FASTER! BIGGER! BETTER! ZKM, Karlsruhe (D)

FASTER! BIGGER! BETTER!the survey of approximately 220 signet works, is thus both a special exhibition of our museum itself and a reflection of the art history of the last 50 years. While on the ground floor of atrium 1 a dialogue of themes and content is unfolded among the signet works that fascinatingly displays the various collections, in atrium 2 the themes of movement and dynamics propose relations to the parallel exhibition “die totalstadt. beijing case”. On the upper floor of the museum, the signet works of eight collections will be presented under the aspect of membership in their collections. Varied rooms will display paintings, photography and sculptures under museological aspects, whereby the open structure of the museum will promote communication beyond these areas and the atriums. Together with the works from the 21st century, this re-presentation of the masterpieces of probably the most interesting decades of the last century forms an aesthetic, thought-provoking and not least entertaining lobby for the exhibition of the history of recent art and its collections. ZKM site.

SPANK THE MONKEY 27.09-07.01.07 Baltic, Gateshead (UK)

This exhibition will be the first serious international examination of urban and suburban art bridging the gap between the street and the traditional art space. With strong links to graphic design, graffiti, manga comics, skate boarding and surfing this group show includes artists based in urban centres across the world. Work will also be seen outside BALTIC with large-scale public interventions in both Gateshead and Newcastle.

Spank the Monkey presents twenty-two artists from urban centres across the world.
Including: Chiho Aoshima, Banksy, Dzine, Dr. Lakra, FAILE, Freaks Gallery, Shepard Fairey, Groovisions, Invader, Kozyndan, Barry Mcgee, Ryan Mcginness, Takashi Murakami, Miss Van, Neasden Control Centre, Os Gemeos, David Shrigley, Natasha Struchkova, Swoon, Aya Takano, Ed Templeton,Yasumasa Yonehara.

MUSAC INAUGURATES FIVE NEW EXHIBITIONS WITH PAINTING AS A COMMON DENOMINATOR ON SEPTEMBER 23RD

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, MUSAC (Spain), inaugurates five new exhibitions starting September 23rd which intend to make a particular itinerary by some of the reinterpretations and paths taken by painting in the last few years. A group of canvases by the African artist, Julie Mehretu, as well as by the Austrian-Israelí pair, Muntean/Rosenblum, aside from videos, photographs and sculptures; while national representation is under the charge of Daniel Verbis, who will show his installation misojosentusojosderramándose and Felicidad Moreno, who will exhibit digital impressions in huge format and plays of light and laser under the title hipnÓptico. The virtual shop and the installation of the group Funky Projects for the showcase project will be extended until January 2007 and the young artist Philipp Fröhlich will gather his particular “votive offerings” at the Laboratorio 987.

