David Chalmers Alesworth

Here’s where its at today…. 25th May 2010 Cars, Rugs and the garden dream.

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A “Taxonomy of Cars”?

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The as yet untitled Lahore number-plates work,

just begun, currently its 90″ x 90″ at 300 dpi which is causing some

problems with over 100 active layers. Havent decided whether to print in 3 panels

at 90 x 90 total, or reduce the size to 40 x 40 single panel.

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Rug works, began the samples today, everything is washed,

edge-bound and trimmed, looking great.

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May go for black wool thread against

the worn out Persian pattern underneath.

Black samples are the plan for tomorrow.

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Then highlight in gold if it’s working.

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Thing is black on mostly black is going to be very sombre, & Louis the 16th was the Sunn-King, wasnt he?

Thats a days work, I’m hoping tomorrow will be faster….

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Some current activity……

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Scale, Print Size, final plans.

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I thought I could use bullets for scale on the herbarium sheets, other items too, perhaps just details of the guns?

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The statue of Sir John Lawrence, the first Governor of the Punjab this statue was inscribed ‘Will you be governed by the pen or sword?

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The copper Teddy’s Bear will have a glass door in his chest and contain a selection of sacred texts, perhaps Foucalt, Derrida, Adorno. It is a reliquary of sorts.

How to work with the concept of Teddy’s Bear? theres a good German resonance there.

 

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The original cartoon.

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Copper Teddy’s Bear , drawing May 2010

 

Looks like I have found a Berlin artist to collaborate with Ulrike Solbrig. Her practice has good resonance yet significant difference from my own.

An organizer of Discursive Picnics and an instigator of Community Gardens, including at Kreuzberg.

I am applying for funding from a Berlin organization for further tree based collaborations.

I need to finalize my project title:

I thought of remaining with the “Taxonomy of Eden” (Pakistan was intended as another Eden if anywhere ever was, “the land of the pure”)

  • I will have hopefully, the rug work (as documentation if not physically there) very heavy to carry. Mapping the ground plan of Palace of Versailles gardens onto an old Persian carpet, in gold thread.
  • Herbarium type urban tree documentation, with bullets for scale, pinned up and loose portfolio of maybe 100 sheets in a folder, laser colour prints and stapled photographs to forms.
  • Car number plate grid(s) large C-prints possibly x3 panels of 32″ wide each
  • Goverment files, image(s) large C-prints
  • The copper Reliquary Teddy’s Bear, containing selected sacred texts.
  • Lawrence Gardens interviews or other documentation, video on an LCD or printed official report type format (possibly a dissertation supplement. “What is your perfect Garden” “What is your favourite part of the Park?”.
  • Berlin tree work, public intervention/collaboration. Hoping for a prescence in Lahore and in Berlin. Negotiating currently.

(all the above explore Foucault’s theory of the heterotopia)

Also to do urgently, to submit by 1st June (some 15th June)

Artists statement for catalouge and project submission….(1st June)

Artists talk…… (on going)

Dissertation…. (15th June max)

Catalogue entry…… (1st June)

Post-card for catalogue…. (31st May)

 

Ulrike Solbrig (*1966 Mainz, Germany) Chausseestr. 110/1, 10115 Berlin Germany, ulrike@solbrig.de, www.solbrig.de/ulrike.html  

Ulrike Solbrig is a visual artist and curator living in Berlin. In her work she maintains a critical perspective on the representation and organization of modern life and nature. With the video, Albertine at the Police Doctor’s, she confronts her audience with art history, probing gender inequalities through the mirror of patriarchal omissions (sexwork. Kunst Mythos Realität, NGBK, as artist and curator). With Getting Involved and Other Quirky Behavior, Solbrig together with the Danish artist Kirsten Dufour and the Norwegian curator Hilde Methi (as Kirkenes Mobile Kultur Byrå), delves into community engagement by looking into the working conditions of visiting Russian market women in Norway (pöpp68 privat, persönlich, öffentlich, politisch, NGBK, as artist and curator). Since 2003, she is actively participating in the development of community gardens as part of her artistic work – resulting in establishing a community garden in Kreuzberg or the conference and exhibiton socialmentalenvironmental at Sparwasser HQ 2007.

Ulrike Solbrig is a co-founder of the interdisciplinary UNWETTER collective, (Christine Wolfe, Jole Wilcke, Ulrike Solbrig, Clemens Krauss, Benno Gammerl, Dorothee Albrecht) which started its non-academic knowledge production at documenta11. They connect with their continued practice of Discursive Picnics, institutional and non-institutional spaces like documenta11, Liverpool Biennial 04, Berlin-Alexanderplatz, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, MANIFESTA7, Guangzhou Triennal, Palanga Beach in an process of reciprocal exchange. (see CV)

UNWETTER’s basic format is the Discursive Picnic an improvised event, ready to be modified and changed. Time and place are announced for the public to join. It works as a potluck, where everybody is both guest and host at the same time. In the UNWETTER thermos-box, “where ideas are kept cool”, theory and practice fall together. We find, collect, exchange, alter, pack up and move on.

“Arriving at a site, we unpack and array within flexible element
s, blankets, picnic furniture also tents – when necessary. Our aim is to open up a situation for both spontaneously and thoroughly elaborated contributions, where visitors, guests, we ourselves or the public, become actors, listeners, performers, hosts or audience, in ever changing roles, departing into new directions by tours, associations, diversions, walks etc.”  

   
 

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From Carolyn Guertin :)

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdHoNJu5fU?wmode=transparent]

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Peter Wegner

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Dissemination, Botany, art…..

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Shanghai architecture Expo: an empty experience?

Thomas Heatherwick’s much-hyped design for the British pavilion may be beautiful, but it lacks the crowd-pleasing magic of the great exhibitions age

UK pavilion Shanghai Expo 2010

An alluring nothing? The Seed Cathedral, Thomas Heatherwick’s pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters

The hype surrounding the British pavilion at the Shanghai Expo has been so great that it’s little surprise that some people have come away disappointed. After queuing for up to five hours in the blazing heat, all expectant Chinese visitors have discovered inside the prickly pavilion is … well, nothing. No enticing British exhibits, no music, no welcome drinks and snacks, not even a film, much less a presentation showing the best of British design and innovation, or all the zillions of things the British buy from the Chinese. Perhaps there should have been a warning sign outside.

While its design is certainly exciting, the pavilion is not meant to display anything other than itself. Designed by the much-feted Thomas Heatherwick, this spiky cube is a kind of giant, stylised dandelion at the point where the seeds are about to fly off. Each of Heatherwick’s 60,000 perspex prickles contains a seed from Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank in Wakehurst, West Sussex. The plan is apparently for the prickles and their seeds to be donated to schools across China when the £35bn expo closes its gates at the end of the year. Although the prickles channel tiny shafts of daylight inside the British pavilion, there is nothing else here to see.

Print of Great Exhibition 1851 at the Crystal Palace Revolutionary … Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. Photograph: Philip Henry Delamotte/Dominic Winter Auctions/PA

The concept is endearing, yet expos are as much about popular entertainment as they are to do with philosophy or subliminal experiences. This doesn’t mean they have to be banal. They do, though, need to engage the imagination of enormous, queuing crowds. Perhaps the problem is that, like so many expos of the past two decades, architectural pavilions have become self-referential artworks. This might be fine in an art show, but not, perhaps, here.

The very first world expo – the Great Exhibition of 1851 – offered a mind-blowing building, Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, that happened to be filled to its iron and glass gunwhales with all sorts of things from gothic revival cabinets to the latest machinery via high Victorian kitsch. Offering a comprehensive snapshot of mid-century British commercial culture, the building itself was truly revolutionary. Another famous expo, that in Paris in 1889, featured an equally breathtaking building, the vast Machine Hall, designed by the architect Charles Dutert and the engineer Victor Contamin, which was chock-full of the very latest technological wonders. Mobile platforms, guided by rails, took 100,000 visitors a day on a journey above the machines that would shape the following century.

Decades later, even such determinedly experimental and “artistic” expo pavilions as the one Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis designed for Philips at Brussels in 1958, offered magical experiences once inside. An “Electronic Poem”, a kind of hyper-sophisticated son-et-lumière, animated the interior of this unexpected hyperbolic-paraboloid concrete tent. If challenging, the experience had been worth queuing up for.

Expos are not art shows. And in a stiflingly hot and humid city such as Shanghai you need to offer visitors something a little more, in fact a lot more, than even the most alluring nothing.

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Giovanni Anselmo

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Giovanni Anselmo

Untitled 1968, granite, lettuce, copper wire. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris - Musée National d'Art Moderne

Untitled 1968 granite, lettuce, copper wire. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris – Musée National d’Art Moderne

Giovanni Anselmo (b. 1934, Borgofranco d’Ivrea), divides his time between Turin and the volcanic island of Stromboli. It was while walking on Mount Stromboli at dawn in 1965 that he was suddenly struck by the realisation that he was merely a tiny detail in the vast continuum of universal energy.

This epiphany was to inspire his many works investigating the finite and the infinite, the microcosm and the macrocosm, and the elemental laws and forces of nature – gravity, tension, magnetism and energy. A wide range of organic and inorganic materials including vegetables, water, electricity, granite, iron and plastic are brought together in combinations that strikingly demonstrate these forces.

In Torsion, 1968, for example, a leather loop set in a concrete block is tightly twisted and fixed in place with a wooden bar. This work literally traps energy. Similarly, in Untitled, 1967, a large sheet of Perspex is held taut in a curved shape by an iron fastening. Another presentation of tension and gravity is provided by Untitled, 1968 – also known as Eating Structure. In this work, a head of lettuce is squashed between a large standing block of granite and a smaller one, secured by a copper wire. If the lettuce is allowed to dry out, the wire will lose tension and the small stone will fall. The sculpture must therefore be constantly ‘fed’ with new lettuces.

Anselmo also works with artist’s books, drawings, photography and slide projections.

 

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After Nature: New Museum

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Major

7/17/08 – 10/5/08

After Nature

“After Nature” surveys a landscape of wilderness and ruins, darkened by uncertain catastrophe. It is a story of abandonment, regression, and rapture—an epic of humanity and nature coming apart under the pressure of obscure forces and not-so-distant environmental disasters. Bringing together an international and multigenerational group of artists, filmmakers, writers, and outsiders, the exhibition depicts a universe in which humankind is being eclipsed and new ecological systems struggle to find a precarious balance.

The artists in “After Nature” share an interest in archaic traditions and a fascination for personal cosmologies and visionary languages. It is a peculiar form of magic realism that emerges from the works on view, coupled with a renewed belief in art as a tool for mythmaking.

Departing from the fictional documentaries of filmmaker Werner Herzog, “After Nature” assembles a collection of prophetic images and outlandish forms—a cabinet of curiosities that pieces together a fragmented and unreliable encyclopedia. In his 1999 manifesto, Herzog described a truth liberated from fact: a poetic, ecstatic truth that “is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination.” The works in “After Nature” aspire to such: folding fact into fiction, the exhibition brings together artworks that can be interpreted as relics, idols, and documents. Temporally detached from any point of orientation, the exhibition emerges as a study of the present from a place in the future. A requiem for a vanishing planet, “After Nature” is a feverish examination of an extinct world that strangely resembles our own.

The exhibition includes work by Allora and Calzadilla, Paweł Althamer, Micol Assaël, Fikret Atay, Roger Ballen, Huma Bhabha, Maurizio Cattelan, William Christenberry, Roberto Cuoghi, Bill Daniel, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Nathalie Djurberg, Reverend Howard Finster, Nancy Graves, Werner Herzog, Robert Kusmirowski, Zoe Leonard, Klara Liden, Erik van Lieshout, Diego Perrone, Thomas Schütte, Dana Schutz, Tino Sehgal, August Strindberg, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, and Artur Żmijewski.

Organized by Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Exhibitions, the show spans three floors and includes over ninety works.

Download press release

“After Nature” is made possible by the Leadership Council of the New Museum.

Major support is provided by David Teiger.

Additional support provided by Kati Lovaas, Randy Slifka, and the Toby Devan Lewis Emerging Artists Exhibitions Fund.

Allora and Calzadilla

Jennifer Allora was born in 1974 in Philadelphia, and Guillermo Calzadilla was born in 1971 in Havana. The artists live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico and are currently DAAD scholarship holders in Berlin. Allora & Calzadilla’s work has been exhibited worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include: Haus der Kunst Munich, 2008; Kunstverein Munich, 2008; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2008; Kunsthalle Zurich, 2007; Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2007; Serpentine Gallery, London, 2007; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; 2007; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, 2007; S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst , Ghent, Belgium, 2006; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006; an
d Dallas Museum of Art, 2006.

Pawel Althamer

Paweł Althamer was born in 1967 in Warsaw, where he lives and works. Althamer studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1988 to 1993. His works have been shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London and at documenta in Kassel, and at the 4th Berlin Biennial in 2006. In 2004 he received the Vincent Award in Maastricht. Althamer creates sculptures, installations, videos, and actions. His recent project The Path was realized for sculpture projects in Muenster in 2007.

