Museum of Capitalism – New York City

November 9, 2019 § Leave a comment

thumbnail_Outlook-jqd4iirr

Parsons School of Design I The New School
2 West 13th Street
New York City, USA

OCTOBER 30 – DECEMBER 11 2019

Official Opening Thursday, November 7th

Curated by FICTILIS (Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau)

‘The Museum of Capitalism is an institution dedicated to educating this generation and future generations about the history, philosophy, and legacy of capitalism, through exhibitions, research, publication, collecting and preserving material evidence, art, and artifacts of capitalism, and a variety of public programming. The Museum’s inaugural exhibition was in Oakland, California in 2017. Artists include amongst others Daniel Bejar, Dr. Jeffrey Caren, Center for Tactical Magic, Maia Chao, Mark Curran, Sharon Daniel, Burak Delier, Paul Farber, Gabriele Galimberti and Paolo Woods, Marisa Jahn, Matt Kenyon, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Jessica Kingdon, Michael Mandiberg, Nyeema Morgan, Tim Portlock, Related Tactics, Eva Rocha, Jesse Sugarmann, Igor Vamos, Walmart and Banksy. 
More information on opening events and programming hereThe museum iincludes extracts from THE MARKET (2010-) and I will be contributing to programmed public event on Friday, November 8th at The New School.
79472901_10156828454045959_7268983611607482368_n

My participation is generously supported by Culture Ireland & Faculty of Film, Art & Creative Technologies IADT.

 

TAXED TO THE MAX – NOORDERLICHT 2019 (NL)

October 5, 2019 § Leave a comment

70261065_2819793174701995_1276932964382408704_n
at least you are not afraid to live life on the brink of chaos
Groningen
THE NETHERLANDS
OCTOBER 6 – DECEMBER 1 2019
Offical opening October 5th
‘The 26th edition examines the societal tensions created by international conglomerates with their vast accumulations of capital and their influence on national and global politics. TAXED TO THE MAX asks: how does the increasingly perfected entanglement of corporatism, finance capital and modern government affect the lives of regular people?’

Incorporating photographic series, mixed media, video and sound installations, performances, and spatial work on this theme, artists include amongst others, Alan Gignoux, Brigitte de Langen, David Klammer, Davide Monteleone, Dorothée Elisa Baumann, Ezio D’Agostino, Gina Peyran Tan, Igor Tereshkov, Ishan Tankha, John Vink, Jos Jansen, Kanad Chakrabarti, Mari Bastashevski, Mark Curran, Martin Toft, Oliver Ressler & Zanny Begg, Thomas Kuijpers & Ursula Biemann.

This edition will include installation of The Breathing Factory (2002-2006) at the Centrum Beeldende Kunst (CBK) Groningen. The project was originally supported by Arts Council, Belfast Exposed, Butler Gallery & Gallery of Photography & published by Edition Braus (2006)

The Breathing Factory critically addresses the role and representation of labour and global labour practices in this newly industrialised landscape as manifest in manufacturing and technology. Global industrial practices are characterised by fleeting alliances, transient spaces as capital moves when and as required. In such an ephemeral, precarious and globalised context, the project focuses specifically upon the Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing and Technology Campus, part of a cluster formation of multinational technology complexes, in Leixlip in the east of Ireland’

The Breathing Factory was the outcome of practice-led masters & doctorate research, one of the first in the Republic of Ireland. More information here.

Full PDF of book available for free download here.

 

‘A FUTURE YET TO COME’ (1998-2002)

August 28, 2019 § Leave a comment

‘This collection of critical essays explores the literary and visual cultures of modern Irish suburbia, and the historical, social and aesthetic contexts in which these cultures have emerged. The lived experience and the artistic representation of Irish suburbia have received relatively little scholarly consideration and this multidisciplinary volume redresses this critical deficit’
Published by Palgrave Macmillan & edited by Eoghan Smith & Simon Workman, contributors include, Mary P. Corcoran, Michael Cronin, Theresa Wray, Justin Carville, Mark Curran & Anthony Haughey.
The title of my chapter is SOUTHERN CROSS: Documentary Photography, the Celtic Tiger and a Future yet to Come which focuses on my first long-term project SOUTHERN CROSS, completed between 1999-2002 in the Dublin & county region. The project was exhibited and published for the first time by Gallery of Photography/Cornerhouse.

My subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand, let yea, on the word of Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the Golden City which is to be the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.1

One evening in the summer of 1998, I was standing on a doorstep having a conversation with my elderly neighbour, Kathleen. She described how her granddaughter, the first in five generations, could not afford to live in the area where she was born. The location, one of the oldest neighbour- hoods on the north side of Dublin, was experiencing the initial stages of a process, marking the urban evolution and impact of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy, a period since characterised in the description of the appearance of countless cranes elevated across the city skyline 2. Over the following month, in response to that conversation, I began to make portraits of children and young people in the area.

Portrait (A Child) (c-print) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998

Portrait (A Child) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998 (c-print)

Possessing no front gardens, the street was the primary setting to gather, converse and play. So, at first, I approached those people I knew, made a request and then photographed each—always approximating eye level, gaze directed towards the lens—as they presented themselves to the camera. The timing was always at dusk with cranes in the background. An impulsive reaction using photography to ask questions about the economic circum- stance, and who benefits? And mindful of the significance of the age of those portrayed—critically, whose future?3 I would not then realise that this was really the beginning of a cycle of research projects, which themati- cally addressed the predatory context, resulting from flows and migrations of global capital, that continues to the present day.4 As the Irish poet Theo Dorgan would later state of this time: ‘I was born in a Republic to realise that I live in an Economy’.

Portrait (Youth) (c-print) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998

Portrait (Youth) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998 (c-print)

Mindful of Dorgan’s stark declaration, and wishing to acknowledge the significance of hindsight when critically reflecting upon a project that began almost two decades ago, I discuss here the context and rationale for SOUTHERN CROSS, with reference to the theoretical role of documentary photography and the photographic portrait. In turn, I position the project as a critical document that questioned the sustainability of the economic circumstances of the Republic at the turn of the new millennium.

Portrait (A Child) (c-print) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998

Portrait (A Child) from the series Stoneybatter (Dublin), August 1998 (c-print)

Completed between 1999 and 2002, SOUTHERN CROSS was a critical response to the rapid economic development witnessed in the Republic of Ireland. The official Irish economic policy of attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) had over several decades brought about the largest transformation in the history of the country. Focused on Dublin and its county region, the project critically mapped and sur- veyed the spaces of development and finance. The project comprised two series. The first is ‘Site’, which explored the transitory spaces between the construction sites, which I described at the time as ‘what was’ and ‘what will be’, viewing them as the ‘birthing grounds of the New Ireland’. As a counterpoint, the series ‘Prospect’ surveyed the State’s first financial district, the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). Since the 1990s, the IFSC had been a flagship for global capital and is itself the architectural embodiment of the ‘New Ireland’.5 The title of the project was inspired by the motorway of the same name, which now encircles Dublin. Originally, it was proposed to be built in the early 1980s, near where I lived by the Dublin Mountains. However, due to massive local objection (including my parents), it was postponed for almost twenty years. Thus, I was drawn to the title partially as result of this personal understanding but also because the project was made in the Republic, the South of the island, so ‘Southern’ was geographically relevant. The reference to ‘Cross’ asked whether the new religion of the Republic was embodied in Capital. Representing the economic aspirations and profound changes of a country on the western periphery of Europe, this documentary project presented this area and those who inhabited it being transformed in response to an influx of global capital.

1. From James Joyce’s Ulysses, as quoted by the then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Charles Haughey at the launch of the Custom Docks Redevelopment in Dublin, the future location of the International Financial and Services Centre (IFSC) in June 1987.

2. I worked in Canada and Ireland as a social worker. While in Canada, the focus was very much on issues of empowerment and self-advocacy, another defining personal influence. I was also involved as a volunteer activist working with First Nations youth and on educational projects related to the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa and Frontline States in Southern Africa. Following my return to Ireland in 1995, I decided to take a career break which became a career change. I bought a camera and went on an extended trip to Southeast Asia. On my return, I continued to live in the city suburb of Stoneybatter, one of the oldest parts of Dublin.

