HET SCHADUWKABINET:'Distorted Fabric'

In the month of January the French/Slovenian Natasja Petresin (CTP 2002) has been invited for curating 'The Shadow Cabinet' - a fixed part of de Appel's auxiliary programme where past and present students from the Curatorial Programme (CP), which de Appel has been running since 1994, will be occupying the former directors office as our guests. Petresin presents a short-term installation by artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (LB) and organizes a two-part screening within the framework of the project 'Art in the New Field of Visibility'.

Art in the New Field of Visibility is an event which aims to explore the complex interactions between art and media, within the context of the debate about the role and the function of image in our society. The programme consists of a series of exhibitions, screenings and talks organized by the Netherlands Media Art Institute, the Flemish Arts Centre de Brakke Grond, de Appel, Maison Descartes, Institut Francais des Pays-Bas, the Roman Cultural Institute Boekarest and the Goethe Institut Amsterdam.

Distorted Fabric traces the production of the plausible in the contemporary art through the videos of various artists and an installation by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige which warp our sense and knowledge of reality and render it questionable, odd and alienated. They operate with the categories of the logic of facts and logic of fiction as with two extremes on the same line of experience and thought that can be blurred, not as with two separate entities of experience, copying and mimicking one another. They confront the spectators at first with a subtle confusion, generated by the artistic methods of fabrication of the real, fictionalization of the visual documents or of imposture and decomposition of the first-person-singular narrative.
The alienation rendered by the confusion, furthermore, invokes the Brechtian epic theatre of making his audience realise that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of some events that should be watched with critical detachment. As Brecht wrote "alienation is necessary to all (critical) understanding. When something seems 'the most obvious thing in the world' it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up."
The works in the video screening could be described as being between the 'subjective documentaries', 'docu-fictions' or 'autofictive narrations'. In a way the works presented function as statements that try to change the common belief in the material authenticity of the images and information that construct our daily reality.



Opening: 'Distorted Fabric'
Friday, 19 January

Friday, January 19 21:00
Video screenings by (a.o.): The Atlas Group/Walid Raad, Daya Cahen, Sebastián Díaz Morales

Saturday 20 January 20.00
Video screenings by (a.o.): Egle Budvytyte, Keren Cytter, Jakup Ferri, Mario García Torres, Driton Hajredini, Ahmet Ögüt, Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Judith Hopf, SilentCell Network, Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer