Master Humphreys Clock

Final project of the participants Curatorial Programme 07/08.

Opening: May 11, 3 pm

In The Stanley Brouwn Building, Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht

In the present instant, the host or author, in opening his new establishment, provided no bill of fare*. Sensible of the difficulties of such an undertaking in its infancy, he preferred that it should make its own way, silently and gradually, or make no way at all. Charles Dickens

“Master Humphrey’s Clock”, explores the many intersections between circulation and storytelling. The title of the project has been borrowed from the English ‘realist’ writer Charles Dickens’ periodical (1840-41), once intended to present a variety of stories through the narrative of one character: the elderly Master Humphrey, and his treasure of manuscripts. Part of this serial publication was later transformed into a novel called “The Old Curiosity Shop” (1841). The participants of the Curatorial Programme 07/08 found a copy of the story of Master Humphrey on a bookshelf in a second hand shop in Leidsche Rijn, a new suburban development outside of Utrecht. The logics of the second hand shop, along with ideas of circulation of information, memory and collective memory and storytelling, inform their final project “Master Humphrey’s Clock”, which will take place at a number of sites in May 2008. The central exhibition will be held in a building designed by Dutch conceptual artist Stanley Brouwn and architect Bertus Mulder in Leidsche Rijn.

- Master Humphrey’s Clock is a project that explores the many intersections between circulation and storytelling.

Participating artists: Agency, Mariana Castillo Deball, Ricardo Cuevas, Gintaras Didziapetris, Geoffrey Farmer, Victoria Fu, Dora Garcia, gerlach en koop, Noa Giniger, Július Koller, Gabriel Kuri, Nick Mangan, Flavia Muller Medeiros, Radim Pesko and Louis Lüthi, Sandy Plotnikoff, Michael Rakowitz, Simon Starling, Michael Stevenson, The Faculty of Invisibility, and others.

The main exhibition of the project will open on 11 May 2008 in the Stanley Brouwn pavilion and other venues in Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht.

Curated by the participants of de Appel Curatorial Programme 07/08: Yulia Aksenova, Jesse Birch, Sarah Farrar, Inti Guerrero and Virginija Januskeviciute.

The title Master Humphrey’s Clock is borrowed from a weekly periodical written and published by Charles Dickens. It is an inspiring story of shifted intentions, the account of which we found in the Preface of The Old Curiosity Shop in a second-hand store of a new urban development in Leidsche Rijn.

Master Humphrey's Clock
Kuratoren: Yulia Aksenova, Jesse Birch, Sarah Farrar, Inti Guerrero, Virginija Januskeviciute
Ort: Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht

Künstler: The Agency , Mariana Castillo Deball, Ricardo Cuevas, Gintaras Didziapetris, Geoffrey Farmer, Victoria Fu, Dora Garcia, Gerlach en Koop, Noa Giniger, Julius Koller, Gabriel Kuri, Nick Mangan, Flavia Muller Medeiros, Radim Pesko and Louis Lüthi, Sandy Plotnikoff, Michael Rakowitz, Simon Starling, Michael Stevenson, The Faculty of Invisibility  ...