Artipedia - Arts News

Gure Artea 2008
20th edition of the
Basque Government Art Awards.

Basque Government
Department for the Promotion of Culture

9 October - 30 November
sala rekalde

http://www.salarekalde.bizkaia.net

The biannual art prize Gure Artea, supported by the Basque Government, is being awarded this year to three artists resident in this autonomous region. Gure Artea first took place in 1982, while regional institutions aimed at supporting and promoting art and artists from the local context were being set up and consolidated. Award winners in previous editions include Itziar Okariz, Jon Mikel Euba, Azucena Vieites, Ibon Aranberri, Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa and Abigail Lazkoz.

The group show Gure Artea 2008 is the first stage of the award. It presents the jury’s selection of works from among those submitted in an open call. The jury was made up of Miren Jaio, curator of this edition; Anna María Guasch, Pablo Lafuente and Carla Zaccagnini.

The sala rekalde will be presenting works by the twelve selected artists, born between 1965 and 1982: Lorea Alfaro, Atoma, Nadia Barkate, Inazio Escudero, Mikel Eskauriaza, Iñaki Imaz, Iratxe Jaio y Klaas van Gorkum, Maider López, Asier Mendizabal, Kiko Pérez, Xabier Salaberria and Manu Uranga.

Over time there has been an effort to adapt the award to the changing conditions of art practice. It is no longer organized into categories of disciplines as it was twenty-six years ago. However, in the present exhibition the specificity of different media is strongly present: painting, sculpture, drawing, video, performance and photography are all shown, and several of the artists are signified by the exercise of a particular discipline. Rather than denoting a possible “return to order”, this specificity signals the irrelevance of a chosen medium when defining art practise, which is determined by ways of working and forms of production over and above the support used.

There are different references in the exhibition: documentation as part of the working process; policies of urban planning; intervention in the landscape with slogans that announce nothing in a post-industrial environment, or a football field in an Islamic city; the private spaces of rooms under construction in council buildings; badly lit scenes of couples; images taken from the entertainment industries (TV, porn, YouTube); the combination of painting, the vocabulary of Minimalism and the ordinary image of a garage door; collaboration (two out of the twelve proposals are group projects); relationships generated by the superimposition and gestural repetition of forms, motifs and disparate motifs or textures in photographs, and scenes of galloping horses and singers.

Though the only thing the works have in common is the fact that they were produced in the Basque context in 2008, they inevitably share the same contemporary characteristic of otherness and inadaptation to a reality saturated with signs: an object which is neither a Minimalist sculpture nor a shelf; clumsily-painted repeated motifs of faces and mountains; a video which is not a register of a performance but the strange result of it; the backdrop to a Clash concert - an amalgam of nationalities - without its stage.

The names of the prizewinners will be made public on the 9th of October, the opening day of the show:
The exhibition is complemented by the catalogue Gure Artea 2008 containing an essay on repetition as a condition of contemporary experience.

The second part of Gure Artea, the presentation of an exhibition of the three award-winners work, will take place in October 2009 at the Museo Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz..

Events:
Thursday 6 November, 19.30. Anplia, a performance by Inazio Escudero.
14, 18, 20 November: three conversations, each between an award-winner and a jury member.

Argos

Christoph Draeger
Helenés - Apparition of Freedom, 2005
Courtesy the artist.

Interstitial Zones:
Historical Facts,
Archaeologies of the Present
and Dialectics of Seeing
21.10.08 - 03.01.09

OPENING
Sat 18.10.08 18:00 - 21:00

Argos
Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier
1000 Brussels
Belgium

http://www.argosarts.org

In the media, historic events obey the laws of the media. They are simplified and misrepresented in single dimension. The false economics of current events and info-entertainment that govern the news grind reality up. Reality no longer has anywhere to flee. We see either clichés (the repetition and proliferation of the same thing, over and over) or we see nothing at all (discrimination against context and background, or censure). In both cases, there is a form of blindness whereby the world can no longer be looked at and the viewer is shipwrecked. The media knows only the here and now, that which is fleeting and bears no inner memory. The media shows facts over which we have no power.

