Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Rana Begum and Kimsooja to Wanås Konst in 2020
The Wanås Foundation announces the summer 2020 program with three parallel presentations featuring internationally-acclaimed artists Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Rana Begum, and Kimsooja, with vernissage on May 10, 2020. With the artists’ projects in both the landscape and the buildings, the sculpture park Wanås Konst will offer a season that is both focused and monumental. The Art Gallery opens on February 29 with the spring exhibition, and the spring and summer seasons will offer several presentations of dance and choreography. In September, the fall exhibition will open in the Art Gallery. More information about the program will be released during the winter and summer of 2020.
Artist Kimsooja, photographed at EMST, Athens, 2016. Photo: Giannis Vastardis.
Exhibitions that focus on the meditative, the participatory, and the natural world
Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Rana Begum, and Kimsooja will all create new works for their presentations at Wanås Konst. The sculpture park focuses on site-specific artworks and over the fall and winter, the work with the artists’ ideas has intensified, including how and where the new artworks will be realized both inside and outside. Elisabeth Millqvist, artistic director, describes the coming year:
In 2020, we are presenting artists with whom Wanås Konst has wanted to work for a long time; they enhance the meditative experience of nature and combine it with making; working beyond the object of art, they invite visitors to come close, to touch.
Color and geometric patterns are recurring themes in Rana Begum’s art, and she is fascinated by how light changes the experience of the artwork. Change will also be a central concept to both Kimsooja and Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, who are presenting artworks that will grow, expand, and be built during the exhibition period along with the help of the sculpture park’s visitors. This exhibition marks the first time Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan are presenting their work in Sweden.
Artist duo Isabel (b. 1965, the Philippines) & Alfredo Aquilizan (b. 1962, the Philippines) use the experience of leaving behind their homeland of the Philippines for Australia in their art – they continually return to themes such as traveling, home, belonging, and migration. They often work with others to realize their artworks and to create dialogue and local engagement. The artist duo describes their work: Our artistic practice is anchored in the idea of co-creation and collaboration, with projects that involve and engage as well as create relationships through sharing experiences.
This will be the first presentation of these artists in Sweden; they have previously participated in several leading art Biennials such as the Sharjah Biennial (2013), Sydney Biennale (2006), and Venice Biennale (2003).
Kimsooja (b. South Korea, 1957) creates installations that are both colorful and meditative. She often returns to women’s work and handicrafts and to textiles in her artworks. She establishes parallels between the body and the needle as a metaphor for how we move through the world and connect geographies and cultures throughout our lives. She describes her practise:
I’d like to make works that are like water and air, that cannot be owned but can be shared by everyone.
In 2006, at Magasin III in Stockholm, Sweden, she presented a comprehensive exhibition and displayed works with the cloth bundles of traditional Korean bottari, which she has used and explored for 25 years, and poetic, performative video works. In 2013, she represented South Korea at the Venice Biennale, and she has collaborated on exhibitions at the world’s leading art institutions. Kimsooja’s work can currently be experienced in the project Traversées in Poitiers as well as at the Peabody Essex Museum and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. At the 55th
Venice Biennial in 2013, Kimsooja represented the Korean Pavilion. Furthermore, her works have been exhibited at the 5th Istanbul Biennale (1997), São Paulo (1998) and Venice (1999, 2001, 2005, 2007). She lives in New York, Paris, and Seoul. Read more at http://www.kimsooja.com/.
Rana Begum (b. Bangladesh, 1977) has lived in London since she was 7 years old, but in her artworks, the childhood experiences of nature and Islamic ornamentation are recurring themes as well as influence by geometric abstraction of minimalism and constructivism. She works in abstract and sculptural terms with color and form as her starting point; she is interested in how natural light changes work throughout the day and says: I want the work to have some kind of movement whether it’s in the material or in people physically moving around the work.
