Ondertussen: Risk Hazekamp
3 May - 22 June 2014
Location: Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Open: Monday-Friday: 11-17 hrs; Saturday-Sunday: 12-17 hrs
In the Ondertussen space The Hague artist Risk Hazekamp presents a new version of the project nullachtfünfzehn , in collaboration with the Berlin-based
spoken word artist Tania Witte aka CayaTe.
The title expresses the interdisciplinary collaboration between text and image: the crossed out letters of nullachtfünfzehn cannot be pronounced, but have to be understood visually. As such the title pays homage to the direct connection between text and image.
The title also has another meaning. In German, 'Nullachtfünfzehn' (08/15) is a slightly derogatory expression for the ordinary and the average; by crossing out the word, the connotation of mediocrity is also crossed out.
For the project the artists visited and portrayed people living a queer life outside of subcultures. The portrets show that a non-normative life does not exclusively take place within metropolitan areas. The protagonists do not function within certain standards or inside certain norms, thus immediately raising the question: What is the norm? And how flexible is it? Is it up to the individual to decide which identity it wants to take, or is identity determined by everyday surroundings?
By means of image and text, Risk Hazekamp and CayaTe examine how identity is defined and analyse how certain identities are assessed or judged out of geographical or socio-cultural perspectives. By using various approaches and channels, they want to provide access to the question whether a fixed identity exists at all.
Since 2011 Hazekamp and Witte have worked on this ongoing, interdisciplinary project. The first version of nullachtfünfzehn was presented in October 2013, on invitation by the Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs (VBKÖ) in Vienna. From a thematical point of view this was the perfect location, because of the tradition behind the selected projects of the VBKÖ. In its programming the VBKÖ establishes a vital connection between historical debates and contemporary queer, feminist art production.
The presentation in VBKÖ was made possible in part by a Stroom Den Haag SPOT grant. For the current version two of CayaTe's German spoken word pieces have been translated into English. Risk Hazekamp's analog photographs are presented in a new composition, made especially for the Ondertussen space.
nullachtfünfzehn will remain a work-in-progress.
'Queer book list' Risk Hazekamp: click here
LINKS
www.riskhazekamp.nl
www.taniawitte.de
www.cayate.de
www.vbkoe.org
Ondertussen
The former reception area of Stroom has
been converted into a small exhibition space. On a regular basis there
are presentations of artists who have received a subsidy in the
categories Stroom PRO- and SPOT-grants. The informal exhibitions and
presentations are intended to illustrate the diversity of the Stroom
grant system. The program in the space is called Ondertussen (the Dutch
word for 'meanwhile').
Archive Ondertussen presentations
- 03 May '14 - 22 Jun '14
- Hogewal 1-9, Den Haag
- Entrance: free
photo: courtesy the artist
photo: © Risk Hazekamp
photo: courtesy the artist