Dear Friends:
I want to alert you to an exciting event that will take place on
Monday, March 29 at 4:00 at the Humanities Center. This is a rare
chance to meet international artists from EASTERN EUROPE
and to discuss the relationship between art, public transformation and
new media.
Please come,.
Seminar on Literature, Politics and the Arts
Invites you to the panel discussion
*Art, Public
Sphere and the New Media*
When: March 29
Time: 4-6 p.m
Where: Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Harvard University
*Moderator: Svetlana Boym (Harvard University)*
*Participants:
Helidon Gjergji (Artist, Tirana-New York)*
*Nomeda Urbonas (Artist and researcher) and Gediminas Urbonas (Artist
and Associate Professor at MIT, Vilnius-Cambridge)
Discussant: João Ribas (Curator, List Gallery, MIT)*
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~humcentr
<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ehumcentr>
*Helidon
Gjergji* works between traditional
artistic media combining “television art,” installation and
architectural design and experimental curating. He represented Albania
at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and was one of the artists of the
celebrated Tirana façade project initiated by the artist and mayor Edi
Rama and aimed to transform the new postcommunist public space through
color and artistic imagination. Gjergji was born in Tirana, Albania and
live in NYC. In 2000, he received an M.F.A. from Northwestern
University, Chicago. Before that, he received a Diploma at the Academy
of Fine Arts in Tirana, Albania and a Diploma at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Naples, Italy. Among other exhibitions, he participated in the
Venice Biennale 52 (Albanian Pavilion), curated by Bonnie Clearwater;
Present Future, Artissima 10 (Turin), curated by Emma Dexter etc.;
Tirana Biennale 1 (curated by Francesco Bonami); Madre, (MCA, Naples);
Apexart (NYC); National Gallery (Tirana); Villa Arson; Centre d'Art
Contemporain (Nice); Lothringer Dreizehn Kunsthalle (Munich); The
Kosova Art Gallery. (Prishtina); PAN (City Museum of Naples); Chelsea
Art Museum (NYC); Temporary Services (Chicago); Suburban (Chicago); TBA
Exhibition Space (Chicago); T.I.C.A.B. (Tirana International
Contemporary Art Biannual) curated by Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg;
Botkyrka Konsthall (Sweden) . He is also a creator and a curator of
famous “parking lot bienniales” initiated in Chicago and to be
continued in other cities.
*Nomeda &
Gediminas Urbonas* have
established an international reputation for socially interactive and
interdisciplinary practice exploring the conflicts and contradictions
posed by the economic, social, and political conditions in the former
Soviet countries. They use art platform to render public spaces for
interaction and engagement of the social groups, evoking local
communities and encouraging their cultural and political
imagination.Combining the tools of new and traditional media, Nomeda
and Urbonas's work frequently involves collective activities such as
workshops, lectures, debates, TV programs, Internet chat-rooms and
public protests that stand at the intersection of art, technology and
social criticism. Urbonas are the cofounders of JUTEMPUS
interdisciplinary art program, VILMA (Vilnius Interdisciplinary Lab for
Media Art), and VOICE, a net based publication on media culture. He and
his partner have exhibited at the San Paulo, Berlin, Moscow, Lyon and
Gwangju Biennales – and Manifesta and Documenta exhibitions – among
numerous other international shows, including a solo show at the Venice
Biennale and MACBA in Barcelona. They have been awarded a number of
high level grants and residency awards, including the Lithuanian
National Prize (2007); a fellowship at the Montalvo Arts Center in
California (2007/08); and a Prize for the Best International Artist at
the Gwangju Biennale (2006) and the Prize for the best national
pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2007).
Gediminas Urbonas is an Associate Professor in the Art, Culture and
Technology Program at MIT. Nomeda Urbonas is PhD researcher at
Norwegian University for Science and Technology.
--
____________________________________________
Svetlana Boym
Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature
Faculty Associate of the Graduate School of Design
Harvard University
www.svetlanaboym.com
<http://www.svetlanaboym.com>
--
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor, Suite 301
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617.495.4037
Fax: 617.495.8319
http://www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu