Looking back – 2008 "Annual Report"
Mon, Dec 29 2008
Looking back at the past year is a infectious exercise at this point in the calendar. We would like to thank everyone that has visited or taken part in our projects, from the small ones to the 3 year-long collaborations, whether from nearby or far away.
Our 2008 began as intense preparations were well underway for the group exhibition 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities' at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (29.02 –18.05.2008) co-curated with Ilaria Bonacossa. 'Greenwashing...' presented the work of 25 artists and artists groups (11 of those produced new work). A 192 page catalogue was published by The Bookmakers Ed., Turin – you can buy a copy here (English/Italian editions).
Following 'Greenwashing...' we presented 'A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel: Land Art's Expanded Field 1968–2008', a film and video programme curated at the invitation of the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City that later toured to 8 venues between April and October: MARCO, Vigo; Stadtkino (Kunsthalle Basel), Basel, Switzerland; CAAC, Sevilla; Fundació Suñol, Barcelona; Barn Hongersdijk Farmstead, Wilhelminapolder, The Netherlands; Spike Island, Bristol, United Kingdom; Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles. For further information you can read an essay in the Winter 2008-9 (upcoming) issue of Art & Co magazine or download press articles and programmes here.
Before the end of the summer we were part of the jury for the Premi Miquel Casablancas, an award for Spanish artists under 36. From around 200 portfolios and projects submitted Latitudes, together with Aimar Arriola, selected four artists to participate in the exhibition later in the year: ‘La, la, la, la: on winning and losing’ (29.11.2008 – 10.01.2009).
The summer was filled with more research and work to be done, which was carried out thanks to the support and hospitality of the Deutsche Börse Residency Programme, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany.
The 2008-9 season began with the exciting realisation of 'The Crest of a Wave’, a four-part project by Lawrence Weiner at Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (08.10 – 15.11.08) that had a great press, radio, specialised media and TV coverage (see post 12 November); followed by the conclusion of the 3 year-long public commission by Tue Greenfort which was presented in a discrete mode alongside his Frieze Art Fair project (16-19 October). This commission was an initiative of the RSA Arts & Ecology programme, London, which has recently become the Arts & Ecology center. Soon there will be a small publication gathering the history of the commission as well visual documentation of the project.
In November, as part of Artissima 15 Latitudes presented 'X, Y, etc!', a video programme comprised of around 40 works that was inspired by Charles Fort's research methodology, the paranormal and anomalous phenomena, the uncanny and the unexplained.
And now looking a little towards what's to come in 2009 ... since May 2008 (see previous posts here and here) we have been working on 'Portscapes', a series of artists’ projects that will take place throughout 2009 alongside the construction of ‘Maasvlakte 2’, a 1,000 hectare area of reclaimed land that will extend the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport and industrial area. Mirroring a port's function of transit and exchange 'Portscapes' will involve Rotterdam-based artists and those from countries including China, Austria, Mexico, Scotland and the US, with the aim of considering the physical and conceptual implications of the new lands of Maasvlakte 2, as well as the city-port as a distributive network across artistic, marine and mercantile registers. 'Portscapes' will be introduced during Art Rotterdam (5–8 February 2009) by a small ‘prologue’ publication designed by Ben Laloua / Didier Pascal.
Throughout 2008 we have also contributed several catalogue essays, articles, exhibition reviews, artists profiles, etc. a selection of which can be downloaded from our writing archive.
Happy New Year!
Turin Triennale (T2) & Artissima 15
Mon, Nov 10 2008
Coinciding with this year Artissima 15 Art Fair, the second Turin Triennial (6 November 2008–1 February 2009) titled '50 Lune di Saturno' (50 Moons of Saturn) opened last week presenting the works of 50 artists, spread throughout 3 venues: Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the Palazzina della Società della Promotrice delle Belle Arti (no website).
Daniel Birnbaum's correct Triennale also presents two 'solo shows' by Paul Chan (three rooms at the Sandretto) and Olafur Eliasson (at Rivoli). Here 'solo shows' means presenting more works by each or simply giving them more room (having said that Eliasson's work is a one-room installation) not necessarily making clear divisions between these 'solo shows' and the rest of the artists in the Triennale.
