Rossella Biscotti
L'isola

vleeshal, 25 May - 8 July, 2012, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Rossella Biscotti’s project is informed by research into the state of detention. Focusing on a prisoner’s general conditions she analyzes the psychological effects caused by isolation, the aim of which is to destroy physical and intellectual abilities. The project is developed inside the first prison built for life imprisonment, which opened its doors in 1793 on the island of Santo Stefano, 50 km from the Italian coastline. The prison is a Panopticon resembling the San Carlo Opera Theatre in Naples. The panoptic structure, developed by Jeremy Bentham, expresses the desire of institutional powers to punish the prisoner and annul his identity, through the constant sensation of being controlled. The Santo Stefano structure was in function until 1965. It had also been used for political captivity.

Rossella Biscotti

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Landscape on the Move

kabinetten, 1 April - 24 June, 2012

Landscape on the Move is a touring exhibition that brings together elements and testimony from various places, linking the metaphor of travel to that of art. This project, which began with several events in 2010 and 2011, involves a series of contributions by artists who focus on the relationship between artworks and place and treat the exhibition space as a container of ideas in motion. Devised by the RadioArteMobile (RAM) organisation in Rome, the project includes an exhibition, the D/A/C project and the SoundArtMuseum.

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Falke Pisano
The Body in Crisis

vleeshal, 1 April - 20 May, 2012, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

From 1 April to 20 May the Middelburg Foundation for Visual Arts will present Falke Pisano’s exhibition The Body in Crisis at De Vleeshal. The exhibition will open at 5 p.m. on Saturday 31 March. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at an art institution in the Netherlands.

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Autumn of modernism

vleeshal, 14 January - 18 March, 2012, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

From 14 January through to 18 March, the the Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg (Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg) will present the group exhibition Autumn of modernism in De Vleeshal & De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal.

De Vleeshal en in De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal
Opens Saturday, 14 January, 5 p.m.

Gwenneth Boelens, Piet Dieleman, gerlach en koop, Sara van der Heide, Martijn Hendriks, Bas van den Hurk, Rob Johannesma, Katja Mater, Marc Nagtzaam, Falke Pisano, Roma Publications, Petra Stavast, Batia Suter, Remco Torenbosch, Martijn in ‘t Veld

Curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

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Marinus van Dijke
A walk, a hundred years, a reconstruction

kabinetten, 22 October - 11 December, 2011, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

This autumn Visual Arts Foundation presents the exhibition A walk, a hundred years, a reconstruction by Marinus van Dijke in De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal.

Opens
Saturday, October 22, 4 p.m.
De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal, Zusterstraat 7

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Beyond the Fragile Geometry of Sculpture

vleeshal, 22 October - 11 December, 2011, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

From 22 October through to 11 December, the the Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg (Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg) will present the group exhibition Beyond the Fragile Geometry of Sculpture in De Vleeshal.

With: Tolia Astali/Dylan Peirce, Eva Berendes, Michael Dean, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, David Jablonowski, Guillaume Leblon, Italo Zuffi

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I Can't, I Can, I Care

vleeshal, 8 October - 16 October, 2011

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

Production, presentation and distribution

From 8 to 16 October, the Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg will present the group exhibition I Can’t, I Can, I Care, a unique artistic laboratory in De Vleeshal.

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Collection 03: Pipilotti Rist
Grossmut begatte Mich

vleeshal, 17 September - 2 October, 2011, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

Collection SBKM / De Vleeshal

From 17 September through to 2 October 2011 the Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg (Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg) will present Grossmut begatte Mich by Piilotti Rist at the Vleeshal.

In 1996, De Vleeshal had been the first arts institution to acquire one of Rist’s works: Grossmut begatte Mich was presented in De Vleeshal, in 2000.

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In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art

kabinetten, 10 September - 9 October, 2011, curator: Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

The Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg (Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg) presents the exhibition In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art in De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal, Zusterstraat 7, Middelburg. It opens on saturday 10 september at 4 p.m. As part of the exhibition a publication will be presented.

At 5 p.m. there will be a symposium in De Vleeshal, with curators Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf and with special guests Seth Siegelaub and Daniel McClean.

Free Admission

‘Certiﬁcates of authenticity are a critical aspect of art works today’

Certiﬁcates of authenticity are a critical aspect of art works today. They often even embody the artwork itself, while referring to it, serving as its deed, legal statement, and ﬁscal invoice. Certiﬁcates by artists validate the authorship and originality of the work and they allow the work of art to be positioned in the
marketplace as a branded product-no matter how immaterial or transient that product may be. Whereas the inherent importance of any given work of art should be self-evident to the connoisseur’s eye, certiﬁcates point the focus elsewhere, and
prove that material or aesthetic qualities in an object sometimes do not sufﬁce in constituting the work of art. In our globalized, capitalist present, the certiﬁcate and its implications about artistic thinking have become an instrument of business nterprise, as well as a philosophical statement about the nature of an artwork.
Certiﬁcates have legal and ontological implications that make them fascinating documents of changing attitudes toward art and the role of artists.

