1989: The Postcollapse in Art and Culture
1989: The Postcollapse in Art and Culture
August 29, 2022 - October 6, 2022
Panel Discussion: August 29, 2022 @ 6PM in Person & via Zoom (RSVP to receive Zoom link)
Opening Reception: August 29, 2022 @ 7-9PM
The Cerritos College Art Gallery, in collaboration with The MinEastry of Postcollapse
Art and Culture (MPAC), is pleased to present 1989: The Postcollapse in Art and Culture, an international group exhibition featuring twenty-four artists and art collectives
working across multiple media.
To speak of 1989 is to speak of revolutions.
For some, it marks the end of history as the last chapter of a long-winded ideological battle; victors promising flashy freedoms. For others, it marks the beginning of a renewed era of force; control societies marching forward in clanking servitude. To speak of 1989 is to speak of collapse. It is to speak of the many befores and the many afters across multiple centers and peripheries. From the fringes of the former West to the afterworlds of an emergent East and across the global South, 1989 rips through the primacy of borders, speaking instead to the absurd and the absolute, the fantastic and the fragmented, that permeate our ever shifting contemporary ground.
This exhibition brings together established and emerging artists from Russia, Poland, Czechia, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, Cuba, Suriname, Hong Kong, China, New Zealand, and the USA. Through a diverse collection of painting, drawing, installation art, sculpture, photography, conceptual emptiness, video art, digital art, and textile, each artist engages the aesthetic, political, and psychological aspects of collapse. Taken together, the exhibition designates postcollapse as a critical framework for contextualizing the contemporary practices of artists from these dynamic regions since 1989.
Guest Curators: MPAC (lknur Demirkoparan and Vuslat D. Katsanis)
Participating Artists: Silvia Amancei and Bogdan Armanu; Music X Habitat X Art (Amelie Jiang, Yaoyue Huang,
Scott Lowell Sherman; Peter Christenson with Marta Stražičić and Tea Stražičić; Fung
Yee Lick Eric; Lenka Holíková; Hagen Klennert; Vladan Kuzmanović; Naomi Middelmann;
Esra Nesipoğulları; Frank Lahera O’Callaghan; Stas Orlovski; Kasia Ozga; Nathaniel
C. Praska; Rodrigo Prian-García; Hamed Shafie; Monica Sheets; Maciek Stępniewski;
Anna Syarova; Valdrin Thaqi; Igor Vaganov; Kate Walker; Charles Edward Williams; Klara
Woźniak; and Keoni K. Wright
Hagen Klennert, Crimson Cloud, 1997
Charles Edward Williams, Chokehold (Detail), 2022
Valdrin Thaqi, A Divine Image (Video Still), 2020
Hamed Shafie, The Fool (Video Still), 2021
ABOUT THE MINEASTRY OF POSTCOLLAPSE ART AND CULTURE:
The MinEastry of Postcollapse Art and Culture (MPAC) is an artist-run space and think
tank dedicated to exploring our global contemporary from the vantage of postcollapse
art and theory. Their frames of reference begin with the human experiences from “the
East” since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and permeate to every corner of the diasporic
world-presence. MPAC was founded in Portland, Oregon and is currently based in Zurich,
Switzerland. For more information, see https://mpac.postcollapse.art/
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu, @_silvia.amancei.bogdan.armanu (b. Romania), also
known as s.a.b.a., is an artist couple working together since 2012. They both graduated
from the University of Arts in Iași, with a focus on mural art (Silvia) and painting
(Bogdan), which they transgress with the physical and discursive limits of the object
(and the labour inscribed in it) within the conceptual framework of new-media. Sitting
at the intersection of social studies and visual art, their work examines how art
can be instrumentalised to look beyond capitalism and create a (common) future.
Music X Habitat X Art, @musicxhabitatxart, is a collective founded on the idea of
“the livable and breathable “habitat” that is created from the marriage of the visual
and the auditory: exploring the lines between the digital, concrete, and the subconscious
by Scott Lowell Sherman (b. USA), Yaoyue Huang (b. China), and Amelie Jiang (b. China).
Sherman and Huang are performing classical pianists; Amelie Jiang is an exhibiting
photographer and curator. Sherman works in digital & video art, Huang in digital manipulation.
MHA seeks to create new ways to experience contemporary art, classical music, and
film, where the need for human connection through collective experience brings a sense
of community and belonging.
Peter Christenson (b. USA) is a conceptual artist working across emergent and antiquated
media, psycho-social sculpture, and immersive installation. He is co-founder of Left
of Centre, the catalyst behind Null Set, and the Director of the Guest House Cultural
Capital Residency scholar program. Christenson works with Marta Stražičić and Tea
Stražičić (b. Croatia) also known as Schwesternsisters (SwS) @schwesternsisters, a
radical and futuristic duo based in Zagreb, Croatia. Using a variety of digital and
mixed technologies, the sisters create immersive videos, visuals, environments.
Fung Yee Lick Eric, @fungyeelick (b. Hong Kong) holds an MA Fine Arts CUHK & Museum
Studies Leicester. He is a mixed media and ink artist with a particular interest in
exploring and understanding the origins of human consciousness and their perspective
of seeing things. He seeks to respond to the contemporary issues of human senses,
identity and history through art practice He was awarded multiple recognitions and
recently shortlisted for the The Hong Kong Human Rights and Asia Art Future prizes.
Lenka Holíková, @lenkaholikova7 (b. Czechia) is a visual artist, illustrator and professor.
She studied at Hradec Králové University and held numerous international residencies.
Solo exhibitions include In the Realm of Memory at Galería Garco, After Desire at
Espacio Anarquista (Puebla, Mexico) and at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, and
Proyecto Masaryk at Instituto Cultural México-Israel (Mexico City, Mexico). She was
recently recognized by the Ministry of Culture, Puebla, MX.
Hagen Klennert, (b. Erfurt, GDR) escaped from East to West-Germany in 1985, and started
solo exhibitions and collaborations with the composer Helmut Oehring. Klennert lives
and works in Berlin.
Vladan Kuzmanović, @vladan.kuzmanovic5 (b. Serbia) is a conceptual artist, avant-garde
poet, musician and theorist. He explores transparency and non-medium.
Naomi Middelmann, @naomimiddelmann (b. Switzerland) holds degrees in Creative Writing
from Johns Hopkins and Art from the Visual Art School in Basel in 2009. Middelmann’s
interest in the ambiguity of perception and in what we think we know, as well as in
how artists can contribute to the scientific study of perception have led her to collaborate
and design projects with leading neuroscientists. Her work has been shown in over
50 solo and group shows in galleries and art fairs in Europe and USA.
Esra Nesipoğulları, @esra_nesipogullari (b. Turkey) is an architect/ multidisciplinary
artist based in Italy. She started her professional practice in the art and curatorial
field in 2019. Her works often respond to personal stories in cultural and political
contexts. She is cofounder of Ambaradan Think Tank and a member of Art Dream Collective.
Frank Lahera O’Callaghan, @probetafilmscuba (b. Cuba) is an artist based in Santiago,
Cuba. His work spans photography, video, performance, installations, and NFT in pursuit
of the social and spiritual questions. Often taking the form of a meditation of a
singular idea, his work reflects on the issues of brevity of life within the larger
national and international political contexts.
Stas Orlovski, @stasorlovski (b. Moldova) is a Los Angeles based visual artist working
in painting, drawing and time-based media. When he was a child, his family fled the
Soviet Union to Tel Aviv, then Paris and eventually settled in Toronto, Canada. Orlovski
holds a BFA from York University, a B.Ed from the University of Toronto and an MFA
from the University of Southern California.
Kasia Ozga, @kasiaozgaart (b. Poland) is a Polish French American sculptor born in
Warsaw shortly after the collapse of communism. She reanimates mass-produced materials
into singular artworks. Ozga holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris 8, an M.F.A.
from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.
