NEWTOPIA: THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Mechelen, Belgium 1 September – 10 December 2012
INVITED ARTISTS
(21/05/2012)
AN-MY LÊ (VIETNAM, 1960)
RAVI AGARWAL (INDIA, 1958)
AMSAB (est. 1980, BELGIUM)
KADER ATTIA (FRANCE, 1970)
SAMI BALOJI (1978, DR CONGO)
YAEL BARTANA (ISRAEL, 1970)
TAYSIR BATNIJI (1966, PALESTINE)
ELISABETTA BENASSI (ITALY, 1966)
EDWARD BURTYNSKY (CANADA, 1955)
FERNANDO SANCHEZ CASTILLO (SPAIN, 1970)
CENGIZ ÇEKIL (TURKEY, 1945)
ALEJANDRO CESCARCO (1975, URUGUAY)
OLGA CHERNYSHEVA (RUSSIA, 1962)
JOHAN CRETEN (BELGIUM, 1963)
NINAR ESBER (LEBANON, 1971)
STELIOS FAITAKIS (GREECE, 1976)
ALI FERZAT (SYRIA, 1951)
ZIYAH GAFIC (CROATIA, 1980)
GANZEER (EGYPT, 1982)
EDUARDO GIL (ARGENTINA, 1948) - EL SILUETAZO (ARGENTINA, 1983)
KENDELL GEERS (SOUTH AFRICA, 1968) WITH SPECIAL GUESTS:
MARINA ABRAMOVIC (SERBIA, 1946), BELINDA BLIGNAUT (SOUTH
AFRICA), GANZEER (EGYPT, 1982), ILSE GHEKIERE (BELGIUM, 1985),
ILYA AND EMILIA KABAKOV (1933 AND 1945, FORMER USSR), BARBARA
KRUGER (USA, 1945), NEDKO SOLAKOV (BULGARIA, 1957), BETTY
TOMPKINS (USA, 1945) 1945, KARA WALKER (USA, 1969), SANDRA
VASZQUEZ DE LA HORRA (CHILE, 1967), ZAPIRO [JONATHAN ZAPIRO]
(SOUTH AFRICA, 1958) and others
ESTHER SHALEV GERZ (LITHUANIA/ISRAEL 1948)
LEON GOLUB (USA, 1922 – 2004)
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DAVID GOLDBLATT (SOUTH AFRICA, 1930)
HANS HAACKE (GERMANY, 1936)
MONA HATOUM (LEBANON, 1952)
NICOLINE VAN HARSKAMP (NETHERLANDS, 1975)
BARBARA HAMMER (USA, 1939)
JAN PETER HAMMER (GERMANY, 1971)
DIANGO HERNANDEZ (CUBA, 1970)
LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON (1941, USA)
WAFA HOURANI (PALESTINE, 1979)
SATCH HOYT (UK, 1957)
ALFREDO JAAR (CHILE, 1956)
KHALED JARRAR (PALESTINE, 1976)
SVEN ‘T JOLLE (BELGIUM, 1966)
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY (est. 1935)
NIKITA KADAN (UKRAINE, 1981)
HAYV KAHRAMAN (IRAQ, 1981)
AMAR KANWAR (INDIA, 1964)
LINA KHATIB (LEBANON, 1970s)
THOMAS KILPPER (GERMANY, 1956)
jarek kozakiewicz (POLAND, 1961)
NEVAN LAHART (IRELAND, 1973)
THOMAS LOCHER (GERMANY, 1956)
BASIM MAGDY (EGYPT, 1977)
TOM MOLLOY (IRELAND, 1964)
GIANNI MOTTI (ITALY, 1958)
BONIFACE MWANGI (KENYA, 1985)
MADEIN (CHINA, 1977)
MARINA NAPRUSHKINA (BELARUS, 1981)
JENNIFER NELSON/DIMITRIS KOTSARAS (USA/GREECE)
SEAMUS NOLAN (IRELAND, 1978)
PABLO PICASSO (SPAIN, 1881-1973)
PIA RöNICKE (DENMARK, 1974)
BRUNO SERRALONGUE (FRANCE, 1968)
TARYN SIMON (USA, 1976)
TRAVIS SOMERVILLE (USA, 1963)
SIMON STARLING (UK, 1967)
SUN XUN (CHINA, 1981)
JAN ŠVANKMAJER (CZECH REPUBLIC, 1934)
KOSTAS TSOLIS (GREECE, 1965)
LIEVE VAN STAPPEN (BELGIUM, 1958)
SIMON VELEZ (COLOMBIA, 1949)
KOSTIS VELONIS (GREECE, 1970)
ANDY WARHOL (USA, 1928-1987)
WILHELM WERNER (GERMANY, 1898-1940)
KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO (POLAND, 1943)
WILCHAR (BELGIUM, 1910-2005)
WOOLOO (est. 2002, DENMARK)
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Artists Biographies
ALFREDO JAAR
was born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile. He lives and works in New York,
USA.
Alfredo Jaar seizes the challenge of making art out of troubling events
such as genocide, inter-ethnic violence, oppression in military
dictatorships, for example, and critically dissects the ways these are
transmitted and discussed in the international media. His work revolves
around international current affairs with a special focus on human rights
violations. His subject matter a wide variety of critical issues and subjects
as diverse as the genocide in Rwanda, American complicity in military
dictatorships in Latin America, gold mining in Brazil, pollution in Nigeria,
and border issues between Mexico and the United States. Rather than
offering information in an expected or familiar form, Jaar creates
presentations that de-construct standardised media representations of
victimhood and violence and demand reflection. In an age when images of
atrocities have become commonplace, Jaar’s work raises critical
questions: does an oversaturation of media images of war lead to apathy?
How might we reflect on images of suffering in a way that could challenge
the distanced apathy of contemporary mass media consumption? Jaar’s
work thus addresses the much more complicated question concerning the
limits of human ‘sympathy’, questions of ‘affect’, engagement, individual
responsibility, and how these are dealt with in our time.
Jaar became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in
2000. In 2006 he received Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creación.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Alfredo Jaar: Marx Lounge, Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam, and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo,
Seville (2011); The Sound of Silence, Ecole nationale supérieure des
beaux-arts de Paris, Paris (2011); We Wish To Inform You That We Didn’t
Know, Contemporary Art Galleries, University of Connecticut, Connecticut
(2010); It Is Difficult, Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008); Politics of the
Image, South London Gallery, London (2008). Recent group exhibitions
include: Paris Triennial (2012); Seeing is Believing, KW, Berlin (2011);
Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2011); Space,
MAXXI, Rome (2010); That Was Then. This Is Now, P.S.1, New York
(2008). He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), São
Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), Sydney (1990), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju
(1995, 2000), Johannesburg (1997), Seville (2006), and Liverpool (2010)
as well as the Documenta exhibitions in Kassel (1987, 2002).
www.alfredojaar.net
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ALI FERZAT
was born in 1951 in Hama, Syria. He lives and works in Damascus Syria,
and in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Legendary Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat's drawings criticize bureaucracy,
corruption, social injustices, and hypocrisy in the Middle East, in particular
targeting the Syrian government and other autocracies in the region. His
drawings, typically without captions, are renowned for their scathing
criticism and biting humour, making Ferzat one of the most outspoken
critics of human rights violations in the Arab world, and one who has
drawn the ire of several governments. Initially, his work depicted types
rather than individuals but since the Syrian uprising began, Ferzat has
been more direct in his caricatures, depicting actual figures including the
President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
In 2002 Ferzat was a recipient of the Prince Claus Award and in 2011 he
was awarded both the Sakharov Prize for freedom of speech by the
European Parliament and the Press Freedom Prize by Reporters Without
Borders and Le Monde. He began drawing caricatures for the state-run
daily al-Thawra, in 1969. In the mid-1970s he moved to another
government controlled daily, Tishreen. International recognition followed
in 1980 when he won the first prize at the Intergraphic International
Festival in Berlin. His exhibition in 1989 at the Institut du Monde Arabe in
Paris brought on him a death threat from Saddam Hussein and a ban
from Iraq, Jordan and Libya. In December 2000 Ferzat started publishing
al-Domari (‘The Lamplighter’), which was the first independent periodical
in Syria since the Baath Party came to power in 1963. By 2003, however,
frequent government censorship and lack of funds forced Ferzat to close
down al-Domari. For denouncing the corruption and human rights abuses
of the Syrian Government, he was attacked in August 2011 by masked
gunmen, who broke his hands as a warning. His work has been published
in major international newspapers such as the New York Times, the
Guardian, and Le Monde, and he also exhibitions internationally.
www.ali-ferzat.com
ANDY WARHOL
was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, USA as Andrew Warhola. He died in 1987
in New York City.
Andy Warhol needs no introduction. He was one of the leading figures in
the American Pop Art movement, best known for his exploration of massproduced images of mass-produced objects, and iconic public figures and
media imagery. He experimented in media such as film, sculpture, paint,
music, and silkscreen, exploring the relationship between artistic
expression, celebrity culture and advertisement. On several occasions he
deliberately chose for disturbing or even politically related subjects,
handling these subjects in the same generic manner that he applied to his
commercially drawn images. After his death in 1987, his entire estate
went to create a foundation dedicated to the ‘advancement of the visual
arts’: the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Warhol has been
the subject of countless retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and
documentary films.
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His first international retrospective opened in 1968 at the Moderna
Museet, Stockholm and travelled afterwards to the Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam, the Kunsthalle Bern and the Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Other
important solo exhibitions include the Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1969), the
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1979), and the Dia Art
Foundation (1986 and 1987).
www.warholfoundation.org
BARBARA HAMMER
was born in 1939 in Hollywood, USA. She lives and works in New York.
Barbara Hammer is known for creating groundbreaking feminist
experimental films that deal with gay rights, gender roles, lesbian pride,
and collective action. Hammer is author of some of the first and seminal
lesbian-made films in history, including ‘Dyketactics’ (1974) and ‘Women I
Love’ (1976). While in the 1970s her films dealt with the representation of
taboo subjects through performance, and in the 1980s she began using an
optical printer to make films that explore perception, her more recent
films since the 1990s are documentaries that explore hidden aspects of
queer history. Recent solo exhibitions include: The Fearless Frame, Tate
Modern, London (2012); Barbara Hammer, KOW, Berlin (2011); Barbara
Hammer, MoMA, New York (2010).
Recent group exhibitions include: The Visible Vagina, David Nolan Gallery,
New York (2010); Everywhere. Sexual Diversity Policies in Art, CGAC,
Santiago de Compostela (2009); Migrating Forms, Anthology Film
Archives, New York (2009); WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, P.S.1, New York, The Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the National Museum of Women in
the Arts, Washington (2007/8); Comfort Zone, Santa Fe Art
Institute
(2007).
www.barbarahammer.com
CENGIZ ÇEKIL
was born in 1945 in Bor, Turkey. He lives and works in Istanbul.
Cengiz Çekil is widely regarded as a founding father of Turkish
contemporary art, and has influenced a whole generation of artists in his
home country. In disparate media but with remarkable consistency, Çekil
draws on the sensual, tactile effects of accumulations of lo-fi materials, in
order to spark socio-political associations from commonplace materials.
From textiles to newspapers to discarded objects, his choice of materials
has always been decidedly democratic and economical. His work functions
as a commentary which traces the vast social transformations
experienced by Turkish society after 1970, and the political situation
during the dictatorships in the 1980s and beyond. Recent solo exhibitions
include: Cengiz Çekil, Rampa Gallery, Istanbul (2010); Saat Kaç?, Yapı
Kredi Kazım Taşkent Art Gallery, Istanbul (2008). Recent group
exhibitions include: I’m Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life in
Contemporary Drawing, MoMA, New York (2011); The School, The Work,
The Family, Gallery Nova, Zagreb (2009); What Keeps Mankind Alive?
11th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2009); Made in Turkey, Ernst Barlach
Museum, Wedel (2009) and other.
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DAVID GOLDBLATT
was born in 1930 in Randfontein, in South Africa. He lives and works in
Johannesburg and is considered one of the most important photographer,
internationally.
For more than 40 years David Goldblatt has been documenting the social
and political situation in his place of birth, South Africa, with a special
focus on apartheid and post apartheid society, and questions of
segregation and racial inequality. While he uses photography as a means
of accessing and exploring people and societies, Goldblatt is acutely aware
of the ethics of photography, and has used the camera as a way of
discreetly capturing the complexities and intricacies of the specific
conditions and situations that he photographs, while avoiding
sensationalism and didacticism. Goldblatt was awarded the Henri CartierBresson Award in 2009 and the Hasselblad Foundation International
Award in Photography in 2006. He is also the recipient of three honorary
doctorates. Recent solo exhibitions include: South African Photographs:
David Goldblatt Jewish Museum, New York, and South African Jewish
Museum, Cape Town (2010); David Goldblatt: Intersections Intersected,
New Museum, New York, and Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2009); David
Goldblatt:
South
African
Photographs
1952-2006,
Fotomuseum
Winterthur, Winterthur (2007); Intersections, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam,
and Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley (2007). Recent group exhibitions
include: Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography,
Victoria
and
Albert
Museum,
London
(2011);
ILLUMInazioni/
ILLUMInations, Arsenale, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); There is always a
cup of sea to sail in, 29th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo (2010); The
Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, Museum of
Modern Art, New York (2010); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); Documenta
11, Kassel (2002).
DIANGO HERNÁNDEZ
was born in 1970 in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. He lives and works in
Düsseldorf.
The work of Diango Hernández navigates between poles of efficiency and
scarcity, which inevitably hark back to his experience of growing up and
living in Cuba, and in particular to the historical hiccup that country has
endured both in terms of its own utopian aspirations and the unforgiving
economic embargo that the United States and its allies imposed, in turn.
His conceptually-based art practice revolves around found objects, and
suggestive or symbolic materials that are (re-)appropriated, while the
political rhetoric is always handled subtlety, and discretion avoiding all
kinds of the sloganism and propaganda that form part of the Cuban
collective consciousness. Hernández’s work can be understood as both
social critique but also as a desire for social transformation.
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Recent solo exhibitions include: Folded Tiger, Philara, Düsseldorf (2012);
Drawing the human figure, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania (2012); Lonely
Fingers, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskaste, Marl (2011); Living Rooms. A
Survey, MART, Rovereto (2011); Line Dreamers, Haus im Süden, Cologne
(2011); A Kiss, a Hat, a Stamp, Blood Mountain Foundation, Budapest
(2010); Losing you tonight, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
(2009/10); Swans without a Lake, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen
(2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Fronteras en mutación, en
tránsito, CCEBA, Buenos Aires (2011); Tracks, Kunstmuseum
Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein (2011); The New Décor, Hayward Gallery,
London, and Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2010/1);
Touched, 10th Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2010);
Performa 09, New York (2009); Made in Germany, Kunstverein Hannover,
Hanover (2007); Bei Freunden zu Gast, Stella Lohaus Gallery, Antwerp
(2007); Always a little further, Arsenale, 51st Venice Biennale (2005).
www.diango.net
EDWARD BURTYNSKY
was born in 1955 in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. He lives and works
in Toronto.
Edward Burtynsky’s work is deeply engaged with the fate and future of
our planet. His photographs depict how nature and landscape are
threatened and damaged by industrialism, mass manufacturing, urban
expansion, and the constant quest for resources to provide us with our
incessant material needs. He documents the transformation of the
environment by human intervention in photographic series that examine
process, cause and effect. His works examine, in detail, the exploitation of
natural resources, ambitious urban and industrial projects, and their
residues. In 2005 Burtynsky was awarded the TED Prize and in 2006 he
was named Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also the recipient of four
honorary doctorates. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include:
Nature Transformed: Edward Burtynsky's Vermont Quarry Photographs in
Context, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont, and
Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire (2012/3); Oil, Canadian
Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm, and Huis
Marseille, Amsterdam (among others; touring since 2009). Recent group
exhibitions include: Infinite Balance, Museum of Photographic Arts
(MoPA), San Diego (2011/2); LOOK11 – Liverpool International
Photography Festival, Liverpool (2011); 4. Fotofestival Mannheim
Ludwigshafen Heidelberg, The Eye is a Lonely Hunter: Images of Human
Kind, Wilhelm Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen (2011); Embarrassment of
Riches: Picturing Global Wealth, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
(2010/1); Una fábrica, Una Máqina, Un Cuerpo, Museo Universitario de
Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, and Centre de Documentació Panera,
Lleida (2009/10).
www.edwardburtynsky.com
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FERNANDO SÁNCHEZ CASTILLO
was born in 1970 in Madrid, Spain. Lives and works in Madrid.
Subjects such as oppression, revolution and liberation are frequent in the
work of Fernando Sánchez Castillo, who often makes references to the
history of his native Spain, and particularly the period of the military
dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1936-1975). Through sculpture,
drawing and video, he scrutinizes the past and redeems it by means of a
new multi-layered visual, often transformative language where a playful
hand embraces a serious theme, often turning violent narratives on their
head by means of poetry and leaps of the imagination. The artist’s
fascination for collective memory and the recreation of real and imagined
scenarios in the political history underlines a strong sociological influence.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Método del Discurso, CAC, Málaga (2011);
Episodios Nacionales: Táctica, PhotoEspaña, CBA, Madrid (2010);
Divertimento, Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid (2009); The Unresolved...,
Vleeshal, Middelburg (2008); Didáctica, Galeria Juan Silió, Santander
(2008); Abajo la inteligencia, MUSAC, León (2007). Recent group
exhibitions include: Ejercicios de Memoria, Centro de Arte La Panera,
Lleida (2011); Afuera, CCE, Cordoba (2010); The People United Will Never
Be Defeated, Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Rotterdam (2010); Bourdeaux
Biennal, Bordeaux (2009);
Colossal, Museum Kalkriese, BramcheKalkreise (2009); 3rd Bucharest Biennale (2008); Borders, Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2008); Lost Paradise. Der Blick des
Engels, Centrum Paul Klee, Bern (2008); Sonsbeeck 2008: Grandeur,
Arnhem (2008); 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007); Visions de Mediterranee,
Musée d’Art Contemporain de Nîmes, Nîmes (2007).
GANZEER,
who was born as Mohammed Fahmy in 1982 in Cairo, Egypt, where he
lives and works.
Ganzeer uses media such as street art, graphic design, illustration,
questionnaires, graffiti, and video as means of expression and
communication. Ganzeer’s interests include, but are not limited to,
commentary on current affairs, the human condition and what's next to
come, and of course, recent Egyptian politics. He is considered one of the
key figures of that part of the Egyptian art scene that is socially engaged
and speaks up for public space and collective action. His murals and
artistic activity on the streets of Cairo, and his protest posters and
graphics, have made him one of the most celebrated visual critics and
activists in the Egyptian Revolution. The popularity of his graphic design
work catapulted him into the contemporary art world in 2007 with his first
solo show Everyday Heroes with the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo. This
prompted his inclusion in a number of exhibitions around the world, such
as: Noord, Amsterdam (2010); Cairo Documenta, Cairo (2010); Afropolis,
Cairo (2010); Shatana International Workshop, Shatana (2009); Why
Not?, Cairo (2009); Art Threesome, Rotterdam (2008); Cairoscape, Berlin
(2008); Urban Artists, Dubai (2008); Breaking Boredom, Cairo (2008);
Radius of Art, Kiel (2008).
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His one-minute video ‘Up Yours’ was also nominated for a TOMMIE award
in 2008 by the One Minute Foundation, Amsterdam.
Outside of the typical art sphere, Ganzeer is best known for his ‘artivism’
throughout 2011 via the use of murals, stickers, graffiti, posters, and
other actions in Cairo's public spaces.
For Newtopia, Ganzeer has been commissioned to make a new mural in
public space.
www.ganzeer.com
HANS HAACKE
was born in 1936 in Cologne, Germany. He lives and works in New York.
In 1993 Haacke was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale
(shared with Nam June Paik) and in 2004 the Peter-Weiss-Preis. He is
also the recipient of three honorary doctorates. Recent solo exhibitions
include: Hans Haacke, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2012);
Hans
Haacke: The Chocolate Master, Specific Object, New York (2011); Hans
Haacke, Foundazione Antonio Ratti, Como (2010); Hans Haacke:
Weather, or not, X Initiative, New York (2009/10). Recent group
exhibitions include: This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis,
and ICA, Boston (2012/3); Light Years: Conceptual Art and the
Photograph, 1964-1977, The Art Institute of Chicago (2011/2); The
Lucifer Effect, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2011/2); Plot
for a Biennial, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2011); The Last
Newspaper, The New Museum, New York (2010/1); Radical Nature – Art
and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009, Barbican Art Gallery,
London (2009); 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); Documenta X, Kassel
(1997); German Pavilion, 45th Venice Biennale (1993); Documenta 8,
Kassel (1987); Documenta 7, Kassel (1982); Documenta 5, Kassel
(1972).
The works of conceptual artist Hans Haacke expose the interconnectivity
of culture, politics, corruption, and greed. Spanning a range of mediums
and drawing upon a variety of contemporary art strategies, from
Conceptualism to Land Art, Haacke’s confrontational work often has been
critical of militarism, imperialism and nationalism but has also probed the
culture industry and institutional politics, exposing the shady dealings of
museum trustees or other officials who control what is promoted and
displayed. Haacke -who has said he intends his art to "convict" its
subject- is thus regarded as one of the precursors of institutional critique.
HAYV KAHRAMAN
was born in 1981 in Baghdad, Iraq
. She lives and works in San
Francisco.
Spanning drawing, painting, and sculpture, the practice of Hayv Kahraman
engages with issues surrounding female identity in her homeland Iraq –
how women are victimised within their own culture, made subservient to
men and often suffer the most from the effects of the war.
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She is also, by extent, intensely preoccupied with questions of migration
and displacement as a result of the political situation and US-led
occupation. Her stylised, figurative works have an exquisite eye for design
and possess a sense of painful immaculate beauty. Recent solo exhibitions
include: Pins and Needles, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai (2010); Waraq,
Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco (2010); Seven gates, Green Cardamom
Gallery, London (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: Disquieting
muses, Contemporary Art Center, Thessaloniki (2011); Jameel Prize,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris
(2011/2): Of women’s modesty and anger, Villa Empain, Brussels (2011);
The silk road, Tri Postal, Lille (2010); Unveiled. New art from the Middle
East, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010); Taswir. Pictorial mapping of Islam
and modernity, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2010); Sharjah Biennial,
Sharjah (2009).
www.hayvkahraman.com
JAN ŠVANKMAJER
was born in 1934 in Prague, in former Czechoslovakia, now the Czech
Republic. He lives and works in Prague and Knovíz.
The work of Jan spans several media though he is mostly known for his
surreal experimental stop-motion animation and feature films, which have
greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The
Brothers Quay and many others. Frequently involving inanimate objects
suddenly brought to life, his films often feature morbid, absurd narratives
that reference the darker side of the human psyche and oppression under
Communism. Today, he is one of the most celebrated animators in the
world, having made over thirty short- and feature-length films.
Švankmajer also produces drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures',
many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily
banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. Recent solo exhibitions
include: Transmutation of the Senses, Art Gallery of the City of Segovia,
Segovia – with Eva Švankmajerová (2010); Gallery of Moravia, Uherské
Hradiště – with Eva Švankmajerová (2008); University of Essex,
Colchester (2007); Geni Tzami, Old Archeological Museum, Thessaloniki –
with Eva Švankmajerová (2006); Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa –
with Eva Švankmajerová (2005); Food, National Gallery, Prague Castle,
Prague – with Eva Švankmajerová (2004). Recent group exhibitions
include: A Vision of Central Europe, Groeningemuseum, Brugge (2010/1);
Animism, MuHKA, Antwerp, and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2010); Speech
Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
www.athanor.cz
KRYSZTOF WODICZKO
was born in 1946 in Warsaw, Poland. He lives and works in New York.
Krzysztof Wodiczko has become internationally known for his monumental
site-specific slide and video projections in public space, architectural
facades, buildings and monuments, as well as for his gallery installations.
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These often politically-charged works of art directly refer to human rights
issues (from war to displacement to the rights of minorities) and revolve
around issues of democracy, violence, alienation, and inhumanity, often
including the testimonies of the people whose plights they address.
Complementing these projections are Wodiczko’s mobile instruments and
mechanical installations, designed to empower marginalized members of
society such as immigrants, the homeless, these who lost their closest to
street violence and war, women, and children-survivors of domestic
abuse, the war veterans and others.
