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International İstanbul Biennial events continue to take place with '9B Talks - IV' with the participation of the French artist Michael Blum.
'Another History' The fourth lecture in the series of '9B Talks' realized within the 9th International İstanbul Biennial will take place on the 26th of March, Saturday at Institut français d'İstanbul with the participation of the French artist Michael Blum. The lecture titled 'Another History- Travelogues and Monuments' will start at 18:30 pm. The '9B Talks -IV', in which Michael Blum is going to speak about his art practice and previous projects as well as introducing his project for the İstanbul Biennial, will be free of charge and carried out with simultaneous translation. Michael Blum re-reads the production of culture and history in a critical and humorous way in his videos, publications and installations. In his presentation, Blum will introduce two TRAVELOGUE and two MONUMENT projects. The TRAVELOGUES are video works that explore different places through reviving old questions in contemporary situations with a strong local echo. The MONUMENTS bring together works that deal with history-writing, memory discourse and commemoration culture.
Blum will talk about two video works titled Wandering Marxwards (1999) and My Sneakers (2001) under the heading of Travelogues. Wandering Marxwards traces Blum's stay at a remote holiday resort in Western Canada to question the relevance of re-reading Marx's Capital 150 years after it had been written, oddly connecting Marxism and leisure, political issues and slapstick strategies - Karl Marx and Marks & Spencer. Two years later, for My Sneakers , he traveled his Nike sneakers back to where they came from - Indonesia, according to the tag - in search of their roots, despite the numberless obstacles between sneaker producers and consumers. Blum will then introduce two recent Monument projects. The first one titled 400 jaar zonder graf, dan heb je lang gezwegen (400 years without a grave is a long time to shut up) (2002) is a grave dedicated to Cornelius de Houtman, the Dutch navigator who 'discovered' Indonesia - and thus allowed the upcoming development of modern capitalism - and who totally vanished from Dutch official history and collective memory. Blum will also speak about his recent project Monument to the Birth of the 20th Century (2004-05) in which he ironically commemorates the common school year of Hitler and Wittgenstein in Linz ( Austria ) 100 years ago, exploring all speculations that might arise from their meeting. Eventually, Blum will introduce his 9B project devoted to the figure of Safiye Behar and the connection between private relationships and political decision-making in the establishment of modern Turkey in the 1920's. Michael Blum (born 1966) is a French artist based in Vienna and currently living in Chicago . After studying history at Paris University and photography at Ecole Nationale de la Photographie, Arles (F), he developed a body of work exhibited in solo and group exhibitions mainly in France, Netherlands, UK, Canada and Brazil . Michael Blum is also a writer of several publications such as Homo îconomicus, potlach.doc and a thesis in history titled 'Perception of Germany in France during the 18th century'. For more information about the artist, visit www.blumology.net.
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