A panel discussion organized by the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia Romagna Region, Italy

Do you still ask the big question? Do you still explore life, reality, dreams, form in the practice of art ? Will the extra spectator actually ruins the path of converging life and art? Should art stay as a personal and internal dialogue ? Or a dialogue with other artists?

During Arte Fiera Art First, Bologna
In collaboration with LaRete Art Projects

For some decades, the traditional relationship between spectator and artwork is no longer the only one an artist establishes with his audience.

Since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century artists have cancelled the boundries between themselves, their work and the audience. After Fluxus, Happening and the so-called 'Relational Aesthetics' of the Nineties, art and everyday life have become so closely intertwined, that it is sometimes hard to distinguish one from the other. Numerous scholarly publications have been written on this kind of crossover. During his lifetime, Joseph Beuys expanded the definition of "being an artist" almost universally. The involvement of persons who don't consider themselves artists, or at least not in the first place, for many artists remains a challenge which presents itself continuously in new forms. The intention is to include larger groups of people, not only in the reception of art, but also in artistic production, which leads to the creation of new creative communities.

The Legislative Assembly of the Emilia Romagna Region in Bologna, Italy, has decided to support this kind of artistic endeavor with a biannual art award. The intention is not only to support an artistic production beyond market strategies, but also to stimulate a source of inspiration for participatory techniques which help create involvement, useful for citizens and politicians.

At Arte Fiera Rudolf Frieling, Alfredo Jaar and Bert Theis, moderated by Julia Draganovic, the curator in charge to develop this art award, will discuss with Monica Donini, President of the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia Romagna Region, the opportunities, limits and challenges of participatory art practices and ways in which they can help create and develop a new, shared sense of belonging to a community.


Rudolf Frieling is curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Adjunct Professor at the California College of Art and the San Francisco Art Institute. From 1994 to 2006 he was a curator and researcher at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. His curatorial and editorial projects include "Media Art Net" and "40yearsvideoart.de" both at ZKM and at SFMOMA most recently "In Collaboration" and "The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now", a survey of historic and contemporary participatory concepts.

Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has created more than fifty Public Interventions around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), São Paulo (1987, 1989), Sydney (1990), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju (1995, 2000), Johannesburg (1997), and Seville (2006), as well as Documenta (1987, 2002) in Kassel. Important individual exhibitions include the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel, London (1992); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1992); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005); Fundación Telefónica, Santiago (2006); Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2007); Hangar Bicocca and Spazio Oberdan, Milan (2008).

Bert Theis, artist and curator, born in Luxembourg 1952, based in Milan since 1992. Co-founder of the long-term collective projects out-Office for Urban Transformation and Isola Art Center in Milan. Bert Theis is a creator of platforms that are open to participation and self-managed activities. He has had exhibitions in several museums, build installations in public space and taken part in international art events like the Venice Biennale 1995, Sculpture Projects Münster 1997, Arte all'Arte 1998, Manifesta 1998 and numerous other biennials in Europe and Asia. In 2009 he curated Territoria 4, a project of the Province of Prato, Italy.

Information:
http://assemblealegislativa.regione.emilia-romagna.it/
http://www.larete-artprojects.net

email:
alrelistituzionali@regione.emilia-romagna.it
info@larete-artprojects.net

During Arte Fiera and in collaboration with LaRete

Call for Artists: ESSENCE / BORDERS

Deadline for applications: June 30, 2009

email: lucacurci@lucacurci.com
more:

International ArtExpo is selecting all interesting video/short.films to include in the next 2009 Exhibitions, November 14-16, 2009:

ESSENCE / BORDERS - 5th water homage - Culturagua organization at the Institut Alexander Von Humboldt at Villa de Leyva, Boyaca - Colombia (November 14-16, 2009). The deadline for applications is June 30, 2009.

Culturagua is a non-profit organization. The main goal is to educate and make aware through the arts. In order to do it a large area has been dedicated to educating and informing the wider community. This space is called "Tribute to Water" which has been developed since 2005, with presentations of theatres, music concerts, field trips, environmental conferences, art exhibitions, presentation of videos and documentaries.

