Oblom CIne

Vi segnalo che dall'1 al 5 luglio si svolgerà, presso gli spazi della Biblioteca Civica Natalia Ginzburg - Lombroso 16, Oblom Cine, festival di cinema indipendente a San Salvario.

 Il festival, organizzato dallo spazio culturale Oblom e ideato da Fabrizio Bonci, Caterina Scala, Roberto Tarallo e Maurizio Lorenzati, prevede un concorso per cortometraggi e due rassegne dedicate al cinema indipendente torinese degli anni Novanta e dei primi anni del nuovo secolo, con un omaggio a Nicola Rondolino e opere di Enrico Verra, Giacomo Ferrante, Umberto Spinazzola, Max Chicco, Claudio Paletto e di altri autori torinesi, tra cui i titolari di Oblom.

 Interverranno, oltre agli autori, Roberta Pellegrini, socia fondatrice di Piemonte Movie, e Vittorio Sclaverani, presidente dell'Associazione del Museo Nazionale del Cinema. In allegato il programma e la locandina del festival.

Promotore Galleria Oblom - via Baretti 28 Torino

Arts, Heritage and Millenials: a digital conversation,

Il Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi ospita, mercoledì 1 luglio alle ore 18, l’incontro Arts, Heritage and Millenials: a digital conversation, dedicata al ruolo delle tecnologie digitali nel mondo dell’arte e dei musei.

Sree Sreenivasan, Chief Digital Officer del Metropolitan Museum of Art, in conversazione con Cristiano Seganfreddo, Direttore Generale del Premio Gaetano Marzotto, presenterà l’esperienza del Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) di New York, uno dei più importanti musei al mondo, dove guida una squadra di 70 persone di varie nazionalità che si occupano delle attività digitali, dei social media e di tutta la comunicazione “mobile” dell’istituzione.

Palazzo Grassi partecipa all’edizione 2015 dell’Italia Innovation Program, in veste di rappresentante del settore Arts and Culture. Il programma internazionale, prodotto da legalPAD, volto a far interessare giovani menti imprenditoriali e innovative al futuro del Made in Italy, si articola in un percorso di un mese in cui 10 grandi realtà italiane rappresentative dei settori del Food and Wine, Fashion, Arts and Culture, High-End Manufacturing e Design sfidano i partecipanti provenienti dalle migliori università del mondo nella risoluzione di un progetto innovativo, accompagnati da lezioni e sessioni di mentorship tenute da docenti ed esperti di business internazionali. Sree Sreenivasan è il mentore del settore Arts and Culture che affianca i ragazzi nel progetto per Palazzo Grassi.

Al termine della conferenza Sree Sreenivasan insieme ai quaranta studenti di Italia Innovation Program 2015 svolgeranno una visita #empty della mostra monografica “Martial Raysse” a Palazzo Grassi, un’idea di visita digitale dei musei del fotografo di Brooklyn Dave Krugman, che in poco tempo è stata realizzata in diversi spazi culturali in tutto il mondo, dal Metropolitan Museum di New York alla Tate Modern di Londra.

È possibile seguire la loro visita sui social Twitter e Instagram di Palazzo Grassi e partecipare attivamente tramite l’hashtag #emptypalazzograssi!

L’incontro sarà in lingua inglese e sarà trasmesso in diretta streaming su

http://www.palazzograssi.it/it/eventi-arte/arts-heritage-and-millennials-digital-conversation

Al termine dell’incontro sarà offerto un aperitivo aperto al pubblico.

Tutti gli appuntamenti del Teatrino sono comunicati e costantemente aggiornati sul sito di Palazzo Grassi nella rubrica “attività”.

www.palazzograssi.it.

             

Sree Sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan è considerato una delle persone più influenti nel campo dei social media. È Chief Digital Officer al Metropolitan Museum of Art di New York, dove guida una squadra di 70 persone provenienti da tutto il mondo che si occupano di digitale, social, mobile, video, app, email, interactive e dati. Sreenivasan, infatti, fornisce a professionisti di tutto il mondo una formazione sull’utilizzo più efficace possibile dei social e dei media digitali.

Dopo più di 20 anni trascorsi alla Columbia University come professore di ruolo nella scuola di giornalismo della Columbia e un anno come il primo Chief Digital Officer dell’Università nel 2013, è entrato a far parte del MET. Nel 2009 è stato nominato tra le 25 persone AdAge da seguire su Twitter; nel 2010 è stato acclamato da Pointer una delle 35 persone più influenti nei social media, e nel 2014 come uno dei più influenti capi Digital Officers dal CDO Club.

Recentemente è stato inserito nella lista delle persone più creative negli affari del 2015 di Fastcompany.

Cristiano Seganfreddo

Cristiano Seganfreddo è un imprenditore creativo e una delle figure di maggiore rilievo nella scena d’innovazione italiana.

È attualmente Direttore Generale del Premio Gaetano Marzotto, il principale premio italiano dedicato all’innovazione e alle startup, e ha lavorato per anni nell’ambito della direzione artistica di fashion brand italiani e nel management dei processi d’innovazione avanzati.

Seganfreddo fa parte del Consiglio di Amministrazione di legalPAD, dove riveste anche il ruolo di Senior Creative Director.

Frieze Projects 2015: Participating Artists

work of Rachel Rose

Con l'arrivo dell'estate arrivano le prime informazioni sulla prossima edizione di Frieze ecco i progetti artistici

Frieze Projects will present seven new commissions at Frieze London 2015, with the support of the LUMA Foundation. This year’s programme is inspired by Frieze London’s temporary structure in the Regent’s Park and explores propositions for mobile architectures and alternative realities. Nicola Lees, Curator of Frieze Projects, has invited practitioners and collectives from disciplines including architecture, publishing and theatre design to transform, subvert, and interact with the social, structural and cultural dynamics of the fair. Initiated in 2003, Frieze Projects is a unique non-profit commissioning platform for emerging, under-represented and innovative practices within one of the world’s leading contemporary art fairs.

The Frieze Projects participants at Frieze London 2015 are: ÅYRBRB, Lutz Bacher, castillo/corrales, Thea Djordjadze, Jeremy Herbert, Asad Raza and Rachel Rose, winner of the 2015 Frieze Artist Award.

Visitors will enter the fair through a dramatic installation by American conceptual artist Lutz Bacher, transforming the entrance corridor into an enigmatic environment using found objects from films sets. Intervening in the fair architecture, the collective ÅYRBRB (Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela and Octave Perrault) will create a large-scale interactive installation in collaboration with cuttingedge interior design and technology companies.

Artist Jeremy Herbert will draw on his experience designing experimental theatre sets to build an alchemical, sensory space beneath the fair. Through a door at the back of the fair bookshop, Asad Raza will create an evolving exhibition inspired by caves of worship of the Greek god Pan.

French collective castillo/corrales will bring their cooperative, inter-disciplinary ethos to a new iteration of the on-going project The Social Life of the Book, exploring the economy and circulation of printed matter within the art world. Georgian artist Thea Djordjadze will create a new series of mobile sculptures inspired by the Monstera Deliciosa (so-called ‘Swiss cheese plants’) that populated Henri Matisse’s studio. Winner of the 2015 Frieze Artist Award, Rachel Rose, will respond to Frieze London’s specific site by creating a scale-model of the fair’s structure, inside which lighting and sound design will simulate the sonic and visual sense frequencies of different animals inhabiting The Regent’s Park.

Nicola Lees said: ‘This year’s projects are interacting with the fibre of Frieze London. The different projects begin with the fair as representational of temporary architectures and international mobility of the art world. They help us to expand our understanding of the practices and precedents that contribute to that world. In this way, theatrical sets, interior design, publishing and digital platforms can create alternative realities and experiences along with the disciplines of sculpture, performance and installation.’

Frieze Projects and the Frieze Artist Award are supported by the LUMA Foundation, established in 2004 to support the activities of independent artists and pioneers, as well as institutions working in the fields of art and photography, publishing, documentary and multimedia. The foundation specializes in challenging artistic projects combining a particular interest in environmental issues, human rights, education, and culture in the broadest sense.

Maja Hoffmann, President, LUMA Foundation said: ‘The LUMA Foundation is thrilled to be an active supporter over the next three years of the Frieze Artist Award and Frieze Projects, Frieze London’s non-profit commissioning programme. This partnership underlines LUMA’s commitment to produce, present and promote contemporary art projects in new and inspiring ways.’

Frieze London takes place from 14-17 October 2015. In 2015, Frieze London is sponsored by Deutsche Bank for the twelfth consecutive year, continuing a shared commitment to discovery.

To keep up to date on all the latest from Frieze follow @friezelondon on Twitter, @friezeartfair on Instagram and become a fan on Facebook.

ÅYRBRB (f.2015, UK)

A large-scale interactive installation at Frieze London will tackle the question of the ‘Smart Home’, curating a collaboration between cutting edge interior design and technology companies. The Smart Home is the first victim of the colonization of real space by digital space and has swiftly come to occupy a central position in debates around Big Data and its impact on contemporary forms of life. If, on the one hand, recent technological developments sustaining the Smart Home are framed as the latest advancements towards a smarter, technologically optimised world, they are also raising escalating concerns around privacy and control in an increasingly quantified world.

ÅYRBRB, the collective formerly known as AIRBNB Pavilion, is an art collective based in London whose work focuses on contemporary forms of domesticity founded by Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela and Octave Perrault. The collective was first formed on the occasion of an exhibition during the opening days of the XIV Architecture Biennale in Venice, which took place in apartments rented on Airbnb. It changed its name to ÅYRBRB in 2015 following legal pressure from the San Francisco/Ireland based company. ÅYRBRB tackles the evolution of the contemporary home and its transformations from the fortress of the family to a commodity traded online with performances, site-specific installations, events and writing. Their work focuses on the relationship between objects and their environments, and the effects of the internet on the city. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Schöner Wohnen’ at Armada, Milan (2015); ‘Welcome You’re In the Right Place’ at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2015); ‘Morphing Overnight’ at Seventeen Gallery (2015) and ‘Everything that is Solid Melts into Airbnb’ at Swiss Institute New York (2014).

