Projects 2003

Clockwise – New Nordic Contemporary Art

10 January - 1 March 2003
at Sparwasser HQ and
BergstüblPROJEKT, Berlin

An exhibition at the Vejle Kunstmuseum, Denmark, explores the concepts of 'ethnographic mapping', mobility, globalisation and the Nordic background within contemporary Nordic visual art. Including 11 contemporary artists, working in different media - installations, photography, drawing and video. In autumn 2002, the exhibition will be shown at the Nordic House, Reykjavik and in the beginning of 2003 at Sparwasser HQ, Berlin.

The art works in Clockwise deal with the new mobility that has come hand in hand with globalisation. They reflect on the present human condition in which practices of disidentification, travelling and transitory encounters co-exist with forms of localised dwelling as well as with re-appropriations of Nordic folklore, the Nordic landscape, and more abstract concepts like memory, time and the human self.

The humorous and melancholy works in the Clockwise exhibition examine life style politics and shed light on different attitudes toward mobility, internationalisation and new subcultural communities, which arise as traditional and cultural ties become more lax. The nine contemporary artists featured in the exhibition target anthropological and sociological issues rather than aesthetics and form. The works constitute an ethnographic mapping of the cultural field. The artists reflect cultural shifts related to identity, place and social environments, including the art world. The works in the exhibition contemplate cultural self-understanding, as the efforts of melancholy ethnographers, alternating cool detachment with societally oriented engagement. Above all the works in Clockwise recognize how individuals, time and again, are forced to navigate according to their own experiences.

The artists use a range of different media, including installation, photography, video and drawing. They engage and invest depth of heart in our mutual social and existential reality in 2002 - and ask the same of us.

The exhibition is initiated and produced by NIFCA in collaboration with Vejle Kunstmuseum (DK) and The Nordic House in Reykjavik (IS).

Curators: Khaled Ramadan (Ph.D. Cand. and Visual Artist) and Stine Høholt (Curator).

The exhibition is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.


CLOCKWISE artists:

Simone Aaberg Kærn
Jouko Lehtola
Colonel
Melek Mazici
Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen
Khaled D. Ramadan
Marco Evaristti
Torbjørn Rødland
Amel Ibrahimovic


The exhibitions:

15 June - 18 August 2002 Vejle Kunstmuseum, Denmark
www.vejlekunstmuseum.dk

31 August - 20 October 2002 Nordic House, Reykjavik
www.nordice.is

10 January - 1 March 2003 Sparwasser HQ and BergstüblPROJEKT, Berlin

More information: www.nifca.org/clockwise


Photo: Jouko Lehtola: Miika, 27, instrument maker, 1999