THE OLD BRAND NEW is a series of English-language lectures, co-initiated by LISA, in which speakers from the Netherlands and abroad, with backgrounds in diverse disciplines - from the visual arts and theatre to dance and architecture - reflect on ‘the old in the new’ (and vice versa) from varying, oscillating perspectives.

In the arts, ‘newness’ is a much-desired quality, but it is also a curse. Is newness desirable, how new is neo, and does ‘retro’ bring renewal?
By examining the concept ‘new’ in the light of ‘old’ subjects such as historical consciousness, virtuosity, beauty, knowledge, entertainment and radicalism, the series of lectures entitled THE OLD BRAND NEW intends to rescue ‘new’ from its tarnished image and illuminate it in all its complexity.

Upcoming lectures 2008
New Beauty
New Centre
New Idealism
New Virtuosity
New Knowledge
New Entertainment
New Subversion
What is New?

Credits
Editors Frédérique Bergholtz, Nicole Beutler, Ann Demeester, Simon Dove, Marijke Hoogenboom, Gabriëlle Schleijpen
Organisation de Appel, Dutch Art Institute, If I Can’t Dance…, research group Art Practice and Development at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, LISA, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Springdance, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam
Partners Het Domein voor Kunstkritiek, Goethe- Instituut, Holland Festival, De Kring, Radio Rietveld, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Werkplaats Typografie
Thanks to Roos Borchers, Annemieke Keurentjes, Armand Mevis, Dorothea Sinnema, Lisette Smits, Henri Snel, Astrid Schumacher
Co-ordination Marijn Jostmeijer
Publicity Pieta Koopman, Gerbrand Korevaar
Graphic Design Kasia Korczak & Joris Kritis at Werkplaats Typografie
Stage Design Elena Goray

Information info@theoldbrandnew.nl

Antonio Gramsci said that whenever you think you are at a turning point in history, people always keep on using the word ‘new’ - just like now, everything to do with globalization is new: new economies, new telecommunications, new materials. Gramsci said that whenever you hear this word ‘new’ you have to understand that you stand in a very fragile relationship between the past and the present, and that is incubation. It is not as if you stand at the end of something or in the middle of a brave new world. It is a middleness of a different kind. It is, in a way, starting from thinking you are always in the middle of something[…]. Homi Bhaba, 2007 (from interview with Solange de Boer and Zoe Gray in ‘Brian Jungen’, Source Book 1, Witte de With, Rotterdam 2007)