Lutz Bacher (b.USA)

American conceptual artist Lutz Bacher will transform Frieze London’s entrance corridor, sending arriving visitors through a monumental installation that brings together the artist’s collection of found objects from B-movie film sets with fragmentary references to the images and rituals of political and popular culture. For over four decades, Bacher’s practice has subverted artistic and personal identity, playfully and often discomfortingly employing the ephemera of everyday public and personal lives.

Lutz Bacher lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York (2015); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2014); National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (2014); Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich (2013); Cabinet, London (2011); MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2009); and Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2008). Her work is in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

castillo/corrales (f.2007, France)

castillo/corrales’ project The Social Life of the Book is a collection of commissioned texts considering how books engage with the circulation of ideas and the agency of social situations. It brings together artists, publishers, writers, designers and booksellers who consider books less as finished objects than spaces of disruptive potential with the ability to produce new relationships, publics and meanings. For Frieze Projects 2015, in response to the complex interplay of art writing, publication and production at the fair, castillo/corrales will commission new limited-edition publications that respond to the economy and circulation of printed matter within the art world. To entice readers into the ecosystem of knowledge, writing and publishing, castillo/corrales will present a series of events throughout Frieze week and a specially designed environment at the Fair. 

castillo/corrales is a non-profit organization run on a volunteer basis by a group of artists, curators, writers and graphic designers. Since its inception in 2007, it has been conceived of as a self-sustainable project – a new type of art space in Paris that provides artists, professionals and audiences with an intimate and informal environment conducive to experimentation, discussion and learning. castillo/corrales founded the bookstore Section 7 Books, and the publishing house Paraguay Press to consider the “space” of the book as an extension of artistic, critical and curatorial thinking into a graphic, mobile, democratic and durable form. castillo/corrales also operates as a curators’ collective and has organized exhibitions and events in venues such as Yale Union, Portland (forthcoming, 2015); Art Metropole, Toronto (2013); Culturgest, Porto (2011); Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2010); ICA, London (2009); Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin (2009); and the Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul (2008).

Thea Djordjadze (b.1971, Georgia)

Thea Djordjadze will populate unexpected spaces within Frieze London with a new series of mobile sculptures, incorporating the Monstera Deliciosa plants that inspired Henri Matisse’s ‘cut-outs’. Referencing images of these enormous plants in Matisse’s 1940s Hotel Regina studio, Djordjadze’s plants will have become wild and overgrown, spilling over their sculptural planters. At night, the plants will freely roam the fair, suggesting they have a life of their own and referencing the temporary, mobile nature of Frieze itself. By day, the plants will punctuate the fair’s bustling atmosphere, following Matisse’s philosophy that artworks should act like an easy chair, providing a place of rest.

Thea Djordjadze lives and works in Berlin. Having studied at the Art Academy Tbilisi, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (under Rosemarie Trockel), her sculptural installations bring together traditional and unexpected materials to create spare and evocative environments. Recent solo exhibitions include MIT List Visual Arts Centre, Cambridge (2014); the Aspen Art Museum (2013); Malmö Konsthall (2012); The Common Guild, Glasgow (2011); Kunsthalle Basel (2009) and Kunstverein Nürnberg (2008). Her work was included in La Biennale di Venezia 56th International Art Exhibition, ‘All The Word’s Futures’, Venice (2015); Documenta 13, Kassel (2012) and BB5 - 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Upcoming solo exhibitions include MoMA PS1, New York (2016) and Secession, Vienna (2016).

Jeremy Herbert (b.1960, UK)

Drawing on his experience creating experimental theatre sets, artist Jeremy Herbert will build an underground chamber beneath the fair. This mysterious space, filled with wind, will evoke strong associations of memory and place.

Jeremy Herbert is an award-winning, multimedia artist and stage designer who has worked with artists as diverse as John Tavener, Michael Nyman and Madonna. He has had a long connection with the Royal Court Theatre, where he collaborated with Sarah Kane, designing the acclaimed premieres of Cleansed (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis (2000). Currently, Herbert is Associate Designer at the Young Vic, working on productions including Hamlet (2012), The Glass Menagerie (2011), Blackta (2014), and his experimental theatre installation Safe House (2014) in collaboration with Gabriella Sonabend. Herbert works internationally as an opera designer, most recently on the premiere of Beat Furrer’s La Bianca Notte in Hamburg (2015), and Richard Jones’ production of Rodelinda at the ENO (2014). Winner of the 2004 NESTA Award, Herbert has created installations and immersive performances with the Ruhr Triennale (2011) and Artangel (2003).

Asad Raza (b.1974, USA)

Through a door at the back of the Frieze London bookshop, Asad Raza will create an evolving exhibition inspired by the caves of worship of the Greek god Pan. The space will feature environmental alterations and performative interactions with visitors in a developing mise-en-scène.

Asad Raza produces exhibitions as experiences with temporal, dramaturgical components. He recently contributed to the projects A stroll through a fun palace (2014) in the Venice Architecture Biennale, and Solaris Chronicles (2014) for LUMA Arles. Raza co-created the dramaturgy for Philippe Parreno’s H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS (2015) at Park Avenue Armory in New York, and he has produced many exhibitions with Tino Sehgal, including presentations at the Roman Agora, Athens (2014), Tate Modern, London (2012), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010). In 2013, Raza co-programmed the exhibition ‘Mayfield Depot’ for the Manchester International Festival. He is currently working on an experimental school as part of the 2015 Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial.

Rachel Rose (b. 1986, USA) (photo at top)

Frieze Artist Award-winner Rachel Rose will create a scale-model of the fair structure. Inside, lighting and sound design will simulate the sonic and visual sense frequencies of animals inhabiting The Regent’s Park. Drawing attention to the park’s multiple layers of communication and perception, Rose will open up a spectrum of sensory worlds for fair visitors to inhabit and experience. This commission invites Rose – who has previously worked in film – to pursue an ambitious installation-based project.

Rachel Rose lives and works in New York. Her work explores concepts of mortality, with subjects ranging from zoos to Philip Johnson’s Glass House, to the American Revolutionary War and 19th-century park design. Her forthcoming exhibitions include solos at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Castello di Rivoli, Turin and the Aspen Art Museum. She was the recipient of the 2014 Illy Prize. Recent solo and group exhibitions and screenings include: ‘Cloud Cover’, CCS Hessel Museum, New York (2015): ‘The Importance of Being a (Moving) Image’, National Gallery, Prague (2015); Taipei Biennial, ‘The Great Acceleration’, Taipei (2014); ‘Phantom Limbs’, Pilar Corrias, London (2014); ‘Geographies of Contamination’, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2014) and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), New York (2014).

Frieze Projects: Established in 2003, Frieze Projects is a not-for-profit programme of artist commissions, films and music events, curated by Nicola Lees and taking place annually at Frieze London. Previous curators have been: Polly Staple, Neville Wakefield and Sarah McCrory. In 2014, Frieze commissioned artists including Jérôme Bel, Sophia Al Maria, Jonathan Berger, Isabel Lewis, Tobias Madison, Nick Mauss, Cally Spooner and Cerith Wyn Evans. Now in its second year, the Frieze Artist Award is a major opportunity for an artist between 25–40 years of age to present ambitious, site-specific work as part of the Frieze Projects programme. The winner of the 2014 Frieze Artist Award was French artist Mélanie Matranga.

LUMA Foundation and LUMA Arles:

The LUMA Foundation was established in 2004 to support the activities of independent artists and pioneers, as well as institutions working in the fields of art and photography, publishing, documentary, and multimedia. The foundation specializes in challenging artistic projects combining a particular interest in environmental issues, human rights, education, and culture in the broadest sense.

The LUMA Foundation and LUMA Arles, founded in 2014 in support of the Arles project, are currently developing an experimental cultural centre in the Parc des Ateliers in the city of Arles, France, working with a core group of artistic consultants (Tom Eccles, Liam Gillick, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philippe Parreno and Beatrix Ruf) and the architects Frank Gehry, Annabelle Selldorf and landscape architect Bas Smets. This ambitious project envisions an interdisciplinary center dedicated to the production of exhibitions and ideas, research, education, and archives and is supported by a growing number of public and private partnerships. Construction started after the ground-breaking ceremony in April 2014; the opening of the main building on campus is scheduled for 2018, while an artistic programme is already presented every summer in the refurbished former railway ware- houses. Opening on 6 July 2015 in Arles, the LUMA Foundation is pleased to present Imponderable, featuring a new film, an installation and publication based on the personal archives of American artist Tony Oursler. For more information see: luma-arles.org.

Nicola Lees has been the curator for Frieze Projects since 2013. Currently Lees is also Associate Curator at Malmö Konsthall and curator of the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana. Lees was previously Senior Curator of Public Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery (London), where she oversaw interdisciplinary, time-based and performance projects and artist commissions as well as initiating Park Nights, the Serpentine Cinemaseries, and the Serpentine Gallery Marathon (co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist). In 2007 Lees curated the exhibition ‘Left Pop Bringing it Home’ at the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. At the Irish Museum of Modern Art she worked on key solo exhibitions by Alex Katz, Miroslaw Balka, and a group exhibition with Philippe Parreno. Nicola Lees lives and works in London.

Frieze London: Established in 2003 by the founders of frieze magazine, Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, Frieze London is one of the world’s leading art fairs and takes place each October in The Regent’s Park, London. In 2012 Frieze established two further art fairs, Frieze New York, which takes place on Randall’s Island, Manhattan each May, and Frieze Masters, which coincides with Frieze London and brings together several thousand years of art. Frieze London 2015 will feature the return of Live, a section dedicated to performance and participation, Focus for emerging galleries, and the annual Frieze Projects programme curated by Nicola Lees. Frieze fairs are sponsored by Deutsche Bank.

Frieze London 2015 – Information

Public opening dates:

Wednesday 14 October

Thursday 15 October

Friday 16 October

Saturday 17 October

Frieze London 2015 Preview:

Tuesday 13 October

Don’t shoot the painter

Per l'estate un nuovo appuntamento con i capolavori della UBS Art Collection alla GAM di Milano presentati in una grande mostra dedicata alla pittura, a cura di Francesco Bonami.

 Circa 100 dipinti dagli anni ‘60 ai giorni nostri saranno visibili per la prima volta al pubblico italiano nelle splendide sale della GAM, grazie alla partnership tra il museo e l’istituto finanziario, con l’intento di indagare il ruolo della pittura nella contemporaneità.

Il titolo dell'evento "Don’t shoot the painter" è un riferimento ironico alla frase “don’t shoot the pianist” che spesso compare nei saloon dei film western: ogni volta che le idee e i linguaggi dell’arte si confondono rendendo difficile decifrare il significato degli elementi in gioco, la pittura torna sulla scena per riportare l’attenzione su ciò che è facilmente riconoscibile e interpretabile da tutti, esattamente come la musica del pianista nei film western riporta l’ordine nel caos del saloon.

In fondo, un dipinto è sempre un dipinto e di fronte a una tela, non importa chi ne sia l’autore, sappiamo di trovarci davanti allo “spazio-archetipo” dell’opera d’arte.

Stefano Arienti alla Fondazione Spinola La Banna

Da anni punto di riferimento della cultura artistica torinese, ma con un ampio respiro internazionale, la Fondazione Spinola Banna per l'Arte ospiterà, dal 29 Giugno al 4 Luglio 2015, il workshop curatoriale con Stefano Arienti, artista italiano con una lunga carriera internazionale, che si è misurato spesso con progetti espositivi site specific nella città di Torino: “I Murazzi dalla cima”, “Corte di Dei” sempre ai Murazzi di Torino; realizza insieme all’associazione a.titolo, ai cittadini e alle scuole, nell’area di Mirafiori a Torino, “Multiplayer” un campetto multifunzionale attrezzato dove i ragazzini possono giocare senza arrecare disturbo agli altri abitanti; fino al “Tappeto” esposto al Castello di Rivoli).

L’artista, in qualità di master, sarà chiamato a condividere la propria esperienza artistica con 8 giovani artisti italiani o residenti in Italia under 35, selezionati tra i partecipanti ai workshop precedenti di Aprile e Giugno 2015.

Il workshop ha carattere intensivo: gli ospiti vivranno e lavoreranno insieme nella tenuta di Banna, in uno spazio polifunzionale ristrutturato che offre camere, laboratori e ampi scenari immersi nella natura.

Stefano Arienti è nato ad Asola, in provincia di Mantova, nel 1961. Rielaborando materiali "poveri" e d'uso comune - tra i quali figurano di frequente la carta, i libri e le immagini tratte da cartoline, poster o fotocopie, come pure il polistirolo, la plastica, la plastilina, le stoffe - Arienti realizza opere che stupiscono lo spettatore, lo invitano a riflettere sul tema della "meraviglia" e ne sollecitano la partecipazione, anche attraverso la manipolazione.

Tra le numerose mostre alle quali ha partecipato, si possono citare la Biennale di Venezia (Aperto 1990, 1993); Biennale di Istanbul (1992); Cocido y Crudo, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (1994); XII Quadriennale di Roma, 1996 (primo premio); Fatto in Italia, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Ginevra; ICA, Londra (1997); Biennale di Gwangju (2008).

Tra le personali più recenti: MAXXI, Roma (2004); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2005); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2007); Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia (2008); MAMbo (con Cesare Pietroiusti, 2008); Palazzo Ducale, Mantova (2009); Museion, Bolzano (con Massimo Bartolini, 2011).

The City is the Star – Art at the Construction Site

Ecco un'altra interessante manifestazione organizzata dal ZKM di  Karlsruhe sul tema della città, che durerà fino al 27 Settembre.

Fascinating works of art are to be presented by the ZKM in Karlsruhe city center: impressive large-scale sculptures, performances and interventions by international artists. »The City is the Star« seeks to extend the aesthetics of the everyday and so-called poor materials – one of the innovations of modern art – to the construction sites and to thereby change their perception.  

Background

During the festival summer, the Karlsruhe inner city will come to resemble a monumental construction site. With their installations, sculptures and performances, the invited artists intervene in the dynamic process of the construction project. They process the construction site artistically. The machines and materials of construction work are reflected in the works of art. The question thus arises: are we dealing with an artistic installation or a construction site, with an artistic intervention or a construction project? Is it art or work? Are the people we see on the construction site artists or workers? A new genre emerges: not art at the building site, but in the process of building, construction site art.

