Kirtis Clarke
Tutor
Kirtis Clarke works between in Amsterdam and London and has an interdisciplinary practice characterised by an ongoing investigation into subjects related to rootedness, migration and collective ways of working. Working across performance, sculpture, digital media and archiving, encounters with other artists, friends, family and members of the black diaspora aid in developing new methodologies for creating work rooted in a collective sense of identity. In 2022, Kirtis expands this research focus at Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam) in the formation of Co-Instituut, a new research trajectory concerned with developing and consolidating new and existing co-created practices and methodologies. Joining up with a scatter of artists, activists and designers, Side Pattern archives a series of inter-scale advocacy projects, posts and publications that work between the lines, inside the underbelly and far outside institutional frameworks. They mediate around The Side as a site for engaging with new forms of collective and community focussed artistic production efforts. His most recent work, Lifetimes Lived Apart (2021), a visual essay demonstrating a narrative-driven approach through a constellation of reference material, abstract forms, films and audio, becomes a means by which fragmented diasporic knowledge can re-exist in tandem. Alongside a large-scale sculptural triptych under the same title, in 2022 the work is presented in the courtyard of Black Cultural Archives (London) following features at Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven), HOME x Saint Ogun 1 Year Anniversary Exhibition (London), and the ICF Diaspora Pavilion 2 at Block 336 (London).
Touche – Touche
Anna Reutinger
Tutor
Anna Reutinger (b. 1991 in Oakland, California) is based between Berlin and Brussels. Her practice combines sculpture, installation and performance to promote craft as seed for social, material and environmental sensitivity. Using nearby secondhand/organic material, research and social input, she creates site-specific works with historical retellings, material reformulations and collective reimaginings.
She is a tutor in the Dirty Art Department at the Sandberg Instituut where she also received her M.A. in 2016 after a B.A. in Design Media Arts and Digital Humanities at UCLA in 2013. She has held residence at Triangle – Astérides, Marseille, FR—Rupert, Vilnius, LT—and Jan van Eyck, Maastricht, NL. Her work has been exhibited at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Saint Etienne Biennale, FR—MKG Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, DE—W139, De Fabriek, NL—KlaraKiss Zipspace, CH—Macao Milano, IT—The Hammer Museum, The Getty Center, The New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, US.
Catherine Somze
Thesis Tutor
Catherine Somzé (1977, Brussels) obtained her BA in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid. She completed a MA in Film and Television Studies at the International School for Humanities and Social Sciences as well as an MA in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Currently, she is the coordinator of the Critical Studies undergraduate program at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, where she also teaches courses on the theory and history of modern art and cinema. Catherine is a PhD student with the Amsterdam School for Heritage and Memory Studies. Her research is geared towards understanding the significance of social media data for the work of future historians. As an art critic, she has written for a number of national and international publications among which Time Out and Flash Art. For more information, see cameralittera.org
Daniel Dewar
Visting Tutor
Daniel Dewar is part of the artist duo Dewar and Gicquel together with Gregory Gicquel. Daniel was born in 1976 in Forest Dean, UK and lives and works in Brussels.
From tapestry weaving to granite carving, from chain sawing to firing ceramics, Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel’s artistic lexicon creates a joyful— albeit erudite—hodgepodge of types. Though the artists constantly quote pop culture references, thereby casually shrugging off the prevailing aesthetic canons and good taste, they do, however, take their place in the history of sculpture, from its ancient origins to the post-industrial era. The motifs they use throughout their work borrow as much from medieval recumbent effigies as from a form of abstraction developed by certain artists in the latter half of the 20th century. Accordingly, the series Mixed Ceramics (2011) bears resemblances to some of Arman’s archeological sculptures: In both cases, the texture of the found objects indicates a common interest in forms of sedimentation, thus producing a collusion of temporalities.
They are represented by Galerie Loevenbruck in Paris and are the recipient of the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2012.
Saâdane Afif
Visiting Tutor
Defined as ‘post-conceptual’, Saâdane Afif’s work is about interpretation, exchange and circulation. It takes multiple forms (performance, objects, sculptures, text, posters and works in neon) with the exhibition as a pretext for production or activation. For a show in Essen in 2004, he asked Lili Reynaud Dewar to write a song inspired by his artwork; this was the beginning of the series called Lyrics for which he displaces his authorship and collaborates with other artists or writers. The texts or statements are often transferred to the walls using holographic self-adhesive paper. Afif’s practice is rooted in music: scores, instruments, amplifiers, speakers, microphones, concerts are part of his vocabulary or media. Other recurring interests include the passing of time (skulls, clocks), appropriation, remakes or repetitions and the displacement of meaning, and the critique of institutions. In 2010 Afif wrote: “My work today does not rely on the object: it is developed through the accumulation or interweaving of elements that can be more or less visible.”
Saâdane Afif’s first solo show was in Tours in France in 1998. He was awarded the Prix Marcel Duchamp, which led to an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, in 2010. His work is exhibited internationally and was included in Documenta 12, Kassel, in 2007. A solo show will take place in 2013 at IAC, Villeurbanne, France. Blue Time vs. Suspense was his first exhibition at Xavier Hufkens in 2007.
Florence Parot
Co-Director
Florence Parot is a Parisian curator, based in Amsterdam. Curator at the Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou from 2003 to march 2017, she was in charge of the video collection and initiates numerous of exhibitions, screenings, lectures and performances. Florence Parot has founded iso Amsterdam with Dajo Bodisco in 2018. They believe in the potential of bringing together a wide variety of disciplines in a mainly open communal warehouse. On top of offering a stimulating production environment with thirty individual and shared ateliers, a residence and a large workshop, ISO runs a public program with exhibitions, lectures, workshops and events, giving a stage for both internal and external artists, local and international. iso engages the worlds of art, design and craft. iso is an applied situation for artist, designer and craftsman. ISO is a living organism; as such it looks different from one day to the next.
Saâdane Afif was born in Vendôme, France, in 1970. He lives and works in Berlin.
Jerszy Seymour
Director
Jerszy Seymour is a designer whose work spans from industrial and post-industrial produced objects, actions, interventions and installations. He sees his work as the creation of situations that seek to expand utopian possibilities defined with the idea of the non-gesamt gesamt kunstwerk.
His work has been presented in many museums and institutions and is held in many permanent collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, MAK, Vienna, Kunsthaus Glarus, the Vitra Design Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Marta Herford, Mudam Luxembourg, Fondation Lafayette and the ‘Fonds National d’ Art Contemporain’ France. In parallel he has created objects for design companies such as Magis, Vitra and Kreo and has taught and given lectures and workshops at many schools including the Royal College of Art, UdK , Domus Academy, La Sapienza, Eindhoven Academy, Berlin Program for Artists, Hfg Karlsruhe and Saarbrucken, Cranbrook Academy, Ecal Lausanne and the HEAD in Geneva.
Yiannis Mouravas
Jockey at Large
Yiannis Mouravas is an artist and designer. He has a Fine Art and carpentry background. His work includes practice with Nicola Baratto as part of an artist-duo in Amsterdam, while being a member of the Arbit City Group, in Athens and the Wandering School, everywhere.