Screening and talk with Pedro Barateiro and Monika Szewczyk

14.05.2019
19:00–21:00
de Appel, Schipluidenlaan 12, Amsterdam

Screening and talk with Pedro Barateiro and Monika Szewczyk
Organized by P/////AKT and De Appel

Tuesday 14 May, 19-21 hrs
Doors open from 18.30 hrs

Portuguese artist Pedro Barateiro, whose solo exhibition at P/////AKT is still on view until Sunday 12 May, will present and discuss his practice through two of his more recent films: The Current Situation (2015, 12 min) and The Opening Monologue (2018, 15 min). Afterwards, Monika Szewczyk and Barateiro will engage in an informal conversation and Q&A with the audience. Before and after there’s time for a drink and a visit to Landscape with Bear, De Appel’s current exhibition, which will stay open until 9 pm for the occasion.

In The Current Situation (2015) the narrative starts with the description of two events happening simultaneously, the cutting down of a palm tree and the sound of a demonstration against austerity outside the Portuguese Parliament. While, on one side, the palm trees are being cut because of the red weevil plague affecting specific types of palm trees brought from African ex-colonies, the demonstrations against austerity, on the other side, happening in southern European countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece, considered as toxic assets for the EU and identified as the responsible agents of the economic crisis. The two events find a parallel in the film, creating a connection between natural and social systems.

The Opening Monologue (2018) is a circular, nonhierarchical narrative, a flow of words that try to resist the colonizing forces of sound, language and image. Written as a poem, the narration of the text is made by a manipulated voice, somewhere between human and machine, layered by a variety of sounds reminiscing of ambient tracks, political demonstrations and a red carpet event. The film is made of a selection of GIF's and found footage. The speech is directed at the spectator under a landscape of social conflict and alarming natural phenomena perpetrated by human activity, under the savage neoliberal late-capitalist entrepreneurial culture, the spectator walks through a narrative made by images seen many times before. The film is a tribute to computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist Aaron Swartz.

Both films reflect the artist's ongoing inquiry into the binary Western narrative and the colonizing forces and heritage of image and language production. Using text as a way of re-shaping and breaking these structures, Barateiro's films discuss the traps of late capitalism, neoliberalism and algorithmic fascism, all of them formed by scientific modern logic and economic models within a decadent and belated idea of progress.

'The Current Situation' (2015), by courtesy of the artist

'The Opening Monologue' (2018), by courtesy of the artist

Pedro Barateiro (b. Almada, 1979) is a London-based artist with a background in drawing, sculpture, video and writing, who studied at the Malmö Art Academy, Lund University (Sweden) and at the Independent Study Program in Visual Arts at Maumaus – School of Visual Arts (Lisbon). He further developed his practice in residencies at Air Antwerpen (Antwerp), Pavillon – Palais de Tokyo (Paris), ISCP (New York), Sítio das Artes, CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Spike Island (Bristol) and Galeria Zé dos Bois (Lisbon). Among others, he has been showing solo at Netwerk, (Aalst); Basement Roma (Rome); Néon (Lyon); REDCAT (Los Angeles); Museu Colecção Berardo (Lisbon); Kettle’s Yard (Cambridge); Parkour (Lisbon); Kunsthalle Lissabon (Lisbon); Kunsthalle Basel. His work was included among others at the Sharjah Biennial 13, 29th Bienal de São Paulo; 16th Sydney Biennale; 5th Berlin Biennale; Palais de Tokyo (Paris); Fondazione Guiliani (Rome); Firstsite (Colchester); ngbk (Berlin); M HKA (Antwerp); SESC Pompeia and Videobrasil (São Paulo); Crac Alsace (Altkirch). Barateiro runs the artist space Spirit Shop and was one of the members of Parkour. Among his many collaborations, he edited, with Ricardo Valentim, the books Temporary Collaborations and ACTIVITY.

Monika Szewczyk is director of De Appel in Amsterdam. She was previously curator for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2015-2017); Visual Arts Program Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago (2012-2014); Head of Publications at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (2008–2011); all these following formative years in Vancouver, Canada where she studied International Relations and Art History at the University of British Columbia and held positions at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Vancouver Art Gallery as well Emily Carr University. Along this path, she has lectured, led seminars, organized exhibitions, published writing, as well as undertaken editing collaborations, most recently for the 10th issue of the Athens-based magazine South as a State of Mind (Maintenance), with founding director and editor-in-chief, Marina Fokidis. She is a member of the Artistic Advisory Board for Fogo Island Arts.

Screening and talk with Pedro Barateiro and Monika Szewczyk

See also (Landscape with Bear - exhibition)(OA/AO Landscape with Bear - Publication Launch)(Synthetic Types - performative event)

See also
(Landscape with Bear - exhibition)
(OA/AO Landscape with Bear - Publication Launch)
(Synthetic Types - performative event)