Artipedia - Arts News

Württembergischer
Kunstverein
Stuttgart

On Difference #3. Politics of Space
On the Expropriation and Re-appropriation
of Social, Political, and Cultural Spaces of Action

Publication
Ed.: Iris Dressler, Hans D. Christ

http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/publications

With texts by: Nancy Adajania, Daniel García Andújar, Judit Angel, Álvaro de los Ángeles, artesvisuais-politicas, Ricardo Basbaum, Helmut Batista, Hans D. Christ, Galia Dimitrova, Iris Dessler, Alenka Gregorić, Ciprian Mureșan, Ligia Nobre / Cécile Zoonens, Zoran Pantelić / Kristian Lukić, Dan Perjovschi, Christine Peters, Raqs Media Collective, Valentìn Roma, Lucien Samaha, Hedwig Saxenhuber/ Georg Schöllhammer, Nathalie Boseul Shin, Kristine Stiles, Nasrim Tabatabai / Babak Afrassiabi, Ștefan Tiron / Vlad Nancă, Joseba Zulaika.

656 pages, German/English
ISBN: 3-930693-29-1

Further information and order at:
http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/publications
wick@wkv-stuttgart.de
Tel: +49 (0)711 – 22 33 716

The publication “On Difference #3: Politics of Space” is the third and final part of the “On Difference” project initiated by the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart.

In two exhibitions and various series of events (2005–2006), the project looked into the question as to how and whether the relevance of local realities can be brought into play within global conditions – of politics, society, culture and the economy. Moreover, the project was driven by an interest in reflecting on, presenting and practising collaborative forms of art and knowledge production.

The two exhibitions were conceived by two different groups of curators: among them artists and curators from Europe, Asia, North and South America, whose everyday practice is connected with creating critical action spaces: be it in the form of exhibitions, workshops, archives, magazines or Web forums. They were invited to develop and design an exhibition section based on their own very different production contexts. The result was two extremely heterogeneous and many-voiced exhibition situations involving more than one hundred artists, curators, theorists, architects, urbanists, activists, etc.

The fields of conflict examined in “On Difference” essentially revolved around urban developments, processes of social transformation, the structures of inclusion and exclusion in the art industry, and the corporatisation of culture. These rather general fields of conflict were negotiated against the foil of specific local situations: for example with regard to the “House of the People” in Bucharest, the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, the island and free trade zone of Kish in the Persian Gulf, or the Guggenheim museum in Rio de Janeiro that was not built.

The more than 650-page publication “On Difference #3” is both a documentation of the project and a multifaceted collection of material on the expropriation and re-appropriation of social, political and cultural action spaces. Without claiming to be complete, it presents a compact, heterogeneous array of critical artistic practices and their widely ramified production conditions, as were created particularly in “non-Western” contexts.

In addition to the numerous texts and pictures, directly connected to the two exhibitions, the publication contains a series of contributions that run through the documentation as discursive passages.

An extensive index, finally, collates information on all actors and action spaces involved in the project.

With exhibition contributions by: Nancy Adajania, AGITPROP, Tata Amaral, Daniel García Andújar, APSOLUTNO, Arab Image Foundation, artesvisuais_políticas, Negar Azimi, Lara Baladi, Pablo Leon de la Barra, Yto Barrada, Sándor Bartha, Ricardo Basbaum, Solomon Benjamin, Balázs Beöthy, Big Hope, Mirela Brezoi, Broadsheet Collective, Capacete Entretenimentos, Center for Art Analysis, Eduard Constantin, Ştefan Constantinescu, Curator’s Association Budapest, Cybermohalla Ensemble, Angela Detanico/Rafael Laín, Petko Dourmana/Kyd Campbell, Duo van der Mixt, George Dupin, Eastwood, E((O GROUP Fouad Elkoury, e-valencia, Ex-Amics de l’IVAM, EXO experimental.org, Harun Farocki/Andrei Ujica, Luka Frelih, Javor Gardev, Ioan Godeanu, Ion Grigorescu, IRWIN, Joon Ho Jeon, Vladan Joler, Ruchir Joshi, Sanjay Kak, Šejla Kamerić, Tamás Tibor Kaszás/Viktor Kotun, Bahman Kiarostami, Tae Jung Kim, Riyas Komu, Kuda.org, Cezar Lăzărescu, Yong Baek Lee, Ligyung, Kristian Lucić, Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, Mohammad-Hassan Malekpour/Gelayol Mosaed, Manamana, Middle Corea, Nita Mocanu, Mono magazine, Hyungmin Moon, Ivan Moudov, Ciprian Mureşan, Vlad Nancă, Ioana Nemeş, Vladimir Nikolić, Ligia Nobre, Suntag Noh, Pages, Satyajit Pande, Zoran Pantelić, Dan Perjovschi, Lia Perjovschi, Maani Petgar, Cristian Pogăcean, Marjetica Potrć, Tobias Putrih, Walid Raad, Alireza Rasoulinejad, Jae Oon Rho, Cătălin Rulea, Salvem El Cabanyal, Lucien Samaha, Sarai Media Lab, Ravikant Sharma/ Prabhat Kumar Jha, Mihai Stănescu, Mladen Stilinović, Technologies To The People, Milica Tomić, Gabriela Vanga/ Mircea Cantor, Evgeni Vasilev, X-TENDO, Yangachi, Akram Zaatari, Želimir Žilnik, ZONA FRANCA.

Dia Art Foundation

DIA ANNOUNCES NEW
WEB-BASED PROJECT BY
ARTIST BARBARA BLOOM

Latest in Dia’s series of Artists’ Projects for the web launches June 26, 2008

http://www.diaart.org/bloom

Dia Art Foundation announces the launch of Half Full – Half Empty, a web-based project by artist Barbara Bloom, the latest in Dia’s ongoing series of online artworks. The project can be seen beginning June 26 at http://www.diaart.org/bloom . An opening reception will be held at Dia on Thursday, June 26, 2008, from 6 to 8 pm on the fifth floor at 535 West 22nd Street, New
York City.

Reminiscent of several of Bloom’s favorite forms–still life painting, the radio play, and the Nouveau Roman of the 1950’s—Half Full – Half Empty is a still life that does not remain still: a close up of a table, ordinary yet referring to still life painting. A book, keys, ball, paper, grapes, wine glasses, a gift, and a candle are also visible. These almost still objects have movement in time without any visible agency. On an accompanying soundtrack a dialogue between a male and a female voice is encountered in the form of three parallel running versions of a conversation: Present (two adults,) Future (two old people,) or Past (two children).

In the absence of any visible human hand, the objects on the table that would typically serve as clues or signifiers, as illustrators of the narrative, take on a more central role as conveyors of meaning. The protagonists of the work are the grapes that disappear, the teacup that fills and spills, the candle that lights and later blows out, the glasses that reflect the room where the conversation takes place. The common subjects for what is visible and audible are memory and the passage of time.

As in much of Bloom’s work, absence and inference play a central role. She has come to refer to her works as Visual Innuendo, and has often quoted a saying that goes: “A drink before, and a cigarette after, are the three best things in life.”

Barbara Bloom was born in Los Angeles in 1951; she studied at Bennington College, and with John Baldessari at the California Institute of the Arts. For many years she lived and worked in Amsterdam and Berlin before returning to the United States in the mid 1990s. She has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the MAK, Vienna; the Serpentine Gallery, London and other international venues, including the Venice Biennale (1988) where she received the Due Mille Award. She is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Getty Research Institute.

The Collections of Barbara Bloom, a major survey of her work, was presented in early 2008 at the International Center of Photography in New York City, and will travel in late summer to the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Berlin. A book of the same title has been published by Steidl Verlag, She currently lives and works in New York City.

Artists’ Projects for the Web
Dia initiated a series of web-based works in early 1995, becoming one of the first arts organizations to foster the use of the world wide web as an artistic and conceptual medium. Dia’s collection of web projects currently numbers twenty-eight. Previous projects include Rosa Barba’s Vertiginous Mapping, Ezra Johnson’s Wrestling with the Blob Beast (2008); Wilfredo Prieto’s A Moment of Silence (2007); Maja Bajevic’s I Wish I was Born in a Hollywood Movie (2006); Dorothy Cross’s Foxglove: digitalis purpurea (2005); Ana Torfs’ Approximations/Contradictions (2004); Allen Ruppersberg’s The New Five Foot Shelf (2004); Glenn Ligon’s Annotations (2003); Shimabuku’s Moon Rabbit (2001); Stephen Vitiello’s Tetrasomia (2000); Diller + Scofidio’s Refresh (1998); and Komar and Melamid’s The Most Wanted Paintings (1995), among others. All may be visited at Dia’s website, http://www.diaart.org

Funding
Funding for this project has been provided the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Beverages for the launch event compliments Brooklyn Brewery.

