Aktuelles

ifa-Ausstellungsreihe zu zeitgenössischer Fotografie aus Deutschland beginnt mit Positionen von Viktoria Binschtok und Michael Schäfer im Heidelberger Kunstverein

18. 6. – 28. 8. 2016, Heidelberger Kunstverein

Hauptstraße 97, 69117 Heidelberg

Wir leben im Zeitalter der Bilder: Fotografien dominieren Nachrichten- und Informationskanäle, kommen immer öfter aus der Handykamera und verbreiten sich schneeballartig im Netz. Als Auftakt zu der neuen Ausstellungsreihe with/against the flow stellt das ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) in einer Doppelausstellung im Heidelberger Kunstverein Arbeiten von Viktoria Binschtok und Michael Schäfer vor, die solche Medienbilder aufgreifen.

Viktoria Binschtok (*1972 in Moskau) und Michael Schäfer (*1964 in Sigmaringen) verarbeiten Bilder aus den Medien weiter und reflektieren deren Funktionsweisen und angelegte Rezeptionsstrukturen. Durch diese Eingriffe wird die vorgefertigte Wirklichkeit der Medien sichtbar. Gleichzeitig untersuchen beide Künstler die sich anbahnende Autonomie von Bildern durch digitale Algorithmen. Mit dieser Arbeitsweise stehen Viktoria Binschtok und Michael Schäfer in der Tradition des künstlerischen Interesses an den Massenmedien der 1970er Jahre und repräsentieren eine jüngere Generation von Künstlern, die das Fotografische und Dokumentarische neu befragen.

Die Auftaktausstellung wird am 17. Juni 2016 um 19 Uhr eröffnet und ist vom 18. Juni bis 28. August 2016 im Heidelberger Kunstverein zu sehen. Im Anschluss geht sie auf eine mehrjährige Welttournee, die im Dezember 2016 im Georgian National Museum beginnt.

Die Ausstellungs- und Publikationsreihe with/against the flow stellt zeitgenössische fotografische Interventionen in den Mittelpunkt. Initiiert wurde die Reihe vom ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), das mit Ausstellungen Einblicke in bildende Kunst, Fotografie und Film, Design und Architektur des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts gibt. Kuratiert wird with/against the flow von Florian Ebner, Leiter der Fotografischen Sammlung im Museum Folkwang, Essen, und Christin Müller, freie Kuratorin und Autorin, Leipzig.

Weitere Informationen zur Ausstellung finden Sie auf der ifa-Website.
Pressebilder zur Ausstellung sind online abrufbar.

Pressegespräch mit Kuratoren, Künstler und Künstlerin
17. Juni 2016, 11 Uhr

Eröffnung
17. Juni 2016, 19 Uhr

Über das ifa
Das ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) engagiert sich weltweit für ein friedliches und bereicherndes Zusammenleben von Menschen und Kulturen. Es fördert den Kunst- und Kulturaustausch in Ausstellungs-, Dialog- und Konferenzprogrammen. Als Kompetenzzentrum der Auswärtigen Kultur- und Bildungspolitik vernetzt es Zivilgesellschaft, kulturelle Praxis, Kunst, Medien und Wissenschaft. Es initiiert, moderiert und dokumentiert Diskussionen zu internationalen Kulturbeziehungen.
Das ifa ist weltweit vernetzt und setzt auf langfristige, partnerschaftliche Zusammenarbeit. Es wird gefördert vom Auswärtigen Amt, dem Land Baden-Württemberg und der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart.

Peggy Buth, Charlotte Dualé, Harun Farocki, Abrie Fourie, Anne Hardy, Inga Kerber, Philipp König, Susanne Kriemann, Michael Part, Josephine Pryde, Clunie Reid, Max Schaffer, Dirk Stewen, Una Szeemann & Bohdan Stehlik, Toilet Paper Magazine, Tris Vonna-Michell, Lidwien van de Ven

Landesgalerie Linz, 25. 5. – 21. 8. 2016
Museumstr. 14, 4010 Linz

The Kunstverein in Hamburg shows the exhibition 6 x 6 questions about the future of photography at the Landesgalerie Linz. The show, curated by Bettina Steinbrügge and Amelie Zadeh, was opened in 2015 with the Triennial of Photography at the Kunstverein and focuses on the relevance of the photographic medium within contemporary visual discourses. In six chapters various potential spaces are shown to check and reformulate one’s own thoughts about photography.

Curators: Bettina Steinbrügge, Amelie Zadeh
Exhibition architecture: Studio Miessen, Berlin

Am 10. Mai gingen die 62. Internationalen Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen mit einem Besucherrekord von über 20.000 Eintritten zu Ende. Bei der Preisverleihung im Oberhausener Lichtburg Filmpalast wurden insgesamt 17 Preise verliehen. Der Hauptpreis des Festivals, der Große Preis der Stadt Oberhausen im Internationalen Wettbewerb, ging in die Schweiz an die Regisseurin Louise Carrin für Venusia, eine Studie der Beziehung zwischen der Inhaberin eines Luxusbordells und ihrer einzigen Freundin, einer ebenso unberechenbaren wie untalentierten Prostituierten. „Ein Film, der durch einfache Mittel in einem einzigen Raum ein ganzes Universum schafft“, schrieb die Internationale Jury in ihrer Begründung. Berlinale-Preisträger Lav Diaz gewann für seinen Kurzfilm Ang araw bago an wakas (The Day before the End) den Hauptpreis der Internationalen Jury.

Der Hauptpreis im Deutschen Wettbewerbs ging ebenfalls an eine Regisseurin, Vika Kirchenbauer für SHE WHOSE BLOOD IS CLOTTING IN MY UNDERWEAR, ein technisch verfremdeter und abstrahierter Blick auf Intimität und Körperlichkeit. Ein Film, „der die Gewalt der Lust nicht einfach vorführt, sondern gerade in der experimentellen Verfremdung förmlich auf das Publikum überträgt“, so die Begründung der Jury.

Die Preisträger des 18. MuVi-Preises für das beste deutsche Musikvideo wurden bereits am Samstag, 7. Mai 2016, ausgezeichnet.

Zu den beliebtesten Sektionen gehörte das Themenprogramm „El pueblo“ mit sechs von acht ausverkauften Vorstellungen. Zum ersten Mal zeigten die Kurzfilmtage begleitend zu den Filmprogrammen eine Kunstausstellung, „Josef Dabernig & Sun Xun“, die mit über 750 Besuchern an fünf Tagen ebenfalls erfolgreich abschloss und zu der sehr positiven Besucherbilanz beitrug.

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Preise des Internationalen Wettbewerbs und der Internationalen Jury

Mitglieder der Internationalen Jury:
Andrés Denegri (Argentinien), Stella Händler (Schweiz), Marta Kuzma (Schweden), Joanna Raczyńska (USA), Mika Taanila (Finnland)

Großer Preis der Stadt Oberhausen
dotiert mit 8.000 Euro

Venusia
Louise Carrin
Schweiz 2015, 34 Min. 11 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Ein Film, der durch einfache Mittel in einem einzigen Raum ein ganzes Universum schafft. Ein statisches Doppelporträt entfaltet sich zu einer dynamischen Landschaft der menschlichen Verfassung.

Hauptpreis
dotiert mit 4.000 Euro

Ang araw bago ang wakas
(The day before the end)
Lav Diaz
Philippinen 2015, 16 Min. 18 Sek., DCP, s/w

Begründung:
Der Hauptpreis geht an eine Arbeit von politischer Dringlichkeit. In anderen Kontexten kanonische Texte erreichen uns in drängender Umgangssprache, als Ort der letzten Zuflucht.

e-flux-Preis
dotiert mit 3.000 Euro
Für eine herausragende Film- oder Videoarbeit, die eine neue Form für das poetische und elektrische Potenzial des bewegten Bildes im Zeitalter globaler Informationsflüsse findet.

Mains Propres
(Washed Hands)
Louise Botkay
Brasilien 2015, 8 Min. 33 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Ein formal einfacher, aber komplexer Film über das Filmen und Gefilmtwerden, der einen sehr verstörenden Effekt hat. Diese Arbeit bezieht ihre Kraft aus einem der grundlegenden Instrumente des Kinos: dem Bildrahmen.

Lobende Erwähnungen

Centre of the Cyclone
Heather Trawick
Kanada/USA 2015, 18 Min. 20 Sek., 16 mm, Farbe

20 July.2015
Deimantas Narkevičius
Litauen 2016, 15 Min. 8 Sek., 3D DCP, Farbe

Jury des Ministeriums für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen

1. Preis
dotiert mit 5.000 Euro

Mitglieder der Jury:
Peter Braatz (Ljubljana), Christiane Heuwinkel (Wolfsburg/Bielefeld), Maike Mia Höhne (Berlin/Hamburg), Markus Lenz (Köln), Ulrike Sprenger (Konstanz)

489 Years
Hayoun Kwon
Frankreich 2016, 11 Min. 17 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Der Film 489 Years betritt die demilitarisierte Zone zwischen Nord- und Südkorea und führt den Zuschauer in einen Wald des Lebens und des Todes zugleich. Begleitet von authentischer Erinnerung eines Grenzsoldaten öffnet der Film mittels fantastisch realisierter Bilder den Blick auf eine wahre, jedoch verborgene Realität unserer Welt. Sowohl von der Grausamkeit als auch von der Schönheit dieses tödlichen Märchenwaldes hören und ahnen wir mehr als wir sehen. Dennoch macht der Film das Gefühl existentieller Ohnmacht und Angst in einem ständig verminten Raum körperlich greifbar. Die Perfektion in der Wiedergabe dieses Raumes wird durch die Vision der Zerstörung des Grenzgebietes noch überhöht. Falls Waffen Waffen zerstören und nicht Menschen, löst sich die Angst in Hoffnung. Ein Film von großer Tiefe, brillanter Schönheit und gesellschaftlicher Bedeutung. Für heute und erst recht für morgen.

2. Preis
dotiert mit 3.000 Euro

If It Was
Laure Prouvost
Großbritannien 2015, 8 Min. 52 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Den heiligen Hallen der Kunst assoziiert die Filmemacherin eine durchweg vom Ort selbst und seiner Geschichte inspirierte Utopie. In ihrem Film If It Was setzt sie der Realität des geschichtlich hochbrisanten Hauses der Kunst in München mit seiner nationalsozialistischen Überwältigungsarchitektur ein ebenso verrücktes wie witziges, sinnliches und durchaus weibliches Musée imaginaire entgegen. Ein von visuellen und thematischen Ideen überbordender Film, der uns hoffen lässt, dieses Museum der Träume einmal betreten zu dürfen.

Preis der Internationalen Filmkritik (FIPRESCI-Preis)

Mitglieder der Jury:
Peter Kremski (Deutschland), Tina Poglajen (Slowenien), Shy K. Segev (Israel)

If It Was
Laure Prouvost
Großbritannien 2015, 8 Min. 52 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Die FIPRESCI-Jury verleiht den Internationalen Kritikerpreis an den britischen Film If It Was von Laure Prouvost für die beeindruckende kinematographische Adaption einer gegenwärtig populären Gestaltungsweise im Internet für die große Leinwand, wobei er diese vergleichsweise profane Gestaltungsweise ins Poetische überhöht und mit einer in die Tiefe gehenden essayistischen Reflexion über die Freiheit der Kunst verbindet. In einem gewagten Spiel mit Bildern und Sprache und mit einem verführerischen subversiven Charme zeigt Laure Prouvosts multi-medial inspirierter Film in ästhetisch komplexer Weise auf, dass Kunst keine Grenzen kennt. Mit unverkennbar eigenem Stil und einer erstaunlichen Leichthändigkeit gelingt es Laure Prouvost dabei, das Publikum intellektuell und emotional für sich zu gewinnen.

Preis der Ökumenischen Jury
dotiert mit 1.500 Euro

Mitglieder der Jury:
Christian Murer (Schweiz), Dagmar Petrick (Deutschland), Thomas Schüpbach (Schweiz), Eberhard Streier (Deutschland)

489 Years
Hayoun Kwon
Frankreich 2016, 11 Min. 17 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
In seinen Erinnerungen nimmt uns ein Soldat mit auf eine Exkursion in das demilitarisierte Grenzgebiet zwischen Süd- und Nordkorea. Aus seiner Perspektive erleben wir in fesselnden computeranimierten Bildfolgen den gefährlichen Weg durch ein vermintes Paradies. Hier liegen Schönheit und Schrecken nahe beieinander, was uns die Ambivalenz äußerer sowie innerer Grenzen neu bewusst werden lässt.

ZONTA-Preis
dotiert mit 1.000 Euro
für eine Filmemacherin aus dem Internationalen oder Deutschen Wettbewerb

Eleganssi
(Elegance)
Virpi Suutari, Finnland 2015, 25 Min. 42 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Die Filmemacherin portraitiert eine geschlossene Gesellschaft von Männern mit alten Traditionen, raffinierten Gebräuchen und strengen Wertvorstellungen. Die Eleganz des Films erlaubt ungesehene Einblicke in die patriarchale Welt der Wirtschaftselite.

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Preise des Deutschen Wettbewerbs

Mitglieder der Jury des Deutschen Wettbewerbs:
Athanasios Karanikolas (Berlin), Doris Kuhn (München), Florian Keller (Winterthur)

Preis für den besten Beitrag des Deutschen Wettbewerbs
dotiert mit 5.000 Euro

SHE WHOSE BLOOD IS CLOTTING IN MY UNDERWEAR
Vika Kirchenbauer
Deutschland 2016, 3 Min. 24 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Dieser Film ist laut und intim. Er ist brutal und zärtlich. Ein theoretisch durchdachtes, ungemein sinnliches Konzeptvideo. Wir zeichnen einen Film aus, der die Gewalt der Lust nicht einfach vorführt, sondern gerade in der experimentellen Verfremdung förmlich auf  das Publikum überträgt – eine Auseinandersetzung über Identität, die uns ganz unmittelbar in ihrer Körperlichkeit getroffen hat.

3sat-Förderpreis
dotiert mit 2.500 Euro, für einen Beitrag, der sich durch eine neue Sichtweise auszeichnet.
Der Preis umfasst darüber hinaus das Angebot, den ausgezeichneten Beitrag zu erwerben und im 3sat-Programm zu präsentieren.

