Kunstverein
13 November
19.30
Location: Ruyschstraat 4 III, Amsterdam

Kadist Art Foundation
14 November
19.30
Location: 19 Bis – 21 rue des Trois Frères, Paris

An ever-growing collection of scripts, ideas and works by: Julieta Aranda, Olivier Babin, Francisco Camacho, Derick Carner, Asli Cavusoglu, Etienne Chambaud, Audrey Cottin, Torreya Cummings, Gintaras Didziapetris, Cerith Wyn Evans, Michael Fliri, Mark Geffriaud, Fabien Giraud, Loris Gréaud, Graham Gussin, Will Holder, Pierre Huyghe, Joachim Koester, Gabriel Lester, Jennifer Di Marco, Patrizio Di Massimo, Nicholas Matranga & Francesca Bennet, Piero Passacantando, Cesare Pietroiusti, Matthew Shannon, Snowden Snowden, Gareth Spor, Maryelizabeth Yarbrough, Carey Young

As well as a one night session conducted by Marcos Lutyens

Curated by Raimundas Malasauskas

Hypnotic Show FAQ:

Q: What is Hypnotic Show?
A: A temporary social structure of engaging into creative cognitive acts through shared practices of art and hypnosis.

Q: What is the relationship between art and hypnosis?
A: The Hypnotic power of artworks has always been a favorite trope of people looking for transformative potential of art. However instead of seeing “hypnotic power” as a rhetorical figure, Hypnotic Show aims at reducing art practice to the method of pure hypnosis. According to biometrics it connects to the brain faster.

Q: Why brain?
A: It is the ultimate destination of neuro-social engineering as well as subjectivities of yet-to-be-invented. From the perspective of ceaseless production and total transparency, the brain is seen as a final frontier to be colonised, from the perspective of individual subjectivity – as a last resort of things not-to-be-known. Hypnotic Show positions itself on both ends of the perspective.

Q: How does Hypnotic Show work?
A: When all spaces undergo gentrification and you think that your very inner subjectivity will remain a space of a strictly personal order your brain-waves are being measured against you.

Q: No, no, but how does it work technically?
A: A number of invited artists have submitted proposals for Marcos Lutyens to be performed on the audience through a session of hypnosis.

Q: Can my girlfriend attend the séance?
A: Of course, please tell her to RSVP at office/at/kunstverein.nl or contact/at/kadist.org to sign up for a séance that will take place on the 13th of November at 19.30 Kunstverein Amsterdam and on the 14th of November at 19.30 at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris

Q: Is it true that hypnosis can convince of the value of certain artwork against my will?
A: Multiple techniques are used in promoting art’s value, hypnosis is just one of them.

Q: What remains after this show?
A: Reconfiguration of principles about workings or art and mind implied by the artists’ proposals.

Q: Where can I find the artists’ proposals?
A: They will be available at www.rye.tw on – please feel free to download it.

Q: What is the relation of Hypnotic Show to The Man Who Taught Blake to Paint in His Dreams drawing by William Blake?
A: It is not clear in this painting whether the Man was teaching painting in his dreams and Blake had access to that knowledge telematically or whether Blake was taught how to make paintings in his dreams. Or both.

Q: Will there be any works of artists made under the influence of Hypnosis?
A: No, Hypnotic Show aims at inducing trance rather than show its static records.

Q: Is it an empty show?
A: A show in your head will never be empty. There will be possibly a dream-machine of Burroughs and Gysin installed in the gallery.

Q: Did it take place anywhere before?
A: Yes, at Jessica Silverman gallery in San Francisco in 2008 and Artists Space in NYC in 2009.

Q: What are the inspirations of Hypnotic Show?
A: Works of many artists including Graham Gussin, Matt Mullican, Ann Lislegaard, Pedro Reyes, Warren Neidich, Cerith Wyn Evans; conversations with Fernando Delmar, Pascal Rousseau as well as the work of all the artists participating in Hypnotic Show with proposals.

Q: Is Hypnotic Show about collaboration?
A: Not really, but the relationship between hypnotist and the audience should be be described as collaboration.

Q: Can I buy I a hypnotic artwork?
A: Not at this moment. However soon you will be able not only to buy, but to commission a hypnotic artwork created especially for you or to be able to induce your own hypnotic artwork on your friend out of pure love. Or both.

Note that seating is limited so we advice you to RSVP before the 6th of November.
Members of Kunstverein have priority in seating.

