Over the Rainbow, from Soft City 1969–1976
Courtesy Pushwagner
5 April–15 June 2008
The curatorial team of Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic have selected Pushwagner as an artist to be included in the upcoming Berlin biennial in Spring 2008. The curators have selected the Norwegian artist Pushwagner to show his pictorial novel Soft City in an effort to "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".
Szymczyk and Filipovic write: "The artwork gives an account of one day in the life of anonymous father-mother-child family, living a mechanical life in a dehumanized, dystopian city. The pictorial novel is to be seen as a key work that simultaneously acts as a source material for Pushwagner's other work but also an important reference to dystopian science fiction literature as well as the emergence of science fiction film series at the time."
The participation of Pushwagner in this 5th Berlin biennial is partially funded by OCA's International Support Programme.
Adam Szymczyk is a curator and writer born in 1970 in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland. He studied art history at Warsaw University and worked at different art institutions in Warsaw including being one of the founders of Foksal Gallery Foundation. In 2003, he was appointed Director and Chief Curator of the Kunsthalle Basel where he recently curated the retrospective of Lee Lozano. He has written extensively about contemporary art for books, catalogues and art magazines.
Elena Filipovic is an independent curator and writer born in 1972 in Los Angeles. She is completing her doctorate in art history at Princeton University and was co-editor, with Barbara Vanderlinden, of The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-wall Europe recently published by Roomade and MIT press. Filipovic will curate the first major exhibition of Marcel Duchamp's work in Latin America, to open at the Fundacion Proa in Buenos Aires and the Museu d'Arte Moderna in São Paulo in 2008.
In 1996, Klaus Biesenbach and Eberhard Mayntz founded the Berlin biennial for contemporary art association in order to initiate a debate on the position of Berlin in the international context of contemporary art. In less than ten years upon the first exhibition in 1998, the Berlin biennial has developed into a crucial platform for new directions and positions in contemporary culture. 5th berlin biennial will focus on a concentrated group of around 40 artists. It will take place not only during the day but also during the night under the titel: My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days. www.berlinbiennale.info.
For further information, please contact:
press@berlinbiennale.de in Germany
info@oca.no in Norway.
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is a private foundation and was founded by The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs and The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Fall 2001. The main aim of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway is to develop collaborations in contemporary art between Norway and the international art scene. The Office for Contemporary Art Norway aims to become a profiled contributor to the discourses of contemporary art.
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