ARTMargins

Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

Monthly Archive: May 2009

ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

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 by Dessislava Dimova (London) ·

Ivan Moudov, “Trick Or Treat”, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, December 6, 2008 – February 12, 2009 (Exhib. Review)

IVAN MOUDOV, TRICK OR TREAT, KUNSTVEREIN BRAUNSCHWEIG, BRAUNSCHWEIG. DECEMBER 6, 2008 – FEBRUARY 12, 2009

In the work of Bulgarian artist Ivan Moudov there is a conscious desire to dismantle the social role and structure of the artwork and the art world. Piece by piece, art is taken apart, and in the process of deconstruction we end up with many more pieces than we initially counted. Still the artist is not content with sabotaging the way things are. His solo exhibition at the Braunschweig Kunstverein also revealed a carefully reconstructed world where the bits and pieces were put back … Read more

ARTMargins Online: New Media & Film

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 by Peter McCarthy (Sydney) ·

Doing the Balkans with No Baedeker: Kusturica, Peter Handke, and Beyond

In January 1996, Austrian playwright Peter Handke published his diaries from a recent visit to Serbia, an event that opened him to the widespread excoriating criticism that became known as the “Handke Affair.” As Serbia advanced on Kosovo and NATO made sorties of its own into Belgrade in 1999, the state became increasingly isolated,Slobodan Miloševi?’s rhetoric increasingly inflammatory and nationalistic. Miloševi?’s incarceration and trial at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the prosecutions of perpetrators of the massacre of Bosniak civilians in Srebrenica and Serbia’s continued objection to Kosovo’s independence in 2008 served only to vindicate Handke’s critics … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

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 by Jasna Jakšić(Zagreb) ·

Igor Grubić, “366 Liberation Rituals”, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb, March 20, 2009 – April 21, 2009 (Exhib. Review)

Igor Grubić, 366 Liberation Rituals, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb. March 20, 2009 – April 21, 2009

In 2008 the Croatian artist Igor Grubić began a series of performances dedicated to the revolutionary movements of 1968 that ranged from personal dedications to provocative, site-specific interventions in public spaces. The meticulous exhibition of Grubić’s work at Galerija Miroslav Kraljević in Zagreb functioned as an introduction to the artist book that is to be published by the same gallery in June of this year. The show itself presented photo-documents and artist’s statements with respect to twenty five of Grubić’s actions and performances, … Read more

ARTMargins Online: New Media & Film

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 by Maxim Pozdorovkin (Cambridge, MA) ·

In Search of a Final Flight: Two Films by Larisa Shepitko on DVD (Film Review)

WINGS. DIRECTED BY LARISA SHEPITKO, 1966. RELEASED ON DVD BY THE CRITERION COLLECTION, 2008. 85 MIN, 1:33:1 ASPECT RATIO.

THE ASCENT. DIRECTED BY LARISA SHEPITKO, 1977. RELEASED ON DVD BY THE CRITERION COLLECTION, 2008. 109 MIN, 1:33:1 ASPECT RATIO.

The 1965 end of year issue of Sovetskiy Ekran, the leading Soviet film magazine, came with a mail-in questionnaire.(Much of the information on the restructuring of the Soviet Film industry is based on Hill, Steven “Soviet Film Today” in Film Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Summer, 1967), pp. 33-52.)  Alongside garden-variety marketing research questions about … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Articles

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 by Max Seddon (Moscow) ·

A Fascist in Our Midst: Alexey Belayev-Guintovt and the Kandinsky Prize Scandal

The few hundred practitioners and enthusiasts of Contemporary Russian art like to think of it as a collective activity. With talk of “our art, our artists, our pavilion in Venice,” the myopic and occasionally Lilliputian Moscow scene exhibits unusual solidarity when it comes to fighting for a place under the sun.  But last December, when amid cries of “Disgrace!” and accusations of fascism, ultranationalist painter Alexey Belyaev-Guintovt beat out Sots Art legend Boris Orlov and Marxist Dmitry Gutov to win the 2008 Kandinsky Prize, a deep, bitter division broke ranks from within, and the word “them” added itself to the … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

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 by Katarína Slaninová (Bratislava) ·

“Without Borders”, Austrian Cultural Forum, Bratislava, Slovakia, March 5, 2009 – April 24, 2009.

Without Borders, Austrian Cultural Forum, Bratislava, Slovakia. March 5, 2009 – April 24, 2009

In 1989 the Iron Curtain fell. That same year, the organization “Kultur Kontakt Austria” was founded. In that period of drastic social and political changes when new democracies were formed in Europe, Kultur Kontakt Austria figured as a coordination hub that supported artists and cultural institutions from former Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Poland, Croatia), creating a platform for cultural exchange. Even after twenty years, KKA is still true to its mission and systematically supports the arts in these countries.

The … Read more