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t AFTER C A G E • ARTIST INTERVENTIQNS

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Germany

Belgium

Netherlands

^ NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen

Suermondt-Ludwig-IVIuseum, Aachen

Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst , Aachen

Q Eifelmuseum Blankenheim, Blankenheim

Rheinisches Industr iemuseum Euskirchen, Euskirchen

Römerthermen Zülpich - Museum der Badekultur, Zülpich

Q Museum Zitadelle Jülich, Jülich

^ Deutsches Glasmalere i -Museum, Linnich

0 Z33, Hasselt

0 Domein Bokrijk, Genk

Museum van het Mijnwerkershuis, Eisden ^

Nationaal Jenevermuseum, Hasselt

Bocholter Brouweri jmuseum, Bocholt

^ Museum Vlaamse Minderbroeders, Sint-Truiden

V laams Mi jnmuseum, Beringen

© E2N Espace 251 Nord, Liege

MAMAC Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Liege

^ Musee de l'Art Walion, Liege

Aquarium - Musee de Zoologie de l'Universite de Liege, Liege

^ Galerie Wittert, Collections artistiques de l'Universite de Liege, Liege

^ Musee Curtius, Liege

^ Tour d'Eben Ezer, Eben Emael

@ Marres, Maastricht

^ Universiteit, Maastricht

@ Afrikacentrum, Cadier en Keer

Natuurhistorisch Museum, Maastricht

^ Agora Archief, Maastricht

Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht

• AFTER C A G E • O V E R V I E W INSTITUTIONS

ISBN Imprint • Editors IVIeianie Bono After Cage Networl«

• Concept IVIeianie Bono

• Translations Pauline Cumbers Jul ia Walther

• Proof Reading Melanie Bono Stefanie Maute

• Design Marius Schillak http:/ /www.graff ixyz.de

• Publisher

DUMONT Published by DuMont Literatur und Kunst Verlag http: / /www.dumontl i teraturund-kunst.de

ISBN 978-3-8321-7778-2

• Copyright © NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein; After Cage Network, 2007

• All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under Copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval System, or transmitted, in any form or any means (electronic, mechhanical , photocopying, recording or otherwi-se) , without the prior written permis-sion of both the Copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

• Printed in Germany

• AFTER C A G E • IMPRINT

Preface

After Cage - 24 Collections in motion is an extraordinary project aimed at linking up and thus sfiedding new light on the cultural treasures located in the most varied of institutions of the Euregio. namely, in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. The idea for the project is based on an exhibition concept by John Cage which w a s implemented at the MOCA in Los Angeles in 1993 under the headina i 'Rolywholyover. A circus'. Cage's concept played with both the idea of cultural identity and the concept of Chance and move-ment, the aim being to put exhibits from the most varied cultural realms in an unfamiliar context and thus gain new flashes of insight through this unusual confrontation. IWilhelm Schürmann and Susanne Titz have not only adapted this concept for the Euregio museums, archives and collections, they have also won over three further Partners in the neigh-bouring countries who, together with the NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, have developed and implemented the After Cage project. In Maastricht, the Marres. Centrum voor contem-poraine cultuur became involved, initially through Frederique Bergholtz, then through the new director Guus Beumer; in Belgium, both the Z33 in Hasselt, with its director J a n Boelen and manager Ann Vanderheyden, and Espace 251 Nord, with its director Laurent Jacob. The After Cage project also received further vital support from the Stichting Euregio Maas-Rhi-ne and the Interreg III Programme of the European Union, thanks to project manager Nadia Thissen and the regional managers Fanny Spinnewyn, Björn Zierstedt, Wim Jackmaer, Axel Noel and Petra Witt.

