Monthly Archive for August, 2011

Radioactive Control by Luzinterruptus

Published on August 31, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Dezeen…

The installation Radioactive Control was created for the Dockville Festival in de Hamburg which tried to demonstrate, in a humorous tone, the paranoia that we are suffering from since the escape of radioactive material in Japan, has brought into question the safety systems at the nuclear power plants.

With our mysterious army of 100 illuminated radioactive figures, which advanced threateningly on the natural environment of the festival, we wanted to invite reflection regarding the use and abuse of nuclear energy, cheap in economic terms, but which can cause grave secondary effects for the environment and health, forever irreversible.

Germany has been the first developed country to announce the total abandonment of nuclear energy by 2022, we know that this was not an altruistic decision and has a lot to do with the creation of new and innovative industries, which will make them pioneers in the market. More…

Berlin Galleries’ Newest Home

Published on August 30, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Kimberly Bradley at The New York Times…

The art scene in Berlin can sometimes seem like a big game of musical chairs, as galleries migrate from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of undiscovered spaces, low rents and artist-friendly locals. The latest move, though, is a little different.

The new hub, along Potsdamer Strasse, situated mostly in West Berlin’s Tiergarten district, is actually an old one. Until World War II, around 200 art and antiques dealers were situated in the then-elegant neighborhood, along with a lively night-life scene; after the war, the dealers failed to rematerialize along the street.

In recent years, Berlin’s art world has downshifted. Many small galleries have closed, and the city’s main art fair, Art Forum Berlin, was recently canceled after a 15-year run. The gallery cluster on Potsdamer Strasse, though, takes a new approach; it is almost hidden from the public: the street is lined with cheap clothing shops, Turkish vegetable markets and empty storefronts, while most of the galleries are on upper floors or hidden in back courtyards. More…

Call for Journal Editor

Published on August 30, 2011 in Headline, Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The International Journal of the Arts in Society seeks an editor, or team of editors, for a one-year term. This is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to what we believe is one of the leading journals in its field, the journal’s associated conference and, more broadly, the knowledge-community which the journal and conference seek to serve.

The roles of the editor are to:

  • write an introduction for the Journal volume which would be included in the first issue for the year, and possibly on the website, the newsletter and other appropriate places or for the purposes of marketing and promotion.
  • collate papers addressing a theme of the editor’s choosing into a book, to be launched at the conference at the completion of the editor’s term. The chapters may be drawn from submissions to the journal during this or recent years, and other material as considered appropriate.
  • actively solicit manuscripts for the Journal from well-known and notable members of the community—these would could be refereed if the author wished, or regarded as ‘invited papers’.
  • assist the Commissioning Editor with suggestions of supplementary peer reviewers for specific papers (and this will never be burdensome – note that the Commissioning Editor of the Journal finalizes a majority of the peer reviewer requirements based on thematic matching and ‘mutual obligation’ principles in which all author requested to review up to three other papers).
  • promote the journal throughout their network and other associated networks.
  • maintain regular communications with the community via periodical blog posts to the community website (which feeds automatically to our email newsletter, Facebook and Twitter).

The editor will be offered a complimentary electronic subscription to the Journal, free copies of the book which they edit, an electronic subscription to the book series as well as complimentary registrations to attend the conferences at the beginning and end of their term.

Qualifications

The Editor of the Journal must possess the following attributes:

  • They will have successfully obtained higher degree, and have academic teaching and scholarly research experience in an area related to the subject matter of the Journal.
  • They will have published in this or other comparable scholarly journals.

Applicants are asked to send:

  1. a cover letter outlining their interest and relevant experience, and the ways in which you would propose to enhance the profile of the journal
  2. a curriculum vitae
  3. a special theme outline: a title with paragraph explanation.

Please send applications and supporting documentation to journals@artsinsociety.com.

The deadline for applications is 26 September 2011.

When Art Happened to L.A.

Published on August 29, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Holland Cotter at The New York Times…

For contemporary art in the 1950s and ’60s, there was New York and that was it. So the old story goes. But it’s wrong. If there’s one thing that recent globally minded art history has taught us, it’s that after World War II, new art, and lots of it, was turning up in cities every­where. Los Angeles was one, and in the late ’50s, almost to its own surprise, it had a big art moment. That moment, which lasted about a decade, is the subject of “Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s,” by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. The book has much to recommend it: it’s fast-paced, well researched, accessibly anecdotal. But as an account of a still under­studied episode in American postwar culture, it’s oddly lopsided. It corrects one imbalance — the “only in New York” idea — but ignores ­others.

The story starts in 1955, when Los Angeles was a boomtown thanks to movies and the aerospace industry, but a cultural backwater. There were plenty of homegrown artists, but few galleries and no modern art museum. Into this bare terrain came a couple of driven personalities. One of them, Walter Hopps, preppy and bespectacled, was a college dropout and art addict. The other, Edward Kienholz, was a bearish farm boy-artist with a peppery temperament. On the surface, their alliance was an unlikely one — Mr. Peepers meets Bigfoot — but it worked. More…

Running the Numbers

Published on August 26, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

From Stefany Anne Goldberg at The Smart Set…

Not that which is in the mind, but in which the mind is.
(Written in Greek on the dedication page of Everything and More by David Foster Wallace, translated by Morgan Meis)

In 1965, while waiting in a cafe, Roman Opalka decided to paint time. He didn’t paint the counters of time — clocks and watches and calendars and such. He didn’t paint people waiting for the bus or racing to the finish line. Roman Opalka painted time itself. He called this project, his life’s work, “OPALKA 1965 / 1 — ?.” The title might be read as this: (Roman) Opalka (the artist begins in) 1965 (painting numbers from) one to infinity.

