Tuesday, February 20, 2007

TATE LIVERPOOL • UK


Melik Ohanian -
White Wall Travelling © 1997
Courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris / Yvon Lambert, New York

Center of the Creative Universe :
LIVERPOOL and the avant-garde

20 FEV | 02 SEP. 2007


Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant-Garde will feature some of the most important artists of the post-War era, including Keith Arnatt, Stewart Bale, John Baum, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Boyle Family, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Maurice Cockrill, Jeremy Deller, Rineke Dijkstra, Filmaktion, Adrian Henri, Candida Höfer, John Latham, Melik Ohanian, Yoko Ono, Martin Parr, Bob and Roberta Smith, Alec Soth, Sam Walsh, and Tom Wood.

To coincide with the Liverpool’s 800th anniversary celebrations, Centre of the Creative Universe investigates how the city has inspired and influenced a diverse range of nationally and internationally renowned artists since the 1940s.

The sense of Liverpool looking outward beyond the United Kingdom, and the world returning this gaze, is a feature of the city’s character. This exhibition presents Liverpool as a world city with an undying capacity to inspire imaginations. The explores Liverpool as a centre of the 1960s global pop revolution, reveals how the city has inspired documentary photography and politically motivated art, and played host to avant-garde artists and art movements from Pop art to Conceptual art.


Melik Ohanian -
White Wall Travelling © 1997
Courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris / Yvon Lambert, New York

INFOS /
Tate Liverpool

Sunday, January 28, 2007

HANGAR BICOCCA • Milano


Melik Ohanian, Invisible Film © 2005
Courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel/Yvon Lambert, New York

COLLATERAL | Quando l’arte guarda il cinema

2 FEV | 15 MAR. 2007

CORY ARCANGEL, PIERRE BISMUTH, CANDICE BREITZ, BRICE DELLSPERGER, CHARLES DE MEAUX, OMER FAST, THOMAS G., LIAM GILLICK & PHILIPPE PARRENO, CHRISTOPH GIRARDET & MATTHIAS MÜLLER, PIERRE HUYGHE, RUNA ISLAM, MIKE KELLEY, DIMITRIS KOZARIS, MELIK OHANIAN, CAROLA SPADONI, CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER

Concept and Curatorship: Adelina von Fürstenberg
in collaboration with Anna Daneri and Andrea Lissoni
Exhibition Design: Arch. Andreas Angelidakis

What is the relationship between art and cinema today? At least a decade has passed since contemporary art first began to turn its attention to cinema, its imagery, its world and its techniques. What remains of this reciprocal fascination, and how has this sometimes fatal attraction been transformed?

COLLATERAL is the first exhibition in Italy to offer an in depth exploration of the many possible similarities between art and cinema. Video installations will be shown where the explicit subject is the imagery of cinema or its evocation. However COLLATERAL is also an exploration which, whilst not ignoring the spectacular element typical of cinema, allows us on one hand to outline an evaluation of that which has been undertaken so far, and on the other to theorise about the next developments of the artistic practice connected to the moving image.

The research of artists using video shows the full attraction for the imagery and the structure of cinema, and at the same time makes use of the possibility to examine and show cinema in a new light. In the majority of cases for the generation of artists in the exhibition, the work consists in an intervention on a cult film, a key scene, the star or the gestures of the star, or is a work which changes the essence of the cinematic material and all the processes connected to it - that is, not only the film itself, its form and its possible memory, but also the cinema theatre, its scenery and even the method of projection.

Over the last few years, thanks to the possibility of directly accessing materials and manipulating them more or less freely, it has been possible to rediscover the history of cinema in all its episodes. Artists have been able to confront the myths and traditions with an independent approach, often going beyond the limits and freely re-inventing the emotions it evokes.

COLLATERAL, through the works of 18 emblematic international artists – and with its unique and original installation, both spectacular and respectful of the independence of each single work - offers a journey where works by artists from different generations, places, backgrounds and fields of training are shown next to the founding figures and guiding lights of the medium. Some are more connected to the tradition of “cult” cinema, some more to that of video art, some to an installation in the exhibition space, and some more to experimental cinema.

Hangar Bicocca
Viale Sarca 336
20126 Milano | Italie
da martedì a domenica 11.00 – 19.00, giovedì 14.30 – 22.00, chiuso lunedì
Tél: 335 . 7978214

INFOS /
www.hangarbicocca.it

Saturday, November 18, 2006

REX CINEMA • LONDON


November 18, 2006
screening of Invisible Film _ 2005
REX Cinema, London.