Nathaniel C. Praska, @nathaniel_c_praska (b. USA) explores the myth of the American
Dream through large, textural paintings that combine expressive styles with graffiti.
Praska won several residencies and awards, including the Calligram Foundations Fellowship.
Rodrigo Prian-García, @rodpriangarcia (b. Mexico) is a multimedia and photography
artist. He graduated in Visual Arts from UNAM, and has numerous international solo
and group exhibitions and awards. He investigates different forms of absence in objects
and actions, resorting to erasure as a technique.
Hamed Shafie, @iamnotshafie (b. Iran) is an artist based in Tehran, Iran. With a focus
on video and book art, his work can be characterized as experimental journeys that
traverse existing and emerging expressive forms. He is particularly fascinated by
the critical juncture of when the work leaves the artist and finds meaning with the
audience.
Monica Sheets, (b. USA) creates platforms for direct community participation to understand
what it means to be an engaged citizen in the world beyond traditional forms of activism.
Sheets studied Photography at the Cleveland Institute of Art and holds an MFA in Public
Art and New Artistic Strategies from the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany. Her first
solo museum exhibition will open in November 2022 at the Minneapolis Institute of
Arts.
Maciek Stępniewski, @_mstepniewski (b. Poland) is a Warsaw-based audiovisual artist
focusing on digital, abstract and generative design, animation and music. He holds
a BA and MA at Polish-Japanese Academy Of Information Technology, new media arts department.
His work has been shown in Punto Y Raja, Athens Digital Art Festival, AniFilm, Interference,
Patchlab, among others. His albums were released by local netlabels Trzy Szóstki and
Nagrania Somnambuliczne.
Anna Syarova, @annasyarova_art (b. USSR) has changed two citizenships, and identifies
as Russian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian. Her work is informed by national history and
iconography. She has exhibited her work widely, and lives and works in Moscow.
Valdrin Thaqi, @valdrinnthaqi (b. Kosovo) is a visual artist based in Berlin. Studying
at the Academy of the Arts, Prishtina, his practice shifts between experimental painting,
sculpture, installation and intervention. Realistic, dreamy, poetic and intuitive
in its content, his work points out personal as well as collective emotions. Thaqi
likes to treat absurdity in his artwork, existentialism and social stereotypes.
Igor Vaganov, (b. USSR) is a Russian rock journalist, visual artist, filmmaker, radio
presenter, organizer, and participant of a number of media and art projects in Russia
and abroad. His extensive body of work has been shown widely and garnered critical
international acclaim.
Kate Walker, @hoopnz (b. New Zealand) is based in the United States. Her work encompasses
painting, performance and video, often in collaboration with community, and includes
choreographed performances or staged events that speak to contemporary social issues.
Recent projects focus on queer bodies, and utopian and dystopian imaginings in popular
culture. Disaster Karaoke has been supported by The Idaho Commission on the Arts,
The National Endowment for the Arts and The Idaho Film Collection.
Charles Edward Williams, @charlesedwill84 (b. USA), is a contemporary visual artist
from Georgetown, SC. He holds a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and an
MFA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Solo traveling exhibitions
include Polk Museum of Art, Gibbes Museum of Art, and Residency Art gallery. His work
was also recently exhibited at Aqua and Scope Art Fair / Art Basel (Miami, FL) and
Texas Contemporary Art Fair. Williams is the 2022 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation
for Visual Arts Grant.
Klara Woźniak @klara.wozniak (b.Poland) explores social and political concerns through
imagined worlds. Working primarily in computer generated short video form, Woźniak
merges the real with the surreal to juxtapose absurdities in the world around us.
Keoni K. Wright @spirit_engaging (b. USA) is a Boston-born visual artist and filmmaker
who has shed light on the tiny Amazonian nation of Suriname since 2018, often with
an experimental lens. His non-linear portrayal of six Afro-Surinamese artists, entitled
“ReleaseD,” was nominated for Virginia Tech University’s 2020 Virginia Dares Cinematic
Arts Awards for Decolonizing Film and Media.
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