Avesta Art 2010 - Verket

Rendezvous
As long as Man has been Man, he has chosen to
express himself artistically Pictorial art takes over
where words fail – speak across millennia and all
boundaries Art creates meetings in a variety of
ways – between people, between cultures, between
materials, between reality and imagination,
At Avesta Art 2010 the meetings are many Here
there is a dialogue between contemporary art and
the magnificence of the ironworks with its mighty
ovens, rusty iron girders and shimmering slag-stone
walls Here art talks to young and old, to novices
and aficionados, to domestic and foreign visitors
The conditions have been created here for dialogue
and debate about art and through art
Six of this year’s thirteen artists come from
Cyprus who all belong to the pan-Cypriot network
Artists & Artists They are Greek and Turkish
Cypriots, colleagues on this Mediterranean island
that has for thousands of years been a meeting
place for people from different parts of the world
and different cultures – a veritable melting pot
Today they have to live separate lives on a divided
Cyprus Formally the island has been one country
since 1960 but internal strife broke out in 1963 and
the year after the UN peace force arrived including
many Swedish soldiers After a major conflict in
1974 a boundary line was drawn, a buffer zone,
monitored by the UN that would separate the
Greek and Turkish parts of the island In their own
native country meetings between the artists are not
obvious In 1999, on another island, Gotland in the
Baltic, these Cypriot artists met for first time in the
flesh There they started a joint effort which has,
despite all the barriers, continued since The meeting
was organised by the Swedish Joint Committee for
Artistic and Literary Professionals In the Gotland
Declaration on tolerance and cooperation, the
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artists especially thanked Peter Curman, the then
chairman of the Committee, who was the driving
force behind the event Eleven years later they
join the same exhibition in Avesta Culture knows
no boundaries Avesta Art’s cooperation with the
Cypriot artists has been made possible thanks to the
help of Peter Curman and the Swedish Ambassador
to Cyprus Ingemar Lindahl
Rendezvous is Avesta Art’s theme for 2010 It
has – like art – many dimensions The meeting can
be tête-à-tête with the joy of discovery; it can be
large and open to all The common feature is both
seriousness and light-heartedness Whatever, the
meeting is certain to be magic!