‘The Landis Museum’ opening at CCA Derry

CCA is pleased to invite you to the opening of The Landis Museum.

Bianca Baldi, Irina Gheorghe, Helena Hamilton, Dorothy Hunter (ACW student), Alex Impey, Kapwani Kiwanga, Nina Liebenberg, Phillip McCrilly, Sarah Pierce (ACW coordinator), Katrina Sheena Smyth, Alexandra Sukhareva. Devised by James N. Hutchinson and Chapter Thirteen.

‘The Landis Museum’ is a museum of encounter. It is based on the methodology of Mark Landis, a man who – in late 2010 – became the subject of a number of international newspaper articles that characterised him as an art-world fraud; a forger who had been fooling museums by donating fake paintings and drawings for nearly twenty-five years. But such a characterisation is only one aspect of what was at play in Landis’ activities, and it may obscure what makes his work useful and interesting. For Landis, the motivation appears to have been as much about the interaction with the institution as it was about his work’s inclusion in museum collections. ‘The Landis Museum’ is a site for exploring the legacies of – or traces left by – moments of encounter, or generating central points through which new moments of encounter can be enacted.

The museum is displayed in a sculptural structure, designed specifically to house the objects, texts and videos. It brings together seven international artists, gathered because they share something in their mode of operation, their starting points, or the manner in which they seek to be read.

Devised by James N. Hutchinson, ‘The Landis Museum’ was initially shown at Chapter Thirteen as part of Glasgow International, 2018. CCA is presenting a new iteration of the project, adding a local annex to the museum.

The local annex consists of a series of one-day residencies that respond to the travelling exhibition. The residencies are choreographed encounters between the existing works and four artists based in Northern Ireland. The artists in residence are invited to use the gallery as their studio and to stage a ‘public moment’ that may be, for instance, a lecture, performance, meal, or workshop. Please check our website for details of upcoming events.

Opening Events

6:30 pm – Talk: James N. Hutchinson will talk about the time he spent with Mark Landis in the weeks following his exposure in the press, and will offer the opportunity to see and handle a number of objects made by Landis that do not appear in the exhibition.

7:00 pm – Exhibition opening

8:00 pm – Performance: ‘Foreign Language for Beginners’ (2015 – ongoing) is a performance work by Irina Gheorghe that explores the dynamics and history of a potential first contact through speech, sound and movement. It is a conversation with the world outside the word, by way of word, inside a room. The performance starts with simple messages that were composed and gathered by the SETI Institute to be sent into outer space. As the performance progresses, the mode of address, the language and the situation become increasingly uncanny.

The opening is a free event and refreshments will be provided.

This exhibition and associated events are made possible through the generous support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and with the further support of Culture Ireland and Glasgow International.

More info: http://cca-derry-londonderry.org/exhibitions/the-landis-museum/

Image credit: Kapwani Kiwanga, ‘The Secretary’s Suite’, 2016, video still

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