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At home with Jef Geys
This vitrine display centers on the exhibition What Are We Having for Dinner Tonight? by Belgian artist Jef Geys (1934-2018). For this 1993 exhibition at Witte de With, the artist involved nine families from Alexanderpolder, a neighborhood in Rotterdam. On display are photographs and various other materials that document the exhibition and related projects. The conceptual thread knitting these ephemera together is the artist’s longstanding interest in the various expressions of “home,” from Geys' exploration of post-war housing projects in Rotterdam to his open-ended project in the Parque Guarani favela in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Participants Jef Geys Curators Samuel Saelemakers <div class="
Federico Herrero  — Open Envelope
Federico Herrero began painting this work in the folds of the architecture—in the gallery corners, on the perimeters of its windows, at the meeting points between walls and floor. But his irregular block-like shapes and elongated color-fields slowly trickled elsewhere. Through the sprawling shapes of Open Envelope, the work painterly envelops the gallery. Color is approached by the artist as sound and volume. To create this work, as with his other compositions, Herrero considers the weight of color, as well as the different kinds of energy color can absorb or may come to express. Open Envelope will remain on view until Spring 2019. Participants Federico Herrero Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers <div class="
Irene Kopelman, a solo exhibition
Irene Kopelman, a solo exhibition presents a selection of artworks from four different projects created by the artist between 2012 and 2016. Each of these projects was made during, or after, Kopelman engaged in fieldwork, travelling to comprehend and, ultimately, to render these environments. For nearly two decades, Kopelman analyzes with scientific rigor the landscapes and ecosystems of remote places, or, at least, sites that are not easily accessible, from the volcanic islands of Hawaii in the Pacific to the mountainous heartland of Borneo in Asia to the Peruvian rainforest in South America. At each location, she develops a specific method of observation. Working on-site and spending significant time with her objects of study, whether these are tree lines or the colors of earth, Kopelman creates a system of representation that becomes the basis of her painterly work. She does this, first, through drawings and travelogues made during her expeditions, which later become the basis for this Argentinian artist’s studio-based practice in Amsterdam. Through these different stages of removal, or of distance from an original site of study, and through the inflections made by intuition, the artist represents interpretations of environmental phenomena. Her work is less a matter of document than an occasion to welcome sensuous imagery as imaginations of place. The four large-scale paintings from her Tree Lines series capture the effect of avalanches on the mountainous landscape of the Swiss Alps. Also on display is one of her color-index works titled Sampling Greens. It was created after a scientific expedition that Kopelman was part of, and which was organized to sample animals and plants on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, located in Eastern Malaysia. The results provided important information to conservation agencies concerned with the unique biodiversity of what is considered the Heart of Borneo—at only 1.5 million years old, a young region in geological terms. Kopelman’s objective during this expedition to Asia was to grasp the vast variations of greens in the jungle. Sampling Greens strikes a dialogue with Forest Windows, which is included in the exhibition and which was done after Kopelman undertook fieldwork in the Reserva Territorial Madre de Dios in Peru. A combination of drawings made on-site and of watercolors created after fieldtrips, manifest her feeling that “you don’t feel you are in a landscape, but rather surrounded by a continuum of elements.” At every stop during her expedition in the Peruvian jungle, Kopelman would sit and draw a section of the dense forest by establishing a perimeter of observation, an imagined window frame delineating the field she would draw. She established a different method during and after her travels to study the dense yet dried and fractured lava landscapes of Hawaii, where she has been twice to date. Hawaii’s volcanic landscapes are represented in a massive sculpture and a series of paintings showcased in the exhibition, which are made after a rigorous study and indexing of black hues drawn from the island’s earth. Whereas in past centuries, artists participated in scientific expeditions to map and picture landscapes that were (or aimed to be) colonized, Kopelman takes up the role—as a woman artist, a rare case given the historic gendered taboos existing for such a task—to manifest the places of intuition and subjectivity in representation, whether it be scientific or otherwise. Through her practice, which entails and ultimately depends on collaboration with experts in the territories she comes to investigate and visit, Kopelman’s work is also able to contribute to documenting, and hopefully lessening, the effects of global warming. A combination of aesthetic venture and scientific exploration, the work of Kopelman pictures the role visual arts has in making palpable conditions of our day. Participants Irene Kopelman Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By The Mondriaan Fund contributed to the artist fee through the experimentation regulation. <div class="
Muebles Manuel
Untitled is furnished with various pieces made by Muebles Manuel, an extension of Manuel Raeder’s graphic design and publishing studio. Muebles Manuel’s line of furniture explores the connections and boundaries between exhibitions, books, archives, and typography. Working closely with Witte de With to furnish the space, and knowing these pieces would be integrated within Federico Herrero’s Open Envelope, Raeder has conceived areas for contemplating, socializing, and browsing. Some of the furniture pieces were designed especially for Untitled, while others come from its existing catalog and were slightly modified to fit the purpose of this exhibition space. The furniture design combines manual labor and industrial design. For example, the Adrián Chair, that accompanies the rounded and oval-shaped tables in the space, consists of a hand-woven cover made of palmtree-thread by Oaxacan artisan Adrián López, a collaborator of Raeder, which are placed over an industrially-made monobloc plastic chair. The Z-bookshelves consist of several powder-coated steel ladders that are held together by plastic cable-ties. The premise of their design is drawn from the Roman letters A and Z. The metal elements placed over the shelves are called Buch Arms, and were originally created as a simple cataloguing tool for librarians and archivists. Participants Manuel Raeder Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers <div class="
Rotterdam Cultural Histories #14: May 1968
Rotterdam Cultural Histories is a collaborative project between Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and TENT. This long-term project, begun in 2014, articulates conceptual meeting points between the programs of these two institutions, both housed in this building, through the study of their common roots in Rotterdam. The fourteenth edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories focuses on how the city newspapers reported on international and local events during the revolutionary times and spirit of May 1968, considered then, and still today, a turning point of our times. This was just before television became a common household staple, and when printed newspapers, as well as radio, functioned as the main media channels for distributing information. At the time, seven different newspapers were published in Rotterdam, all represented in this exhibition: Algemeen Dagblad, De Rotterdammer, De Tijd–De Maasbode, Het Rotterdams Parool, Het Vrije Volk, Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant, and Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad. The month of May 1968 is mostly associated to the student movements in Paris that shook the world. Fifty years ago, students from the Sorbonne University held a demonstration against social inequalities in France. They were soon joined by sympathizers from all walks of life and labor unions declaring a general strike in the country. Their call to action was not limited to France; it mobilized activists internationally. While the Paris events were mainly reported in the newspapers from May 1968, these also called attention to the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, begun in January that year, as to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movements in the United States. This documentary- and event-based exhibition presents an installation of newspaper covers from Rotterdam dailies. The selection gives a feeling of the times, expressing topics and voices important in Rotterdam. For example, in the Netherlands, 1968 saw the arrival of the first color television broadcasts and the introduction of the birth control pill. Another important event taking place in Rotterdam during that time was the installation of the Rotterdam Council for Youth and Children, designed to address a growing need to give voice to the city’s youth. It was also when the groundbreaking publication of De Binnenstadsbeleving en Rotterdam (“The Inner-city Experience and Rotterdam”) by Prof. Dr. Rob Wentholt gave impetus to analyze the new urban culture and expectations of Rotterdammers after the War reconstruction. These and various other stories in May 1968 newspapers, and the question of what other events took place here that weren’t reported, form the basis of a series of public programs organized in conjunction to Rotterdam Cultural Histories #14: May 1968. Consult our Calendar for details. Special thanks to Algemeen Dagblad, De Rotterdammer, De Tijd–De Maasbode, Het Rotterdams Parool, Het Vrije Volk, Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant, Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad, and the Municipal Archive Rotterdam. Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
Untitled
In Untitled, curatorial and educational goals are intertwined. With art installations and events, as well as a bookstore and an initiative dedicated to collective learning, this long-term project continuously evolves. Inaugurated in May 2018, it is sited in our now freely accessible ground floor gallery. Untitled is conceptually conceived as a Matryoshka doll, where one work holds another work, which contains another work, and so forth, infinitely. To offer this multi-layered experience, there are a variety of display mechanisms and presentation formats in the gallery. Each of these involves different exhibition time-periods and engages with varying spans of attention in terms of how they’re rolled-out and experienced. With this in mind, a site-specific work for the space has been commissioned, which is a room-size painting by Federico Herrero, as have been the furnishings of Untitled, commissioned to Muebles Manuel, which includes tables and chairs, bookshelves, and vitrine cases. The latter includes changing displays of new projects every exhibition season. Whereas one of these two vitrines features new artistic and curatorial projects, another is devoted to displays that draw from Witte de With’s rich exhibition history, and especially on those projects that involved community engagement. For its part, new books are added every month to the bookshelves in Untitled and can be browsed through or purchased on site. This progressively growing inventory of the bookstore component of Untitled is made by the Witte de With team and guest participants, who select a theme and related bibliography. The bookstore also includes titles relating to artists participating in Witte de With’s exhibitions, and titles published by Witte de With over the years. Additionally, it features publications selected by TENT and CBK Rotterdam, which center on artists living here in Rotterdam and on local topics more broadly. In Untitled, a series of events and public programs take place on a regular basis, especially on weekends. Please check the Calendar for event listings. We tend to serve refreshments at every program, and offer a casual atmosphere to engage with contemporary art and culture, to openly exchange ideas and hold conversations, and to make meaningful encounters with people. Kicking-off in Autumn 2018, is a new initiative involving a work-study fellowship program for Rotterdam youth. Including courses ranging from art history to hospitality to business, the new initiative entails a hiring program that sees the participants collectively running the program and operations of Untitled in collaboration with the Witte de With team. Not just a gallery or classroom, not fully a bookstore or café, Untitled is designed to be both a site and an occasion for collective learning. Participants Jef Geys, Federico Herrero, Angie Keefer, Manuel Raeder Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By The Mondriaan Fund contributed to the artists fees through the experimentation regulation. Goethe-Institut <div class="
A group exhibition with work by Dora García, Sharon Hayes, Emily Jacir, Mahmoud Khaled, Carlos Motta, Wu Tsang, Akram Zaatari, and Quinn Latimer
At Witte de With, we have received some trailblazing letters as of late. Noted are missives that go from critiques of our institution’s name to suggestions for why and how we ought to be more inclusive or hospitable. We also receive letters stating how this or that project we’ve done has been influential. Indeed, in most art institutions, epistolary exchanges are part of the work culture. And this is likely to happen more often at institutions that engage people from different parts of the world, not solely from its immediate surroundings. Within this scenario, a time difference is accounted for in one instance or other, even within the most basic of epistolary exchanges. However objectively or subjectively it is experienced, and regardless of whether it is framed as a historical, chronological or technical measure, time is pointed, expressed, felt. No less, these exchanges tend to draw on cultural or geographical divides between correspondents. In this kind of epistolarity, explanation of a spatial-temporal context seems compulsory, more than simply necessary. Consequently, an epistolary underlying expression “of the times” is articulated not only in a given latency or immediacy between sending and receiving dispatches—which, since the emergence of postal service has significantly shortened and changed in form due to communication technology—but also within and even between the very lines of a missive. The kind of epistolarity considered here lies beyond the bureaucracy a project entails and its associated correspondence; it also stands apart from mail art that centers, in principle, on using, and simultaneously exposing, the means and channels of distribution at hand. Taking this into account, this group exhibition explores the ways in which visual artists are reflecting on the history and present articulations of the epistolary form. The selection of works considers key characteristics of early examples of epistolary writing, namely, the ways in which there was an unclear distinction made between a letter’s status as reality or fiction, because, in their time of publication, these appeared to be a compilation of private documents that were seemingly found or inexplicably sourced; and how the epistolary can be seen to expounds on cultural differences between people and places, in its form as correspondence between lovers separated by class or war, or both, dispatches from a fortunate traveler, or letters from a soldier, an exile, an immigrant or someone they left behind. Being or feeling in captivity, and the urge or desire to be rescued, loved or simply understood is thus central in epistolarity. While letter writing has aimed to shorten distances between people, missives also mark the gaps that separate them apart, even if and when articulating beliefs and emotions through correspondence may be intended to bring people closer, or to come to terms with one another. Testimony, confession, anecdote; these forms of interiority, exteriority, and super-structures that describe a personal, and likewise present a grammar of a present-tense, are, at best, expressed in a literal and visual semiotic of a missive, however brief or developed an exchange may be. This exhibition includes seven art installations that in different ways explore epistolarity, each micro-politically pointing to a different technology and social context. As part of the exhibition is a custom-made wallpaper, designed in-house and installed sparsely throughout the gallery space. Including images that range from seventeenth-century paintings to contemporary films, it intends to make visually palpable something along the lines of an epistolary visual culture. Additionally, a series of programs and live-events on epistolarity have been organized in parallel to the exhibition. This is considered another form of address, instances where and when artistic projects and curatorial research is publicly shared and experienced. Relatedly is the exhibition’s publication: a letter commissioned to the poet and editor Quinn Latimer, which will be distributed midway through the exhibition period through postal service. More information to come. Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy thanks Laura Braverman and Jovanna Venegas for assisting in the initial research stage of this project, years back, as well as Andrea Valencia, who assisted in its development during her curatorial internship at Witte de With in the summer of 2018. Participants Dora García, Sharon Hayes, Emily Jacir, Mahmoud Khaled, Quinn Latimer, Carlos Motta, Wu Tsang, Akram Zaatari Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By The artists’ fees are supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Ana María Millán, a solo exhibition
This exhibition centers on Ana María Millán’s artistic research on the relations between digital cultures, gender and performativity. It premieres her animation Wanderlust (2017), commissioned by inSite/Casa Gallina and developed in Mexico City, as well as two other animations by Millán, one created in her native Colombia and another in Germany, where the artist currently lives and works. The exhibition also features a new series of watercolor paintings where Millán portrays the people and their invented gaming characters that were involved and are ultimately featured in her animations. Creating her work in close collaboration with video gamers and Live Action Role Play (LARP) communities, Millán approaches animation as a tool to invent, and at times simply claim, a meaningful space in this world. When taking on the medium of watercolor painting, she explores the fluid identity of these characters within the genre of fantasy, characteristic of gaming culture. This is Ana María Millán’s first solo-exhibition in the Netherlands. More information to come. Participants Ana María Millán Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Rosa de Graaf Supported By AMMODO, Embajada de Colombia en el Reino de los Países Bajos, The artist’ fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres
In 1991, New York artists John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres were commissioned to carry out a public art project in Rotterdam, to be presented in conjunction to their exhibition South Bronx Hall of Fame at Witte de With. To create it, they engaged eight residents of the city’s Cool district, which is also the neighborhood of this institution. In their effort to make art that portrays people in everyday life situations—rather than, say, heroes represented in public monuments or statues—the artists created bust portraits of each of the eight people and hung these sculptures in building facades throughout Cool. Some of the portrayed participants were young then; some older in age. Some of the sculptures figuring them remain in their original site; some were eventually removed. Earlier this year, we reached out to the former participants to see where they were then in life, and where they are now. Not all continue living in Cool, but all are still based in Rotterdam, for the exception of one, who has passed away. We also went to seek out the remaining sculptures on-site, and brought along with us the photographer who originally documented the process and project in 1991. Untitled features a display of archival images and documentation, as well as newly commissioned photo portraits of the original participants and testimonies about their experience of Cool and of working with Ahearn and Torres. This presentation is in the one of two vitrines in Untitled especially devoted for displays that draw from Witte de With’s rich exhibition history. Participants John Ahearn, Rigoberto Torres Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Jessy Koeiman <div class="
Mauricio Marcín on Marcos Kurtycz
In the late 1960s, during his 30s, the artist and graphic designer Marcos Kurtycz left Poland and took refuge in Mexico, where he lived until his death in 1996. Kurtycz’s mail art “bombs” and metaphoric “bombings,” begun in 1981, are the focus of a display guest-curated by Mauricio Marcín for Untitled at Witte de With. Kurtycz’s Bombs consisted of packages sent by the artist to institutions internationally, and which included drawings, letters, and other printed matter critiquing the academicism of their time. These missives were sent to institutions that, for Kurtycz, were imposing Eurocentric perspectives unto aesthetic production in Latin America. He called these institutions out for creating “aesthetic belts” and importing “imperialist tendencies” that were alien to, or simply unconcerned with, the histories and realities of the region. For Marcín, Kurtycz’s Bombs stand apart from the common understanding that mail is a communication tool that brings interlocutors closer; and that, instead, the artist uses mail art as a weapon that can set the art canon on fire. This display of Kurtycz’s Bombs is sited in one of the two vitrines of Untitled at Witte de With, and this presentation marks the first occasion of their exhibition in the Netherlands. Participants Marcos Kurtycz Curators Mauricio Marcín <div class="
Rosalind Nashashibi, a solo exhibition
In a new body of work, including paintings and a film in three parts, the first premiering in this exhibition, Rosalind Nashashibi explores affective relations and community building. These works follow a non-linear narrative that weaves various intimate settings, some within shared domestic spaces, others in outdoor environments. Shot in Lithuania, London, and Edinburgh, the film features the artist and her children, as well as close friends, which she considers extended family. In the process of creating this new work, Nashashibi questions how a group’s sense of commonality is dissolved when there is an absence of communal experience and adherence to linear time. Through an open-ended discussion of space and time travel in the film, which is in part inspired by the creation and dissolution of group relationships in Ursula Le Guin’s The Shobies’ Story (1990), Nashashibi explores new modes of conviviality, considering the absence of having a nuclear family structure, without an imperative model in sight. For years, Raimundas Malašauskas has collaborated with Nashashibi and is here the guest curator of the exhibition. He has remarked that Nashashibi’s work is the dip of an eye scrolling for a footnote while it reads. Writing about Nashashibi’s new work, Malašauskas points that “by exercising our freedom to belong in, or even peel away from, the multiple dimensions that make up the world, we can come to witness how predetermined our movements are, but also to imagine their possible irreversibility.” More information to come. Participants Rosalind Nashashibi Curators Raimundas Malašauskas Supported By AMMODO, The artist' fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Rotterdam Cultural Histories #15: Orphaned sculptures and public favourite
‘Art is elitist’ is a common accusation levelled at art: a ‘taste terror’ that nobody wants, imposed by ‘so-called experts’. ‘Citizens are always obstructive when it comes to art’, is a common suspicion from the other side. It is for this reason that some call ‘art and public participation incompatible’. This edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories offers a rather different story. Using three examples, TENT shows how the people of Rotterdam cherish their city’s sculptures, lobbying and campaign for them and, if necessary, adopting them. They focus on ‘Jan Gat’ (the popular name for Ossip Zadkine’s The Destroyed City), ‘Kabouter Buttplug’ (Paul McCarthy’s Santa Claus), and ‘De Witte Bollen’ (Hans van der Plas’s Cells). We have made a selection from the wealth of emotions, opinions, news reports, and campaigns concerning these sculptures. Rather than prioritising the perspective of artists or policymakers, this presentation is guided by the responses and views of fellow citizens. Rotterdam Cultural Histories is a collaborative project between Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and TENT. This long-term project, begun in 2014, articulates conceptual meeting points between the programs of these two institutions, both housed in this building, through the study of their common roots in Rotterdam. This presentation was realised with input from: Peter Buisman, Stichting De Witte Bollen Jeanne Hoogendoorn, Vereniging de Binnenweg Dees Linders and Sannetje van Haarst, SIR Caro van der Pluijm and Siebe Thissen, BKOR Network TENT Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
An exhibition with an audio script by Sarah Demeuse and Wendy Tronrud, as well as a soundtrack by Mario García Torres in collaboration with Sol Oosel
What distinguishes dropping out from being or feeling pushed out, dropping out from burning out? Dropping out from the art world, for example, has been a recurring decision by artists and cultural workers who have little to no interest in engaging with mainstream modes of production, with dominant beliefs systems, or even with urban environments and lifestyles championed by metropolitan life or consumer societies. This exhibition explores the phenomenon of dropping out. In a deserted gallery environment painted in different color scales inspired by solar time, two sound pieces are available: on the one hand is an audio recording that can be experienced through wireless headphones; on the other is ambient music throughout the gallery space, which is the exhibition’s music soundtrack. The gallery space is punctuated with words in vinyl lettering that speak to dropping out. The recorded piece, a script written by Sarah Demeuse and Wendy Tronrud, poses several questions pertaining to economic, gender, racial, institutional, geographic aspects that inform an understanding of dropping out, including: What can be learned from the “dropout” about models of productivity and living? The recording specifically highlights women artists of the post-1968 moment. Three voices come together in a close reading, listening, and questioning of the terms and narratives that create "dropouts." The exhibition’s soundtrack is created by Mario Garcia Torres, who collaborates with the musician Sol Oosel in its composition and production. Garcia Torres has conducted for over a decade significant artistic research on visual artists and musicians who have retreated from the mainstream or left urban contexts. He creates for the exhibition ambient music inspired by these cases of withdrawal, as well as from the environment of desert landscapes. During the course of this exhibition, artists Grace Ellen Barkey, Andrea Éva Győri, and Johanna Tengan have been invited to punctuate the gallery space and these ideas with live performances. A series of public programs will also be held during the exhibition. Please consult the calendar for a schedule of these events. Participants Grace Ellen Barkey, Sarah Demeuse, Mario García Torres, Andrea Éva Győri, Sol Oosel, Johanna Tengan, Wendy Tronrud Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers <div class="
