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Dutch Pavilion 57Th International Art Exhibition La Biennale Di Venezia C I N E M A Press Release May 2017 Dutch Pavilion 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia Cinema Olanda Wendelien van Oldenborgh An installation for the Dutch Pavilion Curator: Lucy Cotter Commissioner: Mondriaan Fund 13 May –26 November 2017 www.venicebiennale.nl Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Cinema Olanda (installation view), 2017. Photo: Daria Scagliola. Courtesy the artist and Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam. PRESS RELEASE OLANDA Cinema Olanda is a collaborative project by artist Taking its conceptual starting point from Wendelien van Oldenborgh and curator Lucy Cotter for Gerrit Rietveld’s pavilion as a Modernist projection of the Dutch Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, which The Netherlands, the exhibition reconsiders what lies embraces the occasion of national representation as an beyond its aesthetic and ideological frame, both at opportunity to reflect on the Netherlands’ (inter)national the time of its design in 1953 and in the present. image vis-à-vis the current rapid transformations in Designed during the Postwar Reconstruction, when Dutch society. The exhibition presents Van Oldenborgh’s architecture was key to forging a new national image, the filmic engagement with (actively) forgotten aspects pavilion projects a progressive image of openness of modern Dutch history in a site-specific installation and transparency. On entering the pavilion, the for the Dutch Pavilion, sharing current transformations viewer is confronted by Van Oldenborgh’s site-specific in Dutch society with an international audience. architectural installation, which both houses and Press Release May 2017 2 aesthetically resounds with her three new ‘films’. These production that are not contained in the film. Inviting the works reveal an alternative narrative to the Netherlands’ viewer to co-produce the filmic image through their own self-image as a tolerant nation, namely its reality today as movements, they offer a dynamic viewing experience. a complex and rapidly transforming social, cultural and political space. Cotter’s curatorial departure point for the exhibition was to engage with Gerrit Rietveld’s Dutch Pavilion as a Van Oldenborgh uses film as a medium and form of national representation in its own right. The exhibition social production, and her oeuvre revolves around forms part of Van Oldenborgh and Cotter’s wider Cinema bringing contemporary situations and under-examined Olanda collaborative project that seeks to contribute events from recent history together in unexpected towards the development of a new national self-image constellations. She creates her work through live (public) by bringing art, film and architecture in dynamic film shoots, set in ideologically charged architectural relationship with questions of social imagery and agency. location, in which script is generated collectively by An extensive parallel program in the Netherlands shares polyphonic conversations between individuals with a the exhibition’s questions with a national audience. personal or professional relationship to the work’s lines of enquiry. Working in a range of cultural contexts, her Its largest manifestation is Cinema Olanda: Platform films aim at a critical understanding and potential (17 June-20 August) at Witte de With Center for transformation of conditions for cultural production at Contemporary Art, Rotterdam – in which groups and this present moment. individuals who have informed and inspired Cinema Olanda have been invited to guest-curate a series The title film, Cinema Olanda (2017, 15 mins) marks a of public events and to use the institution as a further site bold new filmic step in the artist’s oeuvre by being of production for existing projects, which are presented shot in one uncut take in an attempt to connect several alongside film installations by Van Oldenborgh in an individuals, an architectural location, and past and adaptable exhibition scenography. Further presentations current events in a momentary filmic reality. Situated in take place at the EYE Film Museum, Amsterdam (13 June) urban planner Lotte Stam-Beese’s acclaimed Pendrecht and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (30 June). district in Rotterdam, the film seeks out alternative voices behind Dutch postwar society, reimagining itself An additional live event will take place in the pavilion as a uniform modern State. Evoking the social and racial on 23 June with contributions by invited guests complexity of the 50’s as an overlooked element in (Avery Gordon, Sarat Maharaj and Gloria Wekker). Dutch history, references range from Dutch Caribbean revolutionary Otto Huiswoud, a key figure in race, class and anti-imperial issues worldwide, to the 1950’s COMMISSIONER MONDRIAAN FUND Indo-rock music associated with post-Independence The Mondriaan Fund, a publicly financed foundation immigration from Indonesia. for visual arts and cultural heritage, is responsible for the organization