"The Peoples Art / A Arte do Povo: 20 Dutch Artists"
2001-05-26 until 2001-07-22
Central Eléctrica do Freixo
Porto, , PT Portugal

Porto 2001, Cultural Capital has commissioned Bartomeu Marí, director of Witte de With, center for contemporary art in Rotterdam, to curate a large exhibition of Dutch contemporary art in Porto. The exhibition will take place in the former power plant Do Freixo in Porto and will open on May 27.

The title of the exhibition refers to the Dutch democratic tradition whose legendary openness and tolerance are the product of an intense social organization, spreading over every aspect of government, interest groups and human relations. This organization even extends to the Dutch landscape, which is almost entirely manmade, deftly designed and maintained by innumerable committees and rules. Dutch art, rather than resisting this organizational impulse by seeking a new relation with nature, functions as its ironic corollary. Closing the gap between art and artifice, it replicates the landscape ideal in miniature, presents the choreography of human interaction and orchestrates an altogether alien nether-land in which it is possible to present the unfathomable and think the unthinkable.

The participating artists are: Anneke de Boer; Aloysius Donia; Florian Göttke; Hein Hage; Mathilde ter Heijne; Philippine Hoegen; Rob Johannesma; Jeroen Jongeleen; Laurent Malherbe; Aernout Mik; Jeroen Offerman; Vanessa Jane Phaff; Jan Rothuizen; Julika Rudelius; Gerco de Ruijter; Frank van der Salm; Peter Stel; Nasrin Tabatabai; Erik Wesselo; Edwin Zwakman.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (English / Portuguese) which contains essays by Bartomeu Marí, director of Witte de With, and Carel Blotkamp, professor of art history at the Free University of Amsterdam, and entries about the participating artists. Design: Experimental Jetset.

Related Links:

Witte de With Center for Contemporany Art

Indepth Arts Resources for Portugal

Other Important Exhibitions in Portugal