It isn't what it used to be and will never be again Centre for Contemporary Arts: CCA
350 Sauchiehall Street Glasgow G2 3JD Scotland, UK Phone: +44 (0) 141 352 4900 Fax: +44 (0) 141 332 3226 Contact: Kirsty Gordon [email protected] www.cca-glasgow.com 10 October - 21 November 2009 Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm Dutch duo Bik Van der Pol come to the CCA this October following a two month residency at Cove Park to present 'It isn't what it used to be and will never be again', an exhibition featuring new work developed in collaboration with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and a publication featuring a collection of new texts from Glasgow based artists and writers. Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol have been working together as Bik Van der Pol since 1995 and have been in residence at Cove Park and in Glasgow for two months. Adopting their usual approach, they have explored the city, meeting and interviewing a wide range of people. Having identified areas of local concern, they have entered into an open-ended negotiation with various artists and writers, resulting in a collection of texts and the creation of new artwork for the upcoming exhibition. The title of the new work, 'Art Is either Plagiarism or Revolution, or: Something Is Definitely Going to Happen Here', refers to a film Bik Van der Pol made earlier this year about the unfinished Museum of the Revolution in the Park of Friendship in Belgrade. The museum was originally proposed in the 1970s under the Soviet regime in Yugoslavia. However, only the foundations were ever laid, a large concrete platform studded with rusting iron framework poles. The artists researched the background to this building project and re-activated the phantom Museum of the Revolution through a gathering that implicated the public as they recorded proceedings with film and sound crew with equipment, catering, and technical teams. Essentially they created a film scenario that imbues the location with meaning and questions art, the museum, revolution, the public and the way 'the media' work. Throughout their residency, Bik Van der Pol have been working with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra on a score for this film. With the film as a starting point, they will speculate on free improvisation, the process of decison making and the dynamics of interaction and dialogue. The exhibition brings together this new work together with existing works that hover around questions of what distribution of information may or may not set off in the public realm, and if action can, should or is taking place when seemingly nothing seems to happen. For the publication, Bik Van der Pol invited a series of artists and writers to respond to the themes of the exhibition and, in particular, to a quote from Slavoj Zizek: 'Sometimes, doing nothing is the most violent thing to do. […] The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to 'be active', to 'participate', to mask the nothingness of what goes on. People intervene all the time, 'do something' [...] The true difficult thing is to step back, to withdraw.' (Vilolence, Zizek, 2008) Featuring contributions from Francis McKee, Neil Davidson, Sarah Tripp, Sarah Pierce, Simon Yuill, Camcorder Guerrillas, Fiona Jardine, John Bywater, Jan Verwoert, Anthony Iles, Neil Gray, Darren Ryhmes, and others, the publication will accompany the exhibition at CCA. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
