OCA relocates its offices and international studios to Nedre gate 7 in Grünerløkka in summer 2008. Reflecting upon the Board's acknowledgment of OCA's expanded programme, visitation and overall operations, a decision was made in 2007 to seek out a new location in order to provide greater accessibility and visibility for OCA as a public institution.The space, renovated throughout winter 2008 under the direction of the Oslo-based architectural firm Space Group, foster a further synthesis between its discursive programme and a changing programme of public projects. New contact details will be posted on OCA's website as of June, 2008.
OCA provides financial support on a quarterly basis for international projects including Norwegian artists and/or cultural producers.
Click here for information on International Support and the application process.
For any questions regarding the application procedures, please contact Velaug Bollingmo at OCA at vb@oca.no.
In September–October and November–December 2008, OCA offers two successive residencies for Norwegian curators, critics, and artists in Berlin Mitte.
Click here for information on the residency Berlin Mitte and the application process.
For any questions regarding the application procedures, please contact Velaug Bollingmo at OCA at vb@oca.no.
Participating artists from Norway:
aiPotu
Lene Berg
Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl
Pushwagner
and special projects by Vibeke Tandberg and Matias Faldbakken
Lene Berg, from Stalin by Picasso, 2007
Courtesy of the artist
The 2008 Biennale of Sydney as curated by its Artistic Director, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, a visitor in OCA's International Vistior Programme (IVP) in January last year, is entitled Revolutions – Forms that Turn. The biennial will include a presentation of approximately 80 artists with works from 1913 to present, bringing together significant historical works with the art of today. The 16th Biennale of Sydney explores the relationship and gap between 'revolutionary art' and 'art for the revolution'; the space between formal experimentation and artistic intent – the impulse to revolt in both art and life.
The Norwegian duo aiPotu will contribute to the Sydney Biennale with two separate works, both related to their ongoing Island Tour. The first work, entitled If you don't like the weather – wait 15 minutes, is an installation to be shown inside the Museum for Contemporary Art in Sydney. The second work is a maritime construction site at the Cockatoo Island, in the Sydney Harbour. Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl will present the project When the Private Becomes Public, an investigation on the private vs. the public realm. In the words of the artist the project "brings three characters (an Aboriginal woman, an African woman and a woman of western descent) that will together create a triangle linkage of their individuality, different cultures, and other experiences that are embedded in them. These women are to translate the changes and turns within the private realm and will enact them into a performance that will be shot in the Australian desert. The final piece will be a film/sound installation". Pushwagner will show Klaxton II, (2000); Manhattan, (2004-2006), the pictorial novel Soft City, (1968-1976) and the animation Soft City, (2006-2008). Lene Berg will present a new project consisting of a video and a series of images and objects entitled The Drowned One. Having the first photographic images of a human being (The Drowned One by Hippolyte Bayard) as its point of departure, The Drowned One deals with photographic paradoxes. The work will be shown on Cockatoo Island outside Sydney Harbour and in October, the project will be presented at Fotogalleriet in Oslo, Norway.
Although included in the previous Sydney biennial, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has also invited artists Vibeke Tandberg and Matias Faldbakken to take part in special projects in conjunction with the formal exhibition. Vibeke Tandberg's video Old Man Going Up and Down a Staircase (2003) will be included and Matias Faldbakken will present a slide show as a continuation of his recent image series Untitled (Young is Better Than Old) (2008). The images are composed by overlapping words rendered with black isolation tape on canvas, paper or directly onto the wall. In such a manner, the text becomes unreadable and the message is obscured. According to the artist, this way of working suppresses language in favor of a mute and negating visual gesture. The Sydney Biennial will also showcase important historical works from the collection of Erling Neby in Oslo, Norway.
The biennial takes place in various venues and sites throughout Sydney, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) and Cockatoo Island, one if Sydney Harbour's historic landmarks. Forms that Turn will include an extensive public program that will bring together visiting artists with a range of participating curators, philosophers, writers and poets. For a full list of events planned, including times and locations, please consult the biennial's website.
The 2008 Biennale of Sydney has been supported with a grant from OCA's International Support Programme. A portion of this grant is provided by 03-funding*. For further developing information, please refer to Biennale of Sydney, or contact info@oca.no. You can preview artworks, texts and links in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney Online Venue.
Participating artists from Norway:
Knut Åsdam
Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl
Kristina Bræin
and Helen & Hard Architects
Knut Åsdam, Still from Finally, 2006
Courtesy of the artist
Manifesta 7 will take place in the region of Trentino — Südtirol/Alto Adige, Italy. Three curatorial teams have been selected to realize the project, each working as a coordinated, but autonomous curatorial unit: Raqs Media Collective, formed by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula & Shuddhabrata Sengupta and OCA ISP visitors in April 2008, will be working at ex-Alumix, an industrial building from the beginning of the 20th Century, in Bolzano. Anselm Franke and Hila Peleg, will work at the former Post Office, a rationalist building from the 1930s in Trento, and Adam Budak, OCA IVP vistor in October 2007, will develop his exhibition between the 20th Century ex-Peterlini industrial building and the 19th century Manifattura Tabacchi, in Rovereto. The curators will collaborate on the fourth venue within the fortress of Fortezza with a project which departed from the idea of how imaginary scenarios shape our understanding of history and possibility to explore the concept 'immaterial dimension'.
In the Manifattura Tabacchi Knut Åsdam will present a new work, which spans from architectural installation to the cinematic in a hybrid installation that encompasses a large narrative architectural environment. In ex-Alumix in Bolzano, Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl will premiere the video The Air between Two Women: a conversation between Italian video artist Francesca Grilli and Annie Anawana Haloba Hobøl about their mental ‘residue’ and how they can find a language in which these ‘mental residue’ can co-exists collectively. Kristina Bræin will exhibit a partly site specific installation. The installation, entitled The Problem of Functionality insists on a human softness and homely scale amidst the raw, huge spaces of the abandoned factory. The Stavanger based architecture office Helen & Hard will present a site-specific installation that initiates resonance and evocative relations between natural and cultural/political spaces.
The four central exhibitions of Manifesta 7 will present works from approximately 140 artists, the majority of which are being specially created for the occasion. Together with the biennial, other parallel events will take place throughout the region, including exhibitions, performances and concerts.
For accreditation form for the press preview, refer to: http://pressform.manifesta7.it/en/. For professional accreditation, please contact: professional@manifesta7.it. Please refer to manifesta7.it for further information.
In 2009/2010, OCA offers two studio grants — one for a Norwegian artist and one for a Norwegian curator at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City.
Click here for more information on the International Studio and Curatorial Program New York (ISCP).
As part of her OCA's Residency at International Studio and Curatorial Program New York (ISCP), Lene Berg is participating in ISCP Open Studios from 9–12 May. 9 May marks the opening of ISCP's new facilities in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, USA and during the same weekend ISCP presents recent artworks and projects by the participants in the residency program, providing an exclusive peak of the production, process, and personal archive of 27 artists, among them, Tomoko Sawada, Jesper Just, Joaquin Segura and Guido van der Werve.
OCA makes a three-month residency available at Platform Garanti for art critics, for artists working as writers, for curators, as well as for artists.
Click here for more information on the Platform Garanti Istanbul Residency Programme.
Jan Freuchen,
Disaster furniture #8, 2007
Courtesy of the artist and
Erik Steen Gallery, Oslo, Norway
Jan Freuchen is an artist working with installations, drawings, sculptures and constructions. Freuchen reconsiders human achievements in the light of a non-linear, dynamic theory where natural processes and the feedback loops of contemporary cultural expressions provides the fundaments for his deconstructive artistic practice. He holds a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bergen, Norway and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Among Jan Freuchen's recent exhibitions are: Lights On, Astrup Fearnley (2008), and Self Assembly, Erik Steen Gallery (2007) in Oslo, Norway and Destroy Athens, 1st Athens Biennial (2007) in Greece.
OCA's International Studio Programme Oslo (ISP) is available for international artists and curators by invitation, independently or in connection with research in Norway.
Click here for information on The International Studio Programme Oslo.
