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Design

Thomas BüschNew Zealand’s future flag? A suggestion handed in by Jesse Gibbs Until today it’s red, white and blue, it contains the Union Jack and four stars. It looks in some way similar to other countries’ and reminds too much of the former colonial power, as PM John Key states. New Zealand is searching for a new flag currently and options are plenty. A state’s flag is an important item. French sociologist Emile Durkheim called goods like this „totems“ in his works: A thing on which collective feelings can unify. A thing that reminds of higher, transcendental ideas such as a state structure. A thing representing citizenship and sometimes even a feeling of home. And it is nothing to make fun of: Flags are burnt during riots or wars and many countries protect their’s legally against all kinds of disfigurement. The Kiwis – as New Zealand’s inhabitants refer to themselves – in contrast seem to see this a little more relaxed than big parts of the rest of the world. Their current flag was firstly flown in 1902 and until now didn’t really make it to become an appealed national symbol. With a quarter of it occupied by the Union Jack it reminds too much of the countries’ colonial history, critics say. And the four stars symbolizing the Southern Cross do not represent a unique feature of New Zealand, they add.   New Zealand’s current flag Until now there were different attemps to establish a new flag in the Oceania state every some years. Primeminister John Key has started another one now to find new symbols representing the around 4.5 million inhabitants. In March 2015 he announced a new and remarkably democratic referendum process lasting until 2016. In the first step Kiwis were asked to hand in propositions for the new flag design – and more than 10,000 of them acted on the suggestion. Literally every New Zealander in the possession of a drawing program and an internet connection could participate, which led to a great variety of sketches: There are sheep standing on a rainbow infront of mountains, pentagrams on a pastel-colored background, a kiwi bird with laser-eyes or a sheep next to some ice cream – „because we have lots of sheep and love hokey pokey ice cream“ as the presumably childish designer Jesse Gibbs justifies.   Unfortunately the sheep and ice cream proposal is most probably not going to be New Zealands future flag. A jury picked the 40 most promising designs and published them now as a long list. Dominating colors are black, white, red, green and blue and more than half of the designs once more incorporate the stars of the current flag. Many use the koru, a helix shape deriving from arts of the Maori, which already Friedensreich Hundertwasser focussed on with his flag-suggestion in 1983. The presumably favored suggestions embed another national symbol of the „Shire“-state: The silver fern leave, which is already now depicted on coins, on Air New Zealand’s plane fleet and additionally serves as emblem for the country’s national rugby team, the All Blacks.   The 40 proposals which are on the table now are going to be reduced to four by a governmental commission during the next months. By the end of the year, Kiwis will be asked to chose their favorite design out of them. In 2016 finally a plebiscite is going to be held, where citizens will have to vote: for a brand-new flag or their good, old one.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschThe protests in Istanbul indicated one simple thing for architects (designers?): We need new definitions for architecture in situations when architecture is removed from architects. Turkish architects are creating line drawings of protest shelters and structures following the recent occupation of Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Thousands of citizens took to the streets earlier this month to join one of Turkey’s largest anti-government demonstrations in decades and non-profit organisation Herkes Icin Mimarlik – which translates as Architecture For All – has since initiated an archive of photographs and drawings, documenting the makeshift shelters, tents, and other temporary structures that have been constructed. “The protests in Istanbul indicated one simple thing for architects,” writes organisation co-founder Yelta Köm on the Tumblr page for the project. “We need new definitions for architecture in situations when architecture is removed from architects.” He continues: “Each unique structure that we encounter in the streets and Gezi Park has its own in-situ design and implementation process. Documentation of these temporary structures is of huge importance for further examination, considering their limited life-cycle.” “We really want to document as much as possible,” says the team. “While we are drawing what we could find, we are also open to contribution from everyone.” First published in DEZEEN Magazine Facebook site of Herkes Icin Mimarlik see also Transformation of Taksim Square at Sense of Time   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschSkylights: Dumbo is a site-specific sculptural pavilion that utilizes ambient lighting within Brooklyn Bridge Park to show star constellations on the ground via cast shadows. The pavilion is organically shaped by site and programmatic constraints such as orientation, views and shadow paths. With its specific shape, location and perforation, the canopy is illustrates the complete star map of New York for the evenings of September 28-30th, the dates of Dumbo Arts Festival 2012. The motivation behind this project is to poetically address the politics of light, and specifically side effects of light pollution in urban settings. By using the streetlight as the source for the star map, the project challenges the visitor to reconnect with the larger planetary scale, the stars that enshroud us. The project has been exhibited in Brooklyn Bridge Park for the Dumbo Arts Festival 2012 Design Team Engin Ayaz Adrià Navarro López Rozit Arditi Esther Sze-Wing Cheung Skylights: Dumbo [...] Read more...
Sabine Küper  Cem Kozar and Işıl Ünal (Pattu Mimarlik) contributed an interactive Istanbul-O-Matik to the first Istanbul Design Biennial. The visitor can activate an electronic Istanbul model by stepping on highlighted fields on the ground. You blow up the town while it is continously reconstruced with new buildings. The different time periods and it’s specific achitectual manifestations are shown as well as visions for a future Istanbul. [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschThe Istanbul Design Biennial at Istanbul Modern curated by Emre Arolat seen by Thomas Büsch on October 10th 2012 questioning urban transformation and social housing as well as comparing changes in technologies. Have a deeper take: – at Becoming Istanbul by SALT – why bye why at Sense of Time – creative cluster by InEnArt – Reprototypes by Simon Starling in collaboration with SUPERFLEX – Inventing Alternatives by Amber Fest – Creating Spaces, Empowering Citizens: Matt Baillie Smith, University of Northumbria [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschWatch our impressions from the Istanbul Design Biennial adopting its theme Imperfection, infinite layers, charged with a vitality that comes from engaging with rapid social, cultural and urban change. These are first impressions from the exhibition venue at the Greek Primary School, a part of the Biennial which is under the sub theme Adhocracy considering the Biennial as a laboratory rather than an exhibition platform. Adhocracy that the maximum expression of design today is to be found in networks that involve the users in the process of definition of the end product. Adhoracy is the reference to the move towards an approach that embraces bottom-up innovation. Istanbul Design Week – October 13 – December 12, 2012, organized by IKSV Curator: Emre Arolat, Joseph Grima OccupyAirSpace: – Protesters Launch ‘Robokopter‘ Drone in Poland November 2011 seen at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2012 [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschExplore the Istanbul Design Week through the eyes of Mara and Verena from the Institute for Arts and Media Management Berlin. Come back and follow the continuation… Authors of the video: Verena Blättermann and Mara Ann Kristin Fiedler [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschDuring the urban development of Istanbul, Istanbul Design Week – IDW – is constituted on the role of design notion where the East and the West meets. IDW is hosting designers and design exhibitions from around the world in the old indsutrial district of Hasköy, Istanbul. Istanbul will reflect its design culture to the whole world through world media and international designers. Today, what differentiate each product and service are the urban development and the design notion, that provides interaction amongst cultures, locations, workshops and industries. Venues: Old Hat Factory, Hasköy Wool Spinning Factory, Rahmi Koç Museum Activity Dates: 26 September – 30 September 2012 Opening Hour: 11.00 Closing Hour: 19.00 Check the Programm of the Istanbul Design Week on the Design Week Website [...] Read more...

