09 Oct 2009

It isn't what it used to be and will never be again, Bik Van der Pol at the CCA, Glasgow

Dutch duo Bik Van der Pol come to the CCA this October following a two month residency at Cove Park to present 'It isn't what it used to be and will never be again', an exhibition featuring new work developed in collaboration with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and a publication featuring a collection of new texts from Glasgow based artists and writers.

Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol have been working together as Bik Van der Pol since 1995 and have been in residence at Cove Park and in Glasgow for two months. Adopting their usual approach, they have explored the city, meeting and interviewing a wide range of people. Having identified areas of local concern, they have entered into an open-ended negotiation with various artists and writers, resulting in a collection of texts and the creation of new artwork for the upcoming exhibition.

The title of the new work, 'Art Is either Plagiarism or Revolution, or: Something Is Definitely Going to Happen Here', refers to a film Bik Van der Pol made earlier this year about the unfinished Museum of the Revolution in the Park of Friendship in Belgrade. The museum was originally proposed in the 1970s under the Soviet regime in Yugoslavia. However, only the foundations were ever laid, a large concrete platform studded with rusting iron framework poles.

The artists researched the background to this building project and re-activated the phantom Museum of the Revolution through a gathering that implicated the public as they recorded proceedings with film and sound crew with equipment, catering, and technical teams. Essentially they created a film scenario that imbues the location with meaning and questions art, the museum, revolution, the public and the way 'the media' work.

Throughout their residency, Bik Van der Pol have been working with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra on a score for this film. With the film as a starting point, they will speculate on free improvisation, the process of decison making and the dynamics of interaction and dialogue.

The exhibition brings together this new work together with existing works that hover around questions of what distribution of information may or may not set off in the public realm, and if action can, should or is taking place when seemingly nothing seems to happen.

For the publication, Bik Van der Pol invited a series of artists and writers to respond to the themes of the exhibition and, in particular, to a quote from Slavoj Zizek: 'Sometimes, doing nothing is the most violent thing to do. […] The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to 'be active', to 'participate', to mask the nothingness of what goes on. People intervene all the time, 'do something' [...] The true difficult thing is to step back, to withdraw.' (Vilolence, Zizek, 2008)

Featuring contributions from Francis McKee, Neil Davidson, Sarah Tripp, Sarah Pierce, Simon Yuill, Camcorder Guerrillas, Fiona Jardine, John Bywater, Jan Verwoert, Anthony Iles, Neil Gray, Darren Ryhmes, and others, the publication will accompany the exhibition at CCA.

Other works being exhibited include:

Loompanics
A collection of books published by Loompanics Unlimited emphasises the tension between free speech, thinking, and taking responsibility for action. Loompanics, which went out of business in 2006, has published books on the edge of the tolerable for the last thirty years. The collection, now an archive, occupies an important niche. Everything produced by a society can, in reality, also be used against it. Balancing on this ambiguity of what defines a democracy, the books published by this radical company claim, through its output, a free space where one can think.

Past Imperfect
The research project 'Past Imperfect' examines the extent to which radical choices and events influence the course of (art) history and through that, our forms of perception. Can these radical events actually be traced or have they intentionally or accidentally disappeared? The starting point of the research was the radical work of artist Lee Lozano (1930-1999), who gradually withdrew from the art world during the 1970s, eventually disappearing completely from the public arena for the rest of her life.

'Past Imperfect' explores the relations between the radical output of the conceptual art of the '60s and '70s and everyday life, gradually moving on to include how radical ideas from the past are linked to those of today. The result of this investigation, the publication Casco Issues #9, is guided by curiosity, amazement and suspicion, accepting the risk of being totally incomplete or overly thorough. 'Past Imperfect' is a collection of cases around notions on disappearance, perfection, excessive control, compulsion and withdrawal.

The Disappearance Piece
How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is a self-help instruction book, detailing how to plan a disappearance, arrange a new identity, pseudocide and more. Since the publisher, Loompanics, went out of business in 2006, one of the books is reprinted as a scanned and personified edition of 1000 copies each time 'The Disappearance Piece' is shown.

Bik Van der Pol often work on location, using, reusing and reactivating work from diverse sources – the world of art, journalism, media, or history – and confront the visitor with situations for which they as artists refuse to take complete control.

Their work creates connections and interactions that generate a communicative platform. They continually question the function and meaning of art and art spaces and repeatedly request that what we conveniently call history or general body of thought be updated and evaluated.

They are particularly interested in self-organisation: what it brings to, and takes from, individuals, its huge potential as a strategic tool to generate change, and equally, myths that surround its potential. The kind of change that self organisation can generate raises difficult issues around control and autonomy. It is amid these tensions that they aspire to formulate their works, circling around the urgent question of how to produce and negotiate the need for autonomy.

A series of screenings and events will accompany the exhibition at CCA. Additional material will be published online via the CCA website and social networks.


The exhibition was realised with the financial support of the Mondriaan Foundation Amsterdam and Fonds BKVB.

* An allusion to 'La révolution n'est plus ce qu'elle était, by Henri Lefebvre with Catherine Régulier. Paris: Editions Libres-Hallier. 1978.