Category: Geen categorie

Bewaard (Kept) is the outcome of a months-long, community-oriented commission by Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam (NL). For this, Sijben Rosa collaborated with four people in The Netherlands whose sense of mortality is heightened due to ageing or illness. Through conversations they, together with Sijben, set out to identify meaningful objects from their personal surroundings. These ranged from a pinball machine and a BDSM knife, to a nettle leaf and a fur coat. However idiosyncratic, these objects encapsulate the lasting personal values identified by each.

Inspired by these objects as conversation pieces in themselves, Bewaard consists of an installation of biodegradable sculptures created by Sijben. Warped in both scale and form, the artist uses color as a means to further portray their collaborators. For example, charcoal-like tones echo the black ink of tattoos, and the reddish hues are borrowed from a cherished painting of Jesus Christ. For Sijben, a crucial component of these artworks is their respective afterlives – whether bequeathed to the collaborators’ close communities; incorporated into their own burials; held onto within their homes; or destined to disintegrate. Contingent in nature, objects may come and go over the course of the exhibition, in unison with the chosen bewaarder (in English, “keeper”).

Bewaard is on show at Kunstinstituut Melly from 8 December 2023 until 1 September 2024. On the 1 March, there was a FOCUS event, in which writer, and holistic death care worker Staci Bu Shea shone a light on the exhibition by giving their perspective on what it means to live intimately with death and grief, and how this is explored through art. To enable neurodiverse visitors to prevent overstimulation, there is a sensory map of the exhibition and neighbouring group show ‘My Oma’ available both on location and digitally via this link.

Participants: Afina, Kitty Hoedjes, Marion Vandermeulen, Zuster Henriëtte Wolters 

Curators: Rosa de Graaf, Sofia Hernández Chong Cuy

Producer: Pilar Mata Dupont 

Advisors: Dariya Trubina, Staci Bu Shea, Lucila Kenny

Assistance: Saki Nishisaka, Yara Buttner

Volunteers: Arwen Morsink, Beau Boer, Bernice Nauta, Caro de Valk, Charlie Sven Matse, Cynthia Blom, Dominique van Loosdrecht, Elisabeth Voros, ellis bartholomeus, Erik Gooskens, Eszter Szabó, Flip Zonne Zuijderland, Hans Vernooij, Harriet Smith, Helena Oostveen, Jaap Sijben, Josha Zwanenburg, Kate Delbeke, Kitty Hoedjes, Lily Dollner, Linn Morsink, Lisan Gunsing, Margo Matse, Maria Chiara Ziosi, Merit Koops, Michal Noy, Nina Ashley Bach, Romy Goedhart, Roos Janssen, Sam Lau Thieme, Samiah Sultana, Sanna Elon Vrij, Selma Beltifa, Stella Fijneman

Photographer: Kristien Daem

With special thanks to Charlie Sven Matse, Marianne Reij, de Westfriese Bibliotheken, Houk van Lier, Katharina Bauer, Maren Wehrle, Hans-Georg Eilenberger and all other participants in the ‘When We Get Older’ summer course at Erasmus University, Jerrold Saija, Sarah Boers, Sanne Pols en Ed de Meijer

Tentoonstellingsbespreking door Sifra Coulet in Mister Motley.

In ‘A little bit like the soul’ four queer performers jointly care for a sculptural object. The group lived together for a week, exploring what forms this caring relationship could take. The project explores how objects can make abstract social and political concepts tangible: even though the sculpture itself is inanimate. How we interact with it, interpret it and attach meaning to it, can turn objects into a catalyst for human interaction and dialogue. The film aims to provoke thoughts on queer intimacy and rethink the social norms surrounding notions of care in general.

Director, sculptor: Sijben Rosa

Director of photography: Aline Belfort

Performers (in order of appearance): Bárbara Cordeiro, Andrei Bessa, Michael Vanblarcum, Roberto Dagô

Editing: Aline Belfort, Sijben Rosa

Music: Willem Wits

Sound design: Jaap W. Sijben

Graphic design: Boetie Zijlstra

Intern: Yara Buttner

With special thanks to: Annelien de Bruin, Arda van Tiggelen, Bruno Levorin, Carmo Gê Pereira, Cátia Ramos, Heitor Fonseca, Inez Piso, Jan Sijben, Jantien Koenders, Jean Lesca, Katinka Wissing, Klankbeeld, Lorenzo Schmidt, Luísa Especial, Marianne Reij, Matúš Pisarčík, Parque ORBITUR Guicho, Richelle van Loon, Rik Dijkhuizen, Rodrigo Delgado, Rosa de Graaf, Wicce Pennekamp, Simon van der Weele

Financial support:

Made possible by:

In the art installation Tender Grapple a selection of sculptures from earlier works by Sijben could be observed through a shop window, but the audience also got to see them with their hands. During shopping hours, you could enter the plant store, stick your hands through two holes in the backside of the window installation and feel for yourself. The holes didn’t allow you to see the sculptures while you touch them, forcing you to focus solely on the tactility. For the audience standing outside your hands became performers, and your exploration a choreography. 

The installation was on show from 25 November 2022 until 25 February 2023 at Limbo plants- and ceramics store in Lisbon, curated by Taffimai.

For Zelf in een Doosje (Self in a Small Box), six of the sculptures of Zelf were lent to elderly inhabitants of the Frisian villages Koarnjum and Jelsum. The film captures their first encounters with the objects as well as the connection they developed to them over time. What place did the objects take in their daily routines, amongst their other belongings? How did the objects gain meaning in the context of personal stories, both to the residents and to an audience watching the footage? Out of this collaborative research, a new artwork emerged: a film of 10 minutes, in which people and objects give meaning to each other.

Due to the Covid-19 regulations, this work premiered eight times, for each participant separately, on March 27, 2021, at theatre De Wier in Cornjum (NL). After that it was available for online viewing for five weeks. What you see here is the trailer.

_{I’m so grateful for the patience and openness of participants Janny van der Mei, Pieter van der Werff, Janke Terpstra, Josephine Land-Cohen, Sjieuwke van Dijk, Tine Sinnema, Stien Beckers, and Anneke Schotanus-Hoitsma. Producing this film would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and help of Yvon Wolfslag and Pieter van der Werff, community organizers in Koarnjum and Jelsum. Shout out to Boetie Zijlstra, my super intern at the time. The double bass you hear in the film is played by Harm Wijntjes. Video editing expert Jasper van den Brink pulled me through the hardest parts of the editing phase, and the finishing touches of Jaap Sijben polished the sound to perfection. The translation was done by Rosie Haward. Special thanks to Tamara Schoppert, Jantien Koenders, and Lorenzo Schmidt for their valuable feedback, and Bob de Boer and Wieke de Haan for their help at theatre De Wier.} 

_{This work was made possible with the generous support of Over de Drempel and the Mondriaan Fund.}

Sasha Pevak (independant curator and artist) during a digital studio visit: ‘The monument becomes visible only when it is removed’.

Not Forever moved around the NDSM wharf for two months, always under the care of users of the space. Their presence provided a context for the work, as did the physical surroundings, which changed as the object moved around. The weight and proportions of the object, which was made from recycled materials, forced its caretakers to collaborate when moving it from one location to the next. Not Forever forms an attempt to make tangible their collective care and concern for the wharf, and to materialise this into something that could be cherished together, albeit temporarily. During the finnissage, the object was peeled bare by both the audience and the artist, after which a recycling company collected the skeleton and drove away.

Not Forever reflects on the questions Stichting NDSM-werf raised in their ‘(un)monumenting’ series: what could or should a monument be in our present time? For whom is a monument intended, and who gets to determine this? This performative and temporary monument (contradiction intended) is an ode to what the wharf was, is, and might not be much longer if we let gentrification and climate change continue to develop as they currently are.

You can find a longer interview with Sijben about this work here.

_{Yawen Fu and Daichi Fuwa were studio assistants during this project. It was curated by Ewa Scheifes and Petra Heck from Stichting NDSM-werf, with communication help from Robin van Dijk. The participation of Corine from Grafische Werkplaats Amsterdam, Tim Jongens from IJVER Amsterdam, David Roos from STRAAT Museum, Simone Hogendijk from Over het IJ festival, Sarah Payton from the Kunststad, Houk van Lier from Houkmaakthet, Robbert Jongkind and Justa from Treehouse NDSM, Marcel from NDSM Bikes and Erik from Eriks House were crucial in this project. Matthijs form I. Deegen & Zoon BV was a big help too. Big thanks to all of the above!}

_{The first picture was taken by Robbert Jongkind. This work was made possible with the generous support of Stichting NDSM-werf and the Mondriaan Fund.}

In this work, twelve sculptures are seen hanging out together in a huge glass vitrine at a busy train station. All of them stand close to human height, forming an overview or summary of ways to be humanly present. Their familiarity behind the glass simultaneously includes and excludes the viewer in and from their intimate meeting. 

Esther van Zoelen, artist, frequent visitor of station Breda and intern at my studio in 2020: ‘The work turned out increasingly relevant over the course of the seven months it’s been exhibited, though it was made before the Corona crisis hit us. It speaks of closeness and distance at the same time. Objects that seem made to be touched, now stand on a platform and are separated from me by a high glass window. In the blue box there seems to be some sort of intimacy, or am I just imagining that? A pile of toilet rolls stands still, a bit in the middle of a group of persons. These persons are not human, but other strange combinations of objects. They are all different, but very open. They show what they are, nothing less and nothing more. On this place, on the edge of Breda Station, there is a certain solemnity, a stillness to be found. That pile of toilet rolls can be read differently now, through all that has happened. And especially now the search for closeness means so much more.’

Among Us was presented in a duo exhibition with Helmut Smits titled Something In-Between, curated by Roeliena Aukema and Liza Voetman. The show took place between 14 February and 27 September 2020.

_{The sculpture Happy Birthday, which became a part of Among Us, is a collaboration with David Bernstein, and was previously on show in our duo exhibition Between the Soup and the Potatoes at Billytown the Kitchen.} 

_{Many thanks to Gemeente Breda and Jacqueline Kostermans for making the project possible. Big shout out to my interns, Yasmin Kök, Minne Ponsen, Boetie Zijlstra, and Esther van Zoelen for their time and effort, helping me to make, set up, and take down the work in challenging circumstances.}

This is W.C. Reij, a retired professor and engineer, and also my grandfather. We’ve always been close. He was very important to my creative upbringing, taking me to museums, drawing together with me, and meticulously following my art career for as long as he was able to. 

During the last few years of his life he had to deal with aphasia, an impairment causing him to slowly lose his linguistic and other cognitive abilities. When he could barely speak any longer, Covid-19 robbed us of the only way of communication we had left: touch. 

That’s when I decided to make an art experience that was tailored to his specific condition; one that was to be experienced somewhat through sight, but predominantly through touch. The shape of Object voor Opa (Object for Grandpa) is based on movements I remembered him doing with my hands, on ways of touching and holding on that he seemed to enjoy. 

I shot this video during the first encounter he had with the object. It is a fragment of the approximately 40-minute duration of the experience of his hands discovering and rediscovering the object, him looking at me, back at the object, and discovering it again. He had been nearly constantly holding it during what turned out to be the last two months of his life. 

In loving memory of Willem Cornelis Reij, 4 November 1923 – 3 September 2020

Objects are offered to guests to hold in their hands while they visit the rest of a group exhibition. The forms for these objects originate as abstractions of familiar things in everyday life. They can be thought of as tools for projection – things that produce associations and memories. Perhaps they can be an escape, a way for someone to pretend to be busy, to take away the awkwardness of a situation, like a cigarette or a pen might do. Or perhaps they can trigger playful interactions between guests that may otherwise not occur. The work offers a sense of security, so that if people feel awkward looking at contemporary art, at least they will have something to hold on to.

Gee Wesley, curator of the exhibition: ‘Something to hold on to, a collaborative project by Sijben Rosa and David Bernstein, prompts visitors to hold on to one of several amorphous objects designed and constructed by the pair. By welcoming visitors to navigate the exhibition with this object, Sijben and Bernstein invite a consideration of how haptic engagements with material affect and mediate our experience of space.’

Something to hold on to was presented at the InPractice – Other Objects exhibition at SculptureCenter in NYC, guest curated by Gee Wesley. It was supported by the Mondriaan Fonds and SculptureCenter. This work would have been impossible without the gracious way it was carried out by Meredith Friedman (visitor services coordinator) and Tracy Keenan (visitor services representative). Film editing assistance by Amanda Ramona. Floor Grootenhuis and Gerard Volel (visitors) thanks for your help in the documentation process. Photos by: Kyle Knodell and Sijben Rosa.

This lecture-performance investigates the ways in which we look at art online and how our view can be manipulated by digitalisation. What happens if you only see the online documentation of a physical exhibition? Have you actually seen the work? What is the importance of the physicality of sculpture and performance in the transmission of information? It would be an understatement to say that this work gained relevance in 2020, the year the pandemic sent the cultural field online, but the work was actually produced in 2019.

Some fragments of the performance text: 

“It’s easy to be judgemental about an online audience being lazy. But, just for a moment, try to visualise the group of people that will encounter this work online, behind their screens, spread all throughout the world. And not just now, but for quite some months, maybe even years to come. Funds increasingly value visibility not just offline but also online. So the fact that VHDG gets funding to have me perform for you here today, the fact that you can see this now, for free, is highly dependent on the fact that the online audience is watching. Because -they- are with many more than you are!”

“In Turkish there is a suffix that indicates whether the speaker describes something they saw first hand, or something they heard from someone else. So in everything you say in Turkish, you add that information by the way you conjugate your words. Always. (Or that’s what they say—I don’t speak Turkish.) It was only when writing this performance text that I realised I had been obsessed with menhirs for a while, but have actually never seen one in real life…”

“I frequently mix up the words requisite and relic because they are so much alike. A relic seems to offer security, something to hold on to, functioning as a kind of proof something in the past actually happened. A requisite often is much prettier because it’s made to be looked at, but normally hollow, or at least not meant to last. Or meant to see from far away or just one side; the perspective of the audience. I wonder whether art could have a bit of both. So that it is something that is meant to be looked at, and at the same time to hold on to, to remember. Both for action and for preservation. Something that can be yours, but that, simultaneously, can never be entirely owned by anyone.”

Voor de Schermen was produced during the residency of VHDG, Leeuwarden (NL), and presented in their exhibition space in June 2019.

Seven billboards are grouped together in public space, and are repainted each month. 

• The first coat is applied by Sijben themself , painting seven monochromes in seven different tones of bright yellow, functioning as a kind of town crier, announcing three more collaborative repainting performances to come.
• The second coat is made in collaboration with Amsterdam Black Women collective (ABW), co-founded by Tracian Meikle. ABW members paint the boards in various black skin tones, claiming place for themselves in the image of the city.
• For the third color scheme, Sijben challenged male employers who pass by the installation every day during their lunch break walks, to help with painting it pink. 
• The fourth color scheme is a response to the sculptural quality of the architecture of the Zuidas. Local residents, involved in painting the boards shades of blue and grey, are positioned as agents of change in the rapid transformation of the district.

The title Demo refers to both a visual explanation and a revolt in which signs are held up. In both meanings of the word, the sign has an explanatory role. This group of monochrome-painted signs announce the dynamics and the future of the Zuidas using nothing but colour. The work hopes to offer space for the periodically changing colors to speak for themselves amidst the hyper-efficient, goal-oriented, and homogenous surroundings of the business district.

Demo was part of the exhibition Get Lost Art Route in public space in Amsterdam-Zuid, from June until September 2018. It was commissioned by Zuid Plus, Zuidasdok, and Gemeente Amsterdam Zuidas. Requested and supported by local residents and organized with ZuidasToday and Zuidas Art Projects, two of the original commissioners (Zuidasdok and Gemeente Amsterdam Zuidas) decided to extend the existence of the work until March 2019.

