12–15 September 2013
Opening: Friday 13 September
18h: Lecture, Adrian Rifkin
19h: Performance programme
20h: Drinks
22h: Screening, Coming Out (1989, directed by Heiner Carow)
Galata Fotoğrafhanesi Fotoğraf Akademisi
Serdar-ı Ekrem Cad. Ali Hoca Sok. No: 15 A
Galata – Beyoğlu / Istanbul
Hours: Daily noon–20hr
Artists: Mercedes Azpilicueta, Katja van Driel, Fotini Gouseti, Yoeri Guepin, Susan van Hengstum, Maja Hodoscek, Rei Kakiuchi, Isabel Marcos, David Maroto, Eden Mitsenmacher, Momu & No Es, Pendar Nabipour, Padraig Robinson, and Fraser Stewart
Exhibition design: Andreas Müller
Tutors: Frédérique Bergholtz and Grant Watson
Coordinator: Tanja Baudoin
This exhibition brings together new works by fifteen artists from different parts of the world who have been working together at the Dutch Art Institute for two years—a time featuring intense bursts of communal living and discussion in the city of Arnhem followed by intermittent periods of separation. In Istanbul they meet for the last time, each bringing a work that will be presented on or around an architectural structure designed by Andreas Müller.
Mercedes Azpilicueta’s performance combines vocabulary from the chemistry world, definitions of tear gas, testimony from a Turkish artist in Gezi Park and chants from African market traders; Katja van Driel presents drawings for a screenplay based on archival documentation about child smugglers along the Belgian-German border in the 1940s; Fotini Gouseti shows woodprints from research into the Second World War massacre in the Greek town of Kalavryta; Yoeri Guepin presents documentation of Circle on The Floor (1968) by Ian Wilson that he loaned from the Van Abbemuseum and lived with in his house; Susan van Hengstum’s photographic works are based on architectural and sensory research into sunlight; Maja Hodoscek shows a film that follows an adolescent struggling to impersonate his hero, former Yugoslav leader Tito; Rei Kakiuchi presents simulated popcorn (1.5 percent larger than life) created with a 3D scanner cast in bronze and then painted; Isabel Marcos documents a one-week stay in an avant-garde house in Almere, the Netherlands, built in 1984; David Maroto’s large-scale wall drawing is based on game books inviting viewers to choose pathways through the stages of life; Eden Mitsenmacher’s five love songs overlay her own lyrics onto existing instrumental tracks; Momu & No Es present a video-performance based on tropes from popular culture about fantasies of the Canary Islands; Pendar Nabipour shows a three-dimensional light installation projecting a motif that circulated in 1980s post-revolutionary Iran; Padraig Robinson’s work departs from the 1989 Berlin premiere screening of the film Coming Out, which coincided with the fall of the Berlin wall; and Fraser Stewart’s three-channel film draws with humor on narratives from Samuel Beckett and Abbie Hoffman.
The exhibition was devised by Frédérique Bergholtz and Grant Watson following the year-long course Curating Academy at the DAI. In monthly meetings the group looked into methodologies of curating and worked towards making an exhibition together.
With thanks to Sevgi Ortaç, production manager in Istanbul, and Bart van der Heide, Jacob Korczynski, and Adrian Rifkin, guest tutors of the course.
Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ offers a space for artistic research and experiment that exceeds the limits of conventional art education. Through affiliations with cutting-edge curatorial platforms and research institutes, the DAI seeks to create fleeting collectivities that operate as ‘interfaces’ between art, education and the world. In Istanbul, DAI merges the finals of the 2011–2013 term with the launch of the 2013–2015 cycle by assembling graduating artists, incoming and returning students, tutors and the public.
This project is supported by the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Turkey, commissioned by the Dutch Art Institute and produced by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution.
