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Proxy Gaze

25 February–15 April 2022

finissage & launch

15 April 2022 • 18–21 h
A launch of the 3rd issue of The Remote Archivist will be held the same evening of the finnisage of Proxy Gaze. To celebrate the coming together of these importants works, these worlds, and impactful ways of thinking. All films are on display until the finissage 15 April 2022.

films

The concept for screening these works from de Appel archive is to approach the notion of a ‘female gaze’ in moving image using works of moving image—from performance documentation, to short-video works, to film productions. The intention is to explore the possibilities of there being a distinct feminine perspective in moving image, as well moving image itself—and its accelerated technological advancement/availability in the 1970’s and 1980’s—as being a distinct female instrument for the dissemination of new concepts and interpretations of gender, sexuality and authority.
Traditionally, de Appel has played an early role in establishing visibility around the practices of female artists, with particular emphasis on performative practices (and their documentation) as well as film. To return to these beginnings with the hindsight of the last decades discourse and the knowledge it has proposed to bring forth, it would be interesting to venture into the archive of de Appel and seek out works that underline the evolution which has (and has not) taken place. Identify works that lend themselves for the exercise of establishing a more precise taxonomy which could be considered feminine.
This program is made possible in collaboration with the archives of de Appel and LIMA in Amsterdam.

launch

Huib Haye van der Werf, co-founder of mistral in Amsterdam, began his research on ‘the female gaze’ in moving image in October 2021. It became the basis of Proxy Gaze. Initially he would also become The Remote Archivist by means of this investigation—an initiative of de Appel in Amsterdam paper exhibition series by which ‘archive researchers’ are invited to present in poster format the outcome of their archiving, searching, wandering and discovering. Consequently, he handed over his research in de Appel Archive for the third issue to Emma van Meijeren, a writer and DJ based in Amsterdam. Emma’s eyes fell on the work of Mary Beth Edelson, a member of the American feminist network Heresies, who sadly passed away on the 20th April 2021. Edelson’s work took the form of performative rituals as a way to honour the ‘feminist foremother’, or ‘goddess’. She exhibited a registration of the performance Sacred Ritual at de Appel for Feministische Kunst Internationaal (1978). This exhibition was co-presented by de Appel and played an important role in reigniting a contemporary feminist discourse in the Netherlands and abroad, especially for including a comprehensive list of participating international, female-only artists.
This third issue of The Remote Archivist, along with Proxy Gaze at mistral, highlights how language, imagination and reception of the works in Feministische Kunst Internationaal still affect contemporary feminism, feminist art, our collective memory through archiving. The encounters with these works call for a necessary awareness to the practices of ‘labeling’ within the archive itself. This all being part of an accelerated and (self)corrective movement, one which has become increasingly nuanced, yet no less in motion.

contact

email info@mistral.amsterdam
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mistral

Pakhuis Wilhelmina
Groenhoedenveem 2
entrance round the corner at veemkade
1019 BL Amsterdam
The Netherlands