P/////AKT - Amsterdam

P////AKT is pleased to announce Waakzaam en Dienstbaar by Jivan van der Ende, which comprises an exhibition, a publication, and live activations throughout the runtime of the exhibition. Jivan van der Ende’s work commonly explores archetypes such as firefighters, bodybuilders, and, more recently, the police officer. For this project, De Politieman, always referred to in this gendered form, takes center stage. Waakzaam en Dienstbaar explores the friction between agency and submission. The artist has created a protocol that grants full access to her archives to De Politieman; a character embodied by graphic designer Elena Op ’t Eynde. De Politieman plays a double role: both authority figure and designer. The archive—a vast image bank comprising years of print production—is thereby subjected to the preferences, desires, and whims of someone else. Van der Ende’s title borrows from the Dutch police motto W aakzaam en Dienstbaar —vigilant and dutiful. A particularly loaded title in an era where police authority is more contested than ever. By playing with the aesthetics and codes of authoritarianism, she questions the underlying structures of power and control and asks who, ultimately, is in control? De Politieman will be present occasionally to activate the exhibition, exact dates to be announced later. The exhibition is curated by Bas Hendrikx, who previously collaborated with Jivan van der Ende for the exhibition Open Time – Performing with and for the camera – at the ULAY Foundation in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2022. Bas Hendrikx is a curator at KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels. His work focuses on participatory practices, digital art and queer art history. He is co-editor of Authenticity? (Valiz, 2017) and the editor of Queer Exhibition Histories (Valiz, 2023). Some of his recent exhibitions include Connecting for KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Terms & Expectations for Inter/Access in Toronto, Other Intelligences, Other Natures for NeMe in Cyprus, and RISING, a monumental commission in public space by Tarek Lakhrissi for KANAL-Centre Pompidou. Hendrikx worked for P/////AKT as an associated curator from 2011-2016 and returns in the capacity of guest curator for this exhibition.

Polina Kanis’s solo exhibition, Politics of Rotation, curated by Katia Krupennikova, aims to analyze the connection between sexualized bodies and state power, raising meaningful discussions on body politics. The project originated as a durational performance, which took place in 2022 in Moscow—Kanis worked for three months as a pole dancer in a Moscow strip club. The project is kindly supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Niemeijer Fonds, Mondriaan Fonds. Het Nederlands Letterenfonds and Carta 24’ Festival.