Artipedia - Arts News

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:

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Marlene Dumas—Broken White

14 April 2007 – 1 July 2007
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
4-1-1, Miyoshi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0022 Japan
Tel: +81 (0)3 5245 4111
Fax: +81 (0)3 5124 1141
http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/
The exhibition’s official site: http://dumas.jp

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) will present the first comprehensive exhibition in Japan of the works of Marlene Dumas (born in Cape Town in 1953), a female artist who creates and exhibits internationally.

Raised in apartheid South Africa, Dumas studied art at Cape Town University in the 1970s, an era when radical aesthetics rocked art to its foundations. Since 1976 she has made Amsterdam her base. Taking as subject matter her lovers, daughter and friends, or else images of people found in the media, her portraits have a suggestive character, highly provocative of the viewer’s imagination, and they document our society with disturbing honesty. To portraits and representation of the human body, traditional subjects in painting, she brings contemporary sensibilities and a forceful reality. Strongly influenced by photography and movies in her depiction of real human emotion, Dumas is restoring vitality to the painted image, as if by recombining the DNA of other media.

Because of her cultural background in South Africa, Dumas stands at a distance from Western culture and has readily absorbed references from African and Japanese art. Her existential approach to her subject, unbiased by culture, and her openness to references, as such, have engendered her unusual style.

Ceaselessly changing in her work, Dumas applies her individualistic interpretation of painting in depicting discrimination, prejudice, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and so on, thereby producing a social portrait rich in the complexity that defines our times. In this exhibition—together with “Banality of Evil” (1984) and other examples of her brightly colored, bewitching oil portraits of the 1980s; her renowned grouped-portrait series, “Female” (1992-1993), consisting of 217 drawings; and her nude portrait series—MOT will display works from her latest series, “Man Kind” (2002 – 2006), dealing with mistaken identities and fears concerning global terrorism.

As befits a presentation of Dumas works in Japan, the exhibition will reflect, in its composition, the artist’s interest and involvement in this country. Her new work “Broken White,” from which the exhibition title derives, will be displayed along with the Nobuyoshi Araki monochrome photograph that served as its model and also a Ukiyo-e print by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839-1792), whose grotesque world of Eros resonates with Dumas’s works and strongly caught her interest. The first exhibition in Japan to introduce the full scope of Dumas’s chief works—through 150 works, including some 10 new creations—Broken White will precede major Marlene Dumas retrospectives scheduled for 2008 at Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Marlene Dumas—Broken White is co-curated by Yuka Uematsu, Chief Curator, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art; and Yuko Hasegawa and Masami Yamamoto, respectively Chief Curator and Assistant Curator of Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

A fully illustrated catalogue will be available in English and Japanese, co-published by the museums and Tankosha Publishing Co., Ltd. The catalogue will feature about 70 illustrations of key works by Marlene Dumas, including some of her new productions. Dumas’s short texts and an exclusive long interview illuminate the thoughts and practice of the artist.

[Marlene Dumas: Broken White] hardcover with jacket, 160 p color & b/w, 190×240 mm, Japanese/English hb, ISBN 978-4-473-03415-1, published in April 2007.

Marlene Dumas—Broken White will travel to the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa, Japan (21 October 2007 - 20 January 2008).

Marlene Dumas—Broken White is supported by Mondriaan Foundation; Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Japan; sponsored by Wacoal Holdings Crop.; Lion Corporation; Shimizu Corporation; Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd; and in cooperation with KLM Royal Dutch Airline.

For further information please contact Kaoru Shinahama, Press Office, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan.

Call +81-(0)3-5245-1134 / fax:+81-(0)3-5245-1141, Email k-shinahama@mot-art.jp

Also on View at MOT
Show Me Thai
18 April – 20 May 2007

Contemporary art exhibition with more than 70 artists from Thailand and Japan, commemorating the 120th anniversary of the Japan-Thai diplomatic relations.

Participating Thai artists include Montien Boonma, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Navin Rawanchaikul, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Porntaweesak Rimsakul, and Chatchai Puipea.

For more information go to: http://dumas.jp

Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore

Out Now: Contemporary Art in Singapore

Gunalan Nadarajan, Russell Storer and
Eugene Tan
ISBN 978-981-05-6461-2
23cm x 28cm

For enquiries / mail order, call +65 6340 9102
or email icas@lasalle.edu.sg

LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore) is pleased to inform you of the launch of Contemporary Art in Singapore, a book that seeks to introduce the general audience to the development of contemporary art in Singapore from the 1970’s till the present day.

Curated and written by Gunalan Nadarajan, Russell Storer and Eugene Tan, Contemporary Art in Singapore features works by established and emerging artists who are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art practice including Cheo Chai-Hiang, Heman Chong, Chua Ek Kay, Amanda Heng, Jeremy Hiah, Ho Tzu Nyen, Salleh Japar, Khiew Huey Chian, Kill Your Television (KYTV), Koh Nguang How, Zai Kuning, kAI Lam/Zulkifle Mahmod/Pink Ark, Jane Lee, Luis Lee, Lee Wen, Vincent Leow, Jason Lim, Lim Shing Ee, Susie Lingham, Francis Ng, Matthew Ngui, Donna Ong, Ana Prvacki, Milenko Prvacki, Rizman Putra, Colin G Reaney, Jeremy Sharma, Shirley Soh, Tan Kai Syng, Margaret Tan, Michael Tan, The Artists Village (TAV), Suzann Victor, Ian Woo, Woon Tien Wei, Juliana Yasin and Ye Shufang.

With incisive explanatory texts on each artist’s seminal works, methodologies, critical positions, key biographical points and significant exhibitions alongside visual essays, the book is an insightful overview of the burgeoning contemporary art practice in Singapore and its relationship with the international art world over the last three decades.

While there has been a considerable level of critical discussion and analysis of contemporary art in Singapore over this period, Contemporary Art in Singapore is one of the few systematic attempts to theoretically and historically contextualise it.

Contemporary Art in Singapore is published by LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, with support from the National Arts Council (NAC) of Singapore, in conjunction with the Singapore Art Show.

PUBLICATION INFO
Contemporary Art in Singapore
Gunalan Nadarajan, Russell Storer and Eugene Tan
ISBN 978-981-05-6461-2
23cm x 28cm

For enquiries / mail order, call +65 6340 9102 or email icas@lasalle.edu.sg

Note on the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore

Since its formation in 2004 as a division of LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore has positioned itself at the forefront of research, creation, interpretation and exhibition of international and Asian contemporary visual arts, media arts and design.

Through research, conferences, publications and exhibitions, ICA Singapore seeks to forge a network of relationships with artists, curators, researchers and institutions both in Asia and internationally, and be a catalyst for their creative expression and active engagement with their respective audiences.

For more information go to: http://www.lasalle.edu.sg/secondary.html

Yokohama Triennale

The 3rd Yokohama Triennale

YOKOHAMA 2008: International Triennale of Contemporary Art
“Time Crevasse”

September 13 – November 30, 2008
Artistic Director: Tsutomu Mizusawa

http://www.yokohamatriennale.jp/

As we entered a new millennium in the year 2001, the Yokohama Triennale, an international triennial of contemporary art, was established as a forum for new cultural production. The first Yokohama Triennale, YOKOHAMA 2001: Mega Wave—Towards a New Synthesis, was curated by Shinji Kohmoto, Nobuo Nakamura, Fumio Nanjo, and Akira Tatehata, and a total of 109 artists from 38 nations around the globe participated. Following the success of the first Triennale, visual artist Tadashi Kawamata realized the 2nd Yokohama Triennale in 2005, by adopting the unique concept of “Work in Progress” under the title of “Art Circus (Jumping from the Ordinary).”

YOKOHAMA 2008, Yokohama’s third international triennale of contemporary art, will take place in the autumn of 2008. The organizing committee for the 3rd Yokohama Triennale is pleased to announce that Tsutomu Mizusawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama, has been appointed as the Artistic Director. Through this major art exhibition set in the cosmopolitan port city of Yokohama, Mizusawa aims to reaffirm the boundless energy that art affords us. Together with the international curatorial team, Mizusawa will organize the exhibition under the overall theme “Time Crevasse.”

