TIME CODE: Asdam / Moser / Schwinger

MAMbo is glad to present the fourth appointment with TIME CODE, a project curated by Fabiola Naldi and Alessandra Pioselli. Following the three events which took place in past month, TIME CODE plans five further occasions devoted to video to take place from now until 12 June 2008, presenting as many Italian and foreign artists who have devoted part of their work to the analysis and elaboration of various time codes.

Following the success of our previous exhibitions of Loulou Cherinet, Kjersti Sundland, Pavel Braila, Roberta Piccioni, Oliver Kochta Kalleinen, Tellervo Kalleinen and Alejandro Vidal it is now the turn of Knut Asdam (Trondheim, Norvey, 1968) and Moser + Schwinger (Saint-Imier, Switzerland, 1966 / 61), who will present their works, accompanied by the curators of the exhibition, in the Conference Hall of MAMbo on Thursday 13 March at 6.30 p.m. The videos of these three artists will be on display in the spaces of the museum until 13 April 2008.

Knut Asdam (Trondheim, Norway, 1968)

Finally, video, 18 min., 2006 Presented both as a 35 mm film and as a video installation on DVD, Finally is a complex work that portrays three young people in the process of doing things against the backdrop of an historical urban context. Shot in Salzburg (Austria), Finally highlights the relationship between the architectural space and the language of the protagonists. The three young people often struggle violently among themselves for no apparent reason and with nothing provided by the narration to justify it. The violence has more the semblance of a sudden uncontrollable reaction to the context. Finally develops around a non-linear narration and meditates on issues that touch on violence and history. In this film, too, Knut Asdam explores the limits between the narrative film and the modalities of constructing space inherent in contemporary art.

Knut Asdam was born in 1968 in Trondheim Norway, and he lives and works in Oslo. He works with the politics of space and the boundaries of subjectivity using sound, video, photography and architecture. These ideas are often linked to issues of dissidence and the analysis of space in terms of desire, usage and history. Asdam is interested in architecture, places and social dynamics not as an exercise in form but rather as aspects of everyday life. His videos and films have been featured in many international festivals including Locarno and Rotterdam. In 2008 he expects to complete a new production commissioned by the British Film Institute of London and is one of the artists who have been invited to take part in Manifesta 7.

Frédéric Moser (Saint-Imier, Switzerland, 1966) & Philippe Schwinger (Saint-Imier, Switzerland, 1961)

Time flies, video, 2006 A well-dressed woman walks alone through the emptiness of a theatre followed by a video-camera. She confesses, telling of her life and, having been the guest of a television talk show, having designed a line of handbags, having looked for God and having held the genitals of the President of the United States in her hands wonders if she will ever be able to marry just anybody. Amanda Cook, the woman, is Monica Lewinsky. Her enticing monologue is aimed at the videocamera in a last attempt at seduction. Monica Lewinsky has already been the centre of an earlier video by Moser & Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, of 2004, based on the infamous affair that hit the Clinton administration, laying bare the relationship between power, sex and the media. In Time flies Amanda / Monica continues her recital confession, now without an audience, allowing herself be pulled by the awareness of her media role but also by her human and disarmingly moving ingenuity.

Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger were born in Saint-Imier in Switzerland in 1966 and 1961 respectively. They presently live and work in Berlin. Bringing together theatre, video and installation, the Swiss duo reflect on how the media puts over what it represents, using the alienating and seductive power of images, texts and mises-en-scene. Their work has been presented at many international events including the Locarno and Rotterdam festivals. In 2004 they represented Switzerland at the 26th International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Sao Paulo (Brazil).

