Artists Beyond

On Tuesday 27 April, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst hosts an artist talk with Mark Boulos. The talk takes place within the framework of Artists Beyond, the prelude to the 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (11.6.–8.8.2010). The various events in the Artists Beyond program offer insights into artistic research and work and enable engagement with the creative process as well as an exchange between audience and artists at the sites of their production. On this occasion, Cosmin Costinaş, curator of BAK talks to Mark Boulos—who is exhibiting in the 6th Berlin Biennale—about his methodologies and principles of working and about the artist’s position in the complex contexts he chooses to address.

Mark Boulos is currently working on a multi-screen documentary video installation about the persistence of Communism beyond its oft-heralded death, and about the relationship between love, idealism, and rebellion. Boulos has just returned from the Philippines, where he filmed the guerrillas of the New People’s Army. The Maoist insurgency has been fighting there since 1969, but since 2001 has been labeled a “terrorist” group by the European Union and United States.

Mark Boulos, born 1975, lives and works in Amsterdam and London. He was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam in 2007. Boulos’s documentaries represent belief so devout that it becomes real; his films often focus on political militancy and religious ecstasy. Recent works include: All That is Solid Melts into Air , 2008; The Word Was God , 2006; andThe Gates of Damascus , 2005. His films have been shown at (selection): Morality, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2010; This Land Is Your Land, Center for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, 2009; Praxis, Biennale of Thessaloniki, 2009; Docking Station: Mark Boulos – All That Is Solid Melts into Air , Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2008; 16th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2008; Narrowcast, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, 2008; and If: people and places in recent film and video, Bloomberg Space, London, 2008.

This year the Berlin Biennale, organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation since 2004, takes place for the sixth time at numerous locations in Berlin. Between 11 June and 8 August 2010, the Berlin Biennale presents a wide range of artistic practices that pose questions about “the contemporary” and the relation that art holds to this very notion. Amongst other places, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the Alte Nationalgalerie, and the buildings at Oranienplatz 17 and Mehringdamm 28 function as exhibition venues. In addition, on the invitation of Kathrin Rhomberg, Biennale curator, art historian and art critic Michael Fried curates an exhibition presenting works of Adolph Menzel. Further information can be found at: www.berlinbiennale.de.

The Berlin Biennale is organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Artists Beyond has been funded with support from the European Commission.