Arts Flanders Audiovisual Arts

Contour 2013 - Biennial of Moving Image in Mechelen

vti — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:08:44 +0000

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The sixth edition of Contour bears the mark of Jacob Fabricius, curator and director of Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. Under the title ‘Leisure, Discipline and Punishment’ he examines social roles and relations within society.

Contour 2013 will take place at a limited number of venues across Mechelen: the prison, the football stadiums, the Church of Our Lady-across-the-Dyle and the Municipal Museum Hof van Busleyden. People visit these spaces for pleasure, necessity, belief or are placed there by force.

Jacob Fabricius: “The stadiums, the prison and the church play an important role in the local history of Mechelen. Yet they are also general spaces that can be found in any larger city worldwide. They represent social places that people visit for worship, pleasure, necessity or where they are placed by force. Each chosen location has a very specific energy and a loaded set of rules and codes – each space even has judges to regulate good and bad behaviour – and they represent fundamental institutions and architectural structures within society.” Fabricius has selected more than 20 artists, with a good balance between established artists and fresh talent from both Belgium and abroad. Contour will show, among others, work from the Belgian Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer, a new performance project with inmates from Mechelen prison by Belgian artist Sarah Vanhee and a new creation by the British artist David Shrigley.

Contour, the Biennial of Moving Image, was established in 2003 as a platform for presenting cutting edge developments and the best in art of the moving image. The biennial presents artists working with film, video, installation and performance in special locations in Mechelen, in Belgium. Since the first edition in 2003, a different curator is invited to provide the biennial with a new framework, vision and dynamic. Contour presents visually engaging and intellectually stimulating art, aiming to reach a wide as well as specialist public. Contour is unique in Europe as it offers the opportunity for the viewer to experience top-rate international contemporary art in one of the continent’s historic cities. Mechelen hosts this unique initiative for people with an interest in contemporary art.

From 24 August until 3 November 2013
Opening on 23 August 2013
More information: www.contourmechelen.be

Audiovisual Arts

Sven Augustijnen's Spectres premieres in North America

bam — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:48:49 +0000

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VOX is pleased to present the North American premiere of the Spectres exhibition by Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen. Spectres comprises a feature-length documentary film plus hundreds of photographs and archive items on Belgium’s colonial past and, more specifically, on the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister.

Spectres takes the audience on a journey through this dark chapter in Belgium’s history. The film follows Jacques Brassinne de La Buissière, a former high-ranking civil servant involved in the events surrounding the decolonization of the Congo. Brassinne, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the death of Lumumba, enacts the roles of narrator and protagonist. By juxtaposing these rhetorical mechanisms, Augustijnen blends personal experience with historical fact, thereby blurring the lines between storytelling and the legitimizing structure of historiography. Augustijnen’s unconventional approach to the documentary uncovers not only the facts but also the ghosts of a brutal colonial past, and points to the confusion around the decolonization of the Congo to reveal unanswered questions of responsibility and guilt.

The exhibition includes material from Brassinne’s records, such as photographs from execution sites taken during the 1960s and 1980s, as well as historical objects and audio clips. This juxtaposition of Brassinne’s personal archives with the film further complicates the viewer’s involvement in the unfolding of the protagonist’s story and the tragic events they represent. Augustijnen also uses old newspapers and magazines that question the manner in which historical events are portrayed in the media and influence public opinion.

The exhibition will open with a discussion with Patrick Beauduin, executive director of radio at Radio Canada, on the issues surrounding Sven Augustijnen's practice and the history of the Congo’s decolonization.

Sven Augustijnen (1970) lives and works in Brussels. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Hoger Sint-Lukas Instituut in Brussels, and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. His work mainly focuses on the tradition of portraiture and the fluid boundaries between fiction and reality, using hybrid styles and techniques. Sven Augustijnen is represented by Jan Mot, Belgium.

More information: www.centrevox.ca - www.augusteorts.be

Audiovisual Arts

Manon de Boer in Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven

bam — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:38:50 +0000

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The solo exhibition 'Manon de Boer - Encounters' in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven shows a trilogy of cinematic portraits by the Brussels based artist and filmmaker Manon de Boer, as well as documentary materials such as audio and video fragments, reviews, scores, posters and books.

The three films in the museum’s collection can now be seen together for the first time: 'Sylvia Kristel – Paris' (2003) about the actress Sylvia Kristel, 'Resonating Surfaces' (2005) about the psychoanalyst and cultural critic Suely Rolnik and 'Think About Wood, Think About Metal' (2011) about the percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky.

