June 24–July 9, 2017
Exhibition curated by Marion von Osten
From June 24 to July 9, BAK hosts the MaHKU graduate exhibition ABiotic Factors curated by Marion von Osten
Departing from nature-culture, this year’s MaHKU graduation project takes the urban environment as a site of mutual interactions between both living and non-living agents. An imported tree growing in a backyard in the Netherlands creates its own migratory existence; micro events in the streets of Utrecht trigger poetic narratives; the inner body of an obsolete technology becomes the cartography of an unknown future; and projections of/on plants reflect the abstracted scientific gaze. Critical ecology in this sense includes a new spirit, situating the human animal in reciprocal relation with all diverse biotic and abiotic factors of today’s nature-culture. Are there ways for art to meaningfully participate in these mutating relations?
With contributions by: Susan Jenkins, Haoran Kang, Zhengqing Li, Dinos Milonas, Elena Pietrini Sánchez, Tereza Telúchová, and Chao Wang.
More information here.
Symposium
On Saturday, June 24 BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht organizes the symposium “Once We Were Artists” to launch the publication Marion von Osten, Once We Were Artists: A BAK Critical Reader in Artists’ Practice, edited by Maria Hlavajova and Tom Holert. The symposium takes place from 10:30am till 6pm in the Tuinzaal of the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (Agnietenstraat 1).
Recognizing the rapidly changing predicaments of political, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions today, the symposium addresses the shifting nature of artistic practices that lay claim to the public sphere and political space. It discusses a collaborative, process-oriented ethos that revolves around issues of feminism, migration, education, and (post) coloniality as a resource for the contemporary.
Contributors include E. C. Feiss (writer, Berkeley), Tom Holert (art historian, curator, and writer, Berlin), Sven Lütticken (writer and curator, Utrecht), Marion von Osten (cultural producer, Berlin), Maria Papadimitriou (artist, Athens), Farid Rakun (artist, writer, editor, and teacher, member of ruangrupa, Jakarta), and Joanna Warsza (curator, Berlin).
Registration for the symposium is required. Tickets include lunch and are 8 EUR or 6 EUR for students.
More information and registration here.
MaHKU is the MA trajectory in Fine Art at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, and BAK’s long-time collaboration partner.
