Indepth Arts News:
"Call for Artists: Re-Branding Acts"
2008-08-04 until 2008-08-31
Wooloo Productions
Berlin, ,
DE Germany
The third edition of TINA B. – The Prague Contemporary Art Festival, organised by Prague’s Galerie Vernon, aims yet again to combine the creative energy of the cultural scene in Central and Eastern Europe with emerging talents and trends from around the world in the Czech Republic’s vibrant capital. Adopting the leitmotif FORMS OF ENGAGEMENT, TINA B. 2008 will focus on the relationships between art and society,
exploring the role of contemporary art, artists and artistic practice as socio-cultural agents that not only provide a critique of social order, but also serve a direct, positive and symbiotic social function on both a local and global level. Curators: Micaela Giovannotti, Yukiko Ito, Viktor Misiano, Francesca di Nardo, Marek Tomin, Adam Vackar, the Grey Zone Collective.
The third edition’s focus on the various ways in which art engages with individuals and society is all the
more pertinent in the year of the 40th anniversary of the momentous events of 1968, which had a
major impact on society and politics throughout the globe, as well as on Czechoslovakia in particular.
TINA B. 2008 feels honoured to be able to make at least a small contribution to the commemoration
of an anniversary that is a strong symbol of liberty and free thinking (as well, unfortunately, of the ill-
fated imposition of political and military might).
TINA B. 2008 currently has one ongoing project, Billboard Text Art: EMERGING WOR(L)DS,
and will launch the second edition of another autonomous project, Mobile Video Art: INTIMATE
LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE, ahead of the main festival in June 2008.
The Main Event of TINA B. 2008 will take place from September 25 until October 15, 2008, at
various locations in Prague, including the Laterna Magika Theatre, the Italian Cultural Institute
and the Critics’ Gallery, as well as focusing on art in public space, taking contemporary art beyond
the confines of the dedicated exhibition space. In terms of art forms and genres, the festival will focus
on visual performance art, text art, video, light and sound installations, projections, screenings and
interventions, as well as on the new media generated by mobile technologies, which are so profoundly
influencing the daily course of our lives.
Special Events Week will run from October 9 until 13 and will include visual art performances by
extravagant Italian performers Coniglio Viola, radical Danish artists Wooloo Productions and
Berlin-based art project Stupid Green and Czech multimedia artist Darina Alster. Czech socially
and politically engaged art groups Guma Guar and Pode Bal are preparing provocative public space
interventions that will examine social and political issues on a local and global level. In addition, video
art screenings will be held in public space exteriors and one of Prague’s alternative cinemas, as will
artist and curator talks and discussions, with a particular emphasis on the theme of engaged art, art
activism and the 1968 anniversary.
EMERGING WOR(L)DS
Billboard Text Art: EMERGING WOR(L)DS is a unique one-year site-specific project featuring textual
and word-based artworks on large billboards throughout Prague, creating a platform for diverse art
interventions, messages and statements tackling a broad range of issues and subjects concerned with
the complex social, political, corporate and cultural structures currently emerging within the context of
the post-Cold War – and post 9/11 – world.
Contributors have so far included Kendell Geers, Kay Rosen, Vittorio Santoro, Jonathan Monk, Bethan
Huws, Koki Tanaka, Adam Pendleton, Solange Fabião, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Claire Fontaine, Artus de
Lavellion, Detanico & Lain, as well as internationally renowned Czech artist Jiri Kovanda and emerging
Czech artists Guma Guar, Pode Bal, Jiri Skala, Jan Serych, Tomas Vanek, Adam Vackar, Zbynek Baladran
and Jan Nalevka.
EMERGING WOR(L)DS will culminate during the Main Event of TINA B. 2008 with an
exhibition of scaled-down versions of all of the artworks displayed on billboards in Prague
during the project with accompanying photographic documentation in the CRITICS’
GALLERY in Prague’s Adria Palace. A comprehensive publication featuring all the billboard
artworks exhibited in Prague will be available to accompany the project.
THE INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
Launching its second edition in June 2008, Mobile Video Art: THE INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL
VILLAGE is the first project devoted exclusively to video art created with the multimedia mobile
telephone. Designed as an art laboratory and a popular festival for the general public, it employs the
website www.mobilevideoart.com to involve the audience in the creative process and set up a highly-
charged creative dialogue on the nature and essence of contemporary art and culture. Thematically, it
explores the social, political, cultural and personal aspects of everyday life in the 21st Century as
influenced by the interweaving of global and local cultural symbols and artefacts. The body of work
submitted forms a dynamic and constantly evolving mosaic of perceptions of contemporary life and
culture on a global level.
More than fifty artists participated in the first edition of Mobile Video Art. The project has already
attracted considerable attention in both the domestic and international arena, reaching beyond the
confines of the contemporary art community to engage the general public. A selection of artworks
submitted to the project in 2007 will be screened at this year’s Pocket Films Festival taking place at the
Centre Pompidou in Paris between June 13 and15, 2008.
Related Links:
| |
|