Providing examples of artists’ certiﬁcates from the past ﬁfty years, this exhibition will reveal how roles have shifted and developed, as well as how the materials and content of art have changed too. Concise didactic texts will assist the viewer in contextualizing each inclusion in the presentation. Ranging from the most ofﬁcial looking printed documents, with their imprimatur of institutionalization, to dashed-off notations that perform the same deﬁnitive function in constituting and deﬁning the parameters of a given art work, this exhibition will interest a broad swath of audiences, ranging from art aﬁcionados to lawyers, students to aesthetes.

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Kelly Schacht
One Voice Makes Two Perspectives

2011, 9 July - 11 September, vleeshal, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

In her work Kelly Schacht goes in search of a very specific moment in time by reconstructing emotional situations and memories. She explores the act of exhibiting and the material space in which this act takes place by evoking new atmospheres and situations. In that dialogue between space and matter, Schacht brings into focus the conflict between illusion and reality, the imaginary and the concrete. The exhibition takes shape through the evocation of sensations and visions expressed as perpetual movements. The space is a dynamic element because its perception is bound up with the experience of the person who inhabits it.

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Esther Kokmeijer & Johan Nieuwenhuize
On Time, In Place

2011, 9 July - 4 September, kabinetten, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Photo(s): Johan Nieuwenhuize, Esther Kokmeijer

The Exhibithion On Time, In Place is a dialoque between Johan Nieuwenhuize and Esther Kokmeijer. The work they present at ‘De Kabinetten’ is a gathering of specific places at specific times.

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Published by Åbäke, Exhibited by De Vleeshal, Loaned by Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Sold by De Drvkkery, Resold by De Boekenbeurs

kabinetten, 20 March - 26 June, 2011

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

After Roma Publications and Castillo Corrales, the third exhibition in the “Published by” series is organised by the London-based collective Åbäke. Under the title Published by De Vleeshal, Åbäke creates a dialogue between various locations of books in the town of Middelburg. Apart from De Vleeshal itself, the exhibition sites are the Province of Zeeland library, the bookshop De Drvkkery and the second-hand bookshop De Boekenbeurs. Åbäke investigates the social dynamics of books – the places where they can be borrowed, purchased, repurchased or looked at, as well as the stories contained in them and the links they create between people. The aim is to discover the collective dimension of books, at the threshold between the private and public spheres. In The Sign of the Vandal, for instance, Åbäke borrows books from the library and arranges for their authors to autograph them. Thus personalised by their authors, the books are then returned to the library shelves. Books are a means of exchanging ideas, creating new perspectives and new spaces, constructing means of communication and moments of reflection. They are not just objects, but vehicles for creating new spaces.

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Mandla Reuter
A Plot

vleeshal, 20 March - 26 June, 2011, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

Photo(s): Leo van Kampen

The English word “plot” means not only a conspiracy and a story, but also a piece of land, an ambiguity of meanings that is played upon in Mandla Reuter’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. A Plot (2011) is an installation made of dirt and a corner post that has been brought into the exhibition space of De Vleeshal. The materials are coming from a piece of land that the artist purchased in Los Angeles, a city whose image is particularly formed by the local movie industry. This synthesis of reality and fiction is the theme the German artist sets out to define. In many ways A Plot (2011) can be seen as a diptych, one part becoming an artefact and cultural object, which is transformed and contextualized by the different venues it is traveling to. The other part, as a section on the map by definition immovable, becomes a monument of its own offering possibilities for things to come.

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Benoît Maire
The Object of Criticism

2011, 16 January - 6 March, vleeshal, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

For his first solo exhibition in The Netherlands the French artist Benoît Maire will present, under the title The Object of Criticism the second part of his philosophical investigation project Aesthetics of the Differends. In the exhibition five artworks are trying to find a solution to the question: what is the Object of philosophy? The artist understands philosophy as a critic (analytical critic) and the object of criticism can be understood as the object of philosophy.

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Unfolding
20 Years SBKM

kabinetten, 16 January - 3 March, 2011, curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of SBKM (1991-2011) a panoramic view of the foundation’s past activities will be presented in the spaces of De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal. Entitled Unfolding the exhibition wishes to enter the archive, detailing the material published over the years: publications, invites, posters, documents and numerous images that have characterized the gothic space of De Vleeshal and De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal with the most experimental contemporary art.

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