previews 26.11.09 Erik van Tuijn
Amsterdam
Rijksakademie
27/11/09 - 29/11/09
...and six other reasons to visit RijksakademieOPEN 2009 this weekend
LEARNINGS FROM SÃO PAULO
17/08/09 Maxine Kopsa
This is the story of a five-day exploration of São Paulo. Or rather, a declaration of love for this gigantic, all-consuming metropolis and its equally huge and greedy art institutes and cultural centres.
Art in the Deserted City Detroit Has Soul
20/04/07 Mars van Grunsven
Each month, thousands of residents leave Detroit, never to return again. The city is allegedly too dangerous to live in and beyond saving.
But for the local artists, the desolate urban landscape is a precious incentive.
At the invitation of artist Nasrin Tabatabai, architects Niloufar Niksar, Kianoosh Vahabi and film maker Poutia Jahanshad from Tehran discuss the state of artistic production in their country. In Iran, visual art is still seen as opponent of the system unless it conforms to the gevernment's ideological principles.
Read more..Privatization Fever The economy of art in Belgrade
20/12/06 Marko Stamenkovic
Belgrade won a award last year for its favourable investment climate. The economy has been flourishing since Serbia opened itself to world trade. This wave of privatization is affecting everyone, not least the art world, which is reacting critically. Artists and artists' groups have initiated various studies into the consequences of these economic changes for the population.
In this extensive exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Los Angeles is presented as the final bastion of the 20th-century avant-garde. Multi-layered and versatile, art from Los Angeles spoke the appropriate language for a contemporary, multicultural metropolis where life could be as hard and as cynical as it could be free and uninhibited. Domeniek Ruyters considers the exhibition in Paris which covers the years between 1955 and 1985 and Bruce Hainley adds cursory notes on what has been happening in the LA art scene since.
Read more..Ghosts, Magic, Enchantment
23/04/06 David Lillington
The supernatural is not really a subject one can pin down. It’s more about checking its periphery, testing its boundaries, trying to understand what it is that fascinates some artists. David Lillington investigated the phenomenon and spoke to a number of artists about their interest in ghosts, magic and spells.
Lebt und arbeitet in Wien
23/04/06 Christian Höller
What makes Vienna a success in terms of contemporary art? Home to the curator of the next Documenta, one of the most well respected company collections (the Generali Foundation), several institutions offering challenging programmes and, not least, a growing number of internationally recognised artists: Elke Krystufek, Mathias Poledna (now on view at Witte de With), Josef Dabernig, Florian Pumhösl, Gelitin and many others. Christian Höller describes the cultural situation of the city, revisits the idea of the so-called ‘federal curator’ and concludes that the hope for the future lies in alternative initiatives and sub-scenes.
The idea economy in the former Eastbloc The TB3 and the battle for the brand name
23/02/06 Ann Demeester
The Tirana Biennial has so far made little news, despite its turbulent history. Ann Demeester, a curator for the second exhibition, writes about the unsavoury methods used by Flash Art to make money at the expense of the fledgling biennial.
In this reportage we look back at a manifestation which, due to all the publicity for the Istanbul Biennial, has got little attention: The Tirana Biennial. The following is a short interview in which the Albanian artist Edi Muka outlines the chief ideas behind its recently concluded third edition.