“Time Crevasse”
Art shakes up our everyday perceptions. It gives us glimpses of the“abysses” we normally fail to notice, or perhaps pretend not to notice. It can horrify us, give us courage, console us, or provide us with what we need to face life. Art arises when we confront those abysses squarely and, by waiting attentively at the edges of “time crevasses,” we can scrupulously register various forms of mutual differentiation—individual or social differences; differences of nationality, gender, generation, ethnicity, religion, and so on—including the particular circumstances in which we ourselves are currently situated.

As the Yokohama Triennale prepares to unfold for the third time, it will offer an opportunity for honest reevaluation and reaffirmation of art’s essential value and power today and in the future. This forum for artistic expression will be maintained not only for the sake of mere novelty to be consumed like information, but rather so that, by confronting and accepting the myriad “crevasses” etched in their histories, people can work toward achieving a better mutual understanding of a deep and far-reaching kind.

Outline of the Exhibition

Period
September 13–November 30, 2008

Venues
Central and Waterfront Sites in Yokohama

Organizers
The Japan Foundation, The City of Yokohama, NHK, The Asahi Shimbun, The Organizing Committee for the Yokohama Triennale, et al.

Artistic Director
Tsutomu Mizusawa (Chief Curator, Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama)

Artistic Director
Tsutomu Mizusawa
Born in Yokohama in 1952. Obtained an MA from Keio University (Japan) and joined the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, as curator in 1978. Curated many exhibitions, including “MOBO, MOGA / Modern Boy, Modern Girl: Japanese Modern Art 1910–35” (1998), “Isamu Wakabayashi”(1997), “Antony Gormley: Still Moving”(1996), and “Katsura Funakoshi”(1993). He was appointed the Japanese commissioner of the “Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh” in 1993 and 1997, and of the São Paulo Biennale in 2004.

* For more information go to: http://www.yokohamatriennale.jp/

For more information go to: http://www.yokohamatriennale.jp/

Deste Foundation

Deste Prize 2007
for Contemporary Greek Artists

Opening:
Thursday 24th May 2007
Award Ceremony:
24th September 2007

Deste Foundation
Centre for Contemporary Art
11, Filellinon & Em. Pappa Street
142 34 Nea Ionia, Athens, Greece
T: +30 210 2758490, F: +30 210 2754862
E: info@deste.gr
http://www.deste.gr

The Deste Foundation is pleased to launch its new visual identity designed by M/M (Paris), on the occasion of the announcement of the shortlisted artists for the upcoming Deste Prize 2007 for Contemporary Greek Artists.

The Deste Prize was established in 1999 as part of the Foundation’s policy of supporting and promoting contemporary art in Greece and is awarded every two years to a Greek artist living and working either in Greece or abroad. Through this prize, Deste hopes to endorse the spirit of exploration, ingenuity and ambition, so essential to the Foundation’s mission and to the vitality of contemporary art.

The Selection Committee has chosen the following six (6) short-listed artists for the Deste Prize 2007:

Loukia Alavanou, for the video collages she creates by sampling images from classic animation movies, cult horror films and early 20th century family photographs.

Nikos Arvanitis, for the versatility he demonstrates in his use of media (video, music, drawing, installations, performance) and for his approach of the notions of the public and the political, of high and mass culture.

Yiannis Gregoriades, for his investigation into the various aspects of reality and urban space and for the way in which his work combines a recording of data with a process of research and classification that is reminiscent of the practice of archaeology.

Eleni Kamma, for employing the methods of copying and editing to create utopian space and to articulate a critique of ideologies and stereotypes.

Socrates Fatouros, for his distinctive gestural language that produces a palimpsest of iconographic types and symbols.

Savas Christodoulides, for his particular approach of the tension that is typical of bipolar models, such as the hand-made versus the ready-made, the high versus the low, the place of the artwork versus that of the viewer.

