Narratives of Disobedience
Susan Kelly, Ivana Marjanović, Sandra Schäfer, Lan Tuazon
Curated by Andrei Siclodi
Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Nov 5, 2011 – Jan 27, 2012
Exhibition opened as part of Premierentage 2011
In this exhibition, participating artists in the International Fellowship Program for Art and Theory 2011/12 spoke about their previous work and discussed the individual projects they would be realizing during their time at Büchsenhausen. In their respective projects, Susan Kelly, Ivana Marjanović, Sandra Schäfer and Lan Tuazon took a critical look at the structures and crystalization processes of power, as well as possibilities for its productive infiltration.
The exhibition included documentation of the Start Up Lectures 2011/12 along with selected works by the artists. The topics addressed by fellows in their contributions ranged from jurisdictions (Susan Kelly) to artistic/cultural disobedience (Ivana Marjanović), moments of emancipation for women in Afghanistan (Sandra Schäfer) to “architectures of defense” (Lan Tuazon).
Susan Kelly
Not Sheep, New Urban Commons
3 x DIN A0 reproducible b/w posters, 2010
Under the heading Not Sheep, New Urban Commons, Susan Kelly presented three pieces from a series of large-format, photocopied posters addressing tension from the conflict between feudal land rights (as they still exist in London to some degree) and modern forms of privatization on the one hand, and the struggle for urban commons on the other.
Ivana Marjanović
The State of Exception Proved to Be the Rule
DV, 84 min., Serbian with English subtitles, 2008
Video documentary by Eduard Freudmann and Jelena Radić, produced by DEZ.ORG and Kraja
The video documentary examines the planned opening of the exhibition Exception: Contemporary Art Scene from Prishtina, which was co-curated by Ivana Marjanović and supposed to present artworks by Albanian artists from Kosovo. The opening, scheduled to take place at the gallery Kontekst in Belgrade on February 7, 2008, was prevented by a clerical-fascist organization, violent football hooligans, and the Serbian police. Rather than particularizing and thereby historicizing the event as an isolated phenomenon, the documentary aims to elucidate the political and theoretical context in which it was embedded.
The film therefore attempted to connect the incidents in the gallery Kontekst with the national and international political situation, the production of public opinion by Serbian media, and a theoretical analysis and interpretation of the situation.
Sandra Schäfer
The Making of a Demonstration
DV, 10 min., 2004
Concept and direction by Sandra Schäfer, edited by Elfe Brandenburger
The Making of a Demonstration shows a reenactment of a protest staged by women opposed to Taliban laws prohibiting women in the workforce. The documentary was filmed on the streets of Kabul during the production of the feature film “Osama” in November 2002. One thousand women appeared to participate in the scene. Their personal experiences were identical to those of the women they portrayed. Most of the women agreed to act in the demonstration scene in order to earn some money, yet they also hoped that, by voicing their desire for the right to work, they could improve their real-life situation.
Lan Tuazon
Architecture of Defense—Broken Arrangement Architecture of Defense—Public Space
Photo prints, 154 x 110 cm, Alu-Dibond
Lan Tuazon presented a diptych entitled Architecture of Defense—Public Space and Broken Arrangement. The original version of the work is a four-meters-high sculpture; built to resemble a high-rise, it is composed entirely of various forms of private-space demarcation. The prints show architectural configurations consisting of fences assembled partly from new components, partly from old or decaying ones.
Susan KELLY is an artist, writer and educator currently living in London. She writes, does performances, public artwork and installations and is a lecturer in Fine Art and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Susan Kelly works independently and collectively with the Micropolitics Research Group, the Carrotworkers’ Collective and the Precarious Workers Brigade. Over the last ten years she has worked in Belfast, New York, Toronto, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Tallin, Zagreb, Innsbruck and elsewhere.
Ivana MARJANOVIĆ (born 1979 in Yugoslavia) is a freelance cultural producer in the field of contemporary arts and theory. She is co-founder of the Kontekst Gallery and member of the Kontekst Collective in Belgrade.
Sandra SCHÄFER is an artist and writer based in Berlin. Her works deal with the representation of gender, urbanism and (post-)colonialism. She works with a focus on film and video installations and collaborates with artists and theorists in Kabul, Tehran, London, Barcelona and Berlin.
www.mazefilm.de
Lan TUAZON (*1976 in the Philippines) is an artist living and working in New York. Her art practice addresses the order of things as it relates to built and imaginary environments. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, New York (solo), Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (solo), the Bucharest Biennale 4, and the Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart.
www.lantuazon.com
Location
Künstler:innenhaus Büchsenhausen