The Avant-Garde Never Gives Up | Andrea Božić & Julia Willms

The Avant-Garde Never Gives Up
by Andrea Božić & Julia Willms

Part of the "Genius without Talent" group exhibition
De Appel, Amsterdam (NL) 16 July – 2 October 2011
Opening Friday 15 July, 6 -9 p.m.

For this project, Andrea Božić  and Julia Willms invited two painters, Yvonne Grootenboer and Emile Miedema, to re-produce a painting they had never seen. They painted it by listening to art historian Jan van Adrichem describe it in words. It took 7 hours to make this painting.  Božić  and Willms translated this intimate and private live performance into an installation that re-creates this process.
 
The original painting was  L'Avant-garde se rend pas made by Asger Jorn in 1962, one of his Modifications (peinture détournée) - an over-painted canvas by an anonymous painter. Ultimately, a painting made by two authors.
 
The Avant-Garde Never Gives Up is a derivate of the performance After Trio A which die Božić  and Willms made in 2010, based Yvonne Rainer's minimal dance pieces Trio A (1966) and No Manifesto (1965). In After Trio A, they ask two dancers to learn an original dance phrase from Trio A live in front of the audience during the course of the performance, copying from the monitor.
 
The installation was made as a commission for the exhibition Genius Without Talent at de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (NL). For more info about the "Genious without Talent" exhibition  www.deappel.nl 

Credits
Painters: Yvonne Grootenboer and Emile Miedema
Speaker: Jan van Adrichem
Advice on the original painting: Sven Lütticken
Many thanks to de Appel team for the invitation, help and support in the making of this project.