Categories
Shows Upcoming

GUARDIANS

Julia Scher, Gretel, 2022, Marble, 40 x 76 x 30 cm
Courtesy Drei, Cologne

Auriea Harvey, Joan Heemskerk, JODI,
Lynn Hershman Leeson, Julia Scher

GUARDIANS

Opening Wednesday 24 April 2024, 5–8pm
24 April – 1 June 2024
Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2–6pm

Wouters Gallery
Bd d’Anvers 49, 1000 Brussels

Rectangle is thrilled to present GUARDIANS,
a joint project of Wouters Gallery | Rectangle, Brussels.

a group exhibition by net.art pioneers

AURIEA HARVEY
JOAN HEEMSKERK
JODI
LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON
JULIA SCHER

This exhibition explores the multiple dualities and interpretations of guardianship, from historical mythological figures to contemporary societal and corporate control. It highlights how this concept transcends physical boundaries to become a pervasive force in our digital lives, shaping our identities in a world increasingly determined by algorithms.

Documentation

Lives of Net Art
TATE
2019

Christiane Paul’s keynote presentation was part of ‘Lives of Net Art’, a series of events exploring how contemporary artists use the internet, as well as reflecting on the possibilities the internet has offered artists from the 1990s to the present day.
 
 
 

Rhizome x MoMI Present ArtBase Anthologies
with Auriea Harvey @ Onassis ONX
2024

A conversation about net art history with artist Auriea Harvey, hosted by Rhizome in partnership with Museum of the Moving Image. The event marks the launch of ArtBase Anthologies, Rhizome’s new initiative offering perspectives on digital art history through selected works.

Arts at CERN
Collide Interviews
2024

Joan Heemskerk winner of the first Collide Copenhagen Award, talks about the groundbreaking work of her net art collective JODI, her CERN project Alice & Bob after Clay +=-> Hello, World! and the potential of a new universal language.

more info

Biography

Auriea Harvey
Auriea Harvey (1971) USA.
 

Auriea Harvey is a digital artist and sculptor living and working in Rome. Her practice encompasses virtual and physical artworks created with a blend of digital and handmade production. Drawing from her extensive experience in net art and video games, she brings a synthesis of mythology, autobiography, art historical reference and imagination – made visible through form, interaction and immersion. Auriea is engaged across time, media, and material to define what sculptural production means in the present moment. Her work can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, KADIST Collection, Rf.C Collection, and Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology. She has exhibited widely with international success including exhibitions at the Tinguely Museum, Basel; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the New Museum, New York; and ZKM, Karlsruhe.

https://auriea.art/

 
 
Joan Heemskerk

Joan Heemskerk is a Dutch contemporary artist. Her artistic practice is centred around the internet, with a current focus on exploring the potentials of web4, spanning from cryptography systems to the realm of quantum non-binary computing. Her diverse body of work includes photography, video, software, games, websites, NFT, performances and installations.
_ She is also a member of the art collective JODI >>>

https://joanheemskerk.com


JODI

JODI, or (jodi.org) – pioneered net.art in 1995. JODI were among the first artists to investigate and subvert conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games. Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including visual aesthetics, interface elements, commands, errors and code. JODI stages extreme digital interventions that destabilise the relationship between computer technology and its users by subverting our expectations about the functionalities and conventions of the systems that we depend upon every day.

JODI’s work is featured in most art historical volumes about digital and media art, is exhibited worldwide in ; Documenta-X; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; ZKM; ICC; CCA; Guggenheim; IMAL; Centre Pompidou; Eyebeam; FACT; MoMi; Harvard Art Museums; Rhizome; MoMa, among others.

http://jodi.org

Lynn Hershman Leeson

Lynn Hershman Leeson

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Wouters Gallery, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

https://www.lynnhershman.com/

Julia Scher

Julia Scher (1954) USA.

Inspired by the French philosopher Michel Foucault and the sociologist Gary T. Marx, Julia Scher’s work focuses on the subjects surveillance and cyber-sphere. Aiming at the exposure of dangers and ideologies of monitoring systems, Scher creates temporary and transitory web/installation/performance works that explore issues of power, control and seduction. In the last 20 years, her research has explored social control dynamics in public space. The art projects have taken the form of interactive installations, reformulated surveillance, site tours, interventions, performances, photography, writing, net.art, linear video, and sound. Since 1988, Scher has produced a series of installations called Security by Julia. These have taken different forms but often involve a person wearing a security uniform and an invitation to the viewer to actively participate in surveillance culture.[6] Other variations of the installations have included soothing voices and baby blankets.

Among her many institutional exhibitions are: Signals: How Video Transformed the World, MoMA, New York (2023); Maximum Security Society, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2023); Maximum Security Society, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich (2022); Wonderland, Maison Populaire, Montreuil (2022); Planet Greyhound, Kunsthalle Gießen (2022); Julia Scher, MAMCO, Geneva (2021); Collection of Contemporary Art, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2020); Im Volksgarten, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus (2020); Time is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2019); Maskulinitäten, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf (2019); Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (2018); Julia Scher – Delta, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen (2018); The Condition of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co., The Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson (2018); Art and Entertainment, MAMCO, Geneva (2018); Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018); In Relation to a Spectator, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2017); Enemy of the stars: Ronald Jones in dialogue with David Hammons,Louise Lawler, Helmar Lerski, and Julia Scher, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); VIDEONALE.16, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2017); Film as Place, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2016); Global Control and Censorship, ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe (2015); 1984–1999. La Décennie, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2014); NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and no Star, New Museum, New York (2013); Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011), SFMOMA, San Francisco (2011) and Tate Modern, London (2010); Predictive Engineering2, SFMOMA, San Francisco (1998); Forecast, Maurine and Robert Rothschild Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge (1996); The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (1995); Don’t Worry, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (1994); Aperto ’93, 45th Venice Biennale (1993); Informationsdienst, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart (1992); The Speaker Project, ICA, London (1992); Buffalo Under Surveillance, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo (1992); Security Site Visits, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1990); The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989); Occupational Placement (O.P.), The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (1989); Julia Scher: Public Travel Area (P.T.A.), MoMA PS1, New York (1988).

Her work is held in multiple collections: MoMA, New York; Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Kunstsammlungen, Wiesbaden; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York; Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf/Berlin; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois; Le Consortium, Dijon; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; MAMCO, Geneva; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museen Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York; Neue Galerie Graz – Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and SFMOMA, San Francisco.

http://www.juliascher.com/

Categories
Past Shows

REc+ >>>

Joan Heemskerk

REc+
           >>>

at Rectangle, Brussels

Finissage Saturday 2 September, 2–6pm
13 July – 2 September 2023
Open Friday and Saturday, 2–6pm

Waldburger Wouters Gallery
Bd d’Anvers 49, 1000 Brussels

Rectangle is pleased to present REc+ >>>, a solo exhibition by Joan Heemskerk.

In our digital age, beyond the surface of the latest Zoom calls, Netflix shows, or digital art, lies a world of intricate data and their never-ending journey. These delicate bits, the raw material of our computerised existence, undergo processing, encryption, and transmission, becoming the substrate for the artist’s exploration. Joan Heemskerk’s practice is often described as “infrastructure poetry,” as she uncovers the beauty and complexity within the very framework that shapes our digital landscape. Through a series of existing and new works, this exhibition delves deep into the interconnected realms of networks, data, and cryptography.

Joan Heemskerk, R4aW, 2023, (Requiem for a Wallet), html, interactive, various dimensions
Joan Heemskerk, Untitled, 2023, base 2-8-16 conversion into color cubes (Hello, world!)
Joan Heemskerk, Chameleon, 2021, Generative video, 256 editions
Joan Heemskerk, exhibition view, REc+ >>>
Joan Heemskerk, 0 ∞, ibmq_armonk : 4f428318-7b29-4df9-9fa9-094b15a8cb04, 2023, engraved brass, 20 x 20 cm
Joan Heemskerk, CABLE–, 2023, Animation/.SVG, on chain, various dimensions
Joan Heemskerk, SAT-HEX, 2022, html, interactive, various dimensions
Joan Heemskerk, PROTOTYPE, 2022, html, various dimensions
Joan Heemskerk, Recovery, 2023, html, various dimensions
Joan Heemskerk, Hello, world!, All SAT, 2023

Works

JOAN HEEMSKERK
Recovery
2023
html
various dimensions
111 editions

Documentation

Exhibition Catalog
 

Text : Joan Heemskerk
Edited by Rectangle

view (pdf)

Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars | The New York Times 
 

By Adam Satariano, Scott Reinhard, Cade Metz, Sheera Frenkel and Malika Khurana
July 28, 2023

Link

Biography

Joan Heemskerk

Joan Heemskerk is a Dutch contemporary artist. Her artistic practice is centred around the internet, with a current focus on exploring the potentials of web4, spanning from cryptography systems to the realm of quantum non-binary computing. Her diverse body of work includes photography, video, software, games, websites, NFT, performances and installations.
_ She is also a member of the art collective JODI >>>

JODI, or (jodi.org) – pioneered net.art in 1995. JODI were among the first artists to investigate and subvert conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games. Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including visual aesthetics, interface elements, commands, errors and code. JODI stages extreme digital interventions that destabilise the relationship between computer technology and its users by subverting our expectations about the functionalities and conventions of the systems that we depend upon every day.

JODI’s work is featured in most art historical volumes about digital and media art, is exhibited worldwide in ; Documenta-X; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; ZKM; ICC; CCA; Guggenheim; IMAL; Centre Pompidou; Eyebeam; FACT; MoMi; Harvard Art Museums; Rhizome; MoMa, among others.

https://joanheemskerk.com

http://jodi.org

Categories
Reviews

BOOOOOOOM – “Revenants” Featuring Artists Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva

Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon & Rick SIlva

BOOOOOOOM

at Rectangle, Brussels

A new exhibition featuring Canadian artist Kelly Richardson, Franco-Canadian artist Nicolas Sassoon and Brazilian-American artist Rick Silva. Curated by Brussels-based art space Rectangle, “Revenants” plays with ideas of scale and time as it relates to human perception and our place on this planet. Sassoon’s ongoing sculpture series, “Prophets,” combines volcanic rock with LCD panels featuring pixelated animations reminiscent of flowing lava. Recalling traditional viewing stones, from which electronic hardware and screens emerge to form heads and figures, the sculptures recount a partial history of our relationship with matter and reminds us, not just of how the very ground beneath our feet was formed, but where the same minerals that enable our digital lives originate. Sassoon and Silva’s collaborative project similarly speaks to the connections between organic and inorganic materials as they share a common interest in depictions of wilderness and natural forms through computer imaging. “CORES” is made up of high-resolution 3D renderings of geological specimens altered by unnatural substances and enigmatic structures.

On the other end of the planetary spectrum, Richardson takes us into the asteroid belt of our solar system. Continuing ideas explored in “Pillars of Dawn” where extinct species in a seemingly post-human world have taken the form of crystals, “Origin Stories” reveals the majesty and infinite wealth of our home within the context of the universe. However intensely inward (historical / geological) or outward (celestial / futuristic) these artists may be looking, all the pieces in “Revenants” seem to come back to the same thing — what role or responsibility we still have yet to play. As Alexandra Crouwers states in her essay on the show:

“When we return to the human power of one, we’re left with the realisation that while our species’ behaviour is responsible for the current global extinction event, it’s equally capable of producing uniquely imaginative visions. Art alone can’t save the world but the creation of art may very well be considered as the yin to our destructive yang.”

Check out more images from “Revenants” below or on display at Rectangle in Brussels until February 20th.

 

“Revenants” Featuring Artists Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva

Categories
Past Shows

REVENANTS

Kelly Richardson, Origin Stories (detail)
Courtesy the artist

Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva

REVENANTS

at Rectangle, Brussels

Opening Friday 20 January, 5–8pm
Gallery Walk Downtown 21 January, 2pm
21 January – 20 February 2023
Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2–6pm

Waldburger Wouters Gallery
Bd d’Anvers 49, 1000 Brussels

Rectangle is pleased to present REVENANTS, a collaboration with
Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva.

Scale is everything. What may look like a solid upon closer inspection turns out to be a void. Lights in the night sky that to us appear as stars may instead be expansive galactic clouds housing multiple galaxies.

Charles and Ray Eames’ iconic production ‘The Powers of Ten’ (1977) takes us from our tangible human scale – a lazy Sunday picnic scene in a park – to the incomprehensible vastness of space and beyond back, all the way to the sub-atomic realm. At the 24th power of ten, after flying past galaxy clusters, we reach the limit of the known universe in 1977 – 100 million light years away. We’re left with a black screen, and the voice-over cheerfully announces: “This emptiness is normal”.

Kelly Richardson, Origin Stories, 2023
Courtesy the artist

This is by no means a hollow statement, because after zooming back in through all powers, and diving into our cellular structures, this emptiness is eerily reflected on the microscopic level of the 10th power of minus ten, at 0.01 angstrom.

A similar disorienting sense of relativity can be applied to time: we may notice our Earth’s crust’s movements sometimes as hiccups in the form of volcano eruptions or earth quakes. Despite their potential significant regional impact, they only suggest minor movements on a planetary scale. We tend to think of the planet as fairly stable grounds, but experienced in deep time, Earth behaves more like a boiling, chunky stew. Glaciers flow like syrup, islands pop up and vanish, coastlines fold out of sight, mountain ranges rise sharply and erode into friendly hills, and whole seas evaporate while other basins are being filled. It’s all very exhilarating.

Our current, surprisingly cuddly, upper layer of life wouldn’t have been possible if not for the violent bombardments of meteors our younger planet had to endure. From destruction, an incredibly complicated and elegant biosphere emerged. It’s the conundrum at the roots of myths and at the hearts of circular belief systems.

We’re usually only reminded of our planet’s inner workings when disruptive pyroclastic clouds cancel our flights. Nicolas Sassoon’s ‘Prophets’, sculptures series is literally based on lava rocks, and offers us a view on their own origins. It’s as if these antenna’ed creatures are here, in possibly the least geological space in existence – a contemporary art gallery – to gently remind us of the unimaginable turmoil that is in a constant grind beneath our feet.

Kelly Richardson, on the other hand, transports us out of our troubled atmosphere all the way to the 11th power of ten, and provides us with a breathtaking view on the asteroid belt in our solar system. We find ourselves in a region between Mars – a planet Richardson previously visited in the monumental installation, ‘Mariner 9’ – and Jupiter. The countless slowly rotating bodies appear as crisp as if we’re looking out of the windows of a space ship; all potential new Chixculub impactors – named after the meteor that helped to end the reign of the dinosaurs which resulted in the rise of mammals, including us. The cool light bouncing off of the indifferent chunks of space debris is a distant counterpart of the glowing embers dancing in some of Richardson’s other virtual camera frames.

When we return to the human power of one, we’re left with the realisation that while our species’ behaviour is responsible for the current global extinction event, it’s equally capable of producing uniquely imaginative visions. Art alone can’t save the world but the creation of art may very well be considered as the yin to our destructive yang.

This emptiness is normal.
Text by Alexandra Crouwers.

Nicolas Sassoon, Prophets, 2023
Courtesy the artist
Nicolas Sassoon, The Prophet (Tanaga 1), 2023, rock, lcd screen, variable dimension
Courtesy the artist
Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva, CORES (right)
Nicolas Sassoon, The Prophets (Tanaga 02), 2023 (left)
Courtesy the artist
Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva, CORES (left)
Nicolas Sassoon, The Prophets (Tanaga 03), 2023 (right)
Courtesy the artist
Nicolas Sassoon, The Prophets (Tanaga 03), 2023
Courtesy the artist
Kelly Richardson, Pillars of Dawn
Courtesy the artist

Documentations

The Powers of Ten (1977) 
 

The Powers of Ten films are two short American documentary films written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames

 
 
 
Halcyon Fog
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Artist’s talk with Kelly Richardson
Kamloops Art Gallery
Curated by Charo Neville
 
 

CORES
2020

Eight Fragments on Eight Stones
Essay by Elise Hunchuck and Jussi Parikka

more info

THE PROPHETS
2019

Text by Nora O Murchú, Artistic director of transmediale

more info

Biography

Kelly Richardson
Kelly Richardson (1972) Canada.
 

Taking cues from 19th-century landscape painting, 20th-century cinema, and 21st-century planetary research, Kelly Richardson (b. 1972, Canada) crafts video installations and digital prints that offer imaginative glimpses of the future that prompt a careful consideration of the present.

Her work has been widely acclaimed in North America, Asia and Europe. Recent one person exhibitions include NGCA (England), Dundee Contemporary Arts (Scotland), Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Austria), SMoCA (USA), CAG Vancouver (Canada), VOID Derry (Ireland), and a major survey at the Albright-Knox (USA).

She was selected for the Beijing, Busan, Canadian, Gwangju and Montréal biennales, and major moving image exhibitions including the The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Her video installations have been included in the Toronto International Film Festival as part of Future Projections, Sundance Film Festival in New Frontier and she was honoured as the featured artist at the Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards.

Richardson’s work has been acquired into significant museum collections across the UK, USA and Canada, from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, SMoCA and Albright-Knox Art Gallery to the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Arts Council Collection (England) and the Towner.

Her video installations have been featured in numerous media including Artforum, The Guardian, BFI Sight and Sound, New Scientist, Time Out London, Aesthetica, British Journal for Photography, CBC, BBC, ITV, Sky News and New York Times.

Kelly Richardson was born in Burlington, Ontario, Canada in 1972. From 2003-2017 she resided in north east England where she was a Lecturer in Fine Arts at Newcastle University. She currently lives and works as a visitor on the traditional territory of the WSANEC peoples of the Coast Salish Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. She is Professor in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria.

 
 
 
Nicolas Sassoon
Nicolas Sassoon (1981) France, Canada.
 

Nicolas Sassoon is a Franco-Canadian artist using early computer graphics to create a wide array of pixelated forms & figures, moiré patterns & architectural structures. His work has long been concerned with the tensions between the pixel and the screen, reflecting on their entanglement and materiality by constraining himself to experiment with pixelated patterns and figures as his sole visual language. This focus on early computer graphics is driven by the sculptural, material and pictorial qualities of this imagery, as well as its limitations and its poetics. A basis of Sassoon’s research centres on digital animations created using a moiré patterning technique; consisting in the overlap of two images to generate optical illusions. This body of work often features abstract animations informed by atmospheric and natural forces. The animations appear on screen as endless hypnotic surfaces, similar to all-over paintings or wallpapers in their composition. The optical properties of these works generate tensions and oscillations in the perception of depth and flatness within the space of the screen. Sassoon’s work also manifests in physical space as sculptures, prints, and monumental projections scaled to the architecture in context, generating experiences adjusted to the human body. At large, Sassoon’s practice relates to many histories of abstraction in painting, optical art, moving image and computer graphics.

Nicolas Sassoon currently lives between Montreal, Canada and Biarritz, France. He is a founder of the collaborative projects SIGNALS and WALLPAPERS. His work has been exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art (US), Eyebeam (US), Current Museum (US), Vancouver Art Gallery (CA), Plugin ICA (CA), Contemporary Art Gallery (CA), Charles H.Scott Gallery (CA), Western Front (CA), PRETEEN Gallery (MX), Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), the Centre d’Art Bastille (FR), House of Electronic Arts Basel (SW), Kunsthalle Langenthal (SW), Arti et Amicitiae (NL), MU Eindhoven (NL) , Today Art Museum (CN), Chronus art Center (CN), the Berlin Fashion Week (DE) and the New-York Fashion Week (US).

https://nicolassassoon.com/

 

 

 
Rick Silva
Rick Silva (1977) Eugene, Oregon
 

Rick Silva is a Brazilian-American artist who makes experimental 3-D animations that explore virtuality, futurology, and speculative ecologies. His works have been screened and exhibited internationally. Recent exhibitions include Hors Pistes at The Centre Pompidou, and State of the Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. His work has been featured in publications such as WIRED magazine and Rhizome’s book Net Art Anthology. Silva lives in Eugene, Oregon, where he is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Oregon.

https://ricksilva.net/

 
Categories
Past Shows

Wendy Cabrera Rubio

Wendy Cabrera Rubio

Escenario para un genómica Nacional

at Rectangle, Brussels

Opening Friday 22 October, 5–8pm
23 October – 15 December 2021
Open by appointment

Rectangle is pleased to present Escenario para una genomica nacional | Sangre y genética en la post revolución mexicana, a collaboration with Wendy Cabrera Rubio, the first part of a series of pieces in which the artist generates a journey through the myth of mestizo identity in Mexico from the post-revolutionary era to the medical institutions that today continue to generate an echo on the ideals of the mestizo body.

Within this series Cabrera Rubio emphasizes the forms of cultural assimilation that the Mexican government has implemented by means of scientific and sanitary justifications, through the first public health and hygienic education campaigns, supported by the use of strategies such as cinema, radio or petul theater. As well as by the consolidation of organizations such as the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN), which continues to generate categories on genomic differences in the various indigenous communities of the country, validating the idea of mestizaje as the basis for health progress, but also as a fundamental part of the continuous ideological quests for contemporary modernization that continue to permeate Mexico.

Rectangle se complace en presentar Escenario para una genomica nacional | Sangre y genética en la post revolución mexicana, una colaboración con Wendy Cabrera Rubio, la primera parte de una serie de piezas en donde la artista genera un recorrido por el mito de la identidad mestiza en México desde la época posrevolucionaria hasta las instituciones médicas que hoy en día siguen generando un eco sobre los ideales del cuerpo mestizo.

Dentro de esta serie Cabrera Rubio hace hincapié en las formas de asimilación cultural que el gobierno mexicano ha implementado mediante justificaciones científicas y sanitarias, a través de las primeras campañas de salud pública y educación higiénica, apoyándose del uso de estrategias como el cine, la radio o el teatro petul. Así como también mediante la consolidación de organismos como el Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica (INMEGEN), el cual sigue generando categorías sobre las diferencias genómicas en las distintas comunidades indígenas del país, validando la idea del mestizaje como sustento del progreso sanitario, pero también como parte fundamental de las continuas búsquedas ideológicas de modernización contemporánea que siguen atravesando a México.

Acknowledgments

Luis Vásquez
Director de fotografía

Omar Mendoza
Asistente de dirección

Manuel Delgado Plazola
Dirección de escena

Michelle Montiel
Titiritera (sangre y adn)

Yafté Arias
Titiritero (José Vasconcelos y mapa genomico de los mexicanos)

Ileana Moreno
Dirección de video

Percival Argüero Mendoza
Sonido directo

María Juana Patricia Rubio Rosas
Norma Rodriguez Rosas
Wendy Cabrera Rubio
Escenografía y títeres

Carlos Carbajal
Tramoyista

Carlos Martínez y Wendy Cabrera Rubio
Guión

Agradecimientos
Avantgardo, José Castañeda, Marek Wolfryd, Javier Fresneda, Natalia de la Rosa. Carlos Carbajal

Documentations

Biography

Wendy Cabrera Rubio, Sangre y genética humana en la posrevolución mexicana 2021 Xilografía con sangre de la artista 0+ 55.2 % de ascendencia genómica amerindia, 41.8 % de ascendencia genómica europea y 3.5 % de ascendencia genómica africana. Marco de madera de cedro. 60 x 50 cm
Wendy Cabrera Rubio (1993) Mexico.
 
Completed her undergraduate studies at ENPEG “La Esmeralda” and later entered the SOMA Educational Program. Her work has been presented collectively at el Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, Museo de la Ciudad, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, el Colegio Nacional, among others. And individually at, Kurimanzutto, Peana, Biquini Wax EPS, Jumex museum, La Embajada and Nordenhake gallery. It is part of the Young Creators Program FONCA 2021-2022 in the Alternative Media category.

With the gracious support of

Categories
Reviews

Hearts and Minds – Catalog Launch

Catalog Launch

Hearts and Minds

30 July 2021
at Rectangle, Brussels

Chantal Akerman
Harold Ancart
Jef Geys
Dan Graham
Bodys Isek Kingelez
Robert Lebeck
An-My Lê
Otobong Nkanga
Marina Pinsky
Claudia Peña Salinas
Adam Simon
Momoyo Torimitsu
Hil Ye

Rectangle is thrilled to invite you to the catalog launch of the group show
 Hearts and Minds,
a joint project of carriage trade / Rectangle

We’d like to thank all the artists and the following lenders for their loans of artwork for the exhibition:

Icarus Films (Chantal Akerman), Clearing Gallery, Brooklyn (Harold Ancart), Essex Street/Maxwell Graham (Jef Geys), Greene Naftali Gallery (Dan Graham), Ronald Guttman / Christine Martin, Frédéric de Goldschmidt / André Magnin (Bodys Isek Kingelez), Janice Guy (An-My Lê), Cordula Lebeck, Archiv Robert Lebeck (Robert Lebeck), Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam (Otobong Nkanga), C L E A R I N G, Brussels (Marina Pinsky), and AfricaMuseum (Royal Museum for Central Africa).

