calendario eventi  :: 

X

19/10/2007

Six exhibitions

MoMA PS1, New York

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents in collaboration with Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and the Media Department at The Museum of Modern Art, the first U.S. gallery exhibition that will feature the newly restored version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s monumental, sequential film Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). Based on Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel, this recently restored epic will be a long overdue introduction of a masterpiece of German cinema to a younger American audience. The more than 15-hour epic will be divided into 14 screening rooms—one for each episode of the film. This exhibition will be on view in the Third Floor Main Gallery from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008.

The parallel screening of all the episodes in one place will highlight Fassbinder’s impressive visual idiom and his artistically challenging, free innovative use of images. It will enable visitors to choose their own mode of approach to Berlin Alexanderplatz: they can divide its unusual length up into pieces, watch episodes several times, or return to the exhibition whenever they like, as the entrance ticket entitles holders to repeated visits. Additionally all 14 episodes will be shown successively, in chronological order and in permanent loop on a central big screen. Stills from the film’s 224 scenes will also be on display along with a first time ever reproduction of Fassbinder’s storyboard and his personal copy of Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz featuring his written remarks. The exhibition will also feature excerpts from the audiotapes on which Fassbinder dictated the script for his 15-hour-epic.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982) was a leader of the New German Cinema movement. Political and social corruption in postwar Germany was a primary theme in his work. Hailed as a cult hero during his life, he was a prolific filmmaker, having directed more than 40 productions including Love is Colder than Death (1969), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1973), The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Querelle (1982).

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator of the Department of Media at The Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Klaus Biesenbach, with essays by Susan Sontag and Rainer Werner Fassbinder as well as 570 color film stills, the complete screenplay, biography, bibliography, and filmography.

The exhibition is supported by Mrs. Stephen M. Kellen and The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. The accompanying publication is made possible by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Terri and Timothy Childs, and the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation.

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz is presented as a part of Carnegie Hall’s first major international festival—Berlin in Lights—a 17-day celebration of the city of Berlin that will run from November 2–18, 2007, with close to 50 events presented throughout all five boroughs of New York City, at Carnegie Hall, and partner venues. For more information about Berlin in Lights, please visit carnegiehall.org/berlininlights.

..................................

Senso Unico

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Senso Unico, a selection of Italian artists who have maintained a prominent presence in the international contemporary art world over the past decade. Senso Unico will take an intimate look at the work of eight influential figures: Vanessa Beecroft, Paolo Canevari, Angelo Filomeno, Rä di Martino, Adrian Paci, Paola Pivi, Pietro Roccasalva and Francesco Vezzoli. Not defined by a particular artistic school or movement, these artists and their distinct oeuvre will be brought together for the first time in a presentation of unique talent from Italy. Central works in the exhibition include Paola Pivi’s extraordinary grizzly bear which instead of fur has yellow feathers; the U.S. premiere of Francesco Vezzoli’s acclaimed MARLENE REDUX: A True Hollywood Story! displayed in the P.S.1 vault; the presentation of Bouncing Skull, Paolo Canevari’s haunting video projection shown at the 52nd Venice Biennale International Exhibition; two luminous and ghostly portraits by Vanessa Beecroft; the Vangelo secondo Pasolini painting series by Adrian Paci, and a moving video projection by Rä di Martino. Pietro Roccasalva will recreate an installation of two magical rooms, and Angelo Filomeno will present a diptych of embroidered paintings as well as two spectacular feathered helmet sculptures. This exhibition will be on view in the First Floor Main Gallery and Basement Vault from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008.

Senso Unico is a unique continuation of P.S.1’s long tradition of articulating key moments in contemporary Italian art. Previous group exhibitions include The Knot: Arte Povera (1981) and Minimalia: An Italian Vision in 20th Century Art (1999). Retrospectives of such individuals as Michelango Pistoletto (1989) and Massimo Bartolini (2001), in addition to the Italian Studio Program (2000/2002), have brought into focus both major Italian artists and emerging talents. Presenting Italy’s most vibrant and challenging work to the P.S.1 audience, Senso Unico will bring to light the nation’s extraordinary contributions to the contemporary art world.

Senso Unico is curated by P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss.

Senso Unico is organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in collaboration with The Foundation for Italian Art and Culture. The exhibition is made possible by The Alexander Bodini Foundation, Mrs. Terry Allen Kramer, Enzo Viscusi, and The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art with additional support from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Gilberto and Rosa Sandretto, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, The Italian Cultural Institute of New York, and DARC - Directorate-General for Contemporary Architecture and Art of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.

........................

Kris Martin

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents the first solo New York exhibition by Kris Martin. The Belgian artist brings together sculpture, drawing, photography, and works on paper that examine on themes of morbidity, beauty, destruction and time. Kris Martin is on view in the Second Floor Main Gallery from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008.

Whether working on the scale of monumental sculpture or de-materialized gesture Martin’s practice positions itself at the extreme brink of cognition—how knowledge and wisdom is gained at the close of experience or how life is recognized only at the edge of death. Vase is a seven-foot high reproduction of a ceramic Ming vase. Its conditions of existence require that it be broken and reassembled each time it is exhibited. One Hundred Years offers a similar play on entropy and the irreversibility of time’s arrow. A self-degrading sculpture, the golden orb will be eventually tarnished by oxidation. Whether its eventual degradation marks the commemoration of great talent now passed away, or, is merely the damp squib of an artist consigned to insignificance remains to be seen. It is only known that all things, art and reputation alike, come to an end.

Finality is also the subject of End-Points, an ongoing series for which Martin has isolated and extracted the last period from literature. Like the Mandi III signboard whose ever-changing face announces only its own futility, or the silent scream of a Laocoon from which the very source of struggle has been removed, they are markers in the passage from experience to abstraction. Whether distilled to a single dot or fragmented into a thousand pieces, Martin’s art draws from the space in-between, an image of the world in which all activity, monumental or insignificant, may be just killing time.

Kris Martin (b. 1972, Kortrijk, Belgium) has been exhibiting his art since 2001. He has primarily shown his work in Europe, having had solo exhibitions at galleries such as Sies + Höke Galerie, Düsseldorf; Marc Foxx, Los Angeles; Johann König, Berlin; and also at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany. Martin has also participated in the 2006 Berlin Biennale. He lives and works in Ghent.

Kris Martin is organized by P.S.1 Senior Curatorial Advisor Neville Wakefield.

The exhibition is supported by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

...................

Min Tanaka: Photos by Masato Okada 1975-2005

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents an exhibition of acclaimed Butoh master Min Tanaka. Featuring approximately 75 black-and-white and color photographs taken by photographer Masato Okada over thirty years, the images reveal the power and lyricism of one of the pioneers of the Japanese dance form. Min Tanaka: Photos by Masato Okada 1975-2005 is on view in the Archive Galleries from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008. In conjunction with the performance biennial Performa, Tanaka will give a series of special, live performances from November 16-18, 2007. Information about the performance schedule can be found on www.ps1.org .

For three decades, Tanaka and Okada have been active collaborators, in which the former artist at times seemingly moves to the rhythm of the latter’s clicking shutter. This exhibition includes images of Tanaka’s indoor and outdoor performances, which often occurred in unexpected places—many of which were suggested by Okada. From the garbage dump on Dream Island in Tokyo Bay to the snow-capped mountains of Tokason in Yamanashi Prefecture, Tanaka incorporates his body into the surrounding environment and also draws the landscape into what the artist refers to as his own world of “interior movements”. Speaking of the mountain performances, Tanaka recalls, “I had no plan at all for how to dance. The only thing that was decided was that I would ‘dance’ and Okada would ‘take pictures.’ It all depended on the weather and mood of the day.”

Inspired by the teachings of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikawa, Min Tanaka (b. 1945, Tokyo) established the Body Weather Laboratory in 1978 where he first developed nude dance projects such as the Hyperdance and Drive series. That November, exactly thirty years ago, Tanaka embarked on his first-ever overseas tour in which P.S.1 played a crucial role in his artistic development by hosting his legendary performance on the snow-covered rooftop of the Clocktower Gallery. This led to his subsequent artistic collaboration with Richard Serra, John Cage, Cecil Taylor, Karel Appel, Meredith Monk, and Susan Sontag. Tanaka’s performances have been critically praised in Japan and abroad, and today he is a highly acclaimed, influential dancer, choreographer, and actor. In 2006, Tanaka suspended his stage performances and shifted to a series of anonymous dances called Locus Focus, which took place in streets, parks, schools, fields and seashores in Japan, Indonesia, Spain and China. His appearance in New York will be the U.S. debut of this latest performance series.

Masato Okada (1949–2006) photographed Tanaka’s dances ever since the two first met in 1975. Among the numerous projects, he documented Tanaka’s 1824-hour Hyperdance, in which over 150 locations in fields, scenic spots, and towns were used as sites for performance. While planning a major exhibition of the Tokason dance series, the photographer was diagnosed with liver cancer. Okada passed away days after the exhibition took place in March 2006.

Min Tanaka: Photos by Masato Okada 1975-2005 is organized by P.S.1 International Adjunct Curator Kazue Kobata in collaboration with Sumie Tanabe, editor of Between Mountain and Sea, 2006. The exhibition is supported by the Masato Okada Estate, the Asian Cultural Council, and The Japan Foundation.

..........................

Adel Abdessemed: Dead or Alive

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Adel Abdessemed’s his first solo New York exhibition. Bringing together video and sculptural work, Abdessemed condenses dramatic gestures through the union of oppositional forces: individuality and the body politic, desire and death, and the sacred and the profane. Adel Abdessemed is on view in the second floor Kunsthalle gallery from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008.

Whether working with knives that have been turned in on themselves to create a field of fleur de mal, oversized drill bits carved from black marble, a model of the luxury cruise liner Queen Mary created out of the recycled refuse of corporate culture or the front portion of an airplane folded like soft pastry, Abdessemed invokes the specter of destruction even as he celebrates its transformative energy. The boats and planes that appear in his work are both benign instruments of post-colonial global communion and empty vessels waiting to be filled with deadly meaning.

Like the sculptures, Abdessemed’s videos function as vessels of meaning. The short staccato loops serve to relentlessly revisit a single act—a bare heel stomping a Coke can or a street cat remorselessly devouring a white mouse. On the one hand abrupt actions deliberately intended to challenge our perceptions of the forbidden and taboo, they also attempt to wring poetic meaning from our most quotidian exchanges: of nature and culture, life and death, love and cruelty.

Adel Abdessemed (b. 1971, Constantine, Algeria) has been exhibiting his art internationally since 1997. He has had a solo exhibition at Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Genève (2004) and participated in the 2003 and 2007 Venice Biennales, 2006 Dak’art Biennial, 2001 and 2005 Tirana Biennials, 2001 Yokohama Triennial, 2000 Busan Biennial, and Manifesta 3 (2000). In 2000–01 Abdessemed was part of the P.S.1 International Studio Program and was featured in the P.S.1 exhibition Uniform—Order and Disorder (2001). Abdessemed lives in Paris.

Adel Abdessemed is organized by P.S.1 Senior Curatorial Advisor Neville Wakefield.

The exhibition is supported by Cultural Services, Embassy of France in the United States.

..................................

Kathe Burkhart

P.S.1 Contemporary Art center is proud to present Kathe Burkhart’s first solo U.S. museum exhibition. The core of this exhibition will be a selection from her signature Liz Taylor Series of paintings, and an installation which incorporates the film stills comprising the source material for this ongoing series. Also featured are works in installation, photography, and video. This exhibition will be on view from October 21, 2007 through January 7, 2008.

Working since the early 1980s, Burkhart has consistently and frankly engaged gender roles, sexuality, celebrity, performativity, and language in an interdisciplinary practice. Her Liz Taylor Series uses Pop Art imagery and assemblage to critique representation and the sexual politics of identity. Images of Liz Taylor overlaid with profanities provide a platform in which Burkhart addresses feminist resistance, female dominance and sexual power. Additionally, the exhibition will feature haikus by the artist, who is also known as a writer. The poems will be in chocolate letters as wall pieces.

Just as the Liz Taylor Series deconstructs the genre of the self portrait, and the Hardcore series of digital photographs on canvas deconstructs the still life, Burkhart’s new photography series reconfigures the genre of the nude. The exhibition premieres these new inkjet prints from a series of covert documentary-style portraits taken at clothing-optional public beaches. The performative nature of this work positions the artist as both a voyeur and a participant, and the camera becomes the recording device capturing the limits of bodily freedoms.

Part diary, part documentary, part love letter from afar to the Netherlands, Persephone 02, is a video by Burkhart also on view. It is a montage using the ancient Greek myth of Persephone as a contemporary metaphor for the subject of transnational identity and the dual identities of immigrant and expatriate that it encompasses.

Kathe Burkhart is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Her visual art has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including the 1993 Venice Biennale,;SMAK Museum, Gent, Belgium; Brooklyn Museum; Weatherspoon Museum; Neuberger Museum; Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada; FlashArt Museum; Galleria d' Arte Moderna, Bologna,Italy; and the Groningen and Helmond Museums, Netherlands, among others. She has had 30 solo exhibitions, among them Participant Inc, Alexander Gray Associates, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, and Galerie Lumen Travo, Amsterdam. Her work appeared on the cover of Flashart in December 1990, and was the subject of leading article, "Bad Girl Made Good." She is the author of three books of fiction, Between the Lines, Hachette, Litteratures, January 2005; Deux Poids, Deux Mesures (The Double Standard) Participant Press 2005 and Hachette Litteratures, Paris, 2002, and From Under the 8 Ball, (LINE, 1985). She teaches art and critical theory at New York University, and divides her time between New York and Amsterdam. The Liz Taylor Series: The First Twenty Five Years, is forthcoming from Regency Arts Press in October.

Kathe Burkhart is organized by P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor Lia Gangitano.

The exhibition is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation.

Image: Paola Pivi

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue - New York

stampa

permanent link