Tim Hollander at P/////AKT

Artist: Tim Hollander

Exhibition title: Conceptual Soup

Venue: P/////AKT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Date: January 17 – February 21, 2016

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and P/////AKT, Amsterdam

In 2016 P/////AKT is focusing on the conceptual legacy of Marcel Broodthaers’ 1964 work Le Pense-Bête and its relevance in current discourse. P/////AKT will outline six aspects of Le Pense-Bête, each of which comprises a solo exhibition, a public event, and an essay. The first part deals with the notion of institutional critique inherent to Le Pense-Bête, which enables the insincerities of the art world to surface by uncovering its conventions and abilities to influence value, experience and even content.

Conceptual Soup

There’s a rectangular space. Square almost, with a rectangular side-pocket in the back. There’s three columns, a bit off centre on the right. There’s white boxes on top of each other.

Digital prints. A high, angled wall that nearly reaches the ceiling. There’s wood behind thick layers of paint. Painted wood. There’s wood without paint. Rectangular shapes. Cuboids. Is that clay? If it has clay it is a sculpture, right? – 2016.

Various other materials. There’s the idea of information. 200 x 140 cm. When did vacuum cleaners become a thing? Vinyl. References. The work seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The whole place smells like Conceptual Soup.

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The work of Tim Hollander revolves around the idea of exhibitions and other art presentations as ecosystems that have been evolving for decades. Ecosystems in which contemporary artworks ‘live’ in harmony with other objects and phenomena like plinths, walls, exhibition texts, visitors and curators. Hollander investigates the concept of such a system in which the artwork itself seizes to be the subject everything else revolves around. The results are often self-reflective and filled with notions of language and ironic commentary on the art world, its habits, aesthetics and jargon. Hollander’s works tend to be cross-disciplinary, operating between functional object, graphic design and sculpture.

The installation Conceptual Soup blends the elements and visual language of contemporary art spaces and arranges the result throughout the space of P////AKT. It aims to find the boundaries of this language in order to find out when a plinth stops being a plinth, when a display refuses to display, artworks become supportive structures, exhibition walls disappear and corners become sculptures. During this process functional objects seem to lose their function or swap (exchange) functions with their surroundings. Books and walls are acting like sculptures, floorplans change shape, curators become objects. The work seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The whole place smells like Conceptual Soup.