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Archis

Archis announces two publications:

Prishtina is Everywhere
Turbo Urbanism:
the Aftermath of a Crisis
By Kai Vöckler

Volume 17: Content Management
The C-Lab certified edition

http://www.archis.org
http://www.volumeproject.org

Prishtina is Everywhere

After NATO-led KFOR troops ended civil war in Kosovo (1999), an instant building boom changed the capital Prishtina dramatically. Within a few years its population doubled, partly as a consequence of an influx of returning refugees. Local investors profited, creating quick returns on ‘hit and run’ projects. On the fringes of the city ‘maverick urbanism’ had a different face: family clans invested family capital in large houses, built on farmland. The result was a random spread and development of the city, causing serious functional and structural problems for the future.

Prishtina is Everywhere describes, maps and analyzes the situation in Prishtina after 1999, documents problem-solving strategies, and discusses the significance of this kind of urban development for the way urban life evolves in crisis zones. The title hints at two phenomena: firstly, urban development of this type is typical for many post-conflict situations, and secondly, most of the construction in Prishtina has been financed by remittances from family members working abroad (one-fifth of Kosovo’s entire population lives abroad, specifically in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria).

This is the first of a series of investigations of urban development in post-conflict areas, initiated by Archis Interventions.

With contributions of Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss, Caroline Arnulf, Thilo Fuchs, Wilfried Hackenbroich, Irmgard Zerr, Florina Jerliu, Visar Geci, Ilir Gjinolli, Lilet Breddels, Arjen Oosterman.

224 p., 17×24 cm, 96 pages in color. Design Heimann und Schwantes, printed in Germany.
The English edition is published by Archis Publishers, Amsterdam: 978-90-77966-50-1
The German edition appears at Parthas Verlag, Berlin, 978-3-86601-904-1

Volume 17: Content Management
Similar to online management (music, films, services) architecture is designed to have a public surface and a protected interior, to encourage visitors and at the same time limit the use of the property inside, to provide problem-free navigation yet direct and track visitor movement, and to mark out what content is accessible and what isn’t.

Interviews with Julien De Smedt, Lars Müller, Ken Goldberg, Chris Anderson, Rachel Maddow, Arianna Huffington, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Marc Simmons, Michael Govan, AOC, Iñaki Ábalos, and Philippe de Montebello.
Contributions by: Mark Wigley, Rene Daalder, Shumon Basar, Arjen Oosterman, Joseph Grima, Oliver Domeisen, Ari Marcopoulos and Greg Lynn.

Special features:
C-Lab on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and UNESCO’s World Heritage program.
Extra:
The Politics of the Envelope. In an extensive essay Alejandro Zaera Polo formulates ‘a political critique of materialism’, analyzing the past 40 years of the envelope as content management.

Volume 17: 160 p., ISSN 1574-9401 / ISBN 978-90-77966-17-4
Design Irma Boom & Sonja Haller, printed in Belgium.

Volume, independent quarterly for architecture to go beyond itself
Volume is a project by Archis + AMO + C-Lab + …
Volume is published by Archis Foundation, Amsterdam

Immortal Essence | Model: Natasha Fatale | Photo by Three 15

LeanneM & Three 15 [both with Immortal Essence] will be at this Exhibition selling & displaying our work along with some other amazing Artist’s & Photographers including HR Geiger!!

DAMNED - A Macabre Fine Art Exibition
October 30th 2008
Tangent Gallery | Hastings Ballroom
Detroit, Michigan

For more on LeanneaM & Three 15 and this Exhibition please visit: http://www.immortalessence.com

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

Peter Doig
Man Dressed as Bat, 2007
Oil on linen
300 x 350 cm
Private Collection
Copyright Peter Doig.

Peter Doig
9 October 2008 - 4 January 2009

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT
Römerberg
60311 Frankfurt, Germany
phone: (+49) 69 29 98 82-0
fax: (+49) 69 29 98 82-240
welcome@schirn.de

http://www.schirn.de

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents a retrospective of the painter Peter Doig with two-month screenings from the artist’s STUDIOFILMCLUB in Frankfurt.

