Thursday, May 12, 2011, 6 pm - 10 pm

May 12- June 18, 2011

Tue - Fri, 12 pm - 6 pm, Sat 11 am - 3 pm
Sat, May 14, 2011 and Sun, May 15, 2011, 11am - 5pm

Thursday, May 12, 8.00 pm
Benjamin Seror
Songs for Flowers and Jackets
Performance
Galerie Andreas Huber, Schleifmühlgasse 6-8 , 1040 Vienna

Thursday, May 12, 8:30 pm
Michele Di Menna
Rigorous Lines Framed in Cool Toned Symmetry
Performance
Galerie Emanuel Layr, An der Hülben 2, 1010 Vienna

Friday, May 12, 2:00 pm
Slavs and Tatars
Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would've, could've, should've
Performative Lecture / duration 30-40 min
Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Schleifmühlgasse 3, 1040 Vienna

departure – panel program at the VIENNAFAIR
OPEN FORUM: EAST by SOUTH WEST

The panel program will examine three of the major themes present within the citywide exhibition project curated by_vienna 2011: EAST by SOUTH WEST, which focuses on contemporary art and culture from East and Southeast Europe, including the Baltic States, Russia, former-Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The panellists will debate topical issues and perspectives facing art and society in that region from the point of view of the project’s curators, participating artists, and invited experts.

Date: Saturday, May 14, 2011, 1 – 6:30 pm
at: VIENNAFAIR, Messe Wien, hall A, Messeplatz 1, 1020 Vienna

The panels will be conducted in English and will be moderated by Simon Rees, curatorial coordinator of curated by_vienna 2011.

1 – 2.30 pm
Labels Aside: Feminism in East- and South-Eastern European Art
Despite recent major survey exhibitions such as “Gender Check” 2010 (MUMOK, Vienna and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw) and a high proportion of women leading major institutions throughout post-communist Europe and in Turkey, the status of art made by women in the national canons within the geo-political region remains ambiguous. The panellists will explore the social status of women in the face of entrenched socio-political attitudes and religious prejudices and what role feminism has to play in contemporary art and society.

Panellists:
Silvia Eiblmayr, Curator, Writer and Editor; Author of “Woman as Picture: the Female Body in 20th century Art”, Vienna
Flaka Haliti, Conceptual Artist born in Priština, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main
Alina Serban, Art Historian and Independent Curator, Bucharest
Nil Yalter, born in Cairo, has since the mid-1960s been one of the most influential woman artists working in Paris

3 – 4:30 pm
Regional Legacies of Colonialism Now
The nations, states, and peoples encapsulating East and Southeast Europe have been defined for hundreds of years by different and distinct phases of “Empire”: the monarchical and feudal realms associated with the Austro-Hungarian, Tsarist-Russian, and Ottoman-Turkish empires, and then the communist encroachments of the 20th century. Since 1989/1991 and the eclipse of the communist era, Europe’s populace has been searching for a new set of identities in relation to those earlier histories. The panellists will discuss contexts and conflicts associated with the current moment in life and art.

Panellists:
Joseph Backstein, Commissioner of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Moscow
Iara Boubnova, Founding Director of Sofia’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Independent Curator, Sofia
Slavs and Tatars, Artist Collective devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China, based in Eurasia

5 – 6:30 pm
Periphery-Dot-Com
Endless words have been written in the last decade about the increasing globalisation of the art world associated with the proliferation of biennales (including the establishment of Manifesta), the expansion of the European Union to currently include 10 post-communist states, the boom of cheap airline travel, and as the title of the panel suggests, the rise of the Internet. Not to mention the monetisation of new markets for art in China, India, the Middle East, and Russia. The experience of the panellists will tell a different story, however, as they discuss the exclusion of artists from the periphery from major exhibitions (at the centre) and the relatively small numbers of audience members who travel internationally to important exhibitions and events staged in locations considered off-the-beaten-track.

Panellists:
Bassam el Baroni, Co-Curator of Manifesta 8 (2010), and Director of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Alexandria
Ami Barak, Independent Curator and Art Critic and Commissioner of the Romanian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), lives in Paris
Adam Budak, Curator for Contemporary Art Kunsthaus Graz, and Co-Founder of the curatorial training programme at the Jageillonian University, Krakow
Dessislava Dimova, Writer and Curator, Co-Curator of the 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Antakya, Turkey, lives in Brussels
Nicolaus Schafhausen, Director of the Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam