Morality: Act I & II

AES+F, The Feast of Trimalchio, 2009, courtesy of AES+F and Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Installation view Witte de With, October 2009. Photo Bob Goedewaagen.

Act I: Beautiful from Every Point of View
Act II: From Love to Legal
Witte de With, Amsterdam

By Caridad Botella

The Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam has chosen to articulate its program around the concept “Morality” as leitmotiv. “Morality” is an assemblage of exhibitions, performances, interventions, projects and dialogues that will take place from October 10 till the summer of 2010. The exhibitions are divided into acts, a term which makes reference to the theatrical distinction between interrelated narratives, at the same time that it brings forward religious and legal connotations. With this concept and modus operandi, the curators, Nicolaus Schafhausen and Juan A. Gaitán, far from willing to make a statement, wish to isolate such a controversial and provocative concept as morality. Removed from its social, economical or religious implications, it functions as a platform where a wide range of attitudes meet, questioning a total conception of morality.

The visitor is welcomed by the first intervention of the program on the building’s façade, a huge banner of a new project by AES+F, The Feast of Trimalchio, first shown as a video projection in the Russian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. This provocatively aseptic and poignant image, which wraps the entire front of the building, sets the tone for the acts that we are about to encounter: Do multicultural societies only exist in a capitalist (doomed) dream of constant pleasure and perfection? After seeing the banner, it is really worthwhile checking the video on YouTube. Through a program of four interventions called Between You and I, curated by Fulya Erdemçi & Nicolaus Schafhausen, Witte de With confronts the spectator and the urban tissue of the city of Rotterdam with a critical interface, rising the debate of the boundaries between society and the public institution.

“Act I: Beautiful from Every Point of View” is a group show with works by: Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Marko Lulic´, Kris Martin, Josephine Meckseper, Sarah Morris, Ron Terada, Tobias Zielony and Arthur Zmijewski. Each work poses different questions, allowing the visitor to engage with them independently, but always keeping the leitmotiv in mind. The selection points to certain issues such as the problem of individual identity, the manipulative power of images, our commitment with the past or the multifaceted aspect of certain strategies. Works, such as Ron Terada’s video wall Voight Kampff or Tobias Zielony’s La Vele di Scampia, are excellent commentaries on how reality can be artificially constructed, turning images into carriers of different discourses. Hypnotizing is Sara Morries’ video Beijing. This 84:47 minute film is a sharp compilation of images filmed during the preparation and realization of the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008. Images and sound work as a score, which from the distance lets us be witnesses of how reality can be at all times staged.

“Act II: From Love to Legal” shows a selection of artworks by Isa Genzken, Joachim Koester, Chritodolous Panayiotu, Isabelle Panwels, Mark Raidpere, Tobias Rehberger, Nedko Solakov, Danh Vo, Peter Wächtler and Katarina Zdjelar. What happens when a personal anecdote interferes with a historical fact or vice versa? This compilation of works is an excellent closing for the exhibition, as it engages us fully from the moment we are confronted with Nedko Solakov’s handwritten texts Agreement and Bill. These texts make a connection between the fictional space and the visitor, who can no longer look from a distance and is forced to embrace his/her presence as part of the exhibition. Private lives are entangled in facts, in historical events. The thin border between anecdotal and factual unfolds in works such as Isabelle Pauwels’ video B&E where the artist shows how in dividing the inheritance of her grandparents, their part in Belgian colonialism becomes evident.

“Morality” functions as a prism and magnifying glass, which guides our eyes through the different layers of meaning an image can create. Perhaps it is Sarah Morris’ work Beijing that best embodies the ideas behind these acts. The camera interferes with a discourse that has been clinically and methodically rehearsed in order to sell a certain image of political glory and power to the rest of the world. Through her lens we are able to construct a reality much more complex than the one that has been offered to us though the mass media.

Caridad Botella. Art critic based in Amsterdam. She is the director of Witzenhausen Gallery.