Upcoming
Boekie Woekie Amsterdam (working title)
EXHIBITION & PUBLIC PROGRAM
Organized by: Center for Book Arts New York
29 May - 13 September 2025
Boekie Woekie is an artists'-run bookshop and gallery in Amsterdam that was founded in 1986 by a group of six artist. Soon Henriëtte van Egten (Dutch), Rúna Thorkelsdóttir (Icelandic) and Jan Voss (German) remained from this group and shaped this enterprise for artists' publications that conventional bookshops find difficult to promote and sell. Alongside their own artistic careers, the three dedicate their work to this collective sculpture in progress as they call it. At its heart is what art is all about: a free, poetic and anarchic spirit and a sense of a keen, sensitive humour. For almost 40 years now, these attitudes in conjunction with a wealth of experience and knowledge have nourished the risky and fascinating undertaking with its generous and welcoming atmosphere of exchange between people of all backgrounds, artists, experts or passers-by. To make that possible, everything is managed in self-responsibility, from the financial side and the bureaucratic administration, to the website and the sales in the shop, online, at fairs, and even in temporary branches abroad.
The exihibition focusses on the Boekie Woekie’s activities and the many threads it weaves around the world since its beginning. Without losing sight of its unclassifiable nature, it aims to illustrate the challenges and potentials of its two main principles: firstly, its uncompromising independence which is based on complete self-financing, and secondly, its commitment to self-published and small press titles by artists, regardless of their fame. These factors make the bookshop gallery unique, probably worldwide. They open up breathing holes within the late capitalist art world for life to return to art and vice versa, as Jan Voss, one of three Boekie Woekiers puts it.
"marco 15" und HIVE/Section Film: Gustave F.echt
AUSSTELLUNG, SEMINAR UND FILMDREH VON UND MIT RAINER OLDENDORF
Organized by: Kunstverein Weil am Rhein
20 March - 01 May 2022
About... | ||
For his multi-voiced exhibition, Rainer Oldendorf is taking over the three floors of the Stapflehus, generously provided by the Kunstverein in Weil am Rhein. The exhibition architecture, developed with furniture from his own collection, serves to present not only his own works but also those of invited artists, mostly friends, such as Henning Christiansen, Andreas Maria Fohr, Dean Inkster, Frédéric Lormeau, Marianne Maric, John Murphy, Patrick Neu, Pierre Soignon, Hinrich Sachs, Milica Topalovic, Carl Emanuel Wolff. An special guest is Gustave Fecht. She lived in Weil am Rhein from 1790 until her death and maintained a pen-friendship with Johann Peter Hebel until his death. His surviving letters reveal an intimate, never fulfilled love for her. The exhibition setting as well as its surroundings in Weil am Rhein will serve to film the 15th episode of Rainer Oldendorf's picaresque film series "marco". The eposodes are a veritable "work in progress" ("marco 14" took place during documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens). The series draws a fictional portrait of a certain Paul since his involvement in left-wing politics in the 1970s. Marco Gallo, a friend of Rainer Oldendorf since his youth, plays Paul since "marco 1" in 1995. Rainer Oldendorf's artistic practice can be seen as a totality of film, video, photography and architecture, his exhibitions in the consequence as polyphonic sculptures. In this case, an essential part is the involvement of friends and acquaintances around him in their roles as artists, lecturers, performers, students, gallerist, curator, camera team and research group. Their coming-together during the days of preparing, reflecting, mounting and dismounting the exhibition at lectures, seminars, concerts, the film shoot and the finissage, including discussions, strolls, shared meals, visits to wine bars etc. flow into his exhibition which is no longer a place of representation but a tool for the production of participation and networking, both internally and externally. |
DISONATA. ART IN SOUND UP TO 1980
Organized by: Museo Reina Sofia Madrid
22 September - 1 March 2021
About... | ||
More than a hundred years ago, pioneers from various directions set out on expeditions into the hitherto unexplored realms of sonic phenomena and processes, previously the
exclusive domaine of musicians. Driving force was the visual artists, but also visionary poets and musicians, even architects and engineers. Leaving all corsets of rules behind,
everything in this context was worth exploring: all possible notations (even directly on a record or ephemeral traces in sand), all types of making sound (even by machines or
dogs), all forms of staging (even in a desert or completely drunk), and of course all acoustic effects (even silence or ear-splitting crashes). It was a liberation of sounds and a
liberation of thinking. A reality broke through, pulsating with life, which enlarged and simultaneously shattered the well-defined harmony of allegedly superior forms and styles
of the established Western music system which had lost contact with the modern world. Artists: Alphonse Allais, Erik Satie, Erwin Schulhoff, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Francesco Balilla Pratella, Luigi Russolo, Dziga Vertov, Hugo Ball, Raoul Hausmann, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray, Alexander Calder, Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse, Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis, Isodore Isou, Maurice Lemaître, Jean Dubuffet, Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Pol Bury, Brion Gysin, François Dufrêne, Henri Chopin, Ilse Garnier, Françoise Janicot, Bernard Heidsieck, Mimmo Rotella, Katalin Ladik, Guy Schraenen, François and Bernard Baschet, Yves Tinguely, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Mieko Shiomi, Joe Jones, Robert Filliou, La Monte Young, George Maciunas, Tadeuz Kantor, Walter Marchetti, Juan Hidalgo, José Luis Castillejo, Esther Ferrer, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, Vladan Radovanović, Józef Robakowski, Chris Burden, Robert Morris, Ulises Carrión, Hanne Darboven, Andy Warhol, Dan Graham, Mike Kelley, Raymond Pettibon and more. |
Reviews (selection): El Pais // Artishock // Masdearte
Interview: Curator Maike Aden talks about ‘Disonata’ at Museo Reina Sofia
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH
# DISONATA. ARTE EN SONDO HASTA 1980
# DISONATA. ART IN SOUND UP TO 1980
254 pages, with contributions by Javier Ariza, Ricardo Dal Farra, Arndt Niebisch, Christina De Simone and by Maike Aden.
Online access:
Organised by: Museo Reina Sofía Madrid
Guy Schraenen (1941–2018) was a gallery owner, publisher, collector, curator, investigator, author. He is probably best known as one of the key figures of a transboundary network of pioneering artists and activists who, from the end of the 1950s on, explored radical new languages and ways of producing, multiplying, and disseminating artistic ideas and works. Long before established art institutions, critics, and art historians recognized the artistic value of artists' publications, Guy Schraenen treasured, published, exchanged, collected, and presented them to give “the opportunity to a public, kept ignorant by specialized media, to have knowledge”.
The exhibition seeks to illustrate Guy Schraenen's various projects, approaches, and connections, starting with his activities as founder of the Galerie Kontakt. It displays works and documents of his publishing house Guy Schraenen éditeur, and of the Archive for Small Press & Communication, whist he ran with Anne Marsily. It also reflects his exhibitions, festivals, screenings, concerts, essays and radio programs as well as his projects as founder and curator of artists’ publication collections in several European museums. Altogether, it witnesses Schraenen’s deep concern to take an independent stance toward the canons of the established art system and to explore new territories.
GAME, SET, MATCH. THREE CONCEPTS OF THE ARTISTS' BOOK
Organized by: Museum Serralves, Porto, Portugal
28 June - 06 December 2019
About... | ||
The collection of artists’ books of the Serralves Museum, curated by Guy Schraenen until his death in 2018, is one of the leading collections in Europe. Represented are all types and tendencies of this art genre, which emerged in the late 1950s when artists invented the concept of the ‘artist’s book’, a new and revolutionary way of dealing with the space of the book and with the diffusion of ideas and works. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the three-chapter exhibition Game, Set, Match will present major publications by visual artists of all horizons. It will highlight three main investigative fields within the universe of artists’ books: while chapter one deals with the tautological notion of the artist’s book as book, chapter two reflects on the book as an artwork in its own right, equivalent to a painting or a sculpture; chapter three focuses on works that exist at the interface between book and object. Altogether, the presented works are examples of how artists metamorphose the ordinary aspects of the book. Rather than destroying its ideas, they give new life and perspectives to it.
On occasion the opening, Ricardo Nicola, curator of the Museum Serralves, hosted a conversation between João Fernandes, deputy director of the Museum
Reina Sofía Madrid and Maike Aden, curator of the exhibition.
