Monthly Archives: September 2016

Setting Memory ' Bettina von Zwehl & Paul Coldwell

Photo: Oliver Ottenschl ger

Special exhibition at the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna

7/10/2016 ' 21/1/2017
Opening: 6 October 2016, 7pm

Works by London-based artists Bettina von Zwehl and Paul Coldwell kick off the discourse about 'loss, memory and reorientation' at the Sigmund Freud Museum on 7 October, 2016 ' notions that today define the atmosphere of the former living and working rooms of Sigmund and Anna Freud. The exhibition SETTING MEMORY at Vienna's Berggasse corresponds with personal shows by the artists at the Freud Museum in London and thus underlines the close relationship of these two Freud institutions.

Bettina von Zwehl uses the quality of photography as a tool of memory and instrument of research, following the main principles of psychoanalytic treatment methods: criteria such as 'observation', 'transference' and the 'principle of confidentiality' are subjected to artistic scrutiny in a series of portraits.

Photographs from a series documenting Anna Freud's personal belongings in London afford insights into past life-worlds ' visual reminiscences returned to their place of origin that depict the setting of the early history of pedagogy and child analysis in 'Red Vienna' of the 1920s. The multi-part installation Sospiri (Sighs) stages experiences of loss and mourning: inspired by Gerhard Richter's work, the artist combines personal traces of life and memory in an unembellished photographic memory record.

Paul Coldwell picks up from those historical events that left the house at Berggasse 19 a 'vestigial memory space'. By reconstructing antiques that once populated Freud's desk, Coldwell revives the memory of the ambience of Sigmund Freud's workplace. Exhibits rendered in white and reduced in size provide a visual counterpart to the grand narrative of loss and absence. Like the suitcase used by the Freuds while fleeing into exile in London in 1938, the containers in which the reproductions were shipped to Vienna also testify to a sense of departure and new beginnings.

As Sigmund Freud linked the methods of psychoanalysis to those employed by archaeologists, who today often make use of X-rays, the artist uses this method to scan a Freud fetish (Freud's coat) and uncover the underlying content of meaning.

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Image: Paul Coldwell, Temporarily accessioned – X-Ray, London 2016'? Paul Coldwell

Part of the exhibition SETTING MEMORY is the artistic documentation of Paul Coldwell's Balloon Releases action that took place in cooperation with students from the 'Business Academy Donaustadt' in Vienna in June this year and that was devoted to visualising loss of home and migration.

Newly released artist books by Bettina von Zwehl and Paul Coldwell afford specific insights into the latest series of both artists.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.

Call for Papers: From De Stijl to Dutch Design: Canonising Design 2.0

Annual Dutch Design History Society Symposium

9 December 2016, De Tuinzaal, Centraal Museum Utrecht, 09:00 ' 17:30 (with drinks afterwards)

Submission deadline: 15 October 2016

Tourism agencies, governments, museums, and design academies in the Netherlands and abroad are already busy preparing for the widespread celebrations of 100 Years of De Stijl ' 25 Years of Dutch Design next year (2017). While De Stijl's implied beginnings (1917) are relatively uncontroversial, the proposition that Dutch design originates from 1992 is much more so. This specific construction of 'Dutch design' as an avant-garde phenomenon that started in the 1990s with Droog design and is today centred around the Design Academy Eindhoven is a clear example of design canonisation at work. In this process, what comes to count as (good) design and the knowledge about it is selectively produced in line with specific (cultural, political, economic, etc.) agendas.

However, this case also shows how today, the process of design canonisation is no longer solely decided on by traditionally recognised authorities (museum curators, design historians, high-end retail venues, influential designers) but also by an unusually wide range of 'non-expert' actors (tourism agencies, politicians, funding agencies). This dispersion of design canonisation is boosted further by digital and participatory social media technologies and platforms, which allow individuals and communities to generate a multiplicity of alternative 'mini-canons' that operate alongside and relatively independently from official or accepted ones.

Yet ' and paradoxically ' this proliferation of actors and multiplicity of canons does not necessarily herald the end of established canons. Indeed, the Dutch design 'brand' seems to become ever more established and entrenched. In what different ways do contemporary processes of design canonisation work, and what are the outcomes? What are the implications of this contemporary condition of ever changing canonisation processes for design historical knowledge? What repercussions does it have for traditionally acknowledged actors on the one hand, and for non-professionals on the other? Does it contribute to bringing into view the material culture of otherwise underrepresented individuals and communities?

Structure

The one-day symposium From De Stijl to Dutch Design: Canonising Design 2.0 aims to reflect on questions relating to the workings and implications of canonisation processes ' both traditional and contemporary, professional and amateur ' to knowledge formation and transfer concerning design. To reflect the contemporary condition whereby design canons and knowledge are created through and by actors operating in widely diverse institutions with a variety of different agendas, the symposium is structured in two parts. The morning session is structured according to a typical academic conference format, comprising the presentations of four scholarly papers followed by a response and discussion. In the afternoon session, five keynote speakers will reflect on the contemporary processes of design canonisation from their respective perspectives: academia, politics/economics, the museum, and design practice. The day will conclude with a roundtable discussion, where the different perspectives will be confronted with each other so as to bridge highly compartmentalized discourses that otherwise remain largely unknown and irrelevant to each other. Ultimately, the aim of the symposium is to generate new academic knowledge about design canonisation that is relevant to all actors involved in the process. The event will be bi-lingual: speakers are welcome to present and respond in Dutch or English.

Venue

The event is organised by the Dutch Design History Society in partnership with Centraal Museum Utrecht, where it will be held. Centraal Museum owns the largest Rietveld collection in the world, and was the first museum to acquire the entire Droog collection and a broad range of Dutch Modernism fashion in the 1990s. Since then, it has actively experimented with a range of digital and participatory platforms to share and co-create its design collection with diverse audiences. Being one of the initiators of 100 Years of De Stijl ' 25 Years of Dutch Design, in which economic considerations of city branding and tourist marketing predetermined the definition of the event's content, Centraal Museum is eager to reflect on questions concerning design canonisation in the past, present, and future, and its role in it. As such, it provides the ideal institutional setting to reflect upon the symposium's theme.

Call for papers

For the morning session, the symposium welcomes contributions by academics (junior and established) of design and art history, media studies, museology, anthropology, and related fields. Potential themes to be elaborated by papers include but are not limited to:

–'''''?The processes according to which design canons are formed, today and in the past;

–'''''?The formation of alternative design canons and/or the breakdown of canonical thinking, i.e. the 'undoing' of canonisation;

–'''''?The formation of design canons beyond the traditional national framework: local/regional/global;

–'''''?The (different) roles that the media, museums, and governments/politics play in these processes;

–'''''?The impact of contemporary online mediation and distributed participatory processes, such as digital platforms, in the canonisation of design;

–'''''?New actors in the canonisation of design;

–'''''?The role of museum exhibitions and (permanent) displays in canonisation processes;

–'''''?The emergence (and the role) of new publics/new consumers of design canons;

–'''''?The canonisation of De Stijl and/or Dutch design;

–'''''?The futures of design canons.

Note that papers do not necessarily have to reflect on Dutch cases.

The presentations will be considered for an edited publication, while the results of the symposium and debate will become available from the website of the Dutch Design History Society.

Proposals

Proposals for 20-minute papers must be submitted by 1 October 2016 as detailed below. Please email the document as a Word document to [email protected].

Page 1

  • Author(s) full name(s)
  • Institution, address for correspondence, telephone and e-mail
  • 50-word biography

Page 2

  • Title of the paper
  • Three keywords
  • 200-word abstract of the paper in Dutch or English

AAH2017 43rd Annual Conference & Art Book Fair

AAH2017
43rd Annual Conference & Art Book Fair
Loughborough University
6th to 8th April 2017

Textile, Art & Design: Reciprocity and development

 

Convenors:

Alice Kettle, Manchester Metropolitan University, [email protected]k
Uthra Rajgopal, Manchester Metropolitan University, [email protected]

The reciprocity and division of textiles and the fine arts are in continual negotiation. This session examines the nexus between the fine and decorative arts, craft making and commercial production. Many artists of the 20th century such as Abakanowicz, Dali, Delaunay, Matisse, Moore, Parker, Picasso, Paolozzi and Warhol (to name but a few) have been celebrated for their collaborations in sculpture and/or pattern making, but this approach presents one avenue of the artist's intervention in textiles. This session will consider a wider view, asking how contributions of textile designers and artists working across a spectrum of geographical and historical periods, such as those working in Spitalfields, Lyon, Japan or India for example, or designers such as Dora Batty, Marian Clayden, Marion Dorn, Bernat Klein or John Piper influenced and collaborated with artists, fashion designers and art movements or contributed to the synergy of these practices.

In this session we welcome papers from academics, researchers, textile artists, textile and fashion historians, curators and archivists. The term textile can be interpreted in its widest sense.

Suggestions for proposals of papers or panel discussions include but are not limited:

' The evolution and circulation of a particular motif in woven or printed textiles
' Artists/designers and textiles: an exploration of their oeuvre through pattern making
' The influence of textile designers in art/dress/fashion history
' Historical and contemporary collaborations between artists and textile designers
Please email your paper proposals straight to the session convenor(s). Provide a title and abstract for a 25 minute paper (max 250 words). Include your name, affiliation and email. Your paper title should be concise and accurately reflect what the paper is about (it should 'say what it does on the tin') because the title is what appears most first and foremost online, in social media and in the printed programme.

You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks. Do not send proposals to the Conference Administrator or the Conference Convenor.

Deadline for Paper Proposals: 7 November 2016

Symposium | Material Others and Other Materialities

September 30, 2016'? 12.45 ' 6.15pm

Iklectik Art Lab, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG

In their short philosophical fable 'Vampyroteuthis Infernalis', Vilem Flusser and Louis Bec compare human existence to that of a deep-sea squid, the Vampyroteuthis Infernalis. In the process they raise questions about the relation of cognition, culture and sociality to corporeal anatomy and environment. Flusser and Bec's ruminations form the background context and connecting thread for this symposium, which brings together 10 papers to explore questions of materiality and otherness, specifically in relation to art and design and media. All presentations take a point of departure from Flusser and Bec's text to discuss an artefact in relation to the symposium's themes.

Register via Eventbrite: https://bit.ly/2bNPU0u

Panels:

  1. Phenomenological Materialities

The Immateriality of Titian's Pesaro Altarpiece | Ken Wilder, Chelsea College of Arts

Circle or Oval?: Concepts, Non-identity and the Lifeworld | Johanna Bolton, Royal College of Art

Things that Happen Again: Roni Horn and the Phenomenology of the Other | Andrew Chesher, Chelsea College of Arts
Chair: Allan Parsons; Discussant: t.b.c.

  1. My Body and the Body: The Other and the Alien

My Neighbour, That Thing | Werner Prall, Middlesex University

The Corporeal Witness in Katie Green's Lighter than my Shadow | Dan Smith, Chelsea College of Arts

Fishing for Zebedee | Mark Ingham, London College of Communication
Chair: Amanda Windle; Discussant: t.b.c.

  1. Digital Materialities

The Material Other in Fashion Making: The T-shirt | Douglas Atkinson, London College of Fashion

Emergent Materiality: The Self and the Other in Material Dialogues | Virna Koutla, Royal College of Art

Robotum Anthromorphum: of Virtual Assistants and their Networked Materialities | Michel Erler, London College of Communication

The Nonhumanity of Planetary Computing, Metis, or how to live with Digital Uncertainty | Betti Marenko, Central Saint Martins
Chair: Andrew Chesher; Discussant: Amanda Windle

For more details: informedmatters.wordpress.com

Contact Points | A Seminar Organised by Tate Research Centre: Asia

Contact Points

21 November 2016 at 14.00'18.00

Starr Cinema – Tate Modern

Tate Research Centre: Asia Visiting Fellows Eva Bentcheva and Yohko Watanabe present their research.

