Artiste

Vit et travaille à Amsterdam (Pays-Bas)

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Ses préoccupations :

Notes on Behavior Outlet. Certain actions and themes return in a different form years later.

The motif of the hanging man re-emerges in a performance in Eindhoven (NL, De Fabriek 1987- SILHOUETTES LIKE SHIVERING ANCIENT FEELINGS): this time the performance was carried out for two hours by sixteen figures dressed in black. Turn by turn half of them hung overstretched for five minutes from the curved ceiling while the other half rested after applauding to eachother when unhooked) as well as in New York (1990- Franklin Furnace presents SPIRIT. featuring Seymour Likely and two homeless men).

In 1988, in connection with Steirischer Herbst  in Graz (Austria), Baren produced ECHO OF HYSTORIA. The city has a huge clocktower, that dominates the skyline and from there he hung a larger than life-size figure suspended from the hands  of the clock, thus stopping time for the period that the exhibition lasted (Points Of Reference 38/88).  A proclamation, published in 1938 in the times the uprising of National-Socialism, was to be handpainted on the huge window-pane (during every exhibition day) in the Main Hall of the station (ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). Withhout any official reason the project    was refused by Austrian Railway Company.

WE WANNA LOSE OUR HEADS FOR ANYTHING IN TIME was a succession of crystallized emotions. Long-haired figures were held up with balloons, filled with heliumgas, in a bedding of shredded paper and only lit up by sudden flashlights. The natural flow of time was sliced up into pieces. Several versions have been performed in 1988- London (UK), Chisenhale Gallery and Dance Space/ 1989- Amsterdam (NL), Beyond Performance. Arti et Amicitiae/ 1989- Performance Tage. Zürich (CH), Shedhalle and 1991- Katowice (POL), III. Spotkania Teatru wizji I plastyki. Poltel Filmstudios.

A great number of very short SPIRIT. Performances were presented as part of guided tours through-out a medieval fortress, blending reality (as we know it) with moments of recollection during Belluard Bollwerk International 1992, Fribourg (CH).

CARESSING THE DIKE celebrated the making of dikes and the struggle to protect the land from being flooded. Everyday,   for three months during the summer of 1996 (near Lelystad, polder-district, NL), a tractor gently rotated an impressive selection of casted hands of the actual workmen caressing the dike (in the fifties).

During TransArt Communication 1997, high up on top of the timpanon of Műcsarnok- Palace of Exhibitions in Budapest (Hungary), PROGRESS PROGRESS was performed as the missing allegory on Heroes Square.

2001 PITFALLS, consisted of a full days walk (September 1, 2000- with Koos Dalstra), started from the geographical center of Zeeland, a province in The Netherlands: where two monks found pumpkins (on that spot) and brought them to socalled Zeeuwse Meisjes (young maids in folkloristic costumes) who were awaiting them in the main square of the capital city, Middelburg. It is said that the seed of pumpkins raises fertility.

A well-dressed man yet in beggar position, demanded passers-by to DISCOVER HEAVEN by showing examples how to achieve that. First appearances in Bratislava and Nové Zámky (TransArtCommunication 2002) in Slovakia. Around the city    of Venice, during 50th Biennale di Venezia (Italy) 2003/ during Performance OpenPAF- Cleveland’s international performance art festival 2003, Ohio (US) and the city of London (UK) in 2003.   
In 2004 the ARK series started life in New York City during Currency 2004, an international festival of contemporary performance. Operatic in nature, ARK ( ) finds a meeting ground between sensual bewilderment and political commentary which points out the constructed nature of our ideas of cultural memory and our sometimes superficial notions of identity.
It has subsequently been performed in cities such as Biel (CH), Cardiff (UK), Ustka, Torun and Cracow (POL), La Bisbal d'Emporda, Barcelona (ES), Vancouver (CA), Tel Aviv (IL), Glasgow (UK), Burgh-Haamstede (NL) and Tallinn (EST).    
ARK (ON HOPE AND OTHER TERMINAL BODIES SUCH AS BRIDGE OF SIGHS, SLEEP OF REASON AND WAILING WALL) was performed during BLURRR 5. Biennial of Performance Art. Tel Aviv (Israel), Nov. 2005. For three days in a row a young man, with his head scarved in and dangling satellites from his outstretched fingers, was lead out of CCA Gallery and was process(ion)ed along different sites where suicidebombings took place, such as shopping streets, market, crossroads, busstation, and seaside. Several actions took place at that seaside: writing the word HOPE (in different languages) in the sand around the (exhausted) scarved figure, still holding up the dangling satellites - throwing a boomerang towards the sea with SPIRIT written on it and after tearing the shirt opposite the scarved figure return to CCA-
Extended ARK versions took place during LIVE. Biennial for Performance Art in Vancouver, Canada (Oct. 2005)- The National Review of Live Art. NEW MOVES INTERNATIONAL. Tramway, Glasgow (UK). Feb. 2007-  Incantation in the sense  of stillness. Bewaerschole, Burgh-Haamstede (NL). Together with Aaron Williamson and Toine Horvers, Sep.-Nov. 2007.

Quelques Dates
In 2008/2009 ARKs feature in  a.o. InterAzioni XXI, Assemini, Sardinia (I) with Riccardo Tanca- 2. Préavis de Désordre  Urbain, Marseille (F) with Christian Messier- Visibility Project 4, Galata Perform, Istanbul (TUR)- ASIATOPIA 10, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Thailand) with Bartek Lukasiewicz- INTERAKCJE 11.  Piotrkow Trybunalski and Bielsko Biala, Poland- 10th OPEN International Performance Art festival. 798 Art Zone, Beijing (China)- 3. Préavis de Désordre  Urbain, Marseille (F)- Rialto Santambrogio, Rome (I)- The Manifold (after)lives of performance. De Appel/Frascati, Amsterdam (NL) and in STUK, Kunstencentrum, Leuven (Belgium)-

Thank you: Andrei Tarkovsky, Rob Perrée, Iggy Pop, IJsbrand van Veelen, King Crimson and Goya.