‘Marlow Moss had short hair, combed completely flat and cut with absolute precision; had a high, white, forehead; had a narrow neck; had a small, oval, skull; had deep golden-brown eyes; her skin had a pale shine; her jaw and chin were a pure line; she was petite; had a sartorial style; wore jodhpurs and riding jackets; wore white blouses; Moss was a drag-king; a lesbian; a pseudo-man; her family did not support her choice to be a professional artist.’
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‘Over half of the entire body of Moss’s work is only known through black and white documentation or sometimes only through a catalog or auction listing with no visual record at all.’
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Please join us at Kunstverein for Meet Marlow Moss, an insert of Marlow Moss’s ‘Composition with Double Line and Blue Square’ (1934). This special event takes place Saturday 18 May from 5–8 pm and features a repeated performance by Dutch actor Martijn Nieuwerf, once at 6 pm and once at 7 pm.
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On this occasion, Kunstverein Publishing is proud to launch the publication ‘Marlow Moss’ written by Riet Wijnen, designed by Marc Hollenstein.
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‘Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner, Meet Marlow Moss’ opened on April 20 and runs until June 22.
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Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner, Meet Marlow Moss is made possible with the support of Stichting Niemeijer Fonds; Stadsdeel Zuid; Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Kunstverein’s (Gold) members. With thanks to De Vleeshal, Middelburg

A talk with Larry Bell

From a letter to Barbara Rose about the primary concern of my work.

Once an artist friend of mine gave a party for some close friends, it was in celebration of his recent marriage. As the party went on, he took several people into the kitchen to try some very expensive Danish cheese, that he thought was fabulous.
I managed to slip unnoticed into the room to watch these gourmets enjoy themselves. Each one was given a small taste, and they all rolled their eyes back in their heads in sheer ecstasy as they savored the tiny morsel.
When I was discovered standing in the corner I was asked by one of the guest if I wanted a taste. My friend immediately replied, that to give me a taste was like ‘casting pearls before swine’. We all laughed and I had my taste. As it turned out I didn’t like the cheese, obviously proving his point.

Larry Bell

– Quoted from: ‘Larry Bell’, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 8 December 1967 – 14 January 1968, Catalogue nr. 427

Larry Bell (born in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American artist. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California. He is in Amsterdam for the exhibition ‘Larry Bell, Sarah Crowner meet Marlow Moss’, opening 20 April at Kunstverein. Bell is jointly invited by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstverein to hold an artist talk, and will be interviewed afterwards by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam director Ann Goldstein in the Teijin Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum on Thursday 18 April at 8pm.

Reservation is required. Please send an e-mail to reservations@stedelijk.nl, stating your full name, e-mail address, telephone number, and the date of the event for which you want to reserve a seat.

This project is made possible with the support of Stichting Niemeijer Fonds; Stadsdeel Zuid; Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Kunstverein’s (Gold) members.

Hush Hush #4

IMAGINED MENU
Quanno tu mangiavi cor pensiero…*
*Quanno tu mangiavi cor pensiero… is a quotation from a poem written in Cellelager by a prisoner from Lazio. The regional dialect seems grammatically odd in Italian, and could be translated to English as ‘When we ate with our minds’ and/or ‘When we ate thoughts’.

The fourth in the Hush Hush series, organized especially for the members of Kunstverein Amsterdam, Milan and New York, is an Imaginary Lunch with real food ­– arranged, hosted and introduced by Italian artist Leone Contini (1976, Florence). The eight plus-course menu is made from a selection of regional recipes that were collected in a notebook by Italian war-prisoners in Germany during the First World War. As such, the meal is a reflection of a (historic) community and (a national) identity. Served now, 95 years later, it can also be seen to reflect our current status quo, one riddled with crises and transformed by global migration.

In late 1917, the worst military debacle in Italian history began: the infamous ‘Battle of Caporetto’. Between October 24 and November 19 countless soldiers were taken prisoner, and among them Giosuè Fiorentino, an 18 year-old Italian officer and the great uncle of Contini. From the Cellelager POW camp in northern Germany, these men who experienced displacement, despair and starvation, turned to imagined food to combat their misery. Food became an obsessive desire and an imaginary escape; it was the subject of endless discussions. Speaking about food was an attempt to turn a crowd of starving bodies into a community again, able to share memories from a previous life. In an attempt to humanize hunger, to reframe this primary instinct into a sort of – however virtual – conviviality, discussing meals also became a collective action of cultural resistance.

Giosuè Fiorentino recorded the oral recipes from his fellow prisoners – records of intimate fragments from family lives – and re-assembled them into two handmade sketchbooks, a patchwork of regional cuisine, from Friuli to Sicily. The cookbooks became an unintended ethnographic writing, picturing the cultural materiality of an ‘imagined community’ called Italy.

This action of resistance, conceived in the deep darkness of the First World War, will be turned into a real, collective action in the form of a Sunday lunch on the 7th of April.

Time: 1pm until 4.30pm
Location: We will gather at Kunstverein to walk to the restaurant.
Reservation: Seeing as space is limited, please make reservations before the 3rd of April at office@kunstverein.nl. The eleven course menu will cost EUR 25.10 per person, the exact price of production only. As this meal is being prepared especially for those invited, we kindly ask you to keep your reservations.

Kunstverein
Gerard Doustraat 132
1073 VX Amsterdam

Please note that this is a members-only event, if you don’t want to miss it, it’s time to become a member.

Imagined menu is developed in collaboration with Kunstverein Milan and generously supported by the City Council of Amsterdam, District South and AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and Kunstverein’s (gold) members.

Musical Interlude

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Kunstverein is excited to invite you for a Musical Interlude on Friday January 25th at 8 pm. We will start the year with a performance by composer and musician Dorit Chrysler.

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‘A Wizard, A True Theremin Star! Imagine if Marianne Faithfull and Nikola Tesla had a love child, with Jane Birkin as the nanny and Bjork as the wayward Girl Scout leader!’

(Ann Magnuson of Paper Magazine)
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Dorit Chrysler is best known for her theremin style, the theremin is one of the earliest electronic music instruments and the first musical instrument played without being touched. The instrument is invented in 1919 by the Russian Leon Theremin.

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Dorit also has a prolific recording and performing career as a vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, producer and engineer. She fronted a number of notable bands, including New York rock quartet Halcion and shared live bills with acts as diverse as Alex Hacke, Amon Tobin, Dinosaur Jr., Blond Redhead, Marylin Manson, Mercury Rev and Oingo Boingo.

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Besides that she also collaborated and recorded with artists & producers such as Tocotronic, Anders Trentemøller, Judah Bauer (Catpower). Matt Johnson (The Th-e), Neon Indian, Gordon Raphael (The Strokes) and many more.
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Embarking upon a solo career in 2000, Dorit has since performed worldwide, ranging from notorious dives. After a wide range of film &TV soundtracks, compilations, and singles, Dorit released her first solo record in 2004 featuring her theremin and which was produced, recorded, engineered, and performed by  (the artist) herself.
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Since 2005 she has toured the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Brazil and played amongst others in Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Mexico City, Reykjavik, Prague, Bucharest, Vienna, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, England, Portugal and New York. In addition to her solo career, she has founded the New York Theremin Society.

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This project is supported by the City Council of Amsterdam, District South and AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and Kunstverein’s (gold) members .

In:quest of Icarus by Norman Potter 
(1975)

In:quest of Icarus is a tragedy; a contemporary work written of and from a contemporary situation and drawing upon Greek myth to illuminate certain aspects of that situation.–Norman Potter

Norman Potter (1923–1995) was an English designer and educator. In 1964 Potter co-founded the Construction School, an experimental design course at the West of England College of Art in Bristol, England. His bold programme de-emphasised specialization in design and encouraged practical collaboration between disciplines. The school’s brief history is burdened by resistance to Potter’s ideas at every level of the educational institution. Coloured by this, and his involvement in the student protests of 1968, Potter’s thoughts on the structure of design education became increasingly anti-authoritarian.

In:quest of Icarus is a complex and allegorical reflection on these experiences. Potter describes the work as concerned with ‘walls, barriers, both of languages and hardware; the codes people use to protect their identity and to make random experiences ordered and comprehensible; the occasional wisdom of foolishness; freedoms and imprisonments; and so forth.’ It is Potter’s only play, and has been performed only once, by students at the Construction School on 5 December, 1974. The work is here represented by participants at the Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem and the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam.

The staging of the performance is integral. The design of the hall and props follows the visual language and apparatus of the typewriter, on which it was composed. The configuration of the hall itself is a representation of the typewriter, with the audience actively implicated in the position of the keys, described by Potter as ‘the alphabetic possibilities of the spoken and written language.’ The staging is prepared by the performers themselves, and the four day process of construction, rehearsal and performance together constitutes the work.

In:quest of Icarus (1975) is restaged by James Langdon in partnership with Kunstverein and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; performed by students of the Werkplaats Typografie with construction by Daniel Hofstede and Benjamin Roth.

Please note that In:quest of Icarus is a 3 day event and accessible to the public 30 November, 1 and 2 December at the Stedelijk Museum, Teijin Auditorium, during regular opening hours. The play will take place 2 December at 4pm in the Teijin Auditorium.

As seating is limited for the performance 2 December, please RSVP before Friday 23 November via office@kunstverein.nl. Please note that members have priority.

With thanks to Stadsdeel Zuid and The Sandberg Instituut.

Please join us for the unorthodox book launch of MIND GAMES* by Amsterdam-based Icelandic artist Geirthrudur Finnbogadottir Hjorvar, Saturday 3 November 2012, from 5 pm.

• An extended slide-show presentation will be unveiled to the public on this occasion.
• Visually stimulating images will offer informative diagrams so as to describe the structures that have occupied the mind of the author and led to the creation of the work.
• The presentation will be accompanied by the performance Essence — in which a pop band will be present.
• This performance will honor the domain of popular culture in the modern-day formulation of a pop band and its ability to express the geometry of communicative patterns.

‘Construction School Featuring In:quest of Icarus’
A project by James Langdon with construction by Daniel Hofstede & Benjamin Roth

8 September – 2 December 2012

With In:quest of Icarus, a play by Norman Potter
30 November – 2 December 2012
Hosted and co-produced by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

This work explores the history of a bold attempt to establish an experimental art school in a provincial English context. The first phase (1964 to 1968) placed an emphasis on interdisciplinary working and collaboration. The second phase (1975 to 1977) was defined by a radical attempt to decentralise the educational structure of the school.

The school’s history is closely bound to the career and concerns of its founder Norman Potter, a practitioner in the margins of a mid-twentieth century English design culture. His work at the Construction School represents a period of intense critical thought about the structure of design education. The constitution of the school exemplified many of the ideas expressed in Potter’s What is a Designer, a text that was formulated during his time in Bristol. In particular Potter’s emphasis on the relational aspects of design – the mechanics of social interactions that shape design processes – was a defining feature of his programme.

The project was initiated during a residency at Spike Island, Bristol in Summer 2011. A presentation took place at Corner College in Zurich, June 2012. James Langdon is trained as an artist and now practices as an independent designer.

Workbench photograph courtesy Jim Wood.

Generously supported by the City Council of Amsterdam, District South

A Festival of Choices
Master of Fine Arts Graduation 2012,
Sandberg Instituut

Artist: Riet Wijnen

11–15 July 2012
Opening: 11 July, 6–9 PM

‘A Festival of Choices’ emphasizes upon the relationships and choices made between the graduating student and the diverse range of institutions and organizations offered within the cultural landscape of Amsterdam.

For more information and the full program, please check www.festivalofchoices.nl

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

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 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
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” 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.

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.

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

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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

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, 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

Kunstverein will be participating in the NY Art Book Fair 2011. For more information, please visit: www.nyartbookfair.com

Kunstverein presents Openings & Closings –
The Richard Kostelanetz Bookstore
2 July – 1 October 2011

Richard Kostelanetz (born 1940, New York) is an American writer, artist, critic, and editor of the avant-garde. He is infamous for his prolific and often biting prose. In his short fictions (some only 2 words long) and visual poetry, RK employs a radically formalist approach consisting of arrangements of words on a page using such devices as linking language and sequence, punning, alliteration, parallelism, constructivism, and minimalism. His literary work challenges the reader in unconventional ways and is often printed in limited editions at small presses. Kostelanetz’s nonfiction work The End of Intelligent Writing: Literary Politics in America (1974) charged the New York literary and publishing establishment with inhibiting the publishing and promotion of works by innovative younger authors. Among his other works are Recyclings: A Literary Autobiography (1974, 1984), Politics in the African-American Novel (1991), Published Encomia, 1967-91 (1991), On Innovative Art(ist)s (1992) and A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (1999, 2001). In 1970 Kostelanetz co-founded and directed the innovative annual aptly called Assembling; thirteen editions of “otherwise unpublishable” art and literature, including the Complete Assembling were produced between 1970 and 1982. Now scarce, Kunstverein will have the complete set of Assembling 1 through 13 on view. Also available will be the many recordings and audiocassettes issued on RK’s own label, as well as critically acclaimed edited works on B.B. King, Merci Cunningham, John Cage and Gertrude Stein.

For reasons closely connected to Kostelanetz’s practice we feel it is consistent that Kunstverein becomes a Bookstore dedicated to the artist – as a more viable alternative to a straight forward retrospective. The Richard Kostelanetz Bookstore will host and sell all of RK’s publications (over 80 titles). As well, rare artifacts, editions and smaller artworks will be on view in the secret backroom. Richard Kostelanetz’s role since the late 60s has been one of instigator, assembler, editor, artist and journalist. This multi-relational practice is not only historically significant, it is unquestionably inspirational and exemplary for the present.

Openings & Closings – The Richard Kostelanetz Bookstore is conceived in dialogue with Hyo Kwon and Goda Budvytyte

Generously supported by the City Council of Amsterdam (District South)

On September 10th at 6PM, Kunstverein is proud to host the launch of two publications: Guerrilla Art Action Group, 1969 – 1976 (reprint) and Discipline.

In collaboration with Printed Matter and the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications at Weserburg – Museum of Modern Art, Kunstverein has republished the catalogue of the highly influential activist collective, Guerilla Art Action Group (GAAG). A precursor to radical artist groups such as Gran Fury and the Guerrilla Girls, GAAG’s activities began at a time when artists were increasingly challenging the conduct of museums and other institutions. Originally published in 1978, the publication documents the art actions by the Guerrilla Art Action Group between 1969 and 1976.

Kunstverein will simultaneously host the European launch of Discipline, a new periodical published from Melbourne. Collating many of the strongest critical voices and art practices in its region, the magazine suggests that what is needed in relation the current question of art is some discipline; the discipline to pause, to look, to read and to think.

On the occasion of Discipline’s launch, Kunstverein will additionally host a display of independent Australian art periodicals including such seminal titles as Lip, Art Network, Art & Text, On the Beach and Pataphysics. Key editorial figures for each publication will make a selection of editions for the display.

Kunstverein would like to thank Suzanne Davies (Lip, Art-Network), Mark Titmarsh (On the Beach), Rob McKenzie (Art & Text) and Yanni Florence (Pataphysics).

15 July, 6 PM

Richard Kostelanetz will join us to discuss his practice during an informal walk-through of the exhibition.

Richard Kostelanetz (born 1940, New York) is an American writer, artist, critic, and editor of the avant-garde. He is infamous for his prolific and often biting prose. In his short fictions (some only 2 words long) and visual poetry, RK employs a radically formalist approach consisting of arrangements of words on a page using such devices as linking language and sequence, punning, alliteration, parallelism, constructivism, and minimalism. As a more viable alternative to a straight forward retrospective, Kunstverein has been temporarily transformed into a bookstore dedicated to the artist.

Kunstverein presents Prospectus Amsterdam as part of a traveling survey of the work of Ben Kinmont

12 March – 22 May 2011
Private view: 11 March 18.00 – 20.00

Ben Kinmont (Born 1963 Burlington, Vermont, USA) is interested in interpersonal communication as a means of addressing the problems of contemporary society.
His sculptures and actions attempt to establish a direct, personal relationship between the artist and the viewer, using the work as a mediator. If art is supposed to be an agency of intellectual and emotional challenge, then the artist concludes that the audience should also be addressed beyond the institutional frame of the gallery and the museum, and that contact should be more direct. To that effect, Ben Kinmont goes on the street and engages in a dialogue with any passer-by who demonstrates interest in his proposals. His actions range from washing dishes in a museum restaurant, receiving strangers at his home, asking passers-by on the street about the possibility of considering a casual conversation a form of art. His sellable work is in the form of archive boxes each containing all the pertinent documentation of one of Kinmont’s actions. The collector becomes an archivist; as such he becomes responsible for updating the data thus continuing the work of the artist and the gallerist. Besides, the artist earns his living with an antiquarian bookselling business about food, wine and domestic economy, considering this activity as a sculpture ‘the artwork is not the business itself, but the contribution to our cost of living.’ Kinmont’s practice also includes conducting research and publishing work about other artists under the name Antinomian Press.

Prospectus is a traveling series of presentations in which a selection of works from the past twenty-two years are exhibited and (re)activated. For each location, Kinmont has worked together with a different curator to conceptually develop the premise of the show. Each exhibition is intended to be different and to reflect each curator’s interest in the projects. The source material will include project descriptions and archives, past curated projects, publications from Antinomian Press and earlier sculptural objects.

Prospectus Amsterdam
As initiator of the overall project, the exhibition at Kunstverein will concentrate on Kinmont’s complete archives – brought in their entirety to Amsterdam. A selection of five to seven works will be presented each week. Throughout the show the curators thus become archivists, handling the works/archives on view. Each of the projects on display will correspond to different aspects of Kinmont’s body of work and will operate as a starting point for a discussion. Besides functioning as a platform for exchange, the table on which the works are presented will also host Kunstverein’s office and storage for the rest of the archives.

Workshop
March 14 & 15
Location: Kunstverein
Some of the archives will be reactivated and updated through workshops with various art educational institutions such as the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Piet Zwart Institute. The archives are thus activated and will continue to grow instead of functioning merely as art historical records.
For reservation please contact office@kunstverein.nl

Exhibition in your mouth
In collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Ben Kinmont will present Exhibition in your mouth, a historical exhibition of artist-written recipes prepared as a dinner on May 19. For reservation please contact office@kunstverein.nl

Publication
An updated version of Prospectus, the collection of project descriptions Kinmont published earlier with JRP Ringier in 2002 (the original edition is out of print), will be co-produced by Kunstverein, Kadist Art Foundation, Fales Library New York University and Air de Paris, published by Antinomian Press and distributed by JRP Ringier.

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Other venues and dates
Prospectus Paris
Kadist Art Foundation, Paris
02 April – 01 May 2011

Prospectus New York
Fales Library, New York University (in collaboration with Kunstverein NY)
New York City
Sept. 15 – Nov. 15, 2011

Prospectus San Francisco
In collaboration with San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco
Spring 2012

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“Prospectus Amsterdam: A survey of the work of Ben Kinmont” is generously supported by:

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstverein present:

Ben Kinmont
An Exhibition in your mouth (2002)
May 18 and 19

An historical exhibition of artist-written recipes prepared as a dinner at Restaurant As on May 18 and an informal talk given by the artist at the Stedelijk Museum on May 19.

May 18: An Exhibition in Your Mouth
Location: Restaurant As, Prinses Irenestraat 19, Amsterdam
Starts at: 19.30
Reservations: Seeing as space is limited, please make reservations before 13 May
at info@restaurantas.nl. The 9-course menu will cost € 55

May 19: Lecture by Ben Kinmont
Location: Temporary Stedelijk 2, Auditorium
Starts at: 19.30
Reservations: Reservation is mandatory, via reservations@stedelijk.nl
Entrance: Valid museum ticket

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstverein present a two-night event with artist Ben Kinmont. Kinmont’s projects are as disproportionately ambitious as they are formally discreet: supporting a family as an antiquarian bookseller specializing in books and manuscripts about domestic economy and food; comparing radically different value systems (e.g. cookery and art); wondering about the meaning of art (while doing the dishes), etc. This decentring reminds us of other artists who set out to pare down their practice down while not actually opting for an entirely different professional status. In his printed broadsides Kinmont explores activities that test the work of art’s strength in forms not strictly artistic: a dinner, a bookfair, an ephemeral action, and so on. Thus gastronomy becomes a temporary artistic structure and a powerful model for pushing art to its limits.

An Exhibition in your mouth presents an exhibition in the form of a dinner on Wednesday May 18. Restaurant As will prepare a 9-course menu full of eccentric but above all tasty recipes by artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Louise Bourgeois. In the evening of the following day,19 May, the artist will give a lecture about his practice in general with a particular focus on An Exhibition in your mouth as well as his project entitled On becoming something else (with the Pompidou Center and seven different restaurants in Paris in 2009).

On May 14 and 15, Kunstverein will be participating in the Amsterdam Art/Book Fair 2011. For more information, please visit: www.amsterdamartbookfair.com

On 14 May from 5 – 8 PM , we’ll be organizing a member recruitment evening. Our special hosts will be providing you with all the information and benefits one can enjoy when becoming a member of Kunstverein.

Hush Hush is a collaborative series of private events especially organized for the members of Kunstverein Amsterdam, Milan and New York.

Beatrice Gibson
“The Tiger’s Mind”

26 – 28 April 2011
Starting daily at 5 PM

Location: Ruyschstraat 4 III, Amsterdam (previous location of Kunstverein)

‘Notation is a way of making people move. If you lack others like aggression or persuasion, the notation should do it. This is the most rewarding aspect of a work on notation. The trouble is, just as you find your sounds are too alien, intended for a different culture, you make the same discovery about your beautiful notation. No one is willing to understand it. No ones moves.’ — Cornelius Cardew

“The Tigers Mind” is a serialised publishing project, initiated by Beatrice Gibson and Will Holder, that takes as its departure point, a score of the same name written by British experimental composer Cornelius Cardew in 1967.

Members only: please rsvp office@kunstverein.nl”

Download PDF

KUNSTVEREIN IS MOVING

After one and a half years of stimulating events at Ruyschstraat 4III, Kunstverein embarks on a new adventure: Kunstverein is moving to a ground floor shop location and opens its brand new doors at Gerard Doustraat 132 on March 11th.

The Ruyschstraat has afforded Kunstverein an exciting sequence of projects that reflect the intimacy of such a location. The new location, a shop front, dictates new parameters, in synch with the planned projects. The program includes an archival retrospective, a one-man bookshop and a speculative design store. While becoming more of a hangout (open now 4 days a week), Kunstverein morphs from archive to bookshop to design store in the span of one year.

In its new transformation, Kunstverein might shed some of its 3rd floor secrecy but will replace new visibility with several clandestine happenings. Along with a number of members only hush-hush, hit-and-run underground events, Kunstverein, together with Kunstverein Milan and NYC will be initiating a series of members only monthly shochu driven, skype lectures. More information on each members only event will be sent to you in due time.

So the intimacy of the space remains: Kunstverein will continue exploring the possibilities of presentation and how ‘sharing’ can exist on a personal level within the notion of public cultural exchange. Kunstverein is, after all, a place of meeting and discussion. And as the instigator of a new community, with its membership system now securely in place, Kunstverein is well aware of its unique ability to speak directly to its audience. Its contented responsibility towards its members thus continues to be a primary matter.

Kunstverein and de Appel arts centre present:
BOOK TOUR, 6 February 2011, 14.00 – 20.00

On the occasion of the launch of various new publications, a series of presentations and talks will be organized throughout the city.

PROGRAM

14.00 – 16.00
Kunstverein and de Appel present:
The Encyclopedia of Fictional Artists + The Addition
Location: Ambassade Hotel, Herengracht 341

First published nearly a decade ago, and now translated into English for the first time, The Encyclopedia of Fictional Artists is a project by author and editor Koen Brams, for which he commissioned and compiled an anthology of imaginary biographies based on the numerous artists invented by writers across the centuries, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the present. The Addition is Krist Gruijthuijsen’s editorial answer to the Encyclopedia, in which he invited more than 20 artists to reflect on the aspirations and ideals of encyclopedias by autonomously deconstructing the notion of fiction.

Over the course of two hours, the audience is invited to book a private meeting with the Encyclopedia’s ‘spokesman’.

16.00 – 18.00
De Appel presents the first monograph of Valérie Mannaerts
An Exhibition-Another Exhibition.
Location: de Appel’s Boys’ School, Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat 59

On view: Diamond Dancer, a total installation with a selection of uninhibited and disparate objects by Valérie Mannaerts

In her work Valérie Mannaerts extends the medium of collage to spatial objects. She examines the physiognomy of things and questions the relationship between organic and inorganic forms, the autonomy of objects and the stories concealed by them.
In 2010 Valérie Mannaerts built an eclectic sculpture park named Blood Flow at Extra City (Antwerp). This exhibition and Diamond Dancer form the basis for Valérie Mannaerts’ first monograph, which she conceived as an extended catalogue that contains many images and thoughts on her work including an essay by Anselm Franke and a discussion between Valérie Mannaerts and Ann Demeester.
On the occasion of the book presentation, a conversation will take place between the artist, Ann Demeester and Anselm Franke.
Valérie Mannaerts will also sign copies.

18.00 – 20.00
Kunstverein Amsterdam, Milan and New York present Ginger&Piss #2,
I’m On Your Side and On View, Worldwide for the Month Of
followed by a performance by Nils Bech
Location: Kunstverein, Ruyschstraat 4 III

As a collaborative model, Kunstverein will, together with its sister organizations in Milan and New York, present three new publications:

Ginger&Piss #2
Gay is the subject of the second issue of Ginger&Piss (Kunstverein’s occasional in-house magazine) and continues the magazine’s flirtation with all-purpose (non) themes. As a verb and as an expression (and maybe even a curse) Gay may appear less one-dimensional than Loud (Ginger&Piss’ first theme). Flamboyantly exhibited as internal swagger and compulsive paranoia, the articles in this issue continue Ginger&Piss’ journey towards immaculate speculation.

I’m On Your Side
The publication I’m On Your Side functions as part four of a project by Heman Chong for Kunstverein (Milano). Consisting of three separate essays by Alessandra Poggianti, Andrea Wiarda and Katia Anguelova, co-directors of Kunstverein (Milano). I’m on your side unfolds as a collection of thoughts about the introduction of a node into the cultural landscape of Milan. Alongside their independent sections, a floating world of images is re-located through their intervention, selected from God Bless Diana, a series of images Chong produced between 2000-2004.

On View, Worldwide for the Month Of
Kunstverein (NY) launches its 2011 Calendar in which 12 artists were asked to contribute a new work. These twelve collected works constitute a yearlong exhibition inserting itself into administrative offices, apartments, and studios around the world.
With contributions by a.o. Josephine Meckseper, Kathy Garcia, Michael Smith, Dexter Sinister and Judi Werthein.

19.00
Performance Nils Bech

After one and a half years of exciting events at Ruyschstraat 4III, Kunstverein embarks on a new adventure: Kunstverein is moving to a ground floor shop location and opens its brand new doors at Gerard Doustraat 132 on March 11th.

To mark this historic event we end the evening of BOOK TOUR with a performance by Nils Bech.

Nils Bech (NO) has devised his own unique path as a persuasive performer through the world of contemporary art. A classically trained singer, he has managed to tap into the best of both worlds. His fragile yet flamboyant presence magically transforms each hosting venue into an intimate experience.

Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2
With Guy de Cointet, Sarah Crowner, Elad Lassry, Willem Oorebeek, Alexandre Singh, Robert Wilhite.
11 December 2010 – 6 February 2011
In collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum, Alexandre Singh performs on 9 December at 7.30 PM at the Stedelijk Museum and during the opening at Kunstverein on 10 December between 6-8 PM

Communication, visible and not, audible or unspoken, is transmitted through signs, through things, things we choose to have and wear, point to or buy, sit alongside or say. These things sociologist Erving Goffman in 1956 calls ‘fixed props’ or ‘sign equipment’.

Sign equipment is, of course, just as much a conduit as it is social baggage. In fact, the American visionary, designer, architect, author, and inventor, Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), stopped speaking for two years at the age of 32 because of his sign equipment. He said he didn’t want to go on simply repeating what he was taught. Instead of communicating by rote, depending on automatic responses, he stripped himself of his inherited ‘sign equipment’ or ‘fixed props’ and re-booted his system to say what was needed, when it was needed.

The exhibition Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 takes as its cerebral anchor the 1977 play Iglu by Guy de Cointet and Robert Wilhite. Iglu contains invented languages, where sounds become words, gestures are sentences; where the actors (sometimes even switching gender) mostly understand one another not because they use words as we do, but because it seems they have agreed to agree. Agreed to agree on meaning; thereby shifting conventions and signs to a different communicative plain.

Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 stages the question of how individual relations can be perceived and interpreted. How do we communicate? What forms can communication take? Do we understand one another, really? Is your blue mine? And if it is, or if it isn’t: how does this affect how we understand one another? The artists in Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 contend with ‘sign equipment’ or ‘fixed props,’ with the shiftiness of communication, social conventions and visual representation. The show, which includes a play, a live storytelling, a lecture, a film and objects is an abstract conversation, amongst the participants and between them and the audience.

After co-presenting Iglu in Amsterdam at Frascati Theatre on 9 November, Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 opens at Kunstverein 10 December with a performance by Alexandre Singh.

**Please note that Kunstverein will be closed from 25/12/2010 – 02/01/2011**

Kunstverein’s Store for Independent Publishing presents Paraguay Press
11 December 2010 – 6 February 2011
Opening: 10 December 6 – 8 PM

Paraguay is a co-operatively run, independent art publishing company based in Paris and managed by the group of artists, writers and curators behind castillo/corrales and section 7 books. Paraguay Press was conceived by this group in order to reclaim control of the means of creation, production and distribution of the books in which their work appear and to create a framework for producing publications with a growing number of artists, writers, and institutions. Each project developed by Paraguay Press looks carefully into the pragmatics of publishing, and, according to the nature of each publication, adapts each print-run and scope, deploys different printing devices, and considers various distribution strategies. But all depart from an understanding of the space of the book, considered not as a medium of documentation nor a vector of promotion, but as an act of translation and the extension of artistic, critical and curatorial thinking into a graphic, mobile, democratic and durable form.

**Please note that Kunstverein will be closed from 25/12/2010 – 02/01/2011**

Nedko Solakov
“High Level Margins With A Catalogue”
18 September – 21 November 2010

Special private view as part of Kunstverein’s Benefit event
18 September 20.00 – 23.00

Kunstverein will celebrate its first anniversary with a special commission by Nedko Solakov entitled High Level Margins With A Catalogue.
Hailing from Sofia as one of Bulgaria’s finest, Nedko Solakov’s artistic practice is best described as a hurricane of wittily and often with humor constructed stories that poetically, politically and institutionally criticize their surroundings. Solakov is mostly known for his (tiny) handwritten comments that are often displayed in spaces, which at first appear to be empty. Playing with the viewer’s expectations is a particular goal in Solakov’s work in which the viewer is often obligated to knee, bend or perform other movements to be able to read the comments up close.

To come full circle, Kunstverein has invited Solakov to view the architecture of the space from literally a higher level, namely the ceiling’s margins. Barely readable tiny writings and drawings form a story that represent the artist’ spirit within the space.

The catalogue will function as key to exhibition, as it thoroughly and conveniently represents all the stories as seen from the above, with close-ups of the little scenarios and the now perfectly readable texts.
The viewer will therefore experience the “bare” architecture of the space, only this time lead by an imaginary world.

Kunstverein co-presents IGLU by Guy de Cointet and Robert Wilhite as part of Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2

9 November: 20.00
Location: Frascati WG, M.v.B. Bastiaansestraat 54, Amsterdam
Tickets: 10 Euro
Reservations: +31 (0) 20 626 68 66 / www.theaterfrascati.nl

Paying A Visit To Mary Part 1 and Part 2 take as their cerebral anchor the 1977 play Iglu by Guy de Cointet and Robert Wilhite. Iglu contains invented languages, where sounds become words, gestures are sentences; where the actors (sometimes even switching gender) mostly understand one another not because they use words as we do, but because it seems they have agreed to agree. Agreed to agree on meaning; thereby shifting conventions and signs to a different communicative plain.

Iglu premiered in Los Angeles in 1977, after which the videotapes of this first and only performance mysteriously disappeared. For years Iglu lived on through the recollection of the artists, the actors at the time, and the audience that evening—until now.

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IGLU

Two young and intelligent women are on a brief vacation in West Los Angeles, their hotel room, with windows overlooking the hills and Southern California.

The furniture is quite simple but…

They are overwhelmed by some unexpected
situations. Events without rhyme or reason. Their reactions were the only possible solutions.
–Guy de Cointet & Robert Wilhite, 1977
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Iglu premiered at The Vanguarde Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1977. Its first restaging took place over 30 years later at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut as part of the exhibition Paying A Visit To Mary (January-June 2010). The play’s European premier is initiated by Stuk Kunstencentrum (Leuven) and If I Can’t Dance, I don’t want to be part of your Revolution (Amsterdam). The Amsterdam performance is co-produced by If I Can’t Dance, I don’t want to be part of your Revolution, Kunstverein and the Stedelijk Museum. The performance will be accompanied by a lecture by Marie de Brugerolle (November 11, Stedelijk Museum).

About Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2:

The American visionary, designer, architect, author, and inventor, Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), stopped speaking for two years at the age of 32 because he said he didn’t want to go on simply repeating what he was taught. Instead of communicating by rote, depending on automatic responses, he stripped himself of his inherited ‘sign equipment’ or ‘fixed props’ and re-booted his system to say what was needed, when it was needed.

The exhibition Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 stages the question of how individual relations can be perceived and interpreted. How do we communicate? What forms can communication take? Do we understand one another, really? Is your blue mine? And if it is, or if it isn’t: how does this affect how we understand one another? The artists in Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 contend with ‘sign equipment’ or ‘fixed props,’ with the shiftiness of communication, social conventions and visual representation. Paying A Visit To Mary Part 2 is an abstract conversation, amongst the participants and between them and the audience.

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Paying A Visit to Mary Part 2
10/12/2010 – 30/01/2011
with a.o., Guy de Cointet, Sarah Crowner, Elad Lassry, Willem Oorebeek, Alexandre Singh, Robert Wilhite.

New York Art Book Fair 2010

Kunstverein will present the new publication grey-blue grain by Adam Pendleton, which comprises of a series of writings used and appropriated in previous works and performances. In conjunction with the publication, stacks of ceramic black cubes are on display, functioning as a materialization of an abstract alphabet – A phenomenological meaning-making device. The cubes, all of part of the piece untitled (small black cubes) are, like separate letters of an alphabet, individually for sale.
The whole will function as an ephemeral installation that also “hosts” Kunstverein’s other publications, on view and for sale amidst the black cubes.

Adam Pendleton composes formal templates in which he slots information, shifting language, forms and images into an arena of artistic inquiry. Practicing extreme freedom of reference and quotation, as well as a rejection of conventional hierarchies among sources, Pendleton establishes new referential devices and displays in which he exploits the easy-psychology of biographical readings, rendering language and image both concrete and contingent.

The NY Art Book Fair, November 5–7, 2010
Preview: November 4, 6-9 p.m.
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave., Long Island City, New York

Free and open to the public:
Thursday, November 4, 6-9 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, November 5 & 6, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Sunday, November 7, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Benefit event

18 September
20.00

Kunstverein will celebrate its first anniversary on the 18th of September with a benefit event featuring a special opening of the exhibition High Level Margins With A Catalogue by Nedko Solakov and a series of unusual boat rides hosted by American artist Doug Fishbone.

Doug Fishbone’s performances weave elaborate narratives and visual tapestries from familiar freely found imagery that question the way information is presented, manipulated and processed in the current cultural and visual landscape. Interested in the politics of representation the artist’s monologues constantly shift, narrating grey areas between our perceived notions of fact and fiction, myth and propaganda, comedy and advertising.

The evening starts at 20.00 at Aan de Amstel, Weesperzijde 42a, which besides hosting drinks and music, also functions as information and gathering point from where you will be escorted to the appropriate locations.

Doug Fishbone’s performance starts at 20.30 and 21.30 and Nedko Solakov’s installation is open throughout the evening but limited to five persons at the time.

Tickets for the benefit event are 50 Euro and include a yearlong membership (worth 50 Euro). Members have free admission.

For reservation please RSVP before 13 September to office@kunstverein.nl

Lezing #1 M.V.
16 July 19.00

The first in a series of lectures by Koen Brams on remarkable yet overlooked figures of the Belgium art scene who have appeared and disappeared at historically significant moments in time.

In 1973 Marian Verstraeten (31 May 1951-11 February 1997) started working for radio 3 in Belgium. During that time, Verstraeten conducted interviews with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Ryman and David Hockney while simultaneously working as a translator/editor for Bozar, center for fine arts in Brussels. Afterwards, Verstraeten became editor of the art magazines +-0 and Artefactum and started working as the assistant of visual artist, art critic and theoretician Fernand Spillemaeckers who initiated the progressive Galerie MTL in Brussels.
Founded 1970, Galerie MTL provided a platform for more than a hundred exhibitions, of which mostly were dedicated to conceptual art. Many important artists at the time exhibited at the gallery among whom Sol LeWitt, Gilberto Zorio, Daniel Buren, André Cadere, Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Dibbets, Mel Bochner, Joseph Kosuth, Guy Mees, Hanne Darboven, John Baldessari and Robert Ryman

Marian Verstraeten’s files provide a rich and unvarnished impression of what happened during that period.

Kunstverein’s Brunch Lunch Launch presents Ginger&Piss #1: Loud
Contributions by Elvira Belafonte, Hula Capellinni, Billy Male and G. Alonso Oeuf
27 June 2010, 2–5 pm with a performance by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy starting at 3.30 pm

Dear Reader,

Ginger&Piss is Kunstverein’s in-house magazine – a cross between an academic journal and a darts club newsletter. Ginger&Piss (the name a misquotation of Lawrence Weiner) is published twice yearly, with the first edition appearing in a short run. Each issue contains a maximum of five or six contributions of varying length, appropriate to the individual subject matter.

The remit of Ginger&Piss is simple; to offer an outlet for authors to say what they feel is vital (and not necessarily at all related to the art world) but were unable, unwilling or too afraid to publish previously. The concept dictates that each contributor writes under a pseudonym. The editors guarantee full anonymity.

The use of pseudonyms can be considered an answer to the cowardice of the art world, albeit a somewhat hypocritical one. By providing a platform for candid critique but at the same time allowing the author to hide behind a pseudonym, Ginger&Pisss recognizes its own complicit cowardice. In fact, Ginger&Piss fully embraces its somewhat misleading bravery, but maintains that it makes sense for now, for the current cultural climate­.
 
Loud is the subject of the first issue and it is a broad – probably far too broad – theme (if a theme at all). In fact Quiet might have been more appropriate. But perhaps a clear, ‘honest’ voice is better suggested by volume than whispering.

Krist Gruijthuijsen & Maxine Kopsa
Editors

In conjunction with the magazine’s launch, Kunstverein will host a performance
by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy

Welcome to the story of my life is a dazzling one-man musical extravaganza in which the performer and the objects presented are in a constant state of transition. Loosely based upon the life of Fassbinder’s Maria Braun, Lutz-Kinoy’s narrative follows an array of performance elements such as musical theater tropes and pop / jazz dance in which the objects, surrounding the protagonist, constantly change their meaning.

Dexter Sinister, A Model of The Serving Library
29 May – 24 July
Private view: 28 May, 7 – 9 PM

During Spring and Summer Kunstverein will collaborate with Dexter Sinister.
Dexter Sinister is the compound name of David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey who, in 2006 established a workshop and bookstore with the same name in New York’s Lower East Side.

Most of Dexter Sinister’s projects have explored aspects of contemporary publishing in many different contexts. As well as designing, editing, producing, and distributing both printed and digital media, Dexter Sinister have also worked with ambiguous roles and formats, usually in the live contexts of galleries and museums. Their bi-annual house journal Dot Dot Dot (begun in Amsterdam in 2000) often functions as a framework within such projects.

Currently Dexter Sinister intends to dissolve all their activities (including the journal, workshop and bookstore) into one single project called The Serving Library. The Serving Library is as much social furniture as it is a specific model. It intends to operate on the principle of developing something in public and will eventually comprise: a physical library, a collection of artefacts, a teaching facility and a journal entitled “Bulletin of The Serving Library”.

For Kunstverein, a speculative model version of the Library is developed providing the backdrop for a number of seminars and other events, which will discuss issues drawn from the contents of the library. The artefacts and books will serve as triggers for conversation and teaching, and the space will serve as a meeting point and hangout. The whole might be considered a kind of temporary school — a school primarily concerned with what a contemporary art school might become.

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Events

Within the framework of A Model of The Serving Library, Kunstverein will organize various events that reflect upon aspects addressed within the library’s content.

31 May – 2 June
“Applied Art” starting each day at 2 pm at Kunstverein
Workshops hosted by Dexter Sinister with Gerrit Rietveld Academy (31 May), Piet Zwart Institute (1 June) and Werkplaats Typografie (2 June). The workshops are open to the public.
Please make reservations before 27 May to office@kunstverein.nl

27 June 14.00 – 17.00
Brunch Lunch Launch of Kunstverein’s first issue of its own house magazine Ginger&Piss with a performance by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy.

16 July 19.00
Lezing #1 M.V.
The first in a series of lectures by Koen Brams on remarkable yet overlooked figures of the Belgium art scene who have appeared and disappeared at historically significant moments in time.

Simon Martin
7 March – 9 May 2010

With UR Feeling, a lecture at Hermitage, 6 March 2010, 4 pm
Private view: 6 March 2010, 6–8 pm

Simon Martin’s practice could be summed up as a continuing, considered inspection of the significance of our cultural baggage – how it is thought about, displayed, categorised and remembered. Whether painting, sculpture or moving image, Martin’s work examines the relationship society forms not only with its artworks but also (historical) artefacts, human icons (Warhol) and objects of design (Memphis).

Untitled (2010) is a formal study of a sculpture – an African figurine placed next to an organic lemon. The sculpture is empirically investigated, observed, rotated, examined as it hovers between a state of pure objecthood and unblemished representation. It could equally be an advert for the sculpture, with its quick edits moving sleekly across surface of the elusive product. This is clearly an animation and, like a diagram or a sign, an animation has no ‘weight’. Or does it? Untitled transitions from knowing to sensing to not-knowing and back again. Untitled ’s duplicity is echoed by the bronze ‘desk sculpture’ with accompanying real organic lemon, called Untitled (2007). A replica of the same African figurine as depicted in the animation, Untitled, like its counterpart, refuses to become a clear-cut, easily defined object. On the one hand, it touches the familiar as a generic model of an African artefact, perhaps a discreetly decorous souvenir, on the other, in its modest placement, remains unsettlingly enigmatic. There is a hint of inert aggression in its demand for wholeness: without the commitment of he who oversees the work – he who promises to replenish the organic lemon – Untitled is not complete; or simply is not.

‘They will feel in the alleyways something, but it’s not quite medieval and its not quite modern. It’s something else. In other words, my whole idea of affect is that you experience something, you feel something, you see something, but you can’t quite explain it. It has an Ur-dimension to it… something between understanding and not, lets say.’ (Peter Eisenman)

UR Feeling is the title of a lecture or ‘investigation’ by Simon Martin. According to Martin, “the UR Feeling describes a pre- or non-verbal moment of apprehension”. The title is taken from a conversation between the architects Peter Eisenman and Charles Jenks. Eisenman outlines a situation where the plural coding of architectural forms and a careful attention to the social history of a place begin to produce a particular affect on the viewer. For Eisenman these affects appear as ‘texts’ and are intended to be explicit and physical.

The UR Feeling lecture will be held once only, prior to the opening on March 6, 4 pm at the Hermitage, Nieuwe Herengracht 14. Along with Untitled (2010) and Untitled (2007), it forms the third part of the artist’s exhibition at Kunstverein.

Seeing as space is limited for the lecture, please make reservations before 3 March to office@kunstverein.nl. Kunstverein’s members will have priority.

Kunstverein’s Store for Independent Publishing presents
False Friends by Garamond Press
7 March – 9 May 2010

Private view: 6 March, 6–8 pm

Antonio Pigafetta’s questionable travelogue from 1591, titled Regnum Congo, was based upon stories from Duarte Lopez, a Portuguese explorer who supposedly visited the Congo. The travelogue introduces an odd vision of European landscape in which fantastic creatures are presented. South-African artist Ruth Sacks re-contextualizes these historical interpretations by re-appropriating them into contemporary conditions, juxtaposing the varied characteristics. Hence the logo of her fictional publishing house, Garamond Press: a fantastic animal based upon a description of one of the possible animals from Regnum Congo.

Kunstverein is proud to present and produce the Garamond Press’ first publication False Friends. The narrative of the book derives from the storyline of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Murders at the Rue Morgue” from 1841, generally agreed to be the first detective story ever written. This contemporary version is set in Antwerp, Belgium, and is split into three languages: Dutch (Flemish), French and English. To follow the story’s plot, one has to be fluent in all three languages.

ISBN: 978-94-90629-02-1
€ 12,50

“grey-blue grain”, an exhibition by Adam Pendleton
12 Dec. 2009 – 31 Jan. 2010

grey-blue grain is the second in a three-part program by Adam Pendleton entitled EL T D K Amsterdam, comprising, along with this exhibition, two performances.
grey-blue grain is a selection of projects from 2007-09 that deal directly with the abstraction and instrumentalization of language and image through sculpture and wall-based work, including including a selection from his ongoing System of Display, mirror and glass works that atomize historical trajectories and textual realities through framing, reflection and fragmentation; sculptural work derived from the code-based work of ‘Clairvoyant Poet’ Hannah Weiner; poster-format rereading of texts based on the work of Liam Gillick and Malcolm X; and fresh configurations of the artist’s abstract and phenomenological alphabet, Untitled (small black cubes).

Adam Pendleton’s conceptual practice constructs formal templates in which he slots information. As a painter, writer and performer, he uses extreme freedom of reference and quotation, as well as a rejection of conventional hierarchies among sources, to create a re-historicized present, one that upsets and unbalances comfortably subjective interpretations of history and culture.