Interstitial Zones offers a critical alternative or opposing space, with the work of fifteen artists that have sought out the crooks and crannies of post-war history that the mass media never reveal. The topics are diverse: The Red Army Faction or RAF, George Bush’s inaugural speech, the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, 9/11, Iraq, the extra-legal regime of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, the assault on Salvador Allende, the Gaza conflict, religious suicide attacks and so on. These specific historic events could equally be exchanged for others. The meta-narrative breaking up of the mechanisms of media representation and seeking out intervals make up the starting point of the exhibition. These intervals manifest themselves, for example, in voice-overs detached from the visual presentation, interchanging multiple time spans and the use of black or white monochrome images.

As a result, a dialectic is set in motion between representations by the mass media on the one hand – with all the consequences for the way they take hold in our collective memories – and an ecological/iconoclastic position synonymous to the singularity of the artist on the other hand. Inherent to the interstitial space is the fact that it is a space of possibilities, a place where a new, different kind of visibility is put into effect. Interstitial Zones wishes to make a stand against the politics of invisibility with which the media confront us on a daily basis. How can we possibly speak of ‘eimages’ when the surfeit of finformation’ is such as it is? How might we again retrieve the rational from the emotional, the sensational? How do we touch on new political conditions if they continue, by definition, to be a blind spot for the media?

The exhibition not only breaks open several decades of history by placing a distorted mirror before the mass media, it also focuses attention on that which transcends the moving image. It is now about the eclipse of politics and aspects of negative democracy, notably that which has increasingly pulled away from electoral legitimacy. The French language has the semantic attraction of offering a word play on the words voir and savoir, to see and to know, which did not escape Jean-Luc Godard. This same dialectic is also fundamental to the Interstitial Zones exhibition, where seeing is enclosed within knowing, in an ever-changing matrix of conscious and subconscious recollections. This means that the viewer has an active role in the exhibition. In contrast to the inherent character of television or film, the medium here does not disappear in what it permits us to see, but shows itself for what it is. The dialogue between different kinds of images provides an important place for
that which cannot be visualized, but which is certainly conceivable.

Curated by Paul Willemsen with contributions by: François Bucher, Guy Debord, Sebastian Diaz Morales, Christoph Draeger, Claire Fontaine, Joan Fontcuberta, Jean-Luc Godard, Armin Linke, Gianni Motti, Melik Ohanian, Shelly Silver, Julia Meltzer and David Thorne, Aldo Tambellini, Klaus vom Bruch and et alia.

Jason Douglas Griffin, Cool Grey, 72” x 52”, mixed media on canvas, 2008

Leo Kesting Gallery Presents:
Jason Douglas Griffin – 80’s Babies
October 16 – November 2, 2008
Opening Night Reception: Thur Oct 16th from 7 - 10 pm
812 Washington St (at Gansevoort) NY NY 10014
8th Ave A, C, E and L train Stop or 1,2,3 to 14th St
Tuesday - Saturday from 11:00 am until 7:00 pm Sunday 1:00 – 6:00 pm
Admission is free to the public phone: 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
http://www.leokesting.com

Jason Douglas Griffin, the critically acclaimed New York street painter who is preparing a monograph to be released on HarperCollins, presents a collection of figurative, narrative paintings and illustrations debuting at Leo Kesting on October 16th. The series of artworks entitled “80’s Babies” showcases Jason’s signature graphic style of strong line and color to capture what he refers to as collaboration or narrative of his sitters.

“For me it represents a passion for people, meeting a person getting to know them and collaborating with them to discover their story,“ Jason explains about his work. “In this collection I am trying to discover the sitter’s narrative and reflect that on my canvas, a representation of who they are as a person as opposed to a portrait.”

”Jason’s artwork is a brand of illustration and painting creating a balance in his artwork that allows the viewer to get caught in the emotion and drama depicted in the subjects’ own visual story,” galleriest David Kesting stated. “These artworks are an example of how young artists, enculturated in our graphic society, reflect upon the roots and foundations of painting which is the portrait. Afterwards the challenge is to discover your own voice from within that foundation and make it into your own. With 80’s Babies, Jason shows he can do that in a unique and original way.”

