BIENNIAL 2013

THE 30TH BIENNIAL OF GRAPHIC ARTS: INTERRUPTION

14 September–24 November 2013

Interruption is the 30th edition of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. This installation considers the evolutionary graphic field of contemporary times. Printerly processes touch many types of present-day art. Select, traditional media have evolved and adapted to maintain their relevance, while digital processes, after a long fermentation, have finally taken legitimate hold as artistic tools in their own right. Interruption surveys the extension of traditional as well as new approaches to printmaking in response to our 21st-century communications.
The works included in the Biennial echo and comment on the conditions of the world in which we live: how we receive our information, how we interact – or attempt to – with each other, how we (mis)perceive our world. Clamouring, unfiltered data bombards us. Masquerading commercial and political agendas vie for our attention alongside personal thoughts and images that are more than we can ever possibly absorb. The hyperactivity of text and image begs for our attention. While some artists respond by returning to basic, even primal, forms of image reproduction (fire, shadows, tattoos, gunshots), others embrace the randomness of social media picture boards, the ghostliness of heat-sensitive live-feed video, endless streams of leaked governmental documents, or the brief haikus of the Twittersphere.
Interruption considers both the fresh application of traditional means by leading-edge artists and the innovative incorporation of new printerly technologies in fine-art investigations. Both approaches contemplate our contemporary transmissions as the basis of their works. Interruption explores the graphic as both form and content, in an invigorated polygraphic terrain that links the work of diverse contemporary artists from around the world.

Curated by Deborah Cullen, PhD.

Participating artists: Allora & Calzadilla, Burak Arıkan, Dennis Ashbaugh & William Ford Gibson, Tammam Azzam, Xu Bing, Luis Camnitzer, caraballo-farman, Alex Cerveny, Mario Caušic, Vuk Cosic, Milos Djordjevic, Tomás Espina, Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze & Gianluigi Scarpa, Mihael Giba, Ana Golici, María Elena González, Meta Grgurevic and Urša Vidic, Dragan IIic, Sanela Jahic, Charles Juhász-Alvarado, Thomas Kilpper, André Komatsu, Gorazd Krnc, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Nicola López, Ivan Marušic Klif, Yucef Merhi, Ottjörg A.C., Renata Papišta, Adam Pendleton, Agnieszka Polska, Zoran Poposki, Marjetica Potrc, Gerhard Richter, Venelin Shurelov, Dario Šolman, Nika Špan, Teo Spiller, Waltraut Tänzler, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Vargas-Suarez Universal, Tomas Vu-Daniel

Deborah Cullen, PhD is Director & Chief Curator of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University in the City of New York. She served as Chief Curator for El Panal/The Hive: 3ra Trienal Poligráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe, Puerto Rico (2012). Previously, she was Director of Curatorial Programs at El Museo del Barrio, New York, where she was an editor for the 500-page anthology, Caribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World (El Museo del Barrio and Yale University Press, 2012). Other exhibitions include Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis (2009) and the internationally traveling project, Arte no es Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000 (2008-2011) for which she received an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. She curated Retro/Active: The Work of Rafael Ferrer (2010), and authored the monograph Rafael Ferrer (UCLA, 2012). Cullen wrote her dissertation on the Jamaican-American master printer Robert Blackburn, who founded The Printmaking Workshop in New York in 1948. She was curator of the Printmaking Workshop Print Collection from 1993-1996, and arranged the acquisition of 2500 works from these holdings by the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Venues: International Centre of  Graphic Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Jakopic Promenade

André Komatsu, Construcao de Valores (Construction of Values), 2012, installation with A4 photocopies and industrial fans, (variable dimensions). Courtesy the artist.

Tammam Azzam, Freedom Graffiti: Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, 2013, From the 'Syrian Museum' series, Limited Edition Archival Digital Print on Cotton Paper, (112 x 112 cm), Edition of 25 + 2 AP, The Samawi Collection. Courtesy Ayyam Gallery, Dubai.

ENTRE MANOS (FROM HAND TO HAND): CIPHER, KNOT, NEBULA

opening 7 August
7 August–24 November 2013

The site-specific commission by artist Charles Juhász-Alvarado is part of the main exhibition of the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Interruption. Juhász-Alvarado addresses passers-by on the Jakopic Promenade with 118 photographs on billboards. Flanking the benches, the images mirror or rhyme to act as a choir. Working with Karen Albors, whose parents are both hearing-impaired, he created a visual sequence that unfolds as viewers walk up or down the esplanade. The artist’s sister, Emeshe Juhász-Mininberg, a writer and translator (working in Spanish and English), collaborated on the ‘lyrics’ related to each image that build the ‘song’. These allude to the images but also weave a cadence to accompany viewers on the path. The Slovene version and design by Mina Fina are yet another partnership, emphasising the counterpoint of languages while foregrounding translation, chance, and exchange. The project depends on universal commonalities to elicit emotional understanding.

Entre Manos (From Hand to Hand): Cipher, Knot, Nebula, 2013, 118 digital photographs for public poster commission, Jakopic Promenade, Tivoli Park, Ljubljana, 185 x 125 cm each. Courtesy of the artist.

ACCOMPANYING EXHIBITIONS AT THE 30TH BIENNIAL OF GRAPHIC ARTS

THE BIENNIAL OF GRAPHIC ARTS – SERVING YOU SINCE 1955

The exhibition presents the history of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts from its beginnings in 1955 to the present. The exhibition features archival television footage, personal testimonies and memoirs, letters and other documents that reveal the Biennial’s journey through nearly six decades, with a focus on selected aspects from past exhibitions. 
Curated by Petja Grafenauer, PhD.

Venue: Cankarjev Dom Gallery

A view of the 1st International Exhibition of Graphic Arts, at the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, 1955. MGLC archive.

REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO: THE ANATOMY LESSON

Exhibition of the Grand Prize Winner of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts
The Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo works in the field of performance, often responding in her art to current socio-political situations, as we saw presented at the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts. This year’s retrospective exhibition at the Jakopic Gallery takes us on a journey through the poetics of the artist’s oeuvre.
Curated by Yasmín Martín Vodopivec, mag.
Venue: Jakopic Gallery − Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana (MGML)

MIKLÓS ERDÉLY: THE ORIGINAL AND THE COPY + INDIGO DRAWINGS
On the occasion that the project Unguarded Money organized by Miklós Erdély in 1956 presented at the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts was awarded by the jury with “honorary mention”.
Miklós Erdély (1928–1986) – artist, architect, writer, poet, and filmmaker – was a major figure in the neo-avant-garde and conceptual art of Hungary. The present exhibition of Erdély’s photo-graphic works, indigo works and drawings has been organised with the co-operation of the Miklós Erdély Foundation (EMA).
Curated by Annamária Szoke.
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM)

Also at the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts: EU project
Developed with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union

LEISURE, DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT
A collaborative project involving four biennials: The Biennial of Moving Image/Contour Mechelen (Belgium); GIBCA – The Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (Sweden); The Liverpool Biennial – The UK Biennial of Contemporary Art (United Kingdom); The Biennial of Graphic Arts Ljubljana (Slovenia).
New commissioned works by Petra Bauer, Sonia Boyce, Keren Cytter, Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet, Agnieszka Polska, Marinella Senatore, Dario Šolman, Peter Wächtler.
Eight artworks in four different types of locations: business, social, spiritual and recreational.
Artists works on themes such as discipline and dissipation, success and failure, guilt and punishment, in response to the meaning of the given location, adding layers, both in content and form, to express its special character.
 

CATALOGUE

The publication presents the works of this year’s exhibiting artists with full-colour images, situated within a framework focused on the Biennial’s theme of the impact and influence of both traditional and new graphic media within the local and international context. This installation considers the evolutionary graphic field of contemporary times. Essays discuss the Biennial’s curatorial focus and other related topics. Dr Deborah Cullen, Curator of the Biennial, introduces this year’s edition, whilst writer and curator Petja Grafenauer covers the Biennial’s 60-year history. These are followed by texts devoted to the winners of the Grand Prize and the Honorary Award of the previous edition of the Biennial: Regina José Galindo and Miklós Erdély. The catalogue is co-published by Black Dog Publishing in UK and MGLC Slovenia. The catalogue has 235 pages, the price is 19 EUR.

The organizer and producer of the Biennial of Graphic Arts is the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC), which was established on the foundations of the Biennial to serve its needs and has the status of a specialized museum and producer of printed and contemporary art.

The director of the International Centre of Graphic Arts is Nevenka Šivavec.

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THE 30TH BIENNIAL OF GRAPHIC ARTS IS SUPPORTED BY:
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana
Lek, a Sandoz company, main sponsor
Sponsors: Adriatic Slovenica, Marand, RTV Slovenija, Radio Študent, Media Bus, Tam - Tam
Supported by: Embassy of Hungary, Embassy of the United States of America, Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain, Embassy of the Republic of Turkey, Ljubljana Tourism, European Commission

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