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.
Brutally stolen from Suede’s same titled song from the 1996 album Coming Up, it is not so much an ode or reflection to the contents of the original title holder, nor is it deeply concerned with the background of this Britpopish song (although it is that of an interesting notion), the title is solely borrowed, used and abused for the mere and sheer liking of the four words themselves, right here and right now.
Through a series of various snippets of essayistic/column-like moving images, Europe Is Our Playground, deals with matters such as modern-day Dutch imperialistic retail tendencies, a contemporary sense of the European single market and its e-numbers (and other measures and measurements), the dominant state of glocal consumerism of sex, drugs, and Nutella engulfed waffles, bowling, exoticism in European wildlife, explosions, the difference between Snel Gips and Plâtre de Modelage, contrasts and structures, wires, routers and interconnectivity, and lastly, Maurice. That, and much more (or slightly less) and all from the refuge of the studio.
Europe Is Our Playground by Brussels-based artist Kitty Kamp marks the end of a 4-month artist in residence period at W139, kindly supported by the Mondriaan Fund.
“I make use of three techniques, that of painting, assemblage and modification. For painting, my starting point – the inner journey – largely determines the content. The modification is more on the razor’s edge than my other work. In what appears a delicate balance between art and kitsch. But ultimately a work of art – an absolute condition – which in both form and content gives expression to the high kitsch level of Western civilization and its cultural forms. In the assemblage there is a certain balance. For a more or less equal part, the first and the second starting point can determine the content.”
Some short notes by Lucassen, February 2014
A collaboration between Sachi Miyachi, Nina Glockner and Natasha Rosling, transforming W139 into a collective body, inhabited for 5 weeks by a further 14 artists, performers, cooks and writers.
The sprawling physical environment and interwoven events invite you to investigate the porous boundaries between the body and architecture; sensation and emotion; the skin and the imagination. Inspired by the alchemy of fermentation – taking ingredients, adding salt, adding what’s in the air, adding time, and watching them transform – It Happens Anyway seeks to cultivate meaningful forms of connectivity, and explore what feeds our basic human need to create.
The public program takes place every Thursday and Saturday.
IFor the first time Jo Baer shows several digital and giclée prints of her paintings and studies side by side. The prints show the layering in her way of thinking and working and make the construction as well as development of Baer’s paintings visible. The various combinations of collages, drawings, references and sketches in the studies give a new perspective on Baer’s works.
Photography by Chun-Han Chiang.
The friendship between Žilvinas Landzbergas and Axel Linderholm developed over the course of the past ten years. During those years they have had many free-floating conversations which (unknowingly) became a prelude or sketch to Studio Double V. Threads of thought, remembered, misremembered, and perhaps some even completely forgotten, stir the dynamics of working with and alongside one another in W139 – their studio, for now. Conceived as both ideal and real space this studio provides room and risk to make new paintings, sculptures as well as collaborative installations. From this process-based approach springs a playful and energetic exhibition.
Photography by Chun-Han Chiang.
In Mikhail Maksimov’s non-linear spiritual legal thriller M.M.T.P. Obmyak film directorAndrei Tarkovsky, actor Aleksandr Maslaev and writers Andrei Platonov and Yury Mamleev appear as metaphysical politicians engaged in a dispute concerning the future of the earth and space travel. The protagonists are venerated figures of Russian culture who, each in their own way, conducted a thought experiment so as to explain Russia as both a place and a state. In this film Maksimov condenses their discourses in short and powerful blasts, all the while putting them through a process of disembodiment. These are people as ideas as creatures forever reincarnating in newer and wilder forms
Based on a text by art critic Valentin Dyakonov.
Twelve tables are set to serve you poisonous cases. They speak of sinister soup, infected ketchup, hallucinogenic fish and toxic tea, among other things. One might think that these are accounts from bygone times, however the present appears as rife with tales of deadly concoctions and the fear these instill. What to do when everything seems to be poisoned? Is there an antidote for being mistaken?
