[aha] EXPANDED BOX - ARCOmadrid 2009

[Domenico Quaranta]

+ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE +

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EXPANDED BOX

curated by: DOMENICO QUARANTA (stands), CAROLINA GRAU

Galleries and artists (STANDS): Arc Projects, Sofia / THOMSON &  
CRAIGHEAD; Ernst Hilger, Vienna / JOHN GERRARD; Fabio Paris Art  
Gallery, Brescia / UBERMORGEN.COM; Fortlaan 17, Gent / LAWRENCE  
MALSTAF; MS Galeria, Madrid / ESTHER MANAS & ARASH MOORI; One and J  
Gallery, Seoul / KIM JONGKU; Project Gentili, Prato / JOAN LEANDRE;  
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi / PORS AND RAO.

MORE INFOS, CATALOGUE TEXT AND DOWNLOADABLE IMAGES:

http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/ARCO2009.html

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EXPERTS FORUM

NEW MEDIA ART BETWEEN ISOLATION AND INTEGRATION, INTER-DISCIPLINARITY  
AND MEDIA SPECIFICITY

February, Sunday 15, 2009
Forum Auditorium 1, Hall 6 Sunday 15, from 12.30 to 2.30 p.m. and from  
4 to 9 p.m.
Director: Domenico Quaranta
Speakers: Jon Ippolito & Joline Blais, Roberta Bosco, Geert Lovink,  
Inke Arns, Régine Debatty, Zhang Ga, Joasia Krysa.

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Young artists showcasing trends in new media art, with a special focus  
on video and installation

ARCOmadrid Press Office, 08/01/2009

EXPANDED BOX

Curated by: Domenico Quaranta, Carolina Grau

Dialogue and an exploration of media art languages is, once again, the  
main focus at EXPANDED BOX. From a renewed perspective, this  
programme, specialised in art and new technologies, takes a step  
further in its mission to reflect a process of unstoppable expansion  
of art practices towards new formats and contexts. This year, the  
programme has been divided into two: STANDS, a space set aside for  
large format installations, curated by the art critic and independent  
curator Domenico Quaranta; and CINEMA, a monographic section dedicated  
to video art, selected by the independent curator Carolina Grau.

A total of 15 art projects are on view in the EXPANDED BOX programme,  
8 at STANDS, and 7 in CINEMA. For the Italian curator Domenico  
Quaranta, “more than reflecting the creative exploitation of the  
medium, these proposals contain a critical examination of the cultural  
consequences of today’s media and technologies.” The tendencies come  
from a number of international artists, in turn represented by  
galleries taking on the challenge involved in fostering a new  
conception of art.

EXPANDED BOX is a market platform at ARCOmadrid for the exploration of  
art languages and dynamic discourses proposing new concepts. From the  
perspective of the notion of expansion, the selected programme  
“showcases a type of art that looks outside the parameters of  
contemporary art to art developed on the Net, the art produced in  
research centres and labs and that has all the potential to change our  
present-day notion of art. A change of perspective that should not  
scare collectors or art lovers, because these works are representative  
of the information society and of the globalised world we all live  
in,” says Quaranta.

STANDS, multiple format installations

Quaranta’s selection includes eight projects represented by both  
veteran and young international galleries. Eight pieces that, “in the  
wide open field of art experimentation, dictate their own rules  
regardless of prevailing canons, and give rise to a radically altered  
context that allows them to successfully progress.”

These tendencies are well represented in the selection made by  
Quaranta, defined by the variety of the projects on display. The  
exhibition covers a lot of ground, ranging from works using a  
combination of new technologies and traditional media, to pieces  
employing new media but with conventional purposes, or works that  
rediscover the potential of technologies that have virtually fallen  
into disuse.

The two ends of that diversity are embodied, on one hand by Arrow  
Wall, an interactive installation by the two-artist collective Pors &  
Rao, presented at the Indian gallery VADEHRA ART GALLERY. The project  
responds to the position and movements of the spectators moving  
throughout the space. For the artists, “it is a naïve abstraction of  
the complex dynamics of the relations surrounding us and of which we  
are an integral part. When users stand at a certain distance from  
Arrow Wall, the movements are subtler though nonetheless active.  
However, when the spectators comes closer, the feeling is that of a  
fracture of the balance, with the walls starting to move at a greater  
pace, as if the user acted as a magnet whose magnetic field has an  
effect on behaviour.

At the other extreme, we find the critical examination of the cultural  
consequences of present-day media and technologies through the work of  
the Austrian duo Ubermorgen.com, represented by FABIO PARIS ART  
GALLERY from Brescia, Italy. Their piece The EKMRZ Trilogy is a  
complex proposal developed over the last two years, integrating three  
projects based on a subversion of the interfaces of three giant  
digital corporations: Google, Amazon and Ebay. Resorting to code,  
software and to social hacking, they created a network of websites  
through which they obtained money by hosting ads in Google. The funds  
were subsequently invested in the acquisition of Google shares as a  
means to gradually erode the rigid power of the world’s most popular  
browser. Thus, they managed to steal, page by page, whole books from  
the Amazon database than were then redistributed without copy license,  
or to translate for Ebay users music databases from a directory based  
on a soft porn page. Using two projectors, the booth of the gallery  
reproduces the impressions and texts gathered in that space.

In these contrasting points, what matters is not how the medium is  
used, but the way in which the works explain to the public how human  
beings experience the world, how images, narratives, aesthetics and  
habits spread by the media have an effect on our environment.

In between these two points, we find proposals also providing a  
critical insight into the social consequences of the use of  
technology. That is the case of the work by the Spaniard Joan Leandre,  
one of the pioneers of software art. PROJECT GENTILI, a gallery from  
Prato, Italy, will exhibit a piece by this artist in which he filters  
our connection with reality through hyper-real interfaces. In turn,  
the British collaborative Thomson & Craighead, will show their work at  
the booth of the ARC PROJECTS gallery from Sofia, Bulgaria, with a  
project revealing the semantics of every devices and mechanisms.

Another sound installation shown at EXPANDED BOX comes from Esther  
Mañas & Arash Moori, represented by GALERIA MS from Madrid. The  
installation by the Korean artist Kim Jongku, on display at the booth  
of ONE AND J. GALLERY from Seoul, Korea, explores the fine line  
dividing matter and the dematerialisation brought about by the media.

FORTLAAN 17, a gallery from Ghent, Belgium, will present an  
installation entitled Compass, by the Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf,  
a proposal researching into the interactive interface and the human- 
machine. Finally, the list of projects is completed with a 3D  
animation piece by the Irish artist John Gerrard, on view at ERNST  
HILGER CONTEMPORARY from Vienna.

CINEMA, an overview of video art

EXPANDED BOX has an area with screens projecting unique works by young  
artists from various origins. Represented by galleries with a long  
track record at the fair, the selection of this space set aide for  
video art includes “projects by artists influenced and inspired by the  
language of cinema and its visual codes as well as by the popular  
culture of television and the music world. Their videos feature daily  
stories and exceptional, extraordinary events captured by the artist’s  
camera,” as the curator of this section, Carolina Grau, states.

A regular of the ARCOmadrid’s curatorial team, Grau has chosen seven  
works. Pieces addressing the global society and a committed engagement  
with the world’s most pressing issues will be presented by galleries  
including the Austrian GEORG KARGL, representing the artist Andreas  
Fogarasi who is bring a new work Public Brands – La France. This video  
piece shows images of France’s 26 regions, depicting a variety of  
landscapes and local identities, underscoring the fact that public  
sector and tourism are following the path of private corporations by  
attempting to position locations as if they were brands.

Next up, RUTH BENZACAR GALERIA DE ARTE from Argentina is also taking  
part this year in this section with a piece by Judi Werthein, an  
artist living between New York and Buenos Aires. From the Big Apple  
comes MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY, presenting the most recent video by the  
Indian artist Amar Kanwar.

This CINEMA selection is completed with work brought by four veteran  
galleries at the ARCOmadrid. From the Netherlands comes MIRTA DEMARE,  
with a piece by the highly promising Russian artist Katarina Zdjelar.  
Next, the gallery from Pamplona, MOISÉS PÉREZ DE ALBÉNIZ shows a work  
by the Basque artist Iñaki Garmendia that will certainly encourage the  
members of the audience to let themselves go and experience rather  
than think.

This space devoted to video art will also include a proposal by Nuno  
Cera, brought by the Portuguese gallery PEDRO CERA. Last but not  
least, the screens of CINEMA will also project a work by Stefanos  
Tsivopoulos represented by the Italian PROMETEO GALLERY.

The new vision of art proposed by EXPANDED BOX does not consist of  
exotica, but rather of thought-provoking artworks heralding an  
interesting dialogue with other creations, languages and supports  
shown at the fair, with the clear intention of expanding the  
boundaries of art.


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Domenico Quaranta

mob. +39 340 2392478
email. qrndnc at yahoo.it
home. vicolo San Giorgio 18 - 25122 brescia (BS)
web. http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are  
incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful  
beyond imagination." Albert Einstein