We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of the official publication of the German Pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia 2013!
Edited by curator Susanne Gaensheimer, the 240-page, cloth-bound catalogue will be available as of May 28, 2013 and is published by Gestalten, Berlin.
Eleven international authors—curators, artists, collectors, and critics as well as scholars from the fields of art history, politics, migration research, philosophy, and cultural studies—were invited to take part in this interdisciplinary discussion on cultural and sociopolitical aspects of the German contribution to this year’s Biennale di Venezia.The publication illuminates the transnational exhibition theme of the pavilion from a wide range of perspectives and examines the artistic contributions of the four selected artists, Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng, and Dayanita Singh, in the context of contemporary issues relating to art and (inter-)nationality. The catalogue includes in-depth portraits of each artist as well as extensive illustrations.
The graphic designer of the catalogue is Chris Rehberger, Director of Double Standards.
"After returning to Beijing from the U.S., where he had lived from 1981 until 1993, Ai Weiwei began to explore the artistic and cultural traditions of his native country – a pursuit that had previously been banned since the Cultural Revolution. He studied and collected antiques and eventually started integrating them into his own work, which had by then taken on a strongly conceptual aspect. Ai Weiwei not only examined the mechanisms of the international art and antiques markets and the associated export of cultural values and historical knowledge; ...
From February 7 to April 14, 2013 the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) Sao Paulo is presenting the exhibition Interlacing by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Curated by Urs Staehl, Interlacing was developed as a coproduction by the Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Jeu de Paume, Paris. The exhibition was also on view at Kunsthaus Graz. As the first major photography and video exhibition of the artist’s work, Interlacing brings together a range of photographic documentation to convey a complex image of the “artist as network.”
In her performance on May 30, 2013 in front of the French pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia, Dayanita Singh signed and stamped copies of her book File Room (Steidl, 2013). Through this act of personalizing her books, Singh made the gesture of a gift; purchasers of her book not only received an individualized catalogue from the artist but also a bag and a scarf.
A panel discussion held by the German pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia 2013 in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa). With Susanne Gaensheimer, Gilles Kepel, Simon Njami, Dayanita Singh, and Mark Terkessidis. Moderation: Koyo Kouoh
Date: Friday, May 31, 4 p.m.
Location: French pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice
The German pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia pursues a transnational approach. Due to the French-German cooperation at this yearʼs Biennale, the contribution curated by Susanne Gaensheimer with works by ...
"As a young woman, Dayanita Singh started to portray a famous Indian musician and tabla player as he traveled around the world. He subsequently became her spiritual mentor, ...
Do we need the classifications of national or cultural contexts in order to understand photography, and to what extent are such categorizations of cultural identity relevant in contemporary cosmopolitan society?
Aveek Sen raises these questions in his text Roots in Air and reveals deep-seated western mechanisms of reception and the feedback effect that they meanwhile have on the art of non-western artists. For Dayanita Singh it is essential that her work be read independently of rigid contextualizations or stereotypes, and Sen familiarizes us with the conceptual model of this approach.
Written by Rachel Spence, the article “Infinite possibilities” on Dayanita Singh appeared in the Financial Times on April 26, 2013. Spence met with Singh in her studio in Delhi and spoke with the artist on politics, love, friendship, and her relationship to photography and books. The article offers an overview of Singh’s artistic work from the past 20 years and outlines Singh’s conceptual approach, which is based on a notion of art that defies categorization and stereotypes.
Dayanita Singh’s new publication File Room was published in March 2013 by Steidl. The book presents black and white photographs from the series by the same name: images of archives and back room offices. Crammed with papers and files, these spaces refer to human systems of conservation and memory.
An interview with Santu Mofokeng, Romuald Karmakar and curator Susanne Gaensheimer at the 55th International Art Exhibition (National participation of Germany).
"In his documentary, feature, and conceptual films, the artist and Filmmaker Romuald Karmakar has devoted himself for three decades to the investigation in mechanisms of violence and mass phenomena, often exploring the perpetrators’ perspective and uncompromisingly focusing particularly on German history. As part of the German contribution at the French Pavilion, he shows the documentary 8. Mai (2005/2013), a documentary film shot during the large demonstration the Neo- Nationalist Party of Germany held on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on May 8, 2005, on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. He also presents the film Hamburger Lektionen (Hamburg Lectures), 2006, in which ...
The series 19 Clips for 19 Days was published on Cinekarmakar in conjunction with the Karmakar exhibition The Influence of Influence at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University in February of this year. An individual minifilm by Romuald Karmakar was thus posted on 19 different days between February 14 and March 12, 2013.
This mini-film by Romuald Karmakar was posted on Cinekarmakar on April 4, 2013. The footage stems from the “Askwith Forum: School Violence in America,” which took place on March 13, 2013 at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.
The film shows excerpts of a lecture by Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission on Children. After the killing rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT in December 2012, in which 20 children were murdered, Zimmermann took care of the children who had survived the crime scene and talked with them. She describes her impressions garnered from these conversations in relation to how violence at schools is addressed and American gun policy.
Cinekarmakar is the internet platform of filmmaker Romuald Karmakar. The video channel brings together films dealing with the work of the artist and offers insights into Karmakar’s universe. Under the motto “The Easy Way is Always Mined,” Cinekarmakar presents brief films by the artist, conversations with colleagues as well as excerpts from classic films selected by the artist.
Shortfilm by Romuald Karmakar, 2011. PALAZZO DEL CINEMA DI VENEZIA, Sala Grande, 14.07.2011, HD-Flip, (c) Pantera Film GmbH 2011.
The 2011 footage of the central venue of the Venice Film Festival shows the movie theater PALAZZO DEL CINEMA DI VENEZIA. In this brief film Karmakar captures the scenery of the event, without the “scene.” In 2011 the German filmmaker presented his documentary Die Herde des Herrn (2011) in the festival’s accompanying Orizzonti film series.
The Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA presented the exhibition of Romuald Karmakar’s work The Influence of Influence from February 4 – 28, 2013. On view were not only early works by the filmmaker but also his most recent films produced during his extended stay in the US in 2012. Karmakar is currently in Cambridge as the David and Roberta Logie Fellow at Harvard University for 2012-2013.
The exhibition featured an accompanying program of events with the filmmaker.
An interview with Santu Mofokeng, Romuald Karmakar and curator Susanne Gaensheimer at the 55th International Art Exhibition (National participation of Germany).
Santu Mofokeng speaks about his exprience as a photojournalist, his relation to townships and its habitants, his work on the portraits of Black Photoalbum and what the series Chasing Shadows means for him.
In 2011 the Victoria & Albert Museum presented the group exhibition Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. As one of the 17 featured photographers, Santu Mofokeng showed black and white images from two series, Child-Headed Households and Chasing Shadows. In an interview with curator Tamar Garb, which was conducted in 2010 in South Africa, Mofokeng talks about his reasons for giving up working as a photojournalist and what role apartheid, the people and history of South Africa, and spirituality play in his work. Mofokeng also addresses questions concerning the impact of a photograph and the sources of its expressive power.
The video was released in 2011 in conjunction with an interview series by Tamar Garb on the occasion of the exhibition Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
From 4 May to 29 July 2012 the retrospective Chasing Shadows was shown at Kunsthall Antwerpen. Together with the artist, curator Corinne Diseren had selected more than 200 images out of Mofokeng's archives.
Chasing Shadows is a co-production between Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerpen, Jeu de Paume, Paris, Kunsthalle Bern and Bergen Kunsthall.
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