Peter Doig is regarded as one of today’s most crucial and internationally influential artists. Presenting some 50 paintings, a group of works on paper, and about 130 painted film posters, the Schirn offers a comprehensive overview of the artist’s achievements from the past twenty years. One focus of the show will be on works Doig created in Trinidad within the past five years and on painted posters produced for his cinema project STUDIOFILMCLUB in Port of Spain, Trinidad. On the occasion of the exhibition, Doig will also set up a special STUDIOFILMCLUB in Frankfurt, screening films selected by the artist. Although on the one hand Peter Doig’s pictures relate to the history of painting, they are firmly anchored in present-day life on the other. He often uses travel brochures, newspaper images, film stills, or private snapshots as his point of departure. They reflect the changing scenes and social environments in which the artist has lived: the frozen lakes of his childhood in
Canada, the dazzling metropolis of London, Caribbean sceneries, and the cityscapes of Trinidad. In his visionary landscapes, whose quiescence seems to be most precarious, memories, biographical moments, popular images, and narrative plots congeal to form dreamlike sequences.

The current show, compiled in close cooperation with the artist, offers visitors an opportunity for exploring Doig’s complex themes and his development in terms of painting style and technique within a larger context. Works from two decades convey the experience of perpetual scene-shifting that nevertheless leads to ever-recurring locations and situations that seem to be oddly familiar and yet strange at the same time. Although these fantastic landscapes are frequently based on real models, the pictures are not about specific places. The motifs are viewed from a distance and through the filter of memory. Diog’s constructed landscapes simultaneously merge with images from the vast collective visual memory fed by current media coverage and art history. “People have confused my paintings with being just about my own memories,” says Doig. “Of course we cannot escape these. But I am more interested in the idea of memory.” The artist has often referred to his search for the “atmosp
here” of each painting, and already in his early works the importance he attaches to the subject – not as narrative, but as the threshold of the spectator’s individual experience – becomes evident.

Many of Doig’s paintings make an uncertain, ambivalent, and contradictory impression. For example, time and again, the structure of the picture denies the space of the represented image. The artist causes color fields to flicker and covers the image with pale, shimmering patches resembling a veil, or else dissects the surface through overlaps of apparently almost abstract motifs. A bizarre aspect is also inherent in the figures in Doig’s paintings. They seem to have sprung from another time, although they frequently depict real people.

In 2000, Doig returned to study in a place he knew from his childhood and which subsequently was to exercise a decisive impact on his art: the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where he eventually moved with his family in 2002. Although Doig has avoided directly referring to Trinidad for his pictorial motifs, the photographs he took there during his first stay reappear in crucial works. When he first returned to Trinidad, he felt the landscape to be “so present and powerful.” Trinidad still serves not only as an inspiration for his imagination, but also for new methodical approaches. In such paintings as Figures in Red Boat (2005–07), Pelican Island (2006), or Man Dressed as Bat (2007), color – now marked by a delicate, glazing brilliance – plays an increasingly important part. Today Doig himself speaks of a search for “pure paintings, which evolve into a type of abstraction.”

This exhibition was organized by Tate Britain in cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.

STUDIOFILMCLUB
15 October to 26 November 2008, Wednesdays, 7–10 p.m.

When Peter Doig and the artist Che Lovelace founded STUDIOFILMCLUB in Port of Spain in Trinidad in spring 2003, large multiplex theaters had already affected the local film scene and replaced independent arthouse cinemas. Since then, weekly screenings, for each of which the artist designs a poster, have been held in Doig’s studio, a former rum factory. The Schirn will present more than 130 of Doig’s posters and bring STUDIOFILMCLUB to its exhibition room and bar each Wednesday evening. The program includes films that are rarely shown or have not been screened for a long time, such as Touki Bouki (1973, 95 min., color) by Djibril Diop Mambéty, or Night of the Hunter (1955, 93 min., b/w) by Charles Laughton. Just as in Trinidad, admission is also free in Frankfurt, and there will be a brief introduction before each film. The focus is on the joint experience of films and social interaction. The scheme and program for STUDIOFILMCLUB were conceived in close cooperation between Pe
ter Doig and his students at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

CATALOGUE: Peter Doig, edited by Judith Nesbitt. With a foreword by Max Hollein and texts by Judith Nesbitt and Richard Shiff. German edition, approx. 175 pages, approx. 150 illustrations, DuMont, ISBN 978-3-8321-9088-0.

