A nude woman rests her chin against her curled knuckles, one leg stretches in front of her. The stone-carved sculpture by Dutch artist Theo van Reijn from 1939 still sits today, overlooking the commuters and travelers that pass through Amterdam’s Amstel Station. She is named Terugblik (Retrospect) and her blank eyes gaze over the sea of faces that only emphasize her own boredom and emptiness for over 80 years.

In 1942, the official photographer of the Dutch National Socialist regime Bart de Kok was sent to document the organization and procedures of state inspectors. Terugblik became the subject of one of his photographs. In it, she stares vacantly into the station above the heads of a crowd of Jewish Amsterdammers who were gathered at the station and would imminently be transported to the labor camp Molengoot, on the German border.  From there, after months of forced labor, they were separated into concentration camps in Poland.

Neither the sculpture nor the photograph in itself present readily identifiable forms of violence, yet, when examined closer they document the lethal indifference of state infrastructure towards specific groups of people. The exhibition contrasts the context of Terugblik today and in 1942 to reveal the continuities from that time that still inhabit public space. In a time when monuments have repeatedly been questioned, Terugblick defines the indifference of the stone witness. 

Itamar Gov approaches forgotten micro-histories in order to shed light on vast socio-political landscapes. Gov’s projects start from an inquiring skepticism towards cultural traditions, conventions and gestures that are considered self-evident. His works are based on ongoing research and revolve around the intersection of art and politics, highlighting the strong tension between the known and the supposed, and challenging any assumption of clear borders between facts and falsehoods, reality and imagination. He was a member of the curatorial teams of Documenta 14 (Athens/Kassel), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), and the Fondazione Adolfo Pini (Milan). He was awarded a residency grant at the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris) in 2021, and has recently presented/exhibited his works at the Mardin Biennial (Mardin), Palazzo Butera (Palermo), Zilberman Gallery (Istanbul) and documenta 15 (Kassel).

Image by Itamar Gov.

Finissage: zondag 11 sep 2022 - 16:00-18:00

Under the title First Studies in Virology - Designing a New Disease, a collection of  drawings, paintings, sculptures, animations, and network cartographies will gather in puntWG. The space transforms into a work station with raw materials,  tape, glue, models of viruses, papers, network diagrams, computer screens and  organised talks. A group of designers and artists will be busy trying to  understand how to deal with the visible and invisible workings of viruses.

Photography by Ilya Rabinovich

For the month of August, works by Andrea Marcellier and Tim Neutel will be presented at puntWG, Amsterdam.

Installed in the space, the works reflect on a shortcut to familiar ground, and what insights and outlooks might become available from this. A coming in an out of reach that makes vivid or firmly grabs hold of a site. The title of the exhibition is Summaries.

A dinner will take place on Saturday 20th of August at 19:00. To attend, RSVP to andrea.marcellier@gmail.com.

Poster by Linnea Rutz.

Documentation courtesy of the artists.

atelierWG Foundation invites artists working in any medium to organise an exhibition at puntWG, an exhibition space located in the centre of Amsterdam in the period from January - December 2023. puntWG provides a platform for artists to temporarily own the space with a sense of freedom and responsibility, to give form to their own program and make contact with the public. 

We encourage proposals for duo and group exhibitions to stimulate dialogue between artists and their work. Proposals for one-person presentations are also possible on the basis that artists seek interaction with other (relevant) individuals or groups through their program. Proposals with an active public program which include artist talks, performances, screenings or (performative) lectures are preferred. 

Artists are selected on the basis of the quality of their proposal and their considered approach to using the space. Each exhibition will last four weeks (including installation and deinstallation times). This call is not intended for curated group exhibitions or exhibitions that have previously been shown in other spaces.

Support: 

The organisation of both puntWG and Foundation atelierWG almost fully depends on volunteers. atelierWG Foundation provides selected artists with an open platform to realise their projects at puntWG. This includes the use of the space,  basic equipment and professional photo documentation. Additionally all exhibitions and side programmes will be shared on our website and Instagram page. To further aid the realisation of each exhibition, puntWG’s team will issue acceptance letters for successful applicants to support their applications for external funding. 

You can find the puntWG floor plan HERE.

Application guidelines: 

• Please send ONE pdf (max 10 mb) which includes the following documents in your email  submission. (Please do not include text in the body of your email as part of your application):
• Full name, date and place of birth, postal address, phone number, e-mail and website
• CV, max two A4 pages per participating artist
• A proposal (max. 250 words) that includes a description of your exhibition and the public programme. Please be concise.
• A short motivation for showing at puntWG. 
• A maximum of ten supporting images or links to moving image, sound, or performance pieces, (max. 5 mins each) for each participating artist. Please do not send websites. 
• Please indicate your preferred months for the exhibition and the times when you are not available. The more accurate you are, the better we can organise the calendar.
• Please indicate if you at the time of this application have already (partly) secured funding for the exhibition.
• In case of group projects, please indicate which artists have confirmed their participation

Proposals to be emailed to opencall@atelierwg.nl

The submission deadline is 31 July 2022

All recipients will be notified before 1 September 2022

For general information and questions regarding puntWG, contact team puntWG: opencall@atelierwg.nl 

Organization and programming of puntWG: Lily Lanfermeijer, Mila Lanfermeijer, Michelle Son and Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec.

www.puntwg.nl 

About

Following the relocation of the hospital Wilhelmina Gasthuis in 1984, now the AMC – Academic Medical Center – artists, small business owners and residents have shaped and preserved the unique character and special site of WG in Amsterdam. Today a large number of artists are living and working on the grounds, including those who are part of atelierWG (in Pavilions 18 and 19).

AtelierWG Foundation, established in 1989, houses 120 artists' studios as well as initiating projects in the fields of art and culture, including international exchanges and Open Studio routes.

In 2006 puntWG was created as an interdisciplinary exhibition space and platform for the arts, with a lively program of exhibitions, performances, concerts, lectures and discussions with the aim of initiating an open and broad discourse between artists and the public. PuntWG was initiated by the artists of atelierWG, who finance the space and organize its programming.

airWG, an artist-in-residence, opened in September 2015, hosting a guest studio for national and international artists with an emphasis on research and collaboration.

In 2022 puntWg and airWG are kindly supported by Mondriaan Fonds.

Image: Wanting to but Not, 2021, Helena Grande, Giovanni Giaretta and Faysal Mroueh

The network shows interest. We can tell it everything and it will listen - seemingly without judgment. Almost like a therapist - solely reflecting ourselves back to us. Or a guardian-angel perhaps,  invisible, but there all the time in the clouds.

Fibbe & Wiedijk are fascinated by the early marketing strategies of the first mobile and internet network providers as they were tasked to normalize constant and invasive connectivity to the average, not yet connected consumer. 

But, 

And divide and break us, into community. 

In the installation, 17 Reasons Why People Aren’t Listening to You, Fibbe & Wiedijk associatively explore the question whether there could be unconscious pleasure in the way the internet surveils us. What if we secretly enjoy it? To be seen, to be heard, to be guided and to not be forgotten?

Photography by Ilya Rabinovic

airWG is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the current artist in residence M.C. Julie Yu. As an interdisciplinary artist, she uses video, music, print, exercise, performance, workshops, and installation to present social research on care while continuing her work as a freelance masseur.

Yu's artistic practices revolve around the senses of othering that are experienced while situating in- between domains, specifically based on the experience as a migrant and interdisciplinary worker under the postcolonial and capitalist cultural phenomena. She reflects on these experiences through various sub-culture inspirations and addresses the reflection with a good dose of humor. This approach is further extended to various long-term collaborative projects among art, performance and social movements fields.

The recent work of M.C. Julie Yu tries to unlock the failures of social constructs by analyzing the body's gestures of care—students napping on the table as self-care and massages as care-giving. The nuances of these tacit knowledges of an individual body are delivered via inspiration from Youtube video themes, such as tutorials and ASMR. The artist aims to rethink the replacement of care in aspects of individualization, commodification, and digitalization.

Failures to Care is an ongoing project where the slippages and mistakes between labour, sexuality and identity are highlighted in the industry of wellness along with their entanglement with resistance and solidarity. These concepts are tied to the need of the social body to feel safe and comforted by its community. As a freelance masseur, Yu’s own experiences inform the works in the exhibition as she captures moments of exhaustion and discomfort in a quest for the fulfilment of basic human needs.

Bio:
M.C. Julie Yu (b. Taipei, Taiwan, 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist who is currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She holds a BFA in Theatre Directing from Taipei National University of Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2013) and an MA in Fine art, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (2020). Her works include a wide variety of media, such as video, music, print, exercise, performance, workshops, and installation.

Photography by Ilya Rabinovich

F.I.R.E. is flicker-flash-spark-flame-blaze-light-heat-smell-smoke-glow-coal-embers-ash; a mysterious agent, simultaneously destructive, cleansing, and regenerative. At puntWG it is an invitation for dialogue: a strange medium, emerging occasionally, beyond notions of right and wrong; beyond identifying tags, beyond what was my idea or yours.

On a global scale, the indispensably vital significance of fire within numerous local livelihoods is overshadowed by discourses emphasizing fire's destructive effects. An example of this generalizing misconception is the inability to contextualize and recognize the Kayapo’s sustainable fire use.[1] With their traditional fire use techniques, the Kayapo are suspected of creating wildfires, and paradoxically their ancient and elaborate fire practices regularly become accused of modifying the climate of the Brazilian Rainforest.[2]

As a starting point for reconsidering paradigms of engagement with the world, we investigate basic alternatives, attending to forms of sensing and knowing. For such encounters to take place we propose dialogue as a method; not merely understood as exchange, but rather as a series of improvisations and dissociations that bring about modulations to our forms of involvement.

We are working together with Prof. Mistry, geographer at the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, who together with Brazilian and Kayapo researchers studied the Kayapo’s fire-practices. In this context, the Kayapo made a series of videos that serve as communication tools. It is these videos and their complex call for communication amongst different languages, sciences and cosmologies that we engage with and take as incentive to come together,  practice attention, and exercise listening, seeing and sensing by means and for the sake of dialogue. To do so, we enter into conversation with further input that addresses how forms and techniques of sensing are tied into diverse cosmologies, such as can be found in the research of ethnomusicologist Ana María Ochoa Gautier.

We are curious about dialogue as a methodology without knowing where it leads to, whose practice challenges the status of what is assumed as knowledge. We can only extend this invitation to join. All welcome!

***

Over the course of three days, a range of public sessions at puntWG will bring complex, critical and subversive content to an unlikely audience, who in this active space are not called upon as “visitor”, “spectator” or “public”, but as participant: you are invited to receive, sense, and think together.

We attend to three videos and related texts, while paying attention to the material, each other and ourselves. What is important in the first instance is that the readings take place relationally: as an active participant you are asked to attend to the videos, to open yourself up to your own responsiveness, associations and memories and to share what the material incites in you.

What is important in the follow up is how the diverse effects relate, intersect, entangle and come alive again when placed side-by-side to sensations, memories and responses of others.

In the final assembly on Sunday, we compile the insights, encounters and dialogues towards an online/onsite assemblage that rehearses, dares and shares being together otherwise.

Public Programme:

Location:  puntWG, directly opposite WG Plein 80, 1054 RC Amsterdam, NL on Sunday, June 12, also online via zoom (link  to follow).

Times: All times indicated are CEST, though the schedule is subject to change. 

Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June: 

• 14:00 - 15:30 – video reading sessions
• 15:30 - 17:00 – text reading session (reading group)
• 17:00 - 18:00 – open conversations

The reading group focuses mainly on the book Aurality by Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier, while also incorporating other texts on main topics. To join this reading group please write an e-mail to: f.i.r.e.vol.01@gmail.com

Sunday 12th June:

• 14:00 - 15:00 – video reading sessions
• 15:00 - 17:00 – onsite and online conversations (F.I.R.E. assembly)
• 17:00 - 18:00 – closing event

If you cannot be present onsite and would like to participate online, please write an e-mail to: f.i.r.e.vol.01@gmail.com and we send you the link to access the conversation online.

Organized in the form of conversations, the first panel of the assembly will touch upon modes of attention through vision(s): with contributors Anna Daučíková (artist, Prague, CZ), Milo van der Maaden (artist, Rotterdam, NL), Jay Mistry (Associate Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment, and Society, and Professor of Environmental Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; with research on fire across the natural and social sciences), and Gabriel Paiuk (composer and sound artist, Amsterdam, NL).

In a second panel the assembly approaches modes of attention within experiences of sensing: with contributors Emilia Ferraro, antopologist, Dundee, SCT, Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier (Prof. of Music and Ethnomusicology at Columbia University), Jay Mistry  (geographer, London, UK), Gabriel Paiuk (composer and sound artist, Amsterdam, NL), Silvia Sedoc (therapist, Amsterdam, NL) and Karen Vanvelt (artist, Kontich, BE).

These onsite and online conversations conclude with Wildfire, one of the recent, process-led editorials and repositories of Arts Cabinet, featuring research collaborations between artists and scientists on the topic of Wildfires, with herein the launch of the web-project Tongues of Fire, a collaboration between Jay Mistry and Cathy Smith (Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment, and Society, based at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK), Oscar Orton (web developer, Amsterdam, NL) and Christina Della Giustina (artist, Amsterdam, NL): Svetlana Sequeira Costa (curator, London, UK) in conversation with Jay Mistry and Christina Della Giustina.

F.I.R.E. concludes with a performance by HKU MAFA researchers Yuxuan Cui, István Hutter, Jeehae Kim, and Meshkat Talebii.

F.I.R.E. is part of the atelierWG series at puntWG and is supported by the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfire, atelierWG, puntWG and all contributors involved.

Video still image Credit: Chun-Yao Lin, 2022.

Photography by Ilya Rabinovich.

[1] Kayapo (Portuguese: Caiapó) are Indigenous peoples living in nowadays Brazil inhabiting the area spreading across the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries. The Kayapo are one of the various subgroups of the Mebêngôkre nation, the people from the water’s source.

[2] Fire is a vital, common and venerated agent in the Kayapo's cosmology: it is used for cooking, cleaning, fertilizing, collecting vegetables and animals, hunting, celebrating; fire is also used to stop fire and is an integral part of their spiritual practices.