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Type: Morality leitmotiv
Date: October 10, 2009 - September 26, 2010
Location: Witte de With |
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Witte de With is pleased to present Morality.
While there are certain moral principles that are usually unquestioned (the right to life, for instance), morality remains ambivalent and amorphous in terms of the principles it provides for humans acting in the world. It is these amorphous areas, these gray zones, that this project seeks to address, particularly in how they form a difficult aspect of our reality today.
Morality is an invitation to reflect and debate situations in contemporary life that refuse clear distinctions between right and wrong, what is and what ought to be. As a whole, the Morality project has been defined by a desire - inherent to contemporary art - to open spaces for active, engaged forms of spectatorship that are not pre-determined by either moral or ideological imperatives.
Morality is a provocative theme, especially in a world that is now determined by the experiences of war, displacement, political and economic crises, the rise of religious stereotypes, and the radicalization of seemingly old doctrines and ideologies. Morality is also a broad subject that affects everybody in many different ways. From the bathroom to the parliament, there is a total field of social engagement in which morality functions without boundaries, between a set of abstract, intangible and general ideas. Morality is neither a base nor a superstructure, but a smooth network of influences that operates outside the law, governing both regulated and unregulated social spaces, and affecting daily lives in subtle, seductive, unexpected ways. Yet, there is not a unique or purely affirmative sense that one can give to this notion. A number of moral attitudes - often at odds with one another - inform the positions that, as political subjects, we assume vis-a-vis the events that take place in our world.
Seemingly simple, but also disturbingly difficult to grasp, morality is an ideal leitmotiv for a project that seeks to explore critical points of fragmentation in everyday life.
Rather than presenting statements that can be perceived as being right or wrong, good or evil, the project Morality will create a space for showing a wide range of attitudes that problematize a total conception of morality, focusing on the less tangible forces and attitudes that shape common thinking and behavior.
The year-long Morality program at Witte de With is structured as a series of interrelated acts that began in the Fall of 2009 and will run until September 2010. Online visitors may also participate by contributing to the web-platform. The Morality project has included four exhibitions, a film cycle and a facade project by the Russian collective AES+F. The current facade project by Isa Genzken is titled Wind.
Beyond the exhibitions at Witte de With, the upcoming calendar for Morality includes: Act VIII: Nether Land, a satellite exhibition curated by Monika Szewczyk and Nicolaus Schafhausen at the Dutch Culture Centre in Shanghai as part of the World Expo 2010 (19 June - 11 July 2010); Act IX: Let Us Compare Mythologies, a performance program curated by Renske Janssen and Dorothea Jendricke to be held at Witte de With and other venues in Rotterdam (18 - 20 June); Act X, a symposium with masterclasses (24 - 26 September) and Final Act, a book.
As with the preceding in-house exhibitions Act I: Beautiful From Every Point of View, Act II: From Love to Legal, Act IV: I Could Live in Africa and Act V: Power Alone, the two upcoming exhibitions are structured as tentative hypotheses, casting an unusual light on important themes in contemporary political thought and realities. Act VI: Remember Humanity proposes that 'humanity' has become obsolete as an ontological category, while Act VII: Of Facts and Fables sets out to look at the fictions through which moral discourses separate the natural from the human world.
Curated by Juan A. Gaitan and Nicolaus Schafhausen; assisted by Amira Gad.
Free Guided Tours
(NB not for groups)
* Every Wednesday at 3 p.m. by a staff member (in English/Dutch) - FREE (excl. entry price)
* Every Sunday at 3 p.m. (in English/Dutch) - FREE (excl. entry price)
For other guided tours
* For groups (10 and up)
* On other days / times
* In other languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Polish, Spanish)
Upon request and payment - 60 euro.
More information and contact via +31 (0)10 4110144 or by e-mail: reservations@wdw.nl
Support
Morality is generously supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and SNS REAAL Fonds.
 
Witte de With is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and the City of Rotterdam.
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opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
location: Witte de Withstraat 50, 3012 BR Rotterdam
phone: +31 (0) 10 4110144
fax: +31 (0) 10 4117924
e-mail: info@wdw.nl
web: www.wdw.nl
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