Discursive
7 October 2017, 12.30-13.00
Photo: Tom Janssen
Opening comments for Propositions #1: What We Mean, by Maria Hlavajova and Matteo Luchetti.
Exhibition
12 September–28 November 2010
The exhibition examines the notion of the horizon in art and politics and explores the ways in which art works can be said to set up certain horizons of possibility and impossibility, how art partakes in specific imaginaries, and how it can produce new ones, thus suggesting other ways of imagining the world.
Congress
4-6 November 2010
The 2nd FORMER WEST Research Congress, titled On Horizons: Art and Political Imagination, takes place on 4–6 November 2010 and revolves around the theoretical notion of the “horizon” in relation to contemporary artistic production and political imaginaries.
Event
5-7 November 2010
BAK participates in the NY Art Book Fair, New York, 5–7 November 2010.
Screening
9 January 2011
Russian artist Olga Chernysheva presents a film program including a selection of her own works along with other recent and historical material.
Conversation
17 February 2011, 20.00
On 17 February 2011 at 20.00 hrs, Olga Chernysheva talks with the exhibition curator Cosmin Costinas about her practice.
Lecture
18 March 2011, 20.00
On Tuesday, 15 March 2011 at 20.00 hrs, Moscow-based art critic and writer David Riff delivers a lecture on Olga Chernysheva’s practice in which he considers the artist’s repurposing and reinvention of realism in her work, as well as the critical and political implications of this approach, particularly in the context of today’s Russia.
Exhibition
23 January–17 April 2011
This solo exhibition by Russian artist Olga Chernysheva includes several new works and a survey of her practice.
Exhibition
22 May–24 July 2011
The exhibition Call the Witness includes works by seven extraordinary artists who actively work from within and beyond their Roma identities. The works take up the role of “testimonies,” which in their own languages bear witness to past sufferings (such as the Holocaust) and of present and future anxieties, which seem to so intimately relate to the very existence of the Roma in our world. Each of these artists actively speculates about another possibility, and from within the Roma subjectivity proposes that we imagine how things could be otherwise.
Exhibition
01 June–09 October 2011
Call the Witness is a project of the Roma Pavilion, which takes place as a collateral event in the framework of the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2011. A makeshift exhibition evolving over the course of the Venice Biennale preview days through the flux of live “testimonies”— works of art, performances, talks, and conversations by and with artists, thinkers, and politicians—Call the Witness considers the situation of the Roma and Roma art as emblematic of a world filled with inequality and oppression today, and in solidarity with the largest minority in Europe speculates about another, hopeful future.
Screening
08 October–03 December 2011
Cinematic Narratives from Elsewhere is a film-based public program of screenings and discussions that accompanies the exhibition Spacecraft Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere at BAK. The program presents alternative accounts of the impact of sociopolitical changes brought about by western-driven discourses of progress and modernity in the so-called “Third World.”
Exhibition
09 October–23 December 2011
The exhibition Spacecraft Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere presents a number of artistic positions by international artists from different generations that reflect upon alternative visions for the future and models for political and cultural change that have emerged in response to the new conditions of the post-Cold War era.
Screening
04 February–28 March 2012
In conjunction with the exhibition at BAK, Christoph Schlingensief: Fear at the Core of Things, this parallel program addresses the artist’s prolific career as a filmmaker.
Exhibition
05 February–29 April 2012
Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010) was one of the most seminal if controversial theater, film, and contemporary art figures of his generation. The exhibition Christoph Schlingensief: Fear at the Core of Things attests to his striving towards Lebenskunstwerk—a work of life-art.
Education Program
23 October–27 November 2018
“Art and Politics” is an inaugural course of a new public school for art and politics organized by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht. In six weekly sessions, the participants learn about how contemporary art relates to the political in an accessible way.
Congress
29 September 2012
Following the deliberations during Part One titled Beyond What Was Contemporary Art (April 2012, Vienna), Part Two of the 3rd FORMER WEST Research Congress takes place on 29 September 2012 and bases its discussions on a question ushered in—somewhat unexpectedly—by theorist and curator Irit Rogoff in her closing keynote address for Part One: “What on earth do they mean when they say art?”
Exhibition
29 September–23 December 2012
Group exhibition with works by Burak Delier, Etcétera…, Avi Mograbi, Marina Naprushkina, Trevor Paglen, Cesare Pietroiusti, Jonas Staal, Mladen Stilinovic, SUPERFLEX, Milica Tomic, and Lidwien van de Ven.
Congress
18-24 March 2013
Artworks, talks, discussions, rehearsals, and performances in various constellations of documents and prospects offer a multitude of encounters with the public for negotiating the way of the world from 1989 to today, and thinking beyond.
Learning
18-24 March 2013
During a week-long educational performance, around 200 students from educational institutes around the world engage on topics such as the commodification of knowledge, critique of creativity, and functioning of edu-industries in today’s cognitive capitalism.
Exhibition
11 April–01 June 2013
The James Gallery at The Graduate Center, CUNY announces the conceptual and experimental exhibition guest curated by Boris Groys, After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer, on view from 11 April till 1 June 2013. The exhibition presents the photographs, collected postcards, and hand-drawn itineraries of the French-Russian philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) to compose a visual exposition of his philosophy. Made in collaboration with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, The James Gallery is the only US venue for the exhibition.
Exhibition
31 August–09 October 2013
With this makeshift, impromptu composition of artworks and discourse, we share with our Utrecht publics a series of spontaneously assembled impressions—notes as it were—from a major manifestation of BAK’s flagship project FORMER WEST: Documents, Constellations, Prospects, realized earlier in 2013 in collaboration with Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Education Program
23 November 2013
During the performative presentation Proposal for a Transnational People’s Trial a proposal for a future international people’s tribunal is presented, which is developed by participants of New World Academy.
Education Program
5 December, 20.00–6 December, 22.00 2013
Presentation on a future cooperation of 200 refugees and 200 artists in Amsterdam.