For Newtopia, Wodiczko has been commissioned to make a new public
video projection the façade of the historic City Hall (built in the 1200s)
into a cultural communication vehicle for the city immigrant newcomers
and the population of more established city residents.
In 1998 Wodiczko was awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize. Currently he is
Professor in Residence of Art, Design, and the Public Domain at Harvard
University (Graduate School of Design). Recent solo exhibitions include:
Guests, Atlas Sztuki, Lodz (2010), and Polish Pavilion, 53rd Venice
Biennale (2009); ...OUT OF HERE, ICA, Boston (2009); Autoportret
2/Self-Portrait 2, Profile Foundation Gallery, Warszawa, and Bunkier
Sztuki, Kraków (2009); Pojazdy—Instrumenty/Vehicles—Instruments,
Galeria Fundacji Signum, Poznań (2008).
Recent group exhibitions include: Heaven, 2nd Athens Biennale, Athens
(2010); Unbuilt Roads, e-flux project space, New York (2009); Cold War
Modern: Design 1945-1970, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2008);
Notes on Monumentality, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2008);
Sleeping and Dreaming, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden (2007);
Documenta 8, Kassel (1987); Documenta 6, Kassel (1977).
LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON
was born in 1941 in Cleveland, USA. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Since the late 60s, conceptual multi-media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson
has constantly been pushing the boundaries of art and continuously
exploring new territories. Already very early Hershman explored issues
that later became key issues in contemporary art such as the relationship
between the real and virtual world, between human beings and machines;
surveillance and the increasing control of public space, and questions
relating to gender and the construction of identity. Lynn Hershman Leeson
has also been an innovator in the use of various media, and is considered
as one of the pioneers of New Media art. Recent solo exhibitions include:
Lynn Hershman Leeson, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen (2012); Ja Jako
Roberta, Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow (2012); Lynn Hershman
Leeson, Waldburger Gallery, Brussels (2011); The Complete Roberta
Breitmore, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2009); The Floating
Museum Archive, New Langton Arts, San Francisco (2008); Lynn
Hershman Leeson: No Body Special, DeYoung Museum, San Francisco
(2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Moments: The History of
Performance, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe (2012); The
Deconstructive Impulse: Women Artists Reconfigure the Signs of Power,
1973 – 1992, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2012); Double Life,
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Tate Modern, London (2011); Primary Views, Monash University Museum
of Art, Clayton (2009); WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Vancouver
Art Gallery, Vancouver, P.S.1, New York, Los Angeles Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and National Museum of Women in the
Arts, Washington
(2007/8); Fast Time Slow Bodies, MoCA, Tapei
(2007);
Faith in Exposure, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam
(2007); Tecnologia e informatica, 42nd Venice Biennale (1986).
www.lynnhershman.com
MADEIN COMPANY
Established in 2009 in Shanghai, China
MadeIn Company is a cultural production company founded by the
Chinese conceptual artist Xu Zhen in 2009. By embedding his identity into
a commercial company rather than an artist collective, Xu explores the
possibility of a contemporary artist dissolving into China’s larger
ideological constructs. MadeIn Company has taken the troubled
relationship between art and ideology as its theme and has branched it
out in separate formal directions, where each series of works seems
deliberately to seek to complicate the relationship between art, money,
and power. Consistently seeking to push the boundaries of social and
cultural assumptions and their relationship to factual realities, MadeIn
Company works with video, photography, installation, painting, collage
and performance to refer to current affairs and social, political and
economic entanglements in the age of global capitalism.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Action of Consciousness, ShanghART
Gallery & H-Space, Shanghai (2011); Physique of Consciousness, Long
March Space, Beijing, and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2011); Seeing One’s
Own Eyes. Middle East Contemporary Art Exhibition, IKON Gallery,
Birmingham, and S.M.A.K., Ghent (2009/10). Recent group exhibitions
include: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, Rebirth and Apocalypse in
Contemporary Art, 1st Kyiv Biennial, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev (2012);
Living as Form, Creative Time, Essex Street Market, New York (2011);
How we to do?, Heng Lu Art Museum, Hangzhou (2011); Negotiations –
The Second Today’s Documents, Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010);
Rehearsal, 8th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
(2010); Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, Minsheng Art Museum,
Shanghai (2010); Living in Evolution, 7th Busan Biennale, Busan Museum
of Art, Busan (2010); Jungle: A Close-Up Focus on Chinese Contemporary
Art Trends, Platform China, Beijing (2010); Breaking Forecast. 8 Key
Figures of China's New Generation Artists, UCCA, Beijing (2009); The New
Attitude of image, Tang Contemporary Art Center, Beijing (2009).
Curatorial projects include Never Forget The Image Struggle!, TOP
Contemporary Art Center, Shanghai (2011) and Bourgeoisified Proletariat,
Shanghai Songjiang Creative Studio, Shanghai (2009).
www.madeincompany.com
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MARINA NAPRUSHKINA
was born in 1981 in Minsk, Belarus. She lives and works in Minsk and
Berlin.
Artist and activist Marina Naprushkina works in a range of media including
painting, video and installation to develop critical examinations of power
and the structure of the State, often using material acquired from her
native Belarus. She investigates different political and social models from
dictatorships to post-modern democracies. A rich source she often uses is
the propagandistic material delivered by governmental institutions. These
images and symbols become either slightly changed or inserted in a
different context in order to reverse the original message. The artist’s
painstaking dissection of the visual and linguistic structure of authoritarian
regimes, in particular, and research-based works demonstrate how state
authority affects society, and transforms democracy into an illusion for
those living under the persistent hegemony of the ruling network. Recent
solo exhibitions include: Self governing, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar
(2012); Office for anti-propaganda, gallery Clages, Cologne (2009); When
I am thinking of cold Russia, I remember first the beautiful hot summers,
Kunstverein Brühl, Brühl (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: 7th
Berlin Biennale (2012); 5th Bucharest Biennale (2012); Sound of Silence:
Art during Dictatorship, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York
(2012); Media Impact. International Festival of Activist Art, 4th Moscow
Biennial of contemporary art (2011); An art exhibition on Europe?, Galerie
für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2011); Fokus Lodz Biennale, Lodz
(2010); Glob(E)Scape, 2nd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
(2010); What Keeps Mankind Alive?, 11th Istanbul Biennial (2009);
Lettrism, Central House of Artist, Moscow (2009); Friction and Conflict cultural influence and exchange in Northeast Europe, Kalmar
Konstmuseum, Kalmar (2008); Where the east ends, Nassauischer
Kunstverein, Wiesbaden (2008); Bra Konst, Vikingsbergs Konsthall,
Helsingborg (2007).
www.office-antipropaganda.com
MONA HATOUM
was born in 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon. She lives and works in London.
In the early 1980s Mona Hatoum began her career with performance
pieces, though later she began to develop installations involving video,
light, and sound. While mostly focusing on confrontational themes such as
violence, oppression, and voyeurism, her works makes powerful
references to the vulnerability and resistance of human bodies, and
profers a very personal interpretation of the language of minimalism by
introducing contrasting yet highly allusive elements into strict, sometimes
forbidding, structures. The influence of her native culture is very clear
with frequent references to war, physical vulnerability, displacement, and
a critique of patriarchal society.
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In 2011 Hatoum was awarded the Joan Miro Prize. Recent solo exhibitions
include: You Are Still Here, ARTER space for art, Istanbul (2012); Bunker,
White Cube, London (2011); Keeping it Real: An exhibition in Four Acts
(Act Three: Current Disturbance), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
(2010/1); Roadworks, Musée Rodin, Paris (2010); Witness, Beirut Art
Center (2010); Undercurrent (red), Galleria Continua, San Gimignano
(2009); Measures of Entanglement, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art,
Beijing (2009); Present Tense: Mona Hatoum, Parasol Unit, London
(2008); Hanging Garden, DAAD Galerie, Berlin (2008). Recent group
exhibitions include: Wander, Labyrinthine Variations, Centre PompidouMetz, Metz (2011); The Luminous Interval, Guggenheim, Bilbao (2011);
Aschemünder, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2011); The New Décor, Hayward
Gallery, London, and Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
(2010/1); On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, MoMA, New
York (2010); Always a little further, Arsenale, 51st Venice Biennale
(2005); Identité et altérité. Une brève histoire du corps humain, 45th
Venice Biennale (1995).
NIKITA KADAN
was born in 1982 in Kiev, Ukraine. He lives and works in Kiev.
Nikita Kadan is an artist, activist, writer, member and co-founder of both
the artists collective R.E.P. (‘Revolutionary Experimental Space’ - since
2004) and the curatorial/activist group HudRada (Ukranian for ‘artistic
committee’ - since 2008). He works with installation, graphics, painting,
mural drawings, and posters in public space and often is involved in
interdisciplinary collaborations with architects, human rights activists and
sociologists. In his practice he reflects, among other things, on the nature
of history and memory, but also on human rights questions in the former
Soviet Republics, and particularly the Ukraine, where he comes from.
He is a member of the artists group R.E.P. (Revolutionary experimental
space) and co-founder of the curatorial and activist group HUDRADA. In
2011 he was the recipient of the main prize of the PinchukArtCentre, Kiev.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Figures on white, Karas gallery, Kiev
(2011); Nesezon, Arsenal gallery, Kiev (2011); Procedure room/Fixing,
NORMA gallery, Odessa (2010); Procedure room, Institutskaya gallery,
Kiev (2010); Scene of action, Collection gallery, Kiev (2009). Recent
group exhibitions include: Sound of silence, Elizabeth Foundation, New
York (2012); Impossible Community, Moscow Museum of Modern Art,
Moscow (2011); Atlantis 11, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Independent,
Art Arsenal, Kiev (2011); Shockworkers of Mobile Image, 1st Ural
Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2010); IF. Ukrainian Art in Transition,
PERMM, Perm (2010); No more reality, De Appel, Amsterdam (2008);
New Ukrainian painting, White Box gallery, New York (2007); Generations
UsA, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2007). www.nikitakadan.com
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RAVI AGARWAL
was born in 1958 in New Delhi, India. He lives and works in New Delhi.
Ravi Agarwal is an artist, environmental activist, writer and curator,
working with photography, video and installation. His work probes
questions of nature, work, and environmental sustainability. His work has
often explored the conditions under which people live and work in the
“informal” sector of the Indian economy, exposing the consequences,
many of them unseen, for the natural environment. Agarwal’s work
highlights the fact that our shortsighted misuse of the planet and its
resources stems from the way we separate our “selves” from nature.
Agarwal is also the founder of Toxics Link, a platform for national
information exchange on dealing with environmental toxins and finding
sustainable alternatives to their use.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Of Value and Labour, The Guild Art
Gallery, Mumbai (2011); Flux: dystopia, utopia, heterotopia, Gallery
Espace, New Delhi (2010/1); An Other Place, Gallery Espace, New Delhi
(2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Critical Mass. Contemporary Art
from India, Tel Aviv Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2012);
4.Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen Heidelberg, The Eye is a Lonely
Hunter: Images of Human Kind, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, and
Grimmuseum, Berlin (2011/2); Where Three Dreams Cross, Whitechapel
Gallery, London, and Winterthur Fotomuseum, Winterthur (2010);
Indian
Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo,
Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Musée d’Art
Contemporain, Lyon, MAXXI, Rome, and Ullens Center for Contemporary
Art, Beijing (2008/12); Still/Moving Image, Devi Art Foundation, New
Delhi (2008); Documenta XI, Kassel (2002).
www.raviagarwal.com
SAMMY BALOJI
was born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. He lives
and works in Lubumbashi and Brussels.
Setting out to gather local memories of urban work and urban life, Sammy
Baloji became especially interested in colonial history, its legacy, and their
relationship to the present, beginning with Katanga, his home province.
Baloji’s work interrogates abuse of power and its legacy, revealing the
devastating impact that colonial exploitation had on Africa, its people and
environment. His photographic work re-inscribes the painful history of
human and environmental exploitation into the present-day Congolese
landscape, activating memory and the importance of history. Baloji’s work
breaks from straightforward narrative and conflates time frames by
juxtaposing past and present in both documentary photography and
photomontages. He often mixes historical photographs and contemporary
pictures, uncovering local histories, rendering places and architectures the
witnesses of a not-so-far-away past, witnesses of exploitation and power
structures.
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In 2008 he was a recipient of the Prince Claus Award and in 2011 he was
artist-in-residence at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.
Recent solo exhibitions include: The Beautiful Time: Photography by
Sammy Baloji, Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, Washington
(2012/3); Mémoire, Dilston Grove, London, De Brakke Grond,
Amsterdam, and Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa (2010); Vues de
Likasi, Contact Gallery, Toronto (2010). Recent group exhibitions include:
Environment and Object. Recent African Art, Middlebury College Museum
of Art, Middlebury, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond, and Frances Young Tang Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore
College, Saratoga Springs (2011/2); ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of
Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2011); Body and Mask, Royal Museum for
Central Africa, Tervuren (2009/10).
SIMON STARLING
was born in 1967 in Epsom, United Kingdom. He lives and works in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
The processes involved in transforming one object or substance into
another lie at the core of Simon Starling’s practice. He makes objects,
installations, and devises pilgrimage-like journeys that draw out an array
of ideas about nature, technology and economics. Starling describes his
work as ‘the physical manifestation of a thought process’, revealing
hidden histories and relationships, and very often highlights the labour
expended to produce it. His subject matter is diverse: from environmental
issues to questions of industry and production, but in all cases he displays
the end result of carefully thought-out and executed processes, where the
viewer is encouraged to reflect upon both a reconstructed object or
subject, and the story behind them.
Starling was the recipient of the 2005 Turner Prize. Recent and upcoming
solo exhibitions include: Tate Britain, London (2013); Radcliffe
Observatory, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2012); Recent exhibitions
include: Project for a Masquerade (Hiroshima), Hiroshima City Museum of
Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2011); THEREHERETHENTHERE (Works
1997 - 2009), MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2009); Under Lime, Temporäre
Kunsthalle, Berlin (2009); Cuttings (Supplement), The Power Plant,
Toronto (2008); Particle Projection (Loop), WIELS, Brussels (2007).
Recent group exhibitions include: The Collection in Action. Media Art from
Vito Acconci to Simon Starling, Museion – Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art, Bolzano (2012); Carlo Mollino. Maniera Moderna, Haus
der Kunst, Munich (2011/12); Ostalgia, New Museum, New York (2011);
MOMENTUM 2011, 6th Nordic Biennial for Nordic Contemporary Art, Moss
(2011); Fare Mondi/Making Worlds, Italian Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale
(2009); Altermodern, Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2008/09); The
History of a Decade That Has Not Yet Been Named, 9th Biennale de Lyon,
Lyon (2007/8).
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TARYN SIMON
was born in 1975 in New York. She lives and works in New York.
Taryn Simon’s works are the result of a long-term process of research and
investigation. Her photographs and writing underscore the invisible space
between language and the visual – a space in which translation and
disorientation continually occur. Stylistically, Taryn Simon works on the
borderline between fine art and documentary photography. Frequently
relying on text to avoid any ambiguities in content, she applies methods
of advertising photography to journalism, creating carefully staged and
manipulated photographic tableaux that gain their force from the friction
between their visual perfection and the unsettling subject matter which
revolves around social and political issues, and sensitive, often
marginalised or suppressed narratives.
Recent solo exhibitions include: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other
Chapters, MoMA, New York, Tate Modern, London, and Neue
Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2011/2); Taryn Simon, Milwaukee Art Museum,
Milwaukee, Multimedia Art Musuem, Moscow, and Helsinki Art Museum,
Helsinki (2011/2); Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and
Unfamiliar, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Institute of
Modern Art, Brisbane, Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Museum für
Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, and The Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York (2007/10). Recent group exhibitions include: Remote Control:
Art, TV and mass consumerism, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
(2012); Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011);
Seeing is believing, KW, Berlin (2011); Tasteful Pictures, The J. Paul Getty
Museum, Los Angeles (2010); elles@centrepompidou.fr, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris (2009); Bienale Cuve, OK Center for Contemporary Art,
Linz (2009); Manifesto Marathon, Manifestos for the 21st Century,
Serpentine Gallery Pavillion, Serpentine Gallery, London (2008).
www.tarynsimon.com
TAYSIR BATNIJI
was born in 1966 in Gaza, Palestine. He lives and works in Paris, France.
Taysir Batniji documents the Palestinian reality, and the plight of the
Palestinian people in a physically vivid, anti-spectacular way by focusing
on displacement, intermediate states, the inhibition of movement, and the
violence exercised by the IDF with a self-conscious sobriety. In his
photographic installations he depicts the effects of prohibition, exclusion,
and the perpetual monitoring and surveillance in the Occupied Territories,
while his poetic, suggestive drawings, on the other hand symbolically
allude to the difficulties faced in daily life in terms of access to resources
and goods. These issues are are part and parcel of the social, political and
cultural context in Palestine, and also reflect the position of the artist as a
witness and critic of this reality, through a self-consciously ‘objective’
gaze.
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Recent solo exhibitions include: Le monde n'est pas arriveé, Eric Dupont
Gallery, Paris (2011); Mobil Home, Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg (2010);
Centre Culturel Francais, Alger (2009), and Musée d'Art et d'Histoire,
Geneva (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Making History,
Zollamt, Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2012); Untitled,
12th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2011); Seeing is believing, KW, Berlin
(2011); The Future of a Promise, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Mirages.
Contemporary Art in the Islamic World, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil,
Rio di Janeiro, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo, and Museu National do
Conjunto Cultural da Republica, Brasilia (2010); Jerusalem Syndrome The Jerusalem Show, Jerusalem (2009); Palestine c/o Venice, Palestinian
Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); In Palestine, 2nd Riwaq Biennale,
Ramallah (2007); Heterotopias, 1st Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki
(2007); Contemporary Arab Representations, 50th Venice Biennale (2003).
www.taysirbatniji.com
THOMAS KILPPER
was born in 1956 in Stuttgart, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin.
Thomas Kilpper’s work has consistently investigated the relationship
between history, politics, current affairs, the public sphere and collective
memory, highlighting obscured political and social significances. Often
creating large site-specific and labour-intensive interventions in public
buildings and spaces, through installations and floor carvings, he seeks to
highlight contentious political and historical issues. Kilpper has become
especially renowned for his use of architectural scale woodcut methods to
transform historical buildings and spaces. He conceives his works as
means to develop the large-scale visibility that provokes public dialogue
around social issues such that range from repressive state politics to the
plight of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Often working with local neighbourhoods and communities, he uses his
research to create a picture of a history more complicated than that told
through official channels. His work expands political dialogue, not only to
include previously excluded voices at a local level but also to integrate
these stories into an international history of resistance and work for
justice.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Pavilion for Revolutionary Free Speech,
Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2012); Venecian Prints, Dispari &
Dispari Project, Reggio Emilia (2012); Krauts, Wolfstaedter Gallery,
Frankfurt am Main (2011); Punk instead of Stasi!, Christian Nagel Gallery,
Cologne (2010); State of Control, former GDR State Security
Headquarters, Berlin, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2009); A
Lighthouse for Lampedusa!, Villa Romana, Florence (2009); Don't drain
your brain, Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz (2008). Recent group exhibitions
include: Brannon, Büttner, Kierulf, Kilpper, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen
(2012); Etna Carrara, Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2012); Speech Matters,
Danish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Declining Democracy,
Centro Cultura Contemporanea, Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
(2011); Fokus Lodz Biennale, Lodz (2010); Mediation Biennale, Poznan
(2010); IABR, 4th International Architecture Biennial, Rotterdam (2009);
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Prison, Bloomberg Space, London (2007); The Rausch Collection, Portikus,
Frankfurt am Main (2007).
www.kilpper-projects.de
THOMAS LOCHER
was born in 1956 in Munderkingen, Germany. He lives and works in
Berlin.
Writing and language dominate the work of Thomas Locher. Locher has
consistently analysed the everyday language of bureaucracy, politics,
legislation, and power. Legal texts, maxims or phrases are de-constructed
and scrutinised to expose linguistic fallacies and problems with meaning.
Locher esteems the ability of the medical profession to perform diagnosis,
and sees his work in the same light, through the use of langzame, art and
text. "It has something to do with seeing, with perceiving and
understanding people. In brief: with decoding signs." However, his works
do not represent linguistic or sociological research, nor are they theories
set into image. They stand as artworks, as aesthetic units in their own
right; their consistent design, sober at first glance, at second glance
soaked in irony, allow us to follow his considerations without resort to
linguistic theories. Recent solo exhibitions include: Insolvenzen,
Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen (2012); suspended, Galerie Georg Kargl,
Vienna (2010); x und noch etwas y dazu, KUBUS, Lenbachhaus, Munich
(2010); Supplements Signs Signifiers, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart
(2009); Erscheinungen, Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn (2007);
showcase/showcase, Sammlung Schürmann, Berlin (2007). Recent group
exhibitions include:
Erschaute Bauten. Architektur im Spiegel
zeitgenössischer Kunstfotografie, MAK, Vienna (2011); politics. ich-ichswir, Kunsthalle Ravensburg, Ravensburg (2011); squatting. erinnern,
vergessen, besetzen, Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin (2010); Carte Blanche
IX. Vor heimischer Kulisse, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig
(2010); El Dorado. Über das Versprechen der Menschenrechte. Kunsthalle
Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2009); Under Pain of Death, Austrian Cultural
Forum, New York (2008); Im Wort, Kunsthalle Göppingen, Göppingen
(2007).
YAEL BARTANA
was born in 1970 in Kfar-Yehezkel, Israel. She lives and works in
Amsterdam and Tel Aviv.
Yael Bartana predominantly works with film and video, often staging
complex narratives that explore the imagery of cultural identity, national
politics, and dominant historical master-narratives. In her work she
critically investigates her native country's struggle for identity, but also
the resonating ghosts of the Second World War in the light of the
Holocaust, Nazism, and anti-Semitism. Her work frequently dissects
ceremonies, public rituals and social diversions that are intended to
reaffirm the collective identity of nations and countries. Her films are often
staged, involving numerous actors and extras, and introduce fictive
moments into real existing narratives.
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Among other prizes, Bartana was awarded the 4th Artes Mundi Prize in
2010. Recent solo exhibitions include …and Europe will be stunned, Van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Polish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, and
Moderna Museet, Malmö (2010/2); Mur / Wieza, Museum of Modern Art,
Warsaw (2009); Yael Bartana, P.S.1, New York (2008); Mary Koszmary,
Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); Wild Seeds, The Power
Plant, Toronto (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 7th Berlin
Biennale (2012); L’énigme du portrait, MAC, Marseille (2011);
Shockworkers of Mobile Image, 1st Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg
(2010); 29th Bienal de São Paolo (2010); Les Promesses du Passé, Centre
Pompidou, Paris (2010); Contour the 4th Biennial of Moving Image,
Mechelen (2009); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); 27th Bienal de São Paulo
(2006).
ZIYAH GAFIĆ
was born in 1980 in Sarajevo, in former Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and
Herzegovina. He lives and works in Sarajevo.
Gafić is considered one of the most talented, prolific, and engaged of the
younger generation photojournalists. Although he was too young to have
taken an active part in the Balkan war, the Bosnian documentary
photographer Ziyah Gafić personally experienced the impact of the
conflict. His aunt died in her burning house, his grandfather committed
suicide and a niece was a victim of rape. Out of frustration at his enforced
passivity, Gafić was determined to photograph the aftermath of the war in
Bosnia. Very quickly he expanded his field to include countries that have
been involved in similar sorts of conflicts, such as Palestine, Afghanistan
and Chechnya, travelling extensively to document social and political
conflict. Here too Muslim communities are seeking restoration after the
violence of war, and must continue to live in a divided society..
Since 1999 Gafić has been travelling extensively and covered major
events in more then forty countries, both publishing and exhibiting his
work internationally. In 2001, his reportage won the Ian Parry – The
Sunday Times Magazine scholarship, and the Second Prize at the World
Press Photo contest. In 2002, he won the First and the Second Prize at
World Press Photo, the Kodak annual award for young reporters at the
festival Visa pour l’image, and Special Mention by the HSBC foundation for
photography. In 2003, Photo District News included him among 30
emerging world photographers and he won the Grand Prix Discovery of
the Year at Les Rencontres d’Arles.
In 2005, his work won the Giacomelli Memorial Fund Award and, in 2006,
he was nominated for UNICEF Photographer of the Year. In 2007, he
received the Getty images grant for editorial photography
He regularly contributes to publications such as Amica, la Repubblica,
L’Espresso, Le Monde, Newsweek, The Telegraph Magazine, Time, and
Tank.
www.ziyahgafic.ba
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