click here to listen to the announcement

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Exhibition Press Release

The German concept of heimat – an indefinable and largely untranslatable notion of a persons’ homeland, a world within another which binds a person to a specific place by birth, childhood, lineage and language – constitutes the individuals self and collective identities, mediating between the provincial and national. Heimat was born out of necessity; a reaction to the onset of modernity, loss of individuality and meaningful community.  Attempts at a translation in to English, such as motherland, birthplace, homeland and hometown, fail to encapsulate the totality of the terms’ multitude of meanings. It is important to consider, therefore, the historical discrepancies between Germanic and Anglophone nations that have caused such incomprehension to occur. In doing so, it becomes apparent that heimat exists as a paradox; formed out of the specificities of its origin, which it has itself further shaped and altered by its shadowy presence. As Peter Blickle asserts: ‘the idea of Heimat is both part of the development toward a German nation-state and the expression of an uneasiness with everything that goes along with this development – capitalisation, industrialisation, politicisation.’[1] If we consider heimat in terms of its facilitation of the rise of the German state – via provincialism and regional dialects – then it is its’ emphasis on rootedness and belonging that are most significant.

Outwith the study of heimat, there continues to be a wealth of discussion surrounding spiraling mobility levels and the freedom afforded to us by globalisation, with a particular emphasis on migrants as they journey outwards and the trauma experienced upon arrival at one, or multiple, host nations. Such a focus erases a consideration of those who have remained (voluntarily or otherwise) in their home country. Faced with the void of family, friends, work colleagues or members of the local community who have left in search of better prospects, the confinement of those remaining in the homeland often acts as the impetus for a sense of wanderlust (a strong impulse or longing to travel) or fernweh (an aching for distance). Critical discourse has until recently neglected the power-geometry of such mobility, a phenomenon not as evenly spread as would first appear. Germans, Speak German! aims to explore current migration issues – such as the border zone, the state of nationalism in Europe at present and the personal endurance of physical uncertainty in light of ever-increasing levels of bureaucracy – via the history and interpretations assigned to heimat.

[1] Blickle, P.; Heimat: A Critical Theory of the German Idea of Homeland, 2004, p.48

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The exhibition Under Deconstruction was first commissioned by the Icelandic Art Center for the Pavilion of Iceland at the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia- and curated by Ellen Blumenstein.  Those projects are now on display at the National Gallery of Iceland. The exhibition explores existential and current socio-economic and political issues in Iceland and elsewhere, using video, performance, sculpture, sound, and music. It is a combination of newly conceived and ongoing projects, such as Constitution of the Republic of Iceland (2008/2011), Your Country Doesn’t Exist (2003, ongoing) and Exorcising Ancient Ghots (2011). On the  building’s facade,  a neon sign bearing the slogan “Your Country Doesn’t Exist” in Icelandic.

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Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, 2010-2011

Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, 2011
Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, 2011
Close-up of script of Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, 2011
Work-description of Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, hand-written on column by museum staff , 2011

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Two audio recordings; length 33:10 min (Italian spoken – played through speakers) and 31:51 min (English spoken – played through headphones), A4 text pages/script (Italian and English) hung on wall(s), audio-equipment, speakers (in main installation space) and headphones (in main installation space, balcony and in the building ́s main staircase). The work Exorcising Ancient Ghosts originated in Naples, after a research on Greco-Roman imaginary in the area and feminist archeology, focusing on pornography, sex and gender depiction in ancient times.

The work is an audio-recording from a performance of a a local Neapolitan woman and a Balinese man, reading a text-collage in Italian while they have sex. The text is composed from ancient Greek (juridic-, literary- political and philosophical) text fragments on women and foreigners and their position in society, A second audio recording registers a performance of a native English speaking couple, woman and man, reading an English translation of the same text, also while having sex.

In ancient Athens married women had restricted rights and were to stay at home and foreigners residing in the Polis had as well restricted rights. Racial contamination was of great concern to the patriarchal society. The work was triggered by this friction and an ancient Athenian law, dating back from 5th century B.C., attributed to the orator Demosthenes, prohibiting Athenians and foreigners to live as husband and wife “in any way or manner whatsoever”, since their relation might produce impure citizens.

For the text-research we had the help of a team of PhD Researchers in ancient history and gender studies at the Federico II University in Naples, under the direction of Prof. Claudia Montepaone. For the preparations of the performers in Italy we worked together with an actress of experimental and concrete theater. The Neapolitan couple, a law-student and a cook, were not professional performers.
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Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/2011
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Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/11. Performance
costumes and posters with the proposal for a new constitution of Iceland, written and published in June 2011, by the nationally elected Constitutional Assembly.

Close-up of posters with the proposal for a new constitution of Iceland.

Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008/11

Constitution of the Republic of Iceland represents Castro and Ólafsson’s first collaboration with Icelandic composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir. For this piece, the artists worked with the composer to create a score to which the Icelandic Constitution would be performed by soprano and baritone vocals, piano, double bass, and a mixed chamber choir. The composition was first publicly performed in March 2008 in Iceland, six months before the collapse of the country’s banking system. The video presented in Venice is a recent performance of the work, which was staged at The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service Television, and broadcast on Icelandic national TV in February 2011. The video was aired two times, the first of which having been the day the new elected Constitutional Assembly was set to begin revising the Icelandic constitution.  The posters are the new proposal that has been drafted.

Your Country Doesn’t Exist, 2003-ongoing

Installation-view from the video work Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011.
Hanging from ceiling; performance costumes from Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste, on wall; Installation-view, Your Country Doesn´t Exist –Do It Yourself, 2011

Detail from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration
with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany.

Installation-view from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany. Photographs documenting G.S. Gunnarsson painting the painting, at the Icelandic ambassador´s residency in Berlin.

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.Your Country Doesn’t Exist is an ongoing campaign, whic started in 2003 in Istanbul in the frame of our exhibition at Platform Garanti CAC, the beginning of which year was marked by global antiwar protests against the invasion of Iraq by the US and it’s allies. Since then, the project has traveled the world infiltrating different contexts spreading the message, “Your country doesn’t exist” in different languages and through various visual modes, including billboards, TV and radio advertisements, post-stamps, drinking cans, sculptures, wall-drawings and performances to name a few. For the 54th Venice Biennial, we presented the projects in four iterations. A neon-sign bearing the slogan in Italian on the facade of the Icelandic Pavilion, a painting by numbers, a music-video filmed in Venice, and during the opening days Live performances of the same work were staged throughout the canals of Venice. T-shirts with the slogan were made througout the duration of the exhibition and sold to the public.

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]]> http://libia-olafur.com/?feed=rss2&p=831 0 http://libia-olafur.com/?p=803 http://libia-olafur.com/?p=803#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:53:44 +0000 jorge http://libia-olafur.com/?p=803
Installation-view of Who is afraid of red, yellow and you?, 2011

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, invited by Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, exhibit for the first time a selection of recent and past works in Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo CAAC, (Andalusian Contemporary art Center) under the title “Your Country Doesn’t Exist”. The exhibition takes place in Seville, Spain from 24th November until 12nd of February 2012.

Exhibition entrance, on the left Demiliciones y Excavaciones 2002/11
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Demoliciones y Excavaciones 2002/11

Installation-view from Demoliciones y Excavaciones, 2002/11
Installation-view from Demoliciones y Excavaciones, 2002/11

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Demoliciones y Excavaciones is a photographic series and slide projection shot i 2002 as a part of the project and environment Un elemento más, realized in Malaga in the same year. The artist mapped and documented a part of the old city center that had already undergone a process of gentrification, and more recently faced a new wave of immigration from North Africa. The title was taken from the billboard of a construction company, and can be taken literally: it references the demolition and excavation of some essential structures of a different Europe, one that is about to disappear.

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Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/11

Installation-view Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/11
Close-up from the posters with the new proposal translated version into Spanish commissioned for the exhibition.

Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/11

Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008/11
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Constitution of the Republic of Iceland is a video documenting a performance of the musical composition of the same name. In 2007 the artists commissioned the Icelandic composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir to write music to all 81 articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Iceland.  The video, made in collaboration with the National Icelandic Broadcasting Service was shot at the INBS studios in February 2011, and then broadcast twice nationally. It could also be viewed on the INBS internet page. The broadcast was meant to coincide with the first meetings of the democratically elected Constitutional Assembly (whose task was to draft a new Constitution) to reflect on the Constitution in a new light and possibly reflect on changes people would like to make. The artists directed with the tv producer with an open set of the rules in our dialogue in order to destandardize, and alter the format of the tv program. The posters are the new proposal that has been drafted, displayed in Spanish at the exhibition in Seville. posters with the translated version into Spanish commissioned for the exhibition.

