Göteborgs Internationella Konstbiennal

Göteborg International Biennial
for Contemporary Art (GICBA)
7 September – 17 November 2013

It is with great pleasure Röda Sten Art Centre presents the preparations for Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GICBA) 2013 and the work on strengthening the Biennial as one of the major art events in Sweden.

The planning has begun with an innovation in the Biennial organization. Stina Edblom (co-curator GICBA 2011) and Edi Muka (curator GICBA 2007) have been appointed Artistic Directors of the Biennial. Based on their previous experience, Stina Edblom and Edi Muka will be working on developing the Biennial’s sustainable growth and anchorage in Gothenburg and the Region Västra Götaland as well as nationally and internationally. The Artistic Directors will formulate the conceptual framework for the Biennial and invite a selection of curators to curate individual platforms as part of the Biennial. Together, these platforms will form Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art. The opening is scheduled for 7 September 2013.

Leisure, Discipline and Punishment  (working title)
Röda Sten Art Centre is also proud to present that GIBCA 2013 will form part of a collaboration between four European art biennials: Contour, the Biennial of Moving Image in Mechelen (BE), the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art (UK), the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (SE) and the Bucharest International Biennial for Contemporary art (RO). As part of the collaboration each biennial will commission two artists to produce new site-specific works that will utilize different locations in the city that people visit for leisure, discipline or punishment. The new artistic productions will tour the various biennials included in the project.
For the project, Röda Sten Art Centre has been granted EU funding of EUR 35,000.

Stina Edblom
held a position as co-curator and producer of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2011. From 2009 to 2012 she worked as Exhibition Curator at Göteborgs Konsthall in Sweden, as well as Assistant Curator of the 29th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil. In 2008, she held a position as Research/Assistant Curator of the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, on the theme of Farewell to Postcolonialism, where she curated the African participation in the triennial. Stina completed a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, 2007.

Edi Muka
holds a position as Exhibition Curator at Röda Sten konsthall since 2009. He is one of the founders of Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennale, as well as Director and Curator of TICA – Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2007, he curated the 4th edition of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, titled Rethinking Dissent, together with Joa Ljungberg. In 1999, Edi curated the first Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial and in 2005 he was the commissioner for the pavilion.

Kontakt
Director Röda Sten Art Centre
Mia Christersdotter Norman
mia.christersdotter(at)rodasten.com
+46 31 12 08 83

Artistic Director
Stina Edblom
stina.edblom(at)goteborg.biennal.org
+46 31 12 07 76

Artistic Director
Edi Muka
edi.muka(at)rodasten.com
+46 31 12 08 46

On Friday November the 11th the ”finissage” of the Biennial 2011 was celebrated at Göteborgs Konsthall. The Reader was also released, a booklet produced by university courses North/South and River Run.

During the summer of 2011, the courses have researched topics that run parallel to the Biennial theme. After they were completed, a Reader was produced, in which texts, thoughts, fragments of works of art and conversation are collected – political and personal statements and reflections on what’s going on in today’s society.

PARTICIPANTS IN THE READER: Felicia Bodin, Finn Chung, Ioana Cojocariu,
Karl-Johan Cottman, Maria Draghici, Lars Dyrendom, Magnus Eriksson,
Azra Halilovic, Kerstin Hamilton, Linn Hansén, Annika von Hausswolff,
Cora Hillebrand, Staffan Hjalmarsson, Eva Höglund, Daniel Josefsson,
Mattias Fredrik Josefsson, Sarat Maharaj, Susan Karavelli, Charlotte Larsson,
Gustavo Perillo Nogueira, Karl Palmås, Annika Persson, Johannes Samuelsson,
Britta Söderqvist, Stina Östberg

FRAMTIDSLABB :: 11:11:12 / FUTURE LAB :: 11:11:12
12 November
12 – 5 pm
Röda Sten Art Centre

This weekend, Röda Sten Art Centre and Kulturverkstan project management education are collaborating to offer exhibition visitors an agenda item out of the ordinary. The students have chosen to offer a series of practical workshops and stretches, with the aim to give visitors the opportunity to become part of the Biennial creativity fever.Welcome!

The Biennial theme, Pandemonium – Art in a time of creativity fever, arouses in us thoughts about the chaotic world we live in. During the last Saturday of the Biennial, we invite Röda Sten Art Centre’s visitors to experiment with their impressions. With the exhibition and the biennial theme as elements, and subsequent discussion as a catalyst, we are looking for an action of reflection. Biennial visit here will be more than the mere contemplation of art. On November 12th, we invite visitors to share their world view and his thoughts about the future.

STUDENTS: Göran Dahlström, Bella Ghajavand, Hector Garcia-Jorquera
& Jenny Haraldsson

After the action at Röda Sten Art Centre, further material will be released here: www.framtidslabb.wordpress.com

On thursday the 3rd of November the press witnessed the mounting of Olav Christopher Jenssen’s sculpture Lingaphone far out on the tip of one of the central piers of Gothenburg.

Lingaphone is a new sculpture by the Jenssen, developed for the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art. The sculpture’s position on the tip of a centrally located pier, makes it as visible from the mainland as from Hisingen. It is over 19 feet tall and 16 feet wide, but has a thickness of only five inches.

Lingaphone seen from the mainland. Photo: Nils Tengdahl

Photo: Nils Tengdahl

The artist Olav Christopher Jenssen with the Biennial Project Manager Ulrika Sten. Photo: Nils Tengdahl

Photo: Nils Tengdahl

On Black Wednesday, October 19, the Chimurenga Chronic was released and the Chronic reading room opened at Röda Sten Art Centre.

Back-dated to the week May 18–24, 2008, The Chimurenga Chronic is situated
during the first week of the xenophobic violence in South Africa and is focused
outward, covering the events, scenes and situations around the world during
this period.

Graeme Arendse, designer Chimurenga Magazine

Linn Hansén, poet and co-editor of Glänta, Graeme Arendse and Göran Dahlberg,
co-editor of Glänta.

A young Chimurenga Chronic devotee!

Two microfilm readers are part of the Chronic Reading Room

Chronic Reading Room

Posters from a campaign that preceded the release
of Chimurenga Chronic

On Sunday, 23rd of October an open seminar was held at Konsthallen–Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla. Among the participants were artists Liam Gillick, Asma Arsha Mahmood and Yvonne Singer; sociologist Karl Palmås and Professor & Co-Curator Gertrud Sandqvist.
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2011 is titled Pandemonium – Art in a Time of Creativity Fever. It touches on issues such as creativity, fictions, utopias and the rapidly changing conditions of today’s politics and economy. Sunday’s seminar aimed at an indepth discussion on today’s labour market and the wide use of the term ”creativity”.

Asma Arshad Mahmood, artist and curator from Toronto, Canada and Yvonne Singer,
artist and professor of Visual Art, York University, Canada, presented their work.

Karl Palmås, sociologist at Chalmers Tekniska högskola, Göteborg, spoke about his research.

Liam Gillick, British artist based in New York, performed a reading from his manuscript
Construction of One.

Moderator was Fredrik Svensk, Critic, Editor of Paletten Art Journal and Lecturer in
Art- & Culture Theory at Valand School of Fine Arts.

Dialogue Table took place on October the 13th at Röda Sten Art Centre.
Students from the course North/South presented their work in an open discussion.

”We are questioning ”the old order” of Heaven. Could we let ourself go into the unknown? Could we accept that not everything can be translated or regulated? We are against destruction. We who are different – the new Swedes – we are coming to say: Hello! Can you hear us? We are speaking from the school benches (Svenska För Invandrare), the garden lots (Komettorgets Odlingslotter) and the bazar (Kviberg Marknad) of Gothenburg! The Gothenburg Art Biennale is a local public institution. Thus, can it become a laboratory that creates space for action and debate? (—)”

Konsthallen–Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla
Sunday 23 October, 1–4.30 pm

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, 2011, is titled Pandemonium – Art in a time of Creativity Fever. It touches on issues such as creativity, fictions, utopias and the rapidly changing conditions of today’s politics and economy. An open seminar on Sunday, October 23 at Konsthallen–Bohusläns Museum, aims at deepening discussion on today’s labour market and the wide use of the  term ”creativity”.
Read more

MAGAZINE RELEASE
& OPENING OF THE CHRONIC READING ROOM

Röda Sten Art Centre
19 October, 7–10 pm
free admission
NOTE THE CHANGE
OF VENUE !

On Black Wednesday, the 19th of October The Chimurenga Chronicle, is released. The Pan-African magazine Chimurenga presents The Chimurenga Chronicle– a once-off, one-day-only edition of a speculative, future-forward newspaper that travels back in time to re-imagine the present. Back-dated to the week May 18–24, 2008, The Chimurenga Chronicle is situated during the first week of the xenophobic violence in South Africa,

The event is produced in collaboration with the Gothenburg-based cultural journal Glänta and was preceded by a public art intervention in the form of a newspaper poster campaign across Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos and Göteborg.

Glänta has in the past year served as The Chronicle’s northernmost editorial outpost, and will on October 19 present the project together with Chimurenga designer Graeme Arendse, who will also be found as DJ G. Nest Nest G behind the turntables that night.

In The Cronicle Reading Room, which is part of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, the newspaper will be available along with microfilm readers, computers, and a reference library at Röda Sten Art Centre. Read more