VVORK

Dear Friends,

The Hunger Strike Committee

»Letter to the members of International Community and Media«, Tirana, May 04, 2010 by The Hunger Strike Committee & a live streaming video page to help bring attention to the cause by Anri Sala, Philippe Pareno and Douglas Gordon.

»ECHOES, Wall of Ice«, 2007 (documentation of 1 and 3 weeks after the opening) by Troels Sandegård.

»Azteca«, 2007 by Cyprien Gaillard.

»Mirror door (visitor)«, 2008 by Olafur Eliasson.

»Scenic Overlooks«, 2005 by Ayse Erkmen offers an homage to a way of experiencing images that is slowly dying out. Eighty-four landscapes (generic desert, mountain, and forest images purchased from a data bank) were projected onto the barrier wall. These oversize electronic postcards unfold gradually in uneven sections, from top to bottom, like an image file opening on a computer with a slow modem connection.

“Finishing”, 2000 by Gianni Motti. Performance, “Transfert, Art dans l’espace urbain”, Bienne. The day of the opening, coincided with the marathon of Bienne. Gianni Motti moved the finishing line, adding an extra three meters to the distance of the race.

»Untitled New Jerseyy«, 2008, acrylic glass cabinet, containing various objects, by Tobias Kaspar.

“610-3356“, 2008 by Sarah Oppenheimer.

»The Thrill Of Collecting«, (2008) was an exhibtion in the Uovo Open Office in Basel. Initiated 3 days before the opening by Cyprien Gaillard, Tobias Madison and Emanuel Rossetti it featured 17 international artists. Only artworks that were stolen were allowed into the show. The title was taken from an AXA Art Insurance Programm whose advertising sign was stolen from their booth in the collectors lounge of Art Basel.

The opening of Andrea Fraser’s retrospective on 9. 11. 2003 at the Kunstverein in Hamburg. The video shows Fraser stripping while quoting from speeches given by critics, collectors, curators, politicians, and artists at openings, awards ceremonies, and other art events. She recites famous artists ranging from Mel Brooks and Thomas Hirschhorn to Shirin Neshat, Ross Bleckner, Francesco Clemente, Vanessa Beecroft, Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, and Kara Walker.

»Ill Prepared Piano« (2003). A classified ad in a local newspaper was answered on the day of the performance and a professional piano tuner was hired to repair the gallery piano as the evening’s final performance. By Dave Dyment.

»This Way«, 2003, 24 doors, wood, paint. By Anna Nordquist Andersson.

On January 28th, 2008, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, and Janez Janša performed »Signature Event Context« at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, a walking action in the corridors of the Memorial. Each one of them, equipped with a GPS device, covered a different path within the Memorial’s structure this way, together assembling a common signature visible only in the internet. During the performance artists continuously repeated “Jaz sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša…” (”My name is Janez Janša”). »Signature Event Context« at the Holocaust Memorial puts together 3 concepts (signature, event and context) from Derrida’s essay in complex relation; signature itself is an event which re-contextualizes the site of signature. The performance scheduled for the opening of TRANSMEDIALE.08 the 29th of January 2008 at 8.30 pm at the foyer of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany, was conjunctively cancelled by the director of transmediale Stephen Kovats and the Guest-Curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez. Consequently, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša rescheduled the date of the action performing on January 28, 2008 at 00.01 am. Watch the performance.

»Role Exchange«, 1975 performance by Marina Abramovic. This dual performance was executed in two institutions, De Appel Gallery and the Red Light District in Amsterdam. For the opening night of the artist’s exhibition, the prostitute went to the gallery, the artist’s working place, while the artist, assuming the role of a prostitute, went to the Red Light District, and set in the window, the prostitute’s working place.

VVORK has curated a show for Galerie West in Den Haag titled;

Bad Beuys Entertainment
Boling
Bruno
Chisa & Tkacova
collectif_fact
Matsoukis
Mirza
Prévieux
Rungjang
Zucconi

The show will be running from 06/10/07 to 03/11/07. Opening is on the 6th, starting at 16:00 with an artist talk at 19:00.

