A sense of things to come presents Robin Waart’s recent works, made on the occasion of this exhibition. The artist book Dedication(s), an envelope that is in fact a carpet, enlargements of Thank you cards and other pieces suggest possibilities of an impossible dialogue between an artist and the audience, their own work and the works of others. Waart also takes us back to the question what an exhibition space is: who is in conversation on this stage? Can a show be made and seen from the second person perspective? Under what circumstances can an exhibition become a letter?
Using furniture items in lieu of sculptures such as a triangular bookcase, benches designed for reading one specific book only, or an unusable white, tufted carpet that poses as an envelope without content, Waart proposes to experience the space of the exhibition as a ‘halfway home’ somewhere in between private and public realms.
The idea of ‘halfness’, paradoxically, is central to the exhibition, that marks something of half a life and half a career. This idea connects to the dual architectural layout of Bradwolff Projects’ space and the doubling or halving features of the works presented: a half book shelf, made to house exactly half of the edition of Dedication(s)’, a pair of customized reading benches, two consecutive screenshots taken from La maman et la putain (Jean Eustache, FR 1973). Even the sound piece is a ‘half’ – it is the soundtrack of the 1948 film Rope by Alfred Hitchcock, taken apart from its visual counterpart. In A sense of things to come, Waart invites us to a space where presence and loss fuse.
Robin Waart (NL/UK) uses repetition and collecting as a framework for projects with books, film stills, photography, polaroids, and book pages. Selected exhibitions: Skorpion, White Dwarf Projects, Vienna 2018 (solo); Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989-2017, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 2017; Clean music, Kunstbunker, Nuremberg 2016; The missing shade of blue, Galerie Stigter van Doesburg, Amsterdam 2016 (duo); 10 bcr78/ff, Postkamer, Amsterdam, 2015 (duo); same/difference, standard/deluxe, Lausanne, 2013 (duo); Photography and Ruin, New York Public Library, New York 2012; “Content, Happiness, Literally”, Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam, 2012 (solo); Books on Books, Swiss Institute, New York 2010; It’s hard to stop beginning (solo), Johan Deumens Gallery, Haarlem 2010.
