Panoptikon

ON PAPER at Cuadro Fine Arts, Dubai

2011-12-17T10:26:00.010+04:00

“On Paper”, inagurated December 13, illustrates the interplay between the creation of figurative works and the subtractive nature of abstraction. Cuadro presents the works of Dale Chihuly, Alex de Fluvia, Marcelo Guimarães Lima and Samer Tabaa. All of these artists excel at exploring the prominence of the line through gestural mark-making and action painting. Although exploring the same theme, their distinct ways of seeing become evident in their execution.

Link: Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery

Going Around: on Hannes Brunner´s Driver´s comments

2011-12-09T13:33:00.012+04:00

Marcelo Guimarães Lima

A trip, explains Paul Virilio (*), is composed of three parts: the departure, the path or trajectory, and the arrival. According to Virilio, today we experience the dominance of the arrival over the other elements of a journey or voyage. The acceleration of time in communication and transportation in our period results in a loss of spatial extension: “real time” has absorbed space, in the same way that an absolute present, the “now”, exemplified by the immediacy of digital communication and of virtual models or virtual worlds, is in the process of absorbing the past and the future.

The result is a time without dimensions, concomitant to a space without boundaries or configurations ensuing not from unlimited physical expansion, but from speed and the contraction of our experience of distance, and therefore of our experience of place, and ultimately of physical space as such.

Marcelo Lima, Artist and Art Historian in Dubai,
Roundabout in Media City, Dubai, 2009

In a world transformed by technology art becomes, according to Virilio, a strategy of resistance against the losses that technical transformations impinge upon human reality and experience: there is a price to be paid for every technical conquest and as much as the benefits of technical progress are in one way or another self-evident, it is the role of artists and thinkers to dwell in the negative of unintended (or unstated intended) consequences of poorly mastered or unmastered, that is, autonomous (J. Ellul) technical developments.

Corinne Schatz, Independent Curator, St.Gallen Switzerland;

Roundabout in Altenrhein, SG Switzerland, 2011

Traffic circles in Europe as in the UAE display what we may call public artworks, monuments, and also advertising and other kinds of visual as well as textual messages. Categories that are sometimes amalgamated in the uncertain species of these sculptural or three dimensional structures in highways and cities´routes, these hybrid (?) super-objects (or meta-objects), these large significant objects, that is, these public conveyers of meanings associated with place and with the functions and the experiences of the modern road transport systems and their related urban and non-urban spaces. (more)

read the complete article: CITY-SHARING Projects (Zurich)

(*) Virilio, Paul – The Politics of the Very Worst, Semiotext, New York, 1999

Driver´s Comments

project by Hannes Brunner, Switzerland, (Europe+Emirates, 2009/11)

text copyright © Marcelo Guimarães Lima, 2011

link: DRIVERS' COMMENTS by Hannes Brunner at Kunsthalle Arbon, Switzerland

Fragmented Times, Fragmented Visions

2011-12-02T14:27:00.009+04:00

Marcelo Guimarães Lima

Revolution! by Athier

180 x 180 cm
Acrylic on Canvas
2010

The works of Athier consciously elaborate on the question of the encounters between on one hand the calligraphic tradition and the calligraphic sensibility, that is, the calligraphic territory of the Arabic visual arts, as well as the pattern making inventiveness so central to the Eastern visual arts, and on the other hand painting on canvas as a particular art form or genre with its specific aesthetic and ideological constructs ( beyond the simple consideration of technique and materials per se) that were initially formulated within the Western historical development of the visual arts, specially since the Renaissance and the Venetian artists´ adoption of both oil painting as medium and canvas as support.

In the case of the present works ( Fragmented Events at Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery, Dubai) by the young British-Iraqi artist, it is possible to argue that we are presented with a kind of postmodern play on the history of early 20^th century painting as both a recapitulation and a marking of distance, or the statement of repetition as difference, that is, an exemplary postmodern parody – both homage and caricature, one with the other, one by means of the other - of the formalistic and self-referential dimension of modernists artworks and artistic strategies turned into a reference to history and to historical closure, with all the complexities that such a notion entails. But certainly that is not all, for amalgamated to the subject of painting there is the other implicit or explicit reference, common to many forms of contemporary Middle Eastern arts, to the visible forms of language turned into images.

The strategy of formal fragmentation and the poetics of the fragment points also to a central art form or practice and a central artistic concept of 20^th century art: the collage. The breaking of boundaries between genres and art forms, between contexts, between representation and reality, etc. resulting from collage (born out of Picasso´s Cubist experiments) anticipated the forms and conditions of art, that is, the artistic developments of the late 20^th century into hybrid forms and hybrid art concepts. Here it is as if the postmodern artwork assigns itself the paradoxical task of representing the breakdown of representation as a finalized process (perhaps the very paradox of postmodern art itself). In such a process painting becomes the theory of painting or painting as its own theory.

The notion of historical closure and aesthetic closure leads directly into the question of historical experience and of the nature of the present period. A reference to the past is always also (or perhaps we should say: always already) a reference to the future and to the unstable nature of our historical experience, that is the experience of the modern world as such. Contrary to a commonly held notion, the past is as much an imaginary construct, an object of desire, as the future.

One may argue that in their own ways these paintings interrogate the fragmented nature of our historical consciousness by way of our artistic consciousness, and do so in the clash of language and image, of context and intention, of flow and form, division and unity, historical and cultural references, analogies and allusions, etc, including "oblique" allusions to the graphic forms of contemporary urban art and graffiti.

The result is a type of gently ambivalent architecture of form, of "soft" deconstruction and poetic fragmentation. It can (or must) be read at the same time as a “sign of the times”: as a kind of visual reflection on historical entropy. It brings to mind two interrelated theoretical motifs in Walter Benjamin: the poetics of the fragment related to the Romantic notion of the ruin as historical memory ( also as a kind of historical anticipation of collage), and his “untimely” meditations on the history 20^th century expressed in the concept of modern history, or modernity itself, as catastrophe.

Athier at Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery

Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery

Fragmented Events: Works of Athier at Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery, Dubai

2011-12-02T10:09:00.016+04:00

Eleventh of July (Ball, Bomb, Sun), acrylic on canvas

X=43, acrylic on canvas

Athier by Cuadro Gallery

British-Iraqi Athier (1982) has lived between London and Paris, after having left Iraq before the first Gulf War. He graduated with a Master of Arts in Communication Design with Illustration from Central Saint Martins. From 2007-9 Athier was the British Museum’s Artist in Residence, in association with the Karim Rida Said Foundation, teaching Arab world cultural awareness at selected UK schools. This was centered around engaging British students with the Arab world by breaking down aesthetic elements and creating new associations and references. During this period, he also collaborated on mural workshops for the Victoria & Albert Museum, focusing much of this work on similar Arab world constructs.

In 2010, Athier was given an artist residency by the Chargé de Collection et d'Exposition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris as part of Al Mansouria Foundation’s Arab Artist Program. The UK’s National Portrait Gallery selected Athier for the 2011 “Changing Mirrors” initiative. The artist worked with children from underprivileged communities and his monumental abstract portrait of the children went on display on October 14, 2011. Athier's work was part of the 2011 Tashkent International Biennale in Uzbekistan.

Athier has created an instantly recognizable style through an innovative combination of geometric Islamic shapes and Arabic calligraphy. Each canvas can be potentially seen as one block, phrase, sentence, or idea, as well as an assembly of these parts. Only once the viewer has experienced the work as whole, does the eye begin to discern details and individual elements.

The presence of words in Athier’s paintings is not immediately apparent; the embedded script becomes pronounced to the viewer only after the context is taken in. This use of visual language as subtext adds dimension to his work, and allows the preconception of imagery and meaning that the powerful Arabic language conveys to become at once distinct from, yet an integral part of, the work as a whole. The viewer is thus drawn into the work in a non-traditional manner in which the significance of the letter-forms is made apparent only by the context, as if reading a text. Athier’s words and letters are truncated by line, color and aesthetic distortion. The result is neither the stylized script of traditional scribes nor the entwined graffiti-like productions of contemporary masters, rather a technique that is novel in its visual appeal.

Athier at Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery

Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery

Limited Editions Prints and Rare Signed Posters from FEREYDOUN AVE Collection at Total Arts Gallery, Dubai

2011-11-27T16:55:00.015+04:00

Cy Towmbly

Andy Warhol

November 13th to December 10th 2011

Total Arts at the Courtyard

Timing: 9:00 am- 1:00 pm and 2:00 - 6:00 pm, Saturday – Thursday

Artists through the centuries have been drawn to printmaking as a valid artistic media of expression (etchings, wood block printing, engraving and lithography), notable examples being Rembrandt, Goya and the Impressionists. With the 20th century and the high prices of art, printmaking became a viable way of having multiple images and making art available to more people at reasonable prices.

With the Pop Art movement silkscreen + offset printing became intentionally used as popular commercial techniques adapted and adopted for artistic expression. The artists in this exhibition are all 20 and 21st century artists who have chosen to work in these medias because they feel these are the best techniques to express their artistic concepts.

The signed posters exhibition was first presented by Fereydoun Ave at 13 Vanak St in Tehran in the 80's when it was impossible to get original art into or out of Iran. Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were asked to sign their posters to make the show happen.

Richard Serra

Total Arts at the Courtyard

www.courtyard-uae.com | totalart@courtyard-uae.com

Location: Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Qouz Industrial Area 1,
Street 4b (between Times Square and Al Tayer Motors

or Street 6, Courtyard Building,

Tel: +971 4 347 5050 P O Box 14214, Dubai, UAE

Andy Warhol

Dream Stream and Reality by Tina Salo-Devries

2011-11-22T10:43:00.003+04:00

Paintings and mixed-media works by Finnish artist Tina Salo-Devries
are currently being exhibited at Corp Executive Hotel, Al-Barsha, Dubai,

click here for location map

CROSSING THE LINE at Tashkeel

2011-10-28T15:05:00.011+04:00

has the pleasure to invite you to the opening reception of

CROSSING THE LINE

Opening reception 7 pm, Tuesday 1st of November 2011

At Tashkeel, Nad Al Sheba

Exhibition runs from 1st to 23rd November 2011

To complement Crossing the Line: Drawing in the Middle East conference

being held at the American University in Dubai

From 1st to 3 November 2011

يتشرف تشكيل بدعوتكم إلى افتتاح معرض

ما وراء الخط

مراسم الافتتاح يوم الثلاثاء ١ نوفمبر ٢٠١١ في الساعة السابعة مساء

في تشكيل، ند الشبا

يستمر المعرض من تاريخ ١ حتى ٢٣ نوفمبر ٢٠١١

بالتزامن مع "ما وراء الخط: مؤتمر الرسم في الشرق الأوسط يقام في الجامعة الأمريكية في دبي"

من ١ الى ٣ نوفمبر ٢٠١١

click map to enlarge

Tashkeel Location: Intersection street 5 and street 20, Nad Al Sheba 1, Dubai

المكان: تقاطع شارع 20، شارع 5 ندالشبا 1، دبي

CROSSING THE LINE

Opening reception 7 pm, Tuesday 1st of November 2011 At Tashkeel, Nad Al Sheba

Tue, 1 November, 7pm – 10pm GMT+04:00

Tashkeel - Nad AL Sheba

Crossing The Line Conference at AUD

2011-10-26T21:17:00.005+04:00

design by Luis Castaneda

CROSSING THE LINE: HAND & TECHNOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD

01 AISAN KIANMEHR, VERITAS ARCHITECTS, KUALA LUMPUR CROSSING THE LINE BY DRAWING THE LINE OUT OF THE SPHERE OF IMAGINATION

02 ARASH SALEK URBAN IDENTITY OF MIDDLE EASTERN CITIES POST-STRUCTURAL CONCEPTS IN A TRADITIONAL REGION

03 BRIAN DOUGAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH, COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, ART & DESIGN BEYOND VISUAL DRAWING AS A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE

04 MAZDAK MOJDEHI, KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, SUSTAINED INSTABILITY

05 AUREL VON RICHTHOFEN, GERMAN UNIVERSITY OF TECH. IN OMAN THE “WAVE-BREAKER”– A NOVEL APPROACH TO COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN (CAD) REPRESENTATION

06 AZADEH MALEKI A STUDY OF THE SYMBOLISM IN IRANIAN PAINTINGS WITH AN ORIENTATION OF PROPHET’S ASCENSION

07 DR. AMI J. ABOU-BAKR, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF MAP ‘DRAWINGS’ ON THE MIDDLE EAST

08 KELLY CHORPENING, CAMBERWELL COLLEGE OF ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS, LONDON, BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

09 MARYCLARE FOA SOUNDING WAVES: DRAWING INTO THE MIND’S EYE.
DRAWING AS AN INTERSECTION

10 MARIAM MOJDEHI GRAFFITI & PUBLIC SPACE–3 CONTEMPORARY CASE STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
DRAWING: A PORTRAIT AND LANDSCAPE, NOTATIONS OF OUR TIME

11 SUTAPA BISWAS, CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS, LONDON DRAWING SUBJECTIVE PERSPECTIVES – TIME IN THE CONTEXT OF VISUAL BEING.

12 JULIA TOWNSEND, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI EASTERN AND WESTERN PARADIGMS IN DRAWING: KORANIC ILLUMINATION VERSUS THE PICTURE PLANE

13 BRIAN DOUGAN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH BEYOND VISUAL

14 CHRISTOS HADJICHRISTOS UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS LAYERING IS NOT

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

PROFESSOR STEPHEN FARTHING UNIVERITY OF THE ARTS LONDON
NJA MAHDOUAI TUNISIA
DR MARCELO GUIMARAES LIMA AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI
DR IRENE BARBERIS RMIT UNIVERSITY MELBOURNE

CO - CHAIRS

INTERNATIONAL CHAIR : DR IRENE BARBERIS
MIDDLE EASTERN CHAIR/S : DR MARCELO LIMA, PROFESSOR JULIA TOWNSEND

Crossing The Line Conference

is a collaboration between

The American University in Dubai, UAE

and

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

with the participation of

Tashkeel, Dubai

Timings:

Begins daily at 9:30 (click schedule below for further details)

Location:

C Buildng: Conference Room C227, 1st floor, Student Center,
American University in Dubai, Exit 32, Sheik Zayed Road

Free Registration:

Please confirm your attendance to

CrossTheLine2011@gmail.com

Link: CROSSING THE LINE CONFERENCE

Open publication - Free publishing - More conference

Ephrem Solomon and Simon Coates at DUCTAC, October 1-5

2011-10-03T14:45:00.002+04:00

click image to enlarge

link: DUCTAC

Crossing The Line: Interview with Stephen Farthing

2011-10-02T10:21:00.014+04:00

Stephen Farthing RA, Rootstein Hopkins Professor of Drawing at the University of the Arts London, will be one of the keynote speakers at the Crossing The Line Conference in Dubai, UAE, at the American University in Dubai, in early November, 2011. The Conference is a joint project of AUD and RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. In this brief interview, the artist gives us some initial thoughts on drawing and on his participation in Crossing The Line: Drawing in the Middle East - intersections of transdisciplinary practice and understanding

What is the role of drawing in your own art practice?

Stephen Farthing - I imagine while I’m actually drawing that I use drawing in two quite different ways, first to record, then to unravel problems, plan and strategize. When I sit back and think about my own art practice drawing probably has only one use – to help me see more clearly.

How do you see the role of drawing in your experience as an educator?

Stephen Farthing - In western culture the drawing class has I suspect been considered by most of its users part church, part gymnasium. During the latter half of the twentieth century most progressive western art schools replaced drawing with two new subjects , one was Art Theory and the other a craft related subject based on familiarizing students with the use of Lens/Scanner Based Technologies. Over time this shift in direction within the curriculum lead to a substantial decline in interest in things hand-made and personal, and it seems a surge in interest in Technological Interfaces and what I can best describe as Detached Randomness’s.

Today, driven less by a sense of disappointment with the new than a sense of physical and emotional loss we appear to be mid way through a process of re-acquaintance with both the strengths and weaknesses of our own hands and the strengths and weaknesses of new technology.

We have, it seems prioritized within drawing ways of making the past and the present, the digital and the manual work more effectively together . Today we teach drawing with a view towards improving our students ability to see, plan, remember, choose and communicate, just as we did in the past.

Stephen Farthing, Moko Map, 2007, water colour on paper, 29 x 42 cms

How do you see the future of drawing in the digital era?

Stephen Farthing - I see drawing as a lead subject in encouraging creativity and a seamless interaction between the digital and lens driven technology and the hand made.

What will be the subject of your presentation at the Crossing The Line Conference?

Stephen Farthing - An explanation of the bigger picture of drawing as a taxonomy.

What are you expectations about the conference?

