Foto- und Video-Kunst aus Mazedonien: Irena Paskali

To open KulturKontakt Austria's special exhibitions in 2008, the works of the Macedonian artist Irena Paskali will be presented.

Paskali, who became known in Europe and America thanks to her documentary films, studied science and then later art at the Academy of Fine Art in Skopje before concluding her studies at the Art University for Media in Cologne. Paskali works with the media of photography, film, video and installations. Her themes include the inner conflicts of cultures and religion as well as questions of identity and alienation: experiences which she made in her home country and which continue to occupy her abroad.

Private preview: Tuesday 15. 01. 2008, 7.00pm
Duration of the exhibition: 16. 01. – 29. 02. 2008
Mo–Fr 2 p.m. - 6 p.m. at Galerie ArtPoint, Universitätsstraße 5, 1010
Vienna A project of KulturKontakt Austria

In her series Urban Landscape, 2006, she uses photography and film to portray the change of her surroundings caused by her move to Germany. In a new country and in a new landscape, she attempts to decipher the rules behind her new everyday life, and to understand them. As a pattern for this series, she used an urban topography which she divides into horizontal and vertical.
In her works, she connects formal, linear-geometrical structures with the history, the architecture or with her personal relationship to the respective place.
These are captured in large-format panoramic photographs and then processed with rhythmical changes and distortion of the forms and colours until they are (almost) unrecognisable. In their simple perfection, through her simple technical interventions, Paskali obtains abstract shapes which recall the photographic experiments carried out by Bauhaus artists.
The video ‘U-Bahn’, 2005, reflects her perception of reality and everyday life in a foreign land and a foreign culture. The repetition of the pictures, the sounds and the movement in the Cologne underground become metaphors for everyday situations which constantly repeat themselves, and also for the almost obsessive solitude of the artist in a strange environment, and her attempt to tap into it. “I have to travel with the underground every day. I was obsessed with this type of ‘travelling’. I took my camera and started spin-shooting. The camera was running near to my body. I didn’t control the camera, I was just shooting. The first chance to see what I had done was later on at home. (...) What are they talking about? Does it concern me? Should I feel threatened?”

Irena Paskali – a short biography
Born 1969 in Ohrid, Macedonia Studied painting at the Academy of Fine Art and at the Academy of Sciences in Skopje, Macedonia and at the Cologne Academy of Art. Lives and works in Skopje and Cologne.

Individual exhibitions (selection):
2007 “Urban Landscape” at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris “Salty Drops”, installation, Mülheim an der Ruhr Water Museum, Germany “Irena Paskali”, Kunsthaus Nuremberg, Germany “Moving in the City” with Imren Tüzün, Antalya Culture & Arts Foundation, Antalya, Turkey “Urban Landscapes”, photographs, Cité des Arts Paris 2006 “Urban Landscapes,” Mala Stanica, National Gallery of Macedonia, Skopje 2004 “Videoworks 1999-2004”, Culture Location, Tocka, Skopje, Stip, Macedonia 2003 “For our own good”, Alternativni Centre Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina 2002 “On the way to/from Macedonia”, “House of ARM”, Skopje, Macedonia 2001 “Between”, performance, Weimar Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany

Group exhibitions (selection):
2007 “Prima Eroica”, Prima Center Berlin “Open Space”, Society for Topical Art Bremen e.v, Split, Croatia, “Woman at the crossroads of ideologies” Bremen, Germany 2006 “Too Much Freedom?”, Freewaves, 10th Biennial Festival of Film and Video, Los Angeles, USA 2005 “artFOG”, Anna Nordlander Selleftea Museum, Sweden “Aspects of Contemporary Balkan Photography”, Photography Centre Thessaloniki, Greece “Art in the Age of New Technology”, Yerevan Centre for Contemporary Experimental Art, Armenia “Euroscreen 21 Projects”, Wesel City Museum, Germany 2004 “Art Links 2004 - Bread and Salt”, Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, California, USA “ARTIADE 2004 Olympic Visual Art”, Exhibition Hall, Athens “E-W-N-S Festival of Visual Art”, Katowice, Poland 2003 “Idea-theque”, documents on conceptual discourse in Macedonia, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Arts, Macedonia “We are the Weather”, 2nd Biennial of Women Artists from the Balkan Countries, National Gallery for Foreign Art, Sofia, Bulgaria 6th Youth Biennial, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia “Last East European Show”, Museum for Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia/Montenegro “Denes Young Visual Artist Annual Awards”, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia 2002 “Big Framing”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia “Face- Identity 2002 Mirror of the Balkans”, National Museum Gallery Kraljevo, Serbia “Transformations 2” Modalities of Macedonian Modern and Contemporary Sculpture, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia 2001 “Regards Projetes”- Festival d’art Video -Auditorium du Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France “9e Biennale de L´Image en Mouvement”, Saint-Gervais, Geneva World Video Festival, Switzerland 5th Youth Biennial, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia 2000 “Root, Water, Nest, Bird”, Performance of the Macedonian - American Group of Authors, MOBIUS, Boston, USA

Grants:
2007 Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris 2004 Artist in Residence “Kulturlabor Stromboli Hall”, Tyrol, Austria 2001 Participant in the “7th European Studio Programme”, ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany

Awards:
2006 “Uggacchanta”, International University of Bremen (Jacobs University); 3rd prize, Bremen, Germany 2004 “Antalya Short Film Festival”, Antalya Golden Orange Best Documentary Award, Antalya, Turkey 3rd prize, Halloween Film Festival, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 2002 1st prize for “Experimental Film” at the 32nd State Festival (non-professional film) Kicevo, Macedonia 1st prize at the 6th Youth Biennial, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia 2001 “Di-Da Web Gipuzkoa”, Spain

www.irenapaskali.com

KulturKontakt Austria sponsors artists from Eastern and South Eastern Europe with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, the Arts and Culture.