Notes from a trembling community in a wilful state of flux
curated by Irène de Craen, Mahony, Season Butler, Judith Lavagna
with Tomás Bartoletti, Oliver Bulas, Season Butler, Coletivo Kókir, Maurits Koster, Judith Lavagna, David Magnus, Mahony, Gerald Mandl, Luz Peuscovich, Pablo Pijnappel, Esper Postma, Aiko Tezuka, Leo Zhao.
Exhibition: 7 September – 20 October 2018
Hotel Maria Kapel (HMK), Hoorn NL
www.hotelmariakapel.nl
Pdf: Notes_from…final // Publication: SN09
Taking its inspiration from the writings of poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928 – 2011) ‘Notes from a trembling community in a wilful state of flux’ focuses on the movement and multiplicity of language, cultural identity, and the production of knowledge.
With his book ‘Poetics of Relation’ (1990) Glissant offers us a tool to reimagine the most pertinent questions of our time. ‘Instead of fixed places of origin, he offers sites of connectivity, where multiple histories and ways of being can coexist. Instead of roots, he offers the dynamic process of creolization, a poetics defined by its openness to transformation. Instead of a world of nations, he offers the archipelago, an image of the world in which we are all connected while remaining distinct.’ One of the guiding principles in Glissant’s thinking, as well as this exhibition, is the concept of opacity (opacité). Opacity, unlike transparency, welcomes the untranslatable and unknowable. Glissant claims a ‘right to opacity’ and invites people to accept that which they don’t understand.
‘Notes from a trembling community…’ experiments with different modes of relation and production through working collaboratively, and reimagining the process of exhibition making. The starting point for the project lies in a residential house in Berlin where a fluctuating group of artists, social scientists, children, musicians, curators, workers and thinkers came together last July. Here, starting with the organising principle of a daily meal together, they inaugurated a process of research into the poetic borders distinguishing and connecting them. Since then the invitation to contribute has been opened up further to a wider network of friends and like-minded people across the globe.
The installation at HMK is not meant as the final stage of the project, but as another phase of a longer dialogue using Glissant’s ideas as a methodology and praxis, connecting multiple voices while keeping their distinctiveness. ‘Notes from a trembling community…’ is conceived as a four-dimensional archipelago, giving the audience the possibility to draw their own lines to this ongoing project through work-in-progress, sound, video, performance, images and ideas.
This project is part of Undercurrents: the overarching research subject of the programme for 2018-2019 of Hotel Maria Kapel in Hoorn, the Netherlands. Through its residency programme, exhibitions and publications, Hotel Maria Kapel investigates the relationship between historical and contemporary forms of movement such as colonialism, trade and migration, as well as the infrastructure and meaning of mobility in the cultural field. Visit undercurrents.nl for more information.
This exhibition is made possible with the help of Mondrian Fund and Gemeente Hoorn.
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Schwulitäten
Exhibition of Tomás Espinosa
Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Absolventenaustellung
3 – 10 July 2015
Berlin-based artist Tomás Espinosa (1985, Bogota, Colombia) presents ”Schwulitäten” a selection of works which investigate the field of sculpture and ‘time-making’ productions towards the performative. Taking place in public or private spaces, the artist creates scenarios affected by the stories of their location and the circumstances of possible encounters.
By provoking awareness towards unexpected interactions, Espinosa creates gestures, objects and expands artefacts that flirt with the audience as a kind of ‘conversation starter’ or as a tool to be activated. A permeable border between the creation of artworks and the emergence of actions in which the audience is challenged. Focusing on the scrubbing of fragile spaces that requires an act of closeness but also of exposure, the artist emphasises the ambiguities within our social positions and the sense of our presence through a body of work that intangibly slips from being objects to be seen to being objects to be used.
‘Schwulitäten’ has been nominated for the Start Point Price 2015 at the National Gallery of Prague.
Tomás Espinosa studied Visual Arts at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota (2002 – 2007) and at the Berlin University of the Arts (Institut für Raumexperimente, under the direction of Olafur Eliasson, 2010 – 2014).
Full pdf here: Those obscure objects of desire_ Tomas Espinosa by Judith Lavagna
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new atlantis
curated by Elisa R. Linn, Judith Lavagna, Lennart Wolff
Francisco Montoya Cazarez, Oval Office, Luc Mattenberger, Antoine Renard, Baden Pailthorpe, Sarah Sweeny, Anne de Vries, Bettina Pousttchi, Stéphane Degoutin & Gwenola Wagon, Sascha Pohflepp & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
August 23. – September 13. 2013
km temporaer, Kremmener Str. 8a, 10435 Berlin
When discussing the concept of utopia, questions are raised about the meaning of the future in the present. Designing a fictive society, a utopia searches for the possibility of practical intervention in existing conditions to create accelerated progressive trends and to prevent destructive ones. As one of the first philosophers of his time, Francis Bacon addressed the quantitative quota of knowledge and the infinity or finiteness of progress in his novel ‘Nova Atlantis’, describing a far different and technically advanced civilization. This shows the vision of progress in the conventional sense was the central notion. This means considering the enlightened idea of the unbreakable chain between economic growth, scientific progress and the pursuit of social justice.
Since the 19th century, characterized by the acceptance of cultural evolution and the progressive automation of machines, theorists and philosophers referred to the close link between technological progress to the emergence and support of the capitalist and consumerist economic system. Following this, progress is not only connected with the increase of labor productivity, but involves both qualitative innovations and dynamic efficiency which have the potential to create new incentives for the products aimed at human consumption. Apart from this, postmodernist perspectives share the idea that the engine of progress is not the primary driver for success of an idea or invention over another. The operating system society rather functions through encounters and coalitions of successfully coexisting ideas.
With the use of daily basis devices, our constant strive for technical innovation is increased by a satisfaction and a fascination for rapid technological development.
This ‘technophile intoxication’ froze the conscienceless of the original and creative power of information technology. For those who raised distrust in the consequences of technology as described in Norbert Wiener’s forewarning cybernetic theory, the ideas seem to fulfil themselves. Particularly the fear regarding computerized weapons, surveillance technology and the machines capability to overcome human control rises. A neo-materialistic view (depicting the concept of virtuality as being deeply materialistic) reveals the human potential to make good use of media literacy and critically handle complex possibilities of material basis if they were aware.
The exhibition ‘New Atlantis’ focuses on international contemporary artists who address with culturally critical and optimistic approaches the idea of progress and its origin in utopias dedicated to the development and the impact of innovation. They constantly investigate new definitions of the materiality of our consumeristic society and its mechanisms of production. A select few are dealing with evolutionary development processes and are experimenting with the synthesizing of heterogeneous objects and their mutual influence.
Others reveal the importance of new technological additions and how they are used for authoritative purposes through the interaction between economic, politic and military spheres. The aesthetics of intelligent machines and expanded systems is hereby used to disclose the possibility for a diametric definition of their capabilities and functions. Therefore it is up to the viewer to decide on their inherent power as being good or evil.
Saturday, 07.09.2013, 5 pm: Future Apparatus of Loving Grace; readings on Utopia
A performative reading and discussions from a selection of texts with Rodrigo Maltez Novaes.
The event started with a thirty minute soundscape created as a collaboration between Rodrigo Maltez Novaes and Hans Henning Korb for the installation ‘Kubrick Moment’ 2013 and followed by readings from excerpts of a selection of essays.
Rodrigo Maltez Novaes is a Brazilian/British visual artist. Having completed two years of study at the Euin Saas-Fee, where he earned the certificate of Ph.D. (abd), he is now a doctoral candidate at the Vilém Flusser Archive at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. Also affiliated to the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cultural Semiotics and Media (CISC) in São Paulo, Rodrigo Maltez Novaes is the translator and editor of the first English edition of ‘Vampyroteuthis infernalis’, by philosopher Vilém Flusser. With a BA from the University of Gloucestershire and an MA from the University of the Arts London, his main areas of activity are painting, philosophy, media and communication. Currently he lives and works in Berlin where he now leads the long-term project for the translation and publication of Vilém Flusser’s work from Brazilian-Portuguese into English in partnership with Univocal Publishing, Minneapolis, US.
Kindly supported by Pro helvetia Swiss Arts Council.
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Displaying the Instant
Performative exhibition curated by Stefania Angelini and Judith Lavagna
Chris Bierl, Mirja Busch, Francesco Cavaliere, Pierre-Étienne Morelle, Christian Patracchini, Pauline Payen, Nicolas Puyjalon, Saturn Dogs (Manon Parent & Sto Len)
Anna Schimkat, Performing-Art-Network Vienna (PAN)
May 09 – 29. 2013, L’Atelier-ksr, Berlin.
‘Displaying the Instant’ is a time-based project investigating performance art in relation to its production of presence. The title refers to the question of how performative action can be exhibited, in consideration of the display of its documentation, protocoles, fragments, relics and artworks. All of these elements are then related to the nature of a gesture process.
Following its first edition in May 2012 during Month of Performance Art – Berlin, ‘Displaying the Instant’ explores the durability of performance exposure and its time reception in a tangible exhibition format. Each artistic work creates its own presence between its appearance and disappearance into the gallery space. If the traces of a performance could be inscribed as a historical continuum of the performance itself, ‘Displaying the Instant’ aims to focus on the ontology of this ‘immaterial labour’, where performance does not end with the experience in front of an audience. It rather constitutes an art form through the production of artefacts and their mediatization, both embodied into a ‘time-bound’ exhibition process.
This project presents a group show exhibiting the works of ten international artists and live performances, including a work-in-progress organized by Performance-Art-Network Vienna (PAN) within the frame of ‘Performance in network’.
Live performances each wednesday 7 – 10 pm
08 May – Pauline Payen, Saturn Dogs
15 May – Anna Schimkat, Francesco Cavaliere
22 May – PAN Vienna
29 May – Pierre-Etienne Morelle, Christian Patracchini, Nicolas Puyjalon
In the frame of Month of Performance Art Berlin 2013, with the kind support of Geier Elektronik (Berlin).
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we outsourced everything and now’re bored.
Project by Clémence de la Tour du Pin, Judith Lavagna and John Henry Newton
Anthony Antonellis & HENDRIK
Anne Fellner & Burkhard Beschow
Joseph Buckley
Jack Coltman
Matt Cooper
Nicola Guy
Vida Guzmic
Joe Hamilton
Marian Luft
Katharina Marszewski
Oliver Osborne
Barnie Page
Lucia Quevedo
Blake Shaw
Eric Stephany
Santiago Taccetti
Elvia Wilk & Felix Riemann
Ronny Szillo
24 March – 24 April 2013, L’Atelier-ksr, Berlin.
‘we outsourced everything and now we’re bored’ considers the banality of our everyday life imbricated into unsteady laptops. The project is constructed within a book, a collective show and an online database.
The book, developed by Clémence de La Tour du Pin (Berlin) and John Henry Newton (London) documents a series of performative interventions. This collaboration emphazises dialogue through the use of the web, where the distance becomes a tool – serving as an interesting variable in the way the content of the book is produced. By exploring the blur of boundaries between paper and pixel, the printed pages are revisited by a constant flow of conversations, electronic devices and real-time updates. The ping-pong strategies between the two artists explores peer-to-peer archiving models where the traditional and sustainable role of print is continually threatened and revisited by our digital reality and its infinite reproductibility. By sharing and extending their sources with chosen artists, Clémence de la Tour du Pin and John Henry Newton explore a collective mutable authorship based on navigation, distribution of resources and screen-based contents. A constellation of hyperlinks and performative elements that move between the tactile and the digital as well as its inversion. The book become a sort of ‘archeologie of presence’, a work-in-progress stabilised by the print insurance. From the volatile screen interface to the permanency of the print surface, the extension of the book into a three dimensional space incorporates a new dimension in the works produced: their existence is finally outsourced into our material world and physically related to long-life objects, a response to our mutated generation.
By inviting artists to contribute to the exhibition project, Clémence de La Tour du Pin, John Henry Newton and Judith Lavagna (Berlin) intend to enlarge the problematic of sourcing & outsourcing by displaying the material approach of a ‘spatialized’ conversation: the artworks exhibited offer a contribution of both references and interferences – combining contemporary art history and digital practices.