and financing of the Dutch entry to the Made in two parts that mirror each other in form and Venice Biennale. For the 57th edition the Mondriaan content, Prologue: Squat/Anti-Squat (2016, each 17 Fund again issued an open call to curators, who were mins), engages with Team Ten architect Aldo van Eyck’s asked to produce a plan together with one or more building Tripolis, and revisits a Dutch-Caribbean artists in keeping with a state event. Cinema Olanda was squatting action from the 1970’s, juxtaposing it with selected from 68 proposals with a unanimous jury vote. two recent squatting episodes. The film brings together The jury was made up of Lorenzo Benedetti (curator of, individuals from different generations with backgrounds among other presentations, the Dutch pavilion at the in activism and architecture, including the squatters of 2013 Venice Biennale), Nathalie Hartjes (Director of the 70’s and those of today, whose fragmentary Showroom MAMA), Aernout Mik (artist, whose resume conversations offer a glimpse into rapidly changing includes presentations at the Dutch pavilion in 1997 and and static conceptions of solidarity in Dutch society. 2007) and Mirjam Westen (Curator of Contemporary Currently used as an ‘anti-squat’ (a term and practice Art at Museum Arnhem). The jury was chaired by the originated in Holland) facility Van Eyck’s empty building Director of the Mondriaan Fund, Birgit Donker. offers a provocative and visually arresting backdrop According to the jury, Cinema Olanda connects intimately to the concerns and visions of young activist groups with the zeitgeist and shares unique and important like the University of Colour, who set out to decolonize narratives. contemporary Dutch society. The third ‘film’ is made up of two prints, Footnotes to PUBLICATIONS Cinema Olanda #1 and #3 (2017), from a wider series Two publications will coincide with the opening of in which Van Oldenborgh uses lenticular prints as a Cinema Olanda at the Venice Biennale. The official form of moving image. Conceived as a condensed filmic exhibition catalogue, Cinema Olanda: experience, the prints consist of layered images from the Wendelien van Oldenborgh, edited by Lucy Cotter and film shoot of Cinema Olanda that capture moments of published by Hatje Cantz /Mondriaan Fund is a portfolio Press Release May 2017 3 of images of the filmic works and exhibition accompanied PRESS PREVIEW by a series of essays by leading writers in the fields of 10 – 12 May 2017 art, film, architecture, social anthropology and critical 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. race studies. A special supplement of the Dutch news magazine De Groene Amsterdammer on Cinema Olanda will coincide with the exhibition opening, in keeping with EXHIBITION DATES the artist and curator’s wish to extend the exhibition’s 13 May – 26 November 2017 underlying questions to a wider Dutch public. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Closed on Mondays (except 15 May, 14 August, 4 September, 30 October and 20 November 2017) PARTNERS Cinema Olanda is partnered by Society of Arts/Akademie van Kunsten, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis FURTHER INFORMATION AND IMAGES (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, Wilfried Lentz International press contact: Rotterdam and Nuova Icona, Venice. The project has the SUTTON, London additional support of CBK Rotterdam, BPD and city of Melissa Emery Rotterdam. T +44 (0)20 7183 3577 [email protected] SHORT BIOGRAPHIES Dutch press contact: Wendelien van Oldenborgh (Rotterdam, 1962) develops Mondriaan Fund film-based works in which the cinematic format is Caroline Soons also used as a methodology for production, with live T+31 (0)20 523 15 23 film shoots collectively generating scripts. Her films [email protected] are presented in dynamic relation to site-specific architectural installations. Widely exhibited in museums www.venicebiennale.nl and biennials internationally, recent solo exhibitions include .As for the Future. at DAAD gallery, Berlin (2017), From Left to Night at The Showroom, London (2015) and Beauty and the Right to the Ugly at Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2014). Van Oldenborgh was awarded the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Art in 2014. Van Oldenborgh is represented by Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam. Lucy Cotter (Ireland, 1973) is an independent curator and writer on contemporary art whose work engages with the interplay between aesthetics, the political and the unknown. A co-curator of such projects as Here as the Centre of the World (2006-08), a global cultural exchange across six cities worldwide, she holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam for her research on rethinking (national) curatorial representation. She is currently authoring two books: Toward a Minor Curating and Art Knowledge: Between the Known and the Unknown. Her edited volume Reclaiming Artistic Research is forthcoming with MaHKUscript and 17, Institute for Critical Studies, Mexico City. .
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