Performance: Zwart vierkant, scène 1 de kade
by Stijn Van Dorpe, with Avsin Azak and Bas Schevers Introduced by Bert Pype
The performance Zwart vierkant, scène 1 de kade (black square, scene 1 de kade) is based on a workshop for blind and partially sighted youngsters from the school Spermalie Bruges in which they painted a black square, among other things. The workshop was also set up as a film recording in which the youngsters were made very aware of the presence of the cameras. However, the presentation in Kunsthal Gent does not include a film montage. Together with Avsin Azak - a girl with a beautiful voice and vocal ambitions who took part in the workshop - and instrumentally accompanied by visual artist Bas Schevers, Stijn Van Dorpe presents a musical translation of a conversation that took place during the workshop. The workshop and the performance were initially made for the exhibition 'objet trouvé' (curated by Bert Pype, 7-3 to 29-3 2020, Bruges) but the public presentation that would take place during the finissage was cancelled due to corona.
The performance is a first stop in a work in which Stijn Van Dorpe brings the black square of Kasimir Malevich into environments that deal with explicit forms of vulnerability. His interest in the black square involves the discrepancy between Malevich's highly democratic aspirations with his work, namely the ambition to be meaningful to everyone, and the infinite vulnerability of the painting. A vulnerability that consists in the fact that the work has never been or will never be seen by the masses as special. By bringing this together, Stijn Van Dorpe wants to explore precarity as a place from which new political aesthetic forms can emerge, where established power relations are broken down and other relational relationships are at play.
With thanks to De Kade, Spermalie Brugge
https://kunsthal.gent/en/events/de-transformatie-van-de-kunstruimte-als-politiek
