29.08–08.11.2015
MECHELEN

Venues

Venues

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Hof van Busleyden

Frederik de Merodestraat 65

Hof van Busleyden was built at the beginning of the sixteenth century for Hieronymus van Busleyden, ecclesiastical jurist and member of the Great Council, the supreme court of the Low Countries. A Maecenas and humanist, he was also a good friend of Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More. Between 1619 and the First World War the building housed an organization known as the Berg van Barmhartigheid – or Mountain of Charity –, which loaned money to the poor on an interest-free basis. All but the walls of the building were destroyed during the First World War. Later on it was rebuilt and became the city museum. It is possible that Thomas More strolled in the garden in 1515 contemplating his book Utopia. He even wrote a poem about the beauty of the Hof van Busleyden. So it is no coincidence that exactly five hundred years later it was chosen as one of the locations to host the Biennial dedicated to More.

FOOLING UTOPIA LIBRARY

CONTOUR 7, a Moving Image Biennale, is dedicated to Thomas More. While in Flanders in the summer of 1515, during which time he also visited Mechelen and stayed at the Hof van Busleyden, More wrote most of his book about the ideal state, the Island of Utopia.

In the Hof van Busleyden visitors to CONTOUR 7 will be able to quench their thirst for every possible form of utopian literature and utopian ideals, ranging from relaxing children’s books and light-hearted comics to learned philosophical tombs and illuminating essays. The library includes a selection of sound bites on Utopia and Europe from the archive of the internationally acclaimed online art-radio RAM Radioartemobile.

The first and third editions of Thomas More’s book Utopia, printed in Leuven (1516) and Basel (1518) respectively, will be on show in the underground gallery at the Hof van Busleyden specially for the Bienniale. Furthermore, every aspect of the Fooling Utopia theme will be analysed in a series of guest lectures.

A Dog Republic and RAM Radioartemobile

Let’s Talk Peace!

16 mm film, multi-channel sound installation
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

Through a variety of artistic media, A Dog Republic presents ‘demonstrations’ that explore the idea of establishing an alternative modality of working in a new republic of dogs and dog sympathizers. The participative installation presented by A Dog Republic in collaboration with RAM Radioartemobile at CONTOUR 7 invites its visitors to record their own barking discussions through an online application. The call to overcome the gap between humans and animals, although clearly playful and provocative, can nevertheless be seen as a critical gesture. This critical dimension is also explored in the two works selected by A Dog Republic for this exhibition, thus inviting some dog friends to their republic. Il Monumento al Borghese Coraggioso (1971) by Jannis Kounellis and Utopia / The Kingdoms of Elgaland- Vargaland (2003) by Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren both ironically reflect on the possibility of social change and new imaginary countries.

BARKING CALL

A Dog Republic is looking for barking, howling and growling... human beings!

They gladly invite you to let the inner dog in yourself off the leash so as to provide the content for the ‘barking conversation‘ in their work Let‘s Talk Peace! at CONTOUR 7. Record your most engaging, most pathetic or savagest barking, howling and growling, click on ‘send’ and become part of this rabid work of art. Woof woof!

Record your bark at www.contour7.be/barking

AaBbPp

Three Official Hats

monk hood, leaf hood, ripped hood
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

AaBbPp is a collaborative project concentrating on headwear as the point of departure. AaBbPp presents their hats as hybrids between ready to wear and prototype, similarly, their online presence and shop acts as both a voice and commercial enterprise. For CONTOUR 7, AaBbPp has produced three Official Hats inspired by imperial China and team wear, and a one-and-ahalf- hour video mix tape which reshapes footage from the British stop motion animation series Magic Roundabout (1963) into an Acid Round About.

Slavs and Tatars

​Lektor (Speculum Linguarum)

six channel sound-installation, plexiglass, speakers, 36′ 29″

In their knowledgeable appropriation of different cultural traditions from the broadly understood area of Eurasia, Slavs and Tatars excavate lesser-known ideas for a better common life. Hung and Tart (Full Acacia), a lavishly executed glass model of a tongue, is an example of their multifaceted and often humorous practice. Together with the installation Lektor (Speculum Linguarum), this work is part of a larger project Mirrors for Princes, dealing with medieval guidebooks for rulers. The instructions, heard in different languages, on how to use one’s tongue with moderation are meant as guidance towards happiness and fulfillment. The title Lektor refers to a widespread method of voice-over translation of foreign films in Eastern European countries.

Albert Serra

The Lord Worked Wonders in Me

two-channel video installation, sound, 69′ 00″
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

For CONTOUR 7, Serra presents a new two-channel installation based on The Lord Worked Wonders in Me (2011), a slow-paced film focusing on conversations and encounters. It features the crew of his earlier film about Don Quixote entitled Honour of Knights (2006) as they travel through La Mancha in central Spain. The amateur actors are shown eating and talking together, or simply killing time while waiting for the beginning of a new film production. The actors talk about politics, drugs and love, but also engage with the story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. It does not even matter that the film they are preparing for will never actually be realized. The really significant events happen during the unimportant, dull and seemingly lost moments of a waiting crew, pretending to live the utopia of art, this is, to live inside a film.

Fabrice Hyber

TV MORE

multi-channel video installation, drawings
Commissioned and coproduced by CONTOUR 7

Through an open call Hyber has invited people from Mechelen and the rest of Belgium to share their personal utopias, informing them that they will be transformed into drawings by the artist. These drawings cover the walls of a special room designed by the artist and inspired by the Hypocaustum, the dining room with frescoes in Hieronymus van Busleyden’s home, where Thomas More and other guests of Busleyden would share their utopias. The installation includes a number of TV monitors, where the consequences of the personal utopias, according to the artist, will be displayed.

Nedko Solakov

Encyclopaedia Utopia

1990
mixed media
2015
three-channel video installation, headphones, 31′40′′, 26′46′′, 25′56′′
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

In this new video installation commissioned by CONTOUR 7, Nedko Solakov browses through the pages of his own Encyclopaedia Utopia, which he made in 1990 shortly after the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. In the three videos, corresponding to the three volumes of the original encyclopaedia, the artist reflects on his own work twenty-five years after completing it. Solakov lists and reads all entries aloud while holding a camera in his hands, providing commentary on his own work and the ideas that inspired him at the time. The three books, compromising variously sized drawings, texts and photographs, are exhibited in front of the corresponding videos. In the books, Thomas More’s ideal island merges with the equally utopian experiment of communism in Bulgaria. Oscillating between a bitter ironic, funny, vulgar or naively pedagogical tone, the encyclopaedia becomes an occasion to irreverently mock both the literary and the actual version of the consummate society. Between the numerous drawings of imaginary creatures and eerie monsters, Solakov included rules and guidelines for a ‘happy and harmonious’ collective life.

Johan Grimonprez

WeTube-O-Theque

video-library, various lengths

WeTube-O-Theque, is a vlog or video blog. In it, the artist collects clips taken from the Internet and various archives on a range of issues in ecology and sustainability. What unites these multifarious fragments is the idea of radical ecology as a reflection on new and responsible ways of common life. The idea of tender gardening draws from Voltaire’s famous advice given at the end of Candide, ou l’optimisme: ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’.

Johan Grimonprez

every day words disappear

video, 15′ 11″
Commissioned and coproduced by CONTOUR 7

In his new installation every day words disappear, Johan Grimonprez enters into a dialogue with thinkers and scientists in the search for new ideas of the common. The questions asked in the conversations and, as always in the work of the artist, in a montage of images, pertain to the dominant role of negative factors in social organisation such as fear, competition and self-interest.

