DEAD DARLINGS #9
11 JUNE 2017
ANONYMOUS ART AUCTION
FOAM, AMSTERDAM
DEAD DARLINGS #9 — ENTROPY AUCTION PROGRAM
This publication serves as an event catalogue and auction program, with corresponding lot numbers.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Alex Winters Aneta Lesnikovska Anika Schwarzlose Annaleen Louwes Anneke Hymmen & Kumi Hiroi Anu Vahtra Aurelio Kopainig Axel Koschier Betty Ras Carolin Reichert Charlott Markus Chris Oatey Chris Rijk Daniëlle van Ark Diana Blok Khurtova/Bourlanges Eva Schippers Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky Hanna Mattes Hristina Tasheva Ine Lamers Irina Birger Jaap Scheeren Jacopo Calonaci James Beckett Jean-Vincent Simonet Jessie Yingying Gong Johannes Schwartz Joris Landman Joseph Miceli Jouk Oosterhof
Kali Rose Katja Mater Koen Hauser Kyle Tryhorn Lonneke van der Palen Lorena van Bunningen & Majda Vidakovic Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen Melanie Bonajo Mike Ottink Noa Giniger Oran Hoffmann Pantelis Makkas Pier Pennings Popel Coumou Riley Harmon Risk Hazekamp Roberto Pérez Gayo Scheltens & Abbenes Selene Kolman & Martine Stig & Stef Kolman Semâ Bekirovic Sohrab Bayat Stefanie Wels Svenja Kaufmann Tania Theodorou Thomas Monses Vincent Zedelius Voin de Voin Willem Vermoere Yang Qiu
Agate stones are a variety of quartz. In order to make visible their rhythmic micro-crystalised patterns, they are often sold in thin slices and thus are a little translucent. I started experimenting with them in the dark room – using them instead of negatives in the enlarger. At the time I was working on a series about gem stones and this was a way for me to get closer to my subject matter. It ended up being a stepping stone to a completely different body of work and these agate experiments eventually landed in a drawer and were never shown. After I took this particular stone out of the enlarger it fell out of my hands and smashed to a thousand pieces on the hard tile floor. Even if I wanted to, I could never reproduce this image. It’s the only print I made of it.
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Bruchstück, 2016 B/W C-print, hand-printed, framed, 24 × 30.5 cm Starting price: € 19,00
The series Can I try your looking? is a collection of various landscapes altered with digital painting. Entropy can be considered as a reality alteration, playing with the viewer’s perception. This picture is the only one having unnatural elements in it. Despite the interesting results, it was never integrated to the body of work.
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Can I try your looking glass?, 2014 Inkjet print on semi-gloss paper, 100 × 120 cm Starting price: € 50,00
Glowing Fire Embers at Night is an image that came from a test process of bleaching photographs. In a recent series of works, a once-lost-then-retrieved photograph undergoes a bath of diluted bleach. The photograph loses details, little by little, mimicking the oblivion of memory. Yet, before dissolving, the colors red, orange, and yellow emerge. In this testing stage, found photographs were used. Here, in an abstract image of blue light shining through darkness, the process of erasure and deterioration represented is a mass of glowing fire burning in the night.
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Glowing Fire Embers at Night, 2015 Inkjet print on semi-gloss paper mounted on MDF, 30 × 43.5 cm Starting price: €30,00
Initially this work started as a pencil ‘outline drawing’ in a sketchbook. I was in the process of making little objects and taking photos of various lighting arrangements, a study in light and shadow in 3D. This drawing made me look into the possibilities of making a ‘flat object’, a ‘drawing without surface’ but still having a 3D illusion of a ‘flat object without surface’. It was fun but also a miserable failure because the final structure couldn’t support its own weight.
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Leporello, the Arrow of Time and the Delusion of a Finite System, 2011 Hard-soldered metal, kit and flimsy repairs, ±100 × 150 cm Starting price: €1,00
She was a dear intern who helped me out a lot and was always ready to dive right in, never afraid of anything. Unfortunately this image was never used and ended up in my drawer.
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Laura – testing the intern, 2016 C-print, 21 × 30 cm Starting price: €6,95
This is a photographic study. One that refers to a commitment to photography as a means of expression by vigorously forcing the camera to see something beyond what is immediately visible. Colored pieces of paper were attached to a wall, glass hovering between lens and subject, and a piece of cellophane reflected its light in space.
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Litany of complaints, 2015 Pigment print, 50 × 40 cm Starting price: € 20,00
This photo is part of a series of 24 portraits that were made during a four-year period. The starting point for these images was an attempt to translate fashion language into images. Because of the strict self-imposed briefing, this darling couldn’t be used in the series, because it revealed too much of the face. Another one was chosen for the series, but this one is also still very much loved.
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Remodeling: Isabel 2, 2013-2017 Inkjet photo print, 30 × 45 cm Starting Price: € 50,00
Books don’t generally display a lot of randomness, content-wise. But when the wind took mine, for a moment the order of things as we know it seemed irrelevant.
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The Wind was Reading a Book Today, 2017 Video, 0:22 min. Edition: 1 plus 2 AP, signed Starting price: € 0,25
This image, taken from the proverbial studio floor, represents a period of work I don’t feel connected to at all. Because of this, it lives outside of my current œuvre as a remnant of a period and place that doesn’t exist anymore, an approach that’s simply disintegrated.
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Blue Hour, 2009 C-print, 35 × 45,5 cm Starting price: € 55,00
For some years I photographed on Sunday mornings, preferably. Moving through an empty city, looking for a meditative moment. What interested me was the soil of the city; dug up for construction, piled up for preservation, classified for environmental or archaeological research. This one does not show the soil, but instead the debris of the city.
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Sunday Debris, 2017 C-print, 20 × 15 cm Starting price: € 25,00
This photo was taken from a car driving around San Francisco, while caught in a crazy traffic jam, with people rushing up and down the busy sidewalks trying to keep up with each other. My (now ex-) girlfriend was driving the car while chatting with a friend on the phone. In the middle of it all, I found myself feeling totally and utterly lonely. As we were driving, I spotted this jolly painted building and a man sitting in front of the only open window. I wondered how he felt, sitting there alone, observing the busy street, with all these happy people painted on the colorful wall. I wanted to wave to him but instead, I took this photograph right before we turned the corner. When I looked at it I was happy: I managed to catch him in the frame and captured that moment forever. In hindsight, I regret I didn’t wave at him. I would rather have shared a moment to wave than making this photograph.
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All the things I lost on you, 2011 C-print, 30 × 20 cm (framed 45 × 30 cm) Starting price: € 40,00
The man in this photo is André, my former neighbor and muse. I photographed André in women’s clothing but didn’t want to cross-dress him with an excessive feminine characterisation. Understated and simple, since he is a heterosexual man who does not ordinarily wear organza or blouses. The choice of women’s clothing was made with subtlety in mind to feel natural and relate to André’s age, character and porcelain skin. The title refers to the peignoir. It belonged to Ms. Tarnoczi. I met Ms. Tarnoczi in my neighborhood, always dressed in lovely, ladylike but simple creations of her own. When I visited her, I found out she was suffering from dementia, so I chose not to ask her to be one of my models. After she was taken to a nursing home I did make a series in her flat. The flat was awaiting demolition and I was allowed to take anything that was left. This peignoir made by her is one of the garments I took home and still keep. The peignoir is also the entropy in this photo, although it looks good on him it is too ornate and made André look overdressed.
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Tarnoczi, 2015 Archival pigment print on Baryta 310g/m2 paper, 25 × 33 cm Starting price: € 35,00
A reflection of printing bricks and bending paper – this photograph resulted in too much effort as well as content, yet not enough to convey the idea of a blank space and its potential materiality. A task that might already have been intended to fail in the first place.
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Untitled (With the intent of nothing added or taken away), 2016 Archival pigment print, 40 × 30 cm Starting price: € 15,00
It simply did not work. Lack of sleep had taken its toll and in my frustration I threw it all up in the air. Later I found myself staring at the aftermath. Clearly I was never going to use this image, and yet I pressed the shutter. An insomnia ridden darling.
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No Title (aftermath), 2012 Pigment print on Hahnemühle fine art paper, 20 × 25 cm Starting price: € 35,00
Whilst looking through them at me for almost 25 years these glasses were worn out and unconsciously witnessed the fading of our love.
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M’s glasses (M’s brilletje), 2007 Analogue color negative turned digitally to B/W, 20 × 25 cm (on paper 24 × 30 cm) Starting price: € 50,00
This shot was taken during an artist-in-residency in Bahia, Brazil. Its a dead darling because I am still touched by the image. Besides the play of light and shadow, it was a special encounter with this boy. He told me that he regularly took his bird for walks. This suggested another perception of the bird in a cage, so I also learned something from him. Its a dead darling because this moment will never happen again.
