[artinfo] Szubverziv reszletek

Fri Feb 5 10:43:48 CET 2010

A SZUBVERZÍV RÉSZLETEK<http://subversive.c3.hu/hu/Subversive%20Excerpts.php>címu
kiállításhoz kapcsolódó program:
*Ileana Pintilie, Iris Dressler, Hans D. Christ eloadásai, beszélgetés,
vetítések.

*2010. február 12., péntek, 17-21h
MKE, Intermédia Tanszék: Budapest, Kmety György utca 27.

(Az eloadások angol nyelvuek)
_____________________________________________________________

*SUB**VERS**IVE EXCERPTS
*(Experimental and conceptual art practices established between the
nineteen-sixties and eighties in Europe and South America under the
influence of military dictatorships and communist regimes.

Exhibition on view till 28 February 2010, Trafo Gallery: 1094 Budapest,
Liliom utca 41.)

*Related events organized by the
Intermedia Department of the **Hungarian** **University** of Fine Arts, **
Budapest**:

Screenings; lectures by Iris Dressler & Hans D. Christ, Ileana Pintilie
**5-9 p.m.**, **12 February 2010**,
*Budapest, Kmety György utca 27.
*
Iris Dressler & Hans D. Christ:  Subversive Practices

*The exhibition "Subversive Practices" at the Württembergischer Kunstverein
in Stuttgart - parts of it being presented now at the Trafo Gallery -
devoted itself to experimental and conceptual art practices that had
established between the nineteen-sixties and eighties in Europe and South
America under the influence of military dictatorships and communist regimes.
The exhibition has been developed by a team of thirteen international
curators in close collaboration over a two-year process. In Stuttgart the
exhibition comprised more than 300 works by around eighty artists

The exhibition's nine sections focused on various contexts and strategies of
artistic production along with their positioning vis-ŕ-vis political and
cultural repression in the GDR, Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, Spain,
Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. Of equal concern here were both the
particularities of and the relations between the different temporal and
local environments.

The network behind the project traces back to the research project "Vivid
(radical)  Memory" (2007), carried out by the University of Barcelona, the
Württembergischer Kunstverein and C3 Center for Culture and Communication
Foundation in Budapest. As a "follow-up"of this research project,
"Subversive Practices" was organized by the Württembergischer Kunstverein in
collaboration with the C3 Center for Culture and Communication Foundation in
Budapest and the Arteleku center of culture in San Sebastian.

The exhibition understood itself as a snapshot of an ongoing research, based
on a network of curators, artists, art historians and theorists in
Europeand South
America. It undertook the experiment of a shifted cartography and an
extended understanding of conceptual art, which has become established well
beyond the Anglo-American canon. In this respect, the related
interdisciplinary, collaborative, and sociopolitical potentials were
particularly emphasized - that is, the paradigm shifts between visual arts,
politics, society, sciences, architecture, design, mass media, literature,
dance, theater, activism, and so forth, which have been educed by these
potentials.

Furthermore, the focus has been on artistic practices that not only
radically question the conventional concept of art, the institutions, and
the relationship between art and public, but that have, at the same time,
subversively thwarted structures of censorship and opposed the existing
systems of power. Here, body, language, and public space represent the
pivotal instruments, of resistance, symbolic and performative in equal
measure. The appropriation of media and distribution channels - especially
the postal service - has in turn played a distinctive role in the
establishment of the widely ramified networks between (Eastern) Europe
and Latin
America.

In lieu of conceptualizing a comprehensive and homogenized discourse, the
exhibition reflected specific questions and problems. The curators each
developed individual presentational models for their respective exhibition
section. In different ways they approach to the problem in presenting
ephemeral, time- and location-specific art forms. Thus, the exhibition could
be experienced also on a formal level as a polyphonic parcours, a
multidimensional cartography.

Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler are directing the Württembergischer
Kunstverein in Stuttgart since 2005. In 1996, they founded the Hartware
MedienKunstverein in Dortmund, which they directed until 2004.

*Ileana Pintilie: Between Limits. Escaping into the Concept
Two Cases: Ion Grigorescu and Dan Perjovschi*

The period 1965-1989 coincided, in Romania's case, with the ascension to
power of Nicolae Ceausescu's Communist Party and the slow but predictable
process of the installation of a personal dictatorship. In parallel with the
official art, promoted by the political power and illustrating its ideology,
several artists tried to make up "survival" techniques, avoiding the
exhibitions of the communist mainstream as much as possible.

The way in which they took a distance was by tackling personal subjects,
which, however, reflected the country's political situation - the theme of
the body (Ion Grigorescu), regarded as the ultimate form of individuality
and intimacy, as opposed to the politically polluted public space, a
critical reception of the political context, gliding towards a personal
dictatorship. The development of experimental practices which opened the way
for new forms of expression was basically targeted at ephemeral forms, at
irony and social criticism.
Among these artistic practices, which were not acknowledged officially,
there was experimental photography and film, which enabled the artists to
come up with new and unexpected visual solutions. Many of these artistic
ideas and concepts envisaged the process, trying to capture the development
of an idea along a series of films, in performances in the middle of nature
or in photographs recording these events.

Even if they worked in relative isolation, the Romanian artists managed to
exhibit in alternative spaces sometimes - in cultural clubs or even in their
own studios or flats. Others tried to communicate with each other freely and
unconventionally, mail art offering an independent, ironic and subversive
medium, as well as a way to defy censorship (Dan Perjovschi).

After the fall of communism, Dan Perjovschi's evolution grew more
conspicuous as the artist started to perform in public, trying to maintain a
permanent contact with his viewers. At first, this was possible with the
help of a type of conceptual performance, later, by means of a drawing
performance, which always implies a dialogue with the viewers and a constant
rapport with them. The artist developed the ephemeral and performative
nature of his work, to the detriment of a "constructed", museum-like kind of
work.
*
*
*Further information:
**http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/programme/2009/exhibitions/subversive/** **
**http://subversive.c3.hu/
http://trafo.hu/statics/trafo_galeria***

*Partners of the Subversive Practices project:
*Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
*http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/**
*C3 Center for Culture & Communication Foundation, Budapest
*http://www.c3.hu
*Arteleku, San Sebastian
*http://arteleku.net*

*A project supported by* the Culture Programme of the European Union and the
National Cultural Fund of Hungary (NKA).