De Boer asked these three women, all of whom fascinated her, about the experiences that were decisive for their work and lives in the 1970s. The protagonists talk about their personal circumstances, meetings and events in the past in voice-off. As a result of the special way in which the images, sounds and spoken words are edited, the films have several layers which also deal with themes such as memory, time, the body and listening through the subject of the portrait.

Manon de Boer (1966, Kodaicanal, India) completed her artistic education at the Akademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Rotterdam, and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Using personal narration and musical interpretation as both method and subject, de Boer explores the relationship between language, time and claims to truth to produce a series of portrait films in which the film medium itself is continuously questioned. Her work has been shown internationally, at the Venice Biennale (2007), Berlin Biennale (2008), Sao Paolo Biennale (2010) and Documenta (2012) and has also been included in numerous film festivals, including Hong Kong, Marseille, Rotterdam and Vienna. Her work has been the subject of monographic exhibitions at Witte de With in Rotterdam (2008), Frankfurter Kunstverein (2008), South London Gallery (2010), Index in Stockholm (2011), Contemporary Art Museum of St Louis (2011) and Museum of Art Philadelphia (2012), among others. De Boer currently teaches at the School of Arts in Ghent and ERG in Brussels. She lives and works in Brussels.

More information: http://vanabbemuseum.nl - http://www.augusteorts.be

Audiovisual Arts

David Claerbout in Kunsthalle Mainz

bam — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:04:03 +0000

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Kunsthalle Mainz is presenting a solo exhibition of David Claerbout’s work, featuring selected films of the past years. It will also present a work never shown to the German public before: Oil workers (of the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain (2013).

The initial impression is one of a picturesque mood and a frozen calm. Images of a section of coastline in Brittany have been rendered here in a richly tonal black and white. It is summer; the tide is out. People are watching a group of children in the shallow water. The gloomy photos are reminiscent of favorite Impressionist motifs. At the same time, however, they line up in rhythmic progression, their perspectives and vantage points changing as if to develop a sense of time and narrative. We experience succession although just a single instant is shown. The latter is only deciphered for us at the end by a close-up: of a boy in the act of thrusting both hands into the water, shattering the smoothness, quiet, and calm.

Time and its perception are central to David Claerbout’s œuvre. The Belgian artist has been exploring the boundaries between the stationary and the moving picture since 1996. Claerbout’s videos stretch narrative and action to create a more intensive sense of duration. The typical scarcity of motion in his images and the merging of past, present and future together result in a pictorial experience of great density and reflexivity as well as the utmost sustainability. The concentration on a phenomenology of the image becomes manifest with the aid of these two methods both resulting in deceleration. At times, Claerbout’s films are slowed down to such a degree that episodes of everyday life become frozen in aestheticall still lives. In other cases, photos are serialized by means of digital multiple exposures in such a way that – through the choice of almost identical subjects – the recording of a single instant is melting away to a moving condition. Both methods are borne by a search for silence and concentration of mood. The atmospheric intensity and the pictorial subsequence of the visual experience are characteristic of Claerbout.

David Claerbout (°1969) lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. He has participated in a large number of group exhibitions, and solo exhibitions of his work have been presented, amongst others, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Wiels in Brussels, the Secession in Vienna, the Munich Pinakothek der Moderne, the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge (MA), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Muséesroyaux des Beaux-Art in Brussels, the Berlin Akademie der Künste, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Kunstverein Hannover, and the New York Dia Center for the Arts.

Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany
22 March - 6 June 2013
More information: www.kunsthalle-mainz.de

Audiovisual Arts

Sven Augustijnen at Malmö Konsthall in Sweden

bam — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:56:03 +0000

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Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen is well-known for his films. His most recent feature-length documentary, Spectres (2011), provides a critical portrayal of Belgium's colonial past in the Congo based on cultural and historical analysis.

In Sweden, the Congo will always be associated with the mysterious plane crash that killed the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. Fifty years later, Sven Augustijnen turns his camera to another dark chapter in the decolonisation of the Belgian Congo: the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected prime minister.

The exhibition presents a variety of objects from Brassinne's personal records: photographs of execution sites taken during the 1960s and 1980s, historical objects and audio clips. A comprehensive publication with background material, photographs and texts completes the exhibition, together with the piece Cher Pourquoi Pas? (2007). Here Augustijnen makes use of newspapers from the early 1960s to question the role of journalists in the course of the historical events and their portrayal, including a recent reflection on Dag Hammarskjöld's death.

Sven Augustijnen (1970) lives in Brussels. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Hoger Sint-Lukas Instituut in Brussels, and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. His work focuses mainly on the tradition of portraiture and the fluid boundaries between fiction and reality, using a hybrid of styles and techniques. His films have been shown at exhibitions and festivals in Athens, Brussels, Fribourg, San Sebastián, Siegen, Rotterdam, Tunis, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Vilnius and elsewhere. In 2007 he participated in the Documenta 12 magazines. The film Spectres has drawn a lot of attention internationally and in 2011 Augustijnen received the Evens Arts Prize.