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Boy Taking His Bird for a Walk, 2003 Giclée color print on 320g/m2 paper, 20 × 30 cm Starting price: € 75,00
This photo is taken on the streets of New York during the time I was still in the habit of strolling around outside taking pictures. I never found a place for this image but I’ve always really liked it. The bin struck me; exploded camo fabric. It’s a visual pleonasm. The graffiti on the wall, the curb with the old gum. All the elements are so ‘streetwise’.
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Untitled, 2009 C-print, 26.5 × 34 cm Starting price: € 50,00
This darling didn’t take me further than looking, with a curved perception, towards the way I’m working. It still makes no sense it’s dead as opposed to alive and kicking. I don’t know how to look at it, just that I wanna be in it. An apparent disorder through multiple viewpoints and dimensions is creating a subtle harmony of green squares, white surfaces and structured lines.
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Curved Perception Towards Space, 2006–2017 Lambda print and pencil on Dibond, 40 × 54 cm Starting price: € 60,00
This image is from a series of three pictures I took in Beijing in 2007. The series became one of my favorites, but when I first gave the images to a professional photo lab for printing (in 2010), the 35mm negatives were heavily damaged due to a “cleaning action”. As a result I got back a fucked up negative, a digitally retouched scan and a print-out of the images, which looked awful. That was the last time I gave something to a photo lab and instead started the painstaking process of setting up my own color darkroom. This way I could continue to work with 35mm photography and on a never-ending project about ‘cultivated nature’ and ‘objects as manifestations of human activity in architecture and everyday life’. As a consequence I feel the need to work there whenever possible (usually meaning weeks or months in a row, once the machine is running). Well, that’s how I chose to print this fucked up negative again (this time myself) as a dead darling.
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Beijing Toilet (942-13A), 2007/2017 C-print, hand-printed, unmounted, ca. 29 × 44 cm Starting price: € 50,00
I made this work when in total doubt about the world, my work and the future. A book containing a collection of negative and self-absorbed expressions; lack of self-esteem, grief, fear of missing out on the next great party or the opportunity of a lifetime. Writing all of it down and creating an organic structure around the words helped me to step out of the world of fear. It felt liberating to walk straight to the copy shop and create this personal book of negative thoughts.
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Book of Negative Thoughts, 2016–2017 Laser copies, glue binding, 21 × 29 × 0.5 cm Starting price: € 45,00
In 2012, through a series of chaotic interlinking events, the artist’s backpack was blown up by the police while in the United States. This is a 3D model of the backpack made using laser scanned data to reconstruct it virtually. It can be physically reproduced and multiplied using 3D printers or other industrial manufacturing processes. The 3D model in the form of an .stl (stereolithography file) along with a video preview are contained on a usb drive. They are accompanied by a newspaper article detailing the events that lead to the explosion, signed by the artist as a certificate of authenticity.
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An Effigy, 2012–2016 3D model, .stl (stereolithography file), usb drive, signed newspaper article, dimensions variable Starting price: € 39,00
The object in the picture is part of a personal collection of arts and crafts objects – which were all made by anonymous hobbyists – found at flea markets and thrift shops. The nice thing about such objects is that they form an informal archive, capturing the methods, materials and aesthetics of a certain period. (Think for instance of the 70s hype around yarn spinning, rug weaving, macramé, pottery etcetera.) But, although they represent personal value and time, as well as the values of their time, they usually end up being discarded as worthless. Perhaps as a matter of natural selection. This specific object was eventually removed from the collection and doesn’t exist anymore. You could say it’s the dead darling of a collection about dead darlings.
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Butyriboletus Pseudoregius | The Pretender, 2015 Art print on Canson Rag paper, 30 × 60 cm Starting price: € 60,00
The ruin in the picture is the temple of the Olympian Zeus. It took 637 years to finish it after construction began in the VI century BC. Its 104 colossal columns only had to carry any weight for a relatively short time. Only a century later it was pillaged during an invasion and was never repaired, fallen into ruin ever since. This beauty of a dead darling refers to the main theme in the sculpture work I’ve made since my graduation. The sculpture installation work I graduated with was actually subtitled “the Irony of the Monument.” My work deals with the passage of time represented through static material; this photograph will therefore never be shown amongst my other works since it’s in a medium I haven’t used before.
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Vertical Gesture, 2017 Inkjet print on Dibond, 40 × 50 cm Starting price: € 50,00
Teaching yourself things involves a lot of trial and error. Lots of ‘failing again, failing better’. I’m not a fan of reducing complex processes down to formulas but, in the case of painting letters, it really is a question of repetition and practice. As a consequence, you find yourself accumulating a ton of scraps, tests and sketches, and to be honest its always a dilemma wheather or not to keep them all in some archive or just go with the instinct to toss them out. Is it trash? Would a lesser person frame it and sell it? All I know is that I need room for more scraps.
