Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Georgian Pavilion at the 52 Venice Biennale
The Georgian pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition in Venice presents projects and works which appear largely different from each other. It is not only artistic taste and world outlook that distinguishes the featured artists, but also a range of modern and traditional means and media they use in their works. The art of Georgia has always been remarkable for its diversity and originality. Rooted in local traditions, Georgian art has also benefited at different times from foreign styles and movements. Contemporary Georgian art is trying to establish itself on the world map of art. The Georgian artistic community has certainly become much more ‘open’ than it had been in previous decades. Analysis of the past, revision of values, search for and adoption of new forms and media, frequent instances of blind imitation, along with the desire to maintain local values, traditions and aesthetics and build contemporary art on these premises are evident. Contemporary artists respond differently to the social, political and cultural processes unfolding in their country. The works represented at the exhibition are reflective only as part of the creative processes taking place in contemporary Georgian art.
Eteri Chkadua has been living in the US since 1980, when she left Georgia. The artist remains faithful to traditional artistic means, painting her medium and large realistic figures on canvas by using brush and paints in a manner which largely relies on the experience of a generation of earlier artists and which was taught to her at the Georgian Academy of Fine Arts. Eteri Chkadua creates a hybrid of New-York, Jamaican, Miami and Georgian impressions. She portrays a woman’s world as seen by a woman – a multi-layered form with a polished surface beyond which one can read impulsiveness almost bordering with the primitive state. Hallucinatory perception echoes her emotions and impulses.
‘My image of a woman is simultaneously characterized by ethnical, pop-art, tourism and emigrant related elements. It has become universal as I made geography and time vanish’.
The RE-TURN project by Tamara Kvesitadze (co-authors Paata Sanaia and Zura Gugulashvili) is composed of one installation and several mechanical figures. The materials used are fiberglass, metal and mechanisms. The mechanical figures represent the process of transformation in movement, which finds reflection on the surroundings they are placed in. The concept of the work is based on the correlation between the mechanical and organic.
‘Mechanical vs. organic. Organic nature of the mechanical → orderliness of the organic → mechanical nature of the orderliness’.
Sophia Tabatadze portrays the state of a human being with the use of architectural forms. Her interpretation of architecture goes beyond the primary meaning of the word. In her project titled Humancon Undercon, Tabatadze shows human traces in an urban environment that has become thoroughly inhuman. To underline this imbalance, she emphasizes certain details, leaving others uncompleted. She aims to show our inability to perceive things in their totality - a totality that includes space and time. It is this inability that lies behind our present condition of constant amnesia, in which we choose to overlook certain aspects of our collective past.
‘My work draws on the urban environment and the things that happen in it. In order to bring these happenings close to myself I process them through my own body by physically making work about it. By doing so I try to accept my surroundings in the period when their aesthetics and directions do not match with mine’.
10th International Istanbul Biennial
 |  | Not Only Possible But Also Neccesary: Optimism In The Age Of Global War Curator: Hou Hanru September 8 - November 4, 2007 Professional Preview: September 6 - 7, 2007 Press Conference: September 6, 2007 ist.biennial@iksv.org http://www.iksv.org/bienal |
Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, the 10th International Istanbul Biennial will not be a conventional thematic exhibition, rather; it will emphasise artistic production based on collective intelligence and the living process of negotiating with physical sites. The Biennial will focus on urban issues and architectural reality as a means of exposing different cultural contexts and artistic visions regarding the complex and diverse forms of modernity.
More than 100 artists and artist groups from 35 different countries will exhibit more than 150 projects throughout the 10th International Istanbul Biennial.
10th International Istanbul Biennial will explore the venues through titles implying the venues' role in Istanbul's political, economic and social aspects of its modernisation process.
"Burn It or Not?", Atatürk Cultural Centre, Taksim
A leading example of the Republican Period Architecture and a symbol of the Taksim Square, the heart of Istanbul, the AKM Building serves as a major element of the city's cultural and political memory. Obviously, this modernist edifice incarnates the ideological model of Turkey's modernization driven by its republican revolutionary project. However, today it is under the threat of being gentrified by global capitalism's expansion. Through using this building as an important venue for the Biennial with an exhibition focusing on the question of utopia and its fate all around the world; questions of social progress, modernization and democracy, etc. in the current conditions of globalization will be raised and debated.
