It Could Go Either Way

It Could Go Either Way

MARIAM GHANI + ERIN ELLEN KELLY Kuratert av Amy Mackie

Rogaland Kunstsenter er stolte over å presentere utstillingen “It Could Go Either Way: Mariam Ghani + Erin Ellen Kelly,” kuratert av Amy Mackie. Mackie mottok Stavanger Kommunes kunstkuratorstipend i 2013 og utstillingen er den første som retter søkelyset på samarbeidet mellom kunstneren Mariam Ghani og danser/koreograf Erin Ellen Kelly.

“It Could Go Either Way” viser alle syv videoinstallasjonene Ghani og Kelly har produsert de siste syv årene. Utstillingen viser hvordan Ghanis interesse for arkitektur, literatur og historie kombineres med Kellys utforskning av bevegelse og performance, noe som gir et tverrfaglig blikk på tid og sted. Et av de mange tilbakevendende motivene i arbeidene er en refleksjon over et sted, enten om det er et utbombet palass i Afghanistan eller geoparken i Stavanger.  Ghani og Kellys arbeid fokuserer på forholdet mellom natur og skapte miljøer, eller mellom et steds historie og nåværende funksjon, samtidig som de ser på hvordan sted oppleves fenomomenologisk. Hvert prosjekt er basert på et steds eller steders historie, kontekst eller tematikk. Kunstnerne kaller disse stedene for «performed places» og videoene deres utforsker landskap, menneskets tilstand, og tidens gang.

Det blir premiere på det nyeste arbeidet, Like Water From a Stone (2014), som er et bestillingsverk til utstillingen. Verket ble til under et residencyopphold ved Frida Hansens hus under sommeren 2013. Ghani og Kelly samarbeidet med flere kunstnere og utøvere fra Rogaland for å skape verket. Videoen navigerer det norske landskapet, med utgangspunkt i vann og stein, forholdet mellom kroppens bevegelse og kunstnernes observasjoner og tanker rundt regionens historie. Like Water From a Stone ble filmet blant annet på steder som synliggjør den tyske okkupasjonen under andre verdenskrig og områder som gir et glimt av de geologiske fenomene som er grunnlag for regionens unike topografi. Nyansene i landskapet og lagene av historie blir tydeliggjort med et nytt korverk komponert av Qasim Naqvi, som også har komponert verk til to tidligere arbeid av Ghani og Kelly.

Utstillingen viser også Ghanis prosjekt for dOCUMENTA (13), A Brief History of Collapses (2011-12). Den ble filmet i Dar ul-Aman Palasset i Kabul, Afghanistan og på Fridericianum museet i Kassel, Tyskland. Videoen som består av to deler ble koreografert og utført av Kelly og skaper en kompleks sammenligning mellom de to ulike bygningene, merket av krig, skiftende regjeringer, opprør og kollaps. De andre videoene i “It Could Go Either Way” utforsker unike arkitektoniske landskaper og geografier. Fugitive Refrains (2006-07) ble filmet i Schloss Solitude og Solitude Rotwildpark skogen i Stuttgart, Tyskland; Three Surrenders (2007), ble innspilt i en nedlagt McDonalds i midtown Manhattan; Smile, you’re in Sharjah (2009), produsert i Sharjah, De Forente Arabiske Emirater for Sharjah Biennial 9; Landscape Studies:  New Mexico (2008-10), ble filmet i Galisteo Valley i New Mexico; og To Live (2010-12), spilt inn på Lower Manhattan Cultural Councils residency på Governors Island i New York City. Fredag, 9. mai kl 18.00 vil Mackie i samtale med to kunstnerne diskture samarbeidet og utstillingen. “It Could Go Either Way” reiser videre til Anchorage Museet i Anchorage, Alaska, 30. januar – 1. mars, 2015.

Utstillingen er en del av Rogaland Kunstsenters fokus på samarbeid og kunstnerkollektiv «Collective Good/Collaborative Efforts» som er støttet av Norsk Kulturråd. Like Water from a Stone er produsert med hjelp fra Stavanger Kommune og Frida Hansens hus.

Kunstnerbiografier: Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in New York. Her research-based practice spans video, installation, performance, photography and text, and operates at the intersections between place, memory, history, language, loss, and reconstruction. Ghani’s exhibitions and screenings include the Gwangju Biennale (2014), the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2013), dOCUMENTA 13 (2012), MoMA, New York (2011), the Sharjah Biennials 10 and 9 (2011, 2009), the National Gallery, Washington DC (2008), the Tate Modern, London (2007), d/Art, Sydney (2006), Futura, Prague (2005), the Liverpool Biennial (2004), and transmediale, Berlin (2003). Her public and participatory projects have been staged in Berlin, Amsterdam, Buffalo, Detroit, New York, and online. Recent texts have appeared in Filmmaker, Foreign Policy, Ibraaz, Mousse, the Radical History Review, Triple Canopy, Creative Time Reports, and the New York Review of Books blog. Ghani has collaborated with artist Chitra Ganesh since 2004 as the experimental archive Index of the Disappeared; with choreographer Erin Kelly since 2006 on the video series Performed Places; and with media archive collective pad.ma since 2012 on the digitization and dissemination of the Afghan Films archive. Ghani has been awarded the NYFA, Soros and Freund Fellowships, grants from the Graham Foundation, CEC ArtsLink, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and the Experimental Television Center, and residencies at LMCC, Eyebeam Atelier, Smack Mellon, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude. Ghani holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from New York University and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. She currently teaches in the MFA program at Pratt and is an artist in residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. kabul-reconstructions.net/mariam Erin Ellen Kelly is based in Brooklyn, New York. She creates new works, ways of moving, and performance installation pieces that comment on the human condition and its relationship to the environment and society. Kelly will be participating in the Performance Mix Festival at HERE Arts Center in June and will begin her Movement Research Artist in Residence in July 2014 in NYC. She has presented at Kunsthaus Tacheles for “A Month of Performance Art” and Kultur im Spannwerk in Berlin, Utopia Teatro in Barcelona, and at Movement Research at Judson Church in 2007 and 2012, the New York Butoh Festival 2007 and 2009, the HOWL Festival, as well as many other galleries, theaters, parks, and random corners in New York City. She has participated in LMCC’s Governor’s Island Swing Space residency in 2010, Fieldwork Earthdance residency in 2009, and Thanksgiving CSA Farm residency in 2001. Erin created performances for Cristina Lei Rodriguez’s installation Store Windows: Live Transmission for the Temporary Contemporary series at the Bass Museum of Art during Miami Art Basel 2012 and “Endless Autumn” at Perrotin Gallery 2006 in Miami, Florida. As a member of the multi-media collective, RansomCorp, she toured Europe, performed at La Mama, and participated in a residency at Schloss Broellin. Kelly collaborative work with artist Mariam Ghani has been presented at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Sharjah Biennial 9, Beijing 798 Biennial, Gyeongnam Art Museum Korea, Momenta Art, The Queens Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art. She choreographed for and performed in Ghani’s “A Brief History of Collapses” presented at dOCUMENTA (13). erinellenkelly.com/

Komponist: Qasim Naqvi is a composer and drummer and one of the founding members of the group, Dawn of Midi. His work as a drummer on Dawn of Midi’s new album Dysnomia has been featured in the New Yorker’s 2013 list of best albums, Rolling Stone Magazine, Pitchfork Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Spin Magazine and other publications. His chamber works have been performed by such groups as the YMusic Ensemble, The New Century Ensemble, The California Ear Unit, Midnight Winds, and others. His works for film have appeared on HBO, NBC, PBS, The Sundance Channel, and at festivals worldwide. Qasim currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. score.tumblr.com

Kurator: Amy Mackie is a curator and writer based in New Orleans. She is also Co-Director of PARSE (parsenola.com). She curated numerous exhibitions as the Director of Visual Arts at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans from 2011 to 2012 and as Curatorial Associate at the New Museum in New York from 2007 to 2010. Mackie was the recipient of a 2013 Curatorial Fellowship from the Stavanger Municipality Culture Department in Norway, a 2010 Research Fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England to research the work of Helen Chadwick, and a 2009 CEC Artslink Grant through which she organized an exhibition and series of performances by A.L. Steiner + robbinschilds in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has lectured at Bard College, Brooklyn College, the College of Charleston, and Yale University, and has written for Art in America, Art Papers, FANTOM Photographic Quarterly, Pelican Bomb, and Universes in Universe. She was a contributing writer for Jeremy Deller’s It Is What It Is (Creative Time, 2011), Rethinking Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education (New Museum and Routledge, 2010), and Brion Gysin: Dream Machine (New Museum and Merrell, 2010). She is currently working on a book that traces the evolution of the artist-run spaces and alternative arts organizations and publications in New Orleans from 2005 to the present. Mackie holds an M.A. in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College and a B.A. in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College. amymackie.com