Postcatalogue POPPOSITIONS 2015 by Liv Vaisberg

“ Whatever you think, think something else,whatever you do, do something else.” - Robert Filliou

POPPOSITIONS — 2015

POST-CATALOGUE

Foreword POPPOSITIONS was created in 2012, at a moment when Brussels was not yet getting the momentum it has now, and when the Art Brussels week was rather dull. Six Belgian galleries and non-for-profit spaces united in a still-functioning commuterstation. Fast forward four years, and POPPOSITIONS boasts 40 participants, mostly international, 10,000 square meters of abandoned offices, a major collectors’ exhibition and great attendances. POPPOSITIONS strives every year to better fulfil its aim: be a relevant and critical platform giving visibility during Art Brussels to emerging galleries, project and artists-run-spaces, curatorial initiatives and the like. And this year was indisputably a huge leap forward.

POPPOSITIONS was conceived as an assembly, going back to the origin of fairs, when they were just an optimised gathering of galleries. However, its very own format aimed at highlighting how art fairs are a necessary evil: only nomadic structures, in situ works, selection made on strong pro-posals, no white cube, no fee. Rather than challenging the existence of fairs per se, POPPOSITIONS notices their exponential growth and increased role in the art market, symptomatic of a “financisation” of art and a drive for money, which jeopardise the whole art market ecosystem. 2

Why POPPOSITIONS? POPPOSITIONS was created to fill a gap in the current contemporary art market ecosystem. To force you to slow down, to take your time to look and understand what this part of the art scene is proposing. The art business has become an industry; we wanted to inject some honesty and create a space for critical reflection on the development of the art market. We hear more and more criticism about standardised and conservative “fair art”. This is not what we want you to find at POPPOSITIONS. Participants are selected on their proposals not on their capacity to

pay for a booth. The cost of participating in POPPOSITIONS is, and should always stay, a tiny amount compared to any other fair. This is how we avoid “fair art” and attract experimental projects. In this context, we are proud to have been able to host the “Do you have Barbaric Taste?” exhibition within POPPOSITIONS. Being trusted by five major Belgian collectors to curate their collection was essential for POPPOSITIONS to highlight this ecosystem of the art. The fact that all the works were acquired for under 8000 euros in the last ten years shows that collectors also collect following their taste and instinct, and their love for art, rather than for the drive for money and investment.

Seeking to redress some balance in the art world, run by a bunch of people moved by true love for art, POPPOSITIONS art fair is truly non-commercial, an oxymoron. In this increasingly commercially pressured art world, how can a utopia such as POPPOSITIONS subsist, and continue to for the long run? We may appear as idealist but we are there to stay, and we will continue to reinvent ourselves every year. I hope you will enjoy this PostCatalogue; we enjoyed making it while living again through the few days of POPPOSITIONS, and we looking forward to continuing the journey next year with the same good spirit. Liv Vaisberg, director POPPOSITIONS, 12 june 2015

Table of content MANIFESTO

CONTRIBUTIONS BY PARTICIPANTS

“Art is alive” by Holly Crawford An Economy of Discursive Fields: Lot 94, La Mirage, and POPPOSITIONS 2015

by David Tomas Captain’s log, stardate WED MAY 27, 2015: WHY BAUHAUS IS WINNING THE WAR/ NOTES FROM ONE DAY ONTHE THE BATTLEFIELD/ 3 texts from the internet newsfeed and 1 email. by Burnrate

The Word Magazine’s throwaway camera in the hand of Foreseen by Foreseen and Lisa Lapierre

Air conditioning. by Céline Mathieu

PROGRAMME

PARTICIPANTS

PANEL TALKS

PERFORMANCES

108

SPECIAL FEATURE: Five major Belgian collections in the hand of POPPOSITIONS’ associate curators

112

COLOFON

116

POPPOSITIONS 2015 © O O O

Manifesto LET’S INVENT A NEW ECONOMY In opposition to the political economy founded on criteria of productivity, the Fluxus artist and former economist Robert Filliou published his Principles of Poetic Economy in 1970, aiming at creating a new lifestyle (art de vivre). Starting from his position, POPPOSITIONS commits itself to valorise new experimental and ingenious economies amidst the prevailing art market. LET’S TURN ART LABORATORIES

FAIRS

INTO

ARTISTIC

While public authorities are ranking cultural production down in their priority list, the economic practice of the fair is being challenged. Can the art market be combined with cultural innovation? Conceived as an assembly of international galleries and hybrid art spaces, POPPOSITIONS is an experiment with the sale of contemporary art. Changing location within Brussels for each edition, POPPOSITIONS aims to occupy an independent, critical position during Art Brussels. LET’S GET TOGETHER POPPOSITIONS seeks to assemble a young artistic scene motivated by a critical wish to undertake action. All organisations dedicated to contemporary art can propose a well-contextualised artistic project. The presentation of art works, installations, video, performance and so forth, are all considered as possibilities to challenge our current means of creation and dissemination.

“Art is alive”1 —Robert Fillou, Whispered History of Art, 1977 by Holly Crawford In 1973, artist and earlier economist 2, Robert Fillou, Marianne Staffels and George Brecht, closed the space in France and declared that they were broke; that they were bankrupt. The event was made public by Fillou in a very short film3. He publically announced that they were “bankrupt.” They had been having conversations, non-events and making many multiple art objects.4 Robert Fillou did not slink away. He transformed and restructured his experience and made it into a film. In this short little film he announced the Eternal Network. 5 He pronounced that there is no longer a center. That art can go on anywhere and does. He added that there may be at times a need together. Within the structure of POPPOSITIONS we did. 6 Quoting from Robert Fillou, Whispered History of Art, 1977 “Perhaps what you have done is not important.” POPPOSITIONS is an art fair. It is not an art festival, but is was rawer, livelier and much less white boxed and antiseptic than most art fairs have become. “Perhaps what it cost was not important.” One saw: “Perhaps what you saw was not important.” 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eApqLeu0pi8 Published on Sep 15, 2013 . Robert Filliou giving his lecture a Whispered History of Art was recorded in mono at New Wilderness Studio in New York by Ondine Fiore in December 1977. 2 Filliou earned a Master’s degree in Economics from UCLA in 1952. His BA is not from there. UCLA did not know the where he earned his BA. Fillou and I attended UCLA and earned a MA in Economics as did Dennis Tito the first space tourist. The years we attended and I was much later are listed as the golden years. Why? It was not mathematical and several professors were thinking outside the box. It was also not a very popular major then as it is now. 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BgOfsG7J0Q 4 See Jon Hendricks, Flux Codex. New York: Harry Abrams N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, second printing 1995. 5 “How did the Eternal Network come into being? Robert Filliou and George Brecht close their artist space La Cedille qui Sourit, located in Villefranche, France in 1968. They go “bankrupt.” They announce the post avant-garde formation of the ongoing international network of artists. Filliou made Telepathic Music No.2, 1973 in the same year as the first celebration of Art’s Birthday in Aachen, 1973. This video clip is taken from PORTA FILLIOU (1977) the videotape produced by Filliou, Clive Robertson and Marcella Bienvenue for ARTONS VIDEO, Calgary, Canada. Robert Filliou 1926-1987” See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BgOfsG7J0Q 6 I’m including all with artistic desire and temperament.

An artist jumping around the space in a mail bag, a large cage of birds and wondered how they got them in there and what was going to happened to them at the end, smashed flat screen television sets that still flickered with life, rolling a cart around with someone listening to one assume an audio piece on headsets, a fallen ceiling, children talking about their parents who are artists, a person compulsively trying to copy his dashed off circle and red dots on a wall (just the red dots). “Perhaps what it cost was not important.” I think Fillou would have fit right in and been happy with the fair. “Let’s leave the names out of it.” Everyone who participated in the art fair Popprositions 2015 in any way was invited to think and think again about the art and experience that was being offer by them and for others. Experience as Fillou was trying to relate was not just the experience of the viewer or participant. It is everyone’s experience. And no matter what you experience it was yours. Just remember to think and then again. He did. “But perhaps what you know is not important.” I have been quoting from a 20 minute film of Robert Fillou. It is a recording of his performance/lecture on his history of art which is about the experience. It is not about names and money. Money is there. He bought a bottle of beer! 7 It is about of seeing something that was ordinary and thinking about it. Asking yourself what and why after that moment in art passes. In conclusion I want to relate one of his histories. It all started 1,000,000 million years ago, but this story happened 10,000 years ago when a man bought a bottle of beer. (And I’m paraphrasing here.) He drank it. And when the bottle was empty, he looked at it and wondered whether is really empty. “Is there nothing in this bottle?” 8 It had been transformed. It was now more than a bottle that was a container for his beer. This fair, this gathering, this experience, allowed all the participants to come together, empty a bottle of beer and wonder about art: making, selling and collecting. “Perhaps what you see is not important.” Holly Crawford, NYC May 18, 2015 7 I assume that this bottle was a bottle of Belgian beer. I drank several while I was in Brussels. 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eApqLeu0pi8 Published on Sep 15, 2013 . Robert Filliou giving his lecture a Whispered History of Art was recorded in mono at New Wilderness Studio in New York by Ondine Fiore in December 1977.

An Economy of Discursive Fields: Lot 94, La Mirage, and POPPOSITIONS 2015. by David Tomas

The distinction is stark and ironic: POPPOSITIONS 2015 and Art Brussels 2015. The one is intentionally, indeed, strategically marginal and visually modest in the deployment of its means and objectives, the other is ostentatiously proud of its capacity to generate a mesmerizing, synthetic, centripetal, cultural and economic force of attraction within a local, national and international art scene. One is presented as an experiment, the other as a spectacle. POPPOSITIONS 2015 is located in an abandoned postal building, while Art Brussels is deployed within two enormous exhibition halls (1 & 3) at Brussels Expo, Place de Belgique. One building is cold, damp, and unheated, the other is warmed by the movement and body heat of hundreds of ‘flaneurs’ peramulating along the length of its gallery-lined avenues. Irony is inflected in different, complementary, ways according to how one is positioned in regard to these two distinct events, sites, and their civic and national histories. The old post office, peppered with traces of previous activity, is a temporary home to a group of artists, and during POPPOSITIONS 2015 to a group of alternative galleries and publishing ventures. Art Brussels is grandiose, well-staged and choreographed according to the dictates of its underlying entertainment based economic model. The contrast creates a sharply focused picture of the art world’s economically defined class system and its relationship to affluence, power, and influence; where a host of decentralized practical and theoretical initiatives orbit around major, cyclical, socio-economic events in eccentric trajectories. As these two conflicting art fair models reveal, their differences are structural in an economic and also in a political sense. On the one hand, a basic distinction is articulated through the adoption of distinct economic models. Art Brussels is openly pragmatic and capitalist, while POPPOSITIONS is idealist in the sense of 10

focussing, in the first place, on a alternative economy of ideas. Yet both events pivot on the circulation of goods and services. On the other hand, a more pervasive socio-political distinction is reproduced, in local form, in the juxtaposition of centre and periphery, rich and poor, the powerful and the marginal. In one location there

is a celebration of capitalismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s culturally mediated praxis in the ostentatious display of galleries and cultural goods, the carefully chosen signifiers of taste, desire and connoisseurship, where the art object is simply an expensive and highly refined substitute for any commodity. In the other location, the products of contingent strategies are displayed. But in this case, modes of presentation and cultural artifacts are linked to an ongoing search for new practices that might be created through an open-ended experimentation on the possibilities of alternative economies of art. An economy of goods versus an economy of ideas, a politics of transnational culture industries (a global network of art fairs) versus a politics of artisanal economies (locally rooted sites of

cultural experimentation). The tensions of the post-1980s culture industry model and its alternatives are at rendezvous as one moves from one site to another. However, the distinction between POPPOSITIONS 2015 and Art Brussels 2015 is not only based on alternative economic models, extravagant versus modest scales, since both are art fairs that promote the sale of artworks, which is the basic function of a contemporary art fair. Nor is it only based on different models of how to promote contact and exchange. It is also based on a distinction between discursive models and how these models are used to cultivate (or not) alternative economies of ideas, knowledge and social action. This can be illustrated

POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ La Mirage/Philippe Hamelin

in the case of La Mirage’s participation in POPPOSITIONS 2015.

the artist, writer, and anthropologist David Tomas.

