Fall 2013 program
Witte de With | Center for Contemporary Art
Witte de Withstraat 50
3012 BR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
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The Temptation of AA Bronson
by AA Bronson
5 September 2013–5 January 2014
AA Bronson is both artist and curator, subject and object, in this hybrid project that includes his recent solo work, his collaborations with younger artists and works by friends, both queer and not. Also included are two of his curatorial projects: Queer Zines, incorporating more than 100 queer zines from the punk era until today; and Ancestors, a personal archive of books, editions, and ephemera that form a fragmentary and incoherent historical underpinning to the overall project.
The title The Temptation of AA Bronson alludes to Gustave Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony, the many references Flaubert’s tightly-knit text brings together, and its subsequent reverberations in art, literature, and theory. Saint Anthony was a very particular figure, the father of the desert fathers, the hermits who prefigure monks. Flaubert shared a history with Saint Anthony, not only of life in Egypt and Asia Minor, but also a life lived in continuous dialogue with temptation.
The Living: AA Bronson, Bradford Kessler, Carlos Motta, Chrysanne Stathacos, Elijah Burgher, Gareth Long, Jeffrey Vallance, K8 Hardy, Louwrien Wijers, Mr. and Mrs. Keith Murray, Marina Abramović, Matthias Herrmann, Michael Bühler-Rose, Michael Dudeck, Nicolaus Chaffin, Nils Bech, Oisin Byrne, Reima Hirvonen, Ryan Brewer, Sands Murray-Wassink, Scott Treleaven, Sébastien Lambeaux, Terence Koh, TM Davy, Tom de Pékin
The Dead: David Buchan, Derek Jarman, Mike Kelley, General Idea, Robert Flack
Flag of Ecstasy
Sunday 20 October 2013
Within the matrix of radical sexuality, intergenerational fraternity and publishing ingenuity suggested by The Temptation of AA Bronson, this screening proposes Charles Henri Ford (1913-2002) as an important kindred spirit for Bronson and the artists in the exhibition. Two films by Charles Henri Ford, Poem Posters (1967) and Johnny Minotaur (1973), are selected by Stuart Comer (Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at MoMA).
ritual of queer rituals
Saturday 2 November 2013
Convened by AA Bronson (artist, New York and Berlin) and Carlos Motta (artist, New York)
With Ron Athey (artist, London), François Chaignaud (choreographer, Paris), Elizabeth A. Povinelli (Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies, Columbia University, New York), Linn Tonstad (Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale Divinity School, New Haven) and Sands Murray-Wassink (artist, Amsterdam)
ritual of queer rituals gathers a group of artists and thinkers to conduct, perform, and discuss queer rituals in an event that explores the intersections of queer self-representation, spirituality, and the politics of the body. Featuring rituals as interventions, performances and performative lectures, ritual of queer rituals is both a celebration and critical space to discuss the role that queer rituals play today.
The Humans
Written and directed by Alexandre Singh
World Premiere: 28 September, 8:15pm
28–29 September, 1:30pm at Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Rotterdam
Choreography by Flora Sans
Music by Touki Delphine
Costume design by Holly Waddington
Lighting design by Guus van Geffen
Cast: Simona Bitmaté as Ms.Chief / Jesse Briton as Harry Foulbreech / Elizabeth Cadwallader as Pantalingua / Sam Crane as Tophole / Phillip Edgerley as Charles Ray/ Ryan Kiggell as Vernon / 31
The Humans tells the story of two spirits named Tophole and Pantalingua, who would rather see the Earth not created. In a battle against the egomaniacal Creator, they end up conspiring their way to an accidental Paradise Lost, ultimately corrupting the eponymous humans—portrayed as a vast, songful, and statuesque Greek chorus—into the flawed mortals we are today. The play, modeled after the satirical writings of the Aristophanes, is not afraid of mocking it all—religion, morality, and human hubris—with an irreverent and biting tone.
The Humans by visual artist, writer and director Alexandre Singh started as a script room; artist’s studio, and a workshop at the Witte de With fifteen months ago and evolved into a full-fledged theatrical account of the universe’s creation. Click here for more information. Commissioned by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and Performa, The Humans is also travelling to Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York (13–17 November 2013) during Performa 13.
Moderation(s) conference: Stories And Situations
5 October 2013
How do minor histories and non-heroic gestures transpire over time and across geographies? Can language transform and influence our understanding and perception of (works of) art? And how do ideas travel?
A day-long conference right at the heart of Moderation(s), a long-term and multifaceted program between Witte de With and Spring Workshop in Hong Kong, Stories and Situations is a platform where the multiple motifs of Moderation(s) are discussed and debated: the notion of speech in relation to art / the slippages of transmission via literary devices / distance as a tenuous concept / processes of art historicization are problematized from multiple angles ranging from linguistics, archeology, to philosophy.
For this conference, Witte de With curator Amira Gad has worked closely with three other critics and curators, including Lee Ambrozy (art critic and Founding Editor of artforum.com.cn), Christina Li (independent curator and writer) and Xiaoyu Weng (Curator, Asia Programs, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco) in order to develop a series of conversations with select guests including Brian Castriota (archeological conservator, New York), Vincent Normand (writer and curator, Paris), and Vincenzo Latronico (writer and critic, Berlin).