MOMENTUM is pleased to announce the showing of a special program of video works originally screened at the 1st Kiev Biennale last year.MOMENTUM! The works will be on view from September 7th – October 26th 2013 at MOMENTUM Berlin and then as part of our SKY SCREEN initiative in Istanbul and Berlin! Curated by the Artistic Director of the Biennale, David Elliott, the program features new works by John Bock, Yang Fudong, Gulsun Karamustafa, Lutz Becker, Tracey Moffatt, Map Office, and Miao Xiaochun. MOMENTUM is excited to bring these works to audiences in Berlin, Istanbul, and beyond.
Echoing the first words of A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Charles Dickens’ famous novel set at the time of the French Revolution, this exhibition jumps forward to the present to consider how contemporary art and aesthetics use the past to express the future. The ideals of Human Rights developed during 18th Century European Enlightenment found their first political expression in the American and French Revolutions. Yet, in spite of fine intentions at the outset, Human Rights have been constricted as each revolution has contained at its core the worst as well as the best of human thought and action. This exhibition reflects on utopian dreams of freedom, equality, and security that are very much at the heart of our lives today, as well as on their opposite: terror, inequity and war. It is the destructive forces of both man and nature that seem to make a more ideal life impossible. Showing simultaneously across three locations in Berlin and Istanbul, revisiting this selection of works is a timely response to the current situation in Turkey, where ideals of democracy and freedom have been brought into renewed focus.
The artist Miao Xiaochun who is part of this programme is currently representing the People’s Republic of China in the 55th Venice Biennale. The artist Gülsün Karamustafa, who is part of this programme, has a major solo exhibition at our collaborating partner SALT, coinciding with this programme. A Promised Exhibition: http://saltonline.org/en/#!/en/616/a-promised-exhibition. This same program will be shown on SKY SCREEN, MOMENTUM’s initiative for video art in public space. SKY SCREEN turns the museum and gallery inside out by bringing video art onto the streets, thereby making it widely accessible and building curiosity and public interest in contemporary art.
SKY SCREEN:
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times Revisited: Selected Videos From The 1st Kiev Biennale
Curated by David Elliott
In Collaboration with SALT: http://saltonline.org/en/home
11 – 15 September, from dusk until dawn
SKY SCREEN Istanbul at SALT Beyoğlu
İstiklal Caddesi 136, Beyoğlu 34430 İstanbul, Turkey
Coinciding with the Opening of the Istanbul Biennale
AND
In Collaboration with .CHB: www.hungaricum.de
21 – 22 September, 20:00 – 24:00
SKY SCREEN Berlin at Collegium Hungaricum
Dorotheenstr. 12, 10117 Berlin
During Berlin Art Wee
About the exhibition
Opening: FRIDAY 6 SEPT at 19:00 - 22:00
Duration: 7 SEPT - 27 OCT 2013
Lutz Becker, THE SCREAM • John Bock,
MONSIEUR ET MONSIEUR • Gülsün Karamustafa, INSOMNIAMBULE • Tracey Moffatt, DOOMED • Map Office, OVEN OF STRAW • Miao Xiaochun, RESTART • Yang Fudong, YEJIANG / THE NIGHTMAN COMETH
Courtesy of MOMENTUM, for further information please visit THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES REVISITED: Selected Video Works from the 1st Kiev Biennale, Curated by David Elliott.
