Opening in the afternoon, from 2pm to 7pm
Saturday, May 30
Danh Vo
"Les fleurs d'intérieur"
May 30 — July 19, 2009
+ In presence of Danh Vo and Julie Ault for the presentation of the artist book they collaborated on
Buenos Aires, April 3rd 2009
To whom it may concern,
Some years ago, I was looking at some old newspapers and found among them ‘The New York Times’ from January 28, 1973. On the front page was written in large letters ‘Vietnam peace pacts signed’. And beneath the headline was a photo of the ballroom of the former Hotel Majestic, Paris. In the photo there were people sitting in a circle, like in an arena, discussing the future of Vietnam. Above the arena, the chandeliers of the ballroom were hanging and lightning up the negotiation table.
As a Vietnamese born in 1975, the year of the Fall of Saigon, I have never had firsthand experiences of the war but have been raised in the aftermath of the geopolitical conflict. In 1979 my family decided to escape from Vietnam by boat; and we were among the lucky ones to survive the trip and to receive asylum in the West. In my practice as an artist I try to research into and work with these historical events in order to understand the circumstances that have shaped my life.
Some months ago, I heard about the selling and the planned reconstruction of the building of the former Hotel Majestic, and I became very interested in looking into possibilities of exhibiting these chandeliers during the renovation of the building or acquiring them if possible. My interest for exhibiting these chandeliers is to show them as mute witnesses of an event that was ending the American involvement in the war, the war which at first was initiated by the Americans, but wasn’t yet over by the time the peace pacts were signed in Paris. The chandeliers are mute witnesses of the beginning of a tragedy that affected millions of lives all over South East Asia,and affected my personal story.
I hope for your support and collaboration to make this exhibition idea come true.
Sincerely yours,
Danh Vo
bloga duyuruyu koydum. ama gordugum umut ettigimi tutmadi. baska seyler yapilabilecek bir firsatmis, tepilmis.
The MAK Center Presents: The Isle by Pages (Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi)Exhibition Explores Paradoxes of Iranian Luxury Island
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 27, 7 - 9 pm
MAK Center for Art and Architecture, L.A.Schindler House
835 North Kings RoadWest Hollywood, CA 90069 1510
Please join us for the opening reception of the new installation The Isle, by artists Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi. The installation will focus on the contemporary circumstances of Kish, an island located in the Persian Gulf. At the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the duo, partners who make up the collaborative team called Pages, will explore notions of "geopolitical indecisiveness" as it relates to this island. The Isle will be on view from May 28 through August 23, 2009.
The Isle takes its themes from the architectural and political incongruities that manifest at Kish, an island located eighteen kilometers from the southern coast of the Iranian mainland. The modernization of Kish was announced in December 1977 with the landing of a Concorde Supersonic at a new airport, built to accommodate an exclusive, hypermodern resort for the royal elite and their international guests. A year later, the Islamic revolution would suspend the any further development of this project. Soon thereafter, the new government declared Kish to be Iran's first free trade zone, applying the principles of a free market economy to attract foreign investment. By 1994, almost 55 percent of the island was given to tourism.
This free market progression was slowed in 2009, after a privately initiated plan was halted to develop a luxury business and tourist resort on the northeastern coast of the island, an ambitious project that involved more than 20 German architecture firms. The envisioned "internationalism" of the project would prove incompatible with prevailing socio-political conditions in Iran. Yet Kish, an hour and half flight south of the Tehran, has somehow remained a tolerant oasis for Iranian tourists who desire escape from the societal restrictions of the mainland.
Throughout its modern period, the island of Kish has not succeeded in becoming all that was desired for it. Subjected to the politics of mainland Iran, the island has found itself lingering between opposing ideologies, caught in geopolitical indecisiveness that prevents it from sustaining a sense of "place." Kish fails to situate itself historically and in relation to the geography that surrounds it. Economically and politically, it has in many respects become the "other" to neighboring developments in the Persian Gulf.
