AFTERIMAGE: ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE CINEMATIC

18./19. November 2011
Arnolfini, Bristol, England.


AFTERIMAGE: ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE CINEMATIC is an two-day intervention at the Arnolfini, threading together responses to the multiplicity of issues that impact on the production, distribution and critical reflection of the moving image in an era of mass and intimate media.

Inspirational internationally acclaimed artists, curators and agencies such as: Artangel, David A Bailey, Mike Dibb, Antony Gross, Gil Leung, Gary Stewart, Mark Waugh and the Black Diaspora Moving Cube will be working with be discussing and reflecting on the historical and contemporary impact of cinema as both an industry and scene of cultural production.

These reflections will explore the significance of the moving image within the frame of an increasingly global visual arts ecology, artists engagement with processes of production in cinema, and observations on the curatorial and dialogical negotiations between cinema, gallery and digital platforms, that challenge and configure innovative ways to make the staging of vision memorable.

There will also be a special launch presentation of Omer Fast: In Memory, published by The Green Box which examines the mechanisms of personal experience, memory and history.

Our Magic Hour

YOKOHAMA 2011 Our Magic Hour
JAPAN
August

Extra Sensory
Performance


From Gutai through Fluxus, to contemporary artists such as, Sachiko Abe and Tatsumi Orimoto Japan is a crucible of innovative and challenging performance and media art. In the context of the thematic strategy of the Yokohama Triennale The ICF convened a series of workshops, meetings and symposium during the opening of the 2011 Triennale to to explore the legacy and future of performance internationally.
Our venue was Noge hana hana in the old city of Yokohama.

Day One : 05.08.11
Workshop 9.30-11.30 | The future is disturbed.
The first workshop was facilitated and moderated by Mark Waugh and translated with support from the Japanese curator Fumiwo Imawoto. With screenings of works and conversation to explore the ways in which artists and curators conceive of the relationship between the artwork and its mediation and how curators working with museums can expand exhibitions beyond the gallery and traditional taxonomies of order.
Keiichi Miyagawa ( Director Gallery Soap ) what is a medium or Futures for Art Museums?

Meiro Koizumi ( Artist )will discuss the animation of the uncanny in his performances.

Nicola Hood. ( Director Spacex Gallery)What is the future of performance in the museum?


Yelena Gluzman ( Director Science Project) Performance Problem Presents. What is the context of performance in Japan?

Day Two 06.08.2011

ONE: The legacy of Performance: Culture, counter culture, from elites to everyone.
Tatsumi Orimoto (Artist), Masafumi Fukagawa (Curator Kawasaki City Museum): Moderator Mark Waugh.


TWO: How to add one metre to an unknown Mountain or how to perform within a physical and political landscape?
Adelaide Bannerman ( Curator); Ben Ponton (Director Amino) and Blanca de la Torre ( Senior Curator Artium)

THREE: Translated Acts or the impact of curators on the geography of art.
Paul Domela ( Director of Programmes Liverpool Biennial); David A Baily (Director ICF): Sally Lai (Director of Chinese Arts Centre).

DAY Three 07.08.2011
Workshop 10.00 12.00 | Curators have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
The second workshop explored the role of the curator as a catalyst for infrastructure transformation and how to implement cultural change. It was also the scene of a site specific performnce by artist Kimball Bumstead.

Tom Trevor ( Director Arnolfini) Can artworks survive the gallery?
Anthony Gross ( Director the Old Police Station)Is a DIY vision sustainable?
Sook Kyung Lee ( Curator Tate Liverpool) Why do we collect the ephemeral?

The Black Jacobins: Negritude In A Post Global 21st Century International Symposium.

24th February - 1st March 2011
Bridgetown, Barbados and Fort-De-France, Martinique.

A major Caribbean symposium that links the past with the present and will present a series of historical works as well as existing contemporary works based on the legacies of two major 20th century figures:
the Trinidadian writer and intellectual C.L.R. James and the Martinique poet and intellectual Aime Cesaire.

In his seminal book The Black Jacobins (1938), C.L.R. James (1901-1989) examines the Haitian (Sainte-Domingue) Revolution of 1791-1803. He analyses revolutionary potential and progress according to economic and class distinctions, rather than racial distinctions. The book is also focused on Toussaint L’ Ouverture as the revolutionary spearhead and organizational leader. Thus, The Black Jacobins discusses Caribbean revolt within the context of colonial slavery and furthermore establishes the first black diasporic anti colonial figure hero.
Aime Cesaire (1913–2008) formulated – together with Leopold Senghor and Leon Gontian Damas – the concept and movement of Negritude, the “affirmation that one is black and proud of it”. Cesaire’s thoughts about restoring the cultural identity of black Africans were first fully expressed in Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (Return To My Native Land, 1939), a mixture of poetry and poetic prose that celebrates the ancestral homelands of Africa and the Caribbean. Negritude has been seen as a major intellectual force that has influenced countless liberational leaders to artistic movements from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Power Movements.

This symposium is not about re-appraising these two Caribbean lives but about the re-examining their ideas within a visual art performative 21st century Caribbean diaspora context. Both these writers were using their art (in the form of the discourse of literature) as a political weapon. Today, Black Jacobins: Negritude In A Post Global 21st Century refers to the historical movement of diaspora artists from the past to the present rising above the singular narrative or notion of ‘Caribbean art’ to produce works that have a unique signature in style and content. The symposium has two major strands: Historical Iconographies (Barbados) and Contemporary Dialogues (Martinique)

Historical Iconographies explores the period spanning World War II, the movement for Federation within the West Indies, and the move towards Independence as a period of evolving ideologies of self-definition and determination. The work and ideas of both C.L.R. James and Aime Cesaire are evident in or parallel those of several artists (their contemporaries) within the Caribbean and from the diaspora. Perhaps most direct is the meeting and collaboration in 1941 between Cesaire and Cuban artist Wifredo Lam. Cesaire’s exploration and affirmation of Afro-Caribbean culture, which influenced and paralleled Lam’s own, reinforced and expanded his visual-poetic expressions of Afro-Caribbean culture and identity.

This occurred in the context of fertile collaboration with surrealists Andre Breton, and Andre Masson; and their encounter with Hector Hyppolite in Haiti. Pioneering art movements led by artists such as Karl Broodhagen (Guyana, Barbados), Edna Manley (UK, Jamaica), and Carlos Enriquez and Amelia Pelaez (both from Cuba) combine art deco and African imagery to project a newly emerging aesthetic that could speak to national and regional identity. Outside of the region, the innovative performer and choreographer Katherine Dunham introduced ideas of negritude into black modern dance during the 1940s after visiting the Caribbean with Zora Neale Hurston. Jacob Lawrence in 1938 produced a series of 41 paintings entitled Toussaint L’Ouverture. And the image of the black angel as performed by Feral Benga in Jean Cocteau’s film Blood Of A Poet (1930) embraced the iconic moving image work with surrealist ideas (which was at the heart of negritude).

Contemporary Dialogues explores existing moving image and other art works that emerged following the achievement of political independence within much of the West Indies, the revolution in Cuba and the attendant waves of migration north. The 1980s short documentary interview between the Jamaican intellectual Stuart Hall and C.L.R. James, the moving image works by Haitian film director Raul Peck (Man Of The Shore) and by Martinique artist Euzhan Palcy established the centrality of James and Cesaire for successive creators in the region and wider diaspora. Edouard Duval Carrie (Haiti), Jose Bedia (Cuba), Tony Capellan (Dominican Republic), Nick Whittle (UK, Barbados) and Stanley Greaves (Guyana) explore themes of politics, migration and transculturation that convey the challenges and the insights that displacement and exile bring. The place of popular artists such as Amos Ferguson (Bahamas), Francis Griffith (Barbados), Everald Brown and Leonard Daley (Jamaica), and Philip Moore (Guyana) within the evolving national identity also needs greater articulation and contextualizing. Other artists in this context include Lubania Himid, Marc Latime, Isaac Julien and Martina Attille, Joscelyn Gardner, Sonia Boyce, Steve McQueen, Alfredo Jaar, Peter Doig and Luc Tuymans.

The conference is organised by:
David A. Bailey: artist, curator and exhibition organiser; Director, International Curators Forum – London / Bahamas
Dominique Brebion: Advisor for Visual Arts, Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles – Martinique
Allisandra Cummins: Director, Barbados Museum and Historical Society, President, National Art Gallery Committee, Barbados
Alain Hauss: Regional Director of Cultural Affairs, Martinique
Allison Thompson: Director, Department of Fine Arts, Barbados Community College; Member, National Art Gallery Committee, Barbados

Programme

Thursday, 24 February 2011
Barbados: Savannah Hotel, Bridgetown
Participants arrive / Registration
7.30: Welcome reception – Introduction by David A. Bailey
8.00: Film Screening: CLR James in conversation with Stuart Hall (1984) by Mike Dibb

Friday, 25 February 2011
Barbados: Savannah Hotel, Bridgetown
8.30–9.30: Registration
9.30–9.45: Madam of Ceremonies: Alissandra Cummins
9.45–10.15: Welcome address by the Minister of Culture: The Hon Steven Blackett
10.15–11:00: Introduction / overview: David A. Bailey
11.00–12.00: Response / panel discussion: Yona Backer, Imruh Bakari, Valerie John, Keith Piper, Andrea Wells
12.00–2.00: Lunch
2.00–4.00: Workshop 1: Euzhan Palcy’s Film Practice – discussion led by Imruh Bakari / Moderator: Suzy Landau
7.30: Film Screening: Aime Cesaire (part 2) (1994) by Euzhan Palcy / Introduction: David A. Bailey

Saturday, 26 February 2011
Barbados: Savannah Hotel, Bridgetown
9.00–12.00: Workshop 2: Mike Dibb – The Art Documentary / Moderator: David A. Bailey
12.00–2.00: Lunch
2.00–4.00: Workshop 3: The Diasporic Black Moving Cube: Yona Backer, Christian Bertin, Valerie John, Suzy Landau, Annette Nias, Keith Piper, / Moderators: David A. Bailey, Allison Thompson
7.30: Film Screening: Muxima (2006) by Alfredo Jaar

