Beyond What Was Contemporary Art

Starting today@Secession, Vienna:

If we imagine Contemporary Art to be a historical period that emerged from 1989 in parallel to other hegemonic formations such as global neoliberalism, could it be argued that, in sync with the current seismic shifts in society, politics, and economy, it has now reached a dead end? Is Contemporary Art—art in and of the epoch of neoliberalism—on its way out, together with the system that made it possible? What kind of challenges and possibilities might then lie before us in the space of art in times when “business as usual” is no longer an option? Can we speculate collectively on how to move beyond the present confines of Contemporary Art’s normalized and normalizing practices, and articulate what can appear from Contemporary Art’s “formerness?”

Aérea Negrot

Zarina Bhimji: Out of Blue

“This project is about learning to listen to “difference” , the difference in shadows, microcosmos and sensitivity to difference in its various forms. Listening with the eyes, listening to changes in tone, difference of colour. It attempts to link to similar disturbances that have taken place in Kosovo and Rwanda. The work is not a personal indulgence; it is about making sense through the medium of aesthetics. It is a question that is close to my heart since the significant ethical issues have a resonance for me. I want to register these issues, to mark what has happened; elimination, extermination and erasure. Within the broader questions of difference an important part of the project would be the possibility of creative difference. Such a combination of personal and public aspects holds a particular resonance at the start of the 21^st century. I would hope that the work that emerges would be distanced from its personal or historical specifications. “ Zarina Bhimji

Watch the film on zarinabhimji.com

On Postcolony

Francisco Tropa, "Scenário" , 2011.

“a headless figure threatened by madness and quite innocent of any notion of centre, hierarchy, and stability...a vast dark cave where every benchmark and distinction come together in total confusion, and the rifts of the tragic and unhappy human history stand revealed: a mixture of the half-created and the incomplete...in short, a bottomless abyss where everything is noise, yawning gap, and primordial chaos. “ Achilla Mbembe, political scientist

Occupy Museums

Tonight@16Beaver:

Please join us for an open forum to explore some of the following questions:
Is effective political protest possible inside the arts institution?
How does co-optation work, and can its dynamics be flipped in our favor?
Is political art neither political nor art?
What are the pros and cons of international mobility within the arts?
Is Occupy Museums, or other arts groups, co-opting Occupy Wall Street?
Who are our role models, those who have engaged in effective institutional
change? What are the historical precedents can we look to as we approach
this event?
What are some of the ways other Occupy groups are effectively working with
institutions?

La femme américaine libérée des anées 70s

Samuel Fosso, "La femme américaine libérée des anées 70" .


"In every photograph the beautiful Fosso is subject, object and creator. Occasionally he includes other people, but their posture and placement relegates them to a secondary position. In one stagy, understated and slightly bizarre image, for example, Fosso, in large sunglasses autographs a book for an anonymous man, who inclines deferentially towards him. In other photographs, like an indifferent, latter-day and urbanised Narcissus, he’s pictured sitting or standing with himself through the magic of a double exposure. The shallow depth of the studio is transformed with flowers, cane furniture and patterned cloth into a parody of a genteel boudoir. Unlike Narcissus, however, it’s impossible to separate the reflected Fosso from the original - like a happily married couple, one ‘self’ co-habits comfortably with the other. It’s interesting to compare these double images with 19th- and early 20th-century ‘before-and-after conversion’ double-portrait photographs distributed by European missionaries as proof of their ‘civilising’ influence on various African colonies. Fosso’s playful fragmentation of the self-portrait creates a clever counterpoint to the continent’s history of photographic colonialism, a form of aesthetic Euro-centrism, which reduced indigenous cultural and social complexities to convenient one-liners. "

Ghada Amer: 8 women in black and white

Ghada Amer, "8 women in black and white" , 2008.


A 21st century Sheherazade that uses visual language for the caliph to stop killing.

ISINGQALA by Mamela Nyamza (extracts - HD)

Iman Issa: Spectacle for an Imaginary Audience

Iman Issa: Spectacle for an Imaginary Audience (installation on the roof on Tahrir Square) , 2003