Kunstverein

An evening with Little Joe

krist — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:26:32 +0000

An evening with Little Joe

Alongside our current exhibition ‘Closer – The Dennis Cooper Papers’, Kunstverein will host on the 30th of May a festive event of readings, screenings, music and drinks organized by Little Joe magazine at the fabulous Paleis van de Weemoed.

Little Joe is a new biannual publication looking at film from a different perspective. It is a direct move away from the traditional method of reviewing all current and future releases towards a more selective and eclectic focus on films that inspire alternative discourse.

It’s a magazine about queers and cinema, mostly.

When: 30th of May
Location: Paleis van de Weemoed, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 15, Amsterdam
Start: 20.30 onwards
Entrance: € 5 (free entrance for members)

For reservations, please contact office@kunstverein.nl

Hush Hush #3: ‘The Quiet Volume’, a project by Ant Hampton & Tim Etchells

krist — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:07:01 +0000

Hush Hush #3
The Quiet Volume
A project by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells

28 February 2012, 14.00 – 17.00
Location: Bijzondere Collecties, University of Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 129

The Quiet Volume is a whispered, self-generated and ‘automatic’ performance (Autoteatro) for two at a time, exploiting the particular tension common to any library worldwide; a combination of silence and concentration within which different peoples’ experiences of reading unfold.

Two audience members / participants sit side-by-side. Taking cues from words both written and whispered they find themselves burrowing an unlikely path through a pile of books. The piece exposes the strange magic at the heart of the reading experience, allowing aspects of it we think of as deeply internal to lean out into the surrounding space, and to leak from one reader’s sphere into another’s.

“This now of the page is what grips me – the present moment, this one, summoned here with this arrangement of marks/code, ink/pixels, letters and words.”
- Tim Etchells

Members Only
Please note that seating is very limited so we advise you to RSVP before 26 February 2011. For reservation, please contact office@kunstverein.nl

KV Auction at ARCOmadrid 2012

krist — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:26:55 +0000

KV Auction
17 February, 17.00 – 19.00
Dutch Assembly, ARCO, Madrid

Especially for ARCO, Kunstverein Amsterdam, Milan and New York have collectively set-up an unique auction featuring works by artists who have collaborated with one or more of the Kunstverein venues. KV Auction is a two-hour performative venture hosted by artist Gabriel Lester, in which alternative means of fundraising are explored. Works to be auctioned are by amongst others Sarah Crowner, Richard Kostelanetz, Gabriel Lester, Raimundas Malasauskas, Renzo Martens, Simon Martin, Willem Oorebeek, Adam Pendleton, Michael Portnoy, Alexandre Singh, Barbara Visser and Robert Wilhite.

Book launch and lecture ‘Paper Exhibition – selected writings by Raimundas Malasauskas’

krist — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:00:52 +0000

Book launch and lecture “Paper Exhibition – selected writings by Raimundas Malasauskas” as part of The Sandberg Series organized by the Sandberg Institute.
8 February 2012, 19:30
Location: Goethe-Institut, Herengracht 470, Amsterdam
Entrance: € 5

Raimundas Malašauskas (born in Vilnius, lives and works in Brussels) is a curator, writer and tutor at the Sandberg Institute. From 1995 to 2006, he worked at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, where he produced the first two seasons of the weekly television show CAC TV, an experimental merger of commercial television and contemporary art that ran under the slogan “Every program is a pilot, every program is the final episode.” He co-curated “Black Market Worlds,” the IX Baltic Triennial, at CAC Vilnius in 2005. From 2007 to 2008, he was a visiting curator at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and, until recently, a curator-at-large of Artists Space, New York. In 2007, he co-wrote the libretto of Cellar Door, an opera by Loris Gréaud produced in Paris. Malašauskas curated the exhibitions “Sculpture of the Space Age,” David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2009); “Into the Belly of a Dove,” Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2010), and “Repetition Island,” Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2010). His other recent projects, Hypnotic Show and Clifford Irving Show, are ongoing. Malasauskas is an agent for dOCUMENTA 13 and on the advisory board of Kunstverein.

