rebecca Belmore
Rising to the Occasion
June 7 - October 5, 2008

Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6Z 2H7
tel: 604.662.4719/ fax: 604.682.1086

http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca

Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery from June 7 to October 5, 2008, will be the first large-scale survey of artwork by the renowned Canadian artist. Comprising 20 works, the exhibition includes key examples of Belmore’s practice from the past two decades, including a new sculptural installation specifically created for the exhibition and the North American premiere of the celebrated video installation Fountain, first presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Daina Augaitis, chief curator/associate director and Kathleen Ritter, assistant curator, the exhibition will be accompanied by the most comprehensive publication on Belmore’s work to date.

Rebecca Belmore’s art is known for dealing with difficult issues of trauma and violence, and has focused on the effects of colonization on Aboriginal people, specifically women. The exhibition draws connections between early performance work and later sculptures, photographs and videos, through recurring metaphors that are as provocative as they are poignant. The full breadth of her multi-disciplinary approach is presented, revealing a continued exploration of the politics of identity and representation through powerful images of the body, as well as performances that address history
and memory.

The earliest work in the exhibition, Rising to the Occasion, is a dress created by Belmore for a performance staged in response to an official visit by the Duke and Duchess of York to Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1987. The dress, worn by the artist to greet the officials, brilliantly combines clichés from British and Aboriginal cultures. The fine Victorian outfit fabricated with embroidered velvet and satin is affixed with a buckskin fringe, beadwork and two porcelain saucers, while the bustle, resembling a beaver hut made of sticks, is embedded with trinkets and trade objects. Belmore’s nimble use of the trappings from both Aboriginal and European cultures challenges the stereotypes of both, a tactic used throughout her work.

Fountain, first exhibited to great acclaim at the 51st Venice Biennale, is comprised of a video projected directly onto a curtain of water. In the video, the camera pans across an industrial beach to a pile of logs which erupt into flames. Belmore struggles against the waves of a choppy ocean to come ashore carrying a heavy bucket. As she makes her way across the beach she heaves the bucket of water toward the camera and it transforms into blood, drenching the entire field of view in red. The work is ever-changing—a looping narrative of the body, water and blood projected onto an unstable and ephemeral surface.

Storm, Belmore’s newest sculptural installation, was produced for the exhibition and emerged from an outdoor performance titled Making Always War, which took place at the University of British Columbia on March 13, 2008. Using nails, Belmore methodically hammered six military uniforms into a salvaged piece of timber. After completely covering it in camouflage, the timber was raised as a gesture alluding to military monuments as well as totem poles. The new sculptural work refers to the original performance, but also stands on its own as a reference to war, nature and our implication in both.

Rebecca Belmore was born in Upsala, Ontario, and is of Anishinabe decent. The artist has produced performances and installations nationally and internationally since 1987, including the solo touring exhibitions The Named and the Unnamed in 2002 and 33 Pieces in 2001. She was Canada’s official representative at the Venice Biennale in 2005, participated in the Sydney Biennial in 2006 and the Havana Biennial in 1991. Her installations have been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1995, Liaisons, Power Plant, Toronto and Houseguests, Art Gallery of Ontario in 2001. In 2004, Belmore received the VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris
Shadbolt Foundation.