newsfromlabiennale201104

Žarko Bašeski (1957) is representing Macedonia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

"Zarko Baseski in his workshop."
Photo by Tristan JEANNE-VALES.
Copyright © 2010.

newsfromlabiennale201104

Ion Grigorescu (1945), Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová (Nadlac, Romania in 1975 and Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia in 1977) are representing Romania at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Grigorescu is one of the very few multimedia artists in Romania who during the communist regime conducted visual research on the body: a taboo topic at the time. The artist’s body became work “material”—perceived as a “medium” and surface—onto which mental images are reflected. His body performances are to be seen as “post-happenings” with the emphasis no longer on the temporal dimension but rather on the photographic snapshot that, however, preserves a performative character. These works, like many others from the nineteen-seventies and eighties, would go public only much later [...]

«Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová have been working together since 2000. They explore gender relations as well as their role of Eastern European artists in a Western-dominated art world.
Their projects are often based on contextual interpretation of art from Eastern Europe and its stereotypical mode of representation, derived from a grid of geopolitical relations. Playing with the concept of access to different forms of power, the artists refer to the typical situation in post-communist New Europe, while, on the other hand, they are deconstructing society’s icons and habits, revealing their basic economic fundaments and functioning.
Latterly they focus on formulating methods that can be applied to forgotten segments of historical facts and events. The social, personal, historical and political get ultimately unified while memory and oblivion are paired, forgotten moments of life awarded and the sense of the whole lot discredited.
With videos, installations, textual works, and performances they refract consumer expectations and trigger processes of reflection about gender questions, the art market, and making art [...]

newsfrom...201104

Paulo (1960-2011), for all the reasons we will all be missing you!

newsfromanywhere201104

The resulting activities - «which had always been necessary to make the Soviet system merely function - led to the corruption that would only increase as Russia moved to a market economy. Circumventing what laws were in force, if not breaking them outright, become part of the way of life, a precursor to the breakdown of the "rule of law" which was to mark the transition.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromanywhere201104

«What the market fundamentalists preached was textbook economics - an oversimplified version of market economics which paid scant attention to the dynamics of change.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromanywhere201104

«Part of the reason for the dismal results of the economic transition was the failure to recognize the centrality of these other components.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromanywhere201104

«The leaders of the 1917 Revolution recognized that what was at stake was more than a change in economics; it was a change in society in all of its dimensions. So, too, the transition from communism to a market economy was more than just an economic experiment: it was a transformation of societies and of social political structures.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromanywhere201104

«While those in Russia must bear much of the blame for what has happened, the Western advisers, ... who marched in so quickly to preach the gospel of the market economy, must also take some blame. At the very least, they provided support to those who led Russia and many of the other economies down the paths they followed arguing for a new religion - market fundamentalism - as a substitute for the old one - Marxism - which had proven so deficient.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromanywhere201104

«The middle class has been devastated, a system of crony and mafia capitalism has been created, and the one achievement, the creation of a democracy with meaningful freedom, including a free press, appears fragile at best, particularly as formerly independent TV stations are shut down one by one.» in Globalization and Its Discontents by J. Stiglitz

newsfromnevereverland201104

the holy sacrifice, an act of slaughtering or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine figure for one's own pain or humiliation

newsfromlabiennale201104

Dominik Lang (Prague in 1980) is representing Czech and Slovak Republic at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

Dominik Lang’s (*1980) exhibition project The Sleeping City links two different sculptural approaches with various historical contexts against the background of an intimate family relationship. The presentation connects the works of two authors linked by a personal association, father and son, and thus creates a basis for developing a fictitious inter-generation dialogue. One of the project’s starting points is the fact that the works of Dominik Lang’s father, Jiří Lang (1927–1996), were “short-circuited“ by the absurdity of the times, i.e. of the forced uniformity of the 1950s society in the Soviet Block, and have remained – in spite of the initial laudatory epithets: “a good start“, “promising“ – deposited in the author’s studio, “incarcerated“ in its own times. The stifling atmosphere of a studio crowded with “sleeping“ statues, the social insulation, resignation, and apathy, but also one particular 1960 relief, called “The Sleeping City“: these are the sources for the title of D. Lang’s multi-layered project. In his site-specific installation, he puts forth a hypothetical model of a never-realized exhibition: he handles the works of the generationally antecedent artist as a material for formative activity, torn out of its historical context, as phantoms of times gone, inset within new scenes and constellations. In doing this he stages an uncompromising image of the “impossibility“ enforced by the given circumstances [...]

newsfromlabiennale201104

Mikayil Abdurahmanov, Zeigam Azizov (Salyan in 1963), Khanlar Gasimov, Altai Sadighzadeh, Aidan Salakhova (Moscow in 1964) and Aga Ousseinov are representing Azerbaijan at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

Khanlar Gasimov, Reminder (neon light, rice), 12.08.2005

The exhibition in Palazzo Benzon will present two generations of artists of Azerbaijan who markedly advocate the current stimulating culture of Baku. The paintings, sculptures, installations and video they are presenting are relational to the socio-political and cultural environments they live in and they reflect intricate and complex statements and forms. All of them have witnessed and experienced the political and economical transformation of their nations in the last four decades; all of them had a strong modernist heritage determined by Soviet ideology; and all of them have experienced the rise of culture as symbolic capital. Yet, for all of them, Baku is the nucleus of the fire that has ignited their creativity and their statements, concepts and forms of art address the international audiences.

newsfrom...201104

when | dreams | become | broken