Collaboration Peter Hill and J.J. Voss (Photographer)
S U P E R F I C T I O N S
For Real Now
For Real Now was probably the first curated exhibition of Superfictions.
It was spread across the Netherlands town of Hoorn in 1990 and included the work
of Dennis Adams (USA), Alan Belcher (CND), Guillaume Bijl (B), BP (F),
Banca Oklahoma (I), Ingold Airlines (CH), Maria Kozic (AUS), Ange Leccia (F),
Seymour Likely (USA) (NL), SERVAAS (SUR), Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson (IJ), and Tempi
En Wolf (NL)
Here are a few excerpts from the catalogue notes:
SERVAAS: "Special offer this week: filleted cod-fish, sole, red mullet and dab."
Nobody knows any more what's reality and illusion. Confusion about reality and
illusion plays an important part in the contribution of SERVAAS to FOR REAL NOW.
Catalogue for one of first Superfiction exhibitions, FOR REAL NOW, at Hoorn
Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson: presents a golf course 10 by 10 square meters that can
be explained as the playground of the nineties. On the whole it is the short version
of a real golf course and it's conceived in such a way that the first stroke and the
long walks can be skipped, just to concentrate, directly, on the essence.
Seymour Likely: When it comes to the eccentric and mysterious American Seymour Likely
you never know how to get hold of the truth. His Seymour Likely Fine Art Gallery in the former V.O.C. warehouse
looks like a smooth, selling minded American uptown gallery, with only a few annoying troubles.
Does he really think that 17 time seascapes of the 17th century will actually sell here,
because we are so familiar with water and the seascapes belong to our cultural heritage? And do
you really believe that this exhibition is organized by Dieter Szeemann, the somewhat retarded brother of
the world famous curator Harald Szeemann?
Maria Kozic: Everywhere around us we are confronted by information, messages, and
announcements that try to convince us to do or stop something. We accept all these
photos, posters, and billboards as normalities of city life....Kozic is playing with
every kind of stereotype drawn from the world of advertisement (temptation, sex, violence, intruding slogans).
She announces something with a strong impact, but she only seems to test our way of viewing. She opposes the
ordinary one-dimensional advertisement messages with her multi-interpretable announcements (a personal cry, a
feminist campaign? a promotion of a non-existing movie?), so we have to look for the intention of her intruding message.
Guillaume Bijl: The work of Guillaume Bijl is often related to as "postponed reality".
Bijl isolates fractions of the surrounding world (shop interiors, gymnasiums,
waiting-rooms, etc) and presents them within an artistic context, intensifying
thus their reality. In Hoorn he turns it. He adds even more 'reality' to the existing
city - reality of canals, sea-gulls, and mooring-buoys. 22 sea-gulls are erected and
lined up round the harbour. 'Erected' of course because Bijl wouldn't be Bijl if nothing
had been changed by him. The gulls are dressed, stuffed, artificial. Whether Bijl's
addition (and by extension the production of art in general) makes a point, that's
the question. Bijl himself apologizes for his intervention as he presents his work
under the title: SORRY.
