calendario eventi  :: 

X

6/10/2011

Jane Jin Kaisen / Ato Malinda

Aarhus Kunstbygning Center for Contemporary Art - Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus

Jane Jin Kaisen: Dissident Translations. October 8th 2011 – January 8th 2012

Jeju 4.3 is one of the most violent incidents in South Korea's modern history, and crucial in the understanding of the Cold War in Asia. For decades, Jeju 4.3 has been suppressed, and even today there is still no consensus about either the incident should be regarded as a communist insurgency, an outright massacre or a microcosm of the ideological battles that led to the division of Korea. In the exhibition Dissident Translations the internationally acclaimed artist Jane Jin Kaisen’s geographical fulcrum is the Korean volcanic island, Jeju, from which she examines what forms both a cultural identity and a geopolitical problem in the context of power relations, colonialism and historical displacement.

Seminal history
Combining video and text Jane Jin Kaisen makes a comprehensive examination of issues related to Jeju, situated south of the South Korean mainland. The island has in recent decades been marketed as "Peace Island" and "Hawaii of Korea" and is one of South Korea's biggest tourist attractions. The recently commenced construction of a Korean/American military base confronts not just the idea of Jeju as an "ecological paradise", but also brings the repressed history of "Jeju 4.3 Massacre" – one of the most violent incidents in South Korea's modern history – to the surface.

Dissident translation
In the exhibition the video installations and one text-based work can be read into a larger historical context where the U.S. occupation of South Korea has had far-reaching consequences – not only for the environment, but also for the country's population, their unique gender structure and economic, political and psychological. The artist's very subjective 'translation' of the tragic historical events can be seen as a dissident or deviant lever that connects the art works with each other in their interpretation of Jeju’s repressed past, the current military escalation and the future consequences. Translation is a process, that inevitably entails a certain degree of interpretation, and Kaisen is interested in the changes or modifications it produces, whether this is the translation of a text, a history, or an event that is being re-interpreted.

International debate: Feminism, Post-colonialism & Micro-strategies in Contemporary Art

Aarhus Art Building invites the Cameroonian curator, director of RAW MATERIAL COMPANY and advisor to the next Documenta, Koyo Kouoh, to participate in an international panel talk on October 9th at 3 pmpm. Together with the two artists exhibiting at the Art Centre this fall, Jane Jin Kaisen and the Kenyan artist Ato Malinda, Koyo Kouoh will take a critical look on art, female identity and inequality in a globalized world. Kouoh participates in the debate with her curatorial experience and theoretical take on the African and international art scene today. Chief Curator at Aarhus Art Building Charlotte Born Sprogøe will moderate the debate. Film screening Dissident Translations relates to three of Jane Jin Kaisens previous major works: the documentary but narrative experimental films Accentuation (2005), Tracing Trades (2006), and The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger (2010). The films revolve around Korean culture today and highlight events that exist in contemporary society as residues or effects of collective trauma and social exclusion. All three films will be shown in Øst for Paradis - Art Cinema in Aarhus on October 9th from 9:30 pm pm. Hereafter The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger will displayed each Saturday in the Aarhus Art Building at 14 pm.

IMAGINE
Dissident Translations is part of the 2011 theme at Aarhus Art Building: IMAGINE – towards an eco-aesthetic. Alongside with the autumn program ‘Visions for a better world’, Aarhus Art Building, is looking at alliances between art and sustainable as well as the link between ecological and social problems. Jane Jin Kaisen’s solo exhibition is part of a series of exhibitions by female artists presented at Aarhus Art Building in 2011. The female artists are aesthetically and conceptually different, however, through micro-strategies they all show alternative ways of transforming and recreating the condition of the world.

About Jane Jin Kaisen

Jane Jin Kaisen (b.1980) is a Danish artist born in South Korea. She has an MA in Art Theory and Communication at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2010), an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from University of California Los Angeles (2010), and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (2007-2008). From a postcolonial and transnational feminist perspective Kaisen approximates bigger political and discursive themes in his works. She is interested in creating an artistic imagery, explaining the unequal power structures such as race, gender and class in our globalized contemporary. Kaisen’s work with film, performance, video installation and text, is often an accumulation of physical, visual and auditory fragments – where times, locations and hierarchies between the personal and the collective memory is being decomposed and rewritten to create new understandings. Dissident Translations is Jane Jin Kaisen’s first solo show created especially for the Aarhus Art Building

Press Opening Thursday October 6th at noon / Opening Friday October 7th at 5-9 pm

-----

Ato Malinda: Incommensurable Identities October 8, 2011 – January 8, 2012

Kenyan performance art in the Aarhus Art Building The young Kenyan artist Ato Malinda presents her first solo exhibition in Denmark, under the title Incommensurable Identities - non-inter-measurable identities. With a critical eye on her African roots, Kenya's history and culture, she gives a young woman's perspective on African identity and inequality in a globalized world. For the opening on October 7, Ato Malinda creates a unique live performance at the Aarhus Art Building, designed specifically for the exhibition. Ato Malinda is primarily a performance artist and works in the field between performance art and video art. Art Nouveau framing Ato Malinda has created a special interior in The Aarhus Art Building as the setting for her artworks. Flower-filled living rooms are furnished with Bauhaus furniture and Scandinavian design, and large wall fotos are framed by hand-painted Art Nouveau-patterned frames. Malinda works deliberately with style bride and culture clashes as a reference to her own background, growing up in both the Netherlands and Kenya. European, the African Diaspora and African cultural roots are woven together in Ato Malinda search for African identity. She personifies the African water spirit Mami Wata, who turns out to have roots in Europe and India, and the exhibition gives an insight into the complexity of African culture and identity today.

Past and present stories of British colonial domination, oppression of women and today's struggle for freedom meet in a political and artistic interpretation. Malinda’s dream for the future consists in the creation of an African renaissance, not denying the past dominant colonial ideologies, but creating a third space questioning the interstices between Africa and the Western world. International debate: Feminism, Post-colonialism & Micro-strategies in Contemporary Art The Aarhus Art Building invites the Cameroonian curator, director of RAW MATERIAL COMPANY and advisor to the next Documenta, Koyo Kouoh, to participate in an international panel talk on October 9, at 3 pm. Together with the two artists exhibiting at the Art Centre this fall, Jane Jin Kaisen and the Kenyan artist Ato Malinda, Koyo Kouoh will take a critical look on art, female identity and inequality in a globalized world. Kouoh participates in the debate with her curatorial experience and theoretical take on the African and international art scene today. Chief Curator at Aarhus Art Building Charlotte Born Sprogøe will moderate the debate.

This year's theme IMAGINE – towards an ecoaesthetic the Aarhus Art Building wants to take a closer look at alliances between art and sustainable development. IMAGINE suggests that art is a critical but at the same time positive, fruitful option that makes allowances for the surroundings and the environment. The theme emphasizes the origin of the concept of sustainability and the linkages between environmental and social problems which have been characteristic of thinking about and the development of this particular concept since the early 1970s. The exhibitions on the programme for 2011 try to embrace this complexity in the concept of sustainability and its history from two different angles. One approach to the theme focuses on the artistic views of alternative energy. The other, which the exhibition with Ato Malinda represents, focuses on oppressive mechanisms that affect various minorities, women and environment on the existing premises of inequality and power relations.

About Ato Malinda

Ato Malinda (b. 1981) was born in Kenya as the daughter of a Kenyan mother and a Ugandan father. She grew up in Holland, but returned to Kenya as a teenager. After high school she moved to USA where she studied molecular biology and art history at the University of Texas in Austin. But when Ato Malinda realized that Western education had a negative impact on her self- perception, she moved back to Kenya. She began her professional practice as a painter, and only after a brief stint in the UK, did she decide to pursue her inherent desire for performance art. Ato Malinda has exhibitions in Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. She has had residency in Curacao, Cameroun and Denmark, where she participated in the art project NotAboutKarenBlixen and exhibited in connection with the My World IMAGES. Today she lives and works in Nairobi, where she has also curated several exhibitions.

Open house for the press
Open House for the press on Thursday, October 6, at. 12 – 2 p.m. We offer a sandwich and the opportunity to meet the artist.
For further information and interview appointment, contact the Aarhus Art Building Press Officer Stine Kleis
Hansen sh@aarhuskb.dk, +45 86 20 60 59.

Image: (c) Jane Jin Kaisen

Opening, live performance and “sneak concert”
Friday, October 7, at 5 p.m. – 9 p.m.

The Aarhus Art Building opens its doors for three young upcoming artists: The Kenyan performance artist Ato Malinda, the Danish-Korean video artist Jane Jin Kaisen and singer and multi instrumentalist Mads Björn, who this evening will present a “sneak-concert” for his upcoming solo album Monolith.

Program:
17.00 - Opening Speeches by chief curator Charlotte Sprogøe and Ph.D., post. doc. Lotte Philipsen
17.45 - Live performance with Ato Malinda
18.30 - The cafe serves a green meal
19.30 - “Sneak-concert” with Mads Björn
20.15 - Chill

Aarhus Kunstbygning Center for Contemporary Art
J.M. Morks Gade 13 - Aarhus
Tuesday to Friday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Wednesday: 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 12 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Admission Adults: DKK 45,-

stampa

permanent link