THE SIDE-EYE
You feel the eyes resting on you, the stares from the side, ever so slightly turning heads while passing by. Judging? Approving? Disapproving? Gazing at you. This exhibition examines The Side Eye; a sidelong glance expressing disapproval or contempt.
Curator Yannik Güldner brings together six artists, entering a critical dialogue with one another surrounding the question - How do you see me? They acknowledge the role of appearance and explore the thin line between identity and stereotype.
The exhibition with works by Cihad Caner, Willem de Haan, Margriet van Breevoort, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Yun Lee and Lucy Glendinning connects personal experiences of the artists with their societal implications. By doing so, the exhibition addresses structural injustice and aims to create a dialogue around the contested consequences that appearance has on individuals and their surroundings.
In a superficial world, chosen and innate characteristics often dictate how we judge and get judged by our surroundings. But what are these assumptions based on, and what do they lead to? Often, those assumptions translate into questioning the upbringing, beliefs, sexual preference, gender or ethnicity of the other. This behaviour is posing a dangerous challenge to equality and accessibility within more and more polarised societies.
ARTISTS AND WORKS
The Side Eye allows us to look at moments of the everyday, often full of stereotypes and assumptions. The series Super Soft by Willem de Haan makes you experience how our brain is capable of creating an image of a person in a split second - just by seeing garments leaning against a bus stop.
Reflecting on our tendency to make others fit into a certain box to be recognized, the exhibition includes Margriet van Breevoort’s Totem for Mankind. Pressed into the shape of a box, the human-like sculpture takes us deeper into the question of what it could mean to fit in.
Lucy Glendinning’s Feather Child confronts the viewer with how society stereotypes “exotic” appearances, while questioning if we can escape them.
Questioning what the other means is also the heart of Cihan Caner’s Demonst(e)rating the Untamable Monster. In this two-channel video installation Caner responds to the mainstream media’s persistent characterization of those considered “other” as “monstrous”. Interested in language’s subject-producing power, he traced the etymology of the word “monster” and found that the Latin verb “monstro” means to demonstrate, while its noun “monstrum” refers to a divine omen or warning.
Demonstrating the impact of technology on our perception of others, Watson's Ghost by Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is showing a multitude of different interpretations of how geneticist James Watson might look based on DNA alone. The work confronts us with the true complexity of life and the entanglement of genetics with expression, environment and serendipity.
Lastly, the exhibition includes the work On Illegibility, a lecture performance on facial recognition by Yun Lee. Using masks and camouflage, the work allows us to understand the bias built into its algorithms, and ultimately how biometrics shape definitions of what a human being is and how we are perceived by it. But is there a way to escape?
OPENING
Friday 22 September, 18:00—22:00 h
OPENING HOURS
23, 24 & 30 September, 1, 7 & 8 October, 11:00—17:00 h
HOOGTIJ
Friday 29 September, 19:00—23:00 h
PERFORMATIVE LECTURE by YUN LEE
Sunday 1 October, 16:00 h
LOCATION
Stille Veerkade 19
The Hague
Free entrance. No reservation needed. Partly wheelchair accessible.
Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL and Gemeente Den Haag.