In 1976, invited to take part in a show at de Appel art gallery, Marina Abramovic developed the performance Role Exchange. She sat in the window of a brothel in the red light district for about three hours while an anonymous prostitute took her place at the gallery’s opening. The switch of places orchestrated by the artist created a temporary change of roles and identities between the two women, an experience of extreme intensity in which, as in other works by the same artist, her body became a tool to challenge people’s value systems, expectations, morality, visions and thoughts.

More then thirty years after this first exchange, the Redlight Art Amsterdam project evokes Abramovic’s work and forces conjecture on the changed working conditions and the role of artists today. At first sight it is clear that the context and the strategies of the two projects are rather different. In Abramovic’s case the performance stemmed from the artist’s interest in “the space of the brothels and the moral valuesattached to it”¹, while Redlight Art Amsterdam places the artists behind the windows of the former red light district as part of the gentrification process initiated by Plan 1012 in place of undesirable elements of the sex industry.

Within this new situation, and as is the case in many other projects currently being initiated in other Western countries, artists are being invited as temporary residents to contribute to the redefinition of the future of the city. No more at the fringes of the society or outspokenly outside a certain economic, political or social order as it was at the time of the first exchange, artists are now guests warmly accepted by public institutions and private business for their creative input. Quite paradoxically, here the bodies of the artists become again important sites for negotiations of powers and visions, but in very different ways. By embodying the values of originality, authorship and relentless creativity with their own life, in fact, the artists are largely recognized as a key factor in the urban redevelopment of the city. And their mere participation – or, as in this case, their presence alone in the studio spaces – could be seen as a way to support the system of institutions and of legitimizing the process of transformation.

In this changed panorama it is clear that the artists of this second exchange work as insiders, where they express their positions and express their visions on the reality that surrounds them. If the production of an immaterial object or of an experience outside the space of the studio was a way for the artists of the 1970s to resist the commoditisation of Art and to propose an alternative value system to the society, today this is not enough. Asked to respond to a specific location or place, as in this project, the work of an artist is framed within the homogeneous value system of the neo-liberal economy where even his or her own body risks to be seen as a commodity. The only option left is to search for the freedom of action within those new constraints. Within this perspective, the challenge that the artists and I have taken by accepting the invitation to take part in this project, is to define the currency of the new exchange, to determine how or if it’s possible for Art to genuinely contribute to the redefinition of Amsterdam, in a way which takes into account the given framework, as well as the autonomous position of Art.

The results are eight individual visions and one curatorial reflection. From their side, the resident artists of RED A.i.R. did not try to offer solutions to the problems of the gentrification of this part of the city. Their aim was rather to create new spaces for reflection. Through heterogeneous artistic practices and various media, they underline specific elements of this new position, offer different perspectives on the past or the future of those places, or simply comment on their experience of being part of this process. The images they produced are poetic, disturbing, apparently non-functional, sometimes controversial. Their value is to expand a fixed repertoire of thoughts, visions and understanding of this reality. Moreover, they are images which are not consumable in a passive way, but rather require the attention and dedication of the viewer. While most of the visual communication of today emphasizes sensation and contains a univocal message, the images of these artists are intentionally ambiguous, never pointing to one final message, but rather seeking a dialogue with the public.The curatorial reflection, instead, takes a form of public events in which different professionals (theoreticians, artists, designers and urban planners) are invited to discuss the current changes in the Dutch political and cultural environment. A part from the evident issues raised by the gentrification of the inner city of Amsterdam - such as the change of the public image of the city and the redistribution of bodies and desires - the question that we choose to address here, is the assumed role of Art within this new context. The title A Second Exchange synthesizes our different experiences within this rather peculiar residency program, which stimulates the necessity to reflect on its own role in all this. This way, we believe, is also the only way to reflect on the possibility of existence of autonomous artists in today’s system of liberal capitalism, in a system of total exchange. 

Angela Serino


1. Interview with the artist, 18/09/2009.

You can download the guide-book of A Second Exchange (25, 26 and 27 September) from the page "PICS & DOWNLOAD". You can find the artists' descriptions of the works under "WHO".