03-11-11 // WITTE DE WITH GALLERY ROTTERDAM

MONU #14 was part of the Melanchotopia exhibition at Rotterdam’s Witte de With Gallery. For the duration of Melanchotopia, Witte de With was home to Pro qm from Berlin. Their owners have curated a special selection of titles to further explore the themes of Melanchotopia and include these together with books of the artists represented in the exhibition.

Melanchotopia is an exhibition that invites more than forty international artists to work with different venues in the city-center of Rotterdam – places where people live and work – and to activate their potential as spaces for ideas, discourse and invention. From large-scale interventions to very simple gestures, Melanchotopia supports a range of artistic practices that go beyond the classical approach to displaying art in public space. Working with the existing dynamics of the city, Witte de With’s intention is to bring forward the diverse layers of daily life in Rotterdam, creating a rich framework for subjective encounters. It is an exhibition about the reality of Rotterdam. Today, Rotterdam seems to be on hold between its past and its future: filled with nostalgia for the pre-WWII city and in wait for the utopian future, which is perpetually stalled in unfinished developments and reconstructions. Projections about yesterday and tomorrow drive the image of the city, that seems to lack a present. Melanchotopia performs the present of the city through the specific practice of each artist. Over the course of the exhibition (and remaining active until 31 December 2011) Witte de With’s galleries is reconfigured to become the epicenter of Melanchotopia. The projects, which spread throughout Rotterdam’s center, are brought together via a graphic mapping. Several art works and installations are also on show inside the epicenter and it is the site for numerous events.
(description from Witte de With’s website)

Title: Melanchotopia
Project: MONU #14
Date: November 3 – December 31, 2011
Organizer: Pro qm
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands