Performance — Nov 25, 2018

Price
Museumticket
Location
In exhibition gallery 1.29
Time
Nov 25, 2018, 2 pm until 2.30 pm
Nov 25, 2018, 3 pm until 3.30 pm
Main language
English
Admission
Tickets

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is pleased to present one new and one existing performance by Falke Pisano as part of the exhibition Freedom of Movement.

Pisano’s multimedia work No Man’s Land is structured around Virginia Woolf’s 1929 short story “The Lady in the Looking Glass”, which describes the images reflected in a mirror in a woman’s dressing room. The story reveals that a person’s true character can never be understood through a description of their environment and the objects they possess. Pisano adds another layer of interpretation to the story by demonstrating how the spaces we think of as neutral are actually informed by larger cultural and historical shifts. The artist’s analysis also refers to scientific advancements of the era in which Woolf’s story was written: the discovery of atoms, for example, which proved that space was not a void but rather an active realm and full of matter.

Falke Pisano, Wonder-what-time-it-is, 2017. Performance/installation, Playground Festival 2017, Museum M, courtesy of Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Hollybush Gardens and the artist, © Robin Zenner
Falke Pisano, Wonder-what-time-it-is, 2017. Performance/installation, Playground Festival 2017, Museum M, courtesy of Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Hollybush Gardens and the artist, © Robin Zenner

Similar to No Man’s Land in its formal structure and engagement with literature, Wonder-what-time-it-is is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 short story “The Devil in the Belfry”. The story describes the chaos that erupts in the fictional Dutch village of Vondervotteimitiss when a foreigner attacks the bell ringer and rings thirteen o’clock. Pisano uses the story to discuss the 19th-century standardization of time, and its connections to colonization and industrialization. 

For both No Man’s Land and Wonder-what-time-it-is, Pisano has created installations incorporating illustrations, diagrams, video, and other materials, which she will activate in public lecture-performances at the Stedelijk Museum.

Both works are part of the artist’s ongoing series VONDERVOTTEIMITISS (2017-present), which interrogates the purported objectivity of Western civilization’s philosophical roots. Through short stories written by authors that are now firmly embedded in the Western “canon”, Pisano questions concepts we believe to be self-evident, such as space, time, and language.

PERFORMANCES

2-2.30 PM
Wonder-what-time-it-is
3-3.30 PM
No Man’s Land

about the artist

Falke Pisano (b. 1978, Netherlands) creates artworks in cycles, centered around specific research interests. Through close analysis of literature and historical documents, Pisano reveals how the foundations of Western culture and thought are influenced by histories of colonialism and imperialism.

Pisano studied at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. She has participated in residencies at NTU CCA, Singapore; M4gastatelier, Amsterdam; the American Academy in Rome; Capacete, Rio de Janeiro; and the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. Her work has been exhibited and performed at venues including Praxes Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin; The Showroom, London; De Vleeshal, Middelburg; Grazer Kunstverein, Graz; the Berlin Biennale; BAK, basis voor actuele Kunst, Utrecht; De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam; the Venice Biennale; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Biennale of Sydney; Manifesta 7; and the Istanbul Biennial. In 2013 she was awarded the Prix de Rome.