Micol Assaël

Micol Assaël was born in Rome in 1979, and works between Rome, Berlin, and Moscow.  Recent solo shows include: Johann König, Berlin; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2007);  ZERO…, Milan (2005).  Recent group exhibitions include: 16th Sidney Biennial; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2008); Hamburger Bahnohf, Berlin (2007); 4th Berlin Biennal (2006); and the 51st Venice Biennial (2005).

Fikret Atay

Fikret Atay was born in 1976 in Batman, Turkey, where he lives and works. Atay graduated from Dicle University in Diyarbakir, Turkey with a degree in Fine Arts. Atay makes videos that offer short vignettes of life in Batman, a Kurdish city near the border between Turkey and Iraq. Using a hand-held camera and natural lighting, Atay films young local residents as they perform traditional dances, assemble makeshift drum kits, and play war games. Despite the difficulties of filming in the highly charged political atmosphere of Batman, Atay’s insistence in the specificity of place gives the work a distinctive presence although the performers’ actions remain mysterious to viewers unfamiliar with the local culture.

Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950.  Since 1982 he has been living and taking photographs in South Africa. His work is represented in many museums, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Maison Europeene de la Photographie in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2002 he won the Photographer of the Year Award at the inaugural Rencontres d’Arle Awards. In December 2002 he had one-man shows in the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. Ballen’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums in Europe and the United States.

Huma Bhaba

Huma Bhabha was born in 1962 in Karachi, Pakistan and lives and works in Poughkeepsie, NY. She received an MFA in 1989 from Columbia University. This year The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum gave Bhabha their Emerging Artist Award. She has had solo exhibitions at Salon 94 and ATM Gallery in New York. Her work Bhabha’s work is included in the public collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Saatchi Gallery, London.

Berlinde De Bruyckere

Berlinde De Bruyckere was born in 1964 in Gent, where she lives and works.
Recently she had solo shows at Kunstmuseum, Luzern (2007), Galleria Continua, San Gimignano (2007), La Maison Rouge, Paris (2005); De Pont Stichting voor hedendaagse kunst / Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg (2005); and Quadrennial 06 Artcity, Düsseldorf (2006).  Recently she has contributed to the group exhibitions Berlinde de Bruyckere,  Jenny Saville, and Dan Flavin, at Kunstmuseum Luzern (2007), “Of Mice and Men,” Berlin Biennial, (2006), ARS 06, Kiasma, Helsinki (2006) and the 50th Venice Biennial in 2003.

Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan was born in Padua in 1960. The Italian artist has had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Museum Ludwig in Köln; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; the Museum für Moderne Kunst; Portikus in Frankfurt; the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan; and most recently the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz. Cattelan has participated in five editions of the Venice Biennial and in many collective exhibitions such as the Skulpturenprojekt Münster, Manifesta, and the Whitney Biennal.

William Christenberry

William Christenberry was born in 1936 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and currently lives and works in Washington, D.C. He attended the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, where he received BA and MFA degrees in painting (1958, 1959). Since his first solo show in 1961, Christenberry’s multimedia work has been the subject of one-person and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Christenberry’s work belongs to numerous collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Milwaukee Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

Roberto Cuoghi

Roberto Cuoghi was born in Modena in 1973 and lives and works in Milan. He has been featured in many of the world’s most prominent venues of contemporary art, including the 4th Berlin Biennial (2006) and the Prague Biennale (2003), as well as major museums in Europe, and the United States. He is now having an important solo exhibition at Castello di Rivoli in Italy. Later this year, his work will be included in ‘‘Italics: Italian Art Between Tradition and Re
volution, 1968–2008’’, a monumental exhibition debuting at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and then traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. His projects have been exhibited in group shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2004), the ARC-Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2005), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2007), and the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt (2008). Major public and private collections worldwide contain his work, including the Dakis Joannou Collection, and the François Pinault Collection.

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Ecotopia

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Click on a thumbnail to enlarge it and to launch a slideshow.
For more images, please visit each artist page.

Robert  Adams Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin Patrick Brown Catherine Chalmers Yannick  Demmerle
Mark Dion Sam Easterson Mitch Epstein Joan Fontcuberta Noriko  Furunishi
Marine Hugonnier Francesco Jodice Harri Kallio Vincent Laforet Christopher Lamarca
An-My Le David Maisel Mary Mattingly Gilles Mingasson Simon  Norfolk

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