Andrea Büttner, Vogelpredigt, 2010, woodcut
Together
with participating artists, architects, and a choreographer, Ayreen
Anastas and Rene Gabri, Andrea Büttner, Jesko Fezer and Andreas
Müller with Maximilian Weydringer, Andrea Fraser, Natascha Sadr
Haghighian, Tehching Hsieh, Ienke Kastelein, Sung Hwan Kim, Annette
Krauss, Aimée Zito Lema, Wietske Maas, Christian Nyampeta, Yvonne
Rainer, and a number of “commoners” within and outside of
Utrecht, Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory is delighted to
introduce 'New Habits', the inaugural exhibition at Casco’s new
space.
While
'New Habits' apparently refers to the institution’s new habitat,
new rhythm, and new modes of working, this project exhibition also
functions as a thought experiment with a broader agenda, asking:
Would practicing according to common habits enable an autonomous
community, and if so, what would be the habits of a commoning
community?
A
habit is an everyday expression of unintentionally obtained and
individually embodied knowledge. The term "habit" is often
loaded with negative connotations; habits are to be broken or
unlearned. New Habits proposes that we rethink the notion of the
habit as a form of life central to community formation, in
negotiation with the governing rules and laws. 'New Habits' looks for
shared, communal habits or forms of life marked by a non-capitalist
ethos of commoning, as a necessary counterpoint to direct action and
representative politics.
Italian
philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s recent analysis of Franciscan
practices in calling for a new politics provided a major theoretical
impetus for New Habits. Under the guiding virtue of “highest
poverty” from their formation in the thirteenth century the
Franciscans lived a form of common life that incorporated but defied
established rules and norms of the Church.
'New
Habits' is an aesthetic project as much as a project of ethics and
new politics. It attempts to merge art and life once more, but rather
than trying to “abandon the art world” (as in the 1960s), the
focus is now on articulating and practicing forms (of life) within
and against the institution.
'New
Habits' is curated by director Binna Choi, with the contribution of
curators Jason Waite and Sanne Oorthuizen. Needless to say its
materialization would have been impossible without the rest of the
team: Janine Armin, Ester Bartels, Marleen de Kok, Yolande van der
Heide, Ying Que, and Suzanne Tiemersma, and the additional support of
interns Debby Sielert, Malcolm Kratz, and Sofie Wierda. The graphic
design for the exhibition is by David Bennewith with Virginie
Gauthier.
Casco, Office
for Art, Design and Theory
01 May
– 13 Jul 2014