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. Often 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.

EL T D K Amsterdam is a collaboration between Kunstverein, Amsterdam and de Appel.

Note:
Part three, BAND, will be performed the 13th and 14th of December at 8.30 PM
Location: De Brakke Grond (Rode Zaal), Nes 45, Amsterdam

For reservations, please contact: +31 (0)20 626 68 66 or hzomer@deappel.nl

BAND is a form and content refashioning of Jean-Luc Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil. Made in the aftermath of May ’68, the original film helped mark Godard’s break from his Nouvelle Vague period into a more committed engagement with the politics and class struggles of the time. It modelled the director’s emerging political faith that radical formal complexity could undermine the bourgeois logic implicit to narrative filmmaking. Often read as a tribute to the Rolling Stones whose rehearsals form an ongoing motif in the film, the Stones were in fact emblematic of the mainstream counterculture from which Godard was attempting to remove himself. BAND will unfold in stages, beginning at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 17th with a rehearsal and live concert by the indie-rock/post-punk band Deerhoof. The Amsterdam performance/reading will present the first edit of footage from Toronto with work-in-progress sequences from texts based on the work of authors explicitly related to Godard’s film, such as the Black Panther’ Eldridge Cleaver; or tangentially related, such as Gertrude Stein. The final stage of BAND will occur at The Kitchen, New York in Fall 2010.

Co-producers: Wayne Baerwaldt, Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary; Noah Cowan, Toronto International Film Festival, Future Projections; Ann Demeester, De Appel, Amsterdam with additional support from Rashida Bumbray, The Kitchen, New York.

Ray Johnson “A Book about Death”, 1963–1965
12 Dec. 2009 – 31 Jan. 2010

Ray Johnson’s (Detroit, 1927) early work consisted of intricately painted geometric abstractions influenced by Albers’ color theories, and he exhibited with the American Abstract Artists group, including Ad Reinhardt and Leon Polk Smith. Soon, however, he turned to complex collages combining images with ink and paint or other surface textures that reflected the atmosphere of Abstract Expressionism then still prevalent in New York. During the 1950’s, Johnson established the format and style he would continue to use throughout his life. Kindred in spirit to the work of Joseph Cornell, he called his small irregularly shaped collages “moticos”, an anagram for “osmotic” (from osmosis). Johnson’s works continued the Dada and Surrealist tradition of collage (including that of Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst) and pursued the provocation of paradoxical verbal and visual puns, absurd juxtapositions, word-play riddles and hidden references with a witty nihilistic sense of humor.

Johnson wrote poetic texts and letters and integrated language and a unique system of cryptic signs into his work. Considered by many the “father of Mail Art”, as early as 1953 Johnson began sending highly conceptual images/texts to friends, often encouraging the recipient to “add to” the work, or “please send to” someone else, or “return to Ray Johnson”. Forming the “New York Correspondence School” in 1962, Johnson established an enormous network of participants throughout the world – one which remains active even after his death, as is evident with Ray Johnson web sites on the Internet. Paralleling the idea of Allan Kaprow’s Happenings and of later Fluxus events, in the early 1960’s he began doing “Nothings” – informal performance art or non-art pieces which were continued over the years under the guise of NYCS meetings or lectures. Johnson was recognized as much for his performance-like persona as his collages and mailings.

In 1968, on the day Andy Warhol was shot, Johnson himself was mugged, an event which precipitated his move to Locust Valley, Long Island. Although he remained involved with the art scene through conversations and correspondences, he gradually withdrew from actively exhibiting. Johnson continued to make art, however, such as the master collages he worked on over a period of many years. He also continued to perform in his own circuitous ways, until apparent suicide on the night of Friday the 13th of January, 1995, when he was last seen leaping off the bridge in Sag Harbor, Long Island doing the back stroke into oblivion, and act some consider to be his last “performance”.

Between 1963 and 1965, Ray Johnson printed thirteen pages of his Book about Death with the Pernet Printing Company, 120 Lexington Avenue at 28th Street.  His title, which designated the thirteen unbound pages as a book, is A Book about Death, yet also A Boop about Death and A Boom about Death. Those thirteen photo-offset pages were re-printed in 1976 for a catalogue, Correspondence, North Carolina Museum of Art, Richard Craven, editor and curator. The Carolina pages were folded once from the bottom, hence are not quite like the pages Ray folded for envelopes.

The presentation at Kunstverein will include a publication by Bill Wilson, which elaborates on each of the pages of “A Book about Death”.

Kunstverein would like to thank The Estate of Ray Johnson represented exclusively by
Richard L. Feigen & Co.

Books for sale and on view from 9 Oct. – 30 Nov. 2009.

Featuring:
– Norman Potter, What is a designer
– Norman Potter, Models & Constructs
– Anthony Froshaug: Typography & texts / Documents of a life
– E.C. Large, Sugar in the air
– E.C. Large, Asleep in the afternoon
– Stuart Bailey & Robin Kinross, God’s amateur

‘Hyphen Press was started in 1980 to publish one book, What is a designer by Norman Potter. This book had been published first in 1969, in the wake of the events of that time. Potter, then teaching design, joined the students at Hornsey College of Art in their occupation of the school. By the late-1970s the book was out of print, and its publisher was now part of a larger imprint with no interest in reissuing it. Norman Potter and I worked together on a second edition, expanding it to about twice the length of the original. In full control of editing, design and production, we made the book we wanted. Partly as a way of supplying pictures to an unillustrated work, Potter wrote an accompanying pamphlet, Designing a present, which included contributions from his colleagues. We handled distribution ourselves, and encountered all the difficulties that this brings. But the book sold out eventually. What is a designer certainly has the spirit of 1968 – but, as its subsequent history has shown, it has other dimensions too.

This adventure set the course for Hyphen Press. Through the 1980s, I was busy with other things, and selling this book was just a part of my activities. Hyphen started a second phase of life when Potter and I started work on a third edition of What is a designer, and on his second book Models & Constructs. These were published in 1989 and 1990. After this the list began to grow, with other writers joining. Each book continued to be in some way a collaboration between author (often also designer) and myself as editor.

In 2000 I finished a book about the typographer Anthony Froshaug, which I had worked on for about 15 years. Froshaug and Potter were close friends and colleagues, and it had been Froshaug who had introduced me to Potter. So this book joined the sequence of works that represent and document a certain element of English culture, and one that was previously unknown except within small circles.

Later still, in 2008, with Potter and Froshaug long gone, we added to this sequence by reissuing books by the English writer E.C. Large – which had provided some inspiration and reassurance for both of them. This effort of rediscovery was done in collaboration with Stuart Bailey. He and I made a third book, God’s amateur: the writing of E.C. Large, to accompany the reissue of the novels.’

Robin Kinross, August 2009
www.hyphenpress.co.uk

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.

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