[oberlist] Fwd: [spectre] (fwd) Sven Augustijnen's Spectres at de Appel, Amsterdam

[stefan rusu]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andreas Broeckmann <broeckmann at leuphana.de>
Date: Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 9:40 PM
Subject: [spectre] (fwd) Sven Augustijnen's Spectres at de Appel, Amsterdam
To: spectre at mikrolisten.de


Solo exhibition Sven Augustijnen
"Spectres"
15 October 2011-12 February 2012

Opening:
Friday, 14 October, 6-9 p.m.

de Appel arts centre
Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat 59
Amsterdam
http://www.deappel.nl

The Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen (Belgium, born 1970) made his name with
films in which he analyses cultural and historical places and events from a
personal perspective, in a way that is at the same time very precise and
ambiguous. This autumn, Augustijnen is presenting his latest film,
"Spectres", as part of a solo exhibition in de Appel. In this film essay,
the artist presents a controversial view of Belgian colonial history, a
historical era that recently attracted a great deal of attention in the
Netherlands following the publication of "Congo" by David van Reybrouck,
who won the Libris prize. However, the questions raised by Augustijnen go
beyond these national colonial events. How does a country or an individual
deal with a colonial past? How does a nation process the suffering it has
inflicted, dubious political acts or moral bankruptcy? Who is guilty,
admits to guilt and what are they guilty of?

"Spectres" focuses on one of the darkest pages in the colonial history of
the Belgian Congo in about 1960 in a documentary thriller, set to the music
of Bach's St. John's Passion. Augustijnen follows Jacques Brassinne de La
Buissière, a French-speaking Belgian who is now 82 years old and who was a
high-ranking official when the prime minister of the Congo, Patrice
Lumumba, was murdered in 1961. Brassinne conducted a personal investigation
into the truth of this murder for thirty years. With his delicate
psychological portrait, Augustjnen shows how the friction between personal
involvement and an objective writing of history, between fact and fiction,
truth and conviction, wholly obscures the question of guilt which arises.

The film is part of the overall "Spectres" project devoted to this
difficult historical period, a project on which Augustijnen has been
working in stages since 2001 and which has resulted in various works, which
are shown in the exhibition. For example, they include the installation
"Les Demoiselles de Bruxelles" and the newspaper supplement "Panorama",
published with the Belgian newspaper, the Financieel Economisch Tijd, in
which Augustijnen describes the interrelationship between the Belgian
colonial issues and the history of the creation of the European Union.

The title of the project and the film are derived from the book by Jacques
Derrida "Specters of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and
the New International" (1993) in which the French philosopher discusses,
amongst other things, the returning ghosts, the spectres of the past, which
reappear in the present again and again. Augustijnen's project shows that
Europe has not yet come to terms with its spectres, a colonial history
which still has an impact on our lives, our way of thinking and our
actions. In a time when the multicultural society appears to be under fire,
a film about the way in which the West deals with "the other" is all the
more relevant.

Events:
A side programme is organised in the context of the exhibition, in
collaboration with the Tropenmuseum, the University of Amsterdam and Marres.
- Guided Tours
- Sunday School 12 February 2012, 4pm
More information at http://www.deappel.nl

The "Spectres" project was set up with the support of de Appel arts centre
and the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture (Maastricht). In 2011 it
will be exhibited in various forms, amongst other places, in Wiels
(Brussels), K9000 Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen and Kunsthalle Bern.

Concept and image Sven Augustijnen
Production assistent Fairuz
Editing Mathieu Haessler and Sven Augustijnen
Sound recording Benoît Bruwier
Sound mixing Original Flavour
Music J.S. Bach

Produced by Auguste Orts, co-produced by Projections, Cobra Films and Jan
Mot
With the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund, CERA Partners in Art,
Mu.ZEE, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg, WIELS
Contemporary Art Centre, Vlaams-Nederlands Huis deBuren, de Appel arts
centre, Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture, Vlaamse
Gemeenschapscommissie, Kunsthalle Bern, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen,
Kunstencentrum BUDA, FLACC Workplace for Visual Artists, Fonds Régional
d'Art Contemporain - Région Bourgogne, Le Fresnoy studio national des arts
contemporains.

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