Weekly Roundup (19 April 2018)

Blok’s Opening Weekend Picks

April 19

• Berlin, Germany: Melissa Steckbauer: Shame In The Round – A Round Table at Galerie im Turm. The exhibition Melissa Steckbauer: The Sonancy of Falling & Standing Repeatedly, where together between artist Melissa Steckbauer with the curator Sylvia Sadzinski will hold an informal discussion about shame a guest. Moderator will be the queer, media and affect theorist Katrin Köppert of the University of the Arts Berlin. The discussion round on shame is dedicated to the individual, social and political dimensions of shame, which are supplemented by short text contributions by different authors. Guests are invited to bring texts to share. The event will be held in German and English. 19:00-21:00.
• Brno, Czech Republic:  1968:Computer.art at PRAHA / Fórum pro architekturu a média. In February 1968, Jiří Valoch organized the Computer Graphics exhibition at the Brno House of Arts (with a repeated showing at the Regional Gallery in Jihlava, March 1968, and the Regional Gallery in Gottwaldov (today Zlín), April 1968). He preceded by half a year the opening of the Cybernetic Serendipity show (curator: Jasia Reichardt, ICA, London, August 1968) now canonized in art history; in its time presented as the very first international exhibition dedicated to the relationship between art and technology. Curators: Ondřej Chrobák, Pavel Kappel, Jana Písaříková, Architect: Tomáš Svoboda.

April 20

• Riga, Latvia: Orient at Kim?. The exhibition Orient is a meditation on the Eastern European identity. As the unifying aspect of this unclear region, it considers the failure of its own identity. The contradictory longing for pride and patriotism, and the simultaneous shame of where we come from (1), leading to suppression, and the negation of this belonging. The embarrassment growing from the internalization of the collapse of the surrounding context once built upon a social and political utopia. The expectation of catching up with the western capitalist standards, for which the integration into Europe, meaning Western Europe, was so often reduced on both sides. The dissipation of the Second World from the picture (2), and hence belonging neither to Europe, nor to the West, nor to “non-Western”. Various artists.
• Krakow, Poland. Krakow Gallery Weekend 2018: “Change.” Cracow Gallery Weekend KRAKERS has been promoting art galleries, museums and project rooms presenting the cross-section of contemporary art in Krakow for 7 years. In addition to over fifty exhibitions, in the gallery of the weekend gallery, there were curatorial tours, meetings with artists, workshops, discussion panel, music events and film screenings. For more info.
• Berlin, Germany: Opening Louise Bourgeois’s “The Empty House” at Schinkel Pavilion. “Pioneer of installation, pioneer of feminist art, role model for generations of artists – Louise Bourgeois is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. With The Empty House, the Schinkel Pavilion is now dedicating a solo exhibition to her and, for the first time ever, showing her “sack forms”, hollow or filled, transparent or opaque cloth bags. Until July 29.
  
  

April 21

• Moscow, Russia: Days of Contemporary Art 2018. April 21-22, 2018 in Moscow, the annual festival Days of Contemporary Art (DOCA) – a non-profit project that changed the map of cultural events of the capital. For the sixth year in a row, the festival, taking place in Izmailovo, becomes the center of attraction for famous artists and lovers of contemporary art from all over Moscow.  In 2017 the festival was visited by more than 2000 people. In the art and educational projects of the festival, famous artists Valery Chtak, Oleg Kulik, Dmitry Gutov, Sergei Mironenko, art group “Where the dogs run”, graffiti-racer Misha Most, art historian Ilya Budraitskis, publicist Alisa Taezhnaya, street -art group FGA, musicians Poko Cox, Jekka, On-The-Go and many others.

April 24

• Brno, Czech Republic: Daniel Hüttler: CCCC // at Dům pánů z Kunštátu. The G99 Gallery is transformed into a platform for the implementation of the CCCC (Centre for Cybernetic Culture Circulation) project. The essence of CCCC is a social exchange, exchange of opinions and ideas between the artist, the viewers, or among the participating artists. The artist who has accepted the invitation for this exhibition term is the initiator of the CCCC idea; throughout the event, he assumes the role of mediator and coordinator of the project. Until June 10.
• Brno, Czech Republic: Opening of the exhibition Angry Planet 2: Operation Continues at Dům umění města Brna. The international exhibition Angry Planet II: Operation Continues concentrates on geopolitical, intercultural, ecological and social conflicts which have become a key subject of public discourse. The authors of the exhibition concept use contemporary art to point out the relationships between different types of conflict and to set them into a broader context.
  The exhibition encompasses newly-created and existing works of art. The Brno exhibition Angry Planet 2: Operation in Progress is a follow-up to the Angry Planet show produced in 2017 by the National Technical Library and the Science Academy of the CR. Until June 10. 
  
• Prague, Czech Republic: Bora Akinciturk – Ville Kallio VIBRANT MATURITY® 7+ ADULT SHOW at FUTURA. “The soft machine eased himself down into his usual spot on the couch. He reached for the remote, which was lodged somewhere between the sagging cushions. As he searched, a throaty gagging noise got louder from the porch. “Cally!” Cally was determined to cough up a hairball.” Until June 17th.
• Prague, Czech Republic: “Harvesting Darkness” at FUTURA. In their joint exhibition Harvesting Darkness, artists Zuzana Žabková, Lucie Mičíková and Nik Timková transform a part of the Futura Gallery into a setting where the viewer can experience their imaginative attempt to trade our self-destructive civilization for a dark organic world in which new possibilities for existence may flourish. Working at the intersection of the artists’ own idiosyncratic aesthetic expression, discourses of post-human thought, and speculative fantasy literature, the artists try to create a synthesis in which the viewer is also involved.

April 25

• Ljubljana, Slovenia: “Transnationalisms (exhibition)” at Aksioma. “Liberalism vs fundamentalism, science vs fiction, transparency vs opacity, globalization vs nationalisms and balkanization: these are some of the contradictions and paradoxes of contemporary society, and the border is the place where they manifest more explicitly: the border between physical zones and particularly between nation states, but also that between the physical and digital, apparently introducing to a different zone of possibility. Curated by British artist James Bridle, this exhibition explores alternative models and protocols of citizenship, identity, and nationhood.” Featuring: Fabre, Jeremy Hutchison, They Are Here, Julian Oliver, Daniela Ortiz, Jonas Staal, Studio Folder.* On view until May 18.
• Moscow, Russia: Peresvetov Lane Gallery Nicolas Grospierre “A city that does not exist.” April 25 at 19:00 in the gallery “Peresvetov Pereulok” Association “Exhibition Halls of Moscow” will open an exhibition “City, which is not” Polish-French architectural photographer Nicolas Grospierre. Nicholas Grospierre is studying the phenomenon of block houses, working with the perspective topic as a reference to the tradition of the modernist architectural school. An exhibition of reflections on the topic of block housing as one of the most serious consequences of modernist architectural thought will take place in the gallery “Peresvetov Pereulok”, which is located on the first floor of a residential building in the courtyards of the Constructivist district at Avtozavodskaya. Until June 10.

Open Calls and Residencies 

• Manifesta18 / OPEN CALL with White Cube Blockchain Gallery:  “All of you, the children of the meanest electric owls and wardens in the factories of the clouds, get a hold on your dream. Dream of the best art worthy to be smeared on the bread of our days, with an abundance of words and caviar of new worlds.We, tired scientists of concrete views and cash figures, we will solve the equation and find the same, green, zigzag happiness of the melting walls of the iron prison. Art means art. If you can describe your concept of art, then it means there is.  If you can send me your concept of new-old art in the form of a manifesto, then you can give your Galatea to be scolded at yet another, the best exhibition of hell. If you are boring and will shake the sores of the old “isms” – you will be boring and need only to decorate the sorters of rich souls. For more info. Deadline to apply: April 20th. 

• Open call: Plantelor 58 Residency – Photo Focus in Bucharest, Romania for international curators and artists working with photography. The Romanian Association of Contemporary Art (ARAC) in Bucharest, Romania is offering a residency opportunity for a curator and an artist to document and envision a site-specific project in Bucharest. “Plantelor 58 Artist Residency” aims to introduce international artists and curators to the Romanian cultural environment. The selected curator and artist will be encouraged to take as much inspiration as possible from the local context and work within the artistic medium of photography. The theme of this year’s residency focus is the architectural and the socio-cultural context of the residency space of 58 Plantelor, situated in a historical building near the Bucharest Old Centre. Applicants are welcome to ask for more details from the organizers before submitting their application, for more info. Deadline to apply: April 28. 

• Call for Applications: Curatorial Program in the City of Belgrade. The first international course for emerging curators to take place in Belgrade, Serbia, will be held from September to December 2018, and will draw upon the unique local and regional context as a critical source of knowledge. Participants will be engaged in a rigorous itinerary of extensive studio visits, research visits to public and private institutions and collections, along with a series of closed door workshop sessions led by both international and local mentors of the program. The program aims to situate curatorial practice within the specific contextual framework of the region, while also providing insights to the wider international framework related to exhibition-making practices on both a theoretical and practical level. Deadline to apply: April 30. For more info.

• Call for Applications: Residency program MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, the Goethe-Institut New York. Located on Manhattan’s Lower EastSide, Ludlow 38 has provided for curatorial experimentation in the tradition of the German “Kunstverein” since 2008. The residency program’s mission is to introduce new, international perspectives to the local art scene and to foster dialogue within the greater aesthetic and political context of New York and the United States. Deadline to apply: May 31. For more info.

• Call for Proposals: European ArtEast Foundation (EAEF) is inviting proposals for grants for research focused on Eastern European artists working in the region in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The purpose of these grants is to give art historians and curators the opportunity to carry out ambitious research projects that will make a significant contribution to the field of art history in Eastern Europe. The Foundation’s goal is to stimulate a nuanced understanding of the history and legacy of modernism in Eastern Europe and to bring attention to overlooked artists who were important in their time but had no international exposure due to the specific political context. Deadline to apply: June 4, 2018. For more info. 

Art News From Around the Blok

• With the beginning of spring, the Museum of the History of the Vitebsk Folk Art School opens in the city, located in the same building where Marc Chagall was then director, and where the claimed the ideals of Suprematism Kazimir Malevich wer realized, as per The Art Newspaper Russia. 

• The most expensive Malevich is on sale again. At the auction Christie’s will be sold “Suprematist composition” Kazimir Malevich, ten years ago, cost $ 60 million.