w.art projects presents

Light art during the EU Presidency of the Czech Republic in the City of Prague

7^th of January until 30^th of June 2009

 

press release

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Czech Republic’s EU Presidency during the first half of 2009 will enable the Capital City of Prague the opportunity to provide its openness, vitality and “joie de vivre” towards the international community.

The light art project Transparency, organized and realised by w.art projects, is based on the concept of making ambitious contemporary art accessible to everyone. Therefore, we have taken the conscious decision to bring light art to public areas.

This will allow the inhabitants of Prague and the international visitors to experience the oversized light installations in a dimension never seen before.

Six well renowned artists like Julian Opie (UK), Stephan Reusse (D), Jaume Plensa (E), Arthur Duff (USA / Italy), Ulla Rauter (A) and Jenny Holzer (USA) will create visual high lights during the period of the EU Presidency.

Illumination projections on the facades of buildings, the river Vltava and at other unexpected locations in the centre of the town will surprise and astound the viewer. Already during the cold winter months of 2009, the illuminated projections will provide an ambitious coloured enhancement and enrichment to the city skyline.

Transparency is a marvellous idea to enchant a wonderful city during this important period.

 

Artists | duration | location:

7.1. – 30.6.

Jaume Plensa (E), nám. Jana Palacha | Rudolfinum

Julian Opie (UK), National Theatre

Stephan Reusse (D), Dušní | Spanish synagogue

7.1. – 1.2. Arthur Duff (USA), Old Town Square

21.2. – 30.6. Ulla Rauter (A), Vltava | Smetana Museum

30.4. – 6.5. Jenny Holzer (USA), National Museum

 

 

Contact           :                                                                     Press contact:

www.wartprojects.com                                                Select Agency

Dr. Gisela Winkelhofer, Quirin Wimmer                                   Petra Hanzliková

office@wartprojects.com                                            petra@select-event.com

T +420 774 274 002                                                  T +420 603 524 782

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jaume Plensa, WE

Jaume Plensa (E) is presenting his most recent sculpture WE from the 7th of January to the 30th of June at the nám. Jana Palacha across the Rudolfinum.

 

WE, is a white coated sculpture of 5 meters height and amounting to 2700 kg of weight, which has been constructed out of stainless steel and carved by laser light. The sculpture is formed to represent a seated man with an opened front. With his most recent artwork Plensa is firstly presenting a sculpture, which incorporates characters from various cultural backgrounds: Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Chinese and Japanese. It is the intention of Jaume Plensas to set a sign for the hope for freedom and understanding among the different peoples of the world.

 

With sculptures of that kind Plensa is honouring the human body as the highest form of architectural art and portraying it as a protecting canvas of our soul, dreams and desires. In his work he is often unifying writing with transparent materials and light as well as acoustic elements.

 

Plensa, born in 1955, lives in Barcelona. He is one of the most honoured contemporary Spanish artists. In 1997 he achieved his international break through with great exhibitions and highly esteemed public projects such as his spectacular work Crown Foundation (2004) for the Millennium Park in Chicago.

 

Exhibitions (selected projects): 2008 „Jaume Plensa“ Frederik Meijer Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan; “Save our Souls,” Albion Gallery, London. 2007 “Jaume Plensa,” Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nice; “Jaume Plensa,” Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia; “Nomade,” Musée Picasso, Antibes; “Barcelona 1947–2007,” Foundation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence; “Silent Voices,” Museum at Tamada Projects, Tokyo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julian Opie, ANN, DANCING

 

A window of the National Theatre at Národni is showing Julian Opie’s (UK) LED ANN, DANCING from the 7^th of January to the 30^th of June.

 

Julian Opie is amongst the leading contemporary artists of international reputation. Born in 1958, he now lives and works in London. Opie studied at the Goldsmith College of Art and shortly afterwards exhibited at the Lisson Gallery and in the ICA in London, at the Kunstverein Cologne and the foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

His artworks form part of the most extinguished art collections and museums of the world, such as the The Tate Modern, The National Portrait Gallery in London, MoMA in New York, MOMAT in Tokyo and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

 

An unexpected interpretation of the sculpture is achieved by using computer animation, sound and LED screens. The broad spectrum of different influences which form the basis for Opie’s works such as classic portraits and sculptures as well as Japanese manga comics, is matched by the various media and technologies employed in his works.

 

The reduction to the essential is the main characteristic of his work. This leitmotif is especially evident in his portraits. His highly stylistic work includes the transmission of photography (or short movies) into figurative reproductions, which are being created by means of a computer animation. His illustrations enable a new access to images and forms, which, being made out of new materials and media, refer to the modern world.

In 2001 Julian Opie received the price of best illustration issued by the magazine Music Week for his cover illustration of the British music group Blur’s CD “Best of Blur”.

 

w.art projects already presented Julian Opie’s works in Prague with the two LEDs “Bruce and Suzanne walking” placed on the Vltava embankment whilst holding simultaneously an exhibition at the Museum Kampa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staphan Reusse, Mice

 

Stephan Reusse (D) is projecting his light installation called Mice onto the façade of the academy at the Dušní near to the Spanish synagogue from the 7^th of January to the 30^th of June.

Reusse’s work is dealing with perception and remembrance. This installation is focusing at mice which are taking over the building during night time. A laser is projecting traces of mice movements and their silhouettes onto the walls. The schematic reproduction of the animals is based on the analysis of infrared video recordings of real mice. The patterns of movements and forms are the basis for a real time as well as animated film.

Naturally hectic, anxiously hesitant and restless movements characterize this light show whilst representing human every day life. The mice in their non physical presence are for the artist a metaphor for elusiveness. One moment the spectator thinks to see the mice, yet almost immediately they turn into a mere remembrance.

By drawing on our experience remembrance is building up the image of mice, even though one cannot see them, as the full image does not exist. A few scattered traces and lines make up that image, even though they only draw on the reminiscent level of our reality in an abstract, scheme like way.

Many of his works aim to achieve a technical transformation which is designed to stimulate the imagination of the spectator. The image arises within the spectator. By drawing on past experiences the spectator is the one putting the abstract lines together to a meaningful image.

Stephan Reusse was born in 1954 and now lives in Cologne. In 1997 he was guest at the Villa Romana. From 2000-06 he was teaching new media and photography at the art school of Cologne. Amongst his most esteemed “art on buildings” projects are the laser screenings in Münster, Toronto, Vancouver and Shanghai.

Exhibitions in 2008 (selected dates): „Monkey Talk“, Galerie Feichtner, Vienna; „Now Jump“, Nam June Paik Art Center, Korea; „The Dream Machine“, Shortlist FIAC‘s Parcours, Paris; „Stephan Reusse“, ParkRyuSook Gallery, Shanghai, China; „Drawing By Chairs“, Galerie Johnssen, Munich; „Monkey“, ShContemporary, Shanghai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur Duff, love letters

 

Arthur Duff (USA) will project love letters onto Old Town Square from the 7^th of January to the 1^st of February every evening from 18.00 to 24.00.

DARLING WAVE

MY CONFUSION FLATLY BRUSHES YOUR BIGOTED IDENTITY. YOU ARE MY MATURE BOD. MY NEED PROPERLY LAUGHS AT YOUR HOSTILE PERSPECTIVE. MY SUBJECTIVE PAST SCRATCHES YOUR DIFFERENCE. MY DARLING FANTASY HURRIEDLY STARTS YELLING FOR YOUR WARNING.

YOURS MYSTERIOUSLY

 

The letters will be generated by combining love letters written between his parents, thirty-eight years ago, using Christopher Strachey’s “Love Letters” program. This program, designed in 1952 for the Manchester Mark 1, randomly generated love letters. Arthur broke-down his parents love letters by extracting, verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs which he then applied to the skeletal structure of poems generated by Strachey’s program. The resulting messages will be projected on the Old Town Square using a high-powered green laser with a puzzling yet captivating effect.

With “love Letters” Arthur Duff is interested in the peculiar process of interpretation triggered by the stochastic system of randomly generated text where one’s projections are put on stage, pivoting around a personal mode of reading into and giving meaning to a message.

