Artists: Moyra Davey, Martin Kohout, Katja Novitskova, Laure Prouvost and Jay Tan
Exhibition title: Survival Guides for Ballroom Dancers, Renovators, Softball Moms, Working Parents and Troubled Folk in General
Curated by: Roos Gortzak in collaboration with Julia Mullié and Sophie Oxenbridge
Venue: Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands
Date: July 3 – September 11, 2016
Photography: Leo van Kampen, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Vleeshal
Vleeshal is pleased to present Survival Guides for Ballroom Dancers, Renovators, Softball Moms, Working Parents and Troubled Folk in General, a group exhibition including works by Moyra Davey, Martin Kohout, Katja Novitskova, Laure Prouvost and Jay Tan.
Imbued with a diaristic impulse that is cathartic in character, the process-based, sincere, and often amusing works in this exhibition explore the slippery terrain between truth and fiction, private and public, and intimacy and perversion. Structured according to their own distinct—sometimes absurdist—internal logic, the works could be seen as strategies for survival in our current environment where intimacy and human relations are dispersed across multiple networked platforms; a characteristic of our screen-based culture. This reality brings about a need for the creation of new private rituals, secret semiotic systems, and personalised forms of communication.
Survival Guides for Ballroom Dancers, Renovators, Softball Moms, Working Parents and Troubled Folk in General, exhibition view, 2016
Jay Tan, Tongue and Groove (with assorted ceramics), 2015, dimensions variable
Laure Prouvost, Grandma’s Dream, 2013, video installation, 8 minutes 55 seconds
Laure Prouvost,Grandma’s Dream, 2013, video still, 8 minutes 55 seconds
Courtesy the artist and MOT International London and Brussels
Martin Kohout, Sticks: Class A, 2011, dimensions variable
Martin Kohout, Survival Guides for Ballroom Dancers, Renovators, Softball Moms, Working Parents and Troubled Folk in General, 2013, dimensions variable
Martin Kohout, Sticks: Class B, 2011, dimensions variable
Katja Novitskova, Approximation (Snail), 2014, 220 x 144 cm
Jay Tan, Oh, Tom!, 2014, dimensions variable
Martin Kohout, Sticks: Class B, 2011, and Sticks: Class B, 2012, dimensions variable
Jay Tan, Oh, Tom!, 2014, dimensions variable
Katja Novitskova, Approximation (Snail), 2014, 220 x 144 cm
Survival Guides for Ballroom Dancers, Renovators, Softball Moms, Working Parents and Troubled Folk in General, exhibition view, 2016
Laure Prouvost, For A Better Life!, 2006, video still, 1 minute 52 seconds
Courtesy the artist and MOT International London and Brussels
Laure Prouvost, Stong Sory (Cake), 2005, video still, 2 minutes
Courtesy the artist and MOT International London and Brussels
Moyra Davey, Oozing Wall (Rémy), 2014, 76 x 61 cm each
Moyra Davey, Fifty Minutes, 2006, 50 minutes