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Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
28.02.2026, 19:00 — 24:00Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
Grand Opening 2026
Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
28.02.2026, 19:00 — 24:00Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
GRAND OPENING 2026
Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
We warmly invite you to a celebratory evening marking the seventh anniversary of West in the former U.S. embassy. We will present large-scale, site-specific installations, a new exhibition on a cult writer from the second half of the twentieth century, and a group show featuring young artists, with a focus on identity and society. Together, these presentations offer different perspectives on the world. This evening also marks the start of a new season, opening space for experimentation, imagination, and radical thinking.
19:00 Deuren open & drinks
19:30 Opening + speech
19:45 Performance
20:00 Exhibitions open
20:30 Ongoing Music Program
20:00 - 24:00 uur: Exhibitions
1. CEVDET EREK: ꜴCCIDENT GROTESQUE, site-specific installations
2. KATHY ACKER: Blood, Guts, and Anarchy, Curator: Leonor Jonker
3. JAMES BALDWIN: Group Exhibition: Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz & Özkan Gölpınar.
20:30 - 24:00 uur: Live muziek: Program by Alex Andropoulos
1. HARRY GÓRSKI-BROWN: Multi-instrumentalist who renews Gaelic music with voice and electro-acoustic experiments.
2. MARIAM REZAEI: Award-winning composer and turntablist. A mix of improvisation, experimental club music, and hip-hop.
3. BLACK FONDU: Intriguing underground act with raw rap combined with glitchy noise and experimental dance.
CEVDET EREK: ꜴCCIDENT GROTESQUE
The former U.S. embassy building by Marcel Breuer is transformed by Cevdet Erek into a monumental sound installation, guiding visitors through 24 rooms with a continuous beat. Inspired by one of the first synthesizers from 1957, he creates a 12-tone rhythm that deviates from traditional Western time signatures, allowing visual and auditory elements to merge into a new experience of space and sound. Ꜵccident Grotesque is Erek’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands.
Trained as an architect and sound designer, Erek explores the interplay between sound and architecture. The building itself becomes a life-sized synthesizer, and the installation ‘Fluctuations of Raw Techno Material’ (2024) demonstrates how sound and space influence one another. With precision and musical inventiveness, he makes the rhythm that permeates our world physically perceptible. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, dOCUMENTA, and in museums such as Hamburger Bahnhof and MACBA in Barcelona.
KATHY ACKER: Blood, Guts, and Anarchy
This exhibition shows how American avant-garde writer Kathy Acker (1947–1997) developed a radical, feminist literary language. She explored themes such as gender, identity, power, and desire, plundered the literary canon, and placed the body at the center of her experimental texts full of sex, violence, and transgression. The exhibition highlights her roots in the New York underground, avant-garde performance art, and cut-up techniques, and is the first presentation of her work in the Netherlands. Curator Leonor Jonker emphasizes Acker’s enduring influence on literature, feminism, and counterculture.
JAMES BALDWIN: This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life
James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz en Özkan Gölpınar
This exhibition explores the relevance of writer and activist James Baldwin today. His radical honesty about race, sexuality, and identity inspires contemporary artists to examine themes such as exile, queerness, and new forms of resistance. Baldwin’s stay in Turkey (1961–1971) was a period of rest, freedom, and collaboration that was crucial to his literary development. Works by Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz, and curator Özkan Gölpınar reflect on identity as an ongoing negotiation, shaped by exile, desire, and self-definition. Gölpınar’s monologue on Baldwin, along with an accompanying publication, provides an additional layer, while a series of evenings with artists, writers, and thinkers connects his legacy to current questions about migration, identity, and representation.
HARRY GÓRSKI-BROWN
Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist Harry Górski-Brown has been making a name for himself the last few years through his innovative blend of electroacoustic and traditional Scottish Gaelic music. In the recent resurgence of UK and European traditional / folk music, also prevalent in experimental music, Górski-Brown has been an atypical example of the possibilities of traditional and folk music being revitalized and expanded through innovative methods of production and performance, yet without hindering the significance or beauty of the music. Having studied violin at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before gravitating towards more experimental composition, he is a skilled violinist and Bagpiper, employing his capabilities along with his voice to perform electronically manipulated renditions of Gaelic music. The result is haunting, moving, at times bizarre musical worlds.
MARIAM REZAEI
Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer working across experimental music, free improvisation, experimental club music and hip-hop. Described by the English music magazine The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time using classic turntablist skills and her own innovative techniques. She is an extremely unique voice in contemporary music and performance due to both her instrument and use of it, but also her uncompromising, bold and fearless stance to the music industry and community. Her concerts, either solo or in groups are always sonically provocative, intimidating and exhilarating.
BLACK FONDU
Born in Accra, Ghana, BLACK FONDU is an enigmatic and energetic artist based in London, suddenly and surely making a name for himself in the underground music of his city. His sound combines glitchy noise elements with unapologetic rap vocals of raw emotion, catapulted into the realms of extreme dance by explosive sonic experimentation in rhythm and melody. The music is abrasively disorientating and very physical, with his body employed as a medium in his frantic performances. Besides his music and in line with his punk DIY ethos, BLACK FONDU produces equally abrasive video works for his music, demonstrating further his chaotic spirit.
Kathy Acker, Diana Blok, Cevdet Erek, Özkan Gölpınar, Saiah Lopaz, Sai Rodrigues, Beldan Sezen and more.
