Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson

Tvoja zemlja ne postoji / Your country doesn´t exist - Billboards in public space

Where Everything Is Yet to Happen
1st chapter: “Can you speak of this? -Yes, I can”

Curated by Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača
@ Institute for Duration, Location and Variables (DeLVe)
www.delve.hr

Co-curators of the ‘1st chapter’ exhibition:
Anselm Franke, Vít Havránek & Zbyněk Baladrán, Ana Janevski, Erden Kosova, Nina Möntmann, Jelena Vesić

Participating artists and projects:
Ziad Antar, Yane Calovski, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Ivan Grubanov, Nicoline van Harskamp (in collaboration with Thijs Gadiot), Dragan Nikolić, Slaven Tolj, Liu Wei, Judi Werthein (Ivana Bago & Antonia Majača, “Can you speak of this? –Yes, I can.”)
Florian Schneider, Eyal Weizman (Anselm Franke, Circles of Collaboration)
The Archive of Self-Management (Vít Havránek & Zbyněk Baladrán)
Yael Bartana, Danilo Kiš, Artur Żmijewski, Želimir Žilnik (Ana Janevski, If You Want, We’ll Travel to the Moon Together)
A.C.A.B., Ronen Eidelman, Aydan Murtezaoğlu (Erden Kosova, Stepping Sideways)
Yael Bartana, Esra Ersen, Sharif Waked (Nina Möntmann, We Hear You Speaking in Secret Dialects)
Lutz Becker, Chto Delat/What is to be done? (Jelena Vesić, The Future Is the Extension of the Past by Other Means)

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Video still from Lobbyists

The PRIX DE ROME.NL is the oldest Dutch ‘state’ prize for talented visual artists based in the Netherlands and under 35 years of age.

The jury of the PRIX DE ROME.NL 2009 consists of Kestutis Kuizinas (LT), Yael Bartana (IL), Jurgen Bey (NL), Bruce McLean (UK) and Barbara Visser (NL). The jury has selected a long list of ten artists out of 230 submissions. This long list will be shown at both Witte de With in Rotterdam and by de Appel in Amsterdam at the off-site location of the Westergasfabriek (‘Zuiveringshal Oost’).

Witte de With presents work by: Rossella Biscotti (IT), Nicoline van Harskamp (NL), Rob Hornstra (NL), Helmut Smits (NL), and Jasmijn Visser (NL).
De Appel shows (at the off-site location of the Westergasfabriek) work by: Maze de Boer (NL), Heidi Linck (NL), Ólafur Ólafsson i.c.w. Libia Castro, (IS / ES), Marc Oosting (NL), and Sara Rajaei (IR).

The PRIX DE ROME.NL 2009 exhibition has been curated by Sarah Farrar (de Appel) and Juan A. Gaitán (Witte de With).

The four finalists – Rossella Biscotti (I T), Nicoline van Harskamp (NL), Ólafur Ólafsson i.c.w. Libia Castro (IS / ES) and Sara Rajaei (IR) – made new work. On the basis of this work, the jury will grant the prizes of € 45.000, € 20.000, and the two awards of € 10.000.

Announcement on 28 May 2009 at the Westergasfabriek.

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Uterus Flags outside of Galleria Riccardo Crespi

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson

Galleria Riccardo Crespi – Via Mellerio 1, Milan
Preview 31 March 2009, 6:30 pm
31 March 2008 – 16 May 2009

Curated by Gabi Scardi

Press release:

The Galleria Riccardo Crespi presents an exhibition by Libia Castro  and Ólafur Ólafsson: she from Spain, he from Iceland, they are a couple who have been working together since 1997. While exploring a wide range of media, they have lately begun using video as the main instrument of their artistic research.
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Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson - Video still from Caregivers

LIQUID FRONTIERS

The exhibition Liquid Frontiers is one of the main components of the Invisible Borders project displayed at Tri Postal in Lille within the wider Europe XXL Festival organized by Lille3000.

14.03. – 12.07.2009
Opening – March 14th 2009, 3 pm at Tri Postal, Avenue Willy Brandt, 59000 Lille, France

Participants: AES + F; Maja Bajevic; Pierre Bismuth; Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson; Blue Noses; Pavel Braila; Luchezar Boyadjiev; Artistarh Chernishev; Nina Fisher and Maroan El Sani; Vadim Fishkin; Lise Harlev; Irwin; Oleg Kulik; Cristina Lucas; Deimantas Narkevicius; Carsten Nicolai; Vladimir Nikolic; Roman Ondak; Adrian Paci; Sean Snyder; Nedko Solakov; Monika Sosnowka; Krassimir Terziev; Clemens Von Wedemeyer.

Curator: Iara Boubnova
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Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Installation view of Caregivers

OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich

OK | BIENNALE CUVÉE
World Selection of Contemporary Art
27. February –  May 15  2009

A project for LINZ 2009 EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

Under the title BIENNALE CUVEE the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz/Austria presents a selection of artistic projects from the most important international biennials of 2008 with an emphasis on the Asian biennials in the selection.  The exhibition offers an insight into the international art world and an opportunity for a condensed experience of contemporary art.

In addition to an exhibition in the OK itself, various locations and sites in the city of Linz will also be opened to present art projects. Both public and private institutions operate as partners here, making their facilities available and taking part in developing the contents of the project.

