Filthy Images
Jeffrey Babckock, Rossella Biscotti, Kathrin Rhomberg, Christoph Schlingensief

Filthy Images

COLUMN

Where Is the Artists?*
by Rossella Biscotti

I would like to make a step back and take the public event Where are the Artists? hosted by the Rijksakademie on April 26, 2011 as a starting point of reflection, in response to the previous lecture by Artists in Occupy Amsterdam. What is our position as artists? How do individual artistic practice, and the subjective experience of its processes take part in the present movement of social and political transformation? Can art function as a meeting place, a micro-social model? How do we embrace the social transformation and envisage scenario for the future? The notion of vulnerability places art “in between” social, economic and political forces, and thus bridges individual and collective practices and hosts marginalities. Can the “space of art” host, connect and share social forces?
*Daniel Buren, Where are the artists?, February 1972

Rossella Biscotti is an artist based in Amstedam whose artistic oeuvre encompasses performances, videos, photographs and sculptures. Her work is based on a process of layered narratives that involve long periods of research on-site, interviews, and archival findings. In Biscotti’s art, the starting point of a work is always a social or political event that has been removed from the collective memory and she transpose in a subtle interplay within the present and contemporary society.

ARTIST PRESENTATION

Filthy Images
by Kathrin Rhomberg

Democracy—be it on the grand scale of world politics or on the smaller one of local day-to-day interaction—was a central concern for Christoph Schlingensief. Wherever possible his projects influenced volatile social issues and matters of political relevance. How did Christoph Schlingensief address democracy and how did he use the various media and spaces of art?

Kathrin Rhomberg is the curator of the exhibition “Christoph Schlingensief: Fear at the Core of Things” with works by theater director, filmmaker, author, and artist Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010), taking place right now at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht. She lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She is a co-curator of the ongoing project “Former West” and a corresponding member of Secession, Vienna. Previous projects include ( amongst many more) 6th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, 2010 and Roman Ondák, “Loop”, Czech and Slovak Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale.

SCREENING

FREAKSTARS 3000, 2004
Excerpt selected and introduced by Jeffrey Babckock

The cinema of Christoph Schlingensief embraced mainstream culture and aesthetics but used German counter-culture tactics to subvert it. For example he used strategies such as over-identification and over-dramatization, and mixed it with trash elements in order to transform contemporary culture into kitsch.

Jeffrey Babcock is an Amsterdam based cinema activist who has created a circuit of underground cinemas. He will give a short introduction to a program that he will be curating at the Rietveld in March, centering on the film work of Schlingenseif. As part of his presentation he will screen a 20 minute extract from “FREAKSTARS 3000” (2004) which is an visceral spoof on popular reality TV entertainment shows.

DISCUSSION