Spectacular large-scale Installations

With his spectacular large-scale installation on the Marktplatz, Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich inspires wonder among passers-by and inhabitants. »Pulled by the Roots« is the title of the work, which gives a crane an unusually heavy payload: no building materials, container or machines hang on the »art crane’s« steel ropes – quite unlike the other cranes of the city. An entire house hovers in airy heights above the construction site. Architecturally inspired by a historic building by Friedrich Weinbrenner, the building appears to have been pulled up by the roots from one of the neighboring streets.

Many inhabitants experience construction sites as a strain, if not a catastrophe. The building process lasting a number of years is also made difficult by unforeseen disruptions and incidents. One frequently comes across images of an urban situation in which one is uncertain as to whether it emerged intentionally or unintentionally, whether it was the result of chance or accident. The »Truck« by Erwin Wurm, the loading area of which is bent, and whose back wheels are placed on the wall instead of on the ground – was it accidently squashed against the wall by a digger or a crane? Was it thrown against the wall during a storm? Or is it one of the cars of the future, which can be ramped-up in reverse against the wall?

Similar considerations also hold for the »Car Building«, by Hans Hollein, which can be located at the interface of public and individual traffic near to K-Point. These vertically stacked VW Beatles – are they the result of the explosion of a gas pipeline in which they were thrown up into the sky before then landing at this location? The stacked VW Beatles articulates a fitting image for the city, accounting for time and cost-intensive restructuring for an improved traffic network.

»Heaven's Carousel«, by Tim Otto Roth, which can be seen in the evening hours at Friedrichsplatz, provides welcome distraction from the noise of the construction site. Whoever lies beneath the crane with the rotating balls of sound and light, will have an audio-visual experience far from the everyday. The spherical sounds from the work of art are based exclusively on Sine tones and visualized through the color of the balls.

Performances and Installations in Dialog with Inhabitants and Visitors

The performance by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset appears to function as a kind of excuse for the construction site, which makes the life of the inhabitants and visitors throughout the entire city center somewhat difficult. In the case of »It’s Never too Late to Say Sorry«, a man walks towards a publically installed vitrine every day at precisely twelve noon, takes out the megaphone and calls out to the passers-by that it is never too late to say sorry.

With its multi-piece art project »Safe in the City« the artist-duo Wermke/Leinkauf takes the safety measures connected with the building regulations as starting point for its urban interventions. Yellow and red signal vests, as worn by construction workers provide the material for unusual Actions at the main train station.

By way of his daily, half-hour performance »Tarzan/Standbein«, performance artist Johan Lorbeer provokes wandering passers-by by hovering, bolt upright high above a normal construction container. City strollers have internalized the fact that construction containers and not army tents dominate the city and that some passers-by or construction worker may lose their way. Lorbeer appears to have experienced just such a destiny. Has he been forgotten? How did he get up there and how will he be able to get down?

In the same way construction sites wander with the development of construction work, thus also do several works of art change their location over the course of the exhibition period. With the »Aposematic Jacket«, a jacket equipped with numerous webcams, Korean artist duo Shinseungback Kimyonhung wonder through the city and thus capture the effects of the construction measures. Their observations can be viewed online. They thereby thematize the omnipresence of surveillance measures.

With their works »Hybride Zonen« [hybrid zones] and »A good reason is one that looks like one«, Chantal Michel and Christian Falsnaes intervene in everyday actions in the public space and animate the passers-by to transformations in their behavior.

The vocabulary of art in public space is extended through these performances. Public art mainly comprises sculptures, forms, objects which contain a memory or else aesthetically accentuate public spaces. However, since the performative turn we can assume that public art can also be a form of action. Thus, similarly, art in public space can be an action in public space: an ephemeral event, a demonstration, and intervention. This innovation entitled Performing Public Art is at the center of the project The City is the Star.

Project Partners

The project is realized by Stadtmarketing Karlsruhe GmbH together with the KASIG. Businesses from the Marketing council of Stadtmarketing Karlsruhe GmbH, FIDUCIA IT AG, Sparkasse Karlsruhe Ettlingen, Volksbank Karlsruhe, INIT AG, Ernst Wohlfeil GmbH as well as several other businesses could all be won as project partners. All art actions are a gift to the city: the city is the star along with its inhabitants and visitors!

Serpentine Pavilion

Oggi apre al pubblico il tradizionale Padiglione Estivo della Serpentine di Londra ecco alcuni scatti del nuovo progetto ideato dallo studio  selgascano.

Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret - Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin

TBA21–Augarten, Vienna, in collaboration with Kunsthalle Krems June 25–October 25, 2015

Opening symposium: “The Rise of the Phyto Age”

A symposium on healing, curing, traditional Amazonian medicine, and traditional European practices—on ethnobotany, cultivation, and the teaching of plants 

TBA21–Augarten, Vienna, June 26–27, 2015

Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret is TBA21’s latest artist-centered initiative of commissioning interdisciplinary and unconventional projects devoted to social and environmental concerns. The collaborative journey that the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, the Huni Kuin, and TBA21 have embarked on marks a crucial extension of the concerns that have been evident in Neto’s oeuvre over the past 20 years: a celebration of the sensuality of being, the unity of bodies and nature, and a longing for spiritual vision. Neto’s collaboration with the Huni Kuin people unfolds as an pioneering experiment, establishing a zone of encounter with our “ancestral futures” and an investigation of the teachings of plants and the spiritual nature of objects. “By co-authoring this exhibition with them in their own territory geographically and conceptually, this exhibition is attempting to draw a consensus between different creative impulses, and sensitize an audience which is increasingly interested in work that is informed by other practices. Work that lies between a fine balance of conscience and meaning is the basis of truth. This new body of work transcends the conceptual framework laid down by previous generations, and allows the art to flow into a narrative that shares its concerns to a public yearning to be further sensitized about issues that affect us all, not just in remote localities in which they were born,” says Francesca von Habsburg, founder and chairwoman of TBA21. 

With this new collaborative engagement, Neto mobilizes a deep understanding of indigenous wisdom and tradition and the relational and perspectival nature of the Huni Kuin’s world vision. Aru Kuxipa will transform TBA21–Augarten into a space of secret ritual, participation, and activation, hosting spiritual and ceremonial gatherings. At the center of the exhibition, a kupixawa, an immersive space of celebration, gathering, and contemplation, will be designed by Neto. Members of the Huni Kuin will reside in Vienna for the preparation and initiation of the exhibition and enter into dialogue with Neto’s artistic language through a diversity of knowledge, expressions, and experiences: music, sounds, drawings, weavings, rituals, herbaria, use of medical and sacred plants, “teacher plants,” and everyday objects. Ritual and magic objects collected from the Huni Kuin and from other indigenous Amazonian tribes, some on loan from Vienna’s renowned Weltmuseum, will be presented in a display fabricated from Lycra and spiced with pepper and lavender. The planned intervention will both contextualize and seek to reverse the encyclopedic (re)presentation of indigenous artifacts and the objectification of knowledge in traditional museum settings. 

Neto’s new commission, combined with earlier major works by the artist from TBA21’s collection, demonstrate his long-standing dedication to divine forms and engage with an understanding of the body as part of the spiritual and material universe. Likewise, Aru Kuxipa engages with the larger political issues driving the recognition of the rights of indigenous communities today: the importance of preserving common lands and of opposing the injustice and criminalization that indigenous communities face with respect to violated land rights and the destruction of their biodiverse habitat.

« Today we are talking about Aru Kuxipá and today we are here together with txai Ernesto Neto, who is an artist, who is with the people Huni Kuin; he is bringing this art of the nature, this contemporary art; all this together turns into a beautiful picture, into a beautiful dance, into a beautiful melody of sounds, into beautiful poetry, which is nothing more than the art that exists in each of us; but it is the courage of txai Ernesto and the courage of the Huni Kuin people joining their forces to display the beauty of nature, the beauty of culture, the beauty of art, so that people can learn more, so that we can be singing together, healing together, celebrating - it is a time for celebration ». Txaná, member of the  Huni Kuin people.

In conjunction with the Livro da Cura (Book of Healing), published in Portuguese and the Hatxa Kui language in collaboration with Editora Dantes and „initiated“ in Vienna in an English version, Aru Kuxipa engages with the large universe of indigenous knowledge, which has been sidelined and exoticized for centuries but which opens multiple entry points into a rethinking of our present moment. The Livro da Cura contains descriptions of the 109 plant species used in the indigenous therapies of the Huni Kuin and their curative properties. This ancestral knowledge and sacred spiritual philosophy are at the core of the exhibition, the international symposium, and the rituals. 

Unfolding in two institutional venues and over two continents, this collaborative exhibition engages with partners in both Austria and Brazil. While the Kunsthalle Krems focuses on a retrospective view of Neto’s nearly two decades of artistic production, TBA21 showcases the artist’s latest explorations and engagements. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of symposia and educational programs at TBA21–Augarten.

Curated by Daniela Zyman

INFORMATION

Exhibition

Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin 

Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret

Curated by Daniela Zyman

Location

TBA21–Augarten, Scherzergasse 1a, 1020 Vienna, Austria

Press Conference

Thursday, June 25, 2015, 4 p.m., TBA21–Augarten, Vienna

Opening

Thursday, June 25, 2015, 7 p.m., TBA21–Augarten

International symposium—“The Rise of the Phyto Age”

TBA21–Augarten, Vienna, June 26–27, 2015

Reception by the City of Vienna

A reception hosted by Vice Mayor Maria Vassilakou in honor of the Huni Kuin

City Hall, Vienna, June 24, 2015

Opening Hours

TBA21–Augarten

Wednesday–Thursday, 12–5 p.m.; Friday–Sunday, 12–7 p.m.

Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays

Free admission

Visitor Information

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary–Augarten

T +43 1 513 98 56-24

augarten@tba21.org

www.tba21.org

www.facebook.com/tba21, www.twitter.com/tba21, instagram.com/tba_21

Supported by 

As one of the leading insurance groups in Central and Eastern Europe, the Vienna Insurance Group and its main share holder clearly perceive its social responsibilities and have been reliable sponsoring partners for Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and other cultural projects for many years. Numerous museums and galleries have insured their collections with Vienna Insurance Group. The main objective for cooperating with cultural institutions is to promote the international exchange in the field of arts and culture. Since June 2013, thanks to the main share holder of Vienna Insurance Group, admission to TBA21–Augarten has been free.

NOTE TO THE EDITORS

Livro da Cura 

Una Isi Kayawa (Livro da Cura, or “Book of Healing”), produced by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden Research Institute (IJBRJ) and originally published by Editora Dantes in 2014 in a bilingual edition (Portuguese and Hatxa Kui languages) compiles descriptions of the 109 species used in indigenous therapies of the Huni Kuin people of the Jordão River in the state of Acre, Brazil, as well as information about the region of occurrence and forms of treatment. The work of researching and organizing the information took two and a half years and was coordinated by the botanist Alexandre Quinet of the IJBRJ. The book was conceived by the shaman Agostinho Manduca Mateus Ika Muru, who died shortly before the work was completed and produced (and drawn entirely) by the Huni Kuin people as a representation of their healing philosophies. In addition to presenting information about plants, the book uses stories and drawings to inform readers about the culture of the Huni Kuin people, such as their eating habits, their music, and their views regarding disease and spirituality. To represent the written content in Hatxa Kui, the book’s publisher, Anna Dantes, created a special typographic font inspired by the handwritten letters in indigenous notebooks. In conjunction with the exhibition, TBA21, together with Editora Dantes and Sternberg Press, is planning to publish the 260-page book in English and Hatxa Kui. 

Ernesto Neto 

Since the mid-1990s Ernesto Neto (b. 1964) has produced an influential body of work that explores constructions of social space and the natural world by inviting physical interaction and sensory experience. Drawing on biomorphism and minimalist sculpture, along with neoconcretism and other Brazilian vanguard movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the artist both references and incorporates organic shapes and materials—spices, sand, and shells among them—that engage all five senses, producing a new type of sensory perception that renegotiates boundaries between the artwork and the viewer, the organic and the man-made, as well as between the natural, spiritual, and social worlds. 

The Huni Kuin

The Huni Kuin live on the Brazilian-Peruvian border in Western Amazonia and belong to the Pano linguistic family that inhabits the tropical forest of eastern Peru, from the Andean foothills to western Brazil in the states of Acre and southern Amazonas, covering the areas of the Upper Jurug and Purus and the Javari Valley, respectively. Specifically the regions of the Jordão and  Tarauacá Rivers are the habitat of the members of the Huni Kuin who will be in residency at TBA21, Vienna.

With a population of approximately 5,964 people, they make up half of the indigenous population of Acre and are distributed for five cities corresponding to an area of 633.213 ha. Their language belongs to the linguistic family Pano, that they call Hatxa Kui (true language), whose abundance manifest also in their musical diversity.

The Huni Kuin society, traditionally, has a social organization that turns around groups of extensive families, with prominence on two figures: the leadership (cacique) and pajè (shaman). Although pajha have been one of the most persecuted figures of the indigenous societies during the process of settling of the Amazon, the Huni Kuin society still assign them a significant role in its culture in helping to maintain the connection with the spiritual realm to protect his people from harm that originates there.

The Brazilian Huni Kuin for years lived in more disperse form and became familiarized with rubber-tapper culture by working under exploitative conditions for rubber bosses over the space of two generations. Only ten-out-of-sixty tribal groups in that region survived this period. In 1951 the Huni Kuin suffered a genocide that exterminated 75-80% of the group. In the 1970s, the people began to break free from the yoke of the rubber industry. Much of their culture by that time had begun to disintegrate, but they began to organize and demand access to the land that had been set aside for them along with the right to live in traditional ways. Today the Huni Kuin are engaged in a profound process of recovering their traditions and practices of medicine, agriculture, hunting and fishing, or weaving, while having to face new pressures to protect their land rights due to ecological, political and economic pressures and land grabs. 

About TBA21 

Founded in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg in Vienna, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) represents the fourth generation of the Thyssen family’s commitment to the arts. The foundation is dedicated primarily to the commissioning and dissemination of ambitious, experimental, and unconventional projects that defy traditional categorizations. This approach has gained the collection a pioneering reputation throughout the world. The foundation’s projects promote artistic practices that are architectural, context- and site-specific, performative, and often informed by an interest in social aesthetics and environmental concerns. Many of the projects reflect the shift to transdisciplinary practices embracing architecture, sound, music, and science.