BERLIN – CONFERENCE: BLACK SPOTS IN HISTORY OR GAPS OF LANGUAGE.
Saturday 30th September 11am
daadgalerie, Zimmerstr. 90/91,
10117, Berlin
Organizer:
IBK (Initiatief Beeldende Kunsten)
Contact: Angelique Campens, angelique [at] ibknet.be,
Tel: 32 (0)9 267 90 40
www.ibknet.be Reservations: info [at] ibknet.be
On the occasion of the exhibition ANATOMY by Ana Torfs at the daadgalerie in Berlin, the IBK organises the symposium Black Spots in History or Gaps of Language. Friedrich Meschede (DAAD Artists-in-Residence Program Director, Berlin), Kassandra Nakas (Curator, Berlin), Dirk Snauwaert (Director Wiels, Brussels) and moderator Gabriele Mackert (Director GAK, Bremen) will each put forward their statement and interpretation for this topic, taking the quote below, in which Ana Torfs clarifies her work during a recent conversation with Els Roelandt, as a starting-point. The speakers are all familiar with the work of Ana Torfs in their own way, and therefore well-placed to put Torfs’ work in a broader perspective.
It is fascinating to see how language itself speaks volumes, how language is always subjective. That’s why I think my works are a lot less ‘about history’, than about language A similar idea is found in a quote from Michel de Certeau’s “L’écriture de l’histoire” (The Writing of History, 1975): ‘Ce que nous appelons dabord lhistoire nest quun récit.’ (What we first call history is merely an account). He means that history is never objective, the subject/author/speaker always resounds in the language. There is no such thing as a clear divide between the naked fact and the interpretation, or taking this a step further, fact and fiction. In the end history/a story is coloured by language.
Even though I often take historical texts as a starting-point for my installations, the ultimate goal or the result is not ‘historical’ or something that lies in the past. Robert Bresson writes in his ‘Notes sur le cinématographe’ (Notes on the Cinematographer, 1975): ‘No historical films, that might make a “spectacle” or put up a “masquerade”. (In “Procès de Jeanne dArc”, I have tried, without making a “spectacle”, nor putting up a “masquerade”, with historical words, to find a non-historical truth.’ Or in a recent monograph on Roberto Rossellini there are some similar words: ‘What interested Rossellini in dealing with the past was not to show what actually happened, but to take from it an idea that could help us to reorientate ourselves in the present. Like Croce, he saw all history as “contemporary history”. (Ana Torfs, 2006, www.ibknet.be/doc/conversationAnaTorfs.doc)
Speakers:
Friedrich Meschede (DAAD Artists-in-Residence Program Director, Berlin) Kassandra Nakas (Curator, Berlin) Dirk Snauwaert (Director Wiels, Brussels)
Moderator:
Gabriele Mackert (Director GAK, Bremen)
Contact:
Angelique Campens, angelique@ibknet.be, Tel: 32 (0)9 267 90 40 www.ibknet.be
Reservations info@ibknet.be