This seminar examines two international 'contact points' between artists in the twentieth century: the 1970 Tokyo Biennale and David Medalla's performance practice in London and the Philippines.

Contact Points represents the culmination of Tate Research Centre: Asia's Visiting Fellowship Programme in 2016; both Eva Bentcheva and Yohko Watanabe conducted their research as the Centre's Visiting Fellows.

Panel One: A Stitch in Time'Situating David Medalla's 'Participation-Performance' between British and Philippine Performance Art History

Chair: Eva Bentcheva
Speakers: TBC

Panel Two: Tokyo Biennale 1970 as Contact Point

Chair: Yohko Watanabe
Speakers: Toshiaki Minemura and Susumu Koshimizu

Tate Research Centre: Asia has been established with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Price : 8

Book tickets here

Image: Susumu Koshimizu From Surface to Surface 1971, remade 1986, wood, 3000 x 8100 x 100 mm. Tate collection, purchased with funds provided by the Asia Pacific Acquisitions Committee 2008. Susumu Koshimizu

Design Connections Istanbul | British Council

In partnership with IKSV, the British Council are seeking expressions of interest for senior curators, programmers and heads of design organisations from the UK to join a delegation visiting Istanbul Design Biennial between 19 – 23 October 2016.

The purpose of the delegation is to connect key individuals from the UK to designers and organisations, with the aim of brokering new collaborations and partnerships, as well as providing the opportunity for networking, learning and sharing with international counterparts. The British Council will fund travel, accommodation and per diems for delegates.

Five individuals will be selected to join an industry networking programme, visiting the Biennial itself and leading designer organisations and studios in Istanbul.

To express interest please email [email protected] by 9 September with a short professional profile.

About Istanbul Design Biennial 2016

The 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial, curated by Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina, explores the intimate relationship between the concepts of 'design' and 'human.' Design always presents itself as serving the human but its real ambition is to redesign the human. The history of design is therefore a history of evolving conceptions of the human. To talk about design is to talk about the state of our species.

About KSV

Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts ( KSV) is a non-profit cultural institution that was founded in 1973. The general objectives of the Foundation are: to make Istanbul one of the world’s foremost capitals of culture and the arts; to create continuous interaction between national and universal values and traditional and contemporary values via culture and the arts; and to contribute actively to the development of cultural policies. With these objectives, KSV organises the Istanbul Festivals of Music, Film, Theatre and Jazz, as well as the Istanbul Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, Leyla Gencer Voice Competition, autumn film week Filmekimi and one-off events throughout the year. The Foundation hosts cultural and artistic events at its performance venue Salon, located at the Nejat Eczac ba'? Building. KSV also organises the Pavilion of Turkey at la Biennale di Venezia and coordinates an artist residency programme at Cit International des Arts, France. Furthermore, KSV conducts studies and drafts reports with the aim of contributing to cultural policy development.

iksv.org

Shame Chorus | Jordan McKenzie

Camberwell’s Drawing Lecturer, Jordan McKenzie, has created an incredible piece of work surrounding psychoanalysis and shame.

“Shame Chorus is an uplifting new project created by international artist Jordan McKenzie and commissioned by the Freud Museum in London. It takes as its starting point Sigmund Freud's famous 'talking cure' a mode of psychoanalytic analysis where the patient talks in order to allow the therapist to uncover hidden, repressed and unconscious desires. Shame Chorus is a collaboration with world-renowned psychoanalyst and cultural critic Susie Orbach, the London Gay Men's Chorus and writer Andy White.”

Shame Chorus will be performed at the London Irish Centre on the 8th October: https://www.slicedevents.com/event/shame-chorus-concert-and-qa/