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