Event
28.02.2026, 19:00 — 24:00
Entry
10 euro get tickets
Location
West Den Haag in the former American Embassy, Lange Voorhout 102, The Hague
We warmly invite you to a celebratory evening marking the seventh anniversary of West in the former U.S. embassy. We will present large-scale, site-specific installations, a new exhibition on a cult writer from the second half of the twentieth century, and a group show featuring young artists, with a focus on identity and society. Together, these presentations offer different perspectives on the world. This evening also marks the start of a new season, opening space for experimentation, imagination, and radical thinking.
Program
19:00 Deuren open & drinks
19:30 Opening + speech
19:45 Performance
20:00 Exhibitions open
20:30 Ongoing Music Program
20:00 - 24:00 uur: Exhibitions
1. CEVDET EREK: ꜴCCIDENT GROTESQUE, site-specific installations
2. KATHY ACKER: Blood, Guts, and Anarchy, Curator: Leonor Jonker
3. JAMES BALDWIN: Group Exhibition: Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz & Özkan Gölpınar.
20:30 - 24:00 uur: Live muziek: Program by Alex Andropoulos
1. HARRY GÓRSKI-BROWN: Multi-instrumentalist who renews Gaelic music with voice and electro-acoustic experiments.
2. MARIAM REZAEI: Award-winning composer and turntablist. A mix of improvisation, experimental club music, and hip-hop.
3. BLACK FONDU: Intriguing underground act with raw rap combined with glitchy noise and experimental dance.
EXHIBITIONS OPENING
CEVDET EREK: ꜴCCIDENT GROTESQUE
The former U.S. embassy building by Marcel Breuer is transformed by Cevdet Erek into a monumental sound installation, guiding visitors through 24 rooms with a continuous beat. Inspired by one of the first synthesizers from 1957, he creates a 12-tone rhythm that deviates from traditional Western time signatures, allowing visual and auditory elements to merge into a new experience of space and sound. Ꜵccident Grotesque is Erek’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands.
Trained as an architect and sound designer, Erek explores the interplay between sound and architecture. The building itself becomes a life-sized synthesizer, and the installation ‘Fluctuations of Raw Techno Material’ (2024) demonstrates how sound and space influence one another. With precision and musical inventiveness, he makes the rhythm that permeates our world physically perceptible. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, dOCUMENTA, and in museums such as Hamburger Bahnhof and MACBA in Barcelona.
KATHY ACKER: Blood, Guts, and Anarchy
This exhibition shows how American avant-garde writer Kathy Acker (1947–1997) developed a radical, feminist literary language. She explored themes such as gender, identity, power, and desire, plundered the literary canon, and placed the body at the center of her experimental texts full of sex, violence, and transgression. The exhibition highlights her roots in the New York underground, avant-garde performance art, and cut-up techniques, and is the first presentation of her work in the Netherlands. Curator Leonor Jonker emphasizes Acker’s enduring influence on literature, feminism, and counterculture.
JAMES BALDWIN: This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life
James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz en Özkan Gölpınar
This exhibition explores the relevance of writer and activist James Baldwin today. His radical honesty about race, sexuality, and identity inspires contemporary artists to examine themes such as exile, queerness, and new forms of resistance. Baldwin’s stay in Turkey (1961–1971) was a period of rest, freedom, and collaboration that was crucial to his literary development. Works by Diana Blok, Beldan Sezen, Sai Rodrigues, Isaiah Lopaz, and curator Özkan Gölpınar reflect on identity as an ongoing negotiation, shaped by exile, desire, and self-definition. Gölpınar’s monologue on Baldwin, along with an accompanying publication, provides an additional layer, while a series of evenings with artists, writers, and thinkers connects his legacy to current questions about migration, identity, and representation.
MUSIC PROGRAM
HARRY GÓRSKI-BROWN
Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist Harry Górski-Brown has been making a name for himself the last few years through his innovative blend of electroacoustic and traditional Scottish Gaelic music. In the recent resurgence of UK and European traditional / folk music, also prevalent in experimental music, Górski-Brown has been an atypical example of the possibilities of traditional and folk music being revitalized and expanded through innovative methods of production and performance, yet without hindering the significance or beauty of the music. Having studied violin at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before gravitating towards more experimental composition, he is a skilled violinist and Bagpiper, employing his capabilities along with his voice to perform electronically manipulated renditions of Gaelic music. The result is haunting, moving, at times bizarre musical worlds.
MARIAM REZAEI
Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer working across experimental music, free improvisation, experimental club music and hip-hop. Described by the English music magazine The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time using classic turntablist skills and her own innovative techniques. She is an extremely unique voice in contemporary music and performance due to both her instrument and use of it, but also her uncompromising, bold and fearless stance to the music industry and community. Her concerts, either solo or in groups are always sonically provocative, intimidating and exhilarating.
BLACK FONDU
Born in Accra, Ghana, BLACK FONDU is an enigmatic and energetic artist based in London, suddenly and surely making a name for himself in the underground music of his city. His sound combines glitchy noise elements with unapologetic rap vocals of raw emotion, catapulted into the realms of extreme dance by explosive sonic experimentation in rhythm and melody. The music is abrasively disorientating and very physical, with his body employed as a medium in his frantic performances. Besides his music and in line with his punk DIY ethos, BLACK FONDU produces equally abrasive video works for his music, demonstrating further his chaotic spirit.