DIRECTOR: Max Hollein

CURATORS: Judith Nesbitt (Tate Britain), Katharina Dohm (Schirn)

OPENING HOURS: Tue., Fri.–Sun. 10 a.m. –7 p.m., Wed. and Thur. 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.

INFORMATION: http://www.schirn.de

PRESS CONTACT: Dorothea Apovnik, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240, e-mail: dorothea.apovnik@schirn.de, http://www.schirn.de (texts and images for download under PRESS).

Kunsthallen Brandts

Julie Roberts

In Retro
19 September - 31 December 2008

Kunsthallen Brandts
Brandts Torv 1


DK-5000 Odense C

http://www.brandts.dk

Murder Victims, Dentist’s Chairs and Homeless Children
Up-coming exhibition of works by Julie Roberts at Kunsthallen Brandts

Julie Roberts is one of Britain’s most talented young visual artists. She was born in 1963 and trained in the early 1990s at the Glasgow School of Art and St. Martins in London. At this time, neo-expressionist painting was dominant in Europe and the US, but Julie Roberts chose an almost opposite direction. Her paintings of the early 1990s are characterized by large monochrome backgrounds against which she examines and analyzes isolated objects. She is especially interested in instruments involving treatment of the human body: hospital beds, operating tables, gynaecology couches, wheelchairs, dentist’s chairs and straitjackets, presented as though they were products in a sales catalogue. The artist is clearly preoccupied with theories concerning society’s methods of exercising power and making people anonymous.

From the Dead to the Living
Starting in the mid-1990s, the human body became the main focus of Julie Roberts’ art. The dead body. The artist painted a whole series of Jack the Ripper’s victims. She painted death masks, dead artists, murders and suicides. After the start of the new millennium, Julie Roberts once again changed her motifs. She is now interested in people living in strained circumstances. She portrays children from orphanages and needy families, and she examines the possibilities that exist for women – or rather the lack of such.

Representative Examples of Roberts’ Work
The exhibition In Retro moves through all of Julie Roberts’ unique themes. In collaboration with the artist, Kunsthallen Brandts has selected 60 works that demonstrate Julie Roberts’s fascinating range and offers the visitor a rare chance to see an exhibition of works by one of the most original painters in contemporary European art.

Opening
The exhibition will open on Thursday, 18 September, at 5 p.m. Pat Fischer, director of the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, will deliver the opening speech. In connection with the exhibition, Kunsthallen Brandts will publish a 120-page catalogue featuring essays by Francis McKnee and Lisbeth Bonde. The exhibition will be open to the public from 19 September through 31 December 2008.

Information
For further information, please contact curator Lene Burkard by phone at 65207017, or lene.burkard@brandts.dk, alternatively PR manager Trine Søndergaard at 65207092, or presse@brandts.dk Press photos can be downloaded from http://www.brandts.dk/prb

Acknowledgements
The exhibition is supported by The Heritage Agency of Denmark, the Oticon Foundation, Montana A/S and the Kunsthallen Brandts Sponsor Club.

e-flux

Martha Rosler, Point and Shoot, 2008.

OUT NOW! Lecture Program

Kathy Kelly
October 16th,
Cooper Union Wollman Auditorium, 7PM
51 Astor Place, New York City

Patrick Cockburn
October 22nd,
Cooper Union Great Hall, 7PM

Organized by Anton Vidokle

FREE ADMISSION

Witness Against War
A Lecture by Peace Activist and Pacifist Kathy Kelly

October 16th, Cooper Union Wollman Auditorium, 7PM
51 Astor Place, New York City

Kathy Kelly lived in Iraq during the first Gulf War, (1991), the Desert Fox bombing (1998) and the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq. She and companions from Voices in the Wilderness were fined $20,000, a fine they refused to pay, for bringing medicines to Iraq during the 13 year state of siege imposed on Iraq from 1990 -2003. During the past year, she has spent five months living amongst Iraqis in Amman, Jordan who have fled their homes because of death threats, displacement and ethnic cleansing. Kelly will talk about people whose lives are forever changed because they have borne the brunt of suffering caused by a US “war of choice,” and she will discuss ways for ordinary people to campaign on behalf of just and fair US policies toward Iraq.

Kathy Kelly is a peace activist and pacifist who was one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, a group dedicated to campaigning to end the occupation of Iraq. Since disbanded, Voices for Creative Nonviolence is a new organization that has formed in its place with Kelly as its co-coordinator. Kelly was born in Chicago as attended Loyola University at Chicago and received a Masters in Religious Education from the Chicago Theological Seminary. She has taught for over thirty years at Chicago schools, is a three time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is active within the Catholic worker movement and has refused payment of all federal income tax for 25 years since becoming a pacifist.

Voices for Creative Nonviolence http://www.vcnv.org

Why America Will Have to
Get Out of Iraq Regardless of
Who Wins the Presidential Election
A Lecture by Middle East Correspondent Patrick Cockburn

October 22nd, Cooper Union Great Hall, 7PM

Patrick Cockburn argues that a central political fact in Iraq today is that the great majority of Iraqis have always opposed the US occupation. Though Iraqi factions sometimes find it convenient to ally themselves with the US military, these alliances are based upon short term interests rather than any form of longstanding allegiance. Iraqis may have problems with one another for whatever reason, but a strong sense of national identity ensures that, together, Iraqis will simply not allow a long-term US occupation.

Another mistake consistently made by the US is the supposition that the US controls the political weather in Iraq. It does not. The last five years have taught us that it is ultimately up to Iraqis to determine how and when the US withdraws. This will happen soon. After all, the recent fall in violence has more to do with Iranian support for the Iraqi government, the Mahdi Army ceasefire, and the Sunni insurgents’ defeat by Shia militias in Baghdad than it does with the American fantasy that the troop surge provided the backdrop for the recent period of relative stability.

And yet present-day Iraq still remains the most dangerous place in the world. Many are convinced that circumstances are improving, yet television correspondents pictured strolling down peaceful streets are protected by armed bodyguards perched just beyond the view of the camera. Granted, things are “getting better,” but for Iraqis, the point of comparison would be the bloodbath of 2006-2007.

At the end of the day, the reality remains that there will be no end to the fighting in Iraq insofar as the occupation persists. In a fundamental way, the occupation destabilizes the country by discrediting any government allowed to subsist alongside it, marking it in the minds of the Iraqi population as a foreign-installed puppet regime with little to no claim to power. A US withdrawal and return to Iraqi sovereignty therefore must be real and not nominal. For all Bush’s talk of respect for Iraqi sovereignty, the US still overtly controls the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and controls much of the army covertly.

Having been a Middle East correspondent since 1979, Patrick Cockburn is widely considered to be one of the most experienced commentators on the Iraq war. He has won both the James Cameron Prize (2006) and the Martha Gelhorn Prize (2005) for his on-the-ground , and is the author of four books on Iraq: Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, and Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy and a collection of essays on the Soviet Union, Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology. Cockburn is currently the Iraq war correspondent for The Independent of London.

These events are presented as part of OUT NOW!,
on view at e-flux until November 8th, 2008
featuring works by Friends of William Blake, Patrick Cockburn, Kathy Kelly, Trevor Paglen, Martha Rosler, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jalal Toufic, and organized by Anton Vidokle

e-flux
41 Essex Street
New York City
T: 212 619-3356
opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12- 6 pm