‘La Mirage’ is the name of a fluid discursive field that has been set in motion, in 2014, by its founding members, Sophie Bélair Clément, Philippe Hamelin, and Vincent Bonin. While it does currently (May 2015) have a location, it is provisional in the sense that ‘La Mirage’ can take any form that its founders might choose to give it in order to address issues or challenges raised by an evolving art world conceived in its broadest sense. For POPPOSITIONS 2015, La Mirage presented, in its adopted form of an alternative project space located at 5445 de Gaspé in Montreal, a project, Lot 94, by

Tomas approached La Mirage with the idea of presenting a critical, site specific work for POPPOSITIONS 2015, and La Mirage embarked on the project in the role of alternative ‘gallery,’ it being understood by its founders that this role was contingent and subject to different interpretations. It re-presented itself through Tomas’ project by creating a specifically targeted discursive field of critical engagement with POPPOSITIONS 2015 that was jointly created by Tomas and its founding members. La Mirage’s discursive field provided the conduit for Lot 94’s acceptance and presentation at

POPPOSITIONS 2015 © La Mirage/Philippe Hamelin

POPPOSITIONS 2015, according to the latter’s adopted theme, which for this year, was symbolized by Robert Filliou’s dictum ‘Whatever you think, think something else, whatever you do, do something else.’ In opposition to the political economy founded on criteria of productivity, the Fluxus artist and former economist Robert Filliou published his Principles of Poetic Economy in 1970, aiming at creating a new lifestyle (art de vivre). Starting from his position, POPPOSITIONS commits itself to valorise new experimental and ingenious economies amidst the prevailing art market.

Filliou’s dictum had been used to frame the following statement of intent: LET’S TURN ART FAIRS INTO ARTISTIC LABORATORIES While public authorities are ranking cultural production down in their priority list, the economic practice of the fair is being challenged. Can the art market be combined with cultural innovation? Conceived as an assembly of international galleries and hybrid art spaces, POPPOSITIONS is an experiment with the sale of contemporary art. Changing location within Brussels for each edition, POPPOSITIONS aims to occupy an independent, critical position during Art Brussels.

Thus POPPOSITIONS 2015 created and defined its ‘alternative’ discursive socio-economic and political field in an open, experimental, dialogical way within the parameters of its primary function of operating as a dynamically viable alternative to Art Brussels. The proposal to present Lot 94 at POPPOSITIONS 2015 was designed to probe the economic and political limits of the latter’s discursive

field. Its ‘terms of engagement’ were as follows : David Tomas’ Lot 94 is a precise intervention in the context of an experimental art fair that cultivates a deliberate ambiguity in relation to the question of the exhibition and its functions. The artist proposes to present this work in this experimental fair because of the questions that it raises about the sale of this kind of critically oriented conceptual art work and how this sale can resonate with POPPOSITIONS 2015’s theme. ‘REALTY POSITION’ is clearly a work that deals with the sociogeographical limits of what constitutes a property and its relationship to ownership and capital. These issues resonate with POPPOSITIONS’ choice of an old post office building, its present ambiguous status and its proposed use to host POPPOSITIONS. Matta-Clark’s work also highlights the unproductive residues of urban development and how these ‘useless spaces’ can be recycled into the art world as artworks (or as experimental art fairs in the case of POPPOSITIONS and a former post office building). Tomas’ Lot 94 deals with the same economic logic of recycling, but in this case from the world of auction sales and catalogues back into the art world in the form of meta-visual works that are no longer engaged with the nature and status of the primary or secondary artwork information and/or aesthetics, but, in contrast, explore the nature and status of the meta-economic ‘artwork’ as a product of a strategic tactic of ‘post-capitalist recycling.’ ... In keeping with the economic logic of the system it explores, both in terms of the socioeconomic function of the auction, the economic underpinning of Matta-Clark’s ‘REALTY POSITION,’ and the basic function of an art fair, Lot 94 is for sale in its different formats as an edition.

Because the primary medium for participation in POPPOSITIONS 2015 13

was an altermative gallery or project space, La Mirage was represented in its current form of ‘an independent project space located in a storage unit at 5445 de Gaspé in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,’ a discursive site that was identified by the number E6-03. The interface between POPPOSITIONS 2015’s discursive field and La Mirage’s was provided by a short paragraph in the application: La Mirage poses the fundamental questions of where and how to display visual projects in a meaningful way within a specific subculture (the art world). It envelops a spectator (or viewer) in a modest, yet unique, architectural experience that raises the question of where they are, how long they might stay, and where this particular exhibition site is situated in relation to the art world around it.

POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Room 10, La Mirage’s alloted space in POPPOSITIONS 2015, coincidentally duplicated E6- 03’s basic rectangular shape and its approximate size. This alignment concretized the interface between alternative art fair and project space, their discursive fields, and set the stage for the presentation of Lot 94 and the deployment of its propositions concerning the auction of radical works of art, the question of the relationship between property, ownership, and captial in the art world; the status and recyclability of ‘derelict’ or ‘unproductive’ urban spaces in the context of another, parallel, economic system of auction sales; and, finally, the political, economic and aesthetic functions of the ‘meta-economic ‘artwork’’ conceived according to a logic and strategy of ‘post-capitalist recycling.’ At certain moments, Philippe Hamelin,

Sophie Bélair Clément and David Tomas performed as if they might be in the position of a gallerist in order to mediate between the public and Lot 94 (a posture that might be interpreted, in hindsight, as resonating with Filliou’s dictum in the context of POPPOSITIONS 2015). Given the issues raised and addressed by POPPOSITIONS 2015, La Mirage’s adopted mandate, and the politics and economics of Lot 94, it is clear that the conjunction of interests, tactics and strategies (as the proposed answers to the different, yet resonant, sets of questions raised by each of the actors in POPPOSITIONS 2015 confirms) was radically different from those that operated in the case of Art Brussels. It is hard to imagine POPPOSITIONS 2015’s creative layering of issues, and the exploration of their implications through the choice of participants, in the case of Art Brussels, even though the basic frame of reference (an art fair) is the same in both cases. It is through an exploration of the distinctions between the two types of art fair and their viewpoints on the politics, economics, and commodity status of artworks, that one is confronted with a clear political choice between an economy and politics of ideas and an economy and politics of rare cultural goods. Moreover, it is in terms of this ability to choose and its roots in a politicized avant-garde history of art, that Filliou’s dictum, ‘Whatever you think, think something else, whatever you do, do something else’ makes perfect contemporary sense as a point of departure for the exploration of a variety

of socio-political possibilities and their different visual manifestations. David Tomas is an artist, anthropologist, and writer. His recent work explores the questions and tensions between modes of exhibition and non-conventional and post-institutional practices related to the economy of art, in particular contemporary art auctions. Tomas has also written on art and the university, intercultural contact spaces, photography, and new technologies and media arts.

Captain’s log, stardate WED MAY 27, 2015: WHY BAUHAUS IS WINNING THE WAR/ NOTES FROM ONE DAY ONTHE THE BATTLEFIELD/ 3 texts from the internet newsfeed and 1 email.

“The Implicit is Insufficient”: Simon Denny at PS1 Orit Gat, accessed Wednesday, May 27, 2015; Randian Online

by BURNRATE “Bringing these projects together should have resulted in the presentation of a coherent body of work, in which Denny turns his gaze to different facets of the technology industry and illuminates its stakes, modes of thinking, and aesthetics. Instead, we are presented with a lot of the same thing: a complacent series of installations, all of which regurgitate the language and look of different tech brands with no criticality. Denny is getting a lot of attention these days—he is also representing his native New Zealand in the Venice Biennial—because of the topicality of his work. A lot of artists are talking about technology and the culture around it, but few have dedicated their practice to it to the extent Denny has. And for good reason. The problem is that this subject is too urgent, too important, for work that relies on appropriation to highlight the idiosyncrasies of the tech industries rather than actually say something about it. Implicit criticism just isn’t enough.”1

Emails from BURNRATE to Chris Moore, Editor of Randian Online May 27, 2015 Its what we always said about Denny. It looks great, he’s a very skilled artist BUT that’s all the work is. Denny’s use of the dumb rhetoric of the tech arena and his employment of the commerce fair look hints but only hints at something critical. As I said its Hipster Art!.... Ha! The thing is any criticism will only work to the artist’s benefit. It will add to

1 http://www.randian-online.com/np_review/the-implicit-is-insufficient-simon-denny-at-ps1/

sales as it will be seen as confirming that Denny (or whoever) is “ important” as his work is debated...blah blah blah...such is the art world we have now. Denny will most probably be at Gagosian soon (or one of the Big galleries) and his work will be even more beyond criticism. It will just become “money” to be traded. Which is a success in most people’s terms.2

Collector Alain Servais On How Mega-Galleries Are Ruining Art Christie Chu, accessed Wednesday, May 27, 2015; Artnet

“Alain Servais draws a parallel between the luxury goods industry and art industry. For example, LVMH and Chanel have turned their luxury fashion houses into companies that can sell anything, like an $8,000 plastic handbag that that looks like Lego. Similarly, Gagosian can peddle whichever artist he desires and their work will inevitably be bought up, quickly and furiously. So when you see Gagosian putting on a Koons booth at Frieze in London two years ago with just three sculptures at $25 million each—and nothing else in the booth—it’s not for selling, it’s a brand building exercise. Same with Gavin Brown, when he did the Urs Fischer booth with the single cigarette pack dangling from a string at Art Basel Miami Beach [in 2006]. He didn’t care about selling anything at that fair—he was building his brand. Right now, we are going through a massive period of brand-building, and it’s perfect for those new buyers, because they might not know much about art, but they do know about one thing: brands. “I want to buy from Zwirner.” “I want to buy from White Cube.” “I want to buy whatever Gagosian will bring me.” What this does is that it allows the galleries to sell anything. A speciality of Hauser & Wirth, for instance, is to dig up an artist from the past who has been a little bit forgotten, write a nice catalogue on them, and move the prices from $10,000 to $100,000. Done! You have an unlimited supply for that stuff, and you don’t even have to pay for production because it’s already produced.

The problem of branding, expanding, and money coming in “from all over,” according to Servais, is that it leads artists to produce work that sells, since “that’s the only thing they can show in galleries.” He told Artspace, “I’m really worried, like many people are. There could be a 2 Emails from BURNRATE to Chris Moore, Editor of Randian Online May 27, 2015

lost generation.” With the Picasso shattering auction records this month, and art prices continuously soaring, perhaps the art market should be a little more worried.”3

Kenny Schachter On How Art Dealing Has Become Joyless, Boring, and Mean-Spirited Kenny Schachter, accessed Wednesday, May 27, 2015; Artnet

“The backstabbing and mean-spirited natter, usually intended to throw a wrench into another’s deal, can resemble the cruelest of schoolyard brawls. There was one in-and-outer (professional art flipper) who, in order to get his hands on a Christian Rosa when that necessitated finesse (which it doesn’t any longer), swore on his unborn child that it was for keeps. Surprise, surprise, the work was pawned off in the next Phillips day sale, making a hefty profit for the then newborn who became the world’s youngest speculator in the process. It didn’t end as well for the hapless dealer who sold the work, which so infuriated the artist when the newly painted painting landed in auction, that he had to pay Rosa a hefty penalty related to the high price the work fetched at auction to save face. Even more ludicrous was the father of the baby-dealer who himself got pissed off at yet another dealer who did the same thing with a Nate Lowman painting, landing him in hot water with Massimo de Carlo. Meow. Are you with me? I’m getting confused myself. Welcome to the transmogrified art world where such antics have become the norm. If cocaine or caviar cost $5.99 an ounce, I doubt people would clamor in quite the way they did and still seem to (in the UK anyway). The same might be said for Jonas Wood, whose paintings have leapfrogged to more than $600K in about six minutes. As the creed of greed more and more consumes the art market one dealer was thwarted when a collector, aka a spec-u-lector, refused to honor an invoice that had been agreed and paid for due to the marked market uptick which necessitated a threatening lawyer to free up the painting. ...When we requested a book on one of the artists from her Chelsea gallery they sent a catalogue and invoice for $50.00, which failed to take note of the sticker on the binding from the Strand bookstore for $2.50. That’s a markup to make a baby flipper blush. 3 https://news.artnet.com/in-brief/collector-alain-servais-mega-galleries-ruining-art-301821

...In order to fund my writing, teaching and amateur art making habits, I am part of a peculiar breed of dealer-to-dealer dealers and we are an idiosyncratic bunch at that. What that actually entails is the buying and selling of art to other likeminded traders thereby avoiding the time-consuming and hapless job of selling to end users, i.e., collectorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whatever that term has come to signify. I relate the capriciousness of some to a punter who walks into a supermarket, bargains down the price of a quart of milk, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pay for eight months then proceeds to return it because it went rancid. Or the market dropped or the couch changed. That should make me some more friends. ...Like my Israel Lund painting; does it look any different now that it has stumbled from a lofty value of $150K to nearly $15K in about... (no time at all)...â&#x20AC;?4.

BURNRATE May 27, 2015

Burnrate Survalliance Photo: Enemy Bauhaus Officer inspecting Bunker, 2015

4 https://news.artnet.com/market/kenny-schachter-art-dealing-greedy-301675

The Word Magazine’s throwaway camera in the hand of Foreseen Foreseen, one of the participants, received a disposable camera in the context of the throwaway project of the Word Magazine

“We ended our POPPOSITIONS residency feeling grown up and thrilled to move on with future projects and collaborations.” - Foreseen, Interview with Lisa Lapierre for the Word See full article here.

POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Lisa Lapierre for The Word magazine

Air Conditioning.

by Celine Mathieu

An off-fair is called “alternative” for being a modulation of an existing format. This text is the result of a collaboration with the world wide web, in specific Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It is a conglomerate, a ctrl alt del copy paste of found theory and own ideas. In that way the text can mirror both the format and the content of alternative art fairs. Questioning by appropriation and assimilation. Alt fair. You could say an alternative fair is like an island with an own climate. It is land surrounded by water, made from the same soil as the known vast land of the classical art scenery. It lays slightly cut off, drifting. Due to its distant position it allows a different reading of known formats of alined white cubes. It is a small, off piece of land, a place to take a break from the big known, to savour question marks by the waterline. Only from a ship at sea the height of the sun can be measured from the real horizon. The alt fair’s scenography resembles an exhibition, instead of creating lines of separate booths, rows of closed individual cells. It represents air, not bubbles. 24

A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. /

An off-fair is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area.

An islands’ climate is determined by ocean currents. The wind blows unexpected curves, surprised with such sudden presence of land. Being thus, weather forecasting is very difficult in the climate of small islands that are alt fairs. Pouring storms arise out of the blue, while only a few kilometers away the economical sun is nicely frying all it encounters. A microclimate can offer an opportunity as a small growing region for crops that cannot thrive in the broader area. Microclimates can be used to the advantage of gardeners-gallerists who carefully choose and position their plants-artists. As pointed out by Rudolf Geiger in his book [5] not only climate influences the living plant but the opposite effect of the interaction of plantart on their environments/fair can also take place. Darwin, but just as well art critics and curators of alt fairs observe(s) unusual life forms and their adaptations to the harsh environment. Often the microclimate of an alt fair is shaped by a conglomerate of different influences. The presence of permafrost close to the surface in a crater creates a unique microclimate environment. Having a stable, ultra classical, frozen, inflexible format to alternate from, can stimulate an off fair to flourish. Cities as well as “classical” art fairs, often raise the average temperature by zoning, sectioning it into booths, and a sheltered position can reduce the severity of winter — both for quality or monetary fluctuations. Roof gardening off-fairs however, exposes plants to more extreme temperatures in both summer and winter. Microclimates can also refer to purpose-made environments, such as those in a room or other enclosure. Microclimates are commonly created and carefully maintained in museum display and storage environments. “While a museum gallery’s roofs and windows may reduce levels of pollutants, inclement weather, and daylight, they may also create (…) over-illumination.” On how things seem bigger when you zoom in on them. Presenting air, not bubbles.

Sources: http://www.galapagosislands.com/galapagos-resources/galapagos-fast-facts.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microclimate http://www.conservationphysics.org/mm/shiner/shiner.pdf http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/darwin/beagle.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate http://chieforganizer.org/2012/10/30/just-the-facts-and-watching-ourbacks-on-wikipedia/wikipedia-logo/

Special thanks to:

Programme THURSDAY 23 APRIL

14:00 Panel talk: The future of ‘Artist’: challenges of transdisciplinarity and expanding field of art

11:00: Press conference

(Oval Room)

12:00 - 17:00: VIP preview

18:00: Karl Karner and Linda Samaraweerovà: Würfelen (Throwing the Dice) (Oval room)

17:00 - 22:00: Vernissage, in collaboration with B.A.D. (Brussels Artistic District)

SUNDAY 26 APRIL

19:00: Karl Karner and Linda Samaraweerovà:

12:00 - 20:00: Open to the public

Würfelen (Throwing the Dice) (Oval room) 14:00-16:00: KIDS activities 21:00: CM MC: SCIENTIA POTENTIA EST (Oval Room)

14:00 Panel talk: The future of art and culture: thinking about alternatives (Oval Room)

FRIDAY 24 APRIL 16:00: Panel talk: The future of collections/col12:00 - 20:00: Open to the public

lecting: shifts of private collecting into the public domain (Oval Room)

SATURDAY 25 APRIL MONDAY 27 APRIL 12:00 - 20:00: Open to the public 12:00 - 18:00: Open to the public 14:00-16:00: KIDS activities (KIDS room)

POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Participants

POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Panel Talks . by Marije Sennema en Pieter Vermeulen

With each edition, POPPOSITIONS attempts to occupy a critical position within the contemporary art scene. Besides scenography and programming, this position is also articulated in a discursive way through a yearly series of panel talks. The common denominator for 2015 was “the future of…”. In recent years, the general topic of ‘the future’ has been receiving an increasing amount of attention. The underlying motives of this utopian revival are undisputedly connected to the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Just like every crisis designates the end of an era, it equally calls for a new beginning. From different angles, there is a growing demand for new, alternative models of thinking and living. Alternative socio-economic, political and technological scenarios are already being laid out that are supposed to provide a way out of the current status quo. After all, what kind of future is it that we want?

The future of the ‘artist’: challenges of transdisciplinarity and the expanding field of art Saturday 25 April at 14:00 Participants: Matteo Lucchetti (freelance curator, curator Visible) Tobias Sternberg (artist) Daniel Blanga-Gubbay (researcher, founder Aleppo) Moderator: Denis Maksimov (theorist, curator and artist) Artists increasingly take over the status 30

of different specialists: the artist as anthropologist, artist as scientist, artist as philosopher, etc. Due to the stronger liberalisation and flexibilisation of our current economy, the role of the artist seems to be turning into a flexible, selfmotivated and innovative individual. The artist becomes a ‘transdisciplinary agent’ and a ‘cross-sectoral diplomat’. The increase of artist collectives is another interesting trend that illustrates transformation of the artist’s role and function in the society. How is this change affecting their work and how can they develop their practice under these circumstances?

And how is this influencing our notion of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;? What are the effects of coproductions between different fields in the realisation of artworks, artists infiltrating other fields, cross-disciplinarity and knowledge exchange? Which new discourses or art forms have been created because of this shift and how could the outcome function as a way to reinvent and rethink the present day to change tomorrow?

The future of collections/collecting: shifts of private collecting into the public domain Sunday 26 April at 16:00 Participants: Simon Delobel (gallerist Trampoline gallery) Thomas Bakker (Club Solo) Alain Servais (collector) Moderator: Rianne Groen (gallerist)

The future of art and culture: thinking about alternatives Sunday 26 April at 14:00 Participants: Sophie Lapalu (art critic, curator and researcher) Laetitia Jeurissen (artist) Gabriel Gonzalez-Acosta (artist) Holly Crawford (director AC Institute) Teena Lange (curator) Moderator: Nicolas Galeazzi (programme coordinator a.pass Brussels) In a time where the debate about the value of art and culture is mainly determined by economic data, a new discourse about the place and value of art and culture in society is needed. How can art create space to reflect on alternative societal models next to reality? What is left of the inheritance of Filliouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art de vivre that was defended in 1970? Can artistic imagination be conceived as a motor for social change, and if so, can we think of any successful recent examples?

We will focus on the future of collections, private and public and the future of art institutions (in particular museums) that need to preserve their collections in a time where the physical object is increasingly being replaced by documents and information. How do institutions deal with this change of materiality regarding their collections? What are the consequences of globalisation on decisions taken with regard to collection policy and preservation? In addition to that, we will have a closer look at the expanding role of the private collector as a creator of residencies for artists, participant in the production of new artworks, opening foundations or museums, inviting curators to select works from their collection, etc. What are the consequences of this shift into the art market and mechanisms of the contemporary art world? The panel talks were developed by Marije Sennema, curator and Pieter Vermeulen, co-founder and curator.

Abel Nicosdriou Project Abel Nicosdriou Project is a curatorial platform aiming to promote current artistic ideas. The project focuses on young artists whose works interrogate the art history legacy, with a close attention to the questions of daily life, production, reproduction and display with a certain sense of humour and absurdity. Without permanent exhibition space, the projects are site-specific and respond to the invitation of existing venues. http://www.abelnicosdriou-project.com/

Nøne Futbol Club, an artist duo, created in 2009, uses the artistic field as a playground through simple, powerful and exhilarating acts. With its name reminding of a branded logo or a corporate trademark, it gets its hand on our today’s society media system so as to better return their meaning, using humor, seduction and joyful provocation. Aware of the artworld rules, it copies the method of production and dissemination of the contemporary fashionable artworks, in a playful, subversive and sometimes cynical position.

2 1 4 None Futbol Club - Get A Booby Job - POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

A|B|C ontemporary A|B|C ontemporary was founded in 2011 by Armin Berger with the goal of promoting artists who, like us, are interested in the mechanisms and systems of the contemporary world. The artists that we work with comment on contemporary societal and cultural issues and are keen observers of their environment. Through our programming, we want to demonstrate artistic relevance within a critical context. We intend to create partnerships with international galleries, artists, museums and collectors, and establish a meeting point in Zurich for a diversity of positions from various parts of the world. www.abcontemporary.com

Karl Karner studied sculpture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Art in Heimo Zobernig’s class. Linda Samaraweerová graduated from the Brussels dance and performance school PARTS under Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. Since 2005 they have been working together in an interdisciplinary, inter-genre way between visual and performing arts, developing sculptures, installations and performances.

2 Karl Karner, Who is the Boy from the Wood , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 3 1 Karl Karner, Lozu , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

AC Institute AC Institute is an incubator and a lab. AC provides space for experiment, as well as uses other spaces. A white limousine was used for conversation, sound and performance which were done in conjunction with Armory Art Fair and Melbourne International Arts Festival. Exhibitions of installations and videos are curated through an open call. Hundreds of artists from many parts of the world have been exhibited. AC Books, a recent addition, publishes edited and single author books on contemporary art and culture. Books are distributed internationally by RAM and IDEA. AC was founded and is directed by Holly Crawford, Ph.D. www.acinstitute.org

Jonathon Keats is an experimental philosopher and artist, who has sold extra dimensional real estate (based on String Theory), attempted to genetically engineer God and copyrighted his own mind. These experiments raise serious questions about a culture that continues to foreclose knowledge and expertise into narrowly defined areas. Crawford is a cultural critic, conceptual artist who gives new meaning to objects and concepts. Crawford ignores boundaries which drawing categories themselves into question through transformative juxtapositions.

2 14 Red Dot - John Keats, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Atelierhof Kreuzberg Atelierhof Kreuzberg is an artist run studio and exhibition space in Berlin. The gallery showcases international contemporary art. Atelierhof Kreuzberg is open to proposals from groups and individuals. At Poppositions, Atelierhof Kreuzberg presents a common work by Andreas Helfer, Nina Lassila and Robert Quint. www.atelierhof-kreuzberg.com

Nina Lassila is a visual artist born 1974 in Helsinki, Finland currently living and working in Gothenburg SE, Berlin and Belgium. Nina Lassila works mainly with video and performance. In many of her works she deals with questions of identity – specifically identity affected by social barriers, conventions based on gender and cultural differences. Her other works explore issues of supernatural phenomena, art and economic structures. She has taken part in several group shows and video festivals internationally. www.ninalassila.com Robert Quint was born 1973 in Stuttgart DE and completed his master’s degree in painting at ENSLAV La Cambre, Brussels. In 2010-11 he was selected for a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Quint exhibits his work actively both in Belgium and internationally. He started off as a painter, but has throughout the years evolved into a multidisciplinary artist, using the benefits of all expressions possible. In his work, Robert Quint creates a mixture of poetry, humor and critical reflection. www.robertquint.com

Andreas Helfer, born 1964 in Erbach/ Odwis Germany. Andreas Helfer is a painter and sculptor. He also runs Atelierhof Kreuzberg and Neue Kunsthalle Schöneberg in Berlin. He lives and works in Berlin. www.andreas-helfer.blogspot.be/p/ vita.html

2 14 Andreas Helfer, Nina Lassila, Robert Quint - So what’s your real job, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Another Space Another Space is a not for profit project space for art and architecture based in Copenhagen and Oslo. It was established in 2012 in Copenhagen by curator Marte Danielsen JĂ¸lbo and architect Nicola Louise Markhus, and is today organised as a nomadic curatorial collaboration. Through independent projects, collaborations and an upcoming online exhibition space, Another Space wishes to instigate immersions and critical approaches to the cross-disciplinary field and its potentials through presenting and discussing current tendencies within art, architecture and society. The curatorial approach is further based on concerns for spatiality, materiality and craftsmanship. http://anotherspace.dk/

Luca Vanello (1986) is an Italian artist based in Berlin, where he was educated from the Berlin University of Arts in 2013. He has an interest in the socially excluded and the unseen, and in his work he transforms specifically selected materials that are linked to largescale contemporary situations seen through the singular and intimate. Through sculpture, images, sitespecific work and subtle actions he seeks formal and poetic articulations of these aspects of the human condition.

2 1 4 Luca Vanello, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Aztlan Aztlan is a space and platform for dialogues, exchanges, interventions, productions and situations relating to art and its broader consequences or potentialities. It is a series of components or systems made up of people, names, concepts, works, conferences, and protests. It aims to foster a transdisciplinary approach in order to question and to formulate a critical discourse around pressing contemporary issues such as notions of social movements and resistance, subjectivity, aesthetification of politics and vice versa, the role of creativity in the face of productivity, labour and leisure, etc. Its existence is both virtual and actual, with a physical location to begin operation in Mexico City in Spring 2016. http://www.aztlanspace.com/

Gabriel Gonzalez Acosta (b.1989) is an artist and current student in the MA Painting programme at the Royal College of Art, London. His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, literature, activism, and anthropology. Works to date include paintings, poetry, conferences, and the reconfiguration of events, dealing with notions of authorship, collaboration, resistance, and open temporalities. Recently he cofounded Aztlan, a transdisciplinary research platform, alongside Laetitia Jeurissen, Maxim Dossin, Fernanda Barreto and Chantal Garduno Israde. He lives and works between London and Mexico City.

Laetitia Jeurissen is a Belgian born artist currently living and working between London, Belgium and Mexico. Her practice deals with the construction of identities through the investigation of communities, rituals, media representations and memory.

2 1An Arik Kit Puncture, Anarchy Tortutre, An Arctic Lecture, AN Orchid Texture, An Art Collector - POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Burn Rate Burn Rate Commercial Space is an design/art crossover project in Berlin specialising in 80s design and Pop objects aswell as current art works. We like all things 80s especially Memphis Design Group and sub Memphis ...and even sub sub sub Memphis. We even like USA Miami Vice 80s ‘pastel’ postmodernism. We believe the meaning of existence is written on the world’s surfaces. We also recommend our ‘sister’ store Bauhaus Hardware for the sheer visuality of their product displays. Watch out contemporary art, Bauhaus is winning the war! http://www.burnrate-berlin.com

Scott Redford was born in 1962 and was an 80s postmodern artist in Australia. Redford comes from the Australian seaside resort town of Surfers Paradise. His attitude to contemporary art is one of a tourist. When he was 5 years old Redford met Mickey and Minnie Mouse who arrived in Surfers Paradise by helicopter. Glenn Geffken (Manila Kane) was born in 1982 in Marianna Trench during a Godzilla Attack. Geffken/ Kane was named after a minor character in the film The Breakfast Club. He loves pomo, 80s and bamboo furniture... For Real.

2 1 BURNRATE - Depletion of the source, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Caustic Coastal Caustic Coastal is an Art Label based in Manchester supporting emerging artists. Through a variety of exhibitions, newly commissioned works, digital projects and a commercial platform, we provide a structure for artistic sustainability and continual experimentation. http://www.causticcoastal.biz

Leslie Kulesh (b.1982 Lake Forest, IL USA) produces performance and sculpture across multiple platforms, seeking to reveal the role of technology as a material labour that intersects with human-being as well as land-being, becoming a symptom of contemporary culture production.

2 1Leslie Kulesh - HANGZONE: Warrior Pride, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Club Solo Club Solo is an artist-run space from Breda (NL) that mainly focuses on organizing solo exhibitions for midcareer artists. Curators of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (BE) respond to the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work by adding a specific contribution from their collection to the exhibition. Side program Club Solo offers a varied program between the solo shows, consisting of lectures, concerts and film screenings related to the visual arts. Besides the concept of solo shows and side activities, Club Solo accommodates its space for artistic interventions such as short-term exhibitions, presentations to related initiatives under the name Hotel Solo. http://www.clubsolo.nl/

Jasper van Aarle Club Solo invited Jasper van Aarle (Oisterwijk, 1980) to create a solo presentation. M HKA responded with a work by Liang Yue (Shanghai, 1979).The installation by Dutch artist Jasper van Aarle comprises sculptures, drawings and photographs. It shows Van Aarle’s perception on germination, growth, course and decay. The Videowork by Liang Yue “Will the weather be fine tomorrow” (2002) comprises three videos showing the daily life of a girl in her studio, staring out of the window, brushing her hair, washing her feet. At the same time we see visions of her thoughts, visualised by fields of flowers and images of streetviews.

2 Yue Liang ,Will the weather be fine tomorrow. 1Space Bar, JasperVanAarle 4 Drawings + Tree portraits, JasperVanAarle

DASH DASH is a non-profit space for contemporary art in Kortrijk. Under the wings of the Academie Kortrijk we want to translate learning and research methods into a fresh and associative curatorial model. DASHâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s program includes exhibitions, workshops, lectures, screenings and other events. Some projects will last only a few hours, while others will stay for many weeks. Hereby all generated interpretations will stay liquid, renewed and constantly questioned. Because we strongly believe that art is part of the learning process and is a starting point for knowledge. DASH challenges artists and spectators with projects that demand dedication, participation and imagination. http://www.dashgallery.be

Joachim Coucke was born in 1983 in Kortrijk, Belgium. In 2012 Coucke became a Laureate from the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent. He participated in several exhibition in Bel- gium and abroad. Coucke works with a diverse range of mediums such as prints, assemblages and installations in which he questions our fastly changing society under the influence of technology and social media. Federico Acal is a visual artist with a strong interest in video, architecture and design. He obtained MA in Artistic Production and Research at University of Barcelona, Spain, 2011 and he was an artist resident at Hoger Instituut Voor Schone Kunsten (HISK) in Ghent, Belgium. After graduating from the HISK in 2013, he contributed to several international group shows with video and installation work that dissects underlying structures and narratives of society.

2 Federico Acal - Installation, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 2 Federico Acal - Hoboken, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 Joachim Coucke - Oh!I See the sea of information, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Eightfold Eightfold is a hybrid experiment in the art world and acts as a platform for art and music and as a label for artists and producers. In cooperation with international talent Eightfold constructs online exhibitions, presentations at art fairs and incidental physical showcases. All activities aim to create crossovers that provide new meaning to art. The interaction between the thinking and the making plays a central part within this objective. At Poppositions, Eightfold will be presenting â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Lucid Waysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, an alliteration and installation that acts as a narrative as well as an aesthetic atmosphere. http://www.eightfold.net/

Steye Felix (1990, NL) uses abstract works as a subtle interface between conventional concepts, the use of material and artistic discourse. While his paintings are full bodied, rarely transparent and made with deliberate layered brushstrokes, his mixed media installations are transparent, airy and light. Beyond any kind of harmony, Steye Felix makes his work playful and askew. In his most recent project, references can be found to kitschy interiors decorated with fake Swarovski signs and chandeliers.

Astrid Mingels & Steye Felix, ‘Lucid Ways’ (Duo exhibition), POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Foreseen Foreseen is a project based in Brussels, bringing together several people united by the same desire to think about the production and promotion of artists in a conscious and collective manner. Foreseen offers a favorable time & space to young artists and a dialogue outside the academic setting. Foreseenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curatorial activity is organized around three areas where artists, professionals and the public are engaged in participation and exchange. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a residential project for group exhibitions and parties. The aim is to project into the future the work of practitioners through the efforts and a dialogue established with the various participants. Foreseen emphasizes honest practices, presence,and proximity with all actors to build a real exchange on an equal footing. http://foreseenproject.tumblr.com/

Foreseen is an artistic entity built on different artistic backgrounds. It is made out of ceramic, photography, video, typographic design, graphic research and performative talks. Each participant of Foreseen is a part of this entity. Foreseen is the artist we want it to become.

24 Tanguy Pujol - Video Still 3 ITW THE WORD` 1 Yum Yum bowls

Francis FRANCIS is an artist-led initiative that was founded for the participation of the POPPOSITIONS Art Fair. It’s aim is to develop a holistic utopian benchmark for speculating the position of Francis, a young meta-artist, who they have selected to represent and whose name also inspired the title of the project. Francis’ practice incorporates varied and variable processes, methods of production and visual outcomes. FRANCIS’ contributors consist of 10 international artists; Rens Cools, Tiago Duarte, Eleanor Duffin, Adrijana Gvozdenovic, Koyuki Kazahaya, Garry Loughlin, William Ludwig, Denis Maksimov, Vijai Patchineelam, Julie van der Vaart, who collaborate in the administrative running of this project. http://francis-artist.tumblr.com/

2 3 Francis is young emerging artist, sometimes just one year too old for most funding/residency/research applications. Francis often speculates her success and currently thinks she is doing alright. He is working hard to achieve new opportunities whilst remaining dynamic, nomadic and true to his self respect. Francis is not financially stable but has sold some work recently and in the past has gotten some small research grants. She subsidises her practice through a number of crappy casual jobs that causes him to constantly feel fatigued and overstretched, but which inspires and makes her practice elastic.

3 Francis Trinity 214 POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

FORMATOCOMODO Under Pilar and Mayte Castellano´s direction, FORMATOCOMODO opened its doors on 29th April 2009. Focusing on international mid-career and emerging artists, the contemporary art gallery has become a national reference for talent discoveries. A humble and unconventional space where risky and young artists are welcomed to show their work. FORMATOCOMODO has helped to build important private and public collections all over the world: Museo Patio Herreriano, Banco de España Collection, Jumex Collection, Coca Cola Foundation, Museo CA2rM, CIRCA Collection, The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Fundación Centenera Jaraba, Barcilay Collection, Adam Clayton Collection, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art. http://www.formatocomodo.com

Hisae Ikenaga (México DF 1977) Half Mexican and half Japanese, Hisae Ikenaga currently lives and works in Madrid. Her work is composed of objective pieces that sublimate the possibility of error and failure. She explores the possible physical anomalies developed in mass produced objects and industrial materials. Her pieces are part from collections like Museo Patio Herreriano, Obra Social Caja Madrid, Azcapotzalco Delegation Collection, Casa Serra Collection or Jumex Collection. Miquel Mont (Barcelona 1963) Miquel Mont was born in Barcelona but has been living and working in Paris for more than two decades. His works are focused on the analytic side of painting. He plays with their ambiguous ideological and material burdens. His works are part of some private and public collections like La Caixa, Banco de España, Fundación Barrier, Fundación Suñol, Foundation Belgacom, FMAC Paris, La Panera or FRAC Alsace.

Guillermo Mora. (Spain 1980). He lives and works in Madrid. He has studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Universidad Europea de Madrid. He has been awarded the Audemars Piguet prize in 2014. As a personal landscape, he produces pieces made out of traditional painting materials that question the process of painting in constant transformation. His works are part of some collections like Margulies Collection, Elgiz Museum Istanbul, Caja Madrid Foundation.

1 Miquel Mont, Lapsus V Year © FORMATOCOMODO 2 Hisae Ikenaga, Verde Escolar, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Guillermo Mora , Mis pies tu cabeza, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Galerie Galerie is an immaterial art gallery dealing exclusively with immaterial artworks. Galerie represents artistic practices that mainly manifest through performative formats. The mission of Galerie is to support and promote immaterial objecthood: works that exist but that are not capturable in a material object. In collaboration with the artists, economical formats are tailored to each artwork, offering unique opportunities for the artwork to extend and disseminate on its own terms. As an immaterial gallery, Galerie does not have a location, it occurs in existing contexts and venues, such as art fairs, festivals, galleries, and institutions. http://www.galerie.international/

Krõõt Juurak (b. 1981, Tallinn) is a choreographer and performer whose work, whi ch comprises of performances, presentations, texts, workshops, mood shifts; challenges fixed definitions of choreography and performance. She has presented her work at venues including Ellen de Bruijne Projects (Amsterdam), 55th Venice Biennale “oO” Pavillion, Mindaugas Triennial, Contemporary Art Center (Vilnius), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), de Appel Art Centre (Amsterdam), Super deLuxe (Tokyo), Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (Innsbruck), Kunsthalle Wien project space (Vienna), EKKM (Tallinn), deSingel, (Antwerp). Alex Bailey (b. 1999, Birmingham) started his career playing for Aston Villa Football Club. He Trained as a carpenter, before moving into heavy industry and the brewery profession. During a prolonged period of illness he became interested in the arts. Recent exhibitions include Fusiform, Lisson Gallery Londin (2013), There’s only two Alex Bailey’s, Kunstverein, Amsterdam (2014), Is There Any Dinner?, 1 Dark Lane, Bristol (2015), Make It Last Forever, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2016).

Mårten Spångberg is a choreographer living and working in Stockholm. His interests concern choreography in an expanded field, something that he has approached through experimental practices and creative process in multiplicity of formats and expressions. Active since 1994 he creates his own choreographies, performs and teaches. He has created “International Festival” with Tor Lindstrand, initiated the network organisation INPEX, curated and organised international festivals, directed an MA in choreography and published his first book Spangbergianism. Audrey Cottin’s artistic practice is at once between, through, and beyond disciplines. Each project is a singular collaboration with artists, technicians, neighbours, theorists, scientists... Cottin currently participates in A.pass programme and is represented by Galerie Tatjana Pieters. O.perating T.heatre has been performed since 2013 at Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul; Pompidou, Paris; S.M.A.K., Ghent; CCBrugge & Bombardier Factory, Brugge; Prix d’entreprise Fondation Paul Ricard 2014, Paris and Lokaal01, Antwerpen.

Valentina Desideri was best defined by a friend who called her a 20 year old on tour. Lately she has also been called a psychic, which makes of her a psychic 20 year old on tour. She trained contemporary dance at the Laban Centre-‐London and did a M.F.A at the Sandberg Institute-‐ Amsterdam. Valentina does Fake Therapy and Political Therapy, co-‐organises Performing Arts Forum and writes biographies by reading people’s palms.

Jan Ritsema (b. 1945, Netherlands) has directed for a wide variety of Dutch, and Belgian theatre companies performances from established repertory, staged stories to performances. He founded the International Theatre Bookshop, was professor at the Rijksacademie-‐Amsterdam and is teaching at P.A.R.T.S.. Since 1995, he has been working as a dancer, with Xavier Le Roy, Jerome Bel, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart a.o. In 2006 Ritsema started Performing Arts Forum (PAF).

2Bad mood on display - POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Galerie Rianne Groen Galerie Rianne Groen is a gallery for contemporary art. The main goal of the gallery is to make interesting exhibitions with early career artists. The gallery looks for ways to create visibility for young artists by showing their works in exhibitions in its space, organising projects on location and art fairs. While often operating very similarly to a non-profit project space, the gallery strongly believes in the representation of artists and in building long-term relationships. www.riannegroen.com

2 1 Tim Hollander Using floor plans, displays, plinths, texts on walls or other objects with a clear and specific function within the exhibition, Tim Hollander (1987) investigates the infrastructures behind the artwork, and the visual language of displaying it. Seemingly functional objects are often isolated, stripped from their original logic or function. Hollander seeks for a balance between recognition, (biting) humour, (self-)reflection and serious matter. The work reflects on the presentation, representation and facilitation of art and exhibitions.

2 4 Tim Hollander - Vocabulary I & II (1-162), POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis 1 Tim Hollander - 50 things one might encounter during an exhibition

Galerie OMS Pradhan Galerie OMS Pradhan was founded by Olaf Pradhan and Sofie Verbrugghen in Brussels. Rather than following a certain artistic approach or a school, the focus is on artistic and technical quality of the works. This also includes their conceptual framework. The gallery pursues an interdisciplinary approach and although one of the tasks of a gallerist is to monitor current trends and developments in contemporary art. It is the philosophy of the gallery to analyse those developments in a wider historical context. Strong artistic expression should be able to withhold critical analysis and prove itself through the changes of time. omspradhan.com

Johan Gelper: Johan Gelpers works are dynamic, swirling compositions of everyday objects that are assembled into well balanced and humoristic ensembles. He finds his inspiration in unusual places and the objects he uses often carry an anecdotical signification to him, which then leads him to elevate them out of their ordinary meaning into something extraordinary. The finely balanced pieces make one think of sculptures from the Bauhaus or Russian Constructivists, albeit with an ironic spin.

