[Nettime-nl] TAKING CARE | Opening Friday January 5

SMART Project Space | 1e Constantijn Huygensstraat 20, Amsterdam

requests the pleasure of your company at the exhibition opening of:

Taking Care | Januari 5 - Februari 11, 2001

Work by Hanspeter Ammann, Frank Thiel, Hartmut Wilkening, Edwin Zwakman

Curated by Thomas Peutz

Opening Friday Januari 5, 21.00 hours.

After opening party with deejays Taco Fett & Bart Fader

Taking Care proposes a critical reflection on our condition, living in a pragmatic 'post...' (postmodern, post-ideological, post-political) society. Even if we don't believe in the 'end of history', in the 'end of ideology' or the 'end of the politic', we feel that we are living in a world where history, ideology and the politic merely survive as semblances of their former selves. They fail to explain the world to us and hence they don't excite us anymore. We seem to be losing our nostalgic dreams about the past and our utopian dreams about the future. At the same time we have come to feel at home in the capitalist global world order and assume this to be the 'natural' social regime of our society. After Slavoj Zizek, you could say that we live in a Real society in which reality, the social reality of actual people involved in interaction, is losing out. The Real, as the inexorable 'abstract' spectral logic of Capital, determines what goes on in social reality, but does so without concern for individual people. The fate of whole strata of populations, even of whole countries, is decided by the solipsistic, speculative dance of Capital, which pursues its goal of profitability with a blessed indifference to the way its movement will affect social reality. This gap is palpable in the way the economic situation of a country can be considered good and stable by a government and financial experts, even when a majority of its people are experiencing decreasing standards of living and worsening social facilities and health care. Living in a Real world were reality doesn't matter anymore, actual people (expressing concern or frustration) tend to be considered a threat to society. At this point the exercise of power and control become predominant in governments and government institutions. With this exhibition, we want to challenge politicians and their agents to be aware of this growing gap between the Real and reality. We feel that in this new century the greatest threat to our society will not come from individual people, but from governing bodies who forget about their foundation in real individuals and their relations, and who, in overlooking the gap, operate under the pretence that they are directly addressing 'real people with their real concerns'. (loosely based on Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, London/NewYork, 2000).

Sponsored by: Gemeente Amsterdam, Mondriaan Stichting, Mentrum, Brand Bier,

Beam Systems.