Andrea Spreafico at Entrée

Artist: Andrea Spreafico

Exhibition title: Poor Dictionary (From Distance to Rage)

Venue: Entrée, Bergen, Norway

Date: September 9 – October 30, 2022

Photography: Bent René Synnevåg / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Entrée, Bergen

This autumn Entrée extends our opening hours and functions as a library on the subject of writing. Writing has perhaps never been so present in everyday life as it is right now, a preferred tool for communication on the many social platforms via smartphones, laptops, comment sections, feedback reviews…, and even so, the reflection about writing is not growing at the same pace.

With Poor Dictionary Andrea Spreafico initiates an open and plural conversation about the conditions of writing. Visitors are welcome to contribute and spend time to read, write, re-write, copy, demand new acquisitions, listen to records, argue and discuss (coffee and tea is also served!). The pages of the library’s items will be used as a space for handwritten exchange and confrontation, where people can freely share their comments or comment on other people’s comments.

This common conversation about the essence of writing will happen both directly, in the form of conversations, and indirectly, in the form of written contributions or suggested bibliography. Visitors can extend the library’s catalog, participate in the scheduled events and bring new written reflections or add lemmas; the collection will continuously grow throughout the fall.

The artist duo Lewis & Taggart has been invited to create a special window design for the library. Their collage will develop alongside four events led by Andrea, which are corresponding to four lemmas, on the following dates:

Lemma # 1 on Distance, Saturday, September 3, 6pm
Lemma # 1 on Distance, Sunday, September 11, 12 pm
Lemma # 2 on Handwritten Notes, Saturday, October 1, 5pm
Lemma # 3 on Quotes, Saturday, October 8, 5pm
Lemma # 4 on Rage, Saturday, October 29, 5pm

We invite you to support and contribute to the discourse Poor Dictionary is trying to develop. Contributions should aim to articulate and improve a plural reflection about the essence and implications of writing.

They can be:
a) new bibliographic suggestions for the library’s catalogue. The typewriter is in place for this goal.

b) written interactions in our books. We invite you to underline, comment or create your own index in the books. Pens, pencils and stickers are here for this.

c) new lemmas (in alphabetical order between the words Distance and Rage), written and shared on any sort of platform or medium.

Lemma = a heading indicating the subject or argument of a literary composition or annotation.

Andrea Spreafico (b. Ravenna) lives in Bergen. He studied Philosophy at the Universities of Bologna and Reims (PhD in Ethics and Aesthetics 2003-2006) and Art and Public Space at the Art Academy of Nürnberg (2006-2008). He’s the author of a book on Nietzsche’s concept of power (L’onestà dei forti, Genova, 2008) and has presented artistic works in several international venues. Since 2014 he has created performances merging theater, dance, live music and theory. His most recent works are Bad Dante Bad English Bad Opera (2022), Danced Work in Progress (2021), The October revolution took place in November (2020), We have to dress gorgeously (2019), Good Morning Milton Keynes! Oh …it’s afternoon (2019), Footnote Number 12 (2019), Vive la Phrance (2017) and What a classic is and how it performs in (our) time. Paul McCarthy, Rocky, 1976 (2015). He is an associate professor in performative art (officially DAV) at Bergen School of Architecture.

Andrea Spreafico, Poor Dictionary (From Distance to Rage), Entrée. Window collage by Lewis & Taggart. All photos by Bent René Synnevåg

Andrea Spreafico, Poor Dictionary (From Distance to Rage), Entrée. Exhibition view

Details from window piece by Lewis & Taggart. Their collage will develop alongside four events led by Andrea Spreafico, which are corresponding to the four lemmas: Distance, Handwritten Notes, Quotes and Rage