Sven Augustijnen, Spectres
16 February - 7 April 2013

Part of Fotografi i Fokus, the South Sweden Photography Biennial.

More information: www.konsthall.malmo.se

Audiovisual Arts

Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans in Bielefelder Kunstverein

bam — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:04:59 +0000

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In 2009, the Arnolfini art centre in Bristol invited the Brussels-based artists Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans to develop a new project especially for its building. Their proposal was unequivocal: turn the former warehouse into luxury residential units and sell them off. They generated a unique joint venture with a renowned architectural firm – 51N4E – to create a new, striking and ambitious design and use for the Arnolfini building. Their proposal, entitled The Good Life (2009), considered how "strategic foresight" had become part of the socio-economic plan for art institutions in the twenty-first century, giving these institutions a pivotal position in the regeneration of cities. The real estate agent guiding the tour adopts a verbal style that thinly veils an overt notion of gentrification, while conjuring up impressions of aspiration and opulence – a lifestyle fantasy projected onto an empty shell. Incorporating high-gloss brochures and a model of the extraordinary building designed by 51N4E, The Good Life adopts an approach that critically "over-identifies" with its subject matter to the point of adopting all its rhetorical forms. The Keynesian thesis of pumping steroids into 'demand' is taken to a near-delusional aesthetic plane by generating unattainable desires for the individual. The Good Life was a significant project for Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans in terms of their long-term investigation into the ideology of architecture, and led to their most recent project "The Residence (a wager for the afterlife)" (2012).

Katleen Vermeir (1973) and Ronny Heiremans (1962) live in Brussels, Belgium. In 2006 these two artists initiated A.I.R. (short for "artist in residence"), a long-term collaborative practice that examines the dynamic relation between art, architecture and economy. Recently, Vermeir and Heiremans have presented their work at Videonale 13 (Bonn), Videoex (Zürich), Viennale (Vienna) (all 2011), ARGOS (Brussels), EXTRA CITY (Antwerp), the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (Shenzhen) and Manifesta 9 (Limburg) (all 2012).

Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans, The Good Life (A Guided Tour) 2009
From 10 November to 13 December 2012
More information: www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de

Audiovisual Arts

David Claerbout solo exhibition in Tel Aviv Museum of Art

bam — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 09:03:47 +0000

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Dedicated to the film works of Belgian artist David Claerbout (1969), one of the most innovative artists working with moving images, this exhibition features pieces he has made between 2000 and 2012. Claerbout expands the boundaries of video and photography, navigating between photographic and digital techniques and blurring the distinction between the still and the moving image. The complex processing of images in motion offers an intriguing reading of reality and illusion, by depicting mundane activities that turn out to be enigmatic codes in temporal narrative progression. Exploring temporality and manipulating cinematic time by the compression and suspension of still and moving images, Claerbout's videos give shape to duration and substance to time while diminishing the narration or reducing its conditions to the point of no conclusion and uncertainty.

Curator: Nili Goren

David Claerbout: 'the time that remains' has been organized by Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, and is accompanied by a comprehensive publication, co-produced with WIELS, Brussels, and distributed by Ludion.

Tel Aviv Museum of Ar
21 September - 31 December 2012

More information: www.tamuseum.org.il

Audiovisual Arts

Hans Op de Beeck's first solo show in Ireland

vti — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:25:43 +0000

11 August - 14 October 2012

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Hans Op de Beeck is a highly-regarded Belgian artist of international repute whose work was last seen in Ireland at Dublin Contemporary 2011.

Op de Beeck's prodigious body of work includes sculpture, installation, video, photography, animated film, drawing, painting and short story writing. His first solo exhibition in Ireland will consist of four video works, including the much-acclaimed medium length film 'Sea of Tranquillity'.

Thematically, the work concentrates on our problematic relationship with time, space and each other. Op de Beeck shows non-existent, but identifiable places, moments and characters that appear to have been taken from contemporary everyday life and emphasize the tragicomic absurdity of our postmodern existence. Irrefutably fictional, constructed and staged, these video works are extremely precise and visually astonishing. Hans Op de Beeck's work poses questions about the difficult relationship between reality and representation, between what we see and what we want to believe. This investigation results in the most extraordinary and truly unforgettable images.

More info:
www.butlergallery.com
www.hansopdebeeck.com

Audiovisual Arts

'Wanderlust: A Never Ending Journey to the Other Side of the Hill' in Seoul

vti — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:06:08 +0000

23 June - 12 August 2012

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The Artsonje Center in Seoul is pleased to present 'WANDERLUST: A Never Ending Journey to the Other Side of the Hill', an exhibition project developed in Belgium and mounted in close collaboration with Samuso in Seoul. The exhibition focuses on five major Belgian visual artists, among whom are some of the most influential classic figures in 20th-century Western art history, such as Marcel Broodthaers and Panamarenko.

WANDERLUST is probably one of the most beautiful words in the German language and is universally understood to refer to a profound desire to leave the conventions of everyday life behind in order to discover other cultures and other customs. It could be said that WANDERLUST is as old as mankind, but it acquired a particular meaning when, at the beginning of the 19th century, the artists of German Romanticism embraced it as a key concept in their struggle against the cold heritage of rationalism and the age of enlightenment.

The artists: Francis Alÿs, Marcel Broodthaers, Honore d'O, Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Panamarenko.
Curators: Prof. Hans Maria de Wolf and Samuso.

More info:
http://artsonje.org

Visual Arts

Kilkenny - Butler Gallery - Hans Op de Beeck's first solo exhibition in Ireland

bam — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:00:33 +0000

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Hans Op de Beeck: A Selection of Video Works
11 August - 14 October 2012

Hans Op de Beeck is a highly regarded Belgian artist of international repute whose work was last seen in Ireland in Dublin Contemporary 2011.

Op de Beeck's prodigious body of work includes sculpture, installation, video, photography, animated films, drawings, painting and short story writing. His first solo exhibition in Ireland will consist of four video works, including the much acclaimed medium length film 'Sea of Tranquillity'.

Thematically, the work concentrates on our problematic relationship with time, space and each other. Op de Beeck shows the viewer non-existent, but identifiable places, moments and characters that appear to have been taken from contemporary everyday life that emphasize the tragicomic absurdity of our postmodern existence. Irrefutably fictional, constructed and staged, these video works are extremely precise and visually astonishing. Hans Op de Beeck's work poses questions about the difficult relationship between reality and representation, between what we see and what we want to believe. This investigation results in the most extraordinary images that are truly unforgettable.

Image: Hans Op de Beeck, Celebration (Buenos Aires) 2011, full HD video transferred to Blu-Ray disc, colour, sound, 5 minutes, 5 seconds (16:9 aspect ratio)

More information: www.butlergallery.com

Audiovisual Arts

UK - London - Parasol Unit - David Claerbout

bam — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:28:20 +0000

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The Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art will preview a solo exhibition dedicated to the film work by the Belgian artist David Claerbout. The exhibition features works spanning Claerbout's practice from 2000 to the present. 'The time that remains' will be the artist's first solo exhibition in a London public gallery. Claerbout situates his striking work between the complex worlds of digital photography and film, investigating this intermediate area in concise and thought-provoking installations. Claerbout's films often depict everyday activities or events which, once digitally manipulated, negate the linear passage of time. His work questions the viewer's conventional ideas of time and narrative processes. 

Born in 1969, David Claerbout is one of the most internationally acclaimed video artists of his generation. He currently lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive publication co-produced with WIELS, Brussels, and distributed by Ludion.

David Claerbout. the time that remains
31 May – 10 August 2012

More information: www.parasol-unit.org - www.davidclaerbout.com

Audiovisual Arts

Spain - Barcelona - Screen Festival - Auguste Orts presents Anouk De Clercq, Herman Asselberghs and Aglaia Konrad

bam — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:45:03 +0000

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SCREEN Festival celebrates its 10th edition and again will transform Barcelona into the essential international event for professionals and lovers of art practices related to video, film and new media. The Festival program, presented in various venues throughout the city, is generated by inviting international platforms, curators and institutions to collaborate with local actors, both of them involved and proactive with regards to moving image.

Auguste Orts will present a session that puts three ways of approaching urban and/or architectural space in relation to the possibilities offered by its cinematic capture. Oh by Anouk De Clercq revives the utopian spirit of the renegade architect Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799), in a work that extends its interest for the potential of digital language to create possible worlds. The series Concrete & Samples by Aglaia Konrad places space as the main character and turns the camera's takes in the main argument of an audiovisual portrait of architecture. Herman Asselberghs' a.m/p.m offers a complex approximation of his feelings and ideas in respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from various takes of the city that contrast the usual mediatisation of the situation.

Participant platform: Auguste Orts is a platform founded in 2006 by artists Herman Asselberghs, Sven Augustijnen, Manon de Boer and Anouk De Clercq, addressing questions on autonomous production and distribution. Auguste Orts operates within the broad field of cinema, video, visual arts, documentary and experimental film.

