Artipedia - Arts News

Recent glass exhibit featuring first generation of Chinese contemporary glass artist

Within every city, two cities simultaneously emerge. The first represents all that is good and right and desirable; the second city everything that we long to see changed.

The twocities art gallery in Shanghai, China seeks to help build the first city, through art and events that champion beauty, commitment, thoughtfulness and community. By providing space in the cultural world for Chinese artists and promoting academic development, we aim to help young artists find their voice in the world of art.

twocities is one of the few galleries in China that specializes in contemporary three-dimensional art. Our gallery represents Chinese artists pioneering in glass, metal, ceramic, and wood and lacquer. The glass artists we work with are considered the first generation of contemporary glass artists in China. These artists come from an academic studio art movement, studying and teaching fine arts at schools such as Shanghai University, Nanjing Art Institute, Qing Hua University, the Central Academy for the Arts and the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute.

Artists represented include Qiao Shi Guang, father of the modern wood and lacquer movement in China; Zhuang Xiao Wei, leader of the studio glass movement in China; Chen Guang Hui, a pioneering artist in the modern ceramics field; and Guo Xin, an established jewelry artist promoting jewelry as art in China.

Website: http://www.twocitiesgallery.com

Asia Contemporary Art Week

Asian Contemporary Art Week, (ACAW)
Sat March 15- Mon March 24, 2008

46 NYC museums and galleries join together to focus on Asian Contemporary Art. Over 100 Artists present their works at 60 special events, including receptions, exhibition viewings, screenings, Artists’ Conversations and walkthroughs.

New to ACAW is Artists in Conversation, a series of talks given by 35 leading and emerging artists speaking about their works and sharing their concepts and inspirations. Featured artists hail from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and, for the first time, from the Middle East: Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.
For detailed descriptions of events visit
www.acaw.net

SCHEDLUE OF EVENTS
15 SATURDAY
Sotheby’s
3-7 P.M. ACAW Opening Event and Conversation Panel with artists Tie Ying and Xu Zhongmin/ Sotheby’s Asian Auction Preview & Reception
17 MONDAY
The Museum of Modern Art
7 P.M. Akram Zaatari in Conversation / Screening
18 TUESDAY (UPTOWN)
Gallery Korea
1 P.M. Jean Shin and Ofri Cnaani in Conversation alongside Nam June Paik’s exhibit
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum*
4-5 P.M. Curatorial Walk Through of Cai Guo-Qiang’s retrospective
Marlborough Gallery*
5:30P.M.Viswanadhan in Conversation / 7-8:30 P.M. Opening Reception
Goedhuis Contemporary*
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Grace Tong
Island Weiss Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Chunhong Chang
The Korea Society
6:30-8 P.M. Exhibition: Toy Stories / Film Screening
China Institute*
8 P.M. Lin Yilin in Conversation
19 WEDNESDAY (MIDTOWN)
Whitney Museum of American Art
2 P.M. Biennial 2008: Artists in Conversation
Taipei Cultural Center
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Snake Alley: Cutting Edge Taiwanese Contemporary Art
Tamarind Art
6-9 P.M. Opening Reception: Creative Circuit: Indian Contemporaries
Lower East Side Printshop
6:30-8 P.M. Tomie Arai in Conversation / Exhibition Viewing
20 THURSDAY (CHELSEA)
Arario Gallery
6-8 P.M. Exhibition Viewing / 7 P.M. Exhibition Walk Through With Hyongkoo Lee
Bose Pacia*
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Ranbir Kaleka
Chambers Fine Art
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception / Shi Jinsong in Conversation
Chappell Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Toshio Iezumi
ChinaSquare
6:30-8:30 P.M. Opening Reception for Group Exhibit alongside Curator’s Talk
Chinese Contemporary
6-8:30 P.M. One Year Anniversary Reception / Exhibition: Tu Hongtao
Kips Gallery
6-8 P.M. Exhibition Viewing/ Conversation: Fay Ku
Mary Ryan Gallery
6-8:30 P.M. Opening Reception: Lin Tianmiao and Wu Moonching
Max Lang
6-8 P.M. Exhibition Viewing: Hye Rim Lee
Max Protetch Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Byron Kim and Qiu Jiongjiong
Moti Hasson Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Zipora Fried and Jiha Moon
M.Y. Art Prospects
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception and Curatorial Talk: CE/VN: Cadavre Exquis VietNam and Takako Azami
Onishi Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Ephemeral
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
6-8 P.M. Viewing and Reception: Drishti
Thomas Erben Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Ashok Sukumaran
Winkleman Gallery
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: I Dream of the ‘Stans: New Central Asian Video
21 FRIDAY (DOWNTOWN)
88 Conversations
4-8 P.M. Artists Studio Reception
envoy
6:30 P.M. Kanishka Raja in Conversation / 7:30 P.M. Reception
New York University
6:30 P.M. Hiroshi Sunairi and Yuken Teruya in Conversation
Art Projects International*
6 P.M. Reception / 7:30 P.M. Pouran Jinchi in Conversation
Ethan Cohen Fine Arts*
6-9 P.M. Opening Reception: Power of the Brush, Leading Painters from Asia
The Gabarron Foundation
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Taiwanese Contemporary Art
Sepia International / The Alkazi Collection*
6-8 P.M. Opening Reception: Course
Rubin Museum of Art
7-9:30 P.M. Dabid Abir and Frank Fu in Conversation / Performances
22 SATURDAY (Various Locations)
Japan Society*
11:30 A.M. Curatorial Walk Through of Shibata Zeshin
Sepia International / The Alkazi Collection*
12:30 P.M. Navin Rawanchaukul, Atul Bhalla, Osamu James Nakagawa and Jaye Rhee in Conversation
Max Protetch Gallery
1 P.M. Exhibition Walk Through with Byron Kim
Crossing Art
2 P.M. Back to the Garden: Artists in Conversation / 3:30 P.M. Film Screening / 6 P.M. Reception
Gary Snyder Project Space
2:30 P.M. Tadaaki Kuwayama in Conversation
Bose Pacia*
3 P.M. Ranbir Kaleka in Conversation
Queens Museum of Art
4 P.M. Jaishri Abichandani in Conversation / Exhibition Viewing
Ch’i Contemporary Fine Art
6-9 P.M. Catered Reception / 7:30 P.M. O Zhang in Conversation
Eli Klein Fine Art
6-9 P.M. Opening Reception: Zhang Hui
24 MONDAY
Asia Society and Museum*
6:30 P.M. Panel Discussion: India’s Burgeoning Art Scene / 8 P.M. Reception
Off Site Venues
The College of New Jersey Art Gallery, New Jersey
Parable of the Garden: New Media Art from Iran & Central Asia
Walsh Gallery, Chicago
Zhou Xiaohu: Solo Exhibition
The Armory Show
ACAW is organized by Asian Contemporary Art Consortium* in Association with Asia Society

