11 December

Fifth evening: Thursday 11 December with Robert S. Nelson and Ruth Noack
Time: 8 p.m.
Location: Oude Lutherse Kerk, Auditorium of the University of Amsterdam (corner Spui), Amsterdam

New Canon is the focus of the fifth lecture in the series Now is the Time: Art & Theory in the 21st Century. Thursday evening the renowned art historian Robert S. Nelson (USA/UK) and art historian and co-curater of Documenta 12, Ruth Noack, will look into the function of canons in our multicultural and 'globalised' society. They will examine the need for a new canon and they shall speak about the way in which the canonical principal operates in the art world. Robert Nelson claims that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose; indicating that while the art world may change the underlying fundaments remain unaltered. Ruth Noack investigates critically the instrumentality of canons as a means towards a political and social end.
All Now is the Time lectures are in English. Reservation required.
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On Saturday afternoon, 22 November, Renzo Martens will enter into conversation with Mark Nash, an expert in the field of cinematic strategies in the visual arts, as part of the Episode III exhibition. Crucial to Episode III is the way in which Martens uses certain conventions from the documentary genre, transgressing them by his constant presence as a cameraman, reporter and activist simultaneously. The discussion will focus on the nature of Martens's film which could be understood as a 'performance-documentary'.
Mark Nash is head of the department of Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in London. He is a specialist in the use of film (especially documentary film) in contemporary art. Among others, he has been co-curator of Documenta 11 (2002) and film curator of the 2004 Berlin Biennial.

Date: 8 November
Time: 1 - 5 p.m.
Location: Atelier Florijn 42, Amsterdam ZO

On the 8th of November Hala Elkoussy will present her multimedia installation Soap Stories; a project stemming from life stories of well-known and less familiar inhabitants of the Bijlmer. Elkoussy’s project, which she made during her residency at BijlmAIR in Amsterdam South-East, is inspired by the English soap-format as characterized by non-glamorous stories with open endings which are centred on life in a certain geographical area. Her intense cooperation with the Bijlmer inhabitants results in an end-product consisting of independant episodes; a non-authoritarian, non-definitive oral and visual story which offers many different points of view on the Bijlmer.
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Opening: 20 November (in Cinema Tuschinski)

The exhibition ‘Renzo Martens – Episode 3’ opens in Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam on 20 November. The opening will take place in Cinema Tuschinski and launches at the same time the 21st. edition of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam. Subsequently ‘Episode 3’ will be presented in Bureau Amsterdam, along with some objects closely linked to the film.
The exhibition is open until 4 January 2009.
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Exhibition, live music, videos and performances in SMBA

Date: 1 November, 2008
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Location: SMBA
Free admission, even without a pass!

Marijn van Kreij has invited the Fifi Hengsten, a Rotterdam-based artists' collective that also performs as a band, for Museum Night 2008. The visual and musical spectacle of the Fifi Hengsten will be a part of ‘Tomorrow is Humourless’, Van Kreij's current exhibition at SMBA. In addition, Van Kreij has put together a programme with videos and performances by Yasser Ballemans, David Blandy, Aleksandra Domanovic, Meiro Koizumi, Torsten Lauschmann, Seth Price, Pipiloti Rist, Bas Schevers and Jennifer West.
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Lecture Series Fall/Winter 08/09

Location: Oude Lutherse Kerk, Auditorium of the University of Amsterdam (Spui), Amsterdam
Starts at: 8.00 p.m.

This coming season the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, artist initiative W139, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and art magazine Metropolis M present a new series of lectures entitled ‘Now is the Time: Art & Theory in the 21st Century’. Across seven evenings national and international art historians, curators and critics will reflect on urgent social and art specific topics such as 9/11, Globalisation, Romanticism, New Canon, Media, Belief and Design.
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In the framework of ‘Beyond Paradise’ SMBA organizes a film programme in Maison Descartes in Amsterdam on Thursday, September 4, starting at 7:30 p.m. The programme, compiled by Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura, aims to present broader perspectives on some aspects of tourism activities and fictional representation, in various geographical and political contexts. The programme features work by: Kamal Aljafari, Olivo Barbieri, Bik Van der Pol, Mounir Fatmi, Kwang-Ju Son and Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens. For more information and the complete programme see Events or the website of Maison Descartes.

Supported by:
Institut Français des Pays-Bas and in partnership with Maison Descartes

Before long the exhibition Snap Judgments will be opened in the Stedelijk Museum CS. Curator Okwui Enwezor has selected two artists who earlier realised projects in association with SMBA. In 2006 Hala Elkoussy presented Peripheral (and other stories) in SMBA’s exhibition space. In 2003 Hentie van der Merwe spent a residency period in BijlmAIR.
For more information have a look at the website of the Stedelijk Museum or in our Archive

Within the scope of Art Basel film program, the work The Rise by the Berlin artists duo Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani will be shown on June 2 (Monday). The Rise resulted from a residency period at the Amsterdam Zuidas in 2006/2007, organized by Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and the Professorship of Art and Public Space. Main feature of The Rise is the Viñoly building at Zuidas, with its typical cleft over the facade and its uncanny aspects. The work was first shown as a film installation at SMBA from March to May 2007.
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Art Basel also hosts the official book launch of Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani - Blind Spots, by JRP|Ringier together with SMBA and the Yamaguchi Center of Arts and Media (YCAM) on Friday June 6. Blind Spots presents the first comprehensive overview of the work of Fischer / El Sani, who since 1999 have regularly exhibited in biennials, museums, and art venues all over the world. The book features nine of their most ambitious projects so far: films, installations, and photographic works that focus on the dismantling, re-allocation, or re-appropriation of once highly idealistic modernist architecture, and the implications of such changes.
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Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam is pleased to invite you to the launch of the publication All that is solid melts into air – Notes on Tourism by visual artist and independent curator Delphine Bedel. Within the framework of this book presentation British sociologist John Urry will give a lecture entitled ‘Revisiting the Tourist Gaze’, followed by a short introduction to the publication and a round table discussion with some of the contributing authors.

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Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam is nominated for the Dutch AICA Award for the best exhibition in 2006/2007. It concerns the presentation ‘Gert Jan Kocken – Defacing’ which took place in the Fall of 2007. Last year Bureau Amsterdam had already been nominated, for the Award for the best contemporary art institute 2004-2006. Other nominees for the current Award are ‘Pretty Dutch’ at the Fries Museum, ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms: Andy Warhol’ in the Stedelijk Museum, ‘Peter Struycken’ in the Groninger Museum, ‘Tino Sehgal, a choice from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum’ and ‘Daan van Golden: Golden Years’ in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Members of the Dutch section of the AICA (international Association of Art Critics) can make their choice until May 18.
More information: www.aicanederland.org

Jill Magid, who had her first solo exhibition Libration Point in SMBA in 2005, will be showing at Stroom in The Hague from April 20. Following the renewal of the building, Magid was commissioned to improve and create a positive image of the Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheids Dienst (AIVD) in society. After conducting numerous interviews with employees of the AIVD, the result is a series of works titled Article 12 in which she shows us the human face of this secret service. The exhibition can be seen from April 20 until June 15.
For more information see www.stroom.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 who resided at the Amsterdam Zuidas last year and exhibited their result The Rise in Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.

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.

March 28 at 5 p.m.
Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam
Language: English
Free admission
Reservations at mail@smba.nl

Click here for more information.

Ben Laloua, from graphic design duo Ben Laloua / Didier Pascal, will give a lecture on February 20th on her REHAB-project in Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.

The lecture is part of the Studium Generale of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie which, under the title ‘Value for Nothing’, has found accommodation in SMBA for a period of six weeks. All lectures revolve around the question of what values designers and artists should be focusing on today, if design is a matter of creating values.
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This spring SMBA plays host to a part of the Studium Generale, the public lecture series of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, 2008. The whole series of lectures will be taking place at various locations under the umbrella title “Welcome Between Past and Future. Welcome in the World as it is’.

The six lectures at SMBA are entitled ‘Value for Nothing’. They will revolve around the question of what values designers and artists should be focusing on today, if design is a matter of creating values. Beginning from various perspectives such as tradition, cultural differences and public interaction, the lectures will attempt to formulate an answer to that question. The moderator and interlocutor at the lectures will be Tori Egherman. She is an author and researcher in the field of design.

The lectures will be in English
Free admission
All lectures begin at 4:00 p.m. in SMBA
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The exhibition ‘Rosa Barba - They Shine’ closes with a presentation of work by French artist Cyprien Gaillard during a conversation with Rein Wolfs, artistic director of Kunsthalle Fridericianum.

Gaillard makes films that focus on cities - and suburbs in particular – and the natural world. Through performance, mise-en-scene and intuitively made films, Gaillard underlines the beauty of the locations, while simultaneously exploring their grim connotations. Post-war urban suburbs were constructed as a celebration of hopeful ideals but have degenerated into hubs of conflict and crime. Only now, as they enter their final phase, are they becoming objects of interest, also to artists.

5 p.m.
Language: English
Advance booking required: contact mail@smba.nl
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