left eye right eye 1 1 Beni Bischof 3 Riccardo Benassi Paul Geelen Ana Navas Valentina Jager Martin Kohout Sangree Vanni Codeluppi Kriz Olbricht Elisa Caldana Rodrigo Hernández Leon Hösl artists Cathérine Lommée Benjamin Fallon Tilsa Otta Óscar Benassini texts by Rita Ponce de León Ala Younis Mike Pratt Samuel Leuenberger Emiliano Valdés Anna Szaflarski Jan Op de Beeck Nanda Janssen 2 Rodrigo Quijano Introduction The formula for an exhibition: Left eye, right eye is an exhibition perceived as a kind of mathematical formula. It is generated by an algorithm, a set of rules that defines a process. Instead of creating something predictable or ordered, the algorithm rather opens up a series of possibilities for the artists involved in the exercise. The rules are simple: a core group of 3 people conceives the whole idea. Next the group asks 10 other artists to invite either a curator or a writer to produce a text. Here, another variable is added: the text could be either inspired by a particular artwork or, reversely, it could serve as a source of inspiration for the artist. The results of the process will be presented in an exhibition both in the three-dimensional space of the gallery and in the two-dimensional space of a publication. Thus, the usual methodology whereby a curator invite an artist to generate and foster a discourse is inverted. In this project the energies and the roles of two people are con-fused. Left eye, right eye is a collaborative intervention perceived as a mutual encounter that is performed through a physical Alessandra Saviotti experience. 5 4 a of a person’s personality, which are then exposed to exploitation by companies. Riccardo The main activity during free time is consuming, Benassi especially because it is through these consumer When capitalism feeds off life activities that individuals can build and maintain (in reference to Techno Casa): their identities over time. Accordingly, operating within the sphere of consumerism, businesses are Capitalism has changed. It no longer suffices to use intruding in an individual’s emotional life to an human bodies as mere instruments of work, but it increasing extent. increasingly seeks to extract economic value from Thus, we have gradually witnessed a sensory every biological component and mental, emotional and stimulation strategy come into play alongside the social dimension of the individual. Consequently, window display strategy (vetrinizzazione) that followed capitalism is changing into biocapitalism, the most the emergence of the shop window in the eighteenth evolutionarily advanced form of the capitalist economic century and accordingly imposed a social communication model. Sure enough, the concept of biocapital has model based on visual language. We have sought in made a recent appearance in the capitalist system, a this way to continue to produce economic value by new form of capital based on a new configuration of penetrating the inner and emotional spheres of man. economic value, viz. biovalue that can be extracted It is thus no longer merely the body as a functional from a living creature’s vital qualities. From this tool that the capitalist system is using to produce point forward, the entire human body will become the economic value, or even the external component of the subject of economic exploitation. body that is increasingly on display as confirmed by The transition of capitalism to its “bio”- consumerist and media patterns. It is the body in its phase is also happening because companies are no entirety. longer content to benefit from the functional bodies It is clear, therefore, that biocapitalism of their employees. Instead, they feel they have absolutely needs to feed off man’s life in order to to increasingly take advantage of their employees’ produce economic value and yet at the same time it thoughts and creative ideas, exploit their brain that, tends to stifle that life. We could therefore say being directly related to the employees’ identities, that the system eats itself. We could wonder whether continues to work even outside of the factory. this might become an irreconcilable predicament for Predictably, it represents an element of continuity future capitalism. If so, the idea that Marx borrowed between work time and free time, both of which are from Hegel – based on an inseparable union of use becoming more and more similar at present. 6 value and exchange value, quality and quantity, and According to classical economists, in the the material and the abstract – that goods transfer capitalist structure of the first factories, the worker their particular nature to the entire economic system worked for a number of hours to produce economic still remains valid. The idea affirms that use-value value for himself and his employer, which was followed constitutes a limit that the tendency for unlimited by a period of time in which he was completely self-growth that exchange-value has will continually free and could regain his strength. Biocapitalism, encounter. However, the current development rate of however, does not just make unfair demands during biocapitalism seems to cast doubt on this idea. the working hours, but also tries to produce value during free time. As individuals use these off-hours t primarily to define their social identities, they are inevitably intertwined with the most intimate aspects Vanni 7 Codeluppi a Beni ∘ Working on raw canvas on site, fast, spray, brush and Bischof cutter ∘ 50 canvas, paint/spray on site and leaving them behind in a chaotic form “Voll easy hanger (olma)” is made up of a bundle of ∘ Just spraying, also on the floor fake plastic snakes and fox tails, tied together and ∘ 1,000kg clay-throwing sculpture, pieces of clay hanging from the ceiling. The animals seem to be hung making up a mountain to dry. With its carefully chosen colour palette, ∘ Painting over paintings bought at thrift shop smooth material mix and plant-like hanging display, ∘ Collecting 15 couches, spraying them, putting plaster the work resembles a tableau-vivant. It is the on them result of a constantly rambling, fast-paced highway ∘ Making a wallpaper from my studio wall, then hanging of brainstorming pot that Bischof carries with him objects on top at all times. Reduction is hardly an option, rather ∘ Tattoos plurality is preferred. We could call this work “Tail ∘ Burning 50 US flags Tales” since it proposes different readings but also because it suggests all the tales that were omitted or postponed and still are part of the checklist below: ∘ Fridge sculpture ∘ Series of posters to take along 9 ∘ Burning a Sunset-Poster ∘ Borrowing Boxing Automats and working on them ∘ Crazy hanging sculptures (CHECK!) 8 ∘ Sending something with the pst (Mail-Art) ∘ Existential fear campaign ∘ Renting a Muscle-Car, putting paintings around it, drawings inside it, etc. ∘ Making a tower of 1,000 plinths ∘ Filling up a tent with plaster ∘ Hiring a bodybuilder to carry works around ∘ Hiring a number of girls to carry works around ;) ∘ Making a publication on site ∘ Painting T-shirts t ∘ Adapting design objects to my objects ∘ Attaching 2,000 black brushes to the wall Samuel ∘ Printing 3,000 black and white copies Leuenberger ∘ Spilling felt pens all over floor and walls ∘ Spray everywhere ∘ Attaching A3 posters all over the place ∘ Producing an offset poster: one subject gets 10,000 times reproduced. Then making display stacks ∘ Chewing gum ∘ Rambo 1000 11 t Nanda Janssen Sculpture waiting to happen Like other works by Paul Geelen ‘Untitled _ silica gel + slug egg’(2013) keeps a low profile. Somewhere in the exhibition space there is a handful of silica grain mixed with one snail egg. It can be easily overlooked, as both are white and tiny. During his current two- year residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam the artist is developing his individual sculptural grammar and alphabet. The alphabet consists of unusual objects like a surgical instrument, a transparent shooting a Paul marble, a mouth harp, a floss pick, a prism, an IUD Geelen (intrauterine device), a festival barrier and climbing holds. Paul Geelen has a keen eye for rare objects that do not reveal their function straight away. He tends to use them as readymades. The artist also uses contemporary materials that are uncommon to sculpture such as silica grain, oil-bonded casting sand, slug secretion and aerogel. By combining these objects or materials, changing their shape or altering the context in which they are presented new meanings occur. The silica grain and slug egg are combined on the basis of similarities in shape and colour. However, the similarities end right there. One material is 10 produced chemically, the other naturally. One hails the status quo, the other is all about metamorphosis. There’s a peculiar logic behind this odd juxtaposition of materials, this strange syntax. Two items from different realms magnify, when combined, a nanofragment of humankind. a 13 Rodrigo Hernández TOMATOES, CARROTS, CELERY, BEETS, PA RSLEY, LETTUCE, WATERCRESS, SPINACH t Emiliano Valdés 12 a Valentina 15 Jager Mahta, Sara, This Material and what Olaf says. Hearsay and second-hand information. Voices from beyond or from within. Marc’s words are all riddles and Olaf thinks himself an expert. Which expectedly makes for an odd space indeed. May I interrupt? I think right across the street there is a manic outburst of premonitions. Voices, you say? What do they say? Now that you mention it, we all have so many things to do. So much to do and Xixi is waiting. An illusion of an unnamed division stands between five individuals, a group of no-longer people, a space, and a conversation. Where does a being begin and where does it end? How does she decipher what is her thought or the thoughts formed by another object? We give things names in order to simplify matters, but we are no closer to understanding anything.