Artipedia - Arts News

Patternity Frank Minnaërt AUSTRALIAN PAVILION

300 architectural sculptures will showcase Australia’s abundant architectural diversity at the Venice Architecture Biennale….

A re-imagined cubby house, a façade based on the filigree pattern of a moth’s wing, a ‘future shack’ made from a shipping container, a tattooed Aussie Rules football, a space science centre like the ‘spiralling arms of a birthing nebula’ and a luxury mixed use building based on a snowflake for Michael Schumacher in Abu Dhabi are just some of the architectural models destined for the Australian Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale.

180 architectural practices from across Australia have created the ‘architectural artefacts’ for the ‘Abundance’ exhibition.

The delicately wavering garden of architectural artefacts will fill the lower gallery of the Australian Pavilion. Three hundred interpretative models, on stands of yellow anodised aluminum, and ranging from abstract forms to architectural fragments, will showcase what Australian architects are currently doing, a field of thinking and building at this precise moment.

The architects were invited to create the interpretative models based on an existing project and responding to Venice Biennale director Aaron Betsky’s theme: ‘Out there: architecture beyond building’. These imagined futures will show the inventiveness, creativity and responsiveness of Australia’s architects.

In the upper gallery immersive projections of buildings will include both well-known icons and the hybrid and little known. This kaleidoscope of moving images featuring 80 significant structures, from colonial constructions to recently completed projects across the country, will trace the threads that connect the last 200 years with today’s practice.

The exhibition will highlight Australia’s architectural diversity and is located in the Philip Cox designed Australian Pavilion in Giardini, Venice.

Creative directors are Neil Durbach, Vince Frost, Wendy Lewin, Kerstin Thompson and Gary Warner.

Please have a look at some of our architectural sculptures on:
www.brettboardman.com/RAIA_VeniceBiennale2008

“The Reversalist: Collected North Texas, Probably 20th Century, Artists Unknown”, 9 ft x 10 x 1 ft, wood shavings-wood objects installation, Barthosa Nkurumeh, 2005

THE KUMASI SYMPOSIUM: Tapping Local Resources for Sustainable Education Through Art
Department of General Arts & Art Education, College of Arts and Social Sciences,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana
July 31-August 14, 2009

A call is made for contributions addressing one or more of the symposium strands and topics: Art Education Practice, Studio Practice, Curatorial/Museum/Community Arts Practice, Art History/Criticism, Arts Administration/Management/Marketing Practice, and Open Session. The symposium entails plenary sessions and support activities such as demonstrations/workshops, exhibitions, and site-specific tours of local national resources. Expression of interest and proposals for Plenary Sessions and Exhibitions/Practical Workshops will be reviewed until January 17, 2009. We expect about 200 participants from around the world. The working language of the conference will be English. Applications for individual paper presentation and participation will be reviewed until the space is filled. All abstracts, brief biographies, full papers and relevant others should be submitted electronically to africoae@gmail.com (and copy to: naopoku-asare.art@knust.edu.gh).

The symposium is organized as collaboration between African Community of Arts Educators (AfriCOAE) and KNUST’s Department of General Arts & Art Education. As a follow-up to AfriCOAE’s 2008 “Project Earth to Art: Tapping Local Natural Resources for Sustainable Art Education Development” at Accra. The two-week symposium (July 31-August 14, 2009) will deal with the issue of sustainability in the 21st century to enable visual arts education developments in Ghana and perhaps similar settings. Owing to the challenges of transition from the postcolonial stance and to many others, best practices and resourceful programs often fail to roll out nationwide and to be sustained. The following questions will therefore guide the dialogues: Is sustainability of art teaching and learning developments in the postcolonial African environment possible? Can the postcolonial Ghanaian environment and non-Western others today provide adapt resources for sustainable artistic practice? If so!
, how
can the resources best be tapped for education through art in Anglophone Ghana and other Modernist African settings?

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: Open to all. The event is designed to bring together Scholars, Educators, Curators, Practicing Artists, and interested others in Africa and the rest of the world for ideation and interchange on the topic.

VENUE: KNUST’s Faculty of Fine Art and The University Museum for exhibitions, workshops and plenary sessions, and The GUSS (International) House for Boarding and Lodging.

PROGRAMME: The focus is on tapping local resources for visual arts teaching and learning through cross-cultural collaborations and critical dialogues. Local resources include national human capital, natural resources, and man-made environment. Proceedings from the symposium will result to a publication. Accordingly, the symposium will open with workshops, followed by site-specific tours of Ghana, and closes with Panel Presentations. The University Shuttle will provide transportation. The final Banquet will require your national attire. A limited amount of space exists for commercial vendors’ displays/exhibits during the Conference; interested parties should contact the secretariat by e-mail: naopoku-asare.art@knust.edu.gh, bonoffeinyako@hotmail.com

Registration: Conference registration fee is US Dollar 366 for international participants, and GH Cedi 90 for our colleagues in Africa and volunteer participants. The fee includes: Transfers from Kumasi Airport, or Kokota International Airport at Accra to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology-KNUST hostel/hotel at Kumasi on July 29 & 30, 2009; participation in all scheduled symposium activities; entertainment and meals only as indicated on the programme.

Boarding and Lodging: Each participant will pay $450 that covers 15-day accommodation at Guess (International) House with two meals a day. Republic Hall will provide the menu. Guess House will serve as the primary accommodation; it is recommended for cost-cum-international appeal and greater group interaction. The above rate is for modest full board. Participants may make their reservations (room or full board) directly with other facilities, if interested in five-star accommodation. However, budget $300-600 for your out-of-pocket expenses depending on your lifestyle.

Excursion: During the symposium participants will visit several places in Ghana to be exposed to the diversity of local resources. You may choose to join the Southern site-specific or Northern route-specific tour groups. The cost for the Land Tour arrangement will depend on how many people sign up for it; US$380-$650 per person is an estimate. Your participation in the three-day site-specific tours special tour is rather option.

(The above estimate excludes international flights, visa, immunization/medical insurance, and other expenses according to your lifestyle.)

IMPORTANT DATES:
Deadline for abstract submission: 17th January 2009
Deadline for full paper (c. 3000 words) submission: 30th June 2009

MORE INFORMATION: Detailed information on registration fees, accommodation and other expenses related to the symposium will be sent to all participants well in advance of the conference. Additional information will also be on the project web site: http://afropoets.tripod.com/eta, the university web site: www.knust.edu.gh and elsewhere on the WWW space.

CONTACT PERSONS:
(1) Barthosa Nkurumeh, AfriCOAE General Secretary, Instructional Leadership & Academic Curriculum Dept, University of Oklahoma, P. O. Box 2742, Norman, OK 73070, USA. E-mail: nkurumeh@ou.edu
(2) Nana Afia Opoku-Asare, Head of Department, Department of General Arts & Art Education, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology-KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana. E-mail: naopoku-asare.art@knust.edu.gh, afia_asare@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 233 (0)20 816-8598/233 (0)51 634 83.

Megawords

Free performances,
rotating exhibitions, film screenings, workshops and other events by international artists
September 1 - 30, 2008

The Megawords storefront
project and exhibition
1125 North Cherry Street

http://www.megawordsmagazine.com

Megawords – the free Philadelphia-based magazine that collaborates with dozens of renowned and unknown artists and thinkers to cover the world through words and pictures—will leap off the page and into a month-long storefront exhibition during September 2008. For thirty days, Megawords will “come to life,” filling a physical space with the same omnivorous and democratic philosophy of open curating that drives the publication. The Megawords storefront project and exhibition will include a month-long period of intense activity including permanent and rotating installations, guest speakers, musical performances, workshops and film screenings. During this period of live creative activity, Megawords founders Anthony Smyrski and Daniel Murphy will also release two special-edition printed issues of Megawords that will draw direct inspiration from the storefront space, artists and audience. “Frequently so-called ‘pop-up’ installations like this one take their inspiration from the
world of advertising,” says Smyrski. “They put people in a fancy gallery space, overload the project with sponsors, and do everything possible to take artists out of their natural context. We believe people are most interesting exactly where they are, doing what they’re doing. With the storefront, we hope to spend time with people we respect, observe their creative process, and document the learning process. If we’re lucky, a community will emerge.”

Smyrski and Murphy have selected an international group of visual artists, speakers and performers for the project, including Hamburger Eyes, Stephen Powers (ESPO), Craig Costello (KR), Wesley Eisold of Heartworm Press, Max Morton, Maysles Films, Isaac Lin, Amanda Blank, Rose Luardo, DJs Andy Pry and Stephen Bush, William Pym, Zoe Strauss, ADAMS & KEGR, Alex Lukas, Mattathias Schwartz, Benjamin Tiven, Hsi-Chang Lin, and the Philadelphia Independent.

MORE
Megawords is a non-commercial record of place and human experience. Since its inception, Megawords has self-published eight non-commercial and advertisement-free issues, broadcast a weekly internet radio show, and organized multiple events and performances. The storefront project and exhibition space will be a public expression of Megawords’ mission to foster a spirit of collaboration and innovation between artists and the public, extending far beyond the traditional role of art magazines and radio.

The Megawords storefront project and exhibition, located at 1125 North Cherry Street (precisely at the corners of 11th and Cherry Streets), will be open to the public free-of-charge, September 1 through 30. Hours are Noon to 9pm Tuesday through Saturday, with irregular hours and visits by appointment on Sunday and Monday. The opening event will coincide with “First Friday” on September 5. A closing party will take place on September 27. A final schedule of events will be announced shortly. For more information, call 215-300-7391 or visit http://www.megawordsmagazine.com Free Megawords t-shirts, magazines and posters will be available to attendees while they last.

This project has been supported by a grant from the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative with additional support from the Marketing Innovation Program, both programs of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Parasol unit
foundation for contemporary art

Charles Avery
Untitled (The Eternity Chamber), 2007. Pencil and gouache on card, 100 x 70cm. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Sonia Rosso, Turin Collection G.Iannaccone, Milan.

Charles Avery
The Islanders: An Introduction
10 September - 8 November 2008

preview 9 September, 6–8 pm

Parasol unit
foundation for contemporary art
14 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
E info@parasol-unit.org

http://www.parasol-unit.org

This September Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art will present The Islanders: An Introduction, the latest instalment in Charles Avery’s epic project which began in 2004. For the past four years, Scottish artist Avery has created texts, drawings, installations and sculptures which describe the topology and cosmology of an imaginary island, whose every feature embodies a philosophical proposition, problem or solution. Previous exhibitions have presented chapters in this ongoing endeavour, revealing individual aspects of the Island. For the first time, the whole project thus far will be brought together including several new works. This major exhibition at Parasol unit will be accompanied by a large-scale publication – a work of art in its own right. Following its conclusion at Parasol unit, the exhibition will travel to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Avery’s mapping of the Island, to be completed over a projected ten-year period, can be interpreted as a meditation on making art and the impossibility of finding ‘truth’. The artist is characterised as a bounty-hunter, retrieving artifacts and documenting scenes from the subjective realm. Some of the works on show will focus in absurd detail, on particulars such as the sale of pickled eggs in the marketplace. Others present mysterious landscapes, such as the Eternal Forest, a place no one can ever reach but where a prized beast called the Noumenon is rumoured to live. A specimen of the Island’s wildlife will also be on show, having been realised in the form of a large taxidermy sculpture. These vivid and intricate works invite the viewer to recreate the Island in their own minds, and to use it as an arena for exploring philosophical conundrums and paradoxes.

Avery’s art is imbued with a formal beauty, humour, and a spirit of philosophical enquiry. It has roots in the work of such diverse figures as William Blake, P.G. Wodehouse, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Kosuth and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but above all contains echoes of Avery’s own life, such as his upbringing on the Isle of Mull. Once this sprawling project is complete, Avery plans for it to be encapsulated in several large, leather-bound encyclopaedic volumes.

Charles Avery (b. 1973) has exhibited widely both in Britain and internationally. His recent solo exhibitions include The Islanders: an introduction - part III, Galerie Arquebuse, Geneva (2007); The Plane of the Gods, Cubitt Gallery, London (2006); The Islanders: an introduction - part II, Galleria Sonia Rosso, Turin (2006); The Islanders: an introduction, doggerfisher, Edinburgh (2005); AVATARS, Galleria S.A.L.E.S., Rome (2005); and The Hunter, Man in the Holocene, London (2004). In 2007, Avery was selected with five other artists to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale, as part of the Scotland and Venice exhibition. He has also participated in numerous group shows including the Lyon Biennale, France (2007); the Athens Biennale, Greece (2007); The Drawing Room, London (2007); Musée d’Art Contemporain, Avignon (2005); The Gallery of Contemporary Art, Glasgow (2003); Gallerie Civico d’Arte Contemporanea di Siracusa, Sicily (2003); and Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles
(2003). Charles Avery is represented by Galleria Sonia Rosso, Turin; Galleria S.A.L.E.S., Rome; doggerfisher, Edinburgh; and Arquebuse, Geneva.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is a new public space and educational charity where private initiative and public support work hand in hand to create one of London’s most vibrant art institutions. The core activity of Parasol unit is an innovative and thought-provoking exhibition programme showing international and UK-based artists. Each year, Parasol unit mounts four exhibitions in a variety of media, usually accompanied by a publication. In order to encourage the widest possible access to its exhibition programme, the foundation does not charge an admission fee.

Events and Education:

Thursdays at Parasol unit
Starting September 2008, Parasol unit will be organising a series of new events, talks, poetry readings and film screenings every Thursday evening at 7pm during the exhibitions either in the Gallery or the Events Room

Thursday 18 September
Film screening in the Events Room. Free

Thursday 25 September
Poetry reading in the Gallery. Free

Thursday 2 October
First Thursdays event: Tom Morton and Charles Avery in conversation
Tom Morton, curator at the Hayward Gallery and contributing editor at frieze, and Charles Avery will discuss the exhibition and the development of the Islanders project.

Thursday 9 October
Film screening in the Events Room. Free

Thursday 16 October
Film screening in the Events Room. Free

Thursday 23 October
Exhibition tour with Nicolas Bourriaud
The Gulbenkian Curator of Contemporary Art at Tate Britain, Nicolas Bourriaud, will discuss the works in the exhibition and Avery’s wider practice.

Thursday 30 October:
The Big Draw: The Island Next Door
Hackney based artist collective LE GUN will lead a collaborative drawing event in response to Charles Avery’s exhibition The Islanders: An Introduction. Free

Thursday 6 November
First Thursdays event: Exhibition tour with Mark Sladen
Mark Sladen, Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, will discuss the work of Charles Avery.

Opening hours: Tues-Sat, 10 am-6 pm. Sun 12-5 pm

Parasol unit
foundation for contemporary art
14 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
T +44 (0)20 7490 7373
F +44 (0)20 7490 7373
E info@parasol-unit.org

http://www.parasol-unit.org

stART

Andrea Blum (New York 2008)
home on the streer/landscape in the palace project for Palazzo da Ponte, Venice, Italy.
Courtesy: Caterina Tognon for start.

Andrea Blum

HOME ON THE STREET /
LANDSCAPE IN THE PALACE
12 September 2008 - 1 November 2008

Curator: Chiara Bertola

Opening:
Thursday, September 11 10pm to midnight

Caterina Tognon for stART
Campo San Maurizio & Palazzo da Ponte
Venice, Italy

http://www.startcontempo.org/

On the occasion of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale 2008 Caterina Tognon for start will be inaugurating the show by the New York artist

HOME ON THE STREET, are images of theoretical designs for living projected outside the exhibition space in Campo San Maurizio. They present ideas for affordable urban housing units designed to accommodate the at home freelance worker. Each unit has an area for the necessities of daily living sleeping,eating,living, and working, and gain space by rotating, folding, elevating and sliding.

LANDSCAPE IN THE PALACE is created specifically for stART”s exhibition space in Palazzo Da Ponte,.The artist sets up a dialogue with the architectural pattern of Eighteenth Century Venetian buildings by using the distance between walls as a frame for her drawings. On every wall space and every area above the doors she places visions of “dismantled” architectural structures wrapped in an evanescent and romantic landscape reminiscent of the ruins seen in Eighteenth Century “Capriccios”.

After a first reassuring visual impact on entering the room, the harmonious atmosphere conveyed by the drawings, placed on the wall like wallpaper, begins to break down and fragments into images of deconstructed architecture, strange environments which create unease and alienation.

Andrea Blum was born in New York City and received her education at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts and the Art Institute of Chicago. She has built permanent projects in California, Ohio, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, and Boston, as well as France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain and England. She took part in the 51stVenice Biennale in 2005 with her project “Gardens & Fountains”. This work was sited in the heart of the Giardini of the Biennale and employed one of her recurrent themes of staging “sets” for social interactions. In March 2008 at Galerie Insitu/ Fabienne Leclerc , Paris, she presented Babel , an exhibition of “sculpture” and “drawings” which combined the languages of architecture and design to physically and psychologically place the viewer inside the world of nature. Currently on view until 5october at La Maison Rouge/ Fondation Antoine da Galbert is “BirdhouseCafe” a complex aviary designed to also serve as a public café. To find out more: http://ww
w.andreablum.com

stART…
Caterina Tognon, gallery owner, Paola Tognon, freelance curator of contemporary art, and Gabriele Pimpini, architect, began stART in Venice in 2005.

This cultural association maintains direct links, and undertakes exchange programs, with institutions and public and private bodies in a non-profit making system for proposals involving artists and cultural operators.

stART, with its special projects, is concerned with the visual arts, in particular the interrelationship between the visual arts, architecture, applied art, and contemporary design. To find out more: http://www.startcontempo.org

2008-9 stART graphic identity project by Jouke Kleerebezem

Caterina Tognon for stART

Campo San Maurizio & Palazzo da Ponte, San Marco 2671, 30124 Venice, Italy.
Tel & Fax 0039.041.5207859 info@startcontempo.org http://www.startcontempo.org

Polish Pavilion

Kobas Laksa, The Afterlife of Buildings. Rondo 1, 2008, photomontage.

HOTEL POLONIA. THE AFTERLIFE OF BUILDINGS
11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice 2008

Polish Pavilion
pavilion commissioner Agnieszka Morawińska
commissioner’s assistant Zofia Machnicka

exhibition curators Grzegorz Piątek & Jarosław Trybuś
artists: Nicolas Grospierre, Kobas Laksa

Opening reception:
September 12th 2008, 16.15 pm, Gardini di Castello
Exhibition: 14 September - 23 November 2008

http://www.labiennale.art.pl

organizer
Zacheta National Gallery of Art
Pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw, Poland
http://www.zacheta.art.pl

It is only what’s fluid, continuously reborn and redefined that stands a chance of surviving in the liquid reality. For that matter, due to limitations of technology, lengthy procedures, outsized ego of the architects and clients as well as the subconscious focus on Vitruvian durability, architecture proves increasingly cumbersome. It deems itself everlasting. It is a particularly perverse attitude in an era when information and cash flows may easily upset the world’s equilibrium.

We are presenting 6 buildings raised in Poland within the last decade. Each of them is shown in photographs by Nicolas Grospierre. The edifices represent different styles and tastes. What they have in common is their rank and prominence. As for their base level, it is the faith in infinite lasting and permanence of architecture as well as in its acquired, prestigious function. Possible scenarios of a change have been visualised by Kobas Laksa. The Venice Polonia Pavilion has undergone the same procedure as the Polish buildings on display. We have given it an alternative life by converting it into a place to stay for the night, during the first days of the Biennale. Hotel Polonia in the green holiday resort of Giardini di Castello? Not necessarily a utopia.

Architecture Beyond Building begins on the point of handover. It is also the human impact and the passage of time that constitute architecture. We would like to trigger a debate on durability.

http://www.labiennale.art.pl
For further information please contact: Zofia Machnicka z.machnicka@zacheta.art.pl

Polish participation in the 11th International Architecture Exhibition is realized with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland.

sponsors: Poliform, Mood Design, White & Case
media patronage: Architektura-murator, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, TVP, TOK FM, The Warsaw Voice, Onet.pl, empik.

Yosemite, 2003, archival ink jet print, 30.5 x 37.5 inches

InterUrbanArt Projects is very pleased to announce that Hungarian born photographer Reka Reisinger’s solo exhibition “Cutouts” has opened at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut.

The show will be open until 12 October 2008, and Reka (a Yale School of Art graduate) will be giving an Artist Talk on 2 October at 6 PM.

Details about the show can be found here:

http://artslant.com/ny/events/show/24998-cutouts
http://www.realartways.org/visualarts.htm#reka-reisinger

Information about InterUrbanArt Projects is available here:

http://interurbanart.blogspot.com/

To contact InterUrbanArt Projects, please send an e-mail to:

mocsi@optonline.net

Artangel

HIGH WIRE
Catherine Yass
17 September - 26 October 2008

Artangel
The German Gymnasium,
Pancras Road, London NW1

http://www.artangel.org.uk

Ninety metres above the ground, a thin metal wire stretches between three of the tower blocks in Red Road, North Glasgow. A solitary figure steps off the edge of the building and onto the line before him. He moves slowly and gracefully, step by silent step, and along the wire…

A multi-screen film and video installation, HIGH WIRE continues Catherine Yass’ interest in vertiginous spaces: architecture, height and scale have been dominant formal themes in her previous work. The installation draws on Yass’ filmed footage of Didier Pasquette taken at Red Road in Glasgow in 2007, and is as much concerned with the isolated physical space inhabited by the walker — in a landscape dominated by the brutalism of the tower blocks — as with his remarkable mental and physical transformation during the course of the attempted walk. HIGH WIRE brings together personal dreams of walking in the air with modernist dreams of a utopian ideal. The exhibition includes a new series of Yass’ lightboxes evolved from the project at Red Road.

Catherine Yass is one of the most innovative artists working with film and photography today. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002 and has recently exhibited her work in the USA, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan. Her short films generate startling new perspectives on the urban environment, capturing familiar sights from highly unusual vantage points. Presented upside down, Descent (2002) was filmed with a camera lowered from a crane through the morning mist from one of the massive construction sites at Canary Wharf in London. Flight (2002) was made from a remote-controlled helicopter circling the BBC Television Centre in London. In her recent film Loc, Yass filmed the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River.

The powerful physicality of HIGH WIRE consumes the vaulted space of The German Gymnasium. Constructed in the mid-nineteenth century for the German Gymnastics Society, the building is thought to be the first purpose-built gymnasium in Britain and was used as a venue for the first ever Olympic Games in London. It is now at the centre of the new development at Kings Cross, another urban vision.

HIGH WIRE is co-commissioned by Artangel and Glasgow international Festival of Contemporary Visual Art 2008 and produced by Artangel.

the building

the building

1. The building is pleased to present the oracle, e-flux video rental, Fruit & Flower Deli Berlin, the reading room, Snöfrid bar, films by Lawrence Weiner and more… The building will open on Sunday, September 7th at 4pm, film screening starts at 6, Snöfrid bar opens at 7 till the last person leaves.

2. the program:

3. e-flux video rental (EVR) is an ongoing work by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, comprising a free video rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of over 850 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with more than 400 artists, curators and critics.

In the 1960s and 70s, artists were drawn to working with video in part because it was cheap to use and easily reproduced and distributed. But video art has become increasingly assimilated to the precious-object economy of the art market. EVR is a poetic exploration of alternative processes of circulation and distribution, and it is structured to function like a typical video rental store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a new member fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and viewed at home. Originally presented at a storefront in New York, in 2004, EVR has traveled to art venues in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin, Budapest, Boston, Antwerp, Berlin, Miami, Lyon and Lisbon. EVR will travel to Cali, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo later this fall. Having outlived the technology that made it possible (VHS video tape players), the project will be permanently archived with t
he Arab Image Foundation in Beirut and Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, in 2009.

Every time EVR opens in a new city, local artists, curators and writers are invited to serve as selectors, choosing artists whose work is added to the collection. Initially brought to Kunst Werke by Hila Peleg several years ago, EVR is returning to Berlin having more then doubled in scope. This new installment will include selections by Anri Sala, Magdalena Magiera, Ellen Blumenstein, Tanja Leighton, Solmaz Shabazi, Nicolas Siepen, Florian Wüst, Nanna Heidenreich, Adina Popesku, Renate Wagner, Paz Aburto Guevara, Maike Cruse, Adnan Yildiz, Clara Meister, Dieter Roelstrate, Monika Szewczyk, Severin Dünser, Florian Zeyfang, Cosmin Costinas and others.

