Formerly known as Witte de With

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Formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art

The Formerly known as Witte de With - Center for Contemporary Art is a museum for contemporary art founded in 1990 in Rotterdam (Netherlands). It is located in the Witte de Withstraat, named after Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With . The museum is named after the street. Colloquially it was shortened to “Witte de With”.

The founding concept envisaged closing the curatorial empty space between “classic” museums for modern art on the one hand and artist initiatives and commercial galleries on the other. In the meantime, the Witte de With also commissioned their own work.

The house is contemporary art show which is partially not yet established. Most exhibitions are accompanied by catalogs.

The founding director was the Belgian Chris Dercon , who ran the house from 1990 to 1995. From 1996 Bartomeu Mari took this position, which was replaced by Catherine David in 2002 . David had previously directed Documenta X. From 2006 to 2011 the German Nicolaus Schafhausen ran the house. This was followed by curator Defne Ayas from Istanbul as museum director, who worked here from 2012 to 2017. The Mexican Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy has been running the museum since January 2018 .

In the course of global efforts to raise awareness of the colonial heritage, the house announced on June 27, 2020 that it would withdraw its old name with immediate effect and continue to operate as "Formerly known as Witte de With - Center for Contemporary Art" for the time being . The reason for this step was an open letter dated June 14, 2017, in which the authors point out the fundamental problem of conducting a critical examination of contemporary art under the name of a naval officer of the colonial era. A new name is to be announced on January 21, 2021.

Web links

Commons : Witte de With  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/fkawdw/status/1276798445693440000. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Open letter to Witte de With. Retrieved July 3, 2020 .
  3. ^ WdW Name Change. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 55.5 "  N , 4 ° 28 ′ 37.8"  E