LIVE / LEAVE (the nl)
a zero degree of culture
LIVE / LEAVE (the nl)
Curated by: Eléonore Joulin & Joshua Thies
With artworks by: Ghislain Amar, Bernhard Garnicnig, David Horvitz, Eléonore Joulin, Sjoerd van Leeuwen
We are two strangers coming from two different countries, deported to the Netherlands. For our first of a series of collaborations as artists taking on curatorial roles, we chose to deal with a singular and subjective matter:
Nostalgia and homesickness are greats neurosis unavoidable for artists like us. In the 19th century, with the industrial revolution, the cities and the transports spread like wildfire. Romantic artists and writers avoid the heavy, oppressive urban landscape in the hope of finding the zero degree of culture, trying to immerse fully into nature. The walking (walking tour) and other travels by various transport appear and become an essential activity for having a sincere and direct relation with the world. Nowadays, the urban web gets bigger, modern transport is faster, satisfying our impatience of going from a point to an other disaffected by the local geography. There is no more room for spontaneous nature, so desired by the romantic hero. The quest for the sublime, this naive desire of immersing into nature is a trivial ambition. Since the romantics, the quest for the sublime resides in the act of leaving. The melancholic trip, and the authentic meeting between the artist and his/her nature (expected virgin) is an acquired and based idea for creation. This is an established idea as well as depicting a shell to talk about fertility or a skull to deal with vanity. The work by Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous (1975), deals with the concept of vanishing, going on the quest of sublime. This work is focused on the simple idea of leaving, with the optional hope of finding an ambition and meeting a goal; a great example of despair and derision. To travel through Dutch nature, to brave the hostile landscapes of its mountains, its deserts, to simmer down on the banks of its rivers, and its valleys, in short, going in the search of the sublime in the Netherlands seems to be an impossibly pathetic quest. One city melts into the next while the traveller is perpetually skirting slippery borders. We, as curators are in search of the artists who have challenged the aforementioned quest within this countries borders and challenged it from a distance, traveling to borders and beyond. As a conclusion, we want the exhibition to deal with artists living in the Netherlands, who talk about the specific relationship to the the landscapes, and its borders. Specifically, how to Live/Leave in (the nl). The exhibition concept was inspired by and will open with a photograph by David Horvitz, Waiting for Bas Jan Ader.
The photograph was shot in the south of England, where Bas Jan Ader had intended to arrive for his completion of In Search of the Miraculous, where he was to have sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1975. The file is sized to print at a standard 4” x 6” size. You can print it on a home computer, or take the file into almost any photo lab for printing. Both the video and the image can be used freely. You do not need my permission for duplicating, exhibiting, publishing, hosting, etc.
Live/Leave (the nl)
Special thanks to the Masters Programme at Piet Zwart Institute-Willem de Kooning Academy for their contribution to individual artist projects.