Stephen Farthing - To confront new people and their ideas

links:

Stephen Farthing

Crossing The Line Conference

Art Palestine at Meem Gallery, Dubai

2011-09-28T14:51:00.011+04:00

ART PALESTINE

NABIL ANANI, SLIMAN MANSOUR AND TAYSEER BARAKAT

AT MEEM GALLERY

5 October – 5 November 2011

This fall, Meem Gallery presents a group show exhibiting the recent work of contemporary Palestinian artists Nabil Anani, Tayseer Barakat and Sliman Mansour (b. Birzeit, 1947). Through their work each artist reflects on the occupation of Palestine, iconography related to their culture, as well as current regional topical and political issues such as the recent Middle East uprisings.

Nabil Anani

Nabil Anani (b. Latrun, 1943) studied Fine Art at the Fine Arts College in Alexandria and Islamic Archaeology at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem. He has held solo exhibitions in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza City, Cairo and London. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Palestinian Art Festival, Moscow (1986), It’s Possible, National Museum, Washington, DC (1995), Artists of the Occupied Lands, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman (1999), and The Colors of Life and Freedom, UNESCO, Paris (2004). His awards include the State of Palestine Award in Fine Arts (1997), and The King Abdullah of Jordan Award in Fine Arts for the Middle East (shared with Egyptian artist George Bahjuri, 2006).

Anani’s work focuses on the motif of the olive tree, a major component of Palestine’s landscape. For him, the destruction of the olive tree by Israeli forces parallels the plight of the people living under the occupation.

Tayseer Barakat

Tayseer Barakat (b. Jabalya Camp, Gaza, 1959) studied Fine Art at Helwan University, Alexandria. He has held solo exhibitions in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman, Sao Paulo and Falakcht. His group exhibitions include the Palestinian group show held at the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm (1993), Palestinian Spring, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (1997), Made in Palestine, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas (2003), and Three Stories, Umm Al-Fahem Gallery, Umm Al-Fahem (2008). He recently received the Alexandria Biennial Prize in 2010.

Barakat describes his work as ‘a mosaic of images,’ which explore the recent uprisings, Palestine’s history and his personal struggle with living under the occupation. He states: ‘The chanting of the uprisings across Arab streets has recovered my shattered soul from the alleys of exile and my deep desire to return home.’

Sliman Mansour

Sliman Mansour (b. Birzeit, 1947) studied Fine art at the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem. He has held solo exhibitions in Ramallah, New York, Sharjah, Cairo, Gaza and Stavanger, Norway. His group exhibitions include Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow (1980), Palestinian Spring, Al-Hakawati Theatre, Jerusalem (1985), New Visions, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman (1991), Made in Palestine, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas (2003), and Contemporary Graphic Art in the Arab World, Nabad Gallery, Amman (2010). In 1998 he received the Palestine Prize for the Visual Arts at the Cairo Biennial.

Mansour also draws inspiration from the subject of the olive tree, and has focused on the theme of ‘land’ since 1970. His recent work is centred on the individual figure to convey the ‘different states of exhausting anticipation or loss,’ resulting from his experience of living under the occupation.

painting by Sliman Mansour

MEEM GALLERY

Chairman – Sultan bin Sooud Al Qassemi

Partner – Mishal Hamed Kanoo

Managing Partner – Charles C.D. Pocock

P.O. Box 290

Dubai

United Arab Emirates

Tel: +971 (0) 4 347 7883

For further information and press enquiries, please contact:

Samar Faruqi sf@meemartgallery.com

For image enquiries, please contact:

Noura Haggag nh@meemartgallery.com

www.meemartgallery.com

Art, Culture and Dialogue

2011-09-21T17:29:00.009+04:00

Dr Suzanne Albanus

This article examines the ways in which artists seek to transform, and inform their communities in both the individual and broader capacity. Artistic production is used for the purpose of artistic and political transformation. This approach falls within the field of examining the social “other” in a quasi-anthropological model, with the cultural “other” being sub cultures falling outside the dominant culture.

The artist is not perceived as being culturally “other” as they have access to both sides of the situation and gain an ideological patronage as “ethnographer” of a community’s mores and values. Dissident Surrealists from the 1920’ and 1930’s such as Georges Bataille, initiated exploration of cultural “otherness”. Social outreach as culture in action can enhance community groups and economic development. Artists are identified with places in a way that connects identity, politics and site-specific practices, with the authenticity of the one being evoked to bolster the authenticity of the other. Humans have a shared ability to use language in an effective manner in order to be understood and to come to consensus. The shared human condition anchors our folk songs, poems, narratives and stories. This ability to communicate through signs and symbols unites us across our differences and speaks to our shared and individual conditions. Music, song and stories continue to play a role in community based art for social change. This paper examines the use of aerosol art and calligraphy as being the platform from which artists express ideas on political and social issues. It has often been said that many murals expressing such opinions sacrifice creativity for propagandistic utility. Tags – a quick “signature” type of graffiti, are a way for young artists to create a new identity or alter ego in a “figured” world and a place where they can hide behind their tag names. This paper will examine the elements of story gathering, which is not a new technique, presented in a contemporary fashion using aerosol art.

1.1 The artist as Story Gatherer

The process of story gathering is widely used to help create community-based art. Building on the way in which activists work, artists such as Mohammed Ali have given birth to a new approach to deepen the connection between art and social change. This approach represents a natural development of a social justice artist. The spoken or written word is an integral part of community building of all peoples. The telling and receiving of stories is a means by which our need to put forward our view is shared. Anthropologist Laura Nader (1992) believes that conflict resolution is a destructive search for a return to harmony in relationships, a form of social cohesion through the law. It is her belief that people deserve a system that honours harmony and conflict in balance. For Nader, this includes the need for conflict resolution practitioners (whether artists or lawyers) should understand that the guiding principles of their work do not begin with them, but are in most cases borrowed from other cultures and other disciplines (Nader, 1992). Some practitioners use stories as a means to inspire people to embrace change, others want to use stories as a road map to affect change on the issues. Somewhere in the middle are those social change artists who view stories as part of an internal dialogue that helps us to order our world and to theorise about the possibility and potential for change.

1.2 The artist as Producer.

Foster (1996) claims that anthropology has become the lingua franca of artistic practice and critical discourse: culture is read as text and texts as microcosmic cultures. Foster concentrates specifically on site-specific art, noting that it may be temporal or special, a community or an institution, and examines a variety of problems that arise when art tries to follow the ethnographic principles of ethnographic participant/observer. However, the main point of his theory is that reflexivity is essential for the artist, to prevent over-identification with the “other” in a way that alienates and compromises it. Foster weighs the value of too much distance against that of too little and concludes that ideally the works should frame both the artist and the “other” and explore the discursive and historical breadth of their object. This potentially releases the artist from self-contradiction and ideological patronage.

Artistic production is always situated in a localised setting and informed by cultural, social and economic backgrounds. It could be argued that being site-specific is unavoidable in artistic practices. Site-specificity becomes increasingly explicit when cultural practitioners situate their work in the city where backgrounds are highly politicized and outline public debates – dealing with class struggle, gentrification, crime, commercialization and immigration. These same places also inspire our individual endeavours such as ambition, desire, hopes and failures.

1.3 Reading sites.

How does the viewer decipher, decode or just read these places? How is the complexity comprehended? How does the viewer and participant, approach a place and deal with different interests and stakeholders? Can narrative function as a framework to structure layers and backgrounds and have the potential to transform? Can an art space create new dynamics, interpretations and histories? What role does the urban narrative play in the recording of a story and resolving conflict? 1.

Art has expanded into the field of culture which was seen as formerly being the domain of anthropology. The collaboration is most obvious in scenarios of collaborative site-specific practices such as community murals/aerosol art walls. Although only partial engagement occurs with the public and the artist, it is in fact the politics of culture aiding the identity of difference. The collaboration between the artist and the community can never go entirely unmediated. Site- specific work must operate within certain boundaries and constraints whether economic patronage or cultural considerations. This effect will dictate the work to a certain degree in direction, effect and outcome either overtly or in abstract.

1.4 Specific site – Birmingham, UK.

Birmingham rose to significance during the 16^th Century for metalworking industries most notably the Birmingham Small Arms Company or BSA. 2

Arms manufacturing became a staple trade and was concentrated in the area known as Gun Quarter. Essentially it became the first manufacturing city in the world with a distinctive economic profile. Its high level of social mobility gave it a broad-based political radicalism and a pivotal role in British democracy. Birmingham’s ethnic make-up has changed over the decades, in particular after World War 11 as it received numbers of immigrants from the Commonwealth countries. Bangladeshis are amongst the largest of those immigrant communities and their arrival dates back to the 17^th Century. With the founding of Bangladesh in 1971, significant numbers immigrated to Britain, to join the already established immigrants. Birmingham already has large numbers and many Kashmiris and Sindhis worked in the munitions factories of Birmingham. Many Pakistanis fought alongside British soldiers in both world wars with others contributing to the war effort as skilled labourers including assembly –line workers at the Castle Bromwich factory, Birmingham which produced the Spitfire fighters. 3 Birmingham has one of the biggest Pakistani communities globally with the largest concentration in inner city Birmingham and areas such as Alum Rock and Balsall Heath. Although most Pakistanis can trace their roots back to Kashmir and the Punjab, there is also a large Bangladeshi community in these areas.

image source: www.aerosolarabic.com

1.5 Common Links

How does any city reflect its history and heritage while at the same time incorporating an inclusive approach to the changing demographics that have occurred? As seen in the preceding paragraph, Birmingham U.K. , has had a significant change in its population and some of this is in turn seen in the profile of one of its contemporary artists, Mohammed Ali (www.aerosolarabic.com) Ali has gone on to use his skills in graffiti to spread not only a message about Islam and the Bangladeshi immigrants but has utilized this approach into a more political genre such as his wall on Muntz Street in Small Heath, Birmingham “Free Gaza” 4.

Falls Road in West Belfast, Northern Ireland includes its own IRA murals but an even more interesting one with a message about Palestine 4. This coincides with the message Ali uses in his mural regarding the state of Palestinian people and their plight and likens it to the citizens within that particular city. This approach is aimed at creating an empathy that other forms of art may not do so well. In these two murals alone lies the dilemma of the paradoxical state that is Graffiti. Beauty and ugliness, destruction and creation, no other media attracts such contrary, yet potent reactions, addressing issues of criminality, creativity and cultural control. This would apply not only to the media used but to the message embedded in this form.

1.6 “The White Rose”

Graffiti is an effective tool in expressing support and distaste for certain aspects of life, especially in regard to politics, which can be seen in different periods of time and cultures. Notably the Lascaux Caves in France and the excavations of Pompeii unearthed election drawings and slogans 5. Nazi propaganda was used in WW2 to build up hatred against the Jewish race prior to and during the war. For the German Government using graffiti was extremely clever as the public assumed it was their counterparts that were vandalizing Jewish property not the members of the SA The Opposition also used graffiti to oppose the Nazi regime, “The White Rosa” organization circulated leaflets and pamphlets until their arrest in 1943. It is extraordinary that these painted words can be seen as an offence.

In Northern and Southern Ireland, rows of Terrace houses can be seen with murals painted on the gable ends expressing the political ideology of the public. This graffiti is incredibly political and used as indicators of the social and political feeling of an area 6. The same goes for graffiti used in Kingston, Jamaica where politics has infiltrated much of life including gang warfare which is responsible for graffiti in the capital. The graffiti on the walls can be used to read streets, almost as one would read a newspaper for current affairs. The overlapping painted words tell of a constant battle of hierarchy, murder and extortion. The two main political parties in the country fuel hatred in the community, using the youth as a tool in a political game and their battles are based on politics 7.

L.A. graffiti from www.sleepylagoon.com

1.7 The art of “con safos”

The basic idea of con safos is is that the person doing the “writing” is saying that they free themselves from whatever slur is written against their name 7. This symbolic graffiti always accompanies names in some way and is important in Mexican culture because of the value associated with names for animate and inanimate objects. This allows Mexicans to put their own name, as well as those of loved ones, on a wall without having to fear that the graffiti will be defaced. This form of graffiti is common amongst Mexican youth as it is a way of expressing an identity safely as well as communicating with one another. Political graffiti has a long history in Mexico. In fact, Mexican murals date back to pre-Columbian times and the modern mural dates back to the 1920’s and 1930’s when Diego Rivera was spreading murals throughout Mexico in the post-revolutionary period (Campbell:2000).Political upheaval can play a significant role in the amount of graffiti and its style immediately after such events. This can also be said of contemporary times and movements such as the now called “Arab Spring and the tags on walls from Tunisia to Syria. Such tags are likely to be done swiftly and carry no claim to being artistic, rather to put out a message which is then often carried by media such as Face book or Twitter or a mobile phone upload.

1.8 Conclusion

Most graffiti falls in such general categories as cultural, political, vandalism, pure art, advertisement and self-identity. The current prevalence of so called “tagging” resonates with incidences of social and political upheavals. This would sit with the idea that personal identity is a key factor underlying the popularity of utilizing this “art form”. The figured word as a tool of identity formation and “shout outs” is relevant as a means for understanding the culture of graffiti. That these markings are clear to other artists and those who have immersed themselves in this culture is an indicator of its appeal.

It may well be the case that graffiti in developed countries such as Europe, United States and Australia has moved from the subversive reputation it had to a general acceptance in mainstream society due to its usage as backdrops for fashion photography, clothing lines and typography in advertising. In developing countries murals are still important because they express a great of information and be visible to thousands of people who live much of their daily lives on the streets. It is still one of the best ways to maintain a public visibility. Tagging which is fast and often furious, has the ability to convey the message “I’m here, look at me” to get the attention of a broader public. Murals still have the power to express a great deal of information, be visible to thousands of people and convey messages that would be very difficult to express in words alone. Human nature requires that our stories are still told and recognition of those tales or at the very least, of our existence. Graffiti should ultimately be recognized as an organic representation of an archetypal human impulse.

Notes

1. Urban Narrative: a round table discussion. http://www.conceptualdevices.com/2008/11urban-narrative-a-roundtable-discussion

2. http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki.birmingham

3. “Untold story of WW2, Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5621PL20090703?sp_true.

4. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2009/01/417493.html

5. http://jadecheematypography.wordpress.com

6. http://www.grafitti.org/facq/spigelman_grafitti.htm

7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbcworldservice/4624670035/

8. http://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2010-11/bat/sattin.htm

Bibliography

Campbell, B. Mexican Murals in Times of Crisis. Tucson AZ. University of Arizona Press. 2000.

Chaffee, L.G. Political Protest and Street Art: Popular Tools for Democratization in Hispanic Countries. Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications. Vol.40. Westport Conn. Greenwood Press. 1993.

Foster, H. “The Artist as Ethnographer” in The Return of the Real. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996.

Marcus, George E. Myers, F. (eds).The Traffic in Culture. Refiguring Art and Anthropology. University of California Press. 1995.

Marcus, G. The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics. The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania. 2002.

Nader, L. The Cheyenne Way: conflict and law in primitive jurisprudence. Declan, New Jersey. 1992.

Rabonow, P. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. University of California Press. London, England. 1977.

Dr Suzanne Albanus is a designer who was formerly a lecturer at James Cook University, QLD, Australia in the Bachelor of Communication design degree. She has been involved in many of the public works at James Cook, notably in the Graffiti murals in the Environmental Sciences Faculty, the Central air-conditioning block and the JCU Student’s Club. She assisted in writing the policy on Street Art for the Townsville City Council. She is currently an Academic Advisor at the American University in Dubai, UAE.

DRIVERS' COMMENTS by Hannes Brunner at Kunsthalle Arbon, Switzerland

2011-09-08T12:18:00.018+04:00

DRIVERS' COMMENTS by Hannes Brunner

Videos and Installation
at Kunsthalle Arbon, Switzerland,
August 17 to September 25, 2011

Art historians and cultural workers are commenting various roundabouts. They are filmed from the passenger seat while circling and letting their mind wander about the contexts, sculptures and designs. An anthology of videos made with different drivers in the UAE, France, Germany, and Switzerland.

Installation at Kunsthalle Arbon

DRIVER’S COMMENT is an ongoing project. The investigation of traffic circles will lead to different acknowledgements of public interventions as well as perceptions while driving.

Each circle with its design and urban planning as well as specific sculptural works shall be documented by one view through the window from the co-drivers position. The driver himself is commenting the sculptures and architectural set ups; he observes his circling journey, discovering new things each time he goes around. By the specifics of the movie, it appears an interesting combination of steady camera (head and car window will be the same) with the circling landscape outside, although one usually associates such images with a traveling continuation.

In their comments, drivers might also use several concepts and expressions from art history as well as contextual statements and practical explanations about manufacturing issues of artificial landscaping as artistic expression.

Links:

http://www.hannesbrunner.com/dc/kunsthalle-arbon/
http://www.hannesbrunner.com/dc/
http://www.kunsthallearbon.ch/ausstellungen.html

Keith Winter at The Joinery, Dublin

2011-09-05T21:20:00.000+04:00

Hide those dirty hands: Keith Winter

22nd September – 02nd October
Opens 22nd 6-8pm
Runs daily 12-6pm

In his sculptures Northern Irish artist Keith Winter explores the aesthetic potential of stock building materials through works inspired by the extreme cases of order and chaos in the city, assembled in the style of the handyman or bricoleur.
Between the extraction of rubble from rogue office squats to the replication of glimmering corporate high-rise, Winter presents a symbiotic relationship between State and Rebel, action and inertia, glory and tragedy, where one cannot exist without the other.

In Hide those dirty hands Winter shows how his abstraction of formal architectures and the presentation of constructed debris can afford you to witness the breakdown of superstructures into their basic modules. His palette consists of shattered glass, collapsing cardboard, crumbling concrete and tarpaulin glory holes contrasting with mirrored prisms, sterile vitrines and glossy facades.

Keith Winter lives and works between London and Belfast. He co-founded Space Delawab in 2008 and recently co-founded AllotropePress in 2011. Recent exhibitions have been in Bahrain, Belfast and New York – upcoming solo shows are in The Joinery, Dublin 22nd September – 02nd October, and in Chiyoda 3331, Tokyo 27th October – 11th November.

The Joinery is a contemporary art and project space set up in 2008. Concerned mostly with exhibiting contemporary visual art, recently the space has also been host to a number of experimental live musical performances and sound / performance art.

The Joinery,
6 Rosemount Terrace
Arbour Hill,
Stoneybatter,
Dublin 7

http://www.thejoinery.org/

Crossing the Line Conference: Interview with Irene Barberis

2011-08-17T16:19:00.012+04:00

Irene Barberis with one of her artworks
at Langford120 in Melbourne, Australia, 2011

How was the idea of the conference Crossing the Line conceived?

IRENE BARBERIS - I have been working in a global context with Drawing for many years – over the last four, my conversations have been, amongst others, with Professor Stephen Farthing from the University of the Arts London. In 2009 I brought Stephen to Australia through the Metasenta, to exhibit at its Gallery – The DrawingSpace, Melbourne which was situated in RMIT University, while I exhibited performative and more sculptural drawings in the UK, at the University of the Arts London and the Bury Museum and Art Gallery. In April 2010 RMIT hosted an international Drawing Conference ‘Drawing Out’ at which Stephen was one of the Keynotes and I was involved through the Steering Committee. When in Dubai in January of this year for an exhibition at Tashkeel Bastakia, it occurred to me/us through a dialogue with Dr Marcelo Lima and Associate Professor Julia Townsend, that a conference on Drawing in the Middle East would be of enormous benefit to the extended community, and would be a pivot for dialogue on the specificities of ‘Drawing’ – its transdisciplinary nature, the porosity of its context, its marvelous span of materiality, and the multi layered nature of its linage and character. Drawing is a continuum of idea and thought, process and manifestation; it has the capacity to ‘capture’ and be a doorway to most everything and is to my mind all-inclusive. This conference will stimulate and hopefully galvanize Drawing as a presence in the Middle East.

What is the role of drawing in your own practice as artist ?

IRENE BARBERIS - In essence almost all I do is able to be thought of as ‘drawing’ - whether it’s a painting, sculpture, installation and light work, or a step of dance – if drawing is a movement from one point to another, then I have “drawn’, through my acknowledgement of any line in media or thought. Its an interesting discussion really – one which does challenge the traditional and conventional idea of drawing. I was particularly heartened to see dance and movement included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Drawing “On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century” Exhibition in 2011.

How do you see the role of drawing in your experience as educator?

IRENE BARBERIS - When I am lecturing in a Western University one begins - as the curriculum often designates - with the perceptual practice in the lineage of the Western Drawing tradition. From here we can go anywhere !

I think my job as an educator is to recognize and underscore a students ability to think, to make and to dream. If I have the tools to inculcate and shift some of my knowledge to them, to inspire movement and clarity – then I have succeeded. I want my students to address critical thinking and yet to be free to explore and be invigorated by the creative process. Too often I see the educator burdened by multiferous regulations and in the long-term meaningless bureaucracies: it is so important to keep the creative heart clear.

How do you see the future of drawing in the digital era?

IRENE BARBERIS - Exciting!

link: Crossing the Line Conference

Crossing the Line: Drawing in the Middle East - intersections of transdisciplinary practice and understanding, a collaborative project hosted by the American University in Dubai, RMIT University Melbourne, Tashkeel - Dubai.

Crossing the Line: Drawing in the Middle East - intersections of transdisciplinary practice and understanding

2011-07-12T03:18:00.010+04:00

1 to 3 November, 2011
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Website: http://crossingthelineconference.blogspot.com/

Contact name: Dr Irene Barberis

Conference Announcement / Call for papers

Crossing the Line: Drawing in the Middle East
intersections of transdisciplinary practice and understanding

1 November 2011 to 3 November 2011
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Crossing the Line: Drawing in the Middle East - intersections of
transdisciplinary practice and understanding will bring together
specialists from various fields of research and practices to
examine the role of drawing in the contemporary Middle East.
Drawing as medium, as a tool, as notation, performance, and as
a specific mode of thinking and imagining in the processes of
invention, production, reproduction and communication within
and across fields and disciplines: from art to science, from
technology to ideology and cultural practices.

The trans-disciplinary approach of the conference will highlight
the specificities, as well as the commonalities of the various
dimensions, fields, forms and uses of drawing, broadly defined
as the production and extension of lines in space, as the
creation of meaning by marking surfaces, as the creation and
fixation of visible paths that record and communicate patterns of
temporal-spatial experiences.

Keynote speakers are:

Professor Stephen Farthing, Roostein
Hopkins Chair of Drawing from the University of the Arts
London;
Mr. Nja Mahdaoui, leading artist and designer,Tunisia;

Dr irene Barberis, Founder and Director of the
Global Centre for Drawing, and Senior Academic in the School
of Art , RMIT University, Australia

Dr. Marcelo Guimarães Lima, Professor of Art History,
American University in Dubai

Conference themes:

Drawing as a transdisciplinary practice
Drawing as an intersection
Crossing the Line: hand and technology in a changing world
Drawing: a portrait and landscape-notations of our time.

This conference is a collaboration between The American
University in Dubai and RMIT University, Australia.

The deadline for abstracts/proposals is 15 August 2011.

Enquiries: irene.barberis@rmit.edu.au

Submit Abstract here

OCPMS: Conference List -
click on CTL2011 and on Submit Abstract (left, below Welcome)

http://crossingthelineconference.blogspot.com/

Sponsored by:

American University in Dubai
RMIT University, Melbourne

"Three Parts/More Harmony" at Durban City Art Gallery in South Africa

2011-06-26T01:14:00.016+04:00

ANDA, in conjunction with Nucleo d' Arte in Mozambique, and the Durban City Art Gallery in South Africa, have put together a fine arts exhibition reflecting on peace, and intercultural understanding. The exhibition is entitled,

"Three Parts/More Harmony"

This three-way collaboration of artists from Mozambique, artists from Dubai, and artists from the KwaZulu Natal region of South Africa opens on July 10th, at The Durban City Art Gallery in South Africa.The show has been curated by Sarah Lahti in Dubai, Chocate Ali Hamildo in Mozambique, and Phumzile Dlamini in South Africa.

Chocate Ali Hamido and Sara Lahti

The Dubai artists taking part in this show are: Suha Al Awadhi, Michael Bray, Raymond Prucher, Julia Townsend, Sarah Lahti, Lama Odeh, and Haya Al Tamimi. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, with essays from Sibongiseni Mkhize, the director of the Robben Island Museum, Khwezi Gule, the director of the Hector Peterson Memorial Museum, in addition to Mduduzi Xakaza and Phumzile Dlamini, of the Durban Art Gallery.

The Dubai artists consist of current and former fine arts professors at The American University in Dubai, as well as current and former students of the fine arts program at AUD.

More information can be found at www.ANDAfrica.org .

Allotrope 02

2011-06-13T19:43:00.006+04:00

click on images to enlarge

Allotrope Issue 02
(ISSN 2046 - 2859)

L I S T S
contributors:

Ali Al Saeed, Ella Barclay, Samuel Beckett, Ciaran Bonner & Katriona Sweeney, Helena Doyle, Emma Dwan O'Reilly, John Gayer, Michael Hanna, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Robert Huber, Jennifer Jarman, Andrew Johnston, Laura Keogh, Joanne Laws, Trevor McCann, Craig McLeod, Steve Mykietyn, Kirsty O'Keeffe, Douglas Park, Georges Perec, Harriet Pittard, Sarah Mixtape, Alice Georgina Thickett, C. V. Weimer, Keith Winter.

The Issue 02 launch coincides with our participation in "Convergence", a group show opening at the Golden Thread Gallery on 16 June, 6-8pm and running till 05 August 2011.

'This exhibition will show how reading and interpreting literature is – in diverse ways – at the core of some of the most renowned contemporary artists’ practices: Allotrope, antepress, Julie Bacon, Ecke Bonk, Pavel Büchler, Davide Cascio, Tacita Dean, Cerith Wyn Evans, Maria Fusco, Kenneth Goldsmith, Rodney Graham, Joanna Karolini, Sean Lynch, Simon Morris, Brian O’Doherty, Michalis Pichler,Tim Rollins, Andrea Theis, Nick Thurston and Eric Zboya.'

www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

Allotrope 03
Call for Submissions

Issue 03 - L I M I T S
Submissions can be text or image based - up to 500 words and at least 1MB for Jpegs.
Deadline for submissions is September 10th - submissions to be sent to

allotropepress@gmail.com.

ARABIA OFFSCREEN Competition

2011-06-01T11:53:00.007+04:00

Offscreen, an award-winning social enterprise with offices
in both London and Jeddah, is looking for participants
aged 18 - 24 for a creative project involving
a two-week all-expenses paid
expedition to Saudi Arabia
from 1 - 17th December 2011.

The project, Arabia Offscreen, offers participants, among other things:

the opportunity to be professionally mentored by practicing artists
engagement in dialogues about topical issues and get a hands-on interactive experience of certain aspects of Saudi life
a chance to respond to their environment creatively, and so developing their own personal work

Applicants can apply directly on the website of the project
For any queries or questions, please email Kate at kate@offscreened.com.

Rufino Tamayo and Photography

2011-05-24T17:11:00.020+04:00

Marcelo Guimaraes Lima

One without the Other.
Travel Photography and Films
by Rufino Tamayo

From the 28th of February until the 5th of June 2011, the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City presents the exhibition One without the Other. Travel Photography and Films by Rufino Tamayo One of the most important of the Mexican artists of the 20th century, Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991) had a long career, and was recognized both in his country and internationally. With roots both artistic and personal in native Mexico, Tamayo, of Zapotec descent, was also a cosmopolitan artist who by the demands of the profession and by his own personal and artistic ambition and goals, lived and worked in the US and Europe for various decades, and traveled constantly, invited to exhibit in prestigious museums and galleries through the world.

Rufino Tamayo, New York

The present exhibition of his travel photographs and films discloses an intimate aspect the artist’s life: his records of visits to countries and cities around the globe. His involvement with photography and film, as observed by the curators, is on one hand that of an amateur or everyday user of the ordinary media of photography and film in the cultural-industrial context of 20th century life. On the other hand, something of the artistic vision and the poetic world of the master painter also comes through in this collection of images that we could perhaps characterize, following some remarks in the brief interview-presentation by the Museum director and co-curator of the exhibition, Juan Carlos Pereda, as unselfconscious, or also as “vernacular” or “quotidian”, that is visual records from different periods in the life of the peripatetic artist not intended for public view.

Rufino Tamayo, Guatemala

How precisely to connect the occasional or amateur photographer and filmmaker with the celebrated professional painter, how to link the images that are the focus of the present exhibition and Tamayo’s painted oeuvre, is not quite clear from the materials around the exhibition, introduction, interviews, prefaces and images available in the website and in the digital newsletter published by the museum.

Rufino Tamayo, Thailand

Perhaps the best way to characterize the exhibition is precisely, following some of the questions introduced by curator Alejandro Cesarco, as presenting one more aspect or element in the extended panorama of Tamayo’s life and work. A peripheral element, and yet an element inhabiting and disclosing a particular territory “in-between” the public and the private: a territory of exchanges and passages demonstrating that, contrary to appearances, the One is really never without the Other.

In their very “secondary” nature (as a kind of “secondary elaboration”) these photographs may provide some clues that can complement or lead to other central aspects and contribute to enrich our understanding of the man and his work And it may do so precisely because they are presented in the very place primarily dedicated to the artist and his art, to the presence of Rufino Tamayo.

Museo Tamayo

Paseo de la Reforma y Gandhi s/n
Bosque de Chapultepec

11580 México, D.F.
T (5255) 5286 6519 / 29
F (5255) 5286 6539

info@museotamayo.org

www.museotamayo.org

www.rufino.mx

Pangs of tragedy

2011-05-21T07:55:00.009+04:00

By Jyoti Kalsi, Special to Weekend Review- Gulf News

20 May 2011

Two artists explore how the human mind perceives disasters in a media-driven world

A surf-skiing accident that ripped her kayak into two was a big disaster for Julia Townsend. But the Dubai-based American artist transformed her personal experience of disaster into a wider exploration of the disasters that affect our lives and our planet. She re-attached the bow of the damaged boat to the hull and stuck a variety of inflatable animals around the joint to create an art installation, titled Noah's Ark.

"This piece explores the place of humanity in a world where our own destructive forces exceed our control. It is reminiscent of Delacroix's famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa, about tragedy at sea. But instead of people stranded on a flimsy raft, here we have plastic animals clinging to a shattered carbon shell. Through this work I want to draw attention both to the plight of wildlife and the excess of non-biodegradable pollutants in our environment. This Noah's Ark is a useless wreck that reminds us of the real disaster of the loss of many species as humanity encroaches further into the natural habitats of animals," Townsend says.

The installation is part of a joint exhibition, titled The Imagination of Disaster, by Townsend and Dubai-based Brazilian artist Marcelo Guimarães Lima. The two artists are associate professors at the American University in Dubai.

Their choice of theme was influenced by the recent earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan. And the exhibition features drawings, paintings, installations and digital prints that reflect on the experience of disasters in our times.

"In 1945 Susan Sontag wrote a famous essay titled The Imagination of Disaster about science fiction films of the Cold War period. She claimed that by presenting fantasy disaster scenarios the films normalised our psychologically unbearable fears and inculcated a strange apathy towards dangers such as radiation. Sontag observed that the fantasy of fear in science fiction cinema covered the real fear in the 20th century of nuclear war leading to mass annihilation of the human race and isolated it from its real sources.

"But going beyond the neutralisation of historical anxiety, the artistic imagination of disaster in the 21st century requires us to deconstruct the image of fear that paralyses our historical consciousness of the present," Lima says.

"After the earthquake in Japan, I found myself sketching images of the disaster and realised how the scenes I saw in the news had affected me subconsciously. I proposed this theme for the exhibition so that I could process my own thoughts and feelings. Through this exhibition, I want to examine how the disasters of our times impact us and how we process our experiences of them," he adds.

Lima is exhibiting a charcoal drawing and a series of digital prints representing various disasters, ranging from the natural and man-made disaster in Japan to socio-political disasters such as the situation in Palestine. He combines his drawings, paintings and monotype prints with media images to create his abstract compositions.

"Today we face cultural, economic, social, ecological and many other disasters. Does the media coverage of these make us more informed or make the event a spectacle that we see from afar and do not think about? By presenting the media images in a different and aesthetic way, I want to encourage people to look beyond what is shown and told to us and to question the greed, short-sighted decisions and dysfunctional society that have caused these disasters. We must use our imagination to see what is missing and to change and transform the situation," Lima says.

Townsend's approach is more personal. Like her boat installation, many of her oil paintings are based on her experiences and address this grim topic with a touch of humour. Her painting, titled Via Ferrata, alludes to the cliffs of Wadi Bani Awf in Oman, where she recently climbed the Via Ferrata. And she has painted a safety net on the wall below the canvas. "Nobody fell from the wire cables, down to the canyon 70 metres below; but when you are looking down those steep rocks, your imagination runs wild," she says.

Similarly, her painting When Fear and Weapons Meet, is about anxious rumination — the re-play in the mind when one survives a near-disaster. Another painting, titled, Good Lord Deliver Us, refers to the fears of imaginary ghosts and beasts that plague us in the dark of night and the prayers that help us deal with the fears.

She reflects on the disaster in Japan with images of nuclear reactors and people wearing protective masks and a painting of a fish-like man that speculates on the side effects of the radiation leakage in Fukushima. The artist, who is an illustrator, writer of children's books and poet, has also written poems that express her thoughts about personal and global disasters.

