2015

Anthony Downey and Beatrix Ruf in Conversation with Slavs and Tatars, 11 March 2015

 11 March 2015

Slavs & Tatars, Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz, installation view, 2011. Sharjah Biennale 10

Slavs & Tatars, Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz, installation view, 2011. Sharjah Biennale 10

Anthony Downey: If I understand correctly, the genre of ‘Mirrors for Princes’ involves a form of political writing or advisory literature for future rulers on matters both secular and spiritual. The genre was shared by Christian and Muslim lands, in particular during the Middle Ages, with Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532) and Speculum Regnum (ca 1183) or fürstenspiegel being two of the more well-known examples. Could you talk about this as an idea and how it manifests itself in the context of current work being produced by Slavs and Tatars?

(more…)

Event Horizon: Eric Baudelaire in conversation with Anthony Downey

29 October 2015

Visual artist and filmmaker Eric Baudelaire talks to Anthony Downey about the themes of disjunction, the real, and the representation of the ‘event’ in his work. Tracing the development of his career from the social sciences to the field of art, as inspired by his time in the de facto state of Abkhazia, Baudelaire describes the convergence of his different interests in sound, image, oral history, and the unpacking and problematizing of historical narratives. Screenwriter and ex-Japanese Red Army spokesperson Masao Adachi emerges as an influential figure in both Baudelaire’s artistic practice, where their collaborations produce a unique creativity out of artistic conflict, as well as shared trans-generational attitudes towards the art and politics of the future.

Edinburgh International Book Festival: Art on the Attack

The University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Friday, 28 August 2015, 16.00 – 15.00

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is the largest public celebration of the written word in the world. Every August they bring over 800 writers and thinkers from across the planet together to rub shoulders with their readers.

“Visual art needn’t just be nice to look at or confusing to behold, it can also be politically aware. For Art and Politics Now, Anthony Downey searched the globe for ambitious, daring and socially engaged artworks. He describes the work of contemporary artists who are creatively reflecting upon the Middle East, the financial crisis, migration, terrorism and social activism.”

Photo Credit: Hydar Dewachi

Istanbul Book Launch: Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East

SALT Galata, Istanbul

Saturday, 5 September 2015

Dissonant Archives launched in Istanbul alongside a panel discussion with contributions from Vahap Avşar, Burak Arikan, Meriç Algün Ringborg and Basak Senova.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Edited by Anthony Downey and published by IB Tauris, Dissonant Archives is the first book to consider the various ways in which contemporary artists from North Africa and the Middle East utilize and disrupt the function of the archive and, in so doing, highlight a systemic and perhaps irrevocable crisis in institutional and state-ordained archiving across the region.

Often viewed as ordered collections of historical documents that record information about people, places and events, this perception of the archive nevertheless obscures a crucial element: although subject to the vagaries of time and history, the archive is primarily concerned with determining the future. This feature of the archive has gained urgency in modern day North Africa and the Middle East, where it has come to the fore as a precarious and performative site of social, historical, theoretical and political contestation.

In addressing these issues, this volume enquires into a number of imminent questions. How, for one, do we understand the speculative forms of archival knowledge that are being produced in contemporary art practices in North Africa and the Middle East? Do these practices foster a nostalgic fetishization for the archive or suggest an ongoing crisis in institutional and state-ordained archiving? And what, moreover, do artistic practices that engage with archives reveal about the contemporary politics of global cultural production?

London Book Launch: Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East

Rivington Place, London

Thursday, 10 September 2015, 18.00-21.00

The London-based launch was be preceded by a panel discussion with a number of the book’s contributors, including John Akomfrah, Nick Denes, Laura Cugusi, Guy Mannes-Abbott and Zineb Sedira.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Edited by Anthony Downey and published by IB Tauris, Dissonant Archives is the first book to consider the various ways in which contemporary artists from North Africa and the Middle East utilize and disrupt the function of the archive and, in so doing, highlight a systemic and perhaps irrevocable crisis in institutional and state-ordained archiving across the region.

Often viewed as ordered collections of historical documents that record information about people, places and events, this perception of the archive nevertheless obscures a crucial element: although subject to the vagaries of time and history, the archive is primarily concerned with determining the future. This feature of the archive has gained urgency in modern day North Africa and the Middle East, where it has come to the fore as a precarious and performative site of social, historical, theoretical and political contestation.

In addressing these issues, this volume enquires into a number of imminent questions. How, for one, do we understand the speculative forms of archival knowledge that are being produced in contemporary art practices in North Africa and the Middle East? Do these practices foster a nostalgic fetishization for the archive or suggest an ongoing crisis in institutional and state-ordained archiving? And what, moreover, do artistic practices that engage with archives reveal about the contemporary politics of global cultural production?

 

 

Contingency, Dissonance and Performativity: Critical Archives and Knowledge Production in Contemporary Art

1 May 2015

Cover image

“[T]he question of the archive is not […] a question of the past. It is not the question of a concept dealing with the past that might already be at our disposal or not at our disposal, an archivable concept of the archive. It is a question of the future, the question of the future itself, the question of a response, of a promise and of a responsibility for tomorrow.” Jacques Derrida¹

How do we define the ongoing relationship between contemporary art and the archive? Considering the unprecedented levels of present-day information storage and forms of data circulation, alongside the diversity of contemporary art practices, this question may seem hopelessly open-ended. In an age defined by the application of archival knowledge as an apparatus of social, political, cultural, historical, state and sovereign power, it nevertheless needs to be posed.

Read the full essay.

To purchase a copy of Dissonant Archives please follow this link.

Performative Resonances: Hiwa K in conversation with Anthony Downey and Amal Khalaf

30 July 2015

Hiwa K., The Bell, 2007–2015. Courtesy the artist and Promoteo Gallery.

Hiwa K., The Bell, 2007–2015. Courtesy the artist and Promoteo Gallery.

Hiwa K’s work fundamentally interrogates the position of the artist, formal education systems and the resonances, both literally and aurally, of historical events. In this far ranging conversation, Hiwa reflects upon his most recent work The Bell (2007–2015) and previous performances.  Highlighting how his use of sound – a primal, organic medium of direct engagement and influence – produces performative acts and explaining how he utilizes humour to reinvigorate the friction of reality; and how, as an ‘extellectual’, he is challenging the standardized notions of artistic knowledge production.

(more…)

JAOU Tunis 2015: Visual Culture In An Age Of Global Conflict

The National Museum of Bardo, Tunis

28-30 May 2015

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Kamel Lazaar Foundation staged a two-day conference at the National Museum of Bardo from 28–30 May, 2015. This was the 3rd iteration of the JAOU initiative held there and the first international conference at the Museum since the terrorist attacks on Wednesday, 18 March 2015.

Organized in advance of those attacks, the conference took on an additional pertinence in relation to any investigation into the role that culture performs in the personal, social, public, and political discourses that are unfolding across the region. The indiscriminate attacks have further highlighted the susceptibility of culture in an age of global terror, as have the recent destruction of artifacts in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The questions that remain demand exploration and considered responses if we are to not only condemn these attacks but also ensure that culture and civil society will prevail in the face of extremism, violence and indiscriminate killing.

JAOU 2015 brought together local and international artists, curators, academics, and cultural practitioners to address these concerns and included, alongside other events, a condition report on visual culture in the Maghreb, an extended series of round table discussions on, respectively, collaborative geographies in an age of global conflict, the future of art institutions in the Middle East, the role of artistic practices in building international relations and local institutions, the use of archives in contemporary art practices, and the historical genealogies that inform performance art in the Middle East.

Here is a link to a video of the presentation of the programme, further information about the details of the event and programme can be found on the Ibraaz site

Images:
1. Roundtable Panel 1
2. Anthony Downey and Sultan Al Qassami
3. Roundtable Panel 2
4. Hiwa K.
5. Payam Sharifi of Slavs and Tatars

Image credit: Ibraaz

Essay: Contingency, Dissonance and Performativity: Critical Archives and Knowledge Production in Contemporary Art

30 May 2015

Cover image

How do we define the ongoing relationship between contemporary art and the archive? Considering the unprecedented levels of present-day information storage and forms of data circulation, alongside the diversity of contemporary art practices, this question may seem hopelessly open-ended. In an age defined by the application of archival knowledge as an apparatus of social, political, cultural, historical, state and sovereign power, it nevertheless needs to be posed. In what follows, I will suggest that we can more fully refine the question and offer a series of conditional answers if we consider, in the first instance, the extent to which contemporary artists retrieve, explore and critique orders of archival knowledge.

Read the full Introductory essay.

Contributors:

Basel Abbas 
and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, John Akomfrah
, Jananne Al-Ani, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Héla Ammar, Burak Arıkan, Ariella Azoulay
, Vahap Avşar, Sussan Babaie
, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck, Timothy P.A Cooper, Joshua Craze, Laura Cugusi, Ania Dabrowska, Nick Denes, Chad Elias, Media Farzin, Mariam Ghani, Gulf Labor, Tom Holert, Adelita Husni-Bey, Maryam Jafri, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Amina Menia, Shaheen Merali, Naeem Mohaiemen, Mariam Motamedi Fraser, Pad.ma, Lucie Ryzova, Lucien Samaha, Rona Sela and Laila Shereen Sakr (VJ Um Amel).

Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East launched on 30 May 2015 at JAOU Tunis 2015 at the National Museum of Bardo, Tunis.

To purchase a copy of Dissonant Archives please follow this link.

Art and Politics Now: Renzo Martens in conversation with Anthony Downey

Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium

Monday, 16 March 2015, 18.30 – 20.00

Tate talks in conversation

Tate Modern audience

Tate in Converstation

Why are contemporary artists increasingly engaging with some of the most pressing issues facing our world today, from globalisation, migration and citizenship to conflict, sustainability, gentrification, terrorism and social activism?

Join Anthony Downey, author of Art and Politics Now, and artist Renzo Martens for a conversation addressing the implications of these developments and how they invite us to rethink what we mean by the terms ‘political’, ‘engagement’, and ‘activism’.

Anthony Downey is an academic, editor and writer. Recent and upcoming publications include Art and Politics Now  (Thames and Hudson, 2014); Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2014); and Archival Dissonance: Contemporary Art and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (forthcoming, 2015). He is the Director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, and Editor-in-Chief of Ibraaz, a publishing and research initiative on visual culture in the Middle East. He is currently researching Zones of Indistinction: Performative Ethics and Late Modernity (forthcoming, 2016).

Renzo Martens is an artist living in Brussels. His work Episode III: Enjoy Poverty was exhibited at the 6th Berlin Biennale, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, La Vireinna, Barcelona, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, and screened at Tate Modern, London and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Currently he works on the Institute for Human Activities and its five-year Gentrification Program in the Congo. The Institute held its opening seminar in the Congolese rainforest, as part of the 7th Berlin Biennial, with presentations at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Wiels, Brussels. He studied Political Science at the University of Nijmegen and art at the Royal Academy of Ghent and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Martens is the Artistic Director for the Institute of Human Activities (IHA) and was the World Fellow at Yale University, New Haven in 2013.

The evening will be chaired by Elvira Dyangani Ose (Lecturer Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Following the discussion, there will be an opportunity to purchase a copy of Art and Politics Now and have it signed by the author in the Starr Foyer from 20.00–20.20.

This event has been developed in partnership with Thames & Hudson

Images:

Top 3: Event Images, Credit Lauren Mele, 2015

Last image set: Left, Cover of Art and Politics Now (Thames and Hudson, 2014); Right: “Impression of CPWAL Inaugural Meeting, Institute for Human Activities, undisclosed location, DR Congo, video still, 2014 “

Please note that any information sent, received or held by Tate may be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

%d bloggers like this: