Is a space for artistic research, experimentation and imagination. Set up by Bartels in an attempt to articulate and enclose the fringes in the scope of her artistic practice. To explore the absurd, bizarre, boring and (un)usual fascinations at a certain point in time. To dive into the potential of fragmentary bits an pieces, creating analogies between
concepts, questions and ideas. Blurring fiction and reality, where nothing is what it seems and vice versa.
Serious play or playful seriousness.
Schmilblique derived from Schmilblick
The Schmilblick is an imaginary object created by the French humorist Pierre Dac during the 1950s. It is absolutely useless, and can therefore be used for anything, being rigorously entire. Pierre Dac himself credits the brothers Jules and Raphaël Fauderche with its invention.
The word quickly became very popular in French language and was sometimes used as a synonym for thing or stuff, or something designating a strange or unknown object. Nowadays, this word is frequently used to refer to some limited help provided by someone to solve a difficult problem. The idiom is actually 'Faire avancer le schmilblick' (To make the schmilblick move/get ahead, literally). Also, advancing a subject.
Ouvroir | Faire avancer le schmilblick
is a space for artistic research, experimentation and imagination. To explore the absurd, bizarre, boring, the (un)usual. To dive into the potential of fragmentary bits an pieces, creating analogies between concepts, questions and ideas. Blurring fiction and reality, where nothing is what it seems and vice versa. Serious play or playful seriousness.
Set up by Karin Bartels in an attempt to articulate and enclose the fringes in the scope of her artistic practice.
Website in Process
The thesis starts with an introduction describing how mapping chance encounters in public space, slowly developed into an artistic micro research on the expanded field of contemporary jewellery. The thesis focuses on the conceptual questions and ideas that have arisen from this practice.
Click image on the right to read the thesis
“Chance Encounters | a Gesture, an Object, a Décor.”,
GRA Awards
Thesis Nominee
The jury reports:
The jury found that Karin Bartels is a good storyteller. She starts off her research on the micro level of a hatpin and manages to translate that towards the macro level of social interaction. Bartels thesis is original in that she shows the interest of seeing jewelry as something else than merely a gem. Through the chance encounters she has had and archived, she reflects on what a jewel could be. Working with complex theories Bartels manages to develop her practice in an exciting direction.
GRA Awards, Thesis Nominee, “Chance Encounters | a Gesture, an Object, a Décor.”, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (NL)