Renske Janssen is a Rotterdam based curator. She has been curator at the Witte de With since 2006. She has a Masters title in Contemporary Art Theory and Dutch Art Policy from the University of Utrecht. She collaborated on For Real (2000), Display (2001) and Life in a Glass House (2002) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. At the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam she organized Bantar Gebang (De Rijke/De Rooij) and Mindset (Saskia Olde Wolbers). For the Witte de With she has curated solo exhibitions of the work of Mathias Poledna (2006), Tris Vonna-Michell (2007) and Ian Wallace (2008). For the Kunstverein fuer die Rheinlande und Westfalen she recently curated Aesthetics as a way of Survival with Germaine Kruip (2009). She is currently developing a three day cycle on the idea of performance for Witte de With’s Morality program under the working title Let Us Compare Mythologies.
Sharon Kahanoff is a filmmaker, artist, writer and educator. Her works have been exhibited in both cinemas and galleries locally and in the U.S., and she has published in exhibition catalogues, art magazines and other art publications. She is a sessional instructor at Simon Fraser and Emily Carr Universities, a volunteer and board member of Artspeak gallery, and she sits on the program advisory committee at Cineworks. Her interests include the performance and theatricality of social relations in contemporary re-enactment art, and the philosophies and ethics of time expressed through the moving image.
Eliza Newman-Saul is an artist based in Amsterdam. She completed de ateliers in Amsterdam in 2009. She is currently in residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin). Her work has been commissioned by SKOR’s de Inkijk (Amsterdam) and Corcoran’s Project for the Arts (Washington, DC). Her work was selected for Explum ’09 (Murcia, Spain), the 2007 Scope Art Fair (New York), Smack Mellon (Brooklyn), and PS1/MOMA Contemporary Art Center in conjunction with N+1 (Queens, NY). Her lectures have appeared in Performance Research Journal (Routledge Press) and N+1’s first pamphlet publication (N+1 Research Branch).
Judy Radul’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Belkin Satellite, Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; and Power Plant, Toronto. She has performed widely, including at the Western Front, Vancouver and Institute of Contemporary Art, London UK.
ISABELLE CORNARO, KEREN CYTTER, CHTO DELAT / WHAT IS TO BE DONE?, TARJE EIKANGER GULLAKSEN, SUSAN HILLER, UNA KNOX, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL
November 18–January 16, 2010
Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?
The title refers to Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.
In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present—bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object—to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?
As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.
Underground Man: Conversation
RENSKE JANSSEN, SHARON KAHANOFF, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL, JUDY RADUL
November 21, 2009
Public conversation between Renske Janssen, Eliza Newman-Saul, Judy Radul and Sharon Kahanoff. The subjects will range from work descriptions and anecdotes to contemplation on the power of representation and the potential of suspense.
Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?
The title refers to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.
In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present—bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object—to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?
As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.