In_Spite_of_Everything_Ari

Dear visitor to an other world,
You are warmly invited to In Spite of Everything by Ari David.

The opening will take place on Friday, October 13, from 6pm
Visiting days and hours on Friday, Saturday, 2-6pm and by appointment
The exhibition is open until Saturday, October 28
Artist Talk on Saturday, October 21 from 5pm

In Spite of Everything traces gestures of refusal and discontent through the act of spitting. Through this codified bodily gesture, David examines personal and collective histories that are entangled with themes of gender, capitalism and patriarchy. Reflecting on spitting becomes an exploration of magic, pleasure, intimacy, contagion, and vulnerability in relation to the body. Thus, spitting is seen not only as a refusal, but also as a connector to other forms and ways of being.

In Spite of Everything was developed in collaboration with Marta Hryniuk. The project is inspired by an encounter with a scene from the video Physics of Love (1998) by American artist Diane Bonder. In this scene, a portrait photograph of the artist’s mother is spat upon. Together with Marta Hryniuk, David decided to recreate the scene as a meditation on the visceral states of the body, unresolved personal relationships and the disruption of the familiar. The gestures and moments that are collected invite us to lean in closer, to pay attention to the detail, the subtle, and the unsaid.

Ari David (b. Romania) lives and works in Rotterdam. David works with writing, performance, moving images, and textiles. Their work explores the complex ways in which private biographies and collective narratives shape bodies. They see their work as a way to encounter the world, to understand how the social is inscribed in the body. As a way to experience the rich texture of the ordinary, the rawness of feeling, the tenderness of intimacy, and the uncertainty of lived life. As a way of staying with uncomfortable experiences of displacement and inadequacy. These approaches inform each-other, creating space for reflection and tension around themes of community, solidarity, and dissent. Their works have been shown at WET Rotterdam, Available and the Rat, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, De Appel, Charlotte Street Foundation, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Salonul de Proiecte, tranzit.ro/ Cluj. Since 2022, they co-run an other world project space in Rotterdam-Zuid.

Marta Hryniuk (b. Poland) is a visual artist, filmmaker and cultural organiser based in Rotterdam. She is a founding members of WET film - a production and distribution cooperative for film, video and artists’ moving and part of Filmwerkplaats, an artist-run lab for 16mm film processing. Since 2019 she has worked in a duo with Nick Thomas collaborating on films, as well as leading workshops, programming, and assisting in video and sound production. They recently finished their first feature film (“Weightless”, 2023), an experimental documentary supported by Nederlands Filmfonds. Their short film “Forces” is in the Eye Experimental collection. Before relocating to Rotterdam, Hryniuk combined her individual practise with cultural organising; she co-founded and co-run an artist-run space Silverado (2013-17, Poznań/nomadic).

Supported by CBK Rotterdam (Centre for Visual Arts Rotterdam)

Photos Jake Caleb

<<< Follow the link below to listen to Ari David in conversation with Hedvig Koertz >>>