The project focused on the dilemmas and questions that an artist addresses when participating in a group exhibition. How does the artist go about creating a new work? What are important sources of inspiration? Does the artist look at the other invited artists’ work, and how absorbed is he or she in the exhibition’s theme? Where does one draw the line between creating a work that ‘fits’ the subject and making a work with its own voice and language that still manages to communicate with the other works in the exhibition?
Silvia B. and students from the KABK thought about the exhibition space as a parallel world. How do you entice your audience into another world? Size, scale, setting, and lighting are central considerations for Silvia B.’s work, both as an artist and as a curator. She is fascinated with freak shows: traveling circuses where physically unusual humans were put on display. How does this fascination manifest itself in her work? And how does she avoid overstepping the line between art and freak show?
Marc Bijl’s master class week with students from the HKU focused on misunderstandings, mistakes, and inconsistencies. How flexible must an artist be in relation to a group exhibition’s theme? What happens when a curator’s idea about a work differs to that of the artist? Bijl’s work has often been misunderstood: a work he created for Documenta was thrown away just before the opening because it was mistaken for rubbish. Works sold as flags were used by buyers as tablecloths. How does an artist deal with such misconceptions about their work? Indeed, are they misconceptions?
Renie Spoelstra’s master class week with the students of the Willem de Kooning Academy focused on thinking through making. Only one technique and one material were used: charcoal and paper. Starting with the material, the concept gradually emerged: the doing led to thinking. What were the works’ similarities and individualities? What practical dilemmas affect a concept’s development?