Entitled
October 14, 2016–January 8, 2017
On the occasion of the current exhibition Willem de Rooij. Entitled at the MMK 2 of the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main the rector of the Städelschule Frankfurt, Philippe Pirotte, and Willem de Rooij will talk about the artist’s work and exhibition. Additionally the accompanying catalogue—containing three volumes—will be presented within the event series MMK Talks.
Willem de Rooij, born in 1969 in Beverwijk, Netherlands is one of the most influential artists of his generation. He studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. The artist is professor for fine arts at Städelschule Frankfurt am Main since 2006. Philippe Pirotte, born in 1972 in Antwerp, Belgium is an art historian and curator. He is the rector of Städelschule Frankfurt am Main and director of the Portikus in Frankfurt. He is a freelance Senior Curator at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Pirotte curateted this year’s Montréal Biennal. He has been a professor of fine arts at the Städelschule in Frankfurt since 2006.
The exhibition Entitled presents a number of important works and workgroups from throughout the artist’s career. Its focus is as much on individual works as on their arrangement within a comprehensive installation developed especially for the galleries of MMK 2. Space—whether private, public, institutional or social—is a central theme in de Rooij’s oeuvre. The spaces between individual works and views of the cityscape outside create connections between artwork and viewer, between museum and city.
Entitled consists of three core workgroups that could be seen as systems, archives or collections: the group of weavings (system), the 18-part work Index (archive) and the series of mannequins dressed in Fong Leng-label sportswear (collection). These three workgroups are complemented by three Bouquets and three smaller cabinet presentations featuring the slide projection Orange, studies for Bouquet IV and Orange, and early works.
The three catalogues for Entitled are produced together with Arnolfini in Bristol, Index – the Swedish Art Foundation in Stockholm, Consortium in Dijon and Petzel Gallery in New York, and contains texts by Philipp Ekardt, Manfred Hermes, Sven Lütticken, Pablo Martínez, Stephanie Moisdon, Vanessa Joan Müller and Axel Wieder.