Together, these four partners succeeded, in a first phase, in winning

over 24 more institutions in the respective regions, w h o were Willing to open the doors of their collections to the project. They have made works available for the four main exhibiti­on venues, the curiosity cabinets in Maastricht, Hasselt , Liege and Aa­chen. By means of a random genera-tor, the 500 selected works were dis-tributed over the four venues, Marres in Maastricht, Z33 in Hasselt , MAMAC in Liege and the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen. Based on the list of works allotted, the individual ve­nues conceived the most varied forms of presentation for them. J a n Boelen, at Z33, invited Guy De Bievre, Herman Verkerk and Paul Kuipers (Eventar-chitectuur), Philippe Meste, Reineke Otten, Kristofer Paetau and Ondrej Brody, Peter Pilotto, Erik Spinoy and Johan Van Ge luwe to s h o w objects in eight rooms; G u u s Beumer at Marres developed a Special, constantly changing form of presentation. Peter van den Brink, director of the Suer-mondt-Ludwig-Museum, w o n over Alexander Markschies from the art history Institute of the RWTH Aachen, his colleagues Andreas Gormans and Martina Dlugaiczyk and a number of students for the conceptional work, while the exhibition architecture by Rainer Plum of the Design Faculty of the Fachhochschule Aachen w a s designed jointly with students.

The second phase in the prepara-t ions for the After Cage project w a s that of the artists' interventions, which took place at several of the participating institutions. Eleven contemporary artists provided eleven museums, archives and collections in the Euregio with works that reflect either on the venue, the respective collections at the venues or the idea behind the project. Stefanie Kreuzer, director of the NAK Neuer Aachener

Kunstverein, invited the Chilean artist Pablo Zuleta Zahr to do a Video project which engages unambi-guously with the After Cage concept, the participating regions and eitles involved, and w a s carried out in d o s e cooperation with Z33. Melanie Bono, director of the After Cage project, w a s the curator behind the other interven­tions. The interventions of the artists Edgar Arceneaux, Mark Dion, Olafur E l iasson, Pieterjan Ginckels, Frank Hesse, Ives Maes, Ingrid Mwangi , Ma­ria Roosen, Klaus Weber, Pablo Zuleta Zahr and Christof Zwiener succeeded in drawing attention anew, by means of contemporary art, to the parti-cular locations and their respective collections.

Through the four curiosity cabinets and the artists' interventions, this unusual project highlighted not only the huge variety of cultural pro-duction, but also the wide ränge of institutions domiciled in the region. It has thus made a contribution towards awakening the curiosity and enthusiasm of the visitors, made the individual institutions and their coll­ections known to a larger audience, Consolidated relations between the participating countries at the cultural level, and inspired new ideas for co­operation destined to enrich cultural life in the Euregio.

We would like, first and foremost, to thank the directors and colleagues at the participating institutions w h o particularly supported this project:

• Peter van den Brink Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen

• Harald Kunde • Annette Lagler Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen

• Guido von Büren • Christoph Fischer Museum Zitadelle Jülich, Jülich

• Iris Nestler • Myriam Wierschowski Deutsches Glasmalerei-Museum, Linnich

• Hans Gerd Dick • Sabine Phillip Römerthermen Zülpich - Museum der Badekultur, Zülpich

• Detlef Stender Rheinisches Industriemuseum Euskirchen, Euskirchen

• Klaus Ring • Margitta Breul Ei felmuseum Blankenheim, Blanken­heim

• AFTER C A G E • 24 C O L L E C T I O N S IN MOTION

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Belgium

• Davy Jacobs Nationaal Jenevermuseum, Hasselt

• Kristina Anciaux Museum Vlaamse Minderbroeders, Sint-Truiden

• Hans Hofer • Filip Delarbre Vlaams Mi jnmuseum, Beringen

• Paul de Küster • Robert Nouwen Domein Bokrijk, Genk

• Paul Martens Bocholter Brouweri jmuseum, Bocholt

• Marc Darcet • Corry Schoenmakers Tour d'Eben Ezer, Eben Emael

• Fran^oise Safin-Crahay MAMAC Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Liege

• Pauline Bovy Musee Curtius, Liege

• Ann Chevalier Musee de l'Art Walion, Liege

Netherlands

• Paula van den Bosch Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht

• Fokeline Dingemans Natuurhistorisch Museum, Maastricht

• Guy Jaegers Universiteitsbibliotheek, Maastricht

• Maurice Evers • Mariet Roijen Studentenservicecentrum, Maastricht

• J . Demarteau • Monique Martens Afrikacentrum, Cadier en Keer

Our sincerest thanks are also due to the artists, w h o s e wonderfui ideas and works were crucial for the project.

