Iekariukedjutu

Esquema para una expresión comparada de los ciclos en creación individual

“We all already know who we are, […] and that we have a past, a present and a future.”

Fifty years ago a group of Basque artists wrote these words in their manifesto in order to claim their rightful place in history. Looking back, these words seem self-evident. When they were written, however, the Gaur Group did not even exist yet. It suggests that writing does not just describe history, but that it also has the power to create it. To fully understand the implications of this correlation, of this power to disrupt the status quo and realign the future, we should first consider the origin of writing itself. For this, we will turn to “The Writing Lesson”, a chapter from the memoirs of the French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss.

Sat, 08/27/2016

A Rehearsal of Inadequate Performances. The political trial as a cultural artifact

Notas

“Proceed”, said the newly elected president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner. It was the 24th of March 2004, and an audience of ministers, high-ranking military officers and journalists watched a man in uniform step forward onto a small ladder, propped against the wall of the gallery in the Military Academy. Cameras flashed, as he took down the stately portraits of General Videla and General Bignone, almost 20 years after the fall of their violent regime.

Sun, 05/18/2014

Keeping the Peace

The Beursplein Hearings

Introspection is a chronic pathological condition of the Occupy movement. Everyone is constantly preoccupied with how much of their past to give up in return for a future that hasn’t arrived yet. What if we fail? Or worse, what if we’re successful? What if we do manage to change the world? What will it look like? Will it still need us? We share the restless anxiety of the revolutionary who knows one must become obsolete in order for the revolution to succeed.
- Published in Open!, an Amsterdam-based publication platform that fosters and disseminates experimental knowledge on art, culture and the public domain.

Thu, 03/06/2014

The Contract

Tents on Tahrir Square, Egypt

There is something treacherously seductive in the shadow play about the artist and the city, that is performed by certain discourses on gentrification and the creative class. Feeding off old-fashioned notions of the avant-garde, it stages the artist as an instrument of change, a positive influence, one whose mere presence is a symptom of a declining neighbourhood's recovery.

Tue, 10/09/2012

To be legal does not mean to be legitimate and to be illegal is not a synonym of illegitimate

Fractional Reserve Banking. An illustration of how banks are able to create money from a client’s 1000 Euros. By Núria Güell

A conversation with the Catalan artist Núria Güell about economy, education and art as acts of intrusions into the mechanisms of power that construct hegemonic modes of behaviour, thought and meaning in society.

Sun, 06/17/2012

Free towels

Urban plan SlaveCity 2005

What is the role of art in moments of social transformation? A look at the models followed by the Free State of AVL-Ville and Slave City of Atelier van Lieshout, and The Best Party, an Icelandic political party founded by a group of artists, musicians and other cultural agents. Recent events regarding the protests against cultural policies in The Netherlands have imbued this article with a new kind of relevance. The call for resistance against the government's fateful neoliberal grasp on society is growing stronger. For art to play a pivotal role in this, it could take some cues from the examples presented in this article: Time to leave self-effacing moderateness behind, stop being reasonable, and demand the impossible!

Sun, 08/15/2010

My friends, there are no friends

Save the males, a project by Tinkebell

Captivated, the visitors of a fair of Eco-fashion and sustainable design gather around a cardboard box, inside which 61 cute little chicks are scampering about. Meanwhile, on the other side, a girl with a pleasant smile explains to them what her project “Save the males” is about. She is an artist, known as Tinkebell, and the chicks, all male, will need the help of those present, if they are not to end up in the shredder. It is a fate that would have been inevitable, had they been left at the poultry farm where she picked them up earlier, and one they would have shared with the 31 million chicks that are born as males each year in the Netherlands.

Thu, 01/06/2011

The interrogation room

Esculturas públicas envueltas en plástico negro como protesta.

In the Netherlands, cultural workers are on the streets, protesting against the pending cuts on government funding for art and culture. In the newspapers, meanwhile, their opponents have put the question of whether art is elitist back on the agenda again. Time for a little introspection.

Thu, 12/09/2010

Possessed

Visitors picking up their copy of "Untitled (Wall Structure) by Sol LeWitt.

What does it mean to possess a work of art, when all it really consists of is an idea? The Danish artists' collective SUPERFLEX provocatively exploits the legacy of conceptual art in order to find out, and in the process reveal the limitations of current intellectual property laws.

Mon, 09/13/2010

“We need spaces that allow people to struggle with each other for their meaning.”

Arnlod Reijndorp

In this interview, Arnold Reijndorp, independent researcher on urbanism and urban culture, looks back on his visit to Basque Country, realised a few weeks ago within the framework of a study trip to different European cities, a trip he helped organise together with The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture for a group of cultural professionals.

Thu, 11/11/2010

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