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La Vida es un Contratiempo, 2007

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view from the corridor, to the right, the photographic serie La vida es un contratiempo, 2007

view from the photographic serie La vida es un contratiempo, 2007

.The photograph, taken in the docks of Reykjavik’s old harbor, likely soon to be transformed into a residential area, shows the artists dressed as a female realtor and a (migrant) male fish factory worker, acting an unlikely encounter of those two figures speculating about the site and apparently coming to an agreement.

view from photograph the artist installing their show “Tu país no existe” in CAAC Sevilla, 2011
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Everybody is doing what they can, 2009

Installation-view from Everybody is doing what they can, video-installation, 2009

Installation-view from one of the videos of Everybody is doing what they can, video-installation, 2009

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The work “Everybody is doing what they can” is a group of 35 screentest depicting people from all strata of Icelandic society. From ministers to homeless, CEOs, activists, mentally/phisically disabled, actors, historians, migrants, cafe owners, philosophers… the artists used the space to set up a studio during the filming. They informally interviewed people, asking questions on their background, profession, situation, and on society.  The economic crash of 2008 in Iceland happened while they were making this work and the set became a place for reflection and opposition during this process. The portraits they present here where made at the beginning of the project, just before the crash.  After the thing changed dramatically in the lifes of people and society. Regina Buarnadóttir is an economist at the Icelandic Central Bank; John Gnarr is a famous actor and comedian and currently Mayor of the city of Reykiavij ( a year after the crash he run for mayor with “the best Party”, the new subversive party he formed with artists.  Petur Hárm Annson is an architect and writer, he talk to us about the city of Reykjavik.

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Your Country Doesn’t Exist 2009/10

View from installation of the photographic serie of Your Country Doesn´t Exist in  the city of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2009/10.

Photographic serie of Your Country Doesn´t Exist in  the city of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2009/10.

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Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste, 2011

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Installation-view from the video work Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011.

Installation-view from the video work Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011.

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This video is a new iteration of the on-going project campaign Your Country Doesn’t Exist as a recording of a staged musical public performance in Venice. The artists comissioned the composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir to write the score for a contemporary serenade. A mezzosoprano flowting in a gondola, accompanied by trompet and guitar, sings the serenade. The lyrics intertwine in several languages the sentence “This is an announcement from Libia and Ólafur: your country doesn’t exist, your country doesn’t exist” with phrases taken from a text by Antonio Majaca, reflecting on the ongoing project. The video, shot throughout the  city in the afternoon of two spring days in early May and during the golden hour, is an edit of the several performances the performers made throughout the city, yuxtaposed to the daily local life and its omnipresent tourist reality.

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The official Icelandic representation at the 54th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia is the Spanish-Icelandic duo Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, whose collaborations explore the political, socio-economic, and personal forces that affect life in the present day. Their work, which has taken them to cities around the world, and often develops out of their personal interactions with people and places, can be characterized as an interpretation of culture and the complex relationships that compose it. The 2011 exhibition is organized by the Icelandic Art Center in Reykjavík, Iceland, under the commissionership of Dorothée Kirch, and is curated by Ellen Blumenstein. The Pavilion of Iceland is located in the former laundry house of the Palazzo Zenobio at the Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael in Dorsoduro.

Castro and Ólafsson’s exhibition for Venice, Under Deconstruction, unveils current sociopolitical issues in Iceland and elsewhere, using video, performance, sculpture, sound, and music interventions. It features: three new iterations of their ongoing project, Your Country Doesn’t Exist (2003-present); a music-video, Constitution of the Republic of Iceland (2008-2011), showcased within the pavilion and made in collaboration with the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service; as well as a sound sculpture, Exorcising Ancient Ghosts (2010), installed on the roof terrace of the pavilion.

