CCNOA | DAC - A SHARED EXPERIENCE
CCNOA (Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art) was founded and administered by German born executive director Petra Bungert and Artistic director Tilman (Hoepfl). After moving from New York, where Petra Bungert already ran a small gallery, to Brussels, CCNOA opened its doors to the public in 1998. Since its inception in 1998, CCNOA, a multidisciplinary non-profit organization based in Brussels, Belgium has focused on the presentation, promotion and dissemination of a broad range of international artists. CCNOA engaged in championing artistic sensibilities and developments which, in those days, may not yet have been familiar to a mainstream audience. In the 1980ies and 1990ies reductive or non-objective art practices where hardly promoted by a trend-oriented art-market, whilst a certain generation of artists rediscovered the premises of minimalism, constructivism, op-art and other -ism coming to prominence over the decades before and after 2nd world war in hope of challenging our perception of the world we live in.
INFINITE VILLAGE / IN-BETWEEN
Artists Cora von Zezschwitz (1969, CA/FR) and Tilman (1959, DE/ FR/IT) are collaborating since 2016 on site-specific propositions. Their project “INFINITE VILLAGE” explores the cognitive perception of space and spatiality in general and its impact on our daily life, socially, mentally and physically. Space and its confinements form and shape our attitude and the behavior of most of our actions or activities yet spatiality also informs us about infinity and the “impossible”. It’s this idea of infinity which allows for “interspace” spaces and its these ephemeral qualities which can make the difference - reviewing ourselves or our environment. Since 2016 both artists researched, explored and challenged this phenomena in numerous projects and created site-specific interventions, each time promoting another string of thought: “DE_SPACED”, NOS, Tulette (FR), “Restructuring”, IUVA, Venice (IT), “Lo cielo è blu e gli uccelli attraversano dentro”, DAC, Dolceacqua and Venice (IT), “RAW SPACE”, Triennale Grenchen (SUI), “Cabin in the sky”, Avignon (FR), “INSIDEEDISTUO”, A.Farm, Ho Chi Minh City (VIE). In “INFINITE VILLAGE – INTERSPACE”, specially conceived for M17 Contemporary Art Center, the artists propose a spatial intervention rather than a full-blown installation. In this case, the title relates to the given location as well as to the idea of creating an interspace, a space of passage physically and mentally. Using “poor” materials – wood, fabrics and foils – these materials also are part of the “narrative”, creating juxtaposing meaningful annotations rather than just serving a formalistic approach.
CORA VON ZEZSCHWITZ & TILMAN
RNOP – 2017/19
RNOP or Reductive Non Objective Projects run by West Projects in Australia is an international contemporary reductive arts program. Its founders Billy Gruner and Sarah Keighery working closely with KNO in Kyiv produced the collaborative intercity ‘satellite’ events for the upcoming biennale BANO 2019 (Biennale Internationale d’Art Non Objectif), Pont-de-Claix, France. RNOP was later invited by M17 Arts Centre in Kyiv to participate in the “Big Circle” survey produced by Serhiy Popov. As such the RNOP – M17 presentation joined other significant programs and works by artist/curators representative of a global movement.