Firelei Báez, new work
Firelei Báez was born in 1980 in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, and currently lives and works in New York. With a convergence of interests in anthropology, science fiction, black female subjectivity, and women’s work, Baéz is interested in how culture and identity are shaped by inherited histories. Approaching selfhood as malleable, her work serves as a defense against culturally predetermined ethnic stereotypes as maintained and perpetuated by dominant narratives. Drawing attention to the incomplete nature of our communal stories, Baéz creates alternate environments in which cultures, disparate or alike, can commune. In this exhibition, a new body of work is presented featuring three paintings and an immersive installation manifest from the artist's research on the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and its enduring significance. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. Participants Firelei Báez Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Rosa de Graaf Supported By AMMODO, James Cohan Gallery, New York, The artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, a solo exhibition
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, a solo exhibition presents a new co-commission by the Beirut-based artist and ‘private ear’. Featuring three newly designed sound instruments, over ninety sourced objects and an audio work, Earwitness Theatre (2018) explores the political effects of listening through the hallucinatory world of the ear-witness. The new commission is presented alongside Abu Hamdan’s recent film Walled Unwalled (2018), which together develop the artist’s ear-witness investigation into the Syrian regime prison of Saydnaya, which the artist was invited to carry out in partnership with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths University, London, as part of a broader enquiry. Abu Hamdan’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in partnership with Chisenhale Gallery, London; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. It will be presented at the partner venues throughout 2019. Participants Lawrence Abu Hamdan Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Rosa de Graaf Network Chisenhale Gallery, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Supported By AMMODO, The artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
On Contemporary Arab Representations
Within the vitrines of the continuously evolving exhibition Untitled, sited at the institution’s ground-floor gallery, is an archival display focusing on Contemporary Arab Representations. This long-term project was developed in 2002-2003 by Catherine David, Witte de With’s director at the time. Contemporary Arab Representations included various “representations by authors,” and was organized in three chapters: Beirut, Cairo, and Iraq. The project was ahead of its time on various counts. It offered and debated locally-specific cultural perspectives, over falsely-unifying overviews of a region. David’s use of “Arab” over “Middle Eastern” is a case in point. At the time, the press reviewed this long-term project widely, noting that the featured authors—how David referred to visual artists and cultural makers at large—were largely unknown to general audiences within and outside of their context. Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos <div class="
An Exhibition of Posters
Inaugurating on 7 April 2019 at Witte de With’s ground-floor gallery space is An exhibition of posters by Maja Bekan, Kévin Bray, Chloë Delanghe, Baldvin Einarsson, Priscila Fernandes, Vera Gulikers, An Onghena, Kevin Osepa, Josie Perry, Rory Pilgrim, Tramaine de Senna and Edward Clydesdale Thomson. The twelve visual artists, who live in the Netherlands and the surrounding region, were commissioned these posters as part of Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art’s collective learning initiative, with a focus on community building. This initiative entails many activities, including a work/study program designed for Rotterdam youth. The program includes art history courses as well as business workshops, and engages the program participants in skill-building activities to gain skills that range from hospitality to creating collaborative partnerships. During the first edition nine participants enrolled: Gizem Adanur, Chloé Blansjaar, Tayler Calister , Mohamed Chajid, Sjoerd van Kampen, Stijn Kemper, Eva Langstraat, Joy Ravenswaaij and Sytze van der Wolk. They are either still enrolled in school or are already pursuing a career in the arts. For a period of six months, these young Rotterdammers met, discussed ideas, and organized public programs together with Witte de With’s Curator of Collective Learning, Jessy Koeiman. The participants learned and worked in the ground floor gallery space of Witte de With from September 2018 until February 2019. This space has provisionally been called Untitled, and is designed as a site for art displays and public convening, as well as the primary location for the institution’s public programs. At the exhibition opening on Sunday, April 7, the collective learning participants will announce a new identity for Untitled, which they conceptualized and developed during their work/study program. In an effort to make the ground-floor gallery space more readily accessible to the public, entrance is free of admission. Participants Maja Bekan, Kévin Bray, Chloë Delanghe, Baldvin Einarsson, Priscila Fernandes, Vera Gulikers, An Onghena, Kevin Osepa, Josie Perry, Rory Pilgrim, Tramaine de Senna, Edward Clydesdale Thomson Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By An Exhibition of Posters and the Initiative for Collective Learning are partly made possible by The Cultural Participation Fund. <div class="
On Melly Shum
In its very first year of programming, 1990, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art presented a solo-exhibition of the Canadian artist Ken Lum. This exhibition also included an off-site commission of the artist’s billboard “Melly Shum Hates Her Job.” An image of it wraps around the front and back cover of the accompanying exhibition catalog, presented in this vitrine. Displayed here are documents related to this exhibition and commission. As you may read there, “Melly Shum Hates Her Job” is originally part of a body of work that the artist’s called “Portrait-Logos.” Besides this billboard, a number of works in this series were exhibited within the galleries of Witte de With as part of his exhibition. In the bottom row are a series of key documents that point to how the project first came about. These materials make evident a shared artistic and curatorial intent to address immigrant experience. This is expressed in the artist’s writings, as well as in dealings and contracts between institutions. Throughout the exhibition planning process, Chris Dercon, the founding director of Witte de With, proposed Ken Lum to make one of his “Portrait-Logos” as a city billboard. The artist accepted and selected “Melly Shum Hates Her Job” for this. In the center row of this vitrine are photographs showing the billboard across 12 locations throughout Rotterdam. These were taken by the people who pasted the billboards throughout the city. The billboards were exhibited in the public space for a period of six weeks. Apart from requesting public funding to finance Ken Lum’s exhibition at Witte de With, the institution required additional funding to finance the billboard project. To realize the latter, Witte de With sold editions of the billboard to museums, galleries, and individuals in the Netherlands and internationally. On the top row you can see one of several funding applications and grant evaluations associated to the exhibition. Also included is correspondence between the neighboring Museum Boijmans, who purchased an edition of “Melly Shum Hates Her Job.” Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Stijn Kemper <div class="
Rotterdam Cultural Histories #16: How does one get from Salvador Allende Street to the André van der Louw Bridge?
The exhibition focuses on a solidarity movement that emerged in Rotterdam following the coup d’état in Chile on September 11th 1973, which ousted President Salvador Allende and his cabinet. In the years that followed, thousands of Chileans would take exile in Rotterdam, leading to the advent of new initiatives, artworks, landmarks and events. The multi-faceted solidarity movement unfolded, for the most part, in the 1970s and the 1980s. A central figure in this movement was André van der Louw, mayor of Rotterdam from 1974 to 1981. Taking the form of a photo-essay, this exhibition highlights a selection of key events from the period. This exhibition can also be seen as a conceptual cartography of the route between two locations in Rotterdam: the Salvador Allende Street in ‘s- Gravenland-Oost and the André van der Louw Bridge in Wijnhaven. The names of this existing street and bridge were given in 1990 and 2015, respectively, recognizing the contributions of these politicians. The route also acknowledges the active Chilean community in Rotterdam. This exhibition is the sixteenth edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories, a collaborative project between Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and TENT, both housed in this building. Begun in 2014, this long-term research project focuses on studying of these institution's common roots in Rotterdam. Special thanks to Juan Heinsohn Huala, Jorge Kata Nuñez, BKOR (Siebe Thissen, Nienke Post, Caro van der Pluijm), Hans Abelman, Ricardo Cuadros, Martín la Roche, Jorge Arrate, Ana Maria Fernandez, Paul Goede, Karla Hinojosa, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos, and the Embassy of Chile in the Hague. Curators Rosa de Graaf Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
Cecilia Vicuña, a retrospective exhibition
Cecilia Vicuña, a retrospective exhibition brings together over a hundred works by the poet, visual artist, and activist Cecilia Vicuña. Since the 1960s, the artist has constituted a radical perspective on the relationship between art and politics through her writing and art making. She has done so in different parts of the world, leaving her native Chile for London in 1973, before basing herself in the United States since 1980. The 1973 military coup d’état in Chile shaped the structures of feeling in Vicuña’s formative years, as it did for an entire nation. In many ways, her work has been, and continues to be, triggered and inspired by political resistance. Feminist and sociological methods, as well as indigenous culture and natural materials imbue her art practice. For decades, she has developed a varied and multidisciplinary body of work, which at times relies on words, images, environments, and a combination of languages, mediums, and techniques. For her exhibition retrospective organized by Witte de With and developed by guest curator Miguel A. López, a number of artworks, documents, and ephemera are presented for the first time. Most have been sourced from Vicuña’s personal archives at her home and studio. This material, which enables a more comprehensive understanding of the artist’s practice, is joined by a number of artworks on loan, which span several decades of production. Significant chapters within Vicuña’s multifaceted practice are delved into and showcased. From her long-term quipu, precarios [precarious objects], and palabrarmas series, through to her painterly works, her work made in solidarity with Vietnam and as part of the collectives Tribu No [No Tribe] and Artists for Democracy, as well as a number of her films, which in turn point to the artist’s extensive performance practice. López, who is originally from Peru and who has collaborated closely with Vicuña over the years, has remarked that, “her flashes of inventive brilliance –whether literary, visual, performed, or audible– defy all conventional categories, through the weaving of word and seed, sound and thread, quipu and blood, body and dust, rubbish and cosmos.” Accompanying the exhibition is the publication Cecilia Vicuna: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure edited by López and published by Witte de With. It brings together three new and two existing essays on Vicuña’s work, and an anthology of diverse texts authored by the artist. Included, too, is a plethora of artwork images and visual documentation organized in four thematic sections, which encompass the full range of mediums the artist has worked in over the years. At Witte de With, the exhibition has been coordinated by Rosa de Graaf; its publication by Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos; its exhibition design by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy and Paul van Gennip. Andrea Valencia and Karla Hinojosa assisted in the process as curatorial interns in 2018 and 2019, respectively. El Paro (detalle) by Cecilia Vicuña Witte de With is pleased to offer on sale a new silkscreen by Cecilia Vicuña. Proceeds generated from the sale of these works partly go to the artist; partly towards future exhibitions at Witte de With. Her exhibition retrospective was on view at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art from 26 May until 24 November 2019. From 8 February to 2 August 2020, the exhibition is on view at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo (MUAC) in Mexico City. More info Participants Cecilia Vicuña Curators Miguel A. López Network The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo Supported By Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DIRAC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chile, Embassy of Chile in The Hague – the Netherlands, The Henry Moore Foundation, Lehmann Maupin <div class="
