LOKO/09: Solid Ground. Support for art in public spaces

PROGRAMME LOKO/09, 13 OCTOBER 2009

Morning session from 10.00 – 12.30

The morning programme consists of a plenary session offering lectures, project presentations and a spoken column.

09.30 Reception

10.00 Opening of programme by chairman of the day Peter de Rooden

10.10 Word of welcome by Alderman Adri Duivesteijn

10.25 Keynote speakers: Martina Reuter and Wolfgang Zinggl of the Austrian artists group Wochenklausur on their work and the problems facing art and public space in relation to creating support.

11.05 Case study 1: A rotating house in Tilburg, by John Körmeling

11.40 Beyond consensus, lecture by Markus Miessen

12.20 Column by Gabriel Lester

Lunch

Afternoon session 13.30 – 18.00

A varied parallel programme with lectures and presentations by theoreticians and artists on specific projects and their own practice of art in relation to ‘support’. Followed by brief presentations of projects by artists/designers.

13.45-15.30 Simultaneous sessions (lectures, presentations, discussions and location visit)

A. S.M.A.K. Ghent, projects in the city: Moscou-Bernadette

B. Titia Bouwmeester about her project Verhalenkeuken

C. Case study 2: Land Art in Flevoland: Exposure by Antony Gormley

D. Saskia Janssen and the intrinsic value of the artist

E. Museum De Paviljoens as project developer of SITE2F7

15.45-16.30 Short presentations of individual project proposals which artists/designers would like to see realised & lounge

16.30 – 18.00 Drinks

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EXPLANATORY NOTES TO MORNING PROGRAMME

Keynote speakers: Martina Reuter and Wolfgang Zinggl from the Austrian artists’ group Wochenklausur about their work and the problems facing art and public space in relation to creating support.

The Austrian artists’ group Wochenklausur develops socio-political interventions on location and at the invitation of art institutions. They have established a considerable oeuvre and have built up a wealth of experience. For example, in the Transvaal district of The Hague, in response to the problems of urban renewal, they organised a discussion programme, and in Limerick, Ireland, created a temporary cinema for immigrants. LOKO invited them to present a number of their projects as a background introduction to a discussion session/lecture in which they deliver their vision on art and public space, and the relationship with social and political aspects. Decision making processes, positioning and strategies will be dealt with, against the background of their reflections on their own practice and the policy operated by Wochenklausur. Presentation by Martina Reuter and Wolfgang Zinggl of Wochenklausur.
www.wochenklausur.at

Case Study 1. A rotating house in Tilburg by John Körmeling

The work of art the Rotating House (Draaiend Huis) has now stood for more than a year on the Hasseltrotonde roundabout in Tilburg, and is still very much a source of daily conversation. Favourable reactions were received from all around the world, but in the city, itself, there is still considerable criticism. Squatters have occupied the house on two occasions, but it is still proudly ‘rotating’. If it is up to the local political party Lijst Smolders, if they win the elections, the work of art will be placed on the web auction site Marktplaats.nl. But the artist has already achieved his goal. Creating a thought-provoking entrance to the city in the Dutch Province of Brabant.
John Körmeling is currently building the Dutch pavilion for the World Expo in China, but has taken time off to talk about this project during LOKO/09; the project kept him and everyone (directly or indirectly) involved in its thrall, for almost ten years. After such careful preparation, could the criticism still have been avoided? With contributions by Gerdi Beks, policy officer of KORT (Art in Public Space Tilburg) for the Municipality of Tilburg and Atty Bax, advisor and project manager of the Brabant Centre of Excellence for Art and Culture.
www.kunstbuitenbinnentilburg.nl/content/draaiend-huis
www.johnkormeling.nl

‘Beyond consensus’, lecture by Markus Miessen

In his book The Violence of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2007), Miessen argues that the consensus model has had its day. Participation is often (erroneously) understood as being a romantic concept of solidarity and harmony, while according to Miessen, ideally, it is all about the mapping out and subsequently stepping into a field of forces in conflict, by critical outsiders. In the practice of architecture, urban development and the structuring of public space, heavily organised by institutions whose goal is to serve the public interest, this vision offers a number of refreshing points of reference. All the more so, perhaps, in the Netherlands, the home of the consensus model.
www.studiomiessen.com

Column: Gabriel Lester on support in relation to commissioned art
On decision-making processes concerning public participation projects and the perspective of the artist.

EXPLANATORY NOTES TO AFTERNOON PROGRAMME

A.
S.M.A.K. Ghent, Belgium, projects in the city: Moscou-Bernadette
The City Museum for Modern Art (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent attaches much importance to maintaining ties with the city itself. The museum achieves this by organising major exhibitions, but above all by publicly asking what is the role of the museum and the position of the artist in public space. Together with the Arts Department of the City of Ghent and the non-profit organisation Nucleo, S.M.A.K. has launched long-term projects in the districts of Moscou (in the sub-municipality Gentbrugge) and Bernadette (in the neighbouring municipality of Sint Amandsberg). Within this long-term collaborative venture, artists are not employed instrumentally in social processes. Bart Lodewijks produced chalk drawings on building facades and inside individual residences. The intense work period for both Lodewijks and the local residents has resulted in a valuable experience, which has become an integral part of the lives of all those involved. Pierre Muylle of S.M.A.K. and Bart Lodewijks talk about contemporary, conceptual art in a non-museum environment, and the creation of support for such works.
www.bernadettje.wordpress.com
www.gent.be/dienstkunsten
www.nucleo.be
[[www.smak.be www.smak.be]
www.smak.be]

