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18/6/2010

Nether Land

Dutch Culture Centre, Shanghai

Rotterdam, for the Dutch Culture Center, Shanghai, as part of the World Expo 2010.

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.

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: (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.

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 - 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."

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 Star-Crossed.

Image: Zheng Guogu, from Empire, 2004-ongoing. Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou/Beijing

Info. Witte de Withstraat 50
3012 BR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
+31 (0)10 411 0144
http://www.wdw.nl
http://www.2010dcc.com

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

Opening Saturday 19 June 2010, 14.20

Dutch Culture Centre
800 Changde Lu, Jing'an District, Shanghai
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11-19

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