Mariana Castillo Deball, a solo exhibition
This solo exhibition presents three distinct kinds of work—and worlds—created by Castillo Deball in the past decade. They strike a balance between material folds and unfolding ideas, whereby multiple senses of time are experienced in the blank spaces of a drawing, in the negative space of sculpture, or in the wrinkles of a surface. For years, Castillo Deball’s work has consistently manifested the ways in which the passage of time is illustrated, organized, and expressed in nature as much as in artifice. One body of work in the exhibition comes from her study into the description of indigenous culture, skills, and technology—including the development of natural pigments endemic to pre-Columbian Mexico, as indicated in the 16th century Florentine Codex. Another group of works point to the artist’s long-standing interest in the meeting points of indigenous knowledge and Western thought. In this case, her works investigate how such dialogues, which are often contentious, are expressed in different spheres of influence, from museum design practices to cultural theories inspired by anthropophagy, the act of eating human flesh. The artist paints and sculpts, writes and publishes, and conducts artistic research into source materials drawn from antiquity, modernity, and our present. Like a line of thought, or an air plant, Castillo Deball’s work meanders through a physical space in imagined time. At times, sensually maneuvering us into another world, while at others, uncomfortably poking into ours, only to experience the wealth of knowledge there is to gain from a wider, deeper, and more global understanding of our ancient past. Participants Mariana Castillo Deball Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By AMMODO, kurimanzutto, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, the artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Melike Kara, new work
Melike Kara creates her painterly work along with writing poetry, and most recently with making sculpture, video and other mediums. In her works on canvas, especially, she has developed a pictorial range of characters communicating with each other through what appears to be body language and whispers. These figures can often be characterized as ungendered, and of a nondescript time and place. Their dress, if at all, blends with their skin, which appears to be made of armor. Her primary medium for her works on canvas has been, for years, thick oil pastels. She regularly chooses one color and its hue variations to paint these figures, more recently, the palette of each of her paintings includes two to three more colors, but no more. For her exhibition at Witte de With, Kara has created a new body of work, including a series of large works on canvas, as well as an installation of wooden sculptures intervened upon with paint and other materials. The group of paintings are indicative of the changes she has made in her recent body of work, for example, they barely present her more rigid humanoid figures that had previously populated her canvases, and introduce more organically shaped figures, including animals, after what is an evidently more free-flowing use of paint. The goat is a recurring figure in her new canvases, and it is connected to a longer investigation the artist has carried out regarding her Kurdish roots. This too, is more evidently explored in the artist’s new sculptures for the exhibition. Melike Kara was born and raised in Cologne, Germany, where she currently lives. For years, she developed a conversation with her grandmother, who emigrated from Turkey to Germany. She kept a strong liaison with the Kurdish community residing in the native village of her grandmother. And their relationship inspired Kara’s work, addressing, in one way or other, her family history. This artistic exploration of her Kurdistan cultural background begins, ultimately, with an understanding that knowledge is produced through rituals and oral histories, and that these processes lend new meanings to objects and encounters. In her work, references to images like the goat, or the likening of the wooden sculptures to traveling cradles, are drawn from the nomadic and land-working culture of Kurdish communities. Melike Kara, new work is the first exhibition of the artist in The Netherlands, and the most important commission she has had to date in Europe. Participants Melike Kara Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Samuel Saelemakers Supported By AMMODO, the Goethe-Institut, PERES PROJECTS Berlin, Jan Kaps, Cologne, the artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Alejandro Cesarco, a solo exhibition
Over the past two decades, Alejandro Cesarco has been making art, publishing books, and curating exhibitions. His expanded practice centers on a close consideration of affect, or as Cesarco states it, “the way meaning is felt.” With a deep interest in conceptualism’s linguistic turn, he has investigated the meanings of measured expression, the emotional cadence of feelings (however sincere, contradictory, or uncomfortable these may be), and the common and varied languages that emerge from emotional ties and genealogies. Encapsulating his artistic practice and these core themes is Cesarco’s Index series, begun in 2000. The series is exhibited entirely for the first time in the artist’s solo-exhibition at Witte de With. The Index series is a central and ongoing project within the artist’s larger praxis. Each index references an imaginary book he “hasn’t written and most probably never will”. Each one addresses a specific theme or topic and hints at a possible narrative within it. To date, Cesarco has made six different indexes and is creating a new one for this exhibition; their subject-matter ranges from large ideas, such as writing’s relation to memory or the repetition of romantic archetypes, to very focused emotions, such as mourning or regret. Indexing has become an idiosyncratic way of tracking the development of Cesarco’s interests, becoming “a form of self-portraiture that unfolds over time". “This ongoing series of indexes are a form of writing that constitutes an archive of my reading”, he says. The way information and knowledge is organized and presented, as well as a preference for para- texts has been an ongoing concern throughout his work. The entries listed in each index enable its navigation and use—they outline or promise a narrative—but, they simultaneously signal towards that which is excluded or silenced from it. Participants Alejandro Cesarco Curators Rosa de Graaf, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Supported By AMMODO, Tanya Leighton, the Embassy of Uruguay in The Hague, the artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Rossella Biscotti, new work