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Cold Heat, 2016 Enamel on paper, 54 × 80 cm Starting price: € 7,00
Entropy comes from the Greek: en ‘inside’ + tropē ‘transformation’. The sunburned “X” on the skin refers to the female chromosome, which almost all human bodies have in their DNA. It is also a metaphor for the problematic attempts of society to deal with bodies in transformation. The duct-tape censor bars hide this trans person’s most vulnerable body parts.
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Inside Transformation (Edition 1/1), 2007–2017 Collage, C-print with Duct tape, 33 × 25 cm Starting price: € 33,00
This does not happen so often, that you actually find somebody that can jump right into your picture. Now that everything is digital, a lot of people don’t remember or even know about the Polaroids that photographers would take to check lighting and composition before shooting real film – I also stopped shooting Polaroids a long time ago, which makes this Polaroid transfer (which I made right after I took it, since it dries out otherwise) into a true dead darling for me. I remember sitting on the bottom of the escalators and this boy was looking at me with a strange look on his face – not understanding a thing I was doing with the “negative side” of the Polaroid and a piece of paper.
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Smoke, 1997 Polaroid transfer, 9 × 11 cm (framed 20 × 5,5 cm) Starting price: € 10.00
In 2016 I made an edition of ceramic butt plugs, of which this one was the one I fancied most – not in the least because it’s gold (my assistant warned me frankly that this particular glaze could be toxic for one’s secret openings). When moving to a new studio I carefully wrapped it in some canvas, then, eagerly wanting to start painting, I damaged it carelessly unrolling the bundle of fabric. I put the shards in a box, for I could not part with my favorite golden artifact. Lately it has risen from its ashes in the form of this slightly sad object, but shiny as ever before.
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Buttplug, 2017 Ceramics, tape, 20 × 15 cm Starting price: € 45,00
For a long time now, my work has consisted of (found) photographs that I treat to create new imagery. I only use parts of the original, cutting them into pieces, painting over them or using chemicals, as well as performing many other misdeeds to the originals. Also, I normally have not the slightest hesitation in doing so. I do care about the original image, but I am also sure about the necessity of destroying it. However, I was very unsure about using this found photograph of the Hoher Kasten mountain; I liked the original image very much and have fond memories of the mountain itself, having visited it a number of times. So, for months I was waiting to cut it up, deciding I needed to keep the peak for a project. In the end I cut the mountain out of the landscape it existed in, I felt I would be a coward if I didn’t use this image. Of course, this was a mistake, the cut out mountain peak was not fit to be used in the project. Still, filling the space created by the disappeared mountain with crumbled silk paper, creating a deep black hole in the panorama, the image gained a new meaning, and became a beautiful and cherished warning about trusting one’s instincts.
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Hoher Kasten, 2014 Cut-out page on silk paper, 43 × 18 cm Starting price: € 10,00
Whenever the use of Photoshop frustrates me, aggressive and random application of its tools can bring both relief and new creative insights. IrisÊ was born in a process in which I randomly applied Photoshop’s infamous healing brush. Letting go of any control on the textures and colors the healing brush produces, this phoenix arose from behind the illusionary artefacts.
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Irisé, 2016 Inkjet print on photo silk Baryta paper, 80 × 100 cm Starting price: € 50,00
In my first year at the Rietveld, we had, of course, sculpture class. As is usual at the Rietveld, there is no normal or traditional sculpting involved. No clay, bronze or papier-mâché. No – we had to work with ideas. One day, the assignment was to make an animal, representing you. At the time I was interested in artworks that were all-inclusive in some way. So, trying things out at home, and getting bored, I made an animal from my favorite black sweater, shaping it with a wire. Then I thought: why not continue with my complete outfit? So I turned a complete outfit into a small, personal zoo. Socks and underwear included. This was quite a success in the class. I kept the zoo for quite some time. But at some point I had to take it apart, because I needed my favorite black sweater. My work for you, the highest bidder, is: I will turn one complete outfit belonging to you, your fiancé, your child, your mother, or someone else of your choosing, into a small zoo. The clothes will not be damaged. Time and place: we’ll sort that out. I collect an outfit from you and I will return it as a zoo.
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A Zoo for You, 2017 (example that does not exist any more) Dimensions variable, appr. 7 items, appr. 1 m2 Starting price: ₏ 5,00
This painting derives from an old slide (dated 1962) I found in a flea market. It depicts a view of the Berlin Wall. It strikes me that still today there are ‘leaders’ who want to build walls of separation again, as currently seen in the US and Europe. Walls will always create disorder and misery. History has shown that walls always become dreary landmarks of decline eventually.
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Untitled, 2017 Acrylic, gouache, toner and shellac on MDF, 21 × 25 × 1 cm Starting price: € 10,00
This silk-screen print is sourced from a plate commemorating the anniversary of H. Cegielski’s factory. Cegielski pioneered the Polish transition from manual agricultural equipment into steam powered engines. This work is a detail of a larger stage design for a theatre piece, which uses relics gathered from both functioning factories and industrial ruins around Poland. The stage environment is a series of re-creations, inspired by actual workplaces and even museums, reviewing the past of both company and state. The experience allows one to zoom in, from the larger level of infrastructure, down to the single product of the factory itself, such as a toothbrush. The tangible nature of this experience attempts to connect to histories through these found objects, in much the way a museum does with its artefacts of purported significance.
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H. Cegielski, 2010 Silk-screen on paper (run of 15 + 2 AP), 100 × 100 cm Starting price: € 25,00
When I learned I was a “sterile” woman (not having known this “little” detail for 35 years), it felt like I had somehow been someone’s experiment, unaware that actually I am someone else, ‘something’ else. I started to take photographs, manipulating them, trying to investigate who I was, waiting to “see” my new personality appear. The title Watchful Waiting is the name of a medical approach of active patient observation. Time is allowed to pass before medical intervention or therapy is used. During this time, repeated testing may be performed (source: Wikipedia). The impossibility, with the passing of time, to find form and to finish this project, turned it into a dead darling. The entropy took place in the visual degradation of the body to some kind of pre-sex human creature, reflecting the disappointment of the new circumstances and not having power over the processes taking place.
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Watchful Waiting (WW), 2011 Photograph, 14.38 × 7.35 cm Starting price: € 20,00
Wim T. Schippers playing hide and seek with the photographer. Here he is hiding behind his sculpture The Cap, 1962. Though not a portrait in the usual sense, the picture does capture Schippers’ elusive and ever-changing artistic identity.
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Sort of a Portrait of Wim T. Schippers, 2015 Barita print, 32 × 22 cm Starting price: € 75,00
A melody card module is originally used in greeting cards; a small six pin processor programmed with a melody, played back through a piezoelectric speaker. A lithium button cell provides the power and a leaf switch closes when the card is opened, turning the music on. This is what’s left over from my collection; the ones who’s batteries are still kicking. Ready-made melodies of celebrations. From a wake-up call to the final fart, via other key events in one’s life. It’s a drawer’s secret or a corner piece– lasting only until either the battery runs out, or the walls of the space no longer stand still. Champagne card (music + lights!) would be offered to the new owner.
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L*I*F*E, 2004/2017 Six Melody card modules, cardboard, paper, duration variable, 42 × 16 × 1 cm (closed), 42 × 31 × 0.5 cm (open) Starting price: € 30,00
This work is an experiment inspired by the methods by which iPod users control the urban environment, particularly by aestheticizing it. The image uses a portrait I took of an iPod user while navigating Amsterdam. Afterwards, the data of the image was transformed into sound and made to collide with the soundscape of the location in the moment in which it was taken. I then converted it back into an image. This work is a weird rare surprise which I’ve never dared to show. A foray into loosing all control over the result.
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Walkman, 2012 Digital print, 53 × 39 cm Starting price: € 20,00
This photograph has been on my studio wall for years. It didn’t find a place in a show yet but I still like it. Life is a constant flow of searching, loss, leaving things behind, breaking with the old and stepping into the unknown and new.
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Untitled, 2003 Photograph, 20 × 30 cm Starting price: € 40,00
It was quite a challenge to make this work as I ‘normally’ do not photograph people. I took the photo as part of a commission. It is an indirect photo: a mirror image. The figure is almost too low in the frame. The indirectness and the almost disappearing blurry figure represents the discomfort I had with photographing the human figure. I wanted to let her keep her own space. Not be an intruder and not ‘own’ the figure.
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Master&Margarita (after Bulgakov), 2008–2017 Analogue photo, digital print B/W, 21 × 21 cm Starting price: € 49,00
The Y2K problem was a computer bug related to the formatting and storage of calendar data. Problems were anticipated, and in fact arose, because twentieth-century software often represented the four digit year with only the final two digits – making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. At that time, internet and social media were at their infancy and the idea of fully exposing yourself to the world was starting to become a reality. This photograph describes my feelings of how naked we are in front of technology and the social media. Y2K was made in December of 1999 while the Y2K problem was a big concern, an actual threat that our life as we knew it would collapse and society would be brought back to a state of technological anarchy. Soon of course, and by saying soon I mean by the 1st of January of 2000, the problem of the “millennium bug” was solved and this photograph, along with several others, never left my studio.
