+ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE +
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EXPANDED BOX
curated by: DOMENICO QUARANTA (stands), CAROLINA GRAU
Galleries and artists (STANDS): Arc Projects, Sofia / THOMSON &
CRAIGHEAD; Ernst Hilger, Vienna / JOHN GERRARD; Fabio Paris Art
Gallery, Brescia / UBERMORGEN.COM; Fortlaan 17, Gent / LAWRENCE
MALSTAF; MS Galeria, Madrid / ESTHER MANAS & ARASH MOORI; One and J
Gallery, Seoul / KIM JONGKU; Project Gentili, Prato / JOAN LEANDRE;
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi / PORS AND RAO.
MORE INFOS, CATALOGUE TEXT AND DOWNLOADABLE IMAGES:
http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/ARCO2009.html
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EXPERTS FORUM
NEW MEDIA ART BETWEEN ISOLATION AND INTEGRATION, INTER-DISCIPLINARITY
AND MEDIA SPECIFICITY
February, Sunday 15, 2009
Forum Auditorium 1, Hall 6 Sunday 15, from 12.30 to 2.30 p.m. and from
4 to 9 p.m.
Director: Domenico Quaranta
Speakers: Jon Ippolito & Joline Blais, Roberta Bosco, Geert Lovink,
Inke Arns, Régine Debatty, Zhang Ga, Joasia Krysa.
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Young artists showcasing trends in new media art, with a special focus
on video and installation
ARCOmadrid Press Office, 08/01/2009
EXPANDED BOX
Curated by: Domenico Quaranta, Carolina Grau
Dialogue and an exploration of media art languages is, once again, the
main focus at EXPANDED BOX. From a renewed perspective, this
programme, specialised in art and new technologies, takes a step
further in its mission to reflect a process of unstoppable expansion
of art practices towards new formats and contexts. This year, the
programme has been divided into two: STANDS, a space set aside for
large format installations, curated by the art critic and independent
curator Domenico Quaranta; and CINEMA, a monographic section dedicated
to video art, selected by the independent curator Carolina Grau.
A total of 15 art projects are on view in the EXPANDED BOX programme,
8 at STANDS, and 7 in CINEMA. For the Italian curator Domenico
Quaranta, “more than reflecting the creative exploitation of the
medium, these proposals contain a critical examination of the cultural
consequences of today’s media and technologies.” The tendencies come
from a number of international artists, in turn represented by
galleries taking on the challenge involved in fostering a new
conception of art.
EXPANDED BOX is a market platform at ARCOmadrid for the exploration of
art languages and dynamic discourses proposing new concepts. From the
perspective of the notion of expansion, the selected programme
“showcases a type of art that looks outside the parameters of
contemporary art to art developed on the Net, the art produced in
research centres and labs and that has all the potential to change our
present-day notion of art. A change of perspective that should not
scare collectors or art lovers, because these works are representative
of the information society and of the globalised world we all live
in,” says Quaranta.
STANDS, multiple format installations
Quaranta’s selection includes eight projects represented by both
veteran and young international galleries. Eight pieces that, “in the
wide open field of art experimentation, dictate their own rules
regardless of prevailing canons, and give rise to a radically altered
context that allows them to successfully progress.”
These tendencies are well represented in the selection made by
Quaranta, defined by the variety of the projects on display. The
exhibition covers a lot of ground, ranging from works using a
combination of new technologies and traditional media, to pieces
employing new media but with conventional purposes, or works that
rediscover the potential of technologies that have virtually fallen
into disuse.
The two ends of that diversity are embodied, on one hand by Arrow
Wall, an interactive installation by the two-artist collective Pors &
Rao, presented at the Indian gallery VADEHRA ART GALLERY. The project
responds to the position and movements of the spectators moving
throughout the space. For the artists, “it is a naïve abstraction of
the complex dynamics of the relations surrounding us and of which we
are an integral part. When users stand at a certain distance from
Arrow Wall, the movements are subtler though nonetheless active.
However, when the spectators comes closer, the feeling is that of a
fracture of the balance, with the walls starting to move at a greater
pace, as if the user acted as a magnet whose magnetic field has an
effect on behaviour.
At the other extreme, we find the critical examination of the cultural
consequences of present-day media and technologies through the work of
the Austrian duo Ubermorgen.com, represented by FABIO PARIS ART
GALLERY from Brescia, Italy. Their piece The EKMRZ Trilogy is a
complex proposal developed over the last two years, integrating three
projects based on a subversion of the interfaces of three giant
digital corporations: Google, Amazon and Ebay. Resorting to code,
software and to social hacking, they created a network of websites
through which they obtained money by hosting ads in Google. The funds
were subsequently invested in the acquisition of Google shares as a
means to gradually erode the rigid power of the world’s most popular
browser. Thus, they managed to steal, page by page, whole books from
the Amazon database than were then redistributed without copy license,
or to translate for Ebay users music databases from a directory based
on a soft porn page. Using two projectors, the booth of the gallery
reproduces the impressions and texts gathered in that space.
In these contrasting points, what matters is not how the medium is
used, but the way in which the works explain to the public how human
beings experience the world, how images, narratives, aesthetics and
habits spread by the media have an effect on our environment.
In between these two points, we find proposals also providing a
critical insight into the social consequences of the use of
technology. That is the case of the work by the Spaniard Joan Leandre,
one of the pioneers of software art. PROJECT GENTILI, a gallery from
Prato, Italy, will exhibit a piece by this artist in which he filters
our connection with reality through hyper-real interfaces. In turn,
the British collaborative Thomson & Craighead, will show their work at
the booth of the ARC PROJECTS gallery from Sofia, Bulgaria, with a
project revealing the semantics of every devices and mechanisms.
Another sound installation shown at EXPANDED BOX comes from Esther
Mañas & Arash Moori, represented by GALERIA MS from Madrid. The
installation by the Korean artist Kim Jongku, on display at the booth
of ONE AND J. GALLERY from Seoul, Korea, explores the fine line
dividing matter and the dematerialisation brought about by the media.
FORTLAAN 17, a gallery from Ghent, Belgium, will present an
installation entitled Compass, by the Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf,
a proposal researching into the interactive interface and the human-
machine. Finally, the list of projects is completed with a 3D
animation piece by the Irish artist John Gerrard, on view at ERNST
HILGER CONTEMPORARY from Vienna.
CINEMA, an overview of video art
EXPANDED BOX has an area with screens projecting unique works by young
artists from various origins. Represented by galleries with a long
track record at the fair, the selection of this space set aide for
video art includes “projects by artists influenced and inspired by the
language of cinema and its visual codes as well as by the popular
culture of television and the music world. Their videos feature daily
stories and exceptional, extraordinary events captured by the artist’s
camera,” as the curator of this section, Carolina Grau, states.
A regular of the ARCOmadrid’s curatorial team, Grau has chosen seven
works. Pieces addressing the global society and a committed engagement
with the world’s most pressing issues will be presented by galleries
including the Austrian GEORG KARGL, representing the artist Andreas
Fogarasi who is bring a new work Public Brands – La France. This video
piece shows images of France’s 26 regions, depicting a variety of
landscapes and local identities, underscoring the fact that public
sector and tourism are following the path of private corporations by
attempting to position locations as if they were brands.
Next up, RUTH BENZACAR GALERIA DE ARTE from Argentina is also taking
part this year in this section with a piece by Judi Werthein, an
artist living between New York and Buenos Aires. From the Big Apple
comes MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY, presenting the most recent video by the
Indian artist Amar Kanwar.
This CINEMA selection is completed with work brought by four veteran
galleries at the ARCOmadrid. From the Netherlands comes MIRTA DEMARE,
with a piece by the highly promising Russian artist Katarina Zdjelar.
Next, the gallery from Pamplona, MOISÉS PÉREZ DE ALBÉNIZ shows a work
by the Basque artist Iñaki Garmendia that will certainly encourage the
members of the audience to let themselves go and experience rather
than think.
This space devoted to video art will also include a proposal by Nuno
Cera, brought by the Portuguese gallery PEDRO CERA. Last but not
least, the screens of CINEMA will also project a work by Stefanos
Tsivopoulos represented by the Italian PROMETEO GALLERY.
The new vision of art proposed by EXPANDED BOX does not consist of
exotica, but rather of thought-provoking artworks heralding an
interesting dialogue with other creations, languages and supports
shown at the fair, with the clear intention of expanding the
boundaries of art.
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Domenico Quaranta
mob. +39 340 2392478
email. [log in to unmask]
home. vicolo San Giorgio 18 - 25122 brescia (BS)
web. http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/
"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are
incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful
beyond imagination." Albert Einstein
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