Participating artists are Bad Beuys Entertainment (FR), John Michael Boling (USA), Christophe Bruno (FR), Anetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkacova (SK), Collectif-Fact (CH), Katerina Matsoukis (GR), Haroon Mirza (UK), Julien Prèvieux (FR), Arin Rungjang (TH), Damon Zucconi (USA).

There will be another artist talk/discussion on the 09/10/07 at 20:00 with Jeroen Bosch, Peter Luining, Marie Jeanne De Rooij and VVORK, hosted by Constant Dullaart.

“Speaker’s Corner” – Various rhetorical proffessionals reading the artist’s script for a speech at the opening of the Busan Biennale. By Yang Haegue.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Yang Haegue, and I would like to welcome you warmly to our Busan Biennale. Sometimes we have an impression that an art exhibition might become a presentation of ability, overflowing with mannerism. Sometimes I ask to myself whether nowadays art is nothing but a rich menu of visual experiences like a sports festival advocating the slogan „higher, faster, and farther“, or whether the artist is no more than a modernist-progressive who does his best to present only something good in the name of ‘artistic creation’. So, here in front of you, I would like to share my opinions and feelings about my creative activities and life that I can express as a young artist. The reason why I insist on doing this in this place is that the form of the exhibition seems to have been unable to represent life and everydayness veraciously and actively, though they are inseparable from the artist’s creation and always function as an mirror to reflect the life of his own as well. Be them positive or negative, be them beautiful or heartbreaking, the emotions and impressions that I have got in my everyday life have been the fundamental source of my work and provided motifs and contents to it. The indigent, necessitous life brings forth a content related to destitute and poverty, and the days with strong experiences and impressions about the people and events around me produce more appealing works. Of course, like those of other ordinary people, my personal daily lives are mainly composed of simple observations and experiences, far from a succession of great marvelous ones. Everything, however, that I receive from people as well as my surroundings constitutes the basis of my art. Here, one might ask where the exclusive realm peculiar to art is, and where the true creativity of the artist is located. I think that the answer depends on how we define what the finished work is. Unfortunately, the practical problems and worries many artists share with one another everyday are left behind the curtains by the cause of ‘artistic creation’. Similarly, big or small ideas emerging from seemingly unartistic reflections and anguishes are just looked upon as mere informal episodes. These stories and scenes ‘behind the curtains’ have held my interest and affection. And here, I cannot help asking a question in return whether it is a too narrow definition of art if it assimilates all of them only from the plastic point of view. I feel the necessity of artistic attempts and experiments to enlarge the realm of art and to generate new experiences and reflections in everyday life. (….) Today, I could have made a lengthy speech again under the pretext of ‘art’, taking a great deal of your time. One of you might wonder where, then, my work is at all. I am afraid that I cannot but return disappointment mingled with a slight sense of betrayal or dubiety to you, rather than show some original imaginations and ideas resulting form a certain gift, or a novel spectacle. But it is the privilege in the name of art that gave me today’s opportunity. This Speaker’s Corner owed its existence to it. So, I would like to ascribe your unsatisfied expectations and my emotions of gratitude toward who I do not know only exclusively to art. Thank you for listening to me today.”

»FISKUR (fish)«, 2004. 15 Polaroids placed in a row close to the floor. Each time someone took a look at the photos at the opening, another picture was shot and hung up beside the others. By Darri Lorenzen.

»NightLife« 2004, is a nocturnal light and sound installation exhibited at The Museum of Garden History, St. Mary’s Church in Westminster, London. The work consists of a sound track and two remote controlled spotlights illuminating the graves between the church/museum and a public walkway. Once activated the lights sweep across the graves, criss-crossing in sync to the opening chords of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. By Lynne Marsh.

Stefaan Dheedene bought a piece of furniture from the Billy series at Ikea. The day before the exhibition opening, Dheedene took Billy back to Ikea. He received the money he invested back. In the time before the opening the artist hired a carpenter who reconstructed the mass-produced Billy as a unique work of art. Using a slightly different wood, Dheedene’s Billy was born – almost the same as Ikea’s mass-produced version sold all over the world, but unique.

“Opening Credits (New York)” and “Stand-In for a Rock’n Roll Altar” by Jacob Dyrenforth.