The Flexible Artwork
Artworks are flexible: they can function in different contexts and can take on new meanings. They are not limited to institutional settings like museums, with their emphasis on canon formation, or platforms for contemporary art, where an emphasis on experimentation and topical relevance predominate. What are the possibilities within exhibition practice to enable more flexible approaches to art’s presentation?

In the Back Room Discussion, Thomas Bakker (Club Solo, Breda), Paul van der Eerden (A.VE.NU.DE.JET.TE – Institut de Carton, Brussels) and Andrew Taggart & Chloe Lewis (Museum of Longing and Failure, Bergen) address how their initiatives interact, in a playful and critical manner, with institutional frameworks and the presentation of art. Club Solo invites artists to curate a solo exhibition of their work and asks a museum to respond with a piece from their collection. A.VE.NU.DE.JET.TE – Institut de Carton is a group of artists that plays with the idea of an ‘institution’ by organising idiosyncratic exhibitions in a privately owned house. Through continuing dialogue with its artists, The Museum of Longing and Failure develops a collection that grows with each presentation and is manifest using various methods. The event concludes with an artistic intervention by Rachel Carey inspired by the work of Esma Yiğitoğlu, whose work is currently on show at TENT. Anke Bangma (TENT) and Noor Mertens moderate the discussion.

The Back Room
Under the title The Back Room, former Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen curator Noor Mertens organised a series of exhibitions at TENT on the complete oeuvres of Paul Beckman (1946-2000), Charly van Rest (1949), Arie de Groot (1937–2016), and Esma Yiğitoğlu (1944–2009). All four have played a role in Rotterdam’s art but are virtually unknown among the current generation of artists and audiences. Mertens put their work back in the spotlight within TENT’s current programming and, in doing so, raises questions about factors determining the significance and appreciation of an artist’s oeuvre.

Spoken Language: English