Three exhibitions
dal 25/1/2013 al 22/3/2013
Segnalato da
25/1/2013
Three exhibitions
Art in General, New York
Trailer, 2011, presents an alternative edit from Shezad Dawood's film. The artist creates a complex narrative using science fiction as a genre through which to examine subjects such as race, migration and cultural displacement. "The Library of Unborrowed Books", by Meric Algun Ringborg, presents hundreds of books that have never been borrowed from the Center for Fiction's library, calls into question what subjects in any contemporary moment have 'currency' or desirability. Clash!, a New Commission by Anetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkacova, takes the form of an installation that imitates piles of stones usually found on streets or construction sites.
Shezad Dawood
Trailer
Curated by Anne Barlow
Trailer, 2011, presents an alternative edit from Shezad Dawood’s science-fiction feature film Piercing Brightness as a 15-minute, experimental “trailer”. As a recognized cinematic format, Trailer belies its own title, playing with typical expectations of the duration and role of a trailer in relation to a full-length film.
Using science fiction as a genre through which to examine subjects such as race, migration and cultural displacement in ways that mainstream culture often cannot, Dawood creates a complex narrative that blends fiction with various aspects of documentary filmmaking. Incorporating seven main characters and four languages (Arabic, English, Mandarin, and Urdu) – one of them adapted by Dawood to represent an ‘alien language’ – the film encompasses a variety of scenes and visual effects, combining socio-political commentary with the fantastical and bizarre.
Set in Preston in the north of England – the place where the Mormon Church first took root in Britain and which now ranks the highest in the UK in observed UFO activity – the film centers around the story of the “Glorious 100”, an elite group of aliens who came to the town centuries ago with the aim of learning about human life and civilization. Assimilated into the community as shop-keepers, taxi drivers and others, the 100 now have to return home, a task that proves more challenging for some due to their acquired familiarity and comfort level with their adopted environment. Trailer was commissioned by In Certain Places in association with Modern Art Oxford. This presentation of Trailer is courtesy of Shezad Dawood and LUX, London.
About Shezad Dawood
Shezad Dawood (b.1974, London) works across various media and draws on multiple references including Sufism, pop culture, literature and structural filmmaking. Dawood was one of the winners of the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize. His previous solo exhibitions include: Piercing Brightness, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK (2012), New Dream Machine Project, L’Appartement22, Rabat, Morocco (2011); Piercing Brightness, Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, UK (2011); Intensive Surfaces, Århus Kunstbygning, Århus (2010), Feature:Architecture, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2008); Journey to the End of the Night, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan (2008); Until the End of the World, Third Line, Dubai (2008), and If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Paradise Row, London (2007). He has also participated in group shows including: Generation in Transition, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2011); Altermodern: Tate Triennial Tate Britain, London (2009); and Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London (2008). Dawood completed both his MA and MPhil in Fine Art (Photography) at the Royal College of Art.
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Meriç Algün Ringborg
The Library of Unborrowed Books
Curated by Anne Barlow
Art in General, in collaboration with The Center for Fiction, New York, presents Stockholm-based artist Meriç Algün Ringborg’s New Commissions project, The Library of Unborrowed Books.
The project, presenting hundreds of books that have never been borrowed from the Center for Fiction’s library, calls into question what subjects in any contemporary moment have ‘currency’ or desirability, and brings attention to topics and stories that have been temporarily overlooked but that could have their relevance restored in the future.
Following its first iteration in 2012 with the Stockholm Public Library in Sweden, where the project aroused great public and critical interest, for the presentation at Art in General, Meriç Algün Ringborg will make selections of books from the Center for Fiction, the only nonprofit in the U.S. solely dedicated to celebrating fiction. These books will then go on institutional loan to Art in General for the public to access for the first time in an environment that emulates the atmosphere of the Center, but that is experienced within the context of a contemporary art space.
Excerpted from a dialogue with the artist:
“The Library of Unborrowed Books bases itself on the concept of the library as an institution manifesting language and knowledge, of the passing of awareness and the openness to all types of people and literature. This work, however, comprises books from a selected library that have never been borrowed. The framework in this instance hints at what has been disregarded, knowledge essentially unconsumed, and puts on display what has eluded us.
Why these books aren’t ‘chosen,’ why they are overlooked, will never be clear but whatever each book contains, en masse they become representative of the gaps and cracks of history, or the cataloging of the world and the ambivalent relationship between absence and presence. In this library their existence is validated simply by being borrowed, underlining their being as well as their content and form by putting them on display in an autonomous library dedicated to the books yet to have been revealed.”
About Meriç Algün Ringborg
Meriç Algün Ringborg was born in 1983 in Istanbul, and currently lives and works in Stockholm. She studied at Sabancı University, Istanbul, from 2002–2007 and obtained a BA, Visual Arts and Communication Design, followed by an MA in Fine Arts from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2010-2012). Selected recent and upcoming group exhibitions include: When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2013); Signs Taken in Wonder, MAK, Vienna (2013); Incremental Change, Galeri NON, Istanbul (2012); When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2012); Show Off, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2012); An Incomplete History of Incomplete Works of Art, Francesca Minini, Milan (2012); Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), 2011 and Danföredanföredanföredan, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2010). She had her first solo exhibition in Stockholm, 2010 titled The Concise Book of Visa Application Forms. Other solo presentations include A Hook or a Tail, Frutta Gallery, Rome (2013); Becoming European, Meessen De Clerq, Brussels (2012); Prompts and Triggers: Meriç Algün Ringborg, Line No.2 (Holy Bible), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2012). Currently she is a resident at IASPIS – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists. For more information please visit www.mericalgunringborg.com.
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Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová
Clash!
Curated by Anne Barlow
Clash!, a New Commission by Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová, takes the form of an installation that imitates piles of stones usually found on streets or construction sites. Referencing stones that are often used by street demonstrators with the intention to harm, the stones’ potential role as impromptu weapons is here transformed by the use of material to create them.
Fabricated over many days in porcelain, and hand-painted with acrylic paint to resemble the appearance of real stones, these objects are in fact very thin, eggshell-like and hollow inside, becoming precious and vulnerable objects that are uncanny and prop-like. Able to be touched by visitors to the gallery, the stones are open to potential damage or even destruction over the duration of the exhibition—a potential change in the state of their existence that reflects Anetta Mona Chişa’s and Lucia Tkáčová’s interest in a dynamic interaction between audience and artwork that triggers precisely the dialectics they intend to represent.
This New Commission is presented alongside Either Way, We Lose, an inflatable fist squeezed into the storefront space. Emblematic throughout history and across cultures as a symbol for struggle, anger and the yearning for change—the fist is recreated here as a harmless toy or object for mass amusement, revealing the often unfortunate fate of revolutions in their potential to entertain, to be simplified or stereotyped, or even to become a perverse kind of attraction. This presentation is courtesy of Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels, Belgium.
About Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová
Anetta Mona Chişa was born in Romania and Lucia Tkáčová was born in Slovakia. They are currently based in Berlin and Prague and have collaborated on projects since 2000. Selected recent solo shows include: Either Way, We Lose, Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels (2012); The Diplomatic Tent (with Ion Grigorescu), Salonul de proiecte Bucharest (2011); Performing History, Romania Pavilion (with Ion Grigorescu), 54 Biennale di Venezia (2011); Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2009). They have been included in various group shows, including: 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow (2012); Rearview Mirror, The Power Plant – Contemporary Art gallery, Toronto (2011); There Has Been No Future, There Will Be No Past, ISCP, New York (2010).
Image: Shezad Dawood, Trailer, Production Still, 2011, courtesy of UBIK Productions Ltd . Photography Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz
Press contact:
Claire Sexton 212.219.0473 x31 press@artingeneral.org
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