De Appel Curatorial Programme: Father, Can’t You See I’m Burning?

In collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum, the participants of the Curatorial Programme of de Appel arts centre (an annual education program for young curators) present a special performance. The program encompasses a press conference in the form of a simultaneous poem and a choreographed dissemination of specially written texts throughout the museum. In addition to this, the performance will also have a presence at de Appel arts centre: an olfactory installation will be on display there during the entire day, which is related to the event at the Stedelijk. 

This event is part of the public program of Father, Can’t You See I’m Burning?, which is an exhibition curated by the participants of the Curatorial Programme at de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam, on show until June 15. Conjured from the ashes of a radical inheritance, this project loosely reconsiders an important non-event: an exhibition that never happened, namely, that of the Situationist International’s proposal to director Willem Sandberg to build a labyrinth in the Stedelijk Museum, in 1959. When Sandberg asked the artists to collaborate with the fire brigade due to the risk that their proposal involved, they immediately withdrew their proposal. Their idea, as well as the performance program of this afternoon, questions the extent to which institutions that present art, determine the conditions of (contemporary) art practice.

The program

Smell installation
Smell is an olfactory installation by Janek Simon in collaboration with Laurent-David Garnier. The smell references the Situationist's exhibition proposal of 1959. The olfactory installation will be exhibited at de Appel arts centre; as the performance unfolds at the Stedelijk, the exhibition rooms at de Appel arts centre will be filled with a smell that mirrors the Situationist's original proposal for the museum. The work Smell was realized for the first time at Kronika in Bytom, Poland, in 2006. It belongs to a group of artworks in which the artist touches upon the problem of catastrophe – a possible end of civilization. 

Press conference at Cinema Room, 4pm
The simultaneous poem by artist Dina Danish will be relayed by the six curators of the Curatorial Programme as a press conference. If this simultaneous poem were to take place it would be executed by Kurt Schwiters, Charlie Chaplin, I.K. Bonset, the ridiculously good-looking Lettrist International and Everybody Else. 

Dissemination of texts
In addition to the works by Janek Simon and Dina Danish, newly commissioned texts by writers and theorists will be disseminated throughout the museum, where the visitor will coincidentally encounter them en route. These texts are responses to the six curators’ preoccupancy with questions related to the aforementioned unrealized Situationist’s proposal to the Stedelijk Museum, positing the question: what if the cultural institution went up in flames? Writers include: Sophia Al Maria, Sebastian Cichocki, Chris Fitzpatrick, Yazan Khalili, Vincenzo Latronico, Vesna Madzoski, Islander Mardi, Aaron Schuster, Eloise Sweetman, Jan Verwoert, and Arnisa Zeqo.

Background information

Father, Can’t You See I’m Burning? is curated by the participants of the Curatorial Programme 2013-2014: Renata Cervetto, Kris Dittel, Lara Khaldi, Emma Panza, Aneta Rostkowska, and Kate Strain.

Every year the participants of the Curatorial Programme at de Appel arts centre organise an event in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum that takes different forms corresponding to their final project.

Biographies artists

Janek Simon (PL,1977) gets inspired by scientific theories and models as well as such disciplines like geography or economics, whose functions are subject to constant civilization changes. Simon's objects often take a form of visualizations based on mathematical formulas and statistical data. At the same time, the experimental and anarchical dimension of his works articulate a clash between scientific theories and reality of everyday life, sociological phenomena and politics. Many of his art works contain complex electronic systems created according to Do-It-Yourself philosophy – made from scratch by the artist. Simon consciously keeps on searching for practices and strategies alternative to the contemporary culture of mass production and prevailing system of artistic production.

Laurent-David Garnier (FR) is an artist and independent perfumer based in Amsterdam, where he is currently completing his MFA at the Sandberg Instituut. He studied chemistry and perfumery in Paris and Versailles and worked for many years as a senior perfumer for the fragrance industry. In his artistic practice he explores interactions in both public and private spaces through the construction of complex multimedia narratives, often involving the olfactory system. His works investigate the parameters of reality by exploring uncertainties in which memory, performance and lived experience overlap and contradict one another. He recently collaborated in the creation of Welcome to the Jungle, a performative installation of Andros Zins-Browne (previewed at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2012) and realized “UNSINKABLE DISTANCE” (Buda-Kortrijk, 2012) as well as “a NOTHING – NO THING of Time” (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, 2013).

Dina Danish’s (EG, 1981) work combines conceptual art's preoccupation with language and structure with an interest in humor, misunderstanding and superstition. Her recent solo exhibitions include Four Friends Fought Furiously For The Phone, at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, NL (2013); Double Bubble Gum, Doubles Bubble at Galerie Barbara Seiler, Zurich (2013). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Kunsthall Oslo, de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam, Beirut in Cairo and SFMOMA. She also performed Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata at the Cairo Pavilion of the Amsterdam Biennial. Danish studied in both Cairo and San Francisco and has taken part in various artist residencies including the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Spinola Banna in Italy; PiST/// in Istanbul and AIR Dubai. She currently resides in Amsterdam.