"World Factory", Istanbul Textile Traders' Market, Unkapani
The Istanbul Textile Traders' Market, buit in the 60s consists of six blocks which accommodate approximately a thousand shops. This intelligently designed vernacular modernist building, explored by its users in an organic and self-organizational manner, shows an interesting and peculiar case of how local economic activities with a modern vision bring a vital element to contribute to the urban evolution. And it's a perfect site for the project "World Factory" that manifests the reality and strategies of the negotiation between developed and developing worlds in terms of different models of production, consumption and economic development in the age of globalization and geopolitical conflicts.
"Entre-polis" and "Dream House", Antrepo no.3, Tophane
Old customs warehouses located on the Bosporus near Tophane were used for the 4th, 8th and 9th Istanbul Biennials. This particular location, function and architectural identity allow a highly complex project to grow from within: two exhibitions will be realized in two overlapping structures. An "Entre-polis", dealing with issues of global trading, migration, border crossing and their impacts on urban life will be constructed in a labyrinth-like street-square-street micro-urban structure. Above this micro-city, there will be a series of high-rise platforms opening only in the evenings. They are "Dream Houses" that welcome people to stay and discover some most unexpected elements of the Biennial, and enjoy Istanbul by night from an unusual angle.
Artist List
Hamra Abbas
Adel Abdessemed
AES+F
Vahram Aghasyan
Buthayna Ali
Allora Calzadilla
Selçuk Artut
Kutlug Ataman
Fikret Atay
Jonathan Barnbrook
Ramazan Bayrakoglu
Justin Bennett
Ege Berensel - Serhat H. Yalçinkaya - Banu Ornat
Ursula Biemann
Bik Van der Pol
Cao Fei
Banu Cennetoglu
Lia Chaia
Paul Chan
Chen Hui-Chiao
Chen Chieh-Jen
Claire Fontaine
Teddy Cruz
Nancy Davenport
Burak Delier
Democracia
Atom Egoyan
Idil Elveris - Zeren Göktan
Extrastruggle
Daniel Faust
Didier Fiuza Faustino
Christoph Fink
Nina Fischer - Maroan El Sani
Vicky Funari - Sergio de la Torre
Bodil Furu - Beate Petersen
Rainer Ganahl
Jean Baptiste Ganne
Gimhongsok
Renée Green
Ivan Grubanov
Ha Za Vu Zu
Erdem Helvac?oglu
Huang Yong Ping
Emre Hüner
Sanja Ivekovic
Eleni Kamma
Kan Xuan
Ömer Ali Kazma
Ian Kiaer
Sora Kim
Taiyo Kimura
Gunilla Klinberg
Aleksander Komarov
Rem Koolhaas/AMO
Markus Krottendorfer
Lee Bul
Minouk Lim
Lu Chunsheng
Cristina Lucas
Ken Lum
MAP Office
Ramón Mateos
Julio Cesar Morales
Multiplicity
Els Opsomer
Ou Ning
Ferhat Özgür
Peng Hung-Chih
Anu Pennanen
Alexandre Périgot
Tadej Pogacar
Julien Prévieux
Radek Community
Michael Rakowitz
Raqs Media Collective
Jewyo Rhii
Porntaweesak Rimsakul
Lordy Rodriguez
Sam Samore
Fernando Sanchez Castillo
Allan Sekula
Taro Shinoda
Sophia Tabatadze
David Ter-Oganyan
Nasan Tur
Katleen Vermeir - Ronny Heiremans
Wong Hoy-Cheong
Xu Zhen
Yan Pei Ming
Yan Lei
Yang Jiechang
Tomoko Yoneda
Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Yushi Uehara / Berlage Institute
Zhou Hao - Ji Jianghong
Zhu Jia
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
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