Press Kit (August 30th/31st, 2012) - Goldmann Public Relations ...

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights
Contemporary Arts Exhibition in Mechelen and Brussels
01.09. – 10.12.2012
Art, Thessaloniki (2008); Hymn to the Olive Tree, Olympia (2007).
NICOLINE VAN HARSKAMP was born in 1975 in Hazerswoude, The
Netherlands. She lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The work of Nicoline van Harskamp addresses the function and power of
the spoken word and its ability to influence perception and shape thought,
both of which are instrumental to politics. Using footage of conversations,
speeches and debates, she writes the scripts for her staged video and
performance works. These are mostly presented together with text collages,
digital prints or working copies of the scripts with director's notes.
Recent solo exhibitions and live events include: Yours in Solidarity -
Episode 1, D+T Project, Brussels (2011); Expressive Power Series #1,
Rhizome/The New Museum, New York (2010); Any other Business,
Spinozamanifestatie, Amsterdam, SKOR, Amsterdam (2008/9); To Live
Outside The Law You Must Be Honest, Casco projects, Utrecht, Nikolaj
CCAC, Copenhagen (2007). Recent group exhibitions include:
Monumentalism, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2010/1); To the arts,
citizens!, Serralves Museum, Porto (2010); On Morality, Witte de With,
Rotterdam (2010); 4 th Bucharest Biennale (2010); Play Van Abbe, Van
Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2009); Taipei Biennial (2008); Error #9: Shadow
Cabinet (Three Rendezvous), Extra City, Antwerp (2008); Disclosures,
Gasworks, London (2008); Tongue Liberated!, Insa Art Space, Seoul
(2007). www.vanharskamp.net
LIEVE VAN STAPPEN was born in 1958 in Wilrijk, Belgium. She lives and
works in Ghent, Belgium.
Multidisciplinary artist Lieve Van Stappen employs a variety of media:
drawing, painting, sculpture, glass, ice, water, found materials,
photographs, video, sound, etc. The artist believes an artist is a
seismograph, reacting to momentous occurences in the domain of the
social. She therefore likes to work together with historians, sociologists, but
above all listens to the experts of experience, she encounters. Each one of
Lieve Van Stappens’ projects evolves from the previous ones. They amount
to a string of exhibitions, an ongoing work in progress. In her work which is
deeply socially engaged, at root, she searches for strength in the fragile,
celebrates what urges humans to survive, even flourish, against all odds,
arriving at a poignantly poetic-political practice. In the words of Marc
Ruyters, “the work of Lieve Van Stappen fits in the Belgian tradition where
surrealism is simply too strong a word for human subtle yet anarchistic
desire to cope with existential duality. This duality ensures that humans
succeed in surviving magnificently despite all shortcomings.”
Among others, Lieve Van Stappen was artist in residence at the In Flanders
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