dépendance
varkensmarkt 4 rue du marché aux porcs
brussel 1000 bruxelles
www.dependance.be

NOVEL is distributed through events, readings and screenings which are staged at venues that become the loci for reading, furnished with artworks and related films that augment the fictioning of a scenario. This scenario will be the summation of multiple experiences and anxieties that demands new forms of critical fiction. These new strategies require an active protagonist, a polymath who can amalgamate them with fluency. Fiction is not made up, it is based on everything we can learn or use; a zone in which all sources of knowledge are valid.

We would like to thank all of the artists for participating and the following galleries for their kind support; DEPENDANCE, BRUSSELS; CABINET GALLERY, LONDON; MOT INTERNATIONAL, LONDON: GAVIN BROWN, NEW YORK; MAUREEN PALEY, LONDON; 303 GALLERY, NEW YORK; HERALD STREET, LONDON; ELIZABETH DEE, NEW YORK; MACCARONE, NEW YORK; REGEN PROJECTS, LOS ANGLELES; MODERN ART, LONDON; BALICE HERTLING, PARIS; METRO PICTURES, NEW YORK; JONATHAN VINER, FORTESCU AVENUE, LONDON; OVERDUIN & KITE, LOS ANGELESAND VILMA GOLD, LONDON

Front, Paul Sietsema Painter's Mussel (2010)
p.2, Michael Dean Physique (2010)
p.3, Mark Titchner Do it (2010)
p.4 - 5, Nick Mauss Everything that Hesitates (2010)
p.6 - 7, Chris Krauss excerpt one from the forthcoming novel Summer of Hate (2010)
p.8 - 9, Charles Atlas Are you tired of paying too much for your carpets (2009)
p. 10 - 15, Nick Relph A List of Incorrect Things (2010)
p.16 - 19, DavidMaljkovic (2010)
p.20 - 21, Alex Hubbard Textasy 1-4 (2010)
p.22 - 25, Laure Prouvost (2010)
p.27 - 32, Amir Mogharabi Matériel Perdu (2010)
p.33, Mark Titchner Self Help (2010)
p.34 - 37, Saskia Olde Wolbers Pareidolia (2010)
p.38, Mark Borthwick If Desire (2010)
p.39 - 42, Lothar Hempel Swally Tailio Filiali; Novela Bobby Duo (2010)
p.43, Mark Borthwick If by String (2009)
p.44 - 50, Chris Krauss excerpt two from Summer of Hate (2010)
p.51, Laure Prouvost The person behind you would like to talk to you (2010)
p.52 - 68, DAS INSTITUT "Bcc: Corp Ab" DAS INSTITUT for NOVEL (2010)
p.70 - 75, Oscar Tuazon extract from Last Try (2009)
p.77, Erika Vogt Cylinders with Figures (2009)
p.78 - 80, Simon Thompson Where Does Sister Sublet? (2010)
p.81, Laure Prouvost Questions will be asked (2010)

NOVEL at dépendance, Brussels gathers a selection of works by past and present contributors to NOVEL a publication project and collection of artist writings, edited by Alun Rowlands  and Matt Williams. As one of the publications aims is to gather various forms of non-academic texts and poetry oscillating between modes of fiction and criticism, the exhibition at dépendance attempts to bring the focus away from writing as a parallel activity, back to art objects.

New works by Bernadette Corporation, Michaela Eichwald, Gareth James, Sergej Jensen, Oscar Tuazon, Nicholas Byrne and a collaborative work by Simon Thompson & Cheyney Thompson, join works by Henri Chopin, Henrik Olesen, Josef Strau, Merlin Carpenter and Nick Mauss.

NOVEL draws together artists writing, texts and poetry that oscillate between modes of fiction and criticism. A cacophony of voices, that is the primary condition of writing, seek to break the habitual methods of representation and productions of subjectivity. Disconnected from any unitary theme these texts coalesce around writing as a core material of a number of artists exploring language and fiction. This fiction acts as a speculative force, no longer defined by what is said, even less by what makes it a signifying thing, but perhaps as a mode that exists parallel to the visual. Here, art writing is an apparatus for knowledge capture, informed by theory, film, politics and storytelling; writing as parallel practice, different, tangential; writing as political fiction; writing as another adventure on the ‘skin drive', renegotiating unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects – that might offer points of departure. Amidst the insinuated narratives and materialised visions there is a concern for writing and the impossibility of fiction which is at stake. Novel asks us to think of writing as something distinct from information, as at least one realm of cultural production that is exempt from the encompassing obligation to communicate.

“She’d studied history and acting in New York and London but ditched her career when she met her ex-husband Michel. A former student of Sartre’s and nearly two decades older than her, Michel held an endowed chair in philosophy and traveled all over the world. Her acting career was a hopeless cause so she went along too. Her legs were too short, her nose was too long. Like Eleanor Aveling -daughter of Karl Marx and subject of the PhD thesis Catt could not get approved – Catt’s passion for acting was a flight from her literal, serious mind into some kind of freedom and beauty. For a long time being welcomed as the quirky young wife of the great old guy was better than being told she wasn’t right for the part. When she wasn’t so young anymore, she started writing and moved to LA alone. Since they’d never had kids this was easily done. Without a PhD, the only paying work she could find was teaching part-time at an art school and writing art catalogue essays.”

— Chris Krauss excerpt one from the novel Summer of Hate (2010) p. 6 - 7

Publication, Exhibition and Film Programme

NOVEL § 3 is published on the occasion of the exhibition NOVEL at dépendance, Brussels.

NICK MAUSS, NICHOLAS BYRNE, HENRI CHOPIN, OSCAR TUAZON, HENRIK OLESEN, GARETH JAMES, MICHAELA EICHWALD, MERLIN CARPENTER, JOSEF STRAU, MICHAEL KREBBER, R.H.QUAYTMAN, SIMON THOMPSON, BERNADETTE CORPORATION, KIRSTEN PIEROTH, CHRISTIAN FLAMM CAMP DAVID, SERGEJ JENSEN

with screening of ED ATKINS 'Press My Eyelids Closed' 7'59" (2010)

“Standing in front of an open mailbox with a scorched envelope in my hands. The confusion was similar when his “imaginary rooms” first presented themselves to me: awkward, unpeopled, Degas-colored, irreverent of style or purity, freely invented with just enough effort to complete a semblance of space, dashed off like an inscription or a thank-you note. The charisma of his costume designs, fashion illustrations, frontispieces, paintings, sets, rugs, scarves, improvised stylings and “looks” for legendary parties is buoyed by this sure, yet unsure line. Everything I can’t talk about I read into this trenchant shorthand for a world so detailed and sweet, social, hilarious, intuited, complete within the borders of its ambitions as a proposal, a counter-design. Unbearable, because I recognize it instantly, inviting, because it is still completely foreign to me.”

— Nick Mauss Everything that Hesitates (2010) p. 4 - 5

Film Programme
La Chaussette presents... at  l'Archiduc, Antoine Dansaert 6 1000 Brussels

HANNAH SAWTELL
You'll Never Walk Alone (2007)
6'30