Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Ξυλεύεται


Ας είσαι δέντρο των θεών
βελανιδιά ή δαφνη,
θα πέσεις με τις ρίζες σου.
Τότε θα έρθουν ξυλοκόποι
κυνηγοί
όλοι οι ράθυμοι του δάσους
και θα αρχίσουν
να σε οσφραίνονται.
Θα κόβουν την ψυχή σου
και θα την καίνε σε κομμάτια.

Καλύτερα
φύλλο ιπτάμενο
ξερό κι ανάλαφρο
στο κρεβατάκι των ανέμων

κι η πορεία σου
να σταλάζει αργά
στη φλέβα της φύσης


Αννα Γρίβα 

Prières magiques


Ethiopian healing scroll, 19th century.

Ατιτλο


Λουλούδια
σύννεφα
κλαδιά ανθισμένα
στο νερό σώματα
πάνω στην άμμο
για μια στιγμή μόνο
αστράφτετε


Φοίβη Γιαννίση 

Rilkeholderlincutup


Περνούν οι μέρες κάποτε ακούω
και τη ζωή να περνά
Αλλά την μνήμη
την φέρνει η θάλασσα
Και κυριεύει η αγάπη τα μάτια


Παναγιώτης Ιωαννίδης

Witch's cradle (Maya Deren , M. Duchamp - 1943)

Friday, August 26, 2016

More Dissipate


We strove to locate love on a list of symptoms
hyaline when held to light and found instead
nothing but bones, and of the sort you relish:

a kind of bicker in the throat. A jetblack end.
We thought we saw the dark cursive of a wolf
circling on sea ice, miles out, in an hour

not blue, though persuasive and brief.
In looking back, it was not dog. It wasn’t
anything. It was not the heart burst forth

but another part: one for which the words,
the shafts and shanks, their shifts, have long
been sung, and in the same breath, lost.


Joan Naviyuk Kane

Left Melancholy in the Greek Poetry Generation of the 2000s Αfter the Crisis of Revolution and Representation


The Journal of Modern Greek Studies “Occasional Papers,” edited by Neni Panourgia, has published the commissioned paper “Left Melancholy in the Greek Poetry Generation of the 2000s after the Crisis of Revolution and Representation” as JMGS “Occasional Paper” 10 (June 15, 2016) written by Vassilis Labropoulos.


Thinking at the Edge of the World. Perspectives from the North and South as a State of Mind


OCA is pleased to announce 'Thinking at the Edge of the World. Perspectives from the North' an ongoing project initiated in 2015 within the OCA’s 'Notations' series, researching the cultural history of Northern Norway, and developed in collaboration with local protagonists during 2016 and 2017. The project will manifest itself in various forms and locations across Norway (notably Svalbard, Karasjok and Oslo) and beyond – including international conferences and artist residencies across Northern Norway, as well as new art, exhibitions, various forms of documentations and writing commissioning.
Highlights in this project include establishing a temporary OCA office in Tromsø during 2016, under the auspices of The Cultural Business Development Foundation SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge, as well as organising an international, cross-disciplinary conference titled 'Thinking at the Edge of the World' (12-13 June 2016) in collaboration with Northern Norway Art Museum (NNKM), Tromsø, in the Kunsthall Svalbard. The conference will bring together international figures from the fields of art, psychology, philosophy, history, science and law. Further details of the project´s programme will be announced shortly.
'Thinking at the Edge of the World' is structured through regional and international dialogue as well as partnerships (institutional and individual), and includes invitations to artists and intellectuals to visit and think about the region, considering it a unique vantage point from which to reflect upon the environmental, aesthetic, architectural, economic, political and scientific forces that are shaping the North of Norway and its relationship to the world.
The Arctic region, in particular that of Norway, sits at the heart of heated as well as inspiring discussions of scenarios for possible futures. Scientists tell us that that the latent forces released by melting ice into in the frozen North would be enough to power the world’s cities for many generations; that global warming is forming navigation channels across the so-called Arctic Highway; and that the geography of India, Bangladesh and China, among other nations, will be affected with dramatic force resulting in harsh consequences upon their social and economic framework.
'Thinking at the Edge of the World' addresses some of the wider implications of these changes in the North of Norway, and invokes the innovative thinking that being at the edge of the world induces for the world at large. How are frontiers questioned from an Arctic vantage point, and how might this questioning catalyse new thinking regarding territory, power and resource exploitation? Could concepts of society, aesthetics and community explored during the nineteenth and twentieth century – often led by artists and intellectuals from Norway and its indigenous communities – be sought again to enlighten this debate? Will the Arctic become, due to the increasing desertification in the South, the new garden of the globe for food production and distribution?
These questions and the subsequent narratives of a developing future are rooted in the unfolding physical forces embedded in the North. However they also interlock with a wider past of myths and legends, a storytelling deeply connected to the region, its exploration, exploitation, accessibility and aesthetic history, as well as forthcoming issues of trade, transportation and security.
'Thinking at the Edge of the World' explores therefore the poetic and innovative impact on artistic and other disciplinary forms of thought that the extreme location of Northern Norway provides. In particular the project focuses on the relationship between art, the environment and activism in Arctic Norway as well as its northerly neighbours, in order to highlight the global impact of these issues over time. Mindful of the conflicted history and currency of the notion of territory and resources, the project explores their relationship to indigenous communities, their environments, culture and contemporary perspectives – in particular the history and present of the Sami communities inhabiting Northern Norway, but also Sweden, Finland and Russia. From this vantage point, ‘Thinking at the Edge of the World’ seeks to contextualise these questions in order to shift them beyond a purely local understanding, linking them with synergic issues found in diverse geographies and communities around the globe.


