New exhibition curated by CAP guest lecturer Benjamin Fallon opens at IMPAKT Festival in Utrecht.

 

To the reader is a new exhibition curated by #CAPetc guest lecturer and ex-student Benjamin Fallon. Forming part of the 2013 IMPAKT Festival the exhibition deals with issues around capital and the lack of cohesive responses since the crisis that emerged in 2008.  IMPAKT is a major European media art festival, which has taken place annually in Utrect, Netherlands since 1988. Each year IMPAKT deals with a single theme, which is examined through various media, including an extensive film programme, talks, events and exhibition. The theme of this year’s festival is CAPITALISM CATCH-22 posing the question of how to solve the dilemma, which exists between capitalisms place as the dominant and seemingly most workable economic system and its failures and the apparent inevitability of it being a dead end.

“The work in the show understands the limits of a moral critique that suggests that capital should just act nicely. Curator Benjamin Fallon points out that asking an inhuman system that is fundamentally interested in its own progress and growth, to behave in the interest of humans, is ultimately futile.” 

http://impakt.nl/festival/2013-festival/program-2013-festival/capitalism-catch-22-programme/curators-capitalism-catch-22-programme/meet-the-curators-benjamin-fallon/

To The Reader emerges from the understanding that capitalism is, first and foremost, a social relation that defines our behaviour. The exhibition is grounded in our current historical period. The basis for capitalism as a mode of organization has never been weaker, but paradoxically has seen almost no credible articulations of dissent. Perhaps there have been some fairly weak moral pleas for it to behave more pleasantly, and vague ideas that a return to Fordism and Keynesianism might be a good idea.

The exhibition itself is a tightly packed constellation of existing, newly commissioned and extended works, thinking through some of the contradictions we find ourselves entangled within. Whilst some of the information and ideas dealt with are necessarily complex, the exhibition will maintains a level of humour, understanding the importance for a certain lightness of touch when dealing with complexity.

The exhibition includes works by: Daniel Andújar; Bureau d’études; Liam Gillick; Goldin+Senneby; Hiwa K; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Learning Site; Huw Lemmey and Ben Vickers; The Bureau of Melodramatic Research; Capital Drawing Group (Andrew Cooper, Enda Deburka, Dean Kenning, and John Russell); Paul Sullivan; and Marika Troili.

http://impakt.nl/headquarters/news/festival-exhibition-to-the-reader/

Opening on Friday 18 October from 17.00 to 20.00 hrs at BAK, with a performance by The Bureau of Melodramatic Research titled Lovegold – Contemporary Alchemy at 18.30 hrs.

On Saturday 2 November 2013 at 15.00 hrs, Fallon and participating artists will introduce the project through a guided tour.

The Impakt Festival takes place from 30 October to 3 November 2013 at various locations throughout Utrecht. For more information on the Impakt Festival exhibition To The Reader, please visit www.impakt.nl.

Benjamin Fallon is an independent curator, writer and designer currently based in Brussels. Since leaving the HND Public Art (now Contemporary Art Practice) at Edinburgh College Granton (formally Edinburgh’s Telford College) he has participated in Curatorlab, Konstfack Stockholm 2012/13, served as co-director of Embassy Gallery between 2008 and 2010 and prior to this he worked in various capacities at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and ONEZERO. Benjamin is visiting lecturer at both Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh College.

Recent projects include You are just in the middle of the beginning various locations around Stockholm, 2013-ongoing; The Exhibition and its Histories the University of Edinburgh, 2013; Banal Inferno CCA Glasgow, 2010; Hello World Embassy Gallery, 2010; Warehouse of Horrors +44 141/ Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, 2009.

Benjamin is instigator of the working group Let’s get together and call ourselves an institute. researching the possibilities for new forms of institutional practice.

AH 18-10-13