June 19 - August 15 2010
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, presents the first Danish solo exhibition by internationally renowned French-Algerian and London based artist Zineb Sedira. In her visually and technically impressive works she investigates the complex senses of belonging that arise out of people crossing borders and developing parallel national and transnational ties. Her video installations and photos raise questions concerning identity, memory, uprootedness and migration.
A central work of the exhibition is Sedira’s most recent and large-scale work Floating Coffins (2009) - a 14 screen video installation shot in the Mauretanian seaport Nouadhibou, opening to the Atlantic Ocean. Sedira focusses on the ambiguous consequences which this aspect of the Western shipbuilding industry has had for the area around the coast of Mauretania: on one hand the shipbreaking taking place there benefits the local economy; on the other hand it has grim consequences in terms of the pollution it causes to the environment.
The exhibition furthermore includes the earlier works Saphir (2006), Mother, Father and I (2003) and Mother Tongue (2002). The latter is an examination of Sedira’s own personal family relations and the history they share.
Sedira’s works are characterized by the spectacular and sensuous way in which they show how the world surrounding us is threatened by human upheaval and destruction, while at the same time capturing and pointing to the fleeting and contrasting nature of life, thus coming across as both thought-provoking and breathtakingly beautiful.
The exhibition has previously been shown at the Pori Art Museum in Finland, and later this year it opens at the Bildmuseet in Umeå, Sweden. Floating Coffins was commissioned by New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK.
KICK OFF
Contemporary Art and Football
April 22 - August 8 2010
Upper Gallery
Photo: Laurent Perbos, Le plus long ballon du monde, 2003
Kristoffer Akselbo (DK), Fikret Atay (TUR), Martin Brand (DE), Jeannette Ehlers (DK), Harun Farocki (DE), Amel Ibrahimovic (BOS/DK), Frank Altschul Jensen (DK), Jakob Kolding (DK), Lutz & Guggisberg (CH), Ingeborg Lüscher (CH), Knud Pedersen (DK), Laurent Perbos (FR), Pied la biche (FR), Seifollah Samadian (IR), Katya Sander (DK), Serge Spitzer (US), John Stotzer (CH), Floor Wesseling (NL) and 0100101110101101.org (IT).
Over the past decades, football, through massive investments and well-planned branding strategies, has become a business raking in billions and with an enormous global power of fascination. Today, football is a movement captivating hundreds of millions of people, permeating not only the way it is covered in journalistic terms, but also advertising, fashion, computer games, films - and visual art.
Photos: Harun Farocki: Deep Play, 2007 and Jeanette Ehlers: Ghost Riders, 2000-2003.
With the thematic group exhibition Kick Off, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, wishes to give a critical-aesthetical impulse to the football fever which will no doubt be raging before and during this year's World Cup, the first ever to take place on the African continent - and this time around with the participation of the Danish national team.
The exhibition approaches football as a multi-faceted phenomenon by applying various artistic gazes - on its spectacular finals and scandals, its prestigious transfers and building of arenas, its colourful fan culture and despicable hooliganism, its iconography and massive merchandising, its brutality and creativity, its star worship, and its unique ability to inform, and even define, the loyal supporter's everyday life.