Tlön Projects

... barely pausing/pausing barely ...

11.02.2021—23.05.2021

Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, Neïl Beloufa, Louise Bourgeois, Ansuya Blom, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Rosemarie Castoro, Brody Condon, Jason Dodge, Ceal Floyer, Ryan Gander, gerlach en koop, David Horvitz, Pierre Huyghe, Susan Hiller, Li Jinghu, Eva Koťátková, João Onofre, Julien Prévieux, Rachel Rose, Nora Turato

Curated by: Christina Li

Venue: A Tale of A Tub, Space for contemporary art and culture
Justus van Effenstraat 44, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Opening Times: Thursday to Sunday 13:00–18:00

The exhibition ... barely pausing/pausing barely... marks the first edition of an annual collaboration between A Tale of A Tub and Tlön Projects and presents a variety of artworks selected from the imaginary collection of Tlön Projects. This imaginary collection is formed by the convergence of selected artworks from various international private art collections, whereby Tlön Projects aims to generate access to artworks which otherwise would have been largely shielded from public access.

In ... barely pausing/pausing barely... the volatile state of stasis, on a physical, personal and societal level—produced by opposing modes of hyperactivity and inertia—is taken as a starting point to discern the tireless and profound influence of capitalism in which we are all caught in. The assortment of artworks and experiences in this exhibition has been selected to occupy a liminal interstice, a space that calls the all-encompassing logic of capitalist power into question. The artworks serve to unravel the ways in which technological flows and processes have transformed our lived experience into economic abstractions.

The collection of works is shown against the historical backdrop of the former function of the exhibition space as a public bath and wash house—which served as a site for domestic labour, physical cleansing and recovery. A number of artworks trace the phantasmic presence of entangled bodies and environments that are incompatible with the conventional understanding of time and space, while other works alienate and fragment our understanding of subjectivity and personhood through unexpected utterances and movements. The exhibited inventory of acts, gestures and activities are simultaneously done and undone, and even in their unvarying repetitions may hold a potential break with the cyclical trap of work, life and rest in a time bound by self-discipline and management.

The works comprising ...barely pausing/pausing barely... originate from the following collections: Kervahut—Laurent Fiévet Collection, France; G + W Collection, the Netherlands; Nieuwenkamp & Zaalberg Collection, Hungary; Servais Family Collection, Belgium; along with other collections that wish to remain anonymous.

Christina Li is an independent curator and writer working between Hong Kong and Amsterdam. She was the Curator-at-Large at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, where she served as the Director between 2015 and 2017. At Spring, she curated, among other projects, A Collective Present (2017), Wu Tsang: Duilian (2016), and Wong Wai Yin: Without Trying (2016). Her exhibition Dismantling the Scaffold (2018) was the inaugural exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong. As a writer, she has contributed to publications including Artforum, Art Review Asia, LEAP, Parkett, Spike, and Yishu Journal of Contemporary Art. She was the curator of Shirley Tse: Stakeholders, Hong Kong in Venice, Hong Kong’s participation at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). She was recently named curator of the Pavilion of Finland at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022).