Sunday, 27 February 2011
5:00 Flight to Martinique

Monday, 28 February 2011
Martinique: Salle Frantz Fanon - Atrium, Fort-de-France
8.30–9.30: Registration
9.30: Opening remarks
10.00–12.30: Richard J. Powell: The Legacy of CLR James and Aime Cesaire / Moderators: Keith Piper and David A. Bailey
12.30–2.00 Lunch
2.00–4.30: John Franklin: The Legacy of Aime Cesaire / Suzy Landau: Colour Of Words / Moderators: Alissandra Cummins and Dominique Brebion
7.30: Film Screening: Zétwal by Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque / Introduction: Dominique Brebion

Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Martinique: Salle Frantz Fanon - Atrium, Fort-de-France
9.30–12.00: Curating in the Caribbean: Dominique Brebion: Think global and act local / Veerle Poupeye and O’Neil Lawrence: New curatorship in Jamaica / Claire Tancons: Curating Carnival / Barbara Prezeau: Haïti au 21eme siècle : l’art des mutants / Jennifer Smit: Curating in Curacao: The Challenges
12:00 – 1:30 Lunch

1.30–4.00: Curating in the Caribbean (Part 2): Haydee Venegas: Paradigms on Latin American and Caribbean art / Sara Herman: Unconscious Curatorships / Winston Kellman: The invisibility of the visual arts in the Barbadian conciousness / Krista A. Thompson: How to Install Art as a Caribbeanist? / Moderator: Allison Thompson
4.00: Vote of thanks: Alfred Alexandre
7.30: Closing Reception

THREE MOMENTS - THE CARIBBEAN

The Caribbean Pavilion at the Liverpool Biennial

Liverpool Biennial
18.9. – 28.11.2010

@ Contemporary Urban Centre
41-51 Greenland Street
Liverpool L1 0BS
Tuesday - Saturday 11am-6pm,
Sunday 11am-4pm


“How are we to write the histories of non-western societies in relation to modernity? Modernity is, as we know, an extremely slippery signifier, and appears here with as many quote marks as I can muster: and ‘the modern’ in its many derivatives – early modern, late modern, post-modern, modernity, modernism – has long been effectively appropriated to the story of the west, monopolizing for western civilization the privilege of living to the full the potentialities of the present ‘from the inside’.

It is therefore difficult to imagine this story in any way other than as a binary polarity: modernity and its ‘others’. Only two narrative alternatives then seem possible. Either the story is told from within the perspective of modernity itself: in which case it is difficult to prevent it becoming a triumphalist narrative in which the ‘others’ are permanently marginalized.

Or one reorients the story within its margins, seeking by this move to reverse and disrupt the normalised order of things by bringing into visibility all that cannot be seen from, or is structurally obscured by, the usual vantage point.”

Modernity and Its Others: Three ‘Moments’ In The Post-war History of the Black Diaspora Arts by Stuart Hall.

In his groundbreaking essay Stuart Hall re-visits modernity through three historical art movements from the perspective of the Diaspora. It is our intention to use this discourse as the theme of Three Moments, the Caribbean pavilion at the Liverpool Biennial, where these moments are symbolised by the three Caribbean islands states: the Bahamas, Martinique and Barbados.The featured artists – Ewan Atkinson, Ras Ishi Butcher and Ras Akyem-i Ramsey from Barbados, Christian Bertin and David Damoison from Martinique and John Beadle, Blue Curry, Lavar Munroe, Lynn Parotti and Heino Schmid from the Bahamas – were selected on their ability to make work that responds to contemporary and historical global themes.

For the first time artists from the Caribbean region are collectively making new work that responds to the city of Liverpool while maintaining a distinctive stance on what Stuart Hall might call a 21st-century Caribbean modernist aesthetic.

Three Moments is selected and curated by Dominique Brebion (Martinique), Alissandra Cummins (Barbados), Holly Parotti (Bahamas) and Allison Thompson (Barbados) in collaboration with the ICF.

photo © Minako Jackson and Lynn Parotti

Omar Fast

European Biennial Network - A Foundation 2008

European Biennial Network, Saturday 20 September 2008 - part 1 from Liverpool Biennial on Vimeo.

European Biennial Network, Saturday 20 September 2008 - part 2 from Liverpool Biennial on Vimeo.

Do you believe in reality? - The Berlin Biennial.

“Do you believe in reality? What a question, you’ll reply. Reality isn’t something you believe in. It proverbially catches up with you anyway – always. But then what are we talking about here? Maybe we could talk about the fact that you so often hear people saying something was different ‘in reality’? Or about why it has become so customary to add a ‘really‘ or an ‘actually’ or an ‘in fact’ to so many of the things we say? Let’s talk about the cracks in reality, about the gap between the world we talk about and the world that’s really there. But why this distinction? Because reality is always the other? Or the others? Everything that’s waiting out there?
Let’s talk about the self-deceptions where reality becomes too painful. Let’s talk about the fictional arsenal of the mass media and consumerism, about the rhetoric of distraction and appeasement. Won’t that ultimately lead us to question contemporary art, and its relationship to reality?” – BB6

On the occasion of BB6, the International Curators Forum will mediate a group response to the Biennale’s open question in the form of selected studio visits and presentations with Haegue Yang, Nasan Tur, Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, Thomas Kilpper, Ming Wong, Omer Fast, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Mayaan Amir and Ruti Sela. Thinking and moving around this question of what constitutes ‘reality’, each encounter will approach and consider the core question in relation to individual research and practice informed by the conditions of trans-nationality, migration, autonomy and community.

Partipants will include: Kitty Anderson, Adelaide Bannerman, Nadege Derderian, Wiebke Gronemeyer, Karli-Jade Fontiverio Hylton, Shahira Issa, Sally Lai, Axel Lapp, Nigel Prince, Barbara Scheuermann, Gary Thomas and Mark Waugh.

Sydney Biennial - THE BEAUTY OF DISTANCE: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age

Art Gallery Of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road
Domain Theatre
Lower Level 3
Sydney
NSW 2000

14th 15th May 2010


www.bos17.com
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/events/cal/biennale_2010_forum?clicked_date=2010-05-14

This two-day forum relates to the core elements around which the 17th Biennale of Sydney – THE BEAUTY OF DISTANCE: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age – has been built. It starts from a critical consideration of the external forces and hierarchies that affect how we perceive art – forces in relation to which modern and contemporary art have traditionally been defined.

By bringing together speakers from many different disciplines and cultures, the forum also examines the increasingly important (but still neglected) field of comparative aesthetics.

Moving between the ideas and languages of pre-modernity, modernity and now, we consider art’s positive power and critical role, how this relates to different worlds and how it has been used as a means of either reinforcing or subverting ideas of materialism and property, or, alternatively, as an expression of non-material or metaphysical value.

Friday, 14 May 2010

* 9.30am: Registration
* 10am: Introduction
* 10.10 am: Poverty, freedom and rights
Panel: Steven Loft, Leah Gordon, Amareswar Galla, Enrique Chagoya, Margaret Levi (chair)

12noon: Lunch
* 1pm: Is it smart to be materialist?
Panel: Fred Tomaselli, Gonkar Gyatso, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Apinan Poshyananda (chair)
* 2.40pm: History, experience, truth and empathy
Panel: Bruce Ferguson, Fiona Pardington, Dana Claxton, Teka Selman, Catriona Moore (chair)

* 4.20 pm: Chto Delat: Tower Songspiel, Olga Egorova (presents a new work)

Saturday, 15May 2010

* 9.30am: Registration
* 10am: Introduction
* 10.10 am: First people, diaspora and fourth worlds
Panel: Ngahiraka Mason, Kent Monkman, Claudio Dicochea, Brenda Croft (chair)
* 11.50 am: Communities, commons, copyright
Panel: Ben White, Eileen Simpson, Gerald McMaster, Larissa Behrendt/Terri Janke (chair)

* 1.20pm: Lunch
* 2.30pm: Curating what?
Panel: James Putnam, Hu Fang, David A Bailey, Pier Luigi Tazzi, Ekaterina Degot, Simon Njami, David Elliott (chair)

* 4pm: Coffee break
* 4.20pm: Nick Waterlow Memorial Lecture
Lawrence Weschler: Serenity and terror in Vermeer and after.

photos © Julia Waugh.

Distance, Diaspora and Aesthetics in Africa and Caribbean Art - Sydney Biennial - THE BEAUTY OF DISTANCE: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age

Distance, Diaspora, Aesthetics in Africa and Caribbean Art
Artspace
SuperDeluxe@Artspace
43/51 Cowper Wharf Rd
Woolloomooloo
Sydney
NSW 2011

13th May 2010

www.bos17.com
creative.puma.com/us/en

“Distance, Diaspora and Aesthetics in Africa and Caribbean Art” organized in collaboration with puma.creative.

ICF is a Public Program Partner of the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Opening Week Forum. Framed within a lens that acknowledges and consults the field of Comparative Aesthetics, the Forum will bring together a cross-disciplinary community of practitioners and theorists to critically consider within panel discussions, roundtable events and presentations the external forces and hierarchies that affect and structure our perceptions of art.

As part of the programming for the Biennale, a puma.creative sponsored forum on Afro-Caribbean contemporary art and culture took place on Thursday May 13th at Artspace in Woolloomooloo. In keeping with the overall theme of this years Biennale, the panel discussion entitled “Distance, Diaspora and Aesthetics in African and Caribbean Art”, will focused on art and curatorship in and around these regions. Notable artists including Roger Ballen, Conrad Botes, Joy Gregory, Amal Kenawy, Nandipha Mntambo, Penny Siopis and Barthélémy Toguo, will engaged in the panel discussion and examined issues under this context including diapora, displacement, poverty and cultural production. Panel speakers were comprised of leading critical thinkers in this field including David A. Bailey MBE, David Elliott (Artistic Director, 17th Biennale of Sydney), Leah Gordon, Colin Richards, Teka Selman and Allison Thompson.

David A. Bailey MBE is the founding Director of the International Curators Forum and Acting Director of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Bailey has established an international reputation, commitment and investment in a variety of issues on the themes of history, race and representation over the past twenty years. Past exhibitions and projects include: The Critical Decade: Black British Photography, MIRAGE: Enigmas, On Race, Difference & Desire, Rhapsodies In Black: Art From the Harlem Renaissance, Back To Black, Shades Of Black, Veil, Remember Saro-Wiwa: The Living Memorial, Black Moving Cube, and in development The Red Shoes.

Roger Ballen is an artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since the late 1990s Ballen has been working at intensifying this core of his practice. For instance, his often curiously unique subjects now perform with and for him to create images that are in all ways true theatrical partnerships. He has also worked on the environments themselves, responding to drawings on the wall and clusters of objects that become antic sculptural formations as we find an unfathomable blurring of fact and fiction.

Conrad Botes is an artist who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. "With the comics, we're dealing very specifically with a South African audience who know what we're referring to. Originally we wrote them in Afrikaans, so many of the references are to things in Afrikaans culture. The paintings I make are much more personal. I can explain them if I have to - but I'd much rather not. It is difficult to explain something that you are meant to feel. People can formulate their own ideas about the work, the viewers reaction is more important than my own explanation".

Joy Gregory, is an artist who lives and works in London, UK. As a photographer she makes full use of the media from video, digital and analogue photography to Victorian print processes. In 2002, Gregory received the NESTA Fellowship, which enabled her time to research for a major piece around language endangerment. She has exhibited all over the world and shown in many biennales and festivals and is also the recipient of numerous awards. Her work included in many collections including the UK Arts Council Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, and Yale British Art Collection

Isaac Julien, is an artist who lives and works in London, UK. Isaac Julien was visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Schools of Afro-American and Visual Environmental Studies and is currently a visiting professor at the Whitney Museum of American Arts. He was also a research fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London and is a Trustee of the Serpentine Gallery. Julien was the recipient of both the prestigious MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts (2001) and the Frameline Lifetime Achievement Award (2002). Most recently, he has had solo shows at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (2005), MoCA Miami (2005) and the Kerstner Gesellschaft, Hanover (2006). Julien is represented in the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim and Hirshhorn Collections.

Amal Kenawy, is an artist who lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. She has taken part in several group exhibitions, including “Africa Remix - Contemporary Art of a Continent” (2004-2007), “Home Works: Forum on Cultural Practices” (2004 and 2005), and “Some Stories” (2005). She has also participated in a number of international theatre festivals, which include La Rose des Vent in Lillie, France (2004) and the Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brussels, Belgium (2004) as well as a variety of international film festivals like FIPA in Paris (2007).

Nandipha Mntambo, Artist Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.'The ambiguous space that exists within this (my "present/absence") is really intriguing me... I also enjoy the thought that anyone can occupy that space - viewers of my work can "step into" the shapes that are left empty and occupy the space I once did.'-'Just realising that there's more than just African connotations to the material [of cowhide] allows me the freedom to continue. Experiencing my work in different context, helped me with how I'd like my work to be read. Where I'm functioning from there's a very specific perception about the work. But I have learnt to channel these perceptions more and more.'

Penelope Siopis is an artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is professor at the University of the Witwatersrand; Was the winner of the Volkskas Atelier prize to live and work at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France in 1986.; In 2005 Penny was made the subject of a monograph published by the Goodman Gallery.

Barthélémy Toguo, is an artist who lives and works in Paris, France; New York, USA and Bandjoun, Cameroon. In an era of global exchange, Barthélémy Toguo’s work reveals the absurdity of borders, whether psychological, familial, or territorial. He uses drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and video to reflect upon the places and people he encounters through his numerous travels. He is always both the subject and the narrator of these works, and considers them to be an interactive platform for information and communication.

Allison Thompson is currently director of the Division of Visual and Performing Art, and coordinator for the Bachelor of Fine Arts Programme in Studio Art at the Barbados Community College where she has been teaching art history and critical theory since 1986. Thompson has written numerous articles and catalogue essays on Caribbean art and is the co-author, along with Alissandra Cummins and Nick Whittle, of the book, Art in Barbados: What kind of mirror image. Current research projects include contributions to books on Agostino Brunias, Popular Art in the Caribbean, and the work of Barbadian artist Ras Ishi Butcher.

Teka Selman is Exhibition and Program Coordinator, DocXArts at Duke University, an interdisciplinary MFA program incorporating film, video, documentary and experimental artistic practices. She was previously Partner at Branch Gallery, an art space that received national attention for its focus on the work of emerging artists. Prior to relocating to Durham, North Carolina, she was Director at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York City. Her writing on artists such as Mark Bradford, Coco Fusco and Kara Walker has been featured in publications including The Black Moving Cube (The Green Box Kunstedition, 2006), Freestyle (Studio Museum in Harlem, 2001), and OneWorld Magazine. She is a 2010 Fellow of the International Curators Forum.

Leah Gordon works as a photographer, filmmaker and curator. She visited Haiti for the first time in 1991, and continues to have a personal and professional relationship with the country. In 2006 she commissioned the Grand Rue Sculptors from Haiti to make 'Freedom Sculpture', a permanent exhibit for the International Museum of Slavery in Liverpool. Continuing her relationship with the Grand Rue artists, Gordon organized and co-curated the Ghetto Biennale in December 2009. She has also been involved in a range of projects as both creator and curator, including documenting experiences of homophobia in London, crossing-dressing in Vodou, links between the Slave Trade and the Thames and exhibitions of Haitian art. Her book 'Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti' will be published in June 2010.

“Do you believe in reality? - 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art - 5 Burseries

Bursaries

6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 11.6.–8.8.2010

“Do you believe in reality? What a question, you’ll reply. Reality isn’t something you believe in. It proverbially catches up with you anyway – always. But then what are we talking about here? Maybe we could talk about the fact that you so often hear people saying something was different ‘in reality’? Or about why it has become so customary to add a ‘really‘ or an ‘actually’ or an ‘in fact’ to so many of the things we say? Let’s talk about the cracks in reality, about the gap between the world we talk about and the world that’s really there. But why this distinction? Because reality is always the other? Or the others? Everything that’s waiting out there?
Let’s talk about the self-deceptions where reality becomes too painful. Let’s talk about the fictional arsenal of the mass media and consumerism, about the rhetoric of distraction and appeasement. Won’t that ultimately lead us to question contemporary art, and its relationship to reality?” – BB6

On the occasion of BB6, the International Curators Forum will mediate a group response to the Biennale’s open question in the form of selected studio visits and presentations with Haegue Yang, Nasan Tur, Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, Thomas Kilpper, Ming Wong, Omer Fast, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Mayaan Amir and Ruti Sela. Thinking and moving around this question of what constitutes ‘reality’, each encounter will approach and consider the core question in relation to individual research and practice informed by the conditions of trans-nationality, migration, autonomy and community.

ICF is offering bursaries of £250.00GBP to five individuals who would like to attend the professional preview of BB6 from 9 to 12 June 2010 and the ICF tour.

The criteria for selection are:
• A track record of curating international artists (minimum of 3 projects)
• A strong interest in the aesthetics and ethics of global curatorial development
• A collaborative approach to sharing knowledge and expertise
• A statement supporting your interest in attending the event and its relevance to your current research (maximum 500 words).

Please send your applications digitally to
info@internationalcuratorsforum.org
The deadline for applications is Friday 30 April 2010. Successful applicants will be notified by 6 May 2010.

You Talkin' to me? Why are artists and curators turning to Education? - A Discussion

You Talkin' to me? Why are artists and curators turning to Education?

31 March 2010, 8pm-10pm

Faculty of Arts - VU University Amsterdam,
Auditorium
12A00 (12th floor, main building)
De Boelelaan 1105,
1081 HV Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
www.vu.nl/nl/index.asp

Speakers will include: Mélanie Bouteloup, Binna Choi, Sonia Dermience, Annie Fletcher, Wouter Davidts, Hassan Khan, Paul O' Neill, Edgar Schmitz, Mick Wilson and others. Followed by a drinks reception.


Curating and the Educational Turn by Paul O’Neill & Mick Wilson, eds.
(Amsterdam and London, de Appel and Open Editions)
This collection of texts will unravel the notable turn to pedagogical models across a range of recent contemporary curatorial projects, art practices and artwriting as evidenced in a range of projects in recent years: ‘Pedagogy’ adopted as one of the three leitmotifs of documenta12 in 2007; the unrealized Manifesta 6 experimental art school as exhibitionary construct for Nicosia and the associated volume ‘Notes for an Artschool’; unitednationsplaza; ‘proto-academy’; Cork Caucus; Future Academy; para-education; Free Copenhagen University; A-C-A-D-E-M-Y; Mark Dion’s School; Tanya Bruguera’s Arte de Conducta in Havana; ArtSchool Palestine; School of Missing Studies, Belgrade; and many other examples. Instances of curatorial models and art practice conceived as critical cultural pedagogies (often construed as speculative – ‘open’ – emancipatory projects) are widely in evidence across the international scene. These developments are consistent with a turn to discursive models within curatorial practice, especially noticeable since the mid-nineteen-nineties. ‘Curating, and the Educational Turn’ is an anthology, which seeks to critically describe, locate, reflect upon, and think through this turn to pedagogical models and practices. Each contributor was invited to write a text on some aspect of the ‘pedagogical’ or ‘educational turn’ in recent curatorial and art practice and related critical cultural practices.

Contributors include: 16 Beaver Group, Peio Aguirre, Dave Beech, David Blamey & Alex Coles, Daniel Buren & Wouter Davidts, Cornford & CrossCharles Esche, Annie Fletcher & Sarah Pierce, Liam Gillick, Janna Graham, Tom Holert, William Kaizen, Hassan Khan, Annette Krauss, Emily Pethick & Marina Vishmidt, Stewart Martin, Ute Meta Bauer, Marion von Osten & Eva Egermann, Andrea Phillips, Raqs Media Collective, Irit Rogoff, Edgar Schmitz, Simon Sheikh, Sally Tallant, Jan Verwoert, Anton Vidokle, Tirdad Zolghadr.

2 Bursaries - Curating and the Educational Turn - A Book Launch

Faculty of Arts
VU University Amsterdam
Auditorium 12A00 (12th floor, main building)
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Discussion and book launch:
31 March 2010, 8PM-10PM

Deadline: 15 March 2010
2 travel bursaries to attend this discussion and book launch are available. For further information see the ICF-website: www.internationalcuratorsforum.org/bursary

Curating and the Educational Turn.
'You Talkin' to me? Why are artists and curators turning to Education?'

Speakers will include: Mélanie Bouteloup, Binna Choi, Sonia Dermience, Annie Fletcher, Wouter Davidts, Hassan Khan, Paul O' Neill, Edgar Schmitz, Mick Wilson and others. Followed by a drinks reception.

'You Talkin' to me? Why are artists and curators turning to Education?' has been organised in association with de Appel and VU University Amsterdam.

Alexandria Biennale - Curator's Workshop

Alexandria Biennale
Ministry of Culture
Fine Arts Sector
1 Kafour Street
Orman Post
Cairo
Egypt

Venues:
Alexandria Art Museum
Alexandria Atelier
www.alexbiennale.gov.eg

The Second Curators' Workshop in Alexandria, during the Bienniale from 17th until 20th of December 2009.

Our selected curators will attend a three day series of events and have the opportunity to present their proposals for further projects to the group. There will be both formal and informal discussions that explore ideas around artistic practice and curation.

The first edition of the Alexandria Biennale was held in 1955 at the Alexandria Museum of Fine Arts. Its aim is to fortify the cultural and artistic dialog between Egypt and its neighboring Mediterranean countries extending it to the world as well.

This year the Alexandria Biennale celebrates its 25th anniversary, and it is the first time that the artists' selection is entirely decided by the curator and not through countries' nominations like in former editions.

Mohamed Abouelnaga has selected 31 artists from the Mediterranean region and proposed for the exhibition the theme The Aftermath, in the sense of "What’s Next" facing the latest crises and economic collapses.

Shahira Issa: Independent Curator, Andrea Schlieker: Folkstone Triennial, Elisabetta Fabrizi: BFI London, Haig Aivazian: Artist and Independent curator Dubai, Kyla Mcdonald: Tate London, Mayssa Fattouh: Independent curator Swissland, Laura Mousavi: Permanent Gallery Brighton, Paula Orrell: Plymouth Arts Centre, Pier Vegner Tosta: Independent Cuartor London, Yasmina Reggad: Independent Curator London, Tina Sherwell: Art School Palestine, Kaelen Goldie-Wilson; Independent curator Beirut.

Caribbean Curatorship and National Identity

28 November - 3 December 2009
Accra Beach Hotel & Spa Hotel
Bridgetown
Barbados

The 21st MAC Annual General Meeting and Conference 2009 will take place from November 29 to December 02, 2009 in Barbados under the theme ‘Caribbean Curatorship and National Identity’. The program includes a walking tour of Bridgetown and an island tour.

The three symposia for the conference are formed around the themes of "Breaking the Silence", "Reconstructing/Deconstructing Identity: Place and Memory" and "Generational Shifts Within The Caribbean Diaspora". Caribbean Curatorship and National Identity is an examination of how history is interpreted and heritage is shaped by communal memory for audiences, old and new, local and foreign. The topic allows for a broad array of issues to be examined in intensive consultation through a regional symposium and master classes to be developed in conjunction with the Museums Association of the Caribbean (MAC), the National Art Gallery Committee (NAGC), the International Curators Forum (ICF) and the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

Speakers include: George Abungu, John Akomfrah, Florence Alexis, Julien Anfruns, Ewan Atkinson, David A Bailey, Adelaide Bannerman, Delia Barker, Lonnie Bunch, Janice Cheddie, Alissandra Cummins, Okwui Enwezor, Graeme Evelyn, Christine Eyene, Kevin Farmer, Tom Finkelpearl, Amareswar Galla, Therese Hadchity, Hans-Martin Hinz, Winston Kellman, Asif Khan, Peggy McGeary, Tumelo Mosaka, Keith Piper, Maureen Salmon, Leslie Taylor, Tom Trevor and W. Richard West Jr.

www.caribbeanmuseums.com/index.php?id=6,0,0,1,0,0

The ICF At The 11th International Istanbul Biennial

12 September 2009
Akbank Culture and Arts Centre
Istiklal Caddesi 14-18
34435 Beyoglu
Istanbul

In the opening week of the 11th Istanbul Biennial, ICF continues its collaboration with international curators through a symposium, as part of its AFTER IMAGE season, using the Biennial’s theme, What keeps Mankind Alive, as a contextual reference and starting point.

This was inspired by A journey Without Return, a book of poems by the celebrated Turkish writer and political figure Nazim Hikmet, using the poems’ themes of migration to look at the influence of Turkish migration on contemporary art. It explores the ‘Gastarbeiter’ programme and its effect in the UK, Germany and Turkey, through which Turkish workers were invited by Western European countries based on their need for economic development.

This process has given birth to complex, hybrid family structures as well as blurring the concepts of identity and nationality. It has redefined lifestyles, tastes and social relationships. In What keeps Mankind Alive the artists, many of whom are migrants themselves, highlight the personal experience, the realities and connections between migrant communities and places.

In an event hosted by Akbank Culture and Arts Centre, curators and artists of the exhibition – Adam Chodzko, Alice Sharp, Peter Cross, Denizhan Ozer and Zineb Sedira – will be in discussion with David A Bailey.

The programme of ICF is supported by the Arts Council of England.

The Venice Biennial / British Pavilion

AFTER IMAGE
6 JUNE 2009

This is the ICF’s inaugural dialogue in a series of events addressing platforms of production and exhibition of the moving image, that is to be continued at the Istanbul Biennial in September and during London Film Festival in October of 2009.

In celebration of the work of Steve McQueen the symposium will ask a distinguished panel to reflect on the ways in which the contemporary moving image has become radicalised as a medium of democratic artistic enquiry.

Steve McQueen will present a work in the British Pavilion which has already generated considerable international expectation. Will his exhibition reflect the desire of the Director of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, Daniel Birnbaum, to explore through Making Worlds, the production of ‘vision’ or the projection of a world seen and modeled through the work of art?

In particular we are interested in discussing how artists have engaged with the mainstream processes of production in cinema whilst retaining their aesthetic and political edge. Does this dialogue between cinema, gallery and digital platforms challenge the curator to find new ways to make the staging of vision memorable.

The focus of the discussion will be Steve McQueen and his work in the gallery and cinema.

With John Akomfrah, Clive Gillman, Teka Selman, Allison Thompson & Mark Waugh.

Supported by Arts Council England and Engage: the National Association for Gallery Education and The British Council.

photos © Julia Waugh.

Sharjah Biennial - Curator's Workshop

16th March - 20th March 2009
Shamsi House
Al-Shyuwaihiyeen
Sharjar
U.A.E.
www.sharjahbiennial.org/en/default.html

The Curator's Workshop took place in Sharjah, U.A.E., timed to coincide with Art Dubai and the Sharjah Biennial between Monday 16 March and Friday 20 March 2009.

The participants attended discussion groups and events for three days during that week.

The series of workshops focused on three key areas:
Commissioning artists and artworks – the process of commissioning artists and artworks from concept to realisation.
Building institutions – from building capital infrastructure to developing an organisation's intellectual capital.
Dialogue and exchange – the relationships between institutions and audiences, between the private and the 'public' sectors and between the national and international.

The programme was led by Gilane Tawadros and Mark Waugh with contributions from other international curators and arts professionals. Our group of Middle Eastern Curators was made possible with the support of the World Collections Fund.

Partipants included:

Andrea Schlieker: Folkstone Triennial, Elisabetta Fabrizi: BFI, Haig Aivazian: Artist and Independent curator Dubai, Kyla Mcdonald: Tate London, Mayssa Fattouh: Independent curator Swissland, Laura Mousavi: Permanent Gallery Brighton, Julia Waugh: Photographer, Paula Orell: Plymouth Arts Centre, Pier Vegner Tosta: Independent Cuartor London, Yasmina Reggad: Independent Curator London, Mark Waugh: A Foundation London, Gilane Tawadros: Independent curator, DAKS, Judith Nesbit: Tate London, Jiyoon Lee: Independent Curator, Wassan Al-Khudhairi: Independent Curator, Julie Lomax: Arts Council England, Francis Morris: Tate London, Sidonio Costa: Independent Curator, Flik Allan: Independent Curator, Reem Shillah: Independent Curator, Ala Younis: Artist and filmmaker, Vali Mahlouji: Independent Curator, Reem Fadda: Independent Curator, Shahira Issa: Independent Curator, Osman Bozkurt: Independent Curator, Didem Ozbek: Independent Curator, Lara Khaldi: Sharjah Biennial and Jack Persekian: Sharjah Biennial.

photos © Julia Waugh.

Thelma Golden In Conversation With David A Bailey - Tate Britain

Post-Black Art Now, took place at the Tate Britain Auditorium.
In the late 1990s curator and writer Thelma Golden coined the controversial term 'post-black art' with friend and artist Glenn Ligon to refer to a post-civil rights generation of African-American artists whose work she believed could no longer be defined in terms of 'race'. In this lecture and discussion, Golden reflects on the status of the term 'post-black art' in the context of debates about the globalisation of the art of the African diaspora and current notions of cultural difference.

Suzanne Lampla - Association International Des Critiques D'art Section Caraibe Du Sud

Suzanne Lampla has written a description of the symposia, Black Diaspora Visual Arts at:
http://www.aica-sc.net/aica_en/aica_sc/actu/index.htm