The database is both an extension of the book and the exhibition, it aims to increase the artists works in a virtual matter implemented through curating online. It will result in web-based images selected by participating artists, images produced for the book, the exhibition and some forgotten desktop items. This updated images mixture will bring up a complex system of relation, from our flat screens to the unpredictable hyperspace. This online project is launched during the finissage of the exhibition, when the artworks are leaving the gallery into the storage of everyday life.
Many thanks to the contributors and to Gereon Günter Rahnfeld – galerie B2 (Leipzig), Elda Oreto – Club Midnight (Berlin), James Gardner – Frutta gallery (Rome), Christian Siekmeier – Exile (Berlin) and Stefania Angelini – L’Atelier(Berlin).
PDF of the project here WOEANWB presentation
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New Smoke from Old Fires
Curated by Judith Lavagna and Hendrik Niefeld
Burkhard Beschow
Henriette Grahnert
Julius Hofmann
Stephan Jäschke
Marian Luft
Dominik Meyer
Laurent Proux
Elke Schindler
Kristina Schuldt
Ronny Szillo
Daniel Caleb Thompson
For the occasion of an artistic exchange between the cities of Hamburg and Leipzig, curators Hendrik Niefeld and Judith Lavagna organized a group show involving artists currently working in Leipzig, underlining influences and heritages of local artistic mouvement such as the Neue Leipziger Schule. New Smoke from Old Fires investigates the contemporary positions from the perspective of painting influences as a point of departure including media practices such as installation, digital print, performance and video.
25 – 27 May 2012, FRAPPANT, Hamburg.
With the support of Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Fonds Soziokultur.
www.betriebsausflug.cc
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Loading…
Curated by Judith Lavagna
United Artists
Julien Chevy
Matthieu Clainchard
Elshopo
Eric Emery
Pierre Fisher
Vincent Ganivet
Jean-Benoit Lallemant
MA Leledy
Nicolas Muller
Simon Nicaise
Bertrand Planes
Elisa Pône
Lison de Ridder
Eric Stephany
Bojan Stojic
Kuang-Yu Tsui
Julie Vayssière
Adrien Vescovi
June 10.-26.2010, PMgalerie (Julie Grosche and Aurélia Defrance), Berlin.
Taken as a recent term rooted in the language of information technology, the expression Loading… evokes primarily the emergence of a form associated with the temporality of transition into a working state. The artists of Loading… are all engaged in a process and act of «doing» that draw together several experiments pioneered in the nineteen-sixties. Recall, for example, the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers who plunged his first published collection of poetry into plaster in 1964… this act of prolongation of gesture paves the way for artists’ experiences whose working processes, as well as development of attitudes and forms of engagement have often preceded the existence of a work itself. The artists of Loading… induce or precipitate the possible outcome of their activities, and thereby those of their works. They create shifting temporalities that the artwork makes visible through the gesture and different forms of position.The exhibition, involving twenty international artists, focused on the tensions inherent to the object and its various modes of existence. It heralds the amplification of microphenomena or events but, most importantly, explores the fate of an artistic act as concerns its potential persistence in the culture.
With the support of PM Galerie, Kreutzberg Biennale and 48h Neukölln, Berlin.
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Le Paradoxe du petit monde
Conceived by Judith Lavagna, in collaboration with Cyril Verde
Damien Aspe
Guillaume Aubry
Christophe Bruno
P. Nicolas Ledoux
INRUSE
Caroline Delieutraz
Julien Malfilatre
Associated events:
Pauline Bastard, Ivan Argote, Sonia Dermience (Born to curate)
Christophe Bruno & Christian Salmon
Jean-Marc Chapoulie
Barbara Siriex (Red Shoes Bureau)
Jérôme Piques
Samuel Tronçon
collectif Microtruc
Floriane Attal
Frédéric Sonntag et Thomas Rathier (ASANISIMASA)
Jean-Philippe Gross et Gaël Leveugle (UNTM)
March 04 – 27. 2010, Ars Longa, Confluences, Paris
By becoming initiators of networks and organizations, artists and agents of the artistic sphere develop working methods and practices that deploy complex systems and sometimes nebulous schemes. From the use of social networks to the development of arborescences, the proliferation of roles and identities to jamming tracks, Le Paradoxe du petit monde is an exhibition and publication project that tends to become the catalyst of these phenomenas.
While some artists use and experience collaboration as a vector of activities in permanently re-definition, others are camouflaged, develop targets and strategies, opt for anonymity or piracy. Through viewing and intronisation, we have become the protagonists of a network system in constant re-construction.
French version:
En 1967, le psychologue social américain Stanley Milgram faisait l’expérience du « petit monde »
mettant en lumière le faible nombre d’intermédiaires entre deux humains sur la planète (des résultats controversés fixèrent ce chiffre à six). Depuis, les technologies de communication ont fait un tel bond en avant qu’il est maintenant possible de visualiser son propre réseau social. La conséquence de cette évolution est qu’aujourd’hui, grâce à ces outils, nous sommes devenus des pratiquants du réseau : l’outil qui devait analyser nos interactions sociales est devenu l’outil nous permettant d’agir sur ce réseau, de l’intérieur.
En devenant initiateurs de réseaux et d’organisations, les artistes et les agents de la sphère artistique développent des pratiques et des méthodes de travail qui se déploient sous des formes complexes et parfois nébuleuses. De l’usage du réseau social au développement d’arborescences, de la multiplication des rôles et des identités jusqu’au brouillage des pistes, «Le paradoxe du petit monde » est un projet d’exposition qui tend à devenir le catalyseur de ces phénomènes. Si certains artistes utilisent et expérimentent la collaboration comme un vecteur d’activités en re-définition permanente, d’autres se camouflent, développent des cibles et des stratégies, optent pour l’anonymat ou le piratage. En passant de la visualisation à l’intronisation, nous sommes devenus les protagonistes d’un système de réseaux en perpétuel re-construction.
Ainsi, Ars Longa initie une mise en abîme de son propre fonctionnement et se positionne en objet d’étude et d’investigation d’une scène artistique arborescente, temporaire et flexible. Croiser les réflexions, générer de nouvelles attitudes, définir un maillage, souligner des hyperliens : propre à une scène artistique pléthorique et sociologiquement instable, « Le paradoxe du petit monde » se veut une exposition expérimentale qui privilégie des attitudes et des activités plutôt que des objets prédéfinis.
P. Nicolas Ledoux manie le paradoxe du grand et petit monde de l’art et propose une interprétation personnelle d’une selection de documents relatifs à l’exposition, pour la réalisation d’un ouvrage au statut ambigu, entre livre d’artiste et catalogue d’exposition. Posant l’éternel problème du statut de l’oeuvre et de sa signature, P. Nicolas Ledoux présente également une peinture de sa série Supermariomerzbaumgarten réalisée en 2008.
De l’espace de l’ordinateur à celui de l’exposition, Damien Aspe matérialise la plateforme d’échange du peer to peer en proposant au public de s’y investir : il sera invité à déposer un objet de son choix sur une structure composée d’étagères vides, en échange d’un multiple numéroté et signé. Quant à Guillaume Aubry, il propose une extrapolation du document «Galeries Mode d’Emploi » en établissant, par la transposition de méthodes scientifiques, un Coefficient d’insularité des galeries parisiennes. A cette oeuvre papier s’ajoute un dispositif d’enregistrement graphique des activités d’Ars Longa depuis le montage jusqu’au finissage de l’exposition.
Imaginez que l’histoire du monde soit sens dessus dessous et que les personnages historiques qui ont laissé leurs traces dans nos livres d’école soient réincarnés en… artistes. Christophe Bruno décide de réactiver plusieurs pièces du projet Global Artists, oeuvre en déshérence oubliée sur Internet depuis 2004. Architectes au sein du collectif INRUSE, Adrien Krauz et Simon Jean Loyer présenteront une relecture de l’espace de la galerie par un triptyque et une oeuvre papier, qui en révèle les potentialités narratives et illustre la recherche de leur « Révélation métropolitaine ». Dans son travail, Caroline Delieutraz privilégie les collaborations. Pour « Le Paradoxe du petit monde » elle enregistre les micro-activités de ses complices, créant une pièce sonore spatialisée dans l’exposition. Caroline Delieutraz tire également de sa collection l’un de ses Avatars par défaut, image attribuée d’office aux nouveaux membres d’une communauté, afin de réaliser les timbres de la communication de l’exposition.
L’organisation de cette exposition s’est déroulée comme une fiction en expansion où le statut de
ses acteurs est toujours resté flexible. Cyril Verde, co-instigateur du « Paradoxe du petit monde » avec Judith Lavagna, aura tour à tour endossé les casquettes d’artiste, de commissaire et de conseiller pour finalement, dans la dernière ligne droite, devenir l’observateur furtif de l’exposition par des interventions ponctuelles et discrètes aux différents niveaux de son organisation.
With the support of Arcadi and réseau Actes If, Ministère de la culture et de la communication, Drac Ile-de-France.
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Uchronies ou la ville au fond de l’oeil
Uchronies, part. II Changer le cours de l’histoire
Curated by Judith Lavagna
Armand Behar
Renaud Bezy
Jagna Ciuchta
Thomas Léon
Aline Morvan
Samir Mougas
NG
Michaël Sellam
Nicolas Tilly
Associated events:
Daniel Foucard & Véronique Levy (Ed. Sens et Tonka)
France Valliccioni & Emmanuel Delpy
Vincent Epplay (Udo Bar)
25.03.-22.04.2009, 26.09.-31.10.2009, Ars Longa, Paris
Based in two sections, this project reflects on the etymological and topological notion of Uchronia. On rereading history acrossing utopia, science fiction and failover time, artists, musicians and writers from Uchronies underlined the ambivalence of historical meanings from various perceptions of interpretation between fact and fiction.
With the support of Région Ile-de-France, Mairie de Paris, L’agence nationale pour la cohésion sociale et l’égalité des chances, Association ARTAIS.
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Zero-Crossing
Conceived by Magali Sanheira, in collaboration with Judith Lavagna (curation) and Anne-Marie Spiroux (production)
Gaël Angelis
Emilie Benoist
Simon Bernheim
Bertran Berrenger
Pascal Bircher
Rada Boukova
Thomas Fontaine
Pier Francesco Lerose
Noé Nadaud
Philippe F. Roux
Nader Sadek
Magali Sanheira
Sayoko
Julien Sirjacq
17.-26.09.2010, La Générale en Manufacture, Sèvres
Zero-Crossing is an exhibition project that focused on sound practices and referred to the alternative current of the zero-crossing point as a non-signal.
Without directly interpretating the Zero-Crossing waveform as a given theory, the artists rather seize his background semantics whose intentions are carried by the spectrum of relations between science and culture, including the part of subjective probabilities of pataphysicists.
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PRESSION À FROID 13 artists / 13 curators
Sorbonne University’s Curatorial Masters program in collaboration with L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA)
Artists:
Cyril Aboucaya
Thomas Deniau
Antoine Desailly
Vanessa Dziuba
Julie Fruchon
Martin Laborde
Laetitia Le Caron
Jean-François Leroy
Florent Meng
Anthony Peskine
Kiama Sorli
Charles Veyron
Joana Zimmermann
Curators:
Fabienne Bideaud
François Duvette
Judith Lavagna
Isabelle Le Normand
Marjolaine Lévy
Lina Maria Lopez
Barbara Luszynska
Madeleine Mathé
Linda Molnar
Florence Ostende
Silvia Sabino
Nicole Vuilleumier
Anne Yanover
October 17-23. 2007, Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris.
PRESSION A FROID is a metaphor of double meaning. This title reflects the contradictions of our contemporary society that the curators and artists from the same generation (the majority born in the 1980s) wanted seize on the occasion of this exhibition. The first cold pressing renders an essence that is both sweet and sour. At the same time pure and exquisite, it is also a rare essence and therefore ephemeral and fragile.
Over the length of this one week exhibition, evening events focused on the issues of curatorial work and exhibitions, as well as artists’ video projections and performances have been programmed through the 700m² space. An exhibition catalogue, edited by ENSBA, was published on the occasion of the exhibition. Each curator is the author of a critical text about an artist being exhibited.
With the support of Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA), Mairie de Paris, Réfectoire des Cordeliers.
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Encore, John M Armleder
Solo exhibition and workshop by John M Armleder.
École européenne supérieure d’art de Bretagne’s Masters program in collaboration with Université Rennes 2, 16.05.-30.06.2006.
judithlavagna.com 