TIME CODE – THE PROJECT

We believe that it is widely accepted that video is the extra-artistic means par excellence, the only one to provide a vast spectrum of cultural workers with the possibility of tackling the issue of variable time spaces. Indeed, time read through videography can thus be dilated, frozen, sped-up, slowed-down or repeated infinitely showing how videographic interpretation is still in complete harmony with the culture of today. From 15 November 2007 to 12 June 2008 TIME CODE will exhibit sixteen selected videos by artists from Italy and abroad in order to highlight and analyse the multiplicity of temporal structures that video possesses and the successive processes for giving them shape, and perceive and interpret them. As a main key for interpreting time, four categories of decodification and staging denominated Representation, Recording, Presentation and Recovery were identified and suggested, four conceptual pretexts for reading and making use of reality as it is differentiated by the artist’s intention and the use of the most varied technical means. In theory, the aim is to explore the work of the artists invited to take part always beginning from these four categories which only in part behave similarly. Except for the genre of Recording which happens even where there is no post-production, they all require the introduction of hypertexts, paraphrasing, metaphors, icons or meta-linguistics translated by increasingly sophisticated editing, cut-up, re-mixing, manipulation of audio-visual signals, feed-back and loop. Selected on the basis of the categories identified, the videos exhibited point to new readings functional to conveying a content and meaning which were examined case by case. Each appointment will feature two videos running in the most diverse areas of MAMbo to dialogue with the architectural structure of the renewed institution, and a meeting open to the public with the artists and curators. The aim of the event is to be a new way of bringing people closer to enjoying videography leaving the works on show until the successive appointment.

Fabiola Naldi e Alessandra Pioselli

THE CURATORS

Fabiola Naldi is an art critic and curator. She collaborates with the course on the History of Contemporary Art in the Department of Visual Arts in the Faculty of Arts of Bologna University and with the course on the History of Exhibition Events of Art and Fashion in the degree course on the History of Fashion and Custom (Rimini campus) in the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Bologna University. She teaches Phenomenology of the Image at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts. She contributes to Flash Art, Around Photography and Sentire Ascoltare. Com. She has written: Arte Africana Contemporanea tra tradizione e nuove tecnologie, in Arte Africana fra Cultura e Mercato, Guido Candela (ed.), Skira, Milan, 2007. La mia strada continua e vive oggi più di prima. Il Writing a Bologna dalla fine Settanta a Oggi, in Atlante dei movimenti culturali contemporanei dell’Emilia Romagna 1968-2007. Scritture, Arti, Controculture, Clueb, Bologna, 2007 Scrubbing Video, in Vertigo. Il secolo di arte Off – Media dal Futurismo al Web, Germano Celant and Gianfranco Maraniello (eds.), Skira, Milan, 2007 The Fair of Freaks. The visual world of Floria Sigismondi & Chris Cunningham, in Sound and Vision, Luca Beatrice (ed.), Damiani Editori, 2006 Floria Sigismondi. Immaculate Conception, The Bookmakers Ed., Turin, 2005. Rapport 1957-1977, in P. SORCINELLI (ed.), Gli anni del Rock, Bup, Bologna, 2005. I’ll be your mirror. Travestimenti fotografici, Cooper & Castelvecchi, Roma, 2003.

Alessandra Pioselli is an art critic and curator. She teaches History of Contemporary Art at the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts Art in Bergamo and Visual Communication at the European Institute of Design in Milan. She collaborates with the Master course on Extraordinary Landscapes on Milan Polytechnic. She writes for Artforum. She has published: Milano anni Settanta: arte, politica e territorio, in Milano città d’arte, Università di Pavia – Gli Ori, Alessandria 2001. Arte e scena urbana. Modelli di intervento e politiche culturali pubbliche in Italia tra il 1968 e il 1981, in L’arte pubblica nello spazio urbano. Artisti, committenti, fruitori, Bruno Mondadori, Milan 2007.

THE ARTISTS

Knut Asdam Born in Trondheim (Norway) in 1968. He lives and works in Oslo.

Riccardo Benassi Born in Cremona (Italy) in 1982. He lives and works in Cremona, Bologna and Berlin.

Pavel Braila Born in Chisinau (Republic of Moldova) in 1971. He lives and works in Chisinau.

Pierre Coulibeuf Born in Elbeuf (France) in 1949. He lives and works in Paris.

Simonetta Fadda Born in Savona (Italy) in 1962. She lives and works in Milan

Shona Illingworth Born in a London (Great Britain) in 1966. She lives and works in London.

Tellervo Kalleinen Born in Lohja (Finland) in 1975. She lives and works in Helsinki.

Almagul Menlibayeva Born in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in 1969. She lives and works in Almaty and Berlin.

Ottonella Mocellin and Nicola Pellegrini Ottonella Mocellin and Nicola Pellegrini were born in Milan (Italy) in 1966 / 62. They live and work in Milan.

Moser & Schwinger Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger were born in Saint-Imier (Switzerland) in 1966 / 61. They live and work in Berlin.

Roberta Piccioni Born in Riccione (Italy) in 1967. She lives and works in Riccione.

Sara Rossi Born in Milan (Italy) in 1970. She lives and works in Milan.

Martin Sastre Born in Montevideo (Uruguay) in 1976. He lives and works in Madrid.

Alejandro Vidal Born in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) 1972. He lives and works in Barcelona.

Past Appointments:

The first appointment: 15 November - 5 December 2007 Loulou Cherinet and Kjersti Sundland.

Loulou Cherinet

Minor Field Study (2006) is a double video projection based on footage shot by the anthropologist Billy Marius on the border between Congo and Cameroon. Loulou Cherinet selected and re-edited part of the material filming the same scenes in Orminge, a suburb outside Stockholm. The two locations are set side by side to highlight the many differences not only in terms of temporal space but also of cultural geography. Minor Field Study is being exhibited for the first time in Italy.

Loulou Cherinet was born in Gothenburg in 1970. She lives and works in Sweden and Ethiopia. In her photography and videos, replete with references to cinema and documentary, she touches on the issue of identity and the relationship between the private and public-social dimension of living. Among the principal collective shows in 2007 she took part in the Venice Biennial (African Pavilion) and in the itinerant show Africa Remix (Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa).

Kjersti Sundland

Enduring Portraits (2007) is the portrait of a female face subjected to slow ageing. Biological evolution takes place over a different time from the natural one. The artist samples the faces of two women of different ages filmed previously, obtaining a series of 40 variations which show the gradual passing of time. Using Isadora software, the ageing of a female face is determined by the running time of the video. Enduring Portraits was specially created for the TIME CODE project and the MAMbo exhibition space.

Kjersti Sundland was born in Bergen in 1972. She lives and works in Norway. By sophisticated manipulation of digital imagery her videos explore the relationship between the language of mass media, technology and the formation of identify with particular emphasis on female representation. In 2007 the live media “Monstrous little women” was selected for the Live Media Festival Netmage (Bologna).

The second appointment: 6 December 2007 - 3 February 2008 Pavel Braila and Roberta Piccioni

Pavel Braila

Undressing the bride (video, 18’, 2006) This video was filmed during a wedding in Moldova and shows the “undressing of the bride”, the ritual which concludes every traditional marriage ceremony. This is when the young couple receive their gifts, and by taking off her veil the bride takes on her new role of housewife. The video camera is still. At the centre of the scene, the bridegroom takes the bride on his lap, and in turn all those present offer their gifts: perfume, clothes, blankets, cushions, kitchenware, etc. The gifts are opened in front of the couple, who are literally dressed with the objects they have just received which will bring them good luck. Relatives and guests repeat the same gestures, and, gift after gift, the couple are buried under a heap of presents: this ritual action becomes a real performance and the newly-wedded are transformed into a “living sculpture”.