Invisible Film documents a projection in the California deserts, of Punishment Park, 1971, an independent movie banned in the UK as well as the USA for its anti-war stance following military action in Vietnam. Without a screen the image is projected unseen into the distance on the location in which the film was made.


Infos /
• South London Gallery

Monday, November 13, 2006

SOUTH LONDON GALLERY • London



15 NOV :. 22 DEC 2006 ::.
SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE

curated by : Margot Heller and Kit Hammonds

The South London Gallery is pleased to present Seven Minutes Before, 2004, an epic video installation and first solo exhibition in the UK, by French-Armenian artist Melik Ohanian. Ohanian has received international acclaim for works in a broad range of media that address issues of personal autonomy and identity, access to territory and information, as well as conceptions of time in today’s global culture. With a background in documentary film-making and cinema, Ohanian expands on research into places, people and events to create poetic installations and interventions.

Filling the length of the South London Gallery’s exhibition space, Seven Minutes Before is an immersive, dream-like video work shown on seven screens. A model city built in a mountain stream, a caged wolf, wandering musicians and mystic symbols all appear in the landscape at dawn to create a sense of magic and other-worldliness. Replete with references to cinema and contemporary art, music and cosmology, Ohanian brings together seemingly disconnected events into a cohesive whole. The extraordinary attention to detail in the scenography and construction of the images has an astonishing impact when the events on all seven videos come together around a single dramatic explosion. Each made in a single continuous take, the seven videos follow the journey of the camera roving across a 2km stretch of a valley floor in southern France. This highly choreographed and experimental approach to film-making proposes an alternative form of editing occurring in space rather than time.

To complement the installation will be a special presentation of Ohanian’s Invisible Film, 2005, in a cinema auditorium. Invisible Film documents a projection in the California deserts, of Punishment Park, 1971, an independent movie banned in the UK as well as the USA for its anti-war stance following military action in Vietnam. Without a screen the image is projected unseen into the distance on the location in which the film was made. By overlaying fact and fiction, Ohanian comments on today’s political situation.

Bottom: Melik Ohanian, 'Seven Minutes Before', 2004. 7 synchronized video projections with surround soundtrack, 28 speakers and 7 bass modules, digital beta on DVD, duration 7 x 21 min, 1200 x 2800cm. All images courtesy Melik Ohanian, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, and Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York.

This exhibition is part of 'Paris Calling', a season of contemporary art from France.
'Paris Calling'

Related Links
Screening: Punishment Park
Discussion: Timecodes
Screening: Invisible Film


Infos /
• South London Gallery

Saturday, November 04, 2006

DE APPEL• Amsterdam • Slam



Saturday, September 09, 2006

GALERIE CHANTAL CROUSEL • Paris



09 SEPT :. 14 OCT 2006 ::. (M)UT(E)OPIA



For his second solo show at the Galerie Chantal Crousel, Melik Ohanian presents a series of recent works (2005-2006) in modulated spaces with a succesion of ambiances that contains videoprojections, neon lights, sculptures, photographs and involve the visitor in a close relationship.


Based on time, intervals, continuity and discontinuity, his work defies concepts of territory and identity and offers other geographical and political possibilities.



Julia Peker pour Paris-Art.com www.paris-art.com



Très présent depuis quelque temps sur la scène internationale, Melik Ohanian présente à la galerie Chantal Crousel sa deuxième exposition personnelle, «(M)ut(e)opia», série d’œuvres récentes dans lesquelles l’artiste poursuit sa réflexion sur les différentes formes de cryptage.



Word(s) est une série de mots en néons blancs accrochés au mur de la grande pièce de la galerie. La mise entre parenthèses de certaines lettres éclaire d’un jour nouveau la résonance des mots les plus familiers, et pointe leurs contradictions intrinsèques. (T)here signifie alors en même temps «ici» et «là-bas», libéré des règles de non-contradiction qui structurent la pensée et le langage. Seul l’utopiste naïf ignore combien «là-bas» compose avec «ici», et (R)evolution donne la réplique à ce paradoxe.

Dans le langage de Melik Ohanian, les mots peuvent être à la fois au singulier et au pluriel, car les utopistes ont la lucidité des plus grands réalistes.



Une vidéo, Hidden, montre en plan fixe le coucher du soleil sur un champ de pétrole du Texas, pendant qu’un écran d’ordinateur affiche une suite ininterrompue de lettres. Ce texte illisible nous révèle la partition cryptographiée d’une image encodée dans la vidéo, invisible ici. Elle est projetée à Amsterdam, à De Appel, où se tient en ce moment même une autre exposition de Melik Ohanian, «Somewhere in Time». Ce qui est visible n’est pas lisible, et la réciproque également.

A moins qu’on accepte que «là-bas» est en même temps «ici».



Une autre vidéo poursuit cet exercice de dissociation de l’espace et de l’image. Invisible Film projette le film de Peter Watkins, retraçant le chemin de croix d’un groupe de jeunes étudiants réfractaires, condamnés durant la guerre du Vietnam.

Immédiatement censuré lors de sa sortie en 1971, le film n’a pas été projeté aux États-Unis pendant plus de vingt-cinq ans. Il a été projeté par Melik Ohanian sur les lieux même du camp de prisonniers où le tournage a eu lieu, dans le désert de El Mirage en Californie.



Faute d’écran, on ne voit que la copie tourner face au désert, avec la bande-son pour seul accroche. A l’entrée de la salle, au revers du film, un moniteur diffuse les sous-titres de la version originale. Aussi invisible soit-il, le film est pourtant bien là, mais ramené à d’autres paramètres d’existence que le cinéma habituel: sa réalité matérielle, ses circonstances de réalisation originelles, et ses résonances actuelles. Ce film a quelque chose à nous dire sur notre présent, et la valeur anecdotique de l’image s’efface pour laisser place à un sens impérissable.



Le drapeau du Texas, mis en berne à l’extérieur de la galerie, préside à l’exposition. L’hommage aux exécutions pratiquées dans l’état se double de toute la symbolique propre à ce blanc drapeau, aux couleurs de l’innocence et de la reddition. La clameur patriotique s’étrangle dans cet étendard noué, autoritairement réduite au silence par ce signal inquiétant.



Article paru dans Le Monde édition du 16.09.06 par Harry Bellet



Le saviez-vous ? Il y a 3 804 kilomètres entre Paris et Erevan. C'est ce que nous apprend Mélik Ohanian dans Concrete Tears, oeuvre composée de larmes de béton suspendues à des fils, comme ces rideaux de perles qui interdisent l'accès des maisons du Sud aux mouches tout en laissant passer l'air. La série comporte une larme par kilomètre. La capitale de l'Arménie ayant connu au long de son histoire les déboires que l'on sait, et ses habitants ayant été confrontés au génocide et à l'exil, l'interprétation est ouverte. A voir aussi, des déclinaisons, sous forme de carte commentée ou de réinterprétation en 3D du film Seven Minutes Before, montrant les phases qui précèdent un accident de la route, qui fut présenté à la Biennale de Sao Paulo en 2004. Ce que les caméras rendaient alors parfois confus trouve ici un éclairage fascinant. Fascinante également cette installation inspirée de Punishment Park, film réalisé en 1971 par Peter Watkins sur l'un des épisodes les moins glorieux de l'histoire de l'armée américaine, des objecteurs de conscience servant de matériel d'entraînement aux soldats.



more infos

Friday, September 08, 2006

DE APPEL • Amsterdam



08 SEPT :. 09 NOV 2006 ::. SOMEWHERE IN TIME



MELIK OHANIAN

Solo exhibition, 9 September - 5 November 2006



Curated by Ann Demeester



De Appel is about to present the Netherlands’ first solo exhibition of the French- Armenian artist Melik Ohanian (1969). A comprehensive survey of his work can be seen at de Appel’s own premises at the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. In response to this project, several other institutions in Amsterdam have invited de Appel to show Ohanian’s work on a temporary basis. At DeïsKa (Vijzelgracht 50) and Imagine IC (Bijlmerplein 1006- 1008), the seven-screen film ‘Seven Minutes Before’ (2004) and the project ‘Peripherical Communities’ will respectively be shown. Ohanian’s ‘Invisible Film’ (2005), based on ‘Punishment Park’ (1971) by British filmmaker Peter Watkins, will be shown at Filmmuseum Amsterdam (Vondelpark 3).

On Friday, September 8th, de Appel will be organizing the opening of the cultural season in cooperation with the Rotterdam art centre Witte de With. After the showing of the previews in Amsterdam (5 pm - 8 pm) and Rotterdam (6 pm - 11 pm), a joint after party will take place (supported by Blend). The party starts at 11 pm and will be held at Toko94, Witte de Withstraat 94 in Rotterdam. Shuttle busses will take partygoers from Amsterdam to Rotterdam and back.



