Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Where We Are Now


"Where We Are Now is a network of cultural, educational, and activist organizations and individuals dedicated to developing coordinated strategies to raise people’s awareness of the multitude of art political activities in New York City. Our goal is to demonstrate how powerful critical voices still exist, ones that cry out for global justice, agency and participation. Using the pivotal moment of the 2008 presidential election, we share a sense that the times have changed and are ours to claim. Through activities as diverse as art exhibitions, days of decentralized action, street performances and pedagogical conferences, we seek to gauge the status of the political in contemporary art, and consider how we may act as resources to one another and to other communities within and beyond New York City.

Where We Are Now hosts monthly network-wide meetings, as well as working group meetings for each of the three working groups--Conference and Pedagogy, Communications, and Arts in Action. The larger network-wide meetings are held on the first Wednesday of every month, from 6:30-8:30pm at the assembly hall of Judon Church by Washington Square Park. The first hour is a network-wide meeting with updates about endorsed projects, report-backs from the three working groups, and discussion. In the second hour working groups will break-out for smaller working meetings. In between monthly meetings, working groups hold meetings in various locations in the city, to plan for the Where We Are Now conference, day of arts in action, and other network projects."

Monday, February 18, 2008

Vortex of Silence


Reading 'Vortex of Silence', by German art historian and critic Doris von Drathen, is definitely refreshing. Criticizing the inadequacy of art history and aesthetic categories to approach and understand the artistic production, the book suggests that the works of art should be embraced as "entities of otherness". The reader is easily drawn into von Drathen's analysis of 24 artists, including Marina Abramovic, Jean-Pierre Boltanski, Louise Bourgeois, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Ann Hamilton, Rebecca Horn, Anish Kapoor, Agnes Martin, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, and David Tremlett, with an emphasis on Aby Warburg's theory that rejects aestheticising art theories as "barren word-mongering." In short, the author argues that works of art should be read through lenses pertaining to larger existential and ethical questions.

Last Thursday, when I was wandering among Jasper Johns's flags, targets and Catenary series at “Jasper Johns: Gray” exhibition at the Met, the comments of the museum-goers that I overheard were only about the "background that looked like Rauschenberg" and "figures that recalled Willem de Kooning." Thinking of my own "gaze" and listening to aesthetic commentaries about the works, I stood mutely and smiled.

Although reading the book is not easy at all, the after taste is quite satisfying.


(Thanks, Melis.)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Paola Antonelli talk on TED


Talk: Paola Antonelli: Treating design as art

"Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York's MOMA, wants to spread an appreciation of design, in all shapes and forms -- and to remove any stigma of it being considered mere decoration. She takes the TED2007 audience on a whistlestop tour of some design exhibitions she has organized, including 'Mutant Materials,' 'Workspheres' and 'Safe.'"

Monday, January 14, 2008

Arundhati Roy at Bogazici University

Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, Department of History and Department of Political Science and International Relations present 2008 Hrant Dink Memorial Lecture on Freedom of Expression and Human Rights.

Arundhati Roy
"Listening to Grasshoppers"

January 18, 2008, 15:00, Albert Long Hall (BTS),
South Campus
The talk will be presented in English.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Old / New Routes


过去/现在 -- 通道
中亚录像展
OLD / NEW ROUTES
A selection of Video Art from Central Asia
BizArt Art Center, Shanghai
Exhibition Dates: January 12th – 20th, 2008.
Curated by Stefan Rusu. Under the auspices of Defne Ayas.

The Old/New Routes project is an exhibition and publication that explores the nomad specificity of the Islamic states after the collapse of Soviet Union. An overview of the present situation of the Central Asian context by an external viewer becomes imperative; this compiled visual material by guest curator creates a retrospective look at the internal processes of the social-political evolution and cultural background.The idea behind the project is overlapping networks and the relationship between these two traditions—the archaic-nomad one and the present-day post-industrial culture—that provides a synthetic equation and cumulates an extraordinary cultural load. In such way the practices oriented toward the re-use of tradition become the necessary tool for articulation of contemporary art discourse that establishes the nodes of resistance to inertia, apathy and historical amnesia. The project consists of an exhibition Old/New Routes to take place in Shanghai, China at BizArt Center and a publication under the same title. With these actions we intend to deepen and open the process of cultural exchange between China and Central Asia, with a special focus on video production from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Participating Artists: Abilsait Atabekov, Erbolsin Meldibekov and Alexandr Ugay from Kazakhstan, Veaceslav Ahunov, Serghei Ticina from Uzbekistan, Ulan Djaparov, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev from Kyrgyzstan

About the Curator:
Stefan Rusu is artist and freelance curator based in Chisinau, Moldova currently he is working as project coordinator at the Center for Contemporary Art/Chisinau. In 2005/2006 he attended the Curatorial Training Program at Shtichting De Appel from Amsterdam where he co-curated Mercury in Retrograde (www.mercuryinretrograde.com).

Monday, January 7, 2008

Exhibitions: educational?

"[...] I abhor the supposition that exhibitions should be informative or, god forbid, educational. Is the work of Godard or Hitchcock or Beckett or Lecompte or Adams or Ashbery or Kiley or Gubaidulina or Serra or Koolhaas or Starck or Westwood or Cragg or Reed or Koons educational? These works, and all of their cousins, are full of ideas--bold, provocative, shuddering ideas-but do they teach us something?

We should never confuse the fact that cultural practices affect us, change us, stimulate us to think and see and hear and feel differently with the supposition that they teach us anything. Once something teaches you something, it thinks for you. This is a point that eludes even the promising young mess specialists and punk whippersnappers à la Obrist, who, for all of their bravado, continue obediently to inscribe their work in the service of the Big Idea. Rotton once said, 'I may not know much about music, but I know it ain't got nuffin' to do with chords?' Worth remembering."*


*Jeffrey Kipnis, "Who's afraid of gift-wrapped kazoos? Dedicated to David Whitney," in What Makes a Great Exhibition, ed. Paula Marincola (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, 2006), pp. 97-98.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

PiST///: Talk on PERFORMA


PERFORMA is a New York based non-profit interdisciplinary arts organization committed to the research, development, and presentation of performance by visual artists from around the world. PERFORMA’s objectives are to commission new performane projects in visual arts, to present a dedicated performance biennial in New York, to consult and collaborate with art institutions and performing art presenters around the world to create dynamic and historically significant performance programs, and to offer an ongoing educational platform for expanding the knowledge and understanding of this critical area of visual art and cultural history.

PERFORMA's Associate Curator Defne Ayas and PERFORMA '07 volunteer Özge Ersoy will give a talk on PERFORMA projects.

December 28, 2007
6.30 pm, PiST///, Istanbul

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Kar amacı gütmeyen, disiplinlerarası bir sanat organizasyonu olan PERFORMA, performans sanatının geliştirilmesine, sunumuna ve bu alandaki araştırmalara adanmış New York merkezli bir kurum. PERFORMA, görsel sanatlar dahilindeki yeni performans projelerini desteklemeyi, sadece performans sanatı üzerine kurulu New York'da bir bienali faaliyete geçirmeyi, uluslararası sanat kurumlarıyla beraber çalışarak dinamik ve tarihsel önemi olan performansların üretimini teşvik etmeyi ve görsel sanatlar çerçevesinde performans sanatının önemine dair bilgi paylaşımını kuvvetlendirmeyi amaçlıyor.

PERFORMA Küratorü Defne Ayas ve PERFORMA '07 gönüllü çalışanı Özge Ersoy PERFORMA hakkında bilgi verecek, projelerini anlatacak.

28 Aralik 2007
18:30, PiST///, Istanbul

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PiST///
Dolapdere Caddesi
Pangaltı Dere Sokak
No 12 / 14 / 16
Pangaltı 34375
Istanbul TR

Friday, December 7, 2007

From NADA Art Fair: "The Message" by David Ellis and Roberto Lange


At the NADA Art Fair in Miami, Roebling Hall Gallery (New York, NY) exhibits a work by David Ellis who subtlety uses, interprets and investigates sound and music. In collaboration with Roberto Lange, Ellis gives birth to a new kinetic installation, “The Message”, which involves an analogue drum machine orchestrating an old typewriter, a paint bucket, a paint tray, glass bottles and a broken jar in a storage box. While playing the melody of the song, the typewriter also prints out the lyrics by DJ Grand Master Flash. (The work is sold for $22,000.)

Another kinetic installation, titled “Trash Talk” is now on display in "Ensemble" exhibition, curated by Christian Marclay, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

Need a ride?


As Jeffrey Deitch argued at a panel discussion at Columbia University last month, art is becoming more and more integrated into the entertainment culture and daily life. At the Art Basel, Deitch Projects displays “Pimp Juice”, a 1993 Cadillac Fleetwood that is fully customized by Puerto Rican artist Dzine. The work, a part of "Barrio Dreams" project by the artist, features special chrome and 24-carat gold hydraulics, fourteen speakers and five screens showing a custom video.

“I like the ambiguity of it,” Jeffrey Deitch states, “Is it art or not? I always try to push it.”

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Ahmet Ogut at NADA Art Fair


Rodeo Gallery at NADA Art Fair
5-9 December, 2007
Miami, USA

Solo Presentation: Ahmet Öğüt

http://www.rodeo-gallery.com
http://www.newartdealers.org/