IT

Above: film stills

IT is a series of performances organised for De Appel Arts Centre as part of ‘Three Artists Walk Into A Bar…’, a multi-site exhibition with ongoing and time-located artworks spread throughout different physical and non-physical sites. Since group behaviour is a very important element in most of my works, I decided to keep it as clean and simple as possible.

For this series of performances a group of people was staring at a prearranged point in public space where there was nothing to see at all. Passersby noticed this continuously and started to join the staring act, looking for something interesting to see. Lots of people asked the group where ‘it’ was, the thing they were staring at.

Members of the group replied by telling ‘it’ was the most beautiful thing they ever saw, and asked the passersby to join them in looking at ‘it’, turning the bystanders in participants. This way it became unclear who was part of the initial group and who wasn’t, making the performance blend in with daily life.

Three performances were held in total, all taking place in the city centre of Amsterdam.

Thanks to: De Appel Arts Centre, De Appel Curatorial Programme, The Black Swan, Lee Campbell, Jaiyoung Cho, Jihyun Kim, Aaltje Kramer, Qincy Lim, Pendar Nabipour, Sanne Oorthuizen, Enrico Piras, Alec Steadman, Ivana Vaseva, Eimear Walsche, Herwin Zweers, and many more…

More info about the exhibition concept: www.threeartistswalkintoabar.com