3rd Ars Baltica Triennial
of Photographic Art



Stadtgalerie Kiel,
April 12th - June 1st 2003


Artists in the exhibition: Knut Asdam (N), Bigert & Bergström (S), Agnies-
zka Brzezanska (PL), Aristarkh Chernyshev (RU), Oskar Dawicki (PL),
Miklos Gal (FIN), Ilkka Halso (FIN), Isabell Heimerdinger (D), Elsebeth Jor-
gensen (DK), Anne Szefer Karlsen (N), Eve Kask (EE), Joachim Koester
(DK), Tatyana Liberman (RU), Wiebke Loeper (D), Wolfgang Ploeger (D),
Arturas Raila (LT), Gatis Rozenfelds (LV), Johanna Rylander (S), Jari
Silomaeki (FIN), Florian Slotawa (D), Irma Stanaityte (LT)

Curatorial team: Dorothee Bienert, Berlin; Lars Grambye, Copenhagen;
Lolita Jablonskiene, Vilnius

Exhibition Ars Baltica is a forum for the cross-border cultural exchange
in the Baltic area. Working with the question and title »What is Important?«,
the curatorial team of the 3rd Ars Baltic Triennial of Photographic Art aims
to deepen the critical dialogue on art and photography between artists,
curators and institutions in the region.

The structural content of the project begins by looking at what is import-
ant today for Baltic artists who use the photographic medium. Etymologi-
cally, »important« is that which is valuable enough to be »brought in«, in
other words, that which the individual or a community searches out and
selects for itself.

What is Important? Is not a thematic exhibition, but the works chosen do
relate a certain artistic attitude. While many artists were concerned with
establishing photography as art in the 90s, today, art with photography
is one of many artistic strategies. Artists avoid the single representative
image or play with it, include the performative and the narrative in their
work, and produce image kaleidoscopes or complexes. Photography is
not singled out as a specific medium, but is used by the artist, as others
use it. In other words, formal issues are less important than the artist's
attempt to extract segments of reality, import and appropriate them, and
communicate these to others.

Paradoxically enough, the artists in this exhibition combine an interest in
the apparently unimportant and the desire to evoke important narratives.
The most different forms of narrative in today's Baltic photographic art
are established around the following points of crystallization. On the one
hand, there are the stories that deal with the self, or where the public
colliding with the private becomes an issue, and in which subjective ex-
perience and playful narratives replace the focus on the body typical of
the 80s and 90s. On the other hand are the stories in which locations
around and beyond the self are a central issue, and where the subjec-
tive importance of places supersedes the detached viewpoint on sites,
characteristic of the early 90s. Concentrating on the local, the private,
and the personal point of view, the artists attribute particular importance
to individual territories, not yet absorbed globally or medially.

Catalogue: A catalogue with 160 pages and approx. 150 illustrations is
being published, available at a price of Euro 17,50. The publication will
appear in English and is conceived as a discussion forum on art and
photography in the Baltic region, and is therefore designed as ring-book
that can be added to or altered during the exhibition tour. The catalogue
encloses text contributions by the artists and curators as well as by
Ekaterina Degot, Helena Demakova, Lukasz Gorczyca, Jonas Ekeberg,
Anders Härm & Hanno Soans, Mika Hannula, Lars Bang Larsen, John
Peter Nilsson, Jonas Valatkevicius and Jan Verwoert.

Next venue
June 22nd - July 27 2003
Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus
Schloss Plüschow, BRD

further venues
Bergen (N)
Vilnius (LT)
Riga (LV)
Tallinn (EE)
Pori (FIN)

For further information please contact

Ars Baltica Berlin Office
Dorothee Bienert
Freiligrathstr. 6
D-10967 Berlin
phone/fax: 030-694 25 05
e-mail: d.bienert@web.de

Stadtgalerie Kiel
Wolfgang Zeigerer
phone 0431-901-3411
fax: -901-63475
e-mail: stadtgalerie@LHStadt.kiel.de