April 24: CRINGE – a night of dysfunctional comedy
CRINGE is a program of screenings, performances and conversations that brings together artists, comedians and thinkers who are interested in comedic methods, without primarily aiming for entertainment. We're interested in bad jokes, jokes in the wrong place or the wrong time. Jokes that are way too much or much too little. Jokes which – because we don't find them funny – may require us to think about reality in interesting ways.
Cringe is organized jointly by Olav Westphalen (artist and professor at Kungl. Konsthogskolan) and Livia Paldi (Curator Baltic Arts Center). It is part of the "Normalcy" program at KKH and a co-production of KKH, BAC, the Intitute of Crypto Comedy and Humor and Weld
CRINGE will feel like a variety show or like a festive night at the cabaret or perhaps, actually, more like being stuck at your least favorite aunt and uncle's on a Sunday afternoon, drinking too much hot chocolate, eating too many stale cookies just to avoid having to say anything while looking at hundreds of vacation photos on their new I-Pad. (The I-Pad has an embossed vinyl faux Louis Vuitton case).
Participating artists/performers/speakers include:
Sally O'Reilly, artist (UK)
Roee Rosen, artist (Israel)
Aron Flam, comedian (SE)
Joanna Rytel (SE/DE)
Rattelschneck/Benjamin Schiffner, cartoonist and writer (DE)
Andreas Fagerskiöld (SE)
Olav Westphalen, konstnär (DE/US)
Livia Paldi, curator (HU)
And others
Read more about the program here
ANDREAS FÄGERSKIÖLD (SE)
is a 28 year old Swedish performance artist. He also paints and writes. He is famous for many things. For example when he spoke to the ants in the forest, telling them: “I am your king”.
ARON FLAM (SE)
Is a Swedish born comedian, political satirist, and writer. As a stand-up comedian, Aron has won multiple awards for shouting random dick jokes at strangers all over Scandinavia, Britain, and the Baltic states. Aron’s themes are stupidity, hypocrisy, the nature of reality, and chaos. It generally comes out in the analysis of faeces and power – and the introduction between the two – in which Aron sees himself as a sort of matchmaker.
JOANNA RYTEL 1974 (SE/DE)
Sex, abortion, racism – Joanna Rytel explores the most taboo-laden areas in society. Sex, gender, feminism, honor, abortion and racism: Joanna Rytel explores some of the most controversial topics of today. Rytel creates situations of an almost childishly provocative nature: she depicts sex workers at art shows, strips for animals, has birthday
parties for aborted fetuses; a distressing method without no safety net.
LÍVIA PÁLDI (HU)
is a curator and currently director of BAC – Baltic Art Center, Visby, Sweden. She was previously the chief curator of the Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest between 2007 and 2011, where she organised talks, discussions, and numerous exhibitions, including Other Voices, Other Rooms—Attempt(s) at Reconstruction: 50 Years of the Balázs Béla Studio (2009); Mircea Cantor: Future Gifts (2008);Deimantas Narkevičius: History Continued (2007); !REVOLUTION? (with Ulrike Kremeier, 2007); and Dreamlands Burn – Nordic Art Show 2006 (with Edit Molnár, 2006). Lívia Páldi was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Dunaújváros (Hungary) and its co-director from 1997 to 1999. She has also edited several exhibition catalogues and was a contributing editor of the East Art Map magazine and book organised by the artist collaborative IRWIN in Ljubljana (2002–2005). She was one of the curatorial agents of dOCUMENTA (13)..
MARCUS WEIMER (DE)
A German cartoonist doing comics and working for television. He has a so-called “bajuwarische Rippe”. Together with Olav Westphalen he is Rattelschneck. They regularly publish cartoons and comics in publications such as Titanic, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine, taz, Elf Freunde etc. and have published numerous books of their comics and cartoons.
OLAV WESTPHALEN (DE/SE)
is a German-American artist whose conceptual works take the form of games, experiments, drawings and cartoons. He plays both sides of the HI-LO divide, producing mass-media comedy and showing in museums and galleries such as The Whitney Museum, ICA London, The Swiss Institute NY, Moderna Museet etc. He is a member of Rattelschneck, a Cartoon-collective based in Berlin. He is also a Professor at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.
ROEE ROSEN (IL/US)
is an Israeli-American artist, filmmaker and writer. He is a professor at Ha’Midrasha Art College, and at the Bezalel Art Academy, Israel. Rosen’s latest film, The Buried Alive Videos, premiered at the Rome Film Festival, 2013, and was awarded a special mention. His latest book, “Maxim Komar-Myshkin’s Vladimir’s Night” is forthcoming at Sternberg Press, 2014.
SALLY O’REILLY (UK)
Writer Sally O’Reilly publishes and distributes text in conventional and expanded forms, from art magazines to performance lectures to opera. Her wildly varying subject matter contributes to an on-going investigation into how knowledge is attained and expressed. She is currently writing The Virtues of Things, an opera that explores essentialism, and Crude, a novel about academia and the oil industry.
BENJAMIN SCHIFFNER (DE)
Lives in Berlin and writes short texts