Tradition Doesn’t Graduate / Curated by Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk and KOMPLOT
KOMPLOT
Hopstraat 63 rue du Houblon, 1000 Brussels
http://www.kmplt.be/
The exhibiting of a group constantly becoming but never quite arriving, with Bernardus Baldus, A.M. Dumitran, Maika Garnica, Carl Haase, Yvonne Lake, Wannes Missotten, An Onghena, Tyagi Pallav, Hanne Van Dyck, Jonas Vansteenkiste, Ersi Varveri, sought after conjointly with peers from Brussels: After Howl, Henry Andersen, Lény Bernay, Louise Boghossian, Jonathan Boutefeu, Ailsa Cavers, Hugo Dietür, Vasilis Papageorgiou, Margaux Schwarz, Britt Sprogis, Yaozheng Tan.
Exhibition 28 May – 25 June 2016
KOMPLOT
Hopstraat 63 rue du Houblon, 1000 Brussels
http://www.kmplt.be/
Regardless of who turns pro and pursues a career in the arts, or drops
the bar and decides to play one’s cards elsewhere, the graduate course will continue on the same level
by consolidating new players on the field. No institution without transformation?
Tradition doesn’t graduate.
From the homogenous gloss of the arts course looming over its
students-cum-artists, to its recovery in the key of a heterogenous and
diversified art field, the exhibition Tradition Doesn’t Graduate expands on the social fabric and dynamic of a group on the
verge of graduation, vis-à-vis the structuring principles of the course, its registry of promise,
and the idea of forming a collective that is best seen as a porous and
fragmenting whole, held together by the course as a formative and generative
template. Having landed in Brussels at KOMPLOT, from Antwerp, the group embarks
on a collective and joint effort to unpack their works for the charged moment
of graduation, whilst simultaneously wanting to maintain and mark their own
position in the scheme of things. A diplomatic affair, to say the least. What
does it mean to become a group, bound together for a given time, in the
ambiguous and temporal vacuum of a graduate course? What does it entail to
exhibit (as) a group? Joint by an equal number of peers from Brussels,
Tradition Doesn’t Graduate
seeks to unfold the lines of thought, residues, marks and traces, acts of
confrontation and resistance that rise by folding and being brought together.
Here, ideas of ongoing feedback, call and response, checks and balances rise to
the fore, between one’s respective artistic
practices and the voices of the revolving group members, the surrounding
environment and the different temporalities implied.This publication serves to
illustrate and exemplify the collective effort and movement undertaken by the
twenty-two artists presented in the exhibition. It’s product – that of peaceful co-habitation whilst marking one’s presence in the world – might be read in the margins and in-between the works. Where various
material aesthetics, registers and scales come to clash, complement and enhance
each other, where research interests, subjects and artistic approaches diverge.
In short, from individual fieldwork-taking to a formation of a patchwork of
social and material relations. A publication as another line on your CV, as a
remnant of an instance past, as a ghost of a previous state, as a piece of
evidence in light of seizing that prospective opportunity… As we will all continue to be upcoming, and constantly becoming but
never quite arriving. For the good of practice! Even if tradition doesn’t seem to graduate!
the bar and decides to play one’s cards elsewhere, the graduate course will continue on the same level
by consolidating new players on the field. No institution without transformation?
Tradition doesn’t graduate.
From the homogenous gloss of the arts course looming over its
students-cum-artists, to its recovery in the key of a heterogenous and
diversified art field, the exhibition Tradition Doesn’t Graduate expands on the social fabric and dynamic of a group on the
verge of graduation, vis-à-vis the structuring principles of the course, its registry of promise,
and the idea of forming a collective that is best seen as a porous and
fragmenting whole, held together by the course as a formative and generative
template. Having landed in Brussels at KOMPLOT, from Antwerp, the group embarks
on a collective and joint effort to unpack their works for the charged moment
of graduation, whilst simultaneously wanting to maintain and mark their own
position in the scheme of things. A diplomatic affair, to say the least. What
does it mean to become a group, bound together for a given time, in the
ambiguous and temporal vacuum of a graduate course? What does it entail to
exhibit (as) a group? Joint by an equal number of peers from Brussels,
Tradition Doesn’t Graduate
seeks to unfold the lines of thought, residues, marks and traces, acts of
confrontation and resistance that rise by folding and being brought together.
Here, ideas of ongoing feedback, call and response, checks and balances rise to
the fore, between one’s respective artistic
practices and the voices of the revolving group members, the surrounding
environment and the different temporalities implied.This publication serves to
illustrate and exemplify the collective effort and movement undertaken by the
twenty-two artists presented in the exhibition. It’s product – that of peaceful co-habitation whilst marking one’s presence in the world – might be read in the margins and in-between the works. Where various
material aesthetics, registers and scales come to clash, complement and enhance
each other, where research interests, subjects and artistic approaches diverge.
In short, from individual fieldwork-taking to a formation of a patchwork of
social and material relations. A publication as another line on your CV, as a
remnant of an instance past, as a ghost of a previous state, as a piece of
evidence in light of seizing that prospective opportunity… As we will all continue to be upcoming, and constantly becoming but
never quite arriving. For the good of practice! Even if tradition doesn’t seem to graduate!