Press Kit (August 30th/31st, 2012) - Goldmann Public Relations ...

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights 

Contemporary Arts Exhibition in Mechelen and Brussels 

01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Curated by Katerina Gregos 

Press Kit (August 30 th /31 st , 2012) 

Greensboro civil rights demonstration,1960 

© Greensboro News & Record, All Rights Reserved or, in case of online 

communication www.news-record.com; www.sit-ins.com) 

International Media Relations: 

Goldmann Public Relations 

Daniela Goldmann 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Table of Contents 

1. Press Release 

2. Curatorial Statement by Katerina Gregos 

3. Exhibition Chapters, Venues and Artists 

4. New Commissions, Solo Presentations and Special Projects 

5. List of Artists with Biographies 

6. Satellite Exhibition: Alfredo Jaar 

7. Publication Concept and Specifications 

8. Public Opening and Festivities 

9. Opening Performance: The Erasers 

10. Satellite Program 

11. City of Mechelen – Symbiosis of Past and Present 

12. Sponsors and Media Partners 

13. Visitor Information 

14. Picture Preview



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

1. Communiqué de presse 

NEWTOPIA: L’état des droits de l’homme 

Vernissage de l’Exposition d’art contemporain à Malines (Belgique) 

Le 31 août, 2012 

NEWTOPIA: L’état des droits de l’homme est une exposition d’art 

contemporain d’envergure internationale dédiée, comme son titre l’indique, 

aux droits de l’homme. Comment les artistes actuels se positionnent-ils par 

rapport à ce sujet crucial et complexe avec lequel l’art a d’ailleurs depuis 

longtemps des liens étroits ? La réponse se lit dans les œuvres 

sélectionnées par la commissaire de renom international Katerina Gregos, 

qui pourront être admirées à Malines et Bruxelles, du 1 er septembre au 10 

décembre 2012. L’exposition retrace le parcours du mouvement des droits 

de l’homme de la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale à ce jour, en 

accordant une attention toute particulière à l’accroissement de son impact, 

surtout à partir des années 1970. Elle fait également un gros plan sur la 

situation actuelle. 

L’EXPOSITION 

L’exposition se propose de faire découvrir les œuvres de plus de soixantedix 

artistes de différentes nationalités et générations excellant dans 

différentes disciplines artistiques. S’articulant comme autant de réponses 

aux questions que soulèvent les principes fondamentaux des droits de 

l’homme, ces œuvres offrent une approche encyclopédique du sujet. 

L’exposition est répartie en quatre chapitres ou volets thématiques. Elle 

comprend aussi cinq projets artistiques individuels, dont deux en extérieurs, 

et plusieurs œuvres inédites spécialement réalisées à son intention. Gregos 

a réuni à l’affiche de NEWTOPIA de jeunes talents émergents comme Ninar 

Esber (Liban), Diango Hernández (Cuba), Ganzeer (Égypte), Marina 

Naprushkina (Biélorussie), Kader Attia (France), mais aussi que des 

monstres sacrés comme Hans Haacke, Mona Hatoum, Leon Golub, David 

Goldblatt, Pablo Picasso et Andy Warhol. Nombre d’artistes sont originaires 

de pays où les droits de l’homme ont été longtemps bafoués ou le sont 

encore. C’est notamment le cas de d’Olga Chernysheva (Russie), Ali Ferzat 

(Syrie), Taysir Batniji, Khaled Jarrar, Wafa Hourani (Palestine), Nikita 

Kadan (Ukraine), Hayv Kahraman (Iraq), Boniface Mwangi (Kenya), Sun 

Xun et Zhou Zixi (Chine). La moitié d’entre eux proviennent de pays non 

occidentaux. L’exposition entend en outre remettre sous le feu des 

projecteurs une poignée d’artistes de grand talent indûment marginalisés, 

comme l’artiste belge Wilchar (1910-2005) qui figure parmi les artistes les 

plus originaux, engagés politiquement et irréductibles de sa génération. 

L’exposition est conçue comme un parcours à la découverte de 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

« l’UNESCO World Heritage City ». 

NEWTOPIA zoome sur les multiples et complexes facettes des droits de 

l’homme – des droits civils, sociaux, économiques et culturels aux droits au 

développement durable, à la paix et à un environnement salubre – tout en 

mettant en évidence leur caractère indivisible et interdépendant. Le 

Chapitre 1 de NEWTOPIA, à l’affiche du Centre culturel de Malines, est 

consacré aux droits de l’homme de la première génération (droits civils et 

politiques). Le Chapitre 2, hébergé dans l' anciennes halles aux viandes de 

Malines, porte sur les droits d’ordre social, économique et culturel de la 

deuxième génération. Le Chapitre 3, au nouveau musée municipal Hof Van 

Busleyden, s’intéresse aux droits de solidarité et d’inclusion, et dresse un 

état des lieux des droits de l’homme à ce jour. Quant au Chapitre 4, à 

l’enseigne du Centre des Congrès et du Patrimoine Lamot, il se penche à 

titre d’épilogue sur l’avenir et s’interroge quant à la façon dont l’art pourrait 

nous aider à concevoir un monde meilleur et serait capable de visualiser le 

caractère utopique des droits de l’homme, ainsi que leur potentiel positif. 

NEWTOPIA réunit aussi quatre prestigieux projets individuels, dont deux en 

extérieurs, qui pourront être admirés à Malines. Le premier consiste en des 

images vidéo à grande échelle de l’artiste polonais de grand renom 

Krzysztof Wodiczko, qui seront projetées sur le mur de l’hôtel de ville de 

Malines, et le second en une peinture murale que l’artiste égyptien Ganzeer 

a réalisée sur le site du musée Hof Van Busleyden. Le troisième est une 

installation que Gregos a commandée à l’artiste irlandais Nevan Lahart à 

l’intention de NEWTOPIA et qui sera exposée à l’Académie des Beaux-Arts 

et le quatrième, une installation vidéo diffusée sur 19 canaux du célèbre 

cinéaste indien Amar Kanwar que le public pourra découvrir au Scheppers 

Instituut. Cette œuvre intitulée The Torn First Pages (2004-2008) rend 

hommage à tous ceux qui se sont engagés en faveur la démocratie en 

Birmanie (ex-Myanmar). Toujours dans le cadre de NEWTOPIA, le public 

aura l’occasion de découvrir au Centre Lamot une « exposition dans 

l’exposition » pour laquelle Kendell Geers (Afrique du Sud) a choisi d’inviter 

à son tour des artistes consacrés comme Ai Weiwei, Barbara Kruger, 

Marina Abramovic, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Nedko Solakov et une poignée 

d’artistes en herbe, ainsi qu’une exposition satellite entièrement dédiée aux 

œuvres d’Alfredo Jaar, au Centre culturel ING à Bruxelles. 

Les visiteurs de NEWTOPIA auront par ailleurs le privilège de découvrir des 

œuvres issues des collections de l’IISG – Internationaal Instituut voor 

Sociale Geschiedenis (Amsterdam), un des plus grands centres de 

documentation et de recherche en matière d’histoire sociale et économique, 

et de son pendant belge, l’AMSAB (Gand) qui recueille et archive des 

documents sur les mouvements sociaux progressistes, écologiques et 

d’émancipation en Belgique, dont les premiers remontent au début du 

XIX e siècle. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

LE CONCEPT DE L’EXPOSITION 

Même s’ils sont invoqués dans de multiples contextes, les droits de 

l’homme demeurent un sujet abstrait pour de nombreuses personnes. 

NEWTOPIA entend donc contribuer par le biais de l’art à une meilleure 

compréhension de ce vaste sujet et de ses mécanismes complexes. Les 

droits de l’homme sont en effet liés à une multitude d’aspects sociaux, 

économiques, culturels, individuels et collectifs. Il s’agit de droits 

fondamentaux visant à préserver l’intégrité et la liberté de tout individu, 

indépendamment de son contexte culturel et géographique, de sa religion, 

de son sexe et de son statut social. Ces droits doivent notamment lui 

permettre de s’exprimer librement, de participer à la vie politique et sociale 

et de se développer intellectuellement, émotionnellement et 

économiquement. Les droits de l’homme sont régis par deux principes 

fondamentaux stipulant que l’homme ne saurait être maltraité et que tout 

un chacun doit avoir l’opportunité de s’épanouir et d’accéder au bien-être. 

En Occident en particulier, on tend à croire que les droits de l’homme sont 

acquis, alors qu’en réalité nombre d’entre eux sont toujours tout sauf 

garantis. La privatisation galopante des services publics, l’érosion de 

l’espace public, le démantèlement progressif de l’État-providence, ainsi que 

et l’instauration après les attentats du 11 septembre d’un climat de peur et 

d’une surveillance accrue au nom de la « sécurité nationale » ont induit la 

prise de mesures qui ont porté atteinte à certains droits démocratiques, 

civils et sociaux élémentaires et compromis la sécurité sociale qui un des 

piliers de toute société soi-disant civilisée. Le respect des droits de l’homme 

est par conséquent un problème qui se pose et continuera de se poser aux 

quatre coins de la planète. NEWTOPIA a également pour ambition de 

mettre en question les stéréotypes unidimensionnels associés aux droits de 

l’homme, ainsi que leur représentation négative qui est en contradiction 

avec les efforts que le mouvement des droits de l’homme déploie afin 

d’induire un changement positif. 

NEWTOPIA a notamment pour partenaires Amnesty International et Human 

Rights Watch. 

MALINES, LA CULTURE CONTEMPORAINE ET LES DROITS DE 

L’HOMME 

NEWTOPIA est une initiative de la Ville de Malines bénéficiant du soutien 

du Conseil de l’Europe, de la Communauté flamande et de la Province 

d’Anvers. Depuis le succès de l’exposition City in Women’s Hands en 2005, 

la Ville de Malines organise tous les trois ans un événement culturel 

d’envergure internationale. Cette année, elle a voulu que cet événement 

coïncide avec l’ouverture au mois de novembre prochain de la Caserne 

Dossin transformée en mémorial, musée et centre de documentation de 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

l’holocauste et des droits de l’homme et qui, à l’occasion de NEWTOPIA, 

accueillera d’ailleurs une splendide installation de l’artiste lituanienne 

établie à Paris Esther Shalev-Gerz. L’exposition proposée et orchestrée par 

Katerina Gregos s’inscrit, d’une part, entièrement dans la politique culturelle 

de la Ville de Malines qui a pour ambition de se profiler comme un centre 

d’art contemporain et, d’autre part, en amont de l’ouverture de la caserne 

Dossin. Il est donc clair que dans les mois, voire les années à venir, le 

pavillon des droits de l’homme flottera au-dessus de la ville. 

PUBLICATION 

L’ouvrage édité par Katerina Gregos et Elena Sorokina à l’occasion de cette 

exposition est publié par Ludion et mis en page par BaseDesign, Bruxelles. 

Cet ouvrage de 256 pages, doté d’une couverture rigide, est disponible en 

néerlandais et en anglais. ISBN 9789461300751 / Prix : 27,90 ! 

Le lecteur y découvrira: 

1. Essays 

Une série d’essais de la plume d‘Ariella Azoulay, Katerina Gregos, Lina 

Khatib, Keenan Malik, Samuel Moyn, Elena Sorokina et Raoul Vaneigem, 

ainsi qu’une interview exclusive de Stéphane Hessel. 

2. ‘Human Rights Heroes’ 

Un florilège de brefs textes rédigés par des défenseurs des droits de 

l’homme et activistes célèbres tels que Liu Xiaobo, Anna Politkovskaya, 

Shirin Ebadi, Asmaa Mahfouz et Aung San Suu Kyi. 

3. Artists’ Section 

Enfin des photos des œuvres des 70 artistes participant à l’exposition, 

accompagnées d’une notice explicative et d‘une courte biographie. 

Malines, le 31 août 2012 



International Media Relations 



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gerrie.soetaert@skynet.be 

Écoutez le chanson charité pour l'Economie européenne „We Need You Now (more than ever)“ par le collectif danois d'art 

WOOLOO pour NEWTOPIA! www.NEWTOPIAblog.com/songrelease-wooloo/ 

Pour plus d’information, veuillez consulter www.NEWTOPIA.be / www.facebook.com/NEWTOPIA2012 / www.NEWTOPIABLOG.com 

4



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

1. Press Release 


Exhibition Opening in Mechelen (Belgium) 

August 31 st , 2012 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights is a major international 

contemporary art exhibition dedicated to human rights, exploring how 

contemporary artistic practice negotiates the subject in all its difficulty and 

complexity. The exhibition builds on the long relationship between art and 

human rights. NEWTOPIA is curated by the Brussels-based international 

curator Katerina Gregos and will be on view from September 1 st until 

December 10 th , 2012. Tracing artistic responses to human rights issues, the 

exhibition charts the development of the human rights movement and its 

evolving discourse since the post-war era, paying particular attention to the 

emergence of new human rights discourses and the ‘rise of human rights’ 

since the 1970s, and looks at their current state. 

THE EXHIBITION 

The exhibition contains work by over 70 international artists of different 

generations working in diverse media and examines a rich variety of artistic 

responses in relation to the basic tenets of human rights, adopting an 

encyclopedic approach to the subject. NEWTOPIA is divided into four 

distinct thematic chapters and features five solo presentations, including 

two new major commissions for public space, as well as several new works 

for the exhibition. There are young, emerging artists such as Ninar Esber 

(Lebanon), Diango Hernández (Cuba), Ganzeer (Egypt), Marina 

Naprushkina (Belarus), Kader Attia (France), as well as historical reference 

points (Hans Haacke, Mona Hatoum, Leon Golub, David Goldblatt, Pablo 

Picasso, Andy Warhol). Many of the artists come from countries and 

geographies where human rights have been, or are, a particularly pressing 

issue such as Olga Chernysheva (Russia), Ali Ferzat (Syria), Taysir Batniji 

(Palestine), Khaled Jarrar (Palestine), Wafa Hourani (Palestine), Nikita 

Kadan (Ukraine), Hayv Kahraman (Iraq), Boniface Mwangi (Kenya), Sun 

Xun (China), Zhou Zixi (China). Half of the artists come from non-western 

countries. In addition, the exhibition aims to re-position a few major but 

unjustifiably marginalized figures such as the Belgian artist Wilchar (1910- 

2005), one of the most original, politically outspoken, and uncompromising 

artists of his generation. 

NEWTOPIA is conceived as an exhibition parcours through the UNESCO 

World Heritage City Mechelen. 

NEWTOPIA negotiates the numerous complex aspects of human rights – 

civil and political rights; social, economic and cultural rights; the right to 

sustainable development, to peace and to a healthy environment – while 

emphasizing the indivisible, interrelated and interdependent nature of these 

1 






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Deutschland 

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Netherlands 




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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

rights. The four chapters are on view in four venues: Chapter 1 at the 

Mechelen Cultural Centre deals with so-called “first generation human 

rights” which are civil and political in nature; Chapter 2 at the Old Mechelen 

Meat Market is concerned with so-called “second generation human rights”, 

which are social, economic, and cultural; Chapter 3 at the new City 

Museum Hof Van Busleyden examines the current state of human rights, 

and so-called ‘solidarity’ or ‘inclusion’ rights. Finally, Chapter 4 at Lamot is 

the epilogue of the exhibition. Thinking beyond the ‘here and now’, this 

chapter asks: how might art help us to imagine a better world? How, in 

artistic terms, might the utopia of human rights and their positive potentiality 

be visualized? 

NEWTOPIA also features four significant solo presentations in Mechelen, 

including two new major commissions for public space: a large-scale public 

video installation by the internationally renowned Polish artist Krzysztof 

Wodiczko on Mechelen City Hall and a mural by the Egyptian artist 

Ganzeer at Site Hof Van Busleyden. NEWTOPIA also features a specially 

commissioned site-specific installation by the Irish artist Nevan Lahart at the 

Academy of Fine Arts; and finally, a presentation of the seminal, 19channel 

video installation The Torn First Pages (2004-2008) by the 

acclaimed Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar at Scheppers Institute. The 

work pays tribute to those engaged in the struggle for democracy in Burma 

(Myanmar). NEWTOPIA also features a project curated specially for the 

exhibition by Kendell Geers (South Africa) at Lamot. Geers’ guests include: 

Ai Wei Wei, Barbara Kruger, Marina Abramovi!, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov and 

Nedko Solakov, as well as young, emerging artists. Finally, there will be a 

solo exhibition of Alfredo Jaar, at ING Cultural Centre in Brussels, as a 

satellite project of the exhibition. 

In addition, two important institutions will feature works from their collections 

in NEWTOPIA: IISH – The International Institute of Social History 

(Amsterdam) one of the world's largest documentation and research centres 

in the field of social and economic history, and its Belgian sister 

organization AMSAB – The Institute of Social History (Gent) which 

documents and archives progressive social, ecological, and 

emancipation movements in Belgium from the beginning of the nineteenth 

century. 

EXHIBITION CONCEPT 

The concept of human rights remains very much an abstraction in the minds 

of many people, even though it touches upon a multiplicity of 

issues. NEWTOPIA thus aims to visualize and provide insight into the 

complexity and breadth of human rights and how they are bound to a 

myriad of social, political, economic, cultural, personal and collective issues. 

Human rights are basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are 

entitled – regardless of cultural and geographical background, religion, sex, 

or social status. They concern to: human integrity and safety; fundamental 

2



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

freedoms; participation in political life and the life of society; protection from 

fear, want, abuse, exclusion; rights to personal, intellectual, emotional and 

economical development. Human rights are guided by two main principles, 

that people should not be maltreated; and that every person should be 

given the chance to flourish and attain well-being. 

Especially here in the West we seem to take our human rights for granted, 

while some of these rights are now anything but guaranteed. The increasing 

privatization of the former public services and utilities, the erosion of public 

space, the gradual dismantling of the welfare state, the culture of fear and 

surveillance consolidated in the name of ‘national security’ since 9/11 have 

brought measures that have compromised basic democratic, civil and social 

rights and are threatening the social safety net that is so important for any 

society that wants to call itself 'civilised'. Regardless the geographical 

perspective, human rights were, are, and will continue to be a universally 

relevant issue. 

NEWTOPIA also thus aims to challenge the one-dimensional stereotypes 

associated with human rights as well as the 'negative' image they have in 

terms of representation, which is a paradoxical and problematic situation as 

the human rights movement aims for and effects positive change. 

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are both partners of the 

exhibition. 

MECHELEN, CONTEMPORARY CULTURE, AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

NEWTOPIA is an initiative of the City of Mechelen and is supported by the 

Council of Europe, the Flemish Community and the Province of Antwerp. 

Since the success of the exhibition City in Women’s Hands in 2005, the City 

of Mechelen has instigated a large-scale, international cultural event every 

three years, this time particularly timed to coincide with the forthcoming 

opening of the Kazerne Dossin – Memorial, Museum and 

Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, in November, 

which will also host a NEWTOPIA project: a major installation by Lithuanian, 

Paris-based artist Esther Shalev-Gerz. The exhibition proposed and 

curated by Katerina Gregos is entirely in line with Mechelen’s ambition to 

establish a profile for itself as a centre for contemporary art. At the same 

time, NEWTOPIA – which emphasizes the timeless and universal aspect of 

human rights – will aptly precede the opening of the new Kazerne Dossin 

later in the year. The question of human rights thus remains relevant for the 

city of Mechelen, in the time to come. 

PUBLICATION 

The catalogue published on the occasion of this exhibition, edited by 

Katerina Gregos and Elena Sorokina, will be published by Ludion and 

designed by BaseDesign, Brussels. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

The hard cover publication contains 256 pages and will be available in 

Dutch and English. ISBN 9789461300751 / Price: 27,90 " 

The book is divided into three sections: 

1. Essays 

With contrubutions by: Ariella Azoulay, Katerina Gregos, Lina Khatib, Kenan 

Malik, Samuel Moyn, Elena Sorokina, Raoul Vaneigem, plus one exclusive, 

original interview with Stéphane Hessel. 


A selection of short seminal texts by prominent human rights defenders and 

activists including Liu Xiaobo, Anna Politkovskaya, Shirin Ebadi, Asmaa 

Mahfouz, Aung San Suu Kyi and others. 


Images of works by the 70 artists in the exhibition accompanied by short 

descriptive texts and very brief biographical information. 

Mechelen, August 31 st 2012 

Listen to the Charity-song for the European Economy „We Need You Now (more 

than ever)“ by the Danish art collective WOOLOO for NEWTOPIA! 

www.NEWTOPIAblog.com/songrelease-wooloo/ 

Images will be provided on request and can also be downloaded on: 

www.goldmannpr.de. 

For further information please visit: 

www.NEWTOPIA.be / www.facebook.com/NEWTOPIA2012 

www.NEWTOPIABLOG.com 



International Media Relations 



10969 Berlin 


T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 




Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 


Special thanks to the sponsors and media partners of NEWTOPIA ING Belgium, 

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, MO*, cobra.be, Klara and frieze for their 

cooperation and support. 

4



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

1. Pressemitteilung 


Ausstellungseröffnung in Mechelen (Belgien) 

31. August 2012 

NEWTOPIA - The State of Human Rights stellt als große, den 

Menschenrechten gewidmete internationale Ausstellung zeitgenössischer 

Kunst eine positive Bestandsaufnahme dar, die in aller Komplexität 

untersucht wie sich Gegenwartskünstler mit dem Thema 

auseinandersetzen. Die Ausstellung schließt an die lange Beziehung 

zwischen Kunst und Menschenrechten an. Für die künstlerische Leitung 

zeichnet NEWTOPIA die in Brüssel lebenden Kuratorin Katerina Gregos 

verantwortlich. NEWTOPIA ist vom 1. September bis 10. Dezember in 

Mechelen (Belgien) zu sehen. Die Ausstellung dokumentiert anhand der 

künstlerischen Beschäftigung mit den Thema die Entwicklung der 

Menschenrechtsbewegung und die Bedeutung, die ihr seit der 

Nachkriegszeit zukommt – einen besondere Stellenwert nimmt vor allem die 

veränderte Auseinandersetzung mit den Menschenrechten ein, vor dem 

Hintergrund ihrer wachsenden Bedeutung seit den 1970er Jahren. 

DIE AUSSTELLUNG 

Die Ausstellung zeigt Arbeiten von über 70 international anerkannten 

Künstlern mehrerer Generation, die sich unterschiedlichster medialer 

Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten bedienen und untersucht die subjektive 

Herangehensweise und Vielseitigkeit, in der Künstler sich mit den 

Grundsätzen der Menschenrechte auseinandersetzen. NEWTOPIA ist 

gegliedert in vier Themenbereiche und fünf Einzelprojekte, darunter zwei 

groß angelegte Auftragsarbeiten für den öffentlichen Raum. In der 

Ausstellung befinden sich auch zahlreiche Arbeiten, die speziell für 

NEWTOPIA entwickelt wurden. Die Ausstellung zeigt sowohl junge, 

aufstrebende Künstler wie Ninar Esber (Libanon), Diango Hernández 

(Kuba), Ganzeer (Ägypten), Marina Naprushkina (Belarus), Kader Attia 

(Frankreich/Südafrika) wie auch eine Vielzahl an historischen Beiträgen, 

unter anderem von Hans Haacke, Mona Hatoum, Leon Golub, David 

Goldblatt, Pablo Picasso und Andy Warhol. Etwa die Hälfte der teilnehmen 

Künstler kommt nicht aus westlichen Staaten, viele stammen aus Ländern, 

in denen die Menschenrechte ein akutes und häufig brisantes Thema 

darstellen, wie beispielsweise Olga Chernysheva (Russland), Ali Ferzat 

(Syrien), Taysir Batniji, Khaled Jarrar, Wafa Hourani (Palästina), Nikita 

Kadan (Ukraine), Hayn Kahraman (Irak), Boniface Mwangi (Kenia), Sun 

Xun und Zhou Zixi (China). Die Ausstellung hat sich zudem zum Ziel 

gesetzt, wichtige Künstler wie den Belgier Wilchar (1910-2005), die zu 

Unrecht in den Hintergrund gerückt sind, im Rahmen von NEWTOPIA neu 

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Deutschland 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

vorzustellen – Wilchar gilt als einer der originellsten, politisch offensivsten 

und kompromisslosesten Künstler seiner Generation. 

NEWTOPIA ist konzipiert. als Ausstellungs-Parcours durch die UNESCO- 

Weltkulturerbestätte Mechelen. 

NEWTOPIA behandelt die verschiedenen Facetten der Menschenrechte – 

bürgerliche und politische Rechte; soziale, ökonomische und kulturelle 

Rechte; das Recht auf nachhaltige Entwicklung, auf Frieden und eine 

intakte Umwelt – in all ihrer Komplexität und betont die Untrennbarkeit, 

gegenseitige Wechselbeziehung und gleichzeitige Unabhängigkeit dieser 

Rechte. Jedes der vier Kapitel ist in einem eigenen Ausstellungsort zu 

sehen: Das erste Kapitel im Kulturzentrum von Mechelen 

(Cultuurcentrum) befasst sich mit der so genannten „Ersten Generation 

der Menschenrechte“, die vor allem bürgerlicher und politischer Natur sind. 

Das zweite Kapitel im Alten Fleischmarkt von Mechelen (Vleesmarkt) 

stellt Arbeiten zur so genannten „zweiten Generation der Menschenrechte“ 

vor, die vor allem soziale, ökonomische und kulturelle Rechte umfasst. Das 

dritte Kapitel im neuen Museum Hof Van Busleyden untersucht den Ist- 

Zustand der Menschenrechte heute sowie das Recht auf Solidarität und 

Integration. Das letzte, vierte Kapitel im Lamot Konferenzzentrum stellt 

den Epilog der Ausstellung dar. Als Frage nach dem „Hier und Jetzt“ 

hinterfragt das Kapitel: wie kann die Kunst in unserer Vorstellung eine 

bessere Welt zeichnen? Und wie kann die Utopie der Menschenrechte und 

ihre potentielle positive Kraft im künstlerischen Sinne visualisiert werden? 

NEWTOPIA zeigt, neben den vier Ausstellungskapiteln, vier Einzelwerke in 

Mechelen. Darunter zwei groß angelegte, eigens für die Ausstellung 

kreierte Beiträge im öffentlichen Raum: eine überdimensionale 

Videoprojektion des international anerkannten polnischen Künstlers 

Krzysztof Wodiczko auf der Fassade des Rathauses von Mechelen sowie 

ein Wandbild des ägyptischen Künstlers Ganzeer im Hof Van Busleyden. 

Zu sehen ist außerdem eine speziell für NEWTOPIA in Auftrag gegebene, 

ortsspezifische Arbeit des irischen Künstlers Nevan Lahart an der 

Kunstakademie (Academy of Fine Arts) und zuletzt eine Präsentation der 

wegweisenden 19-Kanal Videoinstallation The Torn First Pages (2004- 

2008) des indischen Künstlers Amar Kanwar am Scheppersinstituut. 

Diese Arbeit würdigt die betroffenen Aktivisten im Kampf um Demokratie in 

Burma (Myanmar). NEWTOPIA zeigt im Lamot Konferenzzentrum auch 

ein von Kendell Geers (Südafrika) eigens für die Ausstellung kuratiertes 

Projekt, das sowohl berühmte Gäste wie Ai Wei Wei, Barbara Kruger, 

Marina Abramovi!, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov und Nedko Solakov, als auch 

junge aufstrebende Künstler vereint. Als Satellitenprojekt zur Ausstellung 

wird es auch eine Einzelausstellung von Alfredo Jaar im ING Kulturzentrum 

in Brüssel geben. 

Zusätzlich zu den Künstlerbeiträgen in NEWTOPIA – The State of Human 

Rights werden zwei bedeutende Institutionen Teile ihrer Sammlung zur 

2



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Verfügung stellen: IISH – The International Institute of Social History 

(Amsterdam), eines der weltweit größten Dokumentations- und 

Forschungszentren im Bereich der Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 

sowie die belgische Dependance des AMSAB – The Institute of Social 

History (Gent), das die progressiven Sozial-, Wirtschafts- und 

Emanzipationsbewegungen in Belgien seit Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts 

dokumentiert und archiviert. 

DAS AUSSTELLUNGSKONZEPT 

Das Prinzip der Menschenrechte bleibt, obwohl es eine Vielzahl an 

Problemen thematisiert, für viele Menschen ein abstraktes Gebilde. 

NEWTOPIA versucht deshalb, einen Einblick in die Komplexität und den 

Umfang der Menschenrechtsthematik zu geben – wie die untrennbare 

Verbindung zu vielen sozialen, politischen, ökonomischen, kulturellen, 

persönlichen und kollektiven Themen. Menschenrechte sprechen jedem 

Menschen – unabhängig von kulturellem oder geographischem 

Hintergrund, von Religion, Sexualität oder sozialem Status – Grundrechte 

und Freiheit zu. Die Rechte stehen für menschliche Integrität und 

Sicherheit, für elementare Freiheit, für die Teilhabe am politischen und 

gesellschaftlichen Leben, für Schutz vor Angst, Not, Missbrauch und 

Ausschluss, sowie für persönliche, intellektuelle, emotionale und 

ökonomische Entwicklung. Die zwei wichtigsten Säulen der 

Menschenrechte sind das Recht eines jeden Menschen, nicht schlecht 

behandelt zu werden und die Chance auf freie Entfaltung und ein Leben in 

Zufriedenheit führen zu können. 

Speziell in den westlichen Ländern scheint jeder die Menschenrechte als 

selbstverständlich zu erachten, einige dieser Rechte sind heute heute 

jedoch keineswegs gesichert. Die ansteigende Privatisierung der sozialen 

Grundversorgung und der öffentlichen Einrichtungen, die Einschränkung 

des öffentlichen Raums, der graduelle Abbau des Sozialstaates, die 

„Angstkultur“ und die allumfassende Überwachung im Namen der 

„Nationalen Sicherheit“ – diese Maßnahmen haben seit 9/11 die 

Grundsätze der Demokratie, der Bürgerrechte sowie der sozialen Rechte 

beeinträchtigt. Sie bedrohen die soziale Sicherheit, die für jedes Land, das 

sich „zivilisiert“ nennt von elementarer Wichtigkeit ist. Abgesehen von jeder 

geographischen Perspektive sind, waren und werden die Menschenrechte 

immer ein Thema von universeller Bedeutung sein. NEWTOPIA versucht 

vor allem, die eindimensionalen Stereotypen, die mit den Menschenrechten 

verbunden werden, wie auch das negative Image, das ihnen im 

repräsentativen Sinne paradoxerweise anhaftet, anzufechten – denn das 

Ziel der Menschenrechtsbewegung ist grundsätzlich die positive 

Veränderung. 

3



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Amnesty International und Human Rights Watch sind beide Partner der 

Ausstellung. 

NEWTOPIA KATALOG 

Der Katalog zur Ausstellung, herausgegeben von Katerina Gregos und 

Elena Sorokinaist bei Ludion verlegt und von BaseDesign Brüssel gestaltet. 

Die gebundene Ausgabe des Katalogs enthält 256 Seiten und ist in 

Englischer und Holländischer Sprache erhältlich.. ISBN 9789461300751 / 

Preis: 27,90 " 

Der Katalog besteht aus drei Kapiteln: 

1. Essays 

Mit Beiträgen von: Ariella Azoulay, Katerina Gregos, Lina Khatib, Keenan 

Malik, Samuel Moyn, Elena Sorokina, Raoul Vaneigem und ein Eklusiv- 

Interview mit Stéphane Hessel. 

2. Human Rights Heroes 

Eine Auswahl an Kurztexten von bekannten Menschenrechtsaktivisen wie 

Liu Xiaobo, Anna Politkovskaya, Shirin Ebadi, Asmaa Mahfouz, Aung San 

Suu Kyi und einigen mehr. 


Abbildungen der Arbeiten von 70 Künstlern der Ausstellung, begleitet von 

Kurztexten und den wichtigsten biografischen Informationen. 

Mechelen, August 31 st 2012 

Internationaler Pressekontakt: 


International Media Relations NEWTOPIA 



10969 Berlin 


T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Pressekontakt für Belgien / 

Die Niederlande 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 


Besonderer Dank gilt den Sponsoren und Medienpartnern von NEWTOPIA ING 

Belgium, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, MO*, cobra.be, Klara und frieze 

für ihre freundliche Unterstützung und Kooperation. 

Listen to the Charity-song for the European Economy „We Need You Now (more than ever)“ by the Danish art collective WOOLOO 

for NEWTOPIA! www.NEWTOPIAblog.com/songrelease-wooloo/ 

Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter www.NEWTOPIA.be / www.facebook.com/NEWTOPIA2012 / www.NEWTOPIABLOG.com 

4



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

2. Curatorial Statement by Katerina Gregos 

INTRODUCTION: ART AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

The relationship between art and human rights has a long history. One only 

needs to think of Francisco Goya’s portfolio of etchings "Disasters of War", 

his painting "The Third of May", Eugène Delacroix’s "Liberty Leading the 

People", Édouard Manet’s "The Execution of Maximilian", Picasso’s 

"Guernica" and many other examples. Art always largely depends on an 

atmosphere of openness and tolerance in order to thrive. The context of 

human rights affects it, because art is about freedom: freedom of speech, 

freedom of thought and the unrestrained expression of the spiritual and 

intellectual; it is inextricably bound up with human dignity in general. In our 

society cultural, social as well as political freedom is based on and rooted in 

human rights. Throughout modern history, human rights have created the 

foundations for change, wherein self-expression is a prerequisite for selfempowerment. 

In that sense, human rights also lie at the core of any 

unconstrained artistic practice. 

NEWTOPIA is a major international comprehensive visual arts exhibition 

dedicated to human rights. In recent years many important contemporary 

artists interested in social and political issues have created significant work 

exploring the various aspects of human rights. Many of them – some from 

countries where human rights are a highly contentious issue – will be 

included in the exhibition. Human rights are a perpetual, unfinished, 

ongoing project. They can be seen as the ultimate utopian project for 

humanity – of universal significance and value – which can never be fully 

attained but whose impact and benefits are always going to be worth 

fighting for if we are striving for improved living conditions and dignity for 

those who lack them. 

I. THE AIM OF THE EXHIBITION 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights explores the numerous, complex 

and diverse issues pertaining to human rights and its evolving discourse. 

The exhibition is divided into four thematic chapters that trace the 

development of human rights and their rise since the post-war era. It 

negotiates the different and complex facets of human rights: from civil and 

political rights, social, economic and cultural rights, to the right to 

sustainable development, to peace and to a healthy environment, while 

emphasizing the indivisible, interrelated and interdependent nature of these 

rights. NEWTOPIA also tracks the evolving nature of the human rights 

discourse, as well as its problematic aspects, such as the conflict between 

universalism and cultural relativism, one of the key debates surrounding 

human rights. It contains work by over 70 artists of different generations 

working in diverse media and examines a rich variety of artistic responses 

5 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

in relation to the basic tenets of human rights. Many of these artists come 

from countries and geographies where human rights have been or still are a 

particularly pressing issue such as the Arab World, China, India, Latin 

America, South Africa and certain former Soviet countries such as Belarus 

or the Ukraine. However, the exhibition also explores the situation in the 

Western World in the post-1989, post-9/11 era, a time during which human 

rights seem to be increasingly disregarded, and hard earned civil liberties 

and social rights are currently under serious threat. 

NEWTOPIA’s partners include both Amnesty International as well as 

Human Rights Watch. 

II. BROAD PERSPECTIVE AND IN-DEPTH EXPLORATION OF 

RELATED TOPICS 

The exhibition traces the artistic responses to human rights issues 

especially since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, paying 

particular attention to the significant rise of human rights since the 1970s 

and their current state. It is divided into four chapters. The first chapter 

explores so-called ‘first-generation human rights’, which revolve around 

issues of freedom and participation in political life. Civil and political in 

nature, these aim to protect the individual from excesses of the state and to 

ensure participation in democratic processes. The works in this chapter will 

address issues such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the right 

to a fair trial and the right to vote. The second chapter will focus on socalled 

‘second-generation human rights’, which are social, economic, and 

cultural in nature and tied to the establishment of the welfare state, now 

increasingly under threat. They call for equal conditions and treatment of 

citizens. This chapter will include contributions by artists whose practice has 

focused on issues of work, housing and health care as well as social 

security and employment. The third chapter focuses on the current state of 

human rights, and on rights which are a response to post-war economic and 

geo-political developments such as decolonization, globalization, multiculturalism 

and the consolidation of global capitalism. These rights, known 

as ‘solidarity’ or ‘inclusion’ rights, go beyond the civil and social, covering a 

wide spectrum related to contemporary socio-political issues: minority 

rights, the rights of immigrants, asylum seekers and sans papiers; gay, 

lesbian and trans-gender rights, and the right to self-determination; the right 

to economic development; the right to a healthy environment and rights to 

clean land, air, water, natural resources and sustainability; the right to 

‘difference’. 

6



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

III. MECHELEN AS CONTEXT 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights takes place in various cultural 

institutions in the historic city of Mechelen – a city whose roots in humanist 

tradition make it an appropriate context. The highly lucrative cloth trade 

gained Mechelen wealth and power during the late Middle Ages and it even 

became the capital of the Low Countries (very roughly, the Netherlands, 

Belgium and Luxembourg) in the first half of the 16th century (1506 - 1530) 

under Archduchess Margaret of Austria, a period of economic and cultural 

prosperity which left the city with a large number of sites and monuments. A 

lot of them are now on the UNESCO world heritage list. During this time, the 

court of Margaret of Austria was also frequented by notable humanists such 

as Erasmus and Thomas Moore, who also consulted her famous library. 

Prior to that, in the 15th century, the city came under the rule of the Dukes 

of Burgundy, marking the beginning of this prosperous period. During the 

16th century the city's political influence began to decrease, due to many 

governmental institutions being moved to Brussels. The city compensated 

for this loss of secular influence by increased attention in the religious 

arena: in 1559 it was proclaimed the Archdiocese of Mechelen for Belgium, 

not sharing this title with Brussels until 1961. It still remains the religious 

capital of Belgium. The city entered the industrial age in the 19th century. In 

1835 the first railway on the European continent linked Brussels with 

Mechelen, which became the hub of the Belgian railway network. This led to 

the development of metalworking industries, including the central railway 

workshops, which are still located in the town today. During World War II, 

the extensive Mechelen railway infrastructure led the Nazi occupation 

forces to choose Mechelen for the infamous transit camp – the Dossin 

Barracks – from which 26,053 Jews, Roma and Sinti were deported to the 

Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. In the end of the year 2012, 

Mechelen will open the Dossin Barracks Memorial, Museum and 

Documentation Centre on the Holocaust and Human Rights. 

IV. VENUES 

NEWTOPIA is configured in the form of a parcours that will entail a rich 

combination of historical and cutting-edge art, all easily accessible by foot in 

the city centre. It will take place in some of Mechelen’s prominent cultural 

institutions, including Mechelen Cultural Centre, Lamot Conference and 

Heritage Centre, the Old Mechelen Meat Market, the City Museum Hof 

Van Busleyden, Scheppers Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts, as 

well as public space. NEWTOPIA will also feature a satellite exhibition in 

Brussels at ING Cultural Centre in the heart of the city. 

7



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

KATERINA GREGOS (born in Athens, Greece; based in Brussels, 

Belgium) is an art historian, curator and writer. She is currently on the 

curatorial team for Manifesta 9. In 2011 she was the curator of the Danish 

Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, where she curated the internationally 

acclaimed project Speech Matters, an exhibition about the freedom of 

speech. That year she was also the co-curator of the 4th edition of the 

Fotofestival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg in Germany (together 

with Solvej Helweg Ovesen). During 2006 and 2007 she was the artistic 

director of Argos – Centre for Art & Media in Brussels and prior to that she 

was the founding director of the Deste Foundation – Centre for 

Contemporary Art, Athens. As an independent curator Gregos has also 

curated numerous exhibitions internationally including, among others, 

Hidden in Remembrance is the Silent Memory of Our Future, Contour 2009 

- The 4th Biennial for Moving Image, in Mechelen, Belgium (2009); 

Give(a)way: On Generosity, Giving, Sharing and Social Exchange, the 6th 

Biennial E V+ A: Exhibition of Visual Art, Limerick, Ireland (2006). Other 

projects include Leaps of Faith: An International Arts Project for the Green 

Line and the City of Nicosia, Cyprus (2005), the first international 

contemporary art exhibition to take place on both sides of the divided city, 

and Channel Zero, for the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam 

(2004). 

Katerina Gregos regularly publishes in art and artists in magazines, books 

and exhibition catalogues, and is a frequent speaker in international 

conferences, biennials and museums worldwide. She is also a visiting 

lecturer at HISK – The Higher Institute of Arts, Antwerp. 

8



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

3. Exposition / Chapitres / Lieus d’émission / Artistes 

CHAPITRE 1: CULTUURCENTRUM 

L’exposition Newtopia. L’état des droits de l’homme débute ici, au 

Cultuurcentrum de Malines, avec un premier chapitre dédié aux droits de 

l’homme dits de la première génération : une série de droits civils et 

politiques visant à protéger l’homme contre les abus et les excès de l’État et 

lui permettant d’exercer sa citoyenneté dans le cadre d’un système 

démocratique. 

Les droits civils garantissent l’intégrité physique et morale de l’homme en 

veillant à ce qu’il ait droit à la vie, ne fasse pas l’objet de mauvais 

traitements, notamment de tortures, en interdisant l’esclavage, la servitude 

ou les discriminations et en instaurant la liberté d’opinion et de religion. 

Parmi ces droits fondamentaux figurent également certains droits juridiques 

comme celui de ne pas être arrêté ni détenu de façon arbitraire, d’être 

présumé innocent tant qu’on n’a pas été reconnu coupable par une cour de 

justice et de faire appel contre une décision de justice. Les droits politiques 

doivent quant à eux permettre aux citoyens de prendre part à l'exercice du 

pouvoir, d’adhérer à un parti politique, de s’exprimer librement , de se réunir 

en toute impunité et d’avoir accès à l’information. 

Les œuvres exposées ici traitent donc de sujets comme le gouvernement, 

la démocratie et les processus politiques, la liberté d’expression, la peine 

de mort, le droit à un procès équitable et le droit de vote. Mais elles 

abordent aussi la question du pouvoir, en particulier celui de régimes 

autoritaires voire totalitaires, et des abus de pouvoir notamment dans le 

contexte du colonialisme, et témoignent des conséquences des génocides 

et des atrocités de la guerre tout en suscitant un débat sur le militarisme et 

le commerce des armes. 

Ce chapitre comprend également des références historiques illustrant le 

combat mené par les mouvements anti-apartheid, les groupes de défense 

des droits de l’homme lors de la guerre du Vietnam et du massacre de la 

place Tiananmen, ainsi que les artistes et le peuple qui se sont insurgés 

contre les violations de ces droits par les dictatures d’ Amérique latine 

(Chili et Argentine) et de Turquie dans les années 1970 et 1980. 

9 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTES CULTUURCENTRUM 

AMSAB (Established in BELGIUM, 1980) 

SAMMY BALOJI (DR CONGO, 1978) 

ELISABETTA BENASSI (ITALY, 1966) 

CENGIZ ÇEKIL (TURKEY, 1945) 

ALEJANDRO CESARCO (URUGUAY, 1975) 

JOHAN CRETEN (BELGIUM, 1963) 

ZYAH GAFI! (CROATIA, 1980) 

EDUARDO GIL (ARGENTINA, 1958) / 

EL SILUETAZO (ARGENTINA, 1983) 

DAVID GOLDBLATT (SOUTH AFRICA, 1930) 

LEON GOLUB (USA, 1922 – 2004) 

HANS HAACKE (GERMANY, 1936) 

MONA HATOUM (LEBANON, 1952) 

SATCH HOYT (UK, 1957) 

IISH - INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY 

(Established in THE NETHERLANDS, 1935) 

ALFREDO JAAR (CHILE, 1956) 

THOMAS LOCHER (GERMANY, 1956) 

TOM MOLLOY (IRELAND, 1964) 

BONIFACE MWANGI (KENYA, 1985) 

MARINA NAPRUSHKINA (BELARUS, 1981) 

SEAMUS NOLAN (IRELAND, 1978) 

PABLO PICASSO (SPAIN, 1881-1973) 

TARYN SIMON (USA, 1976) 

TRAVIS SOMERVILLE (USA, 1963) 

JAN "VANKMAJER (CZECH REPUBLIC, 1934) 

SUN XUN (CHINA, 1981) 

KOSTIS VELONIS (GREECE, 1970) 

ANDY WARHOL (USA, 1928-1987) 

WILHELM WERNER (GERMANY, 1898-1940) 

ZHOU ZIXI (CHINA, 1970) 

10



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPITRE 2: L’ANCIENNE HALLE AUX VIANDES DE MALINES 

Hébergé dans l’ancienne halle aux viandes de Malines, le deuxième 

chapitre de Newtopia. L’état des droits de l’homme fait pleins feux sur les 

droits de l’homme de la deuxième génération. Ces droits d’ordre 

économique, social et culturel visent à garantir à tout un chacun des 

moyens d’existence minima, le respect de ses biens et l’accès à des 

équipements collectifs essentiels. Les droits sociaux doivent permettre à 

tous de participer pleinement à la vie sociale. Ils impliquent le droit à 

l’instruction et aux soins de santé, ainsi que le droit de fonder une famille et 

de subvenir à ses besoins. Les droits économiques incluent le droit au 

travail dans un environnement fiable, le droit à des conditions de vie 

décentes, ainsi que le droit au logement et à la sécurité sociale. Les droits 

culturels garantissent l’accès à la culture, le respect des coutumes locales 

et la liberté de participer à la vie culturelle de la communauté sans aucune 

discrimination. 

Les droits de l’homme de la deuxième génération ont vu le jour dans le 

cadre de l’industrialisation, de l’émergence de la classe ouvrière et des 

conflits sociaux consécutifs. Dans l’après-guerre, ils étaient liés à la 

création de l’État-providence et l’instauration d’un système de sécurité 

sociale qui est aujourd’hui toujours plus compromis, surtout en Europe qui 

en est pourtant le berceau. 

Le présent volet de l’exposition réunit des œuvres d’artistes qui dans leur 

pratique se sont intéressés aux conditions de travail, de logement et 

d’instruction, et célèbrent l’idéal de l’État-providence – un idéal à ce jour en 

perdition car sacrifié au nom de la privatisation et de l’idéologie néolibérale, 

désastreuse pour un nombre croissant de citoyens. 

Et enfin ce chapitre fait la part belle aux droits de la femme qui, même si la 

Déclaration Universelle des Droits de l’Homme de 1948 faisait déjà état de 

l’égalité des sexes, furent en grande partie bafoués jusque dans les années 

1960, époque à laquelle le MLF dénonça les inégalités entre les hommes et 

les femmes, les images de la femme-objet et le regard que les hommes 

portent sur la gent féminine. Le droit de l’égalité des sexes est d’ailleurs une 

question qui revient dans d’autres volets de l’exposition. 

11



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS L’ANCIENNE HALLE AUX VIANDES DE MALINES 

RAVI AGARWAL (INDIA, 1958) 

TAYSIR BATNIJI (PALESTINE, 1966) 

OLGA CHERNYSHEVA (RUSSIA, 1962) 

ZIYAH GAFI! (CROATIA, 1980) 

BARBARA HAMMER (USA, 1939) 

DIANGO HERNÁNDEZ (CUBA, 1970) 

LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON (USA, 1941) 

SVEN 'T JOLLE (BELGIUM, 1966) 

MADEIN COMPANY (Established in CHINA, 1977) 

BRUNO SERRALONGUE (FRANCE, 1968) 


12



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPITRE 3: MUSÉE HOF VAN BUSLEYDEN 

Le troisième chapitre de Newtopia. L’état des droits de l’homme, à l’affiche 

du musée Hof Van Busleyden, questionne la situation actuelle et fait un 

gros plan sur les droits instaurés en réponse aux développements 

économiques et géopolitiques de l’après-guerre et récents, comme la 

décolonisation, la globalisation, le multiculturalisme et la consolidation du 

capitalisme global. Ces droits de la troisième génération peuvent être, en 

grandes lignes, qualifiés de « droits collectifs » ou « droits d’inclusion ». Ils 

consistent en une batterie d’instruments à large spectre qui, faisant écho au 

contexte sociopolitique actuel, va du droit des minorités visant à promouvoir 

et garantir le respect des droits fondamentaux des émigrés, chercheurs 

d’asile, sans-papiers et LGBT (lesbiennes, gays, bisexuels et transsexuels) 

aux droits à l’autodétermination, à la paix, à un environnement salubre, aux 

ressources naturelles, à l’eau potable et à des moyens d’existence 

durables. 

Dans de nombreuses régions du monde, l’extrême pauvreté, les conflits 

armés, les désordres politiques et les catastrophes naturelles ou 

environnementales sont autant de facteurs qui enrayent le progrès. D’où 

l’attention toute particulière que l’on porte actuellement au respect des 

droits de l’homme dans le Sud ou pays dits en voie de développement. Le 

présent chapitre s’intéresse également aux réponses artistiques aux 

développements politiques récents comme le « printemps arabe » et la 

révolte des indignés qui s’étend à toute la planète, ainsi qu’aux glissements 

géopolitiques intervenus après le 11 septembre qui sont prétexte à des 

interventions militaires à des fins soi-disant humanitaires, une réduction des 

libertés individuelles et une érosion de la notion d’espace public, ainsi qu’à 

l’application d’un système de surveillance toujours plus poussé et 

l’instauration d’un climat de peur au nom de la « sécurité nationale ». 

Au-delà de se pencher sur les droits de ceux qui vivent en marge de la 

société, ce chapitre s’intéresse au problème des flux migratoires et des 

personnes déplacées et épingle le double langage de l’Occident qui défend 

les droits de l’homme lorsqu’ils sont l’enjeu d’intérêts financiers, militaires 

ou autres et n’en tiennent pas compte quand ils ne le sont pas. Et enfin, il 

s’enquiert des effets du capitalisme tardif, de la financiarisation de 

l’économie, de la course effrénée à la rentabilité et de la privatisation 

galopante qui ont induit une régression sociale, compromis la cohésion au 

sein de la société et creusé un abîme toujours plus grand entre les riches et 

les pauvres. 

13



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS MUSÉE HOF VAN BUSLEYDEN 


KADER ATTIA (FRANCE, 1970) 


EDWARD BURTYNSKY (CANADA, 1955) 

NINAR ESBER (LEBANON, 1971) 

ALI FERZAT (SYRIA, 1951) 

ZIYAH GAFI! (BOSNIA, 1980) 

JAN PETER HAMMER (GERMANY, 1976) 

NICOLINE VAN HARSKAMP (NETHERLANDS, 1975) 



NIKITA KADAN (UKRAINE, 1982) 

HAYV KAHRAMAN (IRAQ, 1981) 

LINA KHATIB (LEBANON, 1970s) 

THOMAS KILPPER, (GERMANY, 1956) 

JAROS#AW KOZAKIEWICZ (POLAND, 1961) 

AN-MY LÊ (VIETNAM, 1960) 


JENNIFER NELSON | DIMITRI KOTSARAS (USA | GREECE) 

PIA RÖNICKE (DENMARK, 1974) 

SIMON STARLING (UK, 1967) 

KOSTAS TSOLIS (GREECE, 1965) 



LIEVE VAN STAPPEN (BELGIUM, 1958) 

WOOLOO (Established in DENMARK, 2002) 

14



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPITRE 4: CENTRE DES CONGRÈS ET DU PATRIMOINE LAMOT 

Ce chapitre à l’affiche du Centre des Congrès et du Patrimoine Lamot 

est en quelque sorte l’épilogue de Newtopia. L’état des droits de l’homme. 

Le regard braqué sur l’avenir, il s’interroge quant à la façon dont l’art 

pourrait nous aider à concevoir un monde meilleur. La vie étant pleine 

d’ambiguïtés, de paradoxes et de failles, l’histoire des droits de l’homme est 

à la fois une œuvre inachevée et toujours en cours d’écriture ; autrement 

dit, un projet en perpétuel devenir qui, à ce titre, pourrait être vu comme 

l’ultime projet utopique destiné à l’humanité. La nature utopique des droits 

de l’homme est également évoquée dans le titre de l’exposition qui fait 

allusion à leur état intrinsèquement hypothétique. 

C’est cet état hypothétique que les artistes questionnent dans le présent 

volet de l’exposition. Comment visualiser le caractère utopique des droits 

de l’homme dans un langage artistique ? Certains artistes l’expriment à 

travers des œuvres poétiques dans lesquelles leur imagination transforme 

la réalité ; d’autres à travers des interventions diagnostiques, 

programmatiques ou radicales dans la vie réelle. Pour les uns, l’utopie 

passe forcément par la dystopie ; pour d’autres, elle nécessite la 

promulgation d’idées révolutionnaires romantiques. Pour les uns, l’utopie 

s’exprime le mieux à travers la beauté et la poésie. Pour d’autres, elle 

pourrait se manifester dans des œuvres célébrant le travail de ceux qui ont 

aidé à changer le monde et qui, par leurs actions, ont fait progresser la 

cause des droits de l’homme. 

Ce chapitre propose donc des images du monde qui vont au-delà des 

problèmes de tous les jours et des limites des droits de l’homme, et mettent 

en évidence leur potentiel positif. Par ailleurs, il entend transgresser les 

stéréotypes visuels négatifs qui sont souvent associés aux droits de 

l’homme, en mettant, tout au contraire, l’accent sur les possibilités 

d’amélioration de la qualité de la vie de l’homme. Les œuvres exposées ici 

démentent les propos de ceux qui prétendent que l’art est incapable 

d’induire de véritables changements. Certes, l’art n’est pas en mesure de le 

faire directement, mais il peut le faire indirectement en induisant une autre 

réflexion sur le monde ; car pour créer un monde meilleur, il faut avant tout 

le repenser. 

15



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS CENTRE DES CONGRÈS ET DU PATRIMOINE LAMOT 

YAEL BARTANA (ISRAEL, 1970) 

STELIOS FAITAKIS (GREECE, 1976) 

KENDELL GEERS (SOUTH AFRICA, 1968) 

WAFA HOURANI (PALESTINE, 1979) 


KHALED JARRAR (PALESTINE, 1976) 

THOMAS KILPPER (GERMANY, 1956) 

BASIM MAGDY (EGYPT, 1977) 

GIANNI MOTTI (ITALY, 1958) 


FERNANDO SÁNCHEZ CASTILLO (SPAIN, 1970) 

16



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

3. Exhibition Chapters, Venues and Artists 

CHAPTER ONE: CULTUURCENTRUM 

The first chapter of NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights, here at the 

Cultuurcentrum explores so-called ‘first-generation human rights’, which 

revolve around issues of freedom, personal liberties and participation in 

political life. Fundamentally civil and political at root, these aim to protect the 

individual from the abuses and excesses of the state and to ensure 

participation in democratic processes. 

Civil rights ensure physical and moral integrity and allow individuals their 

own sphere of conscience and belief such as the right to freedom of opinion 

and religion, as well as the right not to be killed, tortured or abused. Civil 

rights also include certain legal rights such as protection against arbitrary 

arrest and detention, the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty in 

a court of law and the right to appeal. Political rights are necessary in order 

to participate in the life of society and community and include the right to 

vote, to join political parties, freedom of expression and assembly and 

access to information. 

The work in this chapter thus addresses issues such as government, 

freedom of speech, capital punishment, the right to a fair trial and voting 

rights. It also addresses questions of absolute power, particularly in 

authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, but also the legacy of the abuse of this 

power as in the issue of the recurring ghosts of colonialism, the aftermath of 

genocide, and the question of war, militarism and the weapons trade. 

This chapter also contains certain historical reference points to the human 

rights struggle, including: the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements, the 

Vietnam War, the Tiananmen Square protests and artistic as well as 

popular resistance to human rights violations during dictatorships in Latin 

America (Chile, Argentina) and Turkey in the 1970s and 1980s. 

9 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS AT CULTUURCENTRUM 

AMSAB (Established in BELGIUM, 1980) 

SAMMY BALOJI (DR CONGO, 1978) 

ELISABETTA BENASSI (ITALY, 1966) 

CENGIZ ÇEKIL (TURKEY, 1945) 

ALEJANDRO CESARCO (URUGUAY, 1975) 

JOHAN CRETEN (BELGIUM, 1963) 

ZYAH GAFI! (CROATIA, 1980) 

EDUARDO GIL (ARGENTINA, 1958) / 

EL SILUETAZO (ARGENTINA, 1983) 

DAVID GOLDBLATT (SOUTH AFRICA, 1930) 

LEON GOLUB (USA, 1922 – 2004) 

HANS HAACKE (GERMANY, 1936) 


SATCH HOYT (UK, 1957) 

IISH - INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY 

(Established in THE NETHERLANDS, 1935) 


THOMAS LOCHER (GERMANY, 1956) 


BONIFACE MWANGI (KENYA, 1985) 

MARINA NAPRUSHKINA (BELARUS, 1981) 


PABLO PICASSO (SPAIN, 1881-1973) 



JAN "VANKMAJER (CZECH REPUBLIC, 1934) 

SUN XUN (CHINA, 1981) 


ANDY WARHOL (USA, 1928-1987) 

WILHELM WERNER (GERMANY, 1898-1940) 

ZHOU ZIXI (CHINA, 1970) 

10



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPTER TWO: OLD MECHELEN MEAT MARKET 

The second chapter of NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights at the Old 

Mechelen Meat Market focuses on so-called ‘second-generation human 

rights’, which are social, economic and cultural in nature. These rights 

concern the basic necessities of life and access to essential social and 

economic goods, amenities and opportunities. Social rights are those that 

are necessary for full participation in the life of society. They include the 

right to education, health care and the right to found and maintain a family. 

Economic rights include the right to work, protection at the workplace, to a 

decent standard of living, to housing and social security. Cultural rights refer 

to a community's cultural way of life and local custom and include the right 

to participate freely in the cultural life of the community without 

discrimination. 

The emergence of second-generation rights can be traced back to 

industrialization, the rise of the working class and subsequent workers’ 

struggles. In the post-war era they were tied to the emergence and 

establishment of the welfare state and the concept of social security, which 

is now increasingly under threat, particularly here in Europe, the birthplace 

of the modern welfare state. 

Second-generation rights call for equal conditions and an equitable 

treatment of citizens. They advocate equal opportunities, the equal 

distribution of wealth, workers’ rights and protection at the workplace, 

healthcare and protection of the weaker or elderly members of society by 

means of pensions and social benefits. This part of the exhibition includes 

contributions by artists whose practice has focused on issues of work 

housing and education and pays tribute to the increasingly fading ideal of 

the social state, which is being sacrificed in the name of privatization and 

neo-liberal ideology with devastating effects on increasing members of the 

community. 

Finally, although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 

enshrined "the equal rights of men and women", the question of women’s 

rights did not gain real momentum until the 1960s with the feminist 

movement which pointed out the commodification of the image of women 

and the problematics of the male gaze, a subject touched upon in this 

chapter. Overall, the issue of gender rights recurs also in other parts of the 

exhibition. 

11



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS AT OLD MECHELEN MEAT MARKET 



OLGA CHERNYSHEVA (RUSSIA, 1962) 

ZIYAH GAFI! (CROATIA, 1980) 

BARBARA HAMMER (USA, 1939) 

DIANGO HERNÁNDEZ (CUBA, 1970) 

LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON (USA, 1941) 


MADEIN COMPANY (Established in CHINA, 1977) 

BRUNO SERRALONGUE (FRANCE, 1968) 


12



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPTER THREE: MUSEUM HOF VAN BUSLEYDEN 

The third chapter of NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights at the brand 

new exhibition space of the City Museum Hof Van Busleyden focuses on 

the current state of human rights and on rights discourse that has emerged 

in response to postwar and recent economic and geopolitical developments 

such as decolonization, globalization, multiculturalism and the consolidation 

of global capitalism. These rights can be described, loosely, as ‘rights of 

inclusion’, solidarity or ‘collective’ rights. They cover a wide spectrum 

related to contemporary socio-political issues: minority rights, which 

includes the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and „sans papiers“, and 

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights; the right to selfdetermination; 

the right to economic development; the right to peace; the 

right to a healthy environment, natural resources and sustainability; rights to 

clean land, air and water. The ideas at the heart of this ‘third generation’ of 

rights are of solidarity and the collective rights of society or people. 

In many areas of the world extreme poverty, war, political conflict and 

environmental or natural disasters have meant that there has been very 

limited human rights progress. Recent rights discourse, therefore, has 

focussed on the rights of those in the Global South or the so-called 

‘developing world’. This chapter also looks into artistic responses to recent 

political developments such as the Arab uprisings and the ‘Occupy’ 

movement as well as the geo-political shifts since 9/11 which have been 

used as an excuse to deploy military intervention for ‘humanitarian’ 

purposes, to curtail civil liberties, to erode the notion of public space and 

establish an increasing culture of fear and surveillance in the name of 

‘national security’. 

As well as looking at the rights of those who exist on the margins of society, 

this chapter also looks into the question of migration and forced 

displacement and the double-standards exercised by the West as it 

advocates human rights when financial, military or other interests are at 

stake and ignoring them when they are not. Finally, this chapter also probes 

the effects of late capitalism, the financialization of the economy and the 

incessant push towards profitability and privatization, which have reinforced 

social regression, threatened social cohesion and contributed to the 

increasing the gap between rich and poor. 

13



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS AT MUSEUM HOF VAN BUSLEYDEN 


KADER ATTIA (FRANCE, 1970) 


EDWARD BURTYNSKY (CANADA, 1955) 

NINAR ESBER (LEBANON, 1971) 

ALI FERZAT (SYRIA, 1951) 

ZIYAH GAFI! (BOSNIA, 1980) 

JAN PETER HAMMER (GERMANY, 1976) 

NICOLINE VAN HARSKAMP (NETHERLANDS, 1975) 



NIKITA KADAN (UKRAINE, 1982) 

HAYV KAHRAMAN (IRAQ, 1981) 

LINA KHATIB (LEBANON, 1970s) 

THOMAS KILPPER, (GERMANY, 1956) 

JAROS#AW KOZAKIEWICZ (POLAND, 1961) 

AN-MY LÊ (VIETNAM, 1960) 


JENNIFER NELSON | DIMITRI KOTSARAS (USA | GREECE) 

PIA RÖNICKE (DENMARK, 1974) 

SIMON STARLING (UK, 1967) 

KOSTAS TSOLIS (GREECE, 1965) 



LIEVE VAN STAPPEN (BELGIUM, 1958) 

WOOLOO (Established in DENMARK, 2002) 

14



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CHAPTER FOUR: LAMOT 

Chapter four at Lamot is the epilogue of NEWTOPIA: The State of Human 

Rights. Thinking beyond the ‘here and now’, this chapter asks: how might 

art help us to imagine a better world? Because ambiguities, paradoxes and 

flaws govern human life, the project for human rights is both unfinished and 

ongoing. Human rights are thus in a perpetual state of becoming. Because 

of this, the quest for these rights could well be seen as the ultimate utopian 

project for humanity. The utopian nature of human rights is also reflected in 

the title of the exhibition, which alludes to a hypothetical state where human 

rights have finally arrived. 

It is this hypothetical state that the artists reflect on in this part of the 

exhibition. How, in subjective terms, might the utopia of human rights be 

visualized? For some artists it consists of poetic, transformative leaps of the 

imagination; for others it consists of a diagnostic, programmatic or radical 

intervention in real life. For some, arriving at a hypothetical utopia requires 

passing through dystopia and out the other side; for others it necessitates 

an enactment of romantic revolutionary ideas. For some utopia is best 

imagined through the notion of beauty and poetry; for others, it might exist 

in the form of tributes that highlight the work of individuals who have helped 

to change the world and have advanced the cause of human rights with 

their actions. 

Overall, this chapter provides views of the world that go beyond the 

everyday problems and limits of human rights and highlights their positive 

potentialities. Finally, this chapter aims to move beyond the often negative 

visual stereotypes associated with human rights and to instead stress the 

potential for a better human existence. The work on view here suggests an 

alternative to those who argue that art is disempowered in the face of 

effecting real change. While it is true that art might not be able to directly 

effect change in the world, it is able to change the way people think about 

the world; and in order to be able to implement a better world, one first must 

think and imagine it anew. 

15



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ARTISTS AT LAMOT 

YAEL BARTANA (ISRAEL, 1970) 

STELIOS FAITAKIS (GREECE, 1976) 

KENDELL GEERS (SOUTH AFRICA, 1968) 

WAFA HOURANI (PALESTINE, 1979) 


KHALED JARRAR (PALESTINE, 1976) 

THOMAS KILPPER (GERMANY, 1956) 

BASIM MAGDY (EGYPT, 1977) 

GIANNI MOTTI (ITALY, 1958) 


FERNANDO SÁNCHEZ CASTILLO (SPAIN, 1970) 

16



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

4. New Commissions, Solo Presentations and Special Projects 

Apart from the main exhibition and its four chapters NEWTOPIA features 

four solo presentations, including two new commissions for public space 

and a satellite solo exhibition in Brussels of the internationally acclaimed 

Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, whose thirty year career has been committed to 

human rights issues. 

1. THE NEW MECHLINIANS (2012) 

NEW PUBLIC VIDEO PROJECTION BY KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO 

(POLAND, 1943) 

MECHELEN TOWN HALL, GROTE MARKT 

Krzysztof Wodiczko is internationally known for his large-scale video 

projections on architectural façades and monuments in public space. War, 

conflict, trauma, memory and communication are some of the major themes 

of an oeuvre that responds to the needs of urban society’s marginal citizens 

who frequently survive outside the usual boundaries of juridical and social 

resources. For NEWTOPIA, Wodiczko was commissioned to create a new 

public projection for the city of Mechelen. This work, entitled The New 

Mechlinians, is on view on the façade of Mechelen Town Hall in the Grote 

Markt, after nightfall, daily, until the end of the exhibition on December 10 th , 

2012. The work temporarily transforms the façade of Mechelen’s City Hall 

into a communication vehicle, both visually and auditory, for immigrant 

newcomers in Mechelen. With the support of Werkgroep Integratie 

Vluchtelingen (Refugee Integration Working Group) in Mechelen, the artist 

conducted several interviews during the summer of 2012 with individuals 

that had arrived in the city, both recently and years ago. A specially 

designed interface made it possible to film the speakers’ eyes only. Through 

this work, these new immigrants and refugees have the opportunity to share 

their lived experiences and to transmit stories of their traumatic experience 

of displacement and everyday lives. The projection will be inaugurated at 11 

pm on the 31 st August, during the opening of NEWTOPIA. 

2. ANARELIC (2012) 

NEW MURAL BY GANZEER (EGYPT, 1982) 

HOF VAN BUSLEYDEN 

Ganzeer (also known as Mohammed Fahmy) is a street artist, graphic 

designer, illustrator, visual artist, blogger and activist although he would 

probably refuse all of these labels. He has become known for his murals 

depicting the martyrs of the Egyptian revolution; for his graphics stencils 

17 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

and graffiti exposing political repression in Egypt; and for his outspoken 

criticism of the Egypt’s ruling military council. His work has become one of 

the driving forces of political and revolutionary graffiti on Cairo's streets. For 

NEWTOPIA Ganzeer has created a new mural for the exhibition. In the 

artist’s words: “Exactly one year from Egypt’s January 25 th revolution, 

millions of people marched to Cairo’s Tahrir square throughout the day. 

Some carried flags, some donned scarves in anticipation of a governmental 

crackdown and others carried the portraits of our fallen martyrs. Most 

dominant of the martyr portraits was the face of Khaled Said, the 

Alexandrian kid tortured to death by local police. January 25 th was the day 

of revolutionary pilgrimage, Tahrir Square was revolutionary Mecca and 

Khaled Said was revolutionary Jesus Christ. Experiencing that day made 

me ponder what would become of the January 25 th mythology as time went 

by. Would stories of Khaled Said’s belief and lifestyle be made up and 

shared? Would details of his torture be passed down from one generation to 

the next? Would Tahrir Square become a holy shrine where millions of 

people went in hopes of summoning some sort of revolutionary spirit? 

Taking the idea further, well what if a completely fictional “prophet” was 

created? One that advocated a global revolution that never really 

happened. What if portraits of that so-called prophet adorned walls across 

the globe? What would be made of these surviving portraits 5 years from 

now? How about 10 years from now? 50? 100?” 

3. LEFT OVER RIGHTS (2012) 

NEW INSTALLATION BY NEVAN LAHART (IRELAND, 1973) 

ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS 

Nevan Lahart makes labour-intensive work in a wide variety of media 

creating irreverent social commentaries that are often highly politically 

charged but also pervaded by a biting sense of humour. The installation Left 

Over Rights is a new commission for NEWTOPIA. Through the use of 

cardboard and other lo-fi materials, Nevan Lahart has transformed the 

entrance of the Academy into an expansive, playful, anarchic and critical 

installation. His confrontational, wry approach compels us to ask questions 

of ourselves and of the society in which we live. As the artist himself says, 

“Human Rights are morphing into the Human Resources Dept. of a 

Transnational Corporation. The corporate west bangs its imperial drum to 

the tune of democracy for all, while at the same time eroding the 

sovereignty of the Old World Order and replacing it with a new servitude of 

financial serfdom. It is time we were less foolhardy and more cowardly of 

this Brave New World”. 

18



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

4. THE TORN FIRST PAGES (2004-2008) 

VIDEO INSTALLATION BY AMAR KANWAR (INDIA, 1964) 

SCHEPPERSINSTITUUT 

Indian independent film-maker Amar Kanwar has become known for his 

lyrical and meditative work that explores the political, social, economic and 

ecological conditions in India and the Asian continent. He has directed and 

produced over 40 films. The Torn First Pages, Kanwar’s ambitious 19channel 

video installation, is one of the artist’s most important works and a 

seminal artistic project in relation to the human rights struggle in Burma 

(now officially Myanmar). It is inspired by the true story of Ko Than Htay, a 

Burmese bookseller who was sentenced to three years in prison for tearing 

out the first pages of every book he sold. These pages were dedicated to 

propaganda which the military regime printed in every newspaper, 

magazine or book produced in the country. Starting with this story, Amar 

Kanwar’s monumental video installation portrays historical conditions and 

social extremes in Burma: the repression of ethnic minorities, systematic 

human rights violations and the often-violent deaths of dissidents. At the 

heart of his fragmented narrative lies an engagement with poetry as a form 

of evidence. For Kanwar, an image is always a ‘presentation of poetry’, 

which unavoidably includes questions of proof of something else – crime, 

oppression, resilience and resistance. 

5. PRE/OCCUPIED (2012) 

NEW SITUATION/INSTALLATION BY KENDELL GEERS (MAY, 1968) 

LAMOT 

NEWTOPIA also includes an additional curated exhibition within the main 

exhibition. South African, Brussels-based artist Kendell Geers decided to 

open his solo invitation to NEWTOPIA and invite guests and friends to 

share their personal visions and interpretations of this complex subject. The 

result is a lively, multi-disciplinary, playful but also confrontational 

situation/installation with diverse audio-visual works that can be seen in the 

final chapter of the show at Lamot. Of his choices, Geers says, “I invited 

artists to speak, with the freedom and the expression that politicians, 

scientists, corporations and consumers no longer care to remember, to 

remind those who care to listen that the battle for the rights of the planet, 

the rights of every animal, vegetable, mineral and human desperately need 

to be respected if we are all to survive. Each of the artists has been invited 

on account of having an intimate and first hand experience in dealing with 

the question of human rights. The problem with human rights is that, once 

granted, they are very soon thereafter taken for granted and misconstrued 

with the right to consume according to the dictates of fashion. Why is it that 

the price of human rights is the eventual and total disregard of animal, 

19



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

vegetable, mineral and spirit rights? Following the “Utopian Pirate” spirit of 

Hakim Bey, William Burroughs, Rabelais, Hassan I Sabbah and Robert 

Anton Wilson I have invited guests, artists and friends into the Temporary 

Autonomous Zone of “Pre/Occupied” to freely express themselves through 

an interrogation of the human rights question. Some artists have been 

dragged without permission into this ideological battleground with their 

works détourned and reworked as any good pirate should. The right to be 

human should not be taken for granted as every soul takes responsibility for 

its own being in accordance with the natural laws of "Nothing is True, 

Everything is Permitted" and "Do what thou wilt". Guests include, amongst 

others: Marina Abramovi!, Banksy, Belinda Blignaut, Nicolas 

Bourthoumieux, Hakim Bey, Charlie Chaplin, Cendrine du Welz, Femen, 

Ganzeer, Ilse Ghekiere, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Barbara Kruger, 

Moondog, Félicien Rops, Nedko Solakov, Betty Tompkins, Raoul 

Vaneigem, Kara Walker, Anna Whaley, Ai Wei Wei, Sandy Williams, 

Zapiro. 

6. LET THERE BE LIGHT 

SOLO EXHIBITION OF ALFREDO JAAR (CHILE, 1956) 

ING CULTURAL CENTRE BRUSSELS (FROM OCTOBER 10 TH ) 

See separate press release 

20



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

5. List of Artists with Biographies 

Ravi Agarwal (India, 1958) 

Amsab (est. Belgium, 1980) 

Kader Attia (France, 1970) 

Sammy Baloji (Democratic Republic of Congo, 1978) 

Yael Bartana (Israel, 1970) 

Taysir Batniji (Palestine, 1966) 

Elisabetta Benassi (Italy, 1966) 

Edward Burtynsky (Canada, 1955) 

Cengiz Çekil (Turkey, 1945) 

Alejandro Cesarco (Uruguay, 1975) 

Olga Chernysheva (Russia, 1962) 

Johan Creten (Belgium, 1963) 

Ninar Esber (Lebanon, 1971) 

Stelios Faitakis (Greece, 1976) 

Ali Ferzat (Syria, 1951) 

Ziyah Gafi! (Bosnia-Herzegowina, 1980) 

Ganzeer (Egypt, 1982) 

Kendell Geers (1968) with special guests (among others): 

Marina Abramovi!, Ai Wei Wei, Charlie Chaplin, Belinda Blignaut, 

Ganzeer, Ilse Ghekiere & Anna Whaley, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, 

Barbara Kruger, Nedko Solakov, Betty Tompkins, Raoul Vaneigem, 

Sandra Vászquez de la Horra, Kara Walker, Zapiro 

Eduardo Gil (Argentina, 1948) – El Siluetazo (Argentina, 1983) 

David Goldblatt (South Africa, 1930) 

Leon Golub (USA 1922-2004) 

International Institute of Social History (est. 1935) 

Hans Haacke (Germany, 1936) 

Barbara Hammer (USA, 1939) 

Jan Peter Hammer (Germany, 1970) 

Mona Hatoum (Lebanon, 1952) 

21 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 

abernhardt@goldmannpr.de 


Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Diango Hernández (Cuba, 1970) 

Lynn Hershman Leeson (USA, 1941) 

Wafa Hourani (Palestine, 1979) 

Satch Hoyt (UK, 1957) 

Alfredo Jaar (Chile, 1956) 

Khaled Jarrar (Palestine, 1976) 

Nikita Kadan (Ukraine, 1982) 

Hayv Kahraman (Iraq, 1981) 

Amar Kanwar (India, 1964) 

Lina Khatib (Lebanon, 1970s) 

Thomas Kilpper (Germany, 1956) 

Dimitri Kotsaras & Jennifer Nelson (Greece/USA) 

Jaros"aw Kozakiewicz (Poland, 1961) 

Nevan Lahart (Ireland, 1973) 

An-My Lê (Vietnam, 1960) 

Thomas Locher (Germany, 1956) 

MadeIn Company (China, 2009) 

Basim Magdy (Egypt, 1977) 

Tom Molloy (Ireland, 1964) 

Gianni Motti (Italy, 1958) 

Boniface Mwangi (Kenya, 1985) 

Marina Naprushkina (Belarus, 1981) 

Seamus Nolan (Ireland, 1978) 

Pablo Picasso (Spain, 1881-1973) 

Pia Rönicke (Denmark, 1974) 

Fernando Sánchez Castillo (Spain, 1970) 

Bruno Serralongue (France, 1968) 

Esther Shalev-Gerz (Lithuania, 1948) 

Taryn Simon (USA, 1975) 

Travis Somerville (USA, 1963) 

Simon Starling (UK, 1967) 

22



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Sun Xun (China, 1980) 

Jan #vankmajer (Czech Republic, 1934) 

Sven ‘t Jolle (Belgium, 1966) 

Kostas Tsolis (Greece, 1964) 

Nicoline van Harskamp (Netherlands, 1975) 

Lieve Van Stappen (Belgium, 1958) 

Kostis Velonis (Greece, 1968) 

Andy Warhol (USA, 1928-1987) 

Wilhelm Werner (Germany, 1898-1940) 

Krzysztof Wodiczko (Poland, 1943) 

Wilchar (Belgium, 1910 – 2005) 

Wooloo (Est. Denmark, 2002) 

Zhou Zixi (China, 1970) 

BIOGRAPHIES 

RAVI AGARWAL was born in 1958 in New Delhi, India. He lives and works 

in New Delhi. 

Ravi Agarwal is an artist, environmental activist, writer and curator, working 

with photography, video and installation. His work probes questions of 

nature, work and environmental sustainability. His work has often explored 

the conditions under which people live and work in the “informal” sector of 

the Indian economy, exposing the consequences, many of them unseen, for 

the natural environment. Agarwal’s work highlights the fact that our 

shortsighted misuse of the planet and its resources stems from the way we 

separate our “selves” from nature. Agarwal is also the founder of Toxics 

Link, a platform for national information exchange on dealing with 

environmental toxins and finding sustainable alternatives to their use. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Of Value and Labour, The Guild Art 

Gallery, Mumbai (2011); Flux: dystopia, utopia, heterotopia, Gallery Espace, 

New Delhi (2010/1); An Other Place, Gallery Espace, New Delhi (2008). 

Recent group exhibitions include: Critical Mass. Contemporary Art from 

India, Tel Aviv Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2012); 4. 

Fotofestival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg, The Eye is a Lonely 

Hunter: Images of Human Kind, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, and 

Grimmuseum, Berlin (2011/2); Where Three Dreams Cross, Whitechapel 

Gallery, London, and Winterthur Fotomuseum, Winterthur (2010); Indian 

Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, 

Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Musée d’Art 

23



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Contemporain, Lyon, MAXXI, Rome, and Ullens Center for Contemporary 

Art, Beijing (2008/12); Still/Moving Image, Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi 

(2008); Documenta 11, Kassel (2002). www.raviagarwal.com 

AMSAB - INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY was established in 1980 in 

Ghent, Belgium, where it is situated. 

Amsab-ISH (Institute of Social History) is a Flemish cultural heritage 

institution engaged in archiving documents and other items, such as books, 

periodicals, photographs, films, audio recordings, postcards, drawings, 

plans, posters and flags that all relate to progressive social movements and 

individuals. The preserved and collected records date from the 19 th century 

onwards and are all related to the history of socialist organizations, radical 

left-wing organizations, environmental organizations, new social 

movements and groups involved in action for peace, women, the Third 

World, an alternative idea of globalization, gay and lesbian rights, migrant 

rights etc. Recently, Amsab-ISH has also become the archive of the green 

movement. Amsab-ISH archives these materials and then makes them 

available to the public. www.amsab.be 

KADER ATTIA was born in 1970 in Dugny, France. He lives and works in 

Paris, France. 

Kader Attia grew up between the Paris suburb of Dugny and the 

impoverished neighbourhood of Bab El Oued in Algiers. After his studies in 

Paris and Barcelona, he spent three years in Congo-Brazzaville and 

Kinshasa. All this has had a decisive impact on his work: using his own 

identity that has been defined by several cultures as the starting point, he 

tackles the increasingly difficult relationship between Europe and its 

immigrants, particularly those of Islamic faith. In doing so, he does not allow 

himself to be tied down to one specific medium. His photographic work and 

films portray the smouldering conflicts arising from a history of French 

colonialism; the allegorical minimalism of his sculptures and installations are 

unsettling owing to the discord between their sensory appeal and their 

controversial content. 

In 2005 Kader Attia was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize, in 2008 

he received the Cairo Biennial Prize and in 2009 the Abraaj Capital Art 

Prize. Recent solo exhibitions include: Collages, Galerie Christian Nagel, 

Berlin (2012); Essential, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano (2012); 

Po(l)etical, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2009); Momentum 9, ICA, Boston 

(2007); Square Dreams, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle 

(2007); Who cares?, Haïfa Museum of Art, Haïfa (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: Hajj. Journey to the heart of Islam, British Museum, 

London (2012); 4 th Moscow Biennale (2011); Dublin Contemporary, Dublin 

(2011); Contested Terrains, Tate Modern, London (2011); French Window, 

24



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2011); PARIS-DELHI-BOMBAY..., Centre 

Pompidou, Paris (2011); La Route de la Soie, New Chinese, Indian and 

middle eastern art from the Saatchi Gallery, Lille 3000, Tri Postal, Lille 

(2010); Living in Evolution, Busan Biennale (2010); The Future of Tradition - 

The Tradition of Future, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2010); Time out of Joint : 

Recall and Evocation in Recent Art, The Kitchen, New York (2009); 

Integration and resistance in the global era, 10 th Havana Biennale (2009); 

Fault Lines, 50 th Venice Biennale (2003). Attia is also participating in 

Documenta 13, Kassel, 2012. 

SAMMY BALOJI was born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of 

Congo. He lives and works in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 

and Brussels, Belgium. 

Setting out to gather local memories of urban work and urban life, Sammy 

Baloji became especially interested in colonial history, its legacy, and its 

relationship to the present, beginning with Katanga, his home province. 

Baloji’s work interrogates the abuse of power and its effects, revealing the 

devastating impact that colonial exploitation has had on Africa, its people 

and environment. His photographic work re-inscribes the painful history of 

human and environmental exploitation into the present-day Congolese 

landscape, activating memory and the importance of history. Baloji’s work 

breaks from straightforward narrative and conflates time frames by 

juxtaposing past and present in both documentary photography and 

photomontages. He often mixes historical photographs and contemporary 

pictures, uncovering local histories, rendering places and architectures the 

witnesses of a not-so-far-away past, witnesses of exploitation and power 

structures. 

In 2008 he was a recipient of the Prince Claus Award and in 2011 he was 

artist-in-residence at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: The Beautiful Time: Photography by 

Sammy Baloji, Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, Washington 

(2012/3); Mémoire, Dilston Grove, London, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, 

and Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa (2010); Vues de Likasi, Contact 

Gallery, Toronto (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: Environment and 

Object. Recent African Art, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, 

Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond and 

Frances Young Tang Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga 

Springs (2011/2); ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki 

(2011); Body and Mask, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren 

(2009/10). 

25



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

YAEL BARTANA was born in 1970 in Kfar-Yehezkel, Israel. She lives and 

works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Tel Aviv, Israel. 

Yael Bartana predominantly works with film and video, often staging 

complex narratives that explore the imagery of cultural identity, national 

politics, and dominant historical master-narratives. In her work she critically 

investigates her native country's struggle for identity, but also the resonating 

ghosts of the Second World War in the light of the Holocaust, Nazism, and 

anti-Semitism. Her work frequently dissects ceremonies, public rituals and 

social diversions that are intended to reaffirm the collective identity of 

nations and countries. Her films are often staged, involving numerous 

actors and extras and introduce fictive moments into real existing 

narratives. 

Among other prizes, Bartana was awarded the 4 th Artes Mundi Prize in 

2010. Recent solo exhibitions include …and Europe will be stunned, Van 

Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Polish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale and 

Moderna Museet, Malmö (2010/2); Mur / Wieza, Museum of Modern Art, 

Warsaw (2009); Yael Bartana, P.S. 1, New York (2008); Mary Koszmary, 

Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); Wild Seeds, The Power 

Plant, Toronto (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 7 th Berlin Biennale 

(2012); L’énigme du portrait, MAC, Marseille (2011); Shockworkers 

of Mobile Image, 1 st Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2010); 29 th 

Bienal de São Paolo (2010); Les Promesses du Passé, Centre Pompidou, 

Paris (2010); Contour the 4 th Biennial of Moving Image, Mechelen (2009); 

Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); 27 th Bienal de São Paulo (2006). 

TAYSIR BATNIJI was born in 1966 in Gaza, Palestine. He lives and works 

in Paris, France. 

Taysir Batniji documents the Palestinian reality and the plight of the 

Palestinian people in a physically vivid, anti-spectacular way by focusing on 

displacement, intermediate states, the inhibition of movement and the 

violence exercised by the IDF with a self-conscious sobriety. In his 

photographic installations he depicts the effects of prohibition, exclusion, 

and the perpetual monitoring and surveillance in the Occupied Territories, 

while his poetic, suggestive drawings, on the other hand symbolically allude 

to the difficulties faced in daily life in terms of access to resources and 

goods. These issues are part and parcel of the social, political and cultural 

context in Palestine and also reflect the position of the artist as a witness 

and critic of this reality, through a self-consciously ‘objective’ gaze. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Le monde n'est pas arriveé, Eric Dupont 

Gallery, Paris (2011); Mobil Home, Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg (2010); 

Centre Culturel Francais, Alger (2009) and Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, 

Geneva (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Making History, Zollamt, 

Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2012); Untitled, 12 th 

26



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2011); Seeing is believing, KW, Berlin (2011); 

The Future of a Promise, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); Mirages. 

Contemporary Art in the Islamic World, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio 

di Janeiro, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo and Museu National do 

Conjunto Cultural da Republica, Brasilia (2010); Jerusalem Syndrome - The 

Jerusalem Show, Jerusalem (2009); Palestine c/o Venice, Palestinian 

Pavilion, 53 rd Venice Biennale (2009); In Palestine, 2 nd Riwaq Biennale, 

Ramallah (2007); Heterotopias, 1 st Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki 

(2007); Contemporary Arab Representations, 50 th Venice Biennale (2003). 

www.taysirbatniji.com 

ELISABETTA BENASSI was born in 1966 in Rome, Italy. She lives and 

works in Rome. 

Elisabetta Benassi creates densely emotive installations, photographs, 

performances and videos that refer to seminal political and historical 

moments in twentieth century history. Her work is rich in literary, 

cinematographic, psychoanalytical and political references. Often using 

archival material such as press photos, her work combines master historical 

narratives intermixed with others from everyday news. Together, they 

create an unusual portrait of the 20th century; one that can only be 

imagined via the words that describe it, as the images seem so remote. All 

of her practice functions as a mechanism for reconstructing memory, often 

detached from any iconographic aspect – a diversion within the formation 

process of our imagery. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Soledad, FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris (2011); 

All I Remember, Magazzino, Rome (2010); Art Unlimited, Basel (2009); I 

Have a Date with Outer Space, Fondazione Merz, Turin (2009). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Mutatis Mutandis, Wiener Secession, Vienna 

(2012); A Blind Spot, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2012); 

ARTandPRESS, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2012); A proposito di Marisa 

Merz, MAXXI, Rome (2012); Silences where things abandon themselves, 

The Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2012); ILLUMInazioni/ 

ILLUMInations, Arsenale, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); Tutto è connesso 2, 

Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin (2011); Fuori centro, 

Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2009); Mimétisme, Extra City, Antwerp (2008); The 

hot season. Italian art now, The Stenerson Museum, Oslo (2008); 

annisettanta il decennio lungo del secolo breve, Triennale di Milano, Milan 

(2007); Manifesta 4, Frankfurt am Main (2002); 2 nd Berlin Biennale (2001). 

www.elisabettabenassi.net 

27



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

EDWARD BURTYNSKY was born in 1955 in St. Catharines, Ontario, 

Canada. He lives and works in Toronto, Canada. 

Edward Burtynsky’s work is deeply engaged with the fate and future of our 

planet. His photographs depict how nature and landscape are threatened 

and damaged by industrialism, mass manufacturing, urban expansion and 

the constant quest for resources to provide us with our incessant material 

needs. He documents the transformation of the environment by human 

intervention in photographic series that examine process, cause and effect. 

His works examine in detail the exploitation of natural resources, ambitious 

urban and industrial projects and their residues. 

In 2005 Burtynsky was awarded the TED Prize and in 2006 he was named 

Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also the recipient of four honorary 

doctorates. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include: Nature 

Transformed: Edward Burtynsky's Vermont Quarry Photographs in Context, 

Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont and Hood 

Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire (2012/3); Oil, Canadian Museum 

of Nature, Ottawa, Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm and Huis Marseille, 

Amsterdam (among others; touring since 2009). Recent group exhibitions 

include: Infinite Balance, Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA), San Diego 

(2011/2); LOOK11 – Liverpool International Photography Festival, Liverpool 

(2011); 4. Fotofestival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg, The Eye is a 

Lonely Hunter: Images of Human Kind, Wilhelm Hack-Museum, 

Ludwigshafen (2011); Embarrassment of Riches: Picturing Global Wealth, 

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis (2010/1); Una fábrica, Una 

Máqina, Un Cuerpo, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico 

City and Centre de Documentació Panera, Lleida (2009/10). 

www.edwardburtynsky.com 

CENGIZ ÇEKIL was born in 1945 in Bor, Turkey. He lives and works in 

Istanbul, Turkey. 

Cengiz Çekil is widely regarded as a founding father of Turkish 

contemporary art and has influenced a whole generation of artists in his 

home country. In disparate media but with remarkable consistency, Çekil 

draws on the sensual, tactile effects of accumulations of lo-fi materials, in 

order to spark socio-political associations from commonplace materials. 

From textiles to newspapers to discarded objects, his choice of materials 

has always been decidedly democratic and economical. His work functions 

as a commentary which traces the vast social transformations experienced 

by Turkish society after 1970 and the political situation during the 

dictatorships in the 1980s and beyond. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Cengiz Çekil, Rampa Gallery, Istanbul 

(2010); Saat Kaç?, Yapı Kredi Kazım Ta$kent Art Gallery, Istanbul (2008). 

Recent group exhibitions include: I’m Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life 

28



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

in Contemporary Drawing, MoMA, New York (2011); The School, The Work, 

The Family, Gallery Nova, Zagreb (2009); What Keeps Mankind Alive? 11 th 

Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2009); Made in Turkey, Ernst Barlach Museum, 

Wedel (2009); ...With All Due Intent, Manifesta 5, San Sebastian (2004). 

ALEJANDRO CESARCO was born in 1975 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He 

lives and works in New York, USA. 

The work of Alejandro Cesarco operates within the borders of conceptual 

art, as a research project that questions the very idea of narration, the origin 

of the conditions that enable a text and the mechanisms of the process by 

which it generates meanings. The focus of Cesarco’s work is the question 

of the autonomy of the text and the modality of the relationship between 

work and spectator, between the written word and the reader. The act of 

artistic production itself is for the artist often grounded in the act of reading, 

and all of his work revolves around problems of hermeneutics and 

translation, as these can be observed from the privileged perspective of 

literature. 

Recent solo and duo exhibitions include: A Common Ground: Alejandro 

Cesarco & Magela Ferrero, Uruguayan Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale 

(2011); Art Statements, Basel (2011); Activating the Collection: One Without 

the Other, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); Present Memory, Tate 

Modern, London (2010); Turning Some Pages, MoMA, New York (2010). 

Recent group exhibitions include: Nine Screens, MoMA, New York 

(2010); Desire, The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2010); Subjective 

Projections, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld (2009); 2 nd Trienal 

Poli/Gráfica de San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009); The Archeology of Longings, 

Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2008); Adquisiciones, donaciones y 

comodatos 2007, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, 

Buenos Aires (2007). www.cesarco.info 

OLGA CHERNYSHEVA was born in 1962 in Moscow, Russia. She lives 

and works in Moscow. 

In her poignant films and photographs, Olga Chernysheva explores the 

current economic climate in Russia and often documents the debris of the 

Soviet world, human as well as material. From such a position one usually 

expects crude evidence of an end - tragic even if historically necessary. But 

Chernysheva’s attitude is very different. In her work the idea of communism, 

the social state and its utopian dimensions are still present as a spectral 

reminder, even if these are now forgotten and discredited; thus, the idealism 

of much of her work contrasts violently with the new post-Soviet order and 

the neo-liberal ideology which has left behind a large segment of its 

citizens, once protected by the communist state. 

29



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Olga Chernysheva: In the Middle of Things, 

BAK, Utrecht (2011); CLIPPINGS, Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin (2011); Olga 

Chernysheva, Calvert 22, London (2011); Inner Dialog, Tresor im Bank 

Austria Kunstforum, Vienna (2009); Isle of Sparks, Foxy Production, New 

York (2007); Involutions, Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels (2007); 

Second Life, Russian Pavilion, 49 th Venice Biennale (2001). Recent group 

exhibitions include: 1 st Kiev Biennial of Contemporary Art, Kiev (2012); 

Modernikon: Contemporary Art from Russia, Fondazione Sandretto Re 

Rebaudengo, Turin (2011); Ostalgia, The New Museum, New York (2011); 

Glasnost: Soviet Non-Conformist Art from the 1980s, Haunch of Venison, 

London (2010); 6 th Berlin Biennale (2010); Etats de l´artifice, Musée d'Art 

Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2010); Futurologia, Garage Center for 

Contermporary Culture, Moscow (2010); Dress Codes, 3 rd ICP Triennial, 

International Center of Photography, New York (2009); 11 th Istanbul 

Biennial (2009); Russian Dreams, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach 

(2008); On Duty, 2 nd Moscow Biennial of contemporary art (2007); Time of 

the Storytellers, Kiasma, Helsinki (2007). www.olgachernysheva.ru 

JOHAN CRETEN was born in 1963 in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. He lives and 

works in Paris, France 

Johan Creten’s work consists mainly of ceramic and bronze sculptures. He 

combines a contemporary artistic way of thinking with a great feeling for 

craftsmanship, tradition and symbolism, as well as a deep knowledge of art 

history. References to extreme ideological positions are combined with 

reflections on the absurd, fragile nature of our relations with others. His 

figurative sculptures operate as complex metaphors with a dense 

underlying socio-political agenda. Fascism, fanaticism, racism, extreme 

right-wing ideology and sexual discrimination are all issues that concern the 

artist. Often he locates his sculptural installations in historically loaded 

spaces with substantial added value: for example, a quarantine area in the 

Mediterranean sea (Sète), a Roman underground water reservoir (Istanbul) 

and the Renaissance rooms at the Louvre (Paris). 

Among others, he was artist in residence at the Villa Arson in Nice, the 

Kohler Foundation in Wisconsin, and the Bass Museum of Art in Miami. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Pliny’s Sorrow, Almine Rech Gallery, 

Brussels (2011); Dark Continent, Galerie Perrotin, Paris (2010); Johan 

Creten. Sculptures, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2008); 

Narcissus Saved, Transit, Mechelen (2006). Recent group exhibitions 

include: Beauté animale, de Dürer à Jeff Koons, Grand Palais, Paris (2012); 

Bêtes Off, La Conciergerie, Paris (2011-12); Big Brother. L'artiste face au 

tyrans, Palais des arts et du Festival, Dinard (2011); Passion Fruits 

(Olbricht Collection), me Collectors Room, Berlin (2010); Monument, 

Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp (2010); La Conquête de la Modernité. Sèvres 

1920/2008, Musée international des céramiques de Faenza, Faenza 

30



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

(2009); Sonsbeeck 2008: Grandeur, Arnhem (2008); Sand, Parrisch 

Museum, Southampton (2008). 

NINAR ESBER was born in 1971 in Beirut, Lebanon. She lives and works 

in Paris, France and Beirut, Lebanon. 

Ninar Esber is a writer and an artist who works with elaborate performances 

and videos which involve her body extensively, albeit with a certain 

slowness, at times even stillness. Here, the concepts of suspension and 

teasing find themselves confronted with architecture (walls, towers and 

promontories), daily objects (tables, chairs), and contemporary mythologies 

(superheroes, popular singers and actors, pin-up girls etc.) Performance 

and text play a decisive role in her videos, which often revolve around 

questions of gender and identity, with a decidedly feminist outlook. 

Recent solo exhibitions and performances include: One Hour Book, Darat 

Al Funun, Amman (2010); The 2 Ladders, Appartement 22 at Tate Modern, 

London (2010); Katiusza’s Ladders, Nowa Soda, Krakau (2010); What’s on 

a Girl’s mind, Galerie Sans titre, Brussels (2009); On the Roof of Abu 

Ghrab, Darb, Cairo (2008); Quatrième Nuit, Appartement 22, Rabat (2008); 

Revues Parlées, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2008); Focus Ninar 

Esber, Côté Court, Pantin (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 12 th 

Istanbul Biennial (2011); Sentences on the banks and other activities, Darat 

Al Funun, Amman (2010); A Proposal for Articulating works and places, 

Riso Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo (2010); Nous ne 

vieillirons pas ensembles, Galerie des Multiples, Paris (2010); One day I will 

be a Star, Maison du Livre, de l'Image et du Son, Villeurbanne (2009); 

Traversées, Grand Palais, Paris (2008); Sexy Sook, Point Ephémère, Paris 

(2007). www.ninaresber.com 

STELIOS FAITAKIS was born in 1976 in Athens, Greece. He lives and 

works in Athens. 

Stelios Faitakis was one of the pioneering figures in the street art movement 

that flourished in Athens since the mid-1990s. His work is informed by 

graffiti and urban culture, Byzantine (and particularly Cretan) icon painting, 

Mexican muralism, traditional Greek shadow theatre, Japanese woodcuts, 

and old master painting. The artist explores subjects culled from history, 

politics and current affairs and issues relating to the abuses of power and 

authority. His figurative paintings and murals are political and social 

allegories, packed with visual information, multi-layered narratives and 

dense symbolism. Faitakis’ view of humankind is dystopian: his works are 

dominated by fallen angels, corrupt officials, modern day sinners, 

perpetrators and victims; contemporary martyrs and miscreants boiling in 

the cauldron of a world gone awry. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Recent solo exhibitions include: ...towards a blessed land of new promise, 

The Breeder, Athens (2009); What A Great Day, The Breeder, Athens 

(2008). Recent group exhibitions include: 1 st Kiev Biennial, Kiev (2012); Art 

in the Streets, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 

(2011); Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennial (2011); The 

Beautiful is just the first degree of terrible, State Museum of Contemporary 

Art, Thessaloniki (2009); Destroy Athens, 1 st Athens Biennial, Athens 

(2007); Anathena, DESTE foundation, Athens (2006). 

ALI FERZAT was born in 1951 in Hama, Syria. He lives and works in 

Damascus, Syria and in Kuwait City, Kuwait. 

Legendary Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat's drawings criticize bureaucracy, 

corruption, social injustices, and hypocrisy in the Middle East, in particular 

targeting the Syrian government and other autocracies in the region. His 

drawings, typically without captions, are renowned for their scathing 

criticism and biting humour, making Ferzat one of the most outspoken 

critics of human rights violations in the Arab World and one who has drawn 

the ire of several governments. Initially, his work depicted types rather than 

individuals but since the Syrian uprising began, Ferzat has been more direct 

in his caricatures, depicting actual figures including the President of Syria, 

Bashar al-Assad. 

In 2002 Ferzat was a recipient of the Prince Claus Award and in 2011 he 

was awarded both the Sakharov Prize for freedom of speech by the 

European Parliament and the Press Freedom Prize by Reporters Without 

Borders and Le Monde. He began drawing caricatures for the state-run 

daily al-Thawra in 1969. In the mid-1970s he moved to another government 

controlled daily, Tishreen. International recognition followed in 1980 when 

he won the first prize at the Intergraphic International Festival in Berlin. His 

exhibition in 1989 at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris brought on him a 

death threat from Saddam Hussein and a ban from Iraq, Jordan and Libya. 

In December 2000 Ferzat started publishing al-Domari (‘The Lamplighter’), 

which was the first independent periodical in Syria since the Baath Party 

came to power in 1963. In 2003, however, frequent government censorship 

and lack of funds forced Ferzat to close down al-Domari. For denouncing 

the corruption and human rights abuses of the Syrian Government, he was 

attacked in August 2011 by masked gunmen, who broke his hands as a 

warning. His work has been published in major international newspapers 

such as the New York Times, the Guardian and Le Monde and he also 

exhibitions internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Culture in Defiance: 

Continuing Traditions of Satire, Art and the Struggle for Freedom in Syria, 

Prince Claus Fund Gallery and Mica Gallery, London (2012). 

www.ali-ferzat.com 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ZIYAH GAFI! was born in 1980 in Sarajevo, in former Yugoslavia, now 

Bosnia and Herzegovina. He lives and works in Sarajevo. 

Ziyah Gafi! is considered one of the most talented, prolific and engaged of 

the younger generation documentary photographers. Although he was a 

child when the war in Bosnia erupted, the events deeply affected him and 

his family. Like all Bosnians, they were the media ‘subjects’ of an 

international humanitarian crisis and genocide. He turned to photography in 

order to experience events on ‘the other side’, not as victim but as one of 

the people involved in registering current affairs. His subsequent work is 

concerned with raising awareness to events in some of the world’s most 

conflicted and problematic hot spots, which are in the throes of transition, 

using photography as a tool to understand the circumstances that lead to 

political upheaval and the resulting human condition. 

Since 1999 Gafi! has been travelling extensively, covering major events in 

more than forty countries including Iraq, Kurdistan, Chechnya, Lebanon, 

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, both publishing and exhibiting his 

work internationally. In 2001, his reportage won the Ian Parry – The Sunday 

Times Magazine scholarship and the Second Prize at the World Press 

Photo contest. In 2002, he won the First and the Second Prize at World 

Press Photo, the Kodak annual award for young reporters at the festival 

Visa pour l’image and Special Mention by the HSBC foundation for 

photography. In 2003, Photo District News included him among 30 

emerging world photographers and he won the Grand Prix Discovery of the 

Year at Les Rencontres d’Arles. In 2005, his work won the Giacomelli 

Memorial Fund Award and in 2006 he was nominated for UNICEF 

Photographer of the Year. In 2007 he received the Getty images grant for 

editorial photography He regularly contributes to publications such as 

Amica, la Repubblica, L’Espresso, Le Monde, Newsweek, The Telegraph 

Magazine, Time and Tank. www.ziyahgafic.ba 

GANZEER, who was born as Mohammed Fahmy in 1982 in Cairo, Egypt, 

where he lives and works. 

Ganzeer uses media such as street art, graphic design, illustration, 

questionnaires, graffiti and video as means of expression and 

communication. Ganzeer’s interests include, but are not limited to, 

commentary on current affairs, the human condition and what's next to 

come and of course recent Egyptian politics. He is considered one of the 

key figures of that part of the Egyptian art scene that is socially engaged 

and speaks up for public space and collective action. His murals and artistic 

activity on the streets of Cairo and his protest posters and graphics have 

made him one of the most important visual critics and activists in the 

Egyptian Revolution. The popularity of his graphic design work catapulted 

him into the contemporary art world in 2007 with his first solo show 

Everyday Heroes with the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo. This prompted his 

33



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

inclusion in a number of exhibitions around the world, such as: Noord, 

Amsterdam (2010); Cairo Documenta, Cairo (2010); Afropolis, Cairo (2010); 

Shatana International Workshop, Shatana (2009); Why Not?, Cairo (2009); 

Art Threesome, Rotterdam (2008); Cairoscape, Berlin (2008); Urban Artists, 

Dubai (2008); Breaking Boredom, Cairo (2008); Radius of Art, Kiel (2008). 

His one-minute video ‘Up Yours’ was also nominated for a TOMMIE award 

in 2008 by the One Minute Foundation, Amsterdam. Outside of the typical 

art sphere, Ganzeer is best known for his ‘artivism’ throughout 2011 via the 

use of murals, stickers, graffiti, posters and other actions in Cairo's public 

spaces. For NEWTOPIA, Ganzeer has been commissioned to make a new 

mural for Site Hof Van Busleyden. www.ganzeer.com 

KENDELL GEERS was born in May 1968 in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

He lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. 

Having been a passionate opponent of Apartheid in South Africa, where he 

comes from, Kendell Geers’ highly political, confrontational and often 

iconoclastic sculptures, drawings and installations examine power 

structures, social injustices and establishment values. Since the end of the 

1980s, he has dedicated his work to creating connections between 

conceptual art and politics: using different types of materials (glass, neon, 

sound, etc.) and techniques (collage, video, photography, text). Geers 

decided to open up his solo invitation to NEWTOPIA and invite guests and 

friends to share their personal visions and interpretations of the complex 

subject of human rights. He has invited artists to speak, with, as he says, 

“the freedom and the expression that politicians, scientists, corporations 

and consumers no longer care to remember, to remind those who care to 

listen that the battle for the rights of the planet, the rights of every animal, 

vegetable, mineral and human desperately need to be respected if we are 

all to survive.” 

Guests include: Marina Abramovi!, Banksy, Belinda Blignaut, Nicolas 

Bourthoumieux, Hakim Bey, Charlie Chaplin, Cendrine du Welz, Femen, 

Ganzeer, Ilse Ghekiere, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Barbara Kruger, 

Moondog, Félicien Rops, Nedko Solakov, Betty Tompkins, Raoul 

Vaneigem, Kara Walker, Anna Whaley, Ai Wei Wei, Sandy Williams, Zapiro. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Fin de Partie, Galleria Continua, Beijing 

(2011); No Government No Cry, CIAP, Hasselt (2011); Third World 

Disorder, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2010); PRAYPLAYPREY, Oficina 

para Proyectos de Arte A.C., Guadalajara (2008); Irrespektiv, S.M.A.K., 

Ghent, BALTIC, Gateshead, Moca, Lyon, DA2, Salamanca, and MART, 

Trento (2007/9); Kannibale, Yvon Lambert Galerie, Paris (2007). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Manifesta 9, Genk (2012); The Right to Protest, 

Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem (2010); There is always a cup of sea to 

sail in, 29 th Bienal de São Paulo (2010); Contemplating the Void, 

Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Betwixt, Magasin 3, Stockholm 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

(2008); Mexico: Expected/Unexpected, La Maison Rouge, Paris (2008); 

African Pavilion, 52 nd Venice Biennale (2007); Documenta 11, Kassel 

(2002). 

EDUARDO GIL – EL SILUETAZO was born in 1948 in Buenos Aires, 

Argentina. He lives and works in Buenos Aires. El Siluetazo took place in 

Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina in 1982-1983. 

Eduardo Gil's photographs are concerned with the socio-political situation in 

Argentina. Gil became a photographer in the late ‘70s after trying out 

several different jobs and careers. For instance, he obtained a degree as a 

meteorologist at the National School of Civil Aviation and at 21 he was 

flying as a commercial pilot. He entered the Sociology School of the 

University of Buenos Aires in 1972. He has worked as a taxi driver, a bank 

employee and as an executive of an international company for five years 

until 1976. It was in March that year that the military coup took place in 

Argentina. Gil had carried out a central role in organizing the company’s 

labor union and had been elected Delegate General. The coup finally led 

him to “decide” to quit. It was in the midst of this situation that he began to 

take pictures and has never stopped. He explored technique, but his 

curiosity soon led him to study art history and conceptual analysis. Gil 

began to show his work in 1981. In the following year he gave courses for 

the first time and he continues teaching seminars and workshops where he 

has developed unconventional ways of stimulating and systematizing 

photographic research. Gil says that his pictures are metaphors for 

Argentina. 

As a photojournalist, Eduardo Gil has worked for some of Argentina's most 

important publications and for numerous international magazines, including 

Newsweek, National Geographic, The New York Times, The Daily 

Telegraph and Der Spiegel. Recent solo exhibitions include: Praesagium, 

Asunto Galería, Buenos Aires (2010); Marcas, VVV Gallery, Buenos Aires 

(2009); NosOtros, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires (2008). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Macro Incorporaciones 2010: La Crisis como 

Prospecto, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario, Santa Fe (2010); 

Ver, VVV Gallery, Buenos Aires (2009); Buenos Aires Photo, VVV Gallery, 

Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires (2008); Arte ! Vida: Actions by Artists of the 

Americas, 1960-2000, El Museo del Barrio, New York (2008); Cuerpos 

Politicos. Corpolíticas en las Américas, Instituto Hemisférico de 

Performances y Políticas, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires (2007). 

www.eduardogil.com 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

DAVID GOLDBLATT was born in 1930 in Randfontein, in South Africa. He 

lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

For more than 40 years David Goldblatt has been documenting the social 

and political situation in his place of birth, South Africa, with a special focus 

on apartheid and post apartheid society and questions of segregation and 

racial inequality. While he uses photography as a means of accessing and 

exploring people and societies, Goldblatt is acutely aware of the ethics of 

photography and has used the camera as a way of discreetly capturing the 

complexities and intricacies of the specific conditions and situations that he 

photographs, while avoiding sensationalism and didacticism. 

Goldblatt was awarded the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2009 and the 

Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2006. He is 

also the recipient of three honorary doctorates. Recent solo exhibitions 

include: South African Photographs: David Goldblatt Jewish Museum, New 

York, and South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town (2010); David 

Goldblatt: Intersections Intersected, New Museum, New York and Malmö 

Konsthall, Malmö (2009); David Goldblatt: South African Photographs 1952- 

2006, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur (2007); Intersections, Huis 

Marseille, Amsterdam and Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley (2007). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African 

Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2011); ILLUMInazioni/ 

ILLUMInations, Arsenale, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); There is always a 

cup of sea to sail in, 29 th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo (2010); The 

Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, Museum of 

Modern Art, New York (2010); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); Documenta 

11, Kassel (2002). 

LEON GOLUB was born in 1922 in Chicago, USA. He died in 2004 in New 

York, USA. 

The brutal forces of the modern world constitute the main subject of Leon 

Golub’s prints, drawings and paintings. His art often has a nightmarish 

quality, conveying man's cruelty to others or political corruption. Much of 

Golub's art confronts social or political issues (race, violence, war, and 

human suffering), such as his anti-Vietnam War paintings of the 1960s. In 

June 2001, just a few years before his death, Leon Golub pondered about 

his art and art in general, “Too many people have a sort of protective 

attitude about art. You know, don't touch. It's valuable. I'm trying to be more 

in your face, like when you walk down the street and suddenly you 

encounter a situation. I'm trying to invite you into scenes where you might 

not want to be invited in”. Since the very beginning, his paintings of torturers 

and mercenaries dealt with difficult issues – violations of human rights, 

representation of violence and victimhood, the brutal power of some and the 

‘bare life’ of others. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Golub's work was seen in solo exhibitions throughout the world, among 

them: Leon Golub, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid 

(2011); Leon Golub: Paintings, S.M.A.K., Ghent (2000); Leon Golub: 

Retrospective, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo (1994); Golub: Retrospective 

Exhibition, The New Museum, New York, Jolla Museum of Contemporary 

Art, La Jolla, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Montreal 

Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 

and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1984). Recent group exhibitions 

include: This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Museum of 

Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012); Shifting the Gaze: Painting and 

Feminism, The Jewish Museum, New York (2010/1); That Was Then This is 

Now, P.S.1, New York (2008). 

HANS HAACKE was born in 1936 in Cologne, Germany. He lives and 

works in New York, USA. 

The works of conceptual artist Hans Haacke expose the interconnectivity of 

culture, politics, corruption and greed. Spanning a range of mediums and 

drawing upon a variety of contemporary art strategies, from Conceptualism 

to Land Art, Haacke’s confrontational work often has been critical of 

militarism, imperialism and nationalism but has also probed the culture 

industry and institutional politics, exposing the shady dealings of museum 

trustees or other officials who control what is promoted and displayed. 

Haacke – who has said he intends his art to "convict" its subject – is thus 

regarded as one of the precursors of institutional critique. 

In 1993 Haacke was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale 

(shared with Nam June Paik) and in 2004 the Peter-Weiss-Preis. He is also 

the recipient of three honorary doctorates. Recent solo exhibitions include: 

Hans Haacke, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2012); Hans Haacke: The 

Chocolate Master, Specific Object, New York (2011); Hans Haacke, 

Foundazione Antonio Ratti, Como (2010); Hans Haacke: Weather, or not, X 

Initiative, New York (2009/10). Recent group exhibitions include: This Will 

Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Museum of Contemporary Art, 

Chicago, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and ICA, Boston (2012/3); Light 

Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977, The Art Institute of 

Chicago (2011/2); The Lucifer Effect, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, 

Prague (2011/2); Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah 

(2011); The Last Newspaper, The New Museum, New York (2010/1); 

Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009, 

Barbican Art Gallery, London (2009); 7 th Gwangju Biennale (2008); 

Documenta 10, Kassel (1997); German Pavilion, 45 th Venice Biennale 

(1993); Documenta 8, Kassel (1987); Documenta 7, Kassel (1982); 

Documenta 5, Kassel (1972). 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

BARBARA HAMMER was born in 1939 in Hollywood, USA. She lives and 

works in New York, USA. 

Barbara Hammer is known for creating groundbreaking feminist 

experimental films that deal with gay rights, gender roles, lesbian pride, and 

collective action. Hammer is author of some of the first and seminal lesbianmade 

films in history, including ‘Dyketactics’ (1974) and ‘Women I Love’ 

(1976). While in the 1970s her films dealt with the representation of taboo 

subjects through performance and in the 1980s she began using an optical 

printer to make films that explore perception, her more recent films since 

the 1990s are documentaries that explore hidden aspects of queer history. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: The Fearless Frame, Tate Modern, London 

(2012); Barbara Hammer, KOW, Berlin (2011); Barbara Hammer, MoMA, 

New York (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: The Visible Vagina, 

David Nolan Gallery, New York (2010); Everywhere. Sexual Diversity 

Policies in Art, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela (2009); Migrating Forms, 

Anthology Film Archives, New York (2009); WACK! Art and the Feminist 

Revolution, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, P.S. 1, New York, The 

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the National Museum of 

Women in the Arts, Washington (2007/8); Comfort Zone, Santa Fe Art 

Institute (2007). www.barbarahammer.com 

JAN PETER HAMMER was born in 1970 in Kirchheim-Teck, Germany. He 

lives and works in Berlin, Germany. 

Jan Peter Hammer’s artistic practice revolves around narrative and the 

articulation of text and image. The artist often works with video installation 

and slide projections in which real events are etched onto fictional stories. 

The past is unpredictable; the way we recall and reconstruct past 

experiences is as unsettled as the way History narrates itself. Self and 

society remain locked in a dialectical loop. Narration is a recursive interplay, 

in which personal stories are always sketched against the backdrop of an 

historical leitmotif. Jan Peter Hammer’s characters are, thus, both familiar 

and sui generis, ordinary and unique, idiosyncratic and clichéd. As if led by 

an invisible hand, their innermost beliefs are an expression of the zeitgeist 

and their rational certainties are founded on ideology, yet they remain 

unyielding. His works can all be read as reflections on the consequences of 

rugged individualism and free-market economics. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: The Invisible Hand, Kunstverein Arnsberg, 

Arnsberg (2011/2); The Anarchist Banker, Supportico Lopez, Berlin (2010); 

The End of Love, COMA, Berlin (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 

Without Reality there is no Utopia, CAAC - Centro Andaluz de Arte 

Contemporaneo, Seville (2011); Image-Movement, CAC - Centre d’Art 

Contemporain, Geneva (2010); Light is a Kind of Rhythm, Pavillon an der 

Volksbühne, Berlin (2008); Anonym, in the Future..., Schirn Kunsthalle, 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Frankfurt (2006). His films were shown at several film festivals, including 

IFFR, Rotterdam (2011); 25FPS - International Festival for Experimental 

Film and Video, Zagreb (2010); DOK, Leipzig (2010). www.jphammer.de 

MONA HATOUM was born in 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon. She lives and works 

in Berlin, Germany, and London, England. 

In the early 1980s Mona Hatoum began her career with performance 

pieces, though later she began to develop installations involving video, light, 

and sound. While mostly focusing on confrontational themes such as 

violence, oppression and voyeurism, her works make powerful references 

to the vulnerability and resistance of human bodies and profers a very 

personal interpretation of the language of minimalism by introducing 

contrasting yet highly allusive elements into strict, sometimes forbidding, 

structures. The influence of her native culture is very clear with frequent 

references to war, physical vulnerability, displacement and a critique of 

patriarchal society. 

In 2011 Hatoum was awarded the Joan Miro Prize. Recent solo exhibitions 

include: You Are Still Here, ARTER space for art, Istanbul (2012); Bunker, 

White Cube, London (2011); Keeping it Real: An exhibition in Four Acts (Act 

Three: Current Disturbance), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2010/1); 

Roadworks, Musée Rodin, Paris (2010); Witness, Beirut Art Center (2010); 

Undercurrent (red), Galleria Continua, San Gimignano (2009); Measures of 

Entanglement, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2009); Present 

Tense: Mona Hatoum, Parasol Unit, London (2008); Hanging Garden, 

DAAD Galerie, Berlin (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Wander, 

Labyrinthine Variations, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2011); The 

Luminous Interval, Guggenheim, Bilbao (2011); Aschemünder, Haus der 

Kunst, Munich (2011); The New Décor, Hayward Gallery, London and 

Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2010/1); On Line: Drawing 

Through the Twentieth Century, MoMA, New York (2010); Always a little 

further, Arsenale, 51 st Venice Biennale (2005); Identité et altérité. Une brève 

histoire du corps humain, 45 th Venice Biennale (1995). 

DIANGO HERNÁNDEZ was born in 1970 in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. He lives 

and works in Düsseldor, Germany. 

The work of Diango Hernández navigates between poles of efficiency and 

scarcity, which inevitably hark back to his experience of growing up and 

living in Cuba and in particular to the historical hiccup that country has 

endured both in terms of its own utopian aspirations and the unforgiving 

economic embargo that the United States and its allies imposed in turn. His 

conceptually-based art practice revolves around found objects and 

suggestive or symbolic materials that are (re-)appropriated, while the 

political rhetoric is always handled subtlety, and discretion avoiding all kinds 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

of the sloganism and propaganda that form part of the Cuban collective 

consciousness. Hernández’s work can be understood as both social critique 

but also as a desire for social transformation. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Folded Tiger, Philara, Düsseldorf (2012); 

Drawing the human figure, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania (2012); Lonely 

Fingers, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskaste, Marl (2011); Living Rooms. A 

Survey, MART, Rovereto (2011); Line Dreamers, Haus im Süden, Cologne 

(2011); A Kiss, a Hat, a Stamp, Blood Mountain Foundation, Budapest 

(2010); Losing you tonight, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen 

(2009/10); Swans without a Lake, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen 

(2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Fronteras en mutación, en 

tránsito, CCEBA, Buenos Aires (2011); Tracks, Kunstmuseum 

Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein (2011); The New Décor, Hayward Gallery, 

London, and Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2010/1); 

Touched, 10 th Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2010); Performa 

09, New York (2009); Made in Germany, Kunstverein Hannover, Hanover 

(2007); Bei Freunden zu Gast, Stella Lohaus Gallery, Antwerp (2007); 

Always a little further, Arsenale, 51 st Venice Biennale (2005). 

www.diango.net 

LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON was born in 1941 in Cleveland, USA. She 

lives and works in San Francisco, USA. 

Since the late 60s, conceptual multi-media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson 

has constantly been pushing the boundaries of art and continuously 

exploring new territories. Already very early Hershman explored issues that 

later became key issues in contemporary art such as the relationship 

between the real and virtual world, between human beings and machines; 

surveillance and the increasing control of public space and questions 

relating to gender and the construction of identity. Lynn Hershman Leeson 

has also been an innovator in the use of various media and is considered 

as one of the pioneers of New Media art. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Kunsthalle 

Bremen, Bremen (2012); Ja Jako Roberta, Museum of Contemporary Art, 

Krakow (2012); Lynn Hershman Leeson, Waldburger Gallery, Brussels 

(2011); The Complete Roberta Breitmore, Whitworth Art Gallery, 

Manchester (2009); The Floating Museum Archive, New Langton Arts, San 

Francisco (2008); Lynn Hershman Leeson: No Body Special, DeYoung 

Museum, San Francisco (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: 

Moments: The History of Performance, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, 

Karlsruhe (2012); The Deconstructive Impulse: Women Artists Reconfigure 

the Signs of Power, 1973 – 1992, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston 

(2012); Double Life, Tate Modern, London (2011); Primary Views, Monash 

University Museum of Art, Clayton (2009); WACK! Art and the Feminist 

Revolution, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, P.S. 1, New York, Los 

40



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and National Museum 

of Women in the Arts, Washington (2007/8); Fast Time Slow Bodies, MoCA, 

Tapei (2007); Faith in Exposure, Netherlands Media Art Institute, 

Amsterdam (2007); Tecnologia e informatica, 42 nd Venice Biennale (1986). 

www.lynnhershman.com 

WAFA HOURANI was born in 1979 in Hebron, Palestine. He lives and 

works in Ramallah, Palestine. 

Deeply marked by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of the 

Middle East, Wafa Hourani makes photos and sculptures that reveal the 

social, political and economical context of life in Palestine and the plight of 

the Palestinian people. A graduate of the school of Art and Cinema in Tunis, 

he first directed films before shifting to a visual production in 2006. 

According to him, this is a more suited format to express the Palestinian 

question. Using photography and sculpture, he has been creating 

environments revealing a reality in which past and future are intrinsically 

linked. 

Hourani’s work has been shown at: La Route de la Soie, Tri Postal, Lille; 

The future of tradition – the tradition of future, Haus der Kunst, Munich 

(2010); the 11 th Istanbul Biennial (2009); Disorientation II, Abu Dhabi Art, 

Abu Dhabi (2009); Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, 

London (2008); 1 st Thessaloniki Biennial (2007). 

SATCH HOYT was born in 1957 in London, England. He lives and works in 

Berlin, Germany. 

The work of Satch Hoyt consists of sculptures, installations, paintings and 

drawings. It is characterized by a dual and complementary reflection on the 

African Diaspora and its manifold consequences. Drawing deeply on his 

background as an accomplished professional musician/composer, Satch 

Hoyt has made sound and musicality a base chord of his visual practice. 

Several of his sculptures and installations contain a sound and/or musical 

element combined with a narrative that often references black history and 

seminal black public figures in sport, politics and music. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Tailspinner, Nomad Gallery, Brussels 

(2011); Rhythm and Rhyme, Galerie Steinek, Vienna (2008); For Love of 

Sugar, St. Paul's Cathedral, London (2007); Satch Hoyt, Galerie Lucette 

Herzog, Paris (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Thrown Together, 

Nomad Gallery, Brussels (2012); The Record Touring, Institute of 

Contemporary Art, Boston (2011); Hors Pistes, Centre Pompidou, Paris 

(2011); Nomadic Settlers, Bethanien, Berlin (2011); The Art Is A Combat 

Sport, Museum of Fine Arts, Calais (2011); The Record: Contemporary Art 

and Vinyl, Nasher Museum of Art, Raleigh (2010); The Global Africa 

41



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Project, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2010); 2 nd San Juan 

Triennial, Puerto Rico (2009); 3 rd Beijing International Art Biennale, National 

Art Museum of China, Beijing (2008); Infinite Island, Brooklyn Museum, 

New York (2007). www.satchhoyt.com 

THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY was 

established in 1935 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where it is situated. 

The International Institute of Social History (IISH) is one of the world’s 

largest documentation and research centers specializing in social and 

economic history. Since its establishment in 1935, the Institute has been 

dedicated to collecting, preserving and making available the heritage of 

social movements all over the world. The Institute is independent and as a 

consequence a natural repository for the cultural heritage – frequently in 

jeopardy – of labor movements and other emancipationist groups and 

movements. The Institute is interested primarily in all aspects relating to 

work. In addition, the Institute preserves the heritage of social movements, 

such as Utopists, environmental movements, Provos, squatters and 

vegetarians. 

The Institute collects worldwide and has local offices in Ethiopia, Thailand, 

Bolivia, Russia, India and Turkey. Collected materials or digital copies of 

them are made available for research in Amsterdam. The collection 

comprises 3,200 archives, over one million books and visual materials 

(including over 116,000 posters), together spanning over 50 km of shelf 

space. www.socialhistory.org 

ALFREDO JAAR was born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile. He lives and works 

in New York, USA. 

Over the last thirty years or so, Jaar has been consistently engaged with 

human rights issues, creating photography, film, installation and text-based 

works that respond to global conflicts and events such as genocide and 

oppression in military dictatorships, examining the relationship of the 

developed world to the global South and critically dissecting the ways these 

events are transmitted, represented and discussed in the international 

media. His practice revolves around international current affairs with a 

special focus on human rights violations, social disenfranchisement and 

economic inequalities. His subject matter spans a wide variety of issues and 

subjects from the genocide in Rwanda, American complicity in the military 

dictatorships in Chile, gold mining in Brazil, pollution in Nigeria, border 

issues between Mexico and the United States and neoliberal economic 

practices. Rather than offering information in an expected or familiar form, 

Jaar creates presentations that de-construct standardised media 

representations of victimhood and violence and demand reflection. In an 

age when images of atrocities have become commonplace, Jaar’s work 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

raises critical questions: does an oversaturation of media images of war 

lead to apathy? How might we reflect on images of suffering in a way that 

could challenge the distanced apathy of contemporary mass media 

consumption? Jaar’s work thus addresses the much more complicated 

question concerning the limits of human empathy, questions of ‘affect’, 

engagement, individual responsibility and how these are dealt with in 

images of our time. 

Jaar became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 

2000. In 2006 he received Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creación. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: The Way It Is: An Aesthetics of Resistance, 

NGBK / Berlinische Galerie / Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2012); Alfredo 

Jaar: Marx Lounge, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and Centro Andaluz de 

Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2011); The Sound of Silence, Ecole nationale 

supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, Paris (2011); We Wish To Inform You 

That We Didn’t Know, Contemporary Art Galleries, University of 

Connecticut, Connecticut (2010); It Is Difficult, Hangar Bicocca, Milan 

(2008); Politics of the Image, South London Gallery, London (2008). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Paris Triennial (2012); Seeing is Believing, KW, 

Berlin (2011); Plot for a Biennial, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2011); 

Space, MAXXI, Rome (2010); That Was Then. This Is Now, P.S.1, New 

York (2008). He has participated in the Venice Biennale (1986, 2007), São 

Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), Sydney (1990), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju (1995, 

2000), Johannesburg (1997), Seville (2006), and Liverpool (2010) as well 

as the Documenta exhibitions in Kassel (1987, 2002). www.alfredojaar.net 

KHALED JARRAR was born in 1976 in Jenin, Palestine. He lives and 

works in Ramallah, Palestine. 

Khaled Jarrar completed his education in Interior Design at the Palestine 

Polytechnic University in 1996 and then he graduated from the International 

Academy of Art-Palestine with a BA in Visual Arts in 2011. He entered the 

world of photography in 2004, his first exhibition At the Checkpoint in 2007 

was placed in full view of the Israeli soldiers at Howarra & Qalandia 

checkpoint. Jarrar works with photography, video, and performance to 

question the problematic situation in Palestine, particularly the question of 

recognition of the State of Palestine, and the way militaristic discourse 

indoctrinates. He uses his art, be it photography, video, or performance, as 

a new way of thinking about questions of conflict, nationhood, home and 

belonging. 

His first exhibition took place in public space at the checkpoints of Howarra 

and Qalandya. Recent solo exhibitions include: Docile Soldier, Galerie 

Polaris, Paris (2012); The Soldier, Al-Mahatta Gallery, Ramallah (2009); 

How to get Green Card in Palestine, Al-Mahatta Gallery, Ramallah (2007); 

At the checkpoint, International Academy of Art Palestine, Ramallah (2007). 

Recent group exhibitions include: 7 th Berlin Biennale (2012); It's Time We 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Got To Know Each Other, 52 nd October Salon, Belgrade (2011); The 

Jerusalem Show, Jerusalem (2010); London Film Festival, London (2010); 

Instant Video Festival, Marseille (2009). 

NIKITA KADAN was born in 1982 in Kiev, Ukraine. He lives and works in 

Kiev. 

Nikita Kadan is an artist, activist, writer, member and co-founder of both the 

artists collective R.E.P. (‘Revolutionary Experimental Space’ - since 2004) 

and the curatorial/activist group HudRada (Ukranian for ‘artistic committee’ - 

since 2008). He works with installation, graphics, painting, mural drawings 

and posters in public space and often is involved in interdisciplinary 

collaborations with architects, human rights activists and sociologists. In his 

practice he reflects, among other things, on the nature of history and 

memory but also on human rights questions in the former Soviet Republics, 

and particularly the Ukraine, where he comes from. 

He is a member of the artists group R.E.P. (Revolutionary experimental 

space) and co-founder of the curatorial and activist group HUDRADA. In 

2011 he was the recipient of the main prize of the PinchukArtCentre, Kiev. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Figures on white, Karas gallery, Kiev 

(2011); Nesezon, Arsenal gallery, Kiev (2011); Procedure room/Fixing, 

NORMA gallery, Odessa (2010); Procedure room, Institutskaya gallery, 

Kiev (2010); Scene of action, Collection gallery, Kiev (2009). Recent group 

exhibitions include: The 1 st Kiev Biennial, Kiev, Sound of silence, Elizabeth 

Foundation, New York (2012); Impossible Community, Moscow Museum of 

Modern Art, Moscow (2011); Atlantis 11, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); 

Independent, Art Arsenal, Kiev (2011); Shockworkers of Mobile Image, 1 st 

Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2010); IF. Ukrainian Art in 

Transition, PERMM, Perm (2010); No more reality, De Appel, Amsterdam 

(2008); New Ukrainian painting, White Box gallery, New York (2007); 

Generations UsA, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2007). www.nikitakadan.com 

HAYV KAHRAMAN was born in 1981 in Baghdad, Iraq . She lives and 

works in San Francisco, USA. 

Spanning drawing, painting, and sculpture, the practice of Hayv Kahraman 

engages with issues surrounding female identity in her homeland Iraq – 

how women are victimised within their own culture, made subservient to 

men and often suffer the most from the effects of the war. She is also, by 

extent, intensely preoccupied with the questions of migration, displacement, 

and identity that are the result of the political situation and recent US-led 

occupation of Iraq. Her stylised, figurative works have an exquisite eye for 

design and possess a sense of painful immaculate beauty. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Pins and Needles, The Third Line Gallery, 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Dubai (2010); Waraq, Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco (2010); Seven 

gates, Green Cardamom Gallery, London (2010). Recent group exhibitions 

include: Disquieting muses, Contemporary Art Center, Thessaloniki (2011); 

Jameel Prize, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Institut de Monde 

Arabe, Paris (2011/2): Of women’s modesty and anger, Villa Empain, 

Brussels (2011); The silk road, Tri Postal, Lille (2010); Unveiled. New art 

from the Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010); Taswir. Pictorial 

mapping of Islam and modernity, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2010); 

Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah (2009). www.hayvkahraman.com 

AMAR KANWAR was born in 1964 in New Delhi, India. He lives and works 

in New Delhi. 

Amar Kanwar is an independent filmmaker whose lyrical and meditative 

work explores the political, social, economic and ecological conditions of the 

Indian subcontinent. Recurrent themes are the splitting of families, sectarian 

violence and border conflicts, interwoven with investigations of gender and 

sexuality, philosophy and religion, as well as the opposition between 

globalisation and tribal consciousness in rural India. Rather than focusing 

on traumatic or political situations, he attempts to move beyond trauma and 

its direct representation to a more contemplative and redemptive space. 

He is the recipient of the 1 st Edward Munch Award for Contemporary Art, 

Norway (2005) and an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Maine 

College of Art in Portland (2006). The past years, Kanwar has received 

several awards at international film festivals. Recent solo exhibitions 

include: The Torn First Pages, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Stedelijk 

Museum, Amsterdam (2008); Amar Kanwar, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 

London (2007); Selected Works 1997-2006, Apeejay Media Gallery, New 

Delhi (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Documenta 13, Kassel 

(2012); Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India, Deutsche 

Guggenheim, Berlin (2010); Significant and Insignificant Events, Museum of 

Modern Art, Istanbul (2009); What a Wonderful World, Göteborg 

International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Göteborg (2009); Indian 

Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London, Astrup Fernley Museum, Oslo, and 

HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning (2008-2010); The 

Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art (Part 

1), The Hessel Museum and Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, 

New York (2008); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); Documenta 11, Kassel 

(2002). www.amarkanwar.com 

LINA KHATIB was born in Beirut, Lebanon in the 1970s. She lives and 

works in Stanford, California, USA. 

Writer, researcher, and visual artist Lina Khatib is currently the co-founder 

and head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and 

has written extensively on the intersections of visual representation, politics, 

and social issues in the Middle East. She is the author of three books on 

film and visual culture in the Middle East: Filming the Modern Middle East 

(IB Tauris, 2006); Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond 

(IB Tauris, 2008); and Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the 

Visual in Political Struggle (IB Tauris, 2012), and a founding co-editor of the 

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. She also uses the 

mediums of video and photography to comment on political moments in the 

Arab World, and the role these media play in constructing political myths 

and narratives. 

Recent presentations include: The Future of a Promise, 54 th Venice 

Biennale (2011); Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Rome (2008); 

Arab Film Festival, San Francisco (2007); 4 th Muscat Circle, Muscat (2007). 

THOMAS KILPPER was born in 1956 in Stuttgart, Germany. He lives and 

works in Berlin, Germany. 

Thomas Kilpper’s work has consistently investigated the relationship 

between history, politics, current affairs, the public sphere and collective 

memory, highlighting obscured political and social significances. Often 

creating large site-specific and labour-intensive interventions in public 

buildings and spaces, through installations and floor carvings, he seeks to 

highlight contentious political and historical issues. Kilpper has become 

especially renowned for his use of architectural scale woodcut methods to 

transform historical buildings and spaces. He conceives his works as 

means to develop the large-scale visibility that provokes public dialogue 

around social issues such that range from repressive state politics to the 

plight of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Often working with local 

neighbourhoods and communities, he uses his research to create a picture 

of a history more complicated than that told through official channels. His 

work expands political dialogue, not only to include previously excluded 

voices at a local level but also to integrate these stories into an international 

history of resistance and work for justice. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Pavilion for Revolutionary Free Speech, 

Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2012); Venecian Prints, Dispari & 

Dispari Project, Reggio Emilia (2012); Krauts, Wolfstaedter Gallery, 

Frankfurt am Main (2011); Punk instead of Stasi!, Christian Nagel Gallery, 

Cologne (2010); State of Control, former GDR State Security Headquarters, 

Berlin, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2009); A Lighthouse for 

Lampedusa!, Villa Romana, Florence (2009); Don't drain your brain, 

Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Brannon, 

Büttner, Kierulf, Kilpper, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (2012); Etna Carrara, 

Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2012); Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54 th 

Venice Biennale (2011); Declining Democracy, Centro Cultura 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Contemporanea, Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2011); Fokus Lodz 

Biennale, Lodz (2010); Mediation Biennale, Poznan (2010); IABR, 4 th 

International Architecture Biennial, Rotterdam (2009); Prison, Bloomberg 

Space, London (2007); The Rausch Collection, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main 

(2007). www.kilpper-projects.de 

DIMITRI KOTSARAS was born in Paiania, Greece. He lives and works in 

Athens. JENNIFER NELSON was born in Pennsylvania, USA. She lives 

and works in Athens. 

The work of Dimitri Kotsaras and Jennifer Nelson, both individually and 

collaboratively, demonstrates an on-going concern with environmental 

issues and the natural environment. Dimitri Kotsaras has directed and 

produced short films, music videos and art projects that include installations 

and performance. The propelling forces behind his work are the 

uninvestigated social behaviors and passions that induce euphoric 

psychological states. 

Jennifer Nelson engages in acts of social and ecological choreography 

through a cross-disciplinary performance practice. Her projects probe how 

thought manifests itself in the body and the implications of this in social 

space, as well as the reverse: how social space affects the body and 

shapes thought. In 2003, as a Guggenheim Fellow for Visual Arts, Jennifer 

Nelson produced the first in a series of works on the tense and changing 

choreography between public and private rights embedded in the US Bill of 

Rights. In 2011 she developed Securing a Free State, The 2 nd Amendment, 

a continuation of her Bill of Rights project. 

Recent group exhibitions include: Transit 4, MADRE, Naples, and State 

Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2010/1); Experimental Forum, 

51 st Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2010); Heaven, 2 nd Athens 

Biennale, Athens (2009); the 30 th Annual 6 th Biennial E V+ A, Limerick, 

Ireland (2006). Together they also created The Limerick Cookbook: Social 

Recipes and Alchemical Attempts (Futura, 2008). 

JAROS"AW KOZAKIEWICZ was born in 1961 in Bialystok, Poland. He 

lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. 

Jaros"aw Kozakiewicz works with sculpture and architecture, often exploring 

the reciprocity between the two. Recurring motifs in his work are the 

relationships of people with each other, nature and new technology. He 

probes the boundaries between inner and outer, individual and collective, 

private and public. Besides his activity as a visual artist, he works on 

numerous architectural projects and installations. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Tardigrada botanica, Galeria Bia"a, Lublin 

(2009); Geometrie des Inneren, Polnisches Institut, Düsseldorf (2007); 

47



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Geometria wn"trza, Galeria Arsena", Bia"ystok (2007); Transfer, Zach%ta 

Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw (2007); Szellemek hidja, Platan Gallery, 

Budapest (2007). Recent group exhibition include: NatureNation, Museum 

on the Seam, Jerusalem (2009); Lucim lives on, Znaki Czasu Centre of 

Contemporary Art, Torun (2009); Da Le Corbusier ai Blokers, Istituto 

Polacco di Roma, Rome (2008); Greenhouses, Center for Contemporary 

Art, Tel Aviv (2008); Bodycheck, 10 th Triennale Kleinplastik, Alte Kelter, 

Fellbach (2007). www.kozakiewicz.art.pl 

NEVAN LAHART was born in 1973 in Kilkenny, Ireland. He lives and works 

in Dublin, Ireland. 

Nevan Lahart works in a wide variety of media: painting, sculpture, 

installation, video, animation and performance, creating expansive, visually 

saturated environment that are a literal optical and discursive assault on the 

viewer. The subject matter of his work could be very loosely described as 

encompassing current affairs, television, the media, social and political 

perceptions and injustices, and the history of art and life as he finds it. His 

art practice aims to engage in creative collaboration in ways that may be 

seen as both humourous, subversive, and deeply critical of the status quo, 

globalisation and the neo-liberal economic order. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: A Title in a Haystyack (2 Bit Part time 

Amateur Productions), Triskel Arts Center, Cork (2011); Genuine Irish Mug, 

Catalyst Arts, Belfast (2010); A Colonial Subject in Washington DC, Solus 

Nua, Washington (2010); Heavens Full and the Fire Escapes are Locked, 

Heavens Full, London (2009). Recent group exhibitions include: Dublin 

Contemporary, Dublin (2011); From Us, Through Them, To You, Butler 

Gallery, Kilkenny (2011); Twenty, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 

(2011); Paper Work, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin (2009); The 

Gold Standard, NES, Skagaströnd (2009); Trouble in Paradise: Examining 

Discord in Nature and Society, Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona (2009), the 

6 th Annual, 30 th Biennial E V+ A, Limerick (2006). www.nevanlahart.com 

AN-MY LÊ was born in 1960 in Saigon, Vietnam. She lives and works New 

York, USA. 

An-My Lê fled Vietnam with her family as a teenager in 1975, the final year 

of the war, eventually settling in the United States as a political refugee. 

Since 1999 she has explored the military conflicts that have framed the last 

half-century of American history: the war in Vietnam and the recent war in 

Iraq. Her photographs and films examine the impact, consequences, and 

representation of war. Whether in colour or black-and-white, her pictures 

frame a tension between the natural landscape and its violent 

transformation into battlefields. Suspended between the formal traditions of 

documentary and staged photography, Lê’s work explores the disjunction 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

between wars as historical events and the ubiquitous representation of war 

in contemporary entertainment, politics, and collective consciousness. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: An-My Lê, Murray Guy, New York (2010); 

Small Wars: Photographs by An-My Lê, Marion Center, Santa Fe, Museum 

of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, National Media Museum, Bradford, 

UK; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Contemporary 

Arts Center, Cincinnati, and Johnson Museum, Ithaca (selection) (2006/8); 

Trap Rock, Dia: Beacon, Beacon (2006/8). Recent group exhibitions 

include: After the Goldrush, Metropolitan Museum, New York (2011/2); The 

Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1837 to Today, Museum of 

Modern Art, New York, and Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (2010/1); Haunted: 

Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, Guggenheim Museum, 

New York (2010); Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American 

West, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); On the Subject of 

War, Barbican Gallery, London (2008); SOFT MANIPULATION, or Who is 

afraid of the new now?, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and Stiftelsen 

3,14, Bergen (2008); That Was Then…This Is Now, P.S.1, New York 

(2008); Marlon Brando, Pocahontas, and Me, The Aspen Art Museum, 

Aspen (2008); transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix, ARKO Art Center, Seoul, 

and Viet Art Centre, Hanoi (2007/8). 

THOMAS LOCHER was born in 1956 in Munderkingen, Germany. He lives 

and works in Berlin, Germany. 

Writing and language dominate the work of Thomas Locher. Locher has 

consistently analysed the everyday language of bureaucracy, politics, 

legislation, and power. Legal texts, maxims or phrases are de-constructed 

and scrutinised to expose linguistic fallacies and problems with meaning. 

Locher esteems the ability of the medical profession to perform diagnosis, 

and sees his work in the same light, through the use of image and text. "It 

has something to do with seeing, with perceiving and understanding people. 

In brief: with decoding signs." However, his works do not represent linguistic 

or sociological research, nor are they theories set into image. They stand as 

artworks, as aesthetic units in their own right; their consistent design, sober 

at first glance, at second glance soaked in irony, allow us to follow his 

considerations without resort to linguistic theories. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Insolvenzen, Kunstpalais Erlangen, 

Erlangen (2012); suspended, Galerie Georg Kargl, Vienna (2010); x und 

noch etwas y dazu, KUBUS, Lenbachhaus, Munich (2010); Supplements 

Signs Signifiers, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart (2009); Erscheinungen, 

Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn (2007); showcase/showcase, Sammlung 

Schürmann, Berlin (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Erschaute 

Bauten. Architektur im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Kunstfotografie, MAK, 

Vienna (2011); politics. ich-ichs-wir, Kunsthalle Ravensburg, Ravensburg 

(2011); squatting. erinnern, vergessen, besetzen, Temporäre Kunsthalle, 

49



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Berlin (2010); Carte Blanche IX. Vor heimischer Kulisse, Galerie für 

Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2010); El Dorado. Über das Versprechen 

der Menschenrechte. Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2009); Under Pain 

of Death, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2008); Im Wort, Kunsthalle 

Göppingen, Göppingen (2007). 

MADEIN COMPANY. Established in 2009 in Shanghai, China, where it is 

based. 

MadeIn Company is a cultural production company founded by the Chinese 

conceptual artist Xu Zhen in 2009. By embedding his identity into a 

commercial company rather than an artist collective, Xu explores the 

possibility of a contemporary artist dissolving into China’s larger ideological 

constructs. MadeIn Company has taken the troubled relationship between 

art and ideology as its theme and has branched it out in separate formal 

directions, where each series of works seems deliberately to seek to 

complicate the relationship between art, money and power. Consistently 

seeking to push the boundaries of social and cultural assumptions and their 

relationship to factual realities, MadeIn Company works with video, 

photography, installation, painting, collage and performance to refer to 

current affairs and social, political and economic entanglements in the age 

of global capitalism. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Action of Consciousness, ShanghART 

Gallery & H-Space, Shanghai (2011); Physique of Consciousness, Long 

March Space, Beijing, and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2011); Seeing One’s 

Own Eyes. Middle East Contemporary Art Exhibition, IKON Gallery, 

Birmingham, and S.M.A.K., Ghent (2009/10). Recent group exhibitions 

include: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, Rebirth and Apocalypse in 

Contemporary Art, 1 st Kyiv Biennial, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev (2012); Living 

as Form, Creative Time, Essex Street Market, New York (2011); How we to 

do?, Heng Lu Art Museum, Hangzhou (2011); Negotiations – The Second 

Today’s Documents, Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010); Rehearsal, 8 th 

Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); Thirty Years 

of Chinese Contemporary Art, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); 

Living in Evolution, 7 th Busan Biennale, Busan Museum of Art, Busan 

(2010); Jungle: A Close-Up Focus on Chinese Contemporary Art Trends, 

Platform China, Beijing (2010); Breaking Forecast. 8 Key Figures of China's 

New Generation Artists, UCCA, Beijing (2009); The New Attitude of image, 

Tang Contemporary Art Center, Beijing (2009). Curatorial projects include 

Never Forget The Image Struggle!, TOP Contemporary Art Center, 

Shanghai (2011) and Bourgeoisified Proletariat, Shanghai Songjiang 

Creative Studio, Shanghai (2009). www.madeincompany.com 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

BASIM MAGDY was born in 1977 in Assiut, Egypt. He lives and works in 

Basel, Switzerland, and Cairo, Egypt. 

Basim Magdy works with different media including drawing, painting, 

animation, installation, sculpture, film, video and sound. He is particularly 

interested in creating enigmatic narrative structures that explore the space 

between reality and fiction and its influence on science, history, global 

culture and the dissemination of knowledge. Often he conceives of ironic 

stagings of scientific theories and ways of understanding the world, positing 

futuristic themes that deconstruct ideas of progress and modernity and our 

imagined or desired conception of the world. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: When Thought Evades the Great Thinker, 

artSümer, Istanbul (2012); One Day We Will Shine Like The Stars, KÖR, 

Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2010); Pray For Me, Fondazione Teseco per 

l’Arte, Pisa (2009); Last Good Deed, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2009); 

On a Better Day Than This, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2008); The 

Common Deceit of Reality, Okay Mountain, Austin (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris 

(2012); Locus Agonistes – Practices and Logics of the Civic, Argos, 

Brussels, and Beirut Art Center, Beirut (2011); Space. About a Dream, 

Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2011); Serious Games, War - Media - Art, Institut 

Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt (2011); An Exchange With Sol Lewitt, Mass 

MOCA, Massachusetts (2010); Why Not?, The Palace of Arts, Cairo 

(2010); Indefinite Destination, DEPO, Istanbul (2010); Tina B. on the Road, 

TINA B, Festival of Contemporary Art, Prague (2009); Fake, MUSAC, Leon 

(2008); The Geopolitics of Animation, MARCO, Vigo, and Centro Andaluz 

de Arte Contemporáneo Art, Seville (2007/8); Histoires Animées, Le 

Fresnoy, Tourcoing (2007). www.basimmagdy.com 

TOM MOLLOY was born in 1964 in Waterford, Ireland. He lives and works 

in Rennes, France. 

Tom Molloy’s practice, which includes sculptures, photographs and 

drawings, consists of a long-term investigation into power, its structures and 

the exercise of it, both in a political and historical context, and how power 

can – and has been – perverted and abused. In his line of questioning, 

Molloy deliberately presents minimal representations of significant political 

and historical moments, while at the same time raising delicate ethical 

questions. In opposition to the clean, pared down, seemingly simple method 

of presentation, the work is conceptually dense and laden with multi-layered 

meanings. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: New World, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Texas 

(2012); Doubt, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (2011); Review, Dunamaise Arts 

Centre, Portlaoise (2010); Tom Molloy, The Aldrich Museum of 

Contemporary Art, Ridgefield (2010); Swarm, PERUGI artecontemporanea, 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Padova (2009); the shape I’m in, Galerie Guy Bärtschi, Geneva (2008); 

Subplot, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan (2008). Recent group exhibitions 

include: Lines of Control, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, 

New York (2012); The Jerusalem Show, The Khalid Shoman Foundation, 

Darat al Funun, and Al Ma’mal Foundation of Contemporary Art, Jerusalem 

(2011); Art#, Flag Art Foundation, New York (2011); 10 th Sharjah Biennial, 

Sharjah (2011); Manifest Destiny, Moeller Fine Art, Berlin (2009); Modern 

Art. Modern Lives. Then + Now, Austin Museum of Art, Austin (2008); The 

Worst Is / Not to Die in Summer, Kunstverein Wiesbaden (2007). 

GIANNI MOTTI was born in 1958 in Sondrio, Italy. He lives and works in 

Geneva, Switzerland. 

Working in video, sculpture, installation, photography and performance, and 

particularly with interventions in public space, Motti predominantly deals 

with political, social and economic issues and stresses the importance of 

freedom and humanity in his work. The events he infiltrates and subverts, 

with surgical precision can be, equally, of political, cultural, economic or 

social character. Motti, however, does not see himself as an artist who 

partakes in the culture of spectacle like some court jester, but as an activist 

who unravels the functions of different systems in the public domain. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: swap, B.P.S.22, Charleroi (2012); La 

Grande Illusion, D+T Project, Brussels (2012); Funds Show, La Synagogue 

de Delme Centre d’art contemporain, Delme (2009); Think Tank, La Criée 

Centre d’art contemporain, Rennes (2008); Gianni Motti, La Salle de bain, 

Lyon (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Time to Act, Kunsthalle, 

Krems (2011-12); Incongru. Quand l'art fait rire, Musee Cantonal des 

Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2011/12); Collector, Tripostal, Lille (2011); Seeing is 

Believing, KW, Berlin (2011); Space. About a Dream, Kunthalle, Wien 

(2011); Une idée, une forme, un être. Poésie/Politique du corporel, Migros 

Museum, Zürich (2010); Trickster makes this world, Nam June Paik Art 

Center, Korea (2010); The Incidental Person, Apexart, New York (2010); 

Swiss Pavilion, 51 st Venice Biennale (2005); Manifesta 4, Frankfurt (2002). 

BONIFACE MWANGI was born in 1985 in Taveta, Kenya. He lives and 

works in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Award-winning photographer Boniface Mwangi, known for his crusade 

against tribal conflicts, calls himself a photo-activist: for him, a camera is the 

most powerful tool in the world as it has been used to bring down dictators, 

change society and influence change. Mwangi focuses his lens on political 

conflict, predominantly in his native Kenya, often putting himself physically 

in the centre of an explosive event. Mwangi is also a TED Fellow and the 

founder of Picha Mtaani, a UN-funded youth initiative which provides a safe 

platform for young people to be reconciled and address issues of violence 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

through photographs and dialogue. He also founded PAWA254, a creative 

hub bringing together established and aspiring young photographers, 

cartoonists, animators, video and filmmakers as well as entrepreneurs and 

activists, to work, learn and share in an environment that inspires creativity 

and efforts to bring about social change. 

Boniface’s work has appeared in virtually all the important newspapers in 

the world from The New York Times to The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Los 

Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Sunday Times, The 

Telegraph, The Boston Globe and the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine 

among other international publications. He has been named the CNN Africa 

Photojournalist of the year 2008 and 2010, among many other awards. 

Recently, his work has been exhibited at the French Cultural Centre in 

Nairobi, the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi, The GoDown Arts 

Centre in Nairobi and the Tank Art Studio in New York. 

MARINA NAPRUSHKINA was born in 1981 in Minsk, Belarus. She lives 

and works in Minsk and Berlin, Germany. 

Artist and activist Marina Naprushkina works in a range of media including 

painting, video and installation to develop critical examinations of power and 

the structures of the State, often using material acquired from her native 

Belarus. She investigates different political and social models from 

dictatorships to post-modern democracies, often using propagandistic 

material delivered by governmental institutions as a source. Images and 

symbols culled from these become either slightly changed or inserted in a 

different context in order to reverse the original message. The artist’s 

painstaking dissection of the visual and linguistic structure of authoritarian 

regimes, in particular, and research-based works demonstrate how state 

authority affects society, and transforms democracy into an illusion for those 

living under the persistent hegemony of the ruling networks. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Self governing, Kalmar Konstmuseum, 

Kalmar (2012); Office for anti-propaganda, gallery Clages, Cologne (2009); 

When I am thinking of cold Russia, I remember first the beautiful hot 

summers, Kunstverein Brühl, Brühl (2008). Recent group exhibitions 

include: 7 th Berlin Biennale (2012); 5 th Bucharest Biennale (2012); Sound of 

Silence: Art during Dictatorship, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New 

York (2012); Media Impact. International Festival of Activist Art, 4 th Moscow 

Biennial of contemporary art (2011); An art exhibition on Europe?, Galerie 

für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2011); Fokus Lodz Biennale, Lodz 

(2010); Glob(E)Scape, 2 nd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art 

(2010); What Keeps Mankind Alive?, 11 th Istanbul Biennial (2009); Lettrism, 

Central House of Artist, Moscow (2009); Friction and Conflict - cultural 

influence and exchange in Northeast Europe, Kalmar Konstmuseum, 

Kalmar (2008); Where the east ends, Nassauischer Kunstverein, 

Wiesbaden (2008); Bra Konst, Vikingsbergs Konsthall, Helsingborg (2007). 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

www.office-antipropaganda.com 

SEAMUS NOLAN was born in 1978 in Kilkenny, Ireland. He lives and 

works in Dublin, Ireland. 

The practice of Seamus Nolan investigates the relative value of objects and 

social processes as they appear within different economies and contexts. In 

his work, he tries to unravel the commonplace, to recognise the inherent 

structure or code from which we, as social and political animals, construct 

and de-construct the world around us. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Trades Club Revival, The Model, Sligo 

(2010); Corrib Gas Project Art Centre, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2009); 

Demesne, The Lab, Dublin, and Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford (2007/8); 

Hotel Ballymun, Breaking Ground, Dublin (2007). Recent group exhibitions 

include: Neighbo(u)rhood, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2011); Noughties 

but Nice: 21st Century Irish Art, Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, 

Donegal, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Meath, VISUAL Centre for 

Contemporary Art, Carlow, and Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick 

(2009/10); Futures, RHA Gallery, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2009); 

Reading the City, ev+a, Limerick (2009); If You Could Change the World at 

Last, Goethe Institut, Dublin (2008); Art in the Life World, Breaking Ground, 

Dublin (2008); Europalia, BOZAR, Brussels (2007). 

PABLO PICASSO was born in 1881 in Málaga, Spain. In 1904 he moved to 

France, where he died in 1973. 

Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, is 

widely known as one of the founders of the Cubist movement. His artistic 

practice included paintings, sculptures, prints, ceramics and stage design. 

One of his most famous works is Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the 

German bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil 

War. In the history of twentieth century art perhaps no other work has so 

iconically been able to intimate, encapsulate and synopsise the horrific 

effects of war and violence and the violation of human rights. In that sense, 

Picasso’s participation in NEWTOPIA is emblematic. 

Already famous during his life Pablo Picasso had countless major 

exhibitions while he was alive as well as post-humously. Too many to list 

here, his most recent ones include: Picasso et les Maîtres, Grand Palais, 

Paris (2008/9); Picasso and American Art, Whitney Museum of American 

Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and San Francisco Museum 

of Modern Art (2006/7); Picasso. Tradition and the Avant-Garde, Museo 

Nacional del Prado and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 

Madrid (2006). 

PIA RÖNICKE was born in 1974 in Roskilde, Denmark. She lives and 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

works in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Pia Rönicke's videos, photos, collages, and installations weave together 

heterogeneous sounds and images offering a commentary on urban 

structures and the modernist conception of the city and the environment. 

Her work combines archival documents, music, film fragments, photos, 

comics, images from magazines and her own drawings of cityscapes and 

gardens. While re-visiting the experiments of the 1920s and the critical 

montage tradition of the 1960s and 1970s, Rönicke's work is at the same 

time articulated around highly contemporary questions such as social 

engineering and issues of migration and nationhood. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Dream and Action find Equal Support in It, 

gb agency, Paris, and Andersens Contemporary, Copenhagen (2011/2); 

Rosa’s Letters, Goloss, Copenhagen (2010); Scanning through landscapes, 

Walden Affairs, The Hague (2010); Facing - An Usual Story from a 

Nameless Country, Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and Casco Projects, 

Utrecht (2008/9); Rosa's Letters, Croy Nielsen, Berlin (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: Envisioning Buildings, MAK, Vienna (2012); Community 

without Propinquity, Milton Keynes Art Gallery, Milton Keynes (2011); 

Terms of Belonging, Overgaden, Copenhagen (2011); Les lendemains 

d’hier, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal (2010); 

Rehabilitation, Wiels, Brussels (2010); After Architecture, CASM, Barcelona 

(2009); Overcoming, Ernst Museum, Budapest (2008); U-TURN 

Quadrennial for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2008); The Map is not the 

Territory, Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, Esbjerg (2008); Momentary Momentum, 

Parasol Unit, London (2007); Modelle für Morgen, European Kunsthalle, 

Cologne (2007); Manifesta 4, Frankfurt am Main (2002). 

FERNANDO SÁNCHEZ CASTILLO was born in 1970 in Madrid, Spain. He 

lives and works in Madrid. 

Subjects such as oppression, revolution and liberation are frequent in the 

work of Fernando Sánchez Castillo who often makes references to the 

history of his native Spain and particularly the period of the military 

dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1936-1975). Through sculpture, 

drawing and video, he scrutinizes the past and redeems it by means of a 

new multi-layered visual, often transformative language where a playful 

hand embraces a serious theme, often turning violent narratives on their 

head by means of poetry and leaps of the imagination. The artist’s 

fascination for collective memory and the recreation of real and imagined 

scenarios in the political history underlines a strong sociological influence. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Método del Discurso, CAC, Málaga (2011); 

Episodios Nacionales: Táctica, PhotoEspaña, CBA, Madrid (2010); 

Divertimento, Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid (2009); The Unresolved..., 

Vleeshal, Middelburg (2008); Didáctica, Galeria Juan Silió, Santander 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

(2008); Abajo la inteligencia, MUSAC, León (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: Ejercicios de Memoria, Centro de Arte La Panera, 

Lleida (2011); Afuera, CCE, Cordoba (2010); The People United Will Never 

Be Defeated, Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Rotterdam (2010); Bourdeaux 

Biennal, Bordeaux (2009); Colossal, Museum Kalkriese, Bramche-Kalkreise 

(2009); 3 rd Bucharest Biennale (2008); Borders, Museum Boijmans Van 

Beuningen, Rotterdam (2008); Lost Paradise. Der Blick des Engels, 

Centrum Paul Klee, Bern (2008); Sonsbeeck 2008: Grandeur, Arnhem 

(2008); 10 th Istanbul Biennial (2007); Visions de Mediterranee, Musée d’Art 

Contemporain de Nîmes, Nîmes (2007). 

BRUNO SERRALONGUE was born in 1968 in Chatellerault, France. He 

lives and works in Paris, France. 

Bruno Serralongue researches and questions the procedures of production 

and diffusion of information by means of photographs. His work may be 

defined as socially and politically inspired independent documentary 

photography. Contrary to much photo reportage, Serralongue opts to work 

at the heart of a specific community and is more interested looking into the 

community experiencing an event than in the event itself. He works on his 

own without a press card, arranges his trips himself and uses a four-by-fiveinch 

folding camera on a tripod, which – deliberately – prevents him from 

taking snapshots. Bruno Serralongue plunges into the heart and in the 

backstage of mediatized events in order to question the degree of 

authenticity of mass media images. His photographs encourage the viewer 

to question the notions of representation, point of view and distance. 

Recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Oceans and Campfires: Allan 

Sekula and Bruno Serralongue, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco 

(2011); Faits Divers, La Station, Nice (2011); Feux de camp, Jeu de 

Paume, Paris (2010); Bruno Serralongue, WIELS, Brussels (2009); 

Backdraft, Centre de la Photographie, Geneva (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: J'ai deux amours, Cité Nationale de l'histoire de 

l'immigration, Paris (2011/2); Je suis seul avec vous, MAC's, Hornu (2011); 

Let's Dance, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2010); Res publica, Moscow 

Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2010); Great Expectations, Casino 

Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2009); Street & Studio. An Urban History of 

Photographic Portraiture, Tate Modern, London, and Museum Folkwang, 

Essen (2008); Airs de Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007). 

www.brunoserralongue.com 

ESTHER SHALEV-GERZ was born in 1948 in Vilnius, Lithuania. She lives 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

and works in Paris, France. 

Esther Shalev-Gerz investigates the nature of democracy, citizenship, 

cultural memory and spatial politics. Her works challenge the notion and 

practice of portraiture and consider how its qualities may contribute to 

contemporary discourse about the politics of representation. Her 

installations, photography, video and public sculpture are developed 

through active dialogue, consultation and negotiation with people and the 

institutions they are affiliated with. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Der letzte Klick, Museum for Photography, 

Brunswick (2010/1); Ton Image Me Regarde!?, Jeu de Paume, Paris 

(2010); Still/Film, Galerija Akademija, Vilnius (2009); Sound Machine, Art 

Museum and Holmbron Bridge, Norrköping (2008); Portraits of Stories, The 

Public, West Bromwich (2008); Echoes in Memory, the Queen’s House, 

London (2007/8). Recent group exhibitions include: 

VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER, Gallery 1965, Vancouver (2011); The 

Moderna Exhibition 2010, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010); Fran plats 

till plats, Skissernas Museum, Lund University, Lund (2009); Zur Tektonik 

der Geschichte, ISCP, New York, and Motorenhalle, Dresden (2008/9); 

Augenblicke, Kunstiftung Poll, Berlin (2008/9); Être présent au monde, 

MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2007). www.shalev-gerz.net 

TARYN SIMON was born in 1975 in New York, USA. She lives and works 

in New York. 

Taryn Simon’s works are the result of a long-term process of research and 

investigation. Her photographs and writing underscore the invisible space 

between language and the visual – a space in which translation and 

disorientation continually occur. Stylistically, Taryn Simon works on the 

borderline between fine art and documentary photography. Frequently 

relying on text to avoid any ambiguities in content, she creates carefully 

staged photographic tableaux that gain their force from the friction between 

their visual perfection and the unsettling subject matter which revolves 

around social and political issues and contested, marginalized or 

suppressed narratives. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other 

Chapters, MoMA, New York, Tate Modern, London, and Neue 

Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2011/2); Taryn Simon, Milwaukee Art Museum, 

Milwaukee, Multimedia Art Musuem, Moscow, and Helsinki Art Museum, 

Helsinki (2011/2); Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and 

Unfamiliar, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Institute of 

Modern Art, Brisbane, Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Museum für 

Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New 

York (2007/10). Recent group exhibitions include: Remote Control: Art, TV 

and mass consumerism, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2012); 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); Seeing is 

believing, KW, Berlin (2011); Tasteful Pictures, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 

Los Angeles (2010); elles@centrepompidou.fr, Centre Georges Pompidou, 

Paris (2009); Bienale Cuve, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz (2009); 

Manifesto Marathon, Manifestos for the 21st Century, Serpentine Gallery 

Pavillion, Serpentine Gallery, London (2008). www.tarynsimon.com 

TRAVIS SOMERVILLE was born in 1963 in Atlanta, USA. He lives and 

works in San Francisco, USA. 

Travis Somerville’s work aims to remind us of the racial discrimination, the 

oppression of minorities and violence that occurred historically in the United 

States and still is going on today. He confronts the viewer with complex and 

unresolved issues, such as prejudice, racism, the conditions of migrant 

workers and the treatment of Muslims in post 9/11 America. Somerville was 

born in Atlanta, Georgia to white civil rights activists and grew up in the 

1960s and '70s in the Southern United States. His liberal upbringing in the 

‘Dixieland’ formed the ideas he expresses in his art. He often uses ‘black’ 

imagery and references to the civil rights movement to reflect the racial 

issues and stereotypes that became ingrained in the public consciousness 

as he grew up. At the same time, his practice simultaneously tries to 

reconcile the artist’s own personal struggle with his Southern Christian 

upbringing and the overt tumultuous racial politics of then with the mixed 

messaging backlash of now. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Places I've Never Been, San Francisco Arts 

Commission Gallery, San Francisco (2011); Dedicated to the proposition..., 

Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2009). 

Recent group exhibitions include: Reconsidering Regionalism: Prints 

Inspired by the South 1951-2011, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Auburn 

University, Auburn (2011); Art Shack, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna 

Beach (2010); Altered States: The Collection in Context, Gatehouse Gallery 

at the di Rosa Reserve, Napa (2010); Lincoln: Man, Myth, and Memory, The 

Amistad Center for Art & Culture, Hartford (2009); Portraying Lincoln, 

Madden Arts Center, Decatur (2008); Martin Luther King Jr: Life, Times, 

and Legacy, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford (2007). 

SIMON STARLING was born in 1967 in Epsom, United Kingdom. He lives 

and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

The processes involved in transforming one object or substance into 

another lie at the core of Simon Starling’s practice. He makes objects, 

installations and devises pilgrimage-like journeys that draw out an array of 

ideas about nature, technology and economics. Starling describes his work 

as ‘the physical manifestation of a thought process’, revealing hidden 

histories and relationships and very often highlights the labour expended to 

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produce it. His subject matter is diverse: from environmental issues to 

questions of industry and production, but in all cases he displays the end 

result of carefully thought-out and executed processes where the viewer is 

encouraged to reflect upon both a reconstructed object or subject, and the 

story behind them. 

Starling was the recipient of the 2005 Turner Prize. Recent and upcoming 

solo exhibitions include: Tate Britain, London (2013); Radcliffe Observatory, 

Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2012); Recent exhibitions include: Project for a 

Masquerade (Hiroshima), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, 

Hiroshima (2011); THEREHERETHENTHERE (Works 1997 - 2009), 

MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2009); Under Lime, Temporäre Kunsthalle, 

Berlin (2009); Cuttings (Supplement), The Power Plant, Toronto (2008); 

Particle Projection (Loop), WIELS, Brussels (2007). Recent group 

exhibitions include: The Collection in Action. Media Art from Vito Acconci to 

Simon Starling, Museion – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 

Bolzano (2012); Carlo Mollino. Maniera Moderna, Haus der Kunst, Munich 

(2011/12); Ostalgia, New Museum, New York (2011); MOMENTUM 2011, 

6 th Nordic Biennial for Nordic Contemporary Art, Moss (2011); Fare 

Mondi/Making Worlds, Italian Pavilion, 53 rd Venice Biennale (2009); 

Altermodern, Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2008/09); The History of 

a Decade That Has Not Yet Been Named, 9 th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon 

(2007/8). 

SUN XUN was born in 1980 in Fuxin, China. He lives and works in Beijing, 

China. 

Sun Xun creates animations that combine hand-drawn renderings and 

traditional materials with new media. To create his meticulous animations 

he produces a multitude of drawings that incorporate text within the image. 

He then films the drawings, sequentially one at a time, to create a sense of 

movement and suggest the passing of time, the machinations of history and 

the beauty inherent in simple forms. His subjects range from elements 

found in the world history and politics, to natural organisms. Many of his 

animation films are concerned with the question of progress in China and 

look back to late 1950s China and the Great Leap Forward to make a 

connection with the present day. 

In 2010 he received both the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (Best 

Young Artist) and the Taiwan Contemporary Art Link Young Art Award. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Sun Xun. Beyond-ism, ShanghART, Beijing 

(2011); Clown's Revolution, Holland Animation Festival, Centraal Museum, 

Utrecht (2010); 21KE, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); The Soul of 

Time, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2010); Animals, Max Protetch Gallery, 

New York (2009); People’s Republic of Zoo, University of Essex Gallery, 

Essex (2009); The New China, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2008). 

Recent group exhibitions include: By Day By Night or Some (Special) 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Things a Museum Can Do, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); China 

Power Station – Part 3, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Torino (2010); Arts and Cities, 

Aichi Triennale, Aichi (2010); Ars Electronica Festival, Linz (2009). 

JAN #VANKMAJER was born in 1934 in Prague, in former 

Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic. He lives and works in Prague 

and Knovíz, Czech Republic. 

The work of Jan spans several media though he is mostly known for his 

surreal experimental stop-motion animation and feature films which have 

greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The 

Brothers Quay and many others. Frequently involving inanimate objects 

suddenly brought to life, his films often feature morbid, absurd narratives 

that reference the darker side of the human psyche and oppression under 

Communism. Today, he is one of the most celebrated animators in the 

world, having made over thirty short- and feature-length films. #vankmajer 

also produces drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which 

were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from 

film-making by the Czech authorities. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Transmutation of the Senses, Art Gallery of 

the City of Segovia, Segovia – with Eva #vankmajerová (2010); Gallery of 

Moravia, Uherské Hradi&t' – with Eva #vankmajerová (2008); University of 

Essex, Colchester (2007); Geni Tzami, Old Archeological Museum, 

Thessaloniki – with Eva #vankmajerová (2006); Museum of Modern Art, 

Kanagawa – with Eva #vankmajerová (2005); Food, National Gallery, 

Prague Castle, Prague – with Eva #vankmajerová (2004). Recent group 

exhibitions include: A Vision of Central Europe, Groeningemuseum, Brugge 

(2010/1); Animism, MuHKA, Antwerp, and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2010); 

Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011). 

www.athanor.cz 

SVEN 'T JOLLE was born in 1966 in Antwerp, Belgium. He lives and works 

in Melbourne, Australia and Antwerp, Belgium. 

Sven 't Jolle’s multifarious work consists of installations, sculptures, 

drawings, collages and paintings that probe key social, political and 

economic questions – historical as well as contemporary. Often the artist 

might start from a single picture he finds, at other times art historical 

references or a pun frequently serve as a starting point for new work. 

These, in turn, are transformed into sketchbook drawings, a basic 

parameter of the artist’s practice and also a subsequent point of departure 

for the development of a project. These drawings are crucial in terms of 

shedding light into the artist’s thought process but are visually fascinating 

both in terms of the dense content, as for their quantity, which is ever 

increasing. The resulting installations, sculptures and two-dimensional 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

works that stem from this artistic process are characterized by a highly 

personal idiom, and permeated by a deep sense of socio-political 

consciousness and advocacy of humanist values. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Looking forward to retiring soon, Galerie 

Vera Gliem, Cologne (2011); Casse-toi alors pauvre canard!, Galerie 

Laurent Godin, Paris (2009); Sponsorship AHOY!, Stella Lohaus Gallery, 

Antwerp (2009); ‘die Begriffe ‘Arbeitgeber’ und ‘Arbeitnehmer’befremdeten 

ihn schon sehr früh’, Galerie Vera Gliem, Cologne (2007); Tea Time (tegen 

de verhoging van de uitbuitingsgraad), Stroom, The Hague (2007). Recent 

group exhibitions include: Bob and Breakfast, Robert Filliou et ses invités, 

Galerie Nelson Freeman, Paris (2011); New Monuments, Middelheim 

Museum, Antwerp (2010); Public Private Painting, Mu.Zee, Ostend (2010); 

GoGolf, Le Carré, Château-Gontier (2010); Beaufort 03, different locations, 

Nieuwpoort (2009); Van provo tot nu, kunst in een sociaal-politieke context, 

Stedelijk Museum, Aalst (2008); Corpus Delicti, Courthouse, Brussels 

(2008); Parkhaus, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2008); Comme’è 

amaro stu ppane, Palais des Beaux-arts, Charleroi, and Centre d’art Nei 

Liicht, Dudelange (2007); Die Geschichte Wiederholt Sich Nicht!, Bielefelder 

Kunstverein, Bielefeld (2007). 

KOSTAS TSOLIS was born in 1964 in Athens, Greece. He lives and works 

in Athens. 

Kostas Tsolis’ paintings explore the quest for power and dominance. With 

subject matter drawn from an archive of history books, rare posters and 

hunting magazines and, ranging from portraits of guerrilla fighters and 

immigrants to compositions referring to sensitive moments in European 

history, Tsolis’ paintings transform the original source image through the 

application of thick layers of horizontal or vertical lines. Brushily rendered in 

almost entirely black and dark greys, the initial representation is distorted to 

various degrees of abstraction, without entirely missing the figurative 

counterpoint. The artist proposes a socially engaged painting model, which 

underlines the relevance of history and politics in abstraction today and 

intensifies his fascination with vision and visuality, with a political sub-text. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Kostas Tsolis, ReMap3, Athens (2011); 

Kostas Tsolis, The Apartment, Athens (2011); Kostas Tsolis, Batagianni 

Gallery, Athens (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Reference / 

Representation, The Jewish Museum, Thessaloniki (2011); In Bad 

Company, Michael Cacoyiannis Foundation, Athens (2011); A World of 

Votive Offerings, Hellenic American Union, Athens (2010); Wota europy, 

Museum Kresow, Loubczow (2010); Personal-Political, 2 nd Thessaloniki 

Biennale of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2009); Genius loci, Kykladon 

28, Athens (2009); Cultural Heritage and Collective Identity, Historical and 

Folk Museum, Xanthi (2009); Locus, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Art, Thessaloniki (2008); Hymn to the Olive Tree, Olympia (2007). 

NICOLINE VAN HARSKAMP was born in 1975 in Hazerswoude, The 

Netherlands. She lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 

The work of Nicoline van Harskamp addresses the function and power of 

the spoken word and its ability to influence perception and shape thought, 

both of which are instrumental to politics. Using footage of conversations, 

speeches and debates, she writes the scripts for her staged video and 

performance works. These are mostly presented together with text collages, 

digital prints or working copies of the scripts with director's notes. 

Recent solo exhibitions and live events include: Yours in Solidarity - 

Episode 1, D+T Project, Brussels (2011); Expressive Power Series #1, 

Rhizome/The New Museum, New York (2010); Any other Business, 

Spinozamanifestatie, Amsterdam, SKOR, Amsterdam (2008/9); To Live 

Outside The Law You Must Be Honest, Casco projects, Utrecht, Nikolaj 

CCAC, Copenhagen (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 

Monumentalism, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2010/1); To the arts, 

citizens!, Serralves Museum, Porto (2010); On Morality, Witte de With, 

Rotterdam (2010); 4 th Bucharest Biennale (2010); Play Van Abbe, Van 

Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2009); Taipei Biennial (2008); Error #9: Shadow 

Cabinet (Three Rendezvous), Extra City, Antwerp (2008); Disclosures, 

Gasworks, London (2008); Tongue Liberated!, Insa Art Space, Seoul 

(2007). www.vanharskamp.net 

LIEVE VAN STAPPEN was born in 1958 in Wilrijk, Belgium. She lives and 

works in Ghent, Belgium. 

Multidisciplinary artist Lieve Van Stappen employs a variety of media: 

drawing, painting, sculpture, glass, ice, water, found materials, 

photographs, video, sound, etc. The artist believes an artist is a 

seismograph, reacting to momentous occurences in the domain of the 

social. She therefore likes to work together with historians, sociologists, but 

above all listens to the experts of experience, she encounters. Each one of 

Lieve Van Stappens’ projects evolves from the previous ones. They amount 

to a string of exhibitions, an ongoing work in progress. In her work which is 

deeply socially engaged, at root, she searches for strength in the fragile, 

celebrates what urges humans to survive, even flourish, against all odds, 

arriving at a poignantly poetic-political practice. In the words of Marc 

Ruyters, “the work of Lieve Van Stappen fits in the Belgian tradition where 

surrealism is simply too strong a word for human subtle yet anarchistic 

desire to cope with existential duality. This duality ensures that humans 

succeed in surviving magnificently despite all shortcomings.” 

Among others, Lieve Van Stappen was artist in residence at the In Flanders 

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Fields Museum, Ypres, the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, and the 

Musée-atelier du Verre, Sars-Poteries. Recent solo exhibitions include: 

Moving Archives. Foundlings, Saint John's Hospital, Bruges (2009); Alaska, 

Galerie Mercator, Antwerp (2008); Winter, De Garage (window project), 

Mechelen (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Child in Danger, Child 

as Danger, Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent (2011/2); Into the light, Error One, 

Antwerp (2011); Le Fabuleux Destin du Quotidien, MAC's and Grand-Hornu 

Images, Hornu (2010); From Memory. About knowing and forgetting, 

Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent (2009/10); Corpus Delicti, Courthouse, 

Brussels (2009); MuHKA HACK, MuHKA, Antwerp (2007); Public Art: 

Documentary Exhibition, Palazzo Costanzi, Trieste (2007). 

www.lievevanstappen.com 

KOSTIS VELONIS was born in 1968 in Athens, Greece. He lives and works 

in Athens, Greece. 

Kostis Velonis’s work is inspired by the ideas of early Constructivism of the 

Russian avant-garde and the ideals of the Russian Revolution of 1917, its 

social programme, as well as its disputable consequences. His work is a 

celebration of utopian desires and their failures. While he is sceptical about 

the possibility of ultimate solutions, he nevertheless believes in the 

necessity of political utopias. Besides photographic slides and drawings, 

Kostis Velonis combines found materials into fragile and autonomous 

sculptures and installations whose point of departure lies in the question of 

modern utopias. For Velonis, failure goes beyond the negative element of 

resignation, offering a possibility of linking great goals back to the subject. 

Even though sorrow and loss are always present, aspiration remains a 

driving and poetic force in his works. 

Recent solo exhibitions include: Loneliness on Common Ground: How Can 

Society Do What Each Person Dreams, National Museum of Contemporary 

Art, Athens (2010); How One Can Think Freely In The Shadow Of a 

Temple, Hamburg Kunstverein, Hamburg (2009); Revolution Essentielle, 

Academy of Fine Arts, Sarayevo (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: 

The promise of Happiness, Signal Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo 

(2011); Melanchotopia, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2011); A Rock and a 

Hard Place, 3 rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki 

(2011); Loneliness on Common Ground: How Can Society Do What Each 

Person Dreams, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2010); 1 st 

Brussels Biennial, Brussel (2008); The History of a Decade that Has not 

Been Yet Named, 9 th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon (2007/8). 

kostisvelonis.blogspot.com 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ANDY WARHOL was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, USA as Andrew Warhola. 

He died in 1987 in New York City, USA. 

Andy Warhol needs no introduction. He was one of the leading figures in 

the American Pop Art movement, best known for his exploration of massproduced 

images of mass-produced objects and iconic public figures and 

media imagery. He experimented in media such as film, sculpture, paint, 

music and silkscreen, exploring the relationship between artistic expression, 

celebrity culture and advertisement. On several occasions he deliberately 

chose for disturbing or even politically related subjects, handling these 

subjects in the same generic manner that he applied to his commercially 

drawn images. After his death in 1987, his entire estate went to create a 

foundation dedicated to the ‘advancement of the visual arts’: the Andy 

Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Warhol has been the subject of 

countless retrospective exhibitions, books and feature and documentary 

films. His first international retrospective opened in 1968 at the Moderna 

Museet, Stockholm and travelled afterwards to the Stedelijk Museum, 

Amsterdam, the Kunsthalle Bern and the Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Other 

important solo exhibitions include the Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1969), the 

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1979), and the Dia Art 

Foundation (1986 and 1987). www.warholfoundation.org 

WILHELM WERNER was born in 1898 near Nordheim/Gerolzhofen, 

Germany. 

Wilhelm Werner had been diagnosed with "idiocy" and brought to the Nazi 

psychiatric clinic in Werneck where he became victim of compulsory 

sterilisation sometime between 1934 and 1938. Under the 'Law for the 

Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring' (1933) over 350,000 people 

with hereditary conditions such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, ‘imbecility’ as 

well as homosexuals and social deviants were forcibly sterilized. Werner 

was without vocational training but an excellent draughtsman. Since his 

records are lost, all that is certain is that, alongside other patients, he was 

brought to Pirna-Sonnenschein death camp on October 6 th 1940 to be 

gassed as part of the Nazi euthanasia programme "T4", which claimed the 

lives of over 200,000 physically or mentally handicapped people in 

Germany and its annexed territories. His drawings remain, however, 

because one of the administrative officers took them and later gave them to 

his daughter. In 2008 they were purchased by the Prinzhorn Collection in 

Heidelberg. 

WILCHAR was born in 1910 in Sint-Gillis, Belgium as Wilhelm Pauwels. In 

1960 he moved to Alsemberg, Belgium, where he died in 2005. 

The son of working-class parents, Wilchar was a self-made artist whose 

practice included paintings, lithographs and posters. During his lifetime the 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

artist remained a perpetual opponent of injustice, criticizing Kingdom, 

Church, Capital and Art. Wilchar called himself a proletarian artist who 

stood up for the wretched of the earth. During the Second World War he 

was deported to Breendonk labour camp, an experience he would never 

forget and which he documented in a series of drawings. His 

confrontational, bitingly sarcastic and often politically incorrect work spared 

no one and was articulated in a confrontational figurative visual style that 

was entirely individualistic and scornful of propriety and artistic fashions of 

his time. After his death, the municipality of Beersel brought his work 

together in a small monographic museum. Still not as widely recognised as 

he should be, for his uncompromising artistic vision and singular political 

humour, NEWTOPIA aims to help restore the artist’s importance in the 

genre of socially aware agit-prop art. 

Wilchar contributed to several magazines like ‘Contact’ and the clandestine 

‘Art et Liberté’, which caused his detention in 1943. He also founded twice 

his own magazine: ‘Peint à la main’ (1961/5) and ‘L’Impertinent’ (1976/94). 

During his life, he exhibited occasionally, but never abroad. Solo exhibitions 

include: Wilchar, L’Art sans Lard, CO Sint-Andries, Antwerp (2002); Wilchar 

Superstar, Caermersklooster, Ghent (2001/2); Wilchar: L'Artiste Résistant, 

Eglise Saint-André, Liège (2000). www.wilchar.be 

KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO was born in 1943 in Warsaw, Poland. He lives 

and works in New York, USA 

Krzysztof Wodiczko has become internationally known for his monumental, 

site-specific video projections in public space, architectural facades, 

buildings and monuments, as well as for his gallery installations. These 

often politically-charged works of art directly refer to human rights issues 

(from war to displacement to the rights of minorities) and revolve around 

issues of democracy, violence, alienation, and inhumanity, often including 

the testimonies of the people whose plights they address. Complementing 

these projections are Wodiczko’s mobile instruments and mechanical 

installations, designed to empower marginalized members of society such 

as immigrants, the homeless, those who lost their closest to street violence 

and war, women, survivors of domestic abuse, and war veterans. 

In 1998 Wodiczko was awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize. Currently he is 

Professor in Residence of Art, Design, and the Public Domain at Harvard 

University (Graduate School of Design). Recent solo exhibitions include: 

Guests, Atlas Sztuki, Lodz (2010), and Polish Pavilion, 53 rd Venice Biennale 

(2009); ...OUT OF HERE, ICA, Boston (2009); Autoportret 2/Self-Portrait 2, 

Profile Foundation Gallery, Warszawa, and Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków (2009); 

Pojazdy—Instrumenty/Vehicles—Instruments, Galeria Fundacji Signum, 

Pozna( (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: Heaven, 2 nd Athens 

Biennale, Athens (2010); Unbuilt Roads, e-flux project space, New York 

(2009); Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970, Victoria & Albert Museum, 

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London (2008); Notes on Monumentality, Baltimore Museum of Art, 

Baltimore (2008); Sleeping and Dreaming, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, 

Dresden (2007); Documenta 8, Kassel (1987); Documenta 6, Kassel 

(1977). 

WOOLOO is a Danish artist group established in 2002 by Sixten Kai 

Nielsen and Martin Rosengaard. 

Wooloo creates social experiments in collaborative participation, exploring a 

working method of engaging diverse participants – residents, visitors, other 

artists and activist groups – in simultaneously re-examining established 

modes of interacting and questioning underlying power structures. One 

recent example is Wooloo’s free housing of three thousand activists with 

private families during the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen 

(2009). Supplying the infrastructure for visitors to come and voice their 

opinion – and for strangers to share their homes and experiences – the 

Wooloo project was a large-scale exercise in communal cooperation. 

The projects of Wooloo have been realized both independently and at 

international venues including: Imagine Being Here Now, Momentum - 6 th 

Nordic Biennial for Contemporary Art, Moss (2011); Manifesta 8, Murcia 

(2010); Make yourself at home, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen 

(2010); OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding, The Vera List Center for 

Art and Politics, The New School, New York (2008-09); Farewell to Post- 

Colonialism, 3 rd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou (2008); Coding: 

Decoding, Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen (2006). They also operate 

www.wooloo.org (2002-ongoing), an online community for participatory 

projects that connects the resources of more than 25,000 cultural producers 

internationally. Wooloo was recently nominated for the 2011 International 

Award for Participatory Art. www.wooloo.net 

ZHOU ZIXI was born in Jiangxi province, China, in 1970. He currently lives 

and works in Shanghai, China 

In his paintings and photographic work, Zhou Zixi explores the power of 

place to create images of uninhabited landscapes and estranged interiors 

that nonetheless generate a multitude of narratives. His work moves 

between modern rooms decorated in bright primary colors to dark scenes 

that allude to the menacing weight of history. Zhou Zixi's recent paintings 

oscillate between high art and kitsch, integrating a visual language that is 

particularly crude due to the superficiality of the environments depicted. 

What we see in these pictures are interior spaces filled with new consumer 

goods and other symbols of newly gained economic status. Rather than a 

calming notion of home, these paintings depict the external manifestation of 

China's chaotic development and increasing consumerism. Other paintings 

evoke complex metaphors of history and memory and are based on images 

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he obtains from the media: blogs, television and print media. However, his 

work also has strong references from the tradition of history painting. 

Coming from the generation that witnessed the Tiananmen Square protests 

of 1989, Zhou, like many others in China, hoped for the ‘spirit of change’. 

Some of his paintings thus reflect on the movement and its failure, 

documenting what happened to him and his generation. 

Recent solo exhibitions include Late Spring and Early Summer, 

ShanghART Beijin(2011); China 1946-1949, ShanghART H-Space, 

Shanghai(2008); Interiors, BüroFriedrich, Berlin, Germany(2006); Happy 

Life, Zhou Zixi Solo exhibition, Bizart, Shanghai(2005). Recent exhibition 

include First Kyiv International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Kyiv (Kiev), 

Ukraine(2012); China Power Station: Part 4, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Torino, 

Italy(2010); China Power Station: Part 2, Astrup Fearnley Museum of 

Modern Art, Oslo, Norway(2007); Under the Blue Sky, Grace Li Gallery, 

Zürich(2006) and Under the Skin, Universal Studios, Beijing (2006). 

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6. Satellite Exhibition: Alfredo Jaar 

ALFREDO JAAR: LET THERE BE LIGHT 

Solo exhibition, ING Cultural Centre, Brussels 

10.10. – 10.12.2012 

Part of the international contemporary art exhibition 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights, Mechelen 

Alfredo Jaar occupies a special position in NEWTOPIA. Apart from the 

presentation of his work in Mechelen, the artist will also have a solo 

exhibition in Brussels, at ING Cultural Centre. This exhibition is a satellite 

project of Newtopia, which ING is premium sponsor of. 

During his thirty-year career, Jaar has been consistently engaged with key 

human rights issues, creating photography, film, installation and text-based 

works that respond to global conflicts and key social and political events. 

The artist has consistently examined the relationship of the developed world 

to the global South and critically dissected the ways these events are 

transmitted, represented and discussed in the international media. Jaar’s 

practice revolves around international current affairs with a special focus on 

human rights violations, social disenfranchisement and economic 

inequalities. His subject matter spans a wide variety of issues and subjects 

from the genocide in Rwanda, American complicity in the military 

dictatorships in Chile, gold mining in Brazil, pollution in Nigeria, border 

issues between Mexico and the United States and neo-liberal economic 

practices. 

Underlying Jaar’s work is a critical analysis of the politics of the image, a 

de-construction of standardized media representations of victimhood and 

violence and a questioning of the passive consumption of such imagery. In 

an age when images of atrocities have become commonplace and 

interchangeable, Jaar’s work raises critical questions such as: does an 

oversaturation of media images of war and violence lead to indifference? 

How would it be possible to reflect on images of suffering in a way that 

could challenge the apathy of contemporary mass media consumption? 

Jaar’s work thus addresses the complicated question of human empathy 

and ‘affect’, engagement, individual responsibility and how these might be 

reinstated as values in our time. 

Jaar’s exhibition at ING Cultural Centre will focus on the work the artist has 

made concerning the African continent. It will include work relating to 

Angola, Sudan, South Africa and will also feature several key works from 

the artist’s seminal Rwanda Project (1994-2000), a long-term attempt to 

tackle the senseless violence that resulted in the deaths of over a million 

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1000 Brussels 

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Tutsis in 1994 (the third largest genocide of the twentieth century). At the 

heart of this project is the problem of representation: of photography’s 

contested relationship to violence, suffering and pain. How can one possibly 

convey mass murder in pictorial terms? How is it possible to convey 

suffering without falling into the usual clichés of spectacularization or 

victimhood? How can one engender empathy when the world is so 

saturated with images of violence and suffering? What is the photographer’s 

responsibility in such cases? These are some of the questions that Jaar’s 

work raises. In a masterful style characterised by subtlety and respect for 

his subjects, Jaar’s work addresses the complex question of how it is 

possible to engender empathy and affect in a world saturated with images 

of violence and suffering. 

The exhibition is curated by Katerina Gregos. 

For more information on Alfredo Jaar’s exhibition Let there be Light, please 

contact ING Belgium Press Office: 

E: pressoffice@ing.be 

T: +32 2 547 22 94 

www.ing.be/art 

PRACTICAL INFORMATION 

Address: ING Cultural Centre, Place Royale 6, 1000 Brussels 

Dates: 10.10.2012 – 10.12.2012 

Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 

from 10 am until 6 pm; Wednesday from 10 am until 9 pm; open every day, 

even on official holidays 

Tickets: 10 ! / 8 ! ING cardholders and groups 

Visitors guide: for free for all visitors at Place Royale 

NEWTOPIA Pass: for free for all visitors at Place Royale 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights is taking place at the Mechelen 

Cultural Centre, The Old Meat Market, Museum Hof Van Busleyden, Lamot 

Congress and Heritage Centre, The Academy of Fine Arts, Scheppers 

Institute and public spaces in the city of Mechelen from September 1 st to 

December 10 th , 2012. www.NEWTOPIA.be 

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7. Publication Concept and Specifications 

Whether the modern origins of human rights are traced back to the 

experience of the Second World War and the Holocaust, as suggested by 

the UN Declaration of 1948, or grounded in the social developments of the 

60s and 70s, human rights opened a space for utopianism rarely seen 

before, winning on both the political terrain and the terrain of imagination. 

And yet, in the particularly regressive moments in relation to civil rights we 

have witnessed in the post-9/11 era the violations of basic human rights 

were enacted by the governments through policies that have been set into 

action in the name of ‘safety and security’, which demonstrated, again, that 

even in the West this issue is far from being guaranteed forever. 

Today, there is a strong need to revisit and reformulate the ideas of human 

rights especially in the light of post-colonial discourse, multiculturalism, 

shifting geo-political realities and economic neo-liberalism. What is the 

future of human rights – this powerful transnational ideal and movement, a 

universal morality and utopia of international law? As we are facing the 

need of cosmopolitan norms of justice in environment and other areas, a 

whole range of new concerns has to be addressed: can rights become a 

universal common horizon or do we need to rethink their normative force in 

light of cultural specificity and if so how might this be compatible with their 

universalist claims? Can they transcend the conflicts of cultural interests 

and be upheld as a universal ethical discourse against the skeptics and 

critics of universalism? And, in times of the current crisis, how can we deal 

with the global challenges and threats of the markets and economic 

interests, whose pressures are increasingly incompatible with what many 

Western countries are used to define as social rights – the core of 

democracy? It is demands for economic rights and dignity that have 

propelled people all over the world to demonstrate in indignation against the 

injustices of the economic regimes. 

How can a new idea of human rights be formulated in the light of postcolonial 

discourse, multi-culturalism and the continued economic and 

political entanglements and interests of the West in places where human 

rights are under threat? And even in the West itself where the human rights 

movement originated, it would appear that human rights are coming 

increasingly under threat; to the extent that we can no longer claim that 

these are guaranteed forever. 

Can visual cultural production contribute to the development of the human 

rights discourse and if so, in which way? Over the last couple of years many 

emerging and acclaimed international contemporary artists with an interest 

in social and political issues have been making important work that explores 

the diverse aspects of human rights; indeed, the artists have recognized 

human rights ideas and human rights movement as the most inspiring 

utopianism that is still of undoubted global importance and stands as a 

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moral alternative to bankrupt political utopias of the 20th century. 

These are some of the issues the publication that accompanies 

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights aims to address through 

contributions in the form of critical essays by some of the key thinkers and 

intellectuals on the subject. The book is divided into three distinct sections 

(see below). The book also includes the work of all artists in the 

NEWTOPIA exhibition and thus functions both as an exhibition catalogue 

but also a reader on the main developments affecting the human rights 

discourse in recent years. 

Finally, the publication also includes seminal texts by leading human rights 

activists. For many people, especially those whose human rights are largely 

safeguarded, the concept of human rights is an abstraction. The violation of 

these rights often appears to happen to others, out of sight and out of mind. 

But for those engaged in the fight for human rights, the struggle often 

entails serious risk. Whether they are the individuals featured here or the 

countless others fighting for the rights of humans all over the world, their 

selflessness and heroism cannot be doubted. Their actions have also 

undoubtedly helped to further the cause of human rights around the world. 

The twentieth century has seen the emergence of a new type of hero: 

fighters (without personal privilege and often in the face of enormous 

obstacles) who defend and uphold human rights. These are people of 

integrity and courage who struggle against human rights abuses, and seek 

to improve the lives of those who have been discriminated against. They 

are people who fight to promote the rights of others, promoting dignity, 

equal treatment and fairness. Some of them have written inspirational texts 

explaining the essence of their struggles and their motivations and have 

prevailed despite many attempts to silence or ignore them. We are very 

pleased to be able to include a handful of these seminal texts here. 

Katerina Gregos & Elena Sorokina 

Editors of the Catalogue 


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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS / STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 

The catalogue published on the occasion of this exhibition, edited by 

Katerina Gregos and Elena Sorokina, will be published by Ludion and 

designed by BaseDesign, Brussels. 

The hard cover publication contains 256 pages and will be available in 

Dutch and English. ISBN 9789461300751 / Price: 27,90 ! 

CONTENT 

The book is divided into three sections: 

1. Essays 

With contrubutions by: Ariella Azoulay, Katerina Gregos, Lina Khatib, Kenan 

Malik, Samuel Moyn, Elena Sorokina, Raoul Vaneigem plus one exclusive, 

original interview with Stéphane Hessel. 


A selection of short seminal texts by prominent human rights defenders and 

activists including Liu Xiaobo, Anna Politkovskaya, Shirin Ebadi, Asmaa 

Mahfouz, Aung San Suu Kyi and others. 


Images of works by the 70 artists in the exhibition accompanied by short 

descriptive texts and very brief biographical information. 

DISTRIBUTION 

Ludion (Belgium & The Netherlands) 

Idea Books (Europe) 

D.A.P. (North America) 

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AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS TO THE PUBLICATION 

1. ESSAY SECTIONS 

ARIELLA AZOULAY (Israel, 1962) teaches visual culture and political 

philosophy, and is a curator and a film maker. She is Director of the Photo- 

Lexic International Research Group at the Minerva Center at Tel Aviv 

University and Leverhulme Research Professor, Durham University. She is 

the author of The Civil Contract of Photography, Zone Books, 2008 which 

has been praised for its critical examination of the relations between 

photography and citizenship in disaster contexts; From Palestine to Israel: A 

Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, 

(Pluto Press, 2011), Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology of 

Photography (forthcoming, Verso, 2012); Once Upon a Time: Photography 

Following Walter Benjamin, Bari Ilan University Press, 2006; and Death’s 

Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy, MIT Press, 

2001. She is a winner of the 2002 Infinity Award for Writing, presented by 

the International Centre for Photography for excellence in the field of 

photography. Azoulay’s contribution to the publication is entitled The 

(In)visibile Victim – Deconstructing the Spectator’s Frame (2012). 

ABSTRACT 

Human rights discourse as embodied in photography has cultivated two 

major figures to date – the victim, whose rights have been violated and the 

spectator who is supposed to recognize this violation. The victim is the 

visible figure, usually framed at the center of the photographs, and the 

spectator is the implied figure, for whose gaze the photograph is intended. 

For a long time the dominance of these two figures has pushed aside 

another figure – that of the perpetrator – without whom that what is seen in 

the photograph would not have taken place at all. This figure has often been 

present in photographs but remained unseen. Through focus on the 

perpetrator's figure, Azoulay offers the re-imagination of human rights 

discourse. 

KATERINA GREGOS (EDITOR) is a Greek-born curator, art historian and 

writer based in Brussels. She is currently curator of NEWTOPIA: The State 

of Human Rights and also on the curatorial team of Manifesta 9, the 9 th 

edition of the European biennial. In 2011 she was curator of the Danish 

Pavilion for the 54th Venice Biennial, where she curated an exhibition on 

freedom of speech, and co-curator of the 4. Fotofestival 

Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg, Germany. During 2006 and 2007 

she was the artistic director of Argos – Centre for Art & Media in Brussels 

and between 1997-2002 the director and curator of the Deste Foundation, 

Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens. As an independent curator Gregos 

has also curated numerous exhibitions internationally including, among 

others, Hidden in Remembrance is the Silent Memory of Our Future, 

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Contour 2009 – The 4th Biennial for Moving Image in Mechelen, Belgium 

(2009); Give(a)way: on Generosity, Giving, Sharing and Social Exchange, 

the 6th Biennial E V+A: Exhibition of Visual Art, Limerick, Ireland (2006). 

Other projects include Leaps of Faith: An International Arts Project for the 

Green Line and the City of Nicosia, Cyprus (2005), the first international 

contemporary art exhibition to take place on both sides of the divided city 

and Channel Zero, for the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam 

(2004). Katerina Gregos has regularly published on art and artists in 

magazines, books and exhibition catalogues and is a frequent speaker in 

international conferences at biennials and museums worldwide. 

ABSTRACT 

Gregos’ text Righting Human Rights (2012) outlines the curatorial 

framework of the exhibition and provides insight into the evolving discourse 

of human rights since the Universal Declaration in 1948, highlighting the 

numerous and complex questions associated with the issue. The text will 

elucidate how these issues are translated by the artists in the exhibition, by 

means of the several thematic chapters which touch upon the basic tenets 

of human rights: from civil, political, economic and social rights, down to 

cultural rights, the rights of minorities and environmental questions such as 

the right to sustainability, clean air, water and land. The text will also 

highlight the achievements and problematics of the human rights 

movement, which has gained momentum in the last 30 years, taking into 

account the geo-political shifts that have taken place in the post-war era. 

Particularly the questions of post-colonialism, multi-culturalism, cultural 

relativism and the double standards that have come with the West’s 

advocacy and implementation of ‘humanitarian’ aid, all of which have 

informed the contemporary debate surrounding human rights. 

STÉPHANE HESSEL (France, 1917) is a diplomat, ambassador, 

concentration camp survivor, former French Resistance fighter and living 

legend. He participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights of 1948. His best-selling book Indignez-Vous! (Time for 

Outrage), written in 2010, was translated into more than 20 languages. In 

2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global 

thinkers. He is a member of the French division of the International Decade 

for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children 

of the World and is a founding member of the Collegium International and 

served as vice president. He was a member of the Commission Nationale 

Consultative des Droits de l'Homme in France. In 2004, he was awarded 

the North-South Prize by the Council of Europe. On 14 July 2006, Hessel 

was made Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, having already been 

given the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 1999. On the 60th 

anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10 th , 

2008, Hessel received the UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a 

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Culture of Human Rights. Hessel also received the United Nations 

Association of Spain Peace Prize Award 2008. He has written on 

democracy, social justice and human rights and he is the author of 

Engagez-Vous! (2011), co-written with Gilles Vanderpooten. His new book 

Le Rescapé et l'Exilé: Israël-Palestine une exigence de justice (co-written 

with Elias Sanbar and Farouk Mardam-Bey) was just published by Don 

Quichotte editions (France). 

ABSTRACT 

The editors of the catalogue Katerina Gregos and Elena Sorokina have 

conducted an exclusive original interview with Stéphane Hessel, 

addressing his early involvement with human rights issues and his views on 

the current situation of human rights, including the developments in the 

Middle East and in North Africa. Acknowledging that the pressure to 

implement human rights exists everywhere, Hessel argues for their 

necessity in order to improve the situation of human beings in our modern 

states. Nevertheless he admits that human rights are still very far from what 

we dreamed about, from what we still dream about. His main point is that 

the effort we need today must come from all generations but especially the 

younger generation if we want to live in a world where these human rights 

can be implemented. 

Beirut-born LINA KHATIB is a writer, researcher and visual artist. She is 

currently the co-founder and manager of the program on ‘Arab Reform and 

Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, 

and the Rule of Law’ and has written extensively on the intersections of 

visual representation, politics and social issues in the Middle East. She is 

the author of three books on film and visual culture in the Middle East: 

Filming the Modern Middle East (IB Tauris, 2006); Lebanese Cinema: 

Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (IB Tauris, 2008); and Image Politics in 

the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle (IB Tauris, 

2012), and a founding co-editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and 

Communication. She has also used the mediums of video (video art and 

documentary) and photography to comment on political moments in the 

Arab World, including the Arab Spring. Khatib’s contribution is entitled ‘The 

people want…’: Street Art and Power in the New Arab World (2012). 

ABSTRACT 

The Arab world is at a critical historical juncture: the days of dictatorship are 

slowly fizzling away and citizens, for the first time in the region’s history, can 

look forward to a real possibility of seeing human rights and democracy 

realized in their countries. Artists and activists who had been working 

underground to effect political change or who had risked their lives and 

livelihoods to express dissident views, now have the opportunity to reclaim 

a prominent space in the public domain. The region still has a long way to 

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go before it can become democratic in the full sense but it has taken the 

important first step in this journey. Change in action and policy may take 

some time to materialize and conflicts between citizens and regimes that 

refuse to cede power are ongoing but the door has opened for debate and 

representation on human rights to start to flow freely, while “democracy” is 

no longer a bad word. This chapter addresses this juncture by reflecting on 

the changing status quo – political and artistic – in the Arab World and the 

possibilities this opens up for citizen engagement and public expression. 

KENAN MALIK (India, 1960) is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster. His main 

academic interests are in the history of ideas, the history and philosophy of 

science, race, ethnicity, religion and theories of human nature. His books 

include From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy (2009), 

shortlisted for the Orwell Book Prize, Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are 

Wrong in the Race Debate (2008), Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science 

Can and Cannot Tell us about Human Nature (2000) and The Meaning of 

Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society (1996). He is a writer 

and presenter on BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme 

Analysis and a panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. An archive of his 

work can be found at www.kenanmalik.com. The publication includes 

Malik’s seminal text Enemies of Free Speech, published in the 40 th 

Anniversary issue of Index on Censorship (2012). 

ABSTRACT 

‘Salman Rushdie had been due to give a talk at the Jaipur Literature 

Festival about his Booker-winning novel Midnight’s Children, the film of 

which is to be released later this year. Muslim activists issued threats. 

Instead of standing up to the bullies, both local and state governments 

caved in, exerting pressure on the festival organizers to keep Rushdie 

away. The organizers in turn surrendered, condemning four writers, Hari 

Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi, all speakers at the 

festival who had shown solidarity with Rushdie by reading from The Satanic 

Verses. A week after Islamists kept Rushdie out of Jaipur, Hindu activists 

forced Pune’s Symbiosis University to cancel a screening of Jashn-e-Azadi, 

a new film about Kashmir, because it was ‘anti-India’ and to abandon a 

three-day seminar on the issue. If Muslims could suppress material they 

found obnoxious, the Hindu activists insisted, so could they. And then, the 

following week, Sikhs picked up the baton. The American comedian Jay 

Leno had suggested that US Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney 

was so rich that he could hire the Golden Temple in Amritsar as his summer 

home. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the so-called Sikh 

parliament in India, lodged a protest with the US ambassador to Delhi and 

called for worldwide protests against this insufferable insult. One Sikh filed a 

lawsuit against Leno in the American courts for ‘exposing Sikhs and their 

religion to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy’. 

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"The contemporary debate about free speech has been shaped by two key 

confrontations over the past two decades. The first was the Salman 

Rushdie affair, the second the Danish cartoons". Freedom of expression is 

now viewed as an enemy of liberty as much as its friend. In this text Kenan 

Malik considers the fallout from a watershed. 

SAMUEL MOYN (USA, 1972) is Professor of History at Columbia 

University. He works primarily on modern European intellectual history and 

on human rights. He has written the acclaimed The Last Utopia: Human 

Rights in History, Harvard University Press, 2010. Other books 

include: Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and 

Ethics, Cornell University Press, 2005; A Holocaust Controversy: The 

Treblinka Affair in Postwar France, Brandeis University Press, 

2005; Democracy Past and Future (Ed.), Columbia University Press, 2006. 

Moyn is editor of the journal Humanity and has editorial positions at several 

other publications. Recently he has served as visiting professor of law at 

Harvard and Yale Universities. In 2007 Moyn received Columbia 

University's annual Mark Van Doren Award for outstanding teaching and its 

Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award. In 2008, he won a Guggenheim 

fellowship. Moyn’s essay for the publication is entitled The Future of 

Human Rights (2012). 

ABSTRACT 

In a recent book Moyn proposed that international human rights arose as 

“the last utopia,” achieving their prominence as a moral vernacular as other 

dreams – preferred first – declined. Often asked to present the implications 

of this argument for the contemporary scene, his contribution to NEWTOPIA 

will explore how the reconstruction of how human rights came to the world 

affects how one thinks about their future trajectory. The main theme will be 

about how human rights could become both more programmatic and 

contestatory. On the one hand, they need to connect better not simply with 

episodic crisis in world affairs but with structural reform, both at the global 

level of international institutions as well as at the local level of moving 

towards root causes. On the other hand, there is no way for this to happen 

without human rights forsaking their claim to transcend politics and 

therefore political contest. The more structural human rights are, the less 

agreeable they can be to those who view less or no change to the existing 

structures as desirable. The creation of a next utopia around human rights 

may be bittersweet, for it forces us to move beyond the innocence of 

believing that norms on paper would themselves win universal support and 

change the world. But like the best utopias in history, it will also connect 

more interestingly with the reality of suffering and the reality of power. 

Utopian vision and realistic strategy are not alternatives; they depend on 

each other. 

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ELENA SOROKINA (EDITOR), originally Russian, is a currently 

Paris/Brussels based curator and writer and currently co-editor of the 

NEWTOPIA publication. She did her master in art history at the Friedrich 

Wilhelm University in Bonn, Germany and was a Whitney Museum of 

American Art ISP fellow in New York in 2004. After having done several 

exhibitions in New York, she recently curated "Petroliana" at the Moscow 

Biennial 2007; "Laws of Relativity" at the Fondazione Sandretto Re 

Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; "On Traders' Dilemmas" at YBCA, San Francisco, 

2008; “Scènes Centrales" at Tri Postal, Lille, France, 2009; and „Zero 

Gravity Revolt“, Komplot, Brussels (2011). She has been writing for 

Artforum, Moscow Art Magazine, Die Zeit and other publications. 

ABSTRACT 

"It is not power that corrupts but fear", states Aung Sun Suu Kyi in her 

famous address, because it destroys all sense of right and wrong. The 

recent articulations of the politics of fear, most alarmingly expressed in the 

discourses on terrorism and nationalism, want people to cling to their 

anxieties, abandoning the quest for the positive socio-political principles – 

human rights, justice, equality, or freedom. Sorokina’s essay Between 

poetic justice and legal imagination (2012) elaborates on artists' projects 