E X H I B I T I O N


Melik Ohanian (Paris, 1969) is a member of a new group of talented young French artists. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Montpellier and Lyon and made his Paris debut in 2002 for the opening of Palais de Tokyo and at Galerie Chantal Crousel. In 2004 he took part in the Berlin, Sydney and Sao Paulo Biennales. In 2005 he took part in the first Moscow Biennale. At the beginning of this year Ohanian mounted his first solo exhibition in France at IAC - Institut d’art contemporain in Villeurbanne. In 2003, he published a monograph ‘Kristale Company’ and ‘Slowmotion’. In collaboration with Jean-Christophe Royoux he recently edited ‘Cosmograms’ published by Lukas New York as an extension of the film ‘Seven Minutes Before’. Following ‘Somewhere in Time’, de Appel will co-produce his new monograph in 2007. Melik Ohanian was confronted with the phenomenon of image as medium at an early age observing his father who was involved in photography, and later working on numerous film productions as a freelance cameraman and editor. The notion of the ‘invisible’ image, the existence of multiple realities, the operation of human memory and the relationship between time and space, between the individual and the community, are themes that Ohanian frequently touches on. Ohanian sees the works he produces first of all as ‘instruments’-cum-containers that must be filled with an array of ‘content’. He develops strategies and methodologies for research and presentation. Ohanian does not document; rather, he abstracts and searches for general human qualities, which are poetically evoked. The range of content he covers is broad and extremely varied. The stories he tells relate to political-social phenomena: the strike of the Liverpool dockworkers in the work ‘White Wall Travelling’ (1997) or the position of unemployed workers in Armenia in ‘The Hand’ (2002). He is also interested in the history of film as well as human attempts to fathom the workings of the universe and the solar system representing them in a comprehensible way. In the installation ‘The Half Mast White Flag’ (2005), for instance, he neutralizes a symbol of federal pride to a universal ‘sign’ of peace and/or surrender and in 2003, attempting to shoot a ‘cosmological event’ gave light to the installation ‘Welcome to Hanksville’ (2003) where he depicts the Utah desert as an ‘earthly’ Martian landscape.

In collaboration with Imagine IC Ohanian has completed a new version of the work ‘Peripherical Communities’, which he has already performed in the outskirts of Paris (2002), Seoul (2003) and Dakar (2005). This is a moving portrait of young slammers in the Bijlmer district of Amsterdam who use hip-hop to express personal opinions of their immediate surroundings and the world beyond. The artist considers the piece as a recording tool. As a result, the Amsterdam version will be entirely produced by youngsters from the Bijlmer. From October 21 through November 5. Opening: Friday 20 September, 5 pm.

Besides ‘The Gear’ (2004) — a large, stainless steel, rotating sculpture — DeïsKa is showing the key work ‘Seven Minutes Before’, a 21-minute film displayed on seven adjacent screens. During the summer of 2004 Ohanian filmed seven simultaneous scenes in a small valley in a southeast region of France. The sequences show a convergence of various events, a closed cosmos of landscapes, voices and people. The work is a study of the time-space relationship in film and the way in which multiple story lines suggest the existence of a great meta-narrative. From September 9-30. On October the 22nd and 25th the Filmmuseum will be showing ‘Invisible Film’ (2005) and the film ‘Punishment Park’ by Peter Watkins (1971), which served as the source of inspiration for Ohanian’s experiment. Punishment Park imagines a detention camp in the Californian El Mirage Desert and records, in pseudo-documentary style, the agony of a group of young students who were imprisoned for their resistance to the Vietnam War. The American government immediately censored Watkins’s film when it appeared in 1971 and has not been shown in the U.S. over 25 years.



‘Somewhere in Time’ is supported by CulturesFrance



Infos /

•DE APPEL Amsterdam

GWANGJU BIENNAL • Korea

08 SEPT :. 11 NOV 2006 ::. FEVER VARIATIONS



Works exhibited/

Seven Minutes Before (2004) Selected Recording (photographs)



The Last Chapter _ Trace Route : Remapping Global Cities

takes a synchronic approach to the theme of the city-tracing the route of change, mapping global simultaneities, and bringing momentary focus to a shifting and changing Asia . Participating artists' workshops and on-site projects have connected between cities in Asia, Europe and the Americas . By collaborating with various cultural institutions and residency programs at alternative spaces in relevant cities, this project aims to generate both creativity and new discourses through artists' activities. The results and records of this process will manifest in this exhibition.



Europe: Berlin – Paris – Amsterdam/Rotterdam – Copenhagen – Vilnius

Curated by : Cristina Ricupero



Facing cultural and ethnic diversity as a source not of conflict but of revival and enrichment, the artists from the European section will show projects and ideas that are recreating city landscapes along the axis of dynamic interaction that links former symbols of the Cold War like Berlin and Vilnius to the more traditional cultural capitals such as Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam/Rotterdam. They will deal with timely issues such as: mental and concrete walls; intercultural communication; nationalism and xenophobia, etc.



more info

GWANGJU Biennale