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Review: studio international
VINYL & CLIPS. SOUND COLLECTION GUY SCHRAENEN AND VIDEO CLIPS BY ARTISTS
Organized by
the Frac Franche-Comté,
Besançon, France
Curated together with Sylvie Zavatta
19 May 2019 - 22 September 2019
About... | ||
The exhibition brings together hundreds of vinyl records, covers, objects and graphic works, created by visual artists as well as by poets and some musicians. The works belong to the internationally most important and most comprehensive collection on Sound Art, the Sound Collection Guy Schraenen, which is part of his Archive for Small Press & Communication, now held by the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany. The show is divided into various sections that range from the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the 20th century such as Dadaism and Futurism, to sound experiments after 1945 by the Lettrists, Sound Poets, Beat Generation, Fluxus, Zaj, Conceptual Art. Presented are also groups of records by artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, John Giorno, William Burroughs, Roman Opalka, Hermann Nitsch, Hanne Darboven, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, as well as singular works by Yves Klein, Tom Wesselmann or Karel Appel. The relationship between visual arts and rock and pop music is highlighted with the records of the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or the Beatles, but also more recent groups such as Kraftwerk, Black Flag or Sonic Youth; artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Franck, Peter Blake or Raymond Pettibon have transformed them into icons. A listening table, specially designed for this exhibition, allows visitors to access sound samples by almost all works of the collection. Furthermore is presented a selection of music clips by artists. Chosen are works by visual artists who have found a freedom of creation in this short format which allows them to mix provocations, humour or diversions while echoing our time. In a specially arranged movie space, the public can also watch the documentary Vinylmania which leads through the fascinating facets of the vinyl record. Enthusiastic collectors, DJs, musicians and artists all over the world can be met. Guy Schraenen speaks about his passion for records and covers by artists.
Link to the collection: Sound Collection Guy Schraenen including artist biographies, a glossary and hundreds of sound samples
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Reviews (selection): Le Monde /// Les Inrockuptibles /// Trax Magazine
Research Assistance
ULISES CARRIÓN. DEAR READER. DON'T READ / QUERIDO LECTOR. NO LEA
Organised by: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid
March 15 - October 10, 2016
Iteration: Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo Mexico City
February 09 - April 30, 2017
The Museo Reina Sofía presents the retrospective Dear Reader. Don't read, dedicated to the Mexican creator Ulises Carrión (1941, San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz, Mexico - 1989 Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Carrión was an artist, editor, writer, exhibition curator and theorist of the international avant-garde art scene after the 1960s, as well as a key figure in Mexican conceptual art.
The exhibition aims to illustrate all aspects of his artistic and intellectual work: from his initial career as a successful young writer in Mexico, and his university years as a graduate student in France, Germany and England during which he studied language and linguistics; to his numerous activities developed in Amsterdam, the city in which Carrión settled definitively in 1972, and in which he lived until his death at the age of 49...
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH
# DEAR READER. DON'T READ.
# QUERIDO LECTOR. NO LEA.
Edited by Guy Schraenen, 272 pages, with contributions by Guy Schraenen, Felipe Ehrenberg, João Fernandes, Heriberto Yépez, Javier Maderuelo, Maike Aden
Online access of the English edition: Dear reader. Don't read.
Exhibition, Catalogue and Programme Assistance
VINYL. RECORDS AND COVERS BY ARTISTS
Exhibition organized by: Museum Weserburg Bremen / Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
21 Aug.-27 Nov. 2005
About... | ||
The comprehensive exhibition Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists is based on an emblematic graphic and sound medium, the vinyl record. The 31,5 x 31,5 format of the cover attracts artists to use it as a medium of expression. Among them are not only the collector's trophies by the Beatles, Black Flag, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, The Who, Sonic Youth, Bobby O, Diana Ross or Patty Smith records designed by Roy Adzak, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mapplethorpe, Raymond Pettibon or Andy Wahrhol. Also artists such as John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Günter Brus, Jean Dubuffet, Richard Hamilton, Keiith Haring, Yves Klein, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Raymond Pettibon, Dieter Roth, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman, among many others, transformed albums into impressive works of art. Many of these artists' covers protect records inside with exciting sound experiments. The earliest of those can be found within the avant-garde movements such as Dada and the Futurists who turned to sound as a medium and a material for expression. But it was not until the sixties that there was a proliferation and diversification of collaborations between musicians and visual artists. Likewise, experiences that formed part of movements as CoBRA, Art brut, Cinetic art, New realism, Fluxus, Pop art and Conceptual art are direct precursors of recent sound experiments. The exhibition brings together over 800 vinyl records from the collection of Guy Schraenen, the curator of the project. The visitors can experience both the covers and the sounds by artists. They also can consult an ample collection of additional materials such as tapes, publications and documents. Moreover, a listening station invites to explore a selection of over a thousand sound pieces by visual artists. On occasion of the exhibition, a comprehensive catalogue will be published. The show will be travel from Bremen to, among others, Barcelona, Porto, Paris, and Moscow.
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
GUY SCHRAENEN: VINYL. RECORDS AND COVERS BY ARTISTS. A SURVEY.
272 pages with glossary and discography of covers, documents, music, readings, sound art verbs vocal, a comprehensive bibliography and an index.
Online access: Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists