Constructing Spinoza 2

Today Thomas and his crew of 10 inhabitants started with the construction of The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival. They can be seen working on site every day from 8 AM to 5 PM, except Sundays. It will be ready by May 2nd, or so we all hope!

Constructing Spinoza

On 2 April, a week from now Hirschhorn and his construction team will start working on the Book. After the last instruction, it was time for the group picture. These are the people who will be working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week to finish the temporary structure for The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival.

The J.R. Ritman Library

Today Thomas, Nienke, Raggae (Thomas's temporary PA) and I went to see Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman and Cis van Heertum at the J.R. Ritman Library, a.k.a. Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. I have known about this library for a long time, but I never had a chance to visit, so I was thrilled to finally see it.

Esther and Cis are great. They showed us some very precious books and letters, about and by Spinoza. Cis knows a lot about them. And Esther is very generous indeed. She may lend Thomas some of the works.

The extraordinary collection, the smell of the room, the beautiful handpainted manuscripts, made this a memorable visit.

Big Book

A meeting this afternoon with the structural engineer and the supervisor about Hirschhorn’s Big Book. It is one of the most complicated things in OSA. Of course it has to comply with all sorts of regulations, so that the book – which will be 11 meters high! – will stand for at least 2 months. We should also find some way so that it won’t sink in the blubber (the Bijlmer is a polder after all and one with an extremely high ground water level at that). Then we have to use materials that won’t cost that much money. And last but not least, it should be low tech enough so that it can be built by amateurs i.e. inexperienced youths from the Bijlmer. If this isn’t a challenge, I don’t know what is…but we are very fortunate to have a top class structural engineering firm and architectural office working on it. And the supervisor is a retired, very experienced building inspector. So I am optimistic.

There is other good news: Thomas just e-mailed me from New York, where he is working on an exhibition at Gladstone. He has contracted the first world famous philosopher to come to the festival. I am dying to tell who, but I may not (yet).

The website for The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival will go on air pretty soon. Maybe he'll disclose the name on the site.

Slide Show at Spinoza Day..

Well, I guess you can't win them all.....On 23 November there was a Spinoza Day at Paradiso in Amsterdam. It was day with several lectures and two debates so I thought it might be good to present Hirschhorn's Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival there, as a visual backdrop to all the talking.

Since the organizers thought is was a good idea, I asked Thomas to create some slides, which he did: 13 great slides explaining his perspective as an artist on his project. Unfortunately, the people of the first debate did not want us, since there were several artists in the debate and they did not want to have someone else's work in the background. Then, the first debate also rejected us (I think the term 'visual violence'' was used..). So then it was decided to show the slides after one of the lectures, but we were not allowed to introduce the project.

So in the end, the slides were shown out of the blue to an understandably baffled public...

4rth visit Thomas Hirschhorn

Thomas was here again, his fourth visit in less than a year. And again, I was overwhelmed by his fire and energy. We actually have a GO for the Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival, which will take place from 9 May - 11 July 2009.

The sculpture will consist of a BIG BOOK (Spinoza's Ethica) which houses among others a Spinoza exhibition, a library, a Bijlmer documentation centre an internet cafe, a take-out restaurant, a workshop space and a stage. Every day, for two months, Thomas will be there, together with local inhabitants and a group of invited philosophers and art critics. There will be daily philosophical lectures, a Spinoza play (written by Marcus Steinweg and performed by an amateur theatre group form the Bijlmer), live radio or tv broadcasts, etc.

You gotta admire the man's ambition and determination.

3rd visit Hirschhorn

News from artists 3: Locked In

Thomas Hirschhorn features in an exhibition curated by my friend and colleague curator Maria Bojan. The exhibition is called Locked In and shows at Casino in Luxembourg until 29 June.

Other participating artists are Carlos Amorales, Pierre Bismuth, Michaël Borremans, Heather & Patrick Burnett-Rose, Mircea Cantor, Sebastián Díaz Morales, Tessa Farmer, Miklos Gaál, Douglas Gordon, Antony Gormley, Sagi Groner, Nanna Hänninen, Boukje Janssen, Jesper Just, Victor Man, Melik Ohanian, Marilène Oliver, Stéphane Pencréac’h, Victor Răcătău, Jérôme Schlomoff, Speak UP! Tanja Nellemann Poulsen & Grete Aagaard, Yves Trémorin, Vera Weisgerber and Guido van der Werve.

Presence and Production with Hirschhorn

Thomas Hirschhorn visited the Bijlmer for the second time. During his last visit in November 2007, we had a long, cold walk along the Open Source route. The aim at that time was to get a feel for the location. This time we had an action-packed programme, with back-to-back meetings.

The first appointment was with Achfaaq Mohamedjoessoef and Emmanuel Koney. Achfaaq is the director of the child care organisation Yoesboef. He is also the organiser of the internationally known Bijlmer Checkers Tournament. Emmanuel is the charismatic minister of the Pentacost Revival Church. Thomas came well prepared; he had list of questions, such as ‘what does art mean to you and your community?’, ‘ what would be a good site for an art work?’, ‘Do you know Spinoza’? etc. It was a very good meeting: both Achfaaq and Emmanuel were very honest and open, offering encouragement and as well as caution.

Then we had to race to De Nieuwe Stad, where we met Henk de Boer, the beadle of this church building, shared by 5 different parishes. To our surpirse, Henk had made print outs for Thomas of all public art works in the Bijlmer, with pictures and details of the works. Our next stop was Sammy Monsels, a former 6-time sprint champion and founder of the Bijlmer Athletic Club. Sammy had just finished his coaching duties, so we had tea in his office next to the track. It turned out his activities and drive encompasses much more than just athletics: the work he does has immense social significance within the Bijlmer community, especially among the youth. In 2004 he received a royal award for his efforts.

We ended the day with diner at Mavis – and her food was as fantastic as ever. Even during diner, Thomas did not stop working, interviewing the cooks and other kitchen personnel while enjoying his roti.

After diner, we had the final meeting of the day, with long time Bijlmer resident Henk van de Belt, with whom we talked about the Bijlmer plane crash disaster and its aftermath.

The next morning we went to see Ina Liebregts. Unfortunately, she had fallen ill, so we had to cut our visit short. This meant we had some time left, so we paid an unannounced visit to RaZo, the local multicultural radio- and television station. There we talked to Ibrahim and Mufti, Ghanese radio presenters who had just finished their broadcast, while Kees Kunta Kinte did his radio show in the background. We hung around for half an hour, enjoying the company, the coffee and the conversation. And then it was off again to the train station, back to Paris.

All in all both Thomas and I were very pleased with the results. The people we met were all very different, with various perspectives, but all were very open and appreciative. I can’t wait for the next phase in the research, which will start in June.

Thomas Hirschhorn

Yesterday I unpacked, washed my laundry, repacked and now I am in the Thalys on my way to Paris. I have a meeting lined up with Thomas Hirschhorn, at this studio in Aubervilliers. I am very excited.

Hirschhorn's work stormed into my professional life at Documenta 11. The Bataille Monument was a work I hated, I loved, hated, loved, and so forth. But as a result, I have been following his work closely over the last couple of years. The Mussee Precaire Albinet I have used as a reference in many presentations in order to show that the combination of 'high' art and a 'difficult' neighbourhood is very well possible, desirable even,

It has taken a long time and a lot of effort to get this appointment - and to be honest, most of the effort came not from me, but from Maria Bojan, a Rumanian curator.