BLOK’S OPENING WEEKEND PICKS
January 19:
- Zagreb, Croatia: “I am the Mouth” at Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb showcasing works from Central and Eastern European artists, all from the Art Collection Telekom. The show includes regional heavyweights like Slavs and Tatars, Dan Perjovschi, Agnieszka Polska, Geta Brătescu, and many more!
Agnieszka Polska, I Am The Mouth (still), 2014. HD video.
- Gdańsk, Poland: “Pretty Soon If This Keeps up I’m Going to Have to Envelop the Entire Universe” at the Gdańsk City Gallery, exploring art’s role in technological simulation and change. The press-release cited Phillip K. Dick (we approve). Check it out if you’re in Gdańsk this weekend.
- Poznan, Poland: “The Romantic Breast Cancer Adventures of Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle” is opening this weekend at Galeria Miejska Arsenał. The opening performance filled vernissage will take the form of a special one-off collaboration between the artists and photographer David Steinberg.
“The Romantic Breast Cancer Adventures of Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle”, Courtesy Galeria Miejska Arsenal
- Maribor, Slovenia: A new exhibition called “Vigilance, Struggle, Pride: Through Her Eyes” at the Maribor Art Gallery opens this weekend presenting works from thirteen female artists. “Their experiences and research pose questions that enable different intellectual and emotional responses to the existing challenges and issues of today’s society,” the curatorial statement reads. Going further, “We are faced with a turbulent socio-political situation in which women must fight anew for the rights that had been won long ago, and women’s issues are as current as ever,” looks and sounds quite promising.
Nydia Blas, The Girls Who Spin Gold, Courtesy Maribor Art Gallery
- Riga, Latvia: “New Arrivals at Kim?: Everybody Reads [Jokes]!” celebrates the launch of “The Joke Book: Collected by Seth Siegelaub”, a book that was found on Seth Siegelaub’s computer by his partner Marja Bloem, subsequently published by Kunstverein. The project is the first in a series at Kim? called “New Arrivals,” which takes the form of a series of public events, lectures, performances, readings, screenings, etc. “that may help us to experience the pulse of the ephemeral and fast forward moving art world but also will assist with creating new audiences and organizing temporary communities.”
Everybody Reads at Kim? Center for Contemporary Art, Riga
OPEN CALLS
- Curatorial Program for Research has several fully funded research programs available for emerging curators. “The Curatorial Program for Research (CPR) is pleased to announce its open call for curators to participate in CPR 2018: Dimming the Northern Lights. In this program curators will travel to the Nordic region, visiting Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. CPR’s sixth fully-funded research program will take place from August 2 – 27, 2018.” Deadline to apply: 15 February 2018
- Open call for projects during PQ 2019 in Prague. One for architects, dancers and choreographers called “Formations” for practitioners “concerned with the patterns we encounter in nature, urbanism and architecture,” and one for “Fragments” seeking “national curators to select only one item (an object, a model, sound or lighting file or a costume) designed by one of the most celebrated designers whose work keeps inspiring new generations of artists and audiences.” Deadline to apply: 28 February 2018
REARVIEW MIRROR
- Looking back can sometimes mean looking forward, in this case, to the 29th Jindřich Chalupecký Prize finalists, awarded annually to visual artists up to 35 years old, who have been working within the Czech Republic for at least five-years. Congratulations to the short-listed nominees: Alžběta Bačíková, Lukáš Hofmann, Tomáš Kajánek, Kateřina Olivová and Adéla Součková, whom the jury recognized for their anti-institutional attitudes. “The Nominated artists have built up their own exceptional aesthetic attitude that engages in various cracks in our increasingly uniform society, provoking its absorbing power,” the jury wrote. A joint exhibition of finalists, as well as an exhibition of a foreign guest, will be held in the fall, the laureate will be announced during a ceremony in November, so keep an eye out!
Finalists of the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize 2018: Tomáš Kajánek, Adéla Součková, Alžběta Bačíková, Kateřina Olivová, Lukáš Hofmann, photo: The Jindřich Chalupecký Company
- This week in news from Russia a new museum in Moscow is set to open connected to the Vorobyevy Gory research center at Moscow State University (MSU), which sounds to us like some Orwellian hybrid art/technology project from a not-too-distant dystopian future. According to Calvert Journal:
The new campus, which is due to be completed in 2018, will allow MSU to exhibit its collection for the first time. The university’s collection of minerals — widely considered to be one of the world’s largest — will also go on display. “MSU keeps thousands of original paintings”, said museum rector Victor Sadovnichy. “People should have an opportunity to see them.” As well as carrying out research into Russian culture and heritage, the new center will also promote work on nanotechnology, IT, medicine and space research.
Moscow State University. Image: Dmitry A. Mottl under a CC licence
Blok is committed to providing coverage of under-reported art events, news, and exhibitions from across Central Europe and beyond, including artists and curators from the region working or exhibiting abroad. If you have an event, opening or breaking news for us to cover please email us at: editor@blokmagazine.com