Opening: Thursday 26 June, 7.30 pm.
Curator: Hilde Teerlinck
 

Gerald Van Der Kaap (Enschede, the Netherlands, 1959) has always worked in a wide range of artistic disciplines and in almost all types of audiovisual media: first photography, video and installations, then computers, television and CD-ROMs, and finally digital video and live video (VJ) performances. His works are characterised by an approach that is both conceptual and experimental, a vantage point that allows him to explore the issues, conditions and history of the specific medium. This show is the result of several years spent working in various artists’ residencies around the world. 

The exhibition is laid out in four sections containing projects the artist worked on in different places worldwide: Bangkok, Xiamen, Amsterdam and Cap de Creus.

Bangkok (Thailand)

2008

May, Dear, Bowie, Bonuzz, Kwan, Mai is a fictional project based around six young female university students in Thailand and their stories of love, sex, and relationships. The series presents ordinary episodes of contemporary life, often in a provocative way. It ultimately holds up a mirror that challenges people’s perceptions in terms of social taboos, attitudes, values, beliefs and mythologies. Gerald Van Der Kaap’s work in Bangkok was part of an ArtAids Foundation project entitled More to Love, which featured works that draw attention to the stigma surrounding the day-to-day lives of people living with HIV and AIDS.
 

Xiamen (China)

2002

At Xiamen University, Van Der Kaap portrays young people’s fascination with a rapidly changing society: a world dominated by the Internet, mobile phones and computers. Passing the Information revolves around the personal experiences and love stories of a group of young people who are, in reality, desperately trying to find themselves.

Amsterdam (the Netherlands)

2006

A remix of J.S. Bach’s Matthäus Passion by acclaimed Dutch DJs and producers, accompanied by images by Van Der Kaap in which Bach’s classical austerity is swapped for an almost documentary setting. The texts are straight from the Gospel, but have been freely rendered. The characters change identity, like in a dream where one person suddenly turns into another. In the Gospel According to Kaap, Jesus is played by a 16-year-old girl and the apostles are alternately boys and girls from schools on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

Cap de Creus (Catalonia)

2014

In 2012 Van Der Kaap was working on a performance of Bach’s Matthäus Passion in an old church in Amsterdam. The music was performed by a symphony orchestra and a big choir, and the story was told by Van Der Kaap through images projected on large screens. The artist brought Pasolini and Bach together, synchronising the images live to the music. In April 2014 Van Der Kaap met Enrique Irazoqui, the Spanish actor who had played Jesus in Pasolini’s film Il vangelo secondo Matteo. Van Der Kaap made a video portrait of Enrique looking straight into the camera after a very personal interview at Cap de Creus, exactly fifty years after the film was made.