 

Graffiti

Thomas BüschThe more you go to the East, the more you reach the West. The Tunisian-French street artist eL Seed has created his new piece of work “Perception” in the neighborhood of Manshiyat Nasr in Cairo, where the Coptic community of the so-called Zabaleen – garbage people – live, they clean the city of Cairo. The artwork is extended over 50 buildings and was created in total secrecy from the Egyptian government. The artist was born and raised by his Tunisian parents in France and first learned to read and write in Arabic when he was eighteen years old. He calls his mix of graffiti and Arabic calligraphy “Calligraffiti”, which is not restricted by the rules of Arabic calligraphy but rather more his interpretation and recreation of it. With returning to his routes and his quest of identity he is aiming to invite people to his language, culture and art to promote tolerance between the people and break down stereotypes of the Arabic world, and in light of Arabic spring, to comment the changing world order. All around the world he could realize his works, always with messages that speak to the local community within the beauty of calligraphy but with the language of the youth. Calligraffiti in York City: “The more you go to the East, the more you reach the West.” “Perception” is not his first famous work.  In 2012 he achieved a certain claim of fame for the painting of the minaret of the Jara Mosque in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes. In the birthplace of the Arab spring, eL Seed is in line with many other street artists facing the restrictions of the revolution through the demanded freedom of art. In an interview with the Crimson Magazine he stated: “When you paint on the street, it’s like you’re taking back the public space. Why do they call it public space if you can’t paint in it?”   ‘Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eye first.’ ‘إنأرادأحدأنيبصرنورالشمس،فإنعليهأنيمسحعينيه’ This sentence is quoting the Coptic bishop Athanasius. Before realizing his completely self-funded work he had to confess the priest of the Coptic neighborhood. Within three weeks and a big team he finished the piece, which can only be seen in its whole from a certain view of point of the Moqattam Mountain nearby. The wall is for him just the pretext to open conversation in the public thus challening variety and change perception to lead to positive encounters between different people, cultues and nationalities. Because what you think always depends on the view of perspective.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschPalestinian artist Khaled Jarrar is currently struggeling with his country once again. After not being allowed to exit Israel in order to attend an exhibition in New York last year, the present stumbling block is a mural painted by him – the rainbow colours on the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank. Khaled Jarrar and a fellow artist who wants to stay anonymous travelled to the wall close to the busy Qalandiya checkpoint at noon of June 29th. Three hours later a piece of the wall, that is already covered by street art extensively, blazed in seven straight colours, ranging from bright red to deep purple. Colours which are obviously related to the international LGBTQ movement. “For me the colors of the Rainbow are the freedom colors and I love them, so I decide to paint them on the wall in a public space …. These colors are ultimately an expression of freedom. My goal is to send out a message to the whole world, which is still celebrating freedom, about the oppressed people living under military occupation, mainly embodied in the Qalandiya checkpoint and the Apartheid Wall,” Jarrar told the blog Hyperallergic. But instead of messages of freedom and peace Jarrars problems deriving from those seven colours were just about to rise: Only four hours after the picture’s completition a group of youngsters from the occupied terrotories of the West Bank accompanied by some journalists was whitewashing the mural and had started a charged campaign against him. On social media people started calling for the artist’s abuse, rape and death, homophobic comments like this were posted: „I’ll not ever accept a homosexual in my neighborhood or my city and I’ll be so annoying from them, I really pray for god not to see any of them when am in Ramallah“. “Queers passed through here” What this commentator did not pay attention to is that queers are already present in Ramallah and will always be, as some other street art pieces display. And on the other hand Jarrar’s art work met a lot of approval as well. A young student mentioned: „I thought, ‘woah, that took courage to do that’. I am a supporter of gay marriage so it wasn’t irritating to me in any sense, specially that I know that this issue is a field for conflict between us and Israel … it was good for Palestine to be part of this global conversation.” Rana Abu Diad, a 19-year-old Palestinian student who was born and raised in Jerusalem, thinks today the majority of Palestinians are against gay marriage, but the mural did spark discussion. “It was the first time I shared a pro-gay post on my wall and I saw some of my friends doing that as well,” she said. “It was probably the first time I saw that.” And indeed the discussion on LGBTQ rights is not limited to the area of Israel and Palestine as the latest example from Turkey proofs – on 28th of June the annual Gay Pride Parade in Istanbul was shot down with water cannons and tear gas by the Turkish police (where the shot water mixed with the sunlight ironically created some beautiful rainbows). Turkish police shooting water on Gay Pride Parade in Istanbul 28th of June 2015 Concerning the alarming reactions to his mural, Khaled Jarrar some days later gave a statement appeasing many of his critics: „Everywhere, images of rainbows went viral and even the White House was lit up in rainbow colors. This got me thinking about all these international activists and ordinary citizens who were celebrating freedom for a group of people who have historically been oppressed, and the use of the rainbow as a symbol of freedom and equality and what it could represent for other oppressed groups. It also made me think of our daily struggles for equality, freedom, and justice here in Palestine. While people in the United States celebrated, and I celebrate with them for their victory, we in Palestine are still divided from our own communities and families because of the racist and bigoted policies of Israel.“ By now the artist, who became noted internationally for his contribution to the 2012 Berlin Biennial, does not fear for his live anymore. Still, there are ways to support Khaled Jarrar and his ideas: Leaned on his works for the Berlin Biennial he designed another stamp for the not existing state of Palestine in 2014, which can be purchased here and is to be used as a regular one.     [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschFor decades graffiti has been causing judical issues now. Most of this artworks are being created on walls that do not belong to the artists and mean a massive annoyance to many house owners and municipalities. Heaps of investigations and trails derived from this style of art all around the world so far. In New York things now go the other way round: Artists are currently suing a house owner for destroying their works. The walls in question belonged to the 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center  in Long Island City, New York, and has already been teared down. In 2004 Jonathan „Meres One“ Cohen was given keys to the building owned by Jerry Wolkoff and his company G&M Realty. During the following years the facade became colourful: Artists such as Maria Castillo (TOOFLY), James Cochran (Jimmy C), Luis Gomez (Ishmael), Bienbenido Guerra (FCEE) and Kai Niederhausen (Semor) sprayed the walls with their writings. Like this 5Pointz became a unique urban piece of art.   