For the Marina Abramović exhibition, a surcharge applies. See Stedelijk.nl/surcharge, also for exceptions.

Events — May 22, 2016

The De-Skilling Curation workshops are part of an experimental series in which curators, artists and audiences explore alternative ways for engaging with and appropriating performance practices.

There is another workshop by Valentina Desideri at 2 pm.

Price
Admission Museum entrance ticket, free with Museumjaarkaart and under 19
Location
Teijin Auditorium
Time
May 22, 2016, 10.30 am until 11.30 am
Main language
English
Admission
Tickets RSVP: onperformance.anxiety@gmail.com Advice: Wear a sports outfit and bring a small towel, for your comfort

The De-Skilling Curation workshops are part of an experimental series in which curators, artists and audiences explore alternative ways for engaging with and appropriating performance practices.

The third session of this series, hosted at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, is focused on how physical activities stimulate emotional release. Visual artists Florentina Holzinger and Valentina Desideri have been invited to share their practices within this scope. They will open a space for reflection on the ways a museum can be experienced: perhaps as a channel, catalyst, or filter for collective emotions. Consequently, questions are raised concerning the role of curators. Can we think of a curator as someone who facilitates the expression of feelings, projected into the world by an artistic consciousness?

Florentina Holzinger
Fighting Workshop for Artists
Time: 12.30 – 1.30 pm
Location: Stedelijk Museum, gallery 1.32 

Florentina Holzinger’s concern with supporting herself after completing an art education has resulted in a training technique based on fighting and kickboxing exercises. This workshop, entitled Fighting Workshop for Artists, aims to strengthen the self-confidence of art school graduates, who find themselves thrown into a reality of pure competition after the reassuring years spent in the safe zone of art school, by confronting physical and mental challenges. This workout is now part of Holzinger’s regular rehearsal routine, and has been integrated into many of her performances. For this workshop she invites her personal trainer Btissame Amadour, a Taekwondo black belt, to teach participants the art of combat.  

Valentina Desideri
Fake Therapy
Time: 2 – 3 pm
Location: Stedelijk Museum, to be confirmed

Touch and attention to bodily sensations form the core of Valentina Desideri’s artistic practice. For this workshop Valentina was invited to share Fake Therapy, a non-disciplinary practice of healing that she developed with the aim of expanding the range of ways in which we touch and care for each other. In order to practice Fake Therapy, you need to forget any previous knowledge of healing or body and to embrace a ‘state of not knowing what you are doing’. This state creates space for mistakes, contemplation, improvisation and surprise.

MORE ABOUT THE DE-SKILLING CURATING WORKSHOP SERIES

The notion of ‘de-skilling’ is inspired by Claire Bishop’s explanation of the move from one area of disciplinary competence to anotherIt refers to a lower investment in skills within performance art, which began to take place ‘when Judson choreographers were rethinking dance as everyday gestures; when Fluxus artists were poking fun at classical music in irreverent scored ‘events’’ (Bishop).

Performative skills are embedded in the way we construct our identities, and they enable a fluid switching between roles. Within the art world, the role of the curator is characterized 

by a drift from one discipline to another. A curator can embody various characters to express her or his position, appearing for instance as the nerdy art historian, the smart managing director, or the politically engaged social mediator.

Investigating techniques and approaches used by performers, De-skilling Curation is aimed at curators but open to anyone. During the workshop, existing performances are re-imagined as exercise. Corporeal consciousness within the ‘creative profiles’ is re-evaluated through interpersonal and spatial relationships. For more information on this workshop series, see http://performance-anxiety.org[LS1] 

 ABOUT  THE ARTISTS

Florentina Holzinger studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Her graduation solo piece Silk was awarded the Prix Jardin d’Europe at the lmPulsTanz Festival 2012. Her collaboration with Vincent Riebeek resulted in a trilogy of pieces currently touring various international performance festivals, and was continued with the development of their latest work Schönheitsabend - Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Extase. Florentina is co-author and performer of the web series and performance project Body and Freedom, which will be available to online viewers from Summer 2016 onwards. She is currently artist in residence at the International Choreographic Arts Center ICK Amsterdam.  

Valentina Desideri is an Amsterdam-based artist. She was trained in contemporary dance at the Laban Centre in London (2003–2006) and obtained her MA in Fine Arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2011–2013). She does Fake Therapy and Political Therapy, she co-organizes Performing Arts Forum in France, she speculates in writing with Prof. Stefano Harney, she engages in Poethical Readings with Prof. Denise Ferreira da Silva, she is currently an artist in residence at BAR Project in Barcelona, she reads and writes.  

 CREDITS 

De-skilling Curation is organized by Emma Panza with the support of the Mondriaan Fonds. This public event is part of her training as a curator. It is also part of a research on methodologies of performance applied tocuration, and a prelude to a forthcoming event focused on the performance archive of de Appel arts centre. The previous two sessions in this series took place at de Appel arts centre with artist Simon Asencio, and at the library of Artis Zoo with artist Luisa Ungar.