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 Ploger
Arturas Raila
Gatis Rozenfelds
Johanna Rylander
Jari Silomaki
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: Knut Asdam (N), Bigert & Bergstrom (S), Agnieszka Brzezanska (PL),
Aristarkh Chernyshev (RU), Oskar Dawicki (PL), Miklos Gaal (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 Ploger (D), Arturas Raila (LT), Gatis Rozenfelds (LV), Johanna
Rylander (S), Jari Silomaki (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 crystallisation. 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 available at CAC.
The publication in English is conceived as a discussion forum on art and
photography in the Baltic region, and encloses text contributions by the artists
as well as by Dorothee Bienert, Ekaterina Degot, Helena Demakova, Lukasz
Gorczyca, Lars Grambye, Jonas Ekeberg, Anders Harm & Hanno Soans, Mika Hannula,
Lolita Jablonskiene, Lars Bang Larsen, John Peter Nilsson, Jonas Valatkevicius
and Jan Verwoert.
Further venues: Tallinn Art Hall (EE), Pori Art Museum (FIN)
Realised venues: Stadtgalerie Kiel (D), Mecklenburg Kuenstlerhaus Schloss
Plueschow (D), Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (N)
An exhibition project by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and
Culture of Schleswig-Holstein in collaboration with the Ars Baltica Berlin
Office and the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
We cordially invite you and your friends to the opening of the exhibition at the
Contemporary Art Centre on Friday, January 23rd 2004, at 6 p.m.
The press conference will take place on Friday, January 23rd 2004, at 5 p.m.
On Saturday, January 24th, at 12 a.m., in the CAC- artists presentations: Mats
Bigert, Elsebeth Jorgensen, Wiebke Loeper, Arturas Raila, Florian Slotawa
Support:
Exhibition and catalogue have been funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation,
Germany; as well as the Federal 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; National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Moscow; Office
for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo; Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo
The venue in Vilnius is supported by the Lithuanian Culture and Sport Support
Foundation, Vilnius; the Centre for Visual Art, Copenhagen; and the
Goethe-Institute Vilnius.
For further information please contact
Ars Baltica Berlin Office, Dorothee Bienert, Freiligrathstr. 6, D-10967 Berlin,
phone/fax: +49-30-694 25 05
CAC, Vokieciu 2, LT- 01130, Vilnius, phone: + 370-5-2121954; fax: + +370-5-262
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