SMART Project Space | 1st Constantijn Huygensstraat 20, Amsterdam | 020 427=
5951
SUB REAL Reality Survival Strategies | April 5 - May 11, 2003
Work by: micol assael; mark bain; marco boggio sella; martin creed;
john bock; piero golia; cesare pietroiusti; santiago sierra
Guest curator: Bartolomeo Pietromarchi
Opening Reception Saturday April 5, 21:00h
Contemporary art must face up to the redefinition of the concepts of reali=
ty, experience and representation. In the contemporary era the concept of e=
xperience has undergone a profound transformation: the increasingly all-con=
suming media representation and the standardisation of models of life alien=
ated by repetition have gradually eroded its status as reality. The spread =
of models of behaviour and aesthetic models subjects individual experience =
to standardisation and assimilation. This process has reached its height in=
what Guy Debord has defined the Society of spectacle, where "the image con=
structed and chosen by someone else has become the individual's main relati=
onship with the world", a society, therefore, in which the mediated relatio=
nship replaces the empirical and phenomenal certainty of personal experienc=
e.
The unique, singular value of experience has gradually been replaced by a =
relationship with the world shaped in its collective dimension and standard=
ised in its representation - constructed on the basis of mass, consumerist =
models - where the very "social relationship between people is mediated thr=
ough images".
The exhibition presents the work of artists who, by avoiding placing thems=
elves in a position of competition with the predominance of the image and t=
he transformation of reality into spectacle, opt for transversal paths, wit=
h works that infiltrate the folds of reality and bring to light its contrad=
ictions, revealing its weak points to suggest a different interpretation. I=
n this sense the artist adopts strategies characterised by radical attitude=
s: secrecy, infiltration, parasitism, negation, excess. This sub reale is t=
hus formed of the leftovers of reality, where the value of experience is re=
stated in a process of radicalisation and of excess, the image is negated, =
taken apart and short-circuited, the figure of the artist is concealed unti=
l it is no longer recognisable. The artist thus takes on the features of a =
clandestine intruder forced to imagine and invent strategies for survival i=
n the face of a reality that tends increasingly to limit and ignore the spa=
ce for personal reflection and the value of the individual.
Every Sunday and Wednesday at 17.00 hrs Smart Project Space presents free v=
ideo programs in SMART Cinema. "A Thinly Veiled Threat" accompanies the exh=
ibition SUB REAL.
Sponsored by: Gemeente Amsterdam, Mentrum, Mondriaan Stichting, Brand Bier,=
Beam Systems.
For further information please contact Jacco Musper, tel +31 20 427 5951 or=
jacco@smartprojectspace.net
SMART Project Space | www.smartprojectspace.net
Exhibition Space & Cinema: 1e Const. Huygensstraat 20
Opening times: Tues-Sat from 12.00-22.00, Sun from 14.00-22.00 hrs.
Mail to: P.O.Box 15004, NL-1001 MA Amsterdam
Phone: +31 20 427.5951
Fax.: +31 20 427.5953
mail: info@smartprojectspace.net
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