April 13 – Reforming Remembrance
Hans van Houwelingen
Tuesday, April 13th 2021 at 1:00pm EST.
Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/99936418245
Dutch artist Hans van Houwelingen will reflect on his ongoing research on commemorative monuments. Apart from the hardware of monuments, he explores how to reform the practice of commemoration itself. Van Houwelingen and the Indonesian artist Iswanto Hartono (Ruangrupa) are currently collaborating on a research project to investigate both the presence and the absence of monuments in colonial locations. Among his case studies are monuments in Indonesia removed after 1945 Independence. The Van Heutsz monument in Jakarta, designed by the Dutch architect Willem Marinus Dudok, was destroyed just after the Independence of Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Van Heutsz monument in Amsterdam exists today as the Indie Nederland Monument. These and other monuments enter into the discussion of commemoration and its erasure.
Hans van Houwelingen (1957) lives and works in Amsterdam. He was educated at the Minerva Art Academy in Groningen and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work is internationally manifested in the form of interventions in public space, exhibitions, lectures and publications, in which he investigates the relations between art, politics and ideology. He publishes regularly in newspapers and magazines. The monograph STIFF Hans van Houwelingen vs. Public Art (Artimo, 2004) offers an overview of his projects and texts and an extensive reflection on his work. The publication Update describes the permanent update of the Lorentzmonument in Arnhem (NL) during the exhibition Sonsbeek 2008. Undone (Jap Sam Books, 2011), compiled and edited by curator Mihnea Mircan, presents nine critical reflections on three recent works.
Organized by the Committee on Equity, Department of History of Art and co-sponsored by the Museum Studies Program. Kristin Hass (Associate Professor of American Culture and Faculty Coordinator of the Humanities Collaboratory) to moderate.
