November 28 – January 17

How can we define the relationship between image and spectator if the borders between public and private space are fading - because are we not all out there in public? Are we not all on the balcony ?

Aram Tanis (KR), Constant Dullaart (NL), Florian Göttke (DE), Ola Lanko (UKR), Sanne Peper (NL), Anna Bedaux (NL), Thomas Kuijpers (NL), Sharon Houkema (NL) and Manó Dániel Szöllősi (HU)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
On a daily basis we check our Facebook page and like the pictures posted by our 'friends'. We 'follow' celebrities or even random strangers on Instagram and look at the pictures accompanied by hashtags. We scan blogs and Tumblers, 'pin' our favorite pictures on Pinterest and sort them by different categories. When on holiday we make hundreds of pictures and save them on our computers or in Clouds for no one to see. In edition to all of this we visit museums, we watch television, we read the paper. It is a familiar fact that in this digital age we are being bombarded with images. So how is it possible for us to still notice eloquence in images? Do we even feel the need to restore value to images? How can we define the relationship between image and spectator if the borders between public and private space are fading - because are we not all out there in public? Are we not all on the balcony?

In cooperation with guest curator Aram Tanis, MoMart presents the exhibition Balconism. The title denotes an idea or movement - not yet established but a mere concept created by Constant Dullaart, one of the participating artists. In this exhibition the term Balconism encapsulates the various methods used by the artists to investigate developments in our contemporary visual culture. An important aspect of these methods is treating the image as well as the spectator as a commodity. By selecting, archiving, editing and analyzing existing images they give eloquence, meaning or (renewed) value to the image. In this exhibition the artists explore the medium of photography in a digital age and the functions of both public and private images.

With his blog Binding Image Aram Tanis creates an impressive archive of categorized images. In doing so Tanis confronts the spectator with the beautiful, humorous or sometimes gruesome images they get to see everyday. Constant Dullaart presents High retention. Slow delivery. Dullaart bought 2.5 million Instagram accounts and 'likes' were equally divided over prominent and less prominent players in the art world. He aims to level the influence of 'followers' and creates a symbolic equality on the social network. Together with an ethicist and image editor Ola Lanko forms a collective of young experts in the field of images: ED. They investigate photography as a medium and try to restore value to photos. With the project ED IT: The substantial system for photographic archive maintenance ED developed a model to reduce our private photo archives to a representative selection of images.

Florian Göttke analyses the function of public and iconic images and the relationship between image and viewer. With A protester in Homs, Syria he zooms in on a photograph of a Syrian protester and hereby illustrates the communicative functions of images in our visual society. He concentrates on the photographed subject but also poses questions about the responsibility of the spectator.

Thomas Kuijpers' work When the Twins were still beautiful is his personal attempt to briefly reproduce the iconic image as it was before 9/11. With his still growing collection of images of the Twin Towers Kuijpers creates a bombardment of this romantic image. His second project Gestures is a series of handshakes between several world leaders. These handshakes or gestures are snapshot of an important moment in history but do send a cryptic message into the world.

Sharon Houkema presents an installation in which she uses the iconic visual language adapted from the global ecological movement. Through minimal interventions she illustrates the underlying message about the assembled objects shown.

Anna Bedaux's project Stalbranden consists of a striking combination of common yet horrifying images and trivial comments of viewers online. With Vedute 0176 Sanne Peper investigates the interpretation of a certain location. She tends to choose places that are ambiguous and not easily translated into imagery, which she leaves for the spectator to interpret.

Manó Dániel Szöllősi infiltrated in the online labor platform Mechanical Turk and paid people for a personal webcam snapshot. His work raises questions about labor exploitation, the role of the Internet and the meaning of private images.

SIDE PROGRAM
In addition to the exhibition a side program will be presented: a lecture by Florian Göttke on the functions of iconic imagery, a workshop by Ola Lanko that gives insight in the methods of analyzing and reducing photo archives, and an evening of various artist presentations and talks. More information about the side program follows soon.

MoMart – base for emerging and independent artists
Bergstraat 3 Amsterdam
www.momart.nl 

Opening hours: Thu, Fri, Sat 13:00 – 17:00

For more information and photos contact Rieke Righolt | rieke@momart.nl | 06-52307663