Major

Sat, Mar 28, 2009
2:00 PM – 6:00 PM

New Museum theater (directions)

Freedom of Expression, Lidwien van de Ven

Part of Exhibition Related, Museum as Hub
 
Film / Video

In this special presentation, part of the final weekend of Be(com)ing Dutch at a Distance, artist Lidwien van de Ven presents her work Freedom of Expression, originally commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum for the “Be(com)ing Dutch” exhibition.  A discussion of van de Ven’s video and photographic work and related issues of art, politics, and freedom of speech follows the presentation, hosted by “Be(com)ing Dutch” curators Charles Esche and Annie Fletcher with invited discussants Sudeep Dasgupta and Sonja van Wichelen.

Freedom of Expression is a video showing footage of the press conference at the European Parliament held on February 14, 2008, where Benoît Hamon presented the case of “Freedom of Expression,” asking for funds to protect those under threat for expressing their opinion. Political figure Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the guest of honor in support of this request. While this was a small news item, it relates to the contemporary reality of the double bind of freedom of expression for both speech and religion.

Recent phenomena, such as films like Fitna by Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Submission by Theo Van Gogh, do not invite discussion but instead become political instruments that radicalize positions, making it even more urgent to look into developments surrounding freedom of expression more closely.

This presentation is part of “Museum as Hub: Be(com)ing Dutch at a Distance,” organized by Charles Esche, Director, and Annie Fletcher, Exhibitions Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. The exhibition is on view on the fifth floor of the Museum January 15–March 29, 2009.

Sponsors TOP

This discussion is made possible by the Charlotte and Bill Ford Artist Talks Fund.

Museum as Hub is made possible by the Third Millennium Foundation.

Seeds of Tolerance

With additional generous support from Metlife Foundation.

Additional support is provided by the Asian Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund, and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.
The Mondriaan Foundation awarded its 2006 Development Prize for Cultural Diversity to the Van Abbemuseum for the Be(com)ing Dutch project. Within the project's framework, the museum has organized a diversity of gatherings and a large-scale exhibition over the last two years.

Be(com)ing Dutch has been made possible with the support of:

Profiles TOP

Sudeep Dasgupta

Sudeep Dasgupta is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. His research has developed critical insight on aesthetics, politics, postcolonial theory, and media studies.

Sonja van Wichelen is a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. Her work focuses on cultural politics in the age of globalization and engages with issues of religion, gender, transnational adoption, ethnicity, and multiculturalism.


Lidwien van de Ven

Lidwien van de Ven (b. Hulst, 1963) is an artist who works in the realm of political and religious subjects. In her research she takes a rather journalistic approach, gathering material and delving into her subjects, though the work itself is not photojournalistic as such. Van de Ven’s presentations are made with monumental sized images brought together in carefully constructed installations. The images, photographed in Europe and the Middle-East, often record that which is outside the frame of news stories and investigate the frontier between reality and representation, image and language, news and contemporary history, while leaving whole the enigma of the visible. Her photographic installation document was shown as part of Documenta 12 in Kassel (2007). For Be(com)ing Dutch at the Van Abbemuseum, she produced the installation Freedom of Expression (2008), commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum for this show. She lives and works in Berlin and Rotterdam.


Sonja van Wichelen

Sonja van Wichelen is a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. Her work focuses on cultural politics in the age of globalization and engages with issues of religion, gender, transnational adoption, ethnicity, and multiculturalism.