Arts

19.04.2013

Eden3: Trees are the Language of Landscape

Exhibition – April 22 to May 25, 2013
Tent Gallery, in Art Space and Nature – Edinburgh College of Art – Evolution House (corner of Westport and Lady Lawson Street) – Edinburgh, EH1 2LE, Scotland
Hours: Tues-Fri 12noon to 4:45PM or by appointment on Saturday.

The Collins & Goto Studio presents an on-going series of works with trees, including Eden3, an installation of trees and technology that provide an experience of photosynthesis through sound, and Caledonia: The Forest is Moving, a series of expeditions and related inquiry about specific forests. The exhibition includes a brief overview of previous work from Pennsylvania and California to provide context for the current creative inquiry.

This work has evolved through collaboration with other artists, musicians, scientists and technicians. The exhibition is partially sponsored by Trilight Industries, Glasgow. Engineering support for the development of Eden3 is provided by Solutions for Research, Bedford. Special thanks to Helen de Main, Sogol Mabadi and Chris Fremantle.

Opening – Thursday April 25, 4 to 6 PM
Artist’s Talk – Thursday May 16, 4 to 6 PM
Collins and Goto will host an open discussion with friends and colleagues about their work and the role of art in relationship to a changing environment.
Space is limited please RSVP if interested in attending the artist talk rsvp [at] collinsandgoto [dot] com

Reposted from eco/art/scot/land

By Sacha Kagan

17.04.2013

Art and biodiversity: sustainable art ?

Plastik, a bi-lingual (French-English) online journal on art & science published at Institut Acte (CNRS and Université Paris 1 Sorbonne), is announcing the following open call for articles for its upcoming 4th issue on “Art and biodiversity: sustainable art?” (deadline: June 15, 2013 – the call is also available in French language here):

“Interest in ecology and sustainable development is unprecedented, as is to the increasing concern overshadowing society’s well-being. With the news of massive deforestation and the scarcity of water resources, we are continually reminded of how animal and vegetable species are endangered. It’s clear that the need to respect the environment is shared by all but that natural resources are being exhausted through conflict of interest and contradictory action. As a result living and endangered organisms are affected by a kind of universal heritage value, as if representing the memory of an uncertain future. Read more »

By Sacha Kagan

17.04.2013

Mierle Laderman Ukeles at Grazer Kunstverein

Maintenance Art Works 1969–1980 – On show until May 19th 2013

This is the very first comprehensive European solo exhibition of the artist’s earlier work. Originally organized in 1998 by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in New York, the exhibition presents a body of work spanning over a decade of significant production.

In 1969, following the birth of her first child, Ukeles wrote “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” as a challenge to the binary systems of opposition that draw the line between art/life, nature/culture, and public/private. The manifesto proposed undoing boundaries that separate the maintenance of everyday life from the role of an artist in society. Ukeles was interested in how artists could use the concept of transference to empower people to act as agents of change and stimulate positive community involvement toward ecological sustainability.

Grazer Kunstverein
Palais Trauttmansdorff
Burggasse 4
8010 Graz, Austria
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 11–18h
www.grazerkunstverein.org

By Sacha Kagan

16.04.2013

The Fargo Project: Jackie Brookner at TEDxFargo City 2.0

For humans to survive, ecological artist Jackie Brookner says it is not enough to change the ways we fuel, feed, entertain and shelter ourselves. Something much more basic has to happen. We need to mainstream a different understanding of who we are, as individuals and as a species. She calls this “the being of human,” and says it is about the “verbing” of our existence.

Within this context, Brookner introduces The Fargo Project, the recipient of a prestigious “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Fargo Project is transforming a functioning 18-acre storm water detention basin into a prairie commons, through a community driven process that fosters collective creative agency.

By Sacha Kagan

11.03.2013

Call for participation in survey on soil and art

If you have used earth materially or symbolically in your creative practice, or in some way addressed the value, function, or meaning of soil in your art,  you are cordially invited to take part in an online survey about soil and art.

“Although the arts play a critical role in sustainability discourses, the actual opinions, knowledge and practices of artists are rarely a subject of scientific inquiry. This is why your voice is so important!” With your help, the researcher in charge of this project, Alexandra Toland, hopes to identify a wide spectrum of art projects that bring new awareness to the thin layer of matter on which all life is based, and to gather information on the various conditions under which such works are made.

This survey makes up part of Ms. Toland’s PhD research (at the Technische Universität Berlin) on the artistic use, interpretation and representation of soil and soil conservation issues. All data is collected with utmost integrity for research purposes. Specific details about individual projects and persons will not be disclosed without respondent’s consent. As a symbol of appreciation for your participation, Ms. Toland would like to feature your work on the soilarts.org research platform.

Deadline: April 15th 2013

By Sacha Kagan

20.02.2013

Eco-Aesthetics: Contemporary Arts and the Politics of Ecology

Saturday, 2 March, 2013, 2-7pm
Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL

The first issue of Third text, a bimonthly appearing journal on art in the global context, in 2013 is a special issue focusing on Contemporary Arts and the Politics of Ecology and is accompanied by the conference on the same topic in London.

The event will include numerous contributors to the special issue, which investigates eco-aesthetics in a postcolonial framework—from global warming in the arctic to oil industry environmental damage in Nigeria’s delta, from conflicts between mining corporations and tribals in rural India to the ecological effects of industrial development in the port of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, from urban farming in Detroit to the Occupy movement’s development of a post-media social ecology. The special issue and conference seek to link international and interdisciplinary researchers, artists, and critical theorists in order to consider the questions of how such politico-ecological developments have been recently analyzed, mediated, and negotiated within the visual cultural of art and activism.

The conference is free and no registration is required (seats on a first come first serve basis). (For more information on this event, please email tj [dot] demos [at] ucl [dot] ac [dot] uk).

Among the list of confirmed speakers are Ravi Agarwal, Christoph Brunner, Liberate Tate and Nabil Ahmed.

For the full list of speakers visit: www.ucl.ac.uk/art-history/events/eco-aesthetics

By Nikolai Huckle

15.02.2013

Call for papers on The Politics of African Contemporary Art – Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics

Recent approaches to African contemporary art often celebrate the advent of a global contemporary art scene in which they see an abolition of the provincialist and historicist concepts that were imposed by the West during the colonial period. One assumes that by taking part in new and post-historical/ post-national networks of exchange, facilitated by large-scale international exhibitions, biennials and fairs, artists can express themselves more truly as they are no longer doomed to wrestle with the notions of the pre-colonial/ colonial; to be measured against Western art-historical paradigms, or to be defined via enduring fictions about their own parochialism.

This issue of Seismopolite aims to assess the validity of this perspective and to further inquire into the possibilities and limitations pertaining to the global contemporary art scene in terms of addressing political issues in, and rewriting the history and future of African societies (as well as African art history) in a consequential way through art. Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

04.02.2013

ZNE! in Sao Paulo

Opening: February 12, 2013 – 7 pm
February 22 – April 7, 2013, Memorial da América Latina, Sao Paulo

After stops in Mumbai, Addis Ababa and Beijing, the exhibition zur nachahmung empfohlen! – expeditionen in ästhetik und nachhaltigkeit (examples to follow! – expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability) is coming to Sao Paulo, Brazil which marks its 10th venue since originating in March, 2010.

By Nikolai Huckle

02.02.2013

Call for Submissions: Ars Eletronica – Next Idea Grant

Deadline:  March 8, 2013

As a part of the annual Prix Ars Electronica, an international competition for cyberart, sometimes referred to as the Oscar of computer art, voestalpine and Ars Electronica are awarding the Next Idea Grant to honor new and extraordinarily promising ideas and to support the process of developing them further.
People from various backgrounds are welcomed to submit projects, concepts or ideas concerned with the three themes

Energy, Mobility and Access

Artistic and social innovations as well as technological or scientific approaches in the fields of art, design or technology are sought after.

The recipient of the grant will receive a cash stipend in the amount of €7,500 and an invitation to spend three months in Linz as Artist/Scientist-in-Residence at Ars Electronica.

Furthermore the idea will be presented in the Prix Ars Electronica’s CyberArts catalog and at the Festival Ars Electronica in the current year.

For detailed information about the grant, click here

By Nikolai Huckle

29.01.2013

Mark Dion at Museum Het Domein

The Macabre Treasury
January 20–May 5, 2013 – Museum Het Domein – Sittard, Netherlands

“Increasingly, my work has become macabre and laced with dusky pessimism. Early on I believed that ecological calamity could be averted by awareness. If people knew about issues like the loss of biodiversity or global warming, they would act so as to halt the problem. (…) Now, I just don’t believe that it will all work out. Not that there will be a single great catastrophe, but rather the world will slowly become less biological diverse, more impoverished, an uglier, less remarkable place to live. (…) Ozone holes, burning rainforests, ecological wars, species extinction, landfill landscapes will become fantastic theatre, a spectacle of ecosystem collapse. (…) Coming soon—the planet earth becoming a crummier place, and like numerous other rude spectators, it’s hard for me to keep my mouth closed during the show.”
–Mark Dion, unpublished manuscript, 2001

Macabre Treasury an exhibition by the American artist Mark Dion, internationally acclaimed to be a prominent contemporary artist, is Dion´s first solo museum exhibition in the Netherlands since fifteen years. He is playing a pioneering role with his work, which focuses on ecological issues and our perception of nature. Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions like museums shape our understanding of history, the ways we accumulate knowledge, and how we regard the natural world. Appropriating archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between “objective” (“rational”) scientific methods and “subjective” (“irrational”) influences. The artist’s spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the sixteenth century, are notable for their atypical orderings of objects and specimens. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Mark Dion questions the authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society. Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

