18 May 2010

KORAALBERG at LOOP Barcelona 2010

IIn 2006 Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans, two Belgian artists living and working in Brussels, started working on A.I.R. The project redefines their private habitat as a public space, in the act questioning the intimacy that is usually associated with it. The resulting hybrid space, which they consider the central piece of the project, will not have a public display. Instead the artists choose to present A.I.R as an ongoing series of mediated extensions, allowing audiences to experience this private/public environment only through translations to magazines, television, film, websites, lectures, renderings, exhibitions…

Vermeir and Heiremans favor a communal mode of production, using A.I.R as a platform for different collaborations with people from various backgrounds and occupations. A collaborative project, A.I.R deals with issues concerning the interrelatedness of private and public spheres, art and economy.

They have shown A.I.R # 'extensions' in Brussels (2006), Geneva (2007), Istanbul (2007), and most recently in Bristol (2009), where they presented The Good Life (a guided tour) (2009), a meditation on the inextricable relationship between institutions of contemporary art and the wider structure of the economy, harnessed today by the 'creative class'. The video takes the form of a guided tour around an unspecified contemporary art institution, in a future scenario where it is selling off its building to be transformed into luxury apartments. The depicted institution - itself an uncanny 'collage' of four existing major European institutions -, is utilizing its assets, promising major regeneration to its host city.


Exhibitions 'The good Life (a guided tour)':

Screenings 2010:
*DOC.BE (april 2010) screening program by Zhang Yaxuan (director Film Archive Iberia Art Center, Beijing), presented in Beijing, Kunming, Guanzhou (CN)

Screenings 2009:
*VALUE ADDED ART – Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (DE)
*KASSEL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL, Kassel (DE)
*WEAK SIGNALS, WILD CARDS – De Appel Curatorial Programme - Amsterdam (NL)
*ECONOMIES OF ART IN AN ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (US)
*Koraalberg Gallery on ART Brussels (BE)
*ON VALUE screening program by Nav Haq (curator Arnolfini, Bristol) for MiArt-art fair Milan (IT)

Exposition:
*VIDEO LOUNGE – Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen (CN)
*FLUX/S International Arts Festival ( in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, Zuidelijk Toneel, Concertgebouw…), Strijp-S, Eindhoven (installation version)
*A.I.R extension #15 / THE GOOD LIFE, Arnolfini, Center of Contemporary Art, Bristol (UK) (installation version)

Distribution:
Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst / Montevideo (from Oktober 1 2009)


Katleen Vermeir (°1973) and Ronny Heiremans (°1962) live and work in Brussels/Belgium.