Knut Asdam
Bigert & Bergstrom
Agnieszka Brzezanska
Aristarkh Chernyshev
Oskar Dawicki
Miklos Gaal
Ilkka Halso
Isabell Heimerdinger
Elsebeth Jorgensen
Anne Szefer Karlsen
Eve Kask
Joachim Koester
Tatyana Liberman
Wiebke Loeper
Wolfgang Ploeger
Arturas Raila
Gatis Rozenfelds
Johanna Rylander
Jari Silomaeki
Florian Slotawa
Irma Stanaityte
Dorothee Bienert
Lars Grambye
Lolita Jablonskiene
Ars Baltica is a forum for the cross-border cultural exchange in the Baltic area. Working with the question and title 'What is Important?', the curatorial team of the 3rd Ars Baltic Triennial of Photographic Art aims to deepen the critical dialogue on art and photography between artists, curators and institutions in the region.
3rd Ars Baltica Triennial of Photographic Art
Artists in the exhibition:
Knut Asdam (N), Bigert & Bergström (S), Agnieszka Brzezanska (PL),
Aristarkh Chernyshev (RU), Oskar Dawicki (PL), Miklos Gaál (FIN), Ilkka
Halso (FIN), Isabell Heimerdinger (D), Elsebeth Jorgensen (DK), Anne
Szefer Karlsen (N), Eve Kask (EE), Joachim Koester (DK), Tatyana Liberman
(RU), Wiebke Loeper (D), Wolfgang Ploeger (D), Arturas Raila (LT), Gatis
Rozenfelds (LV), Johanna Rylander (S), Jari Silomaeki (FIN), Florian
Slotawa (D), Irma Stanaityte (LT)
Curatorial team:
Dorothee Bienert, Berlin; Lars Grambye, Copenhagen; Lolita Jablonskiene, Vilnius
Exhibition
Ars Baltica is a forum for the cross-border cultural exchange in the
Baltic area. Working with the question and title "What is Important?", the
curatorial team of the 3rd Ars Baltic Triennial of Photographic Art aims
to deepen the critical dialogue on art and photography between artists,
curators and institutions in the region.
The structural content of the project begins by looking at what is
important today for Baltic artists who use the photographic medium.
Etymologically, "important" is that which is valuable enough to be
"brought in", in other words, that which the individual or a community
searches out and selects for itself.
What is Important? Is not a thematic exhibition, but the works chosen do
relate a certain artistic attitude. While many artists were concerned with
establishing photography as art in the 90s, today, art with photography is
one of many artistic strategies. Artists avoid the single representative
image or play with it, include the performative and the narrative in their
work, and produce image kaleidoscopes or complexes. Photography is not
singled out as a specific medium, but is used by the artist, as others use
it. In other words, formal issues are less important than the artist's
attempt to extract segments of reality, import and appropriate them, and
communicate these to others.
Paradoxically enough, the artists in this exhibition combine an interest
in the apparently unimportant and the desire to evoke important
narratives. The most different forms of narrative in today's Baltic
photographic art are established around the following points of
crystallization. On the one hand, there are the stories that deal with the
self, or where the public colliding with the private becomes an issue, and
in which subjective experience and playful narratives replace the focus on
the body typical of the 80s and 90s. On the other hand are the stories in
which locations around and beyond the self are a central issue, and where
the subjective importance of places supersedes the detached viewpoint on
sites, characteristic of the early 90s. Concentrating on the local, the
private, and the personal point of view, the artists attribute particular
importance to individual territories, not yet absorbed globally or
medially.
Catalogue:
A catalogue with 160 pages and approx. 150 illustrations is being
published, available at a price of Euro 17,50. The publication will appear
in English and is conceived as a discussion forum on art and photography
in the Baltic region, and is therefore designed as ring-book-file that can
be added to or altered during the exhibition tour. The catalogue encloses
text contributions by the artists and curators as well as by Ekaterina
Degot, Helena Demakova, Lukasz Gorczyca, Jonas Ekeberg, Anders Härm &
Hanno Soans, Mika Hannula, Lars Bang Larsen, John Peter Nilsson, Jonas
Valatkevicius and Jan Verwoert.
Associated events:
The following events will take place on Saturday, 12 April from 12 a.m.- 6
p.m.
* Installation by Wolfgang Plöger in the cinema "Die Brücke",
Holstenbrücke 8, Kiel, open 11a.m.-1 p.m.
*12 a.m.- 5 p.m. lectures and discussions at the Stadtgalerie, with Bigert
& Bergström, Joachim Koester, Anne Szefer Karlsen & Johanna Rylander,
Florian Slotawa
*5 p.m. Performance by Oskar Dawicki
Opening hours:
Tue, Wed, Fri 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thur 10 a.m.-7 p.m.,
Sat, Sun 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 1st May and 29th May 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday
Next venue
June 22nd - July 27 2003 - Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow
(opening: June 21st)
further venues: Bergen (N), Vilnius (LT), Riga (LV), Tallinn (EE), Pori
(FIN)
An exhibition project by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and
Culture of Schleswig-Holstein in collaboration with the Ars Baltica Berlin
Office.
Support:
Exhibition and catalogue have been funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes
as well as the Foreign Office, Berlin; the Stiftung Kulturfonds, Berlin
and the following institutions in the Ars Baltica partner countries: Arts
Council of Finland, Helsinki; Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Tallinn;
Contemporary Art Information Center (CAIC), Vilnius; Culture Capital
Foundation of Latvia (CCF), Riga; Danish Contemporary Art Foundation
(DCA), Copenhagen; Finnish Fund for Art Exchange (FRAME), Helsinki;
International Artists' Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS), Stockholm;
Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA), Riga; Moderna Museet,
International Programme, Stockholm; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of
Latvia, Riga; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Estonia, Tallinn;
Ministry of Culture, International Relations and European Integration
Department, Warsaw; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania,
Vilnius; Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo; Royal Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Oslo
For further information please contact:
* Ars Baltica Berlin Office, Dorothee Bienert, Freiligrathstr. 6, D-10967
Berlin, phone/fax: 030-694 25 05
* Stadtgalerie Kiel, Wolfgang Zeigerer, phone 0431-901-3411, fax:
-901-63475
venue:
Stadtgalerie Kiel, Andreas-Gayk-Str. 31, D-24103 Kiel
T +49(0)431/901-3400