Courtesy of the artist and
Galerie Daniel Buchholz,
Cologne, Germany
Over the last decade Enrico David has quietly established a reputation as one of Britain's most original artists. His solo exhibition recently held at the ICA in London, UK demonstrated some of the ongoing strands within his work, which borrows from craft and design techniques and often features stylised figures staged within erotic or tragic-comic scenarios. According to Marta Kuzma in her listing in "Best of 2007" in December's Artforum, "Enrico David is motivated by a kind of unmediated pleasure principle, transposing his obsession with treating ‘people as objects’, and his abject perversions like ‘rubbing himself against the effigy of trustworthiness’ into meticulously rendered illustrations, assemblages, and room-size installations. As the artist himself describes this soulful recollection of personal experience: "From the silent spectacle to its description, from the described scene to the moral interpretation of intentions and acts, from the interpreted act to the 'anecdote'."
Pablo Lafuente is the Managing Editor of Afterall, a journal of contemporary art co-published by Central St. Martins College of Art, London and California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. Afterall is published twice a year, and focuses on contemporary art practice in relation to artistic, theoretical, social and political contexts. He is currently developing a series of books for Afterall Books analysing the history of curatorial practice. He has curated several exhibitions, including Watch out ../. it's real! at Greengrassi, London, UK (2006) and Unit Structures at Lisboa 20, Lisbon, Portugal (2006). In 2005 he edited the book Display: recent installation photographs from London galleries and venues Rachmaninoff's, London, UK.
His writing has been published in several art and culture magazines, including Flash Art, Art Monthly, Frieze and The Wire, and in the volume Continuous Project no.8, edited by Bettina Funcke (2006, Les presses du réel, Paris, France). He is currently working on a PhD at Middlesex University, UK on Jacques Rancière and the relation between aesthetics and politics.
OCA's International Visitor Programme (IVP) invites international curators and cultural producers to do research in Norway for upcoming exhibitions and projects.
Click here for information on The International Visitor Programme.
Peter Eleey
Photo: Peter Wohlsen
Courtesy of Walker Art Center
Peter Eleey is Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where he is currently organizing an exhibition surveying the visual art of the dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. Prior to joining the Walker, he was Curator & Producer at Creative Time in New York, where he curated a wide range of multidisciplinary programs including exhibitions, projects and commissions with Mike Nelson, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Holzer, William Forsythe, Doug Aitken, Jim Hodges, Shirazeh Houshiary and Haluk Akakçe, among others.
Ivo Mesquita is a Brazilian curator and, since 1996 Visiting Professor at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, NY, USA. He is the curator for the 2008 São Paulo biennial and since 2006, the Chief Curator at Pinacoteca do Estado, in São Paulo. Ivo Mesquita was the Researcher, Assistant Curator (1980–88), and the Artistic Director (1999–2000) for the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo; Artistic Director, Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo (2001–02). Among the exhibitions curated by Ivo Mesquita are Jorge Guinle, 20th São Paulo Bienal (1989); Desire in the Academy, 1847–1916, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo (1991); Cartographies, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada (1993); Daniel Senise: The Enlightening Gaze, MARCO, Monterrey, Mexico (1994); Body and Space, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (1995); Stills: works from the Marielouise Hessel Collection, CCS-Bard College, (1997); Alair Gomes, fotógrafo, Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo (1999); Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Climate, Fundación, "la Caixa", Madrid, Spain (2003); Voyage to Dakar: Three artists from the Américas, VI Dakar Biennale — DakArt 2004;, Senegal Pablo Siquier, Palácio Velazquez/Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, (2005). Co-curator, Roteiros, 24th São Paulo Bienal (1998); inSITE97 and inSITE2000, San Diego, CA, USA/Tijuana, Mexico; and F[r]icciones, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2000). Publications include Leonilson: use é lindo, eu garanto (1997/2006), Daniel Senise: ela que não está (1998), F[r]icciones (with Adriano Pedrosa, 2001), Eliane Prolik: Noutro Lugar (2005) and catalogue essays.
Participating artists from Norway:
Pushwagner
and Lars Laumann
Adam Szymczyk, OCA IVP visitor October 2006, and Elena Filipovic, curators of the 5th berlin biennial, taking place day and night from 5 April to June 15, 2008 under the title When things cast no shadow, have selected the Norwegian artists, Pushwagner and Lars Laumann, to participate in the biennial. At Kunstwerke, the work of Pushwagner is exhibited as contextualized within the series Soft City (1969–1975), a pictorial novel which gives an account of one day in the life of an anonymous father–mother–child family, living a mechanical life in a dehumanized city. The curators' interest in the work stems from the way the pictorial novel has served as a key work that simultaneously acts as source material for Pushwagner's later production, but also an important reference for the generation of artists that followed him. In showing it, they hope it will "give access to a significant work of art still unknown to a larger public and thus paying tribute to an important work not yet having received proper recognition."
Lars Laumann is screening his latest film, Berlinmuren (2008), which centers on a highly unusual relationship: the love affair between Eija-Riita Berliner-Mauer and the Berlin Wall. Laumann's approach is not primarily documentary but is guided instead by a respectful interest in the idiosyncrasies of marginalized social phenomena – not only that such relationships are possible in modern popular culture, but also how society reacts to them. The music for the film was specially written and recorded by Swedish guitarist Dan-Ola Persson. Laumann designed the special structure built on the wasteland area of Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum to screen the film. The structure is a house with two rooms, one screening the English version and one screening the German dubbed version.
Lars Laumann also curated an exhibition of Pushwagner as one of the five alternating, artist-curated solo shows of more obscure and/or historic figures from the world of art, architecture, and design. The exhibition presented paintings from the Apocalypse series realized by Pushwagner in the 1980s and 1990s and took place at the Schinkel Pavillon between 11 and 27 April.
For further information visit the biennial website.
Participating artist from Norway:
Samba Fall
Samba Fall is invited to exhibit within Dak'Art 2008, 8th edition of the Biennale of the Contemporary African Art, taking place in Dakar, Senegal, from 9 May to 9 June, 2008. The theme of Dak'Art 2008 is “Mirror” in relation to Africa's current presence in the world. Other participating artits are: Justin Kabré, Georges Fikry-Ibrahim, Gabriel Pacheco and Roberto Rico. For access to the online pressroom, please contact info@biennaledakar.org. The project is supported by 03–funding*.
P.S.1/MoMA will host a solo project by Børre Sæthre scheduled to open in NYC, NY, USA in October 2008. The exhibition curated by Lia Gangitano, Curatorial Advisor to P.S.1/MoMA, will include the artist's various installations created specifically for his recent show under the title For Someone Who Nearly Died but Survived at the Bergen Kunsthall, Norway. Sæthre's installations evoke hybrid spaces reflecting upon the artist's own fantasies and confessions rendered in morphed interiors.
Børre Sæthre, My Private Sky, 2007, Courtesy of the artist and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway
Between 12 April and 22 June, 2008, Le musée de Sérignan, Sérignan, France is holding a Per Barclay solo exhibition. Entitled Sans parole (without word), the exhibition is curated by Hélène Audiffren, director of the Musée de Sérignan. For Sans parole, Per Barclay produced a new interactive installation, which regards the space as an essential part of the work. Composed by a labyrinth of wires, Sans parole responds to the movement and touch of the spectator by amplifying the sounds generated by the vibration of the wires. At the same time, many photographs come into resonance with Per Braclay's installation.
Kristina Bræin, Painting, 1998
Courtesy of the artist and
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Norway
Floris Kruidenberg, Co-curator of 1646, in The Hague, The Netherlands invited Kristina Bræin to hold a solo exhibition at the newly renovated artists–run Project Space 1646. Kristina Bræin will develop a site specific work within the frame of her artistic practice and in line with the aim of the new exhibition/project program to be a place were artists develop new work on location rather then delivering a ready, detailed plan. The exhibition will take place between 6 and 28 June, 2008.