Ode de Kort: The works of Ode de Kort move along the intersecting lines of sculpture, movement and photography. At the basis of her images you find a rationally motivated constructivism, with wooden panels, cubic bodies, stones, sticks and other materials. Her works display a subtle understanding for form, composition, as well as colour. They are well composed researches into sculpture, aiming to create an exchange with the space by using uncharacteristic forms of display for her photographs

2 Ode de Kort , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1Johan Gelper - Stilled, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Johan Gelper - Equilibre, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

General Store General Store Based in Sydney, Australia, General Store is a team of two, an artist and a curator that showcase elegant 21st century art, objects and ideas. www.the-generalstore.net

Tully Arnot, recently awarded the Marten Bequest Scholarship for excellence in Sculpture, graduated with Masters in Fine Art (1st Class) at College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 2014. That same year, the artist was awarded the prestigious NAB Private Wealth Acquisition Art Prize. Selected exhibitions include Electromuseum, Moscow, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, Australian National University, Canberra and the Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin curated by Gregor Schneider.

2 Tully Arnot - Nervous plants 1 Tully Arnot - Lonely Sculpture, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis 4 Tully Arnot - Bottle Song, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Gr端ntaler9 Since 2011 gr端ntaler9 is a space in constant transformation, a space dedicated to live performances and time-based art, a space towards the performative. It is not a Gallery, a White Cube or a Black Box. Every performance leaves visible and invisible traces that remain for the next performance to come and take over and let go again. Artists and curators investigate diverse theories and practices towards the performative in durational forms of live performances, performative installations, public interventions, supperclubs, discourses, publications, workshops and screenings. Introduction of each artist represented at POPPOSITIONS www.gruentaler9.com

Dolanbayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performative installations & performative paintings generate alienated situations, a liminal condition as consequence of suspended generality that allows actual exploration in time & space. Within that presence, Dolanbay continues acts of examining the dichotomy of Performativity & Constativity, Actuality & Potentiality, Act & Acting relational to art disourses and the common of everyday life. Dolanbay grew up in Istanbul, graduated in London and is based in Berlin. www.dolanbay.com

2 Dolanbay - Mixed Media on M.M. Paper, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis 1 Dolanbay - Mixed Media on M.M. Paper,

InBetween InBetween is a project space for young artists and social questions in Brussels, run by cultural producer Tom Viaene. It highlights multidisciplinary and participative work, but mainly defends an openness to any kind of art that reflects on our societal and natural conditions. ‘Inbetween’ refers to the kind of art space it wants to be(come), the publics and actors it hopes to involve, and the way it stimulates a re-imagination of (artistic) work and (human) activity. InBetween awakens through project-based interventions a public voice – it brings to life a platform where differing artistic and social players gather and deal with pressing social matters. As an art space, it envisions an inbetween between art and society as a whole, keeping track of the many ways the ‘wall’ between them has historically evolved. www.inbetweenartspace.wordpress.com

Paulo Alves is an artistresearcher, holding a PhD in poverty economics. Through his recent installations and performances he attempts to prove the possibility of an ethicsempowered aesthetics. His artistic practice more specifically explores the implications of Levinasian ethics for art making. Materials with little value of exchange but high value of use are employed, especially paper and other film-like materials, in 3D or dematerialised. His artwork is subject to being quoted if duly referenced.

Charlotte Bouckaert (1983) is a Brussels based visual artist who creates images, videos, installations and performances. She uses the medium of photography to raise questions about the limits of art production, issues of framing, and the nature of time.

Juan Pablo Plazas (Bogota, 1987) lives and works in Brussels, where he recently graduated as a master at Luca School of Arts. He develops installations and sculptures, characterized by re-interpretations and combinations of existing objects that lead to new narratives. He has a special interest in the way various arrangements of objects transform into a lingual construct. By integrating the architecture or surrounding objects he stretches the identity of the art work.

2 1 Paulo Alves, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Krupic kersting II kuk Opened in 2008, krupic kersting / kuk represents international sculptural positions (e.g. Tracey Snelling, USA and Baptiste Debombourg, France) that focus on engaged topics. The exhibitions are scheduled in bi-monthly cycles, alongside participation in interdisciplinary projects. Since 2011 kuk co-organized ‘Brussels Cologne Contemporaries’, an internationally recognized exhibition project featuring influential young galleries from both cities. In 2014 the gallery was host of ‘Curated by Leiko Ikemura’. In 2010 kuk coordinated along with the Videonale committee – ‘VIDEONALE12 on tour’ to Sarajevo. Major parts of the original show from ‘Kunstmuseum Bonn’ – including architecture – were on display in Bosnia’s ‘National Gallery’. http://www.kukgalerie.de/

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Tobias Sternberg is a multidisciplinary sculptor, extending his practice to installation, video, collage and performance. To all these mediums he brings the sculptor’s understanding of skilful craft and material presence. His work is infused with a dark humour and a flair for story-telling, and often in a playful way challenges the rules of the art world itself. Tobias was born in Stockholm, studied at Goldsmith’s College in London, and now lives and works in Berlin.

2 4Tobias Sternberg - Tools (hammer, axes) and wooden figurines, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 3 Art Repair Shop, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Tobias Sternberg, Around Christmas time, gangs of homeless Gnomes swarm the beaches, sucking the brains out of unsuspecting sunbathers. POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

La Mirage When is the right moment to exhibit? And at the opposite end of the spectrum, can an exhibition be frivolous, happen at the wrong time and present something which is difficult to ascertain for a given audience? Can display take too much or not enough space? Finally, how could exhibitions, rather than follow each other therefore cancel each other, be linked by a sequence which would foreground other temporalities and economies? LA MIRAGE - located at 5445 de Gaspé (E6-03), Montréal, Québec, Canada - is initiated and run by Sophie Bélair Clément and Philippe Hamelin with Vincent Bonin. www.lamirage.club

David Tomas is an artist, anthropologist, and writer. His recent work explores the questions and tensions between modes of exhibition and non-conventional and post-institutional practices related to the economy of art, in particular contemporary art auctions. Tomas has also written on art and the university, intercultural contact spaces, photography, and new technologies and media arts.

2 David Tomas, Lot 94, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis 1 David Tomas, Lot 94, ÂŠ La Mirage

L’Étage d’Euphrosine L’Étage d’Euphrosine is a brand new art gallery that showcases international talents with a Belgian link. The gallery is situated in a Belle Epoque House in Ostend, hometown of Léon Spilliaert and James Ensor. www.letagedeuphrosine.com

Magda Amarioarei (1988, Romania, lives and works in Brussels) graduated with a Master in Fine Arts from the Ecole Supérieure des Arts in Liège in 2011 and also gained a Master in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University College Ghent (KASK) in 2013. She won the Pauline Jamar prize in 2010 and was finalist of the Georges Collignon Prize in 2013. Magda’s work was showcased during the Coming People exhibition at SMAK Ghent last summer and she had a one-person show in l’Étage d’Euphrosine in November 2014.

Elise Berkvens was born in Schijndel (1982, The Netherlands) and graduated from PHL Hasselt in 2009. She did her HISK residency in 2010-2011 . Elise had several soloshows in The Netherlands and Belgium and was nominated for the Art’Contest ‘14 prize. For the moment she works and lives in Hasselt (Belgium) and will have a one-person show at l’Étage d’Euphrosine in May 2015.

2 Magda Amarioarei - Cold Rapport’s Lake 1 Magda Amarioarei - The Lintel – Variable Elevations 4 Elise Berkvens - Hortus Conclusus

Millington | Marriott Millington | Marriott is a curatorial collaboration based in Southeast London formed in 2011. Millington | Marriottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach curating is a practical, tangible manner of making and doing with their background rooted in fine art practice. Operating from their project space MilMa, set up in 2014, the duo currently present four instalments into a six show series entitled Elements that experiments and playfully works with exhibition formulations. Millington | Marriott continue to work on international projects and a series of publications alongside their formal programme as well as guest lecturing at Camberwell College of Art, London. millingtonmarriott.com

Daniel Powell is an artist, designer and developer based in London. He studied at Camberwell College of Arts, London and WDKA Rotterdam, and has exhibited in multiple cities across Europe. Powellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work combines and shifts through his varying roles as artist, designer and developer. He creates work to be shown online, offline and in the spaces between. Paul Schneider is an artist wedged between the digital and the analogue. A child of photocopiers, fax machines, teletext and then a teenager of the Internet, Playstations and mobile phones. Through the use of known graphics and signifiers, Schneider creates Tron like works where the virtual and graphic collide with our physical world

2 1 Dan Powell, Paul Schneider, TBC Courtesy Millington | Marriott, London Photo: Lucie Mach, Studio Ă&#x2021;A VA

NoPlace NoPlace is run on a conservative, socialist and anarchistic mandate. Conservative graphic aesthetics, socialist in that everyone is heard and anarchistic to the extent that everything is permitted within the limits created. The framework is a room and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it. One can say that the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s function is to be a place of neutrality. By this we mean not an artistic or political neutrality, because the artists we exhibit have strong positions, but because by putting totally different projects up against each other (though never in conflict) we are able to create a chronology in which variations constitute a harmony. http://www.noplace.no

Anja Carr artist and director of PINK CUBE (Oslo) has exhibited in Amsterdam, Berlin, London and Paris among other places. With handmade costumes transforming children cartoons like My Little Pony and Ninja Turtles, she investigates the vulnerable distinctions between genders and child and adult spheres. The photoseries “Moments” documents performances conducted in intimate scenographic set-ups with load colors. They follow a dreamlike logic, with no set limits between time and space or bodies and objects.

2 Anja Carr - Boys Don’t Cry Ducks Don’t Fly , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 14 Anja Carr - Moments (Act 5, Act 3, Act 7, Act 6) © NoPlace

Nowak & Mayhew Nowak & Mayhew is a collaboration between Aurelia Nowak and Alexander Mayhew. They met as participants of de Appel arts centre’s international Gallerist Programme in 2013-2014. Both started out as art critics and curators, but recently opened their own galleries, respectively in Germany and in The Netherlands. Nowak founded Pony Project in Berlin. Mayhew founded Dürst Britt & Mayhew in The Hague. Nowak & Mayhew is a hybrid nomadic scenario, in which the presented artists do not necessarily have to be a part of either gallery’s roster, as long as they share an artistic affinity. www.durstbrittmayhew.com www.pony-project.com

Alexandre Lavet (1988, France) is an artist living and working in Brussels, who graduated from the École Supérieure d’Art in ClermontFerrand (France). His work plays with the idea of emptiness, disappearance and erasure. Under the apparent homogeneity of an exhibition space lie the details that mark the uniqueness and specificity of the place. It is these elements that Lavet wants to bring to light, thereby making the viewer more aware of the environment surrounding him. Macarena Ruiz-Tagle (1981, Chile) is an artist living and working in Berlin. After her studies in Chile and Canada, she was a student of Olafur Eliasson at his Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin. Fascinated by light as a material presence, a primordial element revealing the surfaces and dimensions of a space, Macarena Ruiz-Tagle’s work departs from the interest in the possibilities of the human eye, our physiological reactions to light and optical phenomena.

2 1 Alexandre Lavet, Vides, 2011 -2015 (selections) POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Macarena Ruiz-Tagle, Atmosphere Serie (number 1-6), POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Overtoon Overtoon produces sound art or media and installation art in which sound is a key element. As a production platform it provides, in the form of long-term residencies, to various artists the opportunity to develop art works involving the sound medium. The works produced are presented and distributed in Belgium and abroad. The research platform looks for partnerships with research institutions and organizes lectures, debates and workshops with experts in the fields of acoustics, audio culture and sound art. www.overtoon.org

Christoph De Boeck creates visual installation work in which sound resides as an articulation of energy. Transducer elements are applied to resonating surfaces and sound sources are spatially arranged in order to arrive at an image that is both visually and sonically coherent. Sound – as well a spectrum as a spectre – maps out the immaterialities that produce our world. Gert Aertsen Involved in new media since 2001, Gert Aertsen has been active as an technician, producer, organiser and artist. He was an active member of Machine Centred Humanz collective, Code31 and OKNO. In a recent series of site specific works, he reflects on the relationship between time and technology. How does technology influence our perception of time and space. His works are not intended to confirm our sense of time passing but to provoke moments of observation.

OOO O O O are entities of a poly-faceted and amorphous group that conducts explorations, actions and research into ÂŤ money making Âť through exhibitions and performances.

Bernardo Robles Hidalgo trained as an architect, his artistic work confronts production with very sitespecific realities and concepts, shifting back and forth from representation, to architecture and in situ installations, never loosing sight of the complexity of livelihood. BILLs traces more the two years of the artist’s financial transactions with a collection of over five hundred receipts that are tiny canvases of water coloured brush strokes. A selection of BILLs has previously been exhibited in London, both at the Royal Watercolour Society and the 2014 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. OFFOFF, is a spontaneously conceived installation of customised parasols fixed to a pre-existing pile of sand adjacent to the poppositions fair, where the artist was selling ice lollies to visitors. www.robleshidalgo.com

2 Bernardo Robles Hidalgo, OFFOFF, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © O O O 1 4 Bernardo Robles Hidalgo, BILLS, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © O O O

OKNO

The Brussels Urban Bee Lab [BUBL] is an independent international collective of artists, scientists, beekeepers, technicians and creative people. It was founded by AnneMarie Maes in 2009 as a spin-off from OKNO. BUBL uses artistic, scientific and technological research approaches to tackle challenges related to sustainability and the monitoring and survival of city honeybees. The Brussels Urban Bee Lab operates mainly through artistic installations and workshops. The group participates in national and international exhibitions. The installations explore highly experimental technologies, such as microbial fuel cells, digital and organic fabrication using OpenStructures, biomimicry, spatialised sonification, webbased continuous data streaming, data mining based on Artificial Intelligence, organic electronics, etc. http://www.okno.be/

AnneMarie Maes has for decades been a recognized leader pioneering art-science projects in Belgium, using highly original ways to bring out hidden structures in nature by constructing original technological methods to probe the living world and by translating that in artistic creations through sonification, visualization, sculptures, large-scale long-term installations, and workshops. She thus makes use of technological mediation to search for new forms of communication with the natural world. She is founding member of the organizations So-oN and OKNO and has a masters in fine art and cultural studies.

2 POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 OKNO / BRUSSELS URBAN BEE LAB, SEM LIGHTBOXES, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

One work gallery The Gallery exhibits one work at a time. https://instagram.com/oneworkgallery

Albert Allgaier (*1983) lives and works in Vienna and BregenzTannenbach. All of his works try to follow the same motto: „Laughing with you, not at you.“ His dream project is to open a Döner-KebapShop in Istanbul.

2 1Albert Allgaier, Warsaw changed my life 4 Albert Allgaier, I am selling this jacket for the price of a ticket to Los Angeles

P/////AKT P/////AKT is a non-profit exhibition space for contemporary art in Amsterdam that organizes and facilitates large scale solo presentations through which the audience gets the opportunity to gain insight in the thinking space of the artists. Where our current society has deemed the principle of direct benefit as its most important value, P/////AKT sees the function of visual art in its ability to conceive a different outlook on contemporary thinking. This specific ability benefits from independence and room for innovation. http://www.pakt.nu

Michiel Hilbrink Is it possible to put a finger on the place where one turns from a mental to a physical perception? From word to material? Michiel Hilbrink is interested in the moment on which the perception turns and tries to capture and concenter this moment in a space. He makes use of manifestations that suggest meaning, as an echo of the everyday. There is a logic to be found that cannot be comprehended directly. As a shadow; an intangible matter with a recognisable silhouette.

2 1 4 Michiel Hilbrink, It is too early in our relationship for that, too soon too (various dimensions, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Riot RIOT is a new art gallery in Ghent that was founded by Jurgen Maelfeyt and Caroline De Malsche, the same duo who is the driving force behind the publishing studio APE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Art Paper Editions. The gallery has a monthly exhibition program complemented with artist talks, book presentations, performances,etc... For POPPOSITIONS they opened a temporary book shop. www.riot-ghent.org

Hana Miletić (b. 1982, Croatia) takes a critical view of social and political issues in European cities. Her aim is to explore the formation of subjectivity, on the level of both the individual and the community. In her works she focuses mainly on carefully re-presenting immigrant stories. Documentary photography, more specifically street photography, lie at the core of her practice, however, she no longer considers these disciplines to be strictly photographic. She uses photography as a catalyst within the working process to mostly create publications and installations.

2 1 Hana Miletić , Street Photography (working title), POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Book shop, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Ruimte Morguen Ruimte Morguen was founded as a producer gallery (author gallery) in 1982, and operates as a network or platform that connects different artists on a social and critical perspective on art. https://www.facebook.com/ pages/Morguen-vzw-RuimteMorguen/195584223860497

Marnik Neven Labor is an important part of Marnikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1977) work. With a tightwork rhythm and a straightforwardness that is often not seen in connection with art, he makes work where exactly these elements play an important role. The labor and the repetitive nature that comes along with it makes the work, lets it evolve and develop over a longer period of time. Gorgeous, minimal work,driven by an easeful, meticulous practice.

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2 3 1 4Marnik Neven, Manual Copy, part II, POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis

Salon ACME Salon ACME was conceived as an art salon. An annual platform that takes place every year in Mexico City and is home to artistic and curatorial proposals being developed throughout the country. Founded by three artists, one curator and a cultural manager, Salon ACME aims to fill the empty spaces we find in the art world and also rethink the way art is usually shown and sold. The non-traditional concept of this exhibition space, emerges from the old art salons that took place in different cities around the world with the intention of showing new signs of artistic production at the time. http://www.salonacme.org/

Alberto Lopez (Guadalajara, 1983), Alberto’s work is based on the relationships between 2 or more aspects of life, explores various disciplines such as drawing, sculpture and installation to achieve and express the theoretical goal of his projects. Use introspection as the main theme of his work, explores issues as well as the past, present and future, melancholy, geography, boundaries and borders. Laura Meza Orozco (Mexico City, 1988), Particularly interested in the meanings they carry the humor as well as poetic than political, because who truly lives cannot be indifferent. I’m on the side of the living without forgetting our dead. We must live in a state of perpetual search, we are part of an energy, from the optimism, of the joy, of the “cheverismo”, of the get ahead and overcome the pain. Marco Esparza (Chihuahua, 1986), reflects on the moral, political, economic and artistic values of contemporary society through works that examine the positioning of artists in context.

Pamela Zeferino (Mexico City, 1989), her work tend to investigate the possible relations between human constructions and natural forces. Her practice nurtures from physical experiences in specific environments, where she collects historical, geographical and material data, to transform into sculptures, drawings and videos. Her work has been showed since 2008 in Mexico, UAE, France, Colombia and Uruguay. The process of her work can be accessed at the blog horizonteverticalpz.tumblr.com Morelos León is a Mexican artist, he has a MFA at the ‘Faculty of Arts and Design’ of ‘National Autonomous University of Mexico’ FAD-UNAM (2014). He study in the ‘School of Communication and Arts’ of ‘University of São Paulo’ ECAUSP in Brazil. (2013). León works the concepts of the identity and territory as declarations political and poetics through sculptures, videos and installations. He has exhibited in countries such as Spain, France, Japan, U.S.A, Canada and Singapore.

2 POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 3 Alberto López, Keep Waiting, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 Laura Meza Orozco, Allow it to grow, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Marco Esperza, Raw Meat, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

Some Recent Examples Some Recent Examples is a collective of seven artists linked by the ethos shared in their practices where much of the art is serial in its production and most of the thinking is done through labouring the art work. These artists are preoccupied with more, but also less. More matter, as much as can be borne. Less information, as little as can be left that still gives the viewer a foothold into the art. http://www.somerecentexamples.com

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Nicola Ellisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; practice is underpinned by an interest in the synchronisation of the natural with the unnatural. Initial drawings and prints are frequently used to generate ideas for sculptures which explore the qualities of various materials.

Nina Chua most often uses a minimal and abstract approach to drawing. Within the development of her works gesture is intentionally limited to its most fundamental form, leaving line, colour and support to assume a pivotal role.

Mary Griffiths lives in Manchester, UK, and graduated from the MA Fine Art at Manchester School of Art in 2009. Griffiths is also Curator of Modern Art at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, where she has been in post since 2000.

Noel Clueit explores the relationships and disparate threads between objects, language, history and representation. Using a variety of media including video, painting and animation, he takes secondary sources as a point of departure for investigation into the perception and authority of cultural artefacts.

Tiago Duarte work revolves around the irregular appropriation of technologies and its effects on the formal qualities of contemporary art making. Constrained by the derivatives of process such as repetition, differentiation and variation he bypasses the traditional reproductive conventions of serial/systematic aesthetics to create one off pieces. Maeve Rendle makes art works that resist assuming a concrete form. She invents tasks that will enable her to put her subject to work, and through visual documentation captures the unravelling thinking, working, reciprocating essence of the subject.

Jo McGonigal is currently undertaking a Practice based PhD at the University of Leeds. Her practice is concerned with hybridised forms of painting that have resonance within the phenomenological ambitions of Minimalism. Her practice considers how the compositional and material components of painting affect the experiential basis of the viewer, not what the painting means but what it does.

2 3 4 2 POPPOSITIONS 2015 ÂŠ Dirk Cornelis 1 4 Jo McGonigal , Unmaking Painting !, POPPOSITIONS 2015

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Straat Gallery Created in 2011 by Hannah Théveneau & Remy Lieveloo, the Straat Gallery is an independent contemporary art organization based in Marseille (FR) and is a member of local contemporary art network “Marseille Expos”. The name “Straat” refers to the art direction of the gallery that explores various visual art practices at the crossroads of contemporary art and the urban. The Straat Gallery supports young artists through a large annual program of exhibitions and events: from art residencies to the promotion of art projects and the launching of artist’s books. The gallery also develops creative mediation activities such as group visits and art-making workshops. http://www.straatgalerie.com

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Ken Sortais. Born in 1983. Lives and works in Seine-Saint-Denis (93)*, France. The project “93” is based on the artist’s relation to the urban city by appropriation and removal of fragments of public space through mold and imprints. The Basilica of Saint-Denis, Danielle Casanova Street, the junkyard of Saint-Ouen or the canal wharf, places impregnated of singular history and symbolism, have become the artist’s targets of intervention. “93” captures the essence of the city which is materialized by molds and imprints « on the spot » in the public area. From traces on the ground to angel-like bas-reliefs of the Basilica Saint-Denis, Ken Sortais sees his environment as a set of available forms. This gesture inevitably calls upon the historical and even mythological context of the removed area.

The project “93” is a testimony of the artist’s peregrinations and wanderings in the Seine-SaintDenis*, a journey around latex in the heart of Saint-Denis.

2 Ken Sortais, Catulliacus, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 Ken Sortais, Christine, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Ken Sortais, La pierre cachée , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

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Trampoline Trampoline can be a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched over a steel frame using many coiled springs. People bounce on trampolines for recreational and competitive purposes. Trampolining has been part of the Olympic Games since 2000. For more historical information about trampoline, please read: http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Trampoline. About the dangers of trampolining, check www.fscip.org/tramp.html. www.trampolinegallery.com

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Stefaan Dheedene’s oeuvre reads both as a critical exploration of conventions on imagery and especially sculpture and installation. As such, he focuses, respectively, on sculpture as a grammar of the object, and on the installation as a sculptural “situation”. However, Dheedene also formulates new proposals to circumvent these conventions. Based on the refusal to accept sculpture and installation as subjective, recuperated genres, he presents new conceptual possibilities and infuses the sculptural practice with critical relevance.

2 Stefaan Dheedene -Catch a mouse, trow a ball POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 4 Stefaan Dheedene - Done. Finished. Relaxed. POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

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The KIV Gallery The core idea of The KIV Gallery is to facilitate a transition between two phases of every artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s career - the difference between being a student of arts and being a young independent artist. The KIV Gallery also focus on young curators and encourage them to approach Gallery with their curatorial projects. The KIV Gallery also strives to achieve certain level of international activity. Emphasis is put on inclusion of international artists in projects, but also cooperation with the Critics and Curators Program, an association organizing research stays for international curators in Prague, their talks, and critical discussions on various topics with international participants. www.gkiv.cz

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Miroslava Vecerová ( *1985) graduated from the Photography studio of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague and University of the Arts in London. Miroslava Vecerová has been working in the medium of video, which enables her to play with a movable and static image. Simultaneously, the moment of insecurity and distrust of the viewer in credibility of the pictorial representation is inherent in works of Vecerová, often accompanied by author`s performative www.miroslavavecerova.com Tomáš Absolon (*1987) graduated from the Painting and Drawing studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Absolon’s main interest is a painting. His process often begins with the appropriation of visual signs which have passed into the visual subconscious from daily reality. Painter’s gestures are undergone continual oscillation between an expressive field of abstraction and expansion to such kinds of tropes which we could call logotypes. www.tomasabsolon.tumblr.com

2 Miroslava Vecerova, Untitled, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 1 Miroslava Vecerova, Untitled 2, Too Soon, POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis 4 Miroslava Vecerova , POPPOSITIONS 2015 © Dirk Cornelis

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Scientia Potentiia Est performance by CM MC

The power of knowledge and what you need to harness it. A performance brought in fencing costumes, drawing a line between possession, exercise and exorcism. << Get over the idea that everyone needs to like you. Your performance doesn’t matter, the relation to your boss matters more. >> CM MC is a co-operation between writers/visual artists Céline Mathieu and Myrthe Christianne van der Mark. https://celinemathieu.wordpress.com/ cm-mc-performance-duo/

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Würfeln

(throwing the dice)

performance by Karl Karner and Linda Samaraweerová

“Eventually the dice are cast, and then we are incredibly liberated, like children in the sand pit. Right hand, left leg, and then it is built, dismantled, shoved and carried out into the world. The strange, the uncertain, my restlessness lies in the order and control. Battles that have been won are dissected, assertions have the air taken out of them and all desire is deprived of power – handbrake pulled! I pack the things spread out into my rucksack and stand on display in the rain. Right hand, left leg and nothing but emptiness. Movement nothing but a breath. Only space is complete intoxication. Only in my head is there complete peace. Right hand, left leg, and then the dice are thrown.” Switching between dance, performance and visual art, WÜRFELN (throwing the dice) highlights a physicality of the individual that underlies all action and desire or seizes possession of it, longing for understanding. Karl Karner studied sculpture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Art in Heimo Zobernig’s class. Linda Samaraweerová graduated from the Brussels dance and performance school PARTS under Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. Since 2005 they have been working together in an interdisciplinary, inter-genre way between visual and performing arts, developing sculptures, installations and performances. www.karner-samara.com

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SPECIAL FEATURE : FIVE MAJOR BELGIAN COLLECTIONS IN THE HAND OF POPPOSITIONS’ ASSOCIATE CURATORS

Do you have ‘Barbaric taste’? A reflection on the judgment of taste when it comes to the acquisition of works of art: between cultural engagement, the evaluation of cultural capital and sentimental value.

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Dear Galila, Benedikt van der Vorst, Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Cédric and Cookie Liénart van Lidth de Jeude, family Servais, What is it that shapes your ‘taste’? Within the framework of POPPOSITIONS, the experimental and alternative art-fair during Art Brussels, we propose to reflect upon collectors and the role they play in defining cultural judgments and artistic hierarchies. Each of your collections is unique to each of your own backgrounds and yet each reflects a social and cultural unity. They beg us to ask: How do you select the works you acquire? By pure speculation? By impulse? Do you consider the works within a larger historical perspective? Is it based on those whom you meet? Is it to be engaged politically? Or is it tied to your social representation? How much of it is based on education, upbringing or social influence? How much of it is based on subjectivity? Do you feel constrained to already prevailing references? These are some of the questions that we would like to make public in order to demystify the person and character of the collector and the act of selecting and purchasing an artwork. Do you have ‘ barbaric taste’? When it comes to the area of aesthetic judgments, common sense opposes ‘pure taste’, that which is the taste of intellectual reflection, cultivated and strategic in favor of ‘barbaric taste’, that which is considered low, vulgar or uncontrolled. In this open questioning on how one’s taste is formed, and its influence on how culture is produced, we wish to identify amongst your collections what could be considered to be ‘barbaric taste’: a taste that is alive and instinctive, sometimes uneducated and common, almost even animal-like. The exhibition will open up the definition of ‘barbaric taste’ with a selection of quite contrasted works ranging from both known and emerging artists, to mysterious works, common works, or the very intimate, bringing to light a certain dialogue and friction. The exhibition will represent this so called ‘savagery’ and ‘barbarism’ of judgment of taste that becomes visible through the quest to understand the meaning of what is the constitution of a collection. In his text Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu says the following of taste, “Taste classifies and taste classifies the classifier.” As collectors, your tastes and the influence that they have on your acquisitions seem to favor the recognition of certain artists. The barbaric taste is one that undoes instituted hierarchies in order to change the rules. The barbaric taste tells – perhaps you for example – how to play and participate in class struggle. Les Commissaires Anonymes and Nicolas de Ribou 113

“In an art market that is becoming ever more industrialised, may this fruitful collaboration with POPPOSITIONS contribute to the emergence of an ecosystem which allows the art we love to flourish!”

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Associated Curators

Cecile Roche Boutin, curator and consultant in creativity, and Mathilde Sauzet, curator and art critic, run Les commissaires anonymes, a research studio on contemporary art and mediation created in 2010. Involved in networks of art, design and innovation, Les commissaires anonymes work on issues related to social innovation, the genesis of the imagination and collective practices. Through exhibitions, art critics and workshops, Les commissaires anonymes collaborated with XPO galleries (Paris, 2012), NaMiMa (Nancy, 2013), Eva Meyer (Paris, 2013), got involved in the artistic team of Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Biennial Evento (Bordeaux, 2011), and the New Waves program / in Paris organized by the Palais de Tokyo (2013). Since 2014, Anonymous Commissioners also work with Passage Management, a consulting agency founded by Catherine Foliot, consultant management of innovation. Winners of the grant IAAB/Salon Mondial 2014 (Merian C. Foundation, Basel), Les commissaires anonymes have just published a book entitled « Maximum eldorado, new typologies of contemporary eldorados ». At the moment, they are running an experimental residency program: Mons invisible.

Open in the frame of the European Capitale of Culture 2015 at Mons, it’s a garden of artistic and citizen experimentation around urban empowerment. Nicolas de Ribou co-founded and was artistic director of the curator run-space L’autonomie 9 in Brussels in 2011 (Writing Small / Sean Edwards, A sort of Song / Aggtelek, In Between / Jennifer Caubet & Gérard Meurant, A film by Thomas de Brabanter / Thomas de Brabanter, Le Salon Intermédiaire / Chloé Quénum) Since 2012, he is the manager and curator of Collection Famille Servais in Brussels (Les neuf vies d’un chat, 2013 ; Anywhere out of my world, 2014 et 2015). In 2014, he created Abel Nicosdriou Project, a curatorial platform and artists accompaniment structure. He participated to Poppositions2014 in Brussels (Aggtelek, Lukas Hoffmann), Paréidolie2014 in Marseille (Jennifer Caubet), Poppositions2015 in Brussels (Nøne Futbol Club) and is working now on a group show ‘The Plot Is In The Process Of Writing’ at HEKLA, Brussels that will be held end 2015.

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POPPOSITIONS Post-catalogue - Edition 2015 published by POPPOSITIONS, Brussels - www.poppositions.com, on the occasion of the 4th Edition at Canalwharf 23-27 April 2015, www.poppositions.com First print edition of 50 copies Graphic design and Editing: Willem Schrijver Texts: POPPOSITIONS participants Original POPPOSITIONS visual identity: Codefrisko and Marie Valette POPPOSITIONS is an association without lucrative aim (a.s.b.l./v.z.w.) Galerie de la Reine/Koningingsgalerie 26 - 1000 Brussels - Belgium POPPOSITIONS was co-founded by Liv Vaisberg, Edouard Meier, Pieter Vermeulen and Bart Verschueren. THANKS We wish to warmly thank our collectors for their trust and support: Galila, Frederic de Goldschmidt, Cedric and Cookie Lienart van Jeude, Alain Servais and Benedikt van der Vorst. We would also like to thank all those who provided some help this year: Valentin Chene, Cinema Galerie, Celine Mathieu, France Ortelli, Stephanie Pecourt, Sebastien Ricou, Elisa Riffaud, Catho de Rore, Sarah Succo Torres, Stephanie Vidal, Rein Vyncke. TEAM Guillaume Bleret, Cécile Roche Boutin, Patrick Carpentier, Amandine Faugère, Julien Keita, Edouard Meier, Benjamin Moncarey, Marije Sennema, Mathilde Sauzet, Antoinette Jattiot, Willem Schrijver, Pieter Vermeulen, Bart Verschueren, Liv Vaisberg, Walt van Beek. Enquiries: mail@poppositions.com © all rights reserved to POPPOSITIONS

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