ISCP Talk
October 1, 2013

Salon: Henrjeta Mece and Saša Tkačenko

Henrjeta Mece will discuss her recent practice and research interests in geography and history which explore issues related to the body, time, location and belonging. Her talk will focus primarily on her latest participatory project Looking Into the Future! and will be followed by a participatory performance involving a coffee drinking course.

Saša Tkačenko will present his latest series of work, the installations Fence and Is This Real Life and a video work, Perfect Ride. This series questions the perception and status of an art work within a broader social and institutional context and directly refers to a specific situation in Belgrade where the art system collapsed due to the closing of two main museums. Issues of art production and the position of the artist in these conditions will be discussed as well.

Participating Residents

Exhibition
September 5–November 10, 2013

The Field is to the Sky, Only Backwards

The Field is to the Sky, Only Backwards, is an exhibition curated by ISCP alum Aneta Szylak, Artistic Director of Wyspa Institute of Art and Alternativa International Visual Arts Festival, Gdansk. The exhibition includes works by Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Hiwa K, Katarzyna Krakowiak, MML Studio (Michał Madracki, Maciej Madracki and Gilles Lepore) and Hito Steyerl and questions art as a practice of knowledge. 

Studying the intersections of subjects such as economic and social relations, space and architecture, image, material, sound, movement, migration and mobility, the included artists transgress disciplines. They realize forms of research and modes of practice that are coded within disciplines but also inhabit temporary spaces between them. The artists disclose not only what we want to know but how we would like to get to know it. Diverse methodologies merge and cross in the exhibition, seeking the possible in fault lines.

Aneta Szylak is a curator, writer, and the co-founder and current Director of Wyspa Institute of Art. Since 2010, Szylak has been Artistic Director of Alternativa, a series of exhibitions accompanied by numerous additional events, which seeks new directions for art and its social role. After co-founding and running the Laznia (Bathhouse) Centre for Contemporary Art (1998-2001), she continued her career as an independent curator and researcher. Since 2004, Szylak has been responsible for programming Wyspa—the intellectual environment for contemporary visual culture—in the Gdansk Shipyard.

The title of the exhibition is taken from the poem by Laurel Snyder The Field has a Girl from the book, The Myth of the Simple Machines.

As part of Independent Curators International (ICI)’s Curator’s Perspective series, Aneta Szylak will present her current research interests and curatorial projects on September 5, 2013 at 7pm at The Segal Theater, The Graduate Center CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016. 

Travel for The Field is to the Sky, Only Backwards is supported by Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Municipality of Gdansk.

Opening Reception: Sep 04, 2013, 7-9pm
Download Exhibition Catalog

ISCP Talk
August 27, 2013

Salon: Jaffar Al Oraibi, Waheeda Malullah and Mohamed Sharkawy

Please join us for a special Salon with our summer residents sponsored by Al Riwaq Art Space, Bahrain.

Jaffar Al Oraibi ‘s paintings continue his inquiry into the role of the individual in society, particularly the concept of manhood and the role that men play in contemporary society. Often representations of animals in the work refer to human characteristics and behaviors that highlight the tension between self and other, as well as the feeling of alienation between the individual and the group.

Although Waheeda Malullah’s output is video and photography, her practice is conceptual with an emphasis on elements of play. She thinks and reacts intuitively, without plan. Recently, her work explores gender equality and alternative lifestyles for women in the Middle East.

Mohamed Sharkawy’s work is reminiscent of Egyptian wall paintings and is created in the aesthetic tradition of his village Qena, near Cairo. Unadorned and unaffected, his work is a vision of childlike simplicity, although it is not naive but rather employs his astute ability to communicate the fundamentals of life though a universal visual language.