Artipedia - Arts News

TINA B. The Prague
Contemporary Art Festival

Courtesy of Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York.

TINA B. -
The Prague Contemporary
Art Festival 2008 presents
FORMS OF ENGAGEMENT
The Main Event:
September 25 - October 15
Special Events Week: October 9 - 13

http://www.tina-b.com

The third edition of TINA B. – The Prague Contemporary Art Festival, organised by Prague’s Galerie Vernon, brings together the creative energy of the cultural scene in Central and Eastern Europe with emerging artistic talents from around the world in the Czech Republic’s vibrant capital. Adopting the leitmotif FORMS OF ENGAGEMENT, TINA B. 2008 focuses on the relationships between art and society, exploring the role of contemporary art, artists and artistic practice as socio-cultural agents that not only provide a critique of social order, but also serve a direct, positive and symbiotic social function on both a local and global level.

Curators: Micaela Giovannotti, Rosanna Musumeci, Yukiko Ito, Blanca de la Torre, Viktor Misiano, Marek Tomin, the Greyzone Collective.

The third edition’s focus on the ways in which art engages with individuals and society is all the more pertinent in the year of the 40th anniversary of the momentous events of 1968, which had a major impact on society and politics throughout the globe, as well as on Czechoslovakia in particular. TINA B. 2008 feels honoured to be able to make at least a small contribution to the commemoration of an anniversary that is a strong symbol of liberty and free thinking (as well as of the ill-fated imposition of political and military might).

The Main Event of TINA B. 2008 is taking place from September 25 until October 15, 2008, at various venues and locations in Prague, including the Italian Cultural Institute, the Laterna Magika Theatre, the Gallery of Art Critics and TINA B.’s ALTERNATIVE SPACE, a dilapidated building opposite the Czech National Gallery (Dukelských hrdinů 28, Prague 7), as well as in public space.

The festival focuses on video, light and sound installations and the new media generated by mobile technologies, which so profoundly influence the course of our daily lives, as well as visual art performances. Another approach highlighted at TINA B. 2008 is open collaboration, engendered by two exceptional projects - RE-BRANDING PRAGUE by Wooloo Productions which is part of Micaela Giovannotti’s VIDEOCRACY section, and the groundbreaking multifaceted research and performance project VYSOČANY CONGRESS curated by renowned Russian critic and curator Viktor Misiano.

Special Events Week will run from October 9 until 13 and will include a number of public events and visual art performances, for example by extravagant Italian contemporary art duo CONIGLIOVIOLA and Czech multimedia artist Darina Alster. The TINA B. STREET PARTY will explore the interface between contemporary art and popular culture in general, featuring various visual art activities, outdoor video screening and performances by several experimental music groups with strong contemporary art connections.

SPECIAL PROJECTS
As in previous years, TINA B. 2008 will present a number of Special Projects at various exterior and interior locations in Prague. One such project, curated by Micaela Giovannotti, will be a site-specific installation employing light and sound by Stefano Cagol (IT) that promises to transform one of Prague’s landmarks into a beacon of contemporary art. Other special projects a public space site-specific video installation by Giuliana Cuneaz (from the Darkness Is Noon section) and two public space projects by CONIGLIOVIOLA. Curated by Blanca de la Torre, David Maroto will organise a three-stage strategic board game tournament during Special Events Week. Entitled DISILLUSION, the project employs the board game as a platform to explore wider issues of coexistence and the generation of meaning through experience.

TINA B. 2008 is held under the patronage and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague.

For more information and high resolution images, please contact:
Marek Tomin, Press Officer and co-curator
TINA B. - The Prague Contemporary Art Festival; M: +420 604 237 974, E: marek.tomin@tina-b.com.

Leonard Konopelski - Polish Poster

Leonard Konopelsk exhibition in PigAsUs - Polish Poster Gallery in Berlin 06.10.08 - 28.10.08 http://www.pigasus-gallery.de

Torstr. 62,
10119 Berlin
Germany

Leonard Konopelski
Biography
Leonard Konopelski received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland in 1973. His works can be found in many private collections in Kyoto, Copenhagen, Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw, Ottawa, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Strasbourg and Sydney. Between 1973 and 1975 he was the set and costume designer for the Polish Theater production of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, as well as Polish films Melex and Krak’s Career, a 20-week television series in Warsaw. He was also the animator for a few films. Since coming to the United States in 1975, Leonard has been a Visiting Artist lecturer at the California Art Institute at Valencia, California State University at Fullerton, and the California State University at Long Beach, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Leonard has also created posters and album covers for both Warner Brothers and A&M Records, as well as designed posters for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and the Solari Theater in Beverly Hills. He has illu!
strated
national publications, served as Art Director for the syndicated Richard Simmons Show. Hi is currently teaching at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Calouste Gulbenkian
Cultural Centre

CONDENSED LIGHT
Photographs by
Thomas Weinberger
21 October - 19 December 2008

Calouste Gulbenkian
Cultural Centre in Paris
51, avenue d’Iéna, 75016 Paris
T : +33 (0) 1 53 23 93 93

http://www.gulbenkian-paris.org

Thomas Weinberger’s photographs surprise by the strange and surreal atmosphere they convey. Sharply defined, almost sculptural, they show industrial plants and urban landscapes devoid of any human traces.

These spectral images are the result of a distinct technique that Thomas Weinberger uses for his work process. The German photographer takes two pictures of the same motif, a day shot and a night shot, and superimposes them subsequently in order to obtain the synthesis of two different lighting situations. This superimposition of natural light and artificial light questions our usual perception of the world and creates a fictional or imagined temporality.

In this alienated reality darkness becomes embedded in light, and conversely light in darkness. Any ephemeral, instantaneous element, any trace of human presence disappears. What remains are empty places appearing as relics of a past human civilization.

As a former architect, Thomas Weinberger puts this discipline into the centre of his work. He explores urban architecture and chooses buildings, bridges, tracks, harbours and industrial plants as motifs of his photographs. Through his process of synthetis and through the static composition of his photographs, Weinberger adorns these banal places with a luminous aura and creates an eerie, fascinating atmosphere.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Centre presents Weinberger’s work for the first time in France. The exhibition shows 28 large-sized photographs, taken in Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Australia and Dubai.

THOMAS WEINBERGER was born in Munich / Germany in 1964. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich and at Università di Sapienza in Rome. Between 1995 and 2001, he worked for several architectural firms and as a freelancer. At the turn of the millennium he began to develop his own photographic projects. Nowadays he dedicates himself exclusively to photography. He lives and works in Munich.

Curator: Jorge Calado

Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Centre
51, avenue d’Iéna, 75016 Paris
T : +33 (0) 1 53 23 93 93
Monday to Friday 9 am to 5:30 pm

Press contact: jasmin.uhlig@gulbenkian-paris.org, 01 53 23 93 78

The Hayward

Andy Warhol Self-Portrait, 1977,
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection (c) 2008 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. All rights reserved.

ANDY WARHOL
OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS
7 October 2008 - 18 January 2009

The Hayward
Southbank Centre,
Belvedere Road,
London, SE1 8XZ

www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts

“Before I was shot I always suspected I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot, and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.’ Andy Warhol, 1968

No artist living in the second half of the 20th century has made a deeper impression on popular culture than Andy Warhol (1928-1987). 40 years on from Warhol’s first major exhibition in Europe, and his infamous shooting by Valerie Solanas, The Hayward presents a major exhibition that brings a fresh perspective to his work Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, 7 October 2008 – 18 January 2009.

Visitors will be immersed in Warhol’s way of thinking and working through the exciting multi-media installation which will transform the gallery. Paintings and prints of famous icons including Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s soup tins, will be shown alongside video, TV programmes, films, Polaroid photos, delicate drawings, album covers and wallpaper patterns. This vivid presentation reflects Warhol’s egalitarian maxim, ‘all is pretty’; with all media presented on the same level.

Andy Warhol was fascinated with film and television and the exhibition explores the relationship between the moving image and the still image in his work. It brings together films, screen tests, videos, and TV programmes, which combined with extraordinary archive material, seminal paintings and installations, illuminates his creative process, sheds new light on his work and explores his genius for discerning the way pop culture penetrates our lives.

Highlights of the exhibition include:
• Iconic ‘Pop Art’ works including screen prints of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell Soup Tins, Flowers and Electric Chairs
• 19 of Warhol’s films, including Sleep (1963), Empire (1964), Poor Little Rich Girl (1965), and Chelsea Girls (1966) presented together simultaneously in a unique installation. A further eight films will be shown in a separate screening room.
• Screen tests of artists, writers and musicians such as Allen Ginsberg, Marcel Duchamp, John Cale and Salvador Dali
• Factory Diaries – video diaries showing the inner workings of the Factory – capturing regulars and celebrities such as David Bowie and Liza Minnelli, as well as Warhol’s creative process
• All 42 episodes from his 1980s cable TV serials, ‘Fashion’; ‘Andy Warhol’s TV’; and ‘Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes’; in which he appeared with friends such as Debbie Harry and Jerry Hall. These have never been shown together before and will be screened synchronously in a unique installation.
• The entire contents of Time Capsule 92 featuring a treasure-trove of ephemera collected by Warhol, including letters, invitations, receipts, newspaper cuttings and photographs of The Beatles, Dennis Hopper and Jackie Kennedy
• A room filled with Warhol’s helium inflated pillow-shaped ‘Silver Clouds’

Almost two decades on from The Hayward’s acclaimed exhibition Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (1989), the gallery presents a new take on Warhol’s work. Using the moving image as its starting point to explore Warhol’s core concerns – voyeurism, celebrity, the mundane, and the blurring of distinctions between high and low culture, the exhibition illustrates his prophetic insight into today’s media-obsessed society.

The exhibition installation will be divided into three sections: ‘Filmscape’ a cinematic landscape showing 19 films; TV-Scape showing simultaneously all 42 episodes from the three TV series Warhol created between 1979 and 1987; and Cosmos providing insight into Warhol’s character and work, with paintings, drawings, photographs, audio listening booths, a Brillo Box, album covers, Interview magazines, artists books and Time Capsule 92.

Curated by independent curator, Eva Meyer-Hermann, and housed in an extraordinary setting by the Berlin designers, chezweitz & roseapple, the exhibition is organised by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Stephanie Rosenthal, Chief Curator at The Hayward, has collaborated on this presentation of the exhibition. The exhibition began its tour at the Stedelijk Museum last October where it attracted record visitors and was then shown at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, where Warhol held his first European exhibition in 1968.

Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward, says
“We are delighted to be hosting an exhibition that radically redefines the nature of Andy Warhol’s importance. Andy was such a multi-faceted artist that every era can rediscover its own Warhol, and this exhibition offers an innovative and insightful exploration not just of his extraordinary artistic achievement, but also of his pioneering way of looking at both art and the world.”

Eva Meyer-Hermann, Curator, says
“Andy Warhol once wondered about how it would be if one mirror would reflect another. He declared that everything which we want to know can be seen on the surfaces of him and his works. I thought I had to look behind these surfaces, but realised that what we are looking for is not behind but in front of them. Warhol’s surfaces reflect the world; his works are about you and me.”

ANDY WARHOL: OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS
7 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
The Hayward, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XZ
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts
, Information: 0871 663 2519

This exhibition is organized by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Moderna Museet Stockholm in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Curator: Eva Meyer-Hermann
Scenography: chezweitz & roseapple, Berlin
With support from Beam Systems
Media partner Time Out

Also on show at The Hayward this autumn will be the first UK exhibition of the South African artist, Robin Rhode (7 October – 7 December 2008).

EVENTS
There will be a number of talks and special events to coincide with the exhibition including:

John Cale
Life along the Borderline: A Tribute to Nico
Plus special guests
Saturday 11 October 2008, Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm,
John Cale, composer, co-founder of the Velvet Underground and producer of Nico’s most renowned albums presents an iconoclastic tribute to his beloved icon. A very special line-up of artists re-imagine her life, work and songs in this one-off event.

LISTINGS INFORMATION
Opening hours for The Hayward:
Open daily 10am-6pm, late night opening Fridays until 10pm.