The Showroom
Event

Door Between Either and Or

Saturday 22 February 2014, 2–5pm

Free, no booking required

01764

The London iteration of Door Between Either and Or will look at the legacy of institutional critique in relation to contemporary critical artistic and organisational practices.

Speakers: Irit Rogoff, Gerry Bibby, David Dibosa, Wendelien van Oldenborgh and Bart van der Heide

Initiated by Kunstverein Munich, Door Between Either and Or takes its name from a door built in Marcel Duchamp’s apartment that opens one doorway while closing another. As such, this particular door suggests alternative passage from inside to outside, or visa versa, without granting or blocking entry.

It is under the auspices of this visual metaphor that the project considers a creative economy in which contradictions are usually self-generated, and where contemporary practices roam across different formats and disciplines.

Institutional critique has been instrumental in the formation of a self-awareness from artists toward their own practices and artistic positions, as well as in the development of more self-reflexive organisational models.

Using The Showroom’s work as a starting point, the event will explore the relations and tensions between artists and organisations, looking at how and where criticality is located and performed, internalised and externalised.

Door Between Either and Or is a three-part project organised by Kunstverein Munich and supported by Bundeskulturstiftung.

Parts 1 and 2 consisted of a group exhibition co-curated by artists Judith Hopf and Marlie Mul and a symposium organised by Kerstin Stakemeier, which both took place in Munich during Summer 2013. The third part involves a series of satellite events at international institutions and project spaces throughout 2014, beginning with The Showroom. For these events, each host organisation is asked to evaluate their institutional practice in relation to their own public identity against a history of institutional critique. Finally, a cumulative publication will collect and expand on the material generated from each part of Door Between Either and Or and will be published late 2014.

Dr. David Dibosa is co-author of Post-Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (Routledge, 2013). He trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from Girton College, Cambridge. He was awarded his PhD in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London, for a thesis titled, Reclaiming Remembrance: Art, Shame and Commemoration. During the 1990s, David curated public art projects, including In Sight In View, a billboard project in Birmingham City, England, as well as a sculpture park in the English West Midlands. From 2004-2008, he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Theory at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London. He remains at UAL, where he is now Course Leader for MA Curating & Collections at Chelsea College of Arts.

Bart van der Heide is an art historian and is currently director of the Kunstverein Munich. Prior to this he was curator at the Cubitt Gallery in London, curator at Witte de With in Rotterdam, and Assistant Curator at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam. Exhibitions curated by him include solo debuts by Trisha Baga, Bernadette Corporation, Keren Cytter, Ian Kiaer, Tobias Madison, Tris Vonna-Michell, Rebecca Warren, Cathy Wilkes, and Haegue Yang. Van der Heide has published on artists Heimo Zobernig (Tate, London, 2008), Haegue Yang (Portikus, Frankfurt, 2008), Keren Cytter (Kunsthaus Zurich, 2008; MUMOK, Vienna, 2007), and Ryan Gander (ABNAMRO Collection, Amsterdam, 2006)