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Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Cité Verticale, ATBAT-Afrique, Carrières Centrales, Casablanca, Morocco, 1953 Copyright courtesy of Avery Library Special Collections, Columbia University, New York.

In the Desert of Modernity. Colonial Planning and After

Exhibition, Film, Performance, Talks, International Conference
29.08.2008 - 26.10.2008

Opening 28 August, 7 pm

Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles Allee 10
10557 Berlin
http://www.hkw.de

From the 1930s on, colonial North Africa was transformed into a laboratory for European modernization fantasies. Casablanca was seen as a test case for the ‘city of tomorrow’, radical redevelopment plans included. The developments projected were envisaged as a blueprint for Europe’s metropolises, too, and intended to reform the way people lived. In the Desert of Modernity presents works of architecture and urban concepts that arose under the state of emergency that was colonial rule, a state influenced, in turn, by the anti-colonial liberation struggles and trans-national migration in North Africa and Western Europe.

The exhibition introduces and expounds the problems of the ambivalences between colonial rule and modernistic Utopias. In how far are Utopias of modernism and civilization rooted in colonialism? In how far have the breaks within and resistance against colonialism left their mark on modernism? The exhibition also provides tangible evidence of the events, projects, actions, and visions that played a significant role during the time of decolonization between North Africa and Europe, and are still of significance today. It traces the stories of the local inhabitants, architects, colonialists, and scholars involved in the project of modernity and modernization.

Models of architecture, diagrams and urban development plans of Georges Candilis, Michel Écochard, Alison and Peter Smithson and the painting of Le Corbusier and Chaïba outline the visions and concepts of different modernistic Utopias and their inherent contradictions. Rare contemporary footage, and artworks by Kader Attia and Hassan Darsi, reflect historical developments. In turn, photographic works by Monique Hervo, Loïk Prat, Robert Doisneau, and Willy Ronis, as well as posters and flyers, make visible aesthetic approaches to the post-colonial situation and its political struggles. In addition, the Labor k3000, students from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and the Department of Architecture at the Delft University have put together new interviews, photographs, videos and architectural models for the exhibition.

The example of the building projects dating from the 1950s and 1960s shows that European modernity would have been inconceivable without colonialism. The mass housing projects on the outskirts of large European cities, as well as the postmodern critique of the ability to plan urban spaces and housing, find their counterparts in North Africa.

Alongside the international conference „The Colonial Modern”, the exhibition is accompanied by a film program, performances, and additional films in collaboration with Kayak Attack and Remember Resistance, as well as a special issue of the magazine An Architecture and the internet project http://www.this-was-tomorrow.net

Artistic director: Marion von Osten
Curators: Tom Avermaete, Serhat Karakayali, Marion von Osten

Institutional partners:
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Architekturfakultät der Delft University of Technology, Casamémoire / Casablanca, CPKC (Center for Post-Colonial Knowledge and Culture Berlin), École Supérieure d’Architecture de Casablanca

Opening: 28.8.08, 7 pm

Exhibition – opening hours
29.8. – 26.10. Tue – Sun + on holidays 12 am – 8 pm, Thurs to 10 pm

Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles Allee 10
10557 Berlin
http://www.hkw.de

All photos may be printed free of charge solely when published in context with the festival “In the desert of Modernity” at the House of World Cultures.

All photographers - if they are listed - must be named.

Guangzhou Triennial

Frontier of Cultural Politics
Laboratory of Art

Farewell to Post-Colonialism
6th Sept - 16th Nov 08

Office of the Guangzhou Triennial
Guangdong Museum of Art,
No. 38 Yanyu Road, Er-Sha Island,
Guangzhou, China 510105

http://www.gdmoa.org/gztriennial

Organizer: Guangdong Museum of Art
Co-Presenter: Hong Kong Arts Development Council
Special Cooperation: Times Property
With the Special Support of:
Goethe-Institut China, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA)
With Special Thanks to: Pernod Ricard China
Curators: Gao Shiming, Sarat Maharaj, Chang Tsong-zung
Research Curators: Dorothee Albrecht, Sopawan Boonnimitra, Stina Edblom, Tamar Guimaraes, Guo Xiaoyan, Steven Lam, Khaled D. Ramadan
Opening preview: September 6th, 2008 (Saturday).

We are please to announce that preparations for the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial (GZ Triennial) is nearing completion, and we now look forward to welcoming our friends and professional colleagues at the exhibition opening on September 6th in Guangzhou.

For the curatorial discourse of this Triennial, we propose to say ‘Farewell to Post-Colonialism’. This represents the theoretical basis from which we hope to explore our critical vision. The Triennial attempts to open new frontiers for creativity with a critical review of the role cultural discourses of Post-colonialism and Multi-culturalism has played in contemporary art. While affirming Post-colonialism’s achievements in exposing hidden ideological agenda in society and inspiring new art, this Triennial also critically examines its limitations for creativity, and calls for a fresh start.

We hope to uncover elements of the paradoxical reality veiled by contemporary cultural discourse, to make contact with realms that slip through the cracks of well-worn concepts such as class, gender, tribe and hybridity. We hope to think together with artists and investigate through their practices to find what new modes and imaginative worlds are possible for art beyond those already heavily mapped out by socio-political discourses.

GZ Triennial will host 181 artists from over 40 countries around the world, including 50 films/videos from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa under the projects “Middle East Channel”, “East-South: Out of Sight” and “Africa: Personal Poetics”.

Forums in Motion

The 7 “Forums in Motion” of the 3rd Triennial is a long expedition that traverses across a wide terrain of ideas which focus on Farewell to Post-Colonialism，Limits of Multi-Culturalism, Thinking Through the Visua，Artists’ Questionnaire Session, Unpacking Projects-in-Progress , Anxiety of Creativity and Possible Worlds and Farewell to Post-colonialism — Towards a Post-Western Society?

The Triennial Exhibition

The Triennial Exhibition is structured into 4 sections:
1.Projects in Progress
2.Thinking Room
3.Free Radicals
4.Independent Projects:
1. ‘Middle East Channel’, curated by Khaled Ramadan.
2. ‘East-South: Out of Sight’, curated by Sopawan Boonnimitra.
3. ‘Now in Coming’, curated by Guo Xiaoyan and Cui Qiao.
4. ‘Tea Pavilion’, curated by Dorothee Albrecht.
5. ‘Mornings in Mexicos’, curated by Steven Lam and Tamar Guimaraes.
6. ‘Mapping Currents for the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial’, curated by Stina Edblom and Asia Art Archive.
7. ‘Organising Mutation’, curated by Leung Chi-wo and Tobias Berger.

Opening Program

Guangzhou
6th Sept
14:00 Press reception, Time Museum (Member of GDMoA)
15:00 GZ Triennial Opening at Time Museu
16:00 (Time Museum) Garcia Verlarde (performance)
9:40 (GDMoA) Daniel Malone (performance)

7th Sept
10:00 - 14:00 Reception of artists and Guests
14:30 - 17:00 GZ Triennial Lectures, Lecture Hall of GDMoA

Beijing
11th Sept
14:00 - 16:30 Triennial Lectures:
Middle East Channel
Southeast Asia Cinema
Africa: Personal Poetics
20:00 - 23:00 GZ Triennial Open Discussion,UCCA

12th Sept
18:00 Opening of GZ Triennial Beijing Station (Video/Film Program), UCCA

Closing Program
15th to 16th Nov
‘Farewell to Post-Colonialism : A Post-Western Society?’
International Conference and Closing Ceremony (in cooperation with the Goethe Institute) The final international conference will bring together artists, curators and experts to critically examine the Third Guangzhou Triennial, and to assess with in-depth and critical reflection the multiple international exhibitions presented in Asia this season.

General information
Office of the Guangzhou Triennial
Guangdong Museum of Art,
No. 38 Yanyu Road, Er-Sha Island,
Guangzhou, China 510105
Web: http://www.gdmoa.org/gztriennial

Contact:Adela Liao, Nikita Huang
E-mail: gztriennial.reception@gmail.com
gztriennial.reception@yahoo.com.cn
T: +86 20 87351255/87351263
F: +86 20 87351403

Ke Center for the
Contemporary Arts

Tiffany Chung
Bubble Shooter in wonderland, digital C-print, 100 x 150cm, 2008.

Strategies from Within

An Exhibition of
Vietnamese and Cambodian Contemporary Art Practices
September 7th - September 24th, 2008

Curated by Biljana Ciric

Ke Center for the
Contemporary Arts
Kai Xuan Road 613-B,
Shanghai, 200051 China

http://www.kecenter.org

Participating Artists: Hoang Duong Cam, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Tiffany Chung, Sopheap Pich, Vandy Rattana, Chan Dany, Leang Seckon, Dinh Q.Le, Truong Tan, Tran Luong, Nguyen Manh Hung, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Tuan Andrew Nguyen in collaboration with Wowy, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Phe Sophon

Including projects: Seasons of Migration documentary by John Bishop, choreographer: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro and film S21-Killing Machine by Rithy Panh

Venue: Kai Xuan Road 613-B, Shanghai, 200051 China
Exhibition Opening: 20:00, Sunday, September 7, 2008
Performance “Enokiberry tree in wonderland” by Tiffany Chung 20:30
Exhibition Dates: September 7th through September 24th, 2008
http://www.kecenter.org
for more information pls contact tel:86-21-61313080
biljana.ciric@gmail.com ke@kecenter.org

Supported by Art Hub Foundation

The exhibition is free and open to the public.

For me there can be no art revolution that is separate from a science revolution, a political revolution, and education revolution, a drug revolution, a sex revolution or a personal revolution…I will not call myself art worker but art dreamer and I will participate only in a total revolution simultaneously personal and public.
—From Lee Lozano’s 1969 statement for open hearings, art workers coalition

Lozano declares the necessity of a personal revolution as a main point of departure for change. This essay, and Lozano’s radical statements, intersects with the aims of the exhibition Strategies from Within as it attempts to present the different practices of its participants as art dreamers, as much more than workers. The concept of Art Dreamers offers a more radical viewpoint of art making that is not necessarily reliant on the commercial world economy, which today seems almost impossible. Art Dreamers are those who work towards a revolution of the self, whose practices and strategies engage utopian ideals towards total revolution.

Strategies from Within shares this vision of the importance of personal revolutions and change. The exhibition is the result of research conducted in Saigon, Phnom Penh and Hanoi. The undertaken research attempts to allow for a wider reflection of the contemporary culture in both Vietnam and Cambodia through the presented bodies of work.

This exhibition strategically presents artists from different generations in order to show the shifts in the range of issues that they encounter and deal with, and the presentation methods of their works.

This project also involves a variety of themes that the different individuals present as crucial to their practice, revealing a broader perception of the societies in which they inhabit through their artworks.

The foundational curatorial concept of the exhibition is to present key figures in their local contexts; to present many established, up and coming artists in the most complete way possible, representing their overall artistic oeuvre; and to present works of art that will provide the audience better insight into the issues that the artists themselves try to raise. Despite the use of the group exhibition framework, the exhibition attempts to emphasize the individual presence of each artist in the strongest way possible, presenting works from different periods, thereby combining the presentation of different bodies of work within the larger exhibition to create a model that is somewhere in-between the solo exhibition and group exhibition format. At the same time, the exhibition tries to push the possibilities of the artists towards more active participation within group exhibitions in general.

Vietnam and Cambodia are currently in a process of building their own intellectual critical discourses, which today remains underground, alluding to the issues of both nations’ political and economic development. The work that has been done by certain of these individuals and the small number of institutions in recent years past spans a spectrum much broader than the visual arts. This work has also provided and built new cultural, educational, and discussion platforms that fill the voids left behind by many turbulent years of war and upheaval. Simultaneously, these intellectuals and artists are building a critical discourse and practice while also trying to rebuild the cultural milieu of their own societies.

The exhibition also contains a few smaller projects within its framework.

A reading room project was inspired by the artists’ practice of establishing libraries and reading rooms in their homes, and in the galleries of Saigon, as a result of the lack of art related publications available . For the exhibition we asked artists to borrow the books that they think are of great significance to the local scene to be introduced throughout the course of the exhibition.

The Alternative Archive publication will also collect texts and articles about the local scenes, including critical discourses and other writings, to act as a guide for a better overview of the issues and strategies employed by the professionals working in the field of contemporary art practices.