Transpositions

22–23.11.2018
17:00–21:00
W139, Warmoestraat 139, Amsterdam

Photography: Dan Ben Ari. Interior Parts. Performance photo Still. Thalia Hoffman and Morad Hassan. A-Genre Festival. 2016.

Photography: Vika Uskhanova. Carnival of the Oppressed Feelings. Glukya and other collaborators. Amsterdam. 2017.

'Interior Parts' Thalia Hoffman and Morad Hassan. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

'Interior Parts' Thalia Hoffman and Morad Hassan. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

'Interior Parts' Thalia Hoffman and Morad Hassan. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Zeyno Pekünlü. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Zeyno Pekünlü. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

'From Left to Night'. Wendelien van Oldenborgh. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Imara Limon and Rieke Vos.

Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Gluklya. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

Tirdad Zolghadr. Transpositions. Image by Jimena Gauna.

‘Transpositions’ is a series of multifaceted events manifested through oftentimes overlapping and contracted axes and relations. The program includes performances, talks, and lectures that will take place on the 22^nd and 23^rd of November, during the Amsterdam Art Weekend 2018. Artists, curators, and thinkers are invited to present diverse interventions that widen the discourse about the "give and take" economy of the contemporary art system. The relations between cultural funds, art institutions, artists, curators, art workers in general and audiences have always been overlapping and synaptic. Whereas each of these actors are positioned differently on the power scale and also regularly shift power dynamics, each one gives and takes from the other, in a dynamic system essential to art circulation.

Discussing the topic of reciprocity dynamics in the contemporary art system; the first day will focus on the subject of cultural binaries and power manifested through a performance by the German Israeli artist Thalia Hoffmann and Palestinian actor Morad Hassan. The second day will roam around several related sub-inquiries, including modalities of socio-political art engagement in relation to geographic and economic urgencies, the possibilities of authorship in collaborative artmaking, curatorial practice between hope and despair, decolonial practices in and outside of art institutional frameworks, and the many contradictions between that which contemporary art states and what it actually does. Socio-economic changes in the past decades led to urgent conversations about funding policies and institutional tendencies of seeking new means of production, engagement, and audiences. This constellation brings to the fore several important questions: How do different contemporary art practices simulate cultural, socio-political and economic urgencies? And how are they perceived and discussed within the circles of artists, curators, institutions and audiences?

Programme

Day 1 - 22 November, Thursday, 17:00-19:00

'Interior Parts' performance and conversation

Contributors: Thalia Hoffman, Morad Hassan, Galit Eilat, Frans Willem Korsten, and La Cocina (Lore Gablier & Alejandro Ramírez)

'Interior Parts' is a performance inspired by a short story by Robert Walser. Over an increasingly intense twenty minutes, Palestinian actor Morad Hassan recounts his life story to German Israeli artist Thalia Hoffman. Meanwhile, she feeds him interior parts of a lamb, which she carves and prepares on stage in front of him. The more Hassan eats, the less informative his story becomes, until he is left with the anonymous identity of an ordinary citizen.

The performance will evolve into a conversation between Galit Eilat, Prof. Frans-Willem Korsten, La Cocina (Lore Gablier & Alejandro Ramirez), and the artists. The talk will focus on the cultural binaries and power dynamics manifested through the performance, on feeding as a socio-political simulation, and on trans-cultural collaborations within artmaking

Day 2 - 23 November, Friday, 17:00-20:00

A constellation of talks, lectures, and a video screening

Contributors: Gluklya, Imara Limon, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Zeyno Pekünlü, Rieke Vos, and Tirdad Zolghadr. 17:00-17:30 Lecture by Zeyno Pekünlü This lecture discusses socio-political urgencies and art engagement in conflict geographies, as well as the politics of funding cultural production in such contexts. How are both notions perceived amongst domestic and foreign (Western) audiences? 17:30-18:05 'From Left To night', experimental film by Wendelien van Oldenborgh The film involves five people and three locations and roams around the different subjects and forms of knowledge that originate from them. These range from urban tensions, such as unresolved events unfolding during the 2011 London riots, music, and the personal ways in which each of the protagonists relates to ideas of the political. 18:05-18:15 Break 18:15-18:45 Short curatorial interventions - Rieke Vos: Curatorial practice between hope and fear, between good intentions and socio-political reality. - Imara Limon: "Decoloniality" and curatorial practice in and outside of the museum. 18:45-19:10 A performance lecture by Gluklya Gluklya will present fragments of her ongoing project called "Carnival of the oppressed feelings" and will touch upon relevant inquiries regarding socially engaged art practices, fair labour and work ethics. For this performative lecture, Gluklya is collaborating with Tuncay Korkmaz (Murad). 19:10-20:00 Conversation with Tirdad Zolghadr In his book Traction and other writings, Tirdad Zolghadr argues that 'Contemporary art is defined by a moral economy of indeterminacy that allows curators and artists to imagine themselves on the other side of power. This self-positioning, in turn, leaves us politically bankrupt, intellectually stagnant, and aesthetically predictable.' This conversation will focus on the position of power within contemporary artistic and curatorial practices. Zolghadr will be thinking through the contradictions between that which contemporary art states and what it inadvertently does, to learn and foster modalities of engagement that challenge power structures rather than contribute to it.

