Learning from... Johan Huizinga

with Jonas Ohlsson

Thursday 12 October 2017, 16.30 - 18.00 hrs
Location: Stroom, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
RSVP: reserveren@stroom.nl

Language spoken: English
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Part of program Stroom School: Céline Condorelli: Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning)

An 'Electro lecture/performance/concert' by Jonas Ohlsson

According to Johan Huizinga the play element is primary to and a necessary condition of the generation of what we human beings call 'culture'. If our ability to play is under pressure, all of civilization is under threat. Johan Huizinga expressed these ideas in his dissertation Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (1938). In the eyes of the artist Jonas Ohlsson it remains an urgent and inspiring book to this day. He will tell us why.

The Hague wine shop De filosoof will serve wine especially selected for the occasion.

Read all about it in Jonas Ohlsson's own words:

Einstein might have said (or not):
"Play is the highest form of research". What did he mean?

I will do an 'Electro lecture/performance/concert' in Stroom talking & singing about Johan Huizinga's ideas about the playing human (Homo Ludens). I will sing about the 1968 exhibition "The Model, a model for a qualitative society" by Palle Nielsen and the radicality of curator Pontus Hulten who ran the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and later became the first director of the centre Pompidou.
Also a logical DUB mix of... The Black Panthers, Nude Scandinavian blondes, Concrete Poetry, Åke Hodell & Öyvind Falhström, Olof Palme in I am Curious-Yellow, the Vietnam war and why USA withdrew their Ambassador from Sweden.
 
And also about flow psychology and new discoveries in neuroscience about play, intuition and storing knowledge.
Is it possible to mix the playful with the meaningful and the political? Maybe I will argue that the playful is in itself political?

Since my show at the Cobra museum this summer I feel that I am becoming a posh-ter boy (Tronic) for playfulness, lightness and joy in art. I don't mind, but I would like to argue for some logical layers to it as well.

The reasons to WHY I believe in play, so I will try...
In Stroom on Thursday 12 October from 16.30
MOST WELCOME!!!

Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) is made possible through the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund, BankGiro Loterij Fonds, BPD Cultuurfonds and the City of The Hague.

Drawing by Jonas Ohlsson, Giorgio Gabber and Octavio Garabello
photo: courtesy the artists
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga, 'Homo Ludens'
design: The Rodina