"Sontag's essay talked about the apathy resulting from watching disaster films. But today, watching live coverage of disasters from the safety of our homes can also lead to apathy. The constant media focus makes us numb to the horror and stops us from trying to know about the reasons behind it. But when you are a citizen of the United States, a country that spends 40 per cent of the total world expenditure on defence, your imagination for disaster may be quite large. So my work is about the folly of what we don't know and the fear of the unknown. Despite all the insurances we buy, we cannot be free from the fear of the unknown and I use humour to deal with that," Townsend says.

The Imagination of Disaster will run at Total Arts at the Courtyard until June 6.

Jyoti Kalsi is a UAE-based art enthusiast.

download exhibition catalog from archive.org

The SOUL OF PAKISTAN in Singapore

2011-05-19T13:09:00.005+04:00

click image to enlarge

SOUL OF PAKISTAN - Art Exhibition

20-25 May 2011

Singapore Pakistani Association
and Artink are proud to present 'Soul of
Pakistan', an exhibition of Contemporary
Art showcasing work of renowned artist
such as Abdul Jabbar Gul, Moeen Faruqi
Riffat Alvi, Tariq Javed, Syed Faraz Ali
and many more

Venue: ARTrium @ Mica Building
140 Hill Street, Singapore

An event not to be missed, for
details click here. For registration please
write to cynthia@vsa.org.sg or
spa.secretary@gmail.com

The Imagination of Disaster at Total Arts Gallery extended to June 6

2011-05-18T11:22:00.018+04:00

The Imagination of Disaster opened May 15 at Total Arts Gallery in Dubai. The exhibition has been extended from its initial closing date of May 30 to June 6, 2011. Works by Marcelo Guimaraes Lima and Julia Townsend explore the themes of contemporary catastrophes, cataclysms and disasters from Chernobyl to Fukushima, from global to personal. Catalog is available for free download here.

works by Marcelo Guimaraes Lima

Marcelo Guimaraes Lima - "Fukushima", digigrafia, 2011

Marcelo Guimaraes Lima - "Palestina Blues", digigrafia, 2011

Painting and installation by Julia Townsend

detail of installation by Julia Townsend

click the image above to enlarge

Total Arts at the Courtyard presents

The Imagination of Disaster

drawings, paintings, prints and installation by

Marcelo Guimarães Lima and Julia Townsend

from 15 to 30 May 2011

Total Arts Gallery

P.O. Box: 14847, Dubai, U.A.E.
Tel: 971-4 347 5050

Fax: 971-4 347 0909

totalart@courtyard-uae.com

www.courtyard-uae.com

download exhibition catalog from archive.org

or

download catalog here

Total Arts Gallery Location Map
click image to enlarge

Simon Coates - Project Works: 2010 – 2011 at DUCTAC

2011-05-08T18:44:00.019+04:00

Simon Coates, Chair (Bastakiya), 2011,
1000mm x 1000mm, fine art print

Simon Coates - Project Works: 2010 – 2011

May 11th – July 11th 2011

The Rotational Gallery
DUCTAC
Dubai, UAE

Simon Coates is an English artist originally from London and now relocated to Dubai. The images and objects he creates balance the freedom of action and/or abstract expressionism with an academic approach to both his work’s themes and their execution.

Simon Coates, Baboon 4.4, 2011
500mm x 500mm, fine art print

A fascination with viscera and primal manifestation run throughout the work, imbuing them with added dimensions of disquiet and disconcertion. In terms of reference points, there are those that have noted Francis Bacon, Velasquez and Goya influences in Coates' paintings, although real references include the Viennese Actionist Hermann Nitsch, cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and painter Robert Lenkiewicz.

Coates’ work is broadly organised into projects, with titles like Rexia, Rock-A-My-Soul and Our Lady of Guadelupe, amongst others. Although primarily a painter, Coates also works in sound, three dimensions (sculpture and installation), in digital imagery and in printworks. He was educated at art colleges in Plymouth and London.

The Project Works: 2010 – 2011 solo exhibition showcases a number of original paintings, fine art prints and digital prints selected to present a taste of Coates’ work.

The exhibition includes work conceived and executed during Coates’ residency at this year’s Sikka Art Fair in Bastakiya, Dubai, and are on public display for the first time. The Sikka Art Fair is the fringe festival that runs parallel to Art Dubai.

Simon Coates, Rexia III (Rock-A-My-Soul) 2011,
900mm x 650mm, painting, acrylic on canvas

The Rexia IV: What’s Up Doc? painting was created during the ten-day residency and is based on a scene from the 1972 Barbra Streisand film, What’s Up Doc? The four prints, Plugs 1.1, Plugs 2.0, Wall 1.0 and Chair, are of digital collages created from scans of the Bastakiya studio used during the residency.

www.simoncoates.com

The Imagination of Disaster at Total Arts Gallery, Dubai

2011-05-06T10:55:00.010+04:00

click the image above to open catalogue

Total Arts at the Courtyard presents

The Imagination of Disaster

drawings, paintings, prints and installation by

Marcelo Guimarães Lima and Julia Townsend

from 15 to 30 May 2011

Total Arts Gallery

P.O. Box: 14847, Dubai, U.A.E.
Tel: 971-4 347 5050

Fax: 971-4 347 0909

totalart@courtyard-uae.com

www.courtyard-uae.com

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

download exhibition catalog from archive.org

The Text Festival in Bury: Opening on 29 April 2011

2011-04-27T23:27:00.012+04:00

The Text Festival in Bury is an internationally recognised event investigating contemporary language art (poetry, text art, sound and media text, live art). Opening on 29 April 2011, the Festival will be its third manifestation and run into July.

Against the background of global stylistic multiplicity, the use of language spans many artforms and may even be a unifying field of enquiry, a new definition and a new field of international linguistic art practice and dialogue. The Bury Festival is the leading focus of language in 21st Century art.

The Festival specialises in experiments, in new experiences, in performances and exhibitions that mix artforms in ground-breaking combinations that challenge traditional language art boundaries and offer artists a forum for dialogue and exchange of ideas.

Festival Opening

Featuring Exhibition openings and performances

Bury ArtGallery& Museum

Saturday 30th April 2011 / 11.00am

A celebration of visual poetry, sound, video and conceptual art with three Festival exhibitions and performances by international language artists from North America and Europe.

New works, installations and unique special commissions by Ron Silliman, Pavel Büchler, Derek Beaulieu, Tony Lopez, Geof Huth, David Osbaldeston, Holly Pester, Liz Collini.

Performances, inpromptu interventions and spontaneous outbursts by Márton Koppány,Marco Giovenale, Sarah Sanders, Helen White & Moniek Darge, Derek Beaulieu, Helmut Lemke and Hans Specht - from letters poetically blown from a balcony to conversations written on arms, remarkable readings and irrational sibyls-spreading action.

Curated by Tony Trehy

Text Festival

Bury ArtGallery& Museum

Moss St
Bury
BL9 0DF
England

Admission Free

Tel: 0161 253 5758

www.textfestival.com

www.tonytrehy.com

www.bury.gov.uk/arts

"No More Insecurity" - the annual senior exhibition of the Visual Communication Department at the American University in Dubai

2011-04-20T08:36:00.012+04:00

works by Sara Al Haddad (front), Michelle Peric and Hala Saleh (back)

The Visual Communication Department at the American University in Dubai
cordially invites you to “No More Insecurity,” the annual senior exhibition,
which will be on display from April 14th- 24th, 2011.

photo-installation by Ahmed Bouholaigah

The reception for the exhibition will take place at 19:30-21:30 on Wednesday, April 20th.

photo-installation by Aya Atoui and Manal Elias

‘No More Insecurity’ features works by 14 senior students, including photography, painting, illustration, sculpture, installation, design, and video. Students have explored a range of personal and universal themes, from family life to the experience of war. On display will be a children’s book, a graphic novel, mixed-media paintings, and more. This exhibition marks the end of these young creatives’ university life, and the beginning of their professional careers: the end of ‘insecurity,’ and their entrance ‘into’ security as young professionals. Participating students: Sara Al Haddad, Amina Al-Tamimi, Farah Alizade, Aya Atoui, Nasim Bahraini, Ahmed Bouholaigah, Nargis Dhirani, Manal Elias, Danya Hassan, Hengameh Najarbashy, Michelle Peric, Hala Saleh, Sami Sasso, Mohammad Zelli. Professors Julia Townsend and Roberto Lopardo have curated the exhibition.

painting by Hengameh Najarbashy

‘No More Insecurity’ April 14th-24th, 2011

Reception: April 20th, 2011 19:30-21:30

Location: A Building, Rotunda Gallery

Hours: 10:00-19:00 daily, Fridays 14:00-19:00

American University in Dubai, Exit 32, Sheik Zayed Road, Dubai

Please call Professor Julia Townsend 04 318 3204 for further information.

ALLOTROPE 2 : open call for textual and/or visual submissions

2011-04-18T23:42:00.007+04:00

ALLOTROPE

(ISSN 2046 - 2859)

issue 02

theme:

L I S T S

Submissions can be text or image based - up to 500 words and at least 1MB for Jpegs.
Deadline for submissions is 13th May 2011 - submissions to be sent to

allotropepress@gmail.com.

Second issue to be launched in conjunction with the University of Ulster Festival of Art & Design, Belfast, Ireland, 4 - 19th June 2011 (limited numbered editions).

Emma Dwan O'Reilly
Keith Winter

link: Keith Winter

Open Engagement: Art and Social Practice at Portland State University

2011-04-07T11:38:00.005+04:00

Portland State University

Open Engagement: Art and Social Practice

Portland, Oregon

May 13–15, 2011

www.openengagement.info

The Open Engagement conference is an initiative of Portland State University's Art and Social Practice MFA concentration. Directed by Jen Delos Reyes and planned in conjunction with Harrell Fletcher and the Art and Social Practice students, this year's conference features internationally renowned artists Julie Ault, Fritz Haeg, and Pablo Helguera. The work by these artists' touch on subjects including democracy, group work, the boundary (or lack there of) between art and life, education, and transdisciplinarity. In addition, Open Engagement will play host to the Bureau for Open Culture, Bad at Sports, an exhibition by the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, and concurrent summits on art and education and social practice/participatory programs and practices arising at museums. The summits will feature representatives from OTIS College of Art and Design, the University of California Santa Cruz, MICA, California College of the Arts, The Walker, Portland Art Museum, The Hammer and others.

This year's Open Engagement sets out to discuss various perspectives on art and social practice. Through conversations, interviews, open reflection on experiences, and related projects created for or presented at the conference we will be looking at five themes that encompass ideas connected to social practice:

Peoples and Publics • Social Economies • In Between Places • Tracking and Tracing • Sentiment and Strategies

Open Engagement is a free conference that will take place May 13–15, 2011, in Portland, Oregon. Several meals during the conference will be provided emphasizing slow food and community cooking. A variety of transportation will be accessible drawing on Portland's bike culture and public transportation. Conference activities will be integrated with local businesses, using pubs and cafes as conference hubs.

This year's conference will host over 80 artists, activists, curators, scholars, writers, farmers, community organizers, film makers and collectives including: Christine Hill, Ted Purves, Harrell Fletcher, Joseph del Pesco, Christian Nagler, Dawn Weleski, Julie Perini, Stephanie Diamond, artSpa, Wealth Underground Farms, Julie Ault, Fritz Haeg, Pablo Helguera and many more.

For more information see:

www.openengagement.info

OPEN ENGAGEMENT PLANNING COMMITTEE

Jen Delos Reyes, Crystal Baxley, Sandy Sampson, Katy Asher, Ariana Jacob, Ally Drozd, Lexa Walsh, Jason Sturgill, Carmen Papalia, Mack Mcfarland, Stefan Ransom, Garrick Imatani, Sara Rabinowitz, Harrell Fletcher

AMASS: Towards an Economy of the Commons - Open Call

2011-04-07T11:23:00.003+04:00

In the face of mass cuts to public services, emerging forms of governance rampantly colonizing intellectual resources in the digital domain, and new narratives of the Big Society in the UK, what does the commons mean for us today? How can we approach a new protocol for the commons under such circumstances? AMASS (derived from the verb, 'to amass') is an open platform for roundtable discussions exploring new models and practices for sustaining the commons today.

AMASS invites organisations, collectives and individuals working within the cultural sector and creative industries to contribute by presenting past experiences, present practices, and future ambitions concerning mutual aid, pooled knowledge, networked infrastructures and modes of self-organisation. These case studies can be drawn from personal experiences in various sectors, geographical locations both provincial and international, or through accounts of historical manifestations. Through these exchanges we wish to collectively investigate our strategies, successes, and failures, considering the obstacles and potentialities for the development of the commons. Following the event, all materials will be collated into an open online archive, which will serve as a generative research database for future endeavours.

OPEN CALL

We welcome case studies concerning organisations, projects and initiatives from cooperatives, autonomist groups, gift economies, open source projects, new pedagogical models and others. Those who cannot attend, but would like to contribute interviews, text, or films, can email their submissions, which will be presented and discussed during the event. Please email a brief description of your experiences, along with your location, comments, links, and contact details to: info@doxacollective.org

AMASS brings together:

DOXA, an international research collective that seeks to explore new possibilities for supporting and developing culture in times of global crisis and change. More: www.doxacollective.org

The Amateurist Network, a network of artists and practitioners based in London that seek to explore issues within the conditions of cultural work, precarious labour and informal modes of self-organisation. More: amateuristnetwork.wordpress.com

…ment, a new quarterly online journal for contemporary culture, art and politics based in London and Berlin. More: www.journalment.org

Anthony Iles, a writer and editor based in London. He is a contributing editor to online and quarterly print magazine, Mute. See: metamute.org

The event is supported by Openvizor, an international organisation and platform that initiates and supports critical exchange of ideas in arts and cultural practice and the active development by practitioners of partnerships and projects around the world that engage people, places and the forces of change from the ground up. More: www.openvizor.com

ALLOTROPE 1

2011-03-23T22:18:00.009+04:00

click on images to enlarge

The first issue of ALLOTROPE, edited by Keith Winter and Emma Dwan O'Reilly, has been published in a limited edition of 300 copies at the University of Ulster. It includes works by Ian Banford, Stephen Connolly, Amanda Coogan, Julia Arroja da Silva, Colm Desmond, Daniel Jewesbury, Stephanie Jones, Simin Keogh, Jason Lee Lowell, Marcelo Guimarães Lima, Cathal McElroy, Deirdre McKenna, Steve Mykietyn, Oonagh O´Brien, Geraldine O´Kane, Douglas Park, Chris Piegza, Liv Shulman, Peter Spiers, Rosie Wanek and Keith Winter.

link: Keith Winter

Project Tsunami: art auction and book for Japan

2011-03-20T11:58:00.004+04:00

artwork by Rémi Maynègre

http://www.remimaynegre.fr/

The French language site CFSL dedicated to illustration, houses the Project Tsunami with contributions from artists on the subject of the recent tragic events in Japan. The goal is an auction of artworks and the publication of a book. The proceeds will go to the Japanese victims of the tsunami and earthquake.

http://cfsl.net/tsunami/

ART DUBAI 2011

2011-03-15T14:17:00.010+04:00

Musafir, Art Lab Project
Courtesy Ruangrupa, Jakarta

Art Dubai is one of the largest and most established contemporary art fairs in the Middle East, taking place every year in March at the Madinat Jumeriah, Dubai. The fair is held under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and is owned and run in partnership with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).   Art Dubai features over 80 galleries from 34 countries and an extensive programme of collateral events including:

• Global Art Forum – a series of discussions and debate featuring world-renowned artists, curators, critics and art professionals

• Art Park - an underground car park converted to house film screenings, projects and Art Park Talks

• Projects – a dynamic programme of exhibitions, installations, artist commissions, radio dispatches and performative tours of the fair

• Abraaj Capital Art Prize – the world’s most generous art prize awarding $1 million in disbursements to five artists from the Middle East, North Africa & South Asia region plus one international curator

• START – a non-profit organisation established by Art Dubai and the Al Madad Foundation operating art workshops for refugee and orphaned children throughout the region

• Art Week – Art Week is a cultural programme aimed at both residents and visitors, launched during Art Dubai in recognition of the UAE’s role as a regional centre of artistic production and creativity

City of Moscow by William Kentridge
3600 x 3400 mm, Tapestry,
Courtesy the artist
and Goodman Gallery, Johannesberg

Art Dubai 2011 Schedule

TUESDAY 15 MARCH (by invitation only) 
19.00 – 21.30 | Jumeirah Patrons’ Preview 
19.00 | Unveiling of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize

  WEDNESDAY 16 MARCH  
11.30 – 15.00 | Ladies’ Preview  
16.00 – 21.30 | Opening Night (by invitation only)

THURSDAY 17 MARCH 16.00 – 21.30 | Public Day  

FRIDAY 18 MARCH 12.00 – 19.30 | Public Day  

SATURDAY 19 MARCH 12.00 – 17.30 | Public Day  

Admission to Art Dubai is 50 DHS. Tickets are available at the door.  
Art Dubai is held at the Madinat Arena, part of the beachside resort Madinat Jumeirah.

link: Art Dubai

The 3rd edition of the International Drawing Fair - Paris

2011-03-14T11:22:00.010+04:00

Drawing by Amelie Fontaine - FID

The 3rd edition of FID - Foire Internationale du Dessin will take place in Paris from March 31 to April 3, 2011. Once a year, over four days, students from the best European art schools present their drawings during the Drawing Week in Paris. 410 candidates from 67 art schools from 22 European countries have applied. The jury selected the 91 exhibitors. 38 schools from 14 countries are participating. The objectives of the FID are: to promote drawing, to professionalize future artists, to raise the profile of European art schools, to encourage young collectors.

Drawing by Marion Harduin- FID

Serghei Litvin, creator and director of the event writes: “ The European system of art teaching is perhaps overprotective: ateliers, teachers, grants, hangings in the school – for five wonderful years, life is cozy and sweet. Then, suddenly, diplomas in hand, our students are ejected from the cocoon. It’s a shock to the system. No network of collectors. No galleries. No experience of the art market. No studio. No means of subsistence. Students who exhibit at FID will gain valuable professional experience in the real world before they leave their school. They will experience competition between students from fourteen European countries. They will also experience dealing personally with players from the contemporary art market and with the demanding public of the Semaine du Dessin.”

Serghei Litvin - FID

Born in Bucharest in 1953, Serghei Litvin comes from three generations of painters. He had his first exhibition at the age of nineteen. He travelled in Italy and Sweden before settling in Paris. Between 2003 and 2007 he divided his time between his New York studio and Paris. He has had a score of solo shows and art fair presentations, including New York, Cape Town, Ottawa, Bucharest, Paris and Venice. His works are exhibited in institutions in America (Washington, Corpus Christi - Texas), Israel (Ashdod) and France (Tulle, Brive). Serghei Litvin also writes short texts. His artist’s books are on sale at La Hune (Paris), Tate Modern (London), and Printed Matter (New York). The idea of creating a structure dedicated to contemporary drawing came to him in Brooklyn, in 2005, as a result of which he founded FID Association in Ile Saint-Louis, Paris.

links:

FID

FID Facebook page

Hassan Sharif: Experiments & Objects 1979–2011 presented by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage

2011-03-13T21:26:00.003+04:00

An exhibition curated by Catherine David and Mohammed Kazem

In Qasr Al Hosn Cultural Quarter Hall – Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Inauguration: March 17 th, 2011 / 19:00 - 22:00
& Closing: June 17th, 2011

Opening Hours: daily from 10:00 to 22:00

This is the first major monographic exhibition of Hassan Sharif in the UAE. Sharif is a seminal artist who is deeply associated with the modern history and culture of the United Arab Emirates. He is a major figure in the artistic community of the country and has developed a strong body of work from the late 1970's onward. The exhibition begins with the artist's early experiments and performances and includes many objects as well as series of his conceptual drawings and systemic works.

Hassan Sharif studied in Great Britain. He first started to draw caricatures which he produced abundantly and which attracted a great deal of interest in the region (a book collecting these works will be published in 2011). His art practice is experimental and strongly involved with daily life materiality. He uses cotton, textile, metal, chord and plastic in order to create a variety of Objects. His choice of materials reflects the production conditions that he lives and works in: the post-modern and post-global society of the UAE. His materials also reflect different aspects of our time such as mass manufacturing and accumulating for example, through his use of cardboard and packaging - thus also reflecting an interest in human activity, not just his own process of art making but also that of others in other fields. The process of "making" is central to Sharif's art practice: it is a precise, painstaking process, often involving repetitive actions and motions in the knotting , folding, wrapping and tying of various materials. Sharif's work reflects his intentional "doing" and "making" and his consciousness of the conditions that he works in. Historically, his work did not have much public visibility in the UAE, yet he often represented the Emirates abroad. One gets a sense of this paradox and others in his work.

Hassan Sharif was one of the artists shown at the ADACH Visual Arts Platform in Venice—which was inaugurated at the 53d Venice Biennale in 2009—and further research on his practice culminated in this monographic exhibition and in the upcoming publication about his work which will be launched at the Venice Biennale on June 3d, 2011. The ADACH Platform for Visual Arts was designed as a meeting point for discourse and artistic production. A dynamic dispositive of presentations and exchanges which would introduce, through a visual narrative, the conditions in which contemporary culture and visual art are emerging in Abu Dhabi and the UAE today.

This exhibition is part of ADACH's work in research, conservation, interpretation and promotion of the arts, culture and heritage of Abu Dhabi and the UAE including modern culture and heritage. It is ADACH's mandate to engage with, investigate and present the work of the UAE's arts and culture pioneers.

Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage – ADACH

P.O. Box 2380
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

T + 971 2 657 6001

nfo@adach.ae
www.adach.ae

CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL WOMAN'S DAY in Dubai: FemLink presents Video-Art Screening by 76 Women Artists from 50 Countries at AUD

2011-03-13T12:23:00.009+04:00

International Women's Day, originally called International Working Women’s Day is marked on the 8th of March every year. It is a major day of global celebration of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women.

In Dubai, the International woman's day is dedicated to all women who work anonymously in various fields. The FemLink video-collages will be displayed in Dubai from 13 to 18 March at the American University in Dubai.

The idea for FemLink, the " international video-collage," was born between two artists, Véronique Sapin (France) and C.M. Judge (USA) in March 2005. Their goal: the video collage could build a link throughout the world between women video artists. Since October 2005, date of the launching of FemLink, 133 visual artists of 62 countries, agreed to take part in the video-collage.

WHY FEMLINK ? Cultural diversity is not an empty slogan for Femlink, an association whose very name points to the link between female artists throughout the world, beyond nationalities and cultures. Their video-collages speak to everyone who is convinced that a work of art, using Françoise Colin’s phrase, should ‘make human sense’.

Cultural diversity is the root of the FemLink's video-collages; its sustenance and richness. Both autonomous and singular, the works of this video-collages are echos like of the world, in their own artistic way, opening prospects, offering new views and providing possibilities.

For more information, see the FemLink's website : www.femlink.org

THE UAE PAVILION OPENS APPLICATIONS FOR INTERNSHIP AT THE VENICE BIENNALE, 2011

2011-03-03T11:17:00.004+04:00

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, March 1, 2011 - Applications are now officially open for Venice Internship. A specialized internship program has been launched to recruit Emiratis and long term residents of the United Arab Emirates to manage the UAE's national pavilion at the Venice Biennale over the summer, from May 31 to August 25, 2011. Applications for this exciting opportunity will be accepted on a rolling basis from March 1, 2011. The final group of interns will be announced on April 30, 2011.

Interns will have the opportunity to work alongside distinguished curator Vasif Kortun and the team of the UAE Pavilion office in Dubai, leading up to the Biennale. A select group will go on to Venice to serve in the national pavilion as Exhibition Managers while engaging in a comprehensive art education program based on the extraordinary art and cultural institutions in Venice and the temporary exhibitions of the Biennale.

The principle objective of the Venice Internship is to groom the next generation of UAE arts practitioners and managers with the skills required to elevate national cultural initiatives at the forefront of the global art scene.

"The Venice Internship will allow interns a unique opportunity and unrivaled experience in the making and caring for an international exhibition," says Vasif Kortun, Curator of the UAE Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2011.

"Students, practitioners of the arts, and anyone interested in the UAE's art and architectural scene, are welcome to apply", adds Dr. Lamees Hamdan, Commissioner of the UAE Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. "The Venice Internship is designed to demonstrate to parents, teachers and the public that art is a serious career vocation."

On the back of the success of the UAE Pavilion Volunteer Program in 2009, which saw almost 50 volunteers sent to Venice in partnership with Takatof and Emirates Airline, the program for 2011 will see a more select number of candidates deployed with an increased focus on specialization in contemporary arts training.

Those interested in applying for the Internship will be able to do so online at www.uaepavilion.org . They may also submit an application form in hardcopy at strategic drop-boxes located across the UAE. For any further information please do not hesitate to contact volunteer@uaepavilion.org.

Takatof will provide full support to the Venice Internship. Takatof is a voluntary nationwide social program, developed by the Emirates Foundation to create a culture of volunteering throughout the UAE. Initiated and supported by His Excellency Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Owais, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, the UAE Pavilion is being developed and presented for the second time under the leadership of its Commissioner, Dr. Lamees Hamdan, a member of the Board of Directors of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Serving as curator for the UAE Pavilion is Vasif Kortun, writer, curator and teacher in the field of contemporary visual art. The UAE's second national pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition - the Venice Biennale is initiated by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development, and is supported by the Emirates Foundation.

UAE Pavilion Venice Biennale

MINISTRY OF CULTURE, YOUTH AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

40 Al Nadha Road Al Towar (1) Area
Dubai United Arab Emirates
M +971 (0) 50 4829926
press@uaepavilion.org
www.uaepavilion.org

"The Tapestry of Light" at Tashkeel Bastakya, 27 February - 10 March 2011

2011-02-26T23:04:00.011+04:00

Dr. Irene Barberis, in collaboration with Prof. David Mainwaring

"The Tapestry of Light"

The Art and Science of Illumination and the Photon

Opening Reception

Sunday 27 February 2011, 7:30 pm

Exhibition runs from 27 February - 10 March 2011

يتشرف تشكيل بستكية بدعوتكم لحضور افتتاح معرض

د. أيرين باربريس بالتعاون مع الأستاذ ديفيد ماينوارنج

"نسيج النور"

فن وعلم التنوير والفوتون.

مراسم الافتتاح

يوم الأحد 27 فبراير 2011 ، في الساعة السابعة و النصف مساءٍ

ويستمر المعرض من 27 فبراير إلى 10 مارس 2011

link: tashkeel.org

Art and Science Studies: Call For Papers

2011-02-26T08:49:00.003+04:00

Annual Meeting of the
Society for Social Studies of Science

Cleveland, Ohio,
November 2-5, 2011

Co-located with the History of Science Society and the Society for the History of Technology.

Art and Science Studies

The intersection of art, science and technology constitutes a burgeoning field of artistic practice and a productive site for the development of new theoretical approaches in science studies. For this panel, we invite submissions from artists practicing in this area as well as theorists grounded in science studies, history and philosophy of science, art history, literary theory and related disciplines whose research addresses the novel questions posed by these new artistic practices. We seek to generate a productive exchange about the hybrid methodologies necessary to theorize these artworks and their contribution to science studies. In the interest of generating approaches to art criticism and interpretation that are informed by science studies, we intend to bring to bare the approaches of a group of theorists on one or more artists or artworks. We welcome submissions on topics that address the significance of scientific materials and methods as artistic media; critical practices within sci-art; the rhetoric of scientific and/or artistic expertise in the production and reception of sci-art; and artworks and theoretical approaches that engage with specific fields such as bio-art, synthetic biology, systems of classification, models of experimental practice, scientific instrumentation, environmental art and nano-art. Looking at the way these works position themselves in relation to science and technology, we will reflect on what tools may be developed for use in other disciplinary arenas as well as considering the ways these artworks engage and respond to debates within science studies.

Please send an abstract of approximately 250 words to Dehlia Hannah (dh2058@columbia.edu) and Hannah Star Rogers (hsr9@cornell.edu) by: March 9, 2011.

Please be sure to indicate whether you are interested in presenting an artwork or a theoretical paper.

ANDA Silent Auction event at The Jam Jar, February 21st, 7-9 PM

2011-02-16T10:21:00.024+04:00

click image above to read

artwork by Sarah Lahti for the
ANDA (Mozambique, Dubai) Silent Auction event

Please join us at The Jam Jar on Monday, February 21st, from 7 PM to 9PM, for the ANDA Silent Auction event. Nine paintings by Sarah Lahti are being auctioned for this fundraiser to benefit ANDA: Associação Nos De Africa. The artwork will be on display prior to the event, on Friday, February 18, and Saturday, February 19th. ANDA is a new charitable organization with planned programs in arts education, cultural exchange, and HIV awareness, amongst other community empowerment initiatives. ANDA operates out of Maputo, Mozambique, and Dubai.

artist Sarah Lahti, Dubai, 2011

Says Sarah Lahti, one of the founding directors of ANDA, "I wanted to start something like this for a while, and finally took the time to begin this. I have seen a lot of momentum, support, and excitement from people... seen a lot of people wanting to get involved. That is the best part of all this. For me, this has been a learning process, and an adventure already. I can't wait to see where this goes in the future, and I'm very hopeful we'll be able to meet our program goals this year."

artwork by Sarah Lahti for the
ANDA (Mozambique, Dubai) Silent Auction event

ANDA: Associação Nos De Africa

The Jam Jar, Dubai

Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China

2011-02-12T09:00:00.003+04:00

At the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center
February 8—May 1, 2011

The Getty Research Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive
Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688

Brought to Asia by Europeans in the early 1840s, photography was both a witness to the dramatic cultural changes taking place in China and a catalyst to further modernization. Employing both ink brush and camera, Chinese painters adapted the new medium, grafting it onto traditional aesthetic conventions. Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China includes images ranging from an 1859 portrait of a Chinese family made near Shanghai to glass slides of revolutionary soldiers created in 1911 in Shanxi province. The exhibition features works by largely unknown Chinese photographers, hand-painted photographs, expansive panoramas, and rare gouache and oil paintings made for export.

link: Brush and Shutter at the Getty Museum

Capital Gifts by Christin Lahr at Transmediale, Berlin

2011-01-31T12:11:00.019+04:00

CAPITAL PRESENTS * : CAPITAL -
A Critique of Political Economy
Donation, Transfers of Capital to
the Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany,
2009 - ca. 2052

Since May 31, 2009, Lahr has transferred 1 cent daily to the German Federal Ministry of Finance, thus helping to counter the growing mountain of debt. In the field »reason for payment«, she always writes 108 characters from "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy" by Marx. In this way, bit by bit, the entire text of the book will be transferred into the state's central account via online banking. The transmission of the roughly 15,709 cents and 1,696,500 characters will take about 43 years. The value increase of the capital investment is not even included, nor are the required labor and lifetime or the added value through cultural and symbolic capital calculated into this. If the national debt could be frozen at the amount of 1,746,599,197,210 Euro (May 31, 2009), Lahr´s donation, due to the exponential effects of interest and compound interest, could pay this debt off within 300 years.

"CAPITAL", which inscribes itself irrevocably into accounts and archives, is a donation to the entire people, entered into the state budget of the FRG, administered by the currently elected representatives, safely stored at the Bundesbank. Each of the money transfers is documented per screenshot, printed out once, signed, and given away to individual citizens standing for the population as a whole. In "over-subscriptions" on translucent paper, Lahr crosses out character by character and thus produce an unreadable notation of "Capital", consisting of counting marks and numerals.

During Transmediale.11 Festival for Art and Digital Culture Berlin, February 2011, the artist will temporarily install her work station in the House of World Cultures, exposing bureaucratic structures and delivering an illustrative insight into the cultivation of capital:

CAPITAL PRESENTS * : THE MAKING OF CAPITAL.

* The German title MACHT GESCHENKE implies "MAKE A GIFT!", "GIFTS OF POWER" as well as "POWERFUL GIFTS"

Links : CHRISTIN LAHR

http://www.macht-geschenke.de

lahr@nonresident.de

Allotrope: Call for Artists

2011-01-26T11:55:00.007+04:00

Allotrope

OPEN CALL for textual and/or visual submissions to a new publication

issue 01:

L I E S

black lies, white lies, grey lies.

Submissions can be text or image based - up to 500words and at least 1MB for Jpegs

Deadline for submissions is 31st January 2011 - submissions to be sent to

allotropepress@gmail.com.

First issue to be launched in conjunction with the UU RGS Annual Conference, 9th March 2011 (limited numbered editions).

thanks,

Emma Dwan O'Reilly

Keith Winter

www.keithwinter.eu

Call for Illustrators at AUD

2011-01-26T10:25:00.023+04:00

"3 Keys" by Julia Townsend

On March 1st, 2011, the American University of Dubai
will be opening an exhibition dedicated to illustration.

This exhibition aims to:

− Bring into question the shifting definition of illustration

− Showcase the work of working, professional illustrators in a gallery setting

− Create a network amongst illustrators

− Provide students with an insight into illustration as a career and as an artform

− To give students a behind-the-scenes look at techniques and processes of illustration by bringing them in close contact with illustrators and their work

We are inviting illustrators to submit work for the following areas of the exhibition:

1. Open call for work : you are welcome to submit general illustration work for

exhibition. This artwork may be 2 or 3D.

2. Narrative -Themed work

3. Artist-led workshop for students

4. Sketchbook sessions

Opening of Tashkeel Bastakiya: 18 January, 7pm

2011-01-16T20:54:00.005+04:00

click on the image to enlarge

We are delighted to invite you to join us for the opening of our new facility

Tashkeel Bastakiya

The opening will take place at

7 pm on Tuesday 18 January 2011

In the presence of His Excellency Muhammed Al Murr,
Vice Chairman of Dubai Culture & Arts Authority
7 pm - Tuesday 18 January 2011, House no. 67/10

We are delighted to announce that Tashkeel is opening a new facility in Bastakiya. Established by Lateefa bint Maktoum in Nad Al Sheba in January 2008, Tashkeel is now recognized as a leading creative resource for artists and designers in Dubai. The Bastakiya house provides an exciting addition to the existing facilities, combining six individual artists’ studios with a dedicated members gallery.

The inaugural exhibition in the gallery will showcase a project by students from the American University of Sharjah, College of Architecture, Art and Design, Visual Communication program, based on a quote by HH the late Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum and reflecting Tashkeel’s role in nurturing the arts community in the United Arab Emirates.

We would like to invite you to view the facilities and to join us in celebrating this landmark in the development of Tashkeel.

www.tashkeel.org

SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION INTERNSHIP at AUD

2011-01-16T08:43:00.004+04:00

Wednesday 19 January at 12.15pm

Rotunda Gallery area
Department of Visual Communication
American University in Dubai

SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION INTERNSHIP & VOLUNTEER SCHEME
SHARJAH BIENNIAL 10
PLOT FOR A BIENNIAL
16 MARCH – 16 MAY 2011

How would you like to help produce the next Sharjah Biennial?

Over the past two decades, the Sharjah Biennial has grown from being a local cultural event into an internationally recognised and respected platform for contemporary art.

As an intern or volunteer with Sharjah Art Foundation you’ll have the opportunity to meet and work with internationally acclaimed artists and learn from hands-on experience in all aspects of producing the Biennial.

Our opportunities include assisting artists, working with the technical production team, helping with marketing and communications, event management and taking care of art professionals and visitors from all over the world.

To find out more about Sharjah Biennial 10 and our internship and volunteer scheme come to our presentation at AUD

For more information contact:

Rachel Chapman
Education Programme Manager
Sharjah Art Foundation
rachel@sharjahart.org
+971 6 568 5050

www.sharjahart.org

Singapore Biennale 2011: Open House

2011-01-16T08:38:00.002+04:00

Featuring 60 artists from 30 countries, the third Singapore Biennale, titled 'Open House', will be open to the public from 13 March to 15 May 2011. Over half of the artists are creating new commissions or premiering new works. 'Open House' is presented across four exhibition venues, each with their own particular character, that draw upon emblematic spaces in Singapore: Housing Development Board flats (Singapore Art Museum and 8Q), shopping centres and night markets (National Museum of Singapore), and international air and sea ports (Old Kallang Airport). Major art works at Marina Bay will amplify individual experience in the city.

more at : http://www.singaporebiennale.org/about.htm

SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION INTERNSHIP & VOLUNTEER SCHEME

2011-01-13T17:09:00.007+04:00

SHARJAH BIENNIAL 10

PLOT FOR A BIENNIAL

16 MARCH – 16 MAY 2011

WWW.SHARJAHART.ORG

Plot for a Biennial is the title for the 10th Sharjah Biennial, curated by Suzanne Cotter and Rasha Salti in collaboration with Haig Aivazian. It takes as its curatorial narrative the idea of a treatment for film, “scripted” around a constellation of keywords that include Treason, Necessity, Insurrection, Affiliation, Corruption, Devotion, Disclosure, Translation. These terms operate as motifs and serve to frame explorations in both subject matter and aesthetic positions.

Within this lexical framework, artists and their projects, filmmakers, performers and writers suggest a cast of players, often assuming multiple roles, which include The Traitor, The Traducer, The Collaborator, The Insurgent and The Experientialist. Proposing the Biennial as a script to be followed or improvised also allows for narratives and thematic chapters to emerge. In borrowing the structure of a film narrative, the Biennial is intended to function as a series of sequences, or reels, that unravel or are refashioned by visitors at different moments and over the course of the plot’s unfolding.

INTERNSHIP & VOLUNTEER SCHEME WITH SB10

We need your help to assist in developing and producing Sharjah Biennial 10 and its activities. As a SB10 intern or volunteer, you have the opportunity to meet and work with internationally acclaimed artists and to learn from hands-on experience. You receive a certificate at the end of your service, testifying to your contribution and experience with the Biennial, which is useful to you in future artistic and professional pursuits. In return, we need your commitment, dynamism and interest during your collaboration with us.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

To apply to be an intern or volunteer please send

• A completed application form
• An up to date resume/CV
• Name, email address and telephone number of a professor or supervisor who will provide a reference for you

All applications will be considered. Successful interns and volunteers will be assigned a position that best suits their interests and skills. Once selected, interns and volunteers will undertake an orientation session and receive any necessary training. Applications should be received before 1 February 2011 and successful interns and volunteers will be advised of their roles, times, dates and location of work shortly after this date.

Please send your completed application form and resume/CV to

Rachel Chapman rachel@sharjahart.org
Education Programme Manager t +971 6 568 5050
Sharjah Art Foundation f +971 6 568 5800
PO Box 19989 m +971 50 1973141
Sharjah, UAE

www.sharjahart.org

If you have any questions, please get in touch!

Leon Golub "Live & Die Like a Lion?"

2011-01-12T09:59:00.007+04:00

Leon Golub
Live & Die Like a Lion?
22 January — 25 April 2011

Museum Het Domein
Kapittelstraat 6 Postbus 230 NL-6130 AE Sittard
www.hetdomein.nl

The American artist Leon Golub (1922-2004) with his extremely engaged work acquired—like his wife Nancy Spero—a reputation as a preeminent "artist's artist" and as the moral conscience of the art world. The exhibition, Live & Die Like a Lion?, is the first solo exhibition of Golub's work in the Netherlands and features about fifty drawings that Golub completed between 1999 up until his death in 2004. Although Golub is primarily known as a painter, drawing was the foundation of his artistic practice. The later drawings demonstrate a stylistic and thematic shift away from a long-term preoccupation with the atrocities of the external world towards an exploration of the personally revelatory. Scenes of human mortality alternate with explicitly erotic depictions; political indictments with wry humor and subversive texts. The drawings are stirring in their directness and newfound freedom. This exhibition marks the first time that attention has been devoted to Golub's late drawings on such a large scale.

With their intimate formats, Golub's late drawings stand in sharp contrast with his infamously meters long paintings. In the 1950s he gained recognition for strongly expressive paintings featuring fighting figures inspired by art brut and existentialism. During the heyday of minimal and conceptual art, Golub continued painting and created highly political works, including pieces in opposition to the Vietnam War. The painting techniques that Golub used in the late paintings reflect the often controversial choice of subject matter. He scraped the painted canvases with butcher knives, re-exposing sections of the raw linen, and then nailed them directly to the walls without canvas stretchers as if they were protest posters. In the 1970s, he created primarily portraits of dictators and influential industrialists. From the 1980s, in series like Mercenaries, Interrogation and Riot, Golub focused on all kinds of forms of power abuse and violence—from American interventions in Central America to street violence and rough police interrogations.

The exhibition is curated by Brett Littman, Executive Director, The Drawing Center, New York, and is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Dedalus Foundation. Generous funding for the catalogue has been provided by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Peter Frey and Caroline Shapiro.

On Sunday 23 January at 3 p.m., Drawing Center director and exhibition organizer Brett Littman will give a lecture on the show. For more information, please visit www.hetdomein.nl.

Further information and visuals can be found in the press room, in the museum's homepage: www.hetdomein.nl. Kapittelstraat 6 Postbus 230 NL-6130 AE Sittard, Open: Tue–Sun 11–17 hrs. Or contact Karin Adams or Roel Arkesteijn. Tel. +31 46 4513460;karin.adams@hetdomein.nl, roel.arkesteijn@hetdomein.nl.

*Image above:
Collection of Anthony and Judith Seraphin, Seraphin Gallery Philadelphia, PA.
Art © Estate of Leon Golub/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

On Graphic Crimes and Visible Fractures

2011-01-09T11:13:00.014+04:00

Marcelo Guimaraes Lima

Graffiti in Rio de Janeiro,
photos by Rayelle Niemann

Pixação is the Brazilian name for tagging, that is, for those unsolicited, unauthorized, and therefore criminal and disruptive graphic marks, written signs and emblems inscribed on walls and façades around the cities. It is distinguished from grafite (graffiti) by its hurried or “improvised” appearance, by the more limited visual vocabulary it displays (in part related to its origins in typographic styles and conventions) and its (apparent) absence of meaning other than the defiant gesture of defacing architecture and public and private spaces.

In Brazil, grafiteiros (graffiti makers or graffiti artists) paint walls and façades attempting to create relatively coherent visual symbols of different kinds, with diverse forms, using diversified strategies of elaboration, and with different degrees of success. The domain of grafite may approach mural painting at times.

Pixadores (tag or signature makers) on the other hand, attach their pre-developed marks and add inscriptions to surfaces. Their formal elaborations are more restricted in comparison, for the communicative power of their graphic creations rests on a shared code of meaning expressing a code of conduct that is indeed the central element to understand pixação as a form of activity and a form of sociability developed in the contemporary metropolis. (more)

text by Marcelo Lima, Dubai
images by Rayelle Niemann, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The above is an excerpt of the article written for the City-Sharing web site at the request of artist and site editor Rayelle Niemann. Read it here.

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art

2010-12-19T23:47:00.007+04:00

QATAR MUSEUMS AUTHORITY ANNOUNCES THE OPENING
ON DECEMBER 30, 2010 OF ITS NEW INSTITUTION

 Qatar Museums Authority
P.O. Box 2777
Doha, Qatar
+974 4487 6662 

www.mathaf.org.qa

Conceived as a gathering place where questions are asked, ideas are explored and creativity is fostered, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will open to the public on December 30, 2010, in Doha, Qatar.

Mathaf (pronounced Mat-haff, which means "museum" in Arabic) will present exhibitions and programs that explore modern Arab art. Its collection of more than 6,000 works represents major trends and sites of production of modern Arab art, spanning the 1840s to the present. In addition to its collection and special exhibitions, Mathaf's on-site and online programs will reinforce its role as a center for global dialogue, research and scholarship. Through these activities, which are designed to engage artists, writers, students, scholars and the widest possible public audience, Mathaf will contribute to the cultural landscape of the Gulf region, the Middle East and the Arab Diaspora.

The Museum will temporarily occupy a former school building in Doha's Education City, which was re-designed for Mathaf by the French architect Jean-François Bodin. QMA will determine its plans for the construction of a future, permanent home for the Museum at a later date.

Mathaf is the outgrowth of more than two decades of activity by QMA's Vice-Chairperson, His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al-Thani. The collection was adopted originally by Qatar Foundation, who safeguarded it for four years before QMA took the Museum on as a Museums Authority project, at which point the current partnership was formed. Overseeing the establishment and opening of Mathaf is QMA Chairperson Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. As the catalyst of this project, Sheikh Hassan has encouraged creativity in Qatar and throughout the region with his longtime commitment to Arab artists.

Inaugural Exhibition

Mathaf will open with Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art on view from December 30 2010: an inaugural exhibition of highlights from the collection, featuring works by more than 100 artists and representing pivotal experiments in aesthetics. Sajjil, an Arabic word meaning the act of recording, initiates a space in which various narratives can be articulated in an effort to allow Arab modern art its historical place within a wider tradition of art history.

The exhibition contributes to a renegotiation of the positions of Arabs to and in modernity. It acknowledges the multiplicity of experiences that form Arab modern art and emphasizes the several common moments that justify a collective identity. It is organized around several themes that overlap and intersect, where ideas cut across chronology, and discontinuity and rupture are part of the story.

Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art is organized and curated by Dr. Nada Shabout, guest curator and consultant, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute at the University of North Texas; Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Mathaf's Chief Curator and Acting Director; and Deena Chalabi, Mathaf's Head of Strategy.

speculum: drawing time at AUD

2010-12-16T14:38:00.039+04:00

SPECULUM: DRAWING TIME | SPECULUM: LE TEMPS DU DESSIN 2010

This exhibition has been curated by Dr. Irene Barberis and installed at the Visual Communication Program American University in Dubai by Professor Julia Townsend and Professor Marcelo G. Lima, Mona Navalkar, Rania El Jishi, and current undergraduate students.

Four works: contemplations and analysis in time. Barberis and Farthing speculate on the 13th century Apocalyptic Tapestry of Angers; Lydiar through her 'blind' drawing captures a space between two points in time and travel, and Trehy images through text an "other" form of place.

The exhibition was presented in the METASENTA Hong Kong Hub in September-August, 2010, and, fitting to its concept of time and space interconnections, is now recreated in Dubai. The initiative is part of the DRAWING SPACE METASENTA project.

METASENTA is a vital, compact arts research hub, which functions internationally between Universities and the wider Arts and Business Communities. It does this by linking, networking and initiating high quality and influential international art research projects, which have high impact outcomes, in an interdisciplinary context.

www.metasenta.com.au

Blue and Orange: Revelation - from a distance
Irene Barberis ( Australia /UK London)

Dubai Image
Stephen Farthing ( UK/London/ USA/New York)

Untitled
Tony Trehy ( Manchester/UK)

Performing the City: Automatic blind drawing
Anne Lydiat ( UK/London)

making of speculum: drawing time

participants: Mona Navalkar, Rania El Jishi, Hanan Al Hosany, Jetshri Bhadviya

Two Artists: One World? “Can Control” from an Islamic and a Western Perspective.

2010-12-11T10:57:00.023+04:00

Suzanne Albanus

Opal Seam
Ground floor wall, Environmental Sciences Faculty,
James Cook University, QLD, Australia.

Artists: Simon Fleming and Sue Albanus 2009.

Graffiti is frowned upon, not seen as important and is often found on buildings in the less than salubrious parts of town. It can be seen as “colorful” at best and “vandalism” at worst. Graffiti (and its form of Tagging) as a modern day medium is recorded as starting in New York City in the 1970’s by a group of young males, some as young as 10, roaming the subways. They were of varying ethnicities – Italian, African American, White, Jewish – reflecting the make –up of their neighborhoods at that time. One “tagger” wrote – Vic 156 - to mark his name and courier number as he travelled. Others followed suit, especially as it became known just how far that tag travelled on the subway system and who saw it. Since the 1970’s all kinds of “messages” and meanings have transpired on the back of a mural. The text itself has become more complex and to many it is indecipherable. The images seem only to have meaning to those in the know.

The use of text – graffiti – and images emerged in recent times into a certain genre of mural that comes under the umbrella of Aerosol Art. Aerosol “muralists” are graffiti artists who paint commissioned murals, with the aerosol paint giving an airbrushed look to the work. The murals usually refer to the surroundings with a particular reference point to be made e.g.; political slogan or comment . These murals can provide a form of release and a strong message that often it is about the artist as well.

Simon Fleming

In Australia, graffiti is not taught officially except in after school workshops and holiday programs. Those teaching it are often artists themselves. Many of the practitioners that I have known have been tertiary educated in art and design programs but not with a specialty of graffiti. Graffiti is an interest or passion that is used in a parallel fashion by these artists who need to earn a living in a design field while practicing their real love for “free”. Very few are lucky enough to make a comfortable living out of murals alone.

Opal Seam, close up. Details as above

Simon Fleming was a Design student whom I taught some 16 years ago in a design course at James Cook University (QLD). In his second year he and another student collaborated to design and paint a mural for the sports centre at the University. I was approached to see if their work could also be incorporated into their assessment for an art history project. With some modification of the project it was agreed to. This meant writing up a proposal which included costing, timeline, sketches, references and meaning of the mural, as well as defining the wishes of the client. This was the beginning of my association with these and later graffiti artists who came to study at the university. In 2006, 2008 and 2009 three large scale projects were commissioned by the university to utilize the specific skills of graffiti artists. (1) The sites were the JCU Club, a large wall surrounding external cooling units and three floors of the Earth Sciences building. As primary designer I collaborated with Simon and several other artists in all three projects. (2)

The recognition by the University of this art form was encouraging. It was clear that those who were in charge of the buildings and grounds understood that utilizing this type of artwork “spoke” to the student body who in turn understood and appreciated the number of works with enthusiasm. Many took photos and used them in their portfolios while others simply felt that the University recognized their “identity” at a level that mattered.

Graffiti Pillar on Ground Floor
Environmental Sciences Faculty,
James Cook University, QLD, Australia,

Artists Simon Fleming, Jac Jakovljevic, Sue Albanus, 2009.

