Artes Mundi

Miriam Backstrom The Opposite of Me is

Artes Mundi, Wales’s biggest contemporary visual art show is back for its 5th exhibition in its new home, the National Museum of Art, on the top floor of National Museum Cardiff. For the first time Artes Mundi  is in partnership with organisations such as Cardiff-based multidisciplinary arts centre Chapter, who will provide an additional venue for some of the works.

Exhibition: 6 October 2012 – 13 January 2013
The shortlisted artists were selected from over 750 nominations covering every continent in the world except Antarctica. Their art  has one overriding theme in common; their work explores social themes, telling stories of lived experience and gives a platform for commentary on the world today.

Miriam Bäckström (Sweden)

 Bäckström’s ongoing interests explore how history is told, and processes of creating and recreating memory using photography, text, theatre and video.

Tania Bruguera (Cuba)

Since the late 1990’s Tania Bruguera’s artistic practice has often reflected back on the social, cultural and economic experience of being Cuban.

Phil Collins (England) Informed by the visual traditions of cinema and television, Phil Collins’ diverse practice is based on close engagement with place and community.

Sheela Gowda (India) For Sheela Gowda the social and cultural reality of India has formed the basis of her practice.

TeresaMargolles (Mexico) Teresa Margolles’ work focuses on the collective turmoil of the Northern Mexican social experience where drug-related organized crime has resulted in widespread violence and murder.

Darius Mikšys (Lithuania) For Mikšys, installations provide the opportunity to experiment, conceptualise, and re-imagine processes of making, displaying and engaging with art.

ApolonijaŠušteršič (Slovenia) Artist and architect Apolonija Šušteršič has focused on the social aspects of living environments manifested in art as well as architectural contexts since the 1990’s.

Events are scheduled throughout the duration of the exhibition. http://artesmundi.org/en/news/whats-on-artes-mundi/#

On 29 November an international panel of judges will award one of the artists the £40,000 Artes Mundi Prize, the UK’s largest art prize

Green Building Standard 'The Living Building Challenge' wins award

The Living Building Challenge has won the 2012Buckminster Fuller Challenge an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.

Published by The International Living Future Institute,  a non-governmental organization (NGO) in America The Living Building Challenge is an intensive green building standard that seeks to define the highest possible level of environmental performance.

Whether the project is a single building, a park, a college campus or even a complete neighborhood community, Living Building Challenge provides a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment.It has five imperatives, each of which has to be met and maintained for a full 12 months before a building can be certified as “living.” Those imperatives are as follows: a building has to generate all of its own, renewable energy on-site; a living building has to capture and treatall of its own water; only non-toxic and sustainably-sourced construction materials may be used; buildings have to be placed on already-developed sites in order to reduce urban sprawl; and finally, a living building must be beautiful and inspiring to its occupants and others.
More than 140 projects have registered around the world since the Challenge was first released as a certification program in 2006

Lecture series at the National Museum, Cardiff

Tim Davies, Drift, (video still, 2011) © Tim Davies

The National Museum Cardiff in partnership with the Art Fund is offering a series of three evening lectures with acclaimed international academics at the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre.

 The first talk  called Wales at Venice  will be on Wednesday, 25 April 2012, 18:30–19:30
Speakers: David Alston, Merlin James, Laura Ford and Tim Davies

The Venice Biennale was established in 1895 and remains one of the most important and prestigious events in the international, contemporary art world. Since 2003 Wales has been independently represented as a devolved nation. For those artists who are chosen to exhibit it is a key international platform. This lecture explores Wales’s representation in Venice and also hears from three artists who have been selected to exhibit for Wales.
£4 with National Art Pass (full price £5)

Future lectures are John Piper (to accompany the current exhibition) on Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 18:30–20:30. The speaker will be  Professor Frances Spalding, CB. The third lecture will be The Influence of Josiah Wedgwood on Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 18:30–19:30 when the speaker will be Gaye Blake Roberts.

Hirst and money? here's Deller and Joy in People

Jeremy Deller opens at the Hayward today with a show entitled Jeremy Deller: Joy in People.The exhibition incorporates almost all of his major works to date including installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, performance works and sound pieces and is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery.
Jeremy Deller  won the Turner prize in 2004 without having taken even O-level art at his London public school. He emerged after the Young British Artists, who began exhibiting together in 1988, many of them wrapped up in the rising art market and collected by figures such as Charles Saatchi.
Sometimes his work – a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave in 1984, one of the fiercest clashes of the miners' strike, or organising the ladies of the Women's Institute to show flower arrangements at the Tate – did not look like art at all.

His mum said "I tried to explain his work to the Queen when Jeremy took me to a reception at Buckingham Palace. I don't think she quite understood, but she was too polite to say."
Rugoff declares of Deller that he , "brought up questions of value" in his work. “ He has rarely made work that can be bought or sold straightforwardly. He has, said Rugoff, "heralded a new chapter when artists work as catalysts, producers, curators and collaborators … and with his interest in folk art and the creativity of everyday life he has brought attention to what other people have done".
There are some great events planned to accompany the exhibition including a David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller DJ Night on Friday 4 May 2012. Jeremy Deller’s interest in the social character of pop music is far ranging. The enthusiasms, rituals and passionate loyalty of fans have all provided the artist with inspiration. Our Hobby is Depeche Mode reflects on how people intimately embrace pop culture and embed it in the fabric of their everyday lives.The exhibition  runs until 13^th May

Turner Prize 2011-shortlist announced

The annual Turner Prize has turned its back on London and travelled north to the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, opening this year on 21 October.

The shortlist has just been announced and this year includes two painters, George Shaw and Karla Black, who are joined  by sculptor Martin Boyce and video artist Hilary Lloyd.

some pictures of the nominees work here

Adrian Searle (Guardian art critic) on this year's nominees

RSA announces Student Design Awards call for entries

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has announced the Student Design Awards briefs for the 2010/2011 award scheme. The RSA Student Design Awards scheme challenges professional designers-in-training to apply their skills to difficult social issues.

Participation in the Student Design Awards is open to both current undergraduate and postgraduate students and to those who graduated in summer 2010. The deadline for submission of entry forms, fees and work is 17 February 2011.

The project briefs for the 2010/11 award scheme are divided into 9 categories. including

Conflict resolution

Make something disappear
Postage stamps
Action for age