5,000,000,000 YEARS until 31.12. Palais de Tokyo, Paris

5,000,000,000 YEARS is an exhibition that places itself within the FIVE BILLION YEARS chapter by way of a mutation. Synonymous yet clearly dissimilar, the exhibition and the program-chapter that contains it create an endless feedback loop, each one mutating as it transfers back into the other. Like mutants, artists operate in parallel spheres, and like a mutant, art survives by being furtive and by compromising our ability to establish clear interpretive sign-posts. Visually, nothing (or almost nothing) allows one to distinguish a mutant from a human being, and nothing (or almost nothing) allows one to distinguish a work of art from an ordinary object. The difference lies elsewhere. But as soon as a mutant is identified as such, he returns—we see it happen—to his original status of being an extraterrestrial. As soon as a work of art is identified as such, it loses its status as an object only to be transfigured and returned to the world of art. This chronic schizophrenia is a defining characteristic of art-making today. What counts is not the colonization of new worlds but an accumulation of the identical. Art doesn’t invade or abandon one territory at the expense or in favor of another, but it constantly slides in and out of territories and across different spheres and personalities. Today, ontology seems less relevant than the mechanics of contamination. In a universe that is expanding at an irreversibly accelerated rate, the borders that define a work of art can only be blurry. More crucial are the ways in which the work moves back and forth between spheres of knowledge and practice, effectively becoming an uncontainable mutant. The exhibition 5,000,000,000 YEARS explores this elasticity of the work of art, its temporality and impact. Like mutants, some pieces featured in 5,000,000,000 YEARS have already been seen in other venues, notably at SI, New York, as part of the exhibitions FIVE BILLION YEARS (2004), OK / OKAY (2005) and SPACE BOOMERANG (2006). These works fit into a schizophrenia that emphasizes their ability to change according to context and their potential for generating multiple meanings: can a work of art that is displayed in two different venues remain identical? What is the principle guiding its mutation? What is the principle behind its autonomy? CHRISTIAN ANDERSSON / ARTISTS UNKNOWN / MICHEL BLAZY / MIKE BOUCHET / LORIS CECCHINI / PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT / MARCEL DUCHAMP / CEAL FLOYER / URS FISCHER / MARK HANDFORTH / JOACHIM KOESTER / VINCENT LAMOUROUX / LANG-BAUMANN / TONY MATELLI / JONATHAN MONK / FRANЗOIS MORELLET / GIANNI MOTTI / CHARLES RAY (the list is being expanded)

Now, Here, Over there 16.09-6.11 FRAC LORRAINE, METZ (FR)

« The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil »(1) happens over and over every day somewhere or other, sending back its now distant echoes through the sanitized filter of the media image. Utopias gone astray, political and/or religious forms of authoritarianism, repression and violence on minds and bodies melt into the magma of current affairs. As an alternative to prevalent information, artists are raising the question of their role, the scope of their engagement. As actual players rather than witnesses, they ensure a form of transmission that goes beyond textual and literal demands.

Lida Abdul (Afghanistan) and Tania Bruguera (Cuba) respectively engage in a reflection on their country’s situation, and tackle performative art head on, bringing their body into play and putting a political slant on what they have to say. Between the experience of exile and regular returns home, they address the question of one’s roots, one’s cultural identity, displacement, and take on a role of player-cum-transmitter that extends well beyond the context of their own country. Performances or installations, whatever the preferred device, Lida Abdul and Tania Bruguera break with the distancing of images ; we are destabilized, disturbed, and flip for a while into a cathartic, albeit pretty artificial experience.

Here for the first time in a joint exhibition, they stress the importance, now more than ever, of questioning images, casting doubt on and subverting the dominant and official rhetoric.

Emily Jacir and Renaud-Auguste Dormeuil, each in their own way, carry on this incitement to vigilance, this questioning of the notion of commitment. Disregarding frontiers and periods, their reflection on the refugee figure evokes control and constraints brought to bear on people and bodies, separation and uprooting.

1 – Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, quoted by Giorgio Agamben, Ce qui reste d’Auschwitz, Rivages poche / Petite Bibliothèque, Paris, 2003.

Access : admission free. Open Wednesday to Sunday from 12-19.00 and Thursdays from 13-20.00.

Partners: Giorgio Persano Gallery, Torino ; MMK Frankfurt am Main ; Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London ; Cac Brétigny – Centre d’art contemporain.

LIVE PERFORMANCES
Friday 15 Sept 06 from 20.00

Tania Bruguera / Lida Abdul

« Performance is the art of space, presence and time » (Esther Ferrer, artist). This ephemeral art which plays around with notions of endurance, pushing back physical and psychological limits, is something which the Frac has been seeking in recent years to feature in its collection to complement the fixed, finished work that is the art object.

For both Tania Bruguera and Lida Abdul, performance art is a crucial mode of expression whereby the body becomes the medium and the witness, the vector of history, of a demand or criticism. 15 September will be a red-letter day, a unique landmark moment when the two artists will be staging a live performance.

Also until 5 November:
This approach to performance art will be extended throughout the duration of the exhibition with a documentation area devoted to Lida Abdul and Tania Bruguera performances on film.
49 Nord 6 Est –
Fonds régional d'art contemporain de Lorraine
http://collection.fraclorraine.org