Dirk Jan Jager
Expositie is afgelopen
It's all in your head
Tentoonstelling 18-09-2023 t/m 29-09-2023 > Amsterdam
Address: Arti et Amicitiae, Rokin 112, Amsterdam
Opening party: 22 september 2023, 17.00 h
Deus ex machina: a rope dangles. A pair of legs is all that is visible as the rest of the anonymous body penetrates the fabric of this building, Arti et Amicitiae. The oldest artists club of Amsterdam, but still vital, a vital living body is still an organ in the body of the city.
Alchemy: these photographs were made blind, that is to say - they were made using an analog camera and shutter release mechanism. Blindness is here both a metaphor and a strategy, the moment is felt, it is not dramaturgy.
An analogy of the mind and heaven: these images are irrational, even preposterous. An angel, a satyr or ape-man, a patriarchal figure like the father in Pasolini’s Teorema or Bacon’s businessmen. All of this is staged in the hidden ceiling space of the building.
The peacock chair: an extravagant chair rests on a delicate glass ceiling. The ghosts of Huey Newton and Sylvia Kristel are present, ciphers of revolutionary violence and erotic fantasy. This ceiling can barely bear the weight of ghosts.
Conclusion: the building as body was theorized by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in his book The Poetics of Space. It is a key concept in approaching the performances of Dirk Jan Jager. These works happen in architecture, often in secret spaces corresponding to intimate or even taboo notions of the body. For a number of years Jager has performed as the anonymous body, but this body is doubled by his use of spaces.
On the 22nd of September Jager will be interviewed by Renée Hartog at the fireplace in the clubhouse of Arti. Thus he enters the heart and throat of this beloved living building. But just as the anonymous body becomes the personal body of Dirk Jan Jager, his audience will be masked, subsumed in the artist’s vision. The tables are turned.
Opening party: 22 september 2023, 17.00 h
Deus ex machina: a rope dangles. A pair of legs is all that is visible as the rest of the anonymous body penetrates the fabric of this building, Arti et Amicitiae. The oldest artists club of Amsterdam, but still vital, a vital living body is still an organ in the body of the city.
Alchemy: these photographs were made blind, that is to say - they were made using an analog camera and shutter release mechanism. Blindness is here both a metaphor and a strategy, the moment is felt, it is not dramaturgy.
An analogy of the mind and heaven: these images are irrational, even preposterous. An angel, a satyr or ape-man, a patriarchal figure like the father in Pasolini’s Teorema or Bacon’s businessmen. All of this is staged in the hidden ceiling space of the building.
The peacock chair: an extravagant chair rests on a delicate glass ceiling. The ghosts of Huey Newton and Sylvia Kristel are present, ciphers of revolutionary violence and erotic fantasy. This ceiling can barely bear the weight of ghosts.
Conclusion: the building as body was theorized by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in his book The Poetics of Space. It is a key concept in approaching the performances of Dirk Jan Jager. These works happen in architecture, often in secret spaces corresponding to intimate or even taboo notions of the body. For a number of years Jager has performed as the anonymous body, but this body is doubled by his use of spaces.
On the 22nd of September Jager will be interviewed by Renée Hartog at the fireplace in the clubhouse of Arti. Thus he enters the heart and throat of this beloved living building. But just as the anonymous body becomes the personal body of Dirk Jan Jager, his audience will be masked, subsumed in the artist’s vision. The tables are turned.
by Dirk Jan Jager
Jager alludes to motifs from painting or mythical figures to stage the body, allowing the familiar image to act as a second skin, which in the course of the performance is gradually peeled off, to reveal an anonymous, generic body. A central element in his work is the gesture of erasing identities, and images that support them.
Another aspect of his work is the interest in rituals and rites of passage, and transitional states that give birth to a new person, within a performative situation which involves the covering and peeling off the full surface of the body with different materials.
Contact
Dirk Jan Jager
Borneolaan 141
1019HX Amsterdam
Nederland
www.dirkjanjager.nl
241 dagen geleden bijgewerkt