Monday, March 03, 2008
20080303 misc
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NOH SUNTAG, State of Emergency
March 1 - May 18, 2008
Württembergischer, Kunstverein Stuttgart, Schlossplatz 2
NOH Suntag, Black Hook Down, Photo series, 2006
From March 1 to May 18, 2008, Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart is presenting the first comprehensive solo exhibition of the South Korean photo artist NOH Suntag in Europe. The show will feature about 200 photographs. NOH, born in Seoul in 1971, ranks among the most advanced photo artists in South Korea, his works having attracted great attention there in recent years. Among other shows, he took part in the Gwangju Biennale in 2006. The exhibition showcases works from between 2000 and 2007.
His series, which he usually develops over the course of several years and that consist of black-and-white as well as colour photos, observe conflict situations in contemporary Korean society. These conflicts go back to the division and war between North and South Korea, to the dictatorships in both parts of the country that lasted till the 1980s, and – in South Korea – to rampant turbo-capitalism since the 1990s. The picture that NOH draws of Korea is that of a constant state of emergency.
NOH, who creates his photographs in North and South Korea, is interested in the ambivalences and breaks within and between the two societies: their mirror relationship, the military presence and ideological extremes on both sides, the relationship between the individual and the masses, or the situations – both subtle and openly violent – that pervade everyday life in the South and the North alike.
This ambivalence is reflected in NOH’s very individual aesthetic, that combines the documentary with the fictitious, the snapshot with stringent composition. The harsh contrasts amplify the drama of the mostly conflict-laden situations that he depicts – a drama that is, at the same time, countermanded by the sobriety and detachment of his gaze. As a result of being integrated in series, the perfection of the single picture must be seen in perspective. Far removed from the aesthetics and strategies of staged photography, they nevertheless appear posed. They remind us of film scenes or apply aesthetics of fashion photography as well as traditions of pathos-laden landscape photography. It is precisely this unclassifiable, contradictory aspect that distinguishes NOH’s photographs.
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Classical : Modern II. Abstraction, Informel, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe Painting School
March 7 - June 1, 2008
Daimler Contemporary, Haus Huth, Alte Potsdamer Straße 5, 10785 Berlin
Ill.: Domnick Foundation in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1952. Photograph: Dr. Seifert Stuttgart
The Daimler Collection is pleased to announce the exhibition “Classical Modern II” at Daimler Contemporary, Haus Huth, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. The “Classical : Modern I” exhibition, 2006, largely presented concrete and constructive tendencies in the Daimler Collection from Classical Modernism up to the post-war art period, while the second part of the series intends to introduce the complementary areas of the collection. The exhibition shows post-war tendencies, mainly from South Germany. Art history groups the names of the artists, about forty in all, from Ackermann to Zangs, under headings such as ‘Lyrical Abstraction’, ‘Informel’, ‘Tachism’, the ‘Stuttgart’ and Karlsruhe’ schools, ‘New Figuration’ ‘Zero’ and ‘Zen 49’. The show features about 80 works and is also presenting current work that can be related back to these earlier artists.
Participating artists: Max Ackermann, Horst Antes, Willi Baumeister, Bernd Berner, Erdmut Bramke, Peter Brüning, Karl Fred Dahmen, Herbert Egl, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rupprecht Geiger, HAP Grieshaber, Otto Herbert Hajek, Bernhard Heiliger, Jan Henderikse, Gerhard Hoehme, Alfonso Hüppi, Norbert Kricke, Dieter Krieg, Uwe Lausen, Thomas Lenk, Heinz Mack, Georg Meistermann, Georg Karl Pfahler, Charlotte Posenenske, Lothar Quinte, Otto Herbert Ritschl, Rudolf Schoofs, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Walter Stöhrer, Artur Stoll, Heinrich Wildemann, Christa Winter, Fritz Winter, Lambert Maria Wintersberger, Herbert Zangs
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Print the Legend, The Myth of the West, 1 March - 4 May 2008
artists: Adam Chodzko, Peter Granser, Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Mike Nelson, Cornelia Parker, Simon Patterson, Salla Tykkä and Gillian Wearing
Douglas Gordon: Five Year Drive-By (The Searchers), 1998, Video projection
Copyright: Douglas Gordon.
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery from The Searchers,
1956, dir. John Ford, Warner Bros. Studios
Copyright: Warner Home Video
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Opening at The Aldrich: Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern 
Architecture
Sunday, March 9, 2008; 3 to 5 pm, 2 pm Panel Discussion
Round-Trip Transportation from NYC Available
David Claerbout, The Bordeaux Piece, 2004
Courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert, Paris/New York
On View at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT)
Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture—curated by Jessica Hough and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut—will open at The Aldrich on Sunday, March 9, 2008.
The exhibition brings together two-dimensional works (including video) in various media by Alexander Apóstol, Daniel Arsham, Gordon Cheung, David Claerbout, Angela Dufresne, Mark Dziewulski, Christine Erhard, Cyprien Gaillard, Terence Gower, Angelina Gualdoni, Natasha Kissell, Luisa Lambri, Dorit Margreiter, Russell Nachman, Enoc Perez, and Lucy Williams—a collection that explores an interest among emerging artists in architecture of the modern period.
Modern architecture is generally identified with buildings by Le Corbusier, Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, which represent a period driven by developments in technology, engineering, and the introduction of industrial materials such as iron, steel, concrete, and glass. Architects at this time engaged in a practice that not only incorporated structural innovations, but also encouraged social change.
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OPEN / INVITED e v + a 2008
Too Early For Vacation
March 7 - May 25, 2008
City-wide venues in Limerick City, Ireland
Ruth LeGear: tear drops in wonderscape, mixed media installation
Too Early For Vacation A short introduction by Hou Hanru
”Conventionally, Ireland has been seen as an exotic, idyllic and even somehow a spiritual destination for a vacation… Limerick, a “remote” city situated in the Mid-West of the country, is certainly one of the most desired places on the tourist map. For the last decade, this city and the surrounding region, like the whole country itself, have entered a process of renaissance, thanks to their embracing of new technologies and their integration into the global economy. But, few have imagined that this rather small city can be a vibrant site of production of contemporary art.
However, for the last three decades, Limerick has been holding the most significant contemporary art event in Ireland. Over the years, e v+ a has become a major and unique international exhibition. Yet as an event it has remained persistently rooted in the local context, at once modest, intimate, ambitious and generous as it constantly negotiates global influences including the new ideas, projects and energies that have been brought in by artists and curators from different parts of the world.
The fundamental change in the nature of contemporary art from quasi-underground, activist and avant-garde activities in the 1970s when e v+ a was founded to becoming a part of the late-Capitalist and consumerist cultural establishment has actually launched an intellectual, ethic and even political challenge to the art world itself. Then, what’s the real social significance of contemporary art today? How can a firmly grass-rooted event like e v+ a still make sense in the age of globalisation, dominated by certain established but limited models of production, representation and consumption, and yet continue, as well, to engage itself in the transformation of local reality?
In this context, coming to work for, visit and appreciate e v+ a today needs an even more intimate and active engagement with the local reality, both physical and cultural, both personal and social… Certainly it involves travels from different parts of the world and contacts with various forms of creation. However, it’s by no means merely a simple vacation to be spent in this beautiful town of Ireland – a vacation has a double implication: holidays and vacating (escaping) from reality. Instead, it must be actions of engagement… Pressing issues related to the transformation of today’s globe such as border crossing, migration, travel, exchange with the ‘other’, cultural and geopolitical confrontation and dialogue, etc. are obviously the issues that occupy the centre of this kind of local-based intervention.
Welcome to Limerick. But, it’s too early for vacation… or - it’ll never be a vacation.”
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the artist talk “The turn of images” at Thursday 28th of Feb. 2008 in Kunstverein INGAN.
The video artist Claudia Michaela Kochsmeier is to present her current project TANZ PLEXUS, which has been produced in Senegal during her three month stipend from DAAD. C.M. Kochsmeier: "In this Plexus, in this netting, images are turning upside down and will be seen differently"
