Tuesday, January 30, 2007

hrant dink

Monday, January 29, 2007

Petroliana


Petroliana

1 march 2007 — 1 april 2007
Moscow Museum of Modern Art at Petrovka
Curator: Elena Sorokina

Artists:

Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri
Armageddon (Film)
Art not Oil
Justin Beal
Ursula Biemann
BP
Ilya Budraitskis and Maria Kurzina
Sergei Bugaev Afrika
Bureau d’Etudes
Heidi Cody
Christopher Draeger
Yevgeniy Fiks
Anton Ginzburg
Johan Grimonprez and Charlotte Lеouzon
Ilya Kitup
Elena Kovylina
Jan Kopp
Demian Kuleshov
Ellen K. Levy
Armin Linke
Erbosyn Meldibekov
Jason Middlebrook
Andrey Molodkin
Antony Muntadas
Ivan Navarro
Ahmet Ogut
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Oliver Ressler and Dario Azzellini
REP Group
Oksana Shatalova and Alla Girik
Wael Shawky
Pavel Shepelev
Sean Snyder
Matthew Suib
David Ter-Oganyan
The Yes Men


At the end of the 19th century, oil entered the collective imagination as a major symbol of “progress”. Petroleum embodied the promise of industrial modernity to create a decent society for the masses, transformed by the labour saving inventions. But during the 20th century, petroleum has undergone spectacular metamorphoses in public opinion. Today petroleum presents itself as a material whose supplies are constantly depleted, as something that has a strategic role on the world market, and as a part in the “mythologies” of different societies. Petroleum often fuels social inequalities, creating extravagant and riotous lifestyles for some and involving the others in disastrous international adventures. It has become a sign of excessive consumerism and energy-addiction in Western societies and a symbol of corporate greed and environmental irresponsibility, a metaphor of an unprecedented unjust distribution of wealth in modern Russia. The exhibition Petroliana (‘Oil Patriotism’) was envisioned as a critical inquiry. The participants of the exhibition address both the actual role of petroleum and its representation in film and media.

A full-length article about the project will be in the catalogue of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art which is coming out on the 1st March.

http://2nd.moscowbiennale.ru/en/special_projects/78/

Friday, January 26, 2007

Be[com]ing Dutch

Participants include:
Gitta Luten, Director of the Mondriaan Foundation and
Charles Esche, Director of Van Abbemuseum.
The evening will be moderated by Annie Fletcher

Programme

Fr 26/01/2007

16:00 Performance Erwin van Doom
17:15 Discussion in the Auditorium
18:15 Film screening 'Double Vision' by Mario Rizzi
19:15 Opening Be[com]ing Dutch

Sa 21/01/2007

10:00 Registration
10:00 Welkoming Address
10:45 Esra Sarigedik & Ahmet Ogut - Presentation & Discussion
11:30 Igor Dobricic - Presentation & Discussion

12:15 Lunch

13:15 Bik Van der Pol - Presentation & Discussion
14:00 Surasi Kusolwong - Presentation & Discussion
14:45 Maria Pask - Presentation & Discussion
15:00 Pause
15:30 Abdelaziz Taleb & Abdellatif Benfaidoul - Presentation & Discussion
17:00 Pause
18:00 Book Launch: Superflex:Self Organisation

Su 28/01/2007

10:00 Registration
10:30 Debate: Who is the ideal contemporary citizen of Eindhoven?
11:30 Sohelia Najand -Presentation & Discussion
12:45 Lunch
13:45 Aline Thomassen - Presentation & Discussion
14:45 Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi - Presentation & Discussion
15:30 Pause
16:00 Mario Rizzi - Presentation & Discussion
17:00 End of the Gatherings


Be[com]ing Dutch

January 2007 marks the start of our major two-year project Be[com]ing Dutch. Be[com]ing Dutch will ask what happens when national identities are put at risk and transformed through cultural difference. Becoming, as opposed to being, is about a fluid process of negotiating with everyday life and learning from the constant changes in our surroundings. It's usually hard but also more rewarding than fixing ourselves in one inherited culture.

Through artists developing new works, discussions with thinkers and activists and engagement with different local communities, Be[com]ing Dutch will try to unmake fixed national stereotypes and offer mobile alternatives that are created right here, right now in the city of Eindhoven. It invites you to join in, to ask yourself questions and to use the Van Abbemuseum as a place to find new possibilities for living and thinking.

Alongside, this major commitment, the Van Abbemuseum continues its playful re-imagination of our collection through the Plug In series and the development of the Living Archive. The temporary project 'Groot Hertogdom Brabant' explores new artistic initiatives in the old region that once inspired our loyalty, while Allan Kaprow follows on from Lee Lozano as a serious historical overview of a major artist from the 1960s.

Charles Esche, director

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

the bridge


''the bridge'' ahmet öğüt & pilvi takala, digital print, 2006

location: Gayrettepe Esbank Genel Md. önü, Mecidiyeköy yönüMeclisi Mebusan Cad. Kabataş İskelesi önü,
09-15-January-2007

http://www.radikal.com.tr/diger/radikalart/

RADICAL EDUCATION

Exhibition, workshops, discussions in Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, beginning of 2008
Concept developed by Bojana Piškur & Marjetica Potrč
Adviser: Marta Gregorčič

The list of invited collectives, groups, individuals to the Radical Education project:

Oliver Ressler, Marjetica Potrč, Emergency Biennale in Chechnya, Marko Peljhan & Igloolik Isuma Productions, Sarai/Cybermohalla, Jarbas Lopes, Raimond Chaves & Gilda Mantilla, John Holloway, Contrafile, Bijari, Urucum de Marapa, Ricardo Basbaum, Collectivo Situaciones, Barefoot College and Bunker Roy, Universidade da Floresta / Manuela Carneiro da Cunha & Mauro Almeida, keine uni, School of missing identity, Chto Delat?, Tobias Putrih, Nebojša Milikić, Biblioteca Inti Wawa, Marta Gregorčič, La Comunitaria TV, Groupo de Arte Callejero, Anton Vidokle, La Lleca, Marcelo Exposito, Jože Barši, muhtelif (Ahmet Öğüt, Pelin Tan, Adnan Yildiz)

(The list is not yet complete.)

.... We are no longer only on the theoretical plane, but on the plane of experimentation, of new forms of interactions, of movement construction that respect the diversity, the sensitivities, the particularities of interventions... (Guattari)

The idea is to create an open platform based on the concept of “education for critical consciousness” as proposed by Paulo Freire. Consciousness in this context is understood to have the power to transform reality. We wish to move beyond institutional critique, and focus on the questions of what kind of institution a museum is, the kind of values it institutionalises, the forms of practice it rewards, and, most importantly, the kind of spaces it is able to create as an institution.
Also to move beyond the current neoliberal economic regimes which marketize social services (as for example education) so they can be priced and sold rather than simply be regarded as a right people can expect as citizens. And the first step towards any change is emancipation. It is a tool for access to participation in a society in a new way, which stimulates different/alternative kinds of thinking and doing. Therefore we want to transform museum space into space that generates learning in a variety of forms but not trying to formalize the education. We do not need new theories of learning as much as new spaces for their application and emergence. “What really matters is that we reject continuing deconstruction in the name of development. The fresh and original alternatives springing up point the way towards a successful post-development society.” (Serge Latouche)It is also important to realize knowledge is not a fixed thing but an aspect of process, which arises out of interaction. So, we have a space that generates learning (lets say we have the right conditions for learning) what we need to do is to establish new social dynamics, new relationship for example; between educator and educate; there are no teachers in a traditional sense anymore. We have to get rid of our prejudices and these also include pre-judgments (with other words – we need to decolonize our minds). As Gadamer says: we have to open ourselves to the full power of what the other is saying…Such an opening does not entail agreement but rather the play of dialogue. We seek to discover other people’s standpoint and horizon. The concern is not to win the argument but to advance understanding and human being as well. Important is that understanding we bring from the past is tested in encounters with the present and forms what we take into the future. We experience a fusion of horizons.We hope new ideas would spring up from these encounters as well as new networks and alternative forms of human social configuration that lie beyond existing social forms. It should be taken into consideration though, that any kind of education reflects a narrative that “includes its ideal vision of educators, learners, teaching and learning process”. The important thing is then that the progressive radical education should be able to de-educate itself to the point where people learn social and political responsibility “only by experiencing that responsibility” (Freire). These moments are a part of a larger process – that of knowing and of cognizing, which also implies recognizing. Knowledge that arises from these processes is not a fixed thing but an aspect of emancipation.We wish to invite different organisations, collectives, schools, and self-educating communities that have successfully developed models/tools/proposals for raising critical awareness and for creating spaces of meaningful behaviour, of encountering and working with other people in concrete situations.

http://radical.temp.si/