Wednesday 31 July 2013

'Curatorial Work between Action and Reflection'

A presentation by curator Oliver Kielmayer, who is the director and curator of Kunsthalle Winterthur and the founder of WeAreTheArtists.

Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council and Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) invite you to 'Curatorial Work between Action and Reflection,' 
a presentation by curator Oliver Kielmayer
Date: Monday, 29 July 2013
Time: 6:00 pm 
Venue: FICA Reading Room, D-42 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024

In this presentation Kielmayer, who is the director and curator of Kunsthalle Winterthur and the founder of WeAreTheArtists, focuses on the backstage perspective of projects instead of their conceptual and theoretical aspects. He explores the creative potential activated by problematic and unsatisfactory contexts and shows how problem-solving is a source of innovation. 

About Oliver Kielmayer:
Oliver Kielmayer teaches art history at F+F School of Art and Media Design in Zurich. He is the director of the Kunstalle Winterthur, a centre for contemporary art in Zurich. In 2004, Kielmayer founded WeAreTheArtists, a network project that focuses on open discourse and authentic communication about art by means of a homepage and a free newspaper. 

Image courtesy: Couch Curator, photostory published in WeAreTheArtists, No. 16, 2012. The complete photostory is also available online on www.wearetheartists.net
Experimenter Curator's Hub invites Oliver Kielmayer

Swiss curator Oliver Kielmayer, Director Kunsthalle Winterthur will be in India this July to participate in the Experimenter Curator's Hub 2013.

In continuation with their interest in critical curatorial practice, Experimenter Kolkata has announced the third edition of the Experimenter Curators' Hub that will take place at Experimenter in Kolkata on Friday, 26th & Saturday, 27th July 2013.

Pro Helvetia New Delhi is delighted to associate with ECH for the third consecutive year and has invited Swiss curator Oliver Kielmayer, Director of Kunsthalle Winterthur to participate in the Experimenter Curators' Hub 2013.

The hub is a crucial platform to discuss the most contemporary thought behind curating through the presentations of the ten participating curators.

Participating Curators: 
Alessandro Vincentelli / UK 
Che Kyongfa / Japan
Daniel Muzyczuk  / Poland
Girish Shahane  / India
Kathrin Rhomberg / Austria
Nancy Adajania  / India
Natasha Ginwala / India
Oliver Kielmayer / India
Pooja Sood / India
Sandhini Poddar / India

Attendance to Experimenter Curators’ Hub is free but on prior registration only on a first come first serve basis. Please email admin@experimenter.in to register.

Swiss Curator Oliver Kielmayer 
Oliver Kielmayer is the Director of Kunsthalle Winterthur and lives in Zurich, Switzerland. Kielmayer’s career includes numerous positions as curator of major art galleries, including the world-renowned Kunsthalle Winterthur in Winterthur, Switzerland, where he is currently its director and the Kleines Helmhaus in Zurich, where he held the position of curator from 2000 through 2002. From 2001 to 2004, he was the Manager of international artist in residence programme of the foundation Kunstlerhaus Boswil and 2005 co-curator at the IBCA - International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Prague. He is also the publisher of the free artist newspaper WeAreTheArtists and member of the art committee of the canton of Zurich. In addition, Oliver Kielmayer’s work has been featured in many exhibits over the past decade, most notably: Begehren & Eroberung - Filmstills, Russ Meyer Vintage Prints, Celebrity Nudes, Pornophotographica; Aggression; Downloads from Future; and Homecoming. He also has a long list of publications to his credit, including artificialities; Umelec 2/2006; and Christian Vetter – History Park. He has extensive expertise as a lecturer and jurist, most recently as juror of res publica, art project for Stadthaus Zurich; lecturer at Brazier's International, Braziers; and juror Dezemberausstellung, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur.
Swiss Embassy building in Delhi celebrates golden jubilee

Designed by Swiss architect Hans Hofmann, the architectural masterwork was inaugurated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on July 04, 1963

To commemorate the golden jubilee of the building of the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi, the Embassy of Switzerland has announced the forthcoming year as the Year of Swiss Architecture, Design and Engineering in India.

The building of the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi completes 50 years today - July 04, 2013

Designed by Swiss architect Hans Hofmann and realized posthumously by his young collaborator Walter Ruegg, the edifice was inaugurated in presence of the then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on July 04, 1963.

This Swiss Embassy is recognized as a significant architectural landmark in New Delhi.... It symbolizes and stands for the strong bond that India and Switzerland have shared through these years. Like the relationship between the two countries this building has emerged stronger with time, and like the friendship between the two countries, it has become timeless.

Heartiest congratulations to all those who have been associated with it at some point or other!
'Two leads to dialogue' a video presentation at Experimenter

Compiled by Avijna Bhattacharya and Rikimi Madhukaillya who have been mentored by the Swiss curator, Mirjam Varadinis.

Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council in partnership with Experimenter Kolkata 
presents 
Two leads to dialogue 
a video presentation curated by Avijna Bhattacharya and Rikimi Madhukaillya from India who have been mentored by the Swiss curator, Mirjam Varadinis. 

at Experimenter, Kolkata 
Dates: 23, 24, and 25 July 2013 
Single screening: 4pm-7pm 

Participating artists: Alexander Hahn, Paribartana Mohanty, Ingo Giezendanner, Christoph Büchel's, San Keller, Anne Rochat, Katja Schenker, Zilla Leutenegger, Mithu Sen, Roman Signer, Nils Nova, Elodie Pong, Sujit Malik, Srijata Roy & Mrijtunjay Chatterjee, Prateek Sagar and Gian-Reto Gredig & Goran Galic.

The idea behind curating a programme of videos with works of Swiss and Indian artists generated from interactions between our mentor Mirjam Varadinis (Curator, Kunsthaus Zurich), Rikimi Madhukaillya and me when Pro Helvetia brought us together in New Delhi in 2011. Two years since then, with the support of Pro Helvetia, we are pleased to announce that a programme has been realised, one we aspired to produce.

A cultural dialogue is best carried out through effective communication, perhaps more responsively through two dimensional images in motion. The practice of substantiating opinions and ideas in visual arts through moving images has been evolving worldwide since the last few decades (with the advent of the camcorder and digital revolution), and in India through the 90s, owing to a culture that is dominantly shaped by information circulated by telecastings, cyber-spatial interactions, audio-visual publications (DVDs), video transmissions through mobile phone and so forth. This has apparently changed our cultural perceptions towards image making. Efforts to identify such changes are aspiring and absorbing at the same time, therefore our attempt to bring together a collection of video-works of Swiss and Indian artists both young and established, to initiate a dialogue and explore artistic productions of video art in both the countries, with analogous contexts, orientations and concerns.

A liquescent state of ideas from the artists of both countries, the compilation of video can largely be placed into four categories. There are videos which are interactive and performance based, videos/short animation films, then there are the videos that have a strong documentary self and the ones which very playfully have erased the borders of drawing individual images and those of moving ones.

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Mirjam Varadinis Mirjam Varadinis is an art historian, curator and writer based in Zürich, Switzerland. She has been a curator at Kunsthaus Zürich for the past ten years. Responsible for contemporary art at the Kunsthaus, Mirjam has curated many exhibitions including Aleksandra Mir: Switzerland and Other Islands (2006), Shifting Identities (2008), and Motion Picture(s) (2010). Mirjam has also co-curated the exhibition Broken Lines as a part of the annual art festival 'Printemps de Septembre' (2006) in Toulouse, France. She has edited 'Parkett: 20 Years of Artists' Collaborations'. As a curator she has many solo exhibitions to her credit, such as those of Rosa Barba, Adrian Paci, Mircea Cantor, Runa Islam, Tino Sehgal, Erik van Lieshout, Aleksandra Mir, Nedko Solakov, Urs Fischer, David Shrigley to name a few. In 2012, she co-curated 'TRACK' in Ghent (Belgium), together with Philippe Van Cauteren. In 2005 she launched the internet-platform www.azple.com in collaboration with Annie Wu.

Mirjam Varadinis was in India as the international jury member of the SKODA PRIZE 2012.
Oliver Kielmayer to visit India in July

Swiss curator Oliver Kielmayer, Director Kunsthalle Winterthur will be in India this July on the invitation of Experimenter, Kolkata and FICA, New Delhi.

Swiss curator Oliver Kielmayer, Director Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland
will deliver a talk at FICA, Delhi on 
'Curatorial work between action and reflection' 

Date: Monday 29 July 2013 
Venue: FICA (Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art) Reading Room, D42, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024 Time: 6:00 pm (tbc) 

His presentation on 'Curatorial work between action and reflection' at FICA will look at how practical aspects of problem solving can create interesting new formats of intermediation. 

Oliver Kielmayer will also be part of the Experimenter Curator's Hub in Kolkatta from 25 - 27 July 2013. 

About the curator: 
Oliver Kielmayer (*1970 in Baden, lives and works in Zürich) was curator of the Kleines Helmhaus in Zurich from 2000 - 2002 and managed an international artist in residence programme from 2001 - 2004. From 2004 - 2012 he was member of the art commission of the canton of Zurich, and he is publisher of the free artist newspaper WeAreTheArtists. Since 2006 Oliver Kielmayer is director of the Kunsthalle Winterthur; some of his recent books include The Telephone Book Special Edition(2010), Who Am I Anyway - Three Interviews with Köken Ergun (2011) and Martin Soto Climent - The Equation of Desire (2012).

To get more information on works curated by him visit the Kunsthalle Winterthur site at: www.kunsthallewinterthur.ch/home/page.aspx where he is the director and curator.