In 2013 a longer law trail ended with the house owners creating precedents: Just over night they whitewashed the whole building. All the art works were destroyed by white paint just sprayed onto them, nothing remained. Hundreds of people joined a rally to protest against this demolition, but there wasn’t anything left to do. For the protesters the whitewashing did not make sense: The demolition of the 5Pointz site was already planned by then and would have happened some months later. Time, the artists would have liked to use for preservation of their works. Now the affected artists are demanding restitution for their losses caused by Wolkoff’s whitewashing action: They filed in a complaint in federal court in Brooklyn this month. The group is claiming that „the destruction was gratuitous, willful, and wanton, and undertaken without regard to the feelings, reputations, or financial interests of the plaintiffs“. They complain about not being given any chance to remove or preserve their works before their ultimate destruction. With this urban art scene is facing a new dimension of the judical questions: The judges will have to decide whether graffiti writings become acknowledged artworks. Do they derserve protection, regardless of the wall’s owners opinion? There are interesting times coming up at Brooklyn Federal Court. And by the way: At the site, where 5Pointz used to be located, now is a construction site. G&M Realty is building – what a surprise – luxury apartments there.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschThe British graffiti artist Bansky has taken his politically charged message to the bombed-out neighborhoods of Gaza, where a series of murals amid a backdrop of devastation attempts to give voice to the desperation felt by Palestinians. Bansky traveld illegal to the bombed-out neighborhoods of Gaza, where a series of murals amid a backdrop of devastation attempts to give voice to the desperation felt by Palestinians. The artist provided his personal thoughts on the situation confronting the people of Gaza: “Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons – they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost everyday,” Banksy said in a spray-painted statement. Finally, the street artist provides a poignant statement in a 2-minute video, where he invites the viewers to “discover a new destination” this year, while providing a brief, yet unforgettable stroll through Gaza. Typical of Banksy’s work, the video is a pointed political statement about the dire situation for residents of Gaza. At least 2,200 Palestinians were killed in last summer’s war with Israel, according to the United Nations. The Palestinian territory is not a new base for the British graffiti artist; in 2005 he made headlines for his art on Israel’s West Bank barrier.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschEarlier this summer, mysterious, surrealist, and deeply irreverent art began appearing on the streets of Donetsk. The graffiti and wooden cutouts openly mocked the city’s pro-Russian rebels, depicting them as devils. A graffiti portrait of the rebel leader, Igor Strelkov, urged him to commit suicide. The rebels did not take kindly to the art. Sergey Zakharov, the artist behind the project, has disappeared. His friends and family say that he is a prisoner of the Donetsk People’s Republic, as the putative leaders of the breakaway regions call their new “country.” Zakharov, the founder of the art collective Myrzilka, was forcibly taken from his workshop on Aug. 6 by four armed men. Zakharov said he was beaten intensely and tortured for 10 days straight, during which his captors, repeatedly bludgeoning him with truncheons, broke his ribs. “In the middle of the night, sometimes the guards would get drunk and grab some of the prisoners and take us to another building where they would beat us again,” Zakharov said. “After one of the beatings, I was taken to a small iron box where two people could barely fit and left for two days under the scorching sun,” adds Zakharov. “I lost consciousness.” He also provided a set of drawings depicting his experience in the custody of eastern Ukraine’s rebels. They show the artist being apprehended and beaten and confined to miserable quarters. With little explanation, Zakharov was released in late August. He then promptly met his girlfriend and was taken to the hospital, where he was determined to have 10 broken ribs. “We talked about leaving, but my passport and documents were still at the SBU building,” Zakharov said. A day after his release, Zakharov returned to the site of his torment to reclaim his documents, which would be needed to navigate the checkpoints out of the city, but was rearrested and did not leave again until nearly a month later. Compilation from Foreign Policy [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschWatch Graffiti Artists Take Back Entire Subway Car From Advertisers The two New York graffiti artists 2ESAE & SKI replaced all advertising by their own art work in a New York subway car. The art source Animal has accompanied the action with the camera. Great action. “Advertisers have been stealing graffiti tactics for years,” says long-time graffiti writer 2ESAE. SKI adds, “We’re not allowed to paint trains anymore. Who knew that years later… fucking Target could have a full car?” SKI is referring to the time when the MTA first let a brand wrap an ad entirely around a subway car in 2010. Now, it’s not uncommon to see them taken over by an ad campaign, inside and out. ANIMAL followed the two graffiti artists as they hijacked a J train car at around 3AM, and replaced the ads with their own art in between the time it took to go from one stop to another. “We’re not trying to sell you something. We’re trying to tell you something,” SKI says. The collaborative duo has made a shift from the streets to the gallery. Their new art exhibit opens tonight in SoHo and it’s all about “the notion that although one’s environment doesn’t change, the way one sees it and what we make of it does, through our experiences.” If anything, the takeover was definitely cathartic in the face of the bombastic clutter of ever-present subway ads. As SKI says, “Dr Zizmor. Why is that nigga on the train for my whole life?” Some things never change. Compilation from Animal by Aymann Ismail. Animal is a daily source of art, news and culture based in New York. [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschThe graffiti artists Walter Josef from Hamburg, Germany, better known as OZ, is dead. On Thursday evening around 22.30 clock he was on the railway tracks between Hamburg-Hauptbahnhof and Berliner Tor, as a train overrun him. The Federal Police was deployed and found a new graffiti on the cover of a track together with his backpack. He should have sprayed his characters OZ in Hamburg more than 120,000 times. His actions encouraged a large debate if graffiti should be considered as art or vandalism. A few citizens of Hamburg have at last plucked up the courage to dedicate a book to this globally unique activity. On its 216 pages “Es lebe der Sprühling” presents the pictures, symbols and messages of this never before illuminated work in the public areas of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, creating a monument to this phenomenon. The book also includes text on the work by, among others, Jan Eissfeldt, Os Gemeos, Heiko Zahlmann and Peter Michalsky and thus helps to find a new approach to the originators.You can order the book at amazon. We deplore and mourn the terrible loss.   [...] Read more...
Johanna FröhlichEver since the 70´s, graffiti art is used as vehicle to express uncensored resentment and opinion. The Brazilian street artists represent the side effects of the glamorous Fifa World Cup 2014 and the attitude of the mass towards the games on walls, streets and houses.   The Fifa World Cup 2014 in Brazil came along with much more than the football games that are supposed to unify people around the globe. Years and months before the mega sports event started, the constructions for the stadiums as well as the protests began. The international press reported about several riots and the brutal method of the Brazilian government against any kind of protest. The roots of the demos lie in the bitter truth that the Brazilian government and the Fifa officials failed to stick to the financial plans, tolerates mafia-like structures and in particular failed to improve the overall  situation for the brazilian population as possible side-effect of the event. Anti Riot Police in Brazil Seeing the governemnt spending billions of dollars on an event only a handful Brazilians contribute from, while claiming not to have enough money to provide a proper educational and health system, let anger and disappointment raise. Consequently, the world cup and the jogo bonito, Brazilian Portuguese for the beautiful game, rather widened and revealed the social disparities than succeeded in fulfilling its function as unifying event.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschWhy Cities Are Destroying Graffiti, by Winifred Curran Shanghai’s Moganshan Lu graffiti wall Any day now, the rest of Shanghai’s Moganshan Lu graffiti wall, the only government-sanctioned space for graffiti art in the city, will be demolished to make way for new development. Part of the wall was destroyed in December; what remains is already past its demolition date. The space is notable not only for having drawn international artists and tourists, but as a space for artists and observers to interact. 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, New York City New Yorkers will recognize the echo of 5Pointz, one that is being repeated in cities around the world with hot real estate markets, places like Paris and Berlin. These large-scale graffiti installations, typically in industrial, working-class neighborhoods, have been a victim of their own success, displaced by new developments that bring in higher end users at the expense of what came before, the process of gentrification. It’s the new urban vandalism. It’s time we recognize it as such, and work to prevent it. Gentrification is commonly understood as the removal of so-called “blighted” spaces in favor of development. But the graffiti art being erased is not blight; it’s neither the defacement of public property nor the tagging of territory. These large installations might more properly be termed “aerosol art,” to distinguish them from the phenomenon that cities spend millions trying to cover up and prevent. Graffiti art is itself symbolic of a rediscovery of previously disinvested urban spaces that often served as cheap places for artists to live and work. Artists transformed these spaces and, in so doing, made them attractive for real estate development. When developers are, as Stephen Colbert jokes, terrified, simply terrified that vandals will come along and raise their property values, you know something important is at stake. A side view of 5 Pointz, post-whitewash Take the case of 5Pointz in New York. This iconic collection of graffiti covering an industrial building in Long Island City helped transform the neighborhood and the lives of those who created art there. It made the commute on the 7 train beautiful, a destination in itself, not to mention the millions of dollars that 5Pointz attracted through tourism and film and photo shoots. In November 2013, the building’s owner whitewashed the art in the dark of night in preparation for redevelopment into luxury apartments, a change made possible by the rezoning of much of New York’s industrial waterfront. Yes, the rezoning brought new development that brings in tax dollars, but it also cut the number of manufacturing jobs in half. The rezoning signaled the removal of the way of life that built the neighborhood and the city at large. Car sculpture at Tacheles, Berlin A similar story played out in Berlin, where Tacheles, a former shopping arcade turned artists’ squat, was cleared in September 2012. Tacheles was an international tourist destination, a place where the possibility and excitement of the period following the fall of the Berlin wall was made palpable. Damaged in World War II, the building’s final death knell will be redevelopment. Other alternative businesses in the area are also being shut down because of complaints from the area’s new, wealthier residents. What replaces these may be more profitable, but won’t be nearly as interesting. Magasins Généraux des douanes de Pantin, Paris In Paris, the destruction of the Magasins Généraux, planned for 2016, has taken a slightly different turn. This former warehouse in Pantin, a working-class suburb of Paris, will be replaced by a new headquarters for a French ad agency. The new owners have preserved the art by posting a virtual tour of it on a website. While preserving individual pieces of art, it does nothing to preserve spaces in which alternative visions of the city can survive. Pantin is being described as the Brooklyn of Paris. And Brooklyn has become a synonym for the rise of a hipsterdom that destroys urban authenticity. Graffiti in Istanbul Urban change is inevitable. But the way that change happens is always the result of specific policy and planning decisions. In order to preserve vibrant, mixed use cities, we must preserve affordable spaces for housing, working class jobs and the arts through tools like zoning. Cities have the ability to preserve the industrial, the alternative, the working class.  Graffiti can happen anywhere, but once businesses and the working class are displaced, they’re gone for good. And the city is a lesser place for it. First published in METROPOLIS, February 2014   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschTurkey may have blocked the use of youtube and Twitter, but that hasn’t stopped many Turks from continuing to tweet and use youtube. Technologically-savvy youth are quickly getting their fellow citizens up to speed on how to bypass the ban by posting instructions online as well as on city walls. Graffiti like the example below have popped up in dozens of places around the city when Twitter was blocked on. The social network had in recent weeks been used to share recordings which allegedly featured him telling his son to hide large sums of money in anticipation of a police raid.   The numbers refer to Google’s Public DNS, which offers two IP addresses that anyone can use, enabling them to get around ban.   First published at France24   [...] Read more...
Thomas Büsch    Alfredo Martinez: How To Forge a Basquiat Alfredo Martinez has always tried to make a splash. His life stories are colorful, and it doesn’t even really matter what has actually happened and what has not. He strapped his little brother to a rocket engine at the age of 12, was shot in the leg in Guatemala by a death squad in the 1980’s, and he himself shot his dealer at an art fair in New York City with a self-made gun. He was arrested and tortured in a secret prison in China, and rumors about his alleged death followed by a miraculous resurrection spread around the Internet. He has also been on the dark side of the international art world, and ended up in prison for it. He knew the graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat fleetingly, as they both lived in New York City in the 1980’s and were involved in the art scene. Basquiat was in his early twenties and evolved from being an unknown graffiti artist to become a famed and internationally recognized neo-expressionist painter, who eventually died of a drug-overdose in 1988. Over the course of five years, in the early 2000’s, Martinez perfectly copied countless pieces of Basquiat’s work, as well as made originals in his style to pass them off as if they were authentic. Now he says that he never really liked Basquiat’s work, but was intrigued by the idea of forging his pieces. He seems proud of what he did, and of his artistic and persuasive ability to deceive the entire art world. He would imitate a painting from Basquiat, and then fake its certificate of authenticity as well. He asked his friends, who were active in the New York City art scene and owned certificates to Basquiat’s work, to borrow those, just to duplicate them, return the copies, and keep the original certificates of authenticity for his fake paintings. With matching certificates, his forged Basquiats were contributed and sold, making Martinez unstoppable in his doing. He also faked Keith Haring’s work, and sold it as well. Eventually, Martinez was set up by the FBI and arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. He claimed the forging of art work was a piece of art in itself, a statement on the current state of how the art world operates and a declaration on why certain art is hyped and expensive, and if it actually matters if it is authentic or not. Martinez went as far as to contribute to a flickr page on “How To Forge a Basquiat”, a set for everybody at home exemplifying how to fake a piece of art, an act he went to prison for. His art world sham was not only a philosophical statement piece though, as he sold the Basquiat imitations for thousands of dollars, and today goes as far as to admit that it was simply an easy way to make quick money, that statement in itself being a provocation yet again. He insists that he knew about his upcoming incarceration because his friends in law enforcement apparently tipped him off before the FBI sting operation went down, but that he went along with it anyway, to prove a point and make it a performance in itself. “Jail was a publicity stunt” he states, also referring to his 55 day long hunger strike when he was denied art materials to create his characteristic pieces, explicit images of firearms that seemingly aggravated his fellow inmates. After his release from prison, he was shunned by his former colleagues and companions for mocking and defrauding them, and moved to Indianapolis, IA, where he now lives in remote solitude. He is working on a new splash, the creation of a computer art game named N’CHI, with his friend Jakob Dwight. We will soon publish further information about this new computer game project. [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschUrbanbugs is a documentary from Turkey focuses on street art concepts such as Graffiti, Stencil, Wheatpasting. Besides their visual contribution to the urban life, these street arts became a sociological matter due to the their political messages. In this context, this documentary is trying to analyse the sociocultural reflections of street art concept in Turkey. VFX: Levent Haseki Camera and Sound: Sevinç Baltalı Produced, Edited and Directed by Aykut Alp Ersoy Music: Algiers from thebluemask.com [...] Read more...

 

 Video

Thomas BüschJanuary 18, 2019Theo Eshetu at Akbank Sanat in Istanbul Cultural identities have never been fixed and defined but are created and molded through political projections, erected and destroyed by historical events, and have fluctuated with the displacement of cultural objects and the migration of populations; all of which seem to point to the impossibility of fixing identities in time, as their nature is to be in constant flux. We can only define the now, and the now is grotesque, uncertain, and burdened by the ghosts of the past. There is, however, also beauty in the present, a vitality for new justices, a search for new harmonies and—contrary to facile political tendencies—an acceptance and desire for hybrid states hitherto unknown. Eshetu is known for his pioneering work in film and video, combining his formal interest in the moving image with anthropological ideas to examine the notion of culture itself. Theo Eshetu will be presenting two video installations; Atlas Fractured (2017) accompanied by a series of photographic portraits, and The Slave Ship (2015). With The Slave Ship, Theo Eshetu continues his exploration of the fundamental components of video – time, movement  and light – and creates a pensive oceanic epic evoking the history of slavery. The title of the installation references one of J.M.W Turner’s most celebrated works, the 1840 painting Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On (also known as The Slave Ship). The painting depicts the slave ship Zong pummelled by violent waves, as its captain throws enslaved men and women overboard in order to claim insurance. The viewer is invited to look into a window that gives onto a pitch black space. There, a perfect, lucent orb shimmers with moving images of abyssal waters and enigmatic landscapes. The result of a play with perception and mirrors, the view from the window evokes telescopic visions, the specular reflections of still waters and the roundness of the earth. As the viewer is immersed in blurred marine currents and embarks on a voyage into the depths of oceanic memories, reality and fiction converge while myths past and present emerge. Born in London to a Dutch mother and an Ethiopian father, Eshetu’s youth was marked by divergent multicultural contexts. After obtaining a degree in Communication Design from the North East London Polytechnic (1981), Eshetu spent most of his professional life based in Rome, where he soon establishing himself as a leading video artist. Since then, his work has been presented internationally. Theo Eshetu was artist in residence of the Cultural Academy Tarabya in Istanbul from October to December 2016 and from September to November 2017. Eshetu was once again artist in residence of the Cultural Academy Tarabya from July to August 2018. During the Mahalla Festival in Istanbul 2018 Theo Eshetu presented the video Atlas Fractured at SALT for the first time. Akbank Sanat İstiklal Caddesi No:8, Beyoğlu Istanbul opening January 22, 6 pm January 23 – March 9, 2019 [...] Read more...
David SiegelMay 17, 2018“Time appears longer when you cannot see.” A poignant and powerful phrase from the beginning of Kamen Stoyanov’s documentary IN-VISIBLE. The narrator emerges from a railway tunnel into Slovenia much like one of Plato’s chosen cave-dwellers. The perception of time is not the only thing that is about to change. Part-allegory and part-hero’s journey, the film tacks along the course of darkness, discovery, light, and the role of the guide along the way. The classic narrative structure beautifully compliments the documentary’s own exploration of the invisible/visible as clear parallels to darkness/light. The grounding in Ljubljana is a reminder that these are not just concepts reserved for mythology. They are happening everywhere as a kind of everyday yin and yang. Where there is visible, there is invisible. And if there is any truth the the concept, the invisible world is equally counterbalancing the visible once – with equal importance. As the title suggests, there is a path inside the visible. Stoyanov takes us in invisible Ljubljana. We meet two guides in Marko Pogačnik and Taubi in a path of discovery of the hidden Ljubljana. Each a sage in their own way, Stoyanov assumes the role of seeker and transmitter of their wisdom, allowing the two men to speak of an invisible truth. Marko offers a path into a world of metaphysics – dreamlike and symbolic. Taubi, worldly and raw, blends politics and emotions from the deep fringes of urban Ljubljana. The juxtaposition is evocative and enjoyably open-ended, leaving room for personal choice in a journey. There are always decisions to be made in how to regard newly visible places. Far from preachy or patronizing, the film echoes the words of a third guide and another invisible world: “I don’t help anyone. I give you only a place.” -Don Pierino Despite their differences, Taubi, Pogačnik, Pierino, and Stoyanov echo a similar kind of compassion which creates space for what might be found in invisible worlds. Where there is invisible, there is often neglect and suffering that elicits a strong desire to help. But maybe it is as Don Pierino says – rather than trying to help, maybe we could do more with the act of providing a place. Film Trailer: https://vimeo.com/kamenstoyanov/in-visibletrailer For more information visit : www.kamenstoyanov.com [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschJuly 8, 2016The Abounaddara collective whose works were on display on the Venice Biennial last year are now invited by the documenta 2017.  Abounaddara is an anonymous collective of volunteer, self-taught artists whose practice is founded on the principle of emergency and an attitude of defiance towards established powers and the culture industry. Since April 2010, Abounaddara has produced self-funded, weekly short films and made them freely available to the public online. These films are anonymous and open-ended. They offer a glimpse of ordinary Syrians without restricting them to political or religious affiliations, while focusing on the details of daily life and evoking horror without ever showing it. 2015 the collective had withdrawn from All the World’s Futures, the 2015 Venice Biennale’s central exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor, claiming that their opening short film, “All the Syria’s Futures,” was “censored” by not being screened on May 5. In a letter to the Biennale’s organizers members of the collective expressed concern that their films will be “screened to the public in 30 minutes blocs, scheduled between readings from Marx’s Capital  and various musical interludes.” The group is also concerned that they were awarded a “special mention” without their first film being screened. All the Syria’s Futures by Abounaddara   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschJuly 7, 2015Crisis, debts and credits are the issues nowadays permanentely related to Greece. In a capitalistic system completely focussed on money, the public discourse tends to forget about the people behind the bank accounts – especially in Greece, where poorness spread widely and suicide rate quadrupled during the past years. A group of young media artists and arts managers feared people’s stories getting lost while being annihilated amongst world politics. Four years ago they launched „The Caravan Project“ in order to save them. He is sitting in a small tent, a cat tampering the dried up rests of his food in a pot. He paints blue pictures and writes down jokes sometimes, when he has some time left for it. Massimo is a homeless from Ethopia living in a neighbourhood in Athens, sometimes happily, sometimes angrily. In the evening hours he stands next to a busy highway, his eyes fascinatedly aligned to the sky and tells the camera „Look how beautiful it is! Look at it!“. His portrait is just one of the stories Stratis Vogiatzis and his around 15 colleagues have been collecting so far while travelling Greece. In an old camper and equipped with two circuit Mongolian yurt tents they visit cities and villages. The team of the Caravan Project holds screenings on squares, in schools and prisons all over the country. They show exhibitions of the material they have collected before and offer community actions related to important local issues in every area. But above all, the young Greeks make their countrymen talk. They encourage school kids to elaborate their thoughts and ideas, they ask the old boatbuilder for his experiences and zoom into a Social Conservatory in Athens where volunteers teach interested people in playing instruments for free. By only using the stimulus „Tell me a story“ the Caravaners create short films and documenting photo series which they are publishing in a digital story bank. Like this the „Caravan Project“ develops a unique possibility to gain insights in a society that is being reduced to numbers and amounts of money in Western media lately. To the initiators of the project stories are brigdes, „designed to help us overcome our isolation and to reunite with the world and our fellow human beings“. Stories in their sense can be told by everyone, by your son, by your neighbours and by the ones living on the edges of a society. Their aim is to visualise what the other’s life is like and to foster understanding between members of a crisis-shaken society.     The Caravan Project suggests – just like other social ideas as for example a spanish village putting social economy into practice – that the solution of major problems can be hidden in very small structures sometimes. Their undertaking is an approach to strenghten mutual solidarity and civic integration by focussing on individuals and the things they have to tell. The „Caravan Project“ is empowering Greeks here and now to stay together during hard times and to pay attention to the ones living besides them, always sticking to their slogan „Another world is here“.     [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschJune 14, 2015Anatolian Carpets, Armenian craftsmen and Cultural Memory: the Berlin based artist Maja Weyermann displays her expirences of 6 month Istanbul in a video installation at DEPO, Istanbul until July 16. Just one month after the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago, the exhibition by Maja Weyermann at DEPO Istanbul is dedicated to the role of Armenians in Turkey before 1915. Berlin based artist Maja Weyermann focussed on carpet production and the expropriation of Armenian foundations during her stay in Istanbul in 2014. Maja has been living and working in Istanbul for six months in 2014. Her residency was granted by the Berlin Senate Chancellery, Cultural Affairs Department, and accompanied by Diyalog Derneği. “Letters from Abroad” displays the results of this residency, just like a current exhibition on gas masks by Ruben Aubrecht and Maria Anwander does in Bludenz, Austria. When Maja came to Istanbul in March 2014 she at first planned to realize a digital art work about Anatolian carpets, its rich cultural heritage and referring to its meaning as a part of cultural memory. During her stay she did a lot of interviews with carpet dealers, workers at the bazar and Turkish historians. She discovered as well the abandond old buildings of the Armenian community in the center of Istanbul. Many of Armenians had left Turkey in the 50 years after the pogroms and the buildings stand often empty until today because the ownership is unclear. Soon after starting her research many contradictions and inconsistent information appeared, which Weyermann could not classify until she learned about the key role of Armenian craftsmen and carpet dealers in Turkey before 1915. Weyermann continued her studies focussing on this fact and based her studies on the interviews with carpet experts, dealers, restorers and on special literature. Another observation Maja made was the link between vacant real estate and restitution procedures in Istanbul. At this moment she came across the 2012 Declaration of the Hrant Dink Foundation. This declaration documents the confiscation of properties belonging to Armenian foundations by the Turkish state. Weyermann visited several objects in question and filmed them. In the video installation exclusively produced for DEPO, Maja confronts the expropriation of material inherit – the seized properties – and the erasement of cultural inherit – the forgotten key role of Armenian craftsmen and carpet dealers. Like that she describes two aspects of the Armenian life in a very personal way.   Opening of Letters from Abroad at DEPO, June 12, introduction by Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch, Foto: Sven Flechsenhar In “Letters from Abroad” Weyermann combines real HD video footage with 3D animations. The latter are used to create experiences of space impossibly producible with video recordings such as memories or imaginations. At the same time the video recordings may serve as pictures of “the real”. Their audio track include narrations, sounds and music, which leads to the creation of an independent soundscape. Additionally the installation contains an interview with Armenian Halı Ustası, who was born in 1936. Maja Weyermann’s video installation interweaves both, observations and researches of the artist. It works like an experimental documentary that contributes with artistic means to the discussion on how to deal with the past.   Letters from Abroad Maja Weyermann DEPO-Istanbul (Tütün Deposu, Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No.12, Tophane/İstanbul) 13 June – 16 July 2015 Opening: 12th of June 2015   Supported by the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department   2015 Exhibition Program of DEPO is being realized in cooperation with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschMay 9, 2015The Jury of the 56th International Venice Biennial has also decided to assign a special mention to the Abounaddara collective from Syria who are showing their videos at the Exhibition All the World’s Futures by curated by Okwui Enwezor. The Syrian film collective Abounaddara (meaning “man with glasses” in Arabic) is an anonymous group of self-taught filmmakers.  Since the onset of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Abounaddara has been creating and posting very short documentary videos, what they term “bullet films,” on Vimeo every Friday. The group calls their work “emergency cinema” to emphasize the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in Syria.  Abounaddara is driven by a critical sense of urgency to show the global implications of the Syrian War and the commitment to creating an alternative to sensationalistic national and international media coverage. They employ an aesthetic of do-it-yourself and disorientation, self-producing their films and distributing them online to avoid political censorship and the formatting dictates of the media and entertainment industries. Since its founding in 2010, Abounaddara has released a series of short documentaries celebrating the daily life of ordinary Syrians. Charif Kiwan, the Collective’s spokesperson, said that the group is committed to making a short film every week as a contribution to the revolution. “But we didn’t film our revolution in the way that you might see it on YouTube through unbearable chaotic images. Rather we sought to understand it through the stories of individuals who are on the other side of the news. For us it is a question of making an immediate cinema without succumbing to the tyranny of the news, of making a political cinema without succumbing to facile denunciation.” To see all their videos, check out the group’s site here or their Vimeo channel here. [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschMarch 19, 2015Surplus of Istanbul – March 19 at Neu West Berlin. İstanbul has extended its borders and created new living spaces and suburbs by controlling the human cycle within the rules of neo-liberal capital over the years. The living spaces in Istanbul has been recreated in the name of “urban transformation”, and the city turns into a commercial meta which allows the citizens to live in the city only if they could survive between the wheels of this commercial cycle. The projects “Rantİstanbul” and “Surplus of Istanbul” have recorded this transformation by intersecting lines and cooperating between 2010-15. “Rantİstanbul” kept the audiovisual records of the urban transformation and gentrification in Tarlabaşı by following the results of this gentrification against the people of Tarlabaşı and the reasons of this gentrification by asking what makes the buildings more valuable than the people who are using those buildings as a shelter. “Surplus of Istanbul” looks to the wastes of the city from the center of the city Beyoğlu to the periphery of Istanbul, Umraniye, by creating a personal map where the waste has been picked and re-used by the people, who are the usual victims of the urban transformation and gentrification. Those two projects tell the stories and showing the records of “transformed/renewed” Istanbul, which lefts the objects and the people behind, and the utopia in the Gezi Park, which emerged the resistance against this transformation. We claim that urban transformation and gentrification are not unique concepts for Istanbul, and this transformation goes on also in Berlin by different axes. Therefore we plan to record and investigate the traces of Berlin, which left behind during the urban transformation and gentrification with workshops. Watch the RantIstanbul Taksim Square video at StreetWalking, produced one month before the Gezi Park uprising in Istanbul. WORKSHOP: Where / How the city builds us? Cities, as indispensable spaces of modern life, are gigantic structures which shelter the people as a space of existence. The city culture, which contains both the utopia and dystopia together, put the “adaptation to the city life” forward as a condition of “being human” by organizing even the smallest details of daily life of the people, who actually constitute the city. While the city on the one hand, like a living organism, transforms continuously, the people who are living in, define themselves as the witness/accused/victim of this transformation. Today, living in one of the districts of the city becomes the condition of creating an identity in the city. “City culture” becomes the statements of the rules in the cultural space which the people in the city have to obey to live in the city.This workshop aims to record and compare these cultural codes, signs from the different parts of the city, the rules and the living spaces by starting from Istanbul example and discussing Berlin. The workshop plans to collect any audiovisual materials (photograph, video, found footage etc.) from the different parts of the city and produce a collective editing to understand the conditions which makes people urban or not and the signs and spaces where makes the people transform into an urban citizen. March 19th: 19:00 Improvise Audio Visual Performance : Devrim CK – Korhan Erel Neu West Berlin is a multifaceted Contempprorary Art Space in Berlin Mitte. More than 80 artists are based with their studios within the 9 story building. Neu West Berlin Köpenicker Straße 55, 10179 Berlin [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschAugust 17, 2014Liverpool-based artist Imogen Stidworthy works largely with video and sound installations, often interrogating our relationship with language and how we produce and locate our own identities within and outside of it. Her hi-def video I hate (2007) created for documenta12 leads us into an intermediate zone of speech, sound and image. It portrays the photographer Edward Woodman, who lost his power of speech in a cycling accident in 2000. The video focusses on Woodman presumably afflicted with aphasia (the cognitive disorder causing an inability to understand or produce speech), and his attempts to try and speak. All of his attemps walk the tightrope between clarity and unintelligibility in ways that are by turns visceral, heady, sensuous and whimsical when he trys to prononce eight and not hate. This video work is part of a group exhibition about the inability to communicate with the title Itself Not So at Lisa Cooley on the Lower East Side, New York curated by Rachel Valinsky. Itself Not So ushers in the moment of enunciation where the voice is heard but the word does not pronounce itself. Or, alternatively, the word is transmitted, but its meaning not understood. The project aims not to culminate in aphasia universalis—the total loss of power to use or apprehend speech, total silence—but rather to interrogate partial losses and silences, forgettings and unlearnings, piecemeal understanding, inchoate signification, and possibilities of communicating, however haphazardly. The sensation of halting, unclear thoughts is visualized to striking effect in Fia Backström’s “An-alpha/pet-isms…” (2014), an installation consisting of sheets of clear vinyl film hanging from five standing steel frames, upon which letters of the alphabet float like obscured, distorted ghosts amid inky clouds, blurs and blots. Itself Not So continues at Lisa Cooley (107 Norfolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through August 29.   [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschJuly 11, 2014The Zone is an ongoing research project by Palestinian artist Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme that has different extensions; previously it has been shown as a multiscreen video and sound installation at the New Art Exchange and the 5th Jerusalem Show. Currently the artists are continuing the research for different forms of presentation. In one of the darkest moments in Palestinian lived history, a ‘dream-world’ has somehow emerged in the West Bank: a host of commodified desires, a semblance of normality, have been constructed atop the debris of political failure and collapse. Here, new lifestyles, desires, senses of self mingle and collide with a persistent denial of the disasters of Palestine’s current situation. The Zone, by evoking both the phantasmagoria of the dream-world and the dystopia of the catastrophe, reflects this state of being, full of surrealism and absurdity and a growing sense of the uncanny. Constructed as an immersive environment, a site of ruin and dream, a physical reflection on a subjectivity marked by a double moment of colonial expansion/political defeat and impending statehood/consumptive regime. But the violence, in its political and physical incarnations, cannot be ignored. It’s in the intensifying colonial structures, the ever evolving technologies of control and surveillance; walls; watchtowers; bypass tunnels… the spatial ‘rearrangements’ that are taking place at the imposed limits of Palestinian centers. It is here that dream becomes nightmare; this uncanny dialectic haunting a space at once filled with desire and disaster. This article is a compilation from artterritories the ongoing extension of The Zone by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, for the online presentation of some of the researches see at artterritories. Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (Ramallah, Jerusalem) work together across a range of sound, image, installation and performance practices. Their work explores issues dealing with the politics of desire and disaster, spatial politics, subjectivity and the absurdities of contemporary practices of power, often investigating spatio-temporal resonances in the relation between the actual, imagined and remembered. [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschNovember 12, 2013Oman Niazai, video by Sediqullah Badir ومان نیازی د پلالې انځورګرۍ نوښتګر انځورګر دی. هغه له دولسو کلونو راهیسې انځورګري کوي خو له یوه کال راهیسې د هغه انځورونه ډېر مینه وال پیدا کړي دي. تراوسه د ومان نیازی د انځورونو دوه نندارتونونه پرانستل شوي دي ومان پر يو ښه انځورګر سربېره یو ښه شاعر، لیکوال او کاریکاتوریست هم دی موږ يې کور ته سر ورښکاره کړ. هغه د کابل د هوایی بلاکونو شاته په یو ووړ کور کې ژوند کوي، د کار کوټه يې د ميلمنو کوټه هم ده. کاري اوزار يې ډېر ساده او عادي، پخپله وايي چې دغې انځورګرۍ ته ظریف وسایل په کار دي خو دی يې تراوسه په برابرولو نه دی توانیدلی. موږ ولیدل چې هغه څنګه کار کوي او حتی د کار لپاره مېز هم نه لري د نندارتون ګډونکوونکو ویل چې د ومان انځورونه د افغانانو د روان ژوند هیندارې دي [...] Read more...
Thomas BüschOctober 30, 2013A Talk about Network Cultures with Geert Lovink at SALT Istanbul     Interactive video located in the Exhibition for the Mobile World Capital in Barcelona.  BARCELONA, THE MOBILE WORLD CAPITAL: From now on, Barcelona wants to be the world’s capital of mobile, successfully leading companies to take advantage of mobile technology’s limitless opportunity to enhance people’s lives. Within an exhibiton of Mobile World Capital Barcelona the above interview with Geert Lovink – one of the key theorists behind the concept of tactical media – was on display. Geert Lovink goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. He will give a talk about network cultures at SALT Beyoğlu in Istanbul. For his first appearance in İstanbul, media theorist Geert Lovink will talk about his ongoing research at the Institute of Network Cultures. The field of network cultures revolves around the interaction between new forms of media, the Internet and mobile networks– where users actively shape the technology. Organized Networks / Network Cultures November 1, 19.00 SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema, Istanbul   [...] Read more...
Anja ProssFebruary 26, 2013Argos, centre for Art and Media, in Bruessels has three new exhibitions starting from the 3rd of march until the 7th of april. In the ‘Bon Travail’ exhibition ten artists question the position of the apparent opposite poles of ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ (or free time). With bittersweet humour they stand up for the right to be lazy. Ranging from the spectacular to the intimate, the exhibition interprets labour as a (political) performance. The notion of ‘non-work’ is considered to be of equal worth, as a factor for freedom that contributes to the quantity and quality of both the product of work and of life itself. In the exhibition Danny Matthys – Fiction = Fixation, argos discloses a selection of video works produced by Danny Matthys (1947) between 1975 and 1985. Since the end of 1960s, Matthys experiments in an analytical and conceptual way with Polaroids, paintings, photographs, assemblages, film and video installations. From the mid-1980s, he abandons videos and he mainly devotes, in collaboration with his partner, to painting. Matthys records traces of something that happened, he marks the differences within the repetitions of the gesture and Fiction = Fixation could be understood as an example of what is called indexical art. Along with the main exhibitions, Argos presents – on a weekly basis – recent acquisitions from the Argos collection. This selection highlights works released between 2009 and 2013 directed by Belgian and international artists. The program alternates individual titles and thematic screenings. In this way, Argos discloses recent video productions that, on the one hand, investigate current issues while, on the other hand, illustrate the different artist practices and approaches. Argos: Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier // 1000 Brussels, Belgium T +32 2 229 00 03 // F +32 2 223 73 31 Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 18:00 [...] Read more...