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