Dia Art Foundation
A nonprofit institution founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation is internationally renowned for initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects. Dia presents public programs and its permanent collection of works from the 1960s through the present at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, in New York’s Hudson Valley. In the fall of 2007 Dia initiated a partnership with The Hispanic Society of America in which Dia presents commissions and projects by contemporary artists in the Hispanic Society’s galleries. Dia is actively engaged in a search for a permanent home for its New York City initiatives. Additionally, Dia maintains long-term, site-specific projects in the western United States, in New York City, and in Bridgehampton on Long Island. For additional public information, visit http://www.diaart.org

* * *
For additional information or materials please contact
Ashley Tickle, Dia Art Foundation, New York City, 212.293.5518 or atickle@diaart.org

Arnolfini

Gunilla Klingberg, Brand New View, 2008

Far West
Saturday 28 June - Sunday 31 Aug 2008

Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay
Bristol
BS1 4QA UK
T +44(0) 117 917 2300/ 01
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk
http://www.farwest.cn

Cao Fei, Liu Ding, Pierre Huyghe & Philippe Parreno, Xu Bing, Yoko Ono, Seven Samurai, David Blandy, SOI Project, Michael Lin, Surasi Kusolwong, Maverick Press, Support Structure, Unmask Group, Gunilla Klingberg, Janek Simon and Plan 9.

Exhibition design in collaboration with Miessen & Ploughfields Architects

Far West is a unique shopping experience that transforms Arnolfini from an arts venue into a ‘concept store’, thematizing the consumer and cultural relationships produced by the shifting of the economic centre of the world towards the East. The store includes an ambitious programme of participation projects, off-site presentations, discussion forums, live art and film.

Part concept store, part Chinese-style tourist ‘museum’, part forum for consumer reflection, Far West provides customers with the experience of interacting with, producing and then purchasing, a selection of specially branded and exclusive products designed by artists. These items are made available within a theatrical setting designed in collaboration with Miessen & Ploughfields Architects, Michael Lin and Gunilla Klingberg.

The exclusive range of items on offer create real possibilities for art to play a fulfilling role within the customer’s individual lifestyle. Products include SOI Project’s Fruits project, inviting customers to create paper fruit by hand, in exchange for the real thing. Surasi Kusolwong offers a wide range of useful cheap plastic items as part of his One Pound Market, while the Unmask Group have designed a special toy prototype – a humanoid doll – which can be altered to customers preferred form. Yoko Ono helps customer’s to recycle broken ceramics to create new artefacts, and so contribute to ‘mending peace for the world’.

Liu Ding has created a limited number of unfinished landscape paintings for people to acquire and finish at home as a special extension of his renowned Products project. Seven Samurai offer a whole range of items created through their artist-led collaboration with rural communities in Japan, China and the UK. There is an interactive video jukebox of works by David Blandy, as well as a specially commissioned manga-style comic, while Support Structure provide the perfect CD soundtrack for the museum and gallery experience.

Artists are at the heart of the Far West ethos, the logo is even designed by the artist Xu Bing. Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno’s neon icon of AnnLee, the manga character, will give an understanding of the true potential of collaboration and cultural exchange. In the second floor project space, resident artist Janek Simon will present a recent work especially for the launch of Far West.

In a parallel presentation, a virtual metropolis, RMB City, has been constructed by Cao Fei within the online world of Second Life, made up of buildings from the ‘new China’, where a Far West franchise
will open.

Off-site, a Far West Metro store will open at The Mall Bristol, in the Broadmead shopping centre, incorporating paper Joss items, imported by Maverick Press.

Far West is the first in the Concept Store series of projects at Arnolfini, exploring the realms of marketing, design and experience economy.

Seminar
A message from our Chairman
Sat 26 Jul 11.30am - 4.00pm
In the spirit of transparency, you are invited to attend the board meeting for the Far West trading company. Items on the agenda will include an assessment of the launch of the flagship Concept Store at Arnolfini and future development of a network of franchise stores, reports on the current conditions of labour and production, and commentary on international patterns of development in culture and commerce. Speakers include Brian Holmes, Gao Shiming, and Shumon Basar.

Far West is curated by Nav Haq, Exhibitions Curator, and Tom Trevor, Director of Arnolfini. Far West is funded by Arts Council England - Grants for The Arts, China Now and The British Council - Connections Through Culture. Presented in partnership with A Foundation, Liverpool, and Turner
Contemporary, Margate.

Arnolfini is open Tues - Sun, 10am-6pm. Admission free.

