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Sebastiaan Schlicher

 
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Dive, 2008, Acrylic, ink, pencil, felttip, spray-paint, silicon, collage, on paper, 133x88cm

More images: www.artnews.org/sebastiaanschlicher

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11
   
Eksorsism/Eksersize (Notes for essay)

“Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you’ - (1)

Aside 1: Snotty outcasts

Within the field of contemporary arts, the practice of drawing seems generally connected to the subjective, the intimate, the personal, and the idiosyncratic; there is often a certain preoccupation with the sinister; melancholy, pain, fear, death, excess, perversion. Art historically speaking, there was never anything grandiose about drawing; ‘According to Giorgio Vasari, disegno (drawing and design) was the foundation of the three arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture’ (2). Up until the Italian Renaissance, there was no debate regarding its role as a preliminary stage in creating a painting or sculpture, and though increasingly popular amongst collectors from the 17th century onwards, the real emancipation of autonomous drawing happened in the 20th century. Given this history as an underdog, drawings’ current obsession with what Georges Battaille (1897-1962) calls “the heterogeneous” (3), makes sense somehow.

Step 1: Eradicate meaning: empty head noise

In the production of the works in the exhibition, a lot of time went into what I call exercising boredom. It’s something most people will be familiar with; drawing as a superficial exercise, a mindless ‘going through the motions’ of an activity. I am talking about the doodling, scribbling and hatching that serves no other purpose then to kill time. The idea of spending time on a mindless activity fascinates me; mindlessness can be understood as a mental state not unlike an aural buzz, a white noise. Exercising boredom evokes emptiness; a monotonous bliss, something Andy Warhol found in the machine-like repetition of a single image, or through observing a stationary object for hours on end (4) . It is emptiness so complete it makes ones ears buzz and ones head spin. I would suggest that rather than a complete absence of thought, this drone be regarded as the presence of all thought.

Aside 2: Into the White - everything at once, in every possible direction, all the time

In acoustics, white noise is a signal containing all of the audible frequencies at the same time, like the noise produced by a detuned radio. (5)

Aside 3: Jams run free

- In communication theory, noise is that which distorts the signal on its way from transmitter to recipient. There will always be an element of distortion, either externally or internally, coming from the medium itself. (6)

- In music, distortion is the fraying of sound produced by amplifier overload. (7)

It’s interesting to think about a visual equivalent to white noise: No aesthetics, no politics, no idealisation, no discrimination, no dichotomy; no reductionism vs. expressionism, no author, no control.

White noise is bliss; distortion is glee.
Exercising boredom; tinkering through time.

Step 2: Expressway to your skull

- Feedback is the back coupling of sound when a sound producing source picks up and reacts to the vibrations coming from the amplifier it is connected to, i.e. the sound the source itself transmits. (8)

“Going back to these origins
The city is a natural scape
Order in the details
Confusion uproar in the whole
In nature reality is selection
The tool of critical intervention
Fragmentation is the rule
Unity is not taught in school” (9)

The daily overload of inaccessible, paradoxical information, -confusing in terms of content-, has become nigh impossible to sort out by relevance. I use a lot of text in my work: Graffiti-like statements, literary citations, one-liners, poems, jokes, streams of consciousness, song lyrics, statements of affection, etc. It is not the literal meaning of these words so much as their appearance which matters: sentences may be reversed, syntaxes jumbled, mirrored, cut-up, words repeated, misspelled. Whether hastily jotted down, or laboured over and decorated: the aim is to subvert all anecdotal content; to sabotage expression and clarity of narrative. References to fear, love, and death are made either indirectly, obscured, overstated, or paired to oppositional counterstatements; it’s never one or the other, it’s always everything. It is eating one’s cake and having it, too.

Aside 4: Declaration of intent - Wet Knee Houston

‘Rockbusters’ was a game on London XFM radio’s ‘The Ricky Gervais Show’, it is played by producer Karl Pilkington giving hosts Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant three clues, which he considers "cryptic" but are in reality convoluted colloquialisms which often depend on the answer being mispronounced. Along with the "clue", Karl includes the initials of the answer. The aim is for the audience to find the name of a popular band or artist: (10)

[Excerpt]

Ricky Gervais: Okay Karl, go on then.
Karl Pilkington: Right, and just a quick example, err, one of the first ones we did was like ‘AK’ and the clue was ‘exploding pet’-
Ricky: yeah…
Karl: - and it was ‘Atomic Kitten’ right, so you understand how it works now.
(…) and the final one, here’s the final [‘cryptic’ – S.S.] clue; ‘I was in Texas the other week, right, I tripped and landed on my knees in a puddle.’

*Ricky and Stephen Merchant crack up with laughter*

Steve Merchant: What’s the initials?
Karl: WH, for that one. So I was in Texas, I tripped up, Landed on my knees, in a puddle. So that’s WH.

Ricky (laughing hysterically): I’ve got it! It’s fantastic! It doesn’t work!

Final step:

Punk is not a school of thought, punk has no instructions, punk is what you define when you do something.

-Sebastiaan Schlicher, Berlin, July 2007.


sources:

(1) - (Kurt Cobain, ‘Territorial Pissings’, Nirvana: Nevermind, CD, Geffen Records/Sub Pop, 1991, tr.7)

(2) -(source: Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2006)

(3) -(the use of the heterogeneous here refers to Batailles’ ambition to ‘articulate a "science of the heterogeneous," a philosophy of everything repudiated by civil society: shit, blood, sacrifice, deviance, violence’, supervert.com/elibrary/georges_bataille, 2007)

(4) - ("I like boring things. I like things to be exactly the same over and over again. I don't want it to be essentially the same - I want it to be exactly the same. Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel.", Andy Warhol, ‘Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties (1980), Harcourt Books, 1990)

(5) - (see: Torben Sangild , ‘The Aesthetics of Noise’ (2002) ubuweb.com 2007)

(6) - (ibid.)
(7) - (ibid.)
(8) - (ibid.)

(9) - (‘Making the nature scene’, Sonic Youth - Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols, CD, Geffen records, 1995, tr.8)

(10) - (‘Rockbusters’, pilkipedia.co.uk)
   

Sebastiaan Schlicher

1975 born in Roermond, Netherlands

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education

1999 - 2000 Wimbledon School of Art, London (MA)
1994 - 1999 AKI, Academie voor beeldende kunsten, Enschede, The Netherlands (BA)

Grants

2003

Basisstipendium, Fonds Voor Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving, en Bouwkunst, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Solo Exhibitions

2009

BCBG, Klara Wallner Galerie, Berlin
Die Information, die da drinnen steckt, ist grossartig, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen (w/ Philip Grözinger)

2008

Forgotten Bar Project, Galerie im Regierungsviertel, Berlin (w/ Jeroen Evertz)

2007

Eksorsizm Eksersize, Klara Wallner Galerie, Berlin

2006

Klara Wallner Galerie @ ART FORUM, Berlin
Zeichnungen/ Drawings, BASISRAUM piper, Berlin

2005

The End Is Far, Museum MAN, Liverpool

2001

Return of the Dead Dogs, Stichting Outline, Amsterdam

2000

KG- Theorem 31 / KC- Serum 94, Cultureel Centrum De Azijnfabriek, Roermond, The Netherlands

Group Exhibitions

2010

Hypernatural, Artagent Berlin, (pending)
Dunkle Materie, Humboldt Umspanwerk, Berlin (pending)
Radical Adults, The Forgotten Bar project, Galerie im Regierungsviertel, Berlin (curated by Sebastiaan Schlicher & Lotte Møller)
Klara Wallner Galerie @ Art Rotterdam 2010, Rotterdam
Cabin Fever, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago

2009

Auktion 2009, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen
You can tell a cowboy by the horse he rides, Barbara Seiler Galerie, Zürich
Zeigen. Eine Audiotour durch Berlin von Karin Sander, Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin
Notes on Narratives, NEST Ruimte, The Hague, Netherlands
Table Dancing, Fortgotten Bar Project, Galerie im Regierungsviertel, Berlin
Zei Dumme Ein Gedanke, Laden für Nichts, Leipzig
Strange and strangers, Museum MAN @ Ludmila Bereznitska and Partner Gallery, Kiev
Should the world break in, Museum MAN @ Ludmila Bereznitska and Partner Gallery, Kiev
Edinburgh House, Sierra Metro, Edinburgh
Mikael Andersen Galerie @ ViennaFair, Vienna, Austria
Reliquaries of empires dust, Museum MAN @ Bereznitsky Gallery, Berlin
Backstage, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Berlin
Das Unheimliche, Modulorhaus, Berlin
Kunstmanufaktur (nr.1), Georges & I, Berlin
Salon #1, KANTINE, Berlin
Trendbeheer presents @ ART Rotterdam, Rotterdam

2008

Make Your Own Damn Artworld, the general store, Sydney, Australia
Indifference (is bliss), Zentrum Kreuzberg, Berlin
Armut Macht Geil, TAC, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Accrochage!, Klara Wallner Galerie, Berlin
George & I presents: La Fin Du Monde, BAIZ, Berlin
Klara Wallner Galerie @ Art Brussels, Brussels

2007

Wie ein Wunderkammer, Klara Wallner Galerie @ Art Forum, Berlin
Artists Records, Art Basel 2007 (curated by Lionel Bovier)

2006

Today, even the drawers are winners, Klara Wallner Galerie, Berlin
Liverpool biennial Independents, Blueprints Museum MAN, Liverpool
Draw_Drawn, The Foundry, London
Panic Our Older Brother, ALM, Munich

2005

Music For The Artists, Veemvloer, Amsterdam
Untitled Drawing Show, Big Love Gallery, Göteborg, Sweden
Bayennale Festival of Contemporary Art in San Francisco and Oakland, USA
Art Concept, Alpha - Beta, St Petersburg, Russia
Happy Garden, Hang Gallery, Amsterdam
Obsession, film & video festival, Galeri X, Istanbul
At the Rio, The Centre of Attention, London
Night Flight, Museum MAN, Liverpool
Art05 X- change, The Arena, Coach Shed, Liverpool
Sztuka Fabryka, St. Niklaas, Belgium

2004

Museum MAN @ Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool
Precipitations 2, Al Kufa Gallery, London
Draw_Drawn, Gallery 32, London
geTEKENd Katendrecht, Handelsveem, Rotterdam
Precipitations, The Lab Gallery, Manhattan, USA
Welcome Back, ZET foundation, Kunstvlaai 5, Amsterdam
Double Scotch & Double Dutch, Amstelkerk, Amsterdam

2003

Big night Out, Söders Internationella Konst Bienal (r), Stockholm, Sweden

2002

Sea View Hotel 2002 pt.2, Gardens of Joy and Multiple Pleasures, Camberwell, London

2000

Posters and Flyers, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Off a Wall, River Level Gallery, Milwaukee Institute of Art, United States
Rosa Rot Bar, Millennium Masters, Wimbledon School of Art, London
Les Mots Implosifs, Lombard Estate Studios, London

1999

Lucid Dreams, Wimbledon Library Gallery, London (curated by Dereck Harris)
From Here to The Overlook and Back, Lombard Estate Studios, London
Found Pictures Of Events That May Have Never Taken Place, Foyer Gallery, Wimbledon School of Art, London

Projects

2009

'Antistar (2009)', Amerikan Teenager live @ NEST Ruimte, The Hague, Netherlands
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XXII) – Modes of Multiplication, Kunstbibliothek, Stiftung Preussischer Kunstbesitz, Berlin
‘Ship of Fools’, Amerikan Teenager @ Pluk De Nacht Filmfestival, Multimedia installation, Amsterdam
Antistar (2009), Amerikan Teenager @ On Joy, Sadness, and Desire, SMART Project space, Amsterdam
Antistar (2009), Amerikan Teenager @ Das Unheimliche, Modulorhaus, Berlin
Amerikan Teenager @ De Nieuwe Vorst, Tilburg
Amerikan Teenager @ TAC, Eindhoven
Amerikan Teenager @ Verkadefabriek, Den Bosch
Amerikan Teenager @ Podium Bloos, Breda
Antistar (2009), Amerikan Teenager @ Trendbeheer presents @ ART Rotterdam

2008

Beyond Kiosk: a selection from the Kiosk Archive, Institute of contemporary art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XXI) – Modeles de multiplication, Galerie Art & Essai & Ecole des beaux-arts, Rennes, France
Noisturiser: No Atlantis, album (with René Pinger, Lucas Schlicher & Yvo van Gemert)
Amerikan Teenager Live @ TAC, installation, noise, and video, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Amerikan Teenager Live @ 013, installation, noise and video, Tilburg, The Netherlands
TAGS 08, re-issue for Partizan Publik, Amsterdam

2007

Amerikan Teenager: Antistar Video Test, Music For The Artists, De Veemvloer, Amsterdam
Noisturiser: Demented Boxer, album (with René Pinger)
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XX) – Modes of multiplication, Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XIX) – Modes of multiplication, Artist’s space, New York, NY

2006

Step Out, music video production for Sofa, Amsterdam/Berlin
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XVIII) – Modes of multiplication, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute, Vancouver
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XVII) – Modes of multiplication, Physics Room, Christchurch
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XVI) – Modes of multiplication, Artspace, Auckland, NZ
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XV) – Modes of multiplication, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (Installation: Liam Gillick & Edgar Schmitz)
Amerikan Teenager: Antistar, multimedia project , Velvet Overlook Studios, Tilburg, The Netherlands

2005

Leap, music video production for Sofa, Amsterdam (www.sofatonic.com)
TAGS 05, special re-issue for BAZAAR, De Balie, Amsterdam
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XIV)– 9th Istanbul Biennial, Antrepo, Istanbul
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XIII) – Modes of Multiplication, Kunst Werke, Berlin,
W.A.A.A.B.A.M. KIOSK (XII) (A Project by Christoph Keller) – Printing Matters!, Witte de With, Rotterdam

2004

Man Gallery 2, Dartington Arts Gallery, Devon, UK
Man Gallery 1, IZBA gallery, Novi Sad, Serbia Montenegro

2003

TAGS (ongoing), Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, Berlin, Venice, Serbia, Johannesburg
Concept Shop 2: Late night shopping, Rozengracht 271, Amsterdam (with Johannes Buss)
Concept shop: Low Riders, intervention @ Freedom festival, Amsterdam (with Johannes Buss)
Urban Landscape 2003: On the road, Info War Room, De Balie, Amsterdam
* Arrested *, Info War Room, De Balie, Amsterdam

2002

Concept Shop: black on white, IC-Berlin, Berlin (with Johannes Buss)
‘Wish I was here’, sound collage, on ‘Guest room’ audio art CD, London/Munich

Bibliography

2009
'Aus der harten Schule', by Birgit Rieger, Zitty
'Berlin und anderswo', by Claudia Schumacher, Die Welt
'Der Kunst-Wald lebt', Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürich
'Saboteur des Erzählerischen', review by Ingeborg Ruthe, Berliner Zeitung, Berlin
'New Wave Art Brut', review by Gunnar Lützow, TAZ, Newspaper, Berlin
'Het Oog’ , Vrij Nederland Magazine, Netherlands
Elegance, August 2009, magazine, Netherlands
‘Urovækkende ung kunst’, review by Laura Engstrøm, RUM Magazine, Denmark
‘I make it melt’, Museum MAN review by Roos Menkhorst, Metropolis M, art magazine, Netherlands
Unheimlich kreativ, review Das Unheimliche, by Richard Rabensaat, Neues Deutschland newspaper, Germany


2008

‘Schilderen tegen het defaitisme’, interview with Trouw newspaper, by Roos Menkhorst, Netherlands
‘Geführtes Wissen’, by Matthias von Viereck, Das Zitty Berlin Buch 2008, Berlin

2007

‘Watchlist: Sebastiaan Schlicher’, interview with ART Investor Magazine, by Cordula Schütz, Germany
‘Neues von Sebastiaan Schlicher bei Klara Wallner’, by Ernö Horvath, Die Welt, Germany
‘De onvoltooide horror van Sebastiaan Schlicher’, interview with De Groene Amsterdammer, by Jente Posthuma, Netherlands
ART Forum 2007, Art Fair Catalogue, Berlin
‘Antistar’, fanzine distributed at ‘de Antistar video test’ event, Music for the artists, De Veemvloer, Amsterdam
‘Aufregend wie eine exotische Expedition’, by Ingeborg Ruthe, Berliner Zeitung

2006

‘Bauhaus und Kuschelkoje’, by Sebastian Preuss, Berliner Zeitung
‘Renaissance der Bildwerke’, by Gerhard Charles Rump & Veit Stiller, Die Welt, Germany
ART Forum 2006, Art fair Catalogue, Berlin
‘Drawing crowds in Berlin’, WSA Newsletter, London
Hardcore, drawings featured in 16mm short film by Vincent van Zelm
Daily Constitutional, art magazine, Richmond (VA), USA

2005

'Windfall/ Mindfall', fanzine with Therese Lundberg, Amsterdam/Göteborg
'New Talent: Sebastiaan Schlicher’, by Francesca Gavin, MARMALADE Magazine, London
Talk, Music for the artists, De Veemvloer, Amsterdam
'From the Life of Spiders', book preview, part of W.A.A.A.B.A.M @ KIOSK - MODES OF MULTIPLICATION,
Witte de With, Rotterdam, Kunst Werke, Berlin, ICA London, Istanbul biennial (with Therese Lundberg)

2004

'geTEKENd, Katendrecht', exhibition newspaper
'Do It Yourself', Stichting Outline publication
'Verenigde Sandbergen', Art magazine, Amsterdam

2003

‘We zijn self-made men’, De Brakke Hond 79, Literary Magazine, Belgium
‘Lost & Found’, radio interview by Jan Rothuizen, Amsterdam
'Söders Internationella Konst Bienal (r)', exhibition catalogue, Sweden

2002

‘Territorial Pissings / 1x1=1’, performance, Velvet Overlook Studios, Tilburg, The Netherlands
'Sea View Hotel 2002', performance, London Biennale Live, 291 Gallery, London
'Guest Room', exhibition catalogue/magazine, London/ Munich
‘Adriaan’, De Brakke Hond 76, Literary Magazine, Belgium

2001

'Tell the truth, shame the devil', AN-Magazine, UK
Meander, Literary Web Magazine, Netherlands

2000

Talk, Cultureel Centrum De Azijnfabriek, Roermond, The Netherlands

Links

www.cultofsebastiaan.com
www.myspace.com/amerikanteenager
www.myspace.com/noisturiser

   

Sebastiaan Schlicher

c/o Fokkerstraat 46
6044SW Roermond

cos@cultofsebastiaan.com
www.cultofsebastiaan.com






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