INTERNATIONAL SHORTS PREVIEW.

IMPURE THOUGTS

Make way, make way for the Impure Conceptualists. It's tempting to attach that label--origina1ly applied to the work of artist-musician Stephen Prina--to a whole slew of younger artists with shows scheduled early in 2000. At the Kunstverein Braunschweig. (Jan. 29-Mar. 26), mixed-media all-arounder Cosima von Bonin will reprise her role as artist-animateur, staging both collaborative music events and site-specific installations that recognize the viewer's role in the construction and completion of the work. Scandinavian artists Elmgreen and Dragset, whose recent operations on the border-lines of art and the space of real life have incl4ded the construction of a cozy refuge for society's outcasts in a New York gallery, will show at the Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst in Leipzig (Feb. 6-Mar. 26). At MAC Barcelona (Mar. 23-May 28), the activities of Catalan artist and Mondrian enthusiast Pep Agut, delicately balanced between formal investigation and the excavation of signifying practices, will be represented by a "false retrospective" of recent work. And Stephen Prina himself will be showing at the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Mar. 17-Apr. 30). "To the People of Frankfurt am Main: At Least Three Types of Inaccessibility," Prina's biggest European exhibition to date, will focus on the ideas of the Frankfurt School; a reconstruction of Adorno's workplace and a collaboration with contemporary music group Ensemble Moderne are rumored to be in the pipeline.

Conceptualism and landscape art collide in the work of rainbow-maker Olafur Eliasson, who will create a suite of four separate atmospheric environments in the galleries of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (Jan. 19-Apr. 30). "Scripted Spaces: The Chase and the Labyrinth," at Witte de With in Rotterdam (Feb. 26- Apr. 16), is likewise concerned with landscape--but don't come looking for Constable's Wivenhoe Park. Traditional distinctions between the real and the described or invented having been well and truly lost in the Post-Post-Post, the cultural practitioners participating in this exhibition propose to investigate such diverse "scripted spaces" as Lenotre's Versailles labyrinth, security-forces training sites, Dutch garden allotments, and the natural habitats of Daffy Duck and Screwy Squirrel. Contributors include Cal Arts professor Norman Klein and the California experimental group The Center for Land Use Interpretation, plus artists Nasrin Tabatabai (Iran) and Lara Almarcegui (Spain).

MILLENNIUM BUGGING

Here at the London offices of the Green Maoist Pro-Livingstone Alliance--go Ken!--little energy is being wasted on the trivial fact of a two and three zeros showing up on the new year's calendar. However, millennium bugs are biting hard in various European venues. In Essen (Feb. 13-Apr. 9), the Museum Folkwang's show "Catastrophes and Disasters--The Century at Its End" will offer a damning overview of the twentieth century's achievements. Works featured include Lucinda Devlin's photos of the US judicial system's killing devices (from the electric chair to lethal injection), and weapons from Gregory Green's nuclear armory. Utopia's history will be charted at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Apr; 4-July 9). A survey show of assorted paintings, photos, drawings, manuscripts, and architectural documentation, "Utopia" will, implausibly, relocate to Manhattan in the fall (New York Public Library, Oct. 14, 2000-Jan. 27, 2001). Between February 21 and May 30, the Salzburger Kunstverein's event "100 Days, No Exhibit ion" will take the idea of utopia quite literally. In "no place" in the gallery will art be shown: Instead, an ambitious program of talks and discussions will thresh out ideas about art's role in the twenty-first century. The Magasin, Grenoble, will be going "glocal" with its show "Micropolitiques" (Feb. 6-Apr. 30). An open-ended investigation of cultural-political tactics, "Micropolitiques" will include work by Daniel Buren, Joseph Beuys, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jimmie Durham, and others.

QUALITY BURGERS

My friend Fairy Tinkerbell tells me that each time someone claims that the class system doesn't exist, a member of the bourgeoisie lies down and dies. The Galleria Givica Modena would never risk such calumny. Spread across two city venues, its show "The Bourgeois Hero: Themes and Artists from Schiele to Warhol" (Apr. 8--July 16) will explore the changing face of the twentieth-century middle classes. Emphasizing painting, the show features artists ranging from Medardo Rosso to Alex Katz, Oskar Kokoschka to Cleg & Guttman. The Migros Museum, Zurich, bills Swiss artist and nuclear-paterfamilias Stefan Banz as a "bourgeois exotic" in the contemporary art scene. His photos will be on view there between January 22 and March 19. Another artist famous for making the private exceedingly public, the relentlessly self-scrutinizing Elke Krystufek, will exhibit at the Maison Levanneur, Chatou (Jan. 27--Apr. 9); Centre National de l'Estampe de l'Art Imprime's show will include self-portraits and specially made textile and paper prints.

NOISES OFF

Visually impaired art fans should note two exhibitions of keen interest in the UK this spring. The Hayward Gallery's show "Sonic Boom" (Apr. 27--June 18) will focus on sound art of the '90s, featuring pieces by (among others) Brian Eno, Angela Bullock, Christian Marclay, and Scanner, while at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford (Jan. 23--Mar. 19), "Audible Light" will consist of a sequence of "sculptural installations" employing sound and light as key media (with a lineup that includes Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Tommi Gronlund and Petteri Nisunen, and Ann Lislegaard--a first major UK showing for these leading Scandinavian artists). There will be visual noise aplenty at the Serpentine Gallery when Yayoi Kusama gets her first UK retrospective (Jan. 26--Mar. 19): If you've never experienced spots before your ears, don't miss this show. Meanwhile, in Luxembourg, light rather than sound takes center stage. "Light Pieces" (Casino Luxembourg, Forum d'Art Contemporain, Feb. 5--Mar. 26) will offer a survey of light w orks from the '50s to the '70s, including pieces by Dan Flavin, Lucio Fontana, Joseph Kosuth. and James Turrell.