From the opening of the Pavilion. On facade Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011

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Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste, 2011 (Your Country Doesn´t Exist) (ongoing from 2003)

Your Country Doesn’t Exist is an ongoing campaign, begun in 2003, for which the artists have traveled the world spreading the message, “Your country doesn’t exist” in different languages and through various visual modes, including billboards, TV advertisements, and wall-drawings. In Venice, Castro and Ólafsson are presenting the project in three iterations. Preceding the Biennale, the artists staged and recorded a public performance that while singing the phrase: “This is an announcement from Libia and Ólafur: Your country doesn’t exist”. The vocalist (mezzo-soprano Ásgerður Júníusdóttir) sang the phrase in several languages, and was accompanied by both trumpet (David Boato) and guitar (Alberto Mesirca).

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The lyrics were composed by the artists, and included appropriated phrases from a text by writer and curator Antonia Majaca, about the Your Country Doesn’t Exist project. The score was composed by Icelandic composer Karólna Eiríksdóttir. For the duration of the Biennale, a video installation of the performance is displayed in the Pavilion of Iceland. On 2nd and 3d of June, performances will also be staged in the canals of the city. The gondola will follow a route passing the national pavilions in the Giardini di Castello, in the city center and in the canal in front of the Icelandic Pavilion in Dorsoduro. Additionally, a neon sculpture reading “Il tuo paese non esiste” (“Your country doesn’t exist” in Italian) is installed on the façade of the pavilion. The final part of the series is a “Do-it-Yourself” painting the artists made  in February 2011 in collaboration with the Icelandic ambassador to Germany, Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson.

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From the opening of the Pavilion. On facade Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011

Installation-view from the video work Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011. Video-still from Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011

Video-still from Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011
Video-still from Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011
Installation-view from the costumes of Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011 and Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11

Installation-view from the costumes of Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Doesn´t Exist), 2011 and Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11, in background view of Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (video)

Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11

Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, 2008-2011

Constitution of the Republic of Iceland represents Castro and Ólafsson’s first collaboration with Icelandic composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir. For this piece, the artists worked with the composer to create a score to which the Icelandic Constitution would be performed by soprano and baritone vocals, piano, double bass, and a mixed chamber choir. The composition was first publicly performed in March 2008 in Iceland, six months before the collapse of the country’s banking system. The video presented in Venice is a recent performance of the work, which was staged at The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service Television, and broadcast on Icelandic national TV in February 2011. The video was aired two times, the first of which having been the day the new elected Constitutional Assembly was set to begin revising the Icelandic constitution.

Performed by: Ingibjörg Guðjónsdóttir, soprano; Bergþór Pálsson, baritone; Tinna Þorsteinsdóttir, piano; Gunnlaugur Torfi Stefánsson, double-bass; Hymnodia, chamber coir; Eyþór Ingi Jónsson, conductor.

Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11
Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11
Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11
Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11
Installation-view from Constitution of the Republic of Iceland 2008-11
Installation-view from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany.

Installation-view from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany.

Detail from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany.

Detail from Your Country Doesn´t Exist – Do It Yourself, 2011. Painting made in collaboration with Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, the Icelandic ambassador to Germany.

Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts on the roof terrace of Pavilion of Iceland

Exorcising Ancient Ghosts, 2010-11

Two audio recordings; length 33:10 min (Italian spoken – played through speakers) and 31:51 min (English spoken – played through headphones), A4 text pages/script (Italian and English) hung on wall(s), audio-equipment, speakers (in main installation space) and headphones (in main installataion space, balcony and in the building ́s main staircase). The work Exorcising Ancient Ghosts originated in Naples, after a research on Greco-Roman imaginary in the area and feminist archeology, focusing on pornography, sex and gender depiction in ancient times.

The work is an audio-recording from a performance of a a local Neapolitan woman and a Balinese man, reading a text-collage in Italian while they have sex. The text is composed from ancient Greek (juridic-, literary- political and philosophical) text fragments on women and foreigners and their position in society, A second audio recording registers a performance of a native English speaking couple, woman and man, reading an English translation of the same text, also while having sex.

In ancient Athens married women had restricted rights and were to stay at home and foreigners residing in the Polis had as well restricted rights. Racial contamination was of great concern to the patriarchal society. The work was triggered by this friction and an ancient Athenian law, dating back from 5th century B.C., attributed to the orator Demosthenes, prohibiting Athenians and foreigners to live as husband and wife “in any way or manner whatsoever”, since their relation might produce impure citizens.

For the text-research we had the help of a team of PhD Researchers in ancient history and gender studies at the Federico II University in Naples, under the direction of Prof. Claudia Montepaone. For the preparations of the performers in Italy we worked together with an actress of experimental and concrete theater. The Neapolitan couple, a law-student and a cook, were not professional performers.

Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts on the roof terrace of Pavilion of Iceland
Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts on the roof terrace of Pavilion of Iceland
Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts on the roof terrace of Pavilion of Iceland
Installation-view from the audio sculpture Exorcising Ancient Ghosts on the roof terrace of Pavilion of Iceland

Tvoja zemlja ne postoji / Your country doesn´t exist - Billboards in public space

Where Everything Is Yet to Happen
1st chapter: “Can you speak of this? -Yes, I can”

Curated by Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača
@ Institute for Duration, Location and Variables (DeLVe)
www.delve.hr

Co-curators of the ‘1st chapter’ exhibition:
Anselm Franke, Vít Havránek & Zbyněk Baladrán, Ana Janevski, Erden Kosova, Nina Möntmann, Jelena Vesić

Participating artists and projects:
Ziad Antar, Yane Calovski, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Ivan Grubanov, Nicoline van Harskamp (in collaboration with Thijs Gadiot), Dragan Nikolić, Slaven Tolj, Liu Wei, Judi Werthein (Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača, “Can you speak of this? –Yes, I can.”)
Florian Schneider, Eyal Weizman (Anselm Franke, Circles of Collaboration)
The Archive of Self-Management (Vít Havránek & Zbyněk Baladrán)
Yael Bartana, Danilo Kiš, Artur Żmijewski, Želimir Žilnik (Ana Janevski, If You Want, We’ll Travel to the Moon Together)
A.C.A.B., Ronen Eidelman, Aydan Murtezaoğlu (Erden Kosova, Stepping Sideways)
Yael Bartana, Esra Ersen, Sharif Waked (Nina Möntmann, We Hear You Speaking in Secret Dialects)
Lutz Becker, Chto Delat/What is to be done? (Jelena Vesić, The Future Is the Extension of the Past by Other Means)

Tvoja zemlja ne postoji / Your country doesn´t exist – Billboards in public space

Tvoja zemlja ne postoji / Your country doesn´t exist – Billboards in public space

Libia Castro & Óafur Ólafsson, Your country doesn’t exist, 2003 – ongoing

Your country doesn’t exist is an ongoing campaign, appearing in different contexts, places, countries, and languages. So far it has appeared as a sculpture at Platform Garanti CAC; as an advertisement on national and regional TV and radio (in Iceland, the Netherlands and Austria); on billboards; as large painted wall drawings on houses and on a museum facade; in polyurethane foam and in clay; as a newspaper advertisement; as a postage stamp prototype in several museums; as a flyer; and as a drink automat serving cans of beer, soda, and water bearing the campaign’s slogan in different languages; on the cover of a magazine (a medical journal); as the coats of arms of two old sandstone  lyon sculptures guarding Museum Gouda (NL); as T-shirts and as a wall drawing in the Cafe of Rotor exhibition space in Linz etc. The work has traveled to Turkey, Iceland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and the United States – and now Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The title of the multi-faceted project Where Everything is Yet to Happen (WEIYTH) – starting off in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the framework of SpaPort Biennial 2009/10 – contains references to duration, location and variables of an expected event. These ‘uncertain parameters’ are located in a breach between a past that does not offer, in Badiou’s terms, an event to which we would bind ourselves to fidelity, and a future from which one expects precisely that – the “miracle” of event.

Although Bosnia-Herzegovina is the starting point of the project – with its perpetuating state of political ‘temporariness’ resulting from the still unresolved ethnic tensions and war traumas, the lack of consensus on the basic geopolitical ‘constitution’ and the unending protectorate of the ‘international community’ – it is by no means the only ‘place of expectation’. On the contrary, the project seeks to subvert the view of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans as the antithetical periphery of Europe, and refuses to exoticise it as a ’space of conflict’. Rather, it establishes it as an originating point of the gaze for reflecting on the urgency to rethink the notions of future, community and co-existence beyond the dominant models of ethnopolitics and of the nation-state, both in ‘transitional’ as well as Western, ‘advanced’ neo-liberal democracies .