Sponsors: ArtAsiaPacific, Sotheby’s, Art Radio WPS1.org and FORA. tv

Greek Pavilion

Greek Pavilion
52nd International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia

"THE END"
June 10 – November 21, 2007 / special cocktail preview: June 8, 17.00 – 19.00 / official inauguration: June 10, 12.00

Artist: Nikos Alexiou,
Commissioner/Curator: Yorgos Tzirtzilakis
Assistant Curator: Nadja Argyropoulou
Organization: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Directorate of Visual Arts, Department for the promotion of Contemporary Art
Greek Pavilion location: Giardini (next to the new entrance, Santa Elena vaporetto stop)

Nikos Alexiou will present the installation, The End, in the Greek Pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition in Venice. The work is a modular installation inspired by the floor mosaic in the Catholicon of the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos (10th-11th c. AD).
The Greek pavilion will hold a launch event on 8th June, 5-7pm (by invitation)

Curator Yorgos Tzirtzilakis comments:
"The Greek participation in the 52nd Biennale of Venice focuses on the possibilities of diversity, and the critical re-negotiation of the concepts of identity. Further, through the sensory materiality and multiplicity of artistic practices, and the repetition of the same, revealing and constructing the different a new condition of handicraft will be described and depicted.”

A close relationship has always existed in non-Western and Eastern cultures in terms the affiliation of aesthetic and religious techniques and practices of repetition for the achievement of ecstasy. Nikos Alexiou’s digital and material appropriation of the monastery mosaic sketches a visual path that suggests a broader change in the way that many have tried to describe and employ these practices in recent years. Alexiou’s installation is a four-piece modular work that consists of an interchangeable projection onto a large screen, paper cut-outs, prints and a table with elaborated paper rests; all as separate elements that will carry the traces of this work’s makings and marked with the memory of previous works. It is inspired by the cosmology of the floor mosaic of Iviron monastery at Mt Athos. Through the precision and intricacy of this work, Alexiou attempts to examine the aura of emotions that surround the mysteries of the mosaic.

Nikos Alexiou comments:
"The work for the Biennale, which I’ve called The End, carries everything I’ve worked on all these years, from the ’80s and a little earlier to this day. All references in my work, from rainbows, lights and galaxies to marble, prisms and the psychedelic stuff, are all in it."

About ‘The End’
Alexiou made frequent visits to Mount Athos and has been hosted at Iviron Monastery at various times from 1995 to date, where he got to know the spirituality, the quickening of the soul and the strange interpersonal experiences of coexisting in monastic communal life. During this time, after much “copying” and redesigning of the mosaic he attempted to understand the mysteries it contains as he sought its semantic structure as well as its vortex. One could describe this ‘mobile immobility’ of this floor as a composite ideogram, a symbolically packed system, the kind of condensing of the Whole that we call “data storage” today.

Nikos Alexiou has participated in the 23rd Biennale of Alexandria (2005), in the Outlook and Athens by Art exhibitions (2004 – Athens Olympic Games), Breakthrough! Greece 2004 (Sala Alcala 31, Madrid, Spain), in Free Transit (?) (2003 – Zappeion, Greek Presidency of the EU), DESTE Prize 2003 (DESTE foundation, Greece), et.al.

Sponsors:
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation & The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation
With the support of:
Minoan Lines & Boutari

For more information on Nikos Alexiou and the Greek Pavilion in Venice, as well as high resolution visuals, please refer to http://www.nikosalexiou.com

For Media enquiries, please contact:
Katie Taylor at Brunswick Arts on +44 (0) 207 936 1280; ktaylor@brunswickgroup.com
Alexandros J. Stanas at D.ART on +30 210 3821222 ; astanas@d-art.gr
Or coordinator Marina Vranopoulou, vranopoulou@gmail.com

For more information go to: http://www.nikosalexiou.com

Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan

Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan at the 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, “Collateral Events”

Press Preview 6-7-8-9 June, 2007 Hours open: 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
Venue Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello 4209, San Marco (Boat station: S. Zaccaria, next to the Palazzo Ducale)
Curator Hongjohn LIN
Artists TSAI Ming-Liang Huang-Chen TANG Kuo Min LEE Shih Chieh HUANG VIVA

Organized by Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan
Commissioner Wen-ling CHEN
Vice-commissioner Paolo DE GRANDIS
Chief Curator of TFAM Fang-wei CHANG

Taiwan at the 52nd Venice Biennial 2007
ATOPIA

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan is pleased to present the Exhibition, Atopia, curated by Hongjohn Lin, at Palazzo delle Prigioni, Venice on 10 June - 21 November 2007.

Atopia is a “non-place,” unconstrained by borders, due to the politico-economic dynamism of globalization. The disappearance of boundaries - the mixing and merging of cultures, virtual space shaped by technology, and transnational consumption and production - means no single identity can account for contemporary spatial configurations. Yet an atopia does not necessarily assure individual freedom. No longer the expressions of pure will and desire, our bodies are marked by the regulation of individual life by the combined powers of the new empire. The omnipresence of this condition makes true individualism possible, through the self-empowering recreation and rewriting of identities.

Atopia also means that a place cannot be placed, or simply be not-a-place. The impossibility of legitimate representations makes atopia a state of de facto without de jure - a place without its name can only be attended as an exception. Anachronistic histories and dislocated sites all assume the status of atopias. One can envisage that Taiwan is a non-national nation, or a nation without nationality, yet neither post-nation nor pre-nation: in short, an atopian state par excellence. Its name as listed in international settings is confusingly inconsistent and endlessly reinvented: Taiwan (ROC), China (Taiwan), China (Taipei), Taipei/China, Taipei, Chinese Taipei, and so on. Within these brackets, slashes, and aliases, an atopia performs “in-the-name-of-other-names,” i.e., to claim its identity through différance, not difference. Its true identity has always-already been inscribed through reiterations of supplements, arresting the open secret of atopia. The uncertain sta
tus of naming generates a new position between the subject and the big Other, responding to the network of intersubjectivity codified by political realities in order to open up to the impossibility. With reiterations creating the identity in-the-name-of-others, atopia retroactively alludes to its own inexpressible phantom status, a symbolically perverse situation.

What the exhibition Atopia brings to light is that the transference of this unrepresentability belongs to Taiwan’s cultural and political discourse. Through a creative inscription on exile from within, a gesturing to para-sites of the local, the exhibition reflects the acting-out of Taiwan within its own glocalized map. This is a mirrored community reflexive to Taiwanese-ness as a cultural, social, and political terrain that excises a magical reverse of psychogeographical play.

Internationally renowned filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang bases his work on alienated existences, ungrounded in place, lost in transition. The bewildering temporal-spatial settings of his films are non-places at best, where sexuality, adultery and incest all become the sole actions that people on the margins of society can take. Long and maddening sequences propel the radical silence of his images, evoking fragmentary realities of pathos.

Building on recollections from a well-known Taiwanese postcard, Huang-Chen Tang embarks on a heroic performance, taking participants from international cities on a voyage to reconstruct the scene and moment of that photograph. The impossibility of her action addresses the collective anamnesis of the allegory of travel. Through the untranslatability among different sites and histories, Tang creates an absurd blurring space in between the individual action and collective visual culture.

Kuo Min Lee’s photography documenting vanishing communities is not just an artistic expression but a social action against Taiwan’s urban policy. Revealed in his photographs are chaotic personal dwelling places, once lived in and on the verge of being torn apart. Lee’s work witnesses the transition of political pasts and urban histories, and shows the human conditions of a quasi-community in a state of emergency.

Shih Chieh Huang, a bricoleur of low-tech objects, alters mass-produced consumer appliances through hands-on instructions. His installation generates an interactivity with archi-textures of manipulated home appliances. Not a technocratic utopian, Huang orchestrates a hysterical dialogue between technology and humanity.

VIVA draws comics of new social realism to depict the everyday life of computer geeks in the format of doujinshi, a cultural mimicry from Japan. Quite the opposite of a pop artist who appropriates culture for art, VIVA is a practitioner of culture that speaks for the otaku generation. His work and life altogether render a topsy-turvy picture of the traffic of cultures found in glocalization.

The exhibition’s selected artworks invite viewers to attend not only a showcase of art, but an acting-out of the everyday reality of Taiwan, which in turn is intertwined with the global order. Here, travelism, urbanization, technology, subculture and individual existence all meet at the same crossroad, a terra incognita of self-refabrication in the name-of-other-names.

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, R.O.C. (Taiwan); the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan; the Taipei City Government; the Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government.

Press contact:
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Tel +886 2 25957656 Fax +886 2 25851886
info@tfam.gov.tw http://tfam.museum

Arte Communications
Tel +39 041 5264546 Fax +39 041 2769056
info@artecommunications.com http://www.artecommunications.com

For more information go to: http://tfam.museum

Deste Foundation

The Deste Prize 2007
for contemporary Greek artists

25 May - 3 November 2007
Exhibition Opening:
Thursday, 24th May 2007
Award Ceremony:
Monday, 24th September 2007
http://www.deste.gr

The opening of the Deste Prize 2007 Exhibition will take place on Thursday, 24th May 2007 at the Deste Foundation’s Centre for Contemporary Art. The Deste Prize was established in 1999 as an inseparable part of the Foundation’s overall policy of supporting and promoting contemporary Greek art and is awarded every two years to a young Greek artist living in Greece or abroad.

The exhibition, which will run until Saturday, 3rd November 2007, will feature works of the six (6) artists, namely Loukia Alavanou, Nikos Arvanitis, Savvas Christodoulides, Socrates Fatouros, Yiannis Grigoriadis and Eleni Kamma, who were shortlisted for the Prize by this year’s Selection Committee.

The six artists are currently in the last stages of preparation as they will all present new works on this occasion.

Loukia Alavanou’s double video-installation, titled Chop Chop is a pastiche of images taken from horror films and animated cartoons that conflates the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The work attempts to comment on the process of passively experiencing the reality of spectacle: especially that of the spectacle of horror channeled through the movie industry and the Mass Media.

Nikos Arvanitis’ installation Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie probes the extent of our dependence upon the power of authority and control, focusing on electrical power both as a necessary condition for the advancement of technology and as a formative factor for the individual’s mental and psychological being.

In Savvas Christodoulides’ construction titled A Place in a Garden, two wooden beams converge in order to support the frame of an armchair on whose arms are perched birds of the same material. The work’s central part, the armchair, evokes the image of a “place-receptacle” for the living body that is hospitable par excellence, allowing the individual to perceive and contemplate space, time and the notion of continuity and to form a clear concept of such conditions. The birds (in this case, eagles) appear to be an organic feature of the garden, lending the work a subtle quality of political dissonance.

Socrates Fatouros’ Royal Couple is a sculptural installation consisting of two forms with pronounced pictorial qualities, which develop vertically in space to create a new shape. The relationship of dialogue and interdependence between these two parts is not a forced or compulsory one, but rather one in which both are mutually complemented. It thus gives rise to a new “whole”, which stands at once as a “boundary-obstacle” and as a reminder of the notion of unified, unbreakable form.

Yiannis Gregoriades takes on the role of the contemporary flâneur, so that he may continue to explore and document built space through a new series of works that bears the general title Yugo Panoramic. The series consists of photographs and videos focusing on the new monuments and scenes of everyday life in the cities of former Yugoslavia. The works serve as a tool in the search for those notional devices that will enable us to interpret the wider region of the Balkans.

Eleni Kamma uses the dual identity of the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) – a plant possessing medicinal properties yet considered a weed by gardeners –as a starting point for her work. Her drawings and models are parts of a system marked by discontinuity, rupture and the intersection of binary structures. Through her work the artist calls upon the viewer to ponder issues of order, hierarchy and identity.

The Deste Prize 2007 includes a grant of €10.000.

Deste Prize 2007 Selection Committee: Nadja Argyropoulou – Independent Curator, Harry David – Collector, Elpida Karaba – Art Critic / Curator, Margarita Pournara – Journalist, Kathimerini newspaper, Kostis Velonis – Artist, Despina Zefkili – Art Critic, Athinorama magazine,.

Deste Prize 2007 Jury: Dakis Joannou – President, Deste Foundation, Pawel Althamer – Artist, Laura Hoptman – Curator, New Museum of Contemporary Art , Hans Ulrich Obrist – Co-director of Exhibitions & Programmes and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, Amanda Sharp – Co-publisher, Frieze magazine.

For more information:
Deste Foundation, 11 Filellinon & Em. Pappa st, Nea Ionia 142 34
T: +30 210 27 58 490, F: +30 210 27 54 862, E: info@deste.gr , http://www.deste.gr

For more information go to: http://www.deste.gr

Athens Biennial

Prayer for (Passive?) Resistance

a 1st Athens Biennial 2007 publication
with contributions by:
Catherine David, Evelyne Jouanno,
Per Hasselberg, Viktor Misiano,
Neil Mulholland, Panayis Panagiotopoulos,
Renata Salecl, Kostis Stafylakis,
Yannis Stavrakakis, Maria Theodorou,
and Jeremy Valentine

http://www.athensbiennial.org

Prayer for (Passive?) Resistance is an attempt to examine the concept of the 1st Athens Biennial 2007, Destroy Athens, in connection with the intentions and aspirations of the recently founded contemporary art biennial. The texts focus on issues such as the current conditions of contextualization for contemporary art, the terms that determine the articulation of political discourse within large-scale periodic exhibitions, as well as the characteristics of the city of Athens as a historically loaded vehicle for political and cultural stereotypes.

This new publication contains the lectures and discussions of the 1st Athens Biennial 2007 Conference, Prayer for (Passive?) Resistance, which took place in the Old Parliament of Athens, in February 2007. It includes contributions by Catherine David, Evelyne Jouanno, Per Hasselberg, Viktor Misiano, Neil Mulholland, Panayis Panagiotopoulos, Renata Salecl, Kostis Stafylakis, Yannis Stavrakakis, Maria Theodorou and Jeremy Valentine. It also includes an introduction by Destroy Athens co-curators Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Poka-Yio and Augustine Zenakos, as well as transcripts of public discussions, moderated by Katerina Koskina and Yiorgos Tzirtzilakis.

Prayer for (Passive?) Resistance is the second companion publication to the 1st Athens Biennial 2007, Destroy Athens. The first, Suggestions for the Destruction of Athens, was published as an initial declaration of curatorial intentions and a brief guide to the exhibition concept, in October 2006. The third companion publication will be the exhibition catalogue and will coincide with the opening of the 1st Athens Biennial 2007, Destroy Athens, in September 2007.

Prayer for (Passive?) Resistance is published by the Athens Biennial and Futura Publications, and will be available from May 15th 2007.

