Book launch Blind Spots

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani

Location: Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam

Time: March 28 at 5 p.m.

Language: English

Free admission

Reservations at mail@smba.nl

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam proudly presents the publication Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani - Blind Spots. It is the first large survey of the work of the Berlin artist duo. Within the framework of this book launch Merijn Oudenampsen will give a lecture at SMBA, followed by a short introduction to the publication and the presentation of the first copy by the artists.

Blind Spots is the first large overview of the work of Nina Fischer (1965) and Maroan el Sani (1966). Since the end of the nineties they have been internationally active as a duo with installations, film and video projects in which specific locations are subjected to artistic research. These works focus on the architectural remains of modernist society and the way these manifest themselves in our current epoch. Fischer and El Sani were one of the first to direct their artistic production towards examples of modernist architecture and the ideologies that came with it. These edifices include, for instance, the former Palace of the Republic in Berlin, the National Library in Paris, as well as the more recent Viňoly building in Amsterdam. In addition to their focus on ideologically loaded sites, their work unmistakably refers to the neo-avantgardist cinema of, amongst others, Antonioni, Pasolini and Tarkovski. This combination results in a precise analysis of the deficit of modernism after the fall of the Berlin wall and the ideological vacuum that followed.

In Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani - Blind Spots, nine of the most ambitious projects of the duo are discussed by several theorists, curators and critics. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam initiated the publication together with the artists and is also one of its publishers.