12 Gestures

A sem­inar pro­posed by Bétonsalon and Kadist Art Foundation

This sem­inar is the result of a dis­cus­sion between the PUBLIC SCHOOL, which opened at Bétonsalon in September 2009 and a pro­ject ini­ti­ated by the Kadist Art Foundation’s phi­lan­thropic and artistic branches bringing together an artist and an NGO. Conceived as a series of inter­ven­tions pro­grammed over one year, this sem­inar focuses on artistic prac­tices devel­oped in a close rela­tion­ship with a con­text, a com­mu­nity and ques­tion what we call “so­cial prac­tice” in the field of art.

The sem­inar will pre­sent expe­ri­ences which keep ques­tioning the role of the artist, curator or art centre out­side of mere exhi­bi­tion making, when artists work in a col­lab­o­ra­tive, pro­cess-ori­ented and dis­cur­sive approach, some­times bor­rowing its method­olo­gies from other dis­ci­plines. We would rather use the term ’ges­ture’ than ’action’ since these pro­jects are often modest and very local; they address the com­plexity of a society taking into account sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and raising polit­ical ques­tions, meaning “re­vealing the pres­ence, behind a given sit­u­a­tion, of forces that were hidden until then” (Bruno Latour, Changer de société, refaire de la soci­ologie).

Most inter­ven­tions will be given in English.

HARRELL FLETCHER December 17th 2009 7:30p.m.
MOSER ET SCWINGER March 4th 2010 at 7:00p.m. Kadist Art Foundation
ANA LAURA LOPEZ DE LA TORRE June 2nd 2010 7:00p.m.
KATEŘINA ŠEDÁ June 25th 2010 7:00p.m.
BEN KINMONT June 29th 2010 7:00p.m.
RENZO MARTENS September 7th 2010 7:00p.m.
ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI October 11th 2010 7:00p.m. Kadist Art Foundation
PRATCHAYA PHITHONG December 7th 2010 7:00p.m. Kadist Art Foundation
FRANCISCO CAMACHO February 14th 2011, 19:00 - Kadist Art Foundation
PETRA BAUER March 8th 2011, 19:00 - Kadist Art Foundation

FRANCISCO CAMACHO February 14th 2011, 19:00 - Kadist Art Foundation

In New Mexico, Camacho inves­ti­gated the rea­sons why the inhab­i­tants of a vil­lage decided to change its name Truth or Consequences in the 50’s; with Group Marriage, an on-going pro­ject as part of the Amsterdam Spinoza Manifestation (2009), he peti­tions the Dutch par­lia­ment to open civil mar­riage to groups of cit­i­zens who would marry each other. And more recently Entkustung de l’art, pre­sented at the Casino of Luxembourg, was part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Luxembourg Military School, local politi­cians from the Senate and the Minister of Culture and a hip hop band.
Artist Francisco Camacho seeks ways in which his work can exist within offi­cial social chan­nels. His pro­jects have been the result of long inves­ti­ga­tions and col­lab­o­ra­tions with the local con­text, inhab­i­tants and lawyers to allow his dis­course to be exam­ined by other struc­tures of society. Therefore, his pro­jects often leave the art world to become sig­nif­i­cant in another fields and can be viewed as a form of polit­ical activism or social dis­course. His prac­tice evolves around the pos­si­bility of art to bear prac­tical effects on the cul­tural back­ground and reflects on re-defining common con­cepts that can lead art to change the way in which we con­ceive society.
Francisco Camacho (born in 1979 in Bogota). He is cur­rently working on a ’com­mu­nity based pro­ject’ for the Van Abbe Museum in the neigh­bor­hood of Woensel West (Eindhoven).

PETRA BAUER
March 8th 2011, 19:00 - Kadist Art Foundation

For 12 Gestures, Petra Bauer will pre­sent and dis­cuss Read the Masks,
Tradition is Not Given (2008), a film made in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Annette
Krauss, which crit­i­cally explores the phe­nomenon of Zwarte Piet (Black
Pete) in the light of its social and polit­ical impli­ca­tions. The film fol­lows on from the artists’ pro­posed event for ‘Be(com)ing Dutch’, a two-year research pro­ject and exhi­bi­tion at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland on issues con­cerning the Dutch national iden­tity.

Zwarte Piet is a cen­tral part of the cel­e­brated Dutch tra­di­tion, the feast
of Sinterklaas. The cel­e­bra­tion of the tra­di­tion takes place over the
course of three weeks, starting in mid-November with the arrival of
Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) in the Netherlands by boat to deliver gifts
to the chil­dren. With him are numerous Zwarte Pieten, his black-faced
assis­tants with red lips and dark curly hair.

Working and col­lab­o­rating with indi­vidual activists and organ­i­sa­tions, the
artists’ pro­ject included an instal­la­tion with plac­ards and ban­ners at the
Van Abbemuseum, a planned but can­celled protest march / per­for­mance in the streets of Eindhoven and a public debate. In 2008 a planned protest march aimed to pub­licly give voice to a long, marginalised and sup­pressed cri­tique against the phe­nomenon of Zwarte Piet. This event would be the starting point for the whole pro­ject. However, a few days before the march was to take place the pro­ject received exten­sive media reporting, trig­gering hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, of com­ments. Some of them were extremely neg­a­tive reac­tions and even included threats of vio­lence against people involved in the pro­ject. Due to these threats The Van Abbemuseum found itself forced to cancel the march.

The huge media atten­tion revealed the refusal to dis­cuss Zwarte Piet, and trig­gered the very com­plex dis­cus­sion on ques­tions such as national
iden­tity, racism, who has the right to speak, freedom of speech etc. The
events also started a debate about whether the art insti­tu­tion is a place
for reflec­tion or action, and if the artists were making art or pol­i­tics.

Petra Bauer is a Stockholm-based film­maker whose work explores con­cepts of story building through doc­u­men­tary making. Bauer ques­tions how norms and values affect selected inter­pre­ta­tions of facts and events in society, and how these in turn are used by people to con­struct a story of the pre­sent and the past. Currently, the artist is researching and con­ceiving a long-term pro­ject around British film col­lec­tives from the 1970s with par­tic­ular interest in the col­lec­tive doc­u­men­tary methods used by British fem­i­nist groups. This pro­ject will form the object of a dis­cus­sion at the ’Something you should know’ sem­inar at EHESS, on Wednesday 9th March.

12 Gestures with Harrell Fletcher, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research

12 Gesture with Ben Kinmont, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research

12 Gestures with Renzo Martens, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research

12 Gestures with Pratchaya Phithong, Kadist Art Foundation