The Water Party / 2019 / Solo exhibition / Presented at A Tale Of A Tub, Rotterdam (NL)
With guest works by: Ineke van der Burg, Liu Chao-tze, Rosa Sijben, Marco Lampis, Self Luminous Society, and 900 Stig featuring Indridi.
This exhibition began with the question, "What would I do if I started a political party?" My answer: The Water Party, focused on the social and spiritual potential of water. This exhibition was a chance to present the fluid agenda of the party, turning the exhibition space of A Tale of A Tub (a former bathhouse) back into a functioning bathhouse for the first time. With a large wooden hot tub in the center of the space, the exhibition invited visitors to soak and melt together, to intimately return to the warmth of the womb. The other works presented alongside the tub promoted various values of the party: matriarchy, collaboration, divine holding, sharing pain as a form of resilience, and soul-flooding (instead of brainstorming) for an alternative sex education.
As a public program, every other Sunday a listening session was organized with an invited host.
22 September – Myriam Lefkowitz
06 October – Liu Chao-tze
20 October – Viktorija Rybakova
3 November – Paoletta Holst
PDF information sheet on the works with an introductory text by the curator and co-director Julia Geerlings
Photos by: LNDWstudio, Zelda Bonnet, and A Tale of A Tub
Soul-Flooding / Sculpture performance using various works by David Bernstein, Rosa Sijben, and Marco Lampis made between (2017-2019)
Cheers to the Miss Standing Under the Table Doing Karate / David Bernstein / 2012-2018 / Apple and oak wood
The Water Party (Artist's Book) / Design: Sabo Day, texts by: Julia Geerlings and David Bernstein / 2019 / Paperback, 48pp, A5 / 10€
Wood for Cup and Cup for Wood / Ineke van der Burg and David Bernstein / 2016-2019 / Ceramic and various woods
Even if it's Not True it's Well Found / David Bernstein / 2018-2019 / Glass, sugru, cork, and water of life
Hamamas Boy / David Bernstein / 2019 / Engraved pine wood hot tub
Waterfalls #3: Just like you / Liu Chao-tze / 2017 / Motion waterfall lightbox, vinyl text
Wood is Good & Object WMmmUip as a dancing table / David Bernstein & Marco Lampis / 2018 & 2019 / Unkown wood & plaster
Pain-things / José (Self Luminous Society) / 2019 / Acrylic and goache on various woods, neodymium magnet
Supporting a Dying Tree
Sad News
Dear José
Opening night on 7 Sep 2019
Everyone was welcomed in with a speech by Slim Denken and then Rosa Sijben performed her work "The Sand Party".
Listening Session #1 - Myriam Lefkowitz
Myriam Lefkowitz is an artist and choreographer who’s work centers on questions of attention and perception through a range of immersive devices that require a direct relationship between spectators and artists. For the listening session we enacted her Heart Piece exercise, listening and touching the body to draw out the heart.
Listening Session #2 - Liu Chao-tze
Liu Chao-tze is a visual artist who mainly works with images, installation and publication to explore fantasy, memory, and identities through the concept of “exotic”. For the listening session she organized a running water meal with karaoke. This was inspired by the 'Winding Stream Party', an old Chinese party game in which the guests wait by a winding stream and compose poems as their cups full of liquor float down to reach them.
Listening Session #3 - Viktroija Rybakova
Viktorija Rybakova is an artist, writer and researcher who works in the field of architecture and design in parallel to her artistic practice. Her research practice combines the academic and artistic fields, with her main focus being the human body and history, especially history of eroticism. At A Tale of A Tub, she presented her audio work Skinship made in collaboration with sound artist J.G. Biberkopf on the first erotic sensations we develop and memorize while being inside of the mother's belly. We listened and discussed, concluding by eating cake for my mother's birthday.
Listening Session #4 - Paoletta Holst
Working as an artist, architectural historian, and writer, Paoletta Holst's practice operates at the intersection of architecture and the urban environment. She looks at the influence of spatial, colonial, and political power structures and the informal counter-strategies people create to deal with them. For the last session, we listened to her field recordings made in Indonesia searching for traces of the history of Hygeia, one of the first water bottling factories there. Hygeia was created by Hendrik Tillema, a Dutch colonialist pharmacist and philanthropist, who became known for raising awareness around unsanitary conditions causing cholera, whilst profiting from his privatisation of water.