To Actuality
May 28 - July 31, 2002
AR/GE Kunst Galerie Museum
Bozen/Bolzano, Italy
www.toactuality.it
Curated by Maia Damianovic.
Image: Yane Calovski
A project curated by Maia Damianovic and organised by the AR/GE Kunst Galerie Museum in Bozen/Bolzano.
TO ACTUALITY side-steps mediated forms of representation to explore the possibility of art as an actuality within contemporary urban experience. The artworks which take place in various indoor and outdoor locations throughout the city of Bozen (ca. 100.000 inhabitants), closely relate to social, cultural and political situations in the city.
TO ACTUALITY provides novel ways to experience art as a proactive relevance. To reach communicational power, the participating artists search out alternate possibilities for art that exists next to but also beyond retinal, aesthetic and textual premises. The artworks strengthen the bond between art and life, reminding us of that we have art so that we do not perish from reality.
List of participating artists:
Maja Bajevic & Emanuel Licha: I did not know
A labyrinthine glass structure on a public square, in which the artists
and other couples watch and comment on footage of contemporary wars for days and nights.
Yane Calovski: Tommy Rot (the sublime violence of truth)
Through a loosely orchestrated set of hybrid performative actions (public appearances and local media coverage), the project brings together reality, film, memory and the socio-politics of the region into a hybrid and ambiguous narrative based on the semi fictional character of Tommy Rot, a failed 1960s movie actor who was accitdentally confused for a South Tyrolean independence activist from that time.
Carolina Caycedo: O Carrinho Brico, O Carrinho Braque
A small, brightly colored platform, equipped with low-tech facilities, is wheeled through Bolzano – passers-by are casually invited onto the stage to sing, shout, recite poems or do anything else they want to.
Martin Creed: Work No. 276: The lights going on and off
In a narrow Old Town alley, lights are flickering in one-second intervals, altering the spatial experience of the passer-by and creating the impression of a light tunnel.
Yvonne Dröge Wendel: Black Spot
A black, undefined, inflatable form appears in the city of Bolzano, being used in different ways by the inhabitants.
Kendell Geers: Your Tongue in My Cheek
Loops of canned laughter are amplified through outdoor speakers at different malls in Bolzano, presenting an ironic comment on the shopping and consumption habits of the city.
Henrik Hakansson: Bat Colony
Real-time transmission, to the AR/GE Kunst, of video images of a bat colony in a South Tyrolean Church.
Michael Kienzer: Corridor (through the Victory Monument)
The proposed walkway through Bolzanos triumphal arch commemorating Italys WW I victory over Austria was denied permission, and the project will be presented on printed T-Shirts.
Michael Kienzer: The Sentence
The Latin legend on triumphal arch is translated into a variety of language and displayed in public venues.
N55: Public Things
This artist collective presents a live-in module on a piazza in Bolzano, which enables people to use the public space in various creative and individual ways.
Walter Niedermayr: Landscape
Video loops of landscapes, recorded by the artist in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, screened in branch offices of South Tyroleans Savings Bank.
Lucy Orta: 70 x 7. The Meal Act XVI. Friday, June 7, 2002
21 guests, specifically drawn from different socio-cultural groups, different nationalities and different political inclinations are each asked to invite seven other people to participate in a communal open-air meal on Bolzanos central piazza.
Ward Shelley: Voyage Platform
A wooden structure, on which the artist and two co-workers live for 11 days, removing parts of the structure from the back and adding them to the front in a kind of quixotic effort.
SIMPARCH: SkateBowl
The artists duo have made a marble skating bowl, placed outdoors in a public location already used for skateboarding.
Martin Walde & Ernst Trawoger: The Pigeon House
A communal housing facility for pigeons in Bolzano attempting to re-address the reality of the wild or street pigeon and integrating them into the urban environment that they are already inextricably aligned to.
Paris based curator Maia Damianovic has put together shows like Transformal (Vienna Secession,1996); The Invisible Touch (Kunstraum Innsbruck, 2000); Days of Hope, (Frame Program Venice Biennale 2001). Maia Damianovic has also worked as a contributing editor from New York for Tema Celeste (1997 to 2000). She is still collaborating with Tema Celeste from New York and Paris and writes for several other international art publications, including Artpress, Camera Austria, Trans and museums catalogues.
Curatorial projects in 2002 (selection): Enactments of the Self, Steirischer Herbst, Graz October 2002; Days of Hope, Frame Program of the Salzburg Festival 2002
Press Information: Goldmann PR, Munich Office 0049-89-211 164 15, info@goldmannpr.de;
Berlin Office 0049-30-857 301 27, berlin@goldmannpr.de
Additional Information:
AR/GE Kunst Galerie Museum, Museumstrasse 29, IT-39100 Bozen
Tel.: +39-0471 971601, Fax: +39 0471 979945, E-mail: info@argekunst.it, www.argekunst.it
