Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age
Curated by:
Domenico Quaranta
Produced by:
LINK Center for the Arts of the Information Age
Spazio Contemporanea
Corsetto Sant'Agata, 22 - Brescia - Italy
September 24 – October 15, 2011, 3.00 – 7.00 PM
Preview: September 23, 2011, 3.30 PM
Opening: September 24, 2011, 6.30 PM
Artists: Alterazioni Video (IT), Kari Altmann (US), Cory Arcangel (US), Gazira Babeli (IT), Kevin Bewersdorf (US), Luca Bolognesi (IT), Natalie Bookchin (US), Petra Cortright (US), Aleksandra Domanovic (DE), Harm van den Dorpel (NL), Constant Dullaart (NL), Hans Peter Feldmann (DE), Elisa Giardina Papa (IT), Travis Hallenbeck (US), Jodi (NL), Oliver Laric (DE), Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenshied (DE), Guthrie Lonergan (US), Eva and Franco Mattes (IT), Seth Price (US), Jon Rafman (US), Claudia Rossini (IT), Evan Roth (US), Travess Smalley (US), Ryan Trecartin (US).
On occasion of the Settimana dell'Arte in Brescia (September 24 – October 1, 2011), the LINK Center for the Arts of the Information Age is proud to present the group show Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age, curated by Domenico Quaranta. The show brings together 26 artists from all around the world, and will be accompanied by a rich programme of related events: presentations, conferences and workshops.
The last decade has witnessed an incredible growth in the production and distribution of images. The availability of inexpensive production tools has seen an exponential rise in amateur creativity, while the Internet provides a new distribution platform for this kind of production, which previously remained private.
What is the impact of this process on art practices and the artist – in the past, the sole, hallowed depositary of the creative gesture? What kind of dialogue is there between amateur practices and codified languages?
Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age sets out to demonstrate how the Internet generation is implementing and developing a practice started in the Sixties by Conceptual Art, and further developed in subsequent decades in the forms of Appropriation Art and postproduction: the practice of exploring, collecting, archiving, manipulating and reusing huge amounts of visual material produced by popular culture and advertising. Collect the WWWorld is an attempt to show how art responds to the information society.
The research work around the show can be followed on the blog
http://collectheworld.tumblr.com.
LINK EDITIONS
A catalogue will be published for the show, with essays by Josephine Bosma, Gene McHugh, Joanne McNeil and Domenico Quaranta and presentations of all the artists on show. The catalogue (colour, 160 pp.) will be available at the show, but can already be bought or downloaded free from the LINK Center website: an open approach that highlights the center's belief in the accessibility and free circulation of knowledge.
Together with the catalogue, the LINK Center will also publish - in the same way - the book Post Internet by the New York based art critic Gene McHugh. Edited by the author, the book is a selection of posts published on his blog Post Internet, which was developed between December 2009 and September 2010 with the support of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. It offers an overview of the art of the Internet Age; namely art capable of acknowledging the presence and impact of this unprecedented medium of distribution and dissemination.
Domenico Quaranta (ed.), Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age, exhibition catalogue, 160 pp., colour, Italian / English. 46 €, LINK Editions, September 2011, ISBN 978-1-4478-3949-1. With texts by Josephine Bosma, Gene McHugh, Joanne McNeil.
Gene McHugh, Post Internet, 274 pp., English. 14 €, LINK Editions, September 2011, ISBN 978-1-4478-0389-8.
More info:www.lulu.com/spotlight/linkeditions
RELATED EVENTS
Collect the WWWorld will be accompanied by a rich programme of related events. On the occasion of the opening of “Art Week” (September 24), the LINK Center will take part in the show “Arte nell'Arte” at the Museo di Santa Giulia (a new Unesco World Heritage site) with the installation Hellblau by the US based artist Kari Altmann. Hellblau (2008 – ongoing) is a project that consists in tracing the manifestations of a particular shade of blue (hellblau in German). According to Kari Altmann, this colour is often used as “an interface for control, distance, power, fetishization, lust, and omnipresent friendliness that acts as a sweet, high-pitched mask for deeper intentions”. In the installation, the images researched by the artist are printed on little polyurethane “icebergs” that float around in an electric blue swimming pool.
On the same night, the LINK Center will take part in the series “Artisti all'Eden” staged at the Nuovo Eden Cinema with the project Emoticons from Italian Cinema by Matteo Erenbourg with Claudio Beorchia: an archive of small animations “stolen” from Italian cinema, and shared online as “emoticons”, which add an emotional layer to online, text-based communication.
On Thursday 29 September Domenico Quaranta, Artistic Director of the LINK Center, will hold a talk on contemporary art at the San Barnaba Auditorium in Brescia.
During the show, the exhibition venue will also host a series of artist's talks, workshops and performances by some of the artists in the show, including Matteo Erenbourg and the Dutch artists Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart and Jodi. The Dutch artists’ presentations are kindly supported by the Mondriaan Foundation.
More info:
www.linkartcenter.euEDUCATIONAL
During the show, the LINK Center is willing to organize guided tours and programmes for visitors and students from art schools and universities. For information and bookings, please contact:
edu@linkartcenter.eu.
More info:
http://www.linkartcenter.euContact:
press@linkartcenter.euPress folder:
http://linkartcenter.eu/public/press/Collect_press_folder.zip Main sponsor: Innovery
Technical Sponsor: Reinventart
Supported by: Regione Lombardia
Dutch artists presentations supported by: Mondriaan Foundation
