Saturday, 30 March 2013
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
T.J. Demos in conversation with Kodwo Eshun
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| ...and they were brought over here, twelve metres from the road... |
«The Showroom is pleased to announce the launch of two new books by London-based writer and critic T.J. Demos:
The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary During Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013)
Return to the Postcolony: Specters of Colonialism in Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press, 2013).
In the wake of failed states, growing economic and political inequality, and the ongoing US- and NATO-led wars for resources, security, and economic dominance worldwide, contemporary artists are critically exploring the image regime of neoliberal capitalism and crisis-globalization. They are also revisiting former European colonies, considering past injustices that haunt the living yet remain repressed in European consciousness.
In The Migrant Image, Demos examines the ways contemporary artists have reinvented documentary practices in their exploration of mobile lives: refugees, migrants, the stateless, and the politically dispossessed. He presents a sophisticated analysis of how artists from the United States, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East depict the often ignored effects of globalization and the ways their works connect viewers to the lived experiences of political and economic crisis. The book features case studies of works by Steve McQueen, The Otolith Group, Hito Steyerl, Emily Jacir, Ahlam Shibli, Ursula Biemann, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lamia Joreige, Akram Zaatari, Walid Raad, Rabih Mroué, Yto Barrada, Goldin + Senneby, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, and others, showing the ways these artists creatively propose new possibilities for a politics of equality, social justice, and historical consciousness from within an increasingly post-representational, deterritorialized aesthetic domain.
Return to the Postcolony: Specters of Colonialism in Contemporary Art continues this investigation, looking at works by artists Sven Augustijnen, Vincent Meessen, Zarina Bhimji, Renzo Martens, and Pieter Hugo that have emerged around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of independence for many African countries. Confronting the hauntings of past and ongoing colonial traumas, Demos describes these artistic journeys as forming a “reverse migration” — a return to the European and African postcolony, which drives an ethico-political as well as an aesthetic set of imperatives: to learn to live with ghosts, but to do so more justly.
Demos will discuss and expand on these themes in conversation with Kodwo Eshun.
T.J. Demos is critic and Reader in the Department of Art History, University College London. He writes widely on modern and contemporary art and politics under globalization, and recently guest edited a special issue of Third Text (no. 120, 2013) on the subject of “Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology.”
Kodwo Eshun is an artist and theorist. As co-founder of The Otolith Group, his videos, including People to be Resembling (2012), The Radiant (2012), I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another (2012), Anathema (2011), Hydra Decapita (2010), Nervus Rerum (2008) and The Otolith Trilogy (2003-2009) have been presented internationally in solo exhibitions at MACBA, Barcelona, MAXXI, Rome and Showroom, London and at group exhibitions including dOCUMENTA(13), the 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Manifesta 8 and British Art Show 7. In 2010, The Otolith Group was nominated for The Turner Prize. He is the author of Dan Graham: Rock My Religion (2012) and More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (1998) and co-editor of Third Text 108: The Militant Image: A Cine Geography (2011), Harun Farocki: Against What? Against Whom? (2009) and The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of The Black Audio Film Collective (2007). He is Course Leader of the MA in Aural and Visual Cultures at Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London.
The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary During Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013)
Return to the Postcolony: Specters of Colonialism in Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press, 2013).
In the wake of failed states, growing economic and political inequality, and the ongoing US- and NATO-led wars for resources, security, and economic dominance worldwide, contemporary artists are critically exploring the image regime of neoliberal capitalism and crisis-globalization. They are also revisiting former European colonies, considering past injustices that haunt the living yet remain repressed in European consciousness.
In The Migrant Image, Demos examines the ways contemporary artists have reinvented documentary practices in their exploration of mobile lives: refugees, migrants, the stateless, and the politically dispossessed. He presents a sophisticated analysis of how artists from the United States, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East depict the often ignored effects of globalization and the ways their works connect viewers to the lived experiences of political and economic crisis. The book features case studies of works by Steve McQueen, The Otolith Group, Hito Steyerl, Emily Jacir, Ahlam Shibli, Ursula Biemann, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lamia Joreige, Akram Zaatari, Walid Raad, Rabih Mroué, Yto Barrada, Goldin + Senneby, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, and others, showing the ways these artists creatively propose new possibilities for a politics of equality, social justice, and historical consciousness from within an increasingly post-representational, deterritorialized aesthetic domain.