EVR will host a program of special screenings and talks with participants of the project, starting with a double feature of films by Lawrence Weiner: Water In Milk Exists and A Bit Of Matter And A Little Bit More, selected by Monika Szewczyk and Pierre Huyghe.
(with many thanks to Noritoshi Hirakawa)
Sunday September 7th, 6 PM

4. Water In Milk Exists
2008, 22:52 min, color, sound

SITUATED WITHIN A LANDSCAPE OF HUMAN INTERACTION THOSE ACTIVITIES THAT LEAD TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURES NECESSARY TO DEAL WITH OR CO-EXIST WITH THE FORCES OF NATURE, WATER IN MILK EXISTS ATTEMPTS TO PRESENT VARIOUS CHARACTERS AT A POINT OF DISJUNCTIVE BUT SIMULTANEOUS REALITIES. IF THE CONCISE PLACEMENT OF STONES LEADS TO A STRUCTURE (A TRUISM POSED BY MIES VAN DER ROHE) THEN PERHAPS A CONCISE PLACEMENT OF PERSONS CAN LEAD TO A STRUCTURE NOT BASED UPON PARALLEL HIERARCHIES. THE ACTIVITIES OF THE PLAYERS FIT WITHIN THE GENRE OF ADULT FILMS. IN FACT, THE PLAYERS ARE ADULTS.
Lawrence Weiner

A Structure of Lawrence Weiner. Players: N Beckwith, Christina Ewald, Lesny Jn Felix, Cleo Fishel, Taka Fukuya, Jonathan Hokklo, Joann Kim, Lucca Jean Lax, Kristen Lorello, Zaza M., Christopher Mitchell, Natalie S. Mignon, Kitao Sakurai, Ryan Scanlan. Director of Photography: Kiki Allgeier. Producer: Noritoshi Hirakawa. Executive Producer: Edi A. Stockli. The Swiss Institute, New York. Curator: Gianni Jetzer. Editors: Kiki Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Graphics: Bethany Izard. Melodic Noise: Kim Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Henry the Navigator, copyright Lawrence Markey and Lawrence Weiner.

5. A Bit Of Matter And A Little Bit More
1976, 23 min, color, sound

The male/female, subject/object investigation in A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More has no titillating introduction; the appetite is not whetted beforehand. Hardcore, the opening shot, shows the crotch areas of a male and female body engaged in coitus. At the end of the tape a male voice says, “Some questions and five answers relative to moved pictures, five questions and some answers relative to moved pictures—” a reference to the artists’ book, 100 Rocks on a Wall.

Produced by Moved Pictures, New York, in cooperation with Fifi Corday Productions. Videophotography: Michael H. Shamberg. Music: Marzette Watts. Voices: Azw Bentley, Lawrence Weiner. Players: Martine Rapin, Cynthia Pattison, Mike Grotto, P. Hoenderdos, D. Kaplan, Susan Davis, Ms. Tacks/Takes. First Presentation: The Kitchen, New York City, December 9, 1976.

***

6. The letter:

August 26, 2008

Hi Anton [1],

It’s time now for one of those emails from the Keeper. I was trying to write to you yesterday, over the Atlantic, which I suppose you were crossing as well on a different plane. If this is so, then the Oracle’s new thesis of synchronicity is more than adequate: it is not a coincidence… The flesh is the mind.

I had a very vivid dream tonight about Fruit and Flower Deli Berlin, and Snöfrid Bar [6], and The Building. The whole place was so present: I could see the rooms and the surroundings. It all merged with our late common history and the maps you are making of Platz der Vereinten Nationen: I clearly saw the stone — the gigantic Crystal Rock in the middle of the Plaza. I could also see David’s [2] axes and the black carpeted platform, Ylva’s [3] tondo boxes - peep shows in miniature, Julieta’s [4] infinite monkeys, evaporating the space, and Jota’s [5] brightly colored pillars of toilet paper rolls and light-boxes. The dark and the light: the cement grey, fire-singed basement mirror-bar and the luminous white reading room upstairs… from space to space and room to room, everything seems to open up and nothing seems to end.

My flight yesterday was very interesting as well: while a part of it was devoted to you as I was trying to write you an email…. in this way… meaning trying to bypass the expected, as both you and I had talked about me sending you an email …. I succeeded with this email and not at the same time … next to me sat a journalist, Folke Ryden. He was on his way to the States to finish a film about the current elections. He made a similar film when Clinton won and was now interviewing the same group of people (again synchronicity!) The conversation with him was very enlightening and it gave me a perspective of a country’s psychology: the composed fragmented body of a nation … natural and frightening and ordinary…

And so the change, or the move to Berlin, temporarily or as long and settled as anything could be — it is already leaving its marks: the time spent there, the dinners, the drinks, the vodka, the lunches, the coffees, Mr Cookie and, later on, Plastique — again some kind of synchronicity…

I was thinking also how absurd the world can be, thinking that the gigantic Lenin statue was replaced by a bunch of stones… what is the symbolic of this? Some water pouring out… a small spring came out Lenin with his big foot was keeping it from running ….

