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[30. december
2002]
pressemeddelelse
Clockwise - New Nordic Contemporary Art
Clockwise - New Nordic Contemporary Art
Opening on Friday January 10. 2003 at 7 pm.
January 10. - March 01. 2003
Sparwasser Hq
Torstrasse 161
Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 21 80 30 01
Fax:+49 30 44 03 93 32
mail@sparwasserhq.de
http://www.sparwasserhq.de
Bergstüb'l PROJEKTE
Veteranenstrasse 25
Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 48 52 69 49
Fax: +49 30 48 52 69 49
bergstuebl@hotmail.com
Opening hours Wed-Fri 4 pm - 7 pm, Sat 2 pm - 6 pm.
More information:
http://www.nifca.org/clockwise
Marita Muukkonen, project@nifca.org,
tel. +358 (0)9 68 64 31 08 / +358 (0)4 05 04 01 12
http://www.sparwasserhq.de
Lise Nellemann, mail@sparwasserhq.de,
tel. +49 30 21 80 30 01 / +49 17 96 70 58 59
Artists:
Simone Aaberg Kærn
Jouko Lehtola
Colonel
Melek Mazici
Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen
Khaled D. Ramadan
Amel Ibrahimovic
A catalogue has been published on the Clockwise exhibition. To order
contact NIFCA assistant@nifca.org
Artists as humorous and melancholy ethnographers
The humoristic and melancholic works in the CLOCKWISE exhibition
(opening on 10 January 2003) examine life style politics and shed
light on different attitudes toward mobility, internationalisation
and new subcultural communities, which arise as traditional and
cultural ties becomes more lax. The seven contemporary artists featured
in the exhibition target anthropological and sociological issues
rather than aesthetics and form. The works constitute an ethnographic
mapping of the cultural field. The artists reflect cultural shifts
related to identity, place and social environments, including the
art world.
We live in a time of constantly changing identity stories. The British
sociologist Anthony Giddens has called the phenomenon life style
politics. The single individual creates his or her own identity,
confronted with an ever-growing number of choices on all levels,
from that of profession, sexuality to styles of dressing, music
and eating. And for some, this includes the voluntary or enforced
choice of country and culture. Some are vagabonds, others tourists,
the majority something inbetween, as stated by the sociologist Zygmund
Bauman, who in his own life experienced an enforced relocation.
The works in the exhibition contemplate cultural self-understanding.
As the efforts of melancholy ethnographers alternating cool detachment
with societally oriented engagement. Above all the works in CLOCKWISE
recognize how individuals, time and again, are forced to navigate
according to their own experiences.
"The hunt for an identity has become the main source of social meaning.
This hunt is as pervasive as the technological and economical shift
which has taken place recently. The hunt for an identity whether
collective or individual, earned or constructed, takes up more and
more of our time," as art critique Tomas Ivan Träskman writes in
the exhibition catalogue. The artists use a range of different media,
including installation, photography, video and drawing. They engage
and invest depth of heart in our mutual social and existential reality
in 2002 - and ask the same of us.
The exhibition is initiated and produced by NIFCA, Nordic Institute
for Contemporary Art, in collaboration with Vejle Kunstmuseum (DK).
Curators: Stine Høholt, Khaled D. Ramadan.
For more information contact:
http://www.nifca.org/clockwise
Marita Muukkonen, project@nifca.org,
tel. +358 (0)9 68 64 31 08 / +358 (0)4 05 04 01 12
http://www.sparwasserhq.de
Lise Nellemann, mail@sparwasserhq.de,
tel. +49 30 21 80 30 01 / +49 17 96 70 58 59
For Simone Aaberg Kærn (b. 1969) "the personal is political".
In the documentary video Taraneh Aims for the Stars, we meet a woman
from "real life": Taraneh (Akram Monfared Arya) from Stockholm,
who is running in the national election as a representative for
the socialdemocratic party. Her path has been long and winding,
staring in Iran where - as a mother of five - she became the first-ever
woman pilot in Iran. It is a documentary about a unique individual
who, due to drastic politcal change, has had to make radical choices
concerning her personal life.
Colonel (b. 1961) works with mappings of the worlds of art
and culture. In his work the subject matter, whether an art institution
or the Danish nation, is treated as anthropological site. He deals
with "the ordinary Dane" and specific cultural areas that he maps
out with a focus on intolerance, misguided kindness and hypocrisy.
Humour and irony are central ingredients in his works. Colonel's
practice gathers inspiration from ethnography, anthropology, journalism
and cultural theory.
In Amel Ibrahimovic (b. 1977) drawings the nationstate mindset
and commercial and media-exposed soccer culture meet the art world.
The drawings represent well-known artists and gallery owners in
different "team lineups" or "idol portraits". Almost like an outside
cultural anthropologist observing an isolated ethnic grouping, Ibrahimovic
lays bare the largely predictable maps of the contemporary art world.
He is concerned with how and why art reaches its audience. His mapping
is both critical of institutions and existential.
Photographer Jouko Lehtola's series Marked Skin presents
some of Finland's most heavily tattooed people. The desire expressed
in piercing and tattooing culture, to arrive at new forms of "authentic
identity", surfaces in a world that is anything but authentic and
homogeneous, in which traditional points of identification are under
threat.
Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen (b. 1970) examines the local/global
shifts in the life of everyday women. In her video Seeing Pilar
she filmed her grandmother in the Philippines. The two women - the
photographed and the photographing - are seen in contrast. Two generations
of the same family, but from different parts of the world, with
different attitudes to religious rituals and tradition. The work
constrasts scenes of personal family history with an "ethnographic"
point of view.
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