Designed by Rotterdam-based design studio Ben Laloua/Didier Pascal, the multi-part publication box includes a miscellany of contributions by the artists, a cahier with texts on the projects (it can be downloaded from here), the prologue publication presented with the launch of the project in February 2009 and a DVD with 'behind the scenes' footage with interviews with 'Portscapes' artists.
The publications can be purchased at the Museum Boijmans’s shop, or can be ordered from SKOR by emailing info@skor.nl or calling +31(0)20 672 25 25. The standard edition costs €12.50 and the limited edition €50.
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Publisher: Port of Rotterdam Authority and SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space, Amsterdam)
'Portscapes' was an accumulative series of newly commissioned projects taking place throughout 2009 alongside the construction of Rotterdam's [51°55' N 4°29' E] Maasvlakte 2 – the extension to Europe's largest seaport and industrial area by 20%. + info
Production stills while filming the 1969 '12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective', in the Dutch coast near Zandvoort. The film was consequently included in Gerry Schum's Land Art TV
Production stills, '6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' in Maasvlakte beach, 8 February 2009. Photos: Latitudes, Paloma Polo/SKOR and Freek van Arkel
The inaugural Portscapes project took place a year ago on Sunday 8 February with the filming of a new version of Jan Dibbets' 12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective, newly titled 6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective.
Dibbets realised the original version of this classic work on the Dutch coast near Zandvoort in February 1969 and this 'second attempt' (the artist rejects the notion of a ‘remake’) was shot forty years later to the month, in February 2009 on a beach that will disappear with the construction of Maasvlakte 2. The eight minute film was premiered in the FutureLand visitor centre every Sunday during June 2009 and was screened on loop in New York, during Latitudes' participation in the non-profit festival 'No Soul for Sale' (24–28 June).
6 Hours Tide Object... records the drawing of a trapezoid shape in the sand during low tide using a bulldozer which drives back and forth along the beach. The shape consequently appears as a rectangular ‘frame’ in the resultant film due to the angle of perspective distortion in being shot from an elevated platform. Subsequently, the incoming tide washes it away. A formalistic reflection on geometry, representational illusion and the camera-’eye’, Dibbets reasserts the freshness of this fleeting filmed action with no hint of nostalgia. Within the context of the development of Maasvlakte 2 the work allows our fresh interpretations: concerning the physical modification of Dutch coastline, or new perspectives of construction, destruction and change, for example.
6 Hours Tide Object... was produced in the context of 'Portscapes', an accumulative series of ten new commissions by initiated by the Port of Rotterdam Authority with advice and financial support from SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space, Amsterdam) curated by Latitudes, Barcelona.
An exhibition is currently on view at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen with the resulting works realised throughout 2009. On viewuntil 25 April 2010 - free entrance.
Lara Almarcegui 'A Guide to the Wastelands of the Port of Rotterdam' (2009). Photo: Latitudes
Bik van der Pol, still of the film 'Facts on the Ground' (2009–10). Photo: Bik van der Pol
Jan Dibbets, Production stills while filming '6 Hours Tide Object With Correction of Perspective' (2009). Photos: Latitudes, Paloma Polo/SKOR and Freek van AarkelMarjolijn Dijkman, 'Here be dragons' (2009), image presented on a billboard. The second part of her project, the film 'Surviving New Island' (2009–10) will be premiered during the exhibition.
Fucking Good Art / Rob Hamelijnck & Nienke Terpsma 'Portscapes_ON AIR / Station Maasvlakte' (2009). Photo: FGAIlana Halperin, 'A Brief History of Mobile Landmass' (2009–10), audioguide. Photo: Chantal Karnaat Paulien Oltheten, Great if two pairs of legs are synchronized for a moment, (2009). Photo: Ben Wind
Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller, 'The Postpetrolistic Internationale' (2009–10). Photo: Paloma Polo / SKOR
Jorge Satorre in collaboration with Jorge Aviña, 'The Erratic. Measuring Compensation' (2010). Courtesy of the artist.
