Syndicate: call for kosov@ albanians to participate in US exhibition/conference

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: Trebor Scholz <treborscholz@earthlink.net>

Could you post this asking if someone knows of a Kosovar
artist/scholar whom I could contact?
It is very important to me to find Kosovars
to participate in the exhibition / conference.

best, Trebor

                         Carnival in the Eye of the Storm
                     War / Art / New Technologies: KOSOV@
                   
curated by Trebor Scholz

WHERE: 
Portland (Oregon)-USA

STRUCTURE:
Exhibition, Film Series, Conference

DATES FOR EXHIBITION: (Feldman Gallery, Swigert Gallery, Media Gallery:
Pacific NW College of Art)
April 6th to April 29th 2000

DATES FOR CONFERENCE: (REED College to be confirmed)
April 14th to April 16th

DATES FOR FILM SERIES: (NW Film Center)
April 7,14,16,17,21,22,23

Kosov@. Which side are you on? The exhibition and conference attempt to set
up a conversation of opposing voices from the US, Germany, Austria, Serbia,
and Kosov@. The Albanian voices are rarely heard, in the internet you will
find only few of them. The dialogue about Kosov@ is a Western discourse with
some Serbs.
The program  (exhibition/ film series/ conference) looks at the use of new
technologies such as the internet for art in response to this war.
Are there meaningful ways for art to intervene?  How was this war impacted
by the existence of  internet communities such as ³Nettime² and ³Syndicate².
How did this war internationalize these  political communities?

³It¹s us the armchair passengers who observe what passes, and decide what
passed. <...> To ³do² something doesn¹t always mean to engage oneself in the
concrete practical situation. Grasping the meaning of historical historical
events can have an impact on them...²(1)
³There is never enough time- for an accurate knowledge of the history of the
region, for reliable, confirmed information, for an instant theory that
explains it all...² (2)
The exhibition offers histories of Kosov@ (ie. establishing a time line).
How was the Internet mobilized by cultural producers in response to the
events of the Kosov@ months? Who had access to new technologies and who did
not? How do we negotiate our ethical stand as artists producing work (or an
exhibition) about a war in the Balkans?

WHY KOSOV@?
Kosov@ is one of the most visible wars of our time that was fought
physically thousands of miles away from the United States. The issues that
are raised by the exhibition will stay with us. It is the first extensive
war since WW II on European territory, directly involving the US and EU
countries. These NATO bombardments caused a split  inside leftist groupings
that could not decide which side they should support.
The Western media were largely instrumental to the US / NATO military. Much
more images from Serbia were shown. From March until June 1999 there was a
complete media black out in Kosov@. Which imagery was depicted by the media
to represent this war and why?

While we are caught up with Kosov@ NATO still bombs Iraq every day. The gulf
war happened but it did not happen on TV where the actual
battlefield was not shown. Military strategies had to take the simultaneity
of immediate reporting  online into account (ie. Radio B92).
How did art respond to or even intervene with this war? How efficient can
this intervention be?  A large number of artworks on the subject will be
made accessible in the PNCA Media Gallery. Now Serbian artists are more
visible than those from Kosov@. The exhibition tries to include both.

The Exhibition in Context
Comparable exhibitions are the "War Zone" exhibition in Vancouver, the
"After The Wall" exhibition in Stockholm and ³War Bulletin² at Postmasters
Gallery in New York. In October  there will be a "Annual Show of Artists"
in Belgrade with an online chat option.
This program is part of the necessary effort to investigate the efficacy of
art in relation to the  war in Kosov@.

ARTISTS In the exhibition:
CLAUS BACH is a Weimar based artist whose work has been exhibited across
Europe. Exhibitions include "NEW TERRITORY: ART FROM EAST GERMANY"(School of
the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MA), "ART IN FREEDOM"-artists from Eastern
Europe (Antwerpen, Belgium), "Kunst in Deutschland 1945-1995". Museum
Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (Germany), Galeria Metropolitana, Barcelona
(Spain)

ABDELALI DAHROUCH is a Moroccan artist living in New York. His videos are
shown in the US and Europe. Exhibition include ³The War Bulletin² at
Postmasters Gallery.

PETER FEND is known for his Ocean Earth Project. He has exhibited
extensively  and frequently appears in art magazines like Art Forum.

EMILY JACIR is a New York based Palestinian artist whose work has been shown
internationally. She was an artist in residence at Cite International des
Arts, Paris, France and at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center.

MARY KELLY is Professor and Chair of Art and Critical Theory at UCLA.  Kelly
was Director of Studios at the Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York from 1989 -1996. She has been a contributor to Screen
Magazine, October, and Art Forum. Her published works include "Post-Partum
Document" (1983), "Interim" (1985), "Pecunia Olet" (1989), "Gloria Patri"
(1992), and "Imaging Desire" (1996). Kelly has had solo exhibitions at The
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. ³Mea Culpa² Postmasters Gallery,
1999

TOM LECHNER is an emerging artist living in Portland who produced a series
of political cartoons on the subject.

JANINE & LEIF ROSTRON-LIEBENSCHÜTZ
are working as Transformers, artists in disguise. In 1997 they founded the
cultural production group inhabit from which projects as a 'living
workstation' (UK 1998) and the trans-culture-flat' (Germany 1999) were
initiated. Contributions across Europe include: social interventions,
performances, new music, multi-media installations, videos, seminars and
lectures.

JENNY PERLIN is a New York based artist and filmmaker. Her films are shown
at festivals in the US and Europe. Her installations are exhibited in the
United States, Switzerland Germany, and the Czech Republic. She presently
teaches film at Sarah Lawrence College.

MARTHA ROSLER is a photographer, video and performance artist. Her work has
been exhibited internationally. She teaches photography and media at Rutgers
University and lives in New York City. Recent video tapes "Global Taste: A
Meal in Three Courses", "If It's To Bad to Be True, IT Could Be
Disinformation", and "Born To Be Sold- Martha Rosler Reads the Strange Case
of Baby $M". 

GORDANA STANISIC is an artist based in Belgrade. She has extensively shown
in Europe.

MIRO STEFANOVIC is a Yugoslavian artist who has recently shown about the
Kosov@ war at ABC NO RIO in New York City.

SCHOLARS 
GLENN BOWMAN (CONFIRMED)
anthropologist at Kent University, Canterbury (UK)
publications include:
"Constitutive Violence and Rhetoric of Identity: A Comparative Study of
Nationalist Movements in the Israeli-Occupied Territories and Former
Yugoslavia". Scheduled for publication in Social Anthropology in 2000.
"Xenophobia, Fantasy and the Nation: The Logic of Ethnic Violence in Former
Yugoslavia", pp. 143-171 in Anthropology of Europe: Identity and Boundaries
in Conflict 

BORIS BUDEN (CONFIRMED)
 is a writer and theorist from Zagreb. He is the editor in chief of Bastard
and presently lives in Vienna, Austria.
<http://www.arkzin.com/bb>

BRIAN HOLMES (CONFIRMED)
 is an art critic, translator, and member of the graphic arts collective Ne
pas plier in Paris. He holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from UC Berkeley.
Among his recent publications: "On Transnational Civil Society" in ReadMe,
filtered by nettime (Autonomedia, 1998).

FLORIAN ZEYFANG (CONFIRMED)
is a German artist/ video maker who has done research
into the field of representation as related to digital technologies and
to video/TV; as well as on art and politics in the internet. He has shown in
Europe and the US and published in various magazines.
(Shows include: "3D à la main", Bremen 1999, "I Said I Love. That Is The
Promise", NY1999, "We Are Somewhere Else (Already)", NY 1998)

THOMAS KEENAN (CONFIRMED)
directs the Human Rights Project at Bard College, where he
also teaches literary theory and media studies. He has taught previously
at SUNY Binghamton and Princeton University. His publications include FABLES
OF RESPONSIBILITY (Stanford UP, 1997), two edited volumes on THE END(S) OF
THE MUSEUM (Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, 1995), and essays on media,
humanitarianism, and war in Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosov@.

HOLGER KUBE VENTURA (CONFIRMED)
 art historian, critic, curator of the Kassel Kunstverein. Publications
include: ³Surfing Systems: Die Gunst der 90er Jahre- Positionen
zeitgenössischer Art.² Lectures include: ³ Theorie mit politics.

FILM SERIES
The films are documentaries on Kosov@
Venue: NW Film Center

Films planned for screening:

Anri Sala (Albania) ³Intervista²

Emir Kusturica (Yugoslavia) ³Underground²

Julian Chomet (Macedonia) ³MACEDONIA: The next Bosnia?²

Christophe Talczewski
³YUGOSLAVIA: Origins of War²

Ilan Ziv ³YELLOW WAPS: Anatomy of a War Crime²

Alan Resnais ³Night and Fog²

Dusan Makavejev (Yugoslavia):
"Montenegro"

Dan Reed: ³The Valley² (CNN)

³Victim of Gegraphy² produced by ³Visual Heroes² (Glasgow)

Michael Benson ³Predictions of Fire²

³Pretty Flame² Srdjan Dragojevic and

³Planet Sarajevo² Sahin Sisic

THE CURATOR
TREBOR SCHOLZ, an artist and curator born in East Germany, is now
Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Pacific Northwest College of Art.  A
graduate of the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study (studio)
Program in New York City, he has exhibited and lectured in both Europe and
the United States. His book "Surfacing at a Different Place" was
published by Green Press, London in 1997.
-------

notes
(1) (2) (3)- ³Bastard², editor in chief: Boris Buden

Kosovo /Kosova has been referred to here as Kosov@ in the attempt to retain
both the ³o² and ³a² characters used in both (Serbian and Albanian)
spellings (spelling taken from "Bastard")



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