|
Indepth Arts News:
"The People's Art / A Arte do Povo"
2001-12-16 until 2002-02-10
Witte de With Center for Contemportary Art
Rotterdam, ,
NL
In his final exhibition as director of Witte de With, Bartomeu Marí shares
his perspective on Dutch contemporary art. Porto 2001, Cultural Capital,
invited Marí to make an earlier version of this exhibition for the former
power plant Do Freixo in Porto in the Spring of this year. The exhibition
received excellent reviews. In Witte de With, the artists show all new
works, many of them especially made for this exhibition.
With: 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 title of the exhibition The People's Art 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 openly resisting this organizational impulse, functions as its mild,
ironic corollary. Closing the gap between art and artifice, it replicates the
human made landscape in miniature, targets artificial human interaction
and creates an altogether alien nether-land, an alternative order, in
which it is possible to present the unfathomable and think the
unthinkable. (Hans Ibelings)
A bilingual catalogue (English / Portuguese) accompanies the exhibition.
Related Links:
| | 
|
