Willem de Ridder - presentation + screening of Here is Always Somewhere Else: The Life of Bas Jan Ader :: April 12, 2008; 6:00 pm :: TELIC Arts Exchange, 975 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA :: Due to the size of the installation of the Gravity Art exhibition (open until April 26), seating is extremely limited; you can reserve a seat by making a $5 donation to TELIC.

Willem de Ridder has been pioneering his entire life in the arts and the media. In the beginning of the sixties he brought in Holland all the modern young composers together in the MES (Mood Engineering Society), which resulted in the very first art performances and happenings. He became chairman for Northern Europe of Fluxus, started the First European Mail Order Warehouse for Fluxus works and made with Wim T. Schippers a national television program in which Holland heard for the first time about pop art, fluxus, zero, and his own anti-art activities. In 1965 he started a national newspaper in which everybody could publish anything they wanted. It caused a revolution in medialand (like internet now). Together with friends he started Paradiso and Fantasio, two clubs in which everybody could jump on stage and do whatever they wanted. Soon there were 150 of those clubs all over the country.

Together with English media adventurers like Jim Haynes, Germaine Greer, William Levy and Heathcote Williams he started SUCK, the First European Sexpaper, the beginning of the sexual revolution. They organised also the very first sexfilm festivals in Amsterdam, with visitors from all over the world. When he discovered how reading and writing had fatal effects on our society, he stopped with the newspapers and moved to the capital city of the image culture: Hollywood. There he started making weekly radio shows without any scripts for Holland. He developed the very first audio tours, before the walkman was invented. Then he made a radioshow in which the listeners were asked to sit in their car, turn on the radio and follow his instructions. About 30.000 of them started driving in the middle of the night having an adventure they would never forget.

Together with Max Lobckovicz, Shirley and Paul Eberle he made the first magazines in America in which everybody could publish anything they wanted about their sexlife. With Queen Adrena he introduced the first erotic telephone lines. He also made the very first magazine with sound in Hollywood, and so he went on and on.

In Holland he is called the Master Story Teller so you will hang on his lips, thumb in your mouth, time vanishes and space will disappear.

He is going to tell his entire story in TELIC Arts Exchange. Among others about his illegal exhibition in the MOMA.

Upcoming Gravity Art events:
April 19 - Time-Based Conceptual Art symposium at UCLA
http://www.telic.info/time-based-conceptual-art-symposium.yeah
April 26 - Erik Wesselo presentation
http://www.telic.info/erik-wesselo.yeah
April 26 - final screening of Here is Always Somewhere Else
http://www.telic.info/here-is-always-somewhere-else.yeah