A policy on “Street Art” for the Townsville City Council was commissioned with this writer to author it as well as a number of related articles on this topic. The most recent was the introduction to and exhibition entitled “Tonite We RUN” which was held at Umbrella Gallery with the introduction posted on their website. Lastly the University itself published a feature article on the writer and the artworks in their in house magazine “Outlook” 2009.

Mohammed Ali

“Can Control – Graffiti and Islam. Word of Man, Word of God.” When I heard this statement used by Mohammed Ali (UK aerosol artist) it was with a sense of déjà vu. Simon Fleming had used those same words “can control” in an article 6 years ago when describing his technique for getting the characters right in his work. I felt that these 2 artists shared a common bond above and beyond their medium. Simon’s love for graffiti is relentless and his pursuit for the right line and curve is almost obsessive. With Ali there is a similar passion to get the message out.

Mohammed Ali, Breaking Down the Wall event

Birmingham (UK) born Mohammed Ali, whose take on modern Islamic art has made him (arguably) one of the most recognizable Muslim artists in this genre, showcased his work in America in April 2009. The funding for this tour was from the UK Arts Council and covered a series of workshops and talks. The Arts & Islam Tour took in Boston, Chicago and New York and was co-sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). His intention was to portray “positive images of Islam, which is why I do what I do”. Azeem Khan of the ICNA said that “The goal of this tour (is) to elucidate Islamic themes and messages through a medium which can be universally understood and appreciated by all. Mohammed Ali’s work can transcend artificial barriers such as ethnicity, nationality, class and perceived religious differences which prevent us from understanding one another”.

Ali notes that people today are much more mobile and transient and also more likely to move to other countries to work. This movement creates hugely cosmopolitan cities where the boundaries of identity and ethnicity are intertwined more than at any other time in history. Previous forms of communication such as newspapers, television and so on no longer hold the same audience as they once did. Electronic forms of communication with its inherent messages, advertising and immediacy of imparting messages have changed audience perceptions and demands.

Ali along with his counterpart Fleming, acknowledge this in their work as aerosol artists. Graffiti artists or “crews” travel incessantly to other cities both within their own countries and internationally. Ideas amongst the artists spread like rapid fire and they use the electronic medium to record and transmit to other artists. The art form is as global as any advertising campaign, and as transient. This fact was recognized by Adidas in their 2007 campaign which recruited 6 graffiti artists to design clothing and shoes. The style of clothing that is seen on MTV, on the streets and by recording artists and celebrities. Adidas recognized that the demand for new ideas by consumers was as restless and relentless as by those who practice graffiti.

Both Ali and Fleming have tapped into the zeitgeist that influences much of their generation these days such as a global dialogue, electronic images and communication, travel as a journey rather than a destination and a more comprehensive exposure to other cultures than ever before. Branding of goods and products is a universal medium and Street Art has contributed to this as well as been informed by this trend. It is no coincidence that both artists are familiar with the world of advertising and media.

The typography and calligraphy used in Arabic language or Muslim informed Street Art is aligned with that of modern Arabic advertising and branding. Arabic branding utilizes traditional Arabic typography along with graphic design elements of the global community. From a typographical point of view this was accomplished through a geometric style that adhered to the dimensions found in Arabic calligraphy. So too has Graffiti or Street Art incorporated such elements and influences to achieve a similar aim. That is to reach an audience using designs that have visual harmony while still containing a message.

Walls that unite

The field of aerosol art is varied and in these days is quite multi-faceted and it is my consideration that it is as rich and as valuable as any other medium. Historically the murals have recorded human endeavor, suffering and joy as with any other form of expression. From the murals of Northern Ireland promoting one set of beliefs or another, glorifying deeds or simply commemorating people to those images in the barrios of Los Angeles with the same theme, graffiti has written down the history of its writers and their communities and cultures. A mural in Belfast depicting Fr Edward Daly during the events of Bloody Sunday (1972) would resonate with one by Ali in Small Heath Birmingham. Done on 4th January, 2009 it depicts reaction in Gaza to the Israeli oppression.

At Sydney University there is a tunnel connecting one part of the university to another. It has now become the Graffiti Tunnel. Part of it is dedicated with a piece titled “Understanding Islam”. Many Muslims have added their comments including girls, who are delighted to include their “voices” and to record their feelings.

Graffiti Tunnel at Sydney University,
photo by T.R. Appleton

Graffiti will possibly always be contentious and in part that is the attraction for the “writers” or taggers. At its best the form can be a powerful expression of inner city imagination, often buried under a layer of hieroglyphic writing that the Ancient Egyptians would have acknowledged. Some will see it as an urban blight at best and vandalism at worst. In my view it is the energy of Graffiti that is the attraction, with the artist in a perpetual state of movement in that moment of creation. The artists seize the spotlight in that moment of history and force us as the viewer to recognize their existence. “I am human. I was here. I am here. This is my name” .

References

http://www.scribeswalk.com December, 2010
www.theunderbellyproject.com November, 2010.
www.artsandislam .com April 2009.
www.aerosolarabic.com June 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmWrs60qUKA 2010.
http://www.ironlak.com/family.html 2010.

Notes

1. The Graffiti mural project was undertaken in December 2008/February 2009 at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, QLD, Australia. The brainchild of the then Dean, the aim of the design was to encompass all fields of study. These ranged from marine archaeology, mining, tropical urban studies, disaster studies to geology.

2. The paintings covered 3 storeys and the sections shown are the opal mining which is significant to the economy of the area.

Dr Suzanne Albanus is a designer who was formerly a lecturer at James Cook University, QLD, Australia in the Bachelor of Communication design degree. She has been involved in many of the public works at James Cook, notably in the Graffiti murals in the Environmental Sciences Faculty, the Central air-conditioning block and the JCU Student’s Club. She assisted in writing the policy on Street Art for the Townsville City Council. She is currently an Academic Advisor at the American University in Dubai, UAE.

RSTW film screening: The Cool School at Arts Abu Dhabi Gallery

2010-12-07T09:29:00.006+04:00

click on the image above to enlarge

The Cool School

Wednesday 8th December 2010, 18:30 -21:00, Manarat Al Saadiyat

How LA Learned to Love Modern Art. A lesson in how a few renegade artists built an art scene from scratch and what to avoid in the process. Featuring Dennis Hopper and narrated by Jeff Bridges, the film focuses on the seminal Ferus Gallery. Its proprietors, Walter Hopps and Irving Blum, groomed the LA art scene from a loose band of idealistic beatniks into competitive, brilliant artists, including Ed Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, Craig Kauffman, Wallace Berman, Ed Moses and Robert Irwin, also served as launching point for New York import Andy Warhol (hosting his first Soup Can show).

Under the patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces

RSTW

From the private collection of Larry Gagosian

Rauschenberg

Ruscha

Serra

Twombly

Warhol

Wool

Curated by Anne Baldassari

Experience a window into the world of the art collector in this ground breaking historical exhibition that will showcase major works from some of the leading names in Post-War American art from Larry Gagosian’s never before seen ‎private collection.

22 September 2010 - 24 January 2011

Daily 10:00 am - 8:00 pm

Arts Abu Dhabi Gallery, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhab

Download the map to Manarat Al Saadiyat by clicking here.

Click here to download the full public programme schedule.

For more info call + 971 2 6435781

What is to be done ? art/film/politics

2010-12-07T09:05:00.006+04:00

From the 11th to the 19th of December 2010, the curatorial platform, le peuple qui manque, in association with the Film department of the Centre Pompidou, proposes a series of encounters entitled "Que faire? What is to be done? art/film/politics". These encounters offer an overview of the new critical strategies currently emerging within the international artistic field, and principally within contemporary film production, with a focus on the relationship between art and politics.

During the Winter years, as Félix Guattari called them, the corollary to the fall of the Berlin wall was presumed to be the fading of twentieth-century utopias. It was seen as the pronouncement of the end of history and the death of avant-gardes. However, twenty years later, the current revival of the links between art and politics must be taken into account. Que faire? What is to be done? Jean-Luc Godard asked in his 39-point manifesto and his answer was "we must make films politically". Since the mid-1990s, critical, social and political theories have been revisited, questioned and considerably enriched by new approaches, which are now polyphonic. Simultaneously, these new critical theories have become precious tools of interpretation for thinking about contemporary art, and with the recent upsurge of exhibitions and biennials, many curatorial practices have reformulated critical perspectives relating to history, capitalism, image production, representation and subjectivities. Thus, artists, theorists, curators and activists are collaboratively and cross-sectorially developing the revival of a contemporary form of political art. These encounters consist of a critical symposium, artists' presentations and video projections, and will host artists, film-makers, theorists and curators. The video and film program will present a selection of works on the borders of the art film and the documentary; thus constituting an overview of what making films politically might mean today.

The event will take place over two weekends, on December the 11th and 12th and on December the 18th and 19th at the Pompidou Center, and will also consist of some fringe events between both dates at the Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Beaux-Arts de Paris, the Palais de Tokyo and the Espace Khiasma). The event will continue from January to May 2011, with several dates during the year at the Maison Pop and Le Méliès Cinema in Montreuil.

Symposium and projections in the presence of Rabih Mroué (Lebanese), Ursula Biemann (Switzerland), Catherine David (FR), Joaquin Barriendos (ES), Elvan Zabunyan (FR), Coco Fusco (US), Kodwo Eshun et Anjalika Sagar / The Otolith Group (UK), Christophe Marsat & Alejandro Arozamena / Brumaria (ES), Dmitry Vilensky / Chto Delat ? (RU), Rasheed Araeen / Third Text (UK), Natasa Petresin-Bachelez (FR), Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger (Switzerland), Hila Peleg (Germany), Steve Kurtz / Critical Art Ensemble (US), Maurizio Lazzarato (FR), Laurence Allard & Olivier Blondeau (FR), Tania Bruguera (Cuba), Beatriz Preciado (ES), Gerald Raunig (AU), Stephen Wright (Canada), Elisabeth Lebovici (FR), Jean-Claude Moineau (FR)

Featuring works and videos/films by Rabih Mroué, Lida Abdul, Yael Bartana, Larissa Sansour, Almalgul Menlibayeva, Adrian Paci, International Errorista, Armin Linke & Francesco Mattuzzi / decolonizing architecture, Itamar Rose & Yossi Atia, Nastio Mosquito, Dmitry Gutov + Radek Community, Benj Gerdes & Jennifer Hayashida / 16 Beaver Group, Tania Bruguera, Hila Peleg, Irina Botea, Mark Tribe, Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Jeremy Deller & Mike Figgis, Sylvain George, Critical Art Ensemble, Chto Delat ?, Brad Butler & Karen Mirza, José Alejandro Restrepo, Boris Groys, Alain Declercq, Ursula Biemann, Chen Chieh-Jen, Lin Yilin, Liu Wei, Oliver Ressler & Dario Azzellini, etc. And a performance by Rabih Mroué

Curators: Kantuta Quiros & Aliocha Imhoff

http://www.lepeuplequimanque.org/quefaire/

le peuple qui manque is a French independent curatorial platform created in 2005 by Aliocha Imhoff & Kantuta Quiros and a research project between art, moving images and critical theory. Created with the aim of curating film exhibitions and film festivals, promoting, distributing and preserving video art, experimental cinema, alternative cinema, le peuple qui manque organized several festivals, retrospectives, events, screenings, symposiums in many art places/museums/theaters and also distribute more than 200 videos, representing around 30 international artists.

"Why Design, Why Biennial?": International Istanbul Design Symposium

2010-11-18T09:01:00.003+04:00

The first pre-event of the İstanbul Design Biennial will be organised at Kadir Has University, Cibali Campus, on 2-3 December 2010.

Titled "Why Design, Why Biennial?", the symposium aims to create means for a productive debate on the interaction of design and diverse fields such as environment, culture, politics, economy, education, technology, and science. With presentations of leading figures from various sectors, the issue of design and the city will also be elaborated with a specific focus on Istanbul. Within this framework, the symposium is structured around four main thematic parts: Design and Its Genetics, Design and Its Micro-Components, Design and Its Macro-Components, Design and the City.

With speakers from institutions such as Design Business Association, Design Management Institute, Designboom, Zona Tortona, Design Museum in London, and Material Connexion, as well as prominent figures of design in Turkey from both the academia and the practical field, the Symposium invites you to a two-day gathering of design and everything that it is connected to.

Please click for the symposium programme.

FemLink's "ARTISTS' LOVE SONG" - Call to Visual Artists

2010-11-04T17:19:00.018+04:00

FemLink's Call to Visual Artists

"ARTISTS' LOVE SONG"

An artists' initiative :
The international Love Song
composed by Visual-Artists

Why create "Artists' Love Song" ?

I - Symbolic Reasons

We live in a world of friends and enemies, cleaved from all sides, fragmented, a world under the influence of deaf and autistic powers extending themselves in words, year after year, while men in arms, in charge of enforcing the law, protect and assert boundaries, build and protect walls, and, worse yet, decide on the life and death of others, on freedom and the subjugation of peoples.

We live in a world where goods and capital move overseas, over mountains and continents; while men, women and children stay for hours, days or years, behind bars in confined control zones, in borders, behind walls and barbed wire, separated by silence and misunderstanding, in a vacuum, sometimes hidden by or even buried under rubble.

«What world is our world? Is it still possible to sing in this world ? What are poets for in a destitute time? », asked Holderlin (“Bread and Wine”) .

A group of artists have decided not to allow goods and capital to be the only things that circulate freely and fast. They want to show that another world is possible. In the face of loneliness, despair and indifference, they want to demonstrate that art, of the kind that is not simply a part of the all embracing Market, has always had, and still has the sense of what is to be human.

And yes, it happens that human beings sing, they sing now as always, and they sing all over the world: love songs. This is their strength.

This is a love song that we visual artists have decided to offer as a joint effort.

Fragments of all the love songs sung by artists are glued together to compose and present their song of universal love.

Anticipating a future where people will again want to sing together, we artists are involved in what Herder called, « the great symphony of humanity ».

Crossing this territory without borders, without guards, and unarmed, the vast, warm and welcoming Land of Art, artists weave a network across the world by combining their love songs: a generous initiative, bold, utopian…crazy, indeed.

II - ARTISTICS REASONS

Artists must rebuild art. We can no longer produce as yesterday. Labor, tools, processes of production, and circulation of goods have changed. Their nature and materiality have changed as well. Work becomes an ever-more intangible process, and tools become more and more mental instruments.

Art cannot escape this major change that affects extra-aesthetic production, because the major processes of artistic creation have always been historically linked to those of social production.

"The aesthetic productive force is the same as productive labor and has the same teleology," says Theodor Adorno, while stressing "the double character of art as autonomous and as a social fact" (Aesthetic Theory, p. 6).

The "Artists' Love Song" will be part of the new conditions of what Marcelo Lima calls a “collective creative intelligence”, that is, "an aesthetic and artistic collective mind at work within the potentialities of a new technological environment of communication and exchanges, and a new cultural universe being born amid the paradoxes and the conflicts of the present. It foresees in the arts, beyond the ambiguities, impasses and contradictions of our current situation, and beyond the restrictions and limits of the existing domain of the arts as socially and ideologically structured today, a new collective artist in the making". (http://thepanoptikon.blogspot.com/2010/01/this-is-color-of-my-dreams-surrealism.html)

With the international video collage "Artists' Love Song", artists rely on networks and their tools are embedded in relations of communication and cooperation that underlie and compose their common work. The spatial mobility and temporal flexibility of their means give artists freedom to display and disseminate their works, but also to invent new relationships between art/artists, artists/performers, and artists/art/public.

In other words, the international video collage "Artists' Love Song»", contributes to the creation of other art forms, new surfaces of inscriptions, other materialities, other aesthetic systems, another logic of sense….in short: a "Artists' Love Song" for another world.

1 - THE PRINCIPLE

1 - A visual artist (painters, videographers, sculptors, photographers…) shoots a video showing another visual artist(s) who are singing a love song.
2 - S/he sends 20 seconds of this video (with its sound) by email to us : femlinkinfo@eim.ae
That's all.

2 - WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS 20 SECONDS ?

We will remove one frame from the 20 sec. video :
- to obtain one still for the photo-exhibitions
- to add this frame to a new compilation video (that will include all the submited frames).
All the sounds will form a soundtrack of the new video "ARTISTS' LOVE SONG"

DETAILS OF THE PROJECT

WHO IS INVITED TO PARTICIPATE? Professional visual artists (any gender) who accept this call. Artists are invited to pass this call onto as many other artists as they wish.
WHO IS INCLUDED IN THE VIDEO ? Only visual artists (ie, painters, printmakers, videographers, sculptors, photographers, installation artists…). The artist who shoots the video can be on the video also.
Important : artists can ONLY appear ONE time (one frame) in the final compilation.
HOW MANY ARTISTS ARE ON THE VIDEO ? Your choice.
WHAT ARE THE ARTISTS DOING IN THE VIDEO? They are singing a love song chosen by the artist who shoots the video (the langage of the song is chosen by artist).
IN WHICH LOCATION IS THE VIDEO SHOT? CLOTHES ? COLOR OR BW ? Wherever you like. Whatever you like. Whichever you like.
AFTER YOU HAVE SELECTED YOUR 20 SECONDS OF VIDEO ? - let us know you are ready and we'll send you the Form and "Application Agreement Document"
WHEN IS THE DEADLINE ? The project will span 3 years (the end will be december 2013). Our frames collage will be presented in exhibitions and screenings as soon as possible. So, please keep in mind that the sooner we receive your 20 sec. video, the sooner your frame can be shown in the events.