3. This initial undertaking was short but would provide a technical and critical framework for the completion of a substantial part of the SOUTHERN CROSS project. The project was recipient of the first Development Bursary/ Artist’s Award from the Gallery of Photography, Dublin in 2000 and presented as a solo exhibition there in 2002. The publication included support from the Construction Branch of the Irish Trade Union, SIPTU and included an essay by Justin Carville, titled ‘Arrested Development’, and a poem by the poet Philip Casey, titled ‘Implications of a Sketch’, a critique of the role of the architect. The intention for the publication was to create a discursive space for a criti- cal dialogue between the textual and visual. It was subsequently exhibited internationally including in Cologne, Germany (2003), Aleppo, Syria (2003), Brussels, Belgium (2004), Lyon, France (2004), Paris, France (2005) and Limerick, Ireland (2015).

4. SOUTHERN CROSS was followed by The Breathing Factory, the outcome of my doctoral research. The latter addressed the role and respresentation of labour and globalised space in Ireland’s newly indus- trialised landscape. AUSSCHNITTE AUS EDEN/EXTRACTS FROM EDEN (Arts Council of Ireland 2011), sited in a declining mining and industrial region of the former East Germany, evidenced the uneven- ness of globalisation. My current ongoing transnational project, THE MARKET (2010–), focuses on the functioning and condition of the global markets and the role of financial capital.

5. In 1987, the Customs House Docks scheme was launched on the North Quays in Dublin with a view to developing a shopping and residential complex around an international conference centre. This idea would ultimately fail but did lead to the development of what is now known as the International Financial and Services Centre (IFSC), the Republic of Ireland’s first financial district.

End of Extract

The title of the chapter is indebted to Colin Graham and his essay, ‘Motionless Monotony: New Nowheres in Irish Photography’, addressing projects which charted the impact of the Celtic Tiger, including SOUTHERN CROSS, and who observes in relation to the project:

‘evidence of the rasping, clawing deformation of the landscape, the visceral human individual in the midst of burgeoning idea of progress-as- building, propped up by finance-as-economics…it stands as an extraordinary warning of the future that was then yet to come (2012: 15).

Further information on SOUTHERN CROSS here.

Further information on publication here.

CAPITAL @ Ballarat Biennale

August 26, 2019 § Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2019-08-20 at 11.15.34

Curators Naomi Cass & Gareth Syvret

National Centre For Photography Ballarat AUSTRALIA

AUGUST 24 – OCTOBER 20 2019

Constructed at the height of Australia’s gold rush in 1864, the former Union Bank stands in the centre of Ballarat as a powerful symbol of the rise of western capitalism and the development of colonial Australia. Capital is curated in this architectural space as it undergoes transformation into the city’s new National Centre For Photography.
 

As part of the core progamme of the Ballarat Biennale, the exhibition, CAPITAL, explores the use of the photography as a method for reflecting upon systems of value and exchange in contemporary Indigenous and settler cultures. Drawing together Australian and international practices that encounter forms of financial, political, human and photography’s own capital, the project questions the capitalist model and its legacy. If the invisible hand of the market grips the world, then Capital proposes that art can reveal and question that which seeks to bind us. 

Featuring Gabi Briggs (Aus), Peta Clancy (Aus), Mark Curran (Irl/De), Simryn Gill (Malaysia/Aus), Kristian Haggblom (Aus), Newell Harry (Aus), Lisa Hilli (Aus), Nicholas Mangan (Aus), Darren Siwes (Aus), Martin Toft (Jer), Yvonne Todd (NZ), Justine Varga (Aus) and Arika Waulu (Aus). More information on opening events and ongoing programming here.Installation includes the film Algorithmic Surrealism (2015) from THE MARKET (2010-) projected in the vault of the former Union Bank (now site of the new National Centre for Photography)

Algorithmic Surrealism (2015) (digital still)

