Aernout Mik

A2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo presents, on February 7th, a solo exhibition by Dutch artist Aernout Mik (Groningen, 1962) within the framework of Focus The Netherlands, ARCOmadrid 2012. Curated by the director of CA2M, Ferran Barenblit, the exhibition includes four pieces: Glutinosity (2001), Schoolyard (2009), Training Ground (2006), and Raw Footage (2006). These video-installations, as in many of Aernout Mik's works, have contact points with film, performance, writing and architecture. The performatic dimension of the exhibition will be hence reinforced by an action where a group of people will carry out a subtle interplay with the artwork and the exhibition space itself.

Through a non-specific narrative, Aernout Mik's works tend to be placed within the contexts where the social order falls apart or is suspended: natural disasters as earthquakes, accidents or even strong alterations of social relations like stock exchange crashes. In the works exhibited in this show, there are four different modes of those states of crisis: the war, as the greatest failure of humanity; a state of a massive arrest of citizens; the crowding, where people lose even the space they have to be in, and the adolescence, as the moment of change per excellence. From improbable situations and verging the absurd, the artist draws a social commentary with no clear conclusion.

A bilingual exhibition catalogue will be published including texts by Ferran Barenblit and Michael Taussig.

Aernout Mik
Kurator: Ferran Barenblit