Hans Schabus, 'Europahaven, Rotterdam, 17 juni 2009' (2009) (c) the artist
'Portscapes' Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 30 January–25 April 2010. Reception: Friday 5 February, 8pm. Free entrance
'Portscapes' will present the results of works commissioned by the Port of Rotterdam realised throughout 2009 by 10 (inter)national artists on the occasion of the beginning of the construction of Maasvlakte 2 – the 2,000 hectare land supplementation project to extend Rotterdam's port, Europe's largest seaport and industrial area. 'Portscapes' has encompassed new projects of various scales under the leitmotif itineraries and destinations – artist-led tours, film screenings, billboards and the production of film and photographic works, audio-guides, radio broadcast and field guides. + info...
The films by Rotterdam-based artists Bik van der Pol and Marjolijn Dijkman, 'Facts on the Ground' (2009–10) and 'Surviving New Land' (2009–10) respectively, will be presented for the first time coincinding with the exhibition.
Overtreders W, the designers of the exhibition, have created semi-transparent display structures for the museum’s Richard Serra Hall, using industrial materials based on the format of cargo containers.
A catalogue (€12,50) and a special-edition catalogue (€50) designed by Ben Laloua/Didier Pascal are co-published by SKOR and the Port of Rotterdam Authority on the occasion of the exhibition. The special-edition includes filmed interviews with the artists as well as the DVD of '6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009), the film produced by Jan Dibbets for 'Portscapes'. Publication available at the Museum Boijmans's shop or can be ordered via SKOR by writing to info@skor.nl or calling +31(0)20 672 25 25
In the forthcoming issue of Danish magazine SUM#5, Latitudes talks to Rotterdam and Saint Mihiel-based artist Marjolijn Dijkman (1978) about visions of the Earth, cartography, image categorisation, representations of the future and new lands. Marjolijn Dijkman is one of the artists involved in the year-long commissioning series 'Portscapes'. Her film 'Here be dragons' (2009–10) will be premiered in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen exhibition, opening on the 5th February.
SUM#5 will be launched on the 9th December, from 17–19h, at the BKS Garage on Ny Carlsberg Vej 68, Copenhagen V.
SUM is published twice a year in English/Danish by The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' Schools of Visual Arts. Issue #5 is published with support from The Danish Ministry of Culture's grant for culture magazines and The New Carlsberg Foundation.
Another Denmark-based magazine Karriere#4 (Autumn issue), has published the text 'Big Things:Crunch, Crisis, Change we can believe' by Max Andrews from Latitudes which discusses Mark Boulos' two-screen film installation 'All that is Solid Melts into Air' (2008) and Renzo Martens' feature-length 'Episode III: Enjoy Poverty' (2008). You can download a pdf of Karriere text from Latitudes' writing archive. Karriere is published 3 times a year. Karriere is a free newspaper on contemporary art and social life. Distributed in all major Danish cities, Germany and England via the Walther Koenig Bookstores. [Image: Marjolijn Dijkman, Maasvlakte, 2009, Courtesy of the artist. Below: pdf of Karriere. Courtesy of Karriere]
The opening will coincide with the art fair Art Rotterdam (4–7 February) and 'Divided Divided', a solo exhibition by the Stockholm-based artist Carsten Höller also opening at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen on February 5th.
The films commissions by Rotterdam-based artistsBik van der Pol and Marjolijn Dijkman will be premiered coincinding with the exhibition. Project website: www.portscapes.nl (Dutch/English) Other Latitudes' flickr photo setshere.
'Postpetrolistic Internationale', the project by Zurich-based artists Christina Hemauer (1973) & Roman Keller (1969), started today with the transportation of a wooden stage along the Rhine from Basel (the most upriver navigable point of the Rhine), near the artists’ home, to Rotterdam (where the Rhine joins the sea).