Telefon Santrali
Sarah Drath
Deutschland 2016, 7 Min. 38 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Ein Raum, der wie eine Schaltstelle funktioniert: zwischen früher und jetzt, zwischen Fortschritt und Rückschritt. Wir zeichnen einen Film aus, der mit sparsamen Mitteln glamouröse Bilder schafft. Und eine Regisseurin, die das ihr fremde Land nicht aus einer bequemen Außensicht beleuchtet, sondern aus seiner Geschichte. Frei von Exotismus, doppelbödig im politischen Kommentar. Und sogar das Internet schaut für einen Witz vorbei.

Lobende Erwähnung

Sites
Volker Schreiner
Deutschland 2015, 8 Min. 26 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Ein toller Film, weil er uns zeigt, dass man die Orientierung im Dunkeln finden kann, in Kunst und Natur und zwischen verrutschten Perspektiven. Selbst wenn er vorbei ist, hat er noch eine Überraschung parat: Er besteht aus Found Footage.

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Preise des NRW-Wettbewerbs

Mitglieder der Jury:
Florian Deterding (Düsseldorf), Sylke Gottlebe (Dresden), Andreas Heidenreich (Darmstadt)

Preis für den besten Beitrag des NRW-Wettbewerbs
dotiert mit 1.000 Euro, gestiftet von der NRW.Bank

Ocean Hill Drive
Miriam Gossing, Lina Sieckmann
Deutschland 2016, 20 Min. 49 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Atmosphärisch dicht entwickelt der Film einen Sog, der die Spannung zwischen Surrealistischem und Dokumentarischem hält. Die Filmemacherinnen vertrauen dabei der Aussagekraft ihrer Bilder, die eine feinsinnige Verbindung mit der Tonebene eingehen. Beeindruckt von der Konsequenz, mit der Miriam Gossing und Lina Sieckmann ihre künstlerische Handschrift weiterentwickelt haben, vergibt die Jury den Preis für den besten Beitrag im NRW-Wettbewerb an den Film Ocean Hill Drive.

Förderpreis des NRW-Wettbewerbs
dotiert mit 500 Euro, gestiftet von der NRW.Bank

Das Leben ist hart
Simon Schnellmann
Deutschland 2015, 3 Min., DCP, s/w

Begründung:
Kein Strich zu viel, keine Pointe zu wenig – minimalistisch, konzentriert und voller Ideenreichtum inszeniert der Filmemacher auf den Punkt.

Preis der West ART-Zuschauerjury
dotiert mit 750 Euro, gestiftet von West ART

Ein Aus Weg
Simon Steinhorst, Hannah Lotte Stragholz
Deutschland 2016, 19 Min. 57 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Er langweilt nie. Er ist spannend. Er ist lebensnah. Er ist echt. Und er ist vielfältig in seinen filmischen Mitteln. Damit erfüllt er alle Ansprüche, die wir an einen Film legen, damit er uns fesselt und hineinzieht und abtauchen lässt in eine uns unbekannte, neue Welt.
Der animierte Dokumentarfilm Ein Aus Weg von Simon Steinhorst und Hannah Lotte Stragholz bringt uns in 20 Minuten den jungen Inhaftierten Alex K. ganz nah, der sich in Interviews den Fragen des Autoren und Seelsorgers Max Prosts über den Sinn des Lebens stellt. Wir hören gebannt seinen Erzählungen zu – über ein kleinkriminelles Leben zwischen Strafgefangenschaft und Freiheit, zwischen gesellschaftlicher Normalität und Diebstahl, Liebe und Drogen. Während Alex K. dezent hoffnungsvoll in die Zukunft blickt, berichtet der um Dialog bemühte Kriminalhauptkommissar Werner B. nüchtern über die Justiz in Deutschland und seinen polizeilichen Alltag. Seine Prognose für Alex’ Zukunft: In spätestens neun Monaten wird er wieder straffällig. Darauf wettet er ein Eis.
Von Hand animierte, farbige Bilder, Montage, Sounddesign, Musik, Drehbuch und die authentische Geschichte des Alex K. – wir, die West ART-Zuschauerjury, loben die stimmige, gelungene und fesselnde Komposition der unterschiedlichen Spielebenen und freuen uns, dass Kriminalhauptkommissar Werner B. seine Wette mittlerweile verloren hat.

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Preise des 39. Internationalen Kinder- und Jugendfilmwettbewerbs

Preis der Kinderjury
dotiert mit 1.000 Euro, gestiftet Peugeot BECKERfrance

Mitglieder der Jury:
Aleyna Aydin, Allan Burfeind, Emre Gökoglu, Nailany Weimer, Henrike Wilhelm

Hugo Bumfeldt
Éva Katinka Bognár
Ungarn 2015, 12 Min. 02 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Zu entscheiden, wer den Preis des 39. internationalen Kinderfilmwettbewerbs bekommt, fiel uns zwar schwer – aber doch waren wir von einem Film von Anfang an überzeugt. Er erzählt von Freundschaft, Heimweh und Trauer. Und von Aliens, die Taucher statt Goldfische hüten. Die Figuren sind bunt und ungewöhnlich, die Geschichte spannend, witzig und berührend zugleich, auch Ton und Musik werden super eingesetzt. Außerdem denkt man durch den Film darüber nach, wie man mit anderen Lebewesen umgeht.

evo-Förderpreis der Kinderjury
dotiert mit 1.000 Euro, gestiftet von der Energieversorgung Oberhausen AG (evo)

Novembre
Marjolaine Perreten
Frankreich/Schweiz 2015, 4 Min., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Den EVO-Förderpreis vergeben wir an einen Film, der bestimmt jedem Zuschauer ein kleines oder größeres Lächeln ins Gesicht zaubert. Er ist schlicht, aber sehr schön animiert. Die Farben und Formen machen eine ganz besondere Stimmung, die grauen Himmel und Regen so wirken lassen, als ginge er ja doch wieder vorbei. Und das stimmt ja auch – und bis dahin muss man sich gegenseitig helfen und die dicken Tropfen nicht so schwer nehmen.

Lobende Erwähnung der Kinderjury

Boy-Razor
Peter Pontikis
Schweden 2015, 11 Min. 27 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Die lobende Erwähnung sprechen wir einem Film aus, der uns von der ersten Sekunde an gefesselt hat. Die spannende Geschichte und die jungen Schauspieler sind einfach toll. Besonderen Spaß haben uns die Farben und die actionreiche Kameraführung gemacht. Auch wenn es am Ende alles gut geht, zeigt dieser Film, dass wütende Entscheidungen aus dem Bauch heraus selten die sind, die sich gut anfühlen.

Preis der Gastjury des Internationalen Kinderfilmfestivals Filem’on, Brüssel

Bounce
D.C. Barclay/Rory Lowe
Großbritannien 2015, 10 Min. 19 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Preis der Jugendjury
dotiert mit 1.000 Euro, gestiftet vom Rotary Club Oberhausen

Mitglieder der Jury:
Maria Eduarda Barbosa, Natalie Mengede, Finn Rubin, Anne Schulzki, Nasstassja Twumasi

Viaduc
Patrice Laliberté
Kanada 2015, 18 Min. 48 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Der Preis des internationalen Jugendfilmwettbewerbs geht an einen Film, der gleichermaßen spannend und tiefgründig ist. Der Einsatz der Musik sowie die Kameraarbeit haben uns beeindruckt, da sie packende Szenen zu echten Höhepunkten steigern. Der Film regt dazu an, hinter die Fassade von Handlungen und Haltungen zu blicken und Vorverurteilungen zu hinterfragen. Besonders hervorheben wollen wir die Bandbreite an Themen, die der Film aufgreift: Familie und Verlust, Sprachlosigkeit. Jeder Bruch kann als Möglichkeit verstanden werden eine Brücke zu schlagen scheint eine der Botschaften zu sein. Intime familiäre Beziehungen werden in Kontext gesetzt zu politischen Aspekten wie Krieg und Patriotismus.

