Arnoud Holleman

Amsterdam — Saturday 02 November, 2024
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#fiction

Immovably Centred

De Appel, Amsterdam

At De Appel, Arnoud Holleman invites actors, curators and museum directors to read his text. The title "Immovably Centred" derives from the motto that Rainer Maria Rilke used for his biography about Auguste Rodin: 'The hero is he who is immovably centred'. Rilke puts Rodin on a pedestal as a superhuman genius, Arnoud Holleman stages a contemporary artist who, still, identifies with this kind of artistry.

Call me

immaterial artwork, city of Zwolle

It's either filthy thoughts or intellectual blah-blah, and nothing in between. Look closer. More closer. Look at me! You hear me?! If there's any reason for me to be ashamed, it's you. The only reason I'm standing in front of the town hall is because I happened to have been 'created' by a world-famous sculptor: Rodin, the genius of deep emotions and existential gestures. Yeah right. The way I'm standing here, Rodin is the only person who's never once laid a finger on me.

Driving Miss Palmen

VPRO television

I understand why you want to be a writer. It?s better to be mediocre and famous than just being mediocre. But the difference between you and me is that I?m able to create a character of myself in a story I choose to live in. And you, I?m sorry to say, are not. That makes me a writer and you just a character in someone elses plot. And as for my work: The big misunderstanding about my work is that critics keep comparing the fictious Connie Palmen with the real Connie Palmen, instead of comparing her to other great characters in litterature, like Madame Bovary, or Lolita...

Co*star

Dus toen kreeg ik heel erg de wens, als mens maar ook als kunstenaar, om me te bevrijden van al die dingen... om werkelijk iets nieuws in te slaan. Maar dat gaat niet, want je kan het nieuwe niet bedenken op basis van al die ouwe zooi. Dus ik dacht, ik wil daar van af... en toen bleek dat soap ... bleek een deur te zijn naar... zeg maar dat je die ruimte in je hoofd weer werkelijk leeg zou kunnen maken en als een soort potentie zou kunnen gaan vullen... zelf.