Last May, De Appel Arts Centre in Amsterdam organized an exhibition of artworks focused on the changing system of values within the artworld in this time of financial crisis. De artworks were part of a charity auction at Christie’s. Edna van Duyn, one of the curators, looks back on the project. Kunstcentrum De Appel organiseerde afgelopen mei een tentoonstelling van kunstwerken met als thema het veranderende waardensysteem binnen de kunstwereld in deze tijd van financiële crisis. De werken maakten deel uit van een benefietveiling bij veilinghuis Christie’s. Edna van Duyn, een van de curatoren, schreef een terugblik.
Job Koelewijn: reading session at De Appel
By Edna van Duyn
The project ‘Take the Money and Run’ had the double impact that was secretly hoped for: good proceeds for our new building and an exciting contribution to the current discourse on the economic and symbolic value of art works, culminating in the performance by the auctioneer.
Today’s instable times as a result of the financial crisis and the homelessness of de Appel’s started a process that created new works of art.
Daniel Buren exemplified a correct answer to the questions posed by the invitation. According to Buren, the value of art must be understood as the economic one that is only created when it is sold. ‘Concepts are sold everyday. But, in the art world a concept to be sold must have a kind of a shape, a form and looks like a visual object even if it is a mere piece of paper with few words on.’
Lawrence Weiner, who was first in submitting his work, and in doing so, gave us the good spirit to continue this project, confronted the viewer with ‘catch as catch can’ next to ‘From Peter to Paul’, which brought up associations of standing at the door of heaven, morally questioning right or wrong, and in a light-hearted way making the institution conscious of its current position in deciding how to survive. In the work of Barbara Bloom the viewer was triggered through the subtitle ‘An idea is how the brain smiles’ which still sounds like the perfect poetic title for the project by emphasizing one of the main targets: presenting art as an enrichment of experience and imagination.
During the process of making ‘Take the Money and Run’ we were in touch with Aernout Bourdrez, a lawyer specialised in intellectual copyright who pointed out to us the difference between the Corpus Mysticum and Corpus Mechanicum, the respective spiritual and physical elements of an art work, which strengthened our idea of asking for conceptual works on A4 Paper, containing proposals for new works.
Maria Barnas composed a letter on A4 that contained the invitation to a future correspondence with the buyer of her proposal. In the presentation at the Brouwersgracht, the birthplace of de Appel in 1974, the conceptual esthetics of sheets of paper, framed as modestly as possible, hanging on the brick white painted walls, became contemporary reminiscences of the beginning of de Appel. In the early seventies (in the slipstream of conceptual art) Wies Smals stepped out of the commercial gallery world - although gallery Seriaal already focussed on accessible art in editions - and started an institute with private money that aimed to present art to visitors participating and experiencing performances and media-based art. These ephemeral works were usually Mystical Bodies of which little remained. The opening of ‘Take the Money and Run’ was attended by many young artists in the retinue of Tomo Savić-Gecan, Ahmet Ögüt and Maria Barnas. Also present were witnesses of the first hour, like Ulay, Aggy Smeets and Antje von Graevenitz, as well as Harrie de Kroon who, with his alternative search engine, the [wdiggie], supplied us with a 70s spirit that has survived into the 21st century in the form of a playful and at the same time serious reshaping of a behemoth like Google. The 250 visitors to the opening, the beautiful weather and the live flashbacks provided an atmosphere of cheerful reunion and a look into the new future of de Appel, with its new building being a topic of speculation and discussion.
