Artist: Judy Radul
Exhibition title: the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera
Curated by: Samuel Saelemakers
Venue: Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Date: February 10 – May 7, 2017
Photography: Kristien Daem, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Witte de With
Media technologies such as CCTV, automation, and screens of all sorts have become the culturally and politically charged frames and filters through which we see reality, oftentimes obscuring or even replacing reality itself.
With the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, Judy Radul transforms Witte de With’s exhibition spaces into a dynamic set for live image production. Radul sets out to explore the poetic and social agency of doors, windows, entrances, and exits by means of her multi-camera, live-feed “present system” – the backbone of the exhibition. Cameras become agents that steer the visitor’s behavior; architecture is performed through multiple points of view. the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera creates an architecture of the lens where the portals and vistas, the apertures of Witte de With’s exhibition floor, are brought to the fore as reality-producing media.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a publication edited and designed by Radul, in which she compiles visual references and other source material including art historical imagery, architectural sketches, and selected texts from poets and philosophers such as Francis Ponge and Georg Simmel. This book is presented on a custom automated page turner with a camera installed above it, panning and zooming, “reading” through the images and text, while playing back the live footage on screens in separate rooms. As such, both the content of the book and the exhibition as a whole unfold through lens-based representations and spacializations.
Judy Radul’s (1962, CA) interdisciplinary practice revolves around the question of how we as social beings understand our relation to the material world through the visual. Her conceptualist and absurdist sensibility treats the white cube as a staging ground in which her work stands at the intersection of language, objects and bodies in space. Her work explores these contradictions, working across media and technologies as well as critical texts. Recent exhibitions include Judy Radul: Closeup, The Breakdown, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston (2015) and Home Work, Open Forum, Berlin (2015), 8th Berlin Biennale (2014) and the Nicaragua Biennale X (2016). In 2017 she takes part in Contour Biennale 8, Mechelen.
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Judy Radul, the king, the door, the thief, the window, the stranger, the camera, 2017, installation view, Witte de With, Rotterdam