Face2Face

FACE2FACE ethiopian contemporary arts

January 27-29, 2012: Exhibition – FACE2FACE, LeLa Gallery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

For three days, Friday January 27, Saturday January 28 & Sunday January 29 LeLa Gallery will host a unique exhibition of original artworks taken from the FACE2FACE exhibition currently on display -High Definition Prints- at the African Union on the occasion of the AU Summit.

Commissioned by the European Commission and BOZAR, Brussels, FACE2FACE features recent works by Tewodros Hagos, Tamrat Gezahagne, Mulugeta Tafesse, Mulugeta Gebrekidan, Michael Tsegaye, Ermias Kifleyesus & Behailu Bezabih.

Curated by Leo Lefort this exhibition has been conceived as an open dialogue between audiences, artists and institutions. Upon the invitation to ‘invade’ the pavilion conceived by visionary architect David Adjaye and independent curator Simon Njami, FACE2FACE participates supremely to the incremental platform, by opening a space for seven Ethiopian contemporary artists.

JANUARY 27, 28 & 29 from 10.00am to 7pm.
Meet the artists at LeLa gallery on Saturday @ 4pm.

More info:
Atelier Art Gallery 
LeLa Contemporary Art Gallery

Astrid Menze

The Transart Collective consists of a group of international artists collaborating with regional artists on projects through digital media and technology. The exhibition speaks to the notion that artists can come together locally and globally, connect and share ideas, issues and themes. This becomes increasingly apparent with the advent of technology and social media. Video and photographic works from this collaboration will be featured in The Cube and BMO Open Gallery. Following the exhibition at the KAG, Connecting the Dots resumes at the Arnica Artist Run Centre with an exhibition of additional collaborative works.

Curated by Tricia Sellmer and Craig Willms, KAG Assistant Curator

Transart Collective
Connecting the Dots

March 24 to June 9, 2012

The Cube and BMO Open Gallery
More Info:

Calendar

KAG

Image Credit:

Astrid Menze
still from all inclusive HERE | THEN | THERE | NOW, 2010

Dubravka Duba Sambolec

Duba Sambolec / Situation Report
26.1. – 24.2.2012
Škuc Gallery

On Thursday, 26th January 2012, at 7 p.m., the preview of the show with the artist, Duba Sambolec. On Wednesday, 8th February 2012, at 6 p.m., the artist talk with Duba Sambolec.

On Thursday, 23rd February 2012, at 6 p.m., the panel discussion with the artist, Duba Sambolec, the curator, Urška Jurman, and the Artistic Director of Škuc Gallery, Tevž Logar.

More info:

Galerija Škuc

ArtFem.tv

Art Review

Dianne Smith Surface & Soul

Dianne Smith: Surface and Soul
Jan 14 through Feb 25, 2012 – Hooker Garrett Gallery

Surface and Sould is a special installation exhibit by Dianne Smith. In addition to paintings and sculptures from her previous collections, Smith’s exhibit will include a custom sculpture created on-site to fit the unique characteristics of the Piedmont Arts galleries and an interactive homage to the Civil Rights Movement constructed by Smith using images and historical documents on loan from the collection of Reverend Thurman Echols.

Often compared to that of Richard Mayhew and Norman Lewis, Smith’s work has the ability to incite emotions with lush palettes and expressive brush strokes. “I am called upon to create my art in response to the events, circumstances and times of the world around me,” says Smith. “Whether it is the plight of women and children around the world or the tragedy of a natural disaster or a conversation with a friend. I am able to create from the now. I use my work as a way to share information by connecting it to socioeconomic and political issues.”

More info:

Dianne Smith

Piedmont Arts

Exhibition Photo Gallery

Stephan Takkides, "Map of Doggerland", 2011, Web-based map

The art of romance is marked by a radically subjective approach. For this reason, they probably still exerts an unbroken fascination for artists. Especially in the contemporary art continue to show reflections of the romantic movement after 1800.

10 positions of international artists who feel the spirit of Romanticism are closely linked, displayed at the art space t27. The subject of landscape is the common starting point of the particular approach that extends from the quote in the sense of an homage to conceptual implications. Plays the romantic conception of the sublime notions of infinity and just as important as the idea of ​​landscape as a carrier of human emotions.
A special feature of the collection is that each artistic medium to another position (drawing, printmaking, video, painting, etc.) uses.