This year marks the fifth presentation of the Deste Prize. Since its inception the Prize has been awarded to: Panayota Tzamourani (1999), Georgia Sagri (2001), Maria Papadimitriou (2003) and Christodoulos Panayiotou (2005).

The winner of the Deste Prize 2007 will be announced on September 24th in a special ceremony at Deste Foundation.

DESTE Prize 2007 Selection Committee:
Nadia Argyropoulou – Independent curator, Kostis Velonis – Artist, Harry David – Collector, Despina Zefkili – Art critic, Athinorama magazine, Elpida Karamba – Art critic / Curator, Margarita Pournara – Journalist, Kathimerini newspaper.

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

M/M (Paris) on Deste´s new visual identity:
An efficient visual identity is a concretion of identities, that of the person, the event or the place that needs an identity and that of the person or group of people hired to create this identity. Creating an identity means giving a visual existence to a point of view on the person, the place or the event who needs an identity. The graphic designer hired to create the identity by strongly giving his point of view will communicate his/her insight into this specific person, place or event that will then exist through the eyes of their viewers. To sum this up in simple words, something which can not be seen throughout a point of view has no identity. Therefore we have created for Dakis Joannou a peeping hole, so he and the public can look at his collection through a different perspective.
M/M (Paris), March 2007

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

The Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art

The Library of the Deste Foundation
Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art
11 Filellinon & Em. Pappa Street,
Nea Ionia 142 34
Athens, Greece
Tel: + 30 210 2758490
Fax: + 30 210 2754862
Email: info@deste.gr
http://www.deste.gr

The Deste Foundation’s Centre for Contemporary Art announces the operation of a newly established library on its premises, complete with a reading room open to all visitors.

The Deste´s Library specializes in the visual arts, with a specific focus on international & Greek contemporary art. It also includes publications on architecture, industrial design and contemporary culture at large. More specifically, it holds a collection of books, exhibition catalogues, magazines, special publications, artists’ books and an archive of auction catalogues. Furthermore, it includes audiovisual material and artists’ videos.

The creation of the library together with the Archive of Contemporary Greek Artists that is already open, is an integral part of the Foundation’s overall program, which aims to provide information on issues of contemporary art and keep the public abreast of the latest developments in the area.

The library welcomes exchanges and donations, thus acknowledging the importance of continuous renewal and growth.

Lastly, it should be noted that the Foundation’s library is a reference library and not a lending library; it is to be used as a research tool; as a means of obtaining thorough and systematic information.

Access is free for the general public
Opening hours:
Monday - Friday 12.00-17.00
Saturday 12.00- 16.00

For more information: t: +30 210 2758490, email: library@deste.gr

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

British Council

BREAKING STEP / U RASKORAKU
displacement, compassion and humour in recent art from Britain

24 March – 10 June 2007
Exhibition opening: Saturday 24 March at 1pm

Museum of Contemporary Art - Belgrade
Usce 10. Blok 15, 11070 Novi Beograd, Serbia
T: +381 11 311 6965

Artists: Adam Chodzko, Nathan Coley, Phil Collins, Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska, Jeremy Deller, Henry VIII Wives, Inventory, Alan Kane, Jim Lambie, Jonathan Monk, Mike Nelson, Toby Paterson, Gillian Wearing, Cathy Wilkes, John Wood and Paul Harrison.

Curators: Branislav Dimitrijevic, Caroline Douglas, Sinisa Mitrovic, Jelena Vesic

Organised by the British Council and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade.

Breaking Step / U raskoraku brings together new work by fifteen major figures of the British art scene. The exhibition is the culmination of a four-year collaboration between the British Council and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. Breaking Step / U raskoraku is neither a survey nor an attempt to construct a historical narrative, but rather a critical consideration of some of the most pronounced tendencies in contemporary British art.

In recent years, one such tendency has been an effort to break away from ideas and interests prevalent in the early to mid 90s, with which contemporary British art is still widely identified. In relation to the art system and its institutional structures, artists today seem to occupy an uncertain position, participating in the process of distribution and promotion, yet constantly problematising and renegotiating their own role within it.

The artists in the exhibition demonstrate an involvement with a broader range of interests and a personal and dynamic engagement with a wider social reality, as well as with new collaborative and participatory models and alternative artistic interventions. An important aspect of Breaking Step / U raskoraku is the inclusion of a series of new projects commissioned in response to the specific local situation in Belgrade.

While they work within traditional representational modes, in a general sense, the artists in Breaking Step / U raskoraku consistently seek to undermine the ideological function of these modes. To this end, they employ a number of strategies – displacement, re–enactment, decontextualisation, repetition or an amalgamation of disparate references and media – inherited from Conceptual Art, but often used in an uncharacteristic manner. It is this close connection with the politics, ethics and aesthetics of Conceptualism that forms one of the strong thematic threads running through the exhibition.

Another unifying factor is the selected artists’ use of humour in their work. Whether pointed and unswerving or subtle and understated, it is of a kind far removed from the postmodern irony of the 90s. It is a humour with sympathy, evincing a capacity simultaneously to show affection for something and to think critically about it; a form of playful teasing by those close to, and concerned for, the target of their wit.

Most importantly, what connects all the practices in Breaking Step / U raskoraku is their systematic defiance of our expectations, evading attempts at an easy classification. In other words, works selected for this exhibition share the sense of being at odds with whichever framework we might apply to interpret them: they are site–specific while questioning the idea of site–specificity, marketable but not market–driven, compassionate but not sentimental, and intimate yet far from comforting.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is publishing an ambitious catalogue and will be organising numerous public events during the exhibition’s run. The British Council has commissioned a Teachers Pack, encouraging school children to visit and explore the exhibition. The British Council has also produced an accompanying Exhibition Guide (in Serbian and English).

MOCAb opening hours: Wednesday – Monday, 10am – 6pm

Press contact: Ana Nikitovic anan@msub.org.yu or visual.arts@britishcouncil.org

For more information see: http://www.msub.org.yu and http://www.breakingstep.net

For more information go to: http://www.msub.org.yu

Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center

Open Library
20 March - 16 June

Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center
Istiklal Cad. No: 136, Beyoglu,
Istanbul, 34430, TR
T: 90 212 293 23 61
F: 90 212 293 30 71
http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com/

Open Library is a rethinking of Platform’s well-visited exhibition space in the form of a library. The project creates a moment of pause for the frenetic stream of people passing by via the consumption oriented experience of the pedestrianised Istiklal Caddesi. By setting up an unexpected threshold between the street outside and the normally white-walled gallery, Platform’s function becomes blurred and its current status can be perceived as a library or as idiosyncratic exhibition. The design of the space builds on this inquiry by constructing a bleacher-type seating, similar to that found in sports halls, along one wall of the gallery, facing an extensive run of bookshelves on the other. In Istanbul street-level libraries are few and far between, and the concept of the library as a place of warming up, extended curiosity, daydreaming, dozing off and random perusal is reduced to a condition of compulsory and tedious research.

Open Library will host weekly curated mini-libraries, readings, discussions, screenings, conversations and other programmes to transform the space into a lively public sphere. In addition, the project will communicate and display Platform’s unrelenting archives, which combine many acquisitions with thousands of donations from friendly institutions, artists, critics and curators.

Open Library was designed by Istanbul-based architecture practice superpool in collaboration of quinze & milan.

For further information please contact:
platform@garanti.com.tr

For more information go to: http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com/

GEISAI #10, the tenth edition of Kaikai Kiki’s art fair with a twist, will take place on September 17, 2006 at the Tokyo Big Sight East Hall in Tokyo. Held twice a year, GEISAI is a lively one-day event that combines hundreds of booths of artists eager to promote their works, thousands of visitors shopping and browsing through the selection, an international cast of judges to select and award the best participants, and music and entertainment. With an open-application process, Kaikai Kiki, led by Takashi Murakami, expects over 1,000 artists, as well as a few galleries, to showcase their work to more than 10,000 visitors at GEISAI #10.

A panel of judges comprised of prominent international art figures has been selected for GEISAI #10, including Marcel Dzama, Douglas Fogle, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Samuel Kung, and Kashiwa Sato. These jurors will collaborate to award gold, silver, and bronze medalists, as well as present their own personal prizes to noteworthy participants. Past judges have included Tadao Ando, Tom Eccles, Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, François Pinault, and Paul Schimmel.

Following the tremendous success of GEISAI #9 in March 2006, Kaikai Kiki expects an impressive line-up of talented participants at GEISAI #10. Medalists of GEISAI #9 included: Soichi Yamaguchi (Gold), Takaaki Tsuchiya (Silver), and Kazuharu Ishikawa (Bronze). Recipients of the Gold prize since 2002 include: Team Potato, Yasuyuki Nishio, Komainu, Gluten, Masao Kinoshita, Sakurako Hamaguchi, Erina Matsui, Haruno, and 284.

Promoting the shifting boundaries in contemporary art, GEISAI features not only visual art, but animation, live music and an array of unique performances. Each year, GEISAI reaches out to an international audience and attracts many galleries, television networks, magazines and other media that come to scout out the emerging talent and experience the energy at GEISAI. While appealing to a somewhat progressive audience, GEISAI still maintains its strong ties to a Japanese artistic tradition. It was designed as a unique Japanese art festival that would shape the future of Japanese art and nurture the next generation of artists.

Inspiration and History:
GEISAI’s predecessor, Geijutsu D_j_ (founded in 2000), was based on the terakoya, or “temple school� type educational model of the Edo Period. These schools provided nurturing grounds through discipline, feedback, and peer discourse, preparing young people for the professional challenges of the world. Similarly, Takashi Murakami gave advice and fostered communication in his Geijutsu D_j_, helping young people to produce, show, and promote their works. GEISAI officially began as a free-participation event in the spring of 2002.

GEISAI #10 will take place on Sunday, September 17, 2006

Hours: 10 AM to 6 PM
Location: The Tokyo Big Sight East Hall 4
(Tokyo International Exhibition Center)
3-21-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0063, Japan

About Kaikai Kiki:
Kaikai Kiki was founded by Takashi Murakami in 2001, and evolved from its predecessor, the Hiropon Factory. Its goals as an enterprise include the production and promotion of artwork, the management and support of select young artists, general management of events and projects, and the production and promotion of merchandise. With bases in Japan’s Asaka City and Tokyo, as well as Long Island City, New York; Kaikai Kiki is a unique organization looking to the future to broaden the horizons of contemporary art. For more information on Kaikai Kiki, please visit http://www.kaikaikiki.co.jp

For more information and updates on GEISAI #10, please visit http://www.geisai.net (Japanese) or http://www2.geisai.net (English).

###

For further information, images, and interviews:

Media Contact:
Antoine Vigne or Lucy Toole
Blue Medium, Inc.
T: 212-675-1800
F: 212-675-1855
lucy@bluemedium.com

Recently there has been a great deal of attention on artistic practices that focus on reconstructions of historical events - from reenactments to documentary videos, where the aim is to question, investigate or reconsider social attitudes of interpretation. Coming from a similar perspective, but diverging from these reconstructive tendencies, the exhibition We all laughed at Christopher Columbus deals primarily with subjective, artistic interpretations of specific historical events.

We all laughed at Christopher Columbus is a project organised in three parts. The title of the show is taken from a work by Runo Lagomarsino featured in the first version of the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam between 22 July and 3 September 2006. The presentation in Istanbul includes the participation of two additional artists Omer Fast and Deimantas Narkevicius, a new work by Lagomarsino, as well as adapted installations by Florian Wüst and Jeremiah Day. The first exhibition offered a buoyant, light-hearted approach to the title and concept of the project, whereas the second exhibition in Istanbul possesses a more melancholy attitude. The third part in the series, a publication, will bring together texts and thoughts that have influenced and been discussed in relation to the topic.

Curated by Krist Gruijthuijsen and November Paynter

Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center
276 Istiklal Caddesi,
Beyoglu 34340
Istanbul
00 90 212 2932361
http://www.platform.garanti.com.tr