A special thanks to Lawrence B. Benenson, LMCC, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Mr. Jacques Louise Vidal, WBI (Wallonie-Bruxelles International) and FWB (Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles) for their generous support. Thanks also to gallery assistants Jervey Inglesby, Laura Li, Molly Miller, Hannah Park, Kristal Uribe, as well as Daylon Orr, for all their efforts on the exhibition.

With the gracious support of

Categories
Screening

BOYAMBA BELGIQUE

BOYAMBA BELGIQUE

Or why a king should not lose his sword.

A film by Dries Engels & Bart Van Peel


Online Screening
17 June 2021 – 27 June 2021

carriage trade and Rectangle are pleased to present BOYAMBA BELGIQUE, or why a king should not lose his sword, screening online from June 17- 27, 2021 as part of the exhibition Hearts and Minds, which has been extended through June 27, 2021.

On June 30, 1960, the young Belgian King Baudouin was in Leopoldville (now Kinshasha) for a ceremony to transfer power to the Congolese after more than 50 years of colonial rule. As the procession headed up the crowded main boulevard, a Congolese man came up alongside the limousine from which Baudouin was saluting his troops, stole the King’s sword and ran off. Captured in a now iconic photograph by Robert Lebeck, the image offers proof of a brilliant act of defiance by the colonized in the face of a last, ostentatious display of influence by the colonizer, symbolically taking power before it could be granted.

While the photograph captured the dramatic gesture the instant it occurred, what happened to the man and the sword in the aftermath of the event remained an enigma. Traveling to the Congo 50 years later, the filmmakers Dries Engels & Bart Van Peel try and complete the story of Lebeck’s powerful image, and in searching for the whereabouts of the man and the sword, encounter along the way some of the legacies and consequences of the long shadow of colonial rule.

Hearts and Minds
A joint project of carriage trade and Rectangle, Brussels.
Extended to June 27, 2021

CREDITS:

Directors Dries Engels & Bart Van Peel
Producer Ellen De Waele
In co-production with Isabelle Truc for Iota Production (BE)
Scientific supervisor Zana Etambala
DOP Carl Rottiers
Sound Jevon Lambrechts
Editor Joris Vanden Berk
Componist Andrew Claes
Associate producer Ingrid Coppé
Co -producers Isabelle Truc, RTBF, CANVAS
World Sales Cat&Docs

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Reviews

Revealing the Prickly Side of Imperial “Soft Power” – Hyperallergic

Revealing the Prickly Side of Imperial “Soft Power”
by Billy Anania
Hyperallergic

Otobong Nkanga, "Alterscape Playground (E)" (2005-2015), C-print on aluminium, 19 7/10 × 26 2/5 inches (courtesy the artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam)
Otobong Nkanga, "Alterscape Playground (E)" (2005-2015), C-print on aluminium, 19 7/10 × 26 2/5 inches (courtesy the artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam)

A collaboration between Carriage Trade and Rectangle, Hearts and Minds analyzes the deceptive repackaging of Western imperialism.

At its core, colonialism is an exercise in smoke and mirrors. The colonized subject becomes an object of state terror while historically, government agencies and the media have repackaged these imperial projects as “foreign aid,” giving way to more indirect neocolonial endeavors. Back home, the rhetoric remains the same; politicians’ fiery speeches continue to convince their domestic population that intervention abroad is in their best interest.

Public relations campaigns do much of the heavy lifting in manufacturing deceptive appeals to “peace” and “democracy,” and otherwise misleading through psychological operations (or psyops). During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson told wealthy business owners that “the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there,” as part of a counterrevolutionary strategy to suppress the Viet Minh army. He used the phrase “winning hearts and minds” in 28 public statements to sell the war.