To order, please contact Futura Publications: 15 Victoros Ougo Street, GR - 104 37, Athens, Greece | T: +30 210 5226173 | F: +30 210 5226361 | E: futura@ath.forthnet.gr.

1st Athens Biennial 2007
Destroy Athens
10th September – 18th November 2007
Curated by: Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Poka-Yio, Augustine Zenakos

Main Sponsor: Deutsche Bank
Under the Aegis of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Athens

http://www.athensbiennial.org

For more information go to: http://www.athensbiennial.org

Bulgarian Pavilion

Bulgarian Pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia

UNESCO BRESCE Palazzo Zorzi
Castello 4930 Venice

10 June – 21 November
8 June 2007, 6 pm – Vernissage
7 – 9 June 2007 - Professional Preview

http://www.bulgarianpavilion-venice.org

A Place You Have Never Been Before

Artists: Pravdoliub Ivanov, Ivan Moudov, Stefan Nikolaev

Curator: Vessela Nozharova
Commissioner: Boris Danailov

We head towards places we have never been before full of expectations. More than an exhibition at a physical space A Place You Have Never Been Before is a metaphor about the new and unknown. How do we perceive the changes in the world we live in? How do we discover and understand new places?

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Ivan Moudov and Stefan Nikolaev have been selected to represent Bulgaria at the 52nd International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Vessela Nozharova, the exhibition showcases three of the younger generation of Bulgarian artists who were commissioned to create works in response both to the Palazzo Zorzi courtyard and the wider Venetian context.

Ivan Moudov’s Wine for Openings goes beyond Palazzo Zorzi. The Bulgarian red wine, specially produced and bottled by the artist, will be served during the vernissage at various pavilions, creating a symbolic community of the dispersed national exhibition venues. Moudov’s sculptural work Fragments installed at Palazzo Zorzi marks the finale of a five year long project. Since 2002 the artist has been collecting fragments of artists’ works from various museums and galleries around the world. Moudov (b.1975) lives and works in Sofia. Most recently he has exhibited at the 1st Moscow Biennial, 2005 and 4th/5th Cetinje Biennial in 2002/2004.

Stefan Nikolaev’s commission will occupy the centre of the palazzo’s courtyard. A disposable, ordinary object assumes monumental proportions – a four meter high Dupont lighter is cast in bronze, placed on a black plinth with its ‘eternal flame’ signifying the memory of something long gone by. Smoking with all its attributes of individualism, emancipation and revolt has been a recurrent theme in Nikolaev’s recent work. The title, inscribed in neon What Goes Up Must Go Down will shine through the ivy creeping through the pallazzo’s façade. Stefan Nikolaev (b.1970) lives and works in Sofia and Paris. He has exhibited at 4th Cetinje Biennial, 2002 and Gwangju Biennale 2002, amongst others.

Pravdoliub Ivanov’s Memory is a Muscle establishes a dialogue with Palazzo Zorzi’s elegant architecture of classical columns and arches. His three meter long dumbbell made out of silicon is more than a provocative gesture. Ivanov’s sculpture is equipped with a pair of wide open eyes instead of weights – a comment on the ways of seeing and perceiving the unknown through our senses, thoughts and memory. Pravdoliub Ivanov (b.1964) lives and works in Sofia. He has exhibited at 4th Berlin Biennial, 2006, 14th Sydney Biennial, 2004 and 4th Istanbul Biennial, 1995.

Catalogue
A Place You Have Never Been Before will be accompanied by a full colour exhibition catalogue featuring newly commissioned essays and interviews by Iara Boubnova, Boris Danailov, Georgi Gospodinov, Dessislava Dimova, Boris Kostadinov, Svetlana Kuyumdjieva, Mihnea Mircan and Vessela Nozharova.

