Anouk de l’Ecluse

is an independent designer who has become an expert in guiding (undeveloped) stories and developing strong concepts. I believe that every design can reveal a unique story and should reinforce it to achieve the desired goal. With my work, I aim to exceed expectations. This requires extraordinary stories and courageous clients. Together, we can harvest admiration for the power of narratives. 

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‘Aborted Biography, from the Archive of Djuna Barnes’, 2024, prints, courtesy the digital archives of the University of Maryland, U.S.A., and the personal archive of Hank O’Neal, and the artist. Installation view «Barbara Visser – Alreadymade», Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024 Curated by Simone Gehr. Photo: © Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian
‘Aborted Biography, from the Archive of Djuna Barnes’, 2024, prints, courtesy the digital archives of the University of Maryland, U.S.A., and the personal archive of Hank O’Neal, and the artist.
Map of exhibition Kunsthaus Zürich
Installing exhibition
Installing Georg Kolbe (1877–1947),
Wälzende, 1926 Bronze
Alberto Giacometti, Kopf der Mutter. Studie (clay, ca.1916), obscured by a Failed Fountain (ceramic, 2024), Barbara Visser
Sketch of the subjective time line of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
Elsa Freytag-Loringhoven’s subjective  time line  of  people, places, events, gossip, works on the wall in pencil. In front: The blind man, 5.1917
Installation view «Barbara Visser – Alreadymade», Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024 Photo: © Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian

Alreadymade II (installation)


Barbara Visser

 Sparring partner exhibition 
Documentation + text design
 08.02.2024 – 12.05.2024 Kunsthaus Zürich

‘Fountain’, a urinal that was declared to be a work of art in 1917, is perhaps the best-known conceptual object of the 20th century. Signed ‘R. Mutt’, it was submitted anonymously to an exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists in New York; since then, everyday objects can be ‘readymades’ and qualify as art too. Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) claimed authorship of the work. However, there are rumours that it was not he who masterminded it but rather the Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874–1927).

    The film ‘Alreadymade’ (2023), which forms the basis for Visser’s site-specific installation at Kunsthaus Zürich, is an alternative whodunnit that explores the boundaries between genuine and fake. ‘Fountain’ is the starting point of the artist and film-maker’s investigation into the speculation surrounding Duchamp’s authorship. Adopting the readymade approach, she produces the work from existing material: found film footage from which she creates her own moving images, employing new technologies such as motion capture and meta-human modelling. The result is not an art-historical documentation; rather, the mix of existing and newly created material serves as a reflection on such fundamental questions as ‘what is reality, and what is fake?’ Who is the author? What is an original and what is a copy?

    Barbara asked me to be her sparring partner for this exhibition and give shape to parts of it. Working closely together we discussed the installation and I became responsible for the time line of Von Freytag-Loringhoven her life with all the ambiguity surrounding it, the sketches of Djuna Barnes her ideas of the biography she would never write of Von Freytag-Loringhoven and helped on multiple parts consisting of the graphic design within the exhibition; such as the ‘do not touch’ items + a reader consisting of all the writing of Von Freytag-Loringhoven. I also assisted Barbara during the installation of the exhibition in Kunsthaus Zürich.

    Kunsthaus Zürich is the first museum where this new work was shown. It will also be shown in Germany and possibly in the Netherlands.



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