ISCP Talk
May 6, 2014

Panel Discussion: Minding the Law: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Art

With Elaine Byrne and Soda_Jerk, moderated by Alex Villar.

Artists Elaine Byrne and Soda_Jerk, are participating concurrently in ISCP and the Art & Law Program and for Minding the Law: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Art, they will speak about how their work engages the doctrines and structures of law on both practical and symbolic registers.

The Art & Law Program is a semester-long seminar series with a theoretical and philosophical focus on the effects of law and jurisprudence on cultural production and reception. An examination of how artistic practices challenge, rupture, and change the apparatus of law completes The Program.

Elaine Byrne’s work questions how we should live, which has led to socio-historical, site-related projects made over several years. Her methodology is grounded in research and conversations as a mode to action, demanding a building of trust. Elaine Byrne graduated from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin in 2010. Recent solo exhibitions include Raum, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin; Feralis, The Belltable, Limerick; Irish King of Mexico, Atrio Cultural Space, Mexico City; Message to Salinas, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin and They Have Eyes, Leinster Gallery, Dublin.

Soda_Jerk is a two-person art collective that works with sampled material to trouble formulations of cultural history. Taking the form of video installations, cut-up texts and live video essays, their archival image practice is situated at the interzone of research, documentary and speculative fiction. Formed in Sydney in 2002, Soda_Jerk relocated to Berlin in 2010 to participate in the International Studio Program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. More recently they have been based in the US, undertaking residencies at Flux Factory in New York, and LoBot in West Oakland.

Alex Villar was born in Brazil, and is based in New York. He holds an MFA from Hunter College, and was a Whitney Independent Study Program fellow. His work draws from interdisciplinary theoretical sources (Foucault, de Certeau, etc) and employs video-based, performative actions, installation and photography. His practice concentrates on matters of social space and consists in engaging situations where the codes that regulate everyday activity can be made explicit. Selected exhibitions include the New Museum, Mass MoCA, Drawing Center, The Menil Collection, Art in General, Apexart in the U.S.; and many others abroad.

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Participating Residents

Elaine Byrne

Current and Upcoming Events & Exhibitions

Sujin Lim: The Land, Dark and Muddy

Through February 7

Exhibition

Somewhere Inside: ISCP and the Studio

Through March 7

Exhibition

ISCP Talk
April 27, 2014

Everywhere and Nowhere: Curatorial and Critical Ideas in a Cosmopolitan World

ISCP residents John Barrett-Lennard and Marianna Garin will convene a conversation on strategies for curatorial and critical practice within their own work, and in a world of hyper-mobility and transience. Just what is it that makes today’s world so different, so global—and what are its effects? How can we think about art and contexts for it in a world of flows and simultaneity? Is it possible to retain a sense of both the global and the local, to be both ever on the move and deeply situated in particular contexts—and is New York really the global center?

John Barrett-Lennard is a freelance art curator and writer. He has wide experience gained over nearly three decades, curating a broad range of innovative projects in contemporary art and art museum settings as well as in non-traditional and public spaces. He has been responsible for curating major national exhibitions, including the Australian pavilion at the Biennale of Venice and the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. As a gallery director he has led a major contemporary art space and two large university art museums. He initiated ARX, Australia’s first major exchange project involving Australian and SE Asian artists. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the art history program at the University of Western Australia. He lives and was born in Perth though completed much of his education in Canada.

Marianna Garin graduated from the International Curatorial Program at Konstfack College University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. She holds a BA in Art History and Linguistics from Lund University. Garin is currently a curator at Gävle Art Centre within the Public Art Program in Sweden. She has worked for Lund Konsthall; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; IASPIS International Artists Studio Program (IASPIS), Stockholm and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection among others. She regularly contributes to a number of magazines and journals, artist monographs and catalogue essays. Garin recently curated the exhibition Individual Order for Karst, Plymouth UK, 2013.

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Participating Residents

Marianna Garin

John Barrett-Lennard

Current and Upcoming Events & Exhibitions

Sujin Lim: The Land, Dark and Muddy

Through February 7

Exhibition

Somewhere Inside: ISCP and the Studio

Through March 7

Exhibition

Exhibition
April 25–May 23, 2014

Video Bureau at ISCP

Since 2011, ISCP has also hosted an institution-in-residence as part of Open Studios. This annual residency was initiated to support cultural exchange by bringing an international perspective into a local context. This year, ISCP has invited Video Bureau, a privately run, not-for-profit organization established in 2012 in Beijing and Guangzhou that focuses on video art. Sue Hui, Video Bureau’s archivist will introduce Video Bureau and Libreria Borges Institute for Contemporary Art to the public. The Poplar Tree and Mirror includes artists Huang Xiaopeng, Li Ming, Ma Qiusha, Zhang Peili and Zhou Tao, curated by Howie Chen.

As part of Video Bureau’s residency at ISCP, New York-based independent curator Howie Chen travelled to China to research Video Bureau’s archives, resulting in the exhibition The Poplar Tree and Mirror. Representing a cross section of three generations of Chinese video artists, the exhibition presents work from Video Bureau’s archives by Huang Xiaopeng, Li Ming, Ma Qiusha, Zhang Peili and Zhou tao. These works concern social causality in contemporary Chinese and global culture at large. Chains of events are set in motion everyday: a decision is made, an action performed, and the contingent effects are registered on others. How does one negotiate these effects, especially when transformative political and economic forces drive them? Planted in mass as an urban planning folly, the poplar tree and its ubiquitous snowy catkins covering Beijing every spring parallel’s Zhang Peili’s 30×30 (1988). Once the tree is planted and the mirror is broken, the effects are both uncontrollable and full of monstrous beauty.

Video Bureau was initiated by Zhu Jia, Libreria Borges Institute for Contemporary Art and Fang Lu and aims to provide a platform to exhibit, organize and archive video art. The mission of Video Bureau is to collect and organize artworks of video artists in order to build a comprehensive and searchable database for researchers, students and collectors. As an institute open to the public, every two months Video Bureau features two artists’ video works, and hosts related events, such as artist talks, discussions and symposiums.

Saturday, April 26^th, 4pm: Panel Discussion: on Video Bureau’s residency at ISCP with Howie Chen and Sue Hui, moderated by Xiaofei Mo

Opening Reception: Apr 25, 2014

Download Exhibition Catalog

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