The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse (Part 4 — The Uncommunicative) at Rib

Contributors: Thomas Helbig, Steve Van den Bosch, Kianoosh Motallebi, Marije de Wit, Shahin Afrassiabi, Jack Segbars and Bo Stokkermans, Albert Lamorisse, Maziar Afrassiabi, Olivier Goethals, Mathew Kneebone, and Eleonore Pano-Zavaroni inviting Romain Bobichon, Fabrice Croux, Danaé Jérome, Ash Kilmartin, Akim Pasquet, Jérôme Tillié, Susannah Wood

Exhibition title: The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse (Part 4 — The Uncommunicative)

Curated by: Maziar Afrassiabi

Venue: Rib, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Date: 28 May 2022

Photography: Lotte Stekelenburg, Job Willems / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Rib, Rotterdam

Following the introduction of The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse in September and Part 1 – Survival of the Fittest: the big toe of little big man in November 2021, we continued our journey with Part 2 – Natural selection in February 2022, Part 3 – The Phantasy in March, and now Part 4 – The Uncommunicative. In the program, we gradually add new works and replace some of the existing ones building a narrative that evolves whilst we are rethinking our pathways and future.

Grasping for something beyond reach—like the future—means questioning the current moment and asking: Will I have the strength to reel in the fish I’m trying to catch? Take notice of your desires, or try to anyway: The line that differentiates your rehearsal, your exhibition, your fiction, or your performance—from some other kind of real—is like a line drawn by a snake in the water, always moving. Not to scare you, but the stakes are probably even higher than you thought.

With the fourth iteration we introduce The Uncommunicative. If we’re talking about the future, we are also inevitably having a conversation about the current state, and that’s a hard fish to catch. If we’ve learned anything while thinking about the apocalypse, it’s that everyone has a different idea of how things end. So, something goes unsaid, not out of neglect or forgetfulness, but because that way it hangs on to its unsurpassable potential just a little while longer.

Mathew Kneebone presents Tracking, the first installment of work born from a recent blackout in his neighborhood in San Francisco. Power was lost mid-conversation between the artist and Maziar Afrassiabi—the now familiar *snap* of Rib’s fusebox signaled darkness both here and there. Using an online power outage map as a compass, he drove through the affected area seeking evidence of the disruption. He stumbled upon a PG&E truck parked alongside a charred utility pole with fragments of wire and wood strewn across the pavement. The driver explained that a fire broke out due to “tracking”, a condition where moisture from morning fog settles on power lines causing electricity to arc across components. Over the course of the program at Rib, Mathew Kneebone will continue collecting and cataloging failed components from Californian utility poles.

In response to the proliferation of accumulated paraffin splatter from Kianoosh Motallebi’s sculpture From a Marvellous Faucet, the artist presents the resultant waxy mound In advance of a delivery. Noticing his own vase-like shape after years of neglect, the artist 3D-printed an object tracing the silhouette of his body. With this new addition, he gives advance notice of the receptacles he plans to deliver to Rib following instructions on an ancient stone tablet.

Marije de Wit displaces her photographic work Damage Control in the space and has removed the light sculpture This Means That Much. She follows up on the reader Former Epiphanies, Impressive Moments containing quotes which reflects the conversations on art, its politics and its relation to (end)durance, that went into making the program. Opening up our mezzanine, in Once a reader, visitors can read the essays, poems, and chapters that the quotes were taken from. Visitors get glimpses of the work of Anne Boyer, Don Mee Choi, Moyra Davey, Joy Harjo, Lyn Hejinian, Chris Kraus, Marianne Morris, Fred Moten, Alice Notley, and Juliana Spahr. A photo that features a quote by Anne Boyer is made into wallpaper and serves as a backdrop. The furniture is designed by Olivier Goethals and manufactured by Louis XvX.

Work and Shadow-work, whispering vs speaking is a collaboration between Jack Segbars and Bo Stokkermans, connected to Rib‘s program. Their aim is to probe the possibility of artistic work within the present conditions. This question is approached via the life and art binary, which is the historic form of art in our time. They ask, if we understand art as that activity that aims to reflect on the conditions of life in which art is made, how is such a conception possible in the condition of full subsumption of life and art in neoliberal capitalism?

Both artists have taken—each differently—their own practices as case to examine this question, mobilizing the figure of the artist and artistic work within present-day production. For Stokkermans, this question is currently framed via the notion of (self)care: how can we understand, synthesize and radicalize art and life as a notion of caring work? For Segbars the focus lies on the institutional formation of art and the need to include a broader notion of authorship within the system of art. For both how the object of art functions and is produced within the field of art, is a critical focal problem.

This includes the underlying problem of the subject-object relation (and subsequent division of labor) that keeps the exceptional economy of art and the exceptionality of the artist figure in place. These issues are investigated by a continuation of the conversation between Stokkermans and Segbars which takes the dialogical encounter between the two practices as a regenerative model.

As though in a tennis match with one-player, Steve Van den Bosch returns Maziar Afrassiabi’s serve by asking him to describe a future unknown work. Afrassiabi’s unedited text acts as a placeholder for their as yet un-reciprocated exchange, which will evolve over the course of the year.

Eléonore Pano-Zavaroni’s unscheduled audio announcements keep the conversation going through her platform After Life with Friends with jingles set up especially in honor of The Upcoming Apocalypse and the end of Life. The jingles celebrate Afspraak Future by gathering all the guests and accomplices IRL.

Thomas Helbig’s melancholic portraits Lady (1995–1996) are tinged with faded glamour, reflecting on Helbig’s discomfort and fascination with the powerful glossy images native to the language of advertising. For the artist, these works betray a transient quality, offer a glimpse of mortality and expose the futility of representation.

Overview, Olivier Goethals, Shahin Afrassiabi, Mathew Kneebone, Eleanore Pano-Zavaroni, Marije de Wit, Kianoosh Motallebi, Jack Segbars and Bo-Stokkermans, Albert Lamorisse, Steve Van den Bosch, Thomas Helbig