The Proverb Picture Project
Videoart project
Curated by Joas Nebe
from 13 February to 12 March 2014
The project is developed and curated by Joas Nebe.
Participating artists: Kisito Assangi/Togo/France/UK, Beate Goerdes/Germany, Cora de Lang/Argentina, Germany, Michael Baastrup Chang/Denmark, Marty McCutcheon/US, Joas Nebe/Germany, Evrensel Ürüm/Turkey, Alison Williams/RSA
1st PART – PEP TALK
Do harder, Beate Goerdes – Germany
Give me a smile, Cora de Lang – Argentina/Germany
Keep your chin up, Evrensel Ürüm – Turkey
Elicit a few “wows”, Marty McCutcheon – USA
2nd Part – PROVERBS
That love is all there is, is all we know of love, Marty McCutcheon – USA
Grow old along with me, the best is yet to become, Cora de Lang – Argentina/Germany
Never close your lips to whom you have opened your heart, Michael Baastrup Chang – Denmark
How you give is more important than what you give, Evrensel Ürüm – Turkey
The longer the string, the higher the kite flies, Beate Goerdes – Germany
Love and cought are not concealed, Kisito Assangni – UK/France/Togo
Dust off and get up/To love is a choice and the kiss is a seal/In executing our priorities, Alison Williams – RSA
3rd part – THE AGENCY ABOUTS
The Agency About, Joas Nebe
We work literally around the globe, Beate Goerdes – Germany
Protecting people, Joas Nebe – Germany
The Department’s mission, Evrensel Ürüm- Turkey
The Department has fundamentally marty, Marty McCutcheon – USA
The Department secures the nation’s air, Cora de Lang – Argentina/Germany
“Everyone of us, in some determinated moment, we have been involved in some uncomfortable situation because of communication, or rather not-communication. The most of the times is due to standardization and formalization the language.
From here is where the proverbs and pep talks are coming. They are standard texts that generalize specific cases and situations. These can be very useful in certain situations, but not always, because in each case leaves out a hidden information. These situations are repeated in companies to motivate their own employees, as well as are used in advertising itself or on their websites. On the websites of these companies, their own descriptions are as formal as proverbs and pep talk.
This interesting video art work, curated by Joas Nebe collaborating with other artists, shows a reflection over the standardized communication in all aspects and views from different blocks. It is divided in two parts: Pep Talks and Proverbs, where comprises a serie of videos, most of them created for this project, where different pep talks and probervs are interspersed.
Each artist choose a proverb or pep talk to develop his own part. Every one of them comes from a different country, therefore this fact makes a wide vision and perception of the main subject. As well as, every creator is using several video art´s technics, where the viewer can perceive through this videos what each artist is suggesting and try to define.
In this exceptional work we can find an assortment of video art, which every artist choose to express better his own concept: from a static image, through photography black and white, up to silence (which is sometimes the best form of expression).
(Anna Corpas Sanya, art historian)
“Talking is essential for human relationships. Most talking is very formal due to time saving reasons. For example proverbs are formular reactions to standardized everyday situations that bare any individual nuance.Nevertheless many of them are used daily by most of us. By using common wording the talker is saving time and energy which otherwise he/she would have to invest in finding the appropriate expression for what he/she feels/want to say.The best known standardization in talking is pep talk and proverbs. But there are other opportunities to use formal wording, e.g. in commercial texts, on website introducing a company etc.. Here we come to another aspect of what formal wording stands for. Standardized communication allows to hide content by leaving it away. A good example for this kind of censored formal communications are the websites of intelligence agencies (third text ressource).The project´s objective is to investigate formal communication in all aspects. In asking different video artists with different cultural background to interpret the proverbs the standardisation of unconscious communication should be revealed.”
(Joas Nebe, curator)