Furthermore, w e would like to thank Alexander Markschies of the RWTH Aachen, w h o together with his colleagues Andreas Gormans and Martina Dlugaiczyk and their students did his utmost to implement the curi­osity cabinet in Aachen, and, together with Rainer Plum and students from the Design Faculty of the Fachhoch­schule Aachen, ensured that each of the exhibition Spaces had its o w n particular flair.

A Special word of thank goes to the Stichting Euregio Maas-Rhine and the Provincie Limburg as well as to the Kunststiftung NRW, especially Ms Regina Wyrwol l , as well as to the Bezirksregierung Köln, in particular Ms Gerlinde Fülle, for their continued confidence in the project and their invaluable support throughout. The Company J A G A , in particular J a n Krie-kels, sponsored the artists' interven­tions and thus played an important role in the second phase of the After Cage project, for which w e are also most grateful.

are due to H^löne van den Wildenberg from Caracas public relations.

We are also more than grateful to the Euregionale 2008 for its support of the public relations works for the After Cage project.

The unique outward appearance of the project is the work of Base Design Brüssels, and the catalogue design is by Marius Schillak of ht tp: / /www. graffixyz.de, for both of which w e express our sincere thanks.

Melanie Bono, initially a colleague at NAK, then director of After Cage, has been vital to the success of the project and simply cannot be thanked enough.

• Stefanie Kreuzer Director NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein

• Jan Boelen Artistic Director Z33

• Guus Beumer Director Marres

• Christian Michel Aquarium - Musee de Zoologie de l'Universite de Liege, Liege

• Jean-Patrick Duchesne • Edith Micha Galerie Wittert, Collections artistiques de l'Universite de Liege, Liege

The After Cage team, consisting of Anja Bücherl and Annika Weinthal, are to be congratulated for setting up the project Office and organising the whole undertaking. Our gratitude also to Cristina Peierl, w h o competently mediated between the project, the public and the business Community, inspiring enthusiasm on all s ides.

We would also like to thank Kathrin Luz Communicat ion for the communicat ion, press and public-re-lations work. For Communications on the Belgian and Dutch front thanks

• AFTER C A G E • 24 C O L L E C T I O N S IN MOTION

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or initiating coincidence

Rolywholy - what a coincidence: in English the terms and form an anagram, which means the letters of one word make up at least one other word. This word play in the case of and apart from the formal analogies, attracts and repels in equal measure any attempt at pinpointing an exact meaning. What happens by coinci­dence apparently defies noticeable and verifiable cause. That which has a cause cannot be coincidental. And yet both terms are linked. For instance, if you discover the cause of an accidental event, this event loses its coincidental character. Where the natural sciences strive to categorically turn contingency, or coincidence, into something inevitable, in everyday language w e use the term 'coinciden­tal' to describe an incident, which is not inevitable but happens without any apparent reason. For the natural sciences the reason, no matter how elusive it may be, represents a law of causality, a constant - as Novalis put it "Even coincidence is not unfathom-able, it has its regularities".

Timm Ulrichs in his aleatoric-anagrammatic text-object

(1982) artistically reflected on coincidence in causality or the coincidental principle in causality. He chose six cubes of equal size printed with letters that accidentally, or so it seemed, formed the word in a sand-filied frame titied . That no Single detail w a s left to Chance is reflected, among other things, in the fact that it w a s the cubes that were picked to represent the causality.

Coincidence, therefore, is staged - this theatrical term illustrates the process of systematic planning, of production. The material, props and Space are organised and the conditions are set under which the

game with 'Coincidence' in the lead role shall take place. This means that the conditions in which the coincidence is to 'happen' and the means which Coincidence is to use are already determined. Whether Ulrichs w a s reciting Jul ius Caesar 's alleged sentence 'alea acta est ' (the dice has been cast) is unknown, yet he might well be, since he puts the Spotlight on coincidence as an event, an occurrence. Alternatively he might have used the phrase 'cast has been the dice' (lacta est alea) since the dice are already lying on the table and all traces of coincidence s e e m to have been eradicated.

In music, too, aleatorics, the game with coincidence, has become one aspect of composit ion. The utilisation of open structures alone signifies that arbitrariness does not reign here, but that coincidence is being actively integrated into composit ion as a con-stitutive element of aesthetics that does not want to fight deterministic structures but wants instead to con-sider it as its basis. In other words , it is not structure but materialisation that is modulated. Coincidence is therefore not a synonym for absurdity or even disorganisation but can rather be caiculated and at the s a m e t ime creates the conditions for the free-dom of possibility -

John Cage, an obvious source of Inspiration for the exhibitions taking place in the Euregio, is considered to be the master of the so calied 'change operations'. Besides his work as a composer combining sound, t ime and coincidence, he w a s an international-ly accepted 'happening' artist w h o purposely integrated the seemingly unconscious actions of the audience into his scenographics, in order to map out everyday actions in their

abstract form. His almost legendary project - in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles didn't yet lose, even after several years, its initial spark or po-wer of its original impact. Rather the fundamental idea of an open piece of art and an expanded Interpretation of the term art itself is reverberating and gaining ground. It continues to reverberate because seeing for Cage inferred hearing, which again is connected to the perception of t ime - for instance how long something resonates. This concept w a s eagerly taken up by the Euregio, referring through its title not only to the underlying idea but also to the d o s e connection with the initial project and its artist.

Rolywholy in Maastricht - Hasselt - Liege - Aachen. In L.A. the presen­tation of the individual pieces as wel l as their combination w a s determi­ned by the random generator and also modified on a daily basis , new w a y s were found within the Euregio culminating in a, or rather in four, cu­riosity cabinets. In each instance the objects were placed in a new context. Coincidence as rudiment? Far from it! Cage's framework of crossed horizon­tal and vertical dimensions, structure and event, is still at the centre. Even as one aspect in an otherwise deter­mined Space, coincidence as a general constant holds many possibilities. These concepts have been made use of in an extraordinary manner in the border triangle Euregio. The result: various types of encounters which in

this form would probably never have happened without the coincidental distribution of exhibits. Stochastic scholars w h o make prognoses on the probability of possible events (how accidental is coincidence?) would cer-tainly enjoy caiculating the chances of a stuffed penguin being placed beside sacred wooden sculptures, or a Nivea tin, a Gilbert & George video, an ex­plosive device, a rare flute glass or de-licate drawings from the 17th Century being positioned alongside a tooth brush, wheelbarrow, milking stool, crucifix, a blasted safe or a painting by Brueghel. Almost five hundred objects of varying provenance made fascinating contact due to the coin­cidental positioning and their asym-metrical presentation. It w a s within these temporarily abolished spatial and disciplinary borders that their Cre­ative Potential w a s unleashed.

A s Duchamp once put it, for an aesthetic work to develop, coinci­dence has to be preserved l'hasard en conserve') . Daniel Spoerri similiarly illustrated this with his wonderfully off-key "Anekdoten zu einer Topogra­phie des Zufalls" in 1968 (anecdotes on the topography of coincidence). He accepted coincidence without any li-mits and without Intervention, which w a s of little importance to the alleged 'father' of methodical coincidence, Hans Arp. He s a w himself committed to the (naturally only later postulated) 'corriger le hasard' .

