Friday 1 November 2013, 8 – 10 pm:
Do We Ever Know Where History is Really Made?
Book presentation and performances by Jetske de Boer, Eva Olthof, Patrícia Sousa, Marija Šujica and Miek Zwamborn
Sunday 3 November 2013, 3 – 5 pm:
SONNET(S) & OTHER SONNET(S)
Ulises Carrión, Michalis Pichler
Exhibtion opening with installation by Michalis Pichler, a performative reading by Gerrit Jan de Rook, a text contribution by Louis Lüthi and video works by Ulises Carrión.
The presentation runs til 3 December 2013. An extra presentation day with more video works by Ulises Carrión takes place in the last week of the show.
kindly supported by LIMA, Amsterdam, (former NiMK)
please scroll down for more info
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More on Do We Ever Know Where History Is Really Made?:
Eva Olthof invited four artists and a graphic designer to think about the question: Do we ever know where history is really made? This question is a reference to the film Sans Soleil (1983) by French filmmaker Chris Marker. In this essay-film the construction of history is addressed. It is a cinematic, philosophical meditation on history and memory and the technologies that chronicle and record it.’
In Do We Ever Know Where History Is Really Made? printed matter and performance are developed parallel to each other during the project. In this way both media can inform, contrast or complete each other. The result is a variation of works that highlight, transform or complement fragments of European history.
Jetske de Boer (NL, 1976) biked from Eemshaven in the north of the Netherlands to Gdansk in Poland and uses her documentation as starting point for new stories in order to connect these seemingly different places.
Eva Olthof (NL, 1983) uses the moment of the collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (March 3rd, 2009) as a basis to build another archive, which consists of a growing collection of written memories.
Patrícia Sousa (PT, 1981) reworked the dialogues from the documentary Catembe (1965). Catembe depicts everyday life in Maputo during the Portuguese colonial period and was harshly censored during the Portuguese dictatorship.
Marija Šujica (RS, 1981) uses the famous print Intestinal Tract of a Seated Man by Hans Baldung Grien as a basis to anatomize contemporary forms of labour, such as copper theft.
Miek Zwamborn (NL, 1974) zooms in on two portraits of an unknown nineteenth century British paleontologist, Mary Anning.
The print-works are gathered in a specially designed folder. All print work is conducted in Extrapool’s risograph workshop Knust. The first performance evening took place on September 19th, 2013 at Extrapool Nijmegen.
Do We Ever Know Where History Is Really Made? is part of Extrapool’s guest curator project Gastpost
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More info on SONNET(S) & OTHER SONNET(S)
In 1972, Ulises Carrión produced his first artist’s book “SONNET(S)” which consists of a 44 variations of a sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rosetti titled “Heart”s Compass”. Using the language like a material, Carrión writes Rossetti’s poem over and over again on a typewriter, in slightly different versions. This book today is considered Carrión’s first “artists book”, where he still uses language, but quite differently.
In 2009 Michalis Pichler, in a similar approach but using a computer program, probably word or open office, created 44 new variations and published a book titled “SOME MORE SONNET(S)”. The last page of this book announced a multitude of OTHER SONNET(S), mostly imaginary .
The show at PrintRoom sees the realization of “TEN OHP SONNETS” with the use of ten overhead projectors as well as one out of “SEVEN ADVERTISED SONNETS”, published in the Dutch art magazine Metropolis M. This series in progress will either remain unfinished or will have been concluded once seven advertisements have been published, six of them by other galleries.
A selection of other book works by Ulises Carrión and Michalis Pichler will be on display. On occasion of this show PrintRoom has produced a pocket edition of “1111 RISOGRAPHED SONNETS, STAPLED, NUMBERED AND SOLD IN CHUNKS OF 11”, which is available for sale.
The show will also a feature a variety of Ulises Carrión’s video works, among them “Bookworks revisited”, “Aristotle’s Mistake” and “Gossip, Scandal and Good Manners”.
Ulises Carrión
Born in the Mexican town of San Andrés Tuxtla in 1941, Carrión originally had his eyes set on a literary career – his book of short stories with the intriguing title La Muerte de Miss O was published in Mexico in 1966 — but after graduate studies in England, he ended up in Amsterdam where he devoted what remained of his abbreviated life (he died in 1989, from AIDS) to artist’s books (as a maker, seller, archivist and theorist), performance art, mail art, video and film. Carrión is a still elusive figure whom poet Mónica de la Torre recently described in Bomb Magazine as “perhaps Mexico’s most important conceptual artist.”
Publications (selection): For Fans and Scholars Alike, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, 1987, In Alphabetical Order, Cres/Agora Studio, Amsterdam/ Maastricht , 1979, Arguments, Beau Geste Press, Devon, 1973, Looking For Poetry/ Tras la Poesía, Beau Geste Press, Devon, 1973, Tell me what sort of wallpaper your room has and I will tell you who you are, In-Out Productions, Amsterdam, 1973, SONNET(S), In-Out Productions, Amsterdam, 1972
Michalis Pichler is a Berlin-based poet and artist who graduated as an architect after studies in Berlin, Athens and New York. He loves books and ideas and is cofounder of the annual Berlin artist book fair www.missread.net. Recent shows and readings include The Power Plant, Toronto, Kunsthalle Wien, Christophe Daviet-Thery, Paris, FRAC Marseille, MCA Denver, Literaturwerkstatt, Berlin, Overgaden, Kopenhagen and MoMA PS1, NY.
Publications (selection): SOME MORE SONNET(S), “greatest hits”, Berlin 2009/2012, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, “greatest hits”, Berlin 2009; TWENTYSIX GASOLINE STATIONS, Printed Matter, Inc, NY 2009; Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (sculpture), “greatest hits”, Berlin 2008; Hearts, Revolver, Frankfurt 2008; Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed, cneai, Chatou 2008.
Louis Lüthi is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer and writer. In his fictional story Infant A he follows Ulises Carrión as he walks on the High Line in Chelsea, discussing two books simply titled A. Infant A is published by Paraguay Press, as part of their serie The Social Life of the Book.
Gerrit Jan de Rook is an art historian and freelance exhibition maker, The Hague. You can read his article for Metropolis M on Ulises Carrión here.
Gerrit Jan de Rook presents in a performative way Carrión’s book ‘Tell Me what Sort of Wall Paper Your Room Has and I Will Tell You who You are’.