Rana Begum has a degree in painting from the Slade School of Fine Art in London (2002). She accepted the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2017 and has collaborated on several group exhibitions at leading museums, TATE St. Ives in 2018, and showed an acclaimed work at Frieze Sculpture Park in 2018. Read more at https://www.ranabegum.com/.
Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Rana Begum, Kimsooja
Curators: Elisabeth Millqvist & Mattias Givell
Exhibition Period: May 10-November 1, 2020
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Current Exhibitions 2019 Wanås Konst – the Wanås Foundation
Kyung-Jin Cho
Curator: Elisabeth Millqvist
Exhibition period: September 28 – December 22, 2019
Wanås Konst Art Gallery
Upcoming Exhibitions 2020 Wanås Konst – the Wanås Foundation
Spring
Spring Exhibition (Program announced January 2020)
Opening Saturday February 29, 2020
Exhibition period: Februari 29 – April, 2020
Wanås Konst Art Gallery
Summer
Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Rana Begum, Kimsooja
Curator: Elisabeth Millqvist & Mattias GivellExhibition Period: May 10-November 1, 2020
Fall
Fall Exhibition (Program announced Summer 2020)
Exhibition Period: September – December, 2020
More information about the program to be announced spring and summer 2020.
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Visit Wanås
Wanås Konst – The Wanås Foundation, Wanås, SE-289 90 Knislinge, Sweden
Wanås Konst – The sculpture park with the collection is open daily 10am – 5pm all year round.
Wanås Konst – Art Gallery, Shop & Deli 2019 November Thu – Sun, December Fri – Sun 11am – 4pm.
Wanås Konst – Art Gallery, Shop & Deli 2020 the Art Gallery re-opens February 29.
For more information please see the website www.wanaskonst.se
Wanås Restaurant Hotel – please see website www.wanasrh.se
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For questions and further information, please contact:
Sofia Bertilsson, 46 (0)733 86 68 20, press@wanaskonst.se
Web: www.wanaskonst.se
Newsroom: http://news.cision.com/wanas-konst (download high resolution images)
Wanås Konst – Center for Art & Learning, presents and communicates contemporary art that challenges and redefines society, working outside in the landscape around Wanås in Skåne, southern Sweden. The permanent collection in the sculpture park is complemented with a program of temporary exhibitions, both outdoors and in the Art Gallery, and events such as guided tours, artists’ talks, performances and workshops engaging a wide audience. Wanås Konst produces site-specific international art and learning in an innovative and accessible way.
The collection in the sculpture park has 70 permanent works, created specifically for The Wanås Foundation – Wanås Konst by artists such as Igshaan Adams, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, William Forsythe, Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono and Robert Wilson et al. Since 1987 more than 300 artists have taken part in exhibitions. The sculpture park covers 40 ha and is explored on foot. A visit including the current program, the Art Gallery and the collection takes from 2,5 h to 4h. Additional special walks and activities are available depending on program and season. The sculpture park has approximately 80 000 visitors per year and 12 000 children take part in educational activities.
Wanås Konst is run by The Wanås Foundation, a non-profit foundation created in 1994, in Östra Göinge municipality, in the South of Sweden, 1.5 h from Copenhagen, Denmark. Founding Director Marika Wachtmeister initiated the art projects at Wanås in 1987. Since 2011 the foundation is led by Elisabeth Millqvist and Mattias Givell. Wanås Konst is part supported by state, regional and municipal funding, part self financed, as well as supported by private foundations and sponsors. Read more on the website www.wanaskonst.se
Wanås is a place in the world where art, nature and history meet. At Wanås the sculpture park Wanås Konst, Wanås Restaurant Hotel and Wanås Estate coexist and a private 15thcentury castle is also found on site. Wanås Konst is part of European Land + Art Network (ELAN) and Wanås is a Long Run Destination – a leader in sustainable development within the tourism industry, community development and cultural management. More information on the website www.wanas.se
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