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The World Question Center Questioned

Sunday 19 April 2009, 14.00

lecture by Koen Brams
— SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, NL

In the context of the exhibition Endless Installation: A Ghost Story for Adults, organised by Public Space With A Roof and held at SMART Project Space in Amsterdam, Koen Brams will give the lecture The World Question Center Questioned, on Sunday 19 April. The lecture addresses two films made by Jef Cornelis in 1969: James Lee Byars: een Amerikaans kunstenaar and The World Question Center. The first film is a fairly typical documentary on the occasion of Byars’ exhibition at the Antwerp Wide White Space Gallery (18 April to 7 May 1969) – his first show on the European mainland. The World Question Center is without a doubt one of the most curious programmes made by Cornelis: it is the live broadcast of a performance that took place in a studio of the Belgian public broadcasting corporation in Brussels. During this performance, entirely led by the American artist James Lee Byars, more than twenty personalities – artists (like Joseph Beuys and Marcel Broodthaers), scientists and media figures – were given the opportunity to ask what they considered the most relevant question. Some questions were posed, no answers given. In his lecture, Koen Brams will elaborate on how The World Question Center came into being and situate the two films within the oeuvre of Jef Cornelis and of James Lee Byars.