Opening Hiwa K

Join us on Saturday 7 October at 16:00 for the opening of the Kurdish-Iraqi artist Hiwa K: To remember, sometimes you need different archeological tools in the new exhibition space of De Appel in Amsterdam Nieuw-West.

De Appel invites Hiwa K to collaboratively produce two new works and an exhibition in which the artist will come to terms with severe acts of violence and conflict. The two new productions consist of a philosophical wrestling session (Pin-down) and a search for K’s perpetrators (deDutched). Both projects negotiate different ways in which memory intermingles with narration, and how it determinedly informs everyday migrant experiences.

To remember, sometimes you need different archeological tools presents videos and relics from the above-described Hiwa K projects. Additionally, a concise selection of artworks expands the exhibition. These evolve around similar make-shift solutions and sensible approaches to staging complex mnemonic situations that involve acts of violence and experiences of displacement. It hints at a multifaceted pragmatic world of amateur immigrant tools that bypass official archeological methodologies. The exhibition idiosyncratically connects Hiwa K’s unfixed understanding of the world and his open-ended artistic approach to an unsettled exhibition format in which nothing is certain until it opens to the public…

Through his work, Hiwa K rejects normative aesthetic definitions by exploring alternative artistic possibilities that engage oral histories, social confrontations and politically charged situations. His projects are shown at documenta 14, the 56th Venice Biennale and Manifesta 7, and at renowned art institutions such as the New Museum, New York; Serpentine Gallery, London; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and M HKA, Antwerp.

To remember, sometimes you need different archeological tools is curated by De Appel director Niels Van Tomme. The project is sponsored by the Amsterdam Fund for the Art, Mondriaan Fund, BankGiro Loterij Fund and Fonds 21. The artwork ‘Misunderstanding’ is co-produced by Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen.