Morality Act VIII Press release ENG

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Press Release – Rotterdam, June 2010

NETHER LAND / 何国 ACT VIII of MORALITY, developed by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, for the Dutch Culture Center, Shanghai, as part of the World Expo 2010.

EXHIBITION 20 June - 11 July 2010, Tuesday to Sunday 11-19 Dutch Culture Centre, 800 Changde Lu, Jing'an District, Shanghai www.2010dcc.com

Nether Land is conceived within the framework of the year-long project Morality, a series of exhibitions, events and discursive programs that engages with the contemporary challenges posed by an intense sharing and shifting of values (spiritual, cultural and economic). As the eighth act of Morality, realized specifically for the “world stage” of Shanghai’s Expo, Nether Land highlights diverse international artistic practices that engage with the paradoxes of cross-cultural perception and fantasies of foreign and alternative production.

Resonating with the name of the exhibition venue, the Dutch Culture Center, the exhibition title Nether Land is a more exact and deadpan English iteration of the Dutch word for its nation, “Nederland.” The isolation of the word “nether” points to its double meaning, as both low (hence the “Low Countries”) and remote (as in “the nether reaches of the universe”). The echo in Nether Land of the idealized “Neverland” of Peter Pan is not lost, and many of the works in the show explore the idea of a better life elsewhere. More important still is the Chinese translation of the title, He Guo, which emphasizes the questioning tone of the exhibition: 何国 (pronounced He Guo) sounds like the beginning of He Lan [Chinese for “Holland”], it actually means “What Country?” – a question that destabilizes our sense of place and creates something of a parallax effect, where shifting locations and shifting viewpoints contribute to deeper perspective.

Each of the exhibited works in the exhibition projects a different relationship with a far away land – Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East – or estranges the here and now, making it impossible for a cumulative portrait of a country or culture to emerge.

Nevertheless, the immense impact of such viewing from a distance and across borders on the shaping of aesthetic and political values that underpin contemporary artistic practice in a global arena comes into sharper relief.

Featured Artists: Allan Sekula (US), Erik van Lieshout (NL/DE), Jacques de Koning (NL), Jennifer Tee (NL), Ken Lum (CAN), Lidwien van de Ven (NL/DE), MadeIn (PRC), Meschac Gaba (BEN/NL), Sarah Morris (US), Zheng Guogu (PRC).

Curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Monika Szewczyk, assisted by Amira Gad.

SPECIAL EVENTS Saturday 19 June 14:30 Press Preview / Public Roundtable with select artists moderated by the curators 16:00 Opening Cocktail Reception Sunday 11 July 13:00 Discussion (in Chinese) with Zheng Guogu, Hu Fang & MadeIn Every Saturday & Sunday 20 June - 11 July 15:00 Dance Performance, choreographed by nunu kong for Jennifer Tee's new installation StarCrossed.

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NETHER LAND / 何国

WITTE DE WITH - INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE Witte de With is a leading Dutch contemporary art institution with a strong tradition of internationalism and discursive exhibition making. Situated in the heart of Rotterdam, it serves the local audiences of this historic port city by linking the public to leading international developments in cultural production and debate. Witte de With is also a partner of like-minded institutions in the Benelux Region and a founder of the Comité van Roosendaal, a regional (Benelux & Rheinland Westphalen) network of contemporary art institutions. With an invitation to develop a project for the Dutch Cultural Institute from the Netherlands China Arts Foundation, Witte de With aims to connect meaningfully to the culture of Shanghai, Rotterdam's sister city. We see the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai as the first stage for forging a long-lasting and an experimental and intellectually stimulating dialogue with cultural institutions and individuals in China. For this occasion, and in an effort to share the full practice and methodology of our institution, Witte de With presents NETHER LAND, an exhibition that is the eighth act of the 2009/2010 program Morality.

MORALITY In 2009/2010 Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam embarks on a series of interconnected projects – exhibitions, a film cycle, a performance program, a web platform, a symposium and a book – all seeking to create a space for an engagement with the question of how morality is shaped and in turn shapes conduct today. Rather than presenting statements that can be perceived as being right or wrong, good or evil, the project Morality will explore a wide range of positions that problematize a total conception of morality, focusing on the less tangible forces and attitudes that shape common thinking and behavior. In the context of Witte de With’s presentation for the Dutch Culture Centre (DCC), in Shanghai, which is more broadly framed by the city’s 2010 World Expo: Better City, Better Life, our aim is to consider, from multiple positions, how projections onto foreign lands construct our idea of the “better life.”

List of exhibitions and events included in the Morality project: Act I: Beautiful From Every Point of View Act II: From Love to Legal Act III (Film program): And the moral of the story is…

Act IV: I Could Live in Africa Act V: Power Alone Act VI: Remember Humanity Act VII: Of Facts and Fables Act VIII: Nether Land Act IX (Performance program): Let Us Compare Mythologies Act X: Symposium Final Act: Morality Publication

The exhibition is generously sponsored by the City of Rotterdam, the Mondriaan Foundation and the Dutch Culture Centre / Netherlands China Arts Foundation. With thanks to the Fonds BKVB.

Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art is funded by the City of Rotterdam and the Dutch Ministry of Culture.

For more information about this exhibition, please go to our website: www.wdw.nl or refer to the Dutch Culture Centre’s website: www.2010dcc.com

For press requests please contact press@wdw.nl or call + 31 (0) 10 4110144.