Piątek 03 Październik 2008 3:19:02 pm

Overcoming Dictatorships exhibition in Birmingham

Round-table discussion (8 October, 6.30 p.m.), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (admission free)

Overcoming Dictatorships


Exhibition (9 October - 9 November 2008, weekdays, 10-5, admission free), Rotunda of the Aston Webb Building, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK and conference (9 October 2008, 9-4, booking essential), Barber Institute of Fine Arts

A round-table discussion with Harald Hauswald (Berlin), Silvestro Lodi (Venice), Vlad Nancă (Bucharest), and Sándor Pinczehelyi (Pécs) as artists participating in the Overcoming Dictatorships exhibition will be held at the internationally renowned Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK on 8 October, 6.30 p.m. (admission free). Chaired by the Ikon curator Nigel Prince, it will focus on up-and-coming contemporary art groups in post-Communist countries and draw parallels with the situation immediately after 1989, when the former underground art replaced the official.

The exhibition explores art produced in response to the collapse of political authoritarian systems, particularly those of the Soviet bloc in 1989. It aims to create a dialogue on post-dictatorial experiences among participants from countries designated as ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Europe. The 17 works deal with processes of mourning, remembering and overcoming the past.

The conference will explore the intersections of the visual arts in mediating the political, socio-economic and cultural changes in post-dictatorial societies and the impact of such changes on cultural production. It brings together a select group of speakers whose research explores aspects of overcoming totalitarian and authoritarian systems in different disciplines but with a focus on the visual arts (and an emphasis on the period since 1989).

The round-table discussion, exhibition and conference are part of the EU-funded project 'Overcoming Dictatorships - the Encounter of Poets, Artists and Writers' (principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerhard Besier, Professor of European Studies, Technische Universität, Dresden).

Artists:
Zbynĕk Benýšek - Zbigniew Czop - Mirela Dauceanu - Ulf Göpfert - Harald Hauswald - Silvestro Lodi - Vlad Nancă - Sándor Pinczehelyi - Michele Zaggia - Aleksander Zyśko.

Galleries:
Gallery U Frycza at the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University College, Cracow (17 Nov.-14 Dec. 2008)
The National Museum of Contemporary Art at the “Ion Creanga” National Theatre, Bucharest (5 Jan.-18 Jan. 2009)
Open Society Archives Gallery, Budapest (24 Jan.-8 Feb. 2009)
Gallery at Torre Mirana, Trent (14 Feb.-8 Mar. 2009)
Gallery Castle Dečin, Dečin (13 Mar.-31 Mar. 2009)
Town Hall City of Dresden, Dresden (06 Apr.-26 Apr. 2009)

Publications and Materials:
Jutta Vinzent, OVERcoming DICTatorships. Contemporary East and West European Visual Inquiries, Bielefeld/Leipzig: Kerber Verlag 2008.
Barbara Lubich, Overcoming Dictatorships – film documentary

http://overcomings.blogspot.com, http://lehrstuhl-europastudien.eu/eu/, http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk