10/02/21
Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft acquired Manon de Boer's work Presto, Perfect Sound (2006). The film depicts composer and violinist, George Van Dam, performing Béla Bartok's sonata for violin solo, Presto. Manon de Boer filmed George van Dam six times playing the whole piece while at the same time recording the sound. In order to achieve the ‘perfect’ soundtrack, she gave George van Dam the six sound recordings and asked him to reconstruct the Bartok piece into a perfect sound piece. Afterwards de Boer synchronized the filmed image to this soundtrack. The jump-cuts in the image visualize the cuts in the sound, while the sound sounds continuous. In allowing the audio sequence to dictate the image on screen, de Boer inverts the traditional dominance of image over sound in cinema. The film is a meditation on the relationship between sound and image and offers an intense reflection on a moment of creative concentration.
30/12/20
David Lamelas’ online performance Time 2020-2021 will take place on December 31st to coincide with the transition into the New Year in South-Korea. The performance is organised by Enna Bae and Sung woo Kim in the context of their exhibition Welcome Back currently on view in Seoul.
You can follow in real time the performance on youtube via this link:
02/12/20
Jan Mot is delighted to announce the representation of Andrea Büttner.
Andrea Büttner (°1972 in Stuttgart, lives and works in Berlin) connects art history with social or ethical issues, exploring broad-ranging topics such as poverty, labour, community, Catholicism, music, botany, and philosophy. Her work is based on thorough research into specific areas or situations, and she often appropriates or references other artists and thinkers including HAP Grieshaber, Corita Kent, Immanuel Kant, Gwen John, Andy Warhol, Dieter Roth and Simone Weil. Her diverse practice is articulated through formats encompassing print, sculpture, weaving, but also photography, video, instruction pieces, and works with live moss and wet clay.
Büttner was first celebrated for her bold use of what is often seen as unfashionable media, namely woodcut and glass painting. Ideas of shame, vulnerability, poverty and embarrassment run throughout her work, countering the romantic and heroic nature associated with much artistic practice. Martin Herbert writes “Büttner’s art can be read as a form of empathy – an exemplary outstretched hand, not from above but from across.” (Artforum March 2015).
Büttner studied at the Royal College of Art in London, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Berlin University of the Arts. She was a nominee of the 2017 Turner Prize and is a winner of the 2009 Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Exhibitions include documenta 13 (2012), Sao Paulo Biennial (2010 and 2018) and solo exhibitions at Museum Ludwig Cologne (2014), Walker Art Center (2014), Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (2017), Kunsthalle Wien (2016) and Hammer Museum Los Angeles (2017).
Photo: July Zimmermann
26/11/20
In celebration of the new book Seth Siegelaub. Better Read than Dead: Writings and Interviews 1964–2013, the Kunstverein in Amsterdam transforms part of its space into Seth’s Books Bookshop and for the coming month will be selling books exclusively by International General (the imprint of Seth Siegelaub) and about Seth Siegelaub.
02/10/20
The newly published book Seth Siegelaub. Better Read than Dead. Writings and Interviews 1964-2013 gathers selected writings, interviews, extended bibliography and chronology filling the historical gaps in the sprawling network of exhibitions, publications, projects, and collections that constitute Seth Siegelaub’s life’s work. Siegelaub chose the title Better Read than Dead for an anthology of his own writings — one of the projects for which he never found the time. The book was edited by Marja Bloem, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, Sara Martinetti and Jo Melvin and published by Koenig Books, London and Stichting Egress Foundation Amsterdam.
18/09/20
Pierre Bismuth's work Coming Soon is published on the website of the David Roberts Art Foundation (Click here)
Coming Soon is a fast-paced compilation of the closing seconds of film trailers. It is a familiar final visual in trailers when the alluding, though vague, words ‘coming soon’ are blasted across cinema screens. Bismuth’s compilation is made up of motion pictures by many of the large American film studios and production companies, discernable by the logos that accompany the phrase. Where it is possible to decipher what film is being referred to they are all major motion pictures released around 2002-03, including Johnny English, the original Jackass: The Movie, and the only ‘coming soon’ that is accompanied by moving image; Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal.
16/09/20
Ghosted by the words of artists and writers such as Marguerite Duras, Anne Carson and Casey, in Ghost Party, their new and first performance together, Manon de Boer and Latifa Laâbissi play with language, accents and voices, meshing their selves with others. The performance is part of the exhibition Risquons-Tout and will premiere at Wiels at the Open School Risquons-Tout (Avenue Van Volxemlaan 316, 1190 Forest/Vorst) on 30th and 31st of October at 6.30 and 8.30pm. This performance was postponed due to the new restrictions. New dates are to be confirmed.
08/09/20
Johannes Vermeer Award 2020 goes to Rineke Dijkstra
The Johannes Vermeer Award 2020, the Dutch state prize for the arts, is awarded to photographer Rineke Dijkstra by Ingrid van Engelshoven, Minister of Education, Culture and Science.
The Johannes Vermeer Award consists of the sum of 100,000 euros, which the winner may use to fund a special project in his or her specific field. The Dutch government established the award in 2009, its aim being to honour and encourage exceptional artistic talent. The award is intended for artists working in the Netherlands and across all disciplines. Previous laureates are opera director Pierre Audi, filmmaker and writer Alex van Warmerdam, photographer Erwin Olaf, visual artist Marlene Dumas, architect Rem Koolhaas, graphic designer Irma Boom, composer and director Michel van der Aa, film director visual artist Steve McQueen, fashion designer Iris van Herpen, and violinist Janine Jansen.
photo © Dana Lixenberg
01/08/20
Curator Hilde Teerlinck and Francis Alÿs are selected to represent Flanders within the Belgian Pavilion for the 2022 edition of La Biennale di Venezia.
“Do We Live Because We Narrate?”, developed by Hilde Teerlinck and Francis Alÿs for the Belgian Pavilion will question the role of the artist and the relevance of art in situations of conflict and crisis.
“It is not a case of war journalism, but a chronicle of the tactics of living developed when the systems social / economic / governmental / you name it – are not operative anymore, circumstances where you find a moment of creation, of need and of tension. It is a chronicle of the way in which people develop strategies of survival in and after a situation of conflict.”
Francis Alÿs, Beirut, March 2009