The Last Analog Revolution, a Memory Box at the Venice Biennale as part of the Romanian Cultural Resolution-documentary
1 September – 27 November 2011
Opening:
Thursday, 1`st of September 2011, 7 pm
The exhibition project The Last Analog Revolution, a Memory Box by Stefan Constantinescu and Xandra Popescu will participate at the 54`th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia beginning with September the 1`st.
The Last Analog Revolution, a Memory Box functions within the framework of Romanian Cultural Resolution – documentary and will be exhibited at the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice.
Bringing together artists from former Eastern and Western Europe the project reflects on the evolving concepts of revolution and geo-political division.
The exhibition will present, under the form of a cardboard installation a series of video works by Stefan Constantinescu, Péter Forgács, Zuzanna Janin, Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, Deimantas Narkevicius and Yves Netzhammer, sound-work by Liliana Moro, and a sculpture by Via Lewandowski.
If the wave of changes sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have been referred to as the Digital Revolution, the events of 1989 can be grouped under the generic title of Analog Revolution. For nowadays revolutions, the free flow of information and media technology function as catalysts of social uprising. In the case of the 1989 revolutions, it was television which played the key role, enabling that first contact between two divided worlds. The project reflects on relationship between technological change and revolution, and on a deeper level on the idea of political divide – through walls and barriers.
By reconsidering the past the initiators of the project open the door to consider the politics of walls and borders in a wider sense. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, other walls and barriers still standing or emerging around the world.
Stefan Constantinescu (1968) is a visual artist and a filmmaker. In 2010 he participated in the Bucharest Biennial with the a painting and photography installation entitled An Infinite Blue. In 2009, he represented Romania at The Venice Biennial, with the films Passagen and Troleibuzul 92. In 2009 he co-directed with Julio Soto the film My Beautiful Dacia, a portrayal of Romania`s transition from Communism to Capitalism through the story of the Dacia automobile, an emblem of Communist Romania. In 2008 he conceived The Golden Age for Children, a pop-up book about Romania`s recent history.
Xandra Popescu (1980) is an author of text, film, video and exhibition projects. Through her work she addresses themes such as anonymous creativity, authorship and privacy in the knowledge economy. She studied Political Science and Dramatic Writing. Her work includes play writing, script writing and curatorial work. Her curatorial work Even if Nobody Wants You, I will Always Love You is exhibited form June to July 2011 in the Small Gallery of Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice.
Péter Forgács (1950) is a media artist and independent filmmaker, based in Budapest. He is known for his Private Hungary series of award winning films and installations often based on home movies from the 1920s-1980s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptured by an extraordinary historical trauma that occurs off screen. His international debut came with The Bartos Family in 1988. Between 2000-2002 Peter Forgács was artist in residence at The Getty Museum/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, where he created The Danube Exodus: Rippling Currents of the River installation. His works can be found in several museums and public collections. In 2009 Peter Forgács represented Hungary at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the Col Tempo- The W. Project installation.
Zuzanna Janin (1961) is an author of sculptures, installations, videos, photography and performance. The central themes of her work are: the idea of space, memory, time and transition. In 2009-2010 she worked on the first series of video installations Majka from the Movie composed of non-narrative episodes build on the 70`s Polish television series Madness of Majka Skowron. The main character of this television series was played by Zuzanna Janin herself as a child actor. Majka Skowron, a teenage girl escapes the mise en scène of the original film and vagabonds through a kaleidoscope of cinema and television frames from the 70 till present.
Via Lewandowsky (1963), in 1992 he participated in Documenta IX. In 1995 his often critical and provocative works earned him the Art Prize of the Leipziger Volkszeitung. In 2005 he won the Critics’ Prize for Visual Art. Via lives and works in Berlin. He is currently a resident at the Villa Massimo in Rome.
Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s artistic practice is based on collaboration and dialogue. This manifests itself in a multi-layered practice of film making, installation, photography, performance, publishing and curating. Their work is engaged with challenging and interrogating terms such as “participation”, “collaboration”, “the social turn” and the traditional roles of the artist as producer and the audience as recipient. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s current body of work, The Museum of Non Participation, commissioned by Artangel, proposes a museum as a conceptual (geo)political construct of gesture, image and thresholds of language. Their first film made in this context The Exception and the Rule has screened in over 20 major international festivals.
Liliana Moro (1961) lives and works in Milan. She graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera with Luciano Fabro. In 1989, along with other artists, she founded Via Lazzaro Palazzi in Milan, which closed in 1993. In 1992 she was invited by Jan Hoet to participate in Documenta IX, Kassel, and participated in the Open Section at the 1993 XLV Venice Biennale. During the 90`s she had many solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad such as: 1992 – Galleria Locus Solus, Genoa, 1993 – Migrateurs, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, ARC Paris Galleria Emi Fontana Milan. She has participated in important group exhibitions including Italics, curated by Francesco Bonami, Palazzo Grassi as well as Save Venice, Magazzini del Sale, Venice Biennale exhibition side of 53 Venice among others.
Deimantas Narkevičius (1964) is an artist and filmmaker, currently based in Vilnius. His works deal with the weight of subjective memories and personal revisions of the History. As the artist has himself stated a number of times, his films are in a certain way extended sculptures, not only closely adjusted to the physical sites of their installation, but also thematically departing from very specific personal circumstances or experiences. Working in different film formats, often inserting fragments of other media – drawing, found photograph and footage into his films, Deimantas Narkevičius expands temporal and spatial boundaries of his narratives. He has gained wide recognition within the international art scene and represented Lithuania at the 49`th Venice Biennial in 2003.
Yves Netzhammer (1970) is a Swiss artist who lives and works in Zurich. He has been working with video installations, slide projections, drawings and objects since 1997.In 2007 he represented the Switzerland in the Venice Biennial of 2007 together with Christine Streuli. In 2003 and 2005 he participated at the Moving Image Biennial in Geneva. His works are part of collections such as: FRAC – Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, FRAC – Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille, Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum • Center of International Sculpture, Duisburg, Seedamm Kulturzentrum, Pfäffikon, The West Collection, Oaks, Pennsylvania.
http://www.memory-box.org/