Kjell Bjørgeengen is invited for a solo exhibition and two separate performances at the 6th edition of Kill Your Timid Notion, at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee, Scotland. Curated by Graham Domke, curator of Dundee Contemporary Arts and Barry Esson, curator at Erika, UK, Kill Your Timid Notion is a exhibition/festival that investigates the perceptual differences between what one sees and what one hears. In addition to a solo exhibition at the main gallery at DCA, Kjell Bjørgeengen will present a performative collaboration with Keith Rowe and Phillipp Waschmann, two of the leading figures in UK improvised music. The festival exhibitions will take place between 19 September and 9 October, 2008. Performances, screenings, talks, workshops and installations will be presented on 10, 11 and 12 October.
Kathrin Höhne and Bjarte Gismarvik, Bycatch, 2008
Courtesy of the artists
Angela Lennon, Assistant Curator at Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, Scotland has invited Kathrin Höhne and Bjarte Gismarvik to realize their project Bycatch between 9 August and 20 September, 2008. Bycatch is an investigation into the decline of the fishing industry in Aberdeen and its effects on the local community. The project consists of three elements: a fanzine to be distributed throughout the city, a workshop involving a local community group and an exhibition at Peacock Visual Arts.
Unni Gjertsen is invited by Corinne Diserens, Director at MUSEION — Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, in Bolzano, Italy, and OCA IVP visitor in November last year, to select films by Swedish director Mai Zetterling for the screening program of the exhibition Peripheral Look and Collective Body. The exhibition, conceived as an exceptional event for the opening of MUSEION's new building, discusses the question of the collective bodies in contemporary visual art considering the tight relationship with architecture and performance — dance, in particular. The exhibition will explore the creation and the use of 'the collective body' as a critical strategy to question the legacy of our recent history. Peripheral Look and Collective Body will be looking at how recent artistic proposals have been informed by the American avant-gardes from the post WWII period which themselves had activated some experimentation from the German, Polish and Russian milieu of the early XX Century. The exhibition will bring together a selection of works, including film, performance, documents and texts from Meyerhold to contemporary art. Unni Gjertsen will make a presentation of the films on 3 July at MUSEION. Peripheral Look and Collective Body opens on 24 May and closes on 21 September, 2008.
Sissel Tolaas, Fear 9, 2006
Courtesy of the artist
Sissel Tolaas and Verdensteatret have been invited to exhibit within Synthetic Times — Media Art China 2008, a Cultural Olympics Project at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The exhibition, curated by the NY based media curator, Zhang Ga, is organized around four distinctive yet interrelated themes that testify to the incessant and obsessive pursuit of an ideal world through artistic intervention into media and communication technologies as well as bio-cultural spheres. Sissel Tolaas who is one of the few artists currently working with smell, creates installations that explore real scents, questioning certain cultural prejudices. For Synthetic Times she will contribute with the project Fear 9, in which she collects and displays the smell of 20 different men who have nothing in common but the fear of body contact. The Norwegian collective Verdensteatret will present the installation The Telling Orchestra, "where images, sculptures, sound and video are deeply integrated into each other to form an audio-visual-spatial". As part of the Synthetic Times, several evening programs dedicated to countries that have made significant contributions to the developments of media art and culture will take place in Beijing, as well as a special screening program at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition will include approximately 50 media works, from both established and emerging artists and is scheduled from 9 June through 3 July, as one of the more important cultural events leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. The project is supported by 03–funding*.
Bodil Furu, Still from My Ambience, 2005
Courtesy of the artist
Following a visit to Norway to participate in OCA's International Visitor Programme, the Director of Johannesburg Art Gallery, Clive Kellner and Maria Fidel Regueros have invited Torbjørn Rødland, Goksøyr & Martens (Toril Goksøyr and Camilla Martens), Bodil Furu and Maia Urstad to participate in the exhibition Disturbance – Contemporary Art from Scandinavia & South Africa. The exhibition will examine the relationship that Scandinavian and South African artists have to notions of identity and place. The thematic of the show will focus on "disturbance" – a term used here to explore ruptures in society. For Disturbance, Torbjørn Rødland will present various c prints on aluminum — works with a pop culture element, which pokes fun at clichés. Bodil Furu will exhibit My Ambience, (2005) and Kabul Ping Pong (2005, with Beate Pedersen), works which filter the immediate reality using the mediums of video and sound. Maia Urstad will exhibit a sound installation consisting of a wall of radios and a performance entitled Cleopatra's Needles. The artistic duo Goksøyr & Martens will exhibit a new work created for Johannesburg. The Danish artist Paul Gernes, and the Finnish Alija-Lisa and Veli Granö are also to participate in the exhibition along side South African artists such as Anthea Moys, Lerato Shadi and Siemin Allen. Disturbance – Contemporary Art from Scandinavia & South Africa takes place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa between October, 2008 and January, 2009. The project is supported by 03–funding*.