Arthur Duff was born in Wiesbaden in 1973 to American parents. He has moved often and lived in many different places such as the U.S., South Korea, Germany, Japan and Italy. He has been active and present on the Italian contemporary art scene. He lives in Venice and works in Marghera where he has had a studio for the past four years. He was present in the recent show “The word in art – Research and the avant-garde in the 20^th century” at the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum of Trento and Rovereto and has presented site-specific work for the XIV Quadrennial in Rome, the GAM and the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena. His most recent project, “Borrowing You”, was installed in Castelfranco Veneto where he installed a large laser, which projected borrowed words from the city’s inhabitants onto the entire down town of the old medieval city.

He presently works for Galica contemporary art in Milan and Studio La Cittá in Verona, both of whom he shows with at major international art fairs. He has worked with the Peggy Guggenheim didactic project and has also been collaborating with the newly launched C4–Contemporary Culture Center of Caldogno contributing to their cutting edge approach towards education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ulla Rauter, Tacet

 

With the onset of dusk to midnight Ulla Rauter (A) is presenting TACET in the Vltava at the Smetana Museum from the 21th of February to the 30th of June.

 

The intervention TACET refers to acoustic pauses by drawing on the urban background noise making it the unwritten score of that piece of art. The illumination of the lettering marks as a visual accent the rarely noticed moments of peace acting as an interruption of the nearly constant urban noise level.

TACET is an instruction to be quiet, thereby leading to several questions: Who is meant to be quiet and who is already quiet? TACET is aimed at a not present musical subject or instead at the collective of noise producing things and creatures within the near surrounding and all struggling to win the battle to be heared.

 

Ulla Rauter, born in 1980, works in Vienna. From 2000-2002 she studied at the college for graphic design in Vienna where she conducted a master in communication design. Since 2003 she is studying trans-media under the guidance of Professor Brigitte Kowanz art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

 

Performances / Exhibitions / Prices: Scholarship of the Karl-Anton-Wolf-Foundation whilst conducting the fist Ö1 talent scholarship, Vienna, 2008; Sound of Art, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, 2008; Parasite-Paradise, Collection Esterházy, Burg Forchtenstein, 2008; "Sensationen", Performance-Abend, University for Applied Arts, Vienna, 2008

Lightness of Action, Nitrianska Galéria, Nitra 2008; Performance, Kunsthalle Project Space Vienna, 2007; Projektionen im öffentlichen Raum, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna 2007; Sculpture Grande, Generation Next, Prague 2007; 1. prize, competition "Gedenksymbol Servitengasse 1938", 2007; "Christian Eisenberger" Gruppenausstellung Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz, 2006; "1wand" MAK Stiegenhaus, Vienna, 2005; The Essence, MAK, Vienna 2005; “Natalagranagranata”, Galerie Schloß Porcia, Kärnten, 2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jenny Holzer, Xenon for Bordeaux, 2001

© 2008 Jenny Holzer,

member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Photo: Vincent Monthiers

 

 

Jenny Holzer (USA) will project on the facade of the National Museum next to Wenceslav Square from the 30th of April until 6th of May. For Prague she will present an extract of Franz Kafka and poems of Wisława Szymborska.

 

Jenny Holzer, born in 1950 in Ohio, lives and works in Hoosick, New York.

For more than a decade, light projections have been a component of Jenny Holzer’s media-spanning artistic practice. In 1996, Holzer began to cover large structures with text. For her project at the Battle of Nations Monument in Leipzig in that year, Holzer used lasers on the memorial to display writing that mirrored the monument’s scale.

The form of projection that she now favors, which is produced by running a giant film through a projector equipped with a 6,000-watt lamp, was first shown at the Biennale di Firenze: il Tempo e la Moda in Florence in the fall of 1996.

 

Holzer’s projections have taken place in four continents, fourteen countries, and more than thirty cities including Florence, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Venice, Oslo, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Paris, Singapore, San Diego and New York City. From Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie and Daniel Libeskind’s Jüdisches Museum in Berlin to I.M. Pei’s Pyramide du Louvre in Paris, Holzer’s light events have worked in significant architectural spaces. Her projections onto waves and mountains in Rio de Janeiro, the Seine and Arno rivers, the mountains and ski jump in Lillehammer, and the Dune du Pyla engage the natural landscape as quiet and affecting settings for reflection, laughter, and exchange.

 

One of her last extraordinary projects was in September of 2007: Holzer projected statements by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt from the Kennedy Center onto Roosevelt Island in Washington, D.C.