Press release Rotterdam, 14 January 2015
Witte de With Turns 25!
Design by A Practice for Everday Life
In 2015, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art celebrates its 25th anniversary. Founded in 1990, Witte de With has distinguished itself by offering intrepid commentary on our shared political and cultural predicament through curated exhibitions, symposia, various lectures and education programs, live events, and a bold publishing arm. Over the last 25 years, these endeavors aimed to understand the development of vital contemporary issues, but more importantly, to play an active role in their continual evolution. On 27 January 2015, 25 years to the day it was established, Witte de With presents a new installation by artist Willem de Rooij, Character Is Fate. The work showcases artist Piet Mondrian’s astrological birth chart that was made on his request in 1911. A special display system that relates to the solar calendar allows for the birth chart to be illuminated by the sun, best seen from 2.15 pm to 2.30 pm each day.
In addition, we commence this special year with Art In The Age Of…, a three-part series of programs examining contemporary artistic practices, their circulation, and prospect vectors throughout the year. These presentations focus on the role of raw materials, computation, and destruction within art’s creation and dispersal. Concurrently, In Light Of 25 Years casts a prismatic view on Witte de With’s archive by commissioning a select group of contemporary artists and curators to create an image-based work that analyzes sediments of contemporary art history and which is visible to the city day and night.
About the Projects Character Is Fate Willem de Rooij 27 January 2015 – 3 January 2016 On 27 January 2015, twenty-five years to the day it was established, Witte de With will present a new installation by artist Willem de Rooij. Character Is Fate showcases an astrological birth chart Piet Mondrian had made in 1911. A special display system that relates to the solar calendar allows for the birth chart to be illuminated by the sun, best seen from 2.15 pm to 2.30 pm each day. While considering the conservational parameters displaying historical objects, Character Is Fate also visualizes Witte de With’s physical position in relation to the sun. In late 1911 artist Piet Mondrian was about to move to Paris and leave his native country of the Netherlands behind. During this period of artistic and personal transformation he turned to theosophist Adriaan van de Vijsel for an astrological reading. Mondrian was born under the sign of Pisces on 7 March 1872, and according to his horoscope was “very susceptible and [had] psychic tendencies.” He was “able to feel things without being able to give an explanation of how this knowledge was obtained, [with] a mind that can express itself diplomatically, calmly, and systematically.” Special thanks goes to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague for their generous loan of Piet Mondrian’s original horoscope. The loan also marks a first-time collaboration between the RKD and Witte de With, which will be continued annually.
Character Is Fate, a Witte de With Publishers artist book by Willem de Rooij, is forthcoming in 2015.
Art In The Age Of… 23 January 2015 – 3 January 2016 Press and VIP opening: Thursday 22 January 2015, 4 pm Opening: Thursday 22 January 2015, 5-8 pm With: Nina Canell, Céline Condorelli, Mikhail Karikis, Nicholas Mangan, MAP Office, Marlie Mul, and Anton Vidokle. Art in the Age of... is a three-part presentation series that investigates future vectors of art production. These presentations focus on the role of raw materials, computation, and destruction within art’s creation and its dispersal throughout the year. Art In The Age Of… Energy and Raw Material is the first installment of Art In The Age Of…, opening on Thursday 22 January 2015, 5-8 pm. This framework focuses on how forms of energy and raw material shape, or are narrated by, contemporary artistic practices. Since ancient times art objects have drifted with the motion and transformation of raw materials like wheat, minerals, and cotton. How does contemporary art relate to geothermal energy? To oil, gas, or alternative sources such as the sun? Or could it even fly on rays of cosmic energy? Art In The Age Of… continues throughout 2015 with frameworks dedicated to Planetary Computation (22 May – 23 August 2015) and Asymmetrical Warfare (11 September 2015 – 3 January 2016), opening May 21 and September 10 respectively. More information about this yearlong program can be found online.
In Light Of 25 Years 27 January 2015 – 3 January 2016 With: Özlem Altın, Wineke Gartz, Camille Henrot, Germaine Kruip, Mahony, Raimundas Malašauskas, Zin Taylor, Freek Wambacq, Christopher Williams, and Xu Zhen “The image of art that Witte de With disseminates is a universal and autonomous one. It is dissemination that should not prevent the construction of a framework which can tell us, for example, something about the glamour of art and its capacity for communication, about art from beyond Europe or North America, or about the terror of current events.” Introductory essay in The Lectures, Witte de With Publishers, 1990
On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, Witte de With examines its legacy, dedicating the groundfloor gallery to a series of commissioned presentations by a select group of contemporary artists and curators. Each participant makes use of Witte de With’s archive and creates an image-based
work that analyzes sediments of contemporary art history, presented on a large-scale light box that is visible to the city day and night. The first iteration is presented by artist collective Mahony (Stephan Kobatsch, Jenny Wolka and Clemens Leuschner). Their work was prompted by an interview with French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, published in A Life Full Of Holes. The Strait Project, the publication that accompanied Barrada’s eponymous solo exhibition at Witte de With in 2004. In this interview, Barrada discussed her work in photographing the Strait of Gibraltar and the impact it has on the lives of young people in Morocco as a geopolitical site of frustrated proximity, as she calls it. As a response, Mahony uses the light box as both an image case and a sculptural element, and addresses related contemporary issues and historical events, such as the harrowing circumstances of refugees caught during European border controls in the Mediterranean, or The Truth about the Colonies, an exhibition organized by the French Communist Party and a group of surrealist artists in response to the controversial Colonial Exhibition (1913, Paris), where both objects and people from French held territories were exhibited. For specific dates of each presentation, please consult our website.
Witte de With and International Film Festival Rotterdam Signals: Bruce McClure 22 January – 1 February 2015 Opening: Thursday 22 January 2015, 5-8pm Witte de With joins forces with International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and hosts an exhibition by Bruce McClure for IFFR 2015. With the exhibition on Bruce McClure, the IFFR is not celebrating a filmmaker but a rather an artist who devotes himself to the projector as a unique instrument in art history. His presentation at Witte de With, COURTING DAYLIGHT IN SAVING DARKNESS, is his most elaborate and expansive installation to date and references the Emanuel de Witte painting Interior With A Woman At The Virginals (from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen).
About Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art is an international public institution with Rotterdam as its home base. Established in 1990, Witte de With explores developments in contemporary art worldwide. Witte de With has been commenting on the social and political predicament since its inception through the presentation of curated exhibitions, symposia, live events, educational programs, and a bold publishing arm.
Contact Witte de With For press requests or for further information, please contact Adelheid Smit via press@wdw.nl or call +31 10 411 01 44.