An invitation to be Present

Andrew McNiven sent us the proposal The Artist Will Be Present (2021) to be programmed
in the 2nd Nieuwstraat Festival on an undisclosed Saturday in May .
Part of this proposal is the invitation to other artists to join him in being Present.
If you want to participate in this work, please send a mail to mail@unnoticedart.com
and a week before the festival takes place, you will be informed about the date, time and location.

Open Call: 2nd Nieuwstraat Festival

The 2nd Nieuwstraat Festival will take place, between sunrise and sunset on an undisclosed day in May, 2021.
The performances will be carried out by volunteers, unannounced and without explanation.
The performances take place in the everyday environment and hide the unusual within the usual.
Passers-by will observe the actions, but may not recognise them as performance art.

We are open to performative concepts.
Please describe your concept in a clear and accessible language, more or less as a manual. The performances will be carried out by (often unexperienced) volunteers.
Don’t forget to mention the preferred time of the day (in relation to the opening and closing of shops, outdoor cafes, the fruit/vegetable-market).
We can only accept your submission if you include links to a website or page with some information about your practice.
Please send your submission to mail@unnoticedart.com.
Deadline: Monday, 1 February 2021, 23:59 (CET).

All works in the program of the first Nieuwstraat Festival (June 2020):
https://unnoticedartfestival.com/the-nieuwstraat-festival/

John Cage: about silence

Hans Bossmann: untitled (2016 ~)

      

On October 14, 2020, for the fifth year in a row, stones are suddenly lying on the windowsills in Hingene. Hingene is a village in the province of Antwerp (Belgium) and consists mainly of two main streets that intersect. At the four corners of the junction, you will find: a café, a church, a café-party hall, and a private house. Hans Bossmann, the man behind this activity, says: “Every year I do this on this day. And the windowsills are empty every year, except for one, the stones are all still there. ”

On that tiny windowsill are exact all the stones that Hans Bossmann has placed there over the past four years: five. But there seems to be more. There are also stones on the sill, both outside and inside. The resident says, “I always use those stones to keep the door ajar when I move outside for a moment.”
His neighbor sticks her head out of the doorway: “What does this mean?No photographs! Not even from the facade!” If looks could kill, this piece would not have existed. Why does someone put stones on people’s windowsill?

Why does someone put stones on windowsills?
Hans Bossmann: “This small change in the street scene can make people aware of other details in everyday life. It can raise questions about the meaning of such a small change. Once seen, it becomes an annual tradition that they recognize. There is only one village in the world where stones are placed on windowsills one day a year. Something small can be great. ”

hansbossmann.nl

photos: studio_orimi, Antwerp, BE.

Parallel Scenes

Frans van Lent announces small events that take place at a certain location and at a certain moment in the future. Everyone is invited to be at the exact spot at the exact time to contribute to the scene with his/her own simultaneous activity (or inactivity).

A Scene #22
Frans van Lent:
Saturday 23 May 2020 at 2:20 PM (CEST), Dordrecht, the Netherlands
I stood in the middle of the food market. I looked around until I recognised someone, and while I was looking at this person I grabbed my phone and called him to ask how things are.
After a while, I made clear that I was within visual distance, stopped the conversation and raised my arm to say goodbye. I left the market.

Martine Viale:
Saturday 23 May 2020 at 2:20 PM (CEST), Perpignan, France.
I walked in one direction and asked my husband to take another and to call my mobile phone.
I didn’t answer the phone; he called me ten times. While walking from a definite site to another I recorded the sound of the phone ringing as well as the ambient sounds.

   

A Scene #20
Frans van Lent:
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 2:20 PM (CET), in the sky above the Atlantic.
I was standing in the aisle of a flying Boeing 767-300 between the Netherlands and Iceland. With my eyes closed, my arms beside my body, I was for 15 minutes contemplating the enormity of the ocean below.

Trudy Kunkeler:
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 2:20 PM (CET),Tibidabo, Barcelona, Spain.
Tibi dabo: ‘This I give you’, the devil would have said to Jesus, ‘if you give me your soul’.
I am standing with my back to the church.
The Inevitable sirens at a distance, dogs barking, the sound of the wind.
Only non-western languages pass by, one language I cannot place at all.
Reykjavik, I think for a moment. I was about 10 years old when I heard that sound from my uncle who was also a priest and my godfather. He might be sent to a parish in Reykjavik. I looked up the city in the atlas. I myself never got further than the Reykjavik airport, on my way to New York.
Difficult to isolate yourself from the environment. I wonder if anyone is wondering what I’m doing there.
If so, I don’t understand.
2:35 PM: I turn around and see a family of Sikhs.

Martine Viale
Trudy Kunkeler
Frans van Lent

 

Nieuwstraat Festival

The Nieuwstraat is an average street in the city center of Dordrecht, the Netherlands.
The festival will take place in this street on Saturday 20 June 2020, between sunrise and midnight. From the received submissions, a varied program will be compiled. The performances will be carried out by volunteers, unannounced and with no explanation.
Taking place in everyday settings, the performances involve hiding the unusual within the usual. Passersby may perceive these actions, but not recognize them as performance art.

The Open Call:
Please describe your concept in a clear and accessible language, more or less as a manual. The performances will be carried out by (often unexperienced) volunteers.
Don’t forget to mention the preferred time of the day (in relation to the opening and closing of shops, outdoor cafes, the fruit/vegetable-market).
We can only accept your submission if you include links to a website or page with some information about your practice.

Please send your submission to mail@unnoticedart.com.
Deadline: Monday, 1 June 2020, 23:59 (CET).

The Nieuwstraat festival is organised by
UnnoticedArt.com / TheConceptBank.org.

Edmund Felson presents Steve Giasson


From April 26  to April 28 Edmund Felson presents untitled (a living hippopotamus adopted collectively),
an exhibition by Steve Giasson at Gallery Weekend Berlin.

The Edmund Felson Gallery represents and works with internationally acclaimed contemporary artists. Each featured artwork is presented on and/or around the gallerist. Located in public space – on the bustling side walks of international capitals, in front of the most important art fairs of our time, next to renowned museums and collections. 

Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush
Sid Hudgens, L.A. Confidential

Ton Kraayeveld: Wall painting Synode (2018)



Ton Kraayeveld’s mural ‘Synode’  was developed as a work in commission. The mural is situated on the façade of the ‘Energiehuis’ in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. The ‘Energiehuis’ is the city’s major cultural centre which is home for various theatre stages and cultural institutions. In the used words, translated as:
So-Later-This-Then-As-Now-Here,
the work relates to the actual moment of being present in time and place in relation to possible moments in past and future, as well as that it points to performances and events acually taking place inside of the building.

TonKraayeveld.nl
photo © FvL