Keller & Hemauer's project emerges from the medium of the collective human voice, the tradition of the aspirational social anthem alongside the artists’ long standing interest in energy use. Upon arrival of the stage, a Rotterdam-based choir will perform the 'Postpetrolistic Internationale', an anthem of hope-in-action on the stage, against a backdrop of local industry, to mark man’s changing relationship with fossil fuels and energy use. Performances: Saturday 7 November, time TBC, Maritime Museum, Rotterdam – MAP Sunday 8 November, 13.30h, Futureland, the Maasvlakte 2 visitor center – MAP
The 'Postpetrolism' project (2006-ongoing) was launched with a performance in Zürich in April 2006 in which a new manifesto of hope for the future reality of energy was declared and a plaque erected to mark the end of one energy era (‘peak oil’ was passed in 2005, according to Kenneth S. Deffeyes) and the beginning of another beyond oil. Images of the journey and arrival of the stage to Rotterdam's port on 2nd November:
Keller & Hemauer's project is part of 'Portscapes', a series of art projects commissioned by the Port of Rotterdam Authority with advice and financial support from SKOR (Foundation for Art and Public Space, Amterdam) and curated by Latitudes.
During the summer of 2009, Jorge Satorre was searching for, and eventually located, a large boulder – specifically one of the giant rocks carried by glaciers into The Netherlands from Scandinavia during the last Ice Age. Following the artist’s fascination with the environmental compensation projects being instigated alongside the construction of Maasvlakte 2, his project seeks to identify this rock’s precise place of origin and then return it to where it came from – an act of synthetic restitution and transnational sculptural offsetting. Satorre’s reverse geological gesture furthermore mirrors the monumental construction of the Maasvlakte 2 as a sculpting of land-form which, like the action of ice but in a far shorter time, is fundamentally altering the morphology of The Netherlands. The action is also reflected in the fact that much of the existing and future sea defense in the port area will be made from rock brought from Scandinavia. The artist’s accompanying pencil drawings offer an account of the process which incorporate both actual and imagined details, like a storyboard. A single drawing which depicts an imagined protest at the beginning of the boulder’s journey is realised as a billboard near the Futureland visitor’s centre.
Paulien Oltheten's videos and photographs can also be seen until mid-November 2009 in and around Futureland, the Maasvlakte visitors’ centre [MAP HERE]. From there, visitors can set off with a route description to the locations on the Maasvlakte where other work can be seen.
Locations and some images of Oltheten's mini-billboards:
The public domain and human behaviour is the starting point for the work of Paulien Oltheten (1982), though she has described her approach as closer to that of an anthropologist rather than artist. With her still and video cameras, she generally searches with apparent casualness for moments when there is contact between people, objects and public space. On the Maasvlakte, Oltheten was faced with the fact that the familiar frame of reference of natural elements, such as trees, bushes and people, was almost completely lacking. Oltheten decided to make use of this alienation by arranging meetings with people. This resulted in a series of photographs and two short video pieces. These stagings mostly take place in locations on the Maasvlakte that will disappear or be displaced during the coming years. The photographs and videos are sometimes variations on the theme of ‘one becomes two’, referring to the Maasvlakte, of which there will later be two.
Futureland is on Europaweg 909, 3199 LC Maasvlakte, Rotterdam (Havennummer 8213). It is across the road from the E.ON power plant. Open Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm and on Sunday 11am-5pm. Entry is free. Map here
Three new 'Portscapes' projects: Fucking Good Art's broadcasting from their 'base camp' in Maasvlakte until 21 September; Paulien Oltheten billboard and forthcoming exhibition at Futureland and Ilana Halperin's scripted audio field guide available in English and Dutch from 18 September 2009
Rotterdam-based artists Rob Hamelijnck and Nienke Terpsma, editors of the printed and online magazine FUCKING GOOD ART, have been living and working in a ‘base camp’ on the Maasvlakte from 20th August and will be there until end of September producing Portscapes ON AIR – Station Maasvlakte. (+ info...)