Artists:
Nevin Aladag, Christopher Thomas Allen, Shaarbek Amankul,  Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan, Zadok Ben-David, Lene Berg, Ursula Biemann, Beth Campbell,  Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Chieh-Jen Chen, Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani, Petra Gerschner, Shilpa Gupta, Hans Haacke, John Jordan, Kuswidananto a.k.a Jompet, Dinh Q. Le with Hai Quoc Tran and Danh Van Le, Charles Lim Li Yong, Renata Lucas, Luigi Ontani, Wilfredo Prieto, Ki Bong Rhee, Andreas Siekmann, Taryn Simon, The Yes Men, José Angel Toirac, Su-Mei Tse, Klaus Weber, Julita Wójcik, Cheng-Ta Yu, Wang Zhan, Ki Jong Zin

Curated by Manray Hsu and Martin Sturm, in Kooperation with Franz Prieler (Energie AG) and Elfi Sonnberger (AK OÖ)

Uterus Flags – Rúa Joaquín Loriga, Vigo, Spain

Press release:

adhoc Galería, Rúa Joaquín Loriga 9, 36203 Vigo España
T: +34 986 228 656 F: +34 986 441 543 E: info@adhocgaleria.com

LIBIA CASTRO AND ÓLAFUR ÓLAFSSON
Public Installation and Exhibition

From November the 6th to December the 13th 2008
Opening: Thursday 6th November at 8 pm

Libia Castro (Madrid) and Ólafur Ólafsson (Reykjavik) have been working in collaboration since 1996 and have established their centre of work in the cities of Rotterdam and Berlin. They have taken part in important exhibitions developed in different institutions: Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Akureyri Art Museum, Iceland; Video Festival, Beijing, China; Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and in Platform Centre for Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey and the 8th Havana Biennale, Cuba.

(press release continues at the bottom of this post – followed with a Spanish version)
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Dein Land gibt es nicht – public intervention – wall-painting

Artists:
Ingo Abeska, Libia Castro und Ólafur Ólafsson, Tanja Dabo,
Enks, Igor Grubić, Delaine und Damian Le Bas,
Lisl Ponger, Nada Prlja, Khaled D. Ramadan,
Andrea Ressi, Szu Szu, Sylvia Winkler / Stephan Köperl

The project “TIT FOR TAT – Counter Images for Transcultural Thinking and
Acting” takes place also on the following locations: Afro-Asian Institute,
Chiala Afriquas, ISOP, KHG-Galerie, Megaphon, Minoriten-Galerien
im Priesterseminar, University Center for Theology, Pubic Space.

The second major part of the exhibition opens also on 4.10, at 2 pm,
at Minoriten-Galerien im Prieserseminar, Bürgergasse 2.

Co-produced by steirischer herbst, Afro-Asian Institut, ISOP, KHG,
Chiala Afriquas, Megaphon, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten & < rotor>

< rotor >
association for contemporary art

Volksgartenstraße 6a, 8020 Graz, Austria
0043 / 316 / 688306, rotor@mur.at
http://rotor.mur.at

(more text information on the show at the end of this post)

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Installation view Everybody is doing what they can, in the center of the image; recording of a portrait of Methúsalem (Dúi) Þórisson is starting

Fyrir sýninguna Allir gera það sem þeir geta ákváðum við að skapa virkt rými í A sal Listasafns Reykjavíkur þar sem við fengjum einstaklinga úr mismunandi geirum samfélagsin til okkar í myndbandsupptökur. Við settum upp upptökuver og tókum upp portrett/viðtöl við fólk þar sem það ræddi um sjálft sig, hvaðan það er og samfélagið útfrá uppvexti sínum, námi, störfum og reynslu.

Frekar enn að velja hina “hlutlausu” leið, notuðum breytilega (litaða) lýsingu, reyk, confetti og ábreiður (sem við vörpuðum yfir módelin) sem truflandi þætti, en líka til að undirstrika að mynd er alltaf sköpun, bygging og afbygging – hversu “ósýnileg”, meðvituð eða ómeðvituð sem hún er.

Á sýningunni gefst gestum kostur á að upplifa þessa hópmynd. En sökum heildar-tímalengdar þess efnis sem sett er fram á sýningunni, verður fólk að velja og hafna og þar með setja saman sýna eigin hópmynd og um leið upplifun af verkinu.

Libia Castro og Ólafur Ólafsson

(English version coming soon)

Camera-, sound-, light- and editing-assist: Hafsteinn Gunnarsson, Hendrik Linnet og Kristinn Loðmfjörð

(Scroll down for list of participants and text by Hafþór Yngvason director of Reykjavík Art Museum)
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Installation view Recent Works
Vistitor listening to/viewing the music piece The Constitution of The Republic of Iceland

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson work with a wide range of artistic media and examine themes relevant to the socio-political situation of public and urban space; their art is a matter of language, urban identity and the effects of globalisation on local communities. The projects are ‘nomadic’: numerous journeys, long periods staying on site and cooperation with local communities and activist groups are established components of Castro’s and Ólafsson’s artistic practice.
In Studio 3, Castro & Ólafsson are showing selected works from the past five years as a representative insight into their artistic practice. Sculptures, photographs, video and sound works made in such contrasting places as Cuba, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, Turkey and Germany reflect their personal, poetic-realistic style of committed artistic work as well as the everyday life of a wide spectrum of people – together with its minor and major events, encounters and spaces.
Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson are participants in the International Studio Program of Künstlerhaus Bethanien.
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