Reviews: Zuidas Magazine, Groene Amsterdammer, Parool, Trouw

_{Big thanks to Suzanna van Oers, Bo Wielders, Marit van der Heijden, Mitzi Muriel, and Fiza Brakel, for their assistance with the yellow tones! Tracian Meikle, Jenna Burton, Sekai Mekoni, Coco Baileys and her cousin Camille Parker, and Lorenzo Schmidt, thank you so much for the amazing collaboration! Peter Kamphorst, John Oudejans, and Kenneth Goedhart, thanks a lot for volunteering for the pink part of this project. Marloes Vreeswijk and Fiza Brakel, thanks a lot for your help with the last act of the work!}

In this etude, sand and water enter an erotic symbiosis. While making ephemeral shapes, I held a monologue about the political environmental aspects of sand. Halfway through the performance, the monologue evolves into a poetic thought-play on glass ceilings, an abundance of patriarchy in the arts, and a collective feminist solution. The piece concludes with everyone present humming Mrs. Sand Woman in unison.  

This performance was developed in response to David Bernstein’s exhibition The Water Party which addressed matriarchy, divine holding, and soul-flooding (instead of brainstorming) for alternative sex education. The Sand Party took a stand as a poetic political sparring partner to the exhibition and took place during its opening and finissage at A Tale of a Tub in Rotterdam.

Do you own your body? Is your body an object? Or a collection of objects? Can you sculpt and sell your body parts? Do objects have any will of their own? Are you a sculpture?

Medical ethicist and general practitioner in training Sarah Boers and artist Sijben Rosa investigate the ambiguous nature of objects, and the interchangeable roles of persons and things, through a collaborative performance. Boers begins by talking about her research on organoids: a kind of miniature organ, derived in a laboratory from human stem cells. Sijben interrupts, manipulating the meaning of Boers’ words by instructing her to change position, both in relation to objects made by Sijben and to the audience present.

Suzan Drummen, visual artist and teacher: ‘I haven’t seen such a successful collaboration between an artist and a scientist before. The input of both seemed to exist autonomously next to each other, showing the full scope of their work, while it was clear that the one couldn’t exist without the other. A combination of the currently relevant text, the curious props, the repetition and the nearly self-evident dance of persons and objects created a curious experience. While at the same time, the atmosphere was remarkably relaxed.’

The project exists of two independent but complementary parts: a performance and a publication. The performance premiered at De Appel Amsterdam in June 2016, had a try-out at Lokaal 1B Amsterdam and was shown at Art Rotterdam and Linköping University Sweden. The publication was released in February 2017 within Prospects&Concepts at Art Rotterdam. The publication is a print of the texts and documentation of the objects used in the performance, plus a selection of photos from Sijben’s archive on which these objects were based.

Simone Hogendijk (artistic director Over het IJ Festival) about the publication: ‘I felt a form of involvement when reading the book, that I can imagine would be the same when seeing the performance. The meeting of two lines, a more concrete and a more abstract one, opened new frames for thinking. It made me read and see better.’

The publication can be ordered for 28€ (incl. tax, excl. shipping/ packaging costs 7.98€) via email.

Directory advise by Jantien Koenders. Performance documentation by Konstantin Guz (camera and editing assistance) and Jaap Sijben (sound). Book design by Lotte Lola Schröder.  A Sculpture Like You And Me has been made possible with the support of The Apple Amsterdam, the publication budget of the Mondriaan Fund and the 3-package-deal by AFK.

Place is a solid object, as well as an ongoing performance. It’s taking place, both literally and figuratively speaking. It proves to be quite an attention seeker, even though it’s usually very quiet. On the many trips that Place and Sijben have made together, the artist exhibits it just as much as it exhibits Sijben.

Place was inspired by the poem De Stoel by Dick Raaijmakers.

