International Art News

From May 04th to September 02nd, 2012 – Kunsthalle Wien
Clear the ring for the world of acrobats, clowns, and exotic animals! Presenting a number of contemporary works of art, the exhibition The Circus as a Parallel Universe offers an introduction into the universe of the circus and highlights a wondrous place full of knowledge of the world, surprises and sensations, a place of poetry, but also of excitement, confusion, and unease.
The circus as a parallel world has become a projection surface in film and literature, but also in the fine arts. fascinated with the circus, its forms, and its practice, Peter Blake has created his own personal company of acrobats and fabulous circus creatures, for example. Federico Fellini has made the circus the subject of numerous films, and Charlie Chaplin’s figure of the tramp transcends the norms of social life. Ulrike Ottinger’s works confront us with the circus as a metaphor of an utopian perspective in which its sphere features as the gentle twin of revolution. Besides animals and acrobats, it is primarily the figure of the clown whose complexity oscillating between good and bad, funny and sad has always inspired the arts. Reaching far beyond the actual fringes of the circus’s ring, the exhibition assembles international artistic positions that thematize the world of the circus outside the big top and draw on its figures, forms, and metaphors.

Participating Artists:
Diane Arbus, Matthew Barney, Julien Bismuth, Rhona Bitner, Peter Blake, Olaf Breuning, Bernhard Buhmann, Alexander Calder/Carlos Vilardebo, Charlie Chaplin, Clifton Childree, Charles & Ray Eames, Federico Fellini, Daniel Firman, Thilo Frank, Jeppe Hein, Roni Horn, Anna Jermolaewa, Anna Kolodziejska, Tomasz Kowalski, Patricia Leite, Zilla Leutenegger, Ulrike Lienbacher, Jonathan Monk, Bruce Nauman, Ulrike Ottinger, Marion Peck, Ugo Rondinone, Julian Rosefeldt, Joe Scanlan, Elisabeth Schmirl, Deborah Sengl, Cindy Sherman, Simmons & Burke, Kristian Sverdrup, Javier Téllez, Joe Wagner, Martin Walde, William Wegman, Nives Widauer, Erwin Wurm, Rona Yefman

Kunsthalle Wien Museum

Until January 5, 2012 – National Gallery – Jordan
“Echoes of Italy” solo exhibition by Wijdan, opening at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman.

Throughout her five years in Rome, Wijdan added a new dimension to her paintings and installations that of Murano glass sculptures.  All the works are a continuity of her “Love Series” with their bright colours and calligraphic symbols replicating the word Hubb (Love) in its various forms and connotations.

During her five years in Italy, Wijdan held 2 exhibitions; the last was at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere

Gallery Hours

From the 20 January to 19 February 2011 – Fundació Suñol
White Whispers, the Absent Library is the resulting work from the first edition of the post-production grant awarded to Antònia del Río by the Fundació Suñol, in collaboration with the Master’s in Artistic Productions and Research (PAIR) from the University of Barcelona.

The Majorcan artist exhibits an installation that alludes to the mechanisms of transmission and loss of knowledge, using the representation of a nearly imperceptible library as a metaphor for the storehouse of memory—memory as a construction of discourse, knowledge and thought, as a means to preserve lived memories and experiences and as a resource for avoiding the loss of knowledge that each change of generation entails. It is an intimist work on books, reading and their comprehension, the disappeared knowledge from books that no longer exist and the traces they have left us behind. The piece is accompanied by a documentation space where spectators can consult the readings that were the basis for giving shape and content to the project.

The Fundació Suñol’s Nivell Zero hosts different avant-garde artistic productions with its own projects and also in collaboration with other institutions. In a line of strong commitment to training young artists, in 2009 the foundation signed an agreement with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona to award a grant to a graduate student in Art and Intermedia Contexts (PAIR Master’s). The award is for €6,000, and it provides the artist with a studio at the Fundació Suñol for six months to conceptualize and undertake the project. The foundation then assesses the project’s suitability to be exhibited at Nivell Zero, as was the case with Antònia del Río for having succeeded in creating an optimal work.

Museum Hours