On Kawara. Lat. 31º25’N, Long. 8º41’E, 1965; acrylic on canvas; 83.5 x 96.3 x 5.3 cm (32.9 x 37.9 x 2 in). Courtesy of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Photo: Peter Cox.

On Kawara’s Lat. 31º25’N, Long. 8º41’E (1965), one of his rare coordinate works, tells of an exact location. Its addition serves to anchor the show’s general thread of location as a symbolic or constructed place. Without looking up the coordinates, it’s an idea of somewhere else, a projection left to the viewer. Having seen this work the day before the artist’s death, I notice new weight in the piece’s reference to place. Why would Kawara want to make a point of this location? One potential answer might be that it records the location where the work was made, but the coordinates point to the middle of the Grand Erg Oriental, an unlikely part of the Sahara Desert in which to engage in a bit of painting. This is not at all a desirable destination but a place to not be at. However, in 1965, the incredible isolation of Lat. 31º25’N, Long. 8º41’E may have appeared to be the only safe haven from postcolonial global turmoil. Perhaps it’s the only site on Earth that still cannot be imposed upon except conceptually, by coordinate.

Patricia Reed. Pan-National Flag, 2009; digital print on industrial-grade flag fabric; 250 x 150 cm (98.4 x 59.1 in). Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Adam Rompel.

One floor up, and directly above Lat. 31º25’N, Long. 8º41’E, hangs Patricia Reed’s Pan-National Flag (2009). Stripped of color and printed on industrial-grade flag fabric, it’s a composite of the outlines of every existing national flag superimposed on each other. Its presence as a stately symbol is heightened by being inset into the wall, and its visual weight comes from the point at which the thin black lines merge into a messy black knot in the center—a dark, global mass argument. Painful to look at, this flag proposes a state of existence that considers every national ideal simultaneously, and what results is a symbolic state of obliterated understanding.

Ahmet Ögüt and Cevdet Erek. Ahmet Cevdet Bey: “Jacket”, 2011; alerted woolen blazer, two chairs; dimensions variable. Courtesy of the Artists & Moiz Zilberman Collection. Photo: Adam Rompel.

When mergers are proposed, they have a way of offering idyllic optimism. They proffer the possibility that the union will result in the best of both worlds. When two artists take on this concept, it follows that the art might be about the failed attempts of two entities acting as one. Ahmet Cevdet Bey: “Jacket” (2011) is a remnant of Ahmet Ögüt and Cevdet Erek’s first (and to date, only) project together. It’s a physical manifestation of an attempt at compromise, and of failing to form into one person. Acting in unison as “Ahmet Cevdet Bey,” this specially constructed suit jacket manifests the possibility of symbiosis, of being joined side by side in the attempt to make art as one. The double-width jacket draped across the backs of two matching chairs makes the absence of the artists feel momentary, as if there were only a temporary break in activity. Yet, in this Waiting for Godot-like scenario, the anticipated arrival leaves the viewer to wonder exactly what the pair had gotten up to and when they will return to collect the jacket and resume their activities.

In Minja Gu’s work 42.195 (2006), the artist attempts to prolong the inevitable. She documents her participation in a marathon—and walks the entire distance. Completing the race long after everyone else has lost interest, Gu presents the quintessential artistic dilemma of accepting the idea of becoming; as it is with an art practice, usually that becomes moment is the one in which the work is recognized. She raises the question of how an artist might succeed and also still be true to herself. In 42.195 she attempts to do both, and her actions not only subvert the conventional points of fast movement, winning, and achievement, but also entirely dodge the act of becoming the marathon with all of its adrenaline, angst, and pain.

Pierre Bismuth. In Prevention of Technical Malfunction – Unplugged Bruce Nauman Video Work, 2003; two Sony Trinitrons, Bruce Nauman videos transferred to DVD, plinths; dimensions variable. Courtesy of the Artists & Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. Photo: Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk.

Some works in the show negate the present as a means to embrace it. Pierre Bismuth offers the satisfying In Prevention of Technical Malfunction – Unplugged Bruce Nauman Video Work (2003). It’s exactly as you would expect from the title: Two side-by-side Sony Trinitron monitors, complete with standard metal frames, sit blankly on white plinths. As a video that is simultaneously ready to be played and never to be played, the efforts that protect it from “technical malfunction” keep it tethered to the present but also extend the work into the potential of a speculative future. Katarina Löfström’s Loop (The End) (2006) welcomes the inevitable by presenting a string of flashing red light bulbs draped from the ceiling that blink out the Morse code for “the end.” The work uses the present as a device to announce the imminent future that has yet to happen.

The Part in the Story Where a Part Becomes a Part of Something Else, 2014, installation view, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. (front to back) Gabriel Lester. Chance Encounters, 2011. Ceal Floyer, No Positions Available, 2007. Courtesy of the Artists & Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. Photo: Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk.

On the whole, Witte de With presents one of the most rewarding group shows that I’ve seen in a long time, and there are many more works that deserve mention. Curators Heman Chong and Samuel Saelemakers group the works within each room to draw out congruent threads without forcing new meanings. It’s a huge feat to curate a massive show that still makes sense, and the exhibition is a far cry from the recent trend of heavy-handed tactics by the curator-as-artist. Instead, the show flows effortlessly, as the works are given just enough room to be considered and then reconsidered in the larger context. And that moment of reconsidering is the transition to becoming.

The Part in the Story Where a Part Becomes a Part Of Something Else is part of Moderation(s), a two-year collaboration of events with Spring Workshop in Hong Kong. It is on view at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, through August 17, 2014.

Csilla Klenyánszki, Swan with Coffee.

Our back porch has a screen door but the rod that goes into the pneumatic closer is bent so we leave it permanently propped open. In the spring, we would leave the doors open and the fan going so Shadow could get out to the backyard at leisure. In and out of the kitchen door, bringing in sticks and strings, a wren went unnoticed for a while. It took us a few times of seeing the bird before we saw the nest. On the top shelf of the kitchen, the food dehydrator, which had been sitting there for a while, was the site of the nest. No babies, so we moved the home outside to be reassembled into nature.

Csilla Klenyánszki, Golden Bird.

Later in the summer, I picked up a box of Borax from atop the water heater closet on the back porch and it looked filled with dirt and dog hair, so I put is aside for Rebecca to examine and comprehend how the powder got so filthy. Unbeknownst to me, it had four baby birds in it. I even heard the peeping but thought it was outside birds. Only a few days on the back porch and they had all left the nest. The parent bird was busy darting from and returning to the box. I brought my cousin and Dad to check it out but the babies were gone. I had caught only one glimpse of them, and then I doubted seeing them at all.

Csilla Klenyánszki, Bird.

That same spring, a mockingbird built its nest in the spiny bush next to the front door. When we’d walk through the yard, the mockingbirds were on patrol to protect the nest and would dive at you or graze you on the back to protect the chicks. They would perch on our bench and they made it hard to work in the yard with their attacks on us. And in the overhang of the roof, a nest of starlings were installed. Like the siege tunnels of Gibraltar, they were hidden from view with a good vantage point of the yard. Their peeps were constant on the front porch, with a loudness that meant they were protected.

Csilla Klenyánszki, Napkin.

One evening a baby possom appeared in the bathroom. There was a heavy rain happening and the kid looked drenched. He moved quickly, up the tank, across the vanity, jumped down, and skidded on the tile, his little toe nails clicking. His tiny ears were translucent and his fingers and tail pure pink. I was scared of the possum whereas Rebecca was entertained and the one to force it back through that hole it came out of, below the vanity where the catch pipe comes through. I remembered a run-in that I’d had with a big momma on my back porch one day, seething, growling, etc. We filled the hole and glued some wood over it. We could still hear it chewing. It must have come from outside, maybe from a nest below the floorboards.

Wild animals have made their homes all around us, always in secret at first. Inside the home is refuge from weather and predators. Our home has invaders no matter what we do, in our muggy summers, mold grows rampant, palmetto bugs and fruit flies appear. The fly traps we built from a cut-in-half plastic water bottles with the top inverted and sealed with tape then filled with vinegar-sugar seem to be drowning a bunch. This is our domain. We have dominion over our landscape. This is the house that makes a home. This place is always coming apart. A pot of rice burns on the stove. This place has to be aired out, and the wet air drifts in. The back door is open again.

Csilla Klenyánszki, Bouquet.

Csilla is originally from a small city in Hungary, but now lives in a 6th floor apartment in Rotterdam. Not in the center of the city, she can enjoy an urban life in conjunction with the view of a small lake from her window. Her carefully constructed images show her domestic life and the objects that she knows best. This year she participated in expositions at Kadmium (Delft), Loods 6 (Amsterdam), and Fenixloodsen (Rotterdam). This month she will show in Arnhem, Netherlands as well.

TENT in Rotterdam asked fifteen artists to think about the concept of a secret garden and make a work for their current exhibition. They interpreted the secret garden not just as a hideaway or a place of contemplation, imagination, mystery and beauty, but also a place of debauchery, derelict and danger. The secret garden is shown as a place that evokes sensuality – brilliantly depicted in the stylishly pornographic images by  Schilte en Portielje – or the deserted home of a cannibalistic tribe.