The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is delighted to announce a presentation of the second volume of documenta 14’s journal South as a State of Mind in Kárášjohka, Sápmi (Karasjok, Norway), together with documenta 14’s Artistic Director Adam Szymczyk and Editor-in-Chief of Publications Quinn Latimer who will both introduce one of the world’s largest exhibitions and conduct short readings from the journal on Saturday 27 August 2016.
The public presentation of d14 #2 volume is part of an intense day of public programming which includes lectures, conversations and music, together with Sami artists and activists speaking about crucial moments in their recent history and today’s challenges within the region. Among the contributors are curator and former director of the Sami Center for Contemporary Art Jan-Erik Lundstrøm in conversation with Hans Ragnar Mathisen, Britta Marakatt Labba and Synnøve Persen, focussing on their commitment as founding members of Sami Artist Group 1978–1983 / Mázejoavku: sámi dáidojoavku; presentations by Associate Professor of Sami Literature at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway Harald Gaski and film-maker Gunilla Bresky on the work and life of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää; an address on the rhetorics of Western law and indigenous philosophies of justice by writer, yoiker and Associate Professor of Law at UiT Ánde Somby; Associate Professor Hanna Horsberg Hansen from Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing of UiT engaging in a debate about today’s art production, activism as well as territorial and environmental issues with Dáiddadállu/ Artists Collective Kautokeino (a group of practitioners which includes, among others, Elle-Marja Eira, Rawdna-Carita Eira, Elle-Sofe Henriksen and Máret-Ánne Sara).
The presentation of documenta 14’s journal South in Sápmi is part of 'Thinking at the Edge of the World. Perspectives from the North’ and coincides with Adam Szymczyk, Quinn Latimer and Candice Hopkins’s participation within OCA's IVP (International Visitor Programme). It will allow the documenta 14 team to encounter current artistic practices and conduct research regarding recent history and developments within communities in Sápmi and northern Norway. The event is curated by OCA in collaboration with documenta 14 and the Sami Center for Contemporary Art, and co-organised with The Sami Parliament.

A day-long public programme in Kárášjohka, Sápmi (Karasjok, Norway) and the first presentation of South as a State of Mind #7 [documenta 14 #2]
With d14 Artistic Director Adam Szymczyk and d14 Editor-in-Chief of Publications Quinn Latimer
Saturday 27 August 2016, 10:00–until late
The Sami Parliament / Sámediggi


Crumbling



Crumbling, 2016
Concrete, plaster, wood, acrylic, spray
26 x 39 x 28 cm 

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Große, glühende Wölbung


mit dem sich
hinaus- und hinweg-
wühlenden Schwarzgestirn-Schwarm:


der verkieselten Stirn eines Widders
brenn ich dies Bild ein, zwischen
die Hörner, darin,
im Gesang der Windungen, das
Mark der geronnenen
Herzmeere schwillt.


Wo-
gegen
rennt er nicht an?


Die Welt ist fort, ich muß dich tragen


Paul Celan

Friday, August 12, 2016

Light fitting and snowflake ceiling



Leonidov, light fitting and snowflake ceiling, 30's.

Vast, Glowing Vault



with the swarm of
black stars pushing them-
selves out and away:

on to a ram’s silicified forehead
I brand this image, between
the horns, in which,
in the song of the whorls, the
marrow of melted
heart-oceans swells.

In-
to what
does he not charge?

The world is gone, I must carry you. 

Paul Celan



Leonidov's model for 'Crystal Fountain'


Photograph of Leonidov's model for his unrealised 'Crystal Fountain' for Kislovodsk, 30's. 

Friday, August 5, 2016

ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΕΙΣ: Η χρήση του ανοικτού κώδικα

ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΕΙΣ: Η χρήση του ανοικτού κώδικα: Γλυπτική και σχεδιασμός εκτάκτου ανάγκης ,  ΤΟΥ ΚΩΣΤΗ ΒΕΛΩΝΗ Τα τελευταία χρόνια αναφερόμαστε ...