In collaboration with Kunstverein Publishing, Sternberg Press, Sandberg Institute and The Baltic Notebooks by Anthony Blunt, Malašauskas has published an anthology of his writings since 1998, which will be launched on the evening.

The already infamous Vilnius Sling cocktail will be served at cocktailbar Door 74, reguliersdwarsstraat 74, from 22.00 onwards.

Please contact info@amsterdam.goethe.org or call +31 20 5312900 for reservations.

The Robert Wilhite Store for Art and Design

krist — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:20:39 +0000

Kunstverein presents:
The Robert Wilhite Store for Art and Design

29 October 2011 – 04 February 2012
Opening: 28 October, 6-8 PM

When the University of California, Irvine opened in 1965, Robert Wilhite (1946, Santa Ana, CA) was one of the first students to study under Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Ed Moses, and Tony DeLap. After graduating, he spent some time working for Pace Gallery in New York, and returned to Los Angeles in 1971. He has been based in Venice California ever since. Kunstverein presents a survey of his work

Robert Wilhite’s practice is marked by a continual battle between the serendipitous and the calculated, the conceptual and the tangible. His work displays a readiness to freely move amongst mediums and disciplines, from sculpture to performance to the design of flatware. Wilhite: “A painting is an object and a coffee pot is an object. Which makes you look at it twice and provokes thought? As artists we should be able to look at both with inspiration and folly.”

Music plays a crucial role in many of Wilhite’s works. To date, he has constructed wind, string, percussion, electronic and silent instruments as sculpture. “Though the idea of silent musical instruments or sculptures seems absurd, when one ponders the importance of silence to music, the concept of a silent instrument seems reasonable.”

In the late 1970s, Wilhite collaborated on four plays with Guy de Cointet and he remains involved in the re-staging of these plays today. IGLU, co-presented by Kunstverein (together with The Stedelijk Museum and If I Can’t Dance) in early 2011, at Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, premiered at the Vanguarde Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1977. Here too the musical instrument and sound (or sometimes silence) holds a significant position. In IGLU’s narrative sounds replace words at times, or are translated into gestures, transferring conventional communication to a distinctive, parallel plain. IGLU – as other works by Wilhite ¬– deals with language, meaning, and where these are capable of either meeting at, or extending in different directions from, a common point.

The Robert Wilhite Store for Art and Design transforms Kunstverein into a total environment – a Gesamtkunstwerk – with all facets of Robert Wilhite’s practice on view: from diagonal tables to flatware, drawings and paintings to sculpture and instruments.

Recent and upcoming shows include: ‘Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980’, organized by the Getty Center; ‘Downtown LA’, Las Perlas, with Larry Bell, Ed Moses, Robert Irwin, and Laddie John Dill; ‘Los Angeles goes life: Performance Art in Southern California 1970 – 1983’, LACE, Los Angeles; ‘Chinese Cocktail’, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco.

On 28 and 29 October 2011 at 20:30 hrs, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution is presenting the first restaging of the play Five Sisters (1982) by Guy de Cointet at Frascati WG in Amsterdam. Robert Wilhite collaborated with Guy de Cointet on four of his plays in the 1970s.
Please Visit the website of If I Can’t Dance for more information.

Image: Robert Wilhite, Audio piece for solo exhibition at Larry Gagosian’s first gallery in Los Angeles, the Broxton Gallery, 1976. The windows were blocked off and the artist read explanations over the phone of the exhibition on view. No caller got the same explanation. Half of the callers received explanations and the other half received a sound work created for the event. A limited number of records documenting the event were produced.

Closer – The Dennis Cooper Papers

krist — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:31:20 +0000

Closer – The Dennis Cooper Papers
23 March – 23 June 2012
Opening: 23 March, 18.00 – 20.00

In continuation of Kunstverein’s survey-as-shop series, Closer – The Dennis Cooper Papers profiles the influential literary figure of Dennis Cooper (1953, Pasadena, USA), acknowledging his important impact across literature, poetry, performance and visual art.