Return to the Postcolony: Specters of Colonialism in Contemporary Art continues this investigation, looking at works by artists Sven Augustijnen, Vincent Meessen, Zarina Bhimji, Renzo Martens, and Pieter Hugo that have emerged around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of independence for many African countries. Confronting the hauntings of past and ongoing colonial traumas, Demos describes these artistic journeys as forming a “reverse migration” — a return to the European and African postcolony, which drives an ethico-political as well as an aesthetic set of imperatives: to learn to live with ghosts, but to do so more justly.
Demos will discuss and expand on these themes in conversation with Kodwo Eshun.
T.J. Demos is critic and Reader in the Department of Art History, University College London. He writes widely on modern and contemporary art and politics under globalization, and recently guest edited a special issue of Third Text (no. 120, 2013) on the subject of “Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology.”
Kodwo Eshun is an artist and theorist. As co-founder of The Otolith Group, his videos, including People to be Resembling (2012), The Radiant (2012), I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another (2012), Anathema (2011), Hydra Decapita (2010), Nervus Rerum (2008) and The Otolith Trilogy (2003-2009) have been presented internationally in solo exhibitions at MACBA, Barcelona, MAXXI, Rome and Showroom, London and at group exhibitions including dOCUMENTA(13), the 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Manifesta 8 and British Art Show 7. In 2010, The Otolith Group was nominated for The Turner Prize. He is the author of Dan Graham: Rock My Religion (2012) and More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (1998) and co-editor of Third Text 108: The Militant Image: A Cine Geography (2011), Harun Farocki: Against What? Against Whom? (2009) and The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of The Black Audio Film Collective (2007). He is Course Leader of the MA in Aural and Visual Cultures at Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Photomed 2013
Press release: 27 March 2013
PHOTOMED 2013
Mediterranean Photography Festival
From May 23rd to June 16th
At Sanary-sur-Mer (South of France)
PHOTOMED 2013
Mediterranean Photography Festival
From May 23rd to June 16th
At Sanary-sur-Mer (South of France)
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| Valencia, Spain, 1998 © Gabriele Basilico |
Over the years, Photomed has made a name for itself as a festival for discovery or rediscovery. It also provides us with the opportunity to pay homage to the great names of Mediterranean photography such as Gabriele Basilico, Nino Migliori or Fouad Elkoury. At the espace St Nazaire in Sanary-sur-Mer, nascent Lebanese photography, under the expert eye of Curator Tony Hage, rubs shoulders with the powerful and evocative works of Julia Pirotte. This photojournalist of Polish origin, whose archives are housed at the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi has produced some exceptional images of the liberation of Marseilles. Prefaced by Bernard Plossu, this exhibition represents one of the compelling moments of the festival, as does the presentation of the work of Nino Migliori proposed by Alessandra Mauro or even the as yet unseen photographs of the great film director Costa-Gavras. Nino Migliori is part of the tradition of Italian neo-realism but stands apart through his constant research and experimentation. As for Costa Gavras, his formidable portraits of Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Allende, Régis Debray, Jorge Semprun... reflections of his friendship and his militancy, are to be discovered both at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris and at Photomed....
On the Island of Bendor, the Patmos and Mykonos rooms house the work of two Greek photographers: Katerina Kaloudi, who provides us with an unexpected vision of today’s Greece, and Stratis Vogiatzis, who describes the life of the fishermen of the Mediterranean using disturbing and powerful images. In collaboration with Ljubljana’s Galerija Fotografija the exhibition ”Aspects of Slovenian photography” shows the work of two generations of photographers (salle Flotte) with, as a counterpoint, images from Bruno Rufi at at the Sanary médiathèque.
