13 Mar 2009

ARTMargins / Spring 2009 / New Issue

Ten years after its launch, ARTMargins (www.artmargins.com) presents a revamped website. New content this quarter:

FEATURED ARTIST:ARTMargins presents Amsterdam-based photographer Gabor Ösz whose conceptual work is pervaded by a strong sense of the medium and its historical specificity. In his recent work Ösz offers an oblique look at the state of photography in the changed socio-cultural landscape of the new Europe.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov talk about the role of humor in art, their relationship with the public, and the ambiguous pleasures of being an artist from Russia in the United States.

Polish conceptualist and theorist Artur Zmijewski gives an account of his upbringing and early experiences in Communist Poland and the way that experiences impinges on intellectual life (as well as his own) in Poland today. Zmijewski's work focuses on the human body as a biological mechanism and its oscillation between malfunction and states of normalcy. Zmijewski is the author of the manifesto 'The Applied Social Arts' (2007).

Iosif Kiràly (Bucharest) and Ileana Pmitilie take a long-shot look at Király's career, with special emphasis on the acclaimed Reconstructions series (2006). Király teaches at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and is the co-founder of the Department of Photography and Time-Based Media Arts. He lives and works in Bucharest. The Reconstructions project developed in the context of the shift from analogue to digital technology. The first 'reconstructions' were photomontages that consisted of photographs/snapshots taken with film-based cameras.

Warsaw-based art historian and curator Pawel Polit considers the influence of Warsaw's Foksal Gallery on postwar Polish art. Foksal has been one of the crucial sites for the formulation of postwar Polish modernism. It has been host to the most influential exhibitions and happenings in polstwar Polish art.

Svetlana Boym discusses the film and video work of Albanian-born Anri Sala whose first US retrospective took place in Miami and Cincinnati in 2008/2009. The center-piece of Boym's discussion of Sala's work is the category of tact, a term whose oscillation between manners and music fuels Boym's innovative reading of Sala's early films.

From Budapest, Hedvig Turai reports on János Sugár's interventions in the public space and their legal consequences (Interview). Sugár's recent graffiti-inspired provocation of the Budapest art establishment have stirred controversy (and may cost the artist a lot of money).

The 'Russian Dreams' show at Miami's Bass Museum (reviewed by Sven Spieker); Nikolay Bakharev in Moscow (reviewed by Ekaterina Degot).

Film&Video:

Hito Steyerl's 'Journal #1 - An Artist's Impression' reviewed Toma Longinovic. Steyerl's film chronicles the role of film as historical testimony in Bosnia and elsewhere.

Natascha Drubek-Meyer reviews Russia's entry for this year's Foreign Oscars, Anna Melikyan's 'Rusalka'.