Jan Fabre

Searching for Utopia


Searching for Utopia (Jantje op zoek naar Utopia of een orakelsteen)
2002
polyester, papier-mâché
Searching for Utopia (met kunstenaar-ruiter rechtop staand)
2002
polyester, plaster, sand, resin, gold foil, textile, wood
Searching for Utopia II (op hol geslagen)
2005
polyester, leather belt, wood, soil

Utopia and Thomas More have occupied the mind of Jan Fabre since at least 1977, when he did a performance in which he placed exotic flowers in front of the house where More stayed in Antwerp 500 years ago. At CONTOUR 7, some of the artistic traces of this long-time relationship find a special venue in the room adjacent to the Hypocaustum, Hieronymus van Busleyden’s dining room where More dined with his humanist friends in Mechelen. In this room, he found inspiration for his famous book in the wall paintings that still decorate the room today. Fabre presents a re-enactment of his 1977 performance recorded on 8 mm film, along with models from his Searching for Utopia sculptures. In 1990, Fabre made a legendary piece in Mechelen, covering the Tivoli Castle entirely with Bic pen ink, a clear expression of his utopian spirit.

Jan Fabre

Hommage Aan Thomas More

Hommage Aan Thomas More
1977
8 mm-film
Re-enactment Hommage Aan Thomas More
2015
video, 8 mm-film transferred to digital video, 2′ 24″
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

Utopia and Thomas More have occupied the mind of Jan Fabre since at least 1977, when he did a performance in which he placed exotic flowers in front of the house where More stayed in Antwerp 500 years ago. At CONTOUR 7, some of the artistic traces of this long-time relationship find a special venue in the room adjacent to the Hypocaustum, Hieronymus van Busleyden’s dining room where More dined with his humanist friends in Mechelen. In this room, he found inspiration for his famous book in the wall paintings that still decorate the room today. Fabre presents a re-enactment of his 1977 performance recorded on 8 mm film, along with models from his Searching for Utopia sculptures. In 1990, Fabre made a legendary piece in Mechelen, covering the Tivoli Castle entirely with Bic pen ink, a clear expression of his utopian spirit.

Ana Prvački

​The Family Fig Tree (for the Utopians it’s important to see their future spouse naked before marrying them)

video, sound, fig tree, 2′ 34″
Commissioned and produced by CONTOUR 7

Fig leaves have played a significant role in the history of art, covering male and female sexual organs to neutralise the erotic charge of images. Prvački’s art explores ways of re-charging the erotic dimension in art, while addressing forms of social intercourse and protocol. In her piece for CONTOUR 7, she ironically plays with a social rule on the island of Utopia and subverts it, while paying respect to the artistic tradition of using fig leaves by placing a fig tree in front of her video. The work finds its point of synthesis in its audio component, which invites the listener into a subliminal trip back in time, covering one generation after another on a family tree and perhaps inviting us to contemplate a primordial scene in the Garden of Eden.

Michael Rakowitz

I’m Good At Love, I’m Good At Hate, It’s In Between I Freeze

mixed media, script-fragments, olive green Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter

For CONTOUR 7, Michael Rakowitz presents a project in development that focuses on the figure of Leonard Cohen and the ethical dilemmas of the post-Holocaust Jew in relation to Israel and Palestine. The final work will include a film shot at the Chelsea Hotel, where Cohen was staying during the period in which he also travelled to Israel to perform for the Israeli troops. In Mechelen, Rakowitz presents props and fragments of a preliminary script for his film, derived from many of Cohen’s poems and diaries. All of these materials have been realized in a strictly analogue mode, using the exact same olive green Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter that Cohen used during this time period. I’m Good At Love, I’m Good At Hate, It’s In Between I Freeze – a quote from Cohen’s poem Recitation – will culminate in a concert performed by Rakowitz with local musicians at the Ramallah Cultural Palace in Palestine. There, Cohen was scheduled to perform in September 2009, days after his performance in Tel Aviv. The concert was cancelled as a result of the Cultural Boycott of Israel.