012 Baku: Azerbaijan gets its first festival of public art

Baku’s absurdly rich cultural history (and relatively welcoming and well-monied upper classes) have made the city an attractive target for the more imperialistic international art institutions. While none of these projects have materialized so far, on February 24,  the nonprofit YARAT! Contemporary Art Space will test the waters with the ambitious “012 Baku Public Art Festival.”

According to a statement sent out yesterday:

The “012 Baku Public Art” Festival will feature the work of twenty-one of the finest emerging and established artists in Azerbaijan. Each has been given the task of creating a visual reinterpretation of a setting that holds significance for them within the city. Working alongside local historians, they have made a detailed study of their chosen location, whether a building, park or balcony. The Festival will launch with a temporary exhibition of the sketches, notes, photographs and films made during this creative process. These materials will be on public display between the 25 February and 1 March 2012 at the “UNS Creative Stage”.

From 9 March 2012 one public art work will be unveiled, every Friday, over twenty one weeks, on the site which inspired their creation. This will allow the work of each artist to be celebrated individually, as though in a solo exhibition, but in fact as part of a city-wide festival. By bringing their work into the public sphere, the artists will gain creative freedom and will achieve a higher level of exposure without the constraints imposed by a gallery or museum.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information about the festival, please contact info@yarat.az or check the festival’s Facebook page.

“What is and What Should Never Be”: Katya Degot reveals the Discussion Program for the Kyiv Biennale

Dan Perjovschi. “Damien,” 2012. Drawing, variable dimensions, variable technique. Courtesy the artist.

We posted earlier about the Kyiv Biennale which will open this May with David Elliot’s project “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art.” Today, the Biennale announced its Discussion Program, which has been assembled by Ekaterina Degot under the title “What Is and What Should Never Be: Art After the End of the World.”

According to a statement sent out through e-flux, the program revolves around the thesis that “Art is quite comfortable with the idea of the end of art. But how can art deal with the end of the world?”

The utopian tradition of the artistic reinvention of society has become a political necessity today. The basic question of the platform and the accompanying publication—”What is and what should never be?”—is addressed not to professional politicians and economists, but rather to artists, philosophers, activists and theoreticians. We expect that the answers to this question will contribute to the process of inventing our postapocalyptic world anew, with a particular focus on the situation of “art after the end of the world.” We are aware of the pivotal role of the institution of contemporary art within neocapitalism—contemporary art with its logic of innovation and postindustrial immaterial practice, with its spirit of resistance (so often defeatist) and its critical attitude (so easy to domesticate).

All events will take place in Kyiv’s Mystetskyi Arsenale (which has also proved “easy to domesticate” – up until recently the Arsenale was the site of livelier projects like the artist-initiated Gogolfest.)

The schedule includes lectures by freelance curator Simon Sheikh (February 29), e-flux founder artist Anton Vidokle (March 23), theorist Franco Berardi (May 7), critic Boris Groys (May 14), and philosopher-sociologist Renata Salecl (May 25.) On April 6-8, the biennale will host a conference with participation from  Zygmunt Bauman, Boris Buden, Ilya Budraitskis, Vasyl Cherepanyn, Sebastian Cichocki, Maria Hlavajova, Aleksandra Jasinska-Kania, Artem Magun, Oleksiy Radynski, Gerald Raunig, Slawomir Sierakowski, and Oksana Timofeeva, to name a few.

For more information and updates, check the site.

Moscow gets a first look at its new Design Museum

Today, ArtPlay (the sprawling industrial complex home to this year’s main project of the Moscow Biennale) will present the city with the “Museum of the Future,” the Moscow Design Museum.

The Museum will exist in two iterations. The permanent collection will reside in a bomb shelter on site at ArtPlay. The second collection will be installed within a specially-outfitted bus, and then driven to neighboring cities outside the capital, with an earnestness that almost seems anachronistic in the internet era (though according to the site, hyper-designed by the Dutch LAVA group,  it’s “AHEAD OF ITS TIME!”)