Having decided to paint time, the French-Polish conceptual artist went to his Warsaw studio and prepared a canvas. He sat before it. His hand trembled. He knew that once he started this immense project, he could never go back. Armed with a size 0 brush, and still shaking, Opalka painted in white a little “1” on the upper left-hand corner of a gray canvas. He then made his way horizontally across the canvas, number by number—2…3…4…5 — until he had a row of numbers, then two rows of numbers, then three. When Opalka ran out of room, when the last number was painted in the bottom right-hand corner, he stopped. Later, the artist made another painting, and another, each one picking up numerically where the last painting left off. He called the paintings “Details.” The canvas was always the same size: 196 centimeters by 135 centimeters. The numbers were always painted in white. When Opalka made a Detail, he recorded himself speaking the numbers as he painted. When a painting session was finished, Opalka would take a photograph of his face in front of his work, the numbers stopping when he did. Opalka devoted himself to this project alone, painting time. “All my work is a single thing,” he once wrote, “the description from number one to infinity.” More…

Arts Journal, Volume 5, Number 6 now available

Published on August 22, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

arts_frontThe final issue of Volume 5 of The International Journal of the Arts in Society is available.

Volume 5, Number 6 contains:

Continue reading ‘Arts Journal, Volume 5, Number 6 now available’

Announcing the Winner of the International Award for Excellence

Published on August 17, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Congratulations to Annette Blum the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the area of the arts with her paper Public Memory, Private Truths: Voices of Women and Visual Narrative in Post-apartheid South Africa.

Abstract: This paper examines the role of visual narrative in the process of uncovering the truth through “remember[ing] what one most wants to forget” (Becker 2004: 117), and in giving voice to the previously voiceless. Focusing on two of the rural art-making projects which have emerged in South Africa since the early 1990s in response to the complex challenges of the post-apartheid era—the Amazwi Abesifazane initiative and the Mapula Embroidery Project—this paper examines the voices of women through visual narrative in dealing with issues of trauma, violence and HIV/AIDS, as well as the potential offered by visual culture for empowerment of these women within the context of the relationship of marginalization, poverty, and representation. By ensuring a continuous engagement with memory of history, both public and private, these women are enabling narrative expansion to the restrictive testimonial practices of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), thereby contributing towards filling in the ‘gaps and silences’ of South Africa’s contested past.


A Comparative Analysis of French Postmodern Art Theorists

Published on August 13, 2011 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The End of Art: A Comparative Analysis of French Postmodern Art Theorists by Marie-Thérèse Killiam is now available as part of  The Arts in Society series.

The book studies the demystification of art in the 20th century by a variety of contemporary French authors, from sociologists to philosophers, who commented on the meaning and function of art. Most of these writers who are famous in their own disciplines for their innovative ideas, share an interest in art criticism, which channels their particular philosophies and esthetic interests. Postmodern theorists like Duve and Bourdieu see art as social posturing and a manifestation of cultural fetishism in this age of the “n’importe quoi.” Mathematician philosopher Michel Serres and psychoanalyst semiotician Kristeva share an interest in similar Renaissance paintings. All postmodern writers who choose to comment on art turn to masters of past time, who illustrate best their personal esthetics. This choice also reveals their indifference, if not aversion, for contemporary art, in which most see and deplore the death of art, culture, and history today. Such reluctance at looking at the contemporary esthetic expressions of the human condition also explains their own similar stylistic expression, which is frequently morose in character, and often apocalyptic in tone and content.

Boneyard/Saline: The Aesthetics of Engagement

Published on August 12, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The project gets its name from the combination of three very important sources of inspiration: two water arteries know as the Boneyard and Saline creeks that whisk water from the Urban and agricultural surrounds of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois and the location of the forth coming exhibition at the former Allman’s Auto Body in the heart of downtown Urbana.

The exhibition space has been generously donated for a one month period by the family of the late Mr. Allman. The auto body building sits on the former path of the Boneyard creek before it was moved to accommodate the construction of the Flat Iron Building (destroyed by fire and replaced by Allmans) and the development of the north side of main street during the first years of the 20th century. The exhibition will consist of an indoor space that features video projections, a sound installation, the canoes used to remove carts, and a scale model of the saline with the vessels, which are offered as donor gifts, marking the location of each cart. The indoor space can only be accessed visually through a line representing the Boneyard and Saline creeks that will be drawn across the entire facade of the exhibition building. The outdoor space will be inhabited by a sculpture garden created from the carts which have been transformed into gabion baskets. The Atlas, to be completed following the exhibition, will include maps and visual documentation as well as consider the how, why, and what if of the Boneyard and Saline Creeks.

For more on the project, visit the Blog. Or, donate to the project via Kickstarter.

Curtain Call by Ron Arad at the Roundhouse

Published on August 10, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

From Dezeen…

As part of Bloomberg Summer at the Roundhouse, internationally renowned artist, architect and designer Ron Arad has created a unique installation for the iconic London building – Curtain Call.

Arad has responded to the Roundhouse’s spectacular Main Space by creating a curtain made of 5,600 silicon rods, suspended from an 18 metre diameter ring – a canvas for films, live performance and audience interaction.

He has invited his favourite artists, musicians and friends to create unique work for the 360° interactive installation. Each day visitors will be able to see work by Babis Alexiadis, Hussein Chalayan, Mat Collishaw, Ori Gersht, Greenaway & Greenaway, Christian Marclay, Javier Mariscal, SDNA, David Shrigley, and students from the Royal College of Art as part of the piece. More…