On 14 August 2009 a billboard by Amsterdam-based artist PAULIEN OLTHETEN was placed along the A15 on the Maasvlakte. Oltheten made use of the lack of reference of natural elements, such as trees, bushes and people by arranging meetings. These stagings mostly take place in locations on the Maasvlakte that will soon disappear or be displaced and often involve variations of the theme ‘one becomes two’, referring to the Maasvlakte, of which there will later be two. (+ info...)
As her contribution to Portscapes, New York-born Glasgow-based artist ILANA HALPERIN has created an audio field guide available online and on MP3 players which visitors will be able to pick up at Futureland (map here) and experience through wandering the nearby area of the port edge. ‘A Brief History of Mobile Landmass’ is inspired by a perception of Maasvlakte 2 in terms of formidable geophysical phenomena and a geological sense of time. (+ info...)
Audioguide available online and at Futureland (map here) from 18 September 2009 until 2013. Narrated in English and Dutch. Duration: 45 min.
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'Portscapes' is an accumulative series of art commissions taking place throughout 2009 alongside the construction of ‘Maasvlakte 2’, a 2,000 hectare area of reclaimed land that will extend the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport and industrial area by 20%. Projects varied in size and scale will be produced under the leitmotif itineraries and destinations comprising tours, audioguides, performances, radio programmes, interventions, for example. (+ info...)
Artists involved in Portscapes: Lara Almarcegui, Bik van der Pol, Jan Dibbets, Marjolijn Dijkman, Fucking Good Art, Cyprien Gaillard, Ilana Halperin, Roman Keller & Christina Hemauer, Paulien Oltheten, Michael Rakowitz, Jorge Satorre, Hans Schabus and Jun Yang. Website collaborators: Maria Barnas (poetry) and Markus Miessen (interviews).
Images of the 'base camp' and surroundings where the editors of Rotterdam-based printed and online art magazine Fucking Good Art will be until 21 September. All images courtesy FGA.
Initiated and edited by artists Rob Hamelijnck and Nienke Terpsma in 2003, Fucking Good Art is a Rotterdam-based printed and online art magazine which publishes reports, interviews, critical writing and observations with a non-academic, freestyle and do-it-yourself attitude. The editors of FGA explores creative communities by residing in particular local contexts for extended periods, and specific magazine issues have grown out of residencies in cities including Munich, Berlin, Copenhagen, Riga, Zurich and São Paulo.
Adapting their embedded approach for Portscapes, the editors of FGA are living and working in a ‘base camp’ on the Maasvlakte for 5 weeks, starting 20 August while producing Portscapes_ON AIR. Comprising a series of audio walks, field recordings and conversations with guests from different disciplinesPortscapes_ON AIR will be broadcast on the internet (www.portscapes.nl).
Inspired by their camp’s proximity to the pipeline which carries sand from the Yangtzehaven to the future Maasvlakte 2, the editors of FGA approach their endeavour both as inhabitants of an industrial and man-made territory and in relation to the redistribution and displacement of knowledge. Alongside other grand movements of transportation and trade taking place in the port, FGA’s broadcasts take shape through encounters with others and consider the role that art and artists have in other registers of exchange. Starting from the principal that in order to really understand a place one needs to really inhabit it, and the question of how to represent a place like as Maasvlakte 2 which does not yet fully exist, the editors of FGA also aim to stimulate discussion about the representation of Dutch landscape. They hope that their project could be pilot for a further research residencies.
Guests / participants contributing to Fucking Good Art's research on Maasvlakte and webradio:
Frank Bruggeman: Designer, artist and one of the editors of 'Club Donny', a strictly unedited journal on the personal experience of nature in the urban enviroment.
Hans Aarsman: Former photo journalist, and currently columnist for the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant" and playwriter. In 1988 he travelled for one year in Holland in his camper van - a Citroën HY - to produced the book 'Hollandse Taferelen'. He has published several publications: the photo book 'Aarsmans Amsterdam' (1993), his first novel 'Twee hoofden, een kussen' (1995) and in 2003 the autobiographical book 'Vrrooom! Vrrooomm!'. Some of his photos are free for download at the Nederlands Fotomuseum.
Remko Andeweg: Botanical analyst, City biologist of Rotterdam and author of the book 'Vreemde Planten in Rotterdam' [Exotic plants in Rotterdam, 2002], about the migration of plants that are considered foreign and endanger domestic vegetation.
Lino Hellings: Errorist! Recently founded the press agency P.A.P.A, an international network of artists and correspondents that creates news by taking action. Co-author of the publication "An Architecture of Interaction", and one of the founders of Dogtroep (1975), a self-styled form of visual theatre.
Gijsbert Korevaar: Industrial Ecologist.
Aurélie Barbier: A French urban planner specialised in emerging cities. Currently working for Urbaplan, an urban planning firm based in Switzerland. She has worked on various projects in Southern Europe and sub-Saharan African countries (Cameroon, Niger, Ghana). Over the past five years, she has focused on the definition of master plan, regulatory plan and slum upgrading projects through a comprehensive approach that includes both social and technical dimensions of urban development.
Martin Blum: Swiss artist and farmer. Works together with Haimo Ganz under the name GANZBLUM. In their art projects they focus on (life)cycles. Martin recently started public art projects on his farm "Frohe Aussicht" outside Zurich.
Marjolijn de Kok: Theoretical archeologist specialised on settlements and the wetlands of Holland. Also co-publisher of LIMA.
John Lonsdale: Architect. In the last years he has begun mapping the ‘Mudscapes of the Netherlands’ whereby he strives for the reconciliation of architecture with landscape.
Achilleka Komguem: Artist from Duala. Editor of journal 'Diartgonale' and worked on a radio show in Bessengue. He is in visiting Holland for 'Talking about!' a project by curators Zoë Gray and Lucia Babina that brings six artists and cultural producers from Cameroon to the Netherlands. FGA are hosting Achilleka during his visit.
CLUI: The Centre for Land Use Interpretation is a research organisation based in Culver City, Los Angeles, involved in exploring, examining, and understanding land and landscape issues. The Center employs a variety of methods to pursue its mission - engaging in research, classification, extrapolation, and exhibition. http://www.clui.org
Video of a recent sandstorm. Courtesy FGA.
Thanks to PUMA for providing the accommodation and Delta for the electricity.
Hans Schabus’ project for Portscapes is the next chapter in his ongoing series of ‘arrival photographs’ featuring the sailing boat Forlorn. The artist has produced a new photograph which can be seen on a roadside 5 x 9 metre billboard on the A15 (1km before reaching the visitor centre Futureland -- satellite view here), and is also distributed as a postcard. A presentation of Forlorn, the film ‘Western’ (2002), a series of photographs and the postcard will be on view at Futureland (directions and opening hours below) until 15 August, a presentation that has been conceived in collaboration with the artist to give further insight into the context of this extraordinary image – below a photo of the billboard presentation followed by production shots (all images: Freek van Arkel).
The Forlorn (2002) is a wooden-hulled ‘Optimist’ class sailing dinghy designed for a crew of one; in fact it is intended for children. The project of the ‘arrival photographs’ started with Western (2002), a film in which we see Schabus navigating through the sewers of his native Vienna in the self-built boat. He paddles through several sewage tracts until reaching a canal, a one way trip through a sinister labyrinth, a dark and obscure underground world. The film makes reference to Orson Welles’ 1949 film The Third Man through the use of the original score – at the film’s climax, Harry Lime flees from the authorities through the same sewers.
Since then the Forlorn has emerged into the light to undertake an unexplained and pitifully lonely global journey in which its single sailor is seen apparently arriving for the first time at different locations. First to a very foggy New York, a city which evoked a more radiant promised land for those many immigrants who arrived there by sea. Then onwards to Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Lake Constance, Bregenz, Austria; and Venice, Italy. The existential journey comprises a seemingly endless quest or escape, a migration voyage seen only at moments of hope and promise in making safe landfall. Will the migrant receive a warm or hostile reception on each new territory?
In the new image 'Europahaven, Rotterdam, 17 Juni 2009', the sailor navigates towards the huge container terminals of the Port of Rotterdam and a vast cargo ship. Sailing at a point which will become the new entrance to Maasvlakte 2, the simplest of water vehicles and a single man appear in stark contrast to an overwhelmingly modern manifestation of seafaring trade. Despite the speed, scale and efficiency of the port, the image seems to indicate that on a human scale the vastness of maritime space nevertheless remains a vulnerable and mythologically rich territory.
Hans Schabus’ (1970 Watschig, Austria. Lives in Vienna, Austria) sculptures and interventions often refer directly to his mental and physical surroundings, particularly to his studio and also by exploring excavation, transportation and engineering. His work embraces ecological cycles of construction, destruction and renewal – elements that were present in the 2004 exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, where the artist transformed the entire building into a complex and convoluted architectonic and mental path of discovery. The show included large-scale videos of train journeys to visit the venue during preparations, as well as flooding the ground floor and encompassing an imaginary tunnel to the basement of the building. In 2006 he produced the ‘Book of Ballast’ in which he explored a mostly forgotten sea connection between Liverpool and the US city of Savannah. Schabus documented numerous stones which made their way as ballast on ships to ports on the east coast of America, where they were put to use to pave streets and build houses. The artist became more widely known when he represented Austria at the 2005 Venice Biennale with the project The Last Land, whereby he created a maze inside a ‘mountain’ that completely covered the pavilion building.
Schabus’ solo projects include: Next Time I’m Here, I’ll Be There, The Curve, Barbican Gallery, London (2008); Deserted Conquest, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (2007); Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany (2006); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria (2004); and Secession, Vienna, Austria (1996 and 2003). Group exhibitions include: Revolutions – Forms That Turn, Biennale of Sydney (2008); Turin Triennial (2005); and Manifesta 4, Frankfurt (2004).
Postcard produced for 'Portscapes':
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Futureland is on the edge of the current Maasvlakte along the extension of the A15. It is across the road from the E.ON power plant. The information center is open from Tuesday–Friday (10am-5pm) and on Sunday (11am-5pm). Free entrance.
'Portscapes' is a series of newly commissioned public projects taking place alongside the construction of Maasvlakte 2 – the extension to the Port of Rotterdam. www.portscapes.nl
This past Sunday 8 February started very early for Latitudes -- we were on the beach of the Maasvlakte, Rotterdam, before first light with cameraman Fijko van Leeuwen in readiness for the filming of the new 2009 version (forty years later to the month) of Jan Dibbets' 1969 '12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (see previous post here). The resulting film, titled '6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' is the first project of our Portscapes project (commissioned by the Port of Rotterdam in collaboration with SKOR). Soon after Dibbets and Theo Tegelaers from SKOR arrived and, with bulldozer driver Jan Vader at the ready and van Leeuwen up on the hydraulic lift, the 'square' was marked out and the camera was ready to roll.
The bus with special guests and press arrived just in time to see the beginning of the raking action, and after a brief hail storm, the tide rose rapidly on cue around 12.30 to inundate the 'perspective correction'. A spectacular morning on the Dutch coast! Many thanks to everyone involved.
Latitudes is
a Barcelona-based curatorial
office initiated in 2005 by Max Andrews and Mariana
Cánepa Luna. This is our blog,
affiliated to our website www.LTTDS.org
Latitudes es
una oficina curatorial
con base en Barcelona iniciada en 2005 por Max Andrews y Mariana
Cánepa Luna. Este es el blog
afiliado a nuestra web www.LTTDS.org
