Untitled

In Untitled, curatorial and educational goals are intertwined. With art installations and events, as well as a bookstore and an initiative dedicated to collective learning, this long-term project continuously evolves. Inaugurated in May 2018, it is sited in our now freely accessible ground floor gallery. Untitled is conceptually conceived as a Matryoshka doll, where one work holds another work, which contains another work, and so forth, infinitely. To offer this multi-layered experience, there are a variety of display mechanisms and presentation formats in the gallery. Each of these involves different exhibition time-periods and engages with varying spans of attention in terms of how they’re rolled-out and experienced.

With this in mind, a site-specific work for the space has been commissioned, which is a room-size painting by Federico Herrero, as have been the furnishings of Untitled, commissioned to Muebles Manuel, which includes tables and chairs, bookshelves, and vitrine cases. The latter includes changing displays of new projects every exhibition season. Whereas one of these two vitrines features new artistic and curatorial projects, another is devoted to displays that draw from Witte de With’s rich exhibition history, and especially on those projects that involved community engagement.

For its part, new books are added every month to the bookshelves in Untitled and can be browsed through or purchased on site. This progressively growing inventory of the bookstore component of Untitled is made by the Witte de With team and guest participants, who select a theme and related bibliography. The bookstore also includes titles relating to artists participating in Witte de With’s exhibitions, and titles published by Witte de With over the years. Additionally, it features publications selected by TENT and CBK Rotterdam, which center on artists living here in Rotterdam and on local topics more broadly.

In Untitled, a series of events and public programs take place on a regular basis, especially on weekends. Please check the Calendar for event listings. We tend to serve refreshments at every program, and offer a casual atmosphere to engage with contemporary art and culture, to openly exchange ideas and hold conversations, and to make meaningful encounters with people.

Kicking-off in Autumn 2018, is a new initiative involving a work-study fellowship program for Rotterdam youth. Including courses ranging from art history to hospitality to business, the new initiative entails a hiring program that sees the participants collectively running the program and operations of Untitled in collaboration with the Witte de With team. Not just a gallery or classroom, not fully a bookstore or café, Untitled is designed to be both a site and an occasion for collective learning.

[figure timelapse_federico_herrero]