Lobende Erwähnung der Jugendjury

Pieniä kömpelöitä hellyydenosoituksia
(Clumsy Little Acts of Tenderness)
Mila Tervo
Finnland 2015, 8 Min. 56 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Die lobende Erwähnung des internationalen Jugendfilmwettbewerbs wollen wir einem Film aussprechen, der uns mit seinem Charme und Witz überzeugt hat. Peinlichkeiten und Missverständnisse, die in einer Tochter-Vater-Beziehung vorkommen, werden mit einer solchen Ironie und Überspitzung dargestellt, dass sie alle Altersklassen in den Bann ziehen, ohne den Ernst dieses Geschlechter- und Generationenverhältnisses zu vernachlässigen.

Prädikat der Ökumenischen Jury für einen Film im Internationalen Kinder- und Jugendfilmwettbewerb
verbunden mit der Empfehlung an Matthias Film und das Katholische Filmwerk, diesen Film für ihre Filmarbeit anzukaufen

Viaduc
Patrice Laliberté
Kanada 2015, 18 Min. 48 Sek., DCP, Farbe

Begründung:
Der 17jährige Mathieu unternimmt eines nachts eine waghalsige Aktion, um ein Graffiti an eine Autobahnbrücke zu sprayen. Erst am Schluss eines spannungsgeladenen Films, der auf vielfältige Art und Weise Lebenswelten von Jugendlichen aufzeigt, erschließt sich die Motivation seines Handelns. Dadurch regt Viaduc an, eigene Vorurteile und oberflächliche Betrachtungsweisen zu hinterfragen.

Wiener Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna

Apri 22 – June 19 2016

Photography, drawing, and writing (texts) are the preferred genres of the Austrian artist Gerald Domenig, who lives in Frankfurt am Main. He has worked in these media since the 1970s, building a sizable oeuvre distinguished by formal consistency and thematic openness. In Domenig’s work, drawing and photography figure as two registers that serve diametrically opposed purposes with regard to a construction of reality. His drawings are intended as drafts or preliminary sketches for photographs: his work with the pencil may be conceived as a tentative exploration of the world. By contrast, the photographs—most of them are black-and-white—are not just snapshots capturing moments; aiming at more than a rendition of reality, they are always self-contained images of a situation, a place. Domenig, who uses an analog camera, develops the films by hand, and makes his own prints, sees photography as a technique of visual construction, of the transformation of space into surface and the resolution of what was before the camera’s lens into a pictorial creation. “When I make photographs, I want to translate an image hidden in the three-dimensional world, a latent flatness, into a concrete picture,” Domenig says.

Recurrent motifs (though his true “motif” is photography itself) include coats, trousers, houses, cars—everyday things, found objects, like the pair of gloves a child must have lost in the street. What he finds in small things he then recreates in his studio, in staged scenes that aim for the greatest possible simplicity and starkness. Unprepossessing façades and corners of houses, weather-beaten walls or ones that show traces of structural alterations: these are of particular interest to the artist—surfaces of non-places in which he discovers painterly details that remind him of works by Sol LeWitt, Mark Rothko, and others. One location where Domenig has taken photographs for many years are the gorges of the Garnitzenklamm in the Gailtal region of southern Austria. In his pictures, the spectacular scenery’s three dimensions collapse into a strange flatness. Domenig likes to highlight formal analogies between his pictures, splicing them along what he calls a “suture” and presenting them on facing pages of a book.

Gerald Domenig’s exhibition at the Secession presents a selection from his photographic and graphic oeuvres, with an emphasis on still lifes and architecture photography; new pictures are juxtaposed with first prints of negatives that have sat in his archive for some time. Ambiguity with regard to form as well as content, an unsettling destabilization of spatial perception that grows out of the picture itself, is characteristic of Domenig’s photographic practice and served as the guiding idea behind the selection of the works on display.

The arrangement in the first room shows an array of architectonic structures and details such as façades and windows. Two series are presented face to face: pictures Domenig took during several stays in Antwerp on the one side, and photographs of the façade of a building slated for demolition in the vicinity of the Secession that he captured during a recent trip to Vienna on the other.

The second room, where Dike Blair’s Drinks, a set of still lifes in small formats, were on view in the previous exhibition, is once again dedicated to still lifes: small-format photographs of bowls in peculiar nested arrangements, broken china, and plastic containers for film reels coiled around tumblers. Here, too, Domenig draws us into a play with unstable perspectives; like Rorschach images, the compositions are hard to pin down.

April 21 – June 25, 2016
Mackey Garage Top
1137 S Cochran Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90019

In its ninth iteration, the MAK Center’s Garage Exchange Vienna-Los Angeles exhibition series brings together former artist-in-residence Karina Nimmerfall and Los Angeles-based artist Morgan Fisher. Looking back at housing and urban planning in the U.S., the two artists revisit two historical moments: the dreams of home ownership via mass-produced, modular houses like those of architect, engineer, and city planner Howard T. Fisher and his company General Houses, Inc. in the 1930s; and, two decades later, the losing battle for a community-based modernism in the form of social housing, represented by the abandoned master plan for Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander’s Elysian Park Heights housing project in Chavez Ravine.

With the installation 1953. Possible Scenarios of a Discontinued Future, Nimmerfall creates a multi-layered investigation into an unrealized social vision for a new modernist utopia—conceived of as a city within a city for a working class population of 17,000—on the site of the displaced communities of La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop. Intended as a prototype for future low-cost housing, the controversial project was met with a highly publicized attack on public housing, where anti-socialist polemic, private developers, real estate lobbyists, and the media all came together not only to dominate public opinion, but also to affect the housing debate on a national level. After years of detailed preparation, the visionary plan for Elysian Park Heights was scrapped in 1953, and replaced by plans for Dodger Stadium, and private enterprise in general. The story of this housing project exemplifies the end, as well as the beginning, of a new era. After World War II, the socially concerned modernism of the left emerged from its own battles with a new corporate aesthetic and a much more ambivalent ideology, giving way to neo-liberal urban development practices.

Beginning with present day footage filmed on location at the former site of Neutra’s progressive, yet later razed, Channel Heights housing project (San Pedro, 1942), Nimmerfall’s short film traces history forward to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Elysian Park, and Dodger Stadium, as well as to Neutra’s own house in Silver Lake, “projecting” the various built architectures into the site once designated for Elysian Park Heights. Inserted into an architectural installation based on abstract fragments of Neutra’s design, the film is accompanied by a fictional narrative with a script assembled from historic quotes taken from a variety of archival sources. Put into dialogue with one another, the quotes formulate a lively discussion, bringing to life the opposing ideas and heated atmosphere at that specific time. Through this overlap of text, film, and installation, Nimmerfall creates a portrait of an actual, yet imaginary, space that offers a range of visions relating to the city’s geographic and cultural past, present, and future.

