De Appel presents: If I Cant Dance, I Dont Want to Be Part of Your Revolution
Edition II: Feminist Legacies and Potentials in Contemporary Practice
Nov 16, 2006-Jan 14, 2007
As an agile and experimental curatorial platform, If I Cant Dance departs from a spirit of open questioning and enquiry with artists. This year it looks specifically at the legacies and potentials of feminism in relation to art today. Beginning with the quote of Emma Goldman: If I cant dance, I dont want to be part of your revolution, the project explores the critical and celebratory implications of this statement.
If I Cant Dance is not trying to sum up a contemporary feminist art or to collate an aesthetic for feminism, but rather to explore how feminist thinking on all levels (social, artistic, political, theoretical, ideological or structural) may be important in our cultural life. There is currently a rich artistic discourse, which taps into this legacy and manifests itself in the materiality and language of visual art, but also interrogates how artists choose to perform themselves and their work within the dominant visual economy. The project aims to explore these tendencies as inquisitively and openly as possible.
Developing If I Cant Dance… with De Appel makes it possible to articulate a historical context for this legacy very precisely. Established in 1975, this art centre has a rich history of showing experimental art for over thirty years and a revived interest in its programming now. Archival documentation exploring this legacy from the late 70s and early 80s will be presented. These practices provide an interesting comparison to the vernacular used by artists to think through ideas of agency, singularity and political empowerment today.
If I Cant Dance… doesnt offer a determined survey in the form of a single exhibition, it works repeatedly with an expanding group of over thirty artists in a series of public platforms. To this end, in Amsterdam If I Cant Dance… manifests itself as an exhibition and a series of performances at De Appel, a symposium at De Balie, an insert by the Otolith Group into the exhibition Just in Time at the Stedelijk Museum CS and with two evening events at Club 11.
Opening/Afterparty
De Appel 17:00-20:00/t Zonnehuis 20:00-24:00
November 16, 2006
With: Act
Exhibition
De Appel
November 17, 2006 – January 7, 2007
With: Alexandra Bachzetsis & Lies Vanborm, Bless, Kate Davis, Pascale Gatzen & Myrza de Mynck, Karl Holmqvist, Jutta Koether, Claudia & Julia Müller, Isabel Nolan, Paulina Olowska, Falke Pisano, Stefanie Seibold, Lucy Skaer, Frances Stark, Lily van der Stokker, Sue Tompkins, Haegue Yang and a selection from the archive of de Appel.
Performance Weekend
De Appel
January 13 – 14, 2007
With (a.o.): Susan Cianciolo, Will Holder, Judith Hopf, Maria Pask, Sarah Pierce, Sue Tompkins and Haegue Yang.
Symposium I: Feminist Legacies and Potentials in Contemporary Art Practice
De Balie
November 18, 2006
With (a.o.): Iris van der Tuin, Helena Reckitt, Daria Martin, Aneta Szylak, Karl Holmqvist and Sue Tompkins.
Symposium II: Curating and Feminism Today
Stedelijk Museum CS at Club 11
December 7, 2006
With (a.o.): Mirjam Westen, Heike Munder (tbc) and Bettina Steinbruegge.
Insert in Just in Time
Stedelijk Museum CS
December 1, 2006 – March 11, 2007
With: The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar & Kodwo Eshun) and a selection from the archive of the Stedelijk Museum CS.
Film- and Performance programme
Stedelijk Museum CS at Club 11
December 21, 2006
On the occasion of the launch of the 4th issue of GLU magazine.
With: Susanne Winterling (curator of the film programme The Fantasy of Failed Utopias and a Girls Daydream with contributions by Emily Roysdon, Marriage, E.E. Cassidy, Erika Vogt, Kat Ross, Kaucyila Brooke, Margo Victor, Lynn Chan, and Eve Fowler), planningtorock (performance) and Djuna Barnes (DJ afterparty).
Curators
If I Cant Dance is curated by Frederique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher.
Partners
Edition II of If I Cant Dance has four phases at: Huis & Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, March & May 2006 | de Appel, Amsterdam, November, 2006 January, 2007 | Huis & Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, May 2007 | MuHKA, Antwerp, September November, 2007
Financial Support
Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, British Council, The Netherlands Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Municipality of Amsterdam, Ministry of OC&W, Mondriaan Foundation, Stichting Cultuurfonds van de Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten.
Information
For updated information on the programme and addresses of the venues, times, entrance fees and opening times check: www.ificantdance.org
Contact
press@deappel.nl or info@ificantdance.org