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Y2K, 1999 Photo print from negative, 30 × 40 cm Starting price: € 5,00
For many years I photograph my black shelves and window sills on the rare occasions when I dust them. In fact I do it every time. I have hundreds of these pictures, not one ever brought to light. The rendering of all my little treasures in two dimensions by the dust around their margins gives me a sad feeling of loss. In some Platonic way I feel it may be a reflection on my limitations. I am compelled to continue doing it, yet I think I will never show any of it. It’s more of a private meditation. For me a painful metaphor for the entropy of substance.
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Dust, 2011 Inkjet on Hahnemühle paper, 48× 32 cm Starting price: € 25,00
It was supposed to be a blank page cast in porcelain, but it broke during firing. When the oven was opened, the blank piece now featured an open crack. Its ‘brokenness’ became the content of the blank page, which could now be read in many ways: a landscape, a graph, a border, a line of thought. The decision was to preserve the openness of the crack by mending and holding the two pieces together with an intertwining weave of cotton yarn. Both damage and repair added a missing structure to the page while suggesting continuity of the surface beyond its degradation.
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Plexus. I see you through the crack, 2017 High fired porcelain, woven cotton yarn, wood, H39 × W28 × D2 cm Starting price: € 40,00
After developing this film I realized my Mamiya cassette was leaking light, and the whole contact sheet had this light beam across it. I am a lover and user of error so I was not at all distraught, on the contrary, there was something sweet about it. The more disruptive part was that I often use 6 different cassettes at the same time, and it could be any of them. For weeks I tried to figure out which one was broken, by testing one by one, marking them in different ways, but it would appear and disappear and then drive me crazy! Eventually I ended up taping around all the sides of each of the 6 cassettes after loading them with film, 2 years later this is still how I keep light out!
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Lover and User, 2015 C-print, 20 × 25 cm Starting price: € 45,00
The first time I took ecstasy was in 1997, at my art academy graduation party. It was the first mind-altering drug I ever tried, and its visual and emotional impact went beyond my wildest expectations. Remembering that miraculous feeling, I tried it now and then, but the highs never reached that first-time peak. The last time I took ecstasy, the price I had to pay for a dose of pleasure nearly destroyed me. Insomnia, muscle pain, headache, cold shivers and a sudden and severe depression punished me for wanting to find instant happiness. This artwork is a dead darling, not only because it is a singular work of art that does not belong to a series; it functions as a symbol for the carelessness of my past.
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Ecstasy, 2003 Pencil on paper, 29 × 20 cm, framed Starting price: € 75,00
One day, I had a work meeting with someone I immediately liked and felt very comfortable with. As I biked home, this image popped into my head, like a kind of portrait. I made a few, and decided to send the person one of them. In the end, I didn’t get the project and I wondered whether sending this picture to that person had anything to do with it. I can see how it might make someone a bit uncomfortable. I like the idea of an intentionally risky finishing touch. Something that could be too much and ruin the whole thing, but that could also make the result look effortless and beautiful.
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UNTITLED (FOR RHIANNON), 2012 Inkjet print, acrylic paint, 22 × 33 cm Starting price: € 9,99
This photo is the result of a six-day performance I did together with M. V. in Milan last year. We transformed an apartment by peeling colored layers of latex from selected parts of the apartment step by step, until the original surface was revealed. Every day, every hour and every minute, viewers were experiencing a different work. Besides the performance, I also documented the temporary results of our actions. Something that was in absolute contradiction with the performance, since it was supposed to only exist while in the process of eliminating the latex and transforming it. But it resulted in a new work, in a different medium. The work looks like a strange-looking curtain or like some sort of skin that comes off the wall. Without the context from the performance and the transformation it misses context to be understood, but as a single image it is intriguing, familiar, yet at a closer look you don’t know what you are looking at. It’s an attempt to save a work that wasn’t meant to last.
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A Passing Space, 2016 Photograph on drawing paper, 40 × 60 cm Starting price: € 45,00
It is dead, because of God.
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Waiting for something beautiful to happen, 2006 Photograph on drawing paper, 25 × 32 cm Starting price: € 9,99
This is a piece made of blown glass and gold leaf. It was the first piece made and was intended to be part of a large body of work with multiples of the same piece reproduced again and again. After making only a few casts the mould broke; I was unable to continue the project. The problem with the mould was that I did not treat it properly and the few times I used it consumed it at a rapid rate, thus it embodies entropy in a literal sense. Although it can be seen as a work on its own, I just can’t get my head around it and it stares at me in the studio, lonely and abandoned. Therefore it is a dead darling, a victim of entropy.
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Infinity Mountain, 2015 Glass, gold leaf, 20 × 20 cm Starting price: € 30,00
A picture of a Saab 9-3 in a dune landscape. This car was dumped or accidentally fell into a canal. It rested, top down, on the bottom of the canal and over time developed into a mussel bed. It’s a dead darling because this object of desire, for us humanoids, turned into a paradise for a lesser species of bivalved molluscs.
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SAAB93, 2012 Photograph on Innova Baryte fine art paper, 60 × 45 cm Starting price: € 50,00
That’s the way it should have begun. But it is hopeless.
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That’s the way it should have begun. But it is hopeless, 2015 Inkjet print on museum-grade Baryta paper, 42 × 59 cm Starting price: € 60,00
This work was made during my first year of studies. The assignment, for all the female students in the class, was to make a “male” artwork. “Hunting” and “explosions” were the themes I came up with and I thought it would be a good idea to combine them. For the video Hunting Still Life I needed a dead rabbit. It was surprisingly difficult to find one. After pursuing several butcheries and having received more than just the occasional weird look in answer to my request for a dead rabbit, complete with fur, I decided to take a bike ride into the country side. There I finally found a farmer who was willing to give me one of his rabbits – but he was out of dead ones. He decided I should just point to one of the fluffy cute ones in that big cage. The children playing in the yard were sent away, the bunny was caught and killed very swiftly and matter-of-factly. I rode my bike home with the still-warm bunny corpse in a plastic bag in my backpack. After making the video, I skinned and cooked what was left of the little guy and buried his remains. I decided to never make artworks with animals again – ever!
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Hunting Stillife, 2006 Video, 1:03 min. Starting price: ₏ 15,00
After finishing art school in 1985 I went to the abattoir of Grosage, near Mons in Belgium, together with the late T. T. I was making photographs, classic, black and white, on Kodak Tri X 400 film and printed on Ilford Gallery Baryta, to challenge myself, I also made a series of color slides. As expected, black and white was far better. So the slides stayed in their boxes in the closet. 20 years later I decided to check the slides again. I should have known that they were far better than I judged them to be in 1987. The only problem was: they were blue. Almost all the colors dissolved in the air. One picture really took me by the throat: a young bull, to be slaughtered the next morning. He stood there, quiet, after all the stress of being transported there. “Better for the meat�, the butcher said. At the end of the afternoon through the windows of the stable a very strong sunlight came in and streamed over his back and flanks. It looked as if the bull was disappearing in transparency. My black and white series of the slaughterhouse still withstands time and is part of my work, although I changed direction. But this one, beautiful but distorted, stands on its own, probably waiting forever. It stands for poetry. And it surely stands for entropy.
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The Bull, 1987/ 2008 Photograph on Fuji digital professional II paper, 20 × 30 cm Starting price: € 50,00
My graduation project, of which this picture is a part, was once my favorite. Back then, it was, in my eyes, the best work I ever made. I will never forget how much of a struggle it was to produce it, and how I later appreciated the attention it got here and abroad. But after six years, I can’t look at this work any longer. It’s time to move on and embrace the new things to come, instead of holding on to the good things that have passed. That’s part of development, and it is part of life as well.
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Souvenir: memories of a journey never made, 2011 Print, mounted on aluminium, 30 × 40 cm Starting price: € 40,00
tissucôted’azur job.feu.job.travail. 10-14-16 Pamphilj Tennis Super Cannes
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No Title, 2016 Pastels, pencil, oil paint on dyed linen on wooden frame, 79 × 114 cm Starting price: € 50,00
Apocalypse – the complete and final destruction of the world, especially as described in the biblical Book of Revelations. Meta (from the Greek meta- (μετά-) meaning «after», or «beyond») is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter... I see the human imagination as the most powerful element we hold. By imagining the end of the world, a possibility opens to gain awareness of the human condition. It is not my dead darling... its a dead darling from a lost civilization!
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A-meta-calyps, 2015 Positive slides, 10 × 8 cm Starting price: € 30,00
This is the entropy of authorship and memory.
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Junk, 2005 Inkjet print on Rag paper, mounted and framed with museum glass, 134 × 104 cm Starting price: € 0,99
This is a section of a large scale work incorporating a technique of making a sculptural drawing by crumbling carbon paper with normal paper.