In conversation with Nimmerfall’s installation, Morgan Fisher’s painting 4 (Silver Gray, Sky Blue, Terra Cotta, Red) displays an enlarged facsimile of a paint chip showing color combinations from the booklet Exterior and Interior Color Beauty, a publication produced around 1935 by General Houses, Inc. Founded in 1932 by the artist’s father, General Houses aimed to design, sell, distribute, and erect low-cost, high-quality prefabricated homes, in an attempt to reinvent the American homebuilding industry. Howard T. Fisher’s idea was to create a system that made it possible to build houses the way General Motors built cars, setting up a business model where production was substituted by coordination and management; different components were made by different companies and assembled on site, a process intended to make houses affordable for everyone. Although General Houses did not succeed in the mass market, it nevertheless represents one of the first attempts in the U.S. to make modern, industrialized houses available to all.

A color consultant was employed to choose the colors found in Exterior and Interior Color Beauty, in order to create combinations that were considered pleasing, and which would harmonize and coordinate with each other. The combinations formulate a sequence that the booklet calls a “color-flow” for an entire house, rationalizing relationships amongst colors in the realm of the decorative. At the root of such rationalization was the imperative to limit choice, to simplify, and to streamline. With Morgan Fisher’s discovery of the booklet and the actual paint chips, along with his strategic desire to make work that escapes the pitfalls of composition, he has created a visual reverberation emanating from industrial production’s intricate and complicated history of standardization.

About the artists

Los Angeles-based artist Morgan Fisher achieved widespread recognition in the early 1970s for his experimental films that deconstructed the language of cinema both as physical material and as a set of production methods and technical procedures. Since the late 1990s, Fisher has focused his attention on the problems and possibilities of painting, by questioning and reframing the subtle conventions of the medium with an equally rigorous self-reflexivity. Recent solo exhibitions were held at the Generali Foundation, Vienna; Aspen Art Museum (2012); Raven Row, London; Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2011); and Portikus, Frankfurt/Main (2009).

Karina Nimmerfall is a Berlin-based, Austrian artist whose projects engage questions of architecture, space, and urban structures, as well as their conditions within cultural systems of representation and various concepts surrounding the construction of reality, memory, and history. Nimmerfall’s work has been presented at Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck (2015); Kunsthaus Graz (2012); Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles (2011); BAWAG Contemporary, Wien; Kasseler Kunstverein (2009); Göteborgs Konsthall and Galerie Stadtpark, Krems; (2008); Bucharest Biennale 3 (2008), and the 8th Havana Biennale (2003).

About Garage Exchange

In order to expand the cultural exchange at the core of the Artists and Architects-in-Residence program, The Austrian Federal Chancellery, and the MAK Center invite Austrian and Vienna-based alumni residents to collaborate with L.A. artists and architects of their choosing at the Garage Top at the Mackey Apartments for the Garage Exchange Vienna-Los Angeles exhibition series.
This exhibition series is made possible by the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

The Austrian artist and filmmaker Oliver Ressler has been selected for the 1st Prix Thun for Art and Ethics Award. This new art prize, endowed with CHF 25,000, aims at promoting artists who support a sustainable world.

The prize in the form of an art project was initiated by the artist George Steinmann who grew up in Thun. The art prize emphasises the relevance of dialogue and cultural sustainability in Steinmann’s work method.

Besides George Steinmann, the expert jury consists of Jürg Neuenschwander, film director and producer, Bern and Paris; Peter Schneemann, professor at the Institute for Art History, Bern; Jean Ziegler, professor and sociologist, Geneva; Helen Hirsch, director of Kunstmuseum Thun and Marianne Flubacher, head of the cultural department of the City of Thun. The jury proposed 12 artists from eight countries and decided on Oliver Ressler to receive the first prize. The prize is endowed with CHF 25,000.

Oliver Ressler (born in 1970 in Knittelfeld, Austria, lives and works in Vienna) is an artist and filmmaker who produces installations, works in the public space and films on topics such as economics, democracy, forms of resistance and social alternatives. His works have been shown in more than 60 solo-exhibitions – among others in the Shedhalle Zurich (2014).

 www.ressler.at

The 1st Prix Thun for Art and Ethics will be officially awarded on 1 September 2016, at 6.30 pm: Konzepthalle 6, Scheibenstrasse 6, 3600 Thun, Switzerland. The event is open to the public.

The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (K*MoPA) invites all young photographers to send us their finest images.
This invitation is not a call to a contest where pieces are judged, then ranked. Rather, it is the Museum’s wish to collect works by young and emerging photographers for its permanent collection. We believe that there is no clearer signal or a more direct means of support for the young photographer than the purchase of their work for a permanent museum collection. This is why the Museum acquires work by those promise to be our future photographic visionaries. The rules and conditions are listed below. We look forward to receiving unique images showcasing the creativity of younger artists in the field of photography.

The 2016 selection committee
CHANG Chao-Tang (Taiwan), Keizo KITAJIMA, and Eikoh HOSOE (Director of the Museum)

Application Period:
April 15 – May 15, 2016

More info

18.3. – 24.6.2016

in the ACADEMYSPACE at Herwarthstraße 3 in Cologne

The PLURIVERSALE is a three-month long series of interdisciplinary events. Find the full program here: www.academycologne.org

A growing awareness of Cologne’s own colonial history provides the point of departure for the exhibition Afrikahafenfest by locally based artists PETER GÜLLENSTERN and JÜRGEN STOLLHANS, whose associative, deliciously paranoid artistic investigation looks at the intertwining of modernization and colonial representation on the Rhine embankment.

Filmmaker and artist PASCALE OBOLO presents her work-in-progress on the uncannily romantic Castle Puttkamer, a former German governor’s residence in Cameroon.

Artist PHILIP METZ joins JOSHUA KWESI AIKINS and CHRISTOPH BIERMANN to discuss his recent work using football to reflect upon surrogate warfare between colonial empires.

The production of knowledge itself is in need of decolonization, as GRADA KILOMBA suggests in her performance lecture, followed by a concert with post-world music band GALA DROP.

What is the outcome of the so-called “refugee crisis?” Where is Europe headed? What will happen after the attacks at Cologne’s Central Station? A new non-hierarchical OPEN FORUM without panelists or keynote speakers tackles these questions and more.

The sexual violence of New Year’s Eve and its implications are the topic of a two-day symposium with NORA AMIN, KÜBRA GÜMÜŞAY, NOAH SOW, ANNE WIZOREK and others.

CHRISTOPHER KIRKLEY shows how he collaborated with a Tuareg guitar hero to produce a crowd-funded remake of Prince’s Purple Rain.

Academy member and composer LIZA LIM premieres her new opera, based on the texts of Polish writer Bruno Schulz.

Is it possible to avert a neo-colonial future of the kind imagined by NATURE THEATER OF OKLAHOMA at the end of PLURIVERSALE IV, when it invites the audience to a participatory filmed performance imagining Cologne in the year 2071, where extraterrestrials who look like humans are imported for their tasty meat? To do that, we need the kind of biting humor offered by FOKN BOIS, whose concert concludes this PLURIVERSALE.

The PLURIVERSALE IV is curated by Ekaterina Degot and David Riff, with assistance from Léa Genoud and Nora Wiedenhöft.

Opening: 11.3. 2016 at 6.00 PM

Exhibition dates: 11.3– 7.5 2016

Venue: tranzit/sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava

Wednesday–Saturday, 2–7 PM

This exhibition argues for a historical perspective on today’s society of exclusion. It makes connections between the workings of institutions such as the prison, the camp and the border wall/fence in managing economic inequality and social conflict through the physical separation of people. Pointing to the concept of containment as a political technique, it draws on Nicholas Mirzoeff’s thesis of an “empire of camps” policing today’s global migration, as well as Giorgio Agamben’s account of the camp as “the hidden paradigm of modernity’s political space.”

After the fall of the Wall and the Iron Curtain a great number of new walls have been erected. They serve to prevent routes of mobility that would threaten the economic divide established by global capitalism. After the end of the Cold War we experienced a proliferation of measures of physical exclusion. There is, of course, not only what can be called external exclusion –the fences erected in central Europe during the so-called refugee crisis being the most recent examples. There are also a number of measures of internal exclusion; think of the walls against Roma communities in Slovakia and other countries, the numerous internment camps and detention centers all over Europe and North Africa, but also the system of mass incarceration (of mainly African Americans) in the United States.

Modernity in Europe has been described as the era of social mobility fostered by capitalism and enlightenment. In the colonies however, the policing of mobility has always been a central task of colonial regimes. For the enslaved and the colonized whose labor generated Europe’s wealth, modernity had a different meaning. In the US, the economic system of slavery was followed by racial segregation and legal discrimination. The forced labor of the enslaved often turned into the convict labor system, based on the criminalization of former slaves. In the colonies, there were clear-cut distinctions between the rights of a citizen and the inferior status of the colonized that physically took shape in urban segregation and strictly controlled mobility. Orlando Patterson’s phrase of slavery as “social death” resounds in Nick Cave’s “civil dead” (his 1988 film being eponym to this exhibition) and in Giorgio Agamben’s notion of “bare life.” They all point to groups stripped bare of their status as citizens or civil subjects – prisoners, “illegal” immigrants, Sans Papiers, deportees, Roma, etc.

The contributions by five contemporary artists as well as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who is present with a series of photographs from the late 1950s, discuss a variety of implementations of late modernity’s camp-wall-fence-prison-complex with a focus on its racial dimension inherited from modernity’s colonial structure. With a series of almost abstract drawings, German artist Christine Meisner’s work refers back to slavery and escape in 19th-century USA. Based on extensive archival research, Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa’s (UK) installation examines the representation of the colonial prison in the British protectorate of Uganda shortly before independence. Bourdieu’s early photographs and excerpts from his writings on forced resettlement in French-ruled Algeria remind us of mass migration’s origins in colonial economies of exploitation. Ethiopian artist Mulugeta Gebrekidan’s video depicting a boat refugee in the setting of shopping malls and tourist places transfers the “iron curtain” of fortress Europe into our very city centers. Translating the tattoos on the bodies of Roma prisoners into engravings, Robert Gabris (SK/A) addresses the prison as an institution of policing social problems. Finally, Juri Schaden’s (A) film contemplates an Austrian detention center against the backdrop of its multilayered conditions determined by issues of economic development and job creation in an area affected by emigration due to structural change. 

Altogether, the artists’ contributions to the exhibition – quite diverse in terms of techniques, media and method – interrogate modes of representing the political production of the civil dead.

http://sk.tranzit.org/en/exhibition/0/2016-03-11/ghosts-of-the-civil-dead

The Hasselblad Foundation is pleased to announce that Canadian artist Stan Douglas is the recipient of the 2016 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for the sum of SEK 1,000,000 (approx. EUR 110,000). The award ceremony takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden on October 17, 2016. The day after, on October 18, an exhibition of Douglas’s work will open at the Hasselblad Center. On the same day, the Hasselblad Foundation will host a symposium with the award winner, and a new book about Stan Douglas will be published by MACK.

The Foundation’s citation regarding the 2016 Hasselblad Award Winner Stan Douglas:

An artist of outstanding significance, Stan Douglas has received international recognition for his powerful photographic art, as well as his work with video and film. His practice reflects carefully and poignantly on the history of photography and film, offering new understandings of the cultural and technological developments of both media. Furthermore, Stan Douglas has an open and highly innovative approach to both analogue and new digital formats. At the heart of his work lies a strong interest and commitment to social issues of race, gender, identity and post-colonial politics, whilst maintaining a valuable self-critical perspective on the role of the artist in contemporary culture.

The 2016 Jury, which submitted its proposal to the Hasselblad Foundation’s Board of Directors, consisted of:

Roxana Marcoci, Chair, Senior Curator of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Elvira Dyangani Ose, Freelance Curator and Lector of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London, London

Florian Ebner, Head of Photography, Museum Folkwang, Essen

Duncan Forbes, Co-Director and Curator, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur

Clare Grafik, Head of Exhibitions, Photographers’ Gallery, London

“Douglas’s engagement with the histories of still and moving images, sociological approach to staged and performative work, and critical attention to the apparatus of photography – in terms of historic styles, processes and vintage equipment, and the most sophisticated digital languages of contemporary technology – are transformational”, notes Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator of Photography at MoMA, New York and Chair of the 2016 Hasselbald Award Jury.

The international photography competition POPCAP is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 fifth anniversary edition. This year’s winners from South Africa, Jersey, England, France and Germany were chosen by an international panel of 20 renowned judges from 900 applications from 94 countries. The award aims to foster interest in and support for contemporary African photography. The winning artists will have their works presented at a series of international exhibitions and are invited to take part in an artists’ residency program.

POPCAP ’16 – THE WINNERS

Nicolas Henry

Born in 1978 in St Denis, France. Lives in les Mesnuls, France

www.nicolashenry.com

Jason Larkin

Born in 1979 in London, England. Lives in London, England

www.jasonlarkin.co.uk

Sabelo Mlangeni

Born in 1980 in Driefontein, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa

Thom Pierce

Born in 1978 in St Helier, Jersey. Lives in Cape Town, South Africa

www.thompierce.com

Julia Runge

Born in 1990 in Berlin, Germany. Lives in Berlin, Germany

www.juliarunge.com

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

POPCAP aims to raise the profile of African photography within the arts and encourage a generally rethinking of the image of Africa. Every year five winners are selected by an internationally-sourced panel of judges, enabling the promotion of African photography worldwide. It is important to us that the judging panel be diverse, as this helps us to avoid geographically and culturally one-sided views of the portfolios. POPCAP is open to artists of any age and descent. Photographic series must consist of a minimum of 10 images, and may not exceed 25 images. There is no entry fee.

THE PRIZE

POPCAP, the piclet.org Prize for Contemporary African Photography, is directed at photographers whose work engages with the African continent and/or its diaspora. The prize consists of global exposure at major international photography exhibitions including POPCAP exhibitions at Image Afrique in Basel, Switzerland, at LagosPhoto Festival in Nigeria, at the FIFCV Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Cabo Verde and at Eyes On – European Month of Photography in Vienna. POPCAP always invites all winning artists to the main exhibition Image Afrique, which is held during Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland. All winners and their respective portfolios are featured in the POPCAP catalog as well as in the piclet.org directory for hand-picked photographers’ portfolios. Each of the five awardees has the chance to participate in an artists’ residency and will be featured by many of our media partners.

In a nutshell: POPCAP is a prize that raises the winners’ international exposure and helps them to build a high-level network for future projects.

Information about how to enter can be found here.

THE PANEL OF JUDGES

The POPCAP panel of judges comprises 20 international experts from the field of photography and is reformed annually.

Shahidul Alam, director, Chobi Mela Photo Festival, Bangladesh

Akinbode Akinbiyi, artist, Berlin, Germany

Vignes Balasingam, director, Obscura Festival, George Town, Malaysia

Joselina Cruz, curator, Museum of Contemporary Art+Design, Manila, Philippines

Calvin Dondo, director, Gwanza Month of Photography, Harare, Zimbabwe

Florian Ebner, curator, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

Steven Evans, executive director, FotoFest, Houston, USA

John Fleetwood, director, PHOTO, Johannesburg, South Africa

Benjamin Füglister, artist and founder of POPCAP, Berlin, Germany

Wassim Ghozlani, director, maison de l’image, Tunis, Tunisia

Yumi Goto, curator, Tokyo, Japan

Michket Krifa, curator, Paris, France

Missla Libsekal, editor in chief, Another Africa, Vancouver, Canada

Jeanne Mercier, publisher, Afrique in Visu, Paris, France

Rixon Reed, founder and director, photo-eye, Santa Fe, USA

Jürg Schneider, historian, Basel, Switzerland

Samuel Sidibe, director, National Art Museum, Bamako, Mali

Jae-hyun Seok, curator and editor, Seoul, Korea

Clara De Tezanos, director, GuatePhoto, Guatemala City, Guatemala

Dana Whabira, curator, Njelele Art Center, Harare, Zimbabwe

ABOUT POPCAP

POPCAP aims to raise the profile of African photography within the arts. Each year five winners are selected by an internationally-sourced panel of judges, enabling the promotion of African photography worldwide. It is important to us that the judging panel be diverse, as this helps us to avoid geographically and culturally one-sided views of the portfolios. Due to its extensive application in a day-to-day context, we consider photography to be the ideal medium through which to foster an unhindered exchange of ideas about the image of Africa.

POPCAP was initiated by Benjamin Füglister in 2012. For the fifth anniversary edition in 2016 we received a total of 900 submissions from artists from 94 countries. 54% of these applicants came from African countries, which is an increase of 7% compared to the previous year. The five prize winners works will be presented at a series of international exhibitions being held in collaboration with major photography festivals.

ORGANISATION

POPCAP is a project organization. The call for entries was initiated by Benjamin Füglister in 2012 in Berlin and the competition has been produced in collaboration with the non-profit association Liaison since 2013. The core team consists of artistic director Benjamin Füglister, administrative director Angela Nyffeler and international relationships manager Paul Geraghty. The team works closely with local partners for each event and is growing with every edition of the competition.

Further information can be found at www.popcap.cc.

February 25, 2016–January 21, 2017

The Kids Want Communism is a joint project of numerous individuals and organizations, which will host its exhibitions, screenings, discussions, seminars and publications in a variety of locations; among them tranzit, Prague, Free/Slow University Warsaw, State of Concept, Athens, Skuc gallery, Ljubljana, Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv and MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam. During the year of 2016, MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam will dedicate its program to this yearly theme.

http://tkwc.tumblr.com/

Opening: February 25, 8–11pm; free and open to the public
MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam
6 Struma Street
Bat Yam, Israel

Featuring: Artikisler, BANKI (Young Communist League of Israel), Keti Chukhrov, Ekaterina Degot, Galit Eilat, Max Epstein, Iliana Fokianaki, Tal Gafny, Jonathan Gold, Alioscha Gozansky, Marina Grzinic, Nir Harel, Raanan Harlap, Micah Hesse, Vit Havranek, Yota Ioannidou, Nikita Kadan, Ohad Meromi, Julia Moritz, New Barbizon (Anna Lukashevsky, Zoya Cherkassky, Olga Kundida, Asia Lukin and Natalia Zourabova), Olaf Nicolai, Ingo Niermann, Tamar Nissim, Oleksiy Radynski, Gilad Reich, Eran Sebbag, Joshua Simon, Kuba Szreder, Kostis Velonis, Vladimir Vidmar, Vangelis Vlahos, Nicole Wermers, Noa Yafe

Spectres are haunting Earth – the spectres of anti-communism. From Wahhabism to neoliberalism, overproduction to debt, the disastrous ‘war on terror’ to the genocide of the welfare state, and from game theory to the internet – these are all anti-communist projects that came back to haunt us. In this apocalyptic climate, where CO2, ISIS and HFT (High Frequency Trading) stand for the self-annihilation of this civilization on a cultural, economic, political and biological level, we propose The Kids Want Communism. This ongoing clandestine and public series of events marks ninety-nine years to the October Revolution.

“Communism” might sound like an irrelevant term for many people today, but more than any other word in our political vocabulary, communism is the radical negation of the current regime which celebrates exploitation and inequality. It is a cosmos that was devoured by the black hole that is 1989-1991. This cosmos includes many communisms; an epic reestablishment of property-free communities, communal indigenous societies, real-existing socialism with its achievements and crimes, the long history of anti-Fascist resistance, egalitarian mysticism, the dialectic abolition of capitalism through its internal dynamics, the uncharted, un-exploitable pockets of resistance that cannot be appropriated by capitalism, the already present humane solidarity and camaraderie shared by people everywhere and the political proposal of the emotion called ‘love’. It is a hypothesis of universal emancipation, an actuality to be revived.

The Kids Want Communism operates as a constellation of moments and movements, inviting histories and practices, gestures and ideas. It seems fitting to recall Chris Marker’s closing statement from “The Last Bolshevik,” his profile of Soviet film director Aleksandr Medvedkin, here. Marker comments about how the great Soviet filmmakers are regarded as dinosaurs today, and then adds: “but look what happened to the dinosaurs. Kids love them.”

The Kids Want Communism is organized by Iliana Fokianaki, Vladimir Vidmar, Oleksiy Radynski, Vit Havranek, Kuba Szreder and Joshua Simon.

The Lewis Baltz Research Fund has been established to honor the vision and memory of the American artist Lewis Baltz. The fund involves the annual grant of a substantial fund to support the creation, completion and dissemination of a project in any artistic medium, encompassing, but not limited to, anything from academic research to book publication, performance or installation art, video or film production to experimental digital work. The intention is to support projects reflecting the intellectual rigor of Lewis Baltz’s conceptual practice which also succeeded in propounding a significant connection to social and political issues. The recipient will be selected by the Lewis Baltz Research Fund Committee, composed of Mark McCain, art fiend, Theresa Luisotti and Thomas Zander, gallerists, Slavica Perkovic, artist, Michael Mack, publisher and Diane Dufour, director of LE BAL. Operated by LE BAL, The Lewis Baltz Research Fund has been created by the generous support of the Artworkers Retirement Society.

The first Lewis Baltz Research Fund has been awarded to two young Italian artists, Alessandro Laita and Chiaralice Rizzi for their book project Live in the house and it will not fall down. The book is built out of an archive of images collected over four decades by the Venetian artist Bruno Rizzi, who died in 2004. In 2010, Alessandro Laita and Chiaralice Rizzi found the collection and began to work on a project to explore its poetic potential. Live in the house and it will not fall down is a gallery of fragments, a collection of memories, the story of one and more people, of a house, of a city. The two artists ‘intervene in the delicate geology that underlies such piles of papers sedimented over the years, undo the precise historical map created by the thin veils of dust covering the objects and interrupt the flow of that low-intensity energy which is generated by localized memory.’ (Antonello Frongia)

Chiaralice Rizzi (1982) and Alessandro Laita (1979) studied Visual Arts at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice. Between 2010 and 2015, they worked as teaching assistants to Lewis Baltz and Adrian Paci. Their artistic practice develops around the thematic of landscape, memory and representation. Lewis Baltz participated in editing their project Live in the house and it will not fall down.

