Z (as in Zigzag)
August 30 – November 23, 2014

MAURICE BLAUSSYLD
KELLY SCHACHT

Z (as in Zigzag) connects the history of its location (the former bathhouse) with its present-day and future function and position. Although the Justus van Effen Complex is a public space, it is often regarded as a private, intimate environment: a community that lies in the centre of an idiosyncratic neighbourhood. What is the role of an art space in this context? What happens to a place that inhabits the tensions between public and private, open and closed, past and future, memory and experience? The title of the exhibition, Z (as in Zigzag), is derived from a TV interview with Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995). During the interview, the French philosopher argues that the letter Z signifies a connection between two different elements, just as lightning connects heaven and earth. They are connections that are not always visible, let alone immediately comprehensible. However, it is precisely through this connection that we may gain an understanding of the distinct elements.

Z (as in Zigzag) is about presence and absence, about the borders between them and the moment in which the non-visible also determines the visible. Maurice Blaussyld and Kelly Schacht examine how memories are related to space and materials. In their work, they question the limits of knowledge and the boundaries of our experience of time and transformation. In this sense, the exhibition simultaneously refers to the opening of a new organization and the re-opening of the historic space of the bathhouse. Z (as in Zigzag) therefore aims to function as a promise and as a memory. Z (as in Zigzag) unfolds over time. CHAPTER I opens on the 30th of August, and subsequently—after a short period of reinstallation—CHAPTER II opens on the 4th of October. As the exhibition unfolds over several stages, an interaction exists not only between the works in the exhibition, but also between the exhibition space and its surroundings. Therefore, the (art)space can be explored in all of its aspects.