International Arts News

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The Stalingrad motifs by the Uzbek Georgi Zelma also belong to the rarer images; Selma made himself a name with his artistically developed "constructivist view" of post-revolutionary collectivism; his oeuvre was recently presented at a retrospective exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe/ USA. Apart from the heroic deeds of World War II, the ideological myths of the Stalinist pre-war years industrialisation, heroic work and motherhood were used to educate and uplift the dozing, stagnant Soviet society under Brezhnev. The miners and the brigade's eldest as a happy mother by Mark Markov-Grinberg or the kolkhoz-farmers by Aleksandr Ustinov from the 30s and 40s must have looked like the ideal figures of greek myths in the totally uninspiring world of socialist work. Only very few contemporaries were deemed worthy of reception into the Soviet "Family of Man": apart from Soviet artists and heros like the sculptor Sergey Konenkov, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and an unknown test-pilot, there are pro-Soviet global celebrities from the world of politics and culture: Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, Ho Chi Minh, Charlie Chaplin, as well as the ethnographically exotic looking inhabitants of Chukotka, photographed by Dmitri Baltermantz in the 60s and 70s. Added to the exhibition are a few later prints signed by the author Yevgeni Khaldei, also his portrait and one of Georgi Zelma, both by Aleksandras Macijauskas, the doyen of Lithuanian photography.

32 Bit Connection: Webism - Art connecting the World
Electric Avenue, Vienna, Austria
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From May 27 to June 12, 2004 an exhibition of international artists takes place on the prestigious Electric Avenue of Vienna Museumsquartier (MQ). The exhibition, 32 Bit Connection: Webism - Art connecting the World, features works by eight artists from around the world that met over the Web. Webism is the new ism of the new Millenium and is derived from the Internet. It has become a steadily growing global cultural movement with artists working in all types of media. Participating artists are: Willem den Broeder, Schiedam/The Netherlands, http://www.surrealisme.nl/ Dr. Rodney Chang (Pygoya)/USA (Hawaii), http://www.lastplace.com/ Christian Couette/FRANCE, www.christianfly.com/M Bernard Dumaine/FRANCE, http://perso.wanadoo.fr/e-mages/index.htm Ingrid Kamerbeek/GERMANY. http://www.artingrid.de Tibor Kovacs-egri, Budapest/Hungary, http://web.axelero.hu/kegri/index.htm Uly Paya/AUSTRIA, http://www.artland.at/oval/index.html , Zazie (Evi Moechel)/AUSTRIA, http://www.zazie.at Dr. Rodney Chang (Pygoya)/USA and Ingrid Kamerbeek/Germany both absolutearts.com artists founded the "Webism Group of Worldwide Artists" after the "First Pygoyan European Art Tour" in November 2003. The show is organized by Zazie and Uly Paya of Austria. The group is always seeking active artists, no matter which media they work in, to join the "Webism Group of Worldwide Artists". Their goals include active artists who wish to work on a worldwide scale on- and offline.

Territories, The Frontiers of Utopia and Other Facts on the Ground
Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden

Territories brings together architects and artists in an exhibition about politics, architecture and geography. As the title of the exhibition implies, a number of projects are presented dealing with the occupation, control and defence of space. The exhibition speaks less about the cultural meaning of land use, housing and cultivation, but rather explores the strategic use of architecture and planning in times of crisis and conflict, bearing witness to the increasing fragmentation and militarization of the global political landscape. Territories’ description of space thus creates insights into the working of today’s political, economical and military strategies beyond what appears as the daily content in the newspapers. In Malmö Konsthall photographs, videos, cartography and models are presenting and questioning the relation of power and space and its representations at the same time. Territories thus investigates the strategic construction of landscape. An important part of the exhibition is based on the research by the architect duo of Eyal Weizman and Rafi Segal into Israeli architecture on the West Bank. The territories of Israel/Palestine today serve as an intense laboratory of this kind of “spatial warfare” – a war carried out not only by means of tanks and guns, but by the very construction and destruction of the landscape, including housing and infrastructure. The project was originally commissioned by the Israeli Association of Architects for the world congress of the UIA (Union Internationale Des Architectes) in Berlin in 2002, but was hastily cancelled for political reasons by the same organization. The work of Berlin-based periodical/group, An Architektur, discusses Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and other ex-territorial spaces in the War On Terrorism, where the United States by virtue of its claimed territory gives itself the right to experiment with human rights and the legal aspects of territories. In his contribution to the exhibition, the American artist Sean Snyder has investigated US military bases around the world. These Americas in miniature exist in at least 93 countries by now, strategically positioning themselves as part of a global network. The Danish artist Joachim Koester and Matthew Buckingham of the United States have created a project on the ever topical “free city” of Christiania, exploring the very notion of utopian space as islands where society can be perfected. In the video installation “Sandra of the Tuliphouse or How to Live in a Free State”, the fictitious character of Sandra reflects on various ideas about this controversial and disputed urban district in Copenhagen. Dreams of and desires for the possibility of a better world are conveyed through pictures, anecdotes and facts. The Territories exhibition has no physical boundaries and its relevance can be found everywhere, both locally and globally. For example, white middle-class suburbs in Sweden and Malmö create small territorial “islands” in relation to other geographical areas whose population is almost exclusively composed of immigrants, and gated communities are being built in the heart of our cities. New regions and territories which no longer reflect respect for the traditional way of regarding the demarcation of boundaries are constantly being created. Economics, law, politics and ideology are becoming increasingly important factors as these new maps of our world are beginning to be delineated. Territories is a cross disciplinerary exhibition where architects and artists jointly focus on subject fields which with the passage of time are becoming more and more relevant. Data: AbsoluteArt

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