Lectures I - MANIFESTA 4 January till May 2002 In Co-operation with the Academy of Fine Arts, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule 18.1. Branislav Dimitrijevic, CCA Centre for Contemporary Art / School for History and Theory of Images, Belgrade THE CROWDED VOID: LOCATING AND THINKING VISUAL ART IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIA (AND WHAT FOR?) (working title) 25.1. Hedwig Saxenhuber, springerin - Contemporary Art Journal, Vienna WHO IS AFRAID OF THE ‘BOGEY MAN’? 15.2. Lionel Bovier, Curator and Publisher, Geneva CURATORIAL METHODOLOGIES, ARTISTIC PRACTICES AND RELATIVE INDEPENDENCE 22.2. Franck Larcade, Consonni Centre for Contemporary Art, Bilbao TOMORROW, EVERYWHERE... 8.3. Dagmar Demming, Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo ‘MULTIPLE PERSONALITY’ - A PLEASURE WITHOUT GUILT FEELINGS 15.3. Katy Deepwell, Editor of n.paradoxa, international feminist art journal, London FEMINISM IN AN INTERNATIONAL FRAME 5.4. João Fernandes, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto The title and subject of the lecture were not yet available when going to print. 19.4. Erden Kosova, Critic, London/Istanbul ISTANBUL, NOT CONSTANTINOPOLIS 3.5. Gianni Romano, Critic and Curator, Milan A CURATOR WITHOUT WALLS (working title) 10.5. Suzana Milevska, Critic and Curator, Skopje CORRESPONDENCES AND PRIVILEGES Lectures will be held in English except January 25 and March 8. 7 pm at Städelschule, Dürerstr. 10, 60596 Frankfurt / Main Subject to alteration! Information: +49/69/40 58 95 - 800, office@manifesta.de, www.manifesta.de Manifesta 4 c/o Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Waldschmidtstr. 4, 60316 Frankfurt Manifesta 4 is supported by Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Allianz Kulturstiftung, Messe Frankfurt. Sponsored by Hessische Landeszentralbank, Deutsche Städte Medien GmbH, Media-partner hr 18.01. Branislav Dimitrijevic, CCA Center for Contemporary Art / School for History and Theory of Images, Belgrade: THE CROWDED VOID: LOCATING AND THINKING VISUAL ART IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIA (AND WHAT FOR?) (working title) The talk explores the institutional and non-institutional treatment of visual art in post-Milosevic Serbia. The aim is to map the current situation and on-going projects and efforts that attempt to create a relevant and critical public space in a conservative and impoverished social ambience. The examples will range from high profile international projects (such is the exhibition "Konverzacija" in the Museum of Contemporary Art) to artistic projects in non-artistic environments (such is the project "Flux" carried out in suburbs and favelas around Belgrade). Branislav Dimitrijevic, born 1967 in Belgrade, is art historian, writer and curator. He currently holds the position of Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Belgrade. He graduated in Art History at the University of Belgrade and in 1995 received his MA degree in History and Theory of Art at the University of Kent under Professor Stephen Bann. He has written on visual culture and contemporary art and politics in Serbia for local and international magazines and catalogues, and edited a book on interpretations of popular imagery, "Pop Vision" in 1996. He has written essays for catalogues of artists including Zoran Naskovski, Milica Tomic, Zdravko Joksimovic, pRT and others. With Branislava Andjelkovic he curated exhibitions and edited catalogues including "Map Room" (1995) and "Murder1" (1997), as well as "Beauty and Terror" (1998) and "Overground" (1998). His most recent curatorial project is "Konverzacija" (2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade). He is one of the founders of the School for History and Theory of Images at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Belgrade where he teaches courses on Conceptual Art and Reading the Image. He has lectured and participated in conferences and panel discussions in Canterbury, Stockholm, Innsbruck, Ljubljana, Skopje, Oslo, Moscow, Graz, Vienna, Cape Town, etc. He is the President of the Board of the International Contemporary Art Network (ICAN). He received the Lazar Trifunovic award for art crticism in 1997 and the Dusan Stojanovic award for film theory in 1999. 