OTHER QUESTIONS

Why 20 seconds if we use only one frame ? 20 seconds is the minimum that we can send by email with the format .mov (quicktime)
Who selects the frame : artists select their own frame (by indicating the exact frame on the entry form)
Who edits together the final video (with all frames and sound)? The FemLink's team at www.FemLink.org
With 29 frames / seconde, it will be impossible to see anything on the video ! Correct, it will not be possible (please, read the concept of Artists' Love Song)
Who organizes screenings and exhibitions?
1 - FemLink. The way we'll organise them will depend on the hosts. We are open to all possibilities.
2 - Every artist who sent a frame can ask to receive (by internet) the compilation video and the stills. In this second case, the screenings and exhibitions are the artists' responsibility ; they can organize them as they wish. We are very flexible, and open to participating artists’ suggestions. Please let us know where, when and how so we can update the information on our website.
Please note, we are not a gallery, and do not represent artists commercially. All submissions become the property of FemLink for the above stated usage. We reserve the right to put a listing on our website as well.
What do you do with the lyrics ? The lyrics of each song will be presented during the exhibitions next to the still.
Do you charge a fee to participating artists ? No !!!
What are technical details and format : 4:3 / AVCHD, AVI, DV, MOV, MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, XviD, VOB, dossier VIDEO_TS, iMovie, EyeTV
Pal or NTSC ? Either (but we prefer PAL).
Maximum length? 20 seconds Minimum length ? 20 seconds
Should my video contribution have a slug at the beginning or just start with the first frame ? just start with the first frame (no black)
Should it have a title ? no title and no credits. We will add the credits at the end of the video of ARTIST'S LOVE SONG ourselves from the information you provide.
Should I send my work to you on dvd or by email ? Only by email to : femlinkinfo@eim.ae
Any honorarium ? Sorry, this is impossible for several reasons: the majority of places which organize exhibitions and screenings don’t pay fees; if they do, the funds are minimal and as there be thousands of participating artists, the dividends would be too small and the administration too costly... If some funds are generated by the project, we intend to invest the money in documenting the project by the publication of a book with a DVD of "Artists' Love Song" in order to increase the visibility and reach of the work and the participating artists, or to invest in a new project.
How can we know where "ARTISTS' LOVE SONG" will be shown ? On the FemLink's website : www.femlink.org.
There you’ll find the list of screenings and exhibitions, the list of participating artists. The website will also present the stills, the list of the artists presented on the stills and the titles of the songs.
To read more about FemLink and about our artistic points of view : www.femlink.org
To receive the Form and the "Application Agreement", please contact one person from the contact list (list of artists from Europe, CIS, Middle-East, Asia-Pacific, Africa, North America, South America.) or contact femlinkinfo@eim.ae

link: FEMLINK

Interview with John Bavaro

2010-11-02T20:28:00.018+04:00

John Bavaro - iPhone paintings/ Primates series

Marcelo Guimarães Lima – We can start with a brief introduction so the readers can situate the artist: what can you tell us about your background and your present personal, artistic and professional circumstances?

John Bavaro - I’m a professor of Painting, Drawing and Design at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. I’ve primarily been an oil painter for 15 years, but recently with the purchase of an iPhone, and the discovery of the “Brushes” app, I discovered that I could expand into a digital practice that felt “right” for me. I was particularly drawn to the fact that I was painting with the touch of my finger. This seemed to remove a barrier between the product and the artist that had long held me back from digital art. I started to “paint” iPhone portraits to be a complement to my “GENUS” series, which is a series of 100 oil paintings of human and non-human primates.

MGL – In your artist statement you write about the iPhone paintings as a “natural extension” of your art practice. Can you elaborate on that?

JB - I really never thought that I would like the digital medium. People like to expound on how it is the “wave of the future,” but I’ve always thought that it was cold, impersonal, and that its populist appeal was actually something that worked against it, because it started to blur the lines between what was art, and what was popular culture. As an oil painter, with that traditional pedigree, I think I’ve also always held the belief that a piece that is exponentially reproducible, and crafted of pixels cannot ever compare to a masterpiece that exists in real space, and has a history and a presence. I still paint in oils, and I do indeed value those pieces, but I’ve ceased to see it in such dichotomous terms.

MGL – Has the practice of digital painting on its turn extended or “extended back” also into your previous ways of creating “physical” paintings, that is, using the traditional materials and techniques?

JB - Whether we accept it or not, we really do live in a “new world” where the social networks, the instant accessibility of information and imagery (i.e. the instant sharing of images) have truly forced a new paradigm. When a person makes a body of work with traditional materials, that requires that he/she have a space to show them, the resources to ship them and most importantly, an audience to take the effort to go to that space and see them. That’s all good, I don’t dispute that. I just went to MOMA last week and stood in awe of the great masterpieces of Abstract Expressionism, particular those of Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still. Original pieces of art are seemingly eternal, and when we see antiquities, for instance, we marvel at their aura, as well we should. That doesn’t negate however that a piece of digital art is still a piece of art. In it’s own way, it occupies “space” somewhere, whether that’s on a screen, projected on a wall, or printed out in a gallery. Look at James Cameron’s Avatar. Am I to believe that this is merely a “ghost” that has no legitimacy? Absolutely not. It’s probably equivalent in scale and scope to the Sistine Chapel of our day. Of course film making is not exactly the same, because it’s more linear, still, the CGI marvels we see every day are very “real” in their own way. Film, and digital processes are the dominant art form of the day, whether we like it or not.

MGL – In this age of profound technological transformations affecting not just our perceptions and representations of reality but also our own material selves and physical connections with the world via, for instance, genetic engineering, new medical technologies, neuroscience and the material extensions of the workings of the human brain and the human mind, the idea of a kind of remaking of humanity has been explored in different ways by art and philosophy. I think here of the notion of the transhuman or of a posthumanity. By looking “back” to the “sub-human”, and I mean the term here as a purely descriptive term relating to our ancestral kinship with other primates, you promote on one hand an exercise on “anthropomorphism”. Anthropomorphism is a playful (also baffling, or even disturbing at times) and familiar reaction of empathy we all have experienced facing animals, and specially primates, and their fascinating and intriguing behaviors in our zoos, etc. On the other hand, I think your series can be said also to relate in certain ways to this probing of human limits at this time of announced and / or anticipated radical transformations of humanity. Not just transformations regarding our knowledge of our selves, but of our genetic makeup and identity, and of our material possibilities. These issues are summarized and problematized in the idea of the transhuman or posthuman. Is this something that you could somehow recognize in your work, or am I going in the wrong direction regarding your artistic intentions in this series?

JB - I don’t know if it’s directly that deep in its intentions. I think there are some artists out there who are really pushing the boundaries of science through transgenic experimentation as art projects etc. They seem to be the big stars of the modern biennials, etc. I do think that my work reflects the new paradigm I talked out however in theory and practice. I’ll direct you to my artist statement where I talk about the “missing link” actually being something more elusive and ephemeral than something that will be found in a fossil record. Mapping human genome was one grail quest, but it hasn’t necessarily gotten us closer to the “emotional” or “thought” link that we might share with related species. If there’s one thing that I believe about juxtaposing humans (naked apes) with primates (hairy humans), it’s that they have as much claim to our common ancestry as we do, and in fact “they descended from us” as much as we “descended from them.” That point is moot anyway, but people still continue to espouse this belief system, that it is all somehow linear. We are different branches of the same tree, and not one descended from another. The operative word here is SAME-we are from the same tree, so then one could say we literally have the same parent. When seen that way, it changes my perception about these creatures (the non-human primates), and makes them less of the “other” and more “us.”…thus the term “genus”

John Bavaro - iPhone paintings/ Primates series

MGL- I agree that our relationship to animals is indeed a very complex and multidimensional subject requiring a complex conceptual approach. The French philosopher Michel Serres, for instance, speaks about a constant process of bifurcation, one that not simply occurred in the past but keeps occurring in the present, the emergence from animality is what defines us historically, and at same time a process never to be “finalized”. Man, we can say, is the incomplete animal. And animals are therefore both in our past and in our future. Now, returning to painting: portraiture appears to be a central theme or subject in your work. How do you approach the task or challenge of portraiture, if indeed these faces and bodies are meant, as they appear to be, to represent individuals? How do you relate to your models? Who are your models? Are you also, when painting animals, describing individuals? Can we speak also of “animal portraiture” in your work, if something like that makes any sense to an artist (the knowledge of individual animals may make sense to a specialist on animal behavior, for instance)? So, the question is also how do you relate to your animal “models”?

JB - Ironically, I’ve always approached portraiture with a little skepticism. In some respects, it seems like a default practice for an artist who has no ideas. Ouch! I know that’s pretty harsh, but the times that I’ve gone into it full bore have been the times when I seemed to be lacking a conceptual direction, but really needed to keep working. In truth, I don’t really believe that it reflects a lack of ideas, any artist can make alchemy out of what he/she decides to do, if he is reflective and truly honest about why he sought something out. I like to portray humans (and non-humans) gazing directly at me (when possible), meeting my eyes, and reflecting my own thoughts about them back at them. For non-humans, to lock eyes is a confrontational act, a call to war so to speak. For us, it can be a call to mate, a call to share, or a call to fight…depending on the intention of it, but it really is an important way that we communicate with each other. I think that artists have the ability to interpret things that science cannot. Science sees things empirically, and relies on testable hypothesis. Art is the antithesis of this. Art relies on the “spiritual” or “emotional,” and what an artist portrays, if it works aesthetically should work on some sublime level that causes a viewer to recognize a “truth” in it, whether that exists or not. I can’t even pretend to have the knowledge of animal behavior that a zoologist would have, but I have been an observer of zoo animals. I’m struck by how I almost recognize something human about them, but that’s also an anthropomorphic projection. I hope that my art about humans and non-humans might cause people to contemplate the aesthetics of the subjects, and if I’ve done it well, then MAYBE some kind of truth will emerge from it .

MGL - What is the iAMDA (The International Association of Mobile Digital Artists)?

JB - iAMDA is a really exciting venture. It’s the brainchild of six other artists and me, and it’s an international group devoted to promotion of artists who work with the “mobile media,” which is any kind of work done on iPhones, iPads, iPods, Droids, etc. We even have some artists in the group who have done work on the Nintendo DS and the Wii. It represents a truly international group, with members in 15 countries, and we just had our inaugural conference at NYU’s Tisch ITP last week. I think I might save some time here by directing you to last week’s Macworld article, because it tells all the details of what I would like to communicate about it. If there’s any larger point about it, however, it’s that this medium is not a fad. With the launch of the iPad, artists are seeing the potential for a competitor to the Wacom tablet and other high end, professional hardware and software. It’s an amazing time, and the medium is getting more and more publicity, and gaining a larger reputation daily.

John Bavaro - iPhone paintings/ Alyssa Fayum

MGL - What can you tell us about the projects of the Bruce Gallery Press?

JB - Bruce Gallery Press is a small press that I established here at school to publish catalogues for artists who we show here at Edinboro University. We aren’t a for-profit press, and we do the best with what we have, employing student designers to do layouts, and local printers to actually make the project. It’s a labor of love, and small in scope, but we’ve been able to produce some high quality catalogues especially for regional artists in Northwestern Pennsylvania.

MGL – What can you tell us about your current and future projects?

JB - I’m most excited about another iPhone/iPad project called the iPhone/iPad Fayum Portraits. In this body of work, I’m “re-creating” versions of the famous Fayum mummy portraits, from Roman Egypt by repainting iPhone portraits of friends, family, fellow artists etc and then placing “skins” of them over weathered wood with beeswax and gold leaf embellishments.

The original portraits represent the oldest surviving examples of encaustic portrait painting. They were realistically painted to be stand-in effigies for the deceased, and placed over their mummies as faceplates so that they might be recognized by Osiris and ushered correctly into the afterlife.

In my modern versions are small pieces like the originals (roughly 12” x 7”), but I make them distinctly modern by covering them with a glossy resin. If I really wanted to re-create them, then I would do them in encaustic medium, but I want them to be something “other” and rendering the images on the iPhone is important to the concept because it reflects an ancient form done on the most current medium. If you’ll direct your readers to the process of making the portraits, I would appreciate it. The video is at Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNsjktZSjds

links:
John Bavaro
John Bavaro at AUD, November 1-28, 2010
iAMDA

John Bavaro: iPhone Variations (GENUS Series) at Rotunda Gallery, AUD

2010-11-01T15:14:00.010+04:00

John Bavaro
iPhone Variations (GENUS Series)
Rotunda Gallery, AUD, Dubai
November 1-28

"I bought an iPhone for the reason that most have, and that’s for its multi-functionality and the amazing way that I can consolidate “life” in one small gadget. What I didn’t know however was that this would also expand to include one of the most important aspects of my life, which was my artist practice. When I first began to paint in the “Brushes” app, it seemed like a novelty-like playing a game or just toying around with some new, cool play app. What surprised me, however was the fact that I soon began to do “legitimate art” on it, and I also began to connect with many other artists, worldwide, who were also starting to incorporate it into their regular process. There is indeed “an app for that,” and it seems that art has not escaped its very versatile reach.

Connecting my new iPhone art practice to my regular practice proved to be a very natural extension. I had been going to zoos and photographing apes and monkeys, and then painting their “portraits.” I intuitively saw a connection between their mannerisms, facial expressions, body characteristic and family interactions to those of my own. It’s often said that they look “so human,” and indeed they do, when one sees a mother orangutan, protecting and coddling her clinging newborn, or a father gorilla gently roughhousing with an adolescent son, it’s hard not to apply anthropomorphic values to our perception. But in this case, perhaps anthropomorphism isn’t such a stretch.

The connection between “us” and “them” is more than anecdotal by now- it’s become almost cliché to cite how we are all genetically related through a distant pedigree via DNA similarities, et, al. Science hammers home that point clearly with each new discovery. But it’s a little more conjectural to know what “emotional” similarities we might share.

Perhaps that is where art can go where science cannot. I try to paint the non-human primates and the human primates with the same essential feeling to the way that they are composed, and how their gaze meets ours. To paint a gorilla in a candid moment, in the style of Velazquez or Frans Hals (to name a few), and then to pair it with portrait of humans of different ages causes me to see more deeply into the emotions of each species. There is as much “humanity” in a great ape as there is “wildness” in a human being. And there is mystery in all of us. It’s true that non-human primates are “the other,” but they are also “us” too. Biology and Psychology are beginning to solve puzzles about cognizance, emotion and “intelligence” in non-humans and humans, but artists can take a role in this too. The poetic, interpretive powers of art can look into the soul in a way that a microscope, telescope or brain scan cannot. There are probably “truths” that science can never know, but art, on the other hand, can possibly serve as the missing link."

John Bavaro

Hamadryas Baboon,
iPhone painting by John Bavaro

John Bavaro (Erie, Pennsylvania) is an Associate Professor of Art at Edinboro University where he teaches Painting, Drawing and Design. He received his BA in Literature from Miami University and his MFA (Painting) from the University of Cincinnati. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including shows at the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA, the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage AK and the Carnegie Arts Center, Covington, KY, and been featured in numerous national and international group exhibitions. His series of 100 fish paintings, “The Fish Story Altarpiece,” featuring portraits of caught, or directly observed fish, was purchased by the permanent collection of the Erie Bayfront Convention Center Authority in 2008, and he has continued this modular study of subjects into human and non-human primates.

He is the editor/publisher of Bruce Gallery Press, a subsidiary art press of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (USA), and the director of Edinboro’s Bruce Gallery. Bavaro uses classical references, influenced by artists like Velazquez, Rembrandt and Gainsborough as a framework for his traditional oil painting, but also he has recently brought these influences into his digital work on the Apple iPhone and the iPad.

He's been featured in many national and international iPhone art exhibitions, including a recent iPhone art exhibition "Illuminated Touch" in New York City. He has also created a series of "iPhone/iPad Fayum Portraits," in which he transfers a digital product onto weathered surfaces to emulate the encaustic Fayum mummy portraits from Roman Egypt. His work has been featured in New American Paintings, Dialogue-Voicing the Arts, The Artist’s Magazine, Macworld and two recent national iPhone art catalogues. Bavaro is one of the founding members of iAMDA (The International Association of Mobile Digital Artists).

link: John Bavaro