Works and Words: A Gathering
17:00–19:00
de Appel, Schipluidenlaan 12, Amsterdam
Works and Words - Footnotes#3 – Invitation for a Gathering in the Archive
2019 May 28th 17:00-19:00
In De Appel Archive we have been working on Footnotes#3 for over a year. We re-opened documents from the 1979 Works and Words exhibition to make them available for today’s audience. By now the main themes and artists have been presented on the Footnotes#3 webpage. To mark this milestone De Appel Archive will host a gathering. During this event, we will show the process of re-opening the documents from ‘79 and address the significance of this project today. We will also screen a TV broadcast from 1979 with colour footage of the performances and interview with Works and Words curator Josine van Droffelaar.
If you would like to attend and participate please RSVP via reservations [at] deappel.nl
This gathering will be in English. The TV broadcast is in Dutch but we made a transcription in English.
The Works and Words International Art Manifestation in 1979 is a unique event in the history of both Amsterdam and De Appel. The work of over 80 artists from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia and the Netherlands were exhibited. The exhibition’s aim was not to give a complete account of each country’s artistic developments but to facilitate an exchange of ideas–to bring together artists and artworks. Accordingly, Works and Words was not solely an exhibition. It was a festival, a gathering that opened the possibility for friendships, collaborations and connections to be formed in the future.
What traces of the Works and Words exhibition from 1979 can be uncovered today? Footnotes#3’s intention is to shed light on the nuances of organization, difficulties and influences of the 1979 exhibition with material from De Appel’s Archive. Similar to Works and Words, Footnotes#3 never aimed to give a complete account of all the information found in the archive. Rather, Footnotes#3 creates its own stories by piecing together correspondences, pictures and descriptions from 1979. Footnotes#3 shares stories in order to offer better insight as to what happened in 1979 and to think about their relevance today.
The information published in the framework of Footnotes#3 brought researchers into the Archive, returned works to artists, and connected De Appel Archive with different art institutions. While the Archive is seeking to re-establish connections, a renewed network around Works and Words is being formed, 40 years later. The Archival Gathering will be a celebration of this renewed interest. We invite everyone who is interested in archives, in neo-avant-garde art, art from the above-mentioned countries and everyone who is interested; to listen and to share stories.
This event is initiated and organized by Mila Hamp.
