PAEkort #11 report

Location: Wolfart Projectspaces, Wolphaertstraat 25 b/c, Rotterdam, NL

This time we have a filled up space with performances, audience, tables, chairs and benches. And what do you consider as everyday materials, is it something personal or related to where you live? PAEkort #11 invites Buktapaktop, a group of artists from Belgium, who work individually together, and Marita Bullmann, a soloist artist from Germany, who works alone.

Did you know that buktapaktop is the word for cigarettes made of various discarded cigarette-butts thrown away by ‘the well to do’ during the depression years of the twenties and thirties in the twentieth century? Reconstituted cigarettes as it were, euphemistically named as being of the brand ‘Buktapaktop’.
The French-Belgian formation, that sees themselves as a cluster of individual artists, operates under the name Buktapaktop and has their project space in Dialogist-Kantor’s former studio space in Brussels. The current formation is Bernard Muillez, Julien Celdran, Lise Duclaux, Dialogist-Kantor, LL, Jérôme Giller, Manu Tete and Heinrich Obst.
Buktapaktop will send a delegation to the Wolfart Projectspaces and bring their French anchored tradition of a banquet, which is the culture of celebrating diner. Banquet comes from banque, translated bench, in Dutch you can refer to the verb ‘tafelen’ which comes from the noun ‘tafel’ that means table. Usually banquets are for everyone regardless stature.
To give you a clue of what direction the evening might turn out is a revitalization of the origin of the performative landscape, think of künstlerkneipe‘Cabaret Voltaire’ in Zürich, where artists during World War I came together. The live art that happened there consisted out of spoken word, sound poetry and all other kinds of artistic contributions. It was a platform for new forms of performances.

The banquet is Buktapaktop’s format to present their performances in; they will collaborate with ‘Cateringa & Kompanen’. They are a conceptual catering collective that provides interactive eating-experiences, anywhere between food and (performance) art. Their kitchen-laboratory is in the space next to the Wolfart Projectspaces, where they dedicate their time experimenting on new concepts. In previous PAEkort events they responded with snacks inspired on the presented performances.
Together with the artists you are invited to sit down at the table and enjoy the individual contributions performed by the Buktapaktop delegation, accompanied by the delicious bites prepared by Cateringa & Kompanen and Bukta Kitchen Crew.

Marita Bullmann with an object, person with an object, body with an object, and object with an object. Marita Bullmann lives and works in Essen and Cologne. She studied photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany and in the same period went to Israel to study at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where she followed classes in Performance Art with Adina Bar-On. Together with Boris Nieslony (Black Market International) and others, she founded PAErsche, an action-laboratory from North Rhine-Westphalia.
Marita uses everyday materials in her performances, which is a familiar phenomenon for performance artists. But each one has its own way to handle it. Noted that Marita keeps the number of materials for each performance minimal, which is helpful to keep the action focused and clear. Examples of what she has been using in previous performances are a pair of high heels and an apple in ‘Smu(t)z’, Opekta in Cologne, 2011 and for ‘Shamouti’ at Platform for young performance artists in Berlin, 2010, she used a clothesline, a blood orange and a spoon.
What happens between Marita and the material is that it becomes a comparison between shapes, structures and movements of what the material is capable of. It’s an exploration of how the material reacts on the bodies’ movement and visa versa. It’s performed in a way that the material becomes an extension of her body. She finds her materials during her daily activities and chooses to do something with it as soon she falls in love with it. What material will be the subject of her infatuation in this performance in Rotterdam?

Each PAEkort event we screen a part of the ‘Performance Voyage 4′. A series of international video performances themed “Self-portrait”, curated by artists association MUU gallery Helsinki. ‘Performance Voyage 4’ presents video performances by 15 artists and collectives. The compilation was selected from among work submitted in response to an open international call for artists. The theme of self-portrait offers a variety of possibilities for the artists as well the audience: the compilation challenges the spectator to reflect their own self as well. Performance Voyageseries is screened across Europe. The venues vary across Europe and all over the world; screenings will be held for example in Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, USA and Canada.”

PAEkort is a monthly event organized by PAE that presents performance art on a Wednesday evening in the Wolfart Projectspaces Rotterdam. This event is supported by Mya foundation, Stichting bevordering van Volkskracht, St. Trickster and Dienst Kunst en Cultuur Rotterdam.