Screen Festival
17 May - 2 June 2012

More information: www.screen-barcelona.com - www.augusteorts.be

Audiovisual Arts

Russia - Saint-Petersburg - State Hermitage Museum - Alexandra Dementieva, Aernoudt Jacobs and Koen Theys

bam — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:14:01 +0000

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In "The Time Keeper" new media artists Alexandra Dementieva (BE), Anna Frants (USA), Aernoudt Jacobs (BE) and Koen Theys (BE) present dynamic installations on experiencing "Time". From having a finite lifetime -to filtering what becomes historically poignant -to enabling change to occur -to being a moment already past upon creation -this visual exposition contemplates observant perceptions of "Time" in today's society.

Unconditional and indiscriminating, "Time" is an impetus. It ignites one's obligation to a larger history, motivates to understand and be understood, drives one to create something more meaningful than oneself, defines purpose. Society universally recognizes all of this. How people internalize, distinguish themselves and communicate these concepts of "Time" makes them an individual. Every inclusion in "The Time Keeper" communicates a different perspective of "Time" and gives insight into what makes that artist's view unique.

The exhibition will be shown first in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg and will then be shown at IMAL - Interactive Media Art Laboratory, Brussels, before travelling to Berlin and New York.

The Time Keeper
29 May - 4 June 2012

More information: www.hermitagemuseum.org

Audiovisual Arts

Germany - Berlin Documentary Forum - Vincent Meessen

bam — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:46:49 +0000

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Berlin Documentary Forum is a biennial festival dedicated to documentary practices across a variety of disciplines. The project seeks to explore the documentary as an art form capable of constructing and reshaping realities and histories. Encompassing cultural studies, philosophy, and diverse artistic practices, the festival accentuates the critical potential of documentary work and distinguishes it from today's excessive production and distribution of visual documents.

A group exhibition of contemporary art entitled "A Blind Spot" and the launch of an experimental online project, "issue zero", complement the four days of events at Haus der Kulturen der Welt.

The blind spot of a photograph refers to something not visible or shown but nonetheless latent in the image. Dismissing the dominant pictorial regime, the images in "A Blind Spot" preserve an openness and indeterminacy that precludes reducing them to a description or illustration ofa specific reality. This is the point of departure for questioning the documentary aspect in contemporary artistic and photographic practices.

The exhibition, curated by Catherine David, includes works by Eric Baudelaire, Elisabetta Benassi, David Goldblatt, Hassan Khan, Joachim Koester, Vincent Meessen, Olaf Nicolai, Melik Ohanian, Efrat Shvily, Jeff Wall and Christopher Williams.

Exhibition: A BLIND SPOT
31 May - 1 July 2012

More information: www.hkw.de - www.normal.be

Audiovisual Arts

Haus der Kunst in Münich presents "Klang und Stille" with works by Francis Alÿs, Hans Op de Beeck and David Claerbout

bam — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:03:34 +0000

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For the third exhibition resulting from the cooperation between The Goetz Collection and Haus der Kunst, film and video works were selected in which acoustic aspects are as important as visual ones. The relationship between sound and image covers a broad range. These two elements are linked most closely in silence, in the still or silent image, which approximates to other media such as painting and photography.

With works by Francis Alÿs, Hans Op de Beeck, Christoph Brech, David Claerbout, Tacita Dean, Rodney Graham, Gary Hill, Teresa Hubbard & Alexander Birchler, Tim Lee, Christian Marclay, Nira Pereg, Anri Sala, Wolfgang Tillmans and Guido van der Werve.

Resonance and Silence – Goetz Collection at Haus der Kunst
13 April - 9 September 2012
Info:  www.hausderkunst.de

Audiovisual Arts

David Claerbout at Wiener Secession

bam — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:41:05 +0000

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From 3 May 2012, the Wiener Secession will show Diese Sonne strahlt immer, an exhibition of David Claerbout's work.

David Claerbout works primarily in such time-based media as animation, video and sound, as well as photography. His contemplative projections trace the characteristics of these formerly independent media on the brink of disintegration. The works deliberately require tranquility and patience, often employing parallel arrangements like motion versus standstill, duration versus moment, evanescence and change versus permanence and continuity. In his first solo show in Austria, David Claerbout will present a selection of works, most of them recent. Diese Sonne strahlt immer refers to electric light as a replacement for sunlight. Claerbout is fascinated by how human perception will interpret footage filmed directly against the sun as 'intense', while in fact it is a feeble projected light beam reflected on an ordinary white wall. His works seem to regret the loss of sensory experience and yet his subjects include natural phenomena like reflection, wind and sunlight.

