Episode 2 of Edition II revolves around an exhibition at de Appel arts centre and also includes a performance programme, two symposia and an insert by The Otolith Group in the exhibition Just in Time at the Stedelijk Museum CS.
The exhibition at de Appel arts centre runs from 16 November 2006 until 7 January 2007 and includes work by Bless, Kate Davis, Pascale Gatzen & Myrza de Mynck, Karl Holmqvist, Jutta Koether, Claudia & Julia Müller, Isabel Nolan, Paulina Olowska, Falke Pisano, Stefanie Seibold, Lucy Skaer, Frances Stark, Lily van der Stokker, Sue Tompkins and Haegue Yang. The exhibition also includes an archival presentation selected from the archive of de Appel by Stefanie Seibold. A performance by Alexandra Bachzetsis and Lies Vanborm takes place on 16 November at Zonnehuis in Amsterdam.
If I Can’t Dance is not trying to sum up a contemporary feminist art or to collate an aesthetic for feminism, but rather to explore how feminist thinking on all levels (social, artistic, political, theoretical, ideological or structural) may be important in our cultural life. There is currently a rich artistic discourse, which taps into this legacy and manifests itself in the materiality and language of visual art, but also interrogates how artists choose to perform themselves and their work within the dominant visual economy. The project aims to explore these tendencies as inquisitively and openly as possible.
Developing this exhibition with De Appel makes it possible for If I Can’t Dance to articulate a historical context for this legacy very precisely. Established in 1975, this art centre has a rich history of showing experimental art for over thirty years and a revived interest in its programming now. Archival documentation exploring this legacy from the late ’70s and early ’80s will be presented. These practices provide an interesting comparison to the vernacular used by artists to think through ideas of agency, singularity and political empowerment today.
If I Can’t Dance doesn’t offer a determined survey in the form of a single exhibition, it works repeatedly with an expanding group of over thirty artists in a series of public platforms. To this end, in Amsterdam If I Can’t Dance manifests itself as an exhibition and a series of performances at De Appel, a symposium at De Balie, an insert by the Otolith Group into the exhibition Just in Time at the Stedelijk Museum CS and with two evening events at Club 11.
Read more about the different components of this episode by following the links below:
– 16 November 2006–7 January 2007: exhibition at de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
– 18 November 2006: symposium Global Feminisms at de Balie, Amsterdam
– 1 December 2006–11 March 2007: insert in exhibition Just in Time at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, with the Otolith Group
– 7 December 2006: symposium Curating and Feminism Today at Stedelijk Museum CS / Club 11, Amsterdam
– 21 December 2006: film programme The Fantasy of Failed Utopias and a Girls Daydream, Stedelijk Museum CS / Club 11, Amsterdam
– 13 & 14 January 2007: performance programme at de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam