Dec 30 2007
Archive for December, 2007
Dec 29 2007
Close to the river
Dec 29 2007
Less Travelled
Less Travelled is the road chosen by those who are willing to explore one step further. It refers to less frequented synaptic routes that mediate our new experiences and sensations. To forge new pathways creates original views and new insights. These are the roads less travelled.
To travel is to discover and to exchange, to carry with you, leave behind, to mix, grind and rediscover. Through reflection and confrontation in a completely new environment we may begin to form new views from the outside in and from the inside out. The works presented in this exhibition all respond to this dilemma. Anna Boggon’s poetic reflections in cast glass and resin pieces combine with her periscope-cabinet which opens onto new vertiginous realities. Lu Chunsheng’s 29-minute narrative video The History Of Chemistry leaves us with an unsettling sense of bewilderment. This feeling becomes even stronger in Yue Luping’s Far People Project which deals with personal displacement within constructed and mediated group identities. Lastly, David Cotterrell’s self-replicating portrayal of a projected maximum density urban settlement echoes the actual backdrop of a realised dream.
Less Travelled is the concluding exhibition of the Artist Links China programme, a joint project between Arts Council England and the British Council. Artist Links seeks to nurture a fragile cross-cultural environment between China and Britain through links between contemporary arts practitioners. As a development opportunity for artists, the programme has facilitated early stage development of over 60 artists’ projects in China and in England. These artists are young, emerging and established practitioners. Their work covers theatre, dance, live intervention, new music, sound work, video and other lens based practice, installation, performance, ceramics, curating, digital work and other cross art form practice. Whilst some of the artists have international reputations, all are working very effectively within their own regions and countries.
© Yue Luping
Dec 29 2007
Lynn Davis
© Lynn Davis
“Emin Minaret of Suleiman Mosque, Turpan, China,” 2001
Sepia and selenium toned gelatin silver print
40 x 40 inches
[China #4]
Lynn Davis (American, born 1944) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970. She then trained with Berenice Abbott in New York. Davis had her first exhibition in 1979 at the International Center of Photography (New York) alongside her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe. Her work underwent a dramatic shift after her first trip to Greenland in 1986 when she gave up the representation of the human form for the landscape. Setting herself in the grand tradition of nineteenth century landscape photography, and driven by a quasi encyclopedic desire to record the natural and architectural monuments of the world, Davis has since documented the pyramids of Egypt, the ancient architectural ruins of Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Italy, and of the Middle East (Israel, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Yemen), as well as mythical natural wonders, including the Grand Geyser in Yellowstone and Wave Rock in Australia. Davis’s exploration of the African continent (including Mali, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, and a second look at Egypt) resulted in the solo show Africa held at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson in 1999. Selections of the African images appeared the same year in Wonders of the African World by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 1999 also saw the publication of Davis’s second monograph, the classic Monument, released by Arena Editions.
Davis’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and collected widely. Her work appears in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the J. Paul Getty Museum which held an exhibition of Davis’s prints in 1999. Davis has received several commissions from public and private institutions such as the Lannan Foundation -to work on an American project -, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and the Nature Conservancy -to produce a photographic survey of the High Plateau of Utah.
Davis lives and works in New York.
Dec 29 2007
Tara
The challenge of the polar schooner Tara is to drift on the Arctic pack ice for two years. On her board, scientists take turns to study the effects of the climate warming.
In September 2006, the scientific polar schooner Tara began her Arctic drift which will last for two years. Indeed, her rounded and flat hull enables her to resist to the extreme pressures exerted on her by the pack ice and to be carried through by it.
Led by Etienne Bourgois, the expedition takes place within the International Polar Year (IPA) 2007-2008 and is a major partner of the European scientific programme DAMOCLES. This extensive programme gathers more than 45 laboratories to develop an observation and long term prediction system of the Arctic Ice Sea so as to evaluate and foresee the risks and impacts of climate changes on our environment.
Bringing together science, technology, education and communication, Tara Arctic is a great human adventure of which the aim is to raise the world citizens awareness on the importance of ecological equilibriums.
Dec 29 2007
Delettering the Public Space
Delete!
Delettering the Public Space was a huge public installation that took place on Neubaugasse in Vienna in June 2006. During this two-week period, all signage have been covered by yellow foils and plastic. All signage (barring those needed for safety), company logos, advertising, symbols and pictograms were obscured in order to focus on various aspects to this art project organized by Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf.
Dec 29 2007
Carbon Map
UHC (Ultimate Holding Company) is an inter-disciplinary art collective, based in Manchester in the UK. Founded in 2002, they work collaboratively over multiple media as well as running a not-for-profit workers co-op specialising in graphic design and visual communications for an ethical client list.
Some of their projects:Carbon Map //2006
UHC collaborated with inter disciplinary art collective Platform on a commission for the Transport Planning Society.
Who
Based on research from Platform, UHC created a carbon map of the world showing global locations of oil and gas production, consumption and impact. The large format print will be displayed at the Transport Planning Society’s London headquarters and at events around the UK.
The Transport Planning Society
The Transport Planning Society is a society for the benefit of the community, to facilitate, develop and promote knowledge, understanding and best practice in transport planning.
Luncheon on the Barge
As part of the Futuresonic 2006 festival, UHC took part in a collaborative project with artist Gustaff Iskandar from Bandung, Indonesia.
Who
Gustaff Iskandar, director of the Common Room arts project in Bandung, Indonesia, visited Manchester to stage his ‘Luncheon on the Barge’ project on the Bridgewater Canal.
What
Gustaff came to Manchester in order to collect stories and narratives from the city and to tell stories from his own. He wanted to form a comparative study of Manchester and Bandung, two cities from different continents but both undergoing the effects of neo-liberal governance.
How
UHC introduced Gustaff to Manchester, helping him research his project. An artist from UHC then took part in the ‘Luncheon on the Barge’ with four other participants including a Libyan refugee and a local environmental campaigner. ‘Luncheon on the Barge’ consisted of an exchange of stories between Gustaff and the Mancunian residents and a comparison of the narratives of Manchester and Bandung.
Dec 29 2007
Marianne Müller
STANDING STILL / TRAVELLING SLOWLY (VIDEO) consists of 10 split-screen tapes with a total duration of 19 hours. They are projected floor to ceiling, up to 6×16 meters. Each film is composed of 2 synchronized DVCam tapes, shown side by side. The soundtrack consists of in-camera ambient recordings creating a fake stereo effect and repetitive echoes. The films were shot in 10 different countries all over the world.
Dec 22 2007
Kosovo: nervous breakdown
Avec un taux de chômage de plus de 50%, le Kosovo est miné par la corruption. Sous autorité des Nations Unies depuis 8 ans, la population s’est appauvrie.
A Mitrovica, ville symbole de la division entre les deux communautés, serbes et albanaises, la situation a peu évolué depuis la fin de la guerre.
De nombreuses familles serbes, albanaises et roms déplacées vivent toujours dans des taudis, ne croyant plus aux promesses, ni de leurs politiques, ni de la communauté internationale.
Alors que les serbes, au nord, se sentent toujours assiégés et abandonnés, la population albanaise, en plein désarroi, n’est plus préoccupée que par ses coupures d’électricité et son taux de chômage.
Le sud de Mitrovica semble plongé dans une grande dépression.
Un reportage de Frédéric Sautereau / Oeil Public, à découvrir là +++
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