Project 1975

Project 1975 is structured around two art-theoretical positions offered by Sven Lütticken and Ashley Dawson respectively. It furthermore comprises interviews by and with some of the artists and curators who contributed to the project: Alfredo Jaar, kari'kacha seid'ou, Koyo Kouoh, Charl Landvreugd, Senam Okudzeto, Vincent Vulsma and Katarina Zdjelar. The book also contains visual overviews and information of the exhibitions, presentations, debates, commissioned art works and publications made in the framework of Project 1975, in SMBA and elsewhere.--SMBA. Project 1975 is published in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam and discusses globalisation in art and the relationship between the Dutch postcolonial predicament and contemporary art by its institutions. The result of a two-year programme of exhibitions, commissioned essays, events and research at the Stedelijk, Project 1975 is a study of the effects of multicultural society on the visual arts. Taking its name from the year that Suriname officially became independent from The Netherlands, the book offers answers to current social and political questions affecting the visual arts: Is the power position of the stereotypical European white male coloniser less strong these days? How has post-colonial theory contributed to a better understanding of artists from areas such as Suriname? Has the sophisticated art infrastructure of the West been instrumental in abolishing divisions between Western and non-Western art, or has it rationalised and maintained these distinctions? Project 1975 approaches these questions from a variety of perspectives, to open up the discussion and provide suggestions for future approaches. Contributors include Jelle Bouwhuis and Kerstin Winking from the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, art critic and historian Sven Lutticken and Ashley Dawson. Interviews, texts and illustrations accompany the essays, alongside photographs of the works displayed in the Project 1975 exhibitions at the Stedelijk.--Publisher.