For reservation and further information, please contact:

Kunstverein
Ruyschstraat 4 III
NL- 1091 CB Amsterdam
+31 (0) 20 4277603
office/at/kunstverein.nl
www.kunstverein.nl

Kadist Art Foundation
19 Bis – 21 rue des Trois Frères
FR- 75018 Paris
+33 (0) 1 4251 83 49
contact/at/kadist.org
www.kadist.org

www.rye.tw
www.mlutyens.com
blog.sideshows.org/2009/03/hypnotic-show

Ian Wilson
9 Oct. – 9 Nov. 2009

Kunstverein is pleased to present an exhibition and Discussion by Ian Wilson.

Kunstverein is housed in an 19th century private apartment in a monumental five storey residential house in Amsterdam with, one could say, a long-standing cultural history. Always closely connected to art and its production, the first owners of Ruyschstraat 4 were infamous for their efforts during WWII in sheltering artists threatened by the Nazis. Following these cultural Samaritans, for years the fourth floor housed the studio to the City’s Official Sculptor. Today, with its original architecture virtually intact, Ruyschstraat 4 III & IV is the home of Dutch artist Germaine Kruip.

With such deep-seated links to the private and the public cultural domain safely nestled in its very location, Kunstverein plays with the possibilities of pushing the borders of institutional frameworks by introducing a ‘salon’ structure. Due to its unconventional (intimate) make-up Kunstverein allows alternative methods in presentation and hosting, whereby dialogue is key. The program will responds accordingly, mirroring the ingredients of its inception: at its core are the notions of commitment and self-organization.

It seems only befitting then that Kunstverein opens with an exhibition by Ian Wilson in whose work Kunstverein would like to see its mission reflected; to explore relationships between the viewed – or discussed – and the viewer and the topical urgency of such interaction.

‘Ian Wilson (°1940, South Africa) is one of the mythical figures of conceptual art. In 1968 he decided to take his ideas about visual abstraction into the invisible abstraction of language, along with a number of other artists such as Lawrence Wiener, Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry and Art & Language. But Ian Wilson went furthest in the dematerialization of art. He wanted to speak instead of making things.’ *

The exhibition comprises two works from the late 60’s, as well as a Discussion held prior to the opening.

Red Rectangle (first named Untitled) originates from 1966 as part of a series of monochrome paintings. During this period, Wilson’s artistic explorations were based entirely around the monochrome and in questions relating to perception and painting. In 2008, more than 40 years after their creation and loss, Wilson decided to reconstruct three of these monochrome works for an exhibition at Jan Mot Gallery.

Circle on the Floor (1968) is one of Wilson’s very last physical works before his investigations turned to the notion of oral communication as a form of art. Following careful instructions, a chalk circle is drawn directly onto a floor, 1/2 an inch thick and circumscribing an area of about six feet in diameter. The circle can be drawn everywhere, at anytime, and still remains the same. It thus examines its own abstract intangibility.

The exhibition is befitting for an additional reason, as Red Rectangle has been newly acquired by Germaine Kruip herself. In this manner, public, private, history, commitment and urgency come full circle, at this the first exhibition at Kunstverein.

Kunstverein wishes to thank Jan Mot, Stichting Egress Foundation, Chaz, Eindhoven and its Gold Members for their generous support of Ian Wilson’s Discussion held on the 7th of October at Kunstverein. Without their help this event would not be possible.

*From Oscar van den Boomgaard’s interview with Ian Wilson, 2002.

The evening starts 19.30 at café Aan de Amstel, Weesperzijde 42a

Adam Pendleton
three scenes
As part one of EL T D K Amsterdam in collaboration with de Appel

Performed at 20.00 and 21.00
Location: Ruyschstraat 4 III, Amsterdam

Over the past few years American artist Adam Pendleton has written various performances in which he exploits the easy-psychology of autobiographical readings by using devices that render language concrete and contingent. Commonly, he combines specialized discourses and common knowledge in a redistribution of cultural information.

Previous performances range from the evening length 30-person gospel choir production The Revival to a series of manifestos such as the Black Dada Manifesto. For his performance at Kunstverein entitled three scenes, Pendleton will evoke the notion of a retrospective by pulling, assembling and re-appropriating material from all of his performances to date.

Michael Portnoy
Human Intwist Group

Performed at 21.00, 22.00 and 23.00
Location: Intercontinental Amstel Hotel, Professor Tulpplein 1, Amsterdam

Michael Portnoy is a ‘director of behaviour’ and performance artist based in New York. His practice circles the laws and habits of play and communication — language itself forming a significant aspect in the works.

Portnoy’s installations, music, objects, relics and performances reside in a world where cryptic, specific communication, symbols and gesture seem to live alongside standard social conventions. The rules governing his works are thus experienced as odd and distant yet somehow recognizable. This pushing and pulling of a rather intimate familiarity makes ‘participation’ possible while an overall structure remains enticingly opaque.

---