Roundtable
Tuesday 8 December, 8 pm
With Marja Bloem, Willem de Rooij, Sven Augustijnen. Moderated by Natasha Hoare

(dutch info below) By interrogating their position on distribution, Marja Bloem, Willem de Rooij, and Sven Augustijnen come together to reconcile, suspend, or reject themes of value and labour as well as historical and present conceptual art production. Each speaker has been invited due to their engagement with these themes through their practices and as such acts as a generative starting point to go deeper into the subjects. Independent curator and Director of Stichting Egress Foundation Amsterdam, Marja Bloem shares her personal perspective on Seth Siegelaub’s ideas on art presentation, the book as exhibition, and collecting ancient textiles. Whereas, artist Willem de Rooij is dedicated to the circulation of the image, production and their various forms as well as the tensions that arise in the mediation between presentation and representation. The artist Sven Augustijnen has been invited due to his approach to a particular genre of space that he creates within the documentary where in turn he provokes the transmission of the political, historical and social. 
 Moderated by Natasha Hoare, the roundtable is a node within the network titled ‘Distributors’ that has been generated by artist Remco Torenbosch.

In het kader van het project Distributors komen Marja Bloem, Willem de Rooij en Sven Augustijnen bij elkaar om thema’s als waarde, arbeid, en de overlap van historische en hedendaagse kunst te bespreken. De sprekers zijn allen uitgenodigd vanwege hun werk en betrokkenheid met deze thema’s. Marja Bloem is curator en directeur van de Stichting Egress Foundation Amsterdam. Zij maakt ons deelgenoot van haar persoonlijke kijk op de ideeën van Seth Siegelaub over de presentatie van kunst, het boek als tentoonstelling, en het verzamelen van antieke weefsels. Beeldend kunstenaar Willem de Rooij richt zich op de kringloop van beelden, en op de productie van kunst en de vele verschillende vormen daarvan. Zijn praktijk belicht de spanning die ontstaat bij de samenkomst tussen presentatie en representatie. Kunstenaar Sven Augustijnen is uitgenodigd vanwege de bijzondere werkwijze waarop hij de politieke, historische en sociale thema’s belicht en waarbij hij ruimte schept voor het documenteren van geschiedenis. Het rondetafelgesprek fungeert als een kruispunt in het project en zal worden geleid door Natasha Hoare. Distributors is samengesteld door de kunstenaar Remco Torenbosch.

Marja Bloem (NL, 1944) is an independent curator, frequently writing on contemporary art.From 1971 to 2007, she worked at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam as Curator for Exhibitions, where she was responsible for organizing innumerable important group and solo exhibitions including by Agnes Martin, Kazimir Malevich, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Tuttle, Gerhard Richter, andColin McCahon. MarjaBloem is the partner of Seth Siegelaub and looks after his estate as director of Stichting Egress Foundation, Amsterdam.

Willem de Rooij’s (NL, 1969) work is determined by the selection and combination of images in diverse media, such as sculpture, film, photography and text. He analyzes the conventions of (re)presentation and assesses the tension between socio-political and autonomous image production. Recent solo exhibitions include Le Consortium, Dijon;The Jewish Museum, New York; and Weltkulturenmuseum, Frankfurt.

Sven Augustijnen’s(BE, 1970) films, publications and installations on political, historical and social themes constantly challenge the genre of the documentary, reflecting a wider interest in historiography and a predilection for the nature of storytelling.His exhibitions and screenings include Tate Modern London; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Kunsthalle Basel, M HKA Antwerp; Bozar, Brussels; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Documenta 12; Wiels Brussels; Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen; and Kunsthalle Bern.

Natasha Hoare (GB, 1984) is Associate Curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, working on Curating Now, a book of interviews with international curators, and regular contributor to Ibraaz, Elephant Magazine, and Saatchi publications.Prior to joining Witte de With, she worked as Assistant Curator for the Visual Arts Section of the Marrakech Biennale 5 and for On Geometry and Speculation, a parallel project for the Marrakech Biennale 4.