The number of works with you can participate is unlimited. All works must be on DVD (PAL or NTSC), no matter what the original source medium. The duration may be any, with a preference given to a max lenght of 15 minutes. If you are interested, send your video submissions (Name/Surname, City/Country, Film title, Running time, Brief film synopsis) with a CV/biography, videography and an introduction about the piece to:

arch. Luca Curci
via Casamassima, 75
70010 - Capurso (Bari) - Italy

International ArtExpo is a not for profit organization that provides a significant forum for cultural dialogue between all artists from different cultures and countries. We depend on the support of you. ArtExpo is grateful to all of the institutions, corporations, and individuals who support our efforts. We work with a number of national and international galleries as well as publishers, museums, curators and writers from all over the world. We help artists through solo and group exhibitions, gallery representation, magazine reviews and advertisements, press releases, internet promotion, as well as various curatorial projects.

Participation open to: professional artists, architects and designers, associate groups and studios.

"40+4, Art is not enough! Not enough!"

China!China!China!!!
Chinese contemporary art beyond the global market.
21.03.08- 04.05.08
Opening: March 20th 2008

Daily: 10,00 - 20,00
Thursday: 10.00 - 23.00
Closed Monday

INFO
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi
www.palazzostrozzi.org

Artists: Cao Fei, Chu Yun, Duan Jianyu, Huang Kui, Kan Xuan, Lothar Spree, Lu Chunsheng, Pak Sheung-Chuen, Ren, Quinga, Shen Shaomin, TsengYu-Chin, Wang Yu Yang, Wu Ershan, Xu Tan, Yang Fudong, Yang jiang group, Zhao Liang

Curated by: Zhang Wei (Guangzhou), Li Zhenhua (Beijing) e Davide Quadrio (Shanghai)

This is a crucial moment in China’s search for cultural identity as it strives to reconcile the weight of tradition, a troubled recent socio -political history and the rapid entry into the western-style global economy. The most visionary contemporary art in China attempts to shape the future in the light of the past... In a very short space of time China is experiencing a process that in Western culture evolved slowly over centuries. But just as the Florentine Renaissance of the fifteenth century led to the emergence of the city by its use of culture as a vital channel of communication modern China is investing extensively in the development of a cultural infrastructure and in its promotion abroad.

The exhibition presents a lively interchange between the curators’ three sections, representing three distinct but complementary attitudes and perceptions.

Zhang Wei, the curator from Guangzhou, in “Throwing Dice”, brings together artists of different backgrounds, training and modes of expression. Zhang Wei presents individual visions of human existence in a fragmented and constantly changing world. The videos of Kan Xuan, Pak Sheung Chuen and Yang Fudong (acclaimed in the most recent Venice Biennale), digital animations by Cao Fei (also present at the Biennale), technological installations by Chu Yun, and paintings by Duan Jianyu offer individual stories that engage the spectator in the exploration of a shared existential landscape and in the constant tension between the world of dreams and of reality.

The installation in the section by Davide Quadrio, a curator in Shanghai for the last 15 years, “Art is not enough, not enough!,” is produced by the CCCS where it will be given its world premiere. The multimedia installation draws on interviews made by the curator with forty artists in Shanghai, who consider questions about the role of the artist, their relationship with the external world, the social consequences of their work and the international market’s effect on traditional modes of artistic production.. This presentation offers a dynamic anthropological insight into the urban panorama of modern Shanghai. (see below for details)

Questions of geo-political identity and cultural relativism are the focus of “Multi-Archeology”, the section curated by Li Zhenhua. Installations by the Mongolian artists Wu Ershan and Ren Qinga, highlight the often conflictual relations between the different cultural groups in China today and pose questions about the undermining of the individual in the face of social upheaval.
Both installations, created especially for the exhibition in Florence, take as their theme the human condition in the face of an uncertain future.
The art video by Zhao Liang and Shen Shaomin documents the situation on the Chinese border with North Korea and Russia. An analysis of the consequences of the Mongolian invasion by Genghis Khan on Asiatic culture is compared to the impact of modern globalisation, in the constant cultural interchange between East and West.


"40+4, Art is not enough! Not enough!"

Concept by Davide Quadrio and Lothar Spree

Interviews by Davide Quadrio and Xu Jie

Questions by: Lothar Spree, Davide Quadrio, Zhu Xiaowen, Huang Kui, Li Xuehui, Zhang Enli, Xu Jie.

LED Party Ball - Interactive Zygote

Here’s a unique way to really engage a crowd! Tangible, an interactive design agency, invented this lightweight inflatable orb they’re calling the “Zygote.” Inside the blow-up ball are LED lights that change colour when people come in contact with it, whether they’re hitting it, bouncing it around, or bumping it around to others. Check out the video to see an Italian crowd go wild for the fun spheres in Florence this July.