Diego Tonus – Processing Authorities
03/07/2013

3 July – 7 July 2013

Opening: 3 July, 6-9 p.m.

Diego Tonus’s Processing Authorities is a work in progress that concentrates on gavels as symbolic instruments used to install and process authority. The starting point for the work is a unique and obscure collection of gavels that belongs to the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam. These hammers were used in assemblies of Dutch emancipatory movements in the 19th and 20th centuries for calling the meeting to order or marking the conclusion of collective decisions. The Institute collected the hammers over the years when they became redundant as the organizations dissolved. This is the first time that all of the 52 hammers have been presented to the public outside the IISH.

The exhibition in Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam is conceived as the first exhibition of Processing Authorities and presents enigmatic visual and performative aspects of these objects within a specifically designed environment, incorporating the original gavels and the film Soundtracks for Revolutions, which includes recordings of their sound. Every hammer blow evokes a memory of the past, while simultaneously connecting to all other forms of decision-making processes that have been formalized with the rather arbitrary ritual of hitting a hammer on a wooden block. Tonus’s research is centred on the micro histories and the shifting symbolic meanings of these hammers. Processing Authorities reflects on the Western cultural decision-making processes, the visual representation of authority and the potential for transforming these hammers into objects of power.

Along with Processing Authorities Tonus will show his film Speculative Speeches (Workers of the World - Relax) in SMBA. In this film the artist exercises his voice, acting with different tonalities, rhythms, colours and modalities, investigating and practising its potential to comprehend ways of affecting and influencing an audience in different contexts such as public speeches, presentations or conferences, to name but a few. The film is thus another example of Tonus’s focus on the power to achieve particular goals, as extrapolated from political, cultural and social processes.

A Festival of Choices

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam welcomes Diego Tonus during ‘A Festival of Choices’, organized by the Sandberg Institute of Fine Arts.

‘A Festival of Choices’ emphasizes the relationships and choices made by Sandberg’s attendees among the diverse Institutions and organizations in the cultural landscape of Amsterdam. For other presentations and their locations, please consult the website choices.nl/"target="_blank">www.festivalofchoices.nl.

Diego Tonus (1984, Pordenone, Italy) participated to ‘Add Fire - 9th Edition of Furla Award’ (2013) curated by Furla Foundation (patron artist: Jimmie Durham), Bologna, Italy. His recent group exhibitions have included ‘The Real Thing?’ in Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), ‘The 338 Hour Cineclub’ Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2013), ‘Out- of- ____’ at Michael Benevento Gallery, Los Angeles (2012), ‘Jusqu'ici tout va bien’, OSLO10, Basel (2012) and ‘Three artists walk into a bar …’, De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (2012).

‘Diego Tonus – Processing Authorities’ is made possible by the support of the International Institute of Social History - Amsterdam (IISH).

For more information on the artist:

www.diegotonus.com


News Archive

2013

2012

2011

Made in Commons Events
30/11/2013
Amsterdam Art Weekend 2013
29/11/2013
‘Collecting Geographies – Global Programming and Museums of Modern Art’
13/10/2013
Spaces of Exception in Moscow
11/09/2013
Scenographies Prologues Reading Group
10/09/2013
Call for BijlmAIR 2014
05/09/2013
Lecture by Joshua Simon
27/08/2013
This Summer no exhibition in SMBA
24/07/2013
Diego Tonus – Processing Authorities
03/07/2013
noa language school
25/06/2013
BijlmAIR: Clarence Albert - Artist talk and BBQ
08/06/2013
Presentation and interview Wilfredo Prieto
06/06/2013
Renzo Martens: The Institute for Human Activities
26/05/2013
The exhibition ‘Hollandaise’ opens in Dakar
09/04/2013
BijlmAIR : Maria Guggenbichler, SISTER FROM ANOTHER MISTER
01/04/2013
Lecture Dr. Bert Hoppe
23/03/2013
The Rise now on show in MAMAM, Recife, Brazil
22/03/2013
Jérôme Chazeix resident at BijlmAIR
21/03/2013
Partial closure on Tuesday 26 March
10/03/2013
Bruno Latour’s Politics of Nature Reading Group in SMBA
10/02/2013
Wendelien van Oldenborgh's La Javanaise at the Berlinale
07/02/2013
Am I Black
24/01/2013
Global Collaborations
11/01/2013
Onomatopee and Serge Onnen present: Book launch ‘The Lost Cent’
10/01/2013