Concepts were developed for the . local exhibition Spaces that could not have been more heterogeneous since the Cage project not only brought to­gether collections and places but also curators from museums and univer-sities, restorers, students, exhibition designers and PR representatives - a rather Special melange. Furthermore,

• C A B I N E T S O F CURIOSIT IES

• PAGE 023

deliberate irritations were arranged in tlie form of artistic Intervention, wliicli interfered with the spectator's habitual Visual perception and experi-encing of art. And that is what it is all about. Coincidences trigger surprise, they make us pause for a moment in amazement, so that the unexpec-ted occurrence, event or result is experienced as something Special, something unique. That said, this not withstanding its negative connota­tions, since in French and English the word 'accident' s tems from the Latin , which can mean both, misadventure and coincidence. There is not only one but many types of coincidences.

This is one of the reasons why the idea w a s born to combine the

ject with the cabinets eme. In the 16th and

17th Century the typical curiosity cabinet, in which the macro cosmos was reflected in a micro cosmos, did not constitute worlds of randomly assorted objects but rather highly complex collections. Their infinite combinatorics demolished the limits of classification enabling this newiy emergent, limitless awareness to grasp universal chaos not only in its spatial and temporal structure and more importantly allowing for its playfulness whilst leaving no trace of randomness.

This kind of collecting has died out since the 19th Century and instead we indulge in categories and clas-sifications as can be seen at the 24 museums, institutions and archives taking part in the project. After the in­itial Impulse there is now movement and through their networking and associated links between disparate objects they uniquely mark Euregio's tri-national profile. It is not even pos­

sible to tie the actual challenge solely to the idea of "3 countries, 4 regions, 24 museums, 3000 objects = all mixed up!" but rather to enrich the historic material with current metaphors and th Images. Thus the im

were expanded with ne m a s s produced products, as wel l as topics from the architectural and so-cial environment, to be in a Position to appeal to aspects of immediate experiences of life with this new variety committed to a contemporary context. And more than this, in adap-ting the Cage method, which tries to eliminate the artist's subjectivity as far as possible, the objects gain space and t ime for (interlacting indepen-dently.

This goes band in band with a disengagement from traditional hierarchies in m u s e u m s - or in other words , releasing the exhibits from their (institutionall cage Cage al lows for materialised connotations and creates through wel l planned arrangement un/expected order, metamorphoses as well as irritating and meaningfui breaks. Thanks to the lifted barriers the objects reintegrate themselves into the context of life and thus become prone to new per-ceptions in the sense of 'objet trouve'. The primacy of the object rules over that of the topic and new possibilities are created.

Possibil it ies? How closely related are coincidence and Imagination any-w a y ? Leonardo's coincidental finding and processing of battle scenes in weathered wal ls; the seemingly alive and figure forming ink smudges by Wilhelm von Kaulbach; the tree bark Colleges by Dorothee von Windheim, which teil of the everlasting process of change; or the cloudscapes of our daydreams, the sudden recognition of

shapes out of amorphous forms - all of those speak for themselves as ex-amples. That means: connotations are triggered by formal analogy between the coincidental find, the artistically indifferent original material and the new (re)interpreted object.

For John Cage "insight into the World", as he calls it, is only possible through individual openness and experience. Thus he regards the beholder as a without w h o s e participation the respective exhibition project cannot achieve its füll Potential. His task is to let it 'flow' in the sense of flux, can refer to personal preparedness and conscious-ness as wel l as to the actual coverage of the Space - or eise to the chosen, fol lowed, discarded Visual lines or the newIy ordered structures arranged through coincidence. In the end it is about abol ishment of hierarchies and the accidental rotation in which the human being forms the centre and a universe of its o w n .

In 1943, Picasso had already written, and not without amusement , about the almost ideal space for coin­cidence to take effect: "One day I take the saddle and the handlebars, place them on top of each other, I make a buM's head. Very good. What I should have done immediately afterwards however: throwing the bull's head out. Throwing it out onto the road, into the gutter, anywhere, but thro­wing it away. Then a worker would come by, pick it up and think that maybe one could turn this bull's head into a saddle and handlebars. And he does it... That would have been

• AFTER C A G E • C A B I N E T S O F CURIOSIT IES