Dates: 14 December 2006 – 8 April 2007
Place: PSWAR Public Space with a Roof, Overtoom 301, Amsterdam
Project initiated by Tamuna Chabashvili, Adi Hollander, Vesna Madzoski. Guest curator: Angela Serino
Artists, theoreticians, performers and musicians who took part in the project: Adam Avikainen, Thomas Hirschhorn, Robert Garnett, Keren Cytter, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Atsushi Sasaki, Michel de Broin, Benoit Goupy, Falke Pisano, Maurits Fennis, Emiliano Gandolfi, Mark Manders, Francesco Bernardelli, Claudio Baroni & Fabian Marcaccio, Marko Kosnik.
The project was financially supported by: ‘Cine Qua Non’ film shop, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, VSB Fonds, Mondriaan Foundation.
“Beauty Unrealized” was a research project that explored the concept of beauty as well as the status of objects as carriers of ideas, sources of inspiration and connections between individuals through time and space.
In order to stimulate a constructive discussion about the various approaches to these issues, this project saw the involvement of artists and professionals from the field of architecture, film, performance and music. It was developed in several layers. A library with a collection of objects occupied PSWAR’s gallery space, functioning as the conceptual and concrete framework of the project.
For this library, numerous individuals (artists, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians) were invited to submit items that had significantly influenced them and their work. Inspired by Aby Warburg, this library was “a collection of questions” rather than “a repository of books, (…) involving not objects but the tension, analogies, contrasts, or contradictions among them”. Its inside was used to host seven separate exhibitions where the invited artists presented their past works, works in progress, or works produced especially for this project.
Concerts, performances and film screenings took place in the cinema and the concert space of Overtoom 301, running parallel to the exhibition program.
Each appointment was accompanied by a collection of texts in the form of a reader, while the final publication was designed by Roma Publications (Mark Manders and Roger Williams).
Links:
You can read more on the project and the complete programs on PSWAR’s website >
You can download the invitations of the events designed by Roma Publications here >
Download here Serino's contribution to the catalogue Beauty Unrealized (2008) by Roma Publications >