80’s Babies opens to the public with a reception for the artist at Leo Kesting Gallery on Thursday October 16th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm.

From its origins as Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, the Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.

Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington St at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E, or L train to 8th Ave and 14th Street or 1,2,3 train to 14th Street. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.

about the artist:

Intensely personal, while at the same time unpretentious and accessible, Jason Douglas Griffin’s paintings borrow equally from classical artistic traditions, urban aesthetic, and pop culture. In Griffin’s work, the intersection of cultures and ideologies produce an innovative style that challenges the common perceptions of art and identity.

Griffin’s art has been featured in several cities around the country, including Miami, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well internationally, in China and Holland. He has been written about in magazines like, NY Arts Magazine and The Economist, and has been featured in The Washington Post, numerous times.

Griffin not only works to exhibit his art in galleries, but he has also tapped into the literary world with his upcoming HarperCollins release, “My Name is Jason. Mine Too.,” scheduled to be released, Spring 2009.

Griffin currently resides in Queens, New York.

Paris Photo 2008

Copyright Asako Narahashi - Kawagushiko, 2003 - From the series “half awake and half asleep in the water”
Courtesy Galerie Priska Pasquer.

Paris Photo 2008
Japan Guest of Honour
13 - 16 November

Carrousel du Louvre, Paris

http://www.parisphoto.fr

Paris Photo 2008: an exceptional panorama of Japanese photography
From November 12th to 16th 2008, Paris Photo will bring together at the Carrousel du Louvre, 107 exhibitors from 19 countries. With 78% of participants from abroad and 37 newcomers, the selection for 2008 has favoured a greater focus on personal exhibitions and thematic projects, presenting the best photographic expressions from the earliest time to the present day. But one of the important aspects of this 12th edition is the invitation of Japan as country of honour: with the work by more than 130 artists on show, Paris Photo will offer an exceptional overview of a unique site of practice, from the Meiji era to the most contemporary production. To date, no exhibition in Europe has broadly brought together such a number of Japan’s modern, contemporary and emerging photographers.

“Spotlight on Japan” is curated by Mariko Takeuchi, independent curator and photography critic.

The 5th edition of the BMW – Paris Photo Prize
Launched in 2004 in support of contemporary photography, the BMW –Paris Photo Prize celebrates its fifth anniversary. Awarded by a prestigious jury, the prize has become an international reference in recognition of the work of a contemporary artist on a theme related to the world of BMW. The work of 20 artists short listed for the prize is exhibited during Paris Photo. The winner will be awarded the 12,000 euro prize on Thursday, November 13.

Theme for 2008: Never Stand Still
Jury: Marta Gili, director, Jeu de Paume, Vicki Goldberg, art critic and photography author, Stephen Shore, photographer, Anne Wilkes Tucker, photography curator, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Michael Wilson, collector, Nicolas Wertans, Chairman of BMW Group France and Eric de Riedmatten, director of communication, BMW France.

Short-listed artists: Jeff Brouws (Robert Klein Gallery), Andrew Bush (Rose Gallery), Clark & Pougnaud (Galerie Baudoin Lebon),Gerardo Custance (Polaris), J.H. Engström (VU’ la Galerie), Martine Fougeron (Esther Woerdehoff Galerie), Nobuhiro Fukui (Tomio Koyama Gallery), Jim Goldberg (Magnum Gallery), Dionisio Gonzalez (Max Estrella), Miyako Ishiuchi (Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo), Syoin Kajii (Foil Gallery), Atta Kim (Keumsan Gallery), Ken Kitano (MEM Gallery), Janne Lehtinen (Taik Gallery), Yao Lu (798 Photo Gallery), Akira Mitamura (The Third Gallery Aya), Keisuke Shirota (Base Gallery), Yuki Tawada, (Taro Nasu), Nao Tsuda (Hiromi Yoshii), Ofer Wolberger (Michael Hoppen Gallery)

Paris, the international epicentre of art photography in November
The 12th Paris Photo edition coincides with the “Photo Month” whose theme is “European Photography: between tradition and change”. VIPs and collectors invited at Paris Photo in the framework of “Close-Up” VIP programme will get privileged access to what’s happening in photography in Paris, including among others the “Lee Miller” exhibition at Jeu de Paume, “The School of Dusseldorf” at the Mam Ville de Paris, “Henri Cartier Bresson and Walker Evans” at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, “Sabine Weiss” at the Maison Européenne de la photographie, or “Tokyo Stories” at Artcurial.

Details

Dates: Thursday, 13 November– Sunday, 16 November, 2008
Opening by invitation only: Wednesday, 12 November, 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Venue: Carrousel du Louvre, 99 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France
Opening hours: 13 Nov. from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm, 14Nov. from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm, 15 Nov. from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm, 16 Nov. from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm
General admission: Advance purchase admission (no waiting in line) can be booked on Paris Photo online shop at http://www.parisphoto.fr
Information: http://www.parisphoto.fr
Travel: for travel arrangements and accommodation, please take advantage of our partnership with Turon Travel: T: +1 212 925 54 53 - E-mail: parisphoto@turontravel.com http://www.turontravel.com

Press liaison : 2e BUREAU, 18, rue Portefoin, 75003 Paris, Tel : +33 (0) 1 42 33 93 18
For France: Martial Hobeniche, E-mail : m.hobeniche@2e-bureau.com
For international: Sylvain Poisson, E-mail: s.poisson@2e-bureau.com

Christine Meisner, The Present, Videostill from “… ‘Can you turn back?” (2007)

19 October 2008 – 04 January 2009

Extra City Center for Contemporary Art Antwerp is proud to announce its participation in the inaugural Brussels Biennial, with a project titled ‘Letter to Leopold’.

‘Letter to Leopold’ is a project bringing together some ten participants in a reflection on Belgium’s history, its global dimension in modernity, and its present day legacy and implications for Europe and European policies. Leopold refers to Leopold II, King of Belgium until 1909, owner of the ‘private’ colony ‘Congo Free State’ which was later handed over to the state of Belgium and which gained independence as the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960.
‘Letter to Leopold’ is an exploration of art’s possibilities to ‘speak to the past’.

Post Sorting Center - Avenue Fonsny 48 - 1160 Brussels
http://www.extracity.org
http://www.brusselsbiennial.be

Daimler Contemporary

Ill.: Yuken Teruya, Dawn (knives), 2008 [Detail]

FORWARDS 08
October 11, 2008 - March 1, 2009

Opening
Friday, October 10, 2008, 7 pm

Daimler Contemporary
Haus Huth
Alte Potsdamer Straße 5
10785 Berlin
Germany
http://www.collection.daimler.com

DAIMLER AWARDS FOR CONTEMPORARY ART FROM GERMANY, JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA AND THE USA

Under the name FORWARDS 08 the Daimler Art Collection is linking together three international awards for contemporary art. Along with the German-Japanese exchange program Art Scope and the Mercedes-Benz Award for South African Art and Culture, this year’s event in Haus Huth in Berlin also sees the presentation of the Emerging Artist Award given in conjunction with Daimler Financial Services.

FORWARDS 08 brings Daimler AG’s international and sustained promotion of young artists together for the first time in one exhibition: Daimler Japan launched the Art Scope Award in the early 1990s. A quick glance at the list of award winners to date shows that it was made to talented young artists who have gone on to represent key aspects of contemporary art in Japan. The Mercedes-Benz Award for South African Art and Culture was initiated in 1999. This award, given each year since in a different specialist area such as painting, sculpture, dance, poetry, music, photography and choreography, is recognized as the most significant cultural award in South Africa. The Emerging Artist Award, presented in 2008 for the fourth time by Daimler Financial Services 2008, is now part of a global network working to foster and promote contemporary art and culture.

Art Scope 2007/08:
Art Scope is the name given to a program launched in 1991 to support young practitioners of fine art from Japan and Germany. In 2004 the prize was restructured as an “Artist in Residence” program and opened up to young German artists as well. A joint exhibition of the work of the 2007/2008 award winners – Izumi Kato (*1969) and Yuken Teruya (*1973) from Japan, as well as the German artists Eva Teppe (*1973) and Ascan Pinckernelle (*1970) – was first shown in summer 2008 in the Hara Museum for Contemporary Art in Japan. The award winners for 2009/2010 have now been selected: Jan Scharrelman (*1975, D), Eva Berendes (*1974, D), Hiroe Saeki (*1978, J) and Meiro Koizumi (*1976, J).

Mercedes-Benz Award for South African Art and Culture 2008 – Art Projects in Public Spaces:
The renamed Mercedes-Benz Award for South African Art and Culture was awarded in March 2008 for the eighth time since 1999. The Award aims to promote artistic and cultural life in South Africa and recognizes the country’s cultural activity as a reflection of its social and political development and maturity. This year’s Award for Art Projects in Public Spaces goes to the artist Kevin Brand (*1953) for his pioneering art projects in public spaces. Special mention was made by the judges of nominee Samson Mudzunga (*1938) for his sculptures presented in the context of performances, which fuse art and culture with traditional rituals and ceremonials.

Emerging Artist Award 2008
The Emerging Artist Award was created by Daimler Financial Services and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2005 to honor a particularly innovative work by a graduate of this leading school of art. The winner of the Award is selected from among the graduates across all disciplines at the Academy, which is based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. With Annica Cuppetelli (*1977, Orlando, Florida) the award goes in 2008 for the first time to a graduate of the Academy’s Fiber department. The exhibition of Cuppetelli’s works, which examine the relationship between materiality, form and fashion, represents the first time the Award is on show at Daimler Contemporary. An accompanying publication will help the young artist to achieve wider international recognition. The winner of the Award also receives an art scholarship, combined with a one-month residency and networking and mentoring program through Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.

FORWARDS 08 comprises some 30 works – including drawings, sculptures, objects, videos and installations, as well as projects for public spaces – by seven artists from Germany, Japan, South Africa and the United States.

Participating Artists:
Kevin Brand (SA), Annica Cuppetelli (USA), Izumi Kato (J), Samson Mudzunga (SA), Ascan Pinckernelle (D), Eva Teppe (D), Yuken Teruya (J)

FORWARDS 08 is accompanied by a comprehensive program, including artist talks, lectures and discussions with represented artists as well as thematic guided tours: These tours are available in German language on every first Saturday of a month at 4 p.m. (Nov 01 / Dec 06, 2008 / Jan 10 / Feb 07, 2009). Please check our website for updates and announcements. If you would like to receive regular information about exhibitions and activities of the Daimler Art Collection please send an E-Mail to: kunst.sammlung@daimler.com.

Exhibition catalogues are available at Daimler Contemporary, at bookshop Bücherbogen am Savignyplatz in Berlin or can be ordered online at: http://collection.daimler.com/publikationen/publikationen_e.php

Contact:
Daimler Contemporary
Haus Huth
Alte Potsdamer Straße 5
10785 Berlin
Germany

Open daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Admission free

Phone: +49 (0)30 259 41 42 0
Fax: +49 (0)30 259 41 42 9
E-Mail: kunst.sammlung@daimler.com
http://www.collection.daimler.com

Peter Flemming ‘Canoe’ (2003)

Schematic is a group exhibition showcasing the work of five emerging and established new media artists Peter Flemming, Germain Koh, Norman White, Nicholas Stedman and Joe McKay. Using innovative engineering and robotics they explore the role than technologically mediated relationships play in shaping our attitudes towards leisure, work, the environment and each other.

8 November - 20 December 2008

[ space ]
129 - 131 Mare Street
London
E8 3RH
exhibitions@spacestudios.org.uk
http://www.spacestudios.org.uk