DCV - May 2021
DCV - May 2021
DCV - May 2021
Since the turn of the millennium, much of the world has become an increasingly unstable and
dissonant place. Sharp disruptions define many aspects of our social, cultural, and political
relations. Art in a Conflicted World addresses this evolving reality, featuring critical positions
articulated by visual artists and writers from Ukraine, Russia, and Great Britain-regions embroiled
in extraordinary strife and upheaval. The publication takes a frank look at these multifaceted
states of social dissonance and reflects them in diverse artistic and literary inquiries and
responses. The contributions are the fruits of an interdisciplinary fellowship program at
Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf that offers the participants an opportunity to gain fresh
creative and cultural insights, test ways of engaging with complexity, and develop models for the
future that transcend national boundaries.
The publication presents works by Sarah Dobai, Nikita Kadan, Ali Eisa, and Sebastian Lloyd
Rees (Lloyd Corporation) as well as writings by Alisa Ganieva and Tanya Zaharchenko.
www.artdata.co.uk
ART
Series are open systems, telling stories, toying with rhythms, permitting variations, and
documenting creative processes. Andy Warhol's famous silkscreen prints made the serial
iteration of images his trademark stratagem. In the mid-1960s, Pop Art and Fluxus had
established the fine art print as a medium in which seminal work was being done. New graphic
techniques such as serigraphy and offset printing, used with aggressive colors and punchy
motifs, not only allowed for large numbers of copies, they also opened the door to an
unprecedented engagement with the imagery of popular print and advertising media. Opening
with an inquiry into how serial fine art prints are made, the book presents and contextualizes the
explosive visual and political energy of graphic series. The numerous illustrations and essays are
rounded out by an interview with Thomas Schutte and Ellen Sturm.
With works by Josef Albers, Joseph Beuys, Ulla von Brandenburg, John Cage, Helen Cammock,
Nina Canell, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Olav Christopher Jenssen,
Donald Judd, Ronald B. Kitaj, Maria Lassnig, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner,
Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Stefan Marx, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June
Paik, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Dieter Roth, Fred Sandback, Nora Schultz, Thomas
Schutte, Dasha Shishkin, Frank Stella, Rosemarie Trockel, Victor Vasarely, Wolf Vostell, Andy
Warhol, Corinne Wasmuht, Emmett Williams, Christopher Wool, and others.
www.artdata.co.uk
ART
For more than a decade, the photographer Petra Arnold has shadowed the Zirkus Starlight troupe
and the Fischers, a family of performers, taking analog photographs, mostly black-and-white, of
their life behind the scenes. When she began the project, the Fischers were a large family, with
thirty grandchildren. Over time, the company has had to downsize - the business environment is
difficult, and few people can make a living as circus artists these days. Arnold's photographs peek
behind the curtain for a study of an existence between circus family and family circus - mostly
outside the limelight. The portraits and unstaged scenes are documents of contemporary history
and draw attention to the steady decline of circus culture.
www.artdata.co.uk
ART
The video artist Yael Bartana (b. Kfar Yehezkel, Israel, 1970; lives and works in Amsterdam and
Berlin) makes work that explores the visual language of identity and the politics of
commemoration. The critical scrutiny of collective expectations of political or religious salvation is
a central concern in her art. In the video installation Malka Germania-Hebrew for "Queen
Germany"-Bartana creates alternative realities from the German-Jewish past and present that
bring scenes of the collective unconscious to light. The publication follows the epiphany of Malka
Germania, a female redeemer figure, in five chapters whose layout is modelled on that of the
Talmud, the central text in Rabbinical Judaism. This organization reflects the polyphonic
complexity, rich nuance, and ambivalence that the work casts into visuals and underscores that
there is no simple answer. The book includes an interview with the artist and contributions by
Sami Berdugo, Christina von Braun, Michael Brenner, Max Czollek, and others. It is published on
occasion of the exhibition Yael Bartana-Redemption at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
www.artdata.co.uk
ART
The fine art photographer Birgitta Thaysen (b. Gelsenkirchen, Germany, 1962; lives and works in
Dusseldorf) studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Dusseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and in
Nan Hoover's master class. Her photographic oeuvre encompasses urban motifs as well as
likenesses of humans. In black-and-white portrait shots, she revisits the ancient myth of Amor
and Psyche; embodiments of the yearning for love and the bafflements of the soul, the title
characters have long been vehicles for variegated interpretations in visual art. Thaysen chose to
shoot her portraits at Kunstlerverein Malkasten, Dusseldorf, where the tale is present in an
adaptation as a lavishly made wallpaper from the nineteenth century. She captured the
protagonists lying on the floor, bedded on cushions, their heads upside down, for a vertiginous
exploration of states of mind between self-abandonment and doubt.
www.artdata.co.uk