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Crumple, 2015 Carbon on paper, 45.5 × 45.5 cm Starting price: € 25,00
While travelling with the train between Manhattan and Yonkers in 2006 I saw these huge spaceships, ready for take-off, next to the tracks. I ordered an appropriate outfit to travel to the stars and set off with my boyfriend to the location. We left the train and walked past the tracks. It was not easy to find the spot, and it was rapidly getting dark, so, afraid of missing the moment of twilight that I needed, we walked around anxiously. We had to enter a terrain that was forbidden. When a cop car stopped and asked us what we were doing there we explained the situation. They urged us to go back and not hang around in this dangerous area. After a couple of days we went back, I decided this has taken long enough – I had to take this picture – so we went back. As we went through the fence and found the base of the huge billboard, I stripped of my clothes behind a bush to fit into the NASA costume. We set up the camera and I climbed up the pole to worship commercialism. CLICK. Although it was one of the most complicated images I ever made I never found a good moment or reason to show it. Until now. Go, Entropy, GO.
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NASA, 2006 Photograph on 3mm Dibond, 14.2 × 20 cm Starting price: € 40,00
Graphic humor resulting from a nosebleed.
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JAPANESE FLAG EPIC FAIL, 2017 Collage, A3 Starting price: € 100,00 (reducible)
One from a series of nine repetitive patterns, this image, depicting a stack of glasses, survived the storms. It’s an image, made in 2008, that would like to be unwrapped from its bubble-wrapped hiding place. Without touching the objects but shifting the camera, the translucent composition becomes vivid.
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Untitled, 2008 Color print between Dibond and Perspex, 47 × 60 cm Starting price: € 50,00
We shall not be quiet. Here is your chance to hit Trump on the head.
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Total Disaster, 2017 Walnut and Sycamore wood, 10 × 23 cm
ABOUT DEAD DARLINGS
Dead Darlings is an interactive event, a happening, combining elements of performance and exhibition in the form of an Art auction. Our collective has been active, and organising this event annually since 2005. The name Dead Darlings derives from the oft heard phrase: “kill your darlings” about how artists are often forced to eliminate, or self-censor certain artworks that, although dear to them, don’t fit a given context or series. These works – never presented publicly – become art by-products holding no value to the artist’s practice, yet they maintain personal value to the authors. The event consists of a preview exhibition, a live auction and this selfpublished, handmade catalogue. Each work is presented anonymously, the artist’s name revealed only after the sale is made. Through a theme based open call, we invite artists to submit their darlings to be auctioned at exceptionally low starting prices. This way we aim to bypass market standards and give people, who would not generally be able to afford an original contemporary artwork, the chance to participate and claim one of these darlings for their own. Bidders value
the works on their own terms, regardless of the prominence or obscurity of their maker. This year we explore the theme of Entropy; Entropy is a fitting theme for the year that passed, and more than likely, for the ones ahead. We’ve invited artists to submit darlings that either formally or thematically, deal with the notion of entropy. Damage, destruction and decline; we asked Artists to consider a work that has in some way been destructive for the maker or their surroundings during the making, in a process that was traumatic or damaging (mentally and/or physically). Artists are, of course free to interpret the theme in their own way, be it personal, political or both. Entropy, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the “system”, is interesting to reflect upon in relation to the art world, but also with regards to world in general, especially the point where these collide today. So pick up your paddle and fight for your darling! May disorder and randomness, be ever in your favour…
Dead Darlings #9 — Entropy is organized in collaboration with Foam, as part of the exhibition Collectivism – Collectives and Their Quest for Value and takes place during Foam Fusion, on 11 June 2017. DD9 Team: Tania Theodorou Lina Ozerkina Hanna Mattes Joris Landman Concept / Editing: DD team
Printing / Binding: Friends Make Books, Torino
Dead Darlings #9 is supported by AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts), Foam and Friends Make Books.
Edition: 200
www.deaddarlings.nl
© 2017 Dead Darlings and the authors. All rights reserved
Design: Lina Ozerkina
Big thanks goes out to everyone who submitted, participated, volunteered, helped and visited; Carolin Reichert, Jessie Yingying Gong, Joseph Miceli, Kali Rose, Kristina Mirova, Nicole Emmenegger, Roberto Pérez Gayo, Kyle Tryhorn, Byrthe Lemmens, JP Magis, Harry Bloch, Kim Knoppers and everyone at Foam; and most of all – the artists who entrusted us with their work and made this possible.