Trouw — Controversial screening of Kirac’s Honeypot goes ahead after all. Who are these provocateurs?

Activist groups are protesting against Wednesday’s screening of Honeypot at Amsterdam debate centre De Balie. They believe the makers glorify sexual violence. De Balie will show the film regardless.

Robin Goudsmit. 27 October 2021, 07:25.

On Wednesday evening, Amsterdam debate centre De Balie is screening a film whose plot seems, to put it mildly, somewhat peculiar. For Honeypot, the artists’ collective Kirac filmed the ‘left-wing’ student Jini, who posted an appeal on the website GeenStijl saying she ‘wanted sex with a commenter’, on condition that the encounter would be filmed.

Philosopher Sid Lukkassen, who is associated with Forum for Democracy, responded. No sex takes place. Lukkassen is, however, subjected to considerable bullying, and the visibly distressed philosopher soon regrets his participation.

Police investigation

Kirac likes to involve itself in the online and offline polarisation between the political left and right. At the premiere, which had already taken place on 8 October, the collective went considerably further. For that occasion, Kirac invited artist Julian A., about whom NRC published an extensive investigation last year. It alleged that A. had raped, assaulted and intimidated around twenty women. He is under police investigation.

At the premiere, A. was welcomed on horseback, riding along a path strewn with flower petals. The action took place because Kirac wants to resist what its members see as cancel culture. ‘A. is now a window cleaner in The Hague and has been expelled from the art world,’ says Kirac founder Stefan Ruitenbeek. He considers that unjust.

Because of A.’s appearance at Honeypot, activist groups want Wednesday evening’s screening at De Balie cancelled. ‘A.’s presence was a huge middle finger to the victims,’ says a spokesperson for the feminist organisation Wonda Collective, which demonstrated against the film evening on Monday. Wonda has collected around 1,700 signatures against the event at De Balie.

‘Slander and lies’

Yoeri Albrecht, De Balie’s director, says the petition is based on ‘slander and lies’. Julian A. has not been invited on Wednesday evening. Indeed, De Balie’s head of communications adds, the security guards know what A. looks like and will refuse him entry. There will also be additional police protection. De Balie also says it is ‘not giving Kirac a platform’, although Ruitenbeek will appear on stage to answer questions.

‘The film will actually be critically examined that evening,’ the spokesperson says. ‘After that evening, the film will be available online anyway, so we are providing the necessary context.’ Ruitenbeek originally wanted thirty guest-list places, but was given two. De Balie’s point is that this is emphatically not Kirac’s evening.

Kirac did hold a counter-demonstration on Monday evening. They also brought a cake with a photograph of A.’s leg on it. The collective called the action ‘a gift from one tribal group to another’.

Who are Kirac’s provocateurs?

The Kirac filmmakers say everything revolves around art. People getting hurt is part of it, they believe. ‘Ultimately, you have to be willing to go to hell for art.’

Without exception, everyone who takes part in a film by the collective Kirac (Keeping It Real Art Critics), whether invited or not, comes off badly. But anyone who is then shocked falls into the category of ‘compromisers, bourgeois people’, according to artist Stefan Ruitenbeek, who forms its centre together with his partner and Kirac’s resident philosopher, Kate Sinha. ‘Art is everything to me. It is a game. People who react to this in a prim, fussy way don’t want to read between the lines.’

Since 2016, Kirac has been making online films that fiercely criticise the art world. In one film they make gallerist Mara McCarthy cry; in another, architect Rem Koolhaas comes under fire. Especially in the beginning, this ruthless approach earned praise; the collective continues to receive funding from the Mondriaan Fund to this day.

Fiercely opposed to baby-boomer elites

Over the course of its existence, Kirac has offended quite a few people. The collective was dismissed from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy because of remarks by Sinha, who said of an exhibition by artist Zanele Muholi that ‘the visitor was expected to take an interest in the idle fancies of a spoilt slut simply because she comes from South Africa and is a black lesbian’. The collective also vehemently opposes the baby-boomer elites who hold sway in cultural institutions to which it ‘would like much greater access’.

After all the quarrels on the left of the political spectrum, a rift on the right recently followed. Initially, the right-wing trolling website GeenStijl applauded the initiative of Kirac figure Jini Jane. As a ‘left-wing UvA girl’, she wanted to have sex with a commenter on camera. But when philosopher Sid Lukkassen was subsequently humiliated in Jini’s boudoir, GeenStijl had had enough. They would not post the video.

The artists are not troubled by Lukkassen’s regret. ‘As an artist, you have to be able to dissemble. We treat the truth very flexibly in order to discover the truth ourselves,’ says Sinha. She and Ruitenbeek display a certain disdain for moral principles. ‘Without a sense of rootedness, people find something to hold on to in moral principles. But ultimately, you have to be willing to go to hell for art.’ Lukkassen himself writes in De Dagelijkse Standaard that he finds it ‘bizarre’ that the film has been released, but also recognises that it is ‘counterproductive to argue with Kirac about it’.

Men accused of abuse

In its next project, Kirac wants to stand up for the rights of men accused of abuse. In the collective’s view, they are being unfairly ‘cancelled’. Society, Kirac believes, judges these men far too quickly.

In a new film, the collective therefore intends to stage a ‘show trial’. It features a man who was also named in NRC’s abuse investigation into Julian A. At least one criminal complaint has been filed against him. Kirac originally wanted the victims to appear in the film too, but Ruitenbeek cannot yet say whether they are willing to take part.