Participants:

• Bjarte Alvestad
• Cornelia Brintzinger
• Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik
• Jens Hanke
• Jane Hughes
• Randi Nygård
• Munan Øvrelid
• Rebecca Partridge
• Katie Paterson
• Stephan Takkides

Curated by Rebecca Partridge and Randi Nygård

More info:

Facebook 

Kunstraum T27

January 18th: Internet on Strike Against SOPA and PIPA Legislation

Artists!

The US Congress is about to pass an internet censorship bill written by the copyright and corporate music and film lobbies, claiming that this bill is written in your name to “protect creativity.” The law would allow the government or corporations to censor entire sites—they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

In fact, PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are backed and largely written by the Hollywood film industry, namely the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which is trying to sell goods and ideas that are already free. Similar to its most well-known President, Jack Valenti, who represented Hollywood interests in Washington, and vice-versa, the current chairman and CEO of the MPAA is Chris Dodd, a prominent member of the Democratic Party and US Senator from Connecticut for 30 years.

Artists, musicians, actors, writers, and media-makers need to sign. Your statement is powerful because the corporate music and film lobbies push these laws to censor the internet in your name.

fightforthefuture.org/pipa/artists

In solidarity, the e-flux and art-agenda websites will feature a block out banner from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST today, January 18. For the same reason, we have decided to cancel our announcements for the day.
INTERNET GOES ON STRIKE: ALL SITES AND PEOPLE TO GO OUT

Major sites all over the internet have gone on strike due to SOPA and PIPA, the hot-button anti-piracy legislation. Experts expect strike to last 150 seconds, and agree this is a “near eternity” in internet time.

Congress is about to pass what has been called the internet censorship bill, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. The Senate is scheduled to vote on its version of the internet censorship bill on Tuesday, January 24th, and unless there are 41 senators to voice their opposition to allowing the bill to proceed, it is expected to pass.

Legislation called the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House are purported to be a way to crack down on online copyright infringement. In reality the bill is much broader. It would empower governments and corporations to take down virtually any website, create new liabilities and uncertainties for web innovators, and make the web less safe. According to the varied and multitudinous reasons large numbers of sites and individuals are opposed to the bill, it betrays basic American tenets, such as free speech, prosperity, and national security. On top of all that, cybersecurity experts say it wouldn’t stop copyright infringement.

The legislation is backed and largely written by the MPAA, as they have said in media reports. They have also spent millions in lobbying dollars to pass this legislation.

is.gd/wuZp2S and maplight.org/content/72896

To see the bills, go here:
www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show
www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show

NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN TO TELL CONGRESS NO TO WEB CENSORSHIP:
CALL (202) 224-3121

WHAT’S WRONG WITH SOPA / PIPA?

Free Speech
Takes down hosts of content and legitimate free speech. The legislation is overly broad and could block some of our favorite websites to Americans only over just one claim to an infringing link posted by users.

The Economy
Creates massive new legal uncertainties and liabilities for web startups, stifling job creation in our most vibrant sector. As 54 leading tech venture capitalists wrote to Congress, the censorship bills would, “stifle investments in internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness.”

Security / Privacy
A web security initiative that has been in development for more than a decade and is just beginning to be implemented, DNSSEC, would be illegal under the bill. The DNS filtering and anti-circumvention provisions in the bill would force a huge step backwards for securing critical national infrastructure from cyberattacks, preventing online identity theft, and stopping the spread of malware.

Copyright Infringement
People that want to share copyrighted content online would still be able to. To get around DNS blocking, all you have to do is enter the IP address of a website into your browser’s url bar.

Learn more:
americancensorship.org is supported by Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Fight for the Future, Participatory Politics Foundation / Open Congress, Center for Democracy and Technology, MoveOn, Cato Institute, Don’t Censor the Net, Urban Dictionary, 4chan, Wikimedia Foundation, Mozilla, Demand Progress, Free Software Foundation, and see more at americancensorship.org/supporters.html

The bill is opposed by:
CEO’s of Huffington Post, Google, Twitter, and thousands and thousands more. To see a full list, go here: www.cdt.org/report/list-organizations-and-individuals-opposing-sopa

SOPA becoming election liability for backers
To the ranks of same-sex marriage, tax cuts and illegal immigration, add this to the list of polarizing political issues of Election 2012: the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The hot-button anti-piracy legislation that sparked a revolt online is starting to become a political liability for some of SOPA’s major backers. Fueled by Web activists and online fundraising tools, challengers are using the bill to tag its congressional supporters as backers of Big Government—and raise campaign cash while they’re at it.

Among the fattest targets: SOPA’s lead author, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and two of its most vocal co-sponsors, Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also felt the wrath of SOPA opponents.

Even GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were asked by voters recently to weigh in on the bill (neither gave definitive answers, though activists have interpreted Santorum’s response as more sympathetic to SOPA than Romney’s).

KEY POINTS ABOUT SOPA / PIPA

• Leading constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe and internet law expert Marvin Ammori have argued that the bill violates the First Amendment because they would restrict considerable speech by people who are not engaging in infringement, either directly or indirectly.
• 54 leading internet venture capitalists have signed a letter stating that legal uncertainties under PROTECT-IP would “stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness.”
• Contrary to its supporters’ claims, the bill will affect domestic websites. Any site that can be shown to enable circumvention of website blocking under the bill would face penalties. This could include sites where users have posted links to IP addresses or new domains for sites that have been blocked.
• The bill would use DNS filtering to block sites, which is the same technique used for web censorship in China and Iran. The U.S. will no longer have a moral high ground when talking about protecting internet freedom globally.
• An internet security initiative that has been in the works for more than a decade and is just starting to be implement, DNSSEC, would be considered an illegal circumvention tool under the bill. The DNS filtering and anti-circumvention provisions in the bill would force a huge step backwards for securing critical infrastructure, preventing identity theft, and stopping malware.
• The bill has not received sufficient committee work and is not ready for floor action. The bill did not receive a single hearing and the mark-up session held by the Judiciary Committee on May 26th lasted less than 8 minutes and featured no amendments and no substantial debate.

Published by internet sites around the world. to get more involved see americancensorship.org

IV Semana de Vídeo Iberoamericano

IV Week of Ibero-american Video at La Fragua (Belalcázar, Córdoba) in January 21 and 22 and in January 24-28 at Filmoteca de Andalucía (Córdoba). Along Migdalia Luz Barens-Vera.

More info:

www.lanavespacial.es 

http://fundacionava.org/pages/revista.php?id=20963

www.lafragua.eu

www.filmotecadeandalucia.com

Blackhalf-Halfblack

BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS is an international transdisciplinary roundtable centered on Black European citizenship in connection to recent moving image and performative practices. The framework of this meeting is circumscribed within decolonial theories which expose how the idea of citizenship is linked to current racialized configurations and hence with the limits of humanity. In that sense, the racial hierarchy of human existence, originating in the Renaissance and prescribed legally during the Enlightenment, established current (white-male-Christian-Western) European notions of who is Human and who is lower in that hierarchy, thereby designating citizenship, one of the most important legacies of modernity. The time-based positions discussed at this meeting have been selected because they contest (racialized) fantasies on European citizenship.

By means of analyzing these narratives of re-existence, BE.BOP 2012 aims at facilitating a long-term exchange between specialists in disciplines unrelated to visual arts and time-based art practitioners of different contexts of the Black European Diaspora. The idea is to create multiple dialogues across the fields of history, legal studies, art and political activism. The transdisciplinary roundtable will be accompanied by a screening program and its content will be published in the form of a book, creating therefore the basis of a visible platform on this field in order to contribute to current debates on citizenship in the public sphere globally. As the first edition of a series entitled OTHER EUROPE BODY POLITICS, BE.BOP 2012 will be entirely dedicated to the Black European Diaspora. Future editions will also include Other racialized subjects in Europe in the same format. These series are motivated and theoretically embedded to Decolonial Aesthetics and more specifically to Decolonial Diasporic Aesthetics, a term coined by curator, Alanna Lockward.

Ndèye Andújar (Spain) / José Manuel Barreto (England) /Artwell Cain (Holland) Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Holland) / Simmi Dullay (South Africa) / Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark) / Fatima El Tayeb (Germany) / Ylva Habel (Sweden) / Grada Kilomba (Germany) / William Kentridge (South Africa) / Michael Küppers-Adebisi (Germany) / Rozena Maart (South Africa) / Walter Mignolo (United States) / IngridMwangiRobertHutter (Germany) / Minna Salami (England) / Dierk Schmidt (Holland) / Robbie Shilliam (England) / Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Germany) / Emeka Udemba (Germany) Rolando Vázquez (Holland)
Alanna Lockward, Curator

In collaboration with Allianz Kulturstiftung and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse
Sponsored by: VideoArtWorld, Digits Without Borders, Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University, Savvy Contemporary and Transnational Decolonial Institute

BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS
May 4-6, 2012

Ballhaus Naunynstrasse

A Project of ArtLabour Archives

Image Credit
IngridMwangiRobertHutter, BlackHalf – Half Black, 1997
2 C-prints, 34 cm x 42 cm

Rebirth: Reflections for Japan post 3/11

The Embassy of Canada is pleased to present the exhibitionRebirth: Reflections for Japan post 3/11 in the Prince Takamado Gallery. Conceived and coordinated by Robin Heather Campbell and Nina Handjeva-Weller, two Canadian artists and long-term residents of Japan, the multi-media group exhibit is an artistic response to the Great East Japan Earthquake. Having witnessed the distress and sorrow caused by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident they contacted Canadian artists who had either lived in or gained artistic inspiration from Japan to see what could be done to encourage Japan. They assembled a collection of works by twenty two Canadians – from young artists to veterans – to create a unique expression through art of Canada’s feelings toward Japan in this time of recovery.

The various art forms, including ceramics, installations, paintings, artist’s books, and other forms of print media demonstrate the profound impact that Japanese aesthetics and the Japanese spirit has had on all of the artists. In response, the sculptures in the show are inspired by the beauty of nature or of objects from everyday life; unique woodblock prints feature delicate use of colour; and, paintings and three-dimensional works are based on Japanese scenes and patterns.

Rebirth: Reflections for Japan post 3/11 also features essays by the artists expressing their sentiments to Japan as it recovers and their wishes for the country’s healing and renewal.

Participating Artists:

• Nadia Aït-Saïd
• Claudine Ascher
• Marion Bordier
• Martin Budny
• Éric Busque
• Robin Heather Campbell
• Diane Collet
• Dawn Dale
• Kathy Gillis
• Nina Handjeva-Weller
• Puck Kasma
• Irène Kérisit
• Audrey Killoran
• Christine Leduc
• Marilyn Berzan-Montblanch
• Nicole Royer
• Madeleine Samson
• David Silverberg
• Bernice Sorge
• Wah Wing Chan
• Matt Wyatt
• Heather Midori Yamada

More info:

Canadian International

Dominique Rey

New exhibition opening at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery: Dominique Rey Erlking

The Southern Alberta Art Gallery is excited to announce the opening of a new exhibition by Winnipeg-based artist Dominique Rey. Erlking brings together two bodies of work that explore notions of ‘other’ and ‘self’ though a seductive combination of fantasy, absurdity and the grotesque.

The photographic series, Erlking, draws its inspiration from Scandinavian and German folklore where the Erlking is said to be a seductive, yet sinister creature that lures foolish travelers to their death. Other accounts claim her as a lustful female spirit, hungry for revenge, while Goethe famously portrays him as a malevolent force of evil preying on children. For Dominique Rey, the Erlking resides deep within us all and her photographs capture her desire to dive into the unconscious where the self and the internal ‘other’ coexist. This series presents Rey taking on a host of personas from the masked temptress drawing you in, to the wild-eyed, bearded man seemingly stuck in an eternal performance of pratfalls. Absurd, grotesque, titillating and beguiling, Rey’s expressions of selfhood offer a compelling strategy for celebrating alterity and serve as a metaphor of the vast continuum of potentials contained within each of us.

Alterity (the state of being other or different) is a central facet of Rey’s practice. From the marginalized communities of exotic dancers (Selling Venus/Venus au miroir, 2005), to the quietly disappearing orders of Catholic nuns (Sisters of the Cross, 2003-2009) Rey chooses not to simply document, but to immerse herself within these peripheral cultures. The influence of her involvement as a performer in the collective “The Abzurbs” on her painting series Pilgrims attests to the intimate knowledge and experience she invests in her work. Recalling sideshow circus ‘freaks’ and 1950s burlesque, Rey’s Pilgrims, “explore notions of the ‘unbeautiful’ and how the unbeautiful becomes permissible, and even desirable, under the guise of performance and public display.” On one hand, there is liberation in the act of masking and performance that can allow for self-transformation; on the other hand, as one might infer from Erlking, sometimes you need to strip away the veils to let oneself be truly free.

Dominique Rey is a painter, photographer, video artist and a performance artist. She completed an MFA in photography at Bard College in 2007 and another MFA in New Media at the Transart Institute in Berlin in 2011. She has shown her work across North America including exhibitions at Plug In ICA, Gallery TPW, Truck Gallery, and Gallery 1C03.

Erlking is organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and curated by Ryan Doherty. Funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the City of Lethbridge. A publication is in production with Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg featuring essays and images from Erlking and Pilgrims.

Erlking runs from January 14 to March 4, 2012. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, January 14 at 8 PM. The artist will be in attendance.

More info:

SAAG