KolnShow2 until 26.05., Cologne

From April 19th until May 26th 2007 the exhibition „was einmal über heute gesagt werden wird: KölnShow2“ („...what will be told of today tomorrow: KölnShow2“) will take place in 18 contemporary art galleries in Cologne.

The constitutional concept of the exhibition, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Florian Waldvogel, ties up to „The Köln Show“ in 1990, a so far unique joint venture of nine Cologne based galeries. They organised an exhibition with at that point unknown artist, many of them having their names in the art world today.

In the 1980s and early-90s, the city of Cologne was one of the most important centres for contemporary art in Europe. With its many galleries, artist run-spaces, and artist bars, the city assumed a kind of mythological dimension, a place where artists came to show, sell, socialize, and distinguish themselves and their work on levels symbolic and real, depending on the conditions of the urban surrounding. „The Köln Show“ examined, consciously without institutional help, the specific relationship between art production, art scene and artmarket in Cologne in 1990.

Aiming at a future-orientated new foundation of a Kunsthalle in Cologne, the European Kunsthalle takes this now almost historical venture up. As one of the last projects of the European Kunsthalle during its two-year founding and research process, the exhibition „KölnShow2“ approaches directly the cultural activities of the city of Cologne. The exhibition presents a selection of the young international art scene in the spaces of the participating galleries, parallel to their own program. Using the temporal distance from the year 2007 to „The Köln Show“ in 1990, the exhibition reflects on contemporary general frameworks of cultural prosperity and artistic production in Cologne.

Rounding up the two-year founding phase the European Kunsthalle focuses on its actual position and departing point in Cologne. Departing from the analysis of the cultural infrastructure of urban communities, it is considered essential for the research to examine the network of galleries and art mediators as an important factor of a cultural habitat and their current potential. Utilising the spaces and possibilities of the galleries, the exhibition project asks which significance is taken up by them within artistic discourse. Which structural changes occurred and may be read from the resultant development from 1990 until today?

Protest On Demand

Protest On Demand
a sociopolitical performance by
The Floating Lab Collective
www.floatinglabcollective.org

Date: April 21-22
Location: Washington DC

The Floating Lab Collective will be performing Protest on Demand as part of the Multimediale Festival of Art, Politics and New Media taking place in Washington DC April 19-22. The artists will disperse into groups of four teams: Green, Blue, Orange, and Red (based on the Metro subway system colors) and will be indentifiable by their color-coded jumpsuits.

The protests are being staged in 4 locations in the DC area. Each group involves 4 artists, and each artist will accomplish a specific task, from engaging the public to documenting the protest. Each team will take requests for protests from bystanders and from the floating lab web site: www.floatinglabcollective.org This webpage is currently accessible for initiating protests for use during the performance. Each group will create placards and slogans with the protest initiator or promoter if they are present. The remote initiator or promoter will receive feedback through the Internet.

Each protest will be held for 3 minutes and it could be about anything. The content of the protests will be provided by anyone that wants to voice a concern. The webpage creates the possibility for collection of national and international concerns and points that people would like to voice in one of the most influential political locations in the world--Washington DC. The main idea is to create a platform to voice concerns from a variety of people.

The 4 groups on the street will be linked to the gallery (the floating office) through messengers, who will be collecting the documentation hourly, in the form of video, digital photo, sound recording, and the log of the project. This “floating office” will be composed of 4 artists. The “floating office” will have a printer and computers to edit. They will continually be updating the web page.

The documentation will continually be posted and displayed in the gallery, with video projectors and prints. The work will be constantly shifting and evolving during the execution of the performance, to amplify the idea of urgency, immediacy and overall importance.

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Art Cologne 18.-22.04

In 2007, the world’s longest-established fair for modern and contemporary art moves into the spring and will take place at the Cologne exhibition center from 18th to 22nd April.

The field of exhibitors includes many internationally renowned galleries. The exhibitors’ stands will present a comprehensive overview of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries — from modernism to the most recent works by contemporary artists. In addition to important works from the post-war period, the exhibitors are increasingly focusing on contemporary art. An integral feature of ART COLOGNE is “Open Space”, a curated outdoor sale exhibition area for contemporary art.

ART COLOGNE reflects an awareness of its traditions, which include in particular the promotion of new art and young artists:

-the work of young artists is promoted by the “New Talents” programme, which is supported by the Federal Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the City of Cologne and Koelnmesse. A jury will select the “Best of the Best”, and the winner will be honoured with the ART COLOGNE Young Artist Prize, which was presented for the first time in 2005.

-the “New Contemporaries” programme, which is sponsored by the SK Culture Foundation of the Sparkasse KölnBonn, promotes new galleries. The programme allows galleries to take part in ART COLOGNE at reasonable prices.

Supporting and promoting new art and young artists isn’t the only high priority at ART COLOGNE, however. Beginning this year, the fair’s commitment to the entire international art market will be underlined by “Hidden Treasures”, which will be an annual programme intended to introduce as many as six artists who are 40 or older. These “hidden treasures” will be artists whose place on the art market has not yet stabilised , although their work is relevant and important from an art historical standpoint: In short, desirable art at rather attractive prices.

Koelnmesse will be investing in the infrastructure of ART COLOGNE for the benefit of exhibitors and visitors over the next years. Enhancements will be made to the technical and other facilities in the exhibition halls, and to the trade fair catering. In conjunction with an improved navigation system in the ART COLOGNE halls and around the exhibition centre, these changes will play a key role in making the Cologne art fairs even more appealing.

Destricted, 09.04. Impakt Festival Utrecht

Destricted is the first short film collection of its kind, bringing together sex and art in a series of short films created by some of the world’s most visual and provocative artists and directors. Explicit in content they reveal the diverse attitudes by which we represent ourselves sexually. Formed in 2004, Destricted is a platform for all forms of uncensored artistic expression; manipulating and embracing the expression of sex through art.

The seven films presented explore the fine line where art and pornography intersect. The films highlight controversial issues about the representation of sexuality in art; opening up for debate the question of whether art can be disguised as pornography or whether pornography can be disguised as art or something else altogether. The result is a collection of explicit, stimulating, challenging, provocative, strange and sometimes humorous scenarios that leave it up to the viewer/voyeur to decide.

Each film maps its territory in dramatically different ways:

Balkan Erotic Epic
Performance art legend Marina Abramovic delves into Balkan folklore to create an instructional series of mis-en-scenes that explore the crude, magical and mysterious rites of ethnic fertility and virility.

Hoist
American fabulist Matthew Barney stages the erotics of sexual encounter as it takes place between ‘green man’ and the lubricated drive shaft of a customized deforestation vehicle destined for the Carnival de Bahia.

Sync
American artist and filmmaker Marco Brambilla ransacks porn-film archives to produce a witty, fast-moving montage of money-shots.

Impaled
Larry Clark, cult anthropologist of American adolescence, directs a sensitive yet frank investigation into how, for the generation growing up in the 1980’s pornography has shaped the way they think about sex and sexual fantasy. The result is a riveting documentary about desire and sexual initiation.

We fuck alone
Gaspar Noé, maker of ‘Irreversible’, the controversial art-house movie whose brutal depiction of rape that left audiences physically sick, now promises to turn you on with a cinematically erotic journey into masturbatory fantasy.

House Call
American iconographer Richard Prince appropriates a segment video that captures the generic gold standard of ’70’s porn – big tits, big cock and cumshot – re-shooting it in the manner of the cowboys, girlfriends and outlaws that first made him famous.

Death Valley
British art star Sam Taylor-Wood directs a porn star in a droll elegy to masturbation and the great American outdoors.


Monday 9 april, 19:00 hours
Filmtheater 't Hoogt, Cinema 1
Hoogt 4, Utrecht
Reservations via ’t Hoogt: info@hoogt.nl / 030 – 232 83 88