David Bade and the IBB in S.M.A.K. Ghent, Belgium.
David Bade & Instituto Buena Bista (IBB)
Swan, hold fast
21.06… 21.09.2014
“My mind’s busy and my eyes see a lot”
David Bade
In 1993, immediately after completing his studies at De Ateliers, David Bade (° 1970, Curaçao) won the prestigious Prix de Rome with his brilliantly drawn narrative scenes full of caricatural exaggeration, and absurd sculptures that he recycled from such ‘worthless’ materials as PUR foam, chicken wire, found objects and such (building) materials as clay, wood, paint, plastic, metal, rubber, etc. He later assembles the drawings and sculptures to make tremendously expressive, room-filling installations which he scatters with short pieces of writing: personal anecdotes, caustic comments on current affairs, a humorous play on words, an ironic proverb and suchlike. Bade tinkers, models, draws, colours and paints like there was no tomorrow: with a huge creative urge and great pleasure in his work. In terms of form, he cites freely from banal contemporary culture, art history and the visual idiom of Curaçao, his native country, where influences from Western and African culture meet the tradition of the colourful Caribbean carnival and folk religion.
Liefdadiger, 2014.
Beside a passionate artist with an international career, David Bade is an inspiring teacher in charge of an art school he co-founded (Instituto Buena Vista in Curaçao), a socially-engaged director of artistic community projects and a critical TV presenter of an arts programme for the general public (ArtMen). Without the slightest hint of sentimentality, he believes that art is of value to man and society because it appeals directly to their deepest selves and fulfils a representational purpose that enriches and deepens our lives. David Bade stands in the middle of this life and has a lot to say about it, a huge amount in fact. He does this in his own intrepid way, using images, words and action. But there is one thing that is at the heart of all the projects he undertakes: interaction.
An exhibition in S.M.A.K.
“Swan, hold fast” by David Bade & Instituto Buena Bista is a Gesamtkunstwerk with a strong social and interactive character. As an anchor point of this project, Bade chooses ‘Wailing Wall’, one of his sculptures that belong to the permanent collection of S.M.A.K. In the museum he rebuilds the wall into a dazzling, cross-room environment with a combination of his own work from the permanent collection, existing work and new sculptures and drawings, both his own and other people’s. A crucial element of what is to be seen in the room is the presence of the Instituto Buena Vista, the artistic platform that Bade set up with co-founders Tirzo Martha and Nancy Hoffmann on the island of Curaçao in 2006 and which operates from a psychiatric clinic. Bade’s aim with this environment is to link his oeuvre and artistic practice to the work and activities he, his companions, fellow students and psychiatric patients carry out at the IBB. The work as an entity will be an intertextual and intervisual building workshop; a snapshot of new and existing artworks, objects and documentary material which, in a temporary interaction with each other, and in the absence of any pecking order, together create a wealth of meaning. These meanings are in the first place artistic, but they also show the social-societal nature of the IBB, the post-colonial issue in Curaçao, the identity of the psychiatric patient and so on.
Summer school: build an artwork under the market hall with David Bade & Instituto Buena Bista
Later in the summer “Swan, hold fast” gets a counterpart in the public space of Ghent. Under the market hall in the historic centre of the city, David Bade will direct a summer school together with a number of students and staff from the Instituto Buena Vista.
From 18 to 31 August, against a changed political background, he and his team will build a new wailing wall for and together with diverse groups of Ghent citizens. It will be a growing sculpture in a wide variety of materials to which new forms, colours, stories and layers of meaning will be added, depending on the daily groups of participants: youngsters from deprived backgrounds, psychiatric patients, art students etc. The process of building the wailing wall will be recorded in an animated film for which the participants can also draw, cut and paste).
At the end of the workshop, parts of the new wailing wall will be taken to the museum in procession. ‘Swan hold fast’ will be completed in S.M.A.K. by by merging the two structures into one.
‘Swan, hold fast’ was made possible by the generous support of Electrabel, the Sikkens Foundation, Akzo Nobel, the Mondriaanfonds and Arcelor Mittal.