Galerie im Taxispalais

Geta Brătescu, No to Violence, 1974 
Courtesy Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, photo: Mihai Brătescu.
Ana Lupas, Humid Installation, 1970 
Courtesy Ana Lupas

Geta Brătescu
Ana Lupas
28 June - 24 August 2008

Opening: Friday, 27 June 2008, 7 pm

Curated by: Alina Şerban in collaboration with Silvia Eiblmayr

Galerie im Taxispalais
Maria-Theresien-Str. 45
A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
T +43 512 508 3171
taxis.galerie@tirol.gv.at
http://www.galerieimtaxispalais.at

Geta Brătescu is regarded as one of the most remarkable personalities of Romanian post-war avant-garde art. The exhibition at Galerie im Taxispalais Innsbruck represents the first extensive international presentation of her performances, films, drawings and objects that she created in Bucharest during the mid-seventies. Brătescu’s oeuvre results from a complex act of self-examination, which aims to objectify body and things, in a movement from the subjective and real towards a state of the objective and
the abstraction.

In the 1970s, Geta Brătescu developed an intermedia concept for space-specific, performative works in which she investigated the relation between physiognomy, the body and the surrounding space. Her first recorded performance entitled “The Studio” (1978, camera: Ion Grigorescu) functions as a self-representational story exploring and processing the artist’s mental and physical environment. For Brătescu her studio is the space to redefine the Self, the space where the artist confesses freely her pleasure in playfulness; it is a stage where ideas come alive and where the performed gestures disclose alternative scripts to the day-to-day condition.

“Towards White” (1975), “Self-Portrait, Towards White” (1975) and “From Black to White” (1976) can be perceived as the sequences of a theatrical play, where the acting role, assumed by the artist, brings into discussion questions of self-identity and its cancellation and of the dematerialization of the object and the body in space.

In the film “Hands” (1977, camera: Ion Grigorescu), subtitled “For the eye, the hand of my body reconstitutes my portrait”, the actors are the artist’s hands. Through a cinematic succession of suggestive gestural movements, the hands are seen as selecting, playing with small objects and then drawing their linear profile on the table, providing an alternative mode of reconstructing the artist’s portrait / identity.

Geta Brătescu was born in Ploiesti in 1926. She lives and works in Bukarest.

An exhibition catalogue is being published.

Ana Lupas figures among the most important international artists who, through a sophisticated process of creation, have continually expanded the understandings of Conceptual Art. Author of objects, textiles, environments, happenings, installations, performances, Ana Lupas has developed, starting from the mid-sixties, a complex nest of art interventions which have systematically aimed at dismantling the traditional structure of the artwork. Aspiring at a re-connection with the natural, at a rehabilitation of a virtual universal harmony, her performative installations and objects acquire utopian feature and presence.

The exhibition at Galerie im Taxispalais is focusing on two extensive outdoor installations produced during the mid-sixties and beginning of the seventies. 1970 Ana Lupas created the first large “Humid Installation” in Mârgău village, Transylvania which was realized with the help of 100 inhabitants of the village. Dozens of lines hung with wet, white linen were drawn over the whole of a hill, modulating the space, aiming to an infinite dimension and to a global natural continuation.

Already in 1964 Lupas created the work “Solemn Process”, minimalist objects manufactured of straw in various dimensions: steles, wreaths and circles which were installed and arranged outdoors and inside the village’s houses. Involving the people in the production of these objects, “Solemn Process” embodies a traditional ritual whose solemnity generates not only the production of formal structures beautiful in their representation which melt within the rural surroundings, but also a new reconsideration of the conditions of creation of the art object.

In her later process-related steps Lupas transformed some of her early works by conveying them into new materials. For example, she created linen-formed sheets out of bitumen-saturated textile, paper or aluminum; for her straw objects she produced closed, sculptural plate repositories which she entitled “cans”. Lupas shows a space-filling installation of these sculptures, whose interior is not revealed anymore, together with two large tableaus of images from 1964. Further on show is an indoor version of
“Humid Installation”.

Ana Lupas was born in Cluj in 1940. She lives and works in Cluj.

An exhibition catalogue is being published.

Opening times
Tues-Sun 11 am - 6 pm, Thurs 11 am - 8 pm

Information
Karin Jaschke, Press and Publicity, karin.jaschke@tirol.gv.at
Silvia Eiblmayr, Director

Thanks to
Promocult – Project supported by Ministry of Culture and Cults, Romania
Romanian Cultural Institute, Vienna
Centre for Visual Introspection, Bukarest