Tag: Exhibition

In 2021, the participants of Architectures of Noise were working individually and collectively in art-based research processes. They involve reading sessions, walks, talks, accompanied by architectural and sculptural interventions, performances, workshops, and experiments, especially in the sense of experiri (experience), reason, and resonance in the public and private domains.

During the summer session at W139, artifacts of diverse but interconnected aspects of these genealogies of experience and epistemic architectures are shared with the public. Surveying how these specialized and sometimes also ambiguous instruments (i.e., language, laws) materialities and political concepts crystallized from the past influence future progress.

Architectures of Noise is curated by Evelina Rajca and made possible in collaboration with:

Clara Palli
Pierfrancesco Gava
Arefeh Riahi and Sher Doruff
Ellington Mingus
Susanna Schoenberg
Thomas Hawranke
Lillian Rosa, Gudrun Schoppe in collaboration with Samer Makarem
Evelina Rajca in correspondence with Felipe González and Konrad Bohley
and guests­

More information:
Handout (pdf)
Information about the works (pdf)

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POLAR ROOM | WhatDoYouFightFor?

Lillian Rosa, Gudrun Schoppe in collaboration with Samer Makarem

“What empowers people to be the heartbeat of a civil society that drives the change we need in the world?”

This is the key theme of the long term interdisciplinary art work WhatDoYouFightFor? by Lillian Rosa and Gudrun Schoppe. Following up the short documentary (R)EVOLUTION and a series of events in Berlin, they used their collective (digital) Artist in Residency in Amsterdam as the starting point for developing a series of film portraits with citizens from around the world who engage in action around democracy, sustainability and civil rights.

In cooperation with Lebanese activist Samer Makarem and his network engaged in leading a civil alliance for reconstructing and building a civil state without corruption but with civil rights and democracy they are sharing artifacts of the ongoing collective research approach at W139’s Polar Room in the context of their joint (digital) residency.

Photography by Jeroen de Smalen.

Verbógen Verbrijzeld (Shattered Scattered) examines how white light can be splintered and bended – how you can become one with matter.

In the solo exhibition by Philip Vermeulen you will get to know his newly developed ‘hyper-sculptures’, which shatter and mechanically scatter white light into thousands pieces of color. The roar of colors, the pinching sound and the wind of the fast spinning machines give you an intense physical experience. Within a meta-composition the works are in constant dialogue with each other, submerging you in the dynamics between human and machine.

Philip Vermeulen is a The Hague-based artist who makes large-scale installations. His installations are  part of his ongoing research in altering psychological states through the manipulation of primary phenomena of light, sound, and movement. Vermeulen creates what he calls ‘hypersculptures’: kinetic sculptures which move at such high speeds they change our perception of the physical properties of these materials.

His work has been shown at locations from museums (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Rijksmuseum Twenthe) to art spaces (W139, Arti et Amicitae), clubs (Berghain Berlin) media festivals (Novas Frequências Rio de Janeiro, Ars Electronica Linz, TodaysArt, CTM Berlin), and outdoors (Into the Great Wide Open, Vlieland). In 2020 Vermeulen’s installation More Moiré² has been nominated for The Volkskrant Visual Art Prize and was also one of the nominee’s for The Golden Calf (in Dutch: Gouden Kalf) in the category of Best Interactive 2020.

This exhibition is made possible in part by: Stroom Den Haag, Mondriaan Fonds, Gemeente Amsterdam, Kickstart Cultuur Fonds en PIP Den Haag.

Under Bat Hill is a group exhibition that imagines the W139 as a glorious cavern in the middle of the city. Isolated from the outside world and its dwellers, this huge space is activated through a daily program of screenings and listening sessions.

At 19:35 on the 22^nd of April, 2020, Pope Francis tweeted, [When we are in a state of sin we are like “human bats” who can move about only at night. We find it easier to live in darkness because the light reveals to us what we do not want to see. But then our eyes grow accustomed to darkness and we no longer recognize the light.] His tweet received hundreds of replies including one from @GiveBatsABreak who began, [On the contrary Holy Father, the darkness brings to the bat precisely that which it DOES want to face, not what it doesn’t. Bats are not under the cover of night committing crimes for which it should be ashamed, but providing invaluable services to our ecosystems and communities.] Through a series of further tweets, @GiveBatsABreak pushes beyond the pope’s casual anthropomorphic description, detailing how bats benefit both the environment and the economy.

Under Bat Hill presents a selection of works that too seek to move their subjects beyond casual remit. Subjects that exist in the world outside the cavern under bat hill.

Foto’s door Jeroen de Smalen.

A group art show initiated by Simon Wald-Lasowski for W139, with contributions by Kasper De Vos, Serge Onnen, Ryan Gander, Mire Lee, Aline Bouvy, Julius Heinemann, Maya Brauer & Annabelle Broos, Simon Wald-Lasowski, Bas de Wit, Thomas van Linge, Andrea Éva Győri and Dodi Espinosa.

What is your relationship to excess? Are your rituals of intoxication a means to numb yourself? Or a way to celebrate life against a collective feeling of existential dread? In the ruins of late-stage Capitalism, consumption and hedonism function as a means to escape the body — your body. You are invited to consider the beauty and horror of these daily practices.

Experience an atmosphere of all things fleshy, shiny and morally ambiguous. An abundance of colours, animatronics and visual stimuli that explore themes of digestion, bodily cravings, erotic grotesque nonsense, sex as a matrice of power and the commodification of pleasure. Minimal yet grandiose gestures challenge the monumentality of W139’s backspace with sensory, detailed work; as well as erasing whiteness to reveal hidden traces of past exhibitions.

Situated in the red light district, oozing with debauchery, W139 becomes a space to navigate these flamboyant and decadent practices, with humorous uncanny interventions.

Photography: Konstantin Guz

Enter into the world of As far as eye can see, a solo exhibition by Shertise Solano. Dive into the essence of all that exists with her mystical figures, off into a world that is more real than you can ever imagine.

Shertise Solano is a Dutch Caribbean multimedia artist with a background in theatre who lives and works in the Netherlands. Since 2014 she is focused on new forms of expression through experimental visual art, injecting her own DNA into the work — for example by using one image of her face as the starting point of collages — all the while working within a reduced spectrum of three colours: red, white and black.

Photography by Ernst van Deursen.

After a five-month working period at W139, Amsterdam, the project culminated in a three-week exhibition centered on the idea of the market — as a space of exchange, movement, and reconfiguration.

Throughout the residency, the exhibition space remained in flux. The layout was rearranged every three weeks, and eventually every week, responding to ongoing artistic processes and shared use of the space. This continuous transformation fostered cross-contamination between practices, generating conversations, collaborations, and new connections.

Contributors: Chun-Han Chiang, Dave Fransz, Bert Jacobs, Petra Ponte, Nelmarie du Preez & Marcel van den Berg, Tim Breukers, Isabel da Costa, Monique Duurvoort, Thorsten Grahl, Jake, Guy Königstein, Mick La Rock, Mitchell van Ommeren, Moira, Rachel Tokromo, Eunice Weerwind, and Evelyn Agyemang.

Photography by Petra Ponte and Chun-Han Chiang.

W139 warmly invites you to ampersands, celebrating our 40-year anniversary with works and performances by:

After Howl, André Avelãs, Koen Bartijn, Marcel van den Berg, Kees Boevé, Caetano Carvalho, Chun-Han Chiang, Aquil Copier, Isabel da Costa, DNK Amsterdam, Jacob Dwyer, Sara Pape García, Sue van Geijn, Sandra Gnjatovic, Esther de Graaf, Laura Grimm, Bert Jacobs + Dave Fransz, Annika Kappner, Judith Kisner, Taisiya Krugovukh + Vasiliy Bogatov, Simon Wald-Lasowski, Axel Linderholm, Pendar Nabipour, Dorine van Meel, Margarita Osipian, Ninna Bohn Pedersen, Eric Peter, Oscar Peters, Michael Petri, Karl Philips, Nans Quétel, Evelina Rajca, Sam Samiee, Helena Sanders, Franziska Schulz + Charlott Weise, Fraser Stewart, Andreas Tscholl, Philip Vermeulen, Dan Walwin.

Initiated by W139, Nadia Benchagra, Marcel van den Berg, Esther de Graaf & Lih-Lan Wong.

For our 40th anniversary, we invited over forty artists/initiators and team members to participate in Ampersands. Together, they have formed the beating heart of W139 for the past 6 years. Since 2014, this ever-growing group, through its individual practices and ambitions, has sharpened and shaped the artistic course of W139.

Ampersands is therefore both a celebration and manifestation of the spirit of W139; an expression of gratitude for all the energy that has been generated for over 40 years. We want to pass this energy on to future generations.

In the upcoming weeks Ampersands will show the strength of unpredictability and bringing together a variety of practices, which are at the core of W139. This is a dynamic presentation and lively public program, which will unfold during the coming seven weeks in concerts, performances, lectures, workshops, (self) publishing, archive work and spontaneous interventions.

Photography by Ernst van Deursen.

A duet by Franziska Schulz and Charlott Weise. Two women artists from the German East found an outlet for their fascination of the early friendship between Siggi & Gerri—visually, emotionally and cerebrally. Schulz & Weise is a soapy ode to friendship; a friendship so intense that it must be unleashed in an artistic involvement.

Ribbons will rise, tilt and twist to become bows.
Schulz and Weise are flirting with the devil.
The eternal feminine is invoked, out of the bottle and with ribbons in the sky.

Special thanks to: Jacob Dwyer (chauffeur), Aileen Klein (fashion design), Ott Metusala (graphic design), Olga Micińska (ribbon assistant), Timna Tomiša (videographer), Dan Walwin (video editor and constructor), Jan van Witteveen (heavy metal) and Van Tetterode Glass Studio.

Blue murder has been cried that the era of post-truth is dawning. But just like post-humanism and the father of confused thoughts, postmodernism, the era of post-truth is nothing but an audacious and weak analysis of our time. Truth, as always, plays a central role in everything we do… prokaryotes included, as even bacteria know how to fool each other. In order to lie successfully, one must know what that lie should hide. Furthermore, truth is often spoken of as a thing you can find, but on searching one may discover the image of their own ignorance that surrounds understanding. Truth then, is a property of how we look, not of what we see.

The exhibition speak, memory takes the relationship between truth and art as its starting point. We invite the visitor to approach the exhibition in the light of renewed interest in this relationship. Thus, truth becomes a framework that hints towards the core of each work in the show. The exhibition contains existing works and a number of artists have been asked to create new work. Collectively they show a wide variety of connections to the theme.

speak, memory takes place during the 40th anniversary of the W139. It seeks to focus on the future. In the near future, W139 sees the scars of a decade’s wear and tear slowly healing. Anyone who considers this an exaggeration is most welcome to tell us. We’re especially open to those who know better.

Graphic design by Jonathan Castro Alejos.
Photography by Ernst van Deursen.