_{This work was part of the performance Mensding in collaboration with theatre-maker Margit Odems at Over het IJ festival, 14–23 July 2017. On the first of October that year, Place and Sijben gave a performative statement during the exhibition Superdemocracy in the senate of Belgium in Brussels, curated by BOZAR, M HKA and BPS22. On 2 November 2017, Place and Sijben performed on a ferry in the context of Museumnacht Amsterdam, in a preview of the Amsterdam Ferry Festival. In December 2018, Place was on show in Billytown the Kitchen in Den Haag as part of Between the Soup and the Potatoes, a duo show with David Bernstein. On 2 October 2020, Sijben and Place performed at V2_ in Rotterdam (NL), invited by Maud van den Beuken.}

Each of the eight unique sculptures of Zelf is modelled to fit perfectly inside an existing, secondhand case. All of them are temporarily owned by eight different neighbours of the exhibition space. During the exhibition’s opening hours, visitors of the exhibition are invited to ring the neighbours’ doorbells and ask them to show their object. Inside the exhibition, a pile of flyers states the exact addresses, and a video is playing that shows a compilation of the neighbours’ first reactions to the sculptures and their expectations of the visits.

Hreinn Friðfinnsson (artist and one of the participating neighbours): “In a way it is very much nothing, it is just itself. So you are a little bit lost and then you are supposed to react! I think I’ll say as little as possible because I have no explanations. I think you will think about it afterwards: what was that now? I think it will come back to you, you know? (…) I like it, I like it very much.”

Zelf was created for ‘The future of what’, a duo exhibition together with artist Mariko Kuhawara at Corridor Project Space in Amsterdam.

Reviews: Kunstblijfteenraadsel, Parool

Between 2020–2021 I adapted this work to become an autonomous short film titled Zelf in een doosje. 

This piece is a solid wooden object that exactly fits the hand luggage requirements for European airlines, and could also be defined as an ongoing performance project. Flying with the object, Sijben offers an accidental art encounter to their fellow travelers and airline staff. In artist talks and conversations they share these traveling experiences and the insights that conversations along the way give to them, with a wider audience. 

In exchange for a report, the work is available to be your travel companion, too.

_{This work was made for the finals of the Live Performance Act Award 2016 at Centrale Fies in Dro (IT). Later that year it was re-shown at Stichting NDSM-werf Amsterdam. Carpenter José van Gelderen has been a great support in the production process of this work.} 

A MUST SEE suggested new frames for looking at the public space surrounding KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. I loosely directed the viewer’s attention by running and performing sports-like exercises in public space. The work suggested new frames for the neighbourhood, showing and using the ‘stages’ that were already present. Now and again the public became performers themselves, simply by being a group with an unusual focus and by literally being placed on stages in relation to passers-by and the audience of the next or previous tour.

Ellen Blumenstein, head curator at KW, Berlin: ‘I enjoyed looking at them in the way they made it bodily, physical but explicitly not-sexual and avoiding display of physical achievement. We were allowed to look in a specific way, not peeping or admiring, the set-up of the body in relation to the surroundings makes it an object in a way we are not accustomed to see it.’

A MUST SEE was shown at KW Berlin within the Performative Minute series, curated by Adela Yawitz.

This installation inside a small caravan hosts six different site specific theatre pieces and their small audience groups. Where traditionally a play would come first—or at least its concept or storyline—and the creation of the set would come second, this work sees the visual come first. A set is produced that precedes any plot, and is interpreted after its realisation by the performance makers.  

SUMMER SHORTS was initiated by Robin Linde Productions and produced in collaboration with IMMERGE, a series of events leading up to MERGE Festival, in association with Better Bankside, Borough Market, and Tate Modern. The installation was built with the help of a group of students from the preparatory course of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, of which I owe the most to Felix Schiffman and Alice Ashton. 

The installation Zouden Zullen Zijn (Would (be) Will (be) Are), consists of a group of small, polyester volumes scattered through interior space. The objects appear in different locations, in various quantities and positions, gaining meaning through their setting. In the case of this iteration, Sijben’s objects are displayed around the Museum van Loon in Amsterdam. Their contemporary volumes disrupt the museum’s narrow version of historical events by reopening a narrative, and, like traffic cones, they suggest that a process is still under construction. 

Bernke Klein Zandvoort, curator: “What is it that makes me an art object? Why is my status confusing? Am I meant to be touched, or should one respectfully keep one’s distance? This is not a constructed theory that Sijben drapes onto their work, but is inherently enclosed in the objects themselves. They are playful, beautiful and confusing and have suspiciously much to do with the world outside of the museum.”

The work Zouden Zullen Zijn was created for Something Thrown in the Way of the Observer, a group show at Museum van Loon in Amsterdam in 2015. It was shown again in the group show Inhabited by Objects at CAB Brussels (BE) in 2016/2017. The blocks of Zouden Zullen Zijn have since then been for sale and have become part of many different private collections, further expanding possibilities for meaning in their interaction with different settings. 

Zouden Zullen Zijn is still for sale for 75 euros per block. Please write an email to mail@sijbenrosa.nl in case you’re interested in purchasing your own.

Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij.

This work consists of two identical groups of objects; one positioned in an exhibition room, and the other one at a construction site nearby. If the objects obstruct their work, the construction workers can freely move the objects around within a marked space that corresponds to the size of the exhibition space. Every Saturday, the position of the objects in the exhibition is adjusted to match that of the objects at the construction site. On the handout made for the exhibition there is a small map with directions to the construction site, so the audience can view the objects in both contexts.

This work was part of Sijben Rosa’s solo exhibition, also titled Things You Know, at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 15/02/14–16/03/14.

Documentation of Things You Know is released as Jahresgaben at Kunstverein. Each edition consists of two photographs taken every week from the same perspective on both locations. Set #5 is still available here.

Review Contemporary Art Daily
Review Reinische Post
Review in Kunstforum Mai-Juni 2014

View and/or download invitation
View and/or download English press release
View and/or download German press release

Photos by Katja Illner.

Fittest as in survival of the fittest means best fitted, which is not necessarily the most fit in terms of physical health. Fittest was a performance circuit, shown repetitively over the course of a Sunday afternoon at Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Germany. In all four parts, titled These Beuys, Dance Hall, Roof Ropes and Polke Pilates, I worked with a mix of local semi-professional and professional practitioners in different fields of sports. I studied and reconstructed their exercise routines and selected, adjusted, and positioned the sportspeople inside and outside the museum, amongst the works of the permanent collection. Their activity began to activate the stationery works around them. 

Fittest was shown in Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. It formed episode #6 in THINGS ARE HAPPENING, a series of performances, interventions, and situations in and around Mönchengladbach during my time as Atelier Stipendiat der Stad Mönchengladbach.

_{Performers These Beuys:
Nikola Arsic, Jerry Oversberg, Christos Kazaltzis, Danny Scardina, Stevica Blazeski, Dominic Schiffer, Julian Haag, Lothar Panitz.}

_{Performers Dance Hall:
Becky Fetsch, Nuria Mages, Bibiana Leufgen.}

_{Performers Roof Ropes:
Mario Mai, Filippo Chiaradia.}

_{Performers Polke Pilates:
Robin Steegman, Silke Palme, Sonia Clemente Guerreiro, Ewa Riedel, Miriam Spancken, Steffi Genenger.}

_{Director: Sijben Rosa
Assistant director: Robin Steegman
Photos: Vesko Gösel
Camera: Nikolas Steiner, Laura Maréchal
Editing: Laura Maréchal, Sijben Rosa}

_{Reviews 1 and 2 in Reinische Post
Image rights of the works belonging to the collection of Museum Abteiberg: François Morellet, “Sphère-trame”, 1962 and Sigmar Polke, 6-piece “Biennale- Zyklus”, 1986 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014.}

When this work is on show, the staff members of the exhibition venue are not just passive guards. When you ask them about Pocket Work, they will reveal it to you. For the entire duration of the exhibition, each member of staff has their own edition of the work on their person at all times. Even when at home, at a cinema, at a sports club; everywhere. The audience is informed about this via a poster in the exhibition space.

This work was first shown in the solo exhibition Things You Know at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (DE) in 2014, curated by Hans-Jürgen Hafner. All Together Now then showed it in Rotterdam in 2015 in a group show called To Get There. In 2017 it was shown at Gallery Rianne Groen in Rotterdam in a group show titled Chinese Whispers. Rianne also took it with her on several trips and to her show at Art Rotterdam 2017. In 2018, the work was part of Bureau of Unspecified Services at Salt Galata in Istanbul (TR), curated by Sohrab Mohebbi. 

Photo’s by Katja Illner.