The telegraph room at the Polytechnical Museum

Considering Moscow’s wealth of marvelous museums (from the Borodinsky Panorama to the Military Museum to the wondrous Museum of the Cosmonauts), it is quite perplexing why Moscow has not had a design museum before (although to be fair, the Soviet juggernaut, the Polytechnical Museum, perhaps eclipsed the need with its anything-goes displays, which are currently getting a very modern facelift.) A recent attempt was made with MOD “The Center of Modern Design and Innovation”, until it was discovered that the space amounted to little more than the foyer to a mini-mall specializing in oriental carpets and interior knickknacks. (The Moscow Times still has footage of MOD‘s innovative first exhibition – Karim Rashid.)

We look forward to learning more about what this new museum can do for Moscow.

 

How to Work Better: New York’s Artists Space takes a look at the role of alternative art spaces

Installation view of Identity, Artists Space, 2011. Photo Daniel Perez.

In a noteworthy extended piece for the Observer, writer Andrew Russeth talks with Stefan Kalmár, the former director of the Kunstverein Munich who since 2009 has served as the director for New York’s alternative art space pioneer, Artists Space.

Russeth uses Artists Space’s plans to extend its program (and its real estate holdings, with a new Soho address in the works) as a jumping point for a discussion on the role of alternative spaces today. Institutions like the Independent Art Fair continue to blur boundaries in how a nonprofit behaves, and, as Kalmár points out, the market’s (albeit often speculative) attention to younger talent means that emerging artists no longer look to nonprofits as their only platform for exhibiting.  In a quote from Russeth’s article:

People still saw Artists Space as a sort of advocacy organization that should promote young artists’ careers, that we should essentially test run artists for the market, and I don’t think that’s what we should do. Our thing is to make a program…

Unlike any other organization, we are the space for artists. But we are not necessarily the space for artists by showing them.

Not everyone agrees with this. Kalmár and crew faced criticism earlier in October, when a misguided branch of the Occupy movement decided to try its luck squatting in one of the few non-profits that has worked steadfastly to secure artists’ rights.

Indeed, Artists Space has a committed partnership with WAGE (Working Artists and the Greater Economy), a group advocating artists’ rights and fair compensation for artists’ work (not just the kind that hangs on the wall, but an entire range of services from artists’ talks to the reproduction of images.)

This winter, WAGE kicked off a series of town-hall style meetings at Artists Space to establish a universal Artists Contract that would ensure artists’ rights are protected within institutions, revisiting earlier examples (like the Art Workers Coalition or, more recently, Andrea Frasier’s “How to Provide an Artistic Service“.)

Fischli&Weiss, "How to Work Better" (1991)

Russeth cites a number of other case studies, including Hunter College’s The Artist Institute, headed up by Anthony Huberman. In particular, Russeth draws from Huberman’s text “Take Care”, which applies the guidelines given in Fischli&Weiss’  ”How to Work Better” (1991) to the world of art institutions.

While these mainstream or commercial structures might take risks with what they show, few take risks with how they work. In most cases, they produce exhibitions, one after the other, and strategically compete for larger audiences and for more widespread recognition. The challenge for a contemporary alternative space or curatorial approach is to behave differently.

Huberman’s resolution is to take care. The Artist Institute splits each year into two seasons, each devoted to one artist. According to its model, the Artist Institute will show only one piece at a time, giving visitors the time to really contemplate and explore the artist’s works. Occasional events will highlight other practices or offer other perspectives. (Last week, curator Beatrix Ruf kicked off the current season with a talk on featured artist Rosemarie Trockel.)

It should be interesting to see how other nonprofits respond (particularly those who do not enjoy the same situation as New York, with its plethora of exhibition spaces and support systems for artists.)

Read the entire article here.

Russia’s National Center for Contemporary Art announces the nominees for the Innovation Prize

Russia’s National Center for Contemporary Art just announced the nominees for the 2011 edition of its Innovation Prize (which made headlines last year over its on-off inclusion of the group Voina.) The Prize is awarded in five categories: Work of Art; Theory, Criticism or Art History; Curatorial Project; Regional Project; and the New Generation Prize for emerging artists.

Nominees for Work of Art include projects by Andrei Kuskin, who was recently featured in Performa’s 33 Fragments of Russian Performance, alongside other relative newcomers MishMash and Kuda Beguyut Sobaki (Where the Dogs Run) as well as Alexander Brodsky and Vitas Stasyunas.

Still from Olga Chernysheva, Trashmen, 2011, featured at Auditorium Moscow

No surprise, nominees for Curatorial Projects are plucked straight from the Moscow Biennale roster: Marina Zvyaginsteva and Yuriy Samodurov’s “South Butovo: Dormitory District”, Katya Degot and David Riff’s Auditorium Moscow: A Sketch for Public Space”, Olesya Turkina’s Necrorealism (whose catalogue is also nominated under the Theory, Criticism and Art History catagory) and Victor Misiano’s “Impossible Community.”  A pleasant addition is Andrei Smirnov’s “Generation Z”, which explores the sound experiments of the 1910-1930′s.

Taus Makhacheva, The Fast and the Furious, 2011

Of course, we always enjoy the New Generation nominees, particularly as we have had the pleasure of working with many of the artists, including Alexey Buldakov (nominated alongside Anastasya Ryabova for the clever video ATTENTIONWHORES) and Valery Shtak, nominated for his Bits of Truth project. Other nominees include Roman Mokrov, Alexander Gronsky, and Taus Makhacheva for her “The Fast and Furious” project, featured in the main project of the Moscow Biennale.

We congratulate all of the nominees and look forward to the exhibition!

“The Ukrainian Body” censored in Kyiv

In the wake of Putin’s statements about the proactive promotion of realism as more effective than censorship, reports of censorship have come pouring in from Moscow’s southern sister Kyiv.

Lada Nakonechnaya, Personal Shield

According to a statement from co-curator Serge Klymko:

On February 10, 2012, President of NaUKMA (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) Sergey Kvita ordered “Ukrainian Body,” an exhibition that explores the problematics of corporality in Ukrainian society, to be closed only three days after its opening. The entrance to the gallery is now locked. Sergey Kvit explained his action with the following reasoning: “It’s not an exhibition, it’s shit.”
The consequence of such an action, which we consider to be an unacceptable act of censorship, against a public space for dialogue neglects important social and political problems and suppresses critical reflection. The exhibition, which was slated to close on February 28, presents works by Ukrainian artists Anatoly Belov, Eugenia Belorusets, Oksana Bryukhovetsky, Alexander Volodarsky, Nikita Kadan, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Liubov Malikov, Lada Nakonechna, Mykola Ridnii , and many others.

We can only hope that such a thoughtless act on the part of the university’s administration was the result of a misunderstanding that can be resolved. We are now petitioning to collect signatures to protest against artistic censorship within the walls of NaUKMA. Please, spread this message within the artistic and intellectual communities.

Nikita Kadan, The Corrupt

Among the works included in the exhibition were a series of drawings, “The Corrupt” by artist Nikita Kadan, who was recently awarded the PinchukArtCentre Prize. The drawings combine anatomical sketches with architectural blueprints.

 

More information about the exhibition is available here. For images from the show, check out the link to Art Ukraine.

We Need to Talk About Jeddah

As we approach the year anniversary of the Arab spring, the question arises: what do we expect to see? What qualifies as “progress”?

Edge of Arabia took a stab at answering, with its homecoming exhibition in Jeddah, candidly titled We Need to Talk. The idea for the cultural initiative sprung from an artist Stephen Stapleton’s 2003 visit to the Al Meftaha Artist Village, in which it became evident that the country lacked the means to promote and integrate Saudi artists into the larger international art world. The first international exhibition launched in London in 2008, and since then, the organization has sent group exhibitions of Saudi and Arab art across the globe, including the first ever pan-Arab presentation at Venice, The Future of a Promise.

We Need to Talk features over 40 artists brought together by co-curators Mohammed Hafiz and Stephen Stapleton. The exhibition is sited in a raw space within the Al Furusya Marina, a magnificent yacht club complex, and the kick-off symposium took place at the nearby university.

For more information, check out this review of the weekend by Baibakov Art Projects’ founder and chief curator, Maria Baibakova, who manages to capture the entire experience – from the various visa hurdles to seating at the symposium to learning the value of saying one’s name. In particular she takes a hard look at the position of female artists like Manal al-Dowayan and what happens when the air kisses of the international art world clash with local customs.

Read it online here, at Art Asia Pacific.

At the "We Need to Talk" opening. Photo by Maria Baibakova.