Erik van Lieshout

Well-meaning aid workers, forlorn refugees, and an upset asylum seeker: the artist Erik van Lieshout’s new video installation, DOG, shows all of their vulnerabilities and powerlessness in the face of problems larger than themselves. DOG, a two-channel video installation, is a monument for the Russian rocket scientist Aleksandr Dolmatov, and addresses the current practical and everyday consequences in Rotterdam of European refugee and asylum policy. The people featured in the video, such as volunteers from Occupy Rotterdam, recount their stories in a direct manner. Every weekend, as a form of protest, volunteer activists wave to the refugees detained in the Zestienhoven detention centre, the holding location infamous for the tragic suicide of the Russian rocket scientist Aleksandr Dolmatov. With volunteers from the Ros Foundation, a support organisation for people without legal documents and rejected asylum seekers, van Lieshout plans to commemorate Dolmatov’s death. Then he remembers the Russian artist Oleg Kulik, who participated in the first Manifesta Biennale in Rotterdam as a dog that was often walked, naked, in the street. Shelter, asylum, accommodation, and relief – the unauthorised male immigrant from Sierra Leone who met Van Lieshout is indifferent to the aid workers. In a long monologue, he reveals he has been in the Netherlands, unauthorised, for ten years. Moving from cats to dogs, this is perhaps the closest Van Lieshout has come to making a straight documentary. Dog is a two-channel projection examining the plight of asylmun seekers and the political potential (or futility) of art. One projection is a monologue by an asylum seeker ranting against the Dutch immigration authorities. The other is a series of scenes from the artist's conversations with a group of activists who asked him to create a memorial for the Russian rocket scientist and opposition politician Aleksandr Dolmatov, who committed suicide in 2013 in a detention centre in Rotterdam. Dolmatov had been told (mistakenly) that his application for asylum had been rejected and that he was to be sent back to Russia. Van Lieshout documents his preparations for a commemorative performance for Dolmatov making reference to Oleg Kulik's Pavlov's Dog (1995), itself a performance in which the Russian artist crawled through the streets of Rotterdam wearing nothing but dog's collar and lead. As Dominic van den Boogerd noted in his review of the film, “Van Lieshout records the tough reality of illegal residents, immigrants and asylum seekers in his local area of Rotterdam with his customary boldness and flair. Many scenes have been filmed with the camera positioned on a table or chair, as if this were undercover journalism. […] Gruesome, rough ugly, desolate: this is what the European refugee and asylum policy looks like. Feelings of importance and outrage battle for precedence.” (This text is an extract from: Erik van Liesthout - The Show Must Ego On, Wiels, 2016, brochure) The two films are projected are projected onto a metal fence of the type usually used for crowd control. Here they create an installation that is at once reminiscent of a dog pen an arena, a place for debate. (This text is an extract from the exhibition brochure of Erik van Liesthout : The Show Must Ego On, Wiels-Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Brussel, 30.09.2016 - 08.01.2017)