Maja and Reuben Fowkes

Maja and Reuben Fowkes are curators and art historians whose work focuses on the theory and aesthetics of East European art from the art production of the socialist era to contemporary artistic responses to the transformations brought by globalisation. Their interests in the field of art and ecology are expressed through their curated exhibitions, symposia, as well as writings, which have explored key notions and practices around green curating, environmental art history and the sustainability of contemporary art. In 2013 they founded the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, a centre for transnational research into East European art and ecology based in Budapest that operates across the disciplinary boundaries of art history, contemporary art and ecological thought. Translocal.org

They are members of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) and the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). In 2010 their activities were recognised with a grant from the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory

Art and ecology

They have contributed significantly to the development of recent thinking on sustainability and contemporary art, through their published writings, curated exhibitions and organisation of conferences. Since 2006 they have organised an annual Symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art at Central European University Budapest,.[1] An interview with Maja and Reuben Fowkes about their work on issues of sustainability and contemporary art was published in summer 2009 in Antennae Journal [2] They have lectured widely on art and ecology including at Modern Art Oxford, Barbican Gallery and Aarhus Kunstbygning, their publications include Reclaim Happiness: Art and Ecology Unbound in Artecontexto (summer 2010), 'Ecology and Ideology: In Search of an Antidote in Contemporary Art' in Verge (2010), and 'Art and Sustainability' in Enough for All Forever (2012).[3]

Their contribution to the edited volume Curating Subjects III – Curating Research (London and Amsterdam, Open Editions and de Appel, 2014) was a chapter on ‘Renewing the Curatorial Refrain: Sustainable Research in Contemporary Art.’

Their River School project between 2013 and 2015 brought together artists, writers, environmental historians and anthropologists for a series of symposiums, exhibitions and excursions into wilderness.[4]

At Translocal Institute they run a reading group on Art in the Age of the Anthropocene through the Experimental Reading Room. http://translocal.org/readingroom/index.html

East European art

A major focus of their work is on researching contemporary East European art. Since 2006 they have organised the SocialEast Forum on the Art and Visual Culture of Eastern Europe to examines how 'a revised understanding of the achievements and circumstances of East European art impact on global interpretations of art history'. This has involved holding SocialEast Seminars at the Ludwig Museum Budapest, Manchester Art Gallery, Jagiellonian University Kraków, Mimara Museum Zagreb and Courtauld Institute London.

Their publications on East European art include From Post-Communism to Post-Transition: Art in Eastern Europe in The Art Book (February 2009) and a special issue of Third Text Third Text on Socialist Eastern Europe.[5] Texts dealing with the legacy of Socialist Realism include You Only Live Twice: the Strange Afterlife of Socialist Realist Sculpture[6]

Their article 'Green Critique in a Red Environment: East European Art and Ecology under Socialism,' appeared in Art Margins Journal (June 2014), while a parallel special issue of Art Margins online featured an interview with them on 'Politics, The Environment and Art across a Changing Political Landscape.' http://www.artmargins.com/index.php/politics-the-environment-and-art-across-a-changing-political-landscape-interview-with-maja-and-reuben-fowkes

Maja Fowkes is the author of The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism (2015).[7]

Exhibitions

Their curated exhibitions include Revolution is not a Garden Party, which dealt with the legacy of the 1956 Revolution for contemporary art and was held at Trafo Gallery Budapest, Norwich Gallery and Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb in 2006-7.[8] The second part of their revolution trilogy is Revolution I Love You: 1968 in Art, Politics and Philosophy which was shown at the Centre for Contemporary Art Thessaloniki in summer 2008, as well as Trafo Gallery Budapest and International Project Space Birmingham.[9] Revolutionary Decadence: Foreign Artists in Budapest since 1989 completed the trilogy and was shown at Kiscell Museum Budapest in November 2009.[10]

In 2010 and 2011 they curated the exhibition Loophole to Happiness that explored the freedom-enhancing loopholes that exist on the margins of social systems from East European communism to global capitalism, taking the inventive strategies of worker resistance under socialism as the starting point for contemporary attempts to imagine exceptions and find escape routes from today’s neo-liberal capitalist order. Held at Trafo Gallery Budapest, Museum Sztuki Lodz, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art Prague and AMT Project Bratislava, the exhibition also resulted in a samizdat publication.[11]

Their exhibition Like a Bird: Avian Ecologies in Contemporary Art examined complex questions around the changing human relationship to the natural world, the channelling of environmental awareness and its political dimensions and was shown at Trafo Gallery Budapest and Tranzit.ro in Bucharest in 2014.

The group show #underthestars at Knoll Gallery Vienna in 2014 was realised as part of Curated_By_Vienna and investigated ecological alternatives to the tragic figure of the immaterial worker who spends too much time in bed, replying to emails, creating social media clips, interacting virtually, but not going anywhere.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Praesens: Contemporary Central European Art Review 1/2006
  2. ↑ Antennae Journal Nature in Visual Art
  3. ↑ Maja and Reuben Fowkes, 'Art and Sustainability' in Enough for All Forever: A Handbook for Learning about Sustainability, eds Joy Morray, et al. (Common Ground:Champaign, Illinois, 2012)
  4. ↑ Maja and Reuben Fowkes, eds., River Ecologies: Contemporary Art and Environmental Humanities on the Danube (Budapest: Translocal Institute, 2015)
  5. ↑ Third Text Special issue on Socialist Eastern Europe, edited by Reuben Fowkes, Issue 96, March 2009
  6. ↑ Matter and History (Bucharest, 2011)
  7. ↑ Maja Fowkes, The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism (New York / Budapest: Central European Press, 2015
  8. ↑ Revolution is not a Garden Party, ed. Maja and Reuben Fowkes (MIRIAD Manchester Metropolitan University, 2007)
  9. ↑ Revolution I Love You: 1968 in Art Politics and Philosophy(Manchester Metropolitan University, 2008)
  10. ↑ Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Revolutionary Decadence: Foreign Artists in Budapest since 1989 (Manchester Metropolitan University and Museum Kiscell, 2009)
  11. ↑ Maja and Reuben Fowkes, ed, Loophole to Happiness (Translocal.org, 2011) ISBN 978-963-08-2491-0
  12. ↑ http://curatedby.at/en/curators-2014-details/items/knoll-galerie-wien.html

External links

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