www.miekebal.org The personal website of Mieke Bal

On February 28 I head out again, this time to Toronto. It feels like a return; during my years in Rochester, NY, I have given the Northrop Frye Lecture series there, which later turned up as Reading “Rembrandt” During those long-weekend visits I made many friends, and I have gone back to Toronto many times later. During one of those visits I met Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, award-winning video artists and initiators of the artists-driven collective Video Archive and Distributors VTape, of which I am a proud member. Lisa organised this intense visit. This photo is a screen shot of their recent video work.
During my week-long visit, many activities have been scheduled. First, on February 29, at 7 pm, I will give a lecture on the work of Stan Douglas, the prominent artist from Vancouver on whose work I have written before. Stan has a photography exhibition at the Power Plant, titled Midcentury Studio. With the keen sense of history, both social and visual, that characterizes his work, he has made a series of photographs attributed to a fictional mid-20th century photographer. I cannot give away too much… Just consult the website to get a taste. And here is just a detail of one of the photos I will comment on rather extensively.
Friday the 1st of March I will give a seminar at the Curatorial Studies Program on my own recent experiences with the multiple role of artist, curator and critic, in Landscapes of Madness, Towards the Other, and subsequent exhibitions. I look forward to this discussion, and to meeting Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher, the editors of the new electronic Journal for Curatorial Studies. It is a little strange to be speaking of my own work, but then, I have been doing that increasingly since I started making art.
The day after, Saturday the 2d, two parallel installations will open. At VTape, A Long History of Madness will be permanently displayed until April 7th. I am quite curious how the film, which has its narrative line, albeit far from linear, will work in a situation where visitors can come in and out as they please, as distinct from theatrical screenings. At the gallery of the Women’s Art Resource Centre, in the same building, the dual-screen installation Psychoanalysis on Trial will be opened as an independent piece.

Again, this piece has so far been embedded in a larger exhibition, and I wonder how it will work on its own. Again, a new experience.
Finally, on Monday the 5th A Long History of Madness will be screened at the theatre TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. Well, all this should keep me busy enough, but I will find time to meet old friends and make new ones.

Leaving Amsterdam on Saturday January 28th, upon arrival in New York I will rush to the gallery Andrea Rosen in Chelsea, where my friend Ydessa Hendeles exhibits another one of her long series of marvelous exhibitions, The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) including work by Roni Horn. Sunday I will participate in a panel in an Outsiders Art Fair, speaking about madness and creativity. After some reunions with friends, starting Monday evening the MoMA holds its annual seminar of the C-MAP program, for which I am a councelor. It’s a lovely reason to visit New York at least once a year.

After that I move on to Mexico, arriving after the opening of a wonderful exhibition curated by Néstor García Canclini and Andréa Giunta, called Extrangerías perhaps best translated as “strange little things” or “things a little strange” at the prestigious museum MUAC. I am very proud to have three works in the exhibition (see Group exhibitions). On Thursday, right after arriving, I will give a lecture at “La Esmeralda”, del CENART, then another one at MUAC. On Sunday the 5th, another screening of A Long History of Madness concludes the trip. I will also have the opportunity to visit my friend and former PhD student Paulina Aroch Fugielle. Quite a busy schedule; just the way I like it.

As an aficionada de Barcelona - for us aficionados, Barça - I could not resist an invitation to give a keynote lecture and further involve myself in an intensive seminar, organised by CIDOB, the United Nations University. The seminar is for PhD training. It is both international in terms of participants, and internationalising in its mission: to break open the confinements of narrow Western thought. Since both forms of opening and widening interest me greatly, I accepted to go, in spite of a somewhat over-the-top schedule. Moreover, the director of the arts centre Arts Santa Mònica had offered me a screening when I spoke in the Centre a while ago. So, this will be a packed but rewarding journey. In the current rainy season, it will invoke memories of last Summer’s vacation there - sunny, as below.

left and right: Liam Sharkey and Amy Walsh, installing the show; middle: Niamh Ann Kelly who initiated it.
Yes, it is almost overwhelming. Barely ten days after the exhibition in Turku, which opened ten days after the one in Saint Petersburg, now a smaller but lovely exhibition has opened in the Broadcast Gallery in Dublin. The evening before, Wednesday November the 16th, I gave a lecture about, and then screened, A Long History of Madness. For a description and images of the exhibition Facing It: Imaging Madness, which opened on Thursday the 27th, see the page Exhibitions. My whirlwind continues: I am currently in Bologna, in the building where Umberto Eco is still director if the program of Semiotic Studies. I am giving three seminars in that program, one around each of the films A Thousand and One Days, Becoming Vera, and Elena. The evening of the third day I will give a public lecture and screen A Long History.

As you can imagine, after this I am giving myself a short break in Paris. After which… on to the next small exhibition, this time in Ankara. Please keep following the adventures of the Mère Folle project on the Exhibition page of this site. I will post images as soon as I am there. Meanwhile, the Turkish film festival Festival on Wheels is screening the film, and organising several events, such as the exhibition in the Goethe Institute, a Masterclass after the screening, and a workshop with screening of Becoming Vera at Bilkent University. The photo below is almost a dim memory now, although it was just last week!

Thursday October 30th was the big day: the exhibition Landscapes of Madness opened at the Museum Aboa Vetus Ars Nova in Turku. The 16 video installation pieces, in a total of 21 screens, were disposed according to a spatial concept over 7 galleries. The description of the works is in Landscapes of Madness.

The build-up of the exhibition was masterfully managed by the museum coordinator, Pamela Andersson, and the curator Mia Hannula was clearly aware of the root “care”in the word curating. Together, they were a great team. Michelle and I were very moved by the commitment of everyone in the museum and the beauty of the result. On the first photo, you see the reconstruction of the historical inmate’s cell in the psychiatric hospital on the island of Seili. On the chest of drawers we had placed the video shot in the actual cell, to create a mise-en-abyme effect.On the second photo on the armachair, Marja Skaffari, the actress playing Sissi, watches “The Space In-Between. In the background, Mervi Appel, who plays Morgue, and Mia Hannula, the curator, who plays Aurora.
I also add a photo from the very extensive press we received.