Knut Åsdam, Jorunn Myklebost Syversen, Ane Lan and Annette Stav Johanssen will participate in Rencontres Internationales, a project that investigates the specificities and convergences of art practices between new cinema and contemporary art. The Rencontres Internationales, which initially took place in Paris and Berlin, now opened in a third city: Madrid, Spain, from the 5 to 14 May, 2008. With the participation of 150 artists and filmmakers, the program includes films, videos, installations, net art and concerts in different venues citywide. Among the film and video screenings are works of Alfredo Jaar, Gordon Matta-Clark, Peter Downsbrough and among exhibited artists are Lawrence Weiner, Erik Olofsen and Claude Closky.
Anne Katrine Dolven, Bring Me Back, 2007
Courtesy of carlier♣gebauer, Berlin, Germany and Wilkinson Gallery, London, UK
Anne Katrine Dolven is invited by curator Anna Bitkina to participate in the exhibition H2O Contemporary: Nordic and Russian Public Art in Non-Traditional Space. Initiated by CEC ArtsLink, the exhibition and summer public event is aimed at increasing the interest of Russians for contemporary art by organizing an event with an approachable theme: water. For H2O Contemporary, Anne Karine Dolven will produce a video piece with the working title Liberty. The work questions the reality of what one actually sees and where one is. Other participating artists are Tommi Gronlund and Petteri Nisunen (Finland), Ulf Rollof (Sweden), Jacob Kirkegaard (Denmark) and Finnbogi Petursson (Iceland). H2O Contemporary: Nordic and Russian Public Art in Non-Traditional Space will take place in St. Petersburg, Russia in September, 2008.
Curators Johan Sjöström, director pro tem of Göteborgs Konsthall, Sweden, and Mika Hannula have invited Josefine Lyche and Martin Skauen to exhibit within Tomorrow Always Belongs to Us, a group exhibition with new Nordic paintings. The curators selected the works The Scent of a Woman series (2008) and What goes around comes around (2008) by Martin Skauen, and Dream Machine by Lyche. Lyche will also produce a large three-dimensional painting on a specially constructed wall. Among other participating artists are: Anastasia Ax, Louise Dorph, Henrik Eriksson and Christina Malbek. Tomorrow Always Belongs to Us takes place between 5 June and 28 September, 2008 at Göteborgs Konsthall, Sweden.
Lina Viste Grønli will participate in the annual outdoor sculpture exhibition Sølyst Skulptur Udstilling 2008, entitled Partiche, to take place in the park surrounding Sølyst Castle in Jyderup, Denmark. The exhibition, initiated by The Art Work Shop of West Zealand (VAK), will show works of various international artists such as Anders Bonnesen, Richard Hughes, Eva Rothschild, Jacob Dahl Jürgensen, Tommy Støckel, Claus Egemose, Neil Zakiewicz, Gernot Wieland, Karen Land Hansen, Thomas Lindvig and Sofie Hesselholdt & Vibeke Mejlvang. For Pastiche, Lina Viste Grønli will present her new work Untitled (Super Form), a piece in shape of a cross that focus on the formal, sculptural and abstract qualities of this well know form. Pastiche will take place between 30 May and 30 August, 2008.
Jesper Alvær, Video Comments with Translator, 2006
Courtesy of the artist and Jiri Svestka Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
Jesper Alvær is invited by Joanna Zielinska, Curator at Centre of Contemporary Art ’Znaki Czasu‘, in Torun, Poland to exhibit within the context of Sight of Times. The exhibition, which marks the opening of the new contemporary art centre, investigates the collecting phenomenon and its place in the contemporary artistic practice. For Sight of Times, Jesper Alvær created the project Employer & Employees that directly intervenes with the employment process of the Centre. The exhibition runs from 14 June to October, 2008. Other participating artists are: Kutlug Ataman, Walerian Borowczyk, Oskar Dawicki, Wojtek Doroszuk , Lilla Khoor, Robert Kuśmirowski, Gosha Macuga, Anetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkacova, Janina Turek, Łukasz Skąpski, and Andrzej Urbanowicz.
Snorre Hvamen, Ignas Krunglevicius and Dordi Strøm are invited by curator Julija Fomina to exhibit within Sound, an exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. Sound, which takes place between 6 June and 17 August, 2008, will exhibit works by young artists working with the sound medium. The exhibition is organized by the Contemporary Art Center alongside with the international exhibition of artist awarded with Arts Viva prize. The Norwegian trio will create four installations integrated into mundane objects in and around the Contemporary Art Centre. The installations are viewed as one piece where each one of them represents strategies for creating an invisible geography were the spectators can get access to new ways of perceiving the environment and their role in it. Among other artists exhibiting are Nico Dockx, Florian Hecker, Marcellus L. and Astrid Nippoldt.
Raqs Media Collective
Photo: OCA
Raqs Media Collective (Monica Nerula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta), OCA ISP residents in March/April 2008, participate in an expansive urban project in Stavanger and Sandnes from 1–31 May called Neighborhood Secrets and curated by Jan Inge Reilstad and Jörgen Svensson. For the project, Raqs Media Collective produced Unusually Adrift from the Shoreline, a project in which a fabricated lighthouse has been displaced into Rådhusteateret, an abandoned cinema located in Sandnes, Norway. The project was made possible with support from OCA's 03–funding.
Elmgreen & Dragset's opera L'amour de loin (Love from afar) will be the opening event of this year's Bergen International Festival. L'amour de loin is said to be a step for opera into the new millennium, a fascinating work with multiple points for interpretations. The Norwegian-Swedish visual artist duo Ingrid Book and Carina Hedén are the Festival Artists for 2008. Bergen Kunsthall will exhibit Books & Hedén's photographs documentation of the Rena Military Base. Bergen International Festival, which takes place between 21 May and 4 June, 2008 will showcase 160 art events in all its guises: music, literature, theatre, dance, and visual art from the Nordic and Baltic countries. For tickets and more information, please visit the Bergen International Festival website.
Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) as curated by Taru Elfving and Rickard Borgström, will open 14 June and run through 7 September, 2008. This year's festival will have an emphasis on site-specificity and commissioned works, aiming to create a dialogue around the questions of sustainable future and expanded community. The festival will also present an open call video program, co-curated with Maria Bustnes.
Cover, Verksted #9
Co-Editors: Marta Kuzma and Peter Osborne
Verksted 9: Populism and Genre is the second in the series entitled ISMS: Recuperating Political Radicality in Contemporary Art, which focuses on the complex and problematic relationships between artistic movements, political movements, and individual works. The question of populism has been at the heart of debates about both the political and the formal aspects of contemporary art since the early 1990s, for which the changed status and artistic functioning of genres have also been central. The essays in this Verksted reflect upon relations between commodified, mass-mediatic and political aspects of popular cultural and artistic forms. Victor Burgin and Éric Alliez take aim at populism in its contemporary artistic forms, as the artistic nihilism of 'the consensual descriptions and categories that alone can guarantee the populist demand for effortless legibility' and Bourriaud's 'relational aesthetics', respectively. John Kraniauskas and Marta Kuzma discuss two very different examples of the cinematic imaginary of cultural populism: the melodramatic capture of the Argentinean state by the image of Eva Perón and the fantasmatic projection of Scandinavia as a haven of sexual liberation. These widely divergent instances nonetheless converge in their characteristically popular condensation of sexual and political motifs.
ISBN: 978-82-92495-09-4
ISSN: 1503-8467
104 pages
Price: NOK 120 / €18 / $22 / £12 + postage
Publication date: 15 May, 2008
The book can be ordered from info@oca.no.
April marked the release by Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland of a catalogue on Camilla Løw, entitled Straight Letters. Designed by Robert Johnson with new texts by Michael Archer and Dr. Sarah Lowndes, the catalogue documents Camilla Løw's important works of the last five years, as well as the exhibition Straight Letters, which recently took place at Dundee Contemporary Arts and that will be shown at Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, UK between 20 June and 6 September, 2008.
Photo: Jerry L. Thompson,
from Whiney's PR
The Teaching Fellow Program is aimed at expending the experiences of new scholars in the art history field. The participants work with the Whitney Museum's audiences and collections, designing specialized tours and lecture to museum visitors, public program audiences and to senior audiences across New York. Candidates must be graduate students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Art History, finishing their coursework or working toward the completion of their dissertation. Students specializing in areas covered by the Museum's collection, 20th and 21st Century American Art, are given special consideration, but this is not a prerequisite for selection. Fellowships are available for a period of three years. For more information, please contact +1 212 570 3609 or ellen_tepfer@whitney.org.
Frieze Magazine Writer's Prize is an annual award to discover and promote new art critics. Entrants must be over 18 years old and should submit one 700 Word review of a recent contemporary art exhibition, in English. To qualify, entrants may only previously have had a maximum of three pieces of writing published in any national or regional newspaper or magazine. The winner will be commissioned to write a review for the October issue of frieze and be awarded 2000 GBP. Two further awards of 500 GBP will be made for outstanding entries. Entries should be emailed as a word attachment to writersprize@frieze.com. More information at frieze.com.
16 June, 2008 is the deadline for applications to the European Course of Contemporary Art Curators (CECAC). Curated by Roberto Pinto and Gabi Scardi, CECAC offers young European curators the opportunity to work side by side with an internationally renowned Visiting Professor as well as an occasion to establish new connections between young operators from different European countries, set up a working platform that may enable the participants to develop further curatorial projects, and encourage international circulation of cultural initiatives. Charles Esche is the Visiting Professor of the 2008 edition and Nedko Solakov the Visiting Artist. The European Course of Contemporary Art Curators will take place between 9 and 19 October, 2008 in Milan, Italy. More information can be found at fondazioneratti.org and provincia.milano.it/ cultura.
30 may, 2008 is the deadline for applications for Book Work's open submission Series, Semina (2008). Commissioned and edited by artist and writer Stewart Home, the series will publish nine books, six of which will be selected from open submission by artists and writers interested in experimental prose fiction, drawing inspiration from art and literature. The selection from open submissions will be made by Stewart Home and Book Works. The series is designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio. Contact gavin@bookworks.org.uk or visit bookworks.org.uk for more information.
Founded in 1987, the Ecole du Magasin is aimed to train professional exhibition curators. The program is specialized in the coordination of artistic projects related to the exhibition, and is aimed for candidates involved in the professional contemporary art world. The Ecole du Magasin is conceived as a research and production program, developed independently from any academic frame. Teachings are based on the elaboration and production of a project on a ten months term. The deadline for applications is 30 June, 2008 and application files can be downloaded at www.ecoledumagasin.com.
The 8 months programme is comprised of trips to different major international biennials and exhibitions, meetings with artists, curators, critics and other art professionals as well as seminars in writing and theory. The application deadline is 15 June, 2008. Please refer to www.para-site.org.hk/ctp for more information.
NKD — Nordic Artists's Centre in Dale is one of Scandinavia's leading contemporary art venues specializing in residencies and related activities. The centre is located in a beautiful natural setting on the west coast of Norway 3 hours north of Bergen. NKD receives funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church affairs. The closing date for receipt of applications is Tuesday 20th May 2008. For further information please refer to www.nkdale.no.
*03–funding: The purpose of the 03-funds as allocated by the MFA to OCA is to further develop cooperation and professional networking between OCA and the constituency of artists, independent cultural producers, and organizations that are located in designated countries or associated with 03-countries. This includes but is not limited to "professional research visits by cultural producers, artists, and curators", "short-term residencies for cultural producers and artists", "the development of seminars, conferences, art projects, workshops, etc. that focus on the further development of professional exchange and networking between and among countries", "project development and pilot projects" on an international scale."
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