His early media-critical video works are based on appropriated photographs, e.g. Kindergarten Antonio Sant'Elia, 1932 (1998) while recent fictional films take the concept of the simultaneity of antagonisms a step further; the narrative recedes into the background, while natural phenomena that elude deliberate control, such as sunlight, become the real-time protagonists (see the thirteen-hour Bordeaux Piece, 2004). To immerse themselves in Claerbout's work, viewers accordingly need one thing above all else: plenty of time.

David Claerbout was born in Kortrijk, Belgium, in 1969. He now lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin.

The exhibition Diese Sonne strahlt immer is a cooperative venture with the government of Flanders.

David Claerbout
Diese Sonne strahlt immer
3 May – 17 June 2012

More info: www.secession.at - www.davidclaerbout.com

Audiovisual Arts

La Cinémathèque Québécoise - Live Rightly, Die, Die,... with works by Francis Alÿs, Marcel Broodthaers and Vincent Meessen

bam — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:12:32 +0000

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Live rightly, die, die… explores the contemporary phenomenon of artistic tourism and the exotic through the presentation of a select number of visual works. However, instead of simply illustrating or documenting the recent trends that might be associated with tourism and the exotic in contemporary art, Live rightly, die, die… attempts to address the phenomena of tourism and the exotic within an eccentric frame of historical reference and in a way that exposes their spatio-temporal ambiguities, tensions and possibilities. It is through these ambiguities and tensions that the exhibition also raises the question of the possible existences of unknown places, opaque languages, singular encounters, treacherous, unstable spaces and idiosyncratic exchanges.

An exhibition by David Tomas including works, artefacts and documents by Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alÿs, Lothar Baumgarten, Pavel Braila, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Chris Burden, André Cadere, Tim Clark, Willem de Rooij, Guy Debord, Documenta 11, Jan Dibbets, e-flux, Leon Golub, Richard Hamilton, Jamelie Hassan, Allan Kaprow, Shigeko Kubota, Vincent Meessen, Bouchra Khalili, John Latham, NASA, Irving Penn and Robert Smithson.

LIVE RIGHTLY, DIE, DIE... (Part 1)
1-25 March 2012

More info: http://dazibao-photo.org

Audiovisual Arts

SuperBodies

vti — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:13:14 +0000

3rd Triennial for Contemporary Art, Fashion and Design

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‘SuperBodies’ is the third triennial for contemporary art, fashion and design organised by the city of Hasselt. The first was simply called ‘Super!’ Starting with the second triennial, a specific theme was chosen for each one. In 2009 the theme was ‘stories’. Hence the title ‘SuperStories’. For 2012, the chosen theme is the human body. So this triennial is called ‘SuperBodies’.

However, in spite of its name, ‘SuperBodies’ is not an exhibition about super-bodies and super-people. On the contrary, it is actually just about normal bodies. Because even though bodies are not all that extraordinary or perfect, they do do wonderful things—they are, in fact, wonderful machines.

For decades now, the body has been ubiquitous in art as well as in the popular media, in fashion and in design. Even dance focuses more and more on the body in and of itself, not on the steps that the dancers perform. However, the media in particular seldom shows normal bodies. On the contrary, they wholesale in extreme bodies—extremely perfect, heroic, ecstatic or just extremely pitiful. These bodies are so different from the normal that they fascinate us because of their oddity. That fascination goes hand in hand with a considerable attention to the culture of the body. Sometimes it seems as if one expects a final truth—an ultimate fulfilment—from the body.

Our mortal body seldom succeeds in fulfilling all those great expectations, however. The body as depicted by the media is far removed from everyday life. However, as long as we blindly stare at these extraordinary bodies, we will not be able to see how extraordinary the ordinary body is. Innumerable bodily processes, which we barely notice, steer our being and our thinking. That is the basic principle of this exhibition. Can one reflect on this and then turn a performance involving these unobserved bodily processes into art? How do these processes relate to our conscious thoughts and feelings? And what then is there to see? Curator Pieter T’Jonck asked himself these same questions while compiling this exhibition.

He discovered that many leading artists had devoted (part of) their oeuvres to these questions, which had long remained in the shadow of the great power of the media. But now they enjoy ever increasing recognition because they confront us with material things and the way we perceive and experience them.

Things we do daily without thinking, but which are all mediated by our bodies.

Artists collaborating are Lemm&Barkey, CREW, Meg Stuart, Ivo Dimchev, Trisha Brown, Lisbeth Gruwez, Deufert & Plischke, William Forsythe, Superamas, and many more!

