Part One of Many Parts: Looking at Video Art - West x LI-MA
The first in a series of collaborative exhibitions by LI-MA and West Den Haag.
In the exhibition ‘Part One of Many Parts’, LI-MA works together with West Den Haag to showcase the power of collaboration through a selection of five video works made by artist duos between the 1970s and now. West Den Haag and LI-MA also give a conceptual focus to this project: the exhibition is the first of a series of presentations that the institutions will realise together. An important element within this project is the public Wikipedia writing workshop at West in the Alphabetum.
What is media art and what does it consist of? Media art knows many forms; it can be the documentation of a performance or an internet webpage, for instance. But how is this variable art medium preserved and what (technology) is needed for that?
Sanneke Huisman from LI-MA has selected five artworks from Boegel & Holtappels, Sluik/Kurpershoek, Yin-Ju Chen & James T. Hong, Foundland Collective and Frederique Pisuisse. These artist duos are mostly the result of yearlong friendships or artistic dialogue, or the work is based on relationships. These show breathtaking performances as well as dystopian critiques of societal mechanisms. The selection also gives an overview of video art as a time-based medium. Where video artworks are often presented as sculptures in the early days, today’s works are more research-based and often have a narrative character. With this presentation, West x LI-MA give attention to an art form where time and zeitgeist play a central role, and invite the visitor for reflection.
Talk and Wikipedia writing workshop
Thursday, 2 March, 2023
19.00 - 21.00 Alphabetum in West, the former American embassy
Lange Voorhout 102, 2514 EJ Den Haag
Participation is Free For All. Sign up HERE.
On Thursday 2 March, West organises a talk and writing workshop in collaboration with LI-MA, in light of the exhibition ‘Part One of Many Parts: Looking at Video Art’. This night is dedicated to media art and (online) knowledge exchange. Following a presentation by artist Lauren Alexander (Foundland Collective), you will learn to write for Wikipedia and your article will be ready to go online.
Who has access to information?
In light of the exhibition and this writing workshop, Lauren Alexander will discuss the work that she creates with Ghalia Elsrakbi under the name Foundland Collective. In their work, Alexander and Elsrakbi make use of (online) archives, often with underexposed or sensitive political information. They transform this information in their videos, texts and installations and give it a new, public face. For this talk, Alexander goes deeper into what it means artistically and politically to use (public) information as a medium. After all, information production, storage and distribution are complex issues. Who really has access? How is the information used to tell a story, and by whom?
Do it yourself!
After the talk, you can try out using information yourself. This Wikipedia writing workshop is part of the project ‘Mediakunst op Wikipedia’, a series of workshops with the purpose of offering media artists more visibility. Indeed, many video works and their makers are not known to the general public. At the end of 2023, we aim to have added 500 media artists to Wikipedia. During the workshop, you choose a media artist that you find particularly interesting or inspiring, and with the guidance of Annika Hendriksen, an experienced ‘Wikipedian’, you will then work on an existing Wikipedia article or you write your own.
This event is held in English. Mostly, the Wikipedia articles are written in Dutch or English - feel free to write in another language that you feel at home in. Don’t forget to bring your own laptop!
Media Art on Wikipedia is an initiative of LI-MA, in collaboration with Wikimedia Nederland, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Frans Hals Museum and the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE). Supported by Het Mondriaan Fonds and PICA.
An important aspect of ‘Part One of Many Parts’ is the Wikipedia writing workshop initiated by LI-MA, in the context of the partner project Media Art on Wikipedia. The project team has been travelling through The Netherlands since 2021, with a clear goal in mind: the publication of 500 Wikipedia articles on media artists. Together with museums, universities and Wikimedia Nederland, extra visibility and accessibility is ensured; also during the public writing workshop at West.
Klaus Boegel and Heiner Holtappels worked together in the years 1975—1984 on performance and investigative projects, where they explored the physical and psychological boundaries of the human body. Later on, they also focused on the role of the audience and self-awareness.
Ron Sluik and Reinier Kurpershoek have realised projects between 1982—2000 under the name Sluik/Kurpershoek. In the early years they mostly made site-specific work, such as sculptures and installations. Later, they became more interested in experimental video and travelfootage, with a focus on questioning the relationship between history and memory.
James T. Hong and Yin-Ju Chen are filmmakers and visual artists. As an interdisciplinary team, they make installations, performances, films and videowork. In their work, they look at historical documentation, human behaviour, social power and utopia.
Foundland Collective was formed in 2009 by South African Lauren Alexander and Syrian Ghalia Elsrakbi. The duo is based between Amsterdam and Cairo and researches underrepresented political and historical narratives through archival material, text and video.
Frederique Pisuisse makes performances, installations and video works. She she often takes relationships as the basis of her work. She examines the infrastructure of the art world, including power relationships, systems and hierarchies - but there is also room for spirituality.
Header image: Boegel & Holtappels, Atmung 3 (1976). Distributed by LI-MA.
