May. 06 2008 - May. 18 2008

With works from all five continents, the sixth edition of LOOP transforms Barcelona into an enormous showcase for international videoart.

LOOP, which began with the aim of resolving the needs of the different agents involved in the world of videoart, has established itself as a platform and an annual meeting point for everyone who is directly or indirectly involved in the artistic processes of experimental and independent video.

The LOOP network, which has grown from 48 to 61 participating countries is set to reactivate in over 100 venues that range from institutions like the CCCB, the Fundació Miró and the Pavelló Mies van der Rohe to restaurants and small business, all exhibiting the latest in videoart. This year, LOOP will present the work of over 800 artists, including highlights such as Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Deimantas Narkevicius, Jia Zhang-Ke and Mark Wallinger, among others.

Festival LOOP (May 6 - 18)
The festival includes work from all five continents, and has made a qualitative leap thanks to the increased presence of curated programs, internationally acclaimed collections and 22 prestigious universities from 14 countries that have designed programs especially for LOOP.

Special highlights include the program "For Your Eyes Only", exhibited in the Fundació Suñol and curated by Hilde Teerlinck, with works recently acquired by the Frac Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque (France), which includes leading artists like Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania, 1964). A program from the Collecció Cal Cego d’Art Contemporani, curated by its artistic director Montse Badia, will also be presented especially for LOOP.

The festival will also exclusively show the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin at the Fundació Joan Miró. The program curated by its director Enrique Juncosa includes work by the prestigious video artist Willie Doherty (Derry, Ireland, 1959), among others.

The Fundació Mies van der Rohe will show “Shenzhen–The Twin Cities / Hong Kong–The Twin Cities City of Expiration and Regeneration”, two documentaries by the Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke (Shanxi, 1970), who was the recipient of the Golden Lion award at the 2006 Venice International Film Festival.

LOOP'08, together with the Instituto Cervantes, will present the vision:a in Spain for the first time. This program is an exhibition of works by twelve Spanish and Latin American video artists that has been shown in various Instituto Cervantes centres around the world.

And for the first time in Barcelona, the Casablanca-Kaplan cinemas will present “Cinematic Works”, the title given to a compilation of the most acclaimed video installations by the prestigious Finnish video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

LOOP Diverse
To coincide with the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the Festival will present the LOOP DIVERSE program. Restaurants, hairdressers, and all kinds of businesses run by Barcelona’s communities of foreigners, will become cultural embassies by showing videoart created in their home countries. The communities participating in this edition will be: Argentinean, Bolivian, Brazilian, Chilean, Chinese, Columbian, Dominican, Ecuadorian, English French, German, Italian, Moroccan, Pakistani, Peruvian, and Filipino.

LOOP FAIR’08 (May 8 – 10)
The videoart Fair, which will be held at the Hotel Catalonia Ramblas de Barcelona, will present over 40 highly prestigious international galleries. In keeping with the traditional LOOP Fair structure, each gallery will have one of the hotel’s rooms in which to present a video and artist of their choice to professionals and the general public.

Some of the leading galleries participating in LOOP'08 for the first time include Jocelyn Wolff and Gb Agency (Paris, France) and Mummery + Schnelle (London, UK). The high level of international participation is confirmed by the presence of prestigious galleries from 14 different countries and the 29 nationalities of their 44 participating artists.

Talks and Media Lounge
Under the title “The Frontiers of Videoart”, the talks and round tables in this edition will discuss the limits between videoart and electronic art. For this purpose, LOOP has invited experts such as Barbara London (MoMA, New York), Pip Laurenson (Tate Modern, London), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Gallery, London), Christopher Eamon (Kramlich Collection, San Francisco), Erich Berger (LABoral, Gijón) and Caroline Bourgeois (Frac Ile de France), among others.

The Hotel Catalonia Ramblas will also host a new space called the Media Lounge on May 8 and 9 that will be open to the public, and bring together leading video distributors, specialist magazines, Internet platforms, universities and videoart festivals from around the world.

LOOP’08 Press Department:
Rosa Raduà & Estefania R. Tozzi: press@loop-barcelona.com
T. 93 215 52 60 // http://www.loop-barcelona.com
http://www.youtube.com/LOOPFESTIVAL
Images: http://www.loop-videoart.com/press