SUBSTITUTES

22 April - 18 June 2023
Exhibition opening: Friday, 21 April 2023 from 6 pm - 10 pm

Substitutes engages with queer history and discourses around the body, gender, and sexuality. It features artists across several generations working in a variety of mediums to contextualise and converse with these discourses. The exhibition is about the absence of bodies, the abstraction of the body, and the tools and language we use to maintain or describe our bodies—costuming, staging, masks, layering, clothing. It questions the normative frameworks that queer and functionally diverse people are subjected to. The human body is, paradoxically, both absent and present within the exhibition.

Initiated by the artist Philipp Gufler, Substitutes brings together works of Lorenza Böttner, Johanna Gonschorek, Elisàr von Kupffer, Rabe perplexum, Louwrien Wijers, Johannes Büttner, and Bruno Zhu. Philipp Gufler will show a new work titled Body/Text: a large-scale silk screen printed textile piece that draws inspiration from Elisàr von Kupffer’s panorama painting Klarwelt der Seligen (Clear World of the Blissful). By connecting contemporary discussions to historical perspectives, the exhibition aims to create a ‘living archive’. Drawing together artistic positions from then and now, the exhibition traces queer lives and networks from the past to our present.

public programme

Keeping up with the Virus
Thursday 11 May from 20:00 to 21:00

A performance by Szymon Adamczak with Billy Mullaney exploring interdependency, connection seeking, risk-taking, and solidarity through the embodied metaphor of the virus performing in the artist’s body in the era of undetectability. Situated in relation to the unique constellation of artists gathered at W139, the performance looks to activate genealogies and dramaturgies of living with HIV across time.

Tomorrow’s Language
Saturday 3 June from 16:00 to 17:30

A dialogue between the artists Louwrien Wijers, Rory Pilgrim, and Philipp Gufler. Together they will explore Louwrien’s artworks, the significance of food, intergenerational friendships among artists, and the importance of learning from one another. Expanding on the topic of food, chef, artist and longtime collaborator of Louwrien, Egon Hanfstingl, will be preparing a saffron honey yogurt for all attendees to enjoy at the end of the event.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Sunday 4 June from 15:00 to 16:00

by Philipp Gufler and Tomas Adolfs.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Friday 9 June from 18:30 to 19:30

by Philipp Gufler and Wilfred van Buuren in collaboration with IHLIA.

Rabe perplexum and the Eccentric 80s
Friday 9 June from 20:00 to 21:30

A film screening and book presentation with Angela Stiegler and Philipp Gufler in collaboration with the Goethe Institut Amsterdam. With their performative and collaborative works, Rabe perplexum was a subversive voice of queer subculture in the 1980s. In conversation with Fabian Reichle, the artists Gufler and Stiegler will discuss artistic practices of the ‘Eccentric 80s’, their exhibition and publication of the same name, from today’s perspective.

Visual identity by Jacob Hoving.

This exhibition is generously supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds21, Goethe Institut, Centro Elisarion, Pro Elisarion Association, Monacensia im Hildebrandhaus, Forum Queeres Archiv München and Grafisch Atelier Hilversum.

W139
Warmoesstraat 139
1012JB Amsterdam, Nederland
Tue – Sun 12:00 – 18:00