The secret element of these gardens is taken very literally by Diederik Klomberg, in the work Kura Di e Mente/Garden of the Mind, 2012, which consists of plant pots, mirrors and hallucinogenic drugs. This three-dimensional installation uses light effects to unveil a hidden breeding ground for mind-expanding experiences and shows the secret garden as the kind garden you find in attics and basements, and occasionally in newspapers after a police raid. It is, obviously, the kind of secret garden you’d expect to find in Rotterdam. In the same room is a video animation by Olphaert den Otter, entitled Drawn, 2012. It reminded me of a conversation I recently had with a friend, about a book in which bacteria are seen as the species at the top of the food chain which will eventually kill and survive all other living animals (my conversations with friends are generally quite cheerful). The hand-drawn video animation shows the slow, natural changes of a desertlike piece of land. There are some remnants of human presence – skulls and bones – but generally it shows the planet after human life has gone.

Another work worth mentioning is the spectacular installation by Guiseppe Licari, called Humus, for which the roots of several medium sized trees were cut off and attached to the ceiling. The lights in the room are dimmed, and walking around the room it feels like you’re underground, like a mole making it’s way through the soil. There is something sinister and exciting about being in the underbelly of the forest, surrounded by the roots of dead trees.

These gardens are fantastical places, literally gardens of the mind. They show the dungeons of the artist’s imagination, and make you walk through their nightmares and dreams. They’re brilliant for a thoughtful meander, but they’re not great places for cups of tea.

Ron van der Ende, Limo 1, 2009

A Shallow Wade is the title of a new exhibition that shows Americana distilled through an outsider’s perspective, that of Rotterdam artist Ron van der Ende.  Through his process of assembling large wall-hung collages of wood, he has salvaged doors, furniture, and other building fragments and deconstructed them, leaving worn paint in tact on skinned timber. These parts are collected and cut to fit into exact spaces.  Finding evidence and scenes from Western societies and mass media, he examines cultural monuments which have informed identities globally.

Ron van der Ende, Taylor-Burton, 2009 (Installation View)

These six wooden hulls, made big and light, are feats of intricate detail that would satisfy a model maker’s desire for exactitude.  They show us icons raised from the dead – a diamond worn by Elizabeth Taylor, the Cadillac Limo I driven by R. Reagan adorned with crumpled striped flags, and the shell of a Dodge, the Number 12 not in working order. Finishing nails make seams as rivets or stitches. Van der Ende is aiming at surface and alluding to depth, making image-products akin to those found in print and video media, with a few added inches of reality.

The NASCAR car is white from a distance, and a mosaic of color and texture up close.  Beige and gray expand upon approach to reveal dabs of rainbow’d light, bold pixels on a glossy surface.  But it is ghostly, a relic of frivolous gas consumption as sport, an emblem stripped of its power.  In “Limo I” the car appears tank-like in shades of tombstone gray, steel on black matte plates, and silvery reflections in the chamber.

Ron van der Ende, NASCAR Charger, 2009 (installation detail)

Mounted photographs next to Limo I show guns, jets, flags, and landscapes dominated by human presence.  Other images between the sculptures include scenes of mud, flood and piled up junk, interiors of gutted cars, explosions, collapsed plywood homes, and plain shacks standing steady.  These images might be meaningful, strengthening pathways between common symbols and forms, or maybe they are red herrings, disparate sources of inspiration for the artist that propel us to draw up connections.  Images display famous characters, workers, and their things, and in wood we see flags, products of factories, and items of sport and luxury. And, in front of us is art for sale, participating in the wealth-making world it critiques.

Ron van der Ende, Shotgun Shack Row, 2010

A street of rowhouses in New Orleans is imagined and remade by the artist in miniature in Shotgun Shack Row. Prairie Church is another homage to simple, effective architecture.  Design practices that used to be common knowledge have gained mystical qualities here, becoming ancestors that tell of colonies who have survived and flourished.

Ron van der Ende, On Re-Entry (Burning Log), 2010

The artist has been honing his skills making these intricate models for years now and collecting many tiny parts for use. A Shallow Wade will remain on exhibit until May 2nd at Ambach & Rice Gallery in Seattle, WA.  It is Ron van der Ende’s second solo show in the US.  He graduated in sculpture from the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Rotterdam, NL in 1988. He has had numerous shows in the Netherlands and exhibited extensively throughout Europe, and participated as a member of artist collective/gallery Expo Henk until 1997. Public and private collections that own his work include Bouwfonds Kunstcollectie and Historisch Museum Rotterdam.