Reservations: info@amsterdam.goethe.org
Price: €5, discount €3

On Monday 17 December at 7.30pm, If I Can’t Dance is pleased to launch Joachim Koester’s publication I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus, in collaboration with the Sandberg Series and the Goethe Institut Amsterdam on Herengracht 470.

The book will be introduced on the occasion of Joachim Koester’s talk in the lecture series of the Sandberg Institute at the Goethe Institut. Koester will speak about his interest in minor histories and how these can take the form of spaces or practices where performative and subversive transformations can emerge, through a discussion of several of his works. His lecture will be followed by an after talk with Marco Pasi, Assistent Professor in de History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, and a contributor to the book.

The publication, titled I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus, focuses on the performative and the human body in Koester’s work, which is based on intensive archival research and characterized by what he calls “narrative knots” – the multitude of stories, facts and references that make up his notion of history.

The book, designed by Maureen Mooren, contains textual and visual contributions by Magali Arriola, Frédérique Bergholtz, Martin Germann, Veit Görner, Joachim Koester himself, Linda Norden, Marco Pasi, Kristin Schrader, and Yann Chateigné Tytelman. It consists of two volumes conceived as pendants that complement and illuminate each other. The first volume focuses on one work by Koester, To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda) (2009). This work was commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution within the framework of its third edition (2008-2010) that focused on the notion of masquerade. The second volume offers wider perspectives on the performative in Koester’s work and relates to his solo exhibition at the kestnergesellschaft in Hannover, for which he produced the work I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus (2010) that may be seen as a companion to To Navigate (…). Koester proposed to correlate his involvements with the two commissioning organizations for this publication and connect them to a substantial presentation of his other work, notably the now seminal film installation Tarantism (2007).

I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus
Artist: Joachim Koester
Concept: Joachim Koester with Frédérique Bergholtz, Maureen Mooren and Kristin Schrader
Publishers: If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam and kestnergesellschaft, Hanover
Contributions: Magali Arriola, Frédérique Bergholtz, Martin Germann, Veit Görner, Joachim Koester, Linda Norden, Marco Pasi, Kristin Schrader, Yann Chateigné Tytelman
Editing and translations: Anders Kreuger
Design: Maureen Mooren with Sandra Kassenaar and Stephen Serrato
Production: Tanja Baudoin and Kristin Schrader
Print: DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH
Published by: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln
ISBN: 978-3-86335-086-4
Price: €32, book launch price €20
Orders: info@ificantdance.org

The publication has been realised with the financial support of the Mondriaan Fund, European Union and the Danish Art Council and is published in the frame of Edition III – Masquerade involving the partners Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Project Arts Centre, Dublin and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

Also published in this series:
Olivier Foulon, The Soliloquy of the Broom
Published by Gevaert Éditions, Brussels. ISBN: 978-2-930619-00-2
gevaerteditions.be

Keren Cytter, D.I.E NOW – The True Story of John Webber (…)
Published by: Sternberg Press, Berlin. ISBN: 978-3-943365-25-2
sternberg-press.com