The exhibition hinges on the George Miles Cycle (1989 – 2000), a series of interconnected novels that include graphic scenes of violence and desire, of pedophilia, mutilation and necrophilia. The complex structure of the cycle could be seen as literary sculpture; one that is layered and constructed out of geometrical forms.

Dennis Cooper’s literary aspirations were explored early on and often took the form of imitations of Rimbaud, Verlaine, De Sade, and Baudelaire. He wrote poetry and stories in his early teens that explored scandalous and often extreme subjects.

In 1987, Cooper moved to Amsterdam where he finished writing the first novel of the George Miles Cycle entitled Closer. Closer was awarded with the first Ferro-Gumley Award for gay literature and has since been translated into seventeen languages.

Cooper was 15 when he met George Miles, the 12-year old brother of a friend. They immediately became very close and continued their affection and friendship after George developed a severe bipolar disorder in his early teens, causing him to go through phases of serious depressions, manic episodes, suicide attempts and occasional periods of institutionalization.

In the early 80s, after they had been out of touch for over two years, Cooper began to write a cycle of novels in tribute to George, which consist of Closer (1989), Frisk (1991), Try (1994), Guide (1997) and Period (2000).

“Over (the) years, I’d developed a game plan or overall structure for the cycle. It would take the form of a novel being gradually dismembered to nothing. The first novel would construct the themes, archetypes, subjects, style, and atmosphere of the cycle. (…) Each succeeding novel’s form would reflect the damage caused by the violence, drug use, and emotional turmoil of the previous novel. (…) Parallel to this dismemberment in stages, the structure would be a mirrored structure where the first novel would seem to gradually move through a mirror and eventually, over the course of the cycle, become a backwards reflection of itself.”
-Dennis Cooper

In 1997, after publishing the fourth novel in the cycle, he found out that George had committed suicide ten years earlier. The fifth novel, Period, was therefore written with the awareness that George was no longer alive and would never read the cycle attributed to him. The novel is inspired by and dedicated to the artist Vincent Fecteau.

In the collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections of New York University, Kunstverein presents the archive of the George Miles Cycle, comprised of manuscripts, journals, posters, correspondence, scrapbooks and videocassettes.
In addition, works by Vincent Fecteau and Falke Pisano are shown alongside the archive material. Artist Trisha Donnelly has been commissioned to produce new work based on the five novels.

Prior to the opening, on 22 March at 19.30, the director of the Fales Library & Special Collections, Marvin Taylor, will give a keynote lecture on the structure of the George Miles Cycle.

On 16 and 17 April, Dennis Cooper will conduct a writing workshop.

A booklet containing an interview with Dennis Cooper, Marvin Taylor and Krist Gruijthuijsen will be available.

Closer – The Dennis Cooper Papers is conceived in dialogue with Marvin Taylor, director of the Fales Library & Special Collections of the New York University

three books and a performance

krist — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:16:38 +0000

Kunstverein, Gallery Juliette Jongma, Tulips & Roses and Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture present:

A performance by Robert Wilhite and the launch of three publications: LABOUR, The Federal #2 and Chris Evans: Goofy Audit, collected works 1998 – 2010

20 December, 19.00 – 21.00
Location: Gallery Juliette Jongma, Gerard Doustraat 128a

———————————-

About the performance:

A restaging of Robert Wilhite’s Audio piece for his solo exhibition at Larry Gagosian’s first gallery in Los Angeles, the Broxton Gallery, 1976. The windows were blocked off and the artist read explanations over the phone of the exhibition on view. No caller got the same explanation. Half of the callers received explanations and the other half received a sound work created for the event. A limited number of records documenting the event were produced.

About the publications:

The Federal #2
Published by gallery Tulips & Roses, The Federal is an artwork reader, a periodical magazine hinged on a single artwork per issue with some new writings revolving around it. Right now it seems that it’s grasping at some kind of non-disciplinary knowledge.