After last year’s revelation of the Sanary mermaid by Joan Fontcuberta, it is the turn of Didier Massard to entice us 20,000 leagues under the sea, to discover flooded cities and dreamlike landscapes (salle Maurice Fargues).
In Bandol, the photographer and film director Daoud Aoulad-Syad, acclaimed by the public in 2012, returns with a commission placed by Photomed covering the region’s winemakers. This novel Pantheon adjoins the architecture of Marseilles’ Jacques Filiu. On the port, Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain have us buzzing for the bygone Dolce Vita, with their outsized portraits of Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Liz Taylor... printed on canvas. This exhibition is rounded off in the salle Flotte at Sanary, by less well-known and at times unpublished images taken from the archives of these two famous and likeable paparazzi.
In the chapelle de la Pitié, the Israeli photographer Gali Tibbon accompanies the cortège of pilgrims who come from all over the world and from all religions to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, birthplace of Christianity.
But the Mediterranean also lives on through the eyes of the great photographers of the past. Guy Mandery has opened up his collection of “vintage” photos for us, where we can find the work of Hoyningen-Huene, side by side with that of Boubat, Giacomelli and all those wandering photographers who have roamed the Mediterranean Basin, including Guy Mandery himself. This historian and critic will exhibit his images taken during his travels and sojourns in Greece, Sicily and Tunisia, in the salle Barthélémy de Don.
In the Atelier des Artistes, Fouad Elkoury has compiled photographs of the Lebanon of his birth, a subtle symphony of internal and spiritual landscapes. In reply to Fouad Elkoury’s Beirut is the work of Gabriele Basilico who chose Toulon’s Hôtel des Arts to display nine Mediterranean cities in which, at different stages of his life, he produced both precise and poetic photographic references. Barcelona, Beirut, Genoa, Istanbul, Monaco, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Valencia are thus the cornerstones of a production that has become emblematic in contemporary photographic history. We therefore wish to dedicate the 3rd edition of the Mediterranean Photography Festival to this great photographer who passed away so recently.
On the Island of Bendor, the Patmos and Mykonos rooms house the work of two Greek photographers: Katerina Kaloudi, who provides us with an unexpected vision of today’s Greece, and Stratis Vogiatzis, who describes the life of the fishermen of the Mediterranean using disturbing and powerful images. In collaboration with Ljubljana’s Galerija Fotografija the exhibition ”Aspects of Slovenian photography” shows the work of two generations of photographers (salle Flotte) with, as a counterpoint, images from Bruno Rufi at at the Sanary médiathèque.
After last year’s revelation of the Sanary mermaid by Joan Fontcuberta, it is the turn of Didier Massard to entice us 20,000 leagues under the sea, to discover flooded cities and dreamlike landscapes (salle Maurice Fargues).
In Bandol, the photographer and film director Daoud Aoulad-Syad, acclaimed by the public in 2012, returns with a commission placed by Photomed covering the region’s winemakers. This novel Pantheon adjoins the architecture of Marseilles’ Jacques Filiu. On the port, Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain have us buzzing for the bygone Dolce Vita, with their outsized portraits of Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Liz Taylor... printed on canvas. This exhibition is rounded off in the salle Flotte at Sanary, by less well-known and at times unpublished images taken from the archives of these two famous and likeable paparazzi.
In the chapelle de la Pitié, the Israeli photographer Gali Tibbon accompanies the cortège of pilgrims who come from all over the world and from all religions to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, birthplace of Christianity.
But the Mediterranean also lives on through the eyes of the great photographers of the past. Guy Mandery has opened up his collection of “vintage” photos for us, where we can find the work of Hoyningen-Huene, side by side with that of Boubat, Giacomelli and all those wandering photographers who have roamed the Mediterranean Basin, including Guy Mandery himself. This historian and critic will exhibit his images taken during his travels and sojourns in Greece, Sicily and Tunisia, in the salle Barthélémy de Don.
