Neïl Beloufa: Counting on People

26 April - 21 June 2015
Saturday 25 April, 16 hrs:  Arno van Roosmalen talks with Neïl Beloufa
+ 17 hrs: opening
Location: Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Open: Wednesday to Sunday, 12-17 hrs
Closed: Sunday 24 May (Pentecost)

Exhibition guide (pdf): download here
(including an interview with Neïl Beloufa)

Presented within the context of the two-year program Attempts to Read the World (Differently).

This spring Stroom Den Haag presents the exhibition Counting on People by the French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa. In this exhibition Beloufa reflects on how rationalization and (digital) technology have an increasing influence on society today, on our daily life and on the way we interact and communicate with each other. Beloufa's installations and films enable the audience to experience the way we increasingly rationalize our desires and base our decisions on big data, statistics and algorithms. We have become addicted to numbers, and we don't rely on our intuition anymore.

Stroom presents Counting on People within the context of the two-year program Attempts to Read the World (Differently). This program is an extended collaboration with four artists: Neïl Beloufa, Fernando Sanchez Castillo, Céline Condorelli and Dunja Herzog. Attempts to Read the World (Differently) zooms in on important changes in (Western) society. In 1919 the sociologist Max Weber wrote in his book Science as a vocation how 'the fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world'. ARW(D) makes an attempt, with artists at the helm, to look further, to dig deep and to look for the small cracks in the rational system, to look at a different reality, to look for new meaning, new forms of knowledge, information or communication. The four invited artists take the first steps towards a new way to read, interpret and imagine a rationalized world.

Counting on People was co-produced by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and The Banff Centre Walter Phillips Gallery, Canada and it was presented at La Casa Encendida, Madrid as part of ICA Touring.
The exhibition is made possible thanks to the Neïl Beloufa Exhibition Supporters Group, Frances Reynolds, Zabludowicz Collection, Balice and Hertling, François Ghebaly, Galleria Zero and Mendes Wood DM, the Mondriaan Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL and the city of The Hague.

Neïl Beloufa
"The world appears to be at a moment of cultural re-evaluation. This has certainly happened many times in history - at the end or beginning of knowledge structures or political systems. Today, we are definitely re-evaluating most hierarchies that are in place."

"I wanted to look at how we like to rationalize desire and relationships. It's funny because a big trend nowadays is to calculate and create algorithms to inform how we make decisions; we want information, we want numbers, we want statistics, and we base our judgment on them. What we were calling it intuition for at least 2000 years, but now it must be maths; a mystical technologic god that for most of us is pure abstraction."

"What I mean is that the way I understand my role, as an artist is that my works should contradict what's presented as efficient, and what's being controlled in our society. I'm supposed to step back, analyse, reveal systems of imagery, and open cracks into pre-existing relationships, whether they come from entertainment, communication, politics or anything etc. The limit is that I shouldn't engage in any type of propaganda myself. This is another reason why I also try to constantly undercut myself and always show how my works are built."

The above quotes from an interview of Matt Williams (curator ICA London) with Neïl Beloufa:
courtesy Noon Magazine, issue Autumn/Winter 2014

BIOGRAPHY
French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa was born in 1985 in Paris. He has had recent solo exhibitions at the Mendes Wood Gallery, São Paulo (2014); Fondation d'Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2014); the Hammer museum, Los Angeles (2013); and Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (2012). His videos have been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011); the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2009, 2012, 2014); and the London Film Festival (2009, 2010, 2011). He was awarded grand prizes at the 54th and 57th Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen, Germany. Beloufa has received many other honours, most recently the Audi Talent Award, Paris (2011) and the Meurice Prize for contemporary art (2013).

LINKS
www.neilbeloufa.com

PRESS
De Witte Raaf, #176 (July-August 2015) (in Dutch)
de Volkskrant, 19 June 2015 (in Dutch)
nrc.next, 22 May 2015 (in Dutch)
NRC Handelsblad, 19 May 2015 (in Dutch) ****
H ART, 14 May 2015 (in Dutch)
MetropolisM.com, 30 April 2015 (in Dutch)
chmkoome's blog, 25 April 2015 (in Dutch)

25 Apr '15 - 21 Jun '15
Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Entrance: free