LABOUR
Initiated by artist Melissa Gordon, LABOUR addresses the general conditions of feminized labour, and how a feminist reading of work benefits a critique of the current scenario for all art workers. It includes new writing and presentations by: Nina Power, Henry VIII’s Wives, Marina Vishmidt, Emma Hedditch, Claudia Sola, Lisette Smits and Meredyth Sparks, Avigail Moss, Jessica Wiesner and Rachal Bradley, Lizzie Borden and Kaisa Lassinaro. The periodical arises from a series of four meetings of practicing female artists entitled ‘A conversation to know if there is a conversation to be had’, held at semi-public spaces in 2010 and 2011 respectively in New York (Dexter Sinister), Amsterdam (Kunstverein), Berlin (Salon Populaire), and London (Raven Row).

Chris Evans: Goofy Audit
Collected works 1998 – 2011
The work of artist Chris Evans (1967, Eastrington, UK) evolves through conversation with people from various walks of life, selected in relation to their public position or symbolic role – resulting in sculptures, letters, drawings, film scripts and unwieldy social situations. These become indexes of a larger structure through which Evans deliberately confuses the roles of artist, collector, philanthropist, commissioner, art dealer and public funding body. Goofy Audit presents a monograph of an artist, whose works conspicuously speculate in the space where art meets patronage, be it private, corporate or political. It includes essays by Penelope Curtis, Marina Vishmidt and Tirdad Zolghadr as well as a form of notation by Will Holder for each individual work produced since 1998.

Galerie Juliette jongma
Tulips & Roses
Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture

Hush Hush #2 – Ad Reinhardt:A Retrospective of Comics

krist — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:18:03 +0000

Hush Hush #2
Ad Reinhardt: A Retrospective of Comics

21 November 2011, 19.30pm
Location: Kunstverein, Gerard Doustraat 132

The second in the Hush Hush series, organized especially for the members of Kunstverein Amsterdam, Milan and New York, is dedicated to Ad Reinhardt’s Comics. In the 1940s Ad Reinhardt published a series of caustic comics commenting on the New York art world. His broadsides appeared in outlets such as PM, Art News, and Transformations.

For the event Robert Snowden and Scott Ponik bring together a selection of these comics in a single table size print, which will be accompanied by a reading by Angie Keefer and Robert Snowden.

The retrospective was first shown at The Chrysler Series in New York, and is currently on view at the ICA in London.

Robert Snowden is a writer who lives in New York. Scott Ponik is a graphic designer in Portland, Oregon and Angie Keefer is a New York-based writer, editor, amateur engineer, and occasional librarian.

Members Only. Each member is welcome to bring one guest.

Please note that seating is limited so we advise you to RSVP before 18 November 2011. For reservation, please contact office@kunstverein.nl

The KV Survey Shop at Artissima 18

krist — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:31:59 +0000

The KV Survey Shop at Artissima 18, 4–6 November 2011

Kunstverein is proud to announce its participation at the Art Fair Artissima in Torino, this Fall.

For 4 days only, Kunstvereins Amsterdam, Milan and New York will collectively set-up a KV Survey Shop featuring works by artists who have collaborated with Kunstverein or who will in the future develop projects with one or more of the Kunstverein venues.

The KV Survey Shop is an alternative form of exhibition, an unorthodox response to the art fair, as well as a way of seeking support for Kunstverein’s programs. With works available by, amongst others: Carlos Amorales, Zbyněk Baladrán, Travis Boyer, CCH, Heman Chong, Sarah Crowner, Carla Filipe, Isola & Norzi, Ben Kinmont, Richard Kostelanetz, Gabriel Lester, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Juan Pablo Maçias,Raimundas Malasauskas, Renzo Martens, Simon Martin, Willem Oorebeek, G. T. Pellizzi, Adam Pendleton, Cesare Pietroiusti, Michael Portnoy, Guillermo Santamarina, Alexandre Singh, Nedko Solakov, Enzo Umbaca, Marianne Vitale, Barbara Visser

Download catalog

For more information, please check www.artissima.it

NY Art Book Fair 2011

krist — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:11:17 +0000