About the Lewis Baltz Research Fund

Lewis Baltz hated mausoleums, fatuous celebrations, and meaningless, if spectacular, gestures. But he was very supportive of young, talented artists. He was also highly sensitive to the fact that the creation of any real art form is sustained by the sharp and thorough vision of the world we live in —“Using facts, to create fictions, that reveal truths,” as he used to say. Helping young artists to keep alive and to challenge Lewis’s vision and concerns is what we are aiming to achieve with this fund.

About Lewis Baltz

Lewis Baltz was born in Newport, California. At the end of the 60s he began to use photography to describe a world that was increasingly mass produced and impersonal. His images of American industrial parks and urban sprawl became landmarks of postwar art, mixing documentary with the strategies of conceptualism. Moving to Europe at the end of the 80s, Baltz responded to the new globalized world of electronic data, corporate architecture and precarious labor, expanding his approach to include video, image/text and installations. Lewis Baltz held various teaching positions and professorships and his works have been featured in numerous international solo and group exhibitions, including New Topographics at George Eastman House 1975, the 1977 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Musuem of American Art, in New York, the PS1 Museum, in New York in 1991, the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 2011, the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Kestnergesellschaft Hannover in Germany in 2012, the Albertina in Vienna in 2013 and at LE BAL in Paris in 2014. Two exhibitions will be dedicated to the artist, at the MAPFRE in Spain in 2016, and the Grand-Hornu in 2017 in Belgium.

www.lewisbaltzresearchfund.com

Exhibition of the winner of the International Photography Prize 2016.

6 March – 8 May, 2016

The International Photography Prize will be awarded every two years to a living photographer of renowned fame, whose artistic research has made a significant contribution to the development of the culture of contemporary imagery and its multiple declinations.

In this first edition, dedicated to “Identity”, the jury was made up of Christine Frisinghelli (founder of Camera Austria), Shinji Kohmoto (founder of the Parasophia Festival in Kyoto), Simon Njami (co-founder of Revue Noir), Thyago Nogueira (head of the Photography department at the Instituto Moreira Salles, Brazil) and Filippo Maggia (director of the Fondazione Fotografia in Modena).

The six finalists of the International Photography Prize 2016 are:

Claudia Andujar (1931, Neuchâtel, Switzerland), a Swiss artist, Brazilian by adoption, who has dedicated her entire life to documenting and providing visibility to the Yanomami community, a population that lives in the heart of Amazonia. Sidestepping a merely anthropological approach, the artist has managed to grasp the richness and profound spirituality in the lives of these people, making her work available for the promotion of this important cause for the recognition and defence of their community.

Rineke Dijkstra (1959, Sittard, the Netherlands), for her fundamental contribution to the debate on identity, a theme which the Dutch artist has studied through various generations, from the world of childhood to that of adults, from the private and intimate dimension of the home to the discotheque, and from still imagery to video. Over more than 15 years, her work has achieved classic status in portrait photography and today constitutes a fundamental point of reference for anyone approaching this genre.

Jim Goldberg (1953, New Haven, USA), for his pioneering approach with which he has declined documentary photography and for the major contribution made to the construction of a social history of photography. Goldberg has always placed the relationship between the photographer and his subject centre stage, limiting the authorship of the artist and involving the subject directly in the production of the works with texts, comments and selfies, shifting from personal friendships and his family to social situations, dealing with both marginalised groups and hot social issues.

Santu Mofokeng (1956, Johannesburg, South Africa), for his tireless commitment to portraying the reality of his country, recounting everyday life from the era of Apartheid right up to the present day. Dealing with a range of different themes and drawing on various approaches to photography itself, he has maintained the issue of black identity and integration between various communities as a key focus point of all his work, thereby creating an extremely coherent corpus of works, a fine example of the capacity of images to serve as visual narratives.

Yasumasa Morimura (1951, Osaka, Japan), a leading figure in international art who ever since the 1990s has placed the theme of identity at the heart of his research, revisiting the key faces and icons of the 20th century, from the history of art through to Pop culture. The transformism with which he interprets and restages the cult images of the last century in his self-portraits says a lot about our relationship with history and the link between East and West.

Zanele Muholi (1972, Durban, South Africa), a young South African activist and artist who has made her work a spearhead for the establishment and defence of the rights of the black homosexual community, both in her own country and beyond. For Muholi photography and the issue of identity have an extremely political value: over the years she has put together an archive of portraits designed to map and maintain the visual history of her community, serving as a testimony for future generations.

The winner will be announced on the opening of the exhibition on Sunday 6th March 2016, at the Foro Boario in Modena.

“The International Photography Prize does not set out so much to celebrate artists,” explains Filippo Maggia, director of the Fondazione Fotografia Modena and head of the jury for the Prize, “as to insist on the importance of the language of contemporary imagery and therefore on the research which, every two years, best corresponds to the theme in question.” In this first edition, the name of the winner has been very hotly debated: “On one hand, we have artists who are very well known on an international level, widely appreciated and well established – Rineke Dijkstra and Yasumasa Morimura, for example – while on the other, we have artists who have spent their whole lives supporting major causes, like Claudia Andujar, with her 40 years of work among the Yanomami in Amazonia, or Zanele Muholi and her commitment to defending gender rights in South Africa; lastly, artists who had every right to emerge in other fields, and who by contaminating photography with practices from other disciplines – like Jim Goldberg – or having always remained independent from the arts system – like Santu Mofokeng – stand here as outsiders. This was the starting point for our discussion”. Maggia continues: “We all felt a great responsibility to identify a winner who not only reflected the given theme but who might also give a strong indication of what this Prize aims to become over the years: not just another prize like many others, but an example of quality. We have never really shared the notion of the ‘career achievement award’.”

http://www.fondazionefotografia.org/

Foro Boario Modena, Via Bono da Nonantola, 2

Wednesday – Friday 3 pm – 7 pm, Saturday – Sunday 11 am – 7 pm, admission € 5,00 / free on Wednesday

16 January 2016 – 22 January 2017

MOCAK – Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow, façade of Building B

“Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom” is a project by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler that has been executed in various formats since 2014. Banners made by 12 artists will be presented on MOCAK’s elevation, showcasing utopian projections that serve the purposes of secession from and resistance to the world of now. Most of these banners were originally produced for the façade of the Secession in Vienna. 

Some works relate to the uprisings, occupations and social movements that have emerged in recent years, in a quest for a better world. Others are poetic references to the feeling that ‘something is missing’. They aim to liberate utopia from its totalitarian connotations and give it a fresh direction. The urge to create utopian visions manifests itself at times when people are searching for alternatives. Although the works are displayed consecutively, they interact, demonstrating different takes on the utopian drive of recent years.

The 12 banners (measuring 3.4 × 9 m) will be exhibited on the façade of Building B and changed monthly. They have been created by the following artists:

Mariam Ghani

Daniela Ortiz

Undrawing the Line

Halil Altindere

Giuseppe Campuzano / Miguel A. López

Matthew Hyland / Ines Doujak

Christoph Schäfer

Oreet Ashery

Bert Theis

Nobodycorp. Internationale Unlimited

Oliver Ressler

Etcétera

Publication: Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom, Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler (eds.). 288 p., London: Pluto Press, 2015