This spring If I Can’t Dance and mistral are happy to welcome interested researchers for appointments with "In Good Company (Horsepower): Materials from the Gift Science Archive, 1993–present," an interactive archive installation, which opens up the process of Dutch American artist Sands Murray-Wassink’s ‘monumental’ 18-month collaborative performance "Gift Science Archive" for haptic engagements with the artist’s work and archiving process. Every Thursday and Saturday (see schedule below) a members of the exhibition's curatorial team will be on-site to help navigate the archive and to transmit the stories that hold it together.

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A queer cult figure in the Amsterdam art scene for nearly two decades, Sands Murray-Wassink (b. 1974, Topeka, Kansas) is a painter, body artist, writer and perfume collector indebted to various forms and permutations of intersectional feminist and queer art, with Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke and Adrian Piper serving as key coordinates. As Murray-Wassink has moved in and out of institutional visibility over the years, his archive of art and non-art ‘studio objects’ has continued to grow. For his current commission with If I Can’t Dance, the artist has chosen to work with this massive collection of materials to create "Gift Science Archive," a durational performance with different chapters, including archiving activities at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (where Murray-Wassink is a guest resident); process events spread out across locations; and exhibitions, the first of which takes place at mistral.

"In Good Company" follows from the collecting and collective ethos of Murray-Wassink's practice and his "Gift Science Archive." With over 2000 ‘studio objects’ now unearthed through the performance, the exhibition in mistral shares for the first time bodies of work and stacks of ephemera—including objects, documents, print materials, performance relics and more—dating back to 1993 when the artist began to develop his studio practice. Researchers are invited to peruse the database and to pull materials from the archive for a closer look and a story. The ‘research experience’ is thus set into relational motion, and storytelling is taken up as a primary, valid and valuable mode of knowledge production and transmission.

Archiving Hosting Schedule:

8 April with Radna Rumping

10 April with Radna Rumping

15 April with Radna Rumping

17 April with Radna Rumping

22 April with Radna Rumping

24 April with Megan Hoetger

29 April with Radna Rumping

1 May with Radna Rumping

6 May with Radna Rumping

8 May with Radna Rumping

13 May with Radna Rumping

15 May with Megan Hoetger

20 May with Radna Rumping

22 May with Megan Hoetger

mistral

corner Groenhoedenveem – Veemkade, Amsterdam (Pakhuis Wilhelmina)

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The exhibition is co-curated by Radna Rumping and Huib Haye van der Werf (mistral, Amsterdam) together with Megan Hoetger (If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam).

"Gift Science Archive" is a commission of If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and is supported by the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. The project is curated by Megan Hoetger as part of the If I Can’t Dance’s Edition VIII – Ritual and Display finale programme running between October 2020 and December 2021, and also including new productions by Derrais Carter, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Giulia Damiani, Sara Giannini, MPA and Lisa Robertson.