Agenda 2010
Rietveld's Universe
Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Netherlands
This exhibition is the major show in Dutch Design Double's 2010 focus on architect and designer Gerrit Th. Rietveld (1888-1964). Realised in collaboration with the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rietveld's work is placed in a broad context that puts emphasis on the person, his working manner and in comparison with famous contemporaries like Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe. In addition, the Stedelijk Museum will presents a symposium on research into the metal Rietveld chairs; a Rietveld room will be displayed at Elle Inside; a Rietveld concert will be performed by C-mon & Kypski; and visitors can visit the many building designed by Rietveld in and around Amsterdam and Utrecht.
Dutch Design Double is a celebration of Dutch design that takes place between 1 September - 31 October 2010 and features more than 20 design events in the Dutch cities of Utrecht and Amsterdam.
Les Recontres d'Arles Photograhie
Various locations, Arles, France
A taste of summer seems appropriate for one of the featured works in France 14. A group show conceived in the southern French city of Arles by 14 guest photographers on Raymond Depardon's programme in 2006, on the occasion of Les Recontres D'Arles their personal perspectives on France will be on show at the Abbaye de Montmajour as part of the Changeover Trail. (Mick Jagger can be found in the Rock Trail.)
Les Recontres D'Arles Photograhie
Various locations, Arles, France
Now in its 41st edition, Les Recontres D'Arles Photograhie is an international photography festival that features numerous workshops, exhibitions, colloquiums, projections & other activities. The event will also see the announcement of the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie 2010 prize-winners, with the company also supporting the Clicks for Classes project (a countrywide scheme that saw schoolchildren & photographers working to reinvent the class photo) and France 14.
Weaving In & Out
Tapestry Building, 124th and 2nd Ave in East Harlem, NYC, USA
Olek (the Polish-born, Brooklyn-based Agata Oleksiak, who recently blogged on http://agataolek.com that 'Hour after hour my madness becomes crochet') has invigorated the art of the hook with her public installations, wearable sculptures, performance pieces and costumes. As one of the artists featuring in Weaving In & Out she will perform the suitably loopy Crocheted Grapefruit, in a collaborative exhibition curated by No Longer Empty that seeks to explore the immediate and larger spatial, cultural, aesthetic, urban and environmental contexts, potentials and interactions of the show's site - the raw ground floor of a residential property called Tapestry in a new 'green' development in East Harlem. Textiles, construction and bridging are prominent in many of the artworks, with the 'Weaving' a metaphor for the intertwining actions, projects and ideas. Participating artists also include Isidro Blasco, David Antonio Cruz, Manny Vega and Carol Warner, ao.
No Longer Empty is a non-profit organisation that organises public art exhibitions in empty storefronts and buildings in New York City and was 'conceived as an artistic response to our present economic condition'.
GEO-Graphics
Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR), Brussels
With no fewer than 17 African countries marking 50 years of independence in 2010, Belgium's BOZAR and Royal Museum for Central Africa are organising the Visionary Africa festival. Geo-Graphics will be the keynote exhibition and will display some 220 ethnographic objects in 'a visual and narrative dialogue with contemporary art'. The traditional works of art come from Belgian private and museum collections, while Doual’art (Douala, Cameroon), La Rotonde des Arts (Abidjan, Ivory Coast), Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos (CCA Lagos) (Lagos, Nigeria), Centre for Contemporary Art East Africa Nairobi (CCAEA Nairobi) (Nairobi, Kenya), Picha (Lubumbashi, Congo), Darb 1718 (Cairo, Egypt), Appartement 22 (Rabat, Morocco), and Raw Material Company (Dakar, Senegal), will present their own artistic identity and works by 'its' African artists. In addition, architect and artistic director of GEO-Graphics David Adjaye will present images from his 10-year photographic journey through urban Africa.
Emscher Art 2010
Emscher Island (located in the northern part of the Ruhr region between the River Emscher and the Rhein-Herne Canal), Germany
As the biggest art project of the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, Emscher Art 2010 reflects a huge project to regenerate and renaturise the areas along the River Emscher. For this event attention is focused on the so-called Emscher Island, where 40 artists have created 20 works at sluice gates, in the canal or on the surrounding industrial wasteland. With participating artists including Monica Bonvicini, Rita McBride, Mark Dion, Ayse Erkmen, Jeppe Hein, Olaf Nicolai, Tobias Rehberger and Tadashi Kawamata, the exhibition can be reached by boat, bicycle and car.
Edward Steichen - In High Fashion: The Condé Nast Years 1923-1937
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
Wonder what Joan Craw ford would have thought of the order of billing? Here she features in an exhibition alongside the likes of Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Noel Coward and Winston Churchill. All portraits were taken by Edward Steichen (1879 - 1973) during his time as chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. But it's not all Hollywood, here the emphasis is on the fashion photography of a man who believed 'if you took a good photograph, the art would take care of itself'.
Retrospective - Tom Claassen
Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
His name might not ring immediate bells for all, but the work of sculptor Tom Claassen has very much become part of the Dutch landscape: daily thousands of motorists past his five vast elephant sculptures at a traffic intersection outside Almere; each year, vast numbers of air travellers stream past his ‘Snowmen’ at the entrance to Schiphol Airport’s D pier; his rabbits play on the grass next to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and a seven-metre-high figure stands in front of the town hall in Hoofddorp. This major retrospective of Claassen's work will be on show in and around the exhibition centre and will include works normally sited in public spaces – like his horse sculpture from De Plantage in Utrecht and a huge, stylised rat called Brigid from the Kröller-Müller Museum.
Tracing Mobility
Launch events, screenings & symposium, Broadway Cinema & Digital Media Centre, Nottingham, UK
Tracing Mobility is a pan-European arts programme produced by Radiator launching in Nottingham mid May 2010 and travelling to Warsaw (June/July 2010), Amsterdam (2011) and Berlin (2011). Radiator will present a series of residencies, workshops, events and symposia, examining the shifting terrain of global mobility and how developments in networked infrastructure are transforming our conceptions of time, space and distance. One of the elements is Going Solo: Rural Adventures in an Urban Network, for which Radiator has commissioned three artists to go into the wilderness alone to explore and record their experiences as location data, sound samples, video clips, text or drawings - follow Dan Belasco Rogers (UK/DE), Simon Faithfull (UK/DE) & Esther Polak (NL) on the project's blog.
Tracing Mobility is a Trampoline and Radiator Festival Project Concept and Artistic Direction: Miles Chalcraft & Anette Schäfer with Ela Kagel (curator symposium Nottingham) & Mat Trivett (curator Territorial Play Nottingham).
The Bilbao Effect
Centre for Architecture, New York, USA
You've seen the pictures, visited the building, now experience the play. The Bilbao Effect by Oren Safdie is being billed as a work that 'puts contemporary architecture on trial'. Frank Gehry, whose success with the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao sent the world's city marketeers into a formulaic frenzy, isn't actually dragged into the dock, but the disguise is thin. The plot centres on one 'Erhardt Shlaminger', who is a 'world famous architect who faces censure by the American Institute of Architects, following accusations that his urban redevelopment project for Staten Island has led to a woman's suicide.' The said project is apparently a Museum for Contemporary Contemporary Art, which one colleague describes as a 'toaster on steroids'....This is a blind preview, so no judgement on the satirical bite of its content, but alongside an architectural send-up, the play seeks to 'explore whether architecture has become more of art than a profession, and at what point the ethics of one field violate the principles of the other.'
Built to Resi(s)t
from 13-18 April 2010, Via Corsico 3, Milan, 10.30 am to 10.30 pm and on the Milan Fairgrounds, Hall 12 Booth C23
Exclusive launch party 14 April, Via Corsico 3 (guest list)
EASTPAK takes its high end collaborations to the next level. For the first time, EASTPAK has joined forces with a furniture design label and is presenting a range of upholstered lounge seats. Called ‘BUILT TO RESI(S)T’, the product line combines abstract QUINZE & MILAN shapes with authentic EASTPAK product characteristics, including bags, zippers, handles, colorful strong fabrics and popular prints.
6th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art
KW Institute for Contemporary Art & other locations, Berlin, Germany
Housed in several locations in Berlin, this year’s Biennial takes as its focus how contemporary artists respond to the theme of the present. Or moreover on reality, what it means to different people, how it relates to different situations and how with so many different visions of what reality means whether that ultimately leads us to question contemporary art, and its relationship to reality. The Biennial’s theme is contextualised by an exhibition with works by Adolph Menzel (1815-1905), curated by the American art historian Michael Fried, as well as work such as photography by Michael Schmidt.
DMY International Design Festival
Against the backdrop of a former power plant (Kraftwerk), DMY aims to give its offer of contemporary design projects a unique platform. Reuniting its component parts in one venue, the established brands and designers of the Allstars section will rub shoulders with the experimental endeavours of the Youngsters. The Festival is supported by a number of symposiums, workshops and other design-fuelled events, and for a taste of what’s to come DMY is organising an exhibition during Milan design week called Made in Berlin – Open Process, featuring seven new products and design editions by designers living & working in Berlin.
Art Brussels
Brussels Expo, Belgium
The 28th outing for this contemporary art fair brings together paintings, sculptures, photography and video from established galleries and up-and-coming talents too. The expo, expected to greet some 30,000 professionals, collectors and art lovers over its three days, also offers visitors a chance to participate in numerous talks (organised by the contemporary art museum MuHKA) and debates. Additional highlights include a display of large scale site-specific work by artists living and working in Belgium (organised for the 4th time in a row as the expo’s Artist Project) and a Performance Platform, giving performance art its own place within the show.
Modepalast 2010
MAK - Austrian Museum for Applied Art / Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austria
It’s a new home for Austria’s biggest trade fair for fashion, jewellery and accessories this year, which for 2010 makes sustainably produced fashion its focus. Some 130 labels from established names and newcomers, both local and international, promise to offer something for everyone - whatever the taste or budget. Exhibitors for this year’s show, which boasts a new catwalk format, can also attend a lecture programme with some of the key players in the industry, including ica watermelon, RoyalBLUSH, Magdalena Schaffrin, Daniel Kroh, STEINWIDDER and kontiki.
Landscapes Of Quarantine
Storefront for Art & Architecture, New York, Usa
Most of us understand quarantine to mean a strategy of separation and containment. While this description is not inaccurate, the 18 artists, designers and architects involved in this exhibition ask us to look beyond quarantine’s basic definition to consider its wider implications. The multi-disciplinary group participating in this show considers the physical, biological, ethical, architectural, social, political, temporal and even astronomical dimensions of quarantine through a variety of works. Such works touch on issues ranging from urban planning, geopolitics and international trade through to ethics and immigration.
A House in Luanda: Patio and Pavilion
Lisbon, Portugal
This international competition, launched by the Lisbon Architecture Triennial, invites architects to design a single family dwelling that is radically cheap to build for Luanda, a city under extreme demographic pressure and undergoing an intense period of transformation. The family unit should be designed to house a severely deprived family of between seven and nine people. A shortlist of 30 finalists will be chosen and contacted by the Triennial to develop presentation models of their proposals that will, in turn, appear at the exhibition at the Museum of Electricity (between 28 October 2010 and January 2011).
Raqs Media Collective
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK
Raqs Media Collective is based in New Delhi and brings together the work of three artists: Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Much of their collaborative output explores the relationship between contemporary art, historical enquiry and philosophical speculation. This particular exhibition was inspired by the collective’s visit to Tyneside in 2009 and the North East ‘s maritime history, specifically recent photographs documenting the giant Swan Hunter shipbuilding cranes leaving the River Tyne to be repurposed in India. The visit has resulted in the production of a body of work that reflects the collective’s diverse specialisations and includes sculpture and poetry.
Animal Architecture
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin (Saint Claude), Paris, France
A subject that prevails throughout Daniel Arsham’s work is that of architecture and as the name of this exhibition suggests, here the work presented touches on an unusual mix of architecture and animals. His new series of gouache on Mylar drawings, inspired by etchings of Gustave Doré and Albrecht Dürer, are a case in point. The drawings are intended to make us question our own relationships to architecture by featuring various animals staring at or interacting with floating architectural forms. Another highlight of the show is a series of puppet style sculptures of animals that collapse and reform again.
Contemplating the Void
Solmon R.Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
To mark its 50th anniversary the Guggenheim invited nearly 200 artists, architects and designers to envision dream designs for the central void of the Museum’s rotunda. The resulting projects, many of which throw caution to practicality and even reality, are presented within this exhibition by artists such as Anish Kapoor and Lawrence Weiner, designers including Fernando and Humberto Campana and Studio Job and architects such as Studio Daniel Libeskind and West 8. Despite such a wide range of ideas, certain themes emerge including the desire to climb the building, the impact of sound on the environment and the interplay of light and space.
