AMSTERDAM ART WEEKEND 29/11 – 01/12 2013
GERLACH EN KOOP / DORA GARCÍA
gerlach en koop – Varying Degrees of Ajarness
During ‘Capital A / Amsterdam Art Weekend’ three individuals invited by gerlach en koop will share their thoughts and observations about the exhibition Varying Degrees of Ajarness under the modest and comforting cover of a guided tour.
29 November, 4 pm
A guided tour by Nickel van Duijvenboden, a writer and a visual artist who started a correspondence that involved a small group of people including gerlach en koop. This exchange of letters circles around ideas of absence, suspension and refusal. Any attempt at materialising this exchange in some form or other has up until now been futile.
30 November, 5 pm
A guided tour by Magalie Meunier proposed by Yann Sérandour.
Invited by gerlach en koop to make a guided tour of their exhibition Varying Degrees of Ajarness, Yann Sérandour has proposed a third party named Magalie to ‘wear’ his proposal. Magalie’s clothes are folded in a used MacBook box and exhibited before the scheduled guided tour. A multiple by gerlach en koop Nought as Object (2013) previously bought by Yann Sérandour is also included in the box. This edition consists of a rolled leather belt bound by a tie-wrap, cancelling each other out. The day of the guided tour, Magalie will have to cancel the work by gerlach en koop in order to fasten her jeans.
01 December, 5 pm
A guided tour by art historian and philosopher Laura van Grinsven who recently wrote Copies without original about gerlach en koop for the magazine Metropolis M. She will centre her tour around the question of how the works work: the relationship between word and image, but especially between the things and us, the viewers. The vacant space where we can’t seem to pin things down, is opened up in the works by gerlach en koop. .
Varying Degrees of Ajarness will be on display until December 21, but the groupshow in Dolores It Also Says Imperceptibly will end on November 28. A few days left to see that one.
DORA GARCÍA – THE JOYCEAN SOCIETY
video, color, 16:9, English spoken, BE, 2013, 53′
A group of people have been reading a book together for thirty years.
They have been reading it again and again, with each journey from the first to the last page taking eleven years. Once they reach the last word, a very enigmatic “the,” they begin again with the first word, “riverrun.” The text appears inexhaustible, its interpretation endless, the inconclusive nature of the reading exciting. The world seems to cease existing outside this reading room or, perhaps, it exists because of it.
The Joycean Society will be screened until December 21st.
Commissioned by Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco, XLVème Prix International d’Art Contemporain
Produced by Auguste Orts
With the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Atelier Graphoui, LUCA Sint-Lukas Brussel & Argos, Centre for Art & Media
gerlach en koop
Varying Degrees of Ajarness
02/11/13 – 21/12/13
Image: Still from Pickpocket by Robert Bresson, 1959
Oh please, don’t say this will continue like it does. These things I see around me. Every day, again and again. Some people remark how remarkable it is to find everything in exactly the same place when they wake up. I just feel repugnance. Seriously, it won’t stay like this forever will it? Resistance wells up. We can’t give up on the idea of progress, can we? The upward movement inside is contrary to the downward movement I get from these objects. They’ve given in to gravity. They show me nothing but their appalling weight.
True, both movements balance each other. That’s an equilibrium I suppose.
We’re not moving.
Being inconsistent and divided by nature gerlach en koop present an art of individuals. Varying Degrees of Ajarness is their second solo-exhibition in the gallery. When erring themselves they try to do so with precision and charm. They are compressing to allow for expansion.
gerlach en koop, two artists from the Netherlands living and working in The Hague and Brussels, gave up the habit of writing their proper name with a capital letter in order to merge into one collective artist.
Solo exhibitions include Kunstboeken (naast de kunst), the library of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven NL (2004); ruim schrijven, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo NL (2008); En gerlach en koop,1646, The Hague NL (2010); Niet niet precies. Not not precise. Pas pas précis. Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam NL (2010) and Others’ Structures, New Existentialism part 6, Gebert Stiftung für Kultur, Altefabrik, Rapperswil-Jona CH (2012). The next solo exhibition will be at De Vleeshal, Middelburg NL.
They have participated in group exhibitions such as ‘Lost Tongues Rediscovered’, Stroom Den Haag (2007), The Hague NL; ‘Radical Autonomy’, at Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, FR (2009) and at Netwerk, Aalst, BE (2011); ‘Faux Jumeaux’, S.M.A.K., Gent, BE (2009); ‘For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there’ at de Appel, Amsterdam NL (2010); ‘Keep floors and passages clear’ at White Columns, New York US (2011); ‘Found in Translation, Chapter L’, at Casino Luxembourg, L (2011); ‘Autumn of Modernism’, De Vleeshal, Middelburg NL and Temporary Gallery, Cologne, D (2012); ‘United We’, Stroom Den Haag (2013) and ‘MOREpublishers present’, Mu.ZEE, Oostende, BE (2013). The next groupshow will be ‘Over Psychedelia & Conceptualism’ at de Appel, Amsterdam NL (2014)
Dolores
It Also Says Imperceptibly
Sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to say, when you open your mouth. In fact, not just sometimes. Thoughts are often being shaped in the mouth, like their wording. Many a good speaker does not know in advance … maybe the greatness of a speaker can be measured from the quality of the emptiness preceding the words, and by the length of this emptiness. It takes nerves to wait, and knowledge to know that you can.
Take a breath, not a ‘deep’ one, that’s automated talk, remember: you don’t have to swim your way to the last rows in the auditorium —no, just breathe in.
And only after the last word you learn if what you said was worthwhile.
A groupshow curated by gerlach en koop
with works by Yann Sérandour, Lisa Holzer, Maurice Blaussyld and Jay Chung.
gerlach en koop would like to thank Stroom Den Haag and the Mondriaan Fund.
