Other Possible Worlds - Proposals on this Side of Utopia

30.4.2011 – 13.6.2011
Opening 29.4. 19h
From 22h Party: DJ Bolz Bolz
Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst e.V. Oranienstraße 25, D-10999 Berlin


Curatorial team:

Dorothee Albrecht, Berit Fischer, Franziska Lesák, Hubert Lobnig, Moira Zoitl
Contributions by: 
Dorothee Albrecht, Antimuseum, Maria Thereza Alves, Cedric Bomford, CCA Lagos, Leung Chi Wo, Chto delat?, Chua Chye Teck , Cybermohalla, Kiluanji Kia Henda, ExRotaprint, Huang Xiaopeng, Johanna Kandl, Hubert Lobnig, Ralo Mayer, Gabi Ngcobo, Periferry, Oda Projesi and Nadin Reschke, Åsa Sonjasdotter, The International Academy of Art Palestine, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, TkH (Walking Theory), The Public School, Yoel Diaz Vazquez, Xu Tan, Moira Zoitl

Which roles can art projects, art spaces, self-organized academies and labs play in developing conceptions of the world that go beyond purely economic globalization? Projects from various parts of the world are invited to propose and test out other realities of life and world views, from small artistic attempts to social experimentation. Topics such as dealing with cultural differences, economic and ecological changes, processes of levelling out and confusing complexities form the basis for a common space in which to rise questions.
The basis for Other Possible Worlds – Proposals on this Side of Utopia is a collection of ideas, concepts, models, terms, projects, kits and modes of acting. It is conceived as a pool for further projects in other parts of the world, it is open to further extension and it allows for varied formats. The NGBK is considered as a common and active space of inquiry for different formats like artistic contributions and installations, workshops, presentations, talks and video screenings.
Publication (English & German), published by argobooks. Including further contributions by: Berit Fischer, Franziska Lesák / Ricarda Denzer, Sarat Maharaj / Gilane Tawadros, Kerstin Meyer. 200 Pages. 

Other Possible Worlds – Programme
Saturday 30.04.2011, 15:00 hHuang Xiaopeng / Leung Chi Wo, Presentation and Talk (English)
Huang Xiaopeng unpacks his recent project You are the Dream of my Realization (since 2006) and speaks about the changing process of modernization in China, about social values, the education system, westernized language and individuality. Huang Xiaopeng is currently an Associate Professor and head of the 5th studio (contemporary art practice) in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, China.

His work explores inevitable dislocations as a consequence of translating, copying and transforming, analyses the politics in the relationship between language and technology.Leung Chi Wo Para/Site Art Space was founded 1996 by seven artists in Hong Kong. As a co-founder, Leung Chi Wo decided 2007 to quit this art space and turned his role into an observer, collaborator and supporter. In 2008, he was commissioned by Para/Site to make a research trip and an artistic journey to various art organizations in ten cities in Asia which was concluded as a photo series Work Space and an exhibition titled Asia Art Knots looking at the nature and the network of art spaces.www.para-site.org.hk

Wednesday 04.05.2011, 19:00 hOda Projesi + Nadin Reschke, Tongue Dinner(German & English)Number of participants is limited, Reservations under: office@ngbk.de
Oda Projesi and Nadin Reschke are working on a grammar book of their latest project Tongue. They invite you for a dinner at the NGBK to think about the latest language campaign of the German government: “Raus mit der Sprache – Rein ins Leben” and its effects on language diversity in Germany. The collected materials and discussed opinions will go into one chapter of the Tongue book, the artists are working on as part of the exhibition. http://tonguesprachkurse.blogspot.com

Thursday 05.05.2011, 19:00 hThe Israeli Center for Digital Art: Ran Kasmy Ilan, The Jessy Cohen Project Presentation and Talk (English)
The Israeli Center for Digital Art consistently questions the place of art institutions within their society and devotes a significant part of its work on art projects that foster discourse about identity, ethnicity, nationalism and cultural exchange. The municipality of Holon invited them to operate in the Jessy Cohen neighborhood. They explored how art and a public art institute can play a significant part in municipal processes, as well as the roles and responsibilities of art vis-à-vis its local context, be it neighborhood, city or the general society. www.digitalartlab.org.il

Saturday 14.05.201119:00 h The Public School / TkH (Walking Theory): MartaPopivoda, Presentation and talk (English)22:00 h – 24:00 h Hubert Lobnig, Videoscreening (German)
The Public School is a school with no curriculum. It is not accredited and does not assign academic degrees. It provides a framework that supports auto-didactic activities, assuming that everything is in everything. The Public School was initiated in Los Angeles in 2007 as a project for Telic Arts Exchange, and exists in eight cities worldwide since. The Public School Berlin opened in fall 2010. http://berlin.thepublicschool.orgTkH (Walking Theory), Marta Popivoda – Performing TheoreticalActivism, case study: collective self-educationThis talk will present some insights and methodologies developed through the work of Walking Theory as an independent, selforganised and non-academic platform within which collectives of artists and theorists perform theoretical activism. From TkH’s viewpoint, theoretical activism relates to reflective, critical and experimental interventions in a specific context—in the field of art, intellectual community, cultural and social reality—and in an opposition with neutral, totalizing and market-oriented academic knowledge. www.tkh-generator.net
In his filmscreening, Hubert Lobnig brings together personal perspectiveson projects that are dealing with alternative movements of the 1970`s and 1980´s. Lobnig examines their formal aspects, and takes in consideration the different ways of documentation of such tendencies as well as their history and progress. Filme / Films: lost spaces, (AT) 2007, Martin Music. Fluc_ fluctuated rooms am Praterstern, (AT) 2009, Armin Faymann, La Mancha, (AT) 2001/2002, Barbara Musil, Karolina Szmit. Mr. Sucha´s Garden, (Sansibar) 2001/2003, Hubert Lobnig.

Thursday 19.05.2011, 19:00 hExRotaprint: Daniela Brahm & Les SchliesserPeriferry: Sonal JainPresentation and talk (English)
ExRotaprint based on the former site of the Rotaprint printing press manufacturer in Berlin Wedding is conceived as a „social plastic“, as a special model of property ownership and self-organisation. It operates as a space of potentiality for a heterogeneous mix of work, art and community. Daniela Brahm and Les Schliesser, artists and initiators of ExRotaprint, will talk about the conditions and goals of their model for a open non for profit urban planning. Today the project acts between artistic discourse, urban development and concrete realisation. www.exrotaprint.dePeriferry Sonal Jain, artist and co-founder of Periferry (Guwhati,India), will introduce the project as a nomadic space for hybrid practices that are housed on a ferry: A look at space as a medium in art practice and as an evolving concept. In a state of disuse, spaces become liminal and inter-terrestrial allowing for new interpretations; this leads to what Foucault calls „heterotopias“, the ship as the ultimate „heterotopias“, the fragment of space that contests or compensates for the spaces we usually live in. www.periferry.in

Thursday 26.05.201115:00 h PrinzessinnengartenGardening17:00 h Åsa Sonjasdotter + Matze WilkensPresentation and talk (English)Prinzessinnengarten, Prinzenstraße 35, 10969 Berlin (in case of bad weather at NGBK)19:00 h NGBKAntimuseum: María María Acha & Tomás Ruiz-Rivas, Presentation and talk (English)
With the potato-breeding project at Prinzessinnengarden the artist Åsa Sonjasdotter and gardener Matze Wilkens try out different methods of breeding in order to learn more about this subtle relation between humans and plants. Breeding is an area of knowledge that during the last century has developed into a high tech knowledge system involving the question of intellectual property and genetic engineering. The aim is to develop new, surprisingly beautiful and tasty varieties as well as new relations to breeding. www.potatoperspective.org/Antimuseum for Contemporary Art is a nonprofit organisation developingcritical thinking, based in Madrid, founded by María María Acha and Tomás Ruiz-Rivas in 1992. They explore mechanisms of legitimating artwork, with the goal of encouraging counter-publics. One of their recent projects is the Portable Contemporary Art Center, Mexico City (2009), a low cost, portable device for art exhibitions. Its place is the street, insert and accomplice of strategies of appropriation and re-signification of public space. www.antimuseo.org

Thursday 09.06.2011, 19:00 hGabi Ncgobo / CCA Lagos: Loren Hansi MomoduPresentation and talk (English)
Gabi Ngcobo is an independent curator, educator and artist. Recently she co-founded the Johannesburg based Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR) an independent platform which creates projects that use art to investigate the relations between art and history; how art can affect, alter or comment upon how we receive and view history and suggest different historical readings that help in the formation of new subjectivities? Ngcobo will unpack CHR projects and their relevance within the context of Johannesburg and South Africa.CCA Lagos: Loren Hansi Momodu, Alternative Realities, imagedCommunities and Contemporary Art in Africa.In an era in which our idea of community has become bound increasinglywith the idea of the nation state, contemporary artists have been reflecting, rebelling against and re-creating that idea. Taking the nation state of Nigeria as a starting point Momodu’s aim here is to further consider the prevalence of imagined communities in contemporary art practice in Africa and beyond. The works presented will each offer a view of an alternative reality, which questions the status quo, expounding new ways of seeing the world we live in. www.ccalagos.org

27.04.2011 | por martalanca | arte, utopia