T2 participating artists:
Meris Angioletti, Rosa Barba, Jennifer Bornstein, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Ulla von Brandenburg, Matthew Brannon, Gerard Byrne, Bonnie Camplin / Paulina Olowska, Valerio Carrubba, Antonio Cataldo & Mariagiovanna Nuzzi, Paul Chan, Kerstin Cmelka, Keren Cytter, Simon Dybbroe Möller, Olafur Eliasson, Lara Favaretto, Spencer Finch, Ceal Floyer, Anna Galtarossa, Andrea Geyer, Loris Gréaud, Wade Guyton, Haegue Yang, Annika von Hausswolff, Ragnar Kjartansson, Joachim Koester, Koo Jeong-A, Sandra Kranich, Robert Kusmirowski, Rivane Neuenschwander, Diego Perrone, Alessandro Piangiamore, Giuseppe Pietroniro, Giulia Piscitelli, Peyman Rahimi, Pietro Roccasalva, Tomás Saraceno, Wilhelm Sasnal, Benjamin Saurer, Alberto Tadiello, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gert and Uwe Tobias, Luca Trevisani, Tatiana Trouvé, Ian Tweedy, Donald Urquhart, Guido van der Werve, Jordan Wolfson and Akram Zaatari.
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea
Piazza Mafalda di Savoia, Rivoli
Open: from Tuesday to Thursday from 10 am to 5 pm, from Friday to Sunday from 10 am to 9 pm
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Via Modane 16, Torino
Open: from Tuesday to Sunday 12 to 8 pm; Thursday from 12 to 11 pm;
Palazzina della Società della Promotrice delle Belle Arti
Via Diego Balsamo Crivelli 11, Torino
Open: from Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 7 pm
Artissima 15 programme was packed with numerous events Wednesday to Sunday, including:
PRESENT FUTURE (17 projects by artists emerging on the national and international scene selected by Cecilia Alemani, art critic and independent curator, New York; Michael Ned Holte, independent curator and art critic, Los Angeles; Thibaut Verhoeven, curator SMAK, Gent; Aurélie Voltz, independent curator, Berlin); CONSTELLATIONS (11 installations, sculptures, and large-format works) selected by Stéphanie Moisdon, co-curator, 2007 Lyon Biennale and Manifesta 4, and Susanne Pfeffer, curator, Kunst-Werke, Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin); The VIDEO LOUNGE (curated by ourselves, included films and videos by 40+ artists and over 6 hours of screening of materials submitted by the participating galleries – More info); the ITALIAN WAVE (a contest launched to present the work of Italian artists under-35 Italian); l'ECOLE DE STEPHANIE (curated by Stéphanie Moisdon, l'école is a small temporary school that offered lessons, lectures, debates, performances, and screenings); ARTISSIMA CINEMA (a festival of animated shorts and artists films from Indonesia and China); ARTISSIMA VOLUME (devoted to contemporary music); ARTISSIMA COMICS (an exhibition of a promising young talent of Italian comics, Michelangelo Setola); ARTISSIMA DESIGN (an exhibition of Paolo Mussat Sartor, the photographer and narrator of Art Povera) plus the CONTEMPORARY ARTS NIGHT on Saturday 8th, where galleries and art spaces premiered shows or performances until the wee hours...
T2 artists and venues in the user-unfriendly website www.torinotriennale.it
Artissima 15: www.artissima.it
'X, Y, etc.!', Video Lounge, Artissima 15, Turin, 7–9 November 2008
Mon, Oct 27 2008
Fort’s masterful collections of oddities can seem random and jumbled, yet they are also a carefully clustered continuum of humor, data, wonder, and ridicule. Hence in X, Y, etc.!, everything can be considered plausible – the banal with the unique, artistic with non-artistic, fact with fake, sincere with insincere, correct with incorrect, etc. In this contrary borderland of knowns and unknowns, cynicism and speculation, science and fiction, each film is anomalous and the whole is underdetermined. Art and reality are far more mysterious, complex and nuanced than we realise. “It does not matter where we begin”, Fort wrote, “whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle beginning anywhere.”
