THE STORY WITHIN AND BEYOND
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
PART II: Barbara de Morree & Elske Verdoorn
MARCH 2ND - MARCH 18TH
OPENING: FRIDAY, MARCH 2ND, 19:00 H
OPEN: FRI - SUN | 13:00 - 17:00 H
The second exhibition within The Story Within and Beyond project, focuses on the „personal narrative of others.“ With a strong sense of ethics, the artists Barbara De Morree and Elske Verdoorn give a voice to special, anonymous Hague persons, erasing the boundaries between the persona of the observing artist and the persona of her inspiration. In these uncommon cases the objects of inspiration have become subjects. Most of all, what captures the viewer's attention in
Verdoorn's and De Morree's works, is the way in which these artists approach the subject which they take photos of. By leading long conversations with the main protagonists of their work, they almost enter into the role and shoes of „the other.“ They are not tourists and outsiders to the people they photograph, what Susan Sontag would be severely criticising, but they are taking the position of an insider which for Sontag affords one to have a different, more moral relation to the
subject. Naturally, to put on the shoes of the other, one also has to employ different performative, or even acting actions, such as taking long walks from Scheveningen to Katwijk beach, looking for the spots in the Duindorp forest or even taking a plane all the way to Australia! These works also have a performative, process based component, always based on listening to other person, and being synchronised and tuned to the energy of their subjects, and therefore based on „togetherness.“ That brings us to a, somewhat, „romantic“ vision of Mikhail Bakhtin, who believed that only when art involves listening to and identifying
with the other, only when love is involved there is a possibility of aesthetics. The works of these two artists definitely prove that in very rare cases that vision from being romantic transforms into being very true.
Text: Neva Lukić, art historian
Photos: Anke van den Berg
FOOD FOR THOUGHT DINER
MARCH 9TH 2018 | 19:00 - 21:30
"The Other Side of the Story" exhibition focuses on the "personal story of others". Dive into a new world and discover new stories of unknown persons by joining us at the Food for thought: The Other Side of the Story diner.
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