Special project: November 5, 2007
In the Museum of Contemporary Art, starting at 18 :00 hours the public lecture by one of the most original contemporary artist and designer working in South Africa, Peet Pienaar, and one of the most established designer’s duos from Switzerland, NORM, took place. The focus of this lecture is the role of the graphic language and typography in the contemporary design and art.
After the lecture in the museum, starting at 20:30 hours, the exhibition by Peenar and NORM was opened in the gallery of press to exit project space (Maksim Gorki 19). The exhibition presents selection of their recent projects in forms of posters, books, magazines. Most of these projects have received awards in many international festivals all around the world. The exhibition will be open until November 16, 2007, every day from 12:00 – 20:00 hours (except Saturday and Sunday).
The lecture and the exhibition are part of “Designing Content” a regional workshop that takes place from November 4th till 9th in Skopje with 20 participants from the new generation of artists, designers, magazine editors, curators and architects working in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The aim of “Designing Content” is to go beyond discussing design as a means to an end, but rather to represents research-based practices and to stimulate productive dialogues among the participants.
Designing Content is organized by the Swiss Cultural Programme Macedonia and press to exit project space, and is developed in close collaboration with the Swiss Cultural Programme South East Europe and Ukraine and the Liaison Office of Pro Helvetia in Cape Town (South African Republic).
Designing Content is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in Zurich as Vernetzungsprojekt 2006 and the Pro Helvetia office in Warsaw.
Designing Content brings together representatives of the new generation of artists, designers, magazine editors, sounds artists, curators, and architects working in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. It will try to establish itself as a temporary forum for exchange of knowledge and distribution of ideas. The aim of the workshop is to go beyond discussing design as a means to an end, but rather to represent research-based practices and to stimulate productive dialogues among the participants.
South African designer Peet Pienaar, who has been affiliated with the Pro Helvetia liaison office in Cape Town for many years, will be the featured artist and a co-leader of the workshop together with Dimitri Bruni and Manuel Krebs of NORM from Switzerland - a studio dedicated in designing and publishing self-commissioned research based books in the field of type and graphic design.
Designing Content is initiated by the Swiss Cultural Programme (SCP) Macedonia and the special project of the SCP, press to exit project space and developed in close collaboration with the Swiss Cultural Programme South East Europe and Ukraine and the Liaison Office of Pro Helvetia in Cape Town (South African Republic). Designing Content is supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in Zurich as Vernetzungsprojekt 2006 and the Pro Helvetia office in Warsaw.
Workshop Leaders:
Peet Pinnar (South Africa) is multi-award winning conceptual artist/designer who has been extensively involved in the development of performance art in South Africa. He is a graduate student from the University of Stellenbosch and has held many solo exhibitions including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Korean International Film Festival among others. He has also been actively involved in developing community projects, teaching and lecturing In South Africa and internationally. Some of his projects include the Breugel theatre in Kahyamandi, Stellenbosch, the Secret Garden Project, the Twinkly Sea Project, and others. He was the curator and owner of the Planet Art Contemporary Art Site, the first contemporary art gallery in Cape Town, and was the curator and part-owner of the Museum of Contemporary Art now known as The Museum of Temporary Art, co-coordinator and curator of the "Club" project at Artscape and the curator of The Best of Print, an exhibition of some of the best print advertisements in South Africa. In 1999 he accepted a position at The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town, a position which saw him working closing with copywriters, art directors, designers and creative teams in developing concepts and creative work.
www.daddybuymeapony.co.za
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peet_Pienaar
http://www.artthrob.co.za/00dec/artbio.html
NORM (Switzerland) was founded in 1999 by Dimitri Bruni and Manuel Krebs. NORM is designing and publishing books and typefaces. Book design includes self-commissioned research in the field of type and graphic design and most relevant are the books 'Norm: Introduction' (2000) and 'Norm: The Things' (2002). Most recent publications of Norm are 'Bruce Lee' (2006) an essay about the value of the printed image and 'Shahrzad: Education' (2007) for the Documenta XII magazine-project. NORM has designed publications for diverse museums and art institutions such as Tate Modern in London, Musée d'art moderne in Paris, Kunsthaus Zürich and Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich. Examples for type design would be the Simple, typeface for the airport in Cologne (2003) and the corporate typeface for the Swiss watch company Omega. In 2005 NORM won the first prize in the national competition for the new design of the complete series of Swiss banknotes, which after further reflection of the Swiss national bank was decided not to be produced.
http://www.norm.to
http://www.lineto.com
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/norm
Workshop Participants:
Nebojsa Cvetkovic – Design Studio PURE (b. 1979, Serbia) graduated from the graphic design department at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He has participated and collected awards from the Magdalena Festival in Maribor (Slovenia), and the International Comics Festival and Griphon festival in Belgrade. Cvetkovic has participated in numerous group exhibitions and his work has been published in Print Magazine, European Design Annual 2005, and ICON Magazine. After working in a design agency for some years, he opened a design studio with his friend Mane Radmanovic in an attempt to distance himself from not-so-interesting advertising field in Serbia, and enjoy and explore new visual expressions in graphic design.
www.studiopure.net
Neda Firfova (b.1981, Macedonia) is an artist and graphic designer. She is currently a research student at the Graphic Design Department of the Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan. In 2006 the Japanese government awarded her with the Monbukagakusho Grant to develop her artistic research in Japan. She graduated in Graphic Art and Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje in 2005. Her work is exploring established concepts in design and typography, their transformations out of context and translating them into own artwork. She is currently working on the production of a small publication “Hidden Identities: A scratch book of covert signage and self-made logotypes from Skopje” whose prototype was exhibited in the Logocities Conference in Montreal, Canada in May 2007.
Filip Jovanovski (b. 1979, Macedonia) is an architect and visual artist. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje. With his work, he is exploring different media such as design, theatre, video, film, and installations, and their interdisciplinary connection. Considering the space as the essential element that defines architecture in all the different ways of perception, in his art work he is dealing with transformation of this category in different ways of sensation. He is artistic director of the Contemporary Art Festival AKTO in Bitola. Currently he is working on the theatre project “The Lower Depths” by Maxim Gorky - a theatre action made with roamers and professional actors. The concept explores the relation between theatre as an art form in relation to social action.
Nikita Kadan (b. 1981, Ukraine) is artist and curator. He graduated from the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kiev in the department for monumental painting. Since 2004 he is a member of the "R.E.P." art group. In 2005 he was a resident at the Centre for Contemporary Art at National University "Kiev-Mohila Academy", and since 2007 works as a coordinator of education and curatorial program "Shtab" in the Centre for Contemporary Art at National University "Kiev-Mohila Academy".
Alketa Kurrizo is an artist and editor that lives and works in Tirana, Albania. In 2003 she graduated from the department of Fashion and Design in the field of Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana. Currently she is focusing her energies on developing and supporting cultural projects in Albania. Recent appointments include serving as a project coordinator at the Soros - Foundation for Open Society in Tirana, marketing manager in the QTU trade –centre, and as an Editor-in-chief for the interior design magazine “Shtepia Ideale“. In 2006 she become member of the Cultural Board of MJAFT movement and was involved in building EXPLORE, a cultural project of actually in process. Her articles on art and culture have been published in various Albanian magazines and newspapers.
Bartosz Mucha (b. 1978, Poland) is a graphic artist, designer, vocalist and author of the brand 'poor design'. In 2004 he graduated from the Printmaking Department of Prof. Piotr Kunce at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. His works place themselves between art and design and have been presented in individual exhibitions in BB Gallery in Krakow and Warsaw (2005) and in F.A.I.T. Gallery in Krakow (2006). He was co-organiser and participant of Konsum.pl project in Weimar (2006) and also has contributed to many group exhibitions, for example Poster Festival (Krakow 1998, 1999 and 2002), Grand Prix of Young Polish Print exhibition (Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow 2004), Available art - art for sale (2004, 2005), and Odlot (Wiedeń 2006).
www.poor.pl
Blazej Pindor (b. 1973, Poland) works as a professional graphic designer since 1998, with particular interest in editorial design. His education consisted of architectural studies in Warsaw Technical University and photography in Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) where he graduated in 2002. He was appointed an Art Director of Fluid Magazine (Lifestyle/Fashion/Art) in 2003-04. In 2005 he took part in establishing Piktogram Magazine (bilingual quarterly magazine on contemporary arts) in the role of the magazine’s Creative Director. He is especially interested in researching Polish graphic design of the “first avant-garde" from the 1920s and 30s, as well as the applied and editorial graphics of 1960s and 70s and their ties with “international style”. This sort of research gives him much inspiration on researching and developing book projects and he has undertaken serious interest in font design and its application.
www.wideoprojekt.pl
www.piktogram.pl
Leonard Qylafi (b. 1980, Albania) is a fulltime visual artist that lives and works in Tirana, Albania. He graduated in 2003 from the Academy of Fine Arts Tirana in the painting department. His artistic practice is mainly related to video and photography. His works are strongly based on meditative and personal point of view and they are exploring various visual and audio elements. During the last years he has been part of different exhibitions in Tirana and abroad. Recently DIESEL awarded him an Honourable Mention Prize as part of DNA 2007 Competition.
Mane Radmanovic – Design Studio PURE (b.1976, Serbia) is a graphic designer. He graduated from the College of Applied Arts and the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He started to work during his studies as graphic designer in an advertising company in Belgrade, where soon he was promoted in an Art Director, and after that in a Creative Director position. Soon after that promotion he quit his job and decided to open a graphic design studio, Studio Pure, with his colleague Nebojsa Cvetkovic. His work has been published in Print Magazine and ICON Magazine. His interests are more oriented to art and new expressions in graphic design and he is trying to stay away from advertising.
www.studiopure.net
Irena Rakcevic – Vukovic (b. 1975, Montenegro) graduated in 2003 from the Graphic Design department at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Montenegro. During her studies she was awarded with an Annual Award for Graphic Design by the faculty. Currently she is responsible for the visual identity of the national daily newspaper “Vijesti”, and she is engaged in redesigning textbooks with the Bureau for Textbooks of Montenegro, as well as producing illustrations for National Geographic - junior magazine, edition for Montenegro. Rakcevic – Vukovic is author of numerous publications, logotypes and posters. Apart from design she is interested in traditional artistic techniques such as drawing, photography and printmaking, incorporating them into her designs. She is passionate about ecology and through her work she hopes to influencing people on current ecology matters.
Yll Rugova (b. 1984, Kosovo) is an illustrator and a graphic designer specializing in newspaper design. With his thesis "Newspaper design and supplement branding" he is currently finishing the second year of the Masters degree at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo in the Graphic Design Department. His work can be seen in many newspapers all over Kosovo as well as in Albania. In 2005, together with two other designers and illustrators, he founded the design company Trembelat. Currently he is leading the team that is designing "Ekonomisti", a bi-weekly magazine published in Kosovo and "Gradjanski Glasnik", a bi-weekly newspaper in Serbian language also published in Kosovo.
http://www.trembelat.com
Biljana Stefanovska (b.1970, Macedonia) is an architect currently working as visiting lecturer at the Technische Universität Darmstadt's Faculty of Architecture in Germany, while completing her dissertation on cultural and climatic aspects in the
transformations of dwelling structures. She is also working on interdisciplinary projects at the university and was the initiator of a project on the usage of architectural spaces in film. Furthermore, she participated in several intercultural projects, published a number of articles on architectural topics and is the co-author of the book "Erfindung Wohnen" (2007). Currently she is also preparing publications
concerning space and language, spatial mental maps and the new situational urbanism in collaboration with press to exit project space.
Vania Valkova graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Department of Sculpture. She completed her Masters degree and in 1997 took an additional course in photography at the same academy. Later she completed a Multimedia Technology degree at the Technical University in Sofia. In 2004 Valkova took part in the Postgraduate program of Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany. She has one-year specialization of Advertisement and Spatial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia (2004 – 2005). She works in the filed of new media art, print, web and graphic design, conceptual sculpture and space multimedia installation. She is initiator and founder of “FIELD - center of design, architecture, art and new media” from Sofia.
www.designfield.org
Inga Zimprich’s (b. 1979, Germany) often collaborative projects revolve around the negotiation of the conditions under which the public cooperates, creates and distributes knowledge. Next to curatorial engagements, Zimprich co-initiated a number of projects including: the Centre for Context and Communication in Kiev, the research project Post-Funding Eastern Europe (both with Ingela Johansson and Volodymyr Kuznetsov), the group-ware research and development project Thinktank 0.1 - 1.0, and the self-generative institution Faculty of Invisibility. After graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam she co-coordinated the artist-run space Public Space With A Roof and followed a post-academic program at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. She is a resident of the Het Blauwe Huis, a residency for the mind in Ijburg, Amsterdam and works as freelance curator for the Centre of Contemporary Art, Kiev. Zimprich lives and works in Berlin and Kiev.
www.ingazimprich.net
Special Presentations:
Yane Calovski (b. 1973, Macedonia) is an artist has exhibited and published his collaborative, context-oriented and drawing-based work internationally. He is currently a resident of the Het Blauwe Huis, a residency for the mind in Ijburg, Amsterdam. He is the founding editor of D (is for drawing) magazine conceived as a research publication focusing on drawing as a practice and a medium, which he developed during his tenure as a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, The Netherlands from 2002 -2004. By engaging leading and emerging artists, curators, critics, and scholars to reflect on drawing as both, an essential process and a universal, cross-disciplinary activity, D offers itself as an experiment in representation, commentary and analysis.
www.dmagazine.org
Ajdin Basic (b. 1978, Bosnia and Herzegovina) graduated from the department of Visual Communications at Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He worked as collaborator of the Center for Contemporary Arts in Sarajevo as well as in their multimedia center pro.ba until 2000. Since 2001 he lives and works in Ljubljana. He worked as senior designer at Parsek web agency for three years on different projects for various clients including Renault, Peugeot, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Elan, Sadar Vuga Arhitekti, Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia, and others. He currently specializes in publications and on-line design for cultural institutions in Slovenia and abroad. He is a jury member of 3rd Biennial of Slovene Visual Communications and a part-time lecturer at Academy Of Fine Arts And Design Ljubljana.
Hristina Ivanoska (b. 1974, Macedonia) is an artist building her artistic practice by finding ways of individual action against the established roles and norms defined by the conventional social and political systems. Ivanoska’s recent work On Freedom and the Streets of Belgrade is a feuilleton consisting of 13 texts published in the Serbian daily newspaper Politika in 2007 as part of the project Inquiry into Reality: The Disappearance of Public Space. Her latest video installation Naming of the Bridge: Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram, curated by Suzana Milevska, was presented in the Foundation for Women’s Art in June 2006 in the frame of the event Art Under Construction: the Balkan in Context organized by School of Arts in collaboration with City University in London.
www.scca.org.mk/artists/hristina
Valentin Ruhry (b. 1982, Austria) is an artist living in Vienna and Graz. Valentin currently works on his degree dissertation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna where he studies `sculpture and multimedia´ at the class of Erwin Wurm. Valentin also teaches "intermedia art" at the Ortweinschule, Graz. His art installations and artistic materials often deal with topics from everyday life, but treated in a humorous manner. Another area of his artistic research is the parametric tilting of objects within their functional and aesthetic axis. In 2004 Valentin was on scholarship at the Royal School of Art and Design in Oslo, Norway, and was nominated for the Steirischer Landeskunstpreis in 2006. He is currently an artist-in-residency at press to exit project space in Skopje.
Organizational team:
Project Coordinator - Hristina Ivanoska is the Cultural Programme Officer of the Swiss Cultural Programme Macedonia and founder and program adviser of press to exit project space.
Project Advisor - Yane Calovski is founder and artistic director of press to exit project space.
Project Assistant - Elena Veljanovska (b. 1979, Macedonia) graduated from the Faculty of Art History and Archaeology at the University Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. As a curator she is interested in researching the relations between visual and sound art and its fusion. She is a co-founder of Line Initiative and Movement (www.line.com.mk) and lives and works in Skopje, Macedonia.
Project Assistant - Aleksandra Petrusevska (b. 1981, Macedonia) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje (2005). Her recent exhibitions include Real Presence, Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade (2005), the 7th Biennial of Young Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje (2005), and Lost Highway Expedition (2006). In 2006 she was nominated for the Young Visual Artists Annual Award Denes. In January 2007 she had her first solo exhibition “13 kilometres from the center” at the Multimedia Center Mala Stanica in Skopje.
|
