Filtering by Tag: Pending Works

Pending Work#4 and Surveillance in the New Millenium

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.

WATCHED! is the publication to accompany the exhibition Watched! Surveillance, Art and Photography, which reflects on the complexities of contemporary surveillance, with a specific attention to photography. The exhibition will be on display until October 2, 2016 at the Hasselblad Center located in the Gothenburg Museum of Art. 

During the exhibition the curators Louise Wolthers, Dragana Vujanovic and Niclas Östlind initiate side events and talks with the artists on the question: How can art and visual theory contribute to the understanding of our current surveillance society? [more]

Participating artists: Meriç Algün Ringborg, Jason E. Bowman, James Bridle, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Tina Enghoff, Alberto Frigo, Mishka Henner, Marco Poloni, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Hito Steyerl.

Curators: Louise Wolthers, Dragana Vujanovic and Niclas Östlin

WATCHED! is part of a research project on surveillance, art, and photography in Europe after the millennium, initiated by Louise Wolthers, Head of Research at the Hasselblad Foundation. The accompanying book, published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, contains artworks by forty artists including Pending Work#4 of Alex Mirutziu, as well as in-depth essays on surveillance by leading scholars within the field.

The exhibition and the book are collaborations between the Hasselblad Foundation, Valand Academy, Kunsthal Aarhus, Galleri Image, ARoS and C/O Berlin.

About Hasselblad Foundation:

Erna and Victor Hasselblad’s Foundation was established in 1979. The Foundation aims to promote research and academic teaching in the natural sciences and photography. This is achieved by awarding stipends in the natural sciences and photography, the Hasselblad Award, photographic research and photography exhibitions. Since 1999, there is also a research library, currently the only photography book library in Sweden. 

Each thought's an instant ruin with a new disease - solo show at Sabot

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.

Where is the poem, 2013 [from 'performance for prepared poem and one hand', based on 'Politics' by Graham Foust] and Weight of sleep as temporary sculpture present in flesh of face 2013-SIBIU, archival print on paper, 88,9 x 70 cm

OPENING

WORKS AND INSTALLATION VIEW

Each thought's an instant ruin with a new disease

Alex Mirutziu

Friday, November 15th, 7 - 10 pm

Exhibition on view through January 10th, 2014

Sabot - Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca


“Off-the-wall outcome of the artist’s philosophy-driven research into the art theory and practice, Alex Mirutziu’s second solo show with Sabot is proving again the artist’s appetite for deconstruction and critical dissection. Informed by his ongoing series of Pending Works, the recentBureaucratic Objects are activated by Mirutziu’s rendering of the Reality of Never and its Design.

L’enfant terrible of his generation, Alex Mirutziu dynamited his way into the art world with frantic performances, resistant to monolithic definitions. His work is regarded as provocative and intensely philosophical to deeply entangled and juxtaposed, where closure and heartbreak seem always in need, of an unpalatable and constricted reality of each millisecond, as time itself might be a result of a violent and catastrophic event that needs re-establishment in history. He declares being influenced of writers rather than visual artists, voluntarily exiled himself in his hometown with which he has a love hate relationship masochistically overstated as nomadic existence. His affiliation to classicism is visible when drawing extensively from Adolfo Wildt and Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael, reworking ‘The Jewish Cemetery’ among other romantic works, following a path that only Constable took seriously in 1797. A Romanian artist in his early thirties, Alex Mirutziu goes beyond his fragile frame and apparent shyness to fastidiously perform the unperformable, moments of silence to thoughts that die never looking like art as in his latest series of works called ‘Pending Works’.” - Björn Olsen (independent writer and occasional curator, researcher at University of Manchester)

“I refer to a space in which thought can operate—a nexus of processes, interactions and mediations that are clearly distinguishable as non-linear, non-cumulative, and task-based. The focus is not on what is happening, but on when it is happening. What is expressed neither describes nor represents existing matrixes of recognition, rather reformulates possibilities.

There is an interior design of objects that eludes us at any instant, suggesting that there is more to things than our representations of them and more depth than we are able to see.

My Pending Works never directly encounter one another, but only relate to one another through various translations. Any object is here, once it is here, not sooner, and in order to be here, it needs different levels of translations and mediations. It adapts to the dynamic of translating information through time, but with no claim of definite form, it rather points out to exchanges within its environment. It does so either by itself, or by coexistence with its neighbors.

Here we are, trying to make sense of the object through its own bureaucracy, through its own internal affairs.”

(excerpts from Mirutziu’s essay Pending Works and Bureaucratic Objects, published on the occasion of this exhibition)

Alex Mirutziu's Pending Works to be reviewed in Phaidon's 21st Century Avant-Gardes

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.

"Alex Alex Mirutziu is Romania's leading young performance artist. His arresting practice hovers at the limits of self-exploration, experimentation and extreme personal discomfort.

He is fascinated by the chronicling of time and how it determines the significance of events. This is best expressed in the series Pending Works, which Mirutziu originated in 2009. But what must be understood is that each work is as much about its promise as its occurrence. For Pending Work #4 (2011-12), for example, a block of clay was buried on a mountain in Uetliberg, above Zurich. At the site, Mirutziu recorded data such as radiation and humidity and installed a CCTV camera, which is later controlled from his studio thousands of miles away. In one sense the work could be considered dormant and invisible, but it also functions as a kind of satellite, collecting information about itself and its surroundings, which are then broadcast to the artist. These covert behaviors and distancing tactics call into question whether Pending Work #4 is private act or public work."

(excerpt from text by Jane Neal - p.78-79)

Forget New York, London and Paris – the old establishment is being challenged by a new order of art communities seizing the contemporary art agenda around the world.

Phaidon reveals the twelve global cities to watch for exciting contemporary art: Beirut, Bogotá, Cluj, Delhi, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Lagos, San Juan, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore and Vancouver.

This comprehensive volume covers the exciting and important contemporary art happening in each of these locations through selections made by curators intimately involved in each of the twelve cities.

Exploring the artistic heritage, cultural climate and contemporary milieu of these emerging cities, this ground-breaking book features a variety of photography, painting, sculpture, installation, video, performance and new media works by this new generation of artists gaining prominence on the international art circuit.

Features a unique, special format jacket, printed on both sides, that folds out in to a large ‘flag’ with a graphic symbol representing each city; extending the ‘new international’ design concept that under-pins the book’s design structure.

An essential and wide ranging perspective on today’s avant-garde artists, shaping the future of art.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Today the art world is more of a world in every sense, with a larger population, a wider territory and a greater number of nationalities. Its prevailing conversation, however, has yet to catch up. Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes uncovers twelve distinct avant-gardes that have emerged around the world in recent decades. Twelve curators each selected eight artists to represent the avant-garde of a specific city. These artists are senior figures or newer faces, artists working in familiar mediums or inventing their own, but they all share two qualities: a commitment to experimental art and a dedication to their local milieu. In dialogue with larger concerns, their unique sensibility can be found nowhere else. Lively, thought-provoking, comprehensive, and packed with more than 500 images, this book widens the expected historical narrative, allowing us to imagine a future of diverse aesthetics and shared concerns in the common language of contemporary art.