More info:
SuperBodies, 3rd Triennial for Contemporary Art, Fashion and Design
4/2/2012 > 27/5/2012
Various locations in Hasselt BE
www.superbodies.be

Visual Arts

Call for applications - SoundImageCulture 2012

bam — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:40:17 +0000

SoundImageCulture 2012
Deadline for application: 10 January 2012

SoundImageCulture / SIC is a group of artist-anthropologists committed to artful storytelling through real human encounters that challenge documentary conventions, and opens up to sound and image installations. SIC offers a nine-month master class to assist professional filmmakers, social scientists and artists in the realization of their personal project. The SIC involves a broad spectrum of theoretical perspectives and practical workshops so as to link formal and ethical questions during the production process as each creator develops their original, personal point of view.

Informed by developments in cultural theory, social sciences, and the visual arts (Laura Marks, Arjun Appadurai, Jean Rouch, Trinh Minh-ha en Jonas Mekas) we question the relation between artist, subject and viewer. The answer is not to eschew representation; rather, SIC proposes an ethical reflection on how 'the other' is presented in contemporary media: we believe this to be an urgency of the multicultural society we live in. The SIC involves nine months of artistic coaching through collective seminars, individual advising, group critiques, and inter-artist dialogue. For additional perspectives, we occasionally host visiting artists and critics.

The deadline for the call for projects SIC 2012 is 10 January 2012. SIC 2012 will be organized from April till December 2012.

Organised by SIC vzw-asbl, with the support of the Flemish government Kunsten en erfgoed.
Partners: Argos, Beursschouwburg, Pianofabriek, KASK-University college Ghent.

More info: www.soundimageculture.org

Audiovisual Arts

Bucharest - Melancholy is not enough... - Curated by Niels Van Tomme and with work by a.o.Lotte Van den Audenaeren

bam — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:22:19 +0000

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Niels Van Tomme is a Belgian-borned curator, researcher, and art critic based in New York City and Washington, DC who serves as the Director of Arts and Media at Provisions Learning Project. He has curated numerous exhibitions, and co-organized public art projects such as The State of Things at the MCA (Denver). As a contributor to various journals and magazines including Art Papers, Afterimage, EXTRA, and hART, he investigates the sociopolitical aspects of contemporary culture.

Participants: Lotte Van den Audenaeren (BE), Anne-James Chaton (FR), Andrea Galvani (IT), Jo Mitchell (UK), Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf (DE).

Melancholy is not enough...
15 December 2011 - 19 February 2012

More info: www.pavilionunicredit.ro

Audiovisual Arts

The Sundance Institute awarded Johan Grimonprez for his new film 'The Shadow World'

bam — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:09:01 +0000

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The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program awarded a grant to Johan Grimonprez for his new film 'The Shadow World' in which explores the arms industry: a business in which profits are calculated in the tens of millions of dollars, while losses are counted in human lives.

The film reveals how the international trade in conventional weapons - with the complicity of governments and intelligence agencies, investigative and prosecutorial bodies, weapons manufacturers, dealers and agents – fosters corruption, determines foreign and economic policies, undermines democracy, and creates widespread suffering. By revealing how this trade works, we aim to take apart the monolith that has been constructed as inevitable and that has penetrated every layer of our societies- even as far as our psyches and explore how greater transparency and meaningful oversight demanded by ordinary people around the world can change this most secretive and damaging of trades. The project will unfold through a major book release this November 2011, a feature documentary film, an immersive trans media project, and an audience and civil society engagement strategy.

Johan Grimonprez achieved international acclaim with his experimental film, Dial H-I- S-T-O-R-Y. The film tells the story of airplane hijackings since the 1970s and how these changed the course of news reporting. Its premiere at the Centre Pompidou and Documenta X in 1997,eerily foreshadowed the events of September 11th, 2001. The film went on to win the Best Director Award at the San Francisco and Toronto Film Festivals. Don Delillo and Slavoj Zizek were both contributors to the film. In 2009, Grimonprez made Double Take. Casting Alfred Hitchcock as a paranoid history professor unwittingly caught up in a double take on the cold war period, the film targets the global rise of 'fear- as-commodity in a tale of odd couples and double deals. Acclaimed by critics as "wildly entertaining" it premiered at Sundance and Berlin, winning the Black Pearl Award in Abu Dhabi and the New Media Grand Prize in LA. Grimonprez's productions have traveled the main festival circuit from Telluride, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, to Tokyo and Berlin. Curatorial projects were hosted at major exhibitions and museums worldwide such as the Whitney Museum in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and the Tate Modern in London. Grimonprez's work is included in numerous collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Kanazawa Art Museum, Japan, the National Gallery, Berlin and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. Grimonprez is currently a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts (New York).