In the Atelier des Artistes, Fouad Elkoury has compiled photographs of the Lebanon of his birth, a subtle symphony of internal and spiritual landscapes. In reply to Fouad Elkoury’s Beirut is the work of Gabriele Basilico who chose Toulon’s Hôtel des Arts to display nine Mediterranean cities in which, at different stages of his life, he produced both precise and poetic photographic references. Barcelona, Beirut, Genoa, Istanbul, Monaco, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Valencia are thus the cornerstones of a production that has become emblematic in contemporary photographic history. We therefore wish to dedicate the 3rd edition of the Mediterranean Photography Festival to this great photographer who passed away so recently.
Jean-Luc Monterosso
Photomed Artistic Director
Salon de la Photo
Press release: 27 March 2013
Salon de la Photo
7 to 11 November 2013
Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, Paris
SAVE THE DATE
Don’t miss the Salon de la Photo 2013
Thursday 7 – Monday 11 November 2013
Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, Paris.
Salon de la Photo
7 to 11 November 2013
Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, Paris
SAVE THE DATE
Don’t miss the Salon de la Photo 2013
Thursday 7 – Monday 11 November 2013
Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, Paris.
The Salon de la Photo in Paris in November has become a flagship event showcasing innovations and new products on the photography market. It’s THE annual event for anyone interested in photography, whether amateur enthusiasts or professionals.
With 80,612 visitors – an increase of +12,3% on 2011 – the 2012 edition of the Salon de la Photo was the most popular since it began. It is now a major event on the international calendar.
Presenting top world brands and covering cameras, picture editing, printing and image sharing, the Salon de la Photo offers an outstanding schedule including specially curated exhibitions, public presentations, opportunities to meet top photographers, workshops and discussions, as well as a popular retail village and bookshop.
The Salon de la Photo, the annual event for photographers and photography enthusiasts.
With 80,612 visitors – an increase of +12,3% on 2011 – the 2012 edition of the Salon de la Photo was the most popular since it began. It is now a major event on the international calendar.
Presenting top world brands and covering cameras, picture editing, printing and image sharing, the Salon de la Photo offers an outstanding schedule including specially curated exhibitions, public presentations, opportunities to meet top photographers, workshops and discussions, as well as a popular retail village and bookshop.
The Salon de la Photo, the annual event for photographers and photography enthusiasts.
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Pedro Reyes: Disarm
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| Pedro Reyes, 'Disarm: Imagine/Disarm I & II (destruction & construction)', 2012. HD Video 3'50'' & 4'25'' |
An aggressive yet accomplished body of work created by Pedro Reyes for Lisson's exhibition Disarm. A tribal rallying cry on our socio-political responsibility towards contemporary society on a global scale. Reyes' used custom-built instruments, predominantly made out of destroyed illegal firearms, weapons he received from the Mexican Secretary of Defense. On certain moments, the exhibition discourse' resembled a mixture of rough punk tunes and industrial noise; on other moments, it resembled a dark treatise on sacred and profane socio-political things, using transgressive imagery and harsh and challenging soundscapes.
The Magic of the State
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| Liz Magic Laser, 'Stand by Me' (2013), Performance and video with teleprompter. Featuring Arial Freedman. 10 mins. |
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| Liz Magic Laser, 'Stand by Me' (2013), Performance and video with teleprompter. Featuring Arial Freedman. 10 mins. |
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| Anja Kirschner & David Panos, 'Ultimate substance' (2012), Video Installation 34' |
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| Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Cleda's Chairs. Installation view, Ceci est ma maison / This is my place, Magason - CNAC, Grenoble, 2012. Image courtesy The Artist; Mary Mary, Glasgow |
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| Rana Hamadeh, The Big Board or ... 'And before it falls, it is only reasonable to enjoy life a little.' 2013. Performance and stage set with various objects (detail). Duration approx. 45'. Dimensions 300 x 150 x 70 cm. Image courtesy Lisson Gallery. |
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Yet, indubitable, at the racing tracks, again!
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| Rosemarie Trockel's A Cosmos exhibition at Serpentine Gallery (London) |
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| Fischli/Weiss's Rock on Top of Another Rock installation at Kensington Gardens (London) |
Friday, 22 March 2013
Yet another day at the racing tracks
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| Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (Oil on canvas, 55.5x40.5cm, 1872), at the Royal Academy of Arts (London) |
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Another day at the racing tracks
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| Sterling Ruby's EXHM exhibition at Hauser & Wirth (London) |
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| Sterling Ruby's EXHM exhibition at Hauser & Wirth (London) |
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| Eberhard Havekost's Cosmos Now exhibition at White Cube Mason's Yard (London) |
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| Ian Whittlesea's Becoming Invisible exhibition at Marlborough Contemporary (London) |
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| Ian Whittlesea's Becoming Invisible exhibition at Marlborough Contemporary (London) |
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| Social performance at Oscar de la Renta |
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
A day at the racing tracks
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| Shahzia Sikander Parallax' exhibition at Pilar Corrias (London) |
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| Michael Bauer, Slow Future - Skoer (Oil on canvas, 180x175cm), 2012, at Alison Jacques Gallery (London) |
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| Massimo Bartolini, Afterheart (wooden organ, 265x265x112cm), 2012, at Frith Street Gallery (London) |
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Monday, 18 March 2013
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Frank Benson: Flag (Union Jack)
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Press release: 14 March 2013
Frank Benson: Flag (Union Jack)
15 March - 19 May 2013
Press release: 14 March 2013
Frank Benson: Flag (Union Jack)
15 March - 19 May 2013
«Frank Benson's Flag (Union Jack) (2013) reflects the artist's ongoing fascination with the depiction of arrested motion and the use of digital tools in the creation of sculpture.
To create this work, an image of the Union Flag (commonly called the Union Jack) of the United Kingdom was mapped onto a three-dimensional plane created in a computer animation programme. The plane was then subjected to simulated wind and turbulence, and a still from the animation was chosen as the pattern of the sewn nylon flag. Even when flat, these manipulations give the flag the appearance of billowing in high wind – contorting and disfiguring its stripes while remaining implausibly constrained to a rectangle. Benson in this way confuses the distinction between the flag as image and the flag as object. The rippled appearance of the Union Jack when it is flown – an unintentional consequence of climate – has been intentionally translated onto the flag’s design.
National flags, particularly the Union Jack, are a frequent sight around the ICA on the Mall in central London. The road is a focal point of state occasions, during which national flags line the route. Flag (Union Jack) dramatically magnifies, and subtly mutates, these stately insignia. Benson’s Flag (Union Jack) also follows his previous work Flag, which has flown in various locations around the world since 2005.
The installation is the third sculpture to be displayed on the roof of Nash House. The first was Roberto Cuoghi’s Šuillakku in 2008 and the second was Franz West's Room in London in 2011.»
Image: Installation view of Flag (Union Jack), 2013, Frank Benson, at the ICA, London Photo: Douglas McFarlane
To create this work, an image of the Union Flag (commonly called the Union Jack) of the United Kingdom was mapped onto a three-dimensional plane created in a computer animation programme. The plane was then subjected to simulated wind and turbulence, and a still from the animation was chosen as the pattern of the sewn nylon flag. Even when flat, these manipulations give the flag the appearance of billowing in high wind – contorting and disfiguring its stripes while remaining implausibly constrained to a rectangle. Benson in this way confuses the distinction between the flag as image and the flag as object. The rippled appearance of the Union Jack when it is flown – an unintentional consequence of climate – has been intentionally translated onto the flag’s design.
National flags, particularly the Union Jack, are a frequent sight around the ICA on the Mall in central London. The road is a focal point of state occasions, during which national flags line the route. Flag (Union Jack) dramatically magnifies, and subtly mutates, these stately insignia. Benson’s Flag (Union Jack) also follows his previous work Flag, which has flown in various locations around the world since 2005.
The installation is the third sculpture to be displayed on the roof of Nash House. The first was Roberto Cuoghi’s Šuillakku in 2008 and the second was Franz West's Room in London in 2011.»
Image: Installation view of Flag (Union Jack), 2013, Frank Benson, at the ICA, London Photo: Douglas McFarlane
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Monday, 11 March 2013
Sunday, 10 March 2013
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