The Isle consists of text, video, found documents, and architectural models that together narrate the "symptomatic" features of Kish. The central element of the exhibition is a steamship, recreated by means of a scale model and video recording. This boat, stranded along the southern coast of Kish in 1966, has become the island's quintessential attraction for visiting tourists as it is silhouetted against the setting sun each night. In another work, Tabatabai and Afrassiabi incorporate the February 1978 issue of Vogue Paris, in which the first Kish development was promoted through a 16-page fashion spread staged before a backdrop of the island's newly built architecture. Sculpturally re-appropriated, the Vogue material links earlier modern architecture to the now suspended master plan for an international tourist and business resort in the free trade zone. The nature of this development project is explored in video interviews with representatives from the German architectural firms involved in a competition that would later lead to the proposed resort's design. Within the interviews, "misunderstandings"-often inherent to architectural design processes that discard the political conditions of their site-are clearly revealed. These misunderstandings nonetheless result in the release of fantasies of shapes and forms with extra-geographical and extra-cultural dimensions.
The Isle locates Kish in its architectural, geographical and political incongruities. It re-articulates unresolved instances of the island's modernization into representations of (unfulfilled) desires. By doing so, Tabatabai and Afrassiabi address symptoms of modernity as manifested in ambivalent forms of architecture not destined to come into being. The Isle is the third and final part of a project by Tabatabai and Afrassiabi about the island of Kish, begun in 2005 with the installation Sunset Cinema and continued in 2007 with Undecided Utopias.
About the Artists
Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi live in Rotterdam and pursue an art practice both in Iran and the Netherlands. The duo began Pages in 2004. In addition to making art, Tabatabai and Afrassiabi publish a bilingual Farsi/English magazine called Pages. Through their projects, Tabatabai and Afrassiabi consider the intricacies and dissonances within and among given localities that can yield alternative chains of meanings, relations and coincidences. Ultimately, they wish to undermine predefined and geographically bound notions of subjectivity, triggering discussions of the social and political within a broader global context. (www.pagesproject.net)Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi are Fellows sponsored through the MAK Center's Urban Future Initiative.
Fire the Boss! A Haymarket Forum 
May 16 BeaconMay 16 Beacon
Antoni Tàpies: The Resources of Rhetoric
Dia and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, will inaugurate a series of institutional exchanges with a presentation of works by Antoni Tàpies at Dia:Beacon. Whereas Modernist painting was supposed to be anti-narrative, Tàpies sought the contrary: his narrative art exploits the resources of rhetoric. This exhibition invites a reconsideration of the contribution of this venerable Spanish artist by recontextualizing his work in relation to Dia’s collection of American and German art of the Sixties and Seventies.
Neler goruyoruz neler. Dun Phillipe dedikodu olmasin diye aksamustu toplantisiyla duyurdu Dia'nin yeni kuratorunu. Dia'da Lynne'le calisan son trainee olmak serefi bana kismetmis. Ote yandan boyle degisimleri kurumun icinden gozlemek baska turlu bir beslenme bicimi. Dia'da Mosyo Vergne yeni takimini kurarken herkes heyecanli, merakla yeni adimi bekliyor.
The Dia Art Foundation has announced that it has hired Yasmil Raymond, associate curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, as its curator, Carol Vogel reports for the New York Times. Raymond will replace Lynne Cooke, who has overseen Dia’s curatorial programs since 1991.
A year ago, Cooke became the deputy director and chief curator at the Reina Sofía in Madrid. When she accepted the job in Spain, she said she planned to divide her time between the institutions, but that has become increasingly difficult. Cooke is not leaving Dia altogether, however: She will be its curator at large. “I asked Lynne not to cut the umbilical cord,” said Philippe Vergne, Dia’s new director. “She has such an important history with the institution.”
Until the museum finds a New York home, Raymond, thirty-one, will oversee its temporary and permanent installations at Dia:Beacon, its Hudson River outpost, and organize exhibitions at sites like the Hispanic Society of America. “We need a full-time curator,” said Vergne. “Someone to think about the next five to ten years at Dia.” In hiring Raymond, Vergne is bringing in one of his own. When he joined Dia in September, he had been the Walker’s deputy director. “Yasmil has developed a strong voice,” he said. “She is young, someone who comes to Dia with a different point of view, a different culture.” Asked what progress Dia was making in finding a home in New York, he responded, “We’re getting closer every day.”
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