THIS PLACE IS MY PLACE BEGEHRTE ORTE (DESIRED SPACES)
Upper floorYael Bartana, Ursula Biemann, Armin Linke, Dan Perjovschi, Marjetica Potrc,
Sean Snyder, Yuk King Tan 27 January6 May 2007
Insert 1: who Lower floor 27 January11 March 2007
Insert 2: The Israeli Center for Digital Art Holon Lower floor 24 March6 May 2007
This Place is My Place Begehrte Orte (Desired Spaces)
The exhibition This Place is My Place – Begehrte Orte (Desired Spaces) combines works by seven international artists who explore the economic, social, political, and cultural impact of globalization. According to Antonio Negri and Michael Hardts seminal workEmpire, we are in a new phase of capitalism characterized by postmodern lifestyles, postfordist relations of production, and methods of sovereignty based on the society of control. Against the backdrop of these developments, national boundaries are increasingly being relativized by the economic activities of transnational corporations. The appropriation of space takes place both concretely as the seizure of territory, and symbolically through the expansion of spheres of influence.
The following questions are central to the exhibition This Place is My Place -
Begehrte Orte (Desired Spaces): How do artists today relate to the phenomena described?
How, for instance, do they react in their work to the politically or economically motivated
occupation of land? The art projects presented in the exhibition explore, among other
things, the impact that transnational corporations have on local cultural and
economic systems, and the migratory movements induced by globally operating concerns. Some of the works examine the ways in which architecture and urban planning in the megametropolises have changed, and how this effects the social situation of their inhabitants. Thus, for instance, architectural hybrids resulting from the collision of different architectural languages and economic resources are to be seen in the exhibition. The confrontation between cultures and between economic systems is also reflected in those installations that deal with news coverage in the media. The deliberate use of cliché and the manipulation of how events are presented reveal more about the intentions behind film and newspaper reports than about the reality of the events in question. The distinction between fiction and reality collapses in these works to provide a fitting illustration of the equivocal relations that characterize our age.
This Place is My Place – Begehrte Orte (Desired Spaces) is a comprehensive exhibition and presents works in the media of film, photography, installation, and murals. It embraces the entire 1,000 m2 of the main exhibition hall on the upper floor of the Kunstverein.
Curator: Yilmaz Dziewior
INSERTS
In the year 2007, alongside its regular program of exhibitions and events, the
Kunstverein will be presenting so-called Inserts in various presentational spaces
on the lower and upper floors. These autonomous projects will run parallel to the
main exhibit at any time, and are not conceived as a commentary on or as an
accompaniment to the latter. Six different, evolving Inserts will be presented, each for a
period of five weeks. Varying in format, they will deal with themes at the interface between art and sociopolitical issues.
The series will begin with an informal sequence of one-week exhibitions and
events involving local and non-local artists, musicians, and performers invited
by carldefuenf. Following on from this, the Israeli Center for Digital Art (Holon, Israel)
will be introducing itself with a series of events and presentations. The Federal Agency for Civic Education in Germany is planning an Insert, as is the Hamburg Project Group who, in the context of their Insert, will be publishing a new edition of their Journal for Northeast Issues Art and Related Disciplines. In a further Insert,
Tobias Berger will introduce artists and experimental, independent art institutions
from the Pearl River Delta area of south China, the biggest manufacturing center in the world.
In collaboration with institutions in Dresden, Olaf Nicolai is developing a special display
for artworks and design objects of the 1950s and 60s as part of his artistic production.
Concept: Yilmaz Dziewior
Insert 1: who
The who is an enclave. In a loose handful of sentences carldefuenf (Hamburg painter and disc jockey) are extending invitations to persons / subjects? temperaments / circles? close to them or whom they admire to exhibit or perform in the lower floor exhibition space which will be uncoupled from normal business for six weeks, not least through entrance being effected via the rear door at the parking lot. (carldefuenf)
Curator: carldefuenf
Insert 2: The Israeli Center for Digital Art Holon
The Israeli Center for Digital Art was founded by Galit Eilat in the Holon industrial
zone on the outskirts of Tel Aviv in 2001. Since then, the Center has mounted
exhibitions with politically committed Israeli and international artists working with web-art, video, photo, and animation. In its activities the Center examines the options open to art institutions for reflecting on and responding to the conditions underlying culture and politics.
How can an art institution produce culture, develop a critical stance in the face of violence, terror, autocratic power and governments, and protect the sovereignty of the individual from state repression? National identities and cultural exchange play a significant role in this process.
In addition, exhibitions, conferences, and workshops, both in and outside Israel,
examine possibilities for creative communities to interact and collaborate with a
view to comparing experiences and subverting regional barriers. Insert 2: Israeli
Center for Digital Art at the Kunstverein in Hamburg was conceived in close collaboration between Eva Birkenstock (Kunstverein Hamburg) and Eyal Danon and Galit Eilat (The Israeli Center for Digital Art Holon).
Curators: Eva Birkenstock, Eyal Danon, Galit Eilat
KUNSTVEREIN IN HAMBURG
Klosterwall 23
20095 Hamburg
Tel. 0049 (0)40 33 83 44
Fax 0049 (0)40 32 21 59
hamburg@kunstverein.de