Witte de With is a center for contemporary art and is a world class institution. Our group was received by the almost-brand-new director Defne Ayas, who gave us a quick history of WdW and where they're headed in the future. She turned us over to their curator Amira Gad, who gave us quite the intensive tour, breaking down then intricacies of the current exhibit: Short Big Drama: Angela Bulloch. If you haven't heard of Angela Bulloch, you'll learn a little bit here.
Bulloch is consider part of the YBA, or Young British Artists group as they're called. The biggest name you might recognize from the YBA is of course Damien Hirst. Bulloch declines the association with the group and if associated at all, it would mostly be in the later years of the movement, if at all. Bulloch was on the short list for the much esteemed Turner Prize in 1997, the year in which the prize had an entirely female short list, with Gillian Wearing ultimately taking home the trophy...aka £40,000 in prize money!
Anywho, I digress. Bulloch's work in the exhibit are wide ranging, yet work harmoniously as a show. You'll see her drawing machines, which use various forms of sound and physical input from the viewer to create drawings on the gallery walls. Also on hand are several of the artist's Pixel Box works that represent a communication of music and sound through a constantly changing visual means of light boxes that are hooked centrally to a "black box" controller that provides code for color combinations of pixels as translated by various soundtracks. In practice, it looks much simpler than its deployment actually is. Bulloch and her studio have perfected every detail to produce clean and imaginative spaces for interaction without having to worry about technical details...of course your curiosity will get the best you as mine did.
Bulloch's other works in the galleries deal with the hierarchy or rules and systems for not only interpreting those rules, but implementing them as well. On hand are rules sets scattered across gallery walls that inform the audience how to interact with not only Bulloch's work, but other artist's work, social interactions and historical events. Bulloch references the Earth works of Robert Morris, the Cosa Nostra and also the War on Terror in installations that both humorous and thought provoking. See the photos below for examples...better yet, go see them in person to get a firm grasp on the ideology and graphic nature invested in each set of Bulloch's rules to live by.
Next up: Photo Museum & Boijmans.
Angela Bulloch's Pixel Boxes at Witte de With
Bus/Train Stop work by Angela Bulloch
Rules for Morris' Body, Space, Motion, Things
More rules to live by
Rules for the War on Terror
Graphic in nature
Rules for la Cosa Nostra (aka Mafia)
Set of rules for the Rules
Drawing machine activated by sitting process
Bulloch's Bus Stop
Pixel Boxes installation at Witte de With
Angela Bulloch at Witte de With
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