ISCP Talk
March 23, 2010

Salon: Goran Škofić (Croatia) and Samuil Stoyanov (Bulgaria)

Goran Škofić works almost exclusively in the media of video and photography. He focuses on what he calls “abstractions”: society, the individual, interaction and coexistence. In his work, Škofić uses his body as an instrument of expression. In his video installation Corpus for instance, he treats his own body. Each of the installation’s videos shows a multiplied figure of the author who rhythmically performs just one action (a workout in the gym, running, applauding in a concert hall,…). Škofić thus deconstructs the body into a naked “corpus”, liberating it from humanization and bodily weaknesses like fatigue or mistake. His character, which has no foothold either in the original or in truth, acts with the rhythm of incessantly repeating movements.

Samuil Stoyanov is interested in “thinking vision”: thinking while looking, or looking while thinking. Lately this theme has appeared in his works, but it has nothing to do with visual experiments or optical effects; rather it is to be fully associated with the conceptualization of the act of looking. Stoyanov was born in 1975 in Dobrich, Bulgaria. In 2001 he graduated from the National Art Academy with an MA in Ceramics. From 2001 to 2009 he realized eight solo exhibitions, and he is the winner of several art awards, including the 2009 BAZA Award.

ISCP Talk
March 9, 2010

Salon: Stuart Ringholt (Australia) and Valerio Rocco Orlando (Italy)

Stuart Ringholt’s interdisciplinary art practice grapples with our social environment, exploring ideas of perception and states of consciousness. With uncomfortable honesty, he highlights awkward interpersonal interactions, revealing complex networks between individuals and communities. At the recent Sydney Biennale, Ringholt facilitated 50 Anger Workshops with 400 people participating. In 2010 Ringholt will participate in the Adelaide Biennial and present a solo show ‘Vitrines’ at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney. His work has been profiled in Artforum and Frieze. Ringholt is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.

During a six months residency at ISCP, Valerio Rocco Orlando created a new series of works about love in order to explore all the changes and correspondences experienced inside the identity of a couple. Starting from the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s theories about being-in-common and the dynamics of self-reflection and sharing coexisting in a web of relations, his intent was to demonstrate the fundamental importance of reciprocity and interchange with “the other” in order to evolve and build up one own identity and self awareness. Valerio Rocco Orlando works across a range of media including film, video, and photography. His installations show articulated compositions made of cinematic and emotional portraits. Inspired by the evolution of identity dynamics in contemporary society, Orlando’s research explores the relations between individual and collective memory, as well as the changes induced by social relationships in the process of identity formation.

ISCP Talk
February 23, 2010

Salon: Allyson Mitchell (Canada) and Nami Yamamoto (Japan/USA)

Allyson Mitchell is a maximalist artist working in sculpture, performance and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to trouble representations of women, sexuality and the body. Her works have been exhibited at the Textile Museum of Canada, MOCCA, the Warhol Museum, Walker Art Center, and the BFI. Her ongoing aesthetic/political project, Deep Lez advocates a return to the histories of radical and lesbian feminisms and has been taken up by lgbtq activists and artists through alternative curatorial projects.

Nami Yamamoto explores transitory states in the natural world, both structural and phenomenological through her drawings and installations, Yamamoto explores transitory states in the natural world, both structural and phenomenological. Fascinated by moments of “in-between”, her work calls attention to states of flux or transitions from one state to another, translated through a variety of diverse materials. Yamamoto, a native of Nagoya, Japan, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She received her BFA from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Aichi, Japan, and MFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art, Mount Royal Graduate School of Art, Baltimore, MD.