25.01. Hedwig Saxenhuber, springerin - Contemporary Art Journal, Vienna: WHO’S AFRAID OF THE ‘BOGEY MAN’? How wide open are the spaces of art for political counter- strategies? Do artists have a potential to draw attention in an emancipatory way to present problems of migration, globalization, poverty and Disneyization? How have the working conditions and artists' concept of the art work changed through the impact of these problems? Is the attention being paid to geographical zones other than the hegemonic ones only a short flash, or have the set of senses for a changed geography developed in the meantime through networking and intermeshing institutional relations? Is it not sexy and is it almost like an anal fixation to analyze social relations of power? To what extent do artists cut off their room for free movement when they react to social deficiencies and when that is even expected of them? Using examples from aesthetic and curatorial practice, the productive contradictions and ambivalences of such questions are to be discussed. Hedwig Saxenhuber is a freelance curator and co-editor of springerin, a journal for contemporary art and lives in Vienna. From 1992 to 96 she was a curator at Kunstverein Munich. Numerous publications including "Yvonne Rainer", "Oh boy, it's a girl", "Trinh T. Minh-ha", "Louise Lawler". Most recent exhibitions: 'Translocation (new) media/arts", Generali Foundation, "Erlauf recollects'", a project in public space, "you are the world", Künstlerhaus/Vienna Festival. 15.02. Lionel Bovier, Curator and Publisher, Geneva: CURATORIAL METHODOLOGIES, ARTISTIC PRACTICES AND RELATIVE INDEPENDENCE The lecture recalls the absence of any clear definition as well as legal or economic grounds for curatorial practice. And hence it questions the foundation of such a work with regard to artistic practice and writing in the second half of twentieth century art history. It then re-asserts independence in terms of methodological possibilities offered to curators, presenting personal projects which developed from issues such as the role of archives, the Fluxus notion of the ‘score’ and ‘recessive history’. Lionel Bovier is a freelance curator and writer based in Geneva. An Associate Curator at Le Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain, in Grenoble since 1999, he is also the co-founder and director of JRP Editions, an independent publishing company in Geneva. He recently published a survey of the Swiss art scene ("Across", Skira/Seuil 2001) and among his recent exhibition projects are "Timewave Zero/The Politics of Ecstasy" (Grazer Kunstverein, Steirischer Herbst 2001, together with Jean-Michel Wicker) and the retrospective of Jack Goldstein at Le Magasin (together with Yves Aupetitallot and Fareed Armaly). 22.02. Franck Larcade, Consonni Centre for Contemporary Art, Bilbao: TOMORROW, EVERYWHERE ... The only valid field for critical action is reality itself. In such a context, the question arises as to the nature of new artistic productions that are based on the use of strategies which irreverently mime capitalist society. Consonni (Bilbao) uses well-known economic, political and media forms. Through the presentation of several recently produced projects, Consonni develops an ideological position opposed to the conventional art system and its production models. Franck Larcade, born 1969 has been art producer and director at Consonni (Bilbao, Spain) since 1996. Among the projects he has recently curated, one can mention "El Gran Trueque", Matthieu Laurette (2000) and "The International Auction of the Basque Typefaces ‘Euskara’", Heinrich Sachs (2001). 08.03. Dagmar Demming, Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo: ‘MULTIPLE PERSONALITY’ - A PLEASURE WITHOUT GUILT FEELINGS I teach at an art academy as an artist and since 2000, as director, I am responsible for the curriculum. I will present my ideas about the institution of the art academy, the change in the production of knowledge and the work of artists from these three perspectives. Concepts like ‘freedom’ as a fog trap, ‘fuzzy logic’; the artist will be contemplated as doctor and the doctor as artist. Institutional frustration will be replaced by institutional enthusiasm and vice versa. The fun will be separated from the negative Protestant connotations of the fun society and conceived of as dynamizing pleasure, jobs as playing fields and misunderstandings as an opportunity. Sound bytes and slides from my artistic production will confuse the stringent path of argumentation. Dagmar Demming, born 1951, was master class student at the Hochschule der Künste (Academy of Arts), Berlin from 1983 to 89; from 1994 to 97 she taught at the Art Center College of Design, Fine Arts Department, Pasadena, California. 1998 Dagmar Demming wa appointed Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, Norway. Selected exhibitions: Solo exhibitions: 1992 "Estimating Eyes - Measuring Ears", Treppenhausgalerie Berlin, Galerie von der Tann, Berlin; 1995 "3 to 4", Gallery Sundvik-Villano, New York; 1996 "New in L.A.", Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Pasadena, "Dünü Duymak/Listening to Yesterday", Macka Sanat Galerisi, Istanbul; 1999 Kunstraum Stavanger, Artists’ House Oslo Group exhibitions: 1991 "Six from Berlin", Moderna Museet Stockholm; "This Way or That", Künstlerhaus Bethanien; 1992 "Realtime", Museum for Contemporary Art, Oslo; 1993 "After the Wall", The Carnegie, Pittsburgh, "Fontanelle", Kunsthalle Potsdam; 1994 "In Between", Centre A. Brochette, Brussels, Kunstgalerie Gera, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, "Burnt Whole", Washington DC, Project for the Arts, Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art; 1995 "Bodily Logos", Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, exhibition of the IFA, RENTA Prize, exhibition Nuremberg, Norishalle, "All Work No Play", Dresden- Hellerau, "The Telematic Space", Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin; 1996 "Quicksand: MV-Scene in Motion", Staatliches Museum Schwerin; 1997 "For Lidice, 52 Artists form Germany", Prague, Museum of the Black Mother of God, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Fridericianum, Kassel; 1997 "towards: ReligionMemoryBody in contemporary Art" , Graz; 2001 Biennial of Sculpture Münsterland, "Intimate Expeditions", Kunstverein Karlsruhe, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin Selected scholarships/projects: 1993 Working scholarship from the Art Fund Bonn; 1993-94 Berlin DAAD Scholarship for Los Angeles, Visiting Artist at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena California; 1997 Faculty Grant, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California; DAAD Scholarship for lectureship in Pasadena California; 1999 Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Helsinki 15.03. Katy Deepwell, Editor of n.paradoxa, international feminist art journal, London / Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Ulster: FEMINISM IN AN INTERNATIONAL FRAME This presentation will examine the relationship between the art history of feminist art and the women’s art movement, which have often been national in character, and will contrast this with a number of international initiatives in feminist exhibitions since the 1970s. The feminist art movement in America has been the most well-documented part of the movement to date and has become dominant in terms of a published account of what feminism is. However, examination of international feminist exhibitions reveals a different agenda at work and a very different account of feminism’s significance as a contemporary art movement. The limited published knowledge about feminism in the visual arts has created some very specific problems and distortions for identifying feminism in the visual arts as an international phenomenon and an art movement with a global reach and multi-layered histories of exchange and co- operation across borders. The tensions between these two positions - one national/local, the other international/global - will be explored in relation to the work of women artists since the 1970s. Katy Deepwell is founder and commissioning editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal. She is currently Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ulster. Her most recent book is "Dialogues: Women Artists from Ireland" (Kinsale: Gandon Books, 2001); "Women Artists and Modernism" (ed.) (Manchester Univ. Press, 1998); "Art Criticism and Africa" (ed.) (London, Saffron/EAP, 1997); "New Feminist Art Criticism" (ed.) (Manchester Univ Press, 1995). 05.04. João Fernandes, Deputy Director and curator at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto The title and subject of the lecture were not yet available. 19.04. Erden Kosova, Critic and Curator, London/Istanbul: ISTANBUL, NOT CONSTANTINOPOLIS The recent tension being produced by the membership negotiations between the EU and Turkey has a decisive influence on the formation of contemporary Turkish citizens’ psyches. Constant oscillations between recognition and exclusion, desire and resentment, cosmopolitanism and isolation fabricate a reflexive process, a crisis of the Self which has to be defined anew due to the changing relations with the ‘historical Other’. Contemporary artists from Turkey have an additional concern regarding this tension because they are welcomed by the European institutions more than the local ones. They feel the urge to criticize both the increasing nationalism at home and the expectations for products of representational character, for illustrations of a geography of the nation abroad. In relation to this double-edged displacement they employ varyious strategies of resistance. Sometimes they refer critically to the prevailing, ridiculous rhetoric of the heroic past of the Ottoman state or to the historical images of European imagery which reflect an apparent enmity. Sometimes they problematize their own status as artists from the periphery or sometimes they reject all sorts of cultural binaries and seek transversal mappings of alternative geographies. In my paper I will discuss some particular works and illustrate those strategies of resistance. Erden Kosova is PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College London. He has worked for two art magazines in Istanbul, Resmi Görüs and art-ist. 03.05. Gianni Romano, Critic and Curator, Milan: A CURATOR WITHOUT WALLS (working title) The lecture focuses on Gianni Romano's work as exhibition curator and communicator of contemporary art in a country which does not have museums of contemporary art. From the viewpoint of curating, Romano will speak as an initiator of the first Italian web site for contemporary art www.postmedia.net and also about some of his own publications. Special exhibitions in which Romano has played a part as curator will also be presented in this connection: "Beyond concentric normality" (Padua), "Italian maps" (Athens), "The Image of Europe" (Cyprus), "Media Connection" (Rome and Milan). The lecture will conclude with a discussion of the artistic situation in the social context of Italy. Romano was born in 1960 in Italy and lives in Milan. He concluded his studies in literature and philosophy with a thesis on American science-fiction. The main focuses of his work as curator and critic of contemporary art are on photography and art on the internet. His publications appeared in numerous international art periodicals (Arts Magazine, Art Press, Noema, Untitled Art). He is presently working for the magazines Zoom (Milan), Lapiz (Madrid), Flash Art (Milan) and ArtNet (New York). In 1996 Romano founded the Postmedia Magazine (www.postmedia.net), the first webzine for contemporary art in Italy. He founded one of the first institutional courses in Italy on Art and the Internet in 1997 at the Accademia Carrara di Bergamo. He has edited more than forty art catalogues and has worked internationally as a curator on more than fifty exhibitions in Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Austria, Finland, Greece, Cyprus and Mexico. In 2000 Romano curated a large exhibition of contemporary art of the last decade at the Museo Michetti. This was followed in 2001 by "Media Connection" an historical exhibition on Art and Technology at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and at the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. Romano has published the following works: "Collecting Images" (Fondazione per la fotografia, Turin 1997), a book for collectors of photography; "Artscape: a Panorama of Art on the Net" (Costa e Nolan, Milan 2000), the first survey of art on the internet; "Contemporary Women Artists: 1980-1999" (with Emanuela De Cecco; Costa e Nolan, 2000), women artists from Cindy Sherman to the present day; "Europe: Different Perspectives in Painting" (G. Politi Editore Milan 2001). 10.05. Suzana Milevska, Critic and Curator, Skopje: CORRESPONDENCES AND PRIVILEGES My presentation at Manifesta 4 will deal with the correspondences between the works of artists coming from Macedonia and the Balkans, and the works of their colleagues done in another context, the Western art scene. The customary ‘privilege’ of Balkan artists to make art out of the feeling of uncertainty or ‘apocalyptic’ fear due to the continual political and military conflicts in the region was somehow lost after the events of 11 September, so that the correspondences became more inevitable than ever before. Along with the discussion of art issues, I would also like to focus on the common prejudices of each art community about the privileged social position of the others that I came across during my curatorial work. Suzana Milevska is an art theorist and curator. She was born in 1961 in Bitola (Macedonia). In 1984 she received her B.A. from the Art Department of St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and in 1993/1994 she studied philosophy, art history and architecture at the Central European University in Prague. She is currently a PhD student at Goldsmiths College. As a curator and researcher she received the Research Support Scheme Grant (1997), an ArtsLink Grant (1999) for the residency program at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Curatorial Research Fellowship of the P. Getty Foundation for 2001. She has been publishing critical and theoretical essays since the late eighties in numerous art and theoretical journals such as Kinopis, Kulturen zivot, Golemoto staklo, Siksi, Index, Nu, Springerin, Flash Art, Afterimage, Curare and she has participated in several international conferences and symposia. She has also curated over fifty solo and group exhibitions and international projects in Skopje ("Little Big Stories" 1998, "Always Already Apocalypse" 1999, "Words-Objects- Acts" 2000, "Capital and Gender" 2001), Istanbul ("Writing and Difference" 1992, "Self and Other" 1994, "Desiring Machines" 1997, "Always Already Apocalypse" 1999), Providence USA ("Liquor Amnii II" 1997), Stockholm ("Little Big Stories" 1998), Berlin, Stuttgart and Bonn ("Correspondences" 2001). 1