B.
Titia Bouwmeester, Verhalenkeuken (Story Kitchen).
Titia Bouwmeester and Ted van Leeuwen have since 2004 made up the artists collective 5eKwartier. A remarkable feature of their work approach is that based on their fascination for social affairs, they take plenty of time to establish a clear sense of specific locations and their users, before they start a project. In effect, they turn on its head the often ad hoc work approach traditional to much community art. Their projects are rooted in the local context. The collective the 5eKwartier collaborates closely with social partners from education, welfare and housing corporations. The projects often last at least a year and are broken down into subprojects undertaken by different artists under the leadership of Titia Bouwmeester. The core of every project is to manufacture meetings whereby cultural heritage for example in the form of stories or music, is communicated to a wide audience.
Against the background of the project Verhalenkeuken launched in 2008, Titia Bouwmeester describes her method of work.
www.5ekwartier.nl

C.
Case Study 2. Land Art in Flevoland: Exposure by Antony Gormley
Since its inception in the nineteen seventies, the new polder of Flevoland has offered plenty of space for realising five large-scale Land Art projects including Observatorium (1971-1977) by Robert Morris near Lelystad and De Groene Kathedraal (1978-1996) by Marinus Boezem in Almere. In 2010, on the Strekdam in Lelystad, the sixth land art project for Flevoland is due to be completed. This work of art entitled Exposure, by the British artist Antony Gormley, consists of a space frame construction made of 1782 steel knots, and represents a more than 25 metre-high human figure looking across the Markermeer lake, in a crouched position. In both size and impact, Exposure is very much in line with Gormley's larger projects like the Angel of the North (1998).
The construction of Exposure itself is complex, but the same applies for the entire realisation of the project. This large-scale project with its numerous stakeholders such as policy makers, government bodies, the residents of Lelystad and the artist himself, is highly complex in terms of the decision-making process and financing. Various parties will talk about this process during LOKO/09.
www.antonygormley.com
www.lelystad.nl/nl/Gemeente/Vrije_tijd_en_toerisme/Landschapskunstwerk.html

D.
Saskia Janssen and the intrinsic value of the artist
Visual artist Saskia Janssen is renowned for her collaborative projects on location with specific groups of people. For example, groups with special social ties but also professional groups and peer groups. For example she worked with a group of builders from the Ukraine and hard-drug addicts from Amsterdam. Her personal objective in her work is to reveal a specific situation that until that time has remained invisible. Through the intensive contact generated by Saskia Janssen, she strives to achieve a tangible artistic result. This result may be recorded in any of a wide selection of media forms (photo, film, exhibition, installation, performance).
Against the background of her own practice, Saskia Janssen will reflect on the theme support. In her work as an artist, she demonstrates an authentic attitude to working with a variety of groups. This participation approach is deeply anchored in her work, and itself emerges from an intrinsic attitude to society. Can a good work of art, intervention or action that involves participation by a non-artist public only be achieved by those artists whose natural approach is to collaborate with others? In other words, not on the basis of a work approach called upon for a specific project? Or is this just a myth?
www.saskiajanssen.com

E.
Museum De Paviljoens as project developer of SITE2F7
SITE2F7 is a plot of land with no zoning plan in the otherwise extremely carefully planned city centre of Almere. It is the temporary home base for youth housing, a construction material storage site, an annex to a school for pre-secondary vocational education (VMBO) and the Museum De Paviljoens. This makes it an ‘untied up end’ with undreamed-of possibilities for the future. Together with artists, residents, architects and academics, Museum De Paviljoens is investigating the potential of SITE2F7.
For the SITE2F7 FESTIVAL 2009, artist Sarah van Sonsbeeck examined the ‘silence’ of the site. She preserved the quietest point for future urban engineers in a glass cube: one cubic metre of silence (2009) as the new unit of measurement for the planning of the area. Architect Anne Holtrop was inspired by the ‘pathways of desire’, the shortcuts that criss-cross SITE2F7. He used a fragment of this system of pathways as the ground plan for his Trail House (2009).
Annick Kleizen, exhibitions curator and Eva van Diggelen, curator site specific projects and land art at Museum De Paviljoens, will visit the projects by Sarah van Sonsbeeck and Anne Holtrop during a tour of SITE2F7, and discuss in more detail the commissioning process in this ‘no-man’s land’.
www.depaviljoens.nl

Brief project presentations by artists & lounge.

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ADDRESS AND ROUTE
LOKO/09, Schouwburg Almere
Esplanade 10
1315 TA Almere
Netherlands
+31(0)36 8455888

MORE INFORMATION
SKOR, Véronique Hoedemakers, Veronique.hoedemakers@xs4all.nl , tel.: +31(0)35-5423849/+31(0)6-40622921