Common Ground Barrier

Common Ground Barrier | text by Birgit Zimmermann

The opening of countries’ frontiers and markets comprised the promise of egalitarian wealth sharing. The public accessibility of the Internet promised, together with simplified and later on real time methods of communication, public domains of knowledge sharing and learning.But – there are two sides of a coin.Traditional social structures are forced to give way to careerism. Autonomy modifies to opportunity and common personality disorders reach total burn out. Hence, knowledge and truth is not necessarily the same thing.In the past scientific phenomena were visually depicted, however, its progress overtook art which thereupon placed it in a self-reflexive isolation. Today artists are back in the game again by using research and technological methodology to express, translate or to provide access to complex contents.Common Ground Barrier is an exhibition that investigates issues through works that incorporate non-fictional and fictional methods to achieve a resonant representation of the contemporary.The presented works exemplify the individual conceptual and visual approaches of the eight participating artists and represent different spectra of contexts and motivations.How can collective memory be built if there is no such thing as historic truth? How is history created, archived and represented? What is the value of humanity in the globalized society? What does globalization mean at all? How and where can it be possible to present documents of multinational historic traumata? How to make the unseen visible? How can specific information be summarized and translated? Is information designed for peer groups? What are possible channels for the dissemination of information outside the mainstream?Another aspect of the exhibition is the exploration of the impartial function of the gallery and therefore its imbedded dilemma of neutrality, critical dialog and commercialism. For Common Ground Barrier one part of the gallery will be converted to an archive. ARTISTS Poklong Anadingborn in Manila 1975, lives and works in Manila (PH)1995-1999 University of the Philippines, Quezon City (PH)Poklong Anading received his BFA from the University of the Philippines in 1999. Anading’s work involves interdisciplinary practice, initially utilizing concepts from drawing and painting that deal with analog expression, surface mapping, and color signification, towards the nature of the digital reproducibility of the contemporary image and its indeterminate identity through photography, video, new media, by way of conceptual connections and strategies in the form of installation work. Such interactive approach and participatory process opens Anading’s art from singular focus into multiple discourses that affect collective experience and expression. 

Alfredo Barsuglia 
born 1980 in Graz,  lives and works in Vienna (AT)
1999-2003 University of Applied Arts Vienna, University of Fine Arts Vienna, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych KrakowBarsuglia’s work was shown in numer­ous international exhibitions, including MUMOK (Vienna), Leopod Museum (Vienna), MAK Center (Los Angeles), Meštrović Pavilion (Zagreb), CAFA Art Museum (Beijing) or at the 4th Moscow Biennale. 
Barsuglia was a MAK-Schindler Artist in Resi­dence in Los Angeles in 2006 as well as a Joshua Tree Highlands Artist in Residence in 2008 and an Artist in Residence in Judenburg in 2012. In 2007 he received the Art Award of the City of Graz. In 2010 Barsuglia received a Foreign Scholarship by the Provincial Government of Stryria for New York, as well as the Humanic Art Award; in 2011 the Walter Koschatzky Recognition Award and the Arlberg Hospiz Art Award. For 2013 he received the Theodor Körner Art Award and for 2014 the Foreign Studio Scholarship by the BMUKK for Rome. Between 2009 and 2011 Barsuglia was invited as a guest critic at Pratt Institute (New York). 

Kiri Dalena 

1975 born in Manila, lives and works in Manila (PH)
1993 University of the Philippines, Quezon City (PH)Kiri Dalena is a graduate of the University of the Philippines and studied 16mm documentary filmmaking at the Mowelfund Film Institute. She is a visual artist who works simultaneously with a range of mediums such as video, sculpture and installation. She is the convenor of a women human rights defenders organization and many of her documentaries are concerned with finding justice for the numerous victims and survivors of human rights violations. She is at present working on her first feature film as Co-Director and director of photography. 

play | Artist Statement
On the night of December 17, 2011, the City of Iligan was ravaged by Tropical Storm Sendong (international name – Washi). The force of the storm generated floodwaters which combined with displaced logs and trees uprooted from the mountains and hinterland areas of the City swept away entire communities until they were washed out to the Iligan Bay.When the storm came to pass and light slowly lit the shore, the Iliganons saw before them thousands of logs and timber drifting in brown water, stretching as far as the eye can see. Above, between and underneath the logs lay the broken bodies of their townsfolk, many of them mangled beyond recognition. The storm had claimed the lives of hundreds with many missing to this day. By January, the local government undertook a massive retrieval and recovery operation for the drifted timber and logs. The logs were crashing against the shore and threatening more communities lining the shore of Iligan City.Officially numbering about 4,000 to 5,000, these drifted pieces of timber and logs were stored and secured in a lay-down area in Barangay Acmac, Iligan City with the purpose of being used as basic wooden materials in the construction of the shelter homes for thousands of families displaces by the storm.The sequences seen in the video took place in early March 2012, or three months after the storm. I had gained permission to access three pieces of stockpiled logs (Balete et al) which were assessed to be unusable for the creation of shelter homes and visited the lay down area. It was there that I chanced upon a happy troop of young children playing with abandon on the stockpiled logs. They were laughing, jumping and clambering over and above and across the logs. The emotion I felt was conflicted and wondrous at the same time. For these logs and timber which have borne the brunt of blame for the massive devastation and branded as “behemoth killers” simply became a source of joy for the children. Seemingly oblivious to the weight of trauma and attachment to tragedy, I found wisdom in the children’s capacity to reclaim place and in this particular instance, redeem “markers of tragedy” in the name of play. Virlani Hallberg1981 born in Jakarta (RI), lives and works in Berlin (DE) and Stockholm (SE)2012 Royal Institute of Arts StockholmVirlani Hallberg received her MFA in 2012 from the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm. In 2012 she participated in the Taipei Biennial, Cinelux in Genève, The 58th International Kurtzfilmtage in Oberhausen, Germany and Berlinale Film Festival. Hallberg exhibited in Galleri Riis in Stockholm, 1335MABINI in Manila and held a performance lecture/workshop at the The Six Senses of Making Sense at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, July 2013. 


Virlani Hallberg
1981 born in Jakarta (RI), lives and works in Berlin and Stockholm. 
Holiday Everyday | Artist Statement 
Individual and collective trauma – the effects of violence – whether conscious or not, keep us bound to repetition. Ultimately, my work raises the question of whether it is possible to break away from this often self-fulfilling prophecy ofindividual suffering in order to create awareness of the psychological mechanism of the “double bind”? For in repetition, there is always transformation, too. In order to make this transformative power available, the appearance of “reality” as “real” and “given” has to be challenged. This can be achieved through fiction. 


Martin Krenn

1970 born in Vienna, lives and works in Vienna (AT)
1991–1997 University of Applied Arts, Vienna (AT)
1992–1996 University of music and performing Arts, Vienna (AT)
Martin Krenn’s artistic, theoretical and curatorial work follows activist and actionist art practices of the classical as well as the neo-Avant-garde. He works with various types of media, especially text, photography and video. Most of his work in public space is based on the concept of the Social Sculpture. His key area of interest lies in the strained relationships between art and society. Krenn has had numerous international exhibitions, including solo shows in Graz (Neue Galerie), Vienna (Kunsthalle Exnergasse and Passagegalerie Künstlerhaus), Salzburg (Salzburger Kunstverein and Galerie 5020), Brest (Centre d’art Passerelle), Lüneburg (Kunstraum Lüneburg), München (Kunstraum München), Ljubljana (Mala galerija Cankarjev Dom), Celje (Center for Contemporary Art) and Bucharest (Centre for Visual Introspection). He participated in group shows e.g. in Paris (Apegac/Espace Donguy), Antwerpen (NICC), Amsterdam (W139), Kobe (Videoart Center Tokyo), Berlin (NGBK), Helsingborg (Dunkers Kulturhus), Hong Kong (Hong Kong Art Center), Leipzig (Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst), Toronto (Toronto Free Gallery), Vancouver (Artspeak Gallery), Holon (The Israely Center of Digital Art), Thun (Kunstmuseum Thun), Pori (Pori Art Museum) and Sibiu (The National Brukenthal Museum). 


TV Moore

1974 born in Australia (AUS), lives and works in New York (USA)
2006   MFA, Master of Fine Arts, Calarts, California Institute of the Arts (USA)
1999   BVA University of Sydney SCATV Moore is one of Australia’s most internationally recognizable contemporary artists.  
Since graduating from The University of Sydney with a BVA his work has been seen in Museums and galleries across the globe. Moore then went on to garner an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, USA and is the recipient of a Samstag international visual art scholarship, the Don Lucas art fellowship USA.  Moore has been included in such International exhibitions as the Busan Biennale, Korea, The inaugural Turin Triennale in Italy as well as the 16th Biennale of Sydney and many more. Moore has won numerous Awards and his work is held in private collections in Australia & North America as well as institutions in Australia such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and the Art Gallery of NSW. Moore’s 2008 Biennale of Sydney Commissioned work “Escape Carnival” is now permanently installed on Cockatoo Island, Sydney.  

Moore is currently working on some significant projects in New York.TV Moore works with paint, video, film, photographic and theatrical forms. Using psychological space, performance, narrative and non-narrative structures, Moore operates in a myriad of worlds where there are stories within stories. Histories within Histories. Edwin Sánchez1976 born in Bogotá (CO), lives and works in Bogotá (CO)Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, BogotáEdwin Sánchez studied art at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. 

His work was featured in Younger Than Jesus (Phaidon, 2008) and in Pilot 3: International archive for artists and curators. He makes part of El Bodegón, an artist-run space in Bogotá where he had a solo exhibition, and has participated in group shows like the Festival de Performance de Cali (2006) and the Encuentro de Medellin MDE07 (2007).Edwin Sánchez deals with the myriad manifestations of violence in a complex country like Colombia, where he lives and works. His videos and actions are raw and often disturbing yet ripe with humor an irony, and often walk the thin line of morality, ethics, legality and exploitation, like when he covers with a cardboard box a crippled beggar who is asking for money on an urban sidewalk, or when he steals a square meter of cobblestones in one of Bogotá’s main streets. 

Yu Cheng-Ta

1983 born in Tainan, Taiwan, lives and works in Taipei (TW)
Taipei National University of the Arts (TW)Yu studied art at the Taipei National University of the Arts inTaiwan. 
In 2008, he received the 1st place of Taipei Arts Award (TFAM, Taipei) and was awarded Beacon Prize at Art Fair Tokyo in 2012. Yu participated in the 6th Taipei Biennial and was selected as one of the artists to represent Taiwan at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2009, he participated in the Biennial Cuvée 08 at OK center for Contemporary Art in Linz, Austria, and in 2012, he participated in the 5th International Biennial of Media Art at Experimenta in Melbourne, Australia and Made in Asia Art Festival in Toulouse, France.Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, 2013

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