The Revenge of the Common Place

Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia

Artists Francis Alÿs, Song Dong and Rinus Van de Velde were selected by curator Hans De Wolf to represent Flanders in a collateral exhibition at the Ca’ Foscari Palace, within the University of Venice and in association with M HKA.   The Ministry of Culture supports the collateral event and provides 200.000 euros.

Curator Hans De Wolf developed a controversial and humorous exhibition, constructed around some of the most fundamental misunderstandings between Western tradition and the Far East. Traditionally, in the West, the idea of authorship has always been highly protected and linked with the notion of genius. Today, many artists operating in the avant-garde have transcended those ideas, a trend that started perhaps with Duchamp. What is not yet clear is the question of whether we have already come to terms with all possible consequences of this new situation, a question which became all the more obvious since a new kid appeared on the block: the Chinese artist.

Taking Andy Warhol’s famous Brillo Boxes as a starting point, this exhibition will lead the spectator into a new climate, in which the status of the art work as an object becomes unsecure and suggesting that we might have reached a ‘post-object-era’. This current situation will be tackled head on by a new piece by painter Rinus Van de Velde, while the exhibition as a whole will be considerably enriched by a new installation by Song Dong and a video by Francis Alÿs.

This exhibition is accompanied by a programme of four talks to be held in collaboration with the Ca’ Foscari University. The talks will take place from September 2015. Confirmed speakers so far include Hans Belting, Luc Tuymans, Hans De Wolf, Eugen Blume, Jean-François Chevrier, Paul Robbrecht and more. Complete details including speakers, timings and locations will be released soon.

Editors’ Notes
Questioning the Original
Ever since their first appearance in New York in 1964, Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes became emblems of a new kind of world, in which high art and popular culture were no longer separated. Pop art became the dominant visual language of that period, and, although the whole movement was rooted in social critique and scepticism towards modern consumerism, no artists involved would prevent their works from becoming the beloved objects of an art world now marked by an ‘unbearable lightness of being’ in comparison to previous periods.

Arthur Danto proclaimed this sensational moment as the end of the domination of cultural elites, a moment that marked the rebirth of philosophy out of the ‘common place’ for which the Brillo Box was the ultimate expression. Whilst these ideas were being incorporated into the American educational systems and beyond, at the same time the believers of Danto’s vision turned a blind eye to the activities of a number of people (in China, for instance) that were operating in the shadows of this beautiful new art world.

When the world finally found out about the stories of fakes and business, and curator De Wolf wanted to introduce them within an exhibition that he was preparing in Beijing, he quickly realised that the Chinese today simply love the idea of the copy. This summer De Wolf will present a number of objects that are not art works, nor copies, nor replicas, nor interpretations, and not even an edition. The objects to be presented in this exhibition allow the painter Rinus Van de Velde to come to terms with the whole story and to make a painting, just a painting. Not a fake.

Since the whole idea was born in China, a universe that has to come to terms itself, with its recent history (in art) and its own unique appreciation of the copy as the ultimate compliment that one can make in regard to an original, Song Dong was invited to mirror these ideas within a new installation. Francis Alÿs will complete the exhibition. Based in Mexico City, Alÿs has already questioned the legacy of the ‘original’ as a format for many years. His contribution will complete the exhibition with the notion of violence: probably the most ancient expression of the copy as a format of narcissism.

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