Pavel Braila was born in Chisinau (Republic of Moldova) in 1971. He lives and works in Berlin. Through deep reflection on the expressive potential of videos as well as on their limits, Braila looks into the social reality of his home country in the post-soviet era, by documenting small daily events and the incongruity of a transition context. In 2002 he took part in Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany). Among his most important solo exhibitions, in 2007 he exhibited his works at the Neuen Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

Roberta Piccioni

Storm (video, 3’52” in loop, 2007). Two fencers fight against a black background. The video camera is still and the movement is internal. The two bodies move in and out of the frame. The audio reproduces the noise of clashing swords, which is metallic and violent as that of a storm. The title, Storm, shifts the meaning continuously, charging the obvious image with other meanings. What is being staged is an endless fight. The bodies are plastic sculptures. They emerge from the dark background in all their physicality, but their faces are absent, covered with black masks. Slow motion and loop techniques dilate the perception of time. A simple scene, an event as trivial as a sports confrontation, is transformed into a powerful, evocative image. Roberta Piccioni was born in Riccione in 1969. She lives and works in Riccione. In her videos, the triviality of everyday life, the fleeting and evasive details of our existence, are all so focused on that they gain particular evidence, through the processes of image slowing-down or speeding-up, so as to provoke the viewer to recall often buried memories. Among her most important group exhibitions, in 2007 she presented her work inside the Videoart Yearbook (Bologna). In 2002 she was among those artists running for the Premio Furla and in 2001 she was brought to everybody’s notice thanks to the P.S.1 Italian Studio Program.

The third appointment: 7 February – 9 March 2008 Oliver Kochta Kalleinen, Tellervo Kalleinen and Alejandro Vidal

Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta Kalleinen Complaints Choir (video, 2005-2007)

A group of citizens is singing in chorus. The tune is that of a lively folksong, but the words are mournful. Complaints Choir is a project resulting from an invitation by the artists to the people of a number of cities to give public expression to what they consider reasons for being downhearted, and to get together and sing them. This invitation is open to all, and recruitment is effected by means of leaflets and posters. There is a Finnish word, “Valituskuoro”, which means “complaining in unison”, or “lamenting together”. Complaints Choir sets out ironically to channel the energies of people into a public form of communication, putting shared complaints in the place of those that don’t work at the individual, local or global level. Complaint Choir is a work in progress begun in 2005. Until now it has happened in Birmingham, Helsinki, Hamburg, St Petersburg, Budapest and in many other towns in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. The choruses are recorded on video. A selection of them will be presented for TIME CODE at MAMbo. From 7 February, Complaints Choir will be shown also in the museum website (www.mambo-bologna.org), par excellence interstitial place.

Tellervo Kalleinen was born at Lohja (Finland) in 1975. She lives and works in Helsinki. She works with video, performance and the production of projects often based on notions of collaboration and participation. Oliver Kochta Kalleinen was born in Dresden (Germany) in 1971. He lives and works in Helsinki. He works with video, performance and the creation of projects which frequently investigate the theme of the creation of utopian communities. Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta Kalleinen have been working in collaboration since 1993.

Alejandro Vidal One second burns for a billion years (video, 2007)

An ambiguous situation. Two young women are dancing alone in a nondescript landscape. They get dressed, put on some make-up, count their money, read something. Aircraft fly overhead. They listen to music, lost in their isolation. There’s a young lad there as well. We have no idea why they are there or what they are waiting for. We don’t know whether something has happened or is going to happen. Vidal puts together a syncopated, fragmentary story, reinforced by the sound track, using codes typical of advertising or video-clips to present us with a youthful, urban world that has its dreams and its mischief, that is both naïve and uninhibited. Above all, Vidal puts the viewer in the position of the voyeur of a scene without any reference points, compelling him to face up to his own fears, prejudices and expectations.

Alejandro Vidal was born at Palma de Mallorca in 1972. He lives and works in Barcellona. He works in video, photography, design and installations. His work is centred on subjects involving violence, social conflict and activism. He studies forms of protest and communication such as punk, rave or cult movies, with a view to showing how marketing, politics and the mass media distort our view of violence and urban life.

TIME CODE Curator: Fabiola Naldi and Alessandra Pioselli

TIME CODE
fourth appointment
Kuratoren: Fabiola Naldi, Alessandra Pioselli

mit Knut Asdam, Frederic Moser / Philippe Schwinger