REENACTMENT/RAPPROCHEMENT
a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative project at the Chester Springs Studio.

Artists: Eleanor Antin, Mike Bidlo, Thomas Dan, Tom Marioni,
Stuart Netsky, Alan Scarritt, Suzanne Wheeling and William E. Williams
in residence May 30-June 4, 2000

Opening weekend of performances and events: June 3-4, 2000

Exhibition dates: June 3-30, 2000

Eight visual and performance artists from across the nation came together in residence at the Chester Springs Studio to explore recent art history through the physical and narrative filter of place: the historic village of Yellow Springs, thirty miles west of Philadelphia, with a two hundred year tradition of regenesis and art. Aptly titled Reenactment/Rapprochement, the project examined the dialectical relationships among appropriation and creation, review and renewal, through a series of new and recreated installation and performance works, public forums, and community workshops.

From May 30 to June 4, 2000, Reenactment/Rapprochement participating artists Eleanor Antin, Mike Bidlo, Thomas Dan, Tom Marioni, Stuart Netsky, Alan Scarritt, Suzanne Wheeling, and William Williams were in residence at the Studio. The artists participating in Reenactment/Rapprochement, although diverse in style, employ a common strategy to their creative process. Built within a narrative framework, their art allows itself to be discovered, manipulated, and tabulated as though it were any other form of historical information. Several of the artists revisited notable artworks of the past (Bidlo and Netsky). Other artists revisited charged moments in history, or "revisited" imagined histories that allowed them to come to terms with changed or unresolved interpersonal or social issues (Antin and Williams). A number of participating artists whose art products had been ephemeral (performance or temporary, site-based installations) were given the opportunity to revisit their earlier work in a way not usually possible -- and to find new meanings in it (Dan, Marioni, Scarritt, and Wheeling). All of these forms of revisiting ultimately shared a common goal: a fuller integration of the present with the past in a way that revives and renews.

While in residence at the Studio, artists also interacted with disparate cultural groups from around the region through community workshops led by each artist. Reenactment/Rapprochement culminated with a two-day weekend of public events on June 3 and 4, 2000. Each day included performances, artist presentations, audience discussions, and site tours organized around the project's thematic paradigms. Artists' works remained on exhibit at Chester Springs for one month.
Please download our project newsletters for more information:
Reenactment/RapprochementNewsletter 1 (Interviews with Antin, Bidlo, Netsky, and Williams)
Reenactment/RapprochementNewsletter 2 (Interviews with Dan, Marioni, Scarritt, and Wheeling)
Reenactment/RapprochementNewsletter 3 (Project Documentation)
These are PDF files. If you do not have the Acrobat PDF Reader click here.

Reenactment/Rapprochement was supported by a grant from the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Additional funding for Reenactment/Rapprochement was received from the Humanities-and-the-Arts initiative, administered by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and funded principally by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and from The Dietrich Foundation.

Top photo: William E. Williams, Foundation, Peach Orchard, Gettysburg National Military Park, 1994.

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