I woke up not so long ago, and wanted to print this incoherent note before getting back to the other email, not that the other email will reveal much new… but as a start, as a letter, and always trying to avoid representation.

So from one reality to another or two simultaneous realities, or synchronized ones: in New York you open OUT NOW! at e-flux next Friday, and Trong Nguyen opens in Fruit & Flower same day … then we meet in Berlin again, only two days later… once again synchronicity, who knows, maybe we end up on the same flight…

Let me know if you are in NY yet,
Best,

Rodrigo
Keeper of Fruit and Flower Deli

Rodrigo for - Fruit & Flower Deli
rodrigo@fruitandflowerdeli.com
phone +1 6464135390

Fruit & Flower Deli
53 A Stanton Street
10002 New York, NY

ed.
[2] David Adamo
[3] Ylva Ogland
[6] Snöfrid is Ylva’s mirror twin
[4] Julieta Aranda
[5] Jota Castro
[1] Anton Vidokle

***

7. The reading room

Having noticed a certain lack of public libraries on contemporary art, e-flux asked some of the museums and publishers it works with to give their recent publications for a public reading room in Berlin. The reading room will open with more then 2000 volumes provided by Irish Museum of Modern Art, Deutsche Guggenheim, The Sculpture Center, Archis Foundation, The New Museum, Locus Athens, Lehman College Gallery, Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, CCNOA Brussels, ICI, The Drawing Center, Shefield Contemporary Art Forum, Matt’s Gallery, London, National Sculpture FactoryIreland, Caja de Burgos Art Centre, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Parker’s Box, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Parasol Unit, Foundation for Contemporary Art; Public Art Lab / Mobile Studios; Villa Manin: Centro de Art Contemporanea; Austrian Cultural Forum; Office of Contemporary Art, Norway; La Maison Rouge; Frankfurter Kunstverein; National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST); Eastern State Penit
entiary Historic Site; Project Art Center, Essex/ Project Press; NADA; Serpentine Gallery; Via Farini; The Moore Space; Or Gallery, Vancouver; Villa Arson; Galerija Skuc; Artadia; Objectif Projects; Taipei Fine Arts Museum (Taipei Biennial and Taiwan Pavilion); Sala Rekalde; Portikus; I Sotterranei dell’Arte, Monte Carasso; Apex Art; Archis Foundation; Flintridge Foundation; Kunsthaus Graz; Institute National de l´Arte Contemporain; Redcat; tranzit, initiative for contemporary art; PS1; Vera List Center; O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartskunst; FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange; CAB; Kunstlerhaus Stuttgard; Siemens Arts Program; National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest ; Foundation Antoni Ratti; Art Box; De Appel; Queens Museum; GAK; Parkett; Parasol Unit; InSite/Installation Gallery; Dia Center for the Arts; Secession; Art & Industry Biennial Trust; Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; MUSAC; Weatherspoon Art Museum; Aeroplastics; Salzburger Kunstverein; Museion; Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein; SCI-Arc Gallery, Southern California Institute of Architecture; Art Forum; Public Art Lower Austria; SITE Santa fe; MDD - Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; Artspeak; Afterall Books; Black Dog Publishing; A prior; Middelheim Museum; KW, Berlin; Art Resources Transfer Inc.; Luckman Fine Arts Complex; Institiute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art; Americas Society; Stroom den Haag; Museum in Progress; Wyspa Progress Foudation; Museion; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art; Mobile Academy; Sternberg Press; DaimlerChrysler Contemporary; Umetnostna galerija / Umetnostna Galerija Maribor; MDD - Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; MUSAC; Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan; Monokultur; Blanton Museum of Art; GAK, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; Bidoun; Bonner Kunstverein and other institutions.

Should you wish to add a publication to the reading room, please mail it to e-flux at Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14A, Berlin 10249
Many thanks!

***

8.

Why are conceptual artists painting again?
Cause they think its a good idea!

A discussions series organized by Jan Verwoert.
Starts in October.

***

9.

Snöfrid Bar

No. -1

This time I am present as a liquid so that you can drink me.
I choose for whom I appear.
Pure liquid is supporting the health of the soul.
I am the revolution of seasons.
I am circulation.
Anton Vidokle is my third eye.
Rodrigo Mallea Lira is my eternity.
Julieta Aranda is my air.
Johan Hjerpe is my container.
Ylva Ogland is my earthly twin sister.
My mother is my mother.
The Oracle is my nave.
The bartender is my dancer.
My bar is in Berlin.
My walls and floor is e-flux.
My roof is Fruit and Flower Deli.
Pearl is for the connection to other dimensions.
Gold is for supporting the I.
Vanilla is for understanding the complexity of sex.
Birch is for remembering birth.
Amethyst is for not getting intoxicated.
And it is continuing.
To please the desire through pleasure.

Snöfrid

***

10. For more information about the park, the large rabbit hole, the cat, the supermarket, the bulgarian restaurant or any other matter, please contact Magdalena Magiera at
magdalena@e-flux.com

11. For questions regarding the oracle, please contact the Keeper at keeper@fruitandflowerdeli.com

the building
Platz Der Vereinten Nationen 14a
Berlin 10249
T: +49 (0) 30 28 04 79 73

Seventh Shanghai Biennale

TRANSLOCALMOTION

Opening Ceremomy: 8 September 2008

Duration:
9 September - 16 November 2008

Artistic Director: Zhang Qing

Curators:
Julian Heynen and Henk Slager

http://www.shanghaibiennale.com

Since its inauguration the Shanghai Biennale has repeatedly taken the city itself and its urban conditions as a starting point for its artistic explorations. In line with this inner logic, the curatorial team of the 2008 edition proposed to focus on one of the most import cornerstones of urban design: the public square which is a prime location of transfer, connection, connectivity, meeting, social and economical exchange.

TRANSLOCALMOTION

As a starting point for the Seventh Shanghai Biennale the curatorial team suggested utilizing People’s Square, of which the Shanghai Art Museum is actually part of. This public square seems to contain on a small-scale level a lot of crucial issues that the current Chinese society faces today. At People’s Square the curatorial team found many issues related to the transition, such as the topical capitalism, the ultramodern architecture that express a spirit of optimism, the desire for a better life envisioned by for example the Grand Theater and the Museum for Urban Planning, as well as the numerous small stands operated by migrants.

PROJECT

For the 2008 Shanghai Biennale the curatorial team connects the Shanghai Art Museum directly to People’s Square. For this reason, twenty-five emerging and established artists have been invited to take People’s Square as visual metaphor for the complex dynamics of the people’s mobility. Their work will be displayed on various media within and outside of the museum. Works that are shown outside were created with an intent to interact with the environment or the public. Participants: Pawel Althamer, Tiong Ang, Ricardo Basbaum, Mariana Castillo Deball, Chen Zhiguang, Ayse Erkmen, Rainer Ganahl, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Bethan Huws, Jing Shijianm, Kim Sanggil, Lin Chuanchu, Liu Ye, Lu Hao, Ma Baozhong, Thomas Ruff, Hito Steyerl, Tang Maohong, Wang Qingson, Lawrence Weiner, Wu Mingzhong, Yin Xiuzhen, Yu Fan, Zeng Hao, Zhang Qing and Zhou Tao.

KEYNOTES

On the second floor, the curatorial team will focus on solo-exhibitions of three prominent artists. This rather unusual proposal was conceived in reaction to a tendency among many Biennales to present a vast number of hardly distinguishable artistic positions. As a guideline for the choice of artists in this section a more reflective and general attitude towards the issue of mobility related to the urban, economical and social development should be apparent in their artistic production. Keynotes: Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Mike Kelley and Yue Minjun.

CONTEXT

On the third floor, under the same theme, another thirty artists will be showing their work using non-shanghainese elements, to explore and discuss mobility issues in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Participants: Guy Ben-Ner, Ursula Biemann, Big Dipper Group, Bu Hua, Chen Yun, Juergen Drescher, Inci Eviner, Harun Farocki, Zvi Goldstein, Yangah Ham, He Wenjue, Huang Hsinchien, Jia Zhangke, Jin Shi, Suchan Kinoshita, Charles Lim, Liu Ming, Angelika Mantz, Klaus Mettig, Roman Ondak, The Otolith Group, Ulrike Ottinger, Son Kuk Gyon, Su Xinping, Mieke Van de Voort, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Wang Qiang, Yang Shaobin, Yu Hua, Zhang Enli, Zhang Weijie and Zhu Jia.

SYMPOSIUM: MAPPING PUBLIC SPACE (September

Parallel to these artistic explorations an international symposium will discuss and evaluate similar research issues:
topics of knowledge production, (public) art as a tool for urban research and ultimately, current curatorial models.
Participants: Irit Rogoff, Mika Hannula, Wu Jiang, Kasper Koenig, Young Chul Lee and Xu Jiang.

PUBLICATION: THE SHANGHAI PAPERS (Hatje Cantz, Fall 2008)

Besides the standard exhibition catalogue the curatorial team will produce a sourcebook that consists of texts by the participating artists. These texts present the artists’ views on their artistic research within the context of the exhibition’s theme (Editors: Annette W. Balkema and Xiang Liping). Book launch: Shanghai Art Museum, Closing Program November 16.

SPECIAL SUPPORT

Bank Sarasin, Goethe Institut, Fonds BKVB, Mondriaan Foundation.