6 september t/m 12 oktober 2008   

 Voorstraat 180,  Dordrecht 

CBK Dordrecht presents an exhibition of works by recent post-graduates who have studied in the Netherlands. Participating artists;Michael Anhalt, Joshua Beck, Julien Grossmann, Chris Meighan, Margo Onnes, Eric von Robertson, Sanne Rous, Boba Mirjana Stojadinovic, Aldwin van de Ven, Sjoerd Westbroek and Emily Williams.

Curated by Hanne Hagenaars - art historian and initiator of art magazine Mister Motley, Theo Tegelaers – freelance curator and project coordinator at SKOR and Maaike van de Wiel – assistant director CBK Dordrecht

Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 12-17 uur

Become a tourist in Your Backyard – 12 fluid ounce excursion, Location Den Haag, 2007

HM: I recently went on an excursion with your can in Kansas City. I began the drive at the western edge of Kansas City and throughout this drive through low-density suburbs, maybe 10 miles; there was simply no response. This was the middle of the day; people were completely oblivious to the can being on top of the car. As soon as I passed I-35 and drove into the higher-density, established suburbs, there was an immediate escalation. Drivers began to honk and point at the roofs of their own cars. Then when I entered the center of the city the responses were much more dramatic — a homeless man left his grocery cart and sprinted down the street flagging me down, people got out of their cars and knocked on my window, pedestrians would frantically point at the can. Driving with the can creates an opportunity to gauge awareness of public space and the various levels of participation that occur throughout the city. You could almost use the can to map zones of consciousness. The theory would be that suburban, low-density new development areas breed a lack of engagement with public space. I was truly surprised by the complete oblivion.

EvR: Even when presented with this completely misplaced object — a can riding on the top of your car? And at all different intervals of speed, even cruising down the highway? They have to be left with some kind of thoughts; maybe at dinnertime they think, “what was going on there?”

HM: Have you had any experiences with that piece in The Netherlands where the response to the can has varied?

EvR: We did this project for the Bureau for Contemporary Adventure in The Hague, but it would be more difficult to gauge that here, because the density level is so high. It was the same setup — the can was on top of the car. Early in the morning there was an older couple already waiting for an excursion. I drove in their car and the guy had his own camera so he was documenting the work for me. We left the area and headed down these small streets in the morning. It escalated from one thing to the next — bicyclists were signaling, a guy driving a backhoe pulled into the middle of the street and was signaling as he was turning. We continued and stopped at an intersection and a guy got out of his van and knocked on the window and was talking to me, letting me know I had a misplaced object. He got back into his van and honked, because I didn’t remove it, then he got back out again and pulled it away and realized it was kind of this situated object and that he had been caught between a reality and the stage I had created. So we toured this for three days. There was a guy following us in a Mercedes for 20 minutes doing a cell phone movie.

HM: That’s great, I wonder if he understood it was a staged scenario?

EvR: In some sense it doesn’t matter that it’s staged. It is a reality. When people walk out the door everyday they trust the sidewalk is going to be there. When they see a can on top of the car, it’s just a fact, there’s no trick to it.

HM: So then the question in suburban Kansas City is if the sidewalk disappeared one day, would people take notice? Or, how surreal do things have to get to jolt the suburbanite?

EvR: Right, it’s oblivion. Or maybe it isn’t oblivion, it’s just suburbia. Where are they on route to, and what’s occupying their mind? They have no periphery, it’s like they don’t have binocular vision; they are Cyclops! I like this catalyst of the can — it is so mundane and everyday and it’s accidental. It is unexplainable — nobody can explain the accidental. The accidental happens everyday and causes great consequences and stress for people. For some people in poetry and art, this is really the work — the accidental, the uncertainty that we are looking for… It’s about the encounter and being engaged on other levels…

Excerpt from a conversation with Hesse Mcgraw, curator at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art