‘Daddy Far Away’ Show 2014
27.6 – 6.7.2014
In 2010 the Dirty Art Department began its trip wandering the deserted plains of meaning with the feeling that something needed to happen. Concerned with our way of inhabiting the planet and our way of inhabiting the mind, the eventual goal is the transformation of reality, that is the search for new contexts and how to act in them. In 2013 the Dirty Art Department situated its trip and search in the here and now with the exhibition ‘Any Space is the Place` which was a careful rewording of San Ra’s eponymous ‘Space is the Place’. The blast off happened at NASA, however, quickly we realised this was not the North American Space Agency but the New Art Space Amsterdam. This, however, was not important, as the take off was situated in the reality of the here now, and the journey was the careful use of what was already there with a direct response to any context and the ability to cut across them. Here everything was exactly as it was and not at the same time. The beginning of an un-holdable disturbance.
In 2014 the understanding of ‘Any Space is the Place’ became clearly the search for an autonomous context. In April 2014 the students of the Dirty Art Department began the mission with an attempt to squat a 1000sqm industrial hall in the north of Amsterdam, however after three weeks, including three exhibitions, two workshops,and numerous parties, the battle to stay became too confrontational, and since this was not the idea, the building was cleaned, vacated andthe new keys given to the owner. Not fased from the experience, two weeks later, in bright sunshine and colourful attire, with the invitation to the marriage of a cat and a dog, another space close by was squatted and the school outside of the school was formed. Located in the Papaverweg, the space was named ‘Auto Control’ with a project of inhabiting the space called ‘Post Norma’. Now that we had achieved a certain autonomy and the idea of ‘Any Space is the Place’ was confirmed, now was to consider alternative realities.
The title of the show ‘Daddy Far Away’, seemingly whimsical , adheres precisely to the here now and easily available,however with a transformation. The name of the street where Auto Control is situated is Papaverweg, which Google translate reads as Papa-Ver-Weg or ‘Daddy Far Away’. The then humorous connection the achronym of the Dirty Art Department, DAD, then becomes serious. The Dirty Art Department is now travelling into unkown, but the deep space is in the here and now, and in the deep space of the psyche-sphere. With everything so close to reality, however by virtue of a vital and shaky disturbance, an exaggerated vibration, the space time continuum is subtly being disturbed. You may not notice it, but we could actually be aboard the Millenium Falcon with Chewbacca at our side, landing on different planets, where we can observe and live with other ways of being. But we are always here, and the important point is that being in, or building another reality, is actually a way to perceive the reality of the moment in another way, and therefore the chance to act on that reality in another way.
For now we know that disturbance is our opportunity.