In the 90’s, ‘Customs’ was really on a crusade against LGBT bookstores. […] I did a drawing at that time for Kevin [Killian] and Dodie [Bellamy] of two women standing in front of a bookcase ‘Subversive Literature #4: Two Sixteen-Year-Old Girls Reading Books Seized at Canadian Customs, 1995’ that showed the spines of all the books that had been banned to date by Canada’s customs agency. I took it from a list that was made by (the anti-censorship) group called PEN international, who I unfortunately only discovered after my books had already been burned—GB Jones (In conversation with D St-Amour, Jun 29, 2022)

I think one of the reasons [that] G.B. Jones started J.D.s was to create a world that, sadly, didn’t exist.—Johnny Noxzema

Kunstverein will begin the new year with the festive opening of the first European solo exhibition of punk polymath G.B. Jones (1965, Bowmanville, Canada). Please join us on January 20 between 5-8pm. Brace yourself… Here’s where we begin. 

In 1994, Feature Inc., a gallery in New York run by the gallerist known simply as “Hudson,” released G.B. Jones. This monograph of G.B. Jones’ work was doing triple duty as the 7th issue of Farm (Hudson’s publication for Feature) and the 8th issue of The Gentlewomen of California (Steve Lafreniere, the resident designer and collaborator at Feature Inc, his own publishing project). The monograph presented an extensive reproduction of her well known series of drawings collectively referred to as “Tom Girls”: originally published in Jones’ and Bruce LaBruce’s infamous zine J.D.s, (1985–1991). In these graphite  drawings, Jones replaced Tom of Finland’s iconic, “hyper-virile studs,” with equally horny, unrepentant leather dykes.Co-opting Finland’s objectified, male-on-male erotica, she presented a freeing world of sexually empowered female role models.

During that era (and more or less still to this day), under Tariff Code 9956 and Memorandum D9-1-1, Canadian customs officials held the power to exercise “prior restraint” of any book, magazine or picture they believed to be obscene. What constituted obscenity was ascertained through a quagmire of perplexing and recursive attributions that left Border Services agents primarily reliant on a system that was open to highly subjective interpretation—in short, Border Services agents were permitted to “use their own judgment”. As a result, anything attached to the LGBT community, regardless of their content, was targeted. So, when a short year later copies of G.B. Jones rocked up at a Canadian checkpoint, the artist received a notice from Canada’s Border Security Agency that the publication had been seized by customs officials and barred from entering the country. Finding herself already operating on a no-budget as filmmaker and with not a dime to spare, she was unable to secure legal counsel for the retrieval of the seized books, which consequently were burned by Customs agents. Despite tariff and language revisions, Canadian Border Services still retains many of the same rights as it did at the time, and Canada’s determination of “obscenity” remains just as ambiguous and subjective. The subjectivity of perversion doubled, the fantasy of power-play stripped to its very real reference point in this violent encounter with the state. 

Drawing out the moment around the publication of G.B. Jones’ monograph and its censorship in the mid-1990s, this exhibition will be both an earnest, admiring fan letter to G.B. Jones’ practice, and an homage to the perfectly vixen, queer world that Jones and her network conjured into being, via film, sound and Xerox. Importantly, it will also mark the belated, though no less significant, republishing and European launch of the censored monograph G.B. Jones. 

Within the framework of Jones’ exhibition, Kunstverein is happy to announce a series of events expanding on her practice. Jones is known for a variety of achievements, including the popularity of her post-punk band Fifth Column (1981-2002), the wide influence of the queer punk zines she co-authored, such as J.D.s, Double Bill, and Hide, the creation of the term “queercore,” and her prolific work as a “no-budget” filmmaker, scene photographer, and visual artist. As such, the public program will feature events that show the scope and influence of Jones’ varied practice both then and now. More concrete information about these event will be put inline soon! 

Kunstverein would like to thank the artist, Cooper Cole as well as Kara Hamilton
and Kari Cwynar of Kunstverein Toronto who, in collaboration with D St-Amour, initiated this important retrospective of Jones’ art practice and the reprint. An additional thank you to Olivier Goethals for working with us on the scenography. We would also like to thank our members and Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst for their continued support, as well as Stadsdeel Zuid for their project specific contribution to this exhibition.

Barbara Kozłowska
From East to West, Through the Globe, Towards the Moon
30 September – 17 December, 2022

Opening night: September 30, 8pm
Followed by an After Party at Butchers Tears from 10pm

While in Prague Jiří Kovanda took to the streets and the Slovenian OHO Group resettled to the Vipava Valley, Barbara Kozłowska left her Wrocław studio and hit the beach. Like many other artists working within the geopolitical region now commonly referred to as the misnomer “Eastern Europe” they were constructing work “within nature.” And yeah, given this and the poetics that many of their oeuvres share, the assumption could quickly be made that at the time a cultural movement was brewing throughout “Eastern Europe” which held a pioneering focus on the interconnectedness of art and ecology. Still, while this isn’t necessarily untrue, what shouldn’t be overlooked is the context in which these artists operated. In this reality, each of their works inherently took on a—however subtle—political stance against the institutional structures (of art) surrounding them. The location in which they were made played a role in that too.

Enter Barbara Kozłowska (1940–2008): a painter who abandoned painting for sculpture, a sculptor who did not stay faithful to any of the accepted schools, a concrete poet, installation artist and para-theatrical performer without métier, an oddball even amongst oddballs and, the centre of attention in our forthcoming exhibition From East to West, Through the Globe, Towards the Moon, which will open at Kunstverein on September 30. This exhibition marks the late artist’s first institutional solo show outside of Poland and celebrates an under-appreciated proponent of the Polish neo-avantgarde who actively committed to interrogating space and its organising principles. It brings together Kozłowska’s plural practice through concrete poetry, ephemera and publications, sculpture and correspondence, a restaging of two early sculptural installations as well as documentation of her performances—designed for various places around the world, even if realised in only a few.

Within the framework of Kozłowska’s exhibition, Kunstverein is happy to announce a series of events that will expand on Kozłowska’s practice.

Talking points and framework: October 1, 4–5pm
A talk by Marika Kuźmicz/ Fundacja Arton on Barbara and her peers (free)

Show and Tell: December 10, 2pm
Alex Balgiu (US/FR), co-editor of the anthology Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979, joins us for a deep dive into Kozłowska’s use of concrete poetry while touching upon other constellations of women artists working at the intersection of the verbal and visual who sought to liberate words from the conventions of genre, gender, and the strictures of the patriarchy and normative syntax. Limited spots available. Entree: €10 (free for members).

Kunstverein thanks Marika Kuźmicz, Fundacja Arton, Zbiegniew Makarewicz and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute for their support of this exhibition. We would also like to thank our members, our supporters, Reform, Senso, and Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst for their continued support.

Salon Hang 24/7
June 19–28
On location: Hortusbrug—Dr. D.M. Sluyspad 6, 1018 DH Amsterdam
Open daily between 1–5pm, AND at night between 7pm–11am

Opening: Friday 18 June, 6–8pm. Exclusively for members of Kunstverein and professional guests of Amsterdam Art.

Overnight stays: Available from Saturday June 19 till June 29. Overnight stays, including breakfast, come at the rate of € 190, €130 for members, or free for gold members! Check availability.

For the fourth time in our twelve-year history we are happy to host our biennial Salon Hang, an exuberant, sensory-overloading group exhibition showcasing the abundance of local and international talent we’re happy to call our members.

For this edition we’ll take up residence in a former bridge house-turned-hotel suite adjoining the Botanical Garden in Amsterdam. Fancy! Because it’s special! It’s time to rekindle! Don’t you think? For ten days and ten nights we will highlight the practices of the individuals who back us—a multi-voiced community of thinkers and makers. Expect the lofty and the low, the known and the obscure all sharing a figurative bed.

With work by, among others: 

Anne Turyn
Top Stories
April 2 – June 26, 2021

Too Good To Be Entirely True
Words In Reverse
3 Stories
Agent Pink
Foot Facts
This is My Mother. This is my Father.
Eating Friends
Transcript
New York City in 1979
Living with Contradictions
Marie
Shattered Romance
Real Family Stories
95 Essential Facts
I.T.I. L.O.E
Analects of Self-Contempt/Sweet Cheat of Freedom
The Human Heart
Forget About Your Father
How To Get Rid Of Pimples
Red Moon/Red Lake
The Colorist
FIVE
Tourist Attractions
Extremes Of High and Low Regard
War Comics
Pecunia Olet

Well now. 

Kunstverein is thrilled to –finally– welcome you to Top Stories, the first exhibition in The Netherlands to give full attention to the identically titled prose periodical set-up, edited, designed and distributed by Anne Turyn between 1978 and 1991.

Top Stories started in the late 1970s under the auspices of the venue Hallwalls (Buffalo, New York) where, at the time, Turyn was co-programming performances and readings. It later moved to New York in the early 1980s along with its founder. With these publications Turyn specialised in giving space to the writing of one young female author (and those who identify themselves as such) in her network, forecasting some of the most progressive writers of the 80s and 90s such as Kathy Acker, Laurie Anderson, Constance DeJong, Jane Dickson, Pati Hill, Jenny Holzer, Mary Kelly, Cookie Mueller, Linda Neaman, Lynne Tillman and Gail Vachon, and often featured visual contributions by artists such as David Armstrong, Joe Gibbons, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, Gary Indiana, Richard Prince and Leslie Thornton. 

Since many of the stories are of an auto-fictional nature, the twenty-nine-odd issues function today as a direct gateway into the mood and network of the New York scene at the time. They give us a glimpse into the cradle of the writers’ later careers as well as a direct take on how second-wave feminism and the fight for equal rights and social equality—regardless of sex—impacted their daily life and thoughts. Cumulatively, the issues shine a light on how important it is—still—for independent chapbooks, small presses and spaces to exist. They are a beacon for fostering and developing legroom for voices that are left unheard on the main stage and propel change.

We are proud to share that we have acquired a rare, complete, first edition set of the Top Stories series for Kunstverein’s collection, and you are invited to come and browse, smell, read and touch the material for yourself. Accompanying the shelved Top Stories is a newly commissioned two-channel film by experimental filmmaker—and longtime friend of Turyn—Peggy Ahwesh. The film unpacks Turyn’s extensive archive and leads us past ephemera and long forgotten notes that serve as time stamps for the relationships and know-how that were there to make the series work.

Parallel to the show we will also be publishing a very limited number of copies of Tense, a never realized publication by Lucy Lippard and Jerry Kearns from 1984. This issue was originally intended to become a Top Stories but never was. It will be launched now during Amsterdam Art Weekend, near the end of the show.

Photo credit group portret: May 13, 1983, Artists Space, NYC by Laurie Neaman

In parallel to the exhibition Bronze Icebergs, Cauleen Smith and Kunstverein bring you The Distance Between Slits and Screen. This two-part, online only film program expands on Smith’s own interests and filmic oeuvre, touching upon topics and methodologies used by kindred-spirited filmmakers and finding itself in latent friction with archival material from the collection of the EYE Filmmuseum.

Running on an endless loop on Kunstverein’s website from today onwards, this first part takes up the suggestion Smith proposes in her new series of drawings currently on display at Kunstverein and rhetorically wonders: What if we collectively redirected our focus and put the revenant energy applied to the monumentalisation of small and foolish men towards the truly monumental, the features of this planet both grand and mundane, from microbes to crystals and volcanic outbursts. It features works by, in order of appearance: J.C. Mol, Cauleen Smith, H. Bekker, Basim Magdy, Huzel and Deimantas Narkevičius.

Seth’s Books Bookshop
November 26 – December 23
Laughter, Columbusplein 233, 1057 TP Amsterdam
Open: Tue–Sat, 11am–5.30pm

Duane Michals, “Photograph of Seth Siegelaub,” (1969) Courtesy of the Artist and the Siegelaub Collection & Archives at the Stichting Egress Foundation, Amsterdam.

In 1969, when Seth Siegelaub set up the exhibition January 5–31, 1969 he left these typewritten instructions for his then secretary Adrian Piper:

1. Get keys
2. Answer phone “Seth Siegelaub”
3. Catalogs are available only at gallery – if any one wants extras we will mail them. (except for the press)
4. If someone is interested in purchasing work, call me.
5. My other phone is 288-5031.
6. Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 – 5:30.
7. Gallery will exist for this month only.
8. Every morning turn on both Robert Barry pieces.
9. Lawrence Weiner has one freehold piece (see catalog) – if anyone inquires about this – tell them they can own the piece by making arrangements with Mr. Weiner at GR7-4113.
10. Haved people sign guest book.
11. The tpyewritten Information sheet is for press only.
12. For the first six hours of the exhibition (sat.) take a polaroid photo every 1/2 hour of the Huebler sawdust (looking into the hall) and then place it on the wall (with scotch tape) near the type-written document. At the end of the 6 hours (5 PM Sat.) remove the sawdust and throw it away.

To celebrate the launch of Seth Siegelaub “Better Read than Dead”: Writings and Interviews 1964–2013 (in which the above note is included) Kunstverein will take a cue from Seth’s instructions and transform our second space, located at Columbusplein 233, into a Seth’s Books Bookshop for one month only. The arrival of this new publication, modestly financially supported by Kunstverein, is especially exciting for us since it marks the important moment that this inspirational material by the hand of our dear friend and former board member Seth Siegelaub is made available to a larger audience in one concise volume, a wonderful initiative from our current board member Marja Bloem. The Seth’s Books Bookshop set-up in celebration of this occasion will be exclusively devoted to selling books by and about Seth Siegelaub, all of which make for perfect Christmas presents. The shelves will be stocked with, among others: How To Read Donald Duck, rare books on the history of textiles, The Joke Book and of course this newest publication.

Cauleen Smith
Bronze Icebergs
10 October – 23 December 2020
Opening Saturday, October 10, 5–9pm

‘The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.’ – Sun Ra

Please join us on October 10, between 5 and 9pm, for the soft opening of Bronze Icebergs, an exhibition by artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith. This show marks the Los Angeles-based artist’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands and brings together a new series of drawings, a film and a flag designed especially for the occasion.

On Friday, July 3, at the *very* precarious moment in which the Covid-19 death toll in the US had recently surpassed one hundred thousand people and when millions, despite the dangers, were taking to the streets enraged by the relentless (police) brutality and injustice against people of colour, a news notification popped up on screens across the globe. It announced that a presidential executive order had just been signed by the US president that condemned the destruction of monuments and called for the building of a national garden that would feature the statues of ‘Our American Heroes’. The definition of ‘our’ couldn’t be more at stake. The executive order came as yet another sadly unsurprising and vile response from Trump to the toppling of monuments across countries.

Such an action has, at different moments, served as a physical and symbolic public exfoliation ritual for many when distancing themselves from ideas and individuals that they no longer want to be associated with (or never even identified with in the first place). The most recent toppling of bronze was a long-overdue reminder that it is truly time we reckon with our colonial pasts and rise up to the demand to acknowledge the existing conditions of inequity within our societies, and to do so as a community.

Smith’s work, which often takes shape across various forms, is grounded in the imaginary possibilities of the moving image and seeks to propose an alternate future through speculative narratives. And this moment we are living through calls for just that: the healing power of reimagining.
In the forty-six drawings on display at Kunstverein, Smith manipulated the official announcement by inserting the names of significant Black female activists and cultural figures as well as moments of insurgent uprisings that are commonly written out of history.
By repeating, revising, filling in and marking language from the executive order document—and pairing it with images and names of various violently extracted and mined mountains, icebergs, prairies and rivers—Smith lays bare the harmful practice of erasure in relation to cultural significance and the standards of who, or what, is deemed as such. But in doing so, she also points to the transformative potential of rewriting collective memory through the work of revolutionary thinkers and events—ones that have changed our political realities yet have been unjustifiably overlooked.

Juxtaposed with a flag affixed to the exterior of Kunstverein and the film Lessons in Semaphore (which captures a choreographed movement with flags whereby a performer communicates through visual signals), this new series asks how these acts of revisioning help refigure our relationship to threatened environments and undo the destructive heroisation of figures who too quickly have been cast in bronze.

Kunstverein would like to thank AFK and its members for their continued support.

Ah! All of a sudden it’s ten o’clock and still light, still hot and, well, summer. And we were wondering: Does this really count as a season in a year that has already skipped one? Are we allowed, as a cultural body, to slow down in the heat of this specific moment? To rub our physical bodies with SPF20 and protect them (more) just because we are in the luxurious position to do so?

These questions form the central axis for this year’s annual Summer Res(t)idency which recommences on August 1. This third edition welcomes Matilda Kenttä who will be toiling away while the rest of us aren’t. Kenttä, a very *very* recent graduate from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s textile department will install a loom in the frame of Kunstverein’s window. While the days grow shorter again Kenttä will be reshuffling the silver curtain currently casting shade on our space into rags. Although her labour is hers, it will not be solitary. Until August 31 Kunstverein’s physical space will turn into an occasional meeting place (call it a bar) for friendly gossip (as the term was understood in the eleventh century, then meaning friend), questioning who, really, has the right to be lazy? Stories bypassers spin will be interwoven into the fabric, which after summer will filter into kitchens and households.

September welcomes a solo exhibition by Cauleen Smith, initiated by our associate curator Suzy Halajian. Halajian, who was selected out of ninety-four candidates worldwide, will bring her voice to Kunstverein’s program by developing two projects annually. This is the first. The Los Angeles-based curator’s interests lie at the intersection of art and politics, looking at how images are made and consumed in relation to our colonial pasts and modern surveillance states. Previously, Halajian has curated exhibitions and programs for, among others, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Armory Center for the Arts, and Sursock Museum (Beirut). Halajian has also been an integral part of the curatorial team at the artist-run space Human Resources (LA) since 2015 and—together with Anthony Carfello and Shoghig Halajian—is the co-founder of the journal Georgia.

We hope to see your sun-kissed faces then, if not sooner!
Kunstverein

Anne Turyn
Messages To The Public
18 May – 27 June 2020
Public space (accessible 24/7)

As a prelude to our forthcoming exhibition TOP STORIES, the first institutional solo exhibition by Anne Turyn in the Netherlands (which due to the corona outbreak has been postponed until the fall), we are bringing one of Turyn’s enigmatic works to the streets and inviting you to go for a walk. On nine specifically selected poster columns located throughout Amsterdam, large-scale prints of the artist’s 1988 commission Messages To The Public will be shown.

The exact locations can be found here.

Anne Turyn, What if the sky were orange, 1988
Computer animation, Spectacolor lightboard, One Times Square, Sept. 1–30, 1988

This work was originally presented in digital form on the Spectacolor board overlooking Times Square in New York, and was part of a larger series of works commissioned by the Public Art Fund. In Turyn’s piece, rhetorical questions like: ‘What if everyone had a home?’, ‘What if there were free medical service for all?’ and ‘What if there were no lines at the bank?’ flashed up. In re-staging an adapted form of this work now, it has become even more evident that such questions are (unfortunately) today, almost forty years later, still topical, timely and largely unsolved.

The How and the What – edition hansjörg mayer
15 February – 11 April 2020
Extended until 21 June

From Thursday May 21 we welcome you back to The How and The What – edition hansjörg mayer. In addition to the first leg of the exhibition, which had focused on Mayer’s early typographic and film experiments, it will now feature almost the entire output of Mayer’s imprint, including the early Futura magazines as well as later ethnographical publications which earlier were on show at EENWERK.

The catalogue can be browsed during our regular opening hours (and by appointment) until the end of June, and is open to a maximum of two visitors at a time.

Kunstverein, Boekie Woekie and Eenwerk are happy to invite you to their joint exhibition of Hansjörg Mayer: “typoet,” concrete poet, printer, publisher and teacher. This fragmented exhibition – with the resolve of an institutional show – brings together Mayer’s (Stuttgart, 1943) extensive and diverse oeuvre. By placing Mayer’s work in the context of the bookstore, the street, the library, the gallery and the school, different aspects of his practice are shown.

Kunstverein
(Hazenstraat 28, Amsterdam. Open Thu–Sat, 1–6pm or by appointment)
Early experiments with typography and film take center stage at Kunstverein. From outside, projected directly onto the large front window of the space, passersby can watch the little-known films Mayer made as part of the Filma Arbeits Team. F.A.T. was a pioneering experimental film-making project set up by Georg Bense, Hansjorg Mayer and Rainer Wössner in Stuttgart. The films show their intense preoccupation with language, text and structure. Inside, Mayer’s own concrete poems and experiments with typography and printing techniques will be shown. These early works – in which the graphic and poetic is a result of experiments with technology and material – are key to understanding Mayer’s work.

Boekie Woekie
(Berenstraat 16, Amsterdam. Open Daily, 12–6pm)
Boekie Woekie is the artists’ bookstore run by the artists Henriëtte van Egten, Rúna Thorkelsdóttir and Jan Voss. On this occasion (almost) all of Roth’s books, published by Mayer, will be on display alongside the many Roth books they regulary hold.

Eenwerk
(Koninginneweg 176, Amsterdam. Open Thu–Sat, 1–6pm) – as the name suggests – shows only one work by one artist at the time. In the main gallery, enlarged pages from Mayer’s Typoaktionen as well as the ‘leporello’ itself will be shown. In addition, many books published by edition hansjörg mayer will be on show in the library of Irma Boom, adjacent to Eenwerk. Visitors are invited to browse through this immense, inspirational collection of publications, including Mayer’s own ‘typoems’, the Futura series, artists’ publications, artists’ catalogues and his later ethnographic books.

Finally, a first! At all locations, visitors can listen to records from Selten Gehörte Musik (Seldom Heard Music) – Mayer’s record label which captured the improvisation and mayhem of (among others) Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Hermann Nitsch and Oswald Wiener .

The exhibition is based on an idea by Marja Bloem.

Additional Event in collaboration with Studium Generale Rietveld Academie
20 March 2020, 4–6 pm

An afternoon of talks with Hansjörg Mayer and his contemporaries will take place at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Dialogues between the work and working methods of Hansjörg Mayer and kindred spirits will be discussed. The full program will be announced soon via https://studiumgenerale.rietveldacademie.nl. Additionally, a selection of work produced by Mayer and his students while he was teaching at Bath Academy and Watford School of Art, will be on display at the library.

This exhibition has been made possible through the kind support of Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Kunstverein’s (Gold) Members and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

Who’s Werner?
23 November – 21 December 2019

Opening: 22 November, 5–9pm

Who’s Werner? is a spacial conversation that explores artistic practices that have become intertwined and focuses on the role of a figure whose work is commonly kept a public secret. It looks into some mutualistic relationships between artists in various disciplines and their assistants; producers; sometimes lovers. The exhibition reveals some of the misconceptions that exist around how a piece of art is made and the structures that keep those misconceptions intact, offering a telescopic view onto larger issues of ‘place’, equality of partnerships, sex and race.

The show includes works where it is difficult to tear apart who brought in what piece of the puzzle… by and for; Céline Condorelli, Denise Scott Brown, Elle Burchill, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Raoul De Keyser, James Langdon, John Baldessari, Jonas Mekas, Lucy Skaer, Margot Sandeman, Norman Laich, Paul Robbrecht, Robert Venturi, Simon Harlow, Jan-Philipp Hopf, Laura Kaminskaitė, and serves as a prefix of the methodologies and interests of Kunstverein’s new director Yana Foqué, who has followed up Maxine Kopsa since September of this year. The topic explored within this exhibition will extend into Kunstverein’s program of the following years.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, the Jonas Mekas Estate (Sebastian Mekas), Margot Sandeman Estate (Peter & David Robson), Ian Hamilton Finlay Estate (Pia Simig), Grimm Gallery (Sebastiaan Brandsen), Joan Hughson Gallery, Marian Goodman (Kristina Pallova, Lauren Sher), the Lithuanian Cultural Council and CAC Vilnius for their support.

Salon Hang
13 September – 2 November 2019
Opening: 12 September, 7 pm

With:

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Neef Louis Design for their support.

AND THEN…

I listen, listen, listen, I listen and remember, that
everything I have to say, transforms

her* rhythm into
my speech.

Polyvibrations
Poly-vibrations
Po-ly-vi-bra-tions

All the time,
my story is evolving, interdependent and always alive**.

Kunstverein is happy to once more host Sandberg’s Fine Art Department’s annual Festival of Choices presenting ‘Collective Recollections’ by Tina Reden.

With ‘Collective Recollections’ Tina Reden zooms in on the task of listening and remembering as a strategy to break open the modern notion of a singular narrative and chronology. She explores the political possibility of polyphonic sound and imagines a collaborative world that connects voices through time and space. The exhibition will be open to the public daily from June 13 until June 16, between 12 and 6pm,

Additionally, on Saturday June 15, 1–4pm Reden, Francisca Khamis and Davide Sanvee invite you to take part in a workshop further exploring our collective memory based upon the sharing and mixing of stories by participants. The workshop offers an alternative experience of knowledge – not neutral, but plural – and in an interdependent relationship to others, allowing a passage, a crossing and intermingling between and across differences. To attend this workshop please announce your attendance to tina.reden@gmail.com (rsvp – max. 20 people)

Between 4–6pm following the workshop taking place on June 15, there will be a Public Moment with a chance to visit the exhibition in presence of the artist. Drinks will be served.

*‘Her’ as in the manifold, infinite other, in the middle of either or, ambiguous, threatening by the very ambiguity the orderliness of the system of schematized reality.
**This tekst was written by reverberating quotes by; Pauline Oliveros, Zora Neale Hurston, Fred Moten, Luisah Teish, Sun Ra, Maria Lugones,

Delta Mityba
Dinners on 15, 16 and 17 May, 6.30–9pm
Hazenstraat 28
1016 SR, Amsterdam

When Gordon-Matta Clark approached Carol Goodden during her flower party in the spring of 1971 – where both the guests and the food came dressed in flowers – and suggested they start a restaurant she answered “OK” and FOOD was born. FOOD became famous not only because of the extremely good cuisine, introduced through its “Guest Chef Days”, it also became famous because it was the place where all the – now infamous – SOHO artists would meet and hang out.

Considering this, the similarities between FOOD and Delta Mityba aren’t too far apart. Like FOOD, Delta Mityba is a place where when you step in you are likely to run into a kindred spirit. Its founder, Robertas Narkus, fondly refers to the space as an “Artist Daycare Center.” The restaurant is located in a former Soviet canteen as a subset of the independent not-for-profit artspace Autarkia (also run by Narkus). As a space, it is an experiment of social engineering set up with the intention to create a model that would prove to be economically self-supporting, ringing true to its own name.

It’s a curious place where the practical constraints of nourishing bleed into artistic nurturing. Something that is not in the least absent from the many delicious dishes created by the chef Jonas Palenkas, who, among other things, serves Lithuanian interpretations of East Asian dishes – exclusively with seasonal products. The flavours this cheff curiously imagines come extremely close to the real thing and simultaneously are refreshing experimental reinventions of those cited flavours.

But Delta Mityba is more than a restaurant. It’s one of those places you normally only read about long after it has disappeared. It’s a social nook where there is time for new ideas to grow and take shape…made visible in the dishes, the handcrafted plates, the self-made and/or collected furniture, the designed lamps, the graphics and the artworks temporarily “stored” on their walls.

We will try to bring the essence of this fascinating corner of the earth a little bit closer and invite you to come to dinner on May 15, 16 or 17, daily from 6.30 until 9pm.

Reservations aren’t a necessity, but can be made by calling +31 657 92 76 81. For more information, prices and the menu please visit our website.

This marks the third episode in our attempt to occasionally turn into a restaurant and serve you both historical and contemporary delights (and dishes) by artists and collectives that have mediated their practices through the dinner, the restaurant, the produce. The first and second dinners in this series were, respectively, On a Ship by Grace Schwindt, and Riccetario Imaginato by Leone Contini.

Zapp Magazine
26 January – 16 March 2019
Opening: 26 January, 7–8 pm (following the members only preview starting at 6 pm)

Mr. Peanut
Opening 13 October, 6–8 pm
On view until 1 December

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse the candidacy of Mr. Peanut for mayor of Vancouver. Mr. Peanut is running on the art platform, and art is the creation of illusion. Since the inexorable logic of reality has created nothing but insolvable problems, it is now time for illusion to take over. And there can only be one illogical candidate – Mr. Peanut.
– William S. Burroughs

Mr. Peanut… Mr. Peanut…. we know what you’re thinking: not another white man in a peanut suit.

But it’s 1974.

(Again)

And he’s running for mayor.

And, imagine. Really. Close your eyes and picture it. He doesn’t speak, he taps, he poses, he passes.

2,684 people vote for the big tap dancing peanut.

What does this say about politics, then?

And – tell us honestly – when, just now, you closed your eyes, and you saw him not in black and white, but full color, with his cane and his top hat, could you imagine yourself NOW, today, tomorrow, going into that voting booth and with your big red pencil ticking off the box next to the name “Mr. Peanut”?

Tell us.

Mr. Peanut… Not just another nut in politics.

“Borderline Case” photo Morris/Trasov Archive

Vincent Trasov became Mr. Peanut in 1971. It all started when he was making drawings of Mr. Peanut tap dancing for a stop motion film for the cultural platform Intermedia, and, finding the task tedious, decided to make a life-sized costume instead, one in which he could simply tap dance himself, animating the real thing and skirting the drawing process. The name Mr. Peanut stuck.

He was in good company. Like many artists in Vancouver connected with the then recently founded art institution, The Western Front (founded in 1973 and ongoing), working with an alias became the norm. Michael Morris took on “Marcel Dot”, Glenn Lewis, “Flakey Rosehip”, Anna Banana became “Anna Banana”, Eric Metcalfe & Kate Craig were “Dr. & Lady Brute”, A.A. Bronson, Felix Partz & Jorge Zontal became “General Idea” and Chip Lord & Hudson Marquez from San Francisco were “Ant Farm”.

For many of these figures collaboration is crucial. Collaboration and a determined interest in “finding [their] own audiences of like-minded individuals.” This quest was made concrete in 1969 when Trasov and artist Michael Morris developed a decentralized artist network that aimed to connect and exchange with contemporaries, mainly in Canada and the US. They called it Image Bank. People like Ray Johnson, William S. Burroughs and Robert Filiou were inspirational and also supportive – in fact the name “Image Bank” was referenced from William S. Burroughs’ novel “Nova Express” (1964).

In a world serviced relentlessly through social media, Image Bank and Mr. Peanut’s urgency persists. Functioning as practices and methodologies, they remind us of how vital it is to continue to question and circumvent the existing establishments of both art and political institutions.

The exhibition Mr. Peanut traces the history of Trasov’s revolutionary alias and includes historical documents, publications, correspondence, video footage as well as more recent drawings of Mr. Peanut and paintings by Vincent Trasov. A major retrospective on Image Bank will follow in the summer of 2019 at Kunst-Werke in Berlin.

Mr. Peanut has been made possible by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia and the Morris/Trasov Archive. Kunstverein wishes to thank the Belkin and their fantastic team, Scott Watson, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov.

Kunstverein is proud to share with you a complete set of twenty Dial-A-Poem records, published by Giorno Poetry Systems (GPS). We invite you to come and listen to them at the opening of the show DIAL +31 203 313 203 on Saturday 21 April, between 6 and 8pm.

“I certainly won’t curl up in a chair with a book of poetry.” — John Giorno

Dial-A-Poem was a technologically revolutionary poetry service thought up in the late 1960s by artist, activist and poet John Giorno. Inspired by a late night conversation with his friend William S. Burroughs and the recent avant-garde methodologies of (pop) artists like Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, Giorno created a new model for the distribution of poetry – one that would bring poetry to a larger audience, in a manner that steered away from fatigued traditions of formal readings (a dynamic that most often placed the poet on a page and the audience in a library).

Through his phone service callers would be connected to a web of 12 automatic answering machines and be randomly serenaded by the voices of over 70 artists, including Kathy Acker, Nick Cave, Patti Smith and Charles Bukowski. The selection of poems would change daily and often they would advocate urgent social issue of the time such as the Vietnam War, the Aids Crisis and the sexual revolution. When the phone lines got cut, Giorno moved on to distributing their poetry on vinyl. Under the GPS label he released albums regularly until the late 1980s. Many of these included early recordings by later prominent performers such as Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass as well as unique performances by Frank Zappa, Diamanda Galás, Allen Ginsberg, John Cage and many more.

It’s these albums we now hold in our collection and from April 21 until June 16 we welcome you to come and listen to them on a custom-made carpet designed by Physical Culture (Julie Héneault, Margaux Parillaud, Ursula Marcussen and Line-Gry Hørup).

During the course of the exhibition we will be hosting 3 Evenings on a Revolving Stage*. Three special events where readings will be hosted and shared. In analogy to the projects and with the purpose of distributing the show to as broad an audience as possible, making use of the various mediums at hand, a special radio show will be aired on Redlight Radio on May 28 between 9 and 10 pm. This broadcast, hosted by Yana Foqué and Jo Sandow, gives you the chance to listen to the Dial-A-Poem Poets from the comfort of your own home.

Or call us at +31 203 313 203.

* the title 3 Evenings on a Revolving Stage is borrowed from the similarly titled series of performance nights organised by Jean Depuy at the Judson Church in New York in 1976. To these evenings he invited artists that overlapped with the Dial-A-Poem Poets.

Now here’s a story.

While Joe Gibbons himself is landlocked, his exhibition Drawings from Rikers will open to the public at Kunstverein on Friday February 16, from 6–8pm (following the members only preview). And although Gibbons himself can’t join us in person for the night of the opening, we certainly hope you will.

The catalog
Available at Kunstverein is the book Drawings from Rikers edited by Maika Pollack, designed by Almog Cohen-Kashi and published by Object Relations (2017). It contains all of Gibbons’ drawings from Rikers, an extensive interview with Tony Oursler, and an introduction by former Curator of Collections at Anthology Film Archives, Andrew Lampert.

Evening screenings
Andrew Lampert has curated a selection of films by Joe Gibbons especially for Kunstverein, to be screened during the exhibition. More about location and dates will follow in a separate invitation. So keep your eyes open!

Joe Gibbons’ work has been exhibited at numerous institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain. His work has been chosen for the Whitney Biennial in 1993, 2000, 2002 and 2006, and is regularly programmed at the NY Video Festival, the Rotterdam Film Festival, and the Black Maria Film and Video Festival. His films have been broadcast in Spain, France and Germany as well as on PBS. He has collaborated on performances, films and videos with artists Tony Oursler, Karen Finley, Tony Conrad, and Emily Breer.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Ammodo for their support, and sends a special thank you to the artist, Maika Pollack (Southfirst Gallery, New York), Andrew Lampert and, of course, the Friends of Joe Gibbons.

To Whom It May Concern:

Anna Banana is a project that explores the historical and contemporary implications of mail art and highlights a unique approach to humour, disguise, and the democratic potential of print media and critique. The show will feature Anna Banana’s artist stamps, mailers, postcards, posters, and costumes made over a forty-five year period.

Anna Banana is a historical overview, yet an urgent and contemporary response to our current socially saturated and mediated world. It a meaningful show for Kunstverein, that continues our co-operation with significant Canadian conceptual artists (Kunstverein worked with Glenn Lewis in the past and will work with Image Bank in the near future.)

Kara Hamilton, founding director of Kunstverein Toronto, has initiated this important retrospective of Anna Banana’s long art practice.* The exhibition will travel from Toronto to Amsterdam in October.

There will be an artist walk-though and preview (members only) at 5 pm prior to the official opening on October 21st at 6 pm.

Anna Banana runs until January 13th 2018.

Sincerely,

Kunstverein, Amsterdam

*Following in the mighty footsteps of Anna Banana: 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana, The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and Open Space Arts Society (2015), Pratt Institute Libraries (2016)

2016 has passed, but some of its (political) diseases still linger…
Time to get to the heart of the problem…
Time for an alternative cure…
      Please join us on September 8 and 9 for the opening of Kunstverein’s new season and the Dutch premiere of Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson’s performance What Am I Doing With My Life?

What Am I Doing With My Life? is a traveling opera, a rap show and a comic routine combined, that deals with the subjects of (alternative) medicine, general health and death. The map for this touring performance takes on the shape of a body, with each European city on its path representing a different part in need of medical assistance.
      Aid and relief is given to its Amsterdam audience by self-proclaimed Doctor, Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson, with the help of local collaborators: Indriði Arnar Ingólfsson, David Bernstein, Géraldine Longueville, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Anat Spiegel, Thomas Myrmel and Annabelle von Girsewald (as tour manager).

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On Friday September 8, at 7 pm the action starts with crystal tears, Mayan death flutes and lullabies performed within an architectonic intervention by Hreinn Fridfinnsson.

Serving herbal elixirs.

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One day later, on Saturday September 9 at 7 pm, the performance is repeated, but with a twisted end: a boom box-amplified procession, on bikes, leaves from Kunstverein and slowly crawls across Amsterdam to end at David Bernstein’s opening of Because Most of the Cosmos is Compost (Thinging Part V) at P/////AKT.

The performance on Friday is a members only event. Due to its specific context, space is limited. We advise you to arrive early on Friday and/or (on bike) Saturday.

Salon Hang
9 April – 10 June 2017
Members preview: Saturday 8 April 6 pm
Opening: Saturday 8 April 7 pm

Kunstverein: “See something that means something.”

It’s time to renew our vows.
Start fresh.
Re-kindle.

We’re not going to Hawaii. We’re staying in Amsterdam, but we’re holding the ceremony at our new location. We enter together the pink and blue living room of a Hollywood ex-porn star. Think gold, shag, keyboards, candles; think domestic pleasures, salon tenderness.

Welcome to this year’s members-only Salon Hang.

Ed van der Elsken, Taipeh (poster), 1973. Nederlands Fotomuseum. © Ed van der Elsken. Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery.

Please join in a feast of you and your things; your pictures, objects, books, magazines, records, vases, pieces of strange cutlery, odd watches, paintings, and anything zebra. In a place transformed into a plush, domestic residence where one can sit and listen to live music, recitals, poetry readings, and drink and talk amidst a variety of artworks.

Kunstverein’s Salon Hang “brings together, unifies, weds, and combines the sacred with the profane, the lofty with the low, the great with the insignificant, the wise with the stupid.” (Andy Warhol)

Salon Hang marks a very special time of year: the time to celebrate its members*. Please welcome, amongst others: Gediminas Akstinas, Maria Barnas, David Bernstein, Marja Bloem, Ansuya Blom, Tim Braden, Sarah Crowner, Valentina Desideri, JL Diantus, Experimental Jetset, Maartje Fliervoet, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Laurent-David Garnier, gerlach en koop, Melissa Gordon, Roos Gortzak, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Rudy Guedj, Kara Hamilton, Will Holder, Marc Hollenstein, Juliette Jongma, Mathew Kneebone, Germaine Kruip, Lieven Lahaye, Jungmyung Lee, Gabriel Lester, Glenn Lewis, Matthew Robert Lutz-Kinoy, Raimundas Malašauskas, SL Martinez, Mevis & Van Deursen, Maureen Mooren, Lisa Oppenheim, Will Peck, Adam Pendleton, Michael Portnoy, Alexander Ramselaar, Nerijus Rimkus, Smári Runar Róbertsson, Scott Rogers, Christine Roland, Benjamin Roth, Beatrix Ruf, Glenn Ryszko, Lotte Schröder, Maaike Schoorel, Dexter Sinister, Gijs Stork, Claes Storm, Berend Strik, Jay Tan, Angelo Tromp, Nora Turato, Andy Warhol, Felix Weigand, Wieske Wester invited by Dürst Britt Mayhew, Riet Wijnen, Robert Wilhite, Luc Windaus, Geo Wyeth, Bruno Zhu …

Piss On The Electric Fence – Smári Róbertsson

*Kunstverein is a space that crosses culturally varied ground, on an intimate, ambitious, and domestic level. Kunstverein is a not-for-profit organization, which, through the support of its members, creates a community that endorses a distinct program. By being a member of Kunstverein you stake a claim to wanting to “see something that means something.” As a member, you participate in KV’s program, receiving priority for limited seating at events, special previews, access to members only happenings (like Salon Hang), discounts on publications, and other cultural benefits.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold)members and we are extremely happy to announce the support of Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, as well as Ammodo.

Noa Eshkol
I Look at the Moon and Think about My Daughter-in-Law
4 February – 19 March

A joint solo exhibition at Vleeshal and Kunstverein

Kunstverein
Hazenstraat 28, 1016 SR
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Member’s preview & walk-through at Kunstverein: February 3, 5 pm
Film screening at Kunstverein: February 4, 4 pm

When looking closely at a hand turning a doorknob, a “rotary movement” is observed, very different from the motion one would witness of jumping jacks, which are considered the result of a “plane movement,” and certainly unlike the perceived effort of a waist circling inside a hula-hoop. How do we define one movement from the next, and how do we preserve them in time, in order perhaps to redo them one after the other?

Kunstverein, together with Vleeshal (Middelburg), is excited to present a joint solo exhibition in two parts: ‘I Look at the Moon and Think about My Daughter-in-Law’ – on the work and thinking of contemporary dancer, choreographer, carpet maker and theorist Noa Eshkol (IL, 1924–2007).

In the 1950s, Noa Eshkol, together with architect Avraham Wachman, developed a notational system for movement, which uses a combination of symbols and numbers to define the motion of any limb around its joint. The Eshkol Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN) system, named after its developers, was born out of a social practice and way of life, as much as it was a visual means of representing (human) motion. The system offers a way of looking at the movements of the body, by organizing them in relatively simple categories making it possible to notate and thus reactivate motion, precisely and mathematically, at a later time.

Please join us on Saturday February 4 for the opening of ‘I Look at the Moon and Think about My Daughter-in-Law.’ There, the first copy of the EWMN system will be on view, as well as a generous selection from the historic archives (curated by Maya Pasternak with research assistance by Mor Bashan). Kunstverein will also present the first ever screening of an early performance by the Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group exercising the system. And a chameleon balancing on a branch.

The films will be screened on the window of Kunstverein’s storefront in the heart of the Jordaan, enabling both viewers inside and outside the space to be engulfed by the hypnotizing dances. Drinks will be served.

The exhibition will be open Thursday to Saturday 1–6 pm or by appointment from 4 February to 19 March 2017.

The exhibition at Vleeshal opens with performances by The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group on January 21, at 5 pm and workshops takes place on January 22. For more information on how to attend the workshops please visit www.vleeshal.nl

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Stadsdeel Zuid, and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and Ammodo as well as the Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation and Anja Casser for their foundational work on the previous exhibition of Noa Eshkol’s Wall Carpets and archival material which took place at the Badischer Kunstverein, Germany.

‘A Clocktower in the Eye’
By Alex Waterman

Kunstverein is excited (and proud) to announce a special one night only performance deep in the South of Amsterdam.

On Thursday November 17, at 7.30 p.m. please join us in the midst of the Beatrix Park in the historic and monumental Kunstkapel, to listen to a set of compositions by Alex Waterman that explore the relationship between musical composition and the social construction of landscapes, whilst simultaneously searching for a place in and outside of these landscapes for the feelings that constitute us whilst always already undoing us: grief, loss, and desire.

Special location: Kunstkapel, Pr. Irenestraat 19, 1077 WT Amsterdam
Doors open at 6.30 p.m. performance starts at 7.30 p.m.
Tickets are €5 for non-members; members go free
Please reserve your tickets via office@kunstverein.nl.

Alex Waterman is a composer, performer, and scholar based in New York. His pieces are composed from found sounds and field recordings, often played back and re-recorded through early forms of recording devices and media (phonographs, homemade Berliner gramophones, cassette tapes, micro cassettes, etc.) or by attaching transducers to the back of the corpus of his instrument – transforming the cello into another speaker in the room.

Alex studied cello with Andor Toth, Catherina Meints, George Neikrug, and Frances Marie Uitti. He was a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble, based in Brussels and London. In New York he has performed and recorded extensively with the Either/Or Ensemble. Alex has worked with musicians and artists such as Robert Ashley, Helmut Lachenmann, Marina Rosenfeld, Anthony Coleman, Ned Rothenberg, Elliott Sharp, Miya Masaoka, David Watson, Chris Mann, George Lewis, Alison Knowles, Thomas Meadowcroft, Beatrice Gibson, Peter Gordon, Ned Sublette, Elio Villafranca, Shannon Ebner, Wayne Koestenbaum, Amy Sillman, Michael Schumacher, and E.S.P. TV. His installation works have been exhibited at the ICA London, Stonescape, Vilma Gold, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Printed Matter, the Bonnefantenmuseum, and the Whitney Museum. His book on Robert Ashley, written and edited by Waterman and Will Holder, was released by New Documents in September 2014. He has produced two other books with Will Holder: Agape and Between Thought and Sound. Waterman was an artist in the 2014 Whitney Biennial where he built a television studio, and installation space inside the museum in order to produce 3 operas by Robert Ashley. He has taught at Bard College (MFA program), NYU, Bloomfield College, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. His writings appear in Dot Dot Dot, Artforum, Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, A Circular, and The Third Rail.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Stadsdeel Zuid, and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.

15 October – 17 December 2016
Preview 14 October, 5–7 pm

This exhibition takes place at a special location:
Hazenstraat 28, 1016 SR Amsterdam

is an exhibition of twenty years of Will Holder’s work with publications, talks, printed matter, and teaching presented through individual selections by nine different guests: Sara de Bondt, Linda van Deursen, Johanna Ehde, Elisabeth Klement, Maxine Kopsa, Kaisa Lassinaro, Mason Leaver-Yap, Riet Wijnen and Felicia von Zweigbergk. The main purpose of the exhibition is to make a book. Using Kunstverein as space for writing, printing and binding – Will Holder will recall hundreds of tiny material decisions made in response to a specific context of past collaborators’ work. The book will be self-published and printed on demand, and is called

Visitors are welcome to look through the archive, view the weekly presentations and order a copy of STAPLES (EUR 15, excl. postage). STAPLES will be printed and hand bound on demand on the premises. Each copy potentially different in content.

STAPLES will be the first catalog of Will Holder’s work and will also be the first book published by a (“uh”) books, Glasgow – an initiative of Will Holder with Emmie Mcluskey.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Stadsdeel Zuid, and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.

Jessica Warboys, Angle Pose
17 April – 10 June 2016

Opening: 17 April 3–6 pm
With a special performance by Morten Norbye Halvorsen at 5pm.

For Kunstverein, Jessica Warboys creates an all-emersive mise-en-scene, marrying large scale (sea) paintings, bent metal lamps, sculptural objects and film. The viewer experiences the exhibition from the spine of an enforced catwalk running down the middle of the space.

Hans de Vries ‘Works 1968–1975’
23 January – 19 March 2016

Opening 23 January 6–8 pm

With a new publication published by Kunstverein Publishing
Partner: Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam
Curated by Krist Gruijthuijsen

Hans de Vries concentrated on the study and registration of processes and appearances that occur in and are created by nature. De Vries was a close observer, an onlooker, an eyewitness, whose aim was to discern and document the relationship between man and his natural environment. His practice has been referred to as “micro-emotive art”, a term coined by the Italian artist Piero Gilardi. Micro-emotive art was art that arose from the interest in minimal sensations and experiences (micro-emotions) –the results of slow processes otherwise not readily perceived.

De Vries’s practice was fully integrated in his daily life. He lived in the countryside and registered every detail of his domestic existence. Developments in nature were studied and phenomena one might consider superfluous, were highlighted. This accumulation of facts and observations has been captured in his publications – the artist books of Hans de Vries.

His first book, Het Tuinboek, [The Garden Book] was published in 1971 as part of the Atlas voor een nieuwe metropool [The Atlas For a New Metropole], edited by Jan Donia and published by the Rotterdam Fund For the Arts. Een jaar rond: huiselijke activiteiten en het weer [A Full Year: Domestic Activity and the Weather], Hilversum, Becht, 1971, was published with the help of collectors Agnes en Frits Becht. An example of a self-published book is Kruisingen [Intersections] published in 1973 in Finsterwolde. These publications were only distributed in galleries (like Seriaal) in Amsterdam.

The illustrated De geschiedenis van de citroengeranium [The History of a Citrus Geranium] was published in 1973 by Art Animation in Groningen. This book was the result of a close study of a Citrus Geranium De Vries and his wife, Emmy, initiated in September of 1970. The artist book Stijgbeelden van vruchten [Growth Images of Fruits] is a folder with an original photograph published alongside the exhibition of the same title in the print gallery of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in 1975.

Het Dooie beestenboek [The Dead Animal Book] published by De Harmonie Amsterdam a year before Stijgbeelden van vruchten, is the first book that was available in Dutch bookstores. It is a registry of all the dead animals he and his wife came across in 1971 on their way to Winschoten from their home town, Beerta in the north of the Netherlands. This publication’s design reflects De Vries’s manner of working: showing things as they are, plainly, and with little to no formal concern. Het Dooie beestenboek straightforwardly displays each dead animal accompanied by a handwritten text and a sketch of the situation in which it was found.

Hans de Vries ‘Works 1968–1975’ is De Vries’s first exhibition since he stopped producing art at end of the 1970s. It is a retrospective of all the publications and book-related works including parallel articles and essays about his practice.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Mondriaan Fonds, Stadsdeel Zuid, and the Agnes & Frits Becht Collection.

Jennifer Tee meets COBRA*
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Pierre Alechinsky, Asger Jorn, Frits Lemaire & Eugène Brands, Jennifer Tee, Raoul Ubac, Reinhoud
In collaboration with The Cobra Museum of Modern Art
November 29, 2015–January 16, 2016

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Book launch of Jennifer Tee’s The Soul in Limbo: ‘Listening to The Soul in Limbo’ November 29, 12–2pm, with live music by Glenn Ryszko, octopus rice triangles & bloody caesars

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Copyright: Frits Lemaire/MAI

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It’s always better to be a little bit hungry
-Agnes Martin

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[Two women sit down at a rectangular table across from one another. Both open their laptops and type in google docs. One makes a ‘zip your mouth’ motion with her right hand. The other nods. The first starts to type. The other follows.]

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Short forms

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If I were a branch

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Awkward poses

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If I were a…The one thing people probably still read is a list.

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How long will it all last?

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I mean, how do we have to go on?

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Yoga

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Sculpture

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[She looks up over the head of her companion, out of the window]

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When the water reflects up onto the trees and you stare at it for a while you make the trees move.

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If yoga could turn into sculpture.

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Breathe, breathe. Breathe towards the belly.

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How do you do that? I always end up just sticking out my belly and hoping the air will find its way down and up.

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A carpet that determines the spacing of movement. No foot stepped out of the rectangle. I remember a grey man doing a grey performance on a grey carpet.

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And the urns, oh the urns.

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The urns that are death but also vessels to hold food, grains and air.

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Next to them, they sit, cross-legged, knees not quite touching the floor. And their hands are open upwards. Their arms stretched high, but their elbows still bent. Welcoming, but awkward.

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[She looks out of the window again]

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Laissez-faire gardening.

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Seasonal curating?

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No. Well, yes. Maybe that would be more interesting.

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Peter Brook talks about the stage the empty stage and if you cross it you assume an audience, or you affect one. I can take an empty space he says and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.[1]

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Tee’s work affects. Now there’s a start.

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Tick tock
Tick Tock

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OK. OK.

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*Kunstverein is the proud host of the launch of artist Jennifer Tee’s Monograph ‘The Soul in Limbo’, published in conjunction with her winning the prestigious Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen, and her solo exhibition of the same title, held at The Cobra Museum of Modern Art (24 November 2015 – 21 February 2016). As a means of creating a mise-en-scene for the publication, Kunstverein, together with Jennifer Tee and the Museum have selected historic and lesser-known works from the museum’s collection creating an intimate and perhaps impertinent exhibition. The associations and non-hierarchal, cross-historical pollination between selected works from the Cobra and Tee allow Tee’s work to enter into a conceptual and formal discussion with specific pieces and specific concerns. The selection was based on a definitive parallel that can be drawn between the works of Reinhoud, Brands and Alechinsky and Tee’s, most notably in Tee’s and their study and use of ethnographic sources. As well as the role of the shaman, the magician – which overlaps in all works. A spiritual and expressionist interest in the earlier pieces might even be brought into a conversation with such contemporary thought as Objet Oriented Ontology (OOO), a ‘movement’ that Tee’s work is conceptually connected with.

The event entitled ‘Listening to the Soul in Limbo’ is a performative launch that takes place during Amsterdam Art Weekend, presenting the book through live music and ritual. ‘Listening to The Soul in Limbo’ also marks the opening of the exhibition ‘Jennifer Tee meets Cobra’ at Kunstverein.

Hreinn Friðfinnsson
‘I collected personal secrets’, (1972–2015)
12 September – 7 November 2015
Opening: 12 September, 6–8 pm

In the early 1970s, the Icelandic artist Hreinn Friðfinnsson (b. 1943, Iceland) placed an advert in a Dutch art magazine asking people to send him their secrets. By posing as a collector of secrets, the artist would, he thought, allay suspicions that he had any ulterior motive in using or revealing privileged information that might come his way. It is like something from a novel by José Saramago, or an urban myth or rumour. The secret, Friðfinnsson may be telling us, is that there isn’t one. His art, on the other hand, is an invitation to imagine that there might be.

The artist’s work is celebrated for its lyricism and stark poetry that transcends the often-commonplace subjects and materials that the artist uses to create his pieces. Although there is a consistency of theme and a common emotional thread to his art, the media that Friðfinnsson employs are remarkably varied in scale and substance, from photography, drawings and tracings to presentations and installations of sound, texts and ready-mades. Friðfinnnsson often presents found objects with which he interferes as little as possible, creating new works that investigate ideas of the self and of time. He has said that: “Notions of time are always compelling. I read what comes my way about physics and mathematics, but I read as one who is uninitiated. The feeling and the interest in the essence of time is serious, but my dealing with time is not knowledge-based; it is more exploratory and feeling-based”.

Iceland seems a long way from the sophisticated cosmopolitanism. Friðfinnsson, who has lived in the Netherlands for more than 40 years, wants us to appreciate both the culture he comes from, and the larger world in which he finds himself. There is an important lesson in this, especially from someone who has hidden himself somewhere deep down in Amsterdam with rarely a public appearance. His relationship to the world finds itself at the ‘self’. Friðfinnsson is a natural storyteller; hence that most of his works often beg a narrative, or the fabrication of a story, even when there isn’t one.

After 40 years, Friðfinnsson will conclude his “secrets project” for the exhibition at Kunstverein. The accumulated secrets will be used as base for a monochrome painting, which will be on display alongside the advertisements the project had published throughout the years.

Organized by Krist Gruijthuijsen

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold)members, Mondriaan Fonds, and Stadsdeel Zuid.

Dear Maxine,

How is your summer? It’s been a while we haven’t spoke about the upcoming show, so I decided to write you my recent thoughts which are now gathering in a shape of a SHIP.

Let’s start by saying that while understanding darkness as a mutual agreement, I decided to divide my 24 hrs exhibition into two time periods – day and night and start the whole with an invitation to the darkness of the “Mid Manhattan Library”. The performance can be seen as the trial of the hypothesis of the philosopher Empedocles, which states that light is a product of the human eye. In the fifth century BC, he postulated that everything – all matter – was composed of the four elements: fire, air, earth and water. He also believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of them and lit the fire, which shone out from the eye making sight possible.

Empedocles knew that things were somewhat more complicated than this, and guessed there was an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. The audience of the performance is invited to the live try-out of the hypothesis, during which they listen to the narrator retelling the floor plan of the PC Lab in the Mid Manhattan Library.

I think of this work as a way to participate in a usual state of mind – to be in two places at the same time. I also see it as a real time extension of one of the infrastructures, underlining how libraries are places of shared knowledge and manufacturing.

Did you know that public libraries in the US are investing in 3-D printing machines now, so people can use them easily and less expensively? I read about a team of doctors, who wanted to assist the doctors performing the operation, but ordering a replica of the boy’s skull would have taken two to three weeks and cost about $4,000, so they went to the Chicago Public Library instead, and printed out a replica of the boy’s skull using a 3-D printer. The model of the skull took just 12 hours to make, cost $20 and the surgery was successful.

This reminds me of a cartoon I saw recently, which shows a furious foolish rhetorically asking why we still need libraries, when standing in front of a newly renovated branch of a public library. The picture itself suggests at least several, socially charged answers, one being the Unemployed Man using the Internet connection in order to find a job. This is just one example that brings us back to the bounce between creativity and function, the authority and the extension of infrastructure, which starts from one’s dream, defined by one’s reliances. How do the current social needs disguise themselves and what different shapes and forms are they ready to take?

The dream of the aforementioned Unemployed Man supplements the architecture and the concept of every branch of every public library and becomes a ship travelling from one to another, with variable measurements and weights.

The performance in Kunstverein would be guided by the friend of mine, Antanas Laukaitis, a famous hip hop Dj in Lithuania who goes under the name “Now U Don’t”, and mainly plays 1993-1998 east coast rap and other same school hip-hop music. At the moment I am dealing now with cafe de Duivel and hope that Antanas can dj there in the night-time of the show, thus becoming the main composer of the SHIP.

When it starts to get darker and the performance series finishes, Kunstverein will become an enlightened gallery space, and the visitors will be invited to take a walk out in the city. I am thinking specifically of one spot in Amsterdam, which can only be experienced by knowing of the specific gaps in the infrastructure of town. As for now, I imagine continuing my show with a meeting near the secret entrance to Artis, The Royal Zoo, used by my friends and I to enter and have walks around the zoo on Sunday evenings.

As such, instead of perceiving the shift of day to night as a discipline, I take it as an example and as a metaphor of the shift between private to public, legality and to illegality. As we both know, invisible things are not just overshadowed by the darkness of the night. Therefore, I think of the gaps in the infrastructure, as independent aestheticized forms.

Meanwhile, Kunstverein will become a bleached-out space containing a few objects: including remains and props of the Mid Manhattan Library performance, such as open cinema tickets as well us amorphous plasticine sculptures by artist (my father) Gediminas Akstinas. He made them in 1988, at the same age as me now and so I thought it would be important for him to participate in this show, as another artist, who shares the same body.

The constant presence of collaboration in this show, lead me to think about the flyer and the map of the exhibition, which could have a design provided by one of the widely accessible places in town. For now I am thinking of collaborating with Sonny Falafels, which is just around the corner from Kunstverein and one my favourite fast food stops. I think it would be nice if the flyers of the show could be spread around before the show and interfuse with other flyers, which connect to the mix of entertainment and hardcore labor . During the night, this flyer could also become one of the objects in the show, bleached in the gallery light of Kunstverein.

I have to think of the friction between desire and consent, leisure and labor, imagination and authority. That’s why “SHIP” became my working title, as an open invitation, depending on the speed of economy and the sharing of knowledge. Imagination is our compass, although we don’t own it.

As for now I would love to come to Kunstverein and measure the space. Maybe it would be a good chance to meet? And what is the deadline for the press release? I also wanted to ask you about the printed matter, is it possible for Kunstverein to print the flyers for the show?

Let me know your thoughts.

Very best,
Gediminas

SHIP is an exhibition by Gediminas Akstinas with works by Gediminas Akstinas and Gediminas Akstinas. It takes place from 5 September until 6 September, from 9 am until 9 am, at Kunstverein and, from midnight, at Cafe De Duivel.

Stand up, script, reverse
Friday June 26, 4-8pm
At Apollohal Gymnasium, Amsterdam, NL
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Please join us for Stand up, script, reverse, an event that introduces the artists Alexis Blake and Ilke Gers‘ research process into the transference of knowledge through the body. The event is both a site of research and production. Participants are invited to join the artists and experts in investigating the conditioned and intuitive body by exploring the idea of play and freedom within rules and structured systems.

Participants will learn a new set of skills with self-defense instructor Cesario Di Domenico tap into their body and mind connection with sport psychologist Anna Loots and draw another awareness of the body in space with Blake and Gers.

Stand up, script, reverse is presented within the contextual framework of Disassemblies, which is part of Knowledge is a Does – a reading group formed during a residency period at the Jan van Eyck Academie.

As places are limited, 30 participants, please send an email to reserve to office@kunstverein.nl (members have priority).
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Apollohal Gymnasium
Apollolaan 4
1077 BA Amsterdam

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This project was made possible by the generous support of Jan van Eyck Academie. Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members, Cesario Di Domenico – Martial Arts Academy Amsterdam, Anna Loots – Vereniging voor Sportpsychologie Nederland, and Stadsdeel Zuid.

A Studio in Hand-Reading: Charlotte Wolff. A project by Valentina Desideri

23 May – 25 June 2015
Opening: Saturday 23 May, 6–8 pm

Jessica Warboys, Four Lines, 2011

Look at your hand, that tool between a fin and a wing, which developed fingers, a thumb and now grasps and touches everything, real and imaginary. It images the real in its tactile rendering of objects, distances and shapes. It realizes the imaginary by gesturing, approximating thinking through space.

Can I read your hand?

Its surface, gestures and lines offer a complex image that calls for reading. Many readings actually, as each reading is in turn an imaging, a composition, an expression of possibilities.

Jason and Raimundas, Céline, Audrey, Koenraad, Jessica – Can I read your work?

Dr. Charlotte Wolff (1897–1986) read the palms of André Breton, Man Ray, Maurice Ravel, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Antonin Artaud, Cecil Beaton and Aldous Huxley. She read their character in their hands and their palms also figure in her now rare and exceptional book Studies in Hand-Reading (1936).

But reading always happens between at least two: the reader and what is read – be it books, palms, objects, people, artworks. To engage in this kind of reading together is to engage in study. I propose to gather in the Studio, with books, hands, artworks, coffee and drinks, to read.

On Saturday 23 May
Christian Hawkey will read his poems
On Wednesday 27 May and Thursday 11 June
Annick Kleizen and Valentina Desideri will unravel ways of reading
On Saturday 30 May
Luisa Ungar and Milena Bonilla will read Céline Condorelli’s coffee
On Friday 5 June
Ben Woodard will talk about the relation between gestures and thinking
On Tuesday 16 June
Tim Ingold will discuss lines and making
On Friday 19 June
Stefano Harney will lead us in study
On Thursday 25 June
Denise Ferreira da Silva will talk about notions of reading and imaging

A Studio in Hand-Reading is an exhibition, a studio, a study and a display of artworks and their author’s hands.

Charlotte Wolff (1897–1986): scientist, radical sexologist, chirologist, philosopher, wearer of men’s clothes, psychologist of gesture, lesbian identified* acts as an attractor for topics and ways to read in the Studio.

Valentina Desideri proposes the Studio as a place that generates modes of being together. She will be present in the exhibition throughout the exhibition, inviting participants as well as visitors to gather for reading and in study. This Studio will be the basis for a publication (to be launched at the end of 2015 by Kunstverein Publishing). The exhibition begins with one work by Jason Dodge and Raimundas Malašauskas and a reading by American poet, translator, editor, activist, and educator Christian Hawkey. The show continues to accumulate artworks weekly: following Jason Dodge and Raimundas Malašauskas, Céline Condorelli, Audrey Cottin, Koenraad Dedobbeleer and Jessica Warboys will lend a work and a print of their palms, available for reading in the Studio. The Studio – and its bar – will be open for reading during Kunstverein’s regular opening hours, punctuated by weekly contributions to the study by the invited guests and artists.

*From Christian Hawkey’s N Ear Flowers Re Fre/nd: A Poets’ Play

A Studio in Hand-Reading: Charlotte Wolff. A project by Valentina Desideri

With: Liudvikas Buklys, Céline Condorelli, Audrey Cottin, Mike Cooter, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Jason Dodge and Raimundas Malašauskas, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Stefano Harney, Christian Hawkey, Tim Ingold, Annick Kleizen, Luisa Ungar and Milena Bonilla, Jessica Warboys and Ben Woodard

Valentina Desideri is an Amsterdam-based artist. She trained in contemporary dance at the Laban Centre in London (2003–2006) and later on did her MA in Fine Arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2011–13). She does Fake Therapy and Political Therapy, she co-organises Performing Arts Forum in France, she speculates in writing with Prof. Stefano Harney, she writes biographies by reading people’s hands, she engages in Poetical Readings with Prof. Denise Ferreira da Silva.

Please follow the updates regarding scheduling for A Studio in Hand-Reading: Charlotte Wolff on this website and on facebook. Weekly invitations will also be sent out to announce forthcoming events.

Much thanks to Stadsdeel Zuid, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Sandberg Instituut, Mondriaan Fonds as well as Kunstverein’s (Gold) members for their generous support.

Dear Participant,

Kunstverein has been interested in the work of Paul Ryan since the summer of 2012. We’ve decided to introduce you to his work via live workshops on Threeing and an eclectic, investigative source book.

Paul Ryan (1943–2013), was a pioneering video artist, writer, teacher and theoretician who worked and lived in New York City. Ryan’s work appeared in the groundbreaking exhibition TV as a Creative Medium at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York in 1969, and he was a member of the Raindance media collective as well as contributor to its seminal video journal Radical Software. Much of Ryan’s theoretical work focuses on triadic behavior – the interrelation of three units or persons – codified by Ryan into the concept of “threeing” as well as the Earthscore Notational System which draws upon video to address issues of ecological sustainability. Paul participated in Documenta 13 with Threeing live sessions. “Paul Ryan’s Threeing is comprised of situations in which three or more people create sustainable, collaborative relationships.”

Kunstverein has invited Sevanne Kassarjian, a professional workshop leader who studied under Paul Ryan, to facilitate a number of sessions on Threeing. Sevanne Kassarjian: “The workshops will introduce you to the collaborative practice of Threeing and invite you to generate ways to make Threeing operative in your work and play. The workshops will combine theory and practice, communication and creativity. Participants will be expected to work with both abstract concepts and the embodiment of those concepts and learn to practice Threeing in both its verbal and nonverbal versions.”

The various workshops/sessions on Threeing will be focused on movement, another on words and another on making a mark. On Sunday 15 March Sevanne will be holding sessions all day, as well as on Monday 16 March. There will be approximately 4 sessions held per day and one session that will take place on Friday 20 March, in the evening, at Galerie Juliette Jongma.

We invite artists, educators, theorists and everyone interested in exploring knew ways to collaborate. Please send an email to office@kunstverein.nl to show your interest in participating and your preferred day and time (feel free to choose more than one session):

March 15: sessions at 12:00; 16:00. Location: Ruyschstraat 4 III
March 16: sessions at 11:00; 14:00; 17:00. Location: Ruyschstraat 4 III
March 20: session starts at 19:00. Location: Galerie Juliette Jongma

On Saturday March 28 there will be a live talk with Berlin based artist Luis Berríos-Negrón, a core collaborator of Paul Ryan’s Threeing at Documenta 13. His Threeing rugs, developed together with Paul, will be used and on view throughout the project. Information here: www.luisberriosnegron.org/ThreeingShedRugs.

More information from Paul’s site: www.earthscore.org/themes
As well on the site, there is the entire lesson plan for how to participate and generate Threeing. Everything is open source and the idea is, once the parameters are understood, that people can interpret and take things where they want them to go.

Sevanne Kassarjian specializes in theatre based education and communication, surfacing opportunities in every interaction. Bringing the tools of improvisation and 20 years on the professional stage to bear on a wide range of themes, including cross-cultural communication, managing uncertainty, and creating learning organizations, Sevanne designs and conducts experiential education programs for corporate and non-profit organizations, supporting clients to expand their repertoire. She has worked with hundreds of independent clients and developed and delivered programs for organizations including the US Olympic Committee, Price Waterhouse Coopers, The House of Chanel, Coca-Cola, Miraval Resort, Global Business Network and the San Diego Police Department. She is the in-house coach in numerous organizations as diverse as American Express, the David Zwirner Gallery and Idealist.org. Sevanne holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.

Sevanne Kassarjian and Paul Ryan met because of Paul’s interest in the work of Gregory Bateson, Sevanne’s grandfather. They discovered a mutual interest in re-examining the landscape of our interactions and began a long friendship in which Sevanne supports the spread of Paul’s work on triadic relationships. Paul asked Sevanne to train the 23 people at Documenta 13 who would man Paul’s installation for the entire summer exhibit.

Salon Hang

Open: 14–28 February
Preview: Saturday 14 February, 6–8 pm

With:

Please join us this Saturday 14 February, for the first annual Members Only Salon Hang.

For the first time in its 5-year history, Kunstverein will be hosting a Salon Hang, open to all and only its esteemed members. The Salon Hang is an exciting out of control event that showcases an abundance of local and international work. At once harking back to the infamous Salons of the past, referencing these full and novel exhibitions that often wrote history, and at the same time, looking forward to what a contemporary art community and self-organization can look like today.

Hannah Weiner and Rammellzee
29 November 2014 – 31 January 2015

Preview: Friday 28 November, 5–8 pm

The show is about two people who use language/words and even letters in their very own way. Rammellzee liberated letters from their enslaved status in the alphabet so that they could do battle. And Weiner saw words in the air and on people.

We’ll have paintings by Rammellzee and books by Weiner.

Image: Rammellzee, copyright Vincent Vlasblom, NL

Events:
28 November: Tommy Oost live
4 December: Adam Pendleton reads Hannah Weiner
& January 2015: Nora Turato reads Rammellzee

Eau de Cologne
27 September, from 5–10 pm
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Hosted by Gallery Juliètte Jongma and Kunstverein.
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With k.i. beyoncé, Bisou de Saddam, Michiel Ceulers and Anthony Salvador, Echo + Seashell, Laurent-David Garnier, Richard John Jones, Nancy Acid, Ana Navas, and introducing I’m With Her Records. Hot dogs by Ron Blaauw.
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Eau de Cologne is an anti-fashion show and a raw punk, fuzz-pop festival.
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Eau de Cologne takes its name from Monika Sprüth’s radical female only in-house gallery magazine by the same title, published only three times between 1985–1993.
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Line-up
5 pm Ana Navas, around Gerard Douplein and at Kunstverein
———-–Michiel Ceulers and Anthony Salvador, at Juliètte Jongma
———–Laurent-David Garnier, in Bob’s Your Uncle
———–k.i. beyoncé, on Gerard Douplein
———–I’m With Her Records, in I’m With Her Records
7 pm Richard John Jones, on Gerard Douplein
8 pm Echo + Seashell, on Gerard Douplein
9 pm Bisou de Saddam unplugged, in Bob’s Your Uncle
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Thanks to Stadsdeel Zuid and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst as well as Kunstverein’s (Gold) members. Special thanks to Monika Sprüth.

Eau de Cologne magazines
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5 September – 4 October 2014
Opening: 4 September 7-9pm
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In February 1983, Monika Sprüth opened her first gallery in Cologne. Advocating the talents of then-emerging artists Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman and Rosemarie Trockel, Sprüth countered a “Cologne over-run by male artists” with a gallery focused on women. Emblematic of this perspective is Sprüth’s publishing venture Eau de Cologne: an “effervescent, shape-shifting magazine, featuring almost exclusively women artists and art practitioners – which she published, with accompanying exhibitions, three times between 1985 and 1993”.

The presentation at Kunstverein of these historic publications prefaces the EAU DE COLOGNE event, which will be held on September 27.

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members and Stadsdeel Zuid. Special thanks to Monika Sprüth and Ahrend.

Axel Wilhite
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5 September – 4 October 2014
Opening: 4 September 7–9 pm
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Menko is a Japanese children’s game played with small cards (similar to baseball cards) elaborately decorated with samurais and other notable historical figures instead of athletes. Axel Wilhite paints on top of these illustrations, sometimes adding to the original image by adding a hat or a flower to a samurai in warrior stance. On other cards, he completely erases the original image, reducing it to its bare lines and then making it anew. Wilhite began working with Menko cards in Chiba, Japan, where he lived for a year while attending school and studying kendo, the art of Japanese swordsmanship. It helped him deal with loneliness of being in a foreign country. “At first, it was something I did for the benefit of my dorm mates, who were also foreigners in Japan,” he says. “Painting the Menko cards is my way of connecting with Japanese culture.”

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members and Stadsdeel Zuid. Special thanks to Ahrend.

Complicity

21 May – 5 July 2014

Opening: 17 May 5-8 pm

A project by Susanne M. Winterling
With narrations and works by Romaine Brooks, Eileen Gray, Carson McCullers and Annemarie Schwarzenbach; with film screenings and conversations and the launch of The Correspondence Book

Complicity is an exhibition that aims to highlight the ‘other’ Modernism, where complicity is related to the notion of a community and aesthetic solidarity of cosmopolitans and sensualists, meeting and forging networked paths. Forming a basis that glows with roots longer and more distinguished than a mere reduction to Modernism.

Referring to architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, who has written extensively on how architecture and communication are entangled in creating the subject, Complicity points to the importance of networked relations. The show is a room in which to be introduced to works, letter, drawings, furniture and thoughts, an ‘asylum for friendship and solidarity’.

Susanne Winterling: “What interests me is the community and mutual influence of these women, and how these networked connections became a visual and sensual landmark. The show does not attempt to correct the way we see these iconic figures (figures like Eileen Gray and Romaine Brooks), but presents their positions, their relations as a dynamic that is a tool for todays imaginative and sensual activism.”

Moreover, Complicity operates as the backdrop for the launch of The Correspondence Book, featuring the never before published correspondence between writers Carson McCullers and Annemarie Schwarzenbach (co-editors: Susanne M. Winterling and Vivian Ziherl; Design: Marc Hollenstein).

Kunstverein wishes to thank its (Gold) members and Stadsdeel Zuid. Special thanks to ClassiCon, Christian ter Maat, Cassandra Langer and Galerie Elstir, Paris.

Glenn Lewis
8 March – 3 May

6 March, 8 pm – Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam talk (reservations via office@kunstverein.nl before March 3)

8 March, 4 pm – members only preview

20–22 March SPF (Spring Performance Festival) in collaboration with Galerie Juliette Jongma

20 March, 10.30 pm – Glenn Lewis’s synchronized swim performance in the Mirandabad and the opening of BOB’S YOUR UNCLE with special host Robert Wilhite

Glenn Lewis has been working for close to six decades; he has appeared in some two hundred solo and group exhibitions. Studying ceramics under Bernard Leach, the well-known studio potter whose practice combined Western and Eastern crafts and philosophies, inspired in Lewis an abiding interest in simple forms, in botany and horticulture, in food preparation and the everyday aspects of life. Lewis’s work has extended to photography, film and video, ceramics, poetry, collage, sculpture, correspondence, horticulture and performance, and it embraces street parades, craft fairs, paper burnings, cooking demonstrations and a wide range of measurings and mappings.

Swimming performance

In 1970 Glenn Lewis created the mail-art exchange group known as the New York Corres Sponge Dance School of Vancouver—part of a network of artists that included General Idea in Toronto, Ant Farm in San Francisco and the New York Correspondence School under Ray Johnson. The NYCSDSOV camouflaged its meetings as performances at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, public events witnessed by bemused fellow swimmers, featuring synchronized aquatic routines and shark fin swimming caps designed by Kate Craig (a co-founder of the Western Front).

Kara Hamilton, Christine Roland with Angie Keefer
Shoes by Steffie Christiaens

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29 November 2013–1 February 2014
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Opening: 29 November 5–8 pm
Special event: 1 December at 4 pm Sunday afternoon Bloody Marys in collaboration with Juliette Jongma
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*WHERE WERE WE, by Angie Keefer, published by the Serving Library in synch with the exhibition (servinglibrary.org)
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There is a pleat, or a certain type of gown, known as a Watteau Pleat or a Watteau Gown, though the painter Watteau doesn’t seem to have had much to do with its invention. He merely depicted the look repeatedly, famously, and once in petal pink satin on the back of a woman ascending a step. The latter stars in a shop sign commissioned by a man who made his living selling art and baubles to aristocrats, though it’s unclear whether artist or client truly expected the painting to advertise anything other than itself. Indeed, the sign depicts aristocrats shopping for art and baubles, but a buyer acquired it from the shop almost immediately, Watteau died shortly thereafter, and now the work is considered his final masterpiece, rather than, say, a watershed in the history of sign-making. (Angie Keefer)
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Kara Hamilton, Christine Roland with Angie Keefer. Shoes by Steffie Christiaens is made possible with the support of Stadsdeel Zuid; Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Kunstverein’s (Gold) members.

Mit Mokka nach Mekka, for Bruce
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7 September – 2 November 2013
Opening: 7 September, 5–8 pm
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The show, Mit Mokka nach Mekka, for Bruce, is titled after a work by German sculptor Meuser. The exhibition investigates the self-reflexive and discursive field of art-making. And is based on the notion of inspiring ’source’ material. The concept expands on the format of the book – exploring different practices that are book related in the specific medium on view. Mit Mokka… is thus a show that can be ‘read’ and includes rare, avant-garde art periodicals (on loan from a private collection), historical photographs by little known Swiss photographer Miklós Klaus Rózsa photographs by Brâncuși of his own work in situ and engravings by Thomas Bewick and featuring a poem by Joe Brainard. The mixing of historical periods and mediums heightens the significance of the pieces as ‘sources’ – works to, potentially, be digested, quoted or learned from.
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It’s 38 degrees and there’s a forest fire smoking just over the ridge of the mountains behind us. It’s too hot to walk to the pool. But the wind has picked up and that might mean we can get a draft going in the house, cool it down enough to be able to sleep tonight. You turn to me and say, ‘I’m looking forward to watching the Lubitsch film.’

A phone rings and you pick it up and it’s Bruce, stoned and sunburned, from Los Angeles who tells you he’s sorry. He tells you he’s sorry for not being here, at the house, with you. He tells you that you were right, that he should have flown to the workshop this summer, and he tells you he’s sorry he’s not in New Hampshire and that he’s sorry he hasn’t called you in a week and you ask him what he’s doing in Los Angeles and don’t mention that it has been two months.*

You do however mention the fire. And then Bruce tells you how he wants to get in a car and drive up his own mountain and be able to walk into an air conditioned clinic and see like 30 Bewicks and 30 Brâncușis, bam, bam, right next to a big steel cube by Meuser and he says he’s been reading and rereading Control and quotes Brainard like punctuation and then he tells you he’s holding onto all the Miklós Klaus Rózsa’s surveillance records. ‘Hundreds of them,’ he whispers. You want to think about this, put it into context somehow, somewhere maybe, but it’s gotten hotter and your thoughts fizzle midair.

He’s still talking when you walk out the sliding doors to check on the fire and when you return he’s saying how Roger was in the limo with him back from the hotel and there was a new commercial for the Lost Weekend with a Van Halen contest on* and he turned to Roger who was too stoned to turn to him and said ‘I always wanted to show an imprint of my thumb next to Manzoni’s.’

You hadn’t said a word back, not since the beginning of the call and by now I spot ash on the tiled bathroom floor and can see flames curling at the ridge instead of just smoke so I start packing a bag with what I think we won’t be able to live without and mouth so that Bruce can’t hear: ‘We. Have. To. Go.’ But Bruce is still on speaker, still going strong: ‘…I said to Roger, right then as we were leaving the zoo, I said, the animals remind me of things I can’t explain. And he kisses my hand and I think, I have faith in this man – let’s drive to the clinic right now.’

Mit Mokka nach Mekka, for Bruce, with, in alphabetical order:

Thomas Bewick
1753–1828
Engraver and natural history author

Joe Brainard
1941–1994
Artist, poet, and theater set designer

Constantin Brâncuși
1876–1957
Sculptor

Meuser
Born 1947
‘He had endless discussions with Beuys and shared a love for picture titles with Kippenberger.’

Christof Nüssli
Born 1986
Graphic designer
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Christoph Oeschger
Born 1984
Photographer

Miklós Klaus Rózsa
Born 1954
Photographer and activist

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POOR.OLD.TIRED.HORSE.; KWY; PHANTOMAS; META; CONTROL; INTERVIEW; EPHEMERA; FANDANGOS; KISS; ARCADE; C-MAGAZINE; OFFICINA; STEREO HEADPHONES; REVUE NUL=0; FUCK YOU; JUST ANOTHER ASSHOLE; INTERNATIONALE SITUATIONNISTE and PLANKTON; JAN CREMER KRANT; OPEN OOG
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Please help Christoph Nüssli and Christoph Oeschger realize their beautiful book by making a donation! More information you find here.

Mit Mokka nach Mekka, for Bruce is made possible with the support of Stadsdeel Zuid, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Swiss Arts Council and Kunstverein’s (Gold) members. With thanks to the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, John Benjamins, neugerriemschneider, coos de wit wonen scandinavisch georïenteerd, and The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis*

Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner, Meet Marlow Moss
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Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner
20 April–22 June 2013
Meet Marlow Moss, an insert by Marlow Moss
18 May–22 June 2013
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Opening 20 April, 5–8 pm
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Kunstverein continues its research into alternative retrospectives with a new mise-en-scène by Sarah Crowner containing very recent and lesser-known works by Larry Bell, and an historical insert by Marlow Moss.
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The three protagonists:
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Larry Bell (b. 1939 in Chicago, lives and works in Taos and LA) walked around Venice California in the early sixties with a camera attached to his back, a bio-feedback chip in his hat and a trigger mechanism connected to his earlobes. Alpha waves emitted by a body in a state of wellbeing would set off the photo-taking process and eventually lead to a series of blurred pictures capturing perception on the move, observation in its most random form. Larry Bell, probably known best for his minimal glass sculpture, (the cubes were first exhibited at Pace Gallery in 1965) is a ‘spontaneous and improvisational, investigator of improbable visuals by improbably means’. Each thing, he says, was an experiment in something, where craft and simplicity (how do I make this thing simpler, how does it become through less doing?) were key issues. Finish Fetish West Coast Minimalism preferred a softer surface–like Bell’s coated glass–as opposed to the harder East Coast predilection for industrial materials like steel, concrete or plywood. But both were commenting on the relation to their technological environment. Californian artists, you could say added luster to their reductionism, added the sun, the surf and the gloss of custom-made cars. And where Bell’s ‘stable unit’ was once evidently a cube, it is now twisted, pink, yellow, bright red and reflective, undaunted by its own surface contortion.

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Sarah Crowner (b. 1974 in Philadelphia, lives and works in Brooklyn NY) is inter-disciplinary Modernism. Geometric constructs follow the spirit and legacy of past practices, cutting up, referencing, undoing, adding to, playing on and tribute to, a language of abstraction. Unfolding, remembering and befriending the past, through scissors, fabric, thread, ceramics, wood, an industrial sewing machine, and paint, Crowner re-stitches fragments into new concurrences. Paintings as paintings and paintings not afraid of being fashion, design, and part of our current technological, even voguish, environment restage art historical points of interest and anxiety, updating them into contemporary concerns.
For Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner, Meet Marlow Moss, Crowner visits Larry Bell and Marlow Moss, creating a complete setting for the exhibited pieces, including her own. New large-scale works are an analysis of earlier Bell and Moss, at once closely referencing these latest temporary teammates and at the same time tripping the light fantastic and stating full autonomy.

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Marjorie Jewel “Marlow” Moss (1889 – 1958), also known as Marlow Moss, “was a biological realist, a recluse, a persona non grata, a phenomenon, … an Amazon. She was a British, lesbian, Constructivist artist. She was also a woman, a Modernist, and a Neo Plasticist, a disciple of Piet Mondrian, and a student of Léger. She was a painter and a sculptor. She was a drag-king. She was a contemporary of Georges Vantongerloo, Jean Gorin, and Max Bill. Added to the list of adjectives could also be ‘middle class’, or even ‘upper-middle-class’, and Jewish, but then again she was also an atheist and an existentialist. … Moss disrupts and subverts the narratives that could include her. … This resistance to categorisation is a large factor in Moss’s obscurity; she is omitted from the histories, because she does not fit in. To date she is most consistently approached in reference to Mondrian, a context that casts her in the role of follower, or worse: imitator”, a role that’s far beneath her. *
–
Kunstverein Publishing

Larry Bell, Sarah Crowner, Marlow Moss is a Kunstverein publication designed by Marc Hollenstein that will be launched during the Marlow Moss event, 18 May.
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Other dates and venues

18 April: Larry Bell artist-talk with Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam director Ann Goldstein in the Teijin Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum, 8–9.30 pm
18 May: Insert by Marlow Moss, an event at Kunstverein, 5–8 pm
–

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.

* Lucy Howarth, ‘Marlow Moss (1889-1958)’, PhD thesis, University of Plymouth, 2008, p.1.

Tradition
16 March – 19 May 2013

A selection from the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles (CSROT) with works by Willem Oorebeek, Lucy Skaer and Christopher Williams.

Following Raven Row’s exhibition The Stuff That Matters, which presented for the first time the elaborate collection of historic textiles assembled by Seth Siegelaub over the past thirty years for the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles (CSROT), Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture, will continue to explore Siegelaub’s collection in close dialogue with Maxine Kopsa and Krist Gruijthuijsen from Kunstverein in Amsterdam and the Grazer Kunstverein in Graz, Austria.

The exhibition will feature approximately 50 items from the collection, which currently comprises around 650 pieces. The selection is based on the abstraction of forms that make up functional textiles and on the abstracted potential of their function. It will include woven and printed textiles, embroideries and costume, ranging from fifth-century Coptic to Pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles, late medieval Asian and Islamic textiles, and Renaissance to eighteenth-century European silks and velvets. Barkcloth (tapa) and headdresses from the Pacific region (especially Papua New Guinea) and Africa will also be on display. To provoke multiple readings, the textiles in the exhibition will be shown alongside the works of three artists, Willem Oorebeek, Lucy Skaer and Christopher Williams, who’s individual practices examines the usage of appropriation, modernity, craftsmanship and representation.

An recent essay by artist Doug Ashford will accompany the exhibition.

Tradition is the result of a collaboration between Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht, Kunstverein Amsterdam and Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria.

The exhibition will travel to Grazer Kunstverein in June 2013

Opening: 15 March, 7-9 PM
Location: Marres,
 Centre for Contemporary Culture,
 Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
Entrance: Valid ticket

‘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

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

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 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)

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).

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.

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**

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.