Organizers
Ministry of Culture, Republic of Bulgaria and National Art Gallery, Sofia with the support of the UNESCO Office in Venice - Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (BRESCE)

Major exhibition sponsor is the Collection Hugo Voeten, Belgium

Additional support
Schenker, Bulgaria; AlItalia; MAGstudio webground; Sts Cyril and Methodius International Foundation

Launching of the magazine 02 at the Bulgarian Pavilion 8 June, 8 pm
DJ Vagabond (Breaktrue.org), Audrey Mascina and Jérôme Sans (Liquid Architecture)

For further details please contact:
Julia Mercurio +359 (0)877 496 420 bulgarianpavilion.mercurio@gmail.com
Vessela Nozharova vessela.nozharova@yahoo.com

For more information go to: http://www.bulgarianpavilion-venice.org

ART ATHINA

ART ATHINA RESTARTS AND ANNOUNCES NEW PROGRAMME
May 31 to June 3, 2007

Art Athina, Athens’ contemporary art fair, launches its 13th edition from 31st May to 3rd June 2007 (Preview 30th May). Under the auspices and with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Hellenic Art Galleries Association, Art Athina 2007, will take place at the Helexpo Palace, Exhibition and Conference centre. All five floors of the exhibition centre, totalling 8800 square meters, will be given over to Art Athina. The Fair will be under new management with ReStart General Director Michalis Argyrou and Artistic Director Christos Savvidis.

Athens’ contemporary art scene is undergoing a renaissance through the launch of major new arts venues such as the New Benaki Museum, a showcase for Greek Art, and of cutting edge artistic events such as the Thessaloniki Biennial (June 2007) and the Athens Biennial (September 2007). Along with these initiatives, and with the increased support by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Art Athina will be able to both endorse and give a boost to the local market for contemporary art.

Since taking over Art Athina a year ago, General Director Michalis Argyrou, and Artistic Director Christos Savvidis have redeveloped the fair’s format to create an event that will stretch the limits of the contemporary art fair. The fair is organised in three sections: the Basic Plan which will host international contemporary galleries; the Open Plan, an exhibition curated by Cecilia Canziani (Rome) and Sotirios Bahtsezis (Athens) where individual works contributed by cutting edge galleries will be shown; and the Parallel Plan, which provides a platform for a full program of curated exhibitions, performances, exhibitions, talks and encounters which hope to attract collectors and art market specialists, as well as academics, critics and curators from around the world.

Art Athina 2007 aims to set new standards in quality by selecting high profile innovative international contemporary galleries renowned for cutting edge projects. It will establish a platform for exchange by introducing a selection of curated exhibitions, performances and talks. In addition it will mobilize the city’s art spaces and other unique locations so as to extend the platform for art.

Highlights of Art Athina include:
•An invited country: Russia is this year’ s ‘guest’ country and a number of contemporary galleries from Russia will take part. The prestigious Stella Art Foundation (Moscow) will also present a number of projects and publications.

•An offsite exhibition at the Benaki museum: “on Greekdom” showing contemporary Russian artists active after the fall of the Berlin wall, curated by Viktor Misiano.

•A far-reaching VIP program and Collectors Club.

•Open Plan: in this section of the fair’ s program, curators Sotirios Bahtsetzis (Athens) and Cecilia Canziani (Rome), will offer an unprecedented varied selection of artworks providing new opportunities for buyers in comparison to those we normally encounter in art fairs.

•New Arrivals: offers four young contemporary galleries, scheduled to launch in 2007, an opportunity to exhibit alongside more established contemporary galleries.

•Critically in Between: an exhibition on the relationship between ‘art practice’ and the art market, curated by Viktor Misiano.

•Visual Kidnapping: a set of installations, interventions and performances investigating the process of “obtaining a work of art” and the relationship between “possessor” and “possession”, curated by Nadja Argyropoulou.

•I SYGHRONI ELLINIKI SKINI (The Contemporary Greek Scene): a series of performances investigating the Greek arts scene, curated by Nadja Argyropoulou.

•Art Scene - Art Seen: interactive installation by Artemis Potamianou.

•A series of video projections: “Me and the Others” curated by Marina Athanassiadou and Margarita Kataga, and “Entr’acte” curated by George Drivas.

•A site-specific project by the Guerilla Girls, curated by Artemis Potamianou.

•A series of lectures, guided tours, educational programs and seminars.

General Director: Michalis Argyrou
Artistic Director: Christos Savvidis

Under the auspices and with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
Organising Insitiution: Hellenic Art Galleries Association

Organisation: W-Art
Co-organisation: HELEXPO
Contact: T. +30 210 756 7723; F. +30 210 752 6995; 217 Ymittou str, Mets, 116 32, Athens, Greece.
Email: info@art-athina.com
website: http://www.art-athina.com

Venue: HELEXPO PALACE, Attica Exhibition and Conference Centre, 39 Kifissias Avenue, 151 23 - MAROUSSI, ATHENS, GREECE

Press office, Athens: Alexia Korleti at Art Athina on +30 6944 888 777 or +30 210 7567737 email korleti@art-athina.com

Press Office, London: Arianne Levene at Brunswick Arts on +44 (0) 207 936 1281 email alevene@brunswickgroup.com . Brunswick Arts LLP, 16 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3ED

For more information go to: http://www.art-athina.com

ARTERI

ARTERI Issue 2 OUT NOW!
Cyprus’ Arts & Creative Industries Magazine
in English, Greek, Turkish

ISSN 1450-4324

ARTERI presents the GUERRILLA GIRLS, Inc.
live in Cyprus 24 & 25 May 2007

arteri@accessarts.com.cy
http://www.accessarts.com.cy

subscriptions / purchase / PDF: http://www.accessarts.com.cy/arteri.htm

ISSUE 2 Celebrates in particular art by women, art activism and projects that fight discrimination and acknowledge the achievements of female artists. It also looks at dislocation and separation due to migration and environmental shifts.

Featuring -
[gallery] Elizabeth Mikellides Brussels based Greek-Cypriot Fine Artist/sound sculptor.
Mustafa Erkan Lefkosia based Turkish-Cypriot Photographer.
[articles/reviews] ‘GUERRILLA GIRLS and an interview with the Washing Up Ladies’ by
Nic Costa. ‘BROKEN - A Short Film by Vicki Psarias’ review by Sheridan Lambert.
[exhibition reviews] ‘CROSSINGS - a contemporary view’ & ‘SPACEWALK’ by Theopisti Stylianou. [profiles] ‘Natar & Yastrobnik’ Lefkosia based Cypriot & Slovenian fashion designers. [coming events] ‘UNDP(ACT) Civil Society Fair’ 3-5 May 2007.

ARTERI magazine was launched in Cyprus by AccessArts Publications Ltd in January 2007.
The independent, progressive, contemporary arts quarterly is the first of its kind promoting and acknowledging the work of Cyprus based artists as well as Cypriot creative professionals globally.

ARTERI covers the full creative spectrum from visual arts and design to literature, film, music and performance. Creative people in Cyprus, and Cypriots abroad, are invited to submit work - including art, poetry, short stories, articles and, as of Issue 3, also readers’ letters on any subject of interest or concern, arts related or other.

The magazine offers a crucial outlet for expression free of editorial control and without the bias of the otherwise elitist arts scene. It is the first quarterly to be printed in all 3 of the of the island’s key languages, welcoming contributions from the island’s Turkish-Cypriot and non-Cypriot communities and accepting submissions in any language from all artists irrespective of nationality, qualifications or social status.

ARTERI was conceived by British-Cypriot artist Nema Mcmorran, who since moving to Cyprus in 2002, identified the lack of support, recognition and critical appraisal for Cypriot contemporary art, and as a result founded AccessArts to provide a web based point of contact distributing arts news and showcasing Cyprus’ creative professionals.

There has long been a huge thirst in Cyprus for a contemporary forward-thinking glossy: ARTERI is proud to fill this gap.

ARTERI is distributed throughout Cyprus and is available online in print & digital format. It’s also sold in the UK at The Serpentine Gallery (Kensington, London).

Subscribe online at http://www.accessarts.com.cy/arteri.htm and support ARTERI by receiving this and forthcoming issues as soon as they are published.

View *e-ARTERI* Issue 1 FREE online now!

For more information go to: http://www.accessarts.com.cy/arteri.htm

Spatiul Public Bucuresti | Public Art Bucharest 2007

Spatiul Public Bucuresti |
Public Art Bucharest 2007
20 April – 15 October 2007
Bucharest – Romania

Curated by Marius Babias and
Sabine Hentzsch
Assistant curator: Raluca Voinea

Spatiul Public Bucuresti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 is a pilot project which creates a platform for trans-disciplinary discussions and debates exploring how public art encourages a critical engagement with the structures of power which are dominant in society.. The non-existence of a public sphere in Romania during Communism created the conditions for the unfettered capitalism of the post-Communist period to acquire a monopoly on the public space. Bucharest is one of the fastest developing cities in Europe, however one where post-Communism and globalization have created specific tensions and eccentric juxtapositions in the architecture, urban environment and social life. The ways in which people in the city perceive, experience and respond to these tensions define an active public space, which needs to be acknowledged by the cultural discourse and analysed in open debates.

The project Spatiul Public Bucuresti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 has three objectives: