Contempory Art In The Middle East - Symposium at Tate Britain & Tate Modern

CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE MIDDLE EAST
22 January - 23 January 2009
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
020 7887 8888
www.tate.org.uk
Nafas Art Magazine
universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas


Symposium exploring the theme of translation in the context of the Middle East, Part One. This will be the ICF's most ambitious project and it will take place at three sites: Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London and we are in discussion about making our third site the opening of the Sharjah Biennial.

The main partner of this project is Tate National. In this symposium, we want to explore how the Middle East is defined? How does the interpretation of modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and its diaspora effect its understanding at home and abroad? How have ideas about tradition and modernity emerged in art practice? What will be the impact of new and emerging spaces for seeing and exhibiting modern and contemporary art in different parts of the Middle East? This two-day symposium brings together artists, curators and writers to discuss recent developments in contemporary art from the Middle East and its diaspora.

Taking place over two days with a mix of keynote talks and panel discussions, thesymposium revolves around five discrete sessions:

- Defining the Middle East
- Writing and Translation
- Art Now - Recent Exhibitions
- Tradition and Modernity
- The Politics of Space

Keynote talks will be given by Derek Gregory (professor of geography, University of British Colombia, Vancouver) Mourid Barghouti (poet and author, I Saw Ramallah), Salah Hassan (professor, Art History, Cornell University) and Shumon Basar (curator, architect and author of Cities from Zero).

The distinguished group of panelists includes Anas Al-Shaikh (artist), Oreet Ashery (artist), Negar Azimi (senior editor, Bidoun magazine), Bassam el Baroni (co-founder, Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum) [tbc], Yto Barrada (artist and founder of Cinemathèque de Tangers, Goldsmiths College, London) [tbc], Pat Binder and Gerhard Haupt (editors-in-chief, Nafas Art Magazine and publishers of Universes in Universe), Stuart Comer (curator, Tate Modern), Suzanne Cotter (chief curator, Modern Art Oxford), Catherine David (chief curator, Direction des Musées de France), David Elliot (artistic director, Sydney Biennale), Khalid Khreis (director, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman), Vasif Kortun (curator, director of Platform, Istanbul), Rahraw Omarzad (editor of Gahnama-e-Hunar and founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Afghanistan), November Paynter (independent curator), Jack Persekian (artistic director of the Sharjah Biennial and director of the Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art), Khalil Rabah (artist, director of the Riwaq Biennale, Ramallah), Michael Rakowitz (artist), Dina Ramadan (art historian and critic), Andrew Renton (director of curating, Goldsmiths College, London), Zineb Sedira (artist), Nada Shabout (associate professor of Art History, University of North Texas, Denton), Hassan Sharif (artist, co-founder of The Flying House, Dubai), Wael Shawky (artist), Suha Shoman (founder of Darat al Funun, Amman), Issa Touma (artist, curator and founder of Le Pont Art Organization and Gallery, Aleppo, Syria), William Wells (director, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo), Eyal Weizman (director, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London).

Tate National reflects the growing importance of the ways in which Tate relates to other organisations in the UK and abroad. It includes sections on the Tate Partnership Scheme launched in early 2000, with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund; Visual Dialogues, funded by the DCMS, which documents a project initiated and managed by Tate in partnership with a range of art galleries around England; and Tate International, which covers Tate Collection exhibitions and loan exhibitions made in partnership with other museums and galleries and National Collections, and which features the new arrangements for loans between national institutions.

This symposium is organised by Tate and the International Curators Forum and is part of the World Collections Programme in association with NAFAS online magazine. The World Collections Programme is a collaborative initiative between six UK organisations which aims to develop greater access to their collections and expertise by building partnerships with organisations in Asia and Africa.

Santu Mofokeng

14. Jan - 28. Feb 09
Rivington Place
London
EC2A 3BA
11am-6pm - Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
11am - 9pm Thursday 12am - 6pm Saturday
www.rivingtonplace.org
www.autograph-abp.co.uk


Santu Mofokeng produces photographs that refuse to be overtly political, but nonetheless contain a fundamental political dimension. He seeks a broader story in which people are portrayed as more than just urban activists locked into violence.

His landscapes are spaces invested with public memory and spirituality, and he investigates them in relation to ownership, ecological impact and power. His Bloemhof Portfolio tells of the lives of rural tenant farmers, while Chasing Shadows is a documentation of religious ceremonies in caves, public parks and urban waste ground.

Another dimension of his work includes an interest in places invested with meaning which led Mofokeng to investigate not only South African but also European monuments and sites of public memory. Mofokeng travelled to British concentration camp sites in South Africa, to Namibia where the Herero were nearly wiped out under German colonialists, to Ravensbrϋck, Auschwitz, Nagasaki, Hanoi and other sites of atrocity.

Autograph ABP in partnership with Izuko SA National Gallery presents a major UK exhibtion of Santu Mofokeng photographs.

www.carliergebauer.com
www.iziko.org.za

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of free public events.

Robert Storr & David A. Bailey in conversation - The webcast

Tate Online Events

Date: 21 May 2008
Venue: Tate Britain

In this first London event of the International Curators Forum, an institution which aims to animate and develop the international curatorial community, curator and artist Robert Storr and curator David A Bailey discuss the Venice Biennale. Storr reflects on his role as Commissioner in 2007 and both contemplate the Biennale’s legacy and future.

www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents

Axel Lapp interviews Christian Boros - Art Review

Art Review Issue 28 December 2008
www.artreview.com

Axel Lapp Projects
Invalidenstraße 161 (Remise)
D-10115 Berlin
axellapp.de

The Brighton Photo Biennial Conference

BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2008 CONFERENCE
Date: Saturday 15th November
MEMORY OF FIRE: the War of Images and Images of War
www.bpb.org.uk

Introduction
Programmed by Julian Stallabrass, Brighton Photo Biennial 2008 Guest Curator, organised by Brighton Photo Biennial and supported by the University of Brighton, this important event brings together internationally renowned photographers, media theorists and art historians to discuss the production, exhibition and distribution of images of war, referencing historical and contemporary photography.

This is a serious opportunity to explore BPB 2008 through a range of related disciplines and with a focus on photojournalism and contemporary photographic practice.

The conference, Memory of Fire: the War of Images and Images of War, like the Biennial sets out to examine the vast changes that have taken place in the making and use of images of conflict since the last great 'media war', in Vietnam.

Conference Themes and Key Questions/Issues
Among the major themes are:
• What changes are brought about in the use and memory of images by their new ease of making and circulation?
• How do these images change when seen in so many rapidly changing and antithetical contexts?
• Does the plethora of conflict images in the new media realm work against the emergence of highly memorable key images that seem to summarise an event (as famously pictures by Nick Ut, Eddie Adams and Philip Jones Griffiths did for Vietnam)?
• How have artists responded to the changed media landscape, particularly in placing large-format images of conflict on museum walls?

Saturday 15th November

9.30am - Convene

9.45am - Welcome address – Helen Cadwallader, BPB Executive Director

9.50am - Julian Stallabrass (Courtauld Institute of Art and BPB 2008 Guest Curator) introduces the themes of BPB 2008 Memory of Fire: the War of Images and Images of War and the conference.

10.00am - Paper presentations: Hilary Roberts (Head of Collections Management, Imperial War Museum, London) and Eyal Weizman (architect, writer and curator)

11.15am - Break

11.45 - Artist Presentations: Simon Norfolk (artist, BPB 2008 exhibiting at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea), Broomberg and Chanarin (artists, BPB 2008 exhibiting at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea) and Harriet Logan (artist, BPB 2008 exhibiting at the Independent Photographers Gallery, Battle) present and discuss their work.

1.15pm - Lunch

2.45pm - Paper presentations: Iain Boal (Historian of technics and the commons and a member of the Retort Collective) and Stefaan Decostere (multi-media and online producer CARGO, curator and artist)

4.15pm - Break

4.45pm - In Conversation: Tom Hickey (Course Leader for the Cultural and Critical Theory MA at University of Brighton) and Julian Stallabrass explore themes of the Biennial.

Conference Chair: Mark Waugh, Executive Director The A Foundation and Co-Founder International Curators Forum.

Conference Venue:
Sallis Benney Theatre
University of Brighton
Grand Parade
Brighton

The Dilemma Of Collecting Live Art In Times Of Dematerialisation

A discussion that raised many questions about collecting and it's influences on the position and intentions of the artist.

2nd November 2008
Goethe Institute
Neue Schönhauser Str. 20
10178 Berlin
Germany
Organised by The DNA Gallery and Valerie Schwarz.

Speakers: David Elliot, artistic director of the Sydney Biennial 2010, Jan Hoet, director of MARTa Herford museum in Herford, Fumio Nanjo, director of Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Berta Sichel director of audiovisuals at Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sophia in Madrid, Mark Waugh exective director of the A Foundation in London and Liverpool. The panel was chaired by Mark Gisbourne, who is based in Berlin and is part of the editorial board at ART.ES.


DNA Gallery
Auguststraße 20
10117 Berlin
Germany
www.dna-galerie.de
Tel. + 49 (0)30 28 59 96 52

photos © Julia Waugh.

The British Art Show 7 & The New Art Exchange

The British Art Show & The New Art Exchange
31st October 2008

...The ICF has been invited to curate a discussion on the issues underpinning the evolution of The British Art Show. Like Documenta this will evolve over a 5 year period, allowing new configurations and diverse approaches to the challenge of presenting a national survey.
What is strategically significant is that the exhibition tours to partner cities that raise the resources to host the exhibition.

For BAS7 one of the host cities is Plymouth, which has not previously benefitted from an exhibition of this scale, raising the question of how infrastructural challenges impact on curatorial choices. These and an array of questions will aim to navigate a path through issues that have, perhaps, been left unanswered since the last
exhibition.

Speakers include: David A. Bailey, Andrea Schlieker, Jason Bowman, Claire Doherty, Alex Farquarson, Hew Locke, Sandy Nairne, Mark Nash, Roger Malbert.