28.01.2013

[UN]NATURAL LIMITS – Austrian Cultural Forum New York

Jan 23 – April 1, 2013

Austrian Cultural Forum New York
11 East 52nd Street – New York, NY 10022

Artists: Desire Machine Collective, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mathias Kessler, Superflex, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lois Weinberger

Curated by Dieter Buchhart & Arnaud Gerspacher

Curatorial Advisor: Mathias Kessler

The new international group exhibition [UN]NATURAL LIMITS, which opened on January 22nd, gathers together different artistic reactions to the alienating effects of the unfettered global exploitation of resources, and offers insight into the denial and myopia of current political responses to what increasingly appears to be a perpetual crisis.
It focuses on the environmental relays sent back in response to our human activities (or failures to act), while giving voice to various groups, thinkers, and artists who seek to interrupt narcissistic and destructive self-involvements in society.

The exhibition, which was commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Forum’s director Andreas Stadler and curated by the Viennese-New York team of Dieter Buchhart and Arnaud Gerspacher, maintains a deep ambiguity towards the modernist legacies of endless expansion and selective prosperity, as our social and political systems slowly begin to confront the limits of growth and sustainability. Each artist or collective poses a challenge to the perceived limits that condition our understanding of the world: on the one hand, the limited prospect for action, compassion, and change, while on the other, the limitless drive for resources and capital in all its forms. A reversal is necessary: it is compassion that should be limitless.

Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

24.01.2013

Open call – Museum of Arte Útil

The Museum of Arte Útil is a collaboration between the artist Tania Bruguera, the Queens Museum of Art, New York and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Museum of Arte Útil is the result of Tania Bruguera’s decade of research into a concept that emphasizes effectiveness and implementation over representation, looking at historical and contemporary examples of alternative strands in socially informed art practice.

Útil as a term refers to something being useful. But it goes further than the English translation, encompassing the idea of a tool or device. Bruguera states that “Arte Útil moves beyond a propositional format, into one that actively creates, develops and implements new functionalities to benefit society at large.”

The project will comprise research, an online platform, an association of Arte Útil practitioners, a series of public projects, a lab presentation at the Queens Museum of Art beginning in February 2013, culminating in the transformation of the old building of the Van Abbemuseum into the Museum of Arte Útil in the Fall of 2013 and a publication. The aim is to present a survey of past and present projects that are rooted in the notion of art’s use to its users and to society at large. Central to the project’s various forms is this open call. Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

23.01.2013

Call for Applications: Negotiating Routes: Ecologies of the Byways- Part IV

Deadline: 5th February, 2013

Khoj is inviting applications from artists, artists groups or professionals for the Negotiating Routes: Ecologies of the Byways – Part IV project.

All projects proposals must tackle issues of ecology and should have an interdisciplinary approach that emphasizes both research and community engagement. Projects should be site-specific and should preferably be located in peri-urban or rural places within India.

Applications for the Negotiating Routes project should be submitted to applications [at] khojworkshop [dot] org and should include the following: Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

16.01.2013

Exhibition: Burnt Stars by Jenny Brown

Australian Artist Jenny Brown, currently residing in Berlin, Germany on a DAAD scholarship, is inviting to her exhibition Burnt Stars  – Meditations on resistance, resilience and systems, curated by Adam Nankervis at stattberlin, an art space (in Berlin) dedicated to new forms of artistic expressions.

The opening event is on Thursday 17 January 2013 at 7 pm and the exhibition will stay open until Sunday 20 January from 2pm until 7pm.

 

By Nikolai Huckle

15.01.2013

Call for nominations: “AWEInspiring” Arts & Environment Award

The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management´s (CIWEM) Art and Environment Network (AEN) is calling for nominations for their annual Arts and the Environment Award, carried out in association with the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW), to recognise innovation and excellence in work by arts practitioners or environmentalists engaging with arts practices.

2013 sees the fourth year of the award, details of the award and previous winners can be found at http://www.ciwem.org/competition-and-awards/aweinspiring.aspx

The eligibility criteria are as follows:

  • Nominations may consist of an artwork, arts project or body of work by a living artist (or group) that is contributing innovatively to CIWEM’s vision of “putting creativity at the heart of environmental policy and action”.
  • The nomination must demonstrate innovation and excellence; whether in ideas, execution or impact.
  • The award is open to arts practitioners, environmentalists engaging with arts practices, or persons/initiatives that integrate these disciplines.
  • The focus is on rewarding identified work, not simply a person.
  • All forms and modes of arts practice, and geographical locations, may be considered.
  • Special emphasis will be given to inspiring examples of young and/or emerging talent.

The deadline for nominations is 31st January 2013. The winner will be announced in the press and a presentation will be made at a high-profile event (in previous years this has been the CIWEM Annual Dinner).

You can consider putting forward a project, body of work, organisation, person or group you would like to see given special recognition in this way, by sending a short description, and your reasons, to Laura Grant at lgrant [at] ciwem [dot] org.

By Nikolai Huckle