The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse (Part 5— Vibrato) at Rib

Contributors: Judy Dunaway, 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 Eléonore Pano-Zavaroni, gerlach en koop, Josef Dabernig

Exhibition title: The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse (Part 5— Vibrato)

Curated by: Maziar Afrassiabi

Venue: Rib, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Date: 30 September 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 last September, and Part 1 — Survival of the Fittest: the big toe of little big man in November 2021, we continued with Part 2 — Natural selection in February 2022, Part 3 — The Phantasy in March, Part 4 — The Uncommunicative, and now Part 5 — Vibrato. We are gradually adding new works and replacing some existing ones to build a narrative that evolves whilst we are rethinking our pathways and future.

Slide into being. Slither into existence. Swim into a pool that was bigger than you expected. Now we’re taking notes from the cricket, whose vibrations sing a seasonal song in looped repetitions ‘and then, and then, and then’: What now? Shall I write about the table that makes squeezing sounds as I press the keys, as if crickets are making love? Why not? Or mosquitos carving their way through my TK-Maxx trousers?

A new architectural intervention (“Susurak” as part of “Spatial Interventions”, 2022) by Olivier Goethals will have you pass through the beard of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, and glide over the remnants of Kianoosh Motallebi’s work “From a Marvellous Faucet” (2022). In addition to the fact that Motallebi’s work was knocked over last month by a visiting neighbor, it has also been attracting dust and debris from the MDF plates that were cut in its vicinity.

Jack Segbars and Bo Stokkermans offer a different perspective within a critical loop in a video featuring a conversation between Willem Schinkel and Rogier van Reekum in the auditorium of Tent/Kunstinstituut Melly, a site which they consider an interface between “going public and the arts”. In their words, “A duo duetting presents a third voice so to speak. A performance of labor.”

As part of a non-consensual written exchange around a future work that has not yet appeared by Steve Van den Bosch (Untitled – Materials and dimensions to be determined, 2023), Maziar Afrassiabi has brought two green pedestals to Rib (Mounts, 1977, Musuem of African Art Belgrade). These objects, which have not been re-painted since their original construction in 1977, were gifts from Senior Curator Emilia Epstajn of the Museum of African Art, Belgrade (a collection, coincidentally built on gifts).

Josef Dabernig’s film “Stabat Mater” (2016) was shot in Puglia, South East Italy, in the architectural remains of a fascist era hotel. The dialectics of interior / exterior, light / dark, life / death, mother / child find balance in proximity with the organ etude composed by Christoph Herndler (based on one of Schubert’s Stabat Mater themes). Dabernig writes, “Hotel guests look restrained, sedated in the diffuse light of the service provider’s shimmering cage. A network of joists, pilasters and fluting exposes the proverbial off-season chill in the seating arrangements. Smartphones and tablets mask a total lack of communication. While in the dining room everything seems under control, outside nature is ready to attack. Resembling the work of cyclopes, the coastline braves the breakers. Rocks form a hyper-expressive bastion against the water, as if the town were a matter of permanent self-justification.”

In “Rosa Coeli” (2003) the central character returns to his childhood village to bury his father. Dabernig writes, “…the history of his family reflects the eventful fate of a Central European settlement over the centuries. There is talk of war and migration, of people and nature, of the decline of the Rosa Coeli monastery and of the healing effects of wine. While Pellandini’s text – regularly portioned over the film – is anti-illustrated by fixed camera shots of local motifs and hotel interiors, the plot of a second story, grotesquely so to speak, pushes itself between the linguistic memories. Again and again, apparent references push themselves between word and image and leave – with the constant oscillation between feeling and structure – the irritation of a cynical game about the dialectic depths of history and modernity.”

gerlach en koop (Untitled, 2022, 11 × 9 × 3,5 cm, shirt, clothes rack and hanger)

The clothes rack reinforces the perception that this one shirt is divided. It has a straight side and one that is intricately shaped. A closer look reveals that the shape is much less complex than it appeared at first: the breast pocket has simply been pulled inside out in a sculptural gesture. Like a tongue. Mute.

In the film Pickpocket by Robert Bresson a provocative gesture links two interior spaces. A man suspected of pickpocketing is summoned to the police station. Sure of himself he demonstrates to the officer how the knife he has been given can be used to cut open a breast pocket—thus fearlessly revealing his knowledge and skills. At the very same moment his apartment is turned inside out by police officers looking for proof. It was a ruse that deprived the man’s gesture of the power to provoke.

Thomas Helbig’s sculpture (Sender, 2022) and drawings (Untitled, 2022) and (Ex, 2022) betray a world-weary fatigue, unspectacular violence, and ghostly figures from the past.

Exhibition view: Olivier Goethals, Shahin Afrassiabi, Mathew Kneebone, Eléonore Pano-Zavaroni, Marije de Wit, Josef Dabernig, Kianoosh Motallebi, Jack Segbars and Bo-Stokkermans, gerlach en koop, Steve Van den Bosch, Maziar Afrassiabi, Thomas Helbig

Exhibition view: Kianoosh Motellebi, Olivier Goethals, Jack Segbars and Bo-Stokkermans, Risk board game

Exhibition view: Olivier Goethals, Shahin Afrassiabi, Eléanore Pano-Zavaroni, Thomas Helbig, Mathew Kneebone, Josef Dabernig, Rib Library of books suggested by participating artists