For the first time ever, contemporary art will be on display in Central Park. The Public Art Fund, with cooperation from the Whitney Museum of American Art on the occasion of the 2002 Whitney Biennale, has organized an exhibition of the works of five artists. The five artists were selected by Larry Rinder, Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney, and Tom Eccles, director of the Public Art Fund. Keith Edmier presents his work, Emil Dobblestein and Henry Drope, 1944, in the Doris C. Freedman Plaza, while twenty bronze sculptures by Kiki Smith, entitled Sirens and Harpies, will appear near the entrance to the Wildlife Center of Central Park. Leaping Frog Café, inside the Wildlife Center’s gates, will be the site of an installation by Kim Sooja, while the work of Roxy Paine will be on display near the Mall. Brian Tolle has installed a work entitled Waylay under the Bow Bridge.
www.whitney.org, www.publicartfund.org

On February 23, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) celebrates its fortieth anniversary with Shine, a cocktail party and contemporary art exhibition dedicated to new media. At the party, members of the Honorary Committee of the International Association of Artists announces a new series of commissions and events. This group includes personalities such as Christian Boltanski, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Agnes Denes, Mark Di Suvero, Jim Dine, Leon Golub, Al Held, Dennis Hopper, Alfredo Jaar, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol Le Witt, Brice Marden, Malcolm Morley, Robert Moskowitz, Elizabeth Murray, Robert Rauschenberg, Susan Rothenberg, Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, and Frank Stella. The theme of Shine is organized around two different projects. The first was a series of limited edition prints, presented by Jay Davis, Monique Prieto, Alexis Rockman, and Lisa Ruyter. The second is www.shine02.org, an installation of multimedia works curated by Simon Watson of Downtown Arts that contains works by Shu Lea Cheang, Nancy Davenport, FISCHERSPOONER, Jeff Gompertz (from Fakeshop), Hexstatic, Danny Hobart, Kristin Lucas, Netomat, Gary Simmons, Sol’Sax, Mark Tribe (from Rhizome), and Leo Villareal.

Through the end of March the Spanish Espai d’Art Contemporani will mount a show entitled Asianvibe, Asian Contemporary Art, curated by Hou Hanrou. The show emphasizes the importance of contemporary Asian art and its influence throughout the international art world. Artists such as Yiso Bahc (South Korea), Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (South Korea), Sara Kim/Gimhongsok (South Korea), Surasi Kusolwong (Thailand), Michael Lin (Taiwan), Matthew Ngui (Singapore), Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Japan), Videotage (Hong Kong), Zheng Guogu (China), and Zhu Jia (China) have been invited.
Espai d’Art Contemporani, Carrer Prim, S/N, Castelló, tel +34.964.723.540

In January the French daily “France Soir” reported that the celebrated Canadian director David Cronenberg has begun shooting his new film, Painkillers. The film is said to be inspired by the French artist Orlan and L’Art Charnel, her manifesto on body art written at the end of the ’70s, The cast reportedly includes Nicolas Cage and Orlan herself in the role of an actress.

The theme of the 2002 European Media Art Festival, running from January 24 through April 28, is new images—new stories—art in modern media. An exhibition of works by young international artists will be on display through May 20.
European Media Art Festival, P.O. Box 1861, Lohstrasse 45 A, Osnabrück, tel. +49.541.2.16 58, www.emaf.de

Through March 10 the Institute for Contemporary Arts presents an exhibition of the works of London’s own L.A. Raeven, identical twins born in 1971 in Heerlen, the Netherlands. Individually they have worked with the photographers Philip-Loca diCorcia, Nan Goldin, Orlan, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Defining themselves as “aesthetic terrorists,” their careers are linked both to the world of fashion and the techniques of marketing. They will be screening their video Wild Zone 1 (2001), a diptych of video projections comprising the images of two sisters with pale faces, black hair, and eyes caked with mascara. Also on display will be their video Wild Zone 2, filmed in February at the ICA. The museum simultaneously offers the Swedish artist Annika Larsson’s video DOG, which won the Baloise Art Prize last year, and her most recent video work, Polisi, shot last November in Helsinski’s Senate Square. From May 23 through July 14, the exhibition schedule continues with exhibitions by Frances Stark and Jeroen De Rijke/Willem De Rooij.
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London, www.ica.org.uk

Through March 24 the Centre pour l’image contemporaine Saint-Gervais hosts an exhibit by the young Dutch artist Shahryar Nashat. The show consists of two video projects, one an enormous projection and another viewed on a television monitor. The disturbing themes of the work, as voiced by the protagonists of the works, are the impossibility of remembering and the necessity of starting each day over again. The Swiss institution concurrently mounts the Swiss artist Alan Humerose’s Suites, the first part of which was exhibited in Geneva last summer.
Centre pour l’image contemporaine Saint-Gervais Genève, 5 Rue du Temple, Geneva, tel. +41.22.908.20.60, www.sgg.ch

Through February 24 the Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center presents Making Nature, curated by Dieter Buchhart, Petra Schröck, and Anna Karina Hofbauer. For this show addressing the relationship between art and nature, the exhibition space has been transformed into a kind of artificial paradise. Participating artists include Volker Andresen (Denmark), Raphael Barth (Denmark), Dieter Buchhart (Australia), Mark Dion (United States), Gloria Friedmann (Denmark/France), Henrik Håkansson (Sweden), Aleksandar Battista Ilic (Croatia), Toni Kay (Australia/Great Britain), Victorine Müller (Switzerland), N55 (Denmark), Olaf Nicolai (Denmark), Kristin Reynisdottir (Iceland), Igor Sacharow-Ross (Denmark), Wilhelm Scherübl (Australia), Günther & Loredana Selichar (Australia), Diana Thater (United States), Mike Tyler (United States), and Lois Weinberger (Australia).
Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Nikolaj Plads, Copenhagen, tel. +45.33.93.16.26, www.nikolaj-ccac.dk

Through March 17 the Former Museum of Mankind in London presents Steenbeckett, an installation by the film director Atom Egoyan. Commissioned and produced by Artangel, with support from the Royal Academy of Arts, the installation enacts a journey through a personal history by means of a labyrinth of empty corridors. Situated in the hall of a former ethnographic museum, Steenbeckett is an abandoned, obsolete machine made of film canisters, accompanied by an audio voiceover.
Former Museum of Mankind, Burlington Gardens, London, www.artangel.org.uk

Tate Liverpool is mounting two new exhibitions exploring contemporary British art and music. Through April 21 the museum hosts a solo show of the artist Marc Quinn, and from May 24 through August 26 it will present the exhibition Remix: Contemporary Art and Pop Music. Famous for its pop music, Liverpool is an apt venue for a show illustrating the numerous connections between contemporary visual arts, music, cinema, and video. The concept of “remix” originated in the late ’70s, when King Tubby and Lee Perry began to experiment with Dub music in Kingston, Jamaica. Other invited artists include Rineke Dijkstra, Chris Ofili, Gillian Wearing, Gary Hume, Fiona Banner, Gavin Turk, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Andrea Bowers.
Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool, tel. +44.151.702.7400, www.tate.org.uk