Biographies Galit Eilat is an interdependent researcher, curator, and writer based in Amsterdam. Eilat is the founding director of The Israeli Center for Digital Art (2001–2010). She has been a leading member of curatorial teams involved in large-scale events, such as the São Paulo Biennale of 2014, the Polish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale of 2011, and the October Salon 2011. In addition, she was a guest curator in several contemporary and modern art museums. Eilat received the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College, 2017-2018. 'Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya - Gluklya lives and works in Amsterdam. Glukya's practice involves performative elements and collaborations with others. Her recent ongoing research project, entitled “The Utopian Unemployment Union”, focuses on notions of inclusivity, social science, pedagogy, public spheres, and human rights. She previously participated in several solo and group exhibitions in, among others, the 56th Venice Biennale - Arsenale exhibition, Contour biennial (2009), The Creative Time Summit - Washington DC MoMA (2017), Akinci (2013) ,(2015) ,(2018), Van Abbemuseum (2018) , MUMOK, Shedhalle - Zürich, Oslo Contemporary Art Museum, GARAGE Moscow (2018). Morad Hassan is an actor and a theater coach. He graduated from the Department of Theater in the University of Haifa. He participated in Festival of Avignon (France, 2016), International Theatre Institute ITI (Spain, 2017), MOFO festival (Norway, 2017), and other local and international festivals. He also played in the feature movie 'Zaytoun' (2012) and won the best actor prize for his role in the short movie 'Farawla' (2015) in Ellia film festival, Jerusalem. Hassan participated in several local and international theater workshops and assisted in directing theater plays. Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist based in Tel Aviv. She holds a BA in Humanities from the University of Bar-Ilan, and a MFA from the University of Haifa, where she is currently teaching. Hoffman has directed the documentary 'To each his own', (2005), and several short experimental films. She involves the mediums of video, performance, participatory art and feeding to simulate socio-political inquiries from the surrounding landscape. She is a current PhD student at the PhD Arts program at the Leiden University. Frans-Willem Korsten holds the chair by special appointment for 'Literature and society' at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, is associate professor at LUCAS (Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society) and runs the seminar ‘Critically committed pedagogies’ in the MEiA program of Piet Zwart Institute. He worked on the republican baroque, theatricality, sovereignty and the relation between literature, art and justice. He did the NWO program ‘Precarity and Post-Autonomia: The Global Heritage’ with Joost de Bloois (UvA). With Yasco Horsman (UL) he is working on justice and the role of literature and art working closely with the limits of the law. La Cocina (Lore Gablier & Alejandro Ramírez) was initiated in 2016 in Amsterdam with the ambition to prompt a space for aesthetic and discursive experiments with a critical taste. In 2016-2017, they presented a season of events focusing on the kitchen as a space in which major ideological, economic, and social transformations take place. In autumn 2018, La Cocina launched an online publishing platform and their new research theme, "A Matter of (In)digestions": a call to consider the implications of ingesting, consuming, swallowing, cannibalizing–of being consumed and devoured. For more info: www.lacocinaarchive.info. Imara Limon is a curator at the Amsterdam Museum, where she curated the exhibition ‘Zwart Amsterdam’ (2016). Limon has a background in Contemporary Art, Museology and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. She has curated the exhibition program ‘Black & Revolutionary’ (2017) with The Black Archives, and developed the multi-year research program ‘New Narratives’. Limon is an advisor at the Mondriaan Fund and AFK, and winner of the Museum Talent Prize 2017. She was a curator-in-residence at the ISCP in New York (2018). Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam whose practice explores social relations through an investigation of gesture in the public sphere. She often uses the format of a public film shoot, collaborating with participants in different scenarios, to co-produce a script and orientate the work towards its final outcome, which can be film, or other forms of projection.Solo presentations include ‘Lina Bo Bardi: The Didactic Room’, Van Abbemusem (2010); and group exhibitions and biennials include the 54th Venice Biennial: Illumination (2011). She recently has published a project book ‘Well Respected Man or a Book of Echoes’ in collaboration with Binna Choi. Zeyno Pekünlü is an artist based in Istanbul. She obtained her MA from University of Barcelona, her PhD from Mimar Sinan University. Comprising a wide spectrum of materials, her works traverse public and private manifestations of subordination, and problematize the technologies of power. Her important shows include; SALT Ulus/Artist Film International, White Chapel Gallery, Istanbul Modern (2016), İstanbul: Passion, Joy, Fury, MAXXI Museum / Neither Back Nor Forward, Jakarta Biennale, 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015). Zeyno coordinated the public programme of the 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017). Rieke Vos is curator and writer based in Amsterdam. She has a MA degree in Architectural History from the University of Amsterdam and she is an alumna of De Appel Curatorial Program (2010-2011). Vos currently works as a curator at NDSM, where she develops large-scale art projects such as Ferrotopia by Atelier van Lieshout, Void-Non-Void by Gabriel Lester and other. Vos was a curator for the Istanbul Biennale and a co-curator of the exhibition Artificial Amsterdam at De Appel (2013) and worked as a curator for SKOR (2008-2010). Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. His most recent publication is Traction, Sternberg Press 2016. Zolghadr is artistic director of the Summer Academy Paul Klee in Bern and associate curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Curatorial work includes biennial settings as well as numerous long-term research-driven projects. Fadwa Naamna is a curator and researcher based in Amsterdam. She has been a Curatorial Research Fellow at De Appel (2017–2018), her research focusing on the 'give and take' economy of the contemporary art system, the influence of funding modalities and the policies on designing cultural and artistic production. Previously, she was an assistant curator at Beit Hagefen Arab Jewish Cultural Center in Haifa (2014–2016). Naamna graduated within the Art and Geography departments at the University of Haifa and is an alumna of De Appel Curatorial Programme (2016–2017) in Amsterdam.

Images from Day One

Images from Day Two

Curated by Fadwa Naamna - De Appel Curatorial Fellow (2017/18). De Appel Curatorial Programme is supported by Ammodo Stichting. Transpositions is supported by the Artis Grant Scheme. De Appel partners with W139 to present this program.

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