October 13 at Casa da Cerca - Centro de Arte Contemporanea

Ampersand presents the last issue of octopus notes – including contributions from J.G. Ballard, Nicolas Ballet, Alexandra Bircken, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Jimmy DeSana, James Horton, Ana Jotta, Martin Laborde, Sibylle de Laurens, Jonathan Martin, Pascaline Morincôme, Claude Pélieu, Catherine Roudé, Clément Roussier, Marion Scemama, William J. Simmons, Sabrina Tarasoff, Charles Veyron and David Wojnarowicz.

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Special Screening:

Last Night I Took a Man, text and performance by David Wojnarowicz, directed by Marion Scemama (4 min 20)

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Extract of an interview Sylvère Lotringer conducted with Wojnarowicz in 1991 in David’s loft, filmed by Marion Scemama (16 min 24)




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octopus notes is a biannual journal run by Alice Dusapin, Alice Pialoux and Baptiste Pinteaux that publishes critical essays, academic writings, interviews and artist projects since 2013.

Special thanks to Marion Scemama and Filipa Oliveira

At the invitation of Lisa Overduin, Alice Dusapin organized a solo exhibition of Wolfgang Stoerchle’s work in March and April 2018 in Los Angeles. She is currently doing extensive research on the artist Wolfgang Stoerchle (1944-1976) that will lead to a monograph to be published by &: Christophe Daviet-Thery in mid-2019. In December 2017, four of Stoerchle's 8mm films, recently discovered in Oklahoma City as part of Dusapin's research, were presented at Ampersand.

Invitation of the publisher Senhora do Monte to present its last publication, Monotipias, by Martina Manyà. A time as well to have a look at what they have produced so far. From 4 to 8 pm on February 13.

CRISIS, organized by MONA VARICHON

Jordan Wolfson, The Crisis, 2004, 4’ 50 loop
Jonas Mekas, September 19, 2017, 3’ 53
Tyler Murphy, Untitled, Video Sculpture #1 / Incence Holder, 2012, 2’ 7
Kareem Lotfy, Bakkar (Noord), 2011, 2’ 7
Lila de Magalhaes, It is the Natural Vogue, 2015 , 3’30
Kareem Lotfy, Bakkar (Noord), 2007, 1’9
Jonas Mekas, Wednesday Feb. 21, 2007 (365 Day Project), 5’45
Kareem Lotfy, Bakkar (Noord), 2011, 26’’
Ane Hjort Guttu, How to Become a Non-Artist, 2007, 10’ 27
Kareem Lotfy, Bakkar (Noord), 2011, 3’5

Total Screening Time: 37 min

November 30, 2017 – January 20, 2018

« I have remembered something about the «EAT» film since we saw it here in Norman. Unfortuna- tely, I can’t remember exactly when Wolf was talking about this, but I remember him talking about a film in which he and two friends of his would each eat a certain thing (an apple, an orange, etc.), and the images would be «run together» or over each other, and then the three of them would all be seen together eating casually and talking to each other, and then it would appear that one of them said something funny and they would keep talking and the laughing would increase, until they were all laughing really hard. And Wolf talked about how people would be REALLY curious about what was so funny, and since there was no sound on the film, they could just talk about anything, as long as they just laughed harder and harder. »

November 16th, Karen Couch Wieder in conversation with Alice Dusapin

Alice Dusapin is currently doing extensive research on the artist Wolfgang Stoerchle (1944-1976) that will lead to a monograph to be published by &: Christophe Daviet-Thery in mid-2019. Last October, she spent a week in Norman, Oklahoma, with Karen Couch Wieder – Stoerchle’s first wife and an accomplished editor– where she discovered 8mm films that Karen has kept for 47 years carefully in her home. Wolfgang Stoerchle is an essential figure of California’s 70s art scene. Under the invitation of Allan Kaprow he taught video at CalArts from late 1970 to 1972. He was close to Paul McCarthy, Miles Varner, John Baldessari, Nam June Paik and Daniel Lentz among others. His work included paintings, sculptures and performances, but the films he shot while he was teaching in Los Angeles are of particularly significance and continued influence.

Ampersand will show a selection of 8mm films Stoerchle shot whilst he was still a student in painting at UCSB between 1968-1970, freshly digitized from Karen Wieder’s collection. Viewing them as neither minor nor major works, but rather vital exercises, these films offered the perfect excuse to create a new group show: introducing works by three artist-alibis to each other, so as, to paraphrase Karen, they might “run together or over each other”, in a silent conversation.

Gathering new deconstructed paintings by Jonathan Binet (b. 1984, lives and works in Paris) together with historic mid-70s photographs from John Divola’s Vandalism Series (b.1949 lives and works in Los Angeles), the Ampersand exhibition Septembre, fueled by Stoerchle’s video-sketches, chews over the space between gestures and their depiction, remnants and results.

www.artforum.com/picks/binet-divola-stoerchle

MEASURES OF DISTANCE, organized by MONA VARICHON

Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance, 1989, 16’
Charles Atlas & Michael Clark, Hail the new puritan, 1985-86, 11’
Klara Liden, Der Mythos des Fortschritts (Moonwalk), 2008, 3’ 30
Gilles Deleuze, D Comme Désir (L’Abécédaire), 1988-89, 27’ 40
Pola Sieverding, Nocturne Arabesque, 2009, 3’44
Klara Liden, Bodies of Society, 2006, 4’52
Mark Leckey, The March of the Big White Barbarians, 2006, 5’


Total Screening Time: 1 h 10 min



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Mona Varichon (b.1988) is an artist based in Los Angeles, currently pursuing her MFA at ArtCenter in Pasadena. Originally from Paris, Mona holds a BA in So- ciology from Paris Descartes University and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

& Wall with Martin Laborde, Bern Porter & Charles Veyron
thanks to all, the artists and specially Mona Varichon.

selection by Alice Pialoux with 

Robert Breer, Form Phases I, 1952. 16mm film, color, silent, 2’
Robert Breer, Form Phases II, 1953. 16mm film, color, silent, 3’30
Robert Breer, Form Phases III, 1953. 16mm film, color, silent, 3’30
Robert Breer, Form Phases IV, 1954, 16mm film, color, silent, 3’30
Robert Breer, 66, 1966. 16mm film, color, sound, 5’
Robert Breer, 70, 1970. 16mm, color, 4’35
Ceclia Bengolea & Jeremy Deller, Bombom’s Dream, 2016. 12’48

Total screening time : 34 min 13 sec

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Alice Pialoux (b.1989) is currently taking part of a new festival for performing arts at Centre Pompidou.
She is also the co-founder, in association with Alice Dusapin and Baptiste Pinteaux, of the magazine octopusnotes created in 2013.

We thanks very much Cecilia Bengolea, Nathalie Boutin (GB agency), Jeremy Deller, Alice Pialoux & Julia Mossé (Art Concept) for their help.

a selection by #bookadviser, available @ampersand


Bas Jan Ader, Discovery File 143/76, New Documents, 2017
Bas Jan Ader, Le Magasin, 1996
Derek Beaulieu, a, a novel, Jean Boîte Editions, 2017
Walead Beshty, Industrial Potraits -2008-2012, JRP Ringier, 2017
Beni Bischof, Texte 1, Edition Patrick Frey2015
Beni Bischof, Texte 2, Edition Patrick Frey, 2016
Karl Holmqvist, Word Squares, Motto Books, 2017
Jutta Koether, f., Sternberg Press, 2015
Enzo Mari, autoprogettazione ?, Edizioni Corraini, 2016
Enzo Mari, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Walter König, 2008
Bern Porter, Hold on To Your Hat, miekal and 2013
Wolfgang Stoerchle, Le Magasin, 1996
Daan van Golden, Made in Tokyo, Misako & Rosen, 2014
Bernar Venet, Poetic ? Poétique ?, Jean Boîte Editions 2017
Jean-Michel Wicker, e industrial, donlon books, Motto Books, 2014

" The plant is like me : too big to be cute / I often talk about that time, but she has never told anyone / You can call an ocean the lake, but you can't call a lake the ocean" a solo exhibition by Anne-Mai Sønderborg Keldsen

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Anne-Mai Sønderborg Keldsen (b. 1991, Denmark) is currently doing her studies at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and has for the past year been studying under artist Angela Melitopoulos. We met Mai in Lisboa while she was doing the ISP at Maumaus. She exhibited in 2016 at Void in Athens and produced recenlty two books that we are glad to present in the space.

Ampersand hosts Vis-à-Vis, a project initiated in 2012 by the bookseller, publisher & bookadviser Christophe Daviet-Thery on the shelves of his bookshop on Rue Louise Weiss in Paris. A reflection about forms and formats of reading an exhibition by a person who lives and works with books in a specific economic context, Vis-à-Vis is both a working method and a device : isolating two works in dialogue in a single room. Books, editions, sound recordings, sculptures, films, the possible combinations are multiple; the display format somewhere between a lecture, a double page spread and a promotional strategy. This month, we replay Vis-à-Vis numbers 2 & 4, and present two new iterations of the project, number 6 and 7.

• Vis-à-vis 6
• Olaf Nicolai
• Willem de Rooij
• 22.06.2017
• In the Woods There is A Bird, 2017
• Index, 2014-2017

• Vis-à-vis 4
• stanley brouwn
• Tim Hollander
• 26.06.2017
• tatvan, 1970
• the space between two artworks, 2014

• Vis-à-vis 2
• Hamish Fulton
• Annea Lockwood
• 29.06.2017
• Walking Beside the River Vechte, 1996
• A Sound Map of the Hudson River, 1989

• Vis-à-vis 7
• Joseph Grigely
• Bruno Munari
• 04.07.2017
• Nine Green Conversations, 2001
• Supplemento al dizionario italiano, 1958-2015

Joseph Grigely & Pierre Von-Ow
Interview dates: February 22, March 8th & 25, 2015, July 3rd 2017.
Place: Artist’s loft, Chicago, Illinois; around a table stamped ‘Property of Gallaudet College’; TV playing hockey game in the background, sound turned mute.

Pierre Von-Ow: To what extent are you deaf?

Joseph Grigely: Very rare degree of deafness, total. It’s very hard to categorize degrees of deafness since it is a logarithm of scale (frequency in Hz/loudness): 70 decibels is ten times worse than 60, 80 ten times worse than 70, etc. And I am in the realm of 120+, which means that I could only hear something really really really fucking loud. That’s like a jet taking off behind me. But there’s a big difference between being born deaf and being deafened later on life like Beethoven for example and myself, since we both spoke and other people write.

PVO: But writing is not merely a leftover in this kind of situation.

JG: I believe that writing has emotion. And I really believe that conversations are a kind of talking on paper. It is between speech and writing in many ways. But that’s not an argument I want to get in as an artist.

PVO: Are you a ‘deaf artist’ by the way?

JG: Here in America, people are more interested in the artist over the art. This country loves taxonomies. (Dog’s barking) We are obsessed with identities. In Europe, you’re much more concerned to imbricated identities. You’ve got so many countries with different languages, like Belgium or Switzerland. One conversation I had with a German dealer when I did my first show in Paris was particularly striking; he was telling me how people are going to read it as being about deafness while underlined issue is about communication and difference. And he was really right about that because what’s interesting as a sociological fact is when I approach someone or somebody approaches me and says something I say: “I’m deaf, would you write that down?” To me that is normal. My everyday life. But they become the disabled persons because they have to communicate by writing, that’s very unusual and not normal for that person. So basically, sociologically, I turned it around: I was a normal person and they were disabled by our encounter.

PVO: Would you consider yourself as a ‘conversationist’?

JG: On many ways, no. Ironically enough, no. The conversations themselves written on papers are merely a starting point for me. When I have the conversations, they are historical facts, historical documents. But when I rearrange them into the wall pieces, they become fictions at that point, just as painting squeezed out of a tube. They become the material for another structure. But that structure is often, shall we say, detached from the origins of conversations. What I am doing is juxtaposing, at one level, a verbal narrative: one paper beside another paper creates a narrative between them. Like Josef Albers said in the book Interaction of Color (1963), you can’t put one color beside another color without also changing both. You can’t put a word beside another word without also changing both. The conversations like these are also very formal pieces, dealing with grids, dealing with the color of the paper and the way the lines are inscribed on the paper. It becomes very abstract at that level too.

PVO: It reminds me of what Clement Greenberg claimed about Mallarmé in his famous “Towards a Newer Laocoon” (1940): “Poetry subsists no longer in the relations between words as meanings, but in the relations between words as personalities composed of sound, history and possibilities of meaning. […] The poem still offers possibilities of meaning – but only possibilities. Should any of them be too precisely realized, the poem would lose the greatest part of its efficacy, which is to agitate the consciousness with infinite possibilities by approaching the brink of meaning and yet never falling over it.”

JG: I bring some new coffee.

Ampersand is pleased to launch its program with Here Comes Everybody’s Don’t Book, a selection of Bern Porter’s works.
An American poet, writer, artist, publisher, gallerist and physicist, Bern Porter (1911-2004) is considered a pioneer of the artist book and “found poetry”. From 1941 until his death he produced hundreds of books made out of experiments in collage, text and typography.
The self-proclaimed inventor of mail art, Porter actively sent his works through the post every week of his life. A highly active and influential publisher, Porter published works by figures including Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, James Schevill, Robert Duncan and Dick Higgins.
A polymath at the crossroads of the 20th century, he was an acquaintance of, among others, Gertrude Stein, Anais Nin, Allen Ginsberg, Dieter Roth and Shozo Shimamoto (Gutai Art Group). With a master's degree in Science from Brown University, Bern Porter was also an eminent physicist. He contributed to the invention of television, worked on the Saturn V rocket for NASA, and was closely involved in the Manhattan project – which he immediately renounced upon learning of the bombing of Hiroshima, dedicating the rest of his life to creative pursuits. After circling the world three times and visiting 43 countries, Porter spent the last decades of his life running The Institute of Advanced Thinking from his own home in Belfast, Maine. At this time, he developed a strong friendship and collaboration with the poet and publisher Mark Melnicove (The Dog Ear Press) with whom he performed for many years and created The Eternal Festival of Poetry.
Ampersand will offer a selection of Porter’s work including an extensive collection of his output in printed matter, alongside collages, ephemera, sounds, records and videos. The project would not have been possible without the kind support and generous help of Mark Melnicove (director of Bern Porter’s estate). This presentation prefaces a 2018 publication that will be edited by Alice Dusapin & Geraldine Beck and published by &: Christophe Daviet-Thery in close collaboration with Martin Laborde and Mark Melnicove.