VIDEONALE.15 – Festival of contemporary video art
The Call of the Wild
February 27 -April 19, 2015
Kunstmuseum Bonn
Opening ceremony and awarding of the Videonale Prize of KfW Stiftung:
Thursday, 26 February 2015, 8 pm
With “The Call of the Wild”, Videonale asked what potential the concept of “the Wild” holds for the description and examination of the alien in the sense of unknown or till now unfamiliar fields of activity, image production or conceptual thinking. From the more than 1,200 submissions from 76 countries, 38 positions from 19 countries have been selected.
“What we are looking for with “Call of the Wild” is the exploration of the unstable territories in which the way to deal with new social, political, cultural and aesthetic constellations is being discussed and for which there is currently no adequate vocabulary at our disposal. In the VIDEONALE.15 exhibition, 38 international artistic positions have each found their own way to pose questions on this theme and give us food for thought: They cover a wide range, from the observation of the shifts and realignments within society, to the question about how the flaring up of worldwide trouble spots can affect personal circumstances on a small , and the political situation on a large scale; the question about how to handle the increasingly obvious blanket monitoring of our data- and communication channels and its effects is examined, as are the new aesthetic and artistic forms of using the surface of a digitally generated world”, says Tasja Langenbach, artistic director of VIDEONALE.15.
Current discussions about gender politics are the subject of works by Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry, Janina Arendt, Elin Magnusson and others. The “wild” space internet, and the questions of new aesthetics and their consequences which it gives rise to, are dealt with by artists like Constantin Hartenstein, Amina Handke, NEOZOON, Anna Zett and Christoph Faulhaber, while the works of Christina Picchi, Mahdi Fleifel, Udita Bhargava, or the project Lieux fictifs (diverse artists) with its coverage of the extremely “unsafe spaces” of the global refugee flows, show us the other side of the coin.
Jury VIDEONALE.15
Carla Donauer (curator at Kölnischer Kunstverein), Julia Draganovic (director of Kunsthalle Osnabrück), Jennifer Gassmann (project director&director festival programme of VIDEONALE.15), Sabine Himmelsbach (director of Haus für Elektronische Künste, Basel), Dennis Hochköppeler (director Galerie DREI, Cologne), Tasja Langenbach (artistic director of VIDEONALE.15), Erik Martinson (curator, London/Toronto), Jan Schuijren (curator Basel/Amsterdam)
Artists VIDEONALE.15
Janina Arendt, Udita Bhargava, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Jenny Brady, Karolina Bregula, Wim Catrysse, Jos Diegel, Wojtek Doroszuk, Mahdi Fleifel, Christoph Faulhaber, Fabien Giraud & Raphaël Siboni, Shaun Gladwell, Philipp Gufler, Amina Handke, Constantin Hartenstein, Kerstin Honeit, Vika Kirchenbauer, Thomas Kneubühler, Ihra Lill, Lieux fictifs (diverse artists), Elin Magnusson, Rachel Mayeri, Marianna Milhorat, NEOZOON, O.N.L.S.D., Shelly Nadashi, Erkka Nissininen, Francois Nouguies, Alan Phelan, Christina Picchi, Florian Pugnaire & David Raffini, Mateusz Sadowski, The Otolith Group, Koen Theys, Anna Zett, Mikhail Zheleznikov, Tobias Yves Zintel.
Exhibition 30 Years-30 Voices, Part 2
Within the framework of VIDEONALE.15, the second part of “30 Years – 30 Voices” – the jubilee exhibition celebrating 30 years of Videonale Bonn – can be seen. Out of the wealth of works presented at the Videonale in the last 30 years, 30 companions, friends, artists and designers of the festival have put together and described a selection of works which they view as ground-breaking.
The artists of “30 Years-30 Voices, Part 2”:
Victor Alimpiev, Breda Beban & Hrovje Horvatic, Janet Biggs, Manon de Boer, Ivo Dekovic, Cerith Wyn Evans, Ken Feingold, Jeanne C. Finley, Jaqueline Forzelius, Beate Geissler & Oliver Sann, Jean-Franҫois Guiton, Astrid Heibach, Annebarbe Kau, Dan Oki, Soc. Raffaello Sanzio, Evamaria Schaller, Herbert Wentscher.
VIDEONALE.15 Festival and VIDEONALE.PARCOURS
The VIDEONALE.15 exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive festival programme with artist’s discussions, performances, round tables, retrospectives, conducted tours, workshops and educational programmes. For the second time, VIDEONALE.PARCOURS will take place at various places in the City of Bonn (27.2 – 22.3.2015) – this year featuring works by students of the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, the State Academy of Fine Arts Saarland, and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.