The 1st chapter of the project, the exhibition “Can you speak of this? -Yes, I can”, takes its cue from Agamben’s essay “On Potentiality’ and his referece to Anna Akhmatova’s introduction to her poem Requiem, in which she recounts how, while waiting in line in front of the Leningrad jail during the Stalin purges, a woman suddenly asked her if she could „describe this“. To this request to articulate the horror that surrounded them, the poet answered affirmatively. As Agamben notes, “I can” here does not mean a conviction of the possession of certain capacities that guarantee success in ‘describing’ the indescribable, but a radical acceptance of the experience of potentiality – “[which] is, nevertheless, absolutely demanding”.

By appropriating the question and its explicitly affirmative answer, the first chapter of the project WEIYTH is a way of setting up a stage for potentiality, one where „speech“, but also a refusal to speak can take place – first of all by asking the basic question of what art can, and must, speak about in complex political environments such as BH, specifically the Republic of Srpska, without taking a form of yet another ‘post/pre-emergency’ biennial.

Answering this question emerges on the basis of curatorial ‘complicity’ – by the involvement of a group of co-curators the initial starting points of the project were further articulated, accentuated or questioned, and new ones instigated, evolving into a polyphonic structure that opens up space for several points of departure for the future of the project which is itself in constant mode of becoming.

“Can you speak of this? -Yes I can” is an elaboration of some of the themes and moments which have come into being gradually through the multidirectional communication among curators and artists, that reinforced its “diagnostic” and ”analytic” capacity, forming the exhibition as an initial project thesaurus comprised of a series of topics and questions related to the issues of complicity, collaboration, politics of language, belonging, culturalization of politics, the potential of non-essentialist forms of community and finally, the audacity of speech as a form of the political.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with contributions by the artists, curators and co-curators.

Exhibition opening:
Banja Luka Fortress, October 20, 2009, 8 pm

Roundtable discussion with Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača, Vít Havránek, Ana Janevski, Anselm Franke and Jelena Vesić, October 20, 2009, 4 pm

Locations:
Terzić Gallery | Salon of the Museum of Contemporary art | Banja Luka Fortress | Public space

WEIYTH is a project of the Institute for Duration, Location and Variables (DeLVe), conceived and developed by Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača

Organized by:
Protok – Center for Visual Communication
Veselina Masleše 1/11, Banja Luka, BH
www.protok.org

Supported by:

Swiss Cultural Program in the Western Balkans, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Ministry of Education and Culture of RS, City of Banja Luka, Ministry of civil affairs BH

Video still from Lobbyists

The PRIX DE ROME.NL is the oldest Dutch ‘state’ prize for talented visual artists based in the Netherlands and under 35 years of age.

The jury of the PRIX DE ROME.NL 2009 consists of Kestutis Kuizinas (LT), Yael Bartana (IL), Jurgen Bey (NL), Bruce McLean (UK) and Barbara Visser (NL). The jury has selected a long list of ten artists out of 230 submissions. This long list will be shown at both Witte de With in Rotterdam and by de Appel in Amsterdam at the off-site location of the Westergasfabriek (‘Zuiveringshal Oost’).

Witte de With presents work by: Rossella Biscotti (IT), Nicoline van Harskamp (NL), Rob Hornstra (NL), Helmut Smits (NL), and Jasmijn Visser (NL).
De Appel shows (at the off-site location of the Westergasfabriek) work by: Maze de Boer (NL), Heidi Linck (NL), Ólafur Ólafsson i.c.w. Libia Castro, (IS / ES), Marc Oosting (NL), and Sara Rajaei (IR).

The PRIX DE ROME.NL 2009 exhibition has been curated by Sarah Farrar (de Appel) and Juan A. Gaitán (Witte de With).

The four finalists – Rossella Biscotti (I T), Nicoline van Harskamp (NL), Ólafur Ólafsson i.c.w. Libia Castro (IS / ES) and Sara Rajaei (IR) – made new work. On the basis of this work, the jury will grant the prizes of € 45.000, € 20.000, and the two awards of € 10.000.

Announcement on 28 May 2009 at the Westergasfabriek.

Video still, Lobbyists

TITLE: Lobbyists / YEAR: 2009 / A WORK BY:  Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson
MATERIAL: Video HD, color, sound  / LENGTH: 16 mint
LANGUAGE: Narration and vocals in English, spoken language; Dutch, English, Polish SUBTITLES: English and local language / MUSIC: Hjálmar / TEXT: Tamasin Cave
NARRATION AND VOCALS: Caroline Dalton and Hjálmar / CAMERA: Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson / EDITING: Kristján Loðmfjörð, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson
APPEARENCE BY: Wytze Russchen – Russchen Consultants,
Julie Vermooten – The European Cosmetics Association (Colipa),
Frauke Thies – Green Peace, Paul de Klerck – Friends of the Earth Europe,
Erik Wesselius – Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and others

In this video, Castro and Ólafsson portray lobbyists performing under working conditions, exploring the maelstrom surrounding their activity in Brussels and Strasbourg. In preparation for their work, the artists studied historical and contemporary sources constructing the figure of the lobbyist, interviewed and filmed a variety of people associated with lobbyist associations and civilian ‘watchdog’ groups, and dug into registration and music videos. They commissioned British reporter Tamasin Cave to write an article about the current situation and worked with british actress Caroline Dalton and the Icelandic reggae group Hjálmar to perform this text as a new song and the soundtrack to their video. The video touches on different genres, juxtaposing imagery with a newspaper article vocalized to dub music, and throughout the work humor is used as a binding agent. These contrasting and sometimes alienating elements trigger the viewer´s active involvement and reflection on the subject of the work as well as on the work and medium itself.

Lobbyists received third prize in the 2009 edition of the Dutch art prize Prix de Rome.

This work has been made possible by the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten and Prix de Rome 2009, Amsterdam.

Video still, Lobbyists

Video still, Lobbyists

Video still, Lobbyists

Video still, Lobbyists

Video still, Lobbyists

Uterus Flags outside of Galleria Riccardo Crespi

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson

Galleria Riccardo Crespi – Via Mellerio 1, Milan
Preview 31 March 2009, 6:30 pm
31 March 2008 – 16 May 2009

Curated by Gabi Scardi

Press release:

The Galleria Riccardo Crespi presents an exhibition by Libia Castro  and Ólafur Ólafsson: she from Spain, he from Iceland, they are a couple who have been working together since 1997. While exploring a wide range of media, they have lately begun using video as the main instrument of their artistic research.
Sensitive to the context, to the transformations, tensions and contradictions that run through a present in perpetual redefinition, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson see art as a way of interpreting the world around them and feel the need to do everything they can to combat the automatism of situations that are accepted a priori.
Among the phenomena of a global nature that have struck them most are those linked to the transcultural tendency in today’s world and to its consequent mobility, something that was unthinkable just a short time ago.
One of their best known works is the music video Caregivers, which tackles one aspect of this new mobility.
Caregivers are increasingly common figures in society, but this does not make them more represented or less oppressed. Necessary in countries where an individual who is not self-sufficient becomes a burden in relation to lifestyles based on speed, efficiency and the formatting of spaces and family groups, these women, in order to help their families, face a sort of voluntary exile that takes them to wealthier nations, where they look after other people’s infirmities. Living on the margins, they are solitary and elusive figures whose roles are defined but whose individual identities are not being recognized by the host country. Their way of life is rooted in silence and service, and their existence appears formless to us because they adapt themselves to the needs of the people they care for. We tend to observe them from a distance, as if they were different from us, as if they did not concern us.
In their quest for a language in which to express all this, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson have developed a double take on reality: that of a precise and analytical journalistic reportage, signed by Davide Beretta, and that of a documentary recording, shot in an urban setting, of moments in the daily life and work of carers and the people they are entrusted with.
To these two dimensions the artists have added another, generated by music.
Thus, while the text provides figures and facts and the images present fragments of the story of lives filled with humanity, it is the music, which the two artists have had composed for the purpose by Karólína Eiríksdóttir, that underscores the distance between these two different forms of viewing reality, emphasizing the complex stratification of sensations, expressions and experiences and imparting a sense of surreal disorientation to the situation.
In addition to Caregivers, the exhibition includes other works that have sprung from the attentive and critical gaze of these two artists, always interested in identifying the many questions that the present raises and always careful to avoid simplistic answers.

Installation view, O, holy times thousand! at Galerie Opdahl

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson - Video still from Caregivers

LIQUID FRONTIERS

The exhibition Liquid Frontiers is one of the main components of the Invisible Borders project displayed at Tri Postal in Lille within the wider Europe XXL Festival organized by Lille3000.

14.03. – 12.07.2009
Opening – March 14th 2009, 3 pm at Tri Postal, Avenue Willy Brandt, 59000 Lille, France

Participants: AES + F; Maja Bajevic; Pierre Bismuth; Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson; Blue Noses; Pavel Braila; Luchezar Boyadjiev; Artistarh Chernishev; Nina Fisher and Maroan El Sani; Vadim Fishkin; Lise Harlev; Irwin; Oleg Kulik; Cristina Lucas; Deimantas Narkevicius; Carsten Nicolai; Vladimir Nikolic; Roman Ondak; Adrian Paci; Sean Snyder; Nedko Solakov; Monika Sosnowka; Krassimir Terziev; Clemens Von Wedemeyer.

Curator: Iara Boubnova
The exhibition “Liquid Frontiers” presents a selection of artistic positions that explore the nature and the substance of what a border means today in the context of Europe, which is renewing itself. In the process of transformation over the last twenty years no artist in Europe has been left unconcerned or untouched, in one way or another, by the necessity to rethink frontiers. The artists in this event are engaging with the physical, the visual, the spiritual, the economic, the political, the metaphysical and even the interpersonal levels and realms of one formerly stable notion, a notion that is undergoing a significant alteration.

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly twenty years ago, the various borders and frontiers in the continent have never lost their presence or liquidity, to use a term from the world of finance. Yet they are shifting and rearranging themselves – from the ever-changing visa regulations to the rarely changing physical borders and all the way to the nearly disappearing frontiers whenever the market, investment and the consumption of goods are concerned. The borders and frontiers of and in Europe are ever more “liquid” – they are there and not there at the same time, they are defining us but they are being defined by us, they are there to overcome and yet they are there to protect.

The artists and works in this exhibition are engaged in or comment upon these processes. Sometimes through confrontation with the political or urban reality, sometimes through poetic interpretation of the effects borders and frontiers have on the individual; occasionally through recording and documenting and yet in other cases through emulation of frontiers in an art work; sometimes the goal is critique and analysis, at other – irony and laughter; sometimes the artist in the selection would narrate a real-life story while at other the story would be the product of an active imagination trying to make sense of a complex reality.

The artistic approaches in this exhibition while not exhausting all the various practices employed in the last few years, are yet representative of the ways artists, mainly but not only from the Eastern part of the continent, are acknowledging their new attitudes to frontiers now. Many a time the process of thinking is a process of trying to overcome a frontier much as an explorer would do.

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Installation view of Caregivers

OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich

OK | BIENNALE CUVÉE
World Selection of Contemporary Art
27. February –  May 15  2009

A project for LINZ 2009 EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

Under the title BIENNALE CUVEE the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz/Austria presents a selection of artistic projects from the most important international biennials of 2008 with an emphasis on the Asian biennials in the selection.  The exhibition offers an insight into the international art world and an opportunity for a condensed experience of contemporary art.

In addition to an exhibition in the OK itself, various locations and sites in the city of Linz will also be opened to present art projects. Both public and private institutions operate as partners here, making their facilities available and taking part in developing the contents of the project.

Artists:
Nevin Aladag, Christopher Thomas Allen, Shaarbek Amankul,  Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan, Zadok Ben-David, Lene Berg, Ursula Biemann, Beth Campbell,  Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Chieh-Jen Chen, Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani, Petra Gerschner, Shilpa Gupta, Hans Haacke, John Jordan, Kuswidananto a.k.a Jompet, Dinh Q. Le with Hai Quoc Tran and Danh Van Le, Charles Lim Li Yong, Renata Lucas, Luigi Ontani, Wilfredo Prieto, Ki Bong Rhee, Andreas Siekmann, Taryn Simon, The Yes Men, José Angel Toirac, Su-Mei Tse, Klaus Weber, Julita Wójcik, Cheng-Ta Yu, Wang Zhan, Ki Jong Zin

Curated by Manray Hsu and Martin Sturm, in Kooperation with Franz Prieler (Energie AG) and Elfi Sonnberger (AK OÖ)