Act III: Shaking, Tumbling, And the Little Mistakes We Make Along the Way
Group Exhibition, Sign Groningen,
2025, (NL)

Exhibition Details:
Shaking, Tumbling, And the Little Mistakes We Make Along the Way is an exhibition in three acts featuring the work of nine visual artists: Kamilė Česnavičiūtė, Koen Kievits, George Kratochvil, Olivia Niuman, Simon Scharinger, Lambertine van Veldhuizen, Arjun Viir Bhandari, Sam Werkhoven, and Taco Yutong Huo. The title reflects the instability and uncertainty that we encounter while trying to position ourselves in constantly changing contexts. This state of flux – and as result the persistent need to readjust, reposition, and reimagine – is a reality of our lives as artists and something we all relate to, despite the differences in the content of our work.

Over the course of a month, SIGN project space will become our sandbox to experiment with modes of presentation, display, and contextualization. The exhibition will open with paintings and drawings shown in the most ideal way possible within the project space. After two weeks, to create a second act, the work on show and their configuration will be changed as we respond to the idea of cocooning, protecting, and preserving. Finally, the exhibition will end with a short third act that highlights the inevitable miscommunications, conflicts, and mistakes we make along the way.

The transition between acts is marked by an event that resembles traditional exhibition events – an opening reception for Act I, an artist talk for Act II, and a finissage for Act III – but each one will have a twist related to the conceptual focus of each act. There will also be appearances by guest artists over the course of the exhibition period.

For the first act, each artist responds to the notion of the ideal. Physically, the work in this act is arranged as an intuitive response to the space available to us at SIGN. Implicit is the notion that the ideal is always at odds with contextual factors; while none of us know what exactly the ideal is or how it can be represented, this act enfolds the conscious act of trying to achieve it anyways.

The second act further reinforces the ultimate physicality of the work that we create. Curated around the notion of wrapping, storing, conserving and cocooning, the show for these two weeks envelops itself, providing a space for us to meditate on what it means to protect an artwork, either physically or conceptually.

Due to the three act structure and our commitment to adapting to the space, there is an element of the unknown that underlies the whole exhibition. The final act brings this into full focus, as it foregrounds the chaotic, unpredictable, and messy nature of our artistic practices. In this act, there is no central curation, and each artist selects the work they want to show or a performance to stage without communicating with the others. The lack of communication and conflicts that will occur will highlight the inevitable difficulties and competing visions that arise when working together as a group.

The conceptual focus of the three acts allows us to respond to the themes that unite us as visual artists – ideal viewing conditions, packing or storing, and communication (or lack thereof) – while also leaving room for us to maintain our individual voices as artists by giving us the space to position ourselves within the set framework.

A publication will also be made available to collect in sections throughout the course of the exhibition. Each artist has prepared responses in print format that correspond to the conceptual focus of the three acts. The publication itself is designed to physically expand to accommodate the additions from Act II and Act III that will be made available at the event for each act.

Text by Olivia Niuman

❊ Act I Opening: Friday 25 April at 17.00 hrs
(Act I Exhibition period: 25 April – 4 May)

❊ Act II Opening: Saturday 10 May at 17.00 hrs
(Act II Exhibition period: 10 May - 18 May)

❊ Act III: Finissage Saturday 24 May at 17.00 hrs

Media owner:
Simon Scharinger
Plainwiesenweg 7
5101 Bergheim
contact@simon-scharinger.at

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