Mardin Biennial 2015 - Mythologies

There were many obstacles that had to be overcome, but it seems as if our work finally made it to the Mardin Biennial that is opening in Turkey on the 15th of May 2015. This is not in the least because of curator Claudia Segura's ceaseless efforts behind the scenes to have it shown, despite objections by local politicians, Dutch embassy travel bans, and other problems.

Our contribution consists of a collection of Turkish newspapers, bought on the 18th of December 2004. Headline news that day was that the European Union had finally agreed to start accession negotiations with Turkey. On video, two members of the communist party flip through the newspapers, providing a personal, if not Marxist, commentary on the state of the press in Turkey.

More than ten years later this work of art will be now exhibited for the first time, in the beautiful medieval town of Mardin.

We hope that the crumbling walls of the exhibition venue and the biennial's overarching Mythologies theme provide an ideal setting for the work's dormant function to come into operation: to historicise, and to derive its significance from everything that has, or rather hasn't, happened since.

Life's Finest Values at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna

The exhibition LIFE’S FINEST VALUES presents video works by 21 artists, filmmakers, and architects. The exhibition investigates the interrelations between the realms of housing, art, and capital in different urban contexts around the world: from Berlin to Caracas, from Havana to Hong Kong, from Brussels to Tbilisi. The title of the exhibition was a slogan used by a real estate company in Berlin to market luxury apartments. The values that this slogan bespeaks have been reappropriated by the participants in their works. The video works share a focus on text, dialogue, and interview formats as a means of political analysis and knowledge production. Many projects deconstruct neoliberal language and ideology, which often consciously extract loaded words like “freedom”, “values”, and “life” from their historical contexts and equate them with the “freedom of the market” and “monetary value”, thus promoting a concept of “life” solely as a “market-oriented project”.

Video art from Basque Country at Centre d'Art Le Lait

The travelling exhibition Gaur(sic) has reached Centre d'Art Le Lait in Albi, France, where it will be exhibited from 21 March to 21 June 2015. It offers an overview of recent works of video art from Basque Country, which includes our video from Work in Progress.

With: Sra. Polaroiska (Alaitz Arenzana and María Ibarretxe), Colombina’s (Larraitz Torres and Sandra Cuesta), Aitor Lajarin, Zuhar Iruretagoiena, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Saioa Olmo, Juan Aizpitarte and Ixone Sadaba. Curated by Nekane Aramburu.

CONVERSA #23 at Mevrouw BOK

Wednesday 28th of January - 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Conversas is a series of weekly informal meetings to know and discuss projects and interests. During the event two/three Conversadores (those who talk at Conversas) bring something to share with the gathered group, for thirty minutes each. As the title suggests itself, Conversas (Conversations in Portuguese) aim at an equal set up from which both the Conversadores and the group, should be able to profit.

Gaur [sic]

The travelling exhibition GAUR(sic), which includes our video Work in Progress, has arrived to the last stop: it will be inaugurated today in Santiago de Chile, where it will be displayed until February 15. This is the eighth stop for the exhibition that has also visited London, Managua, Montevideo, Tegucigalpa, San José, Mexiko DF, Córdoba and Santiago de Chile.

Open! publica Un ensayo de interpretaciones inadecuadas

The lawyer often compared the justice system to theatre. He understood that there was a performative logic to the nature of law, which was the result of the fundamental indeterminacy of legal discourses. It allowed him to transform a political trial from a mere instrument of power into a cultural artefact that was capable of provoking a public reflection on hegemonic norms and transforming the law itself. “A trial is a place of metamorphosis,” he was known to say, “Joan of Arc wouldn’t have been a saint without her trial.”

Open! has just published our text on the historical and didactic nature of the political trial. Read an excerpt below.

Date published: 
Fri, 11/14/2014

Suturak. Cerca a lo próximo

24-10-14 to 18-01-15, San Telmo Museum, Donostia - San Sebastián

Our installation "Work in Progress" will be shown in "Suturak, Cerca de lo próximo", an extensive exhibition on contemporary Basque art at the San Telmo Museum. The show, realized in collaboration with Artium, Basque Museum-Center for Contemporary Art, aims to contextualise the strategies with which art and artists relate to their environment, emphasizing their capacity to translate and shape the construction of identity and community.

Bisitariak - Tabakalera

On Saturday, we are giving an artist's talk at Tabakalera, where we will present "Últimas Palabras", a video piece filmed in Argentina in 2013.

25 October 2014, 12:00
SUKALDEA
Duque de Mandas, 32 (Bajos de la Torre Atocha)
20012 Donostia-San Sebastián

Breaking the Bank

Artists have always been pushed in many roles: from chroniclers of history, romantic geniuses, agents provocateurs, to increasingly individuals who are tasked to solve the ills of society. Have the progressive politics of artists become ensnared in a neo-liberal trap? If so, how and by what means? What kind of art does it produce, how is it valued and where do we find productive refusal? - Public Event 16 October 2014, at 20.00 in TENT Rotterdam, Witte de Withstraat 50.

Mardin Biennial postponed

As Turkey places its cities under curfew to disperse the protests against the advance of the IS into Kobanê, the organisation of the upcoming Mardin Biennial issues a statement, postponing the event until further notice. As artists invited to participate in this biennial, we respect this decision, and express our support for the team:

"We now hear a cry that is greater than our voices and it comes from Kobanê. Kobanê that stands ever so firmly against the barbarism of its attackers has become the bleeding wound in the hearts of all those who live in this region. We would have liked to carry out the 3rd International Mardin Biennial as originally planned, but we know that in order for the voice of Kobanê to be heard, we need to go quiet and make all necessary efforts for its voice to be heard more. We are not afraid. On the contrary, we are hopeful that Kobanê’s voice will indeed be heard. That is why we have decided to postpone until further notice the 3rd International Mardin Biennial, which was supposed to take place between October 17 and November 17. It will take place in near future for the sufferings which take place right in front us to be seen and heard."

Mardin Cinema Association Döne Otyam, Ferhat Özgür, Fırat Arapoğlu, Mehmet Baran, Sait Tunç, Mesut Alp, Fikret Atay, Hakan Irmak, Ferhat Satıcı, Hülya Özdemir, Claudia Segura, Canan Budak, Can Bulgu

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