Films selected for the 2008 Video Lounge (in screening order, starting 11.30am):
* Mark Titchner, Ivy Meets Mike, 2007, Peres Projects, Berlin & Los Angeles
* Hans Op de Beeck,The Building, 2007, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Boissy-le-Châtel
* Christelle Lheureux, Non ricordo il titolo, 2008, Artericambi, Verona
* Elizabeth McAlpine,The Film Footage Missed by the Veiwer Through Blinking While Watching the Feature Film ‘Don’t Look Now’, 2003, Laura Barlett Gallery, London
* Elizabeth McAlpine, Light Reading (1500 Cinematic Explosion), 2005, Laura Barlett Gallery, London
* Michael Fliri, Early Morning With Time to Waste, 2007, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milano
* Emilie Pitoiset, Othello, 2006, Galerie Lucile Corty, Paris
* Gianni Motti, The Messenger, Raël and Brigitte Boisselier, 2003, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* Sven Johne, Elmenhorst, 2006, Klemm’s, Berlin
* Swetlana Heger, Untitled (The Cohen Residence / Paradise Valley), 2006, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris
* Morag Keil, Fainting for YT, 2008, Grimm Fine Art, Amsterdam
* Danai Anesiadou & Sophie Nys, X, A & M, 2008, Elisa Platteau Galerie, Brussels
* Christian Jankowski, Hollywood Schnee, 2004, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* G.R.A.M., Zephyr, 2007-8, Christine König Galerie, Vienna
* Anja Kirschner & David Panos,Trail of the Spider, 2008, Hollybush Gardens, London
_BREAK_
* Carles Congost, La Mala Pintura, 2008, Artericambi, Verona
* Andrea Büttner, Little Works, 2007-8, Hollybush Gardens, London
* Pia Maria Martin, Go, 2008, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart
* Jordan Wolfson, Favourite Things, 2008, T293, Naples
* Judith Hopf & Deborah Schamoni, Hospital Bone Dance, 2005, Croy Nielsen, Berlin
* Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines #4, 2007, Pianissimo, Milano
* Gianni Motti, Shock and Awe, 2003, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* Sergio Vega, The Ants, 2006, Umberto Di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Napoli
* Julika Rudelius, Adrift, 2007, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart
* Delphine Reist, Averse, 2007, Triple V, Dijon
* Gareth James & Cesare Pietroiusti, Untitled, 2006, Franco Soffiantino ArteContemporanea, Torino
* Haris Epaminonda,Tarahi I, 2006, Rodeo, Istanbul
* Haris Epaminonda,Tarahi III, 2006, Rodeo, Istanbul
* Aurelien Froment, Théâtre de Poche, 2007, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam
* Shimabuku, Fish & Chips, 2006, NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
_BREAK_
* Hans Schabus, Loch, 1999-2000, Zero..., Milano
* Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, All Together Now, 2008, Elizabeth Dee, New York
* Donna Conlon, Low Tide, 2004, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Torino
* Donna Conlon, Summer Breeze, 2007, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Torino
* Alice Cattaneo, Untitled 1, Untitled 2, 2007, Galleria Suzy Shammah, Milano
* Patrick Tuttofuoco, La Noce d’Oro, 2005, Studio Guenzani, Milano
* Guillaume Leblon, Notes, 2007, ProjecteSD, Barcelona
* Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer, Rien du Tout, 2007, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
* Alterazioni Video, Black Hole ... Our Understanding of the Universe is About to Change, 2008,V.M. 21 arte contemporanea, Roma
* Cezary Bodzianowski, Cacadu, 2006, Zero..., Milano
* Matthew Darbyshire & Sam Gunn, Le Chant du Rossignol, 2008, Herald St, London
_TOTAL SCREENING TIME_ 6 hours 20 min
The films will be shown continuously each day in a specially-constructed screening environment, and will also be available on three video-on-demand consoles.
For further information on Artissima 15 programme, dowload the newsletter 'Radio Sick 2008 #3' here
Lingotto Fiere
via Nizza 280
10126 Torino, ITALIA
T +39 011 197 441 06
F +39 011 197 461 06
info@artissima.it
www.artissima.it
7-8-9 November 2008. Open to the public 11.00 am - 8.00 pm
Image credits: (TOP) Leaflets of the programme. Photo: Latitudes. BELOW: Aurélien Froment, production still of 'Théâtre de Poche', 2007 (12 min). Photo: Aurélien Mole. Courtesy: the artist and Motive Gallery, Amsterdam.