Salina Art Center

The Storyteller

October 23, 2009 – January 3, 2010  

Opening Reception
Thursday, October 22, 5:00 – 7:00 pm

Salina, Kansas– The Salina Art Center announces the opening of The Storyteller, on view in the galleries October 23, 2009 – January 3, 2010. The opening reception of The Storyteller takes place Thursday, October 22, from 5:00 – 7:00 pm, at the Salina Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe, and is FREE and open to the public.

Responding to the rapid, often violent transformations of the twenty-first century, contemporary artists have displayed a growing desire to activate art’s documentary capacity: its ability to bear witness to events in the world. The Storyteller focuses on artists who use the story form as a means of comprehending and conveying political and social events. For them, the story functions neither as a purely imagined narrative nor as a piece of verifiable information. It is at once temporal and personal, public and communal, persisting through the listener’s interpretive process and through each subsequent retelling.

Working in video, photography, drawing, mixed media, and installation, the international group of artists in The Storyteller neither takes the idea of documentary truth as an object of critique nor abandons fact for fabulation. Rather, they enable individuals—whether themselves, their subjects, or their audience—to construct the story of their unique participation in historical processes, thereby presenting these events in a new and unexpected light.

Participating Artists:  Cao Fei, Jeremy Deller and Mike Figgis, Omer Fast, Mounir Fatmi, Ryan Gander , Lamia Joreige, Joachim Koester, Emanuel Licha, Missing Books (Maria Barnas, Maxine Kopsa, Germaine Kruip), Steve Mumford, Adrian Paci, Michael Rakowitz, Liisa Roberts, and Hito Steyerl

Related Programs:

In Dialogue:  Liisa Roberts and Christopher Cook
Friday, October 23, noon at the Salina Art Center

Storyteller artist Liisa Roberts and Art Center Executive Director Christopher Cook embark on a lively discussion about libraries, Alvar Aalto, and the time in Vyborg.

Lives Recorded
Thursday, November 5, 6:30 pm at the Salina Art Center

This live public event brings together community members to share life experiences through storytelling.  In conjunction with StoryCorps®, an oral history project, select stories will then be recorded and electronically archived at the Library of Congress.

Lie to Us
Thursday, November 19, 7:30 pm at the Warehouse, 149 S. 4th Street

Tonight is your opportunity to lie to us!  Emceed by Mayor Luci Larson and Josh Haskell, participants will try to fool a live audience by delivering their greatest feasible lie or unbelievable truth.  Cash bar provided by Martinelli’s.

Cocktail Conversations:  Michael Rakowitz
Thursday, December 10, 5:30 to 6:30 pm at the Salina Art Center

Join us for libations and lively discussion about the exhibition with special visiting artist Michael Rakowitz.

The Storytelleris a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York. Guest curators for the exhibition are Claire Gilman and Margaret Sundell. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; iCI Benefactors Agnes Gund, Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, and Barbara and John Robinson; the iCI Partners and iCI Advocates.
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For more information regarding The Storyteller or any of the related programs visit http://www.salinaartcenter.org ( http://www.salinaartcenter.org/ ) or call the Salina Art Center at 785.827.1431.  The Salina Art Center galleries are open Wednesday through Saturday from noon – 5:00 pm, and Sunday from 1:00 – 5:00 pm.  Business office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.