The Public School at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels

Saturday 20th March from 2 to 6pm

Reality or Symbolism

For Aristotle, "Every politician is an artist... It's not easy to fool a nation without art, but every artist is not a politician." The relation between art and politics can create a feeling of emptiness since art is able to denounce or make problems visible, but can never function as a potent political device. This emptiness has a relevance to the society in which the work of art is created or shown. How can a work of art transcend into a political field? Much of the art produced that is linked directly with politics, becomes an ideological social device, whilst the remainder function as simple representations that operate upon the imagination of the viewer rather than within the realm of a social reality.

A debate initiated by Francisco Camacho with Dorothée Dupuis, Inti Guerrero, Matthieu Laurette and Theo Tegelaers. The subject being the relation between political ideas and art representations. From their research and project experience, they will illustrate various artistic positions which relate to specific political situations and how those are engaged positions.

BEYOND PARADISE

 Delphine Bedel & Ayako Yoshimura

Talk and Film Screening 

'The […] ambivalence of tourism, which also applies to our world in general, is reality and its copy at a time when copies are increasingly more realistic and reality is increasingly penetrated by the illusion of fiction' (Marc Augé)

'Beyond Paradise’ addresses the cultural and social changes that have altered our perspectives on tourism. As sociologist John Urry described in his breakthrough publication The Tourist Gaze, visual culture is central to the tourist experience. It could also be stated that the tourist industry, global mobility and media consumption and especially their abundant visual culture shape our vision of contemporary society. Tourist image production and narratives, as we know them from travel brochures, postcards, advertisements, films, are addressed in the works presented. They reflect on the construction of expectations, experiences and the social imaginary of places evoked by the ubiquitous and pervasive culture of tourism we are living in nowadays.

‘Beyond Paradise’ investigates modes of representation and visibility, starting from the mass production of images – a scheme central to the leisure industry – and the idealized imagery of places, and moves away from the familiar Tourist Gaze to construct unexpected fictional or personal narratives. The promises of these idealistic and seductive images are appropriated and eventually shifted in the works presented , to reveal other realities, and take us beyond paradise in order to question one of the greatest fictions of our times: that of tourism.

Talk

Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura will present the two-part project 'Beyond Paradise' -an exhibition and film programme- they curated at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and Maison Descartes - Institut Français des Pays-Bas in 2008. A selection of film excerpts from the project will be presented, followed by the screening of the documentary 'Celebration' by Racké & Muskens. Delphine Bedel will introduce her last publication 'All that is solid melts into air, Notes on Tourism' (Episode Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008), a collective research investigating the relation between tourism and politics of memory.

Film Screening

‘Celebration’ by Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens (2005, 55')

The film shows six couples in search of utopia. They are the residents of Celebration; the latest version of the American Dream, built in Florida by Walt Disney. Walt Disney always said that dreams can come true. Is Celebration a dream come true in a world gone wrong?

The exhibition 'Beyond Paradise' included works by Bik Van der Pol, Patricia Esquivias, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Mustafa Hulusi, Arnout Killian, Matthieu Laurette, Sascha Pohle, Lisl Ponger, Erkan Özgen & Sener Özmen. The film programme presented a selection of documentary, short films and videos addressing various perspectives on tourism in diverse geographical and political contexts. It featured films by Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens, Kamal Aljafari, Olivo Barbieri, Mounir Fatmi, Kwang-Ju Son, Bik Van der Pol and Kai-Ting Lin.

Read more:  http://www.smba.nl/en/exhibitions/beyond-paradise/

Delphine Bedel is curator, artist and writer

Ayako Yoshimura is artist and curator. They are both based in Amsterdam.

The Public School

An art school with no curriculum is the new permanent project by Komplot

Until May 2010 at Nadine

80, Gallaistraat/rue Gallait 1030 Brussels

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Lidwine Prolonge performing Les montres infidèles at The Public School, November 2009.

Komplot residency at Nadine, Brussels

November 1, 2090 - April 30, 2010

Curators: Damien Airault (Le Commissariat, Paris), Barbara Buchmaier (Berlin), Grégory Castéra (Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Paris), Dorothée Dupuis (Triangle, Marseille), Berit Fischer (Berlin), Isabelle Le Normand (Mains d'Oeuvres, Paris),  Oliver Martinez Kandt / Sepake Angiama / Thom O'nions / Adam Thomas (London), Elena Sorokina (Brussels), Natasa Petersin (Paris), Ronald Van de Sompel (Brussels)

Artists: Nina Beier (London), Lene Berg (Norway), Marco Bruzzone (Italy), Krista Buecking (Toronto), Francisco Camacho (Bogota), Ellen Cantor (London, New York), Etienne Chambaud (Paris), Sean Dockray & Fiona Whitton (Telic Arts Exchange, Los Angeles), Ehsan Fardjadniya (Parachutarists, Amsterdam), Marie-Aude Leledy (Paris), Christodoulos Panayiotou (Cyprus, Berlin), Aude Pariset (Berlin), Simon Popper (London), Lidwine Prolonge (Paris), Jim Skuldt (Los Angeles), Derek Sullivan (Toronto)

Komplot C/O Nadine
80 rue Gallaitstraat
1030 Brussels

Inspiré de théories pseudo-lacaniennes, de sociologie structuraliste de bas étages et de diverses pensées sur le kitsch et le décor, "Pourquoi avons-nous besoin des objets" tente une percée subjective dans l'univers matériel. S'il est très clair que j'ai besoin d'un briquet (ou d'allumettes, ou d'une gazinière, ou de plaques chauffantes, ou d'une lampe à souder, ou de quelqu'un qui possède un de ces objets par exemple) pour allumer mes cigarettes, comment est-ce que l'on s'entoure d'objets qui n'ont, à l'inverse, aucune fonction ? Comment ces objets inutiles se camouflent, s'exposent, ou émergent dans un environnement ?  De quelles façons nos rapports aux objets deviennent les signes de rapports au monde, ou des systèmes d'organisation particuliers, précis au point qu'on peut les imiter, maladroitement, dans le déroulé d'une conférence... une sorte de brocante de la pensée.
 
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