More info: www.sundance.org - www.zapomatik.com

Audiovisual Arts

Chantal Akerman at M HKA

bam — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:46:37 +0000

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The M HKA is holding the very first large-scale retrospective of the Belgian film-maker and artist Chantal Akerman, who has now lived in Paris for many years. It is also the first time her work has been shown in Belgium since her exhibition at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels in 1995. Akerman is one of the most influential film-makers of her generation and has long been a feminist icon. She was able to establish this reputation with her early masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Since the mid-nineties, however, she has also been increasingly active as an artist, and her film and video installations have been shown at the Venice Biennale, Documenta 11 and elsewhere. The exhibition at the M HKA will focus mainly on this latter aspect of her work and will be accompanied by an ambitious monograph.

Chantal Akerman
Too Far, Too Close
10/02-20/05/2012

More info: www.muhka.be

Audiovisual Arts

Argos - Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans: The Residence (a wager for the afterlife)

bam — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:11:26 +0000

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Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans
The Residence
31 January - 31 March 2012

In 2006 Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans initiated A.I.R ('artist in residence'), a long-term collaborative practice that encapsulates different projects, in which they render architecture as a space of constructs for the projection of consumer desires. Their latest output, commissioned by the Arnolfini in Bristol, was The Good Life (2009), a meditation on the inextricable relationship between art, real estate, art institutions and the wider structure of the economy, harnessed today by the 'creative class'.

During a 6-month residency in China (2009-2010) Vermeir & Heiremans started working on The Residence. The project positions the artist as creative entrepreneur against a globalized backdrop that qualifies economy as the ultimate measure. Sharing insights on the creative garden concept, Vermeir & Heiremans initiated a collaboration with Ma Wen, a Chinese artist/architect. The project is a document on Ma Wen's cultural practice. Through him The Residence explores the economic fetishism and financial mechanisms that play in contexts of urban development projects.

Parallel to the exhibition in Argos, Extra City will present a discursive program on The Residence.

The Residence is a production of Limited Editions vzw supported by Flanders Audiovisual Fund and the Flemish Community. Coproduction: Argos (Brussels), C-Mine (Genk), Cultuurcentrum (Bruges), deBuren (Brussels), Extra City Kunsthal (Antwerpen Antwerp), FLACC (Genk), Manifesta 9 Limburg (Genk) and Triodos Fonds. Research support: artist residencies TIM (Beijing), CEAC (Xiamen).

Image: Vermeir & Heiremans, The Residence (a wager for the afterlife), 2012. Courtesy of the Artist.

More info: www.argosarts.org

Audiovisual Arts

Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid

bam — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:42:17 +0000

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Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid

The Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid constitutes a unique artistic and cultural platform in Europe for artists, professional networks and various audiences. The venues in the three cities are in particular the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Reina Sofia National museum and the Spanish Cinematheque in Madrid.

From 18 to 26 November 2011 the "Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid" created a space of discovery and reflection between new cinema and contemporary art in Paris.

This year's programme has been selected from 5500 submissions as well as by invitations made to some artists and filmmakers. It is the result of an elaborate international search for works: 150 works from Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and 40 other countries, gathering internationally-known artists and filmmakers with young artists and filmmakers presented for the first time.

A number of Belgian artists will show their work during the fetsival: 'Stardust' by Nicolas Provost, 'Sea of Tranquillity' by Hans Op de Beeck, 'Leave' by Hamza Halloubi, 'Singulier Pluriel' by Loic Vanderstichelen and Azilys Romane, 'I may have lost forever my Umbrella' by Johan Grimonprez, 'The Corridor' by Sarah Vanagt, 'ET[' by Peter Downsbrough, 'L'attaque des clones' by Charlène Marchand.

More information: www.art-action.org

Audiovisual Arts

Call for proposals - Digital Cinema in Flanders - deadline 18 November

bam — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:08:10 +0000

Digital Cinema In Flanders (DICIF) functions as a forum for debate and common decision-making in view of facilitating the digital transition of Flemish film exhibitors. Faced with the risks associated with a further delay in the installation of digital equipment in their venues, the 15 cinema owners associated in this "buying group entity" (representing 16 venues and 43 screens) decided to cumulate knowledge and negotiating strength in view of a common solution to digitise their screens.

DICIF invites you to put forward a proposal as to how you can assist it in this digital transition. Applications are welcomed from appropriately qualified and experienced companies, or from a consortium of companies who have decided to work together and whose collective approach may more fully meet the needs and requirements of DICIF.

You can find the Call for Proposals HERE (download file).

Please note that, given the need to find a quick solution, the deadline for applications is set at 18 November 2011.

Researcher Sophie De Vinck (IBBT-SMIT) assists DICIF with the tendering process and is the contact person for this call. Please direct all questions to dicif.call@gmail.com as well as to sdevinck@vub.ac.be.

The DICIF Steering Group
c/o Patrick DeboesSphinx CinemaSint-Michielshelling 39000 Gent

Audiovisual Arts