Rossella Biscotti’s work has dealt with an exploration of forgotten or untraced events that may come to reveal changing value systems, whether in their processes of production or consumption. The artist is interested in description, and in manifesting through sculpture and images, as well as through other genres and materials, the constitution of sentient beings as they are and not only as they may come to be perceived. She does so with an attentiveness towards revealing individual narratives, which she draws as much from oral histories, as she does from her technical, archival, and field research into sites that have been historically tapped by different forms of mining, exploitation, and confinement. Her exhibition at Witte de With centers on the artist’s most recent research into the forced displacement and exploitation of bodies—human and animal—during the Dutch colonial period in Southeast Asia, and the exportation of plants at the wake of the twentieth century. This, she traces through real and fictional accounts. An earlier work that also derives from this longstanding and ongoing investigation is Clara (2016). In that work, Biscotti’s protagonist is a famed eighteenth century female Indian rhinoceros called Clara, brought to the Netherlands by a captain of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC). By reason of its presumed exoticness in Europe, the rhinoceros was toured around Europe for seventeen years concluded by her passing. Biscotti’s work literally gave weight to the creature as subject, rather than to its spectacle. Clara is again a subject Biscotti comes to explore for her exhibition at Witte de With. This time, primarily through the artist’s research into the VOC archives, delving into its logbooks and noting the unregistered inventories that come with displacement. The artist also takes other books as the basis for her new work. Among these, is the four-volume novel The Buru Quartet by acclaimed Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. From this, she creates work inspired by five of its characters, one based on the life of Surati, who contracts smallpox voluntarily in her efforts to escape subjection as a concubine under Dutch colonialism. On par with this, Biscotti regards the exportation of the flowers rafflesia and amorphophallus titanium. As part of an experiment, toward the end of the 19th century the latter was planted at Bogor Botanical Gardens (then carrying a Dutch name, Buitenzorg) in Indonesia, for exportation to England, the Netherlands, and Italy; to this day, it may be found in the botanical garden of Leiden, the Netherlands, as well as other locations around the world. Rossella Biscotti, new work at Witte de With presents a selection of these works. From the rhinoceros Clara, to the stories of five women and two breeds of corpse flower, the artist creates measured portraits—however uncontained, abstract and lyrical—of instances of forced migration. Moving between fiction and reality, Biscotti regards these narratives of displacement as forms of event. Participants Rossella Biscotti Curators Rosa de Graaf, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Supported By AMMODO, La Quadriennale di Roma, the artist’s fee is supported by the Mondriaan Fund (from the Experimental Regulations) <div class="
Rotterdam Cultural Histories #17: Artists as city makers, the case Kaus Australis
Artists have long played a crucial role in Rotterdam’s cultural development as makers and as city makers. RCH #17 questions how that role can remain possible in the city. Rotterdam’s current landscape of art institutions emerged in the 1990s. In contrast, artists have been shaping the city’s artistic milieu since the late 1970s. Artist initiatives provide workspace, presentation possibilities, local cooperation, international exchange, and inspiring models of self-organisation. Artists join forces, using their creativity not only to develop their work but also to create conditions for advancing art and culture. This attitude was always elementary – and possible – in Rotterdam. Kaus Australis is a telling example of how artists literally create space for art. In 1993, the artists took the initiative to develop a DIY model and commissioned and partly built the facility themselves. The building became a place where artists have scope to make large-scale work, known for its international guest studios, exhibitions, and welcoming kitchen. In short, a place that gave substance to a neglected corner of the city. This presentation details how such a project was possible and the effort it entailed. The booming real estate market is now putting Kaus Australis under pressure, and they have been ordered to dismantle the building. RCH#17 is an expression of support for them to find a new location and a call for broader discussion. The importance of ‘incubation sites’ and a sustainable cultural ‘ecosystem’ has been under discussion for decades. The International Advisory Board for Culture recently said Rotterdam’s strength is that it is a place where initiatives and grassroots organisations can develop. However, the city has reached a tipping point. What impact will current real estate policies have on Rotterdam as a home for makers? Is the Kaus Australis model feasible in 2020? Can artists still contribute to the making of the city? Artists Sandro Setola and Chris van Mulligen compiled RCH #17.This archival presentation tells the story of Kaus Australis, while a growing timeline functions as an invitation to help visualise the long-standing debate about the importance of space for artists and their initiatives. If you want to contribute something to this timeline, please contact us via =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false">aletta [at] tentrotterdam.nl. In the coming months, we shall organise several events around RCH #17 and Kaus Australis. Announcements will follow via tentrotterdam.nl and kausaustralis.org. This exhibition is the 17th edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories, a collaborative project between Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and TENT, both housed in the same building. Network TENT Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="