An excerpt from the film is available to watch here

‘Curran filmed in the new financial district of Zuidas, on the periphery of Amsterdam, global centre for algorithmic trading. Adapted from a text by former trader and financial activist, Brett Scott, examining High Frequency Trading (HFT) and how the input of human values, are excluded, the voiceover and title of the film, Algorithmic Surrealism, are inspired by Scott’s essay. The film suggests the hegemony of HFT, accounting now for most trading, and extinction of human reason—including traits such as empathy and ethics—in market decisions will only perpetuate the power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems’ Helen Carey

Commissioned by NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK) & Noorderlicht Festival (the Netherlands). Elaborating on the project, THE MARKET, addressing the functioning and condition of the global markets, Curran undertook research in Zuidas, the new Global Financial District on the periphery of Amsterdam, the Netherlands during the summer of 2015. The location for the film is a landscaped park facing one of the largest Dutch-based global banks.
Film Editor: Lidia Rossner
Film script adapted by Mark Curran from original essay by Brett Scott
Voice: Claudia Schäfer
(Single channel HD digital video, colour, sound/voiceover, 11’ (full length))

For Allan Sekula (1951-2013)

(CAPITAL invite image: Darren Siwes, OZ OMNIUM REX ET REGINA, Silver female, courtesy the artist and Gagprojects)

 

Why Exhibit? Positions On Exhibiting Photographies – Publication Launch

November 6, 2018 § 1 Comment

 

Why Exhibit? Positions on Exhibiting Photographies (Fw:Books 2018)

will be launched at

The Finnish Cultural Institute/Institut Finlandais

60 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris

Thursday, November 8th at 7pm.

Opening words by Elina Heikka, Director of The Finnish Museum of Photography/Suomen valokuvataiteen museo and presentation of the book by the editors, Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger and Iris Sikking.

Followed by statements from contributors to the book on the question Why Exhibit? from Lisa Barnard, Mark Curran, Bettina Leidl, Rune Peitersen, Karolina Puchała-Rojek, Anna Tellgren and Penelope Umbrico.

Full publication information and to order available here.

Launch event coincides with Paris Photo 2018

 

SPACE OF FLOWS: FRAMING AN UNSEEN REALITY (Documentation)

August 21, 2018 § Leave a comment

Data & Power (Panel, Krakow, May 2018)

‘Featuring an international slate of artists, the festival focuses on the ceaseless flow of people, information, and substances, through expanding urban areas, the virtual realm of cyberspace, and endangered natural landscapes. In the face of worldwide streams of refugees and migrants, an overload of manipulable digital information, and injurious amounts of harmful particles suspended in the atmosphere and discharged into waterways, those in power look the other way. And all the while they withdraw and intensify control to protect what they have. Short-term success is favoured over having a sustained vision of the future’ Iris Sikking, Curator Krakow Photomonth 2018

Extracts from THE MARKET (2010-) /RYNEK (2010-)(installation at the Szara Kamienica Gallery)

Installation comprised Photographs, Powerpoint Presentation, Transcripts of Verbal Testimony, A4 Colour Photograph/Text Pamphlet, Film & 3D Data Visualisation.Algorithm & Soundscape composition Ken Curran / Data Visualisation Damien Byrne.

The project was installed alongside excellent projects by Susan Schuppli, Axel BraunEline Benjaminsen.

As part of the official programme, a panel titled, Data & Power took place on Saturday, May 26th at Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art. Participants were Iris Sikking, Dominik Skokowski, Eline Benjaminsen, Mark Curran, Esther Hovers, Clément Lambelet, Rune Peitersen, Salvatore Vitale and was moderated by Alicja Peszkowska. To a full house the event went overtime due to audience responses and discussion. It was documented and available below.

‘A more perfect reminder of exactly how on-time and urgent these artists and their projects are, considering our connected world, even the very ground we walk upon. These stories remain resident in my consciousness and now alert me at odd moments to pay attention, to observe my own special omens’ From review by Christiane Monarchi on Photomonitor.co.uk available here.

Thank you to Iris Sikking for her generous invitation and to Aga Dwernicka, Joanna Gorlach, Karolina Leśniak, Marcin & Małgo and team in Krakow for all their hard work.

 

THE MARKET has been curated by Helen Carey (Director, Firestation Artists’ Studios) and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography (Dublin), Belfast Exposed & Culture Ireland.

KRAKOW PHOTOMONTH 2018 – Spaces of Flows

May 22, 2018 § Leave a comment

2_zaproszenie_MKF2018_net_EN

‘The visual artists taking part in this edition are unique in their ability to unravel the present, while simultaneously accounting for the past and imagining possible futures’

SPACE OF FLOWS: FRAMING AN UNSEEN REALITY

CURATOR IRIS SIKKING

KRAKOW, POLAND 

MAY – JUNE 2018

‘Featuring an international slate of artists, the festival focuses on the ceaseless flow of people, information, and substances, through expanding urban areas, the virtual realm of cyberspace, and endangered natural landscapes. In the face of worldwide streams of refugees and migrants, an overload of manipulable digital information, and injurious amounts of harmful particles suspended in the atmosphere and discharged into waterways, those in power look the other way. And all the while they withdraw and intensify control to protect what they have. Short-term success is favoured over having a sustained vision of the future.

The programme derives its thematic approach from the concept of the “space of flows”, as set forth by the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells in his seminal 1996 volume The Rise of the Network Society. “The space of flows”, explained Castells, “dissolves time by disordering the sequence of events and making them simultaneous, thus installing society in eternal ephemerality”. Iris Sikking

Main programme features projects by Eva Leitolf, Agata Grzybowska, Edmund Clark / Crofton Black, Jules Spinatsch, Salvatore Vitale, Katja Stuke / Oliver Sieber, Antoinette de Jong / Robert Knoth, Rune Peitersen, Lisa Bernard, Agnieszka Rayss, Sputnik Photos Collective, Mark Curran & Michal Luczak. More information on opening events and ongoing programming here.

Installation includes extracts from THE MARKET (2010-)/RYNEK (2010-) comprising Photographs, Powerpoint Presentation, Transcripts of Verbal Testimony, 3D Data Visualisation & Film Projection. Further information here.

Algorithm & Sound Composition Ken Curran 3D Data Visualisation Damien Byrne

Installation THE MARKET Le Bleu du Ciel, Lyon

October 19, 2017 § 3 Comments

IMG_9222Credit Suisse (Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London England
March 2013 (left)

Anthony, Analyst (negotiation 1.5 years)
The City
London, England
May 2013 (right)

‘In the evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse and absence of sustained audio-visual engagement with the central locus of this catastrophic event, the ongoing multi-media transnational project, THE MARKET (2010-), critically addresses the functioning and condition of the global markets and the role of financial capital. It is the continuation of a cycle of long-term projects, beginning in the late 1990s, focused on the predatory context resulting from migrations of global capital.

IMG_9230Bethlehem, Trader (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012
IMG_9226The Viewing Gallery
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September, 2012
(Single channel HD digital video, silent, looped 9’’)
James, Operations Manager (negotiation 1 year)
Irish Stock Exchange (ISE)
Dublin, Ireland
April 2012
Transcripts (Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)

‘Having undertaken an extensive process of negotiation, averaging 1.5-2 years, to access strategic sites/individuals, the ethnographically-informed project incorporates photographs, film, soundscape, artifactual material, 3D data visualisation & transcripts of verbal testimony. Taking the sphere out of abstraction & positioning it as a pervasive force central to our lives, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, central innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance & long range mapping & consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens & everyday life. Profiles include traders, bankers & financial analysts & documentation from London, Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam & Addis Abeba’

IMG_9327

Transcripts (Detail)(Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)

IMG_9253

Algorithmic Surrealism 2015
Landscaped Park (International Investment Bank)
Zuidas Global Financial District
Amsterdam, Netherlands

(Single channel HD digital video, colour, sound/voiceover 11’04’’)

The installation includes the film, Algorithmic Surrealism (follow link for excerpt) made in the new financial district of Zuidas (Amsterdam), global centre for algorithmic trading & shadow banking, while the voiceover of the film is adapted from a text by former trader, Brett Scott. Forecasted that there will be no human traders within a decade, the film suggests the hegemony of High Frequency Trading (HFT) and extinction of human reason – including empathy and ethics – will perpetuate the power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems.

IMG_9249

Financial Surrealism/Systemic Risk
Colour A4 image and text – Shadowbanking

IMG_9257

Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 including Letter requesting access to Deutsche Börse AG
from the Irish Ambassador to Germany, Berlin, Germany, November 2011
(accessd denied)
Framed emails/ Vitrine

IMG_9264

Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)

IMG_9266

Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)
(detail)

IMG_9269

Deutsche Börse II (Acess denied)
Eschborn (near Frankfurt)
Germany
March 2012

IMG_9284

The Television Studio
Selected Reports from German Television (2012 – 2013) from Frankfurt Börse (Stock Exchange)
(described in the vernacular by Deutsche Börse AG (owners) as ‘The Television Studio’)
Frankfurt, Germany

Digital Video, Silent, Looped (28 minutes)

IMG_9289

Taika, External Relations Associate (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012

IMG_9286

Matthew, Banker (negotiation 2 years)
Canary Wharf
London, England
March 2013
Poster/Text

IMG_9333

JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers)(Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London, England
February 2013

‘Titled the Normalisation of Deviance, through the application of an algorithm identifying the words market and/or markets in public speeches by relevant national Ministers of Finance, the data is then transformed to create the installation soundscape. For Le Bleu du Ciel, the algorithmic translation of the former minister, Pierre Moscovici is presented. To date, those of Michael Noonan (Ireland), George Osborne (UK) and Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Netherlands & Eurozone Group President) have also been included in exhibitions in those countries – to represent contemporary financial capital functioning through the conduit of the now financialised nation state”

IMG_9319

Financial District, Lyon
(Window, main gallery space)

The installation is part of the year-long programme, Suite-Nouveau Documentaire by Gilles Verneret, Director, Le Bleu du Ciel and part of official programme Resonance de la Biennale de Lyon 2017. Participation has been generously supported by Culture Ireland.

Exhibition from September 28 – November 25, 2017.

The project has been curated by Helen Carey (Director, Firestation Artists’ Studios) and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography, Belfast Exposed & Culture Ireland.

Algorithm & Sound Composition Ken Curran

Full information here.

MUSEUM OF CAPITALISM (USA)

June 16, 2017 § Leave a comment

‘A Museum of Capitalism* is opening this June in Oakland, California. The museum will be the first of its kind in the United States remembering the historic era of capitalism, dedicated to “educating future generations about the ideology, history, and legacy of capitalism”. Through multimedia exhibits created by a diverse network of artists, scholars, and ordinary citizens, the museum’s opening exhibition will explore the historical phenomenon of capitalism and its intersections with themes including race, class, and the environment. Representing the collaborative efforts of a multidisciplinary team of curators, historians, artists, and designers, the museum’s inaugural exhibition will feature several multimedia exhibits and experiences created by some of today’s most dynamic artists. 

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 14.53.34

Opening on Saturday, June 17th at 6pm. More information on events and ongoing programming here. The exhibition continues until August 20th, 2017.

The Museum of Capitalism is curated by Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau (FICTILIS) and includes work by Alexander Rose, Art for a Democratic Society, Ben Bigelow, Bureau d’Etudes, Chip Lord, Dread Scott, Igor Vamos, Jennifer Dalton, Jenny Odell, Jordan Bennett, Kambui Olujimi, Kate Haug, Marisa Jahn, Mark Curran, Michelle de la Vega, Oliver Ressler, Patricia Reed, Rimini Protokoll, Sharon Daniel, Superflex, Tim Portlock and Valeria Mogilevich amongst others.   

The exhibition will also include a library where visitors can browse several collections and learn more about the exhibits, as well as a recreation of an early-21st Century museum gift shop. Artifacts of capitalism, donated and loaned from citizens across the country, will be on display alongside the exhibits.

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 13.02.11

The accompanying publication by Inventory Press will include work by all the artists and written contributions by Lucy Lippard, TJ Demos and Chantal Mouffe amongst others. Full details here.

