Céline Condorelli: Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning)

Behind the scenes of: Céline Condorelli: Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) from Stroom Den Haag on Vimeo.

9 September - 19 November 2017
Opening: Saturday 9 September, 17 hrs
Location: Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9
Open: Wed - Sun, 12- 17 hrs
Admission: free
Part of Attempts to Read the World (Differently)
>> Download exhibition (pdf)
Webdossier Spelen - Play

Stroom School program
An in-depth program parallel to the exhibition, with lectures, talks, workshops, film screenings and the spinning top tournament Happy Spinning! >> read more

With Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) artist Céline Condorelli presents Stroom's exhibition space as a place for rehearsal and play. A series of carousels and spinning tops invite visitors to play and interact with them, while (historical) references of radical playground designs show what play means for the city and for society.

For Céline Condorelli intimacy with culture is extremely important, and a hugely political issue. She believes culture should not be something one looks at (silently) from a distance, it is part of everyday life. Condorelli's artworks therefore often allow for intimate contact usually excluded from cultural objects: her works can be used and touched. They have double or triple lives, make references to works by others, and fulfill different spatial functions, such as an entrance, a display structure, a background, seating, models or play objects.

Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) draws on political theorist Hannah Arendt's concept of culture as the company one "chooses to keep, amongst people, amongst things, amongst thoughts, in the present as well as in the past". It further includes references to architects and artists such as Lina Bo Bardi, Palle Nielsen and Aldo van Eyck. Their ideas about play and culture are present in a series of new 'wall works' developed by Condorelli with graphic designer James Langdon.

Céline Condorelli considers exhibitions as constructions through which we apprehend the world, which allow us to rehearse possibilities for making things public. In this way, after this exhibition, the carousels will be permanently relocated to the playgrounds of two local schools in The Hague, whose children have been actively involved as researchers throughout the process and development of the project. By testing the relationship between exhibition practices and public art, by pedagogical experiments from gallery to school, this exhibition investigates and outlines possible roles for children and artists in society.

Céline Condorelli presented a first edition of the carousels in 2016 for the exhibition Playgrounds in the Museu de Arte de Sao Paolo (MASP); a re-enactment with contemporary artists of the exhibition of the same name organised by Nelson Leirner and Lina Bo Bardi in 1969 at the opening of MASP. The spinning tops were developed during a residency at Kunsthalle Lissabon in 2016 and shown in the exhibition Concrete Distractions.

Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) is Condorelli's contribution to Attempts to Read the World (Differently); a program in which Stroom together with various artists
looks in a searching, intuitive way at our present world, the rapid developments therein and possible futures. And by doing so, imagines a possible new world.

Céline Condorelli (CH, IT, UK) is a London-based artist, currently Professor at NABA Milan, and one of the founding directors of Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK; she was the author and editor of Support Structures published by Sternberg Press (2009). Condorelli developed the exhibition Display Show at Stroom Den Haag with James Langdon and Gavin Wade, starting at Temple Bar Gallery, then Eastside Projects, and in its final phase shown at Stroom Den Haag, where it later transformed into Another Reality. After Lina Bo Bardi (2016).

Recent exhibitions include the Gwangju Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, Sydney Biennial, and Concrete Distractions, Kunsthalle (Lissabon, 2016), bau bau (HangarBicocca, Milan, IT, 2015), Céline Condorelli (Chisenhale Gallery, UK), Positions (Van Abbemuseum, NL), including the publication The Company She Keeps, with Bookworks (2014). Her first monograph, bau bau is published by Mousse (2017).
www.celinecondorelli.eu

Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) is made possible through the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund, BankGiro Loterij Fonds, BPD Cultuurfonds and the City of The Hague.

Parallel to the exhibition, but from another perspective, Stroom presents the exhibition Play your city in Atrium City Hall (2 - 21 October 2017).

PRESS
BPD Blog, 29 March 2018
Metropolis M website, 18 NOvember 2017
Trendbeheer, 9 November 2017
Metropolis M, Augustus/September 2017 (#4)

Consult: Webdossier Spelen - Play