*Exhibition includes (extracts from) THE MARKET comprising photographs, transcripts, sculpture. Participation by Mark Curran has been generously supported by Culture Ireland

PUBLIC TALK (UK) – NEPN

November 14, 2016 § Leave a comment

nepn_headline

NEPN is pleased to welcome Mark Curran to Newcastle to speak about his photographic practice on Wednesday 16 November at 6.30pm at the Mining Institute, Neville Hall, Westgate Road, Newcastle, NE1 1SE.

The talk will start at 6.30pm prompt in the Lecture Theatre and will be followed by drinks and informal conversation in the Library until 8.30pm.

The talk is free however booking is requested HERE.

Mark Curran is an artist researcher and educator who lives and works in Berlin and Dublin. He holds a practice-led PhD from the Dublin Institute of Technology, is Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Photography programme, Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Dublin and Visiting Professor on the MA in Visual & Media Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin.

Incorporating multi-media installation informed by ethnographic understandings, since the late 1990s, Curran has undertaken a cycle of long-term research projects, critically addressing the predatory context resulting from the migrations and flows of global capital. These have been extensively published and exhibited, including DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (2010), Encontros da Imagem, Braga (2011), PhotoIreland, Dublin (2012), Grimmuseum, Berlin (2013) & FORMAT, Derby (2013). He has also presented widely including The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2012), Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) (2013), Abbey Theatre, Dublin (2014), McGill University, Montreal (2014), Royal Anthropological Institute, London (2015), University of Ljubljana (2015), University of Bern (2015), Glucksman Gallery of Art (2016) & Boston University (2016).

Mark Curran’s The Economy of Appearances was commissioned by Noorderlicht Photofestival 2015 and NEPN. Sited in the new financial district of Zuidas on the outskirts of Amsterdam, the work focuses on the Netherlands role in global structures of High Frequency Trading (HFT) and Shadow Banking. It is an elaboration of his long-term transnational research project, THE MARKET, focusing on the functioning and condition of the global markets.Taking the sphere out of abstraction and positioning it as a pervasive force central to our lives, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, as central innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance, and long-range mapping and consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens and everyday life.

Supported by Arts Council of Ireland & curated by Helen Carey, THE MARKET has been presented at Gallery of Photography, Dublin (2013), Belfast Exposed Gallery (2013), Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2014) and Noorderlicht, Groningen (2015). An extensive exhibition, titled The Economy of Appearances was presented at Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA), Ireland in Autumn 2015 and nominated by Christiane Monarchi, Photomonitor (UK) for the Deutsche Börse Photography Award 2016. Extracts from the project feature in a group exhibition on mapping global networks of capital titled, I Stood Before The Source currently installed at the Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, Canada. Future installations are confirmed for the UK & France in 2016/17 and a full publication of THE MARKET is also planned.

Links:

Video Profile: https://vimeo.com/user6725215 

Recent interview with Lewis Bush on Disphotic (UK): http://www.disphotic.com/market-interview-mark-curran/

Please note that disabled access to the Lecture Theatre is gained at the rear of the building and it is best to telephone the Mining Institute ahead on (0191) 232 2201.

Image: Financial Surrrealism (World Trade Center II)
, Hoarding, Zuidas Financial District, Amsterdam, Netherlands, From THE MARKET (2010-)

NEPN was established in 2009 to promote and develop photography in the North East of England and beyond. Working with photographers, artists, curators and a wide range of cultural partners, we aim to create a lively and informed context for photographic activity and to encourage new audiences for photography. NEPN is hosted by and is an initiative of the Northern Centre of Photography at the University of Sunderland.

its Since our launch NEPN has established a wider national and international profile for its programme and continues to act as an influential agency for photographers and lens-based artists.

To join NEPN’s mailing list to receive information about events and opportunities please sign up HERE

NEPN is funded by the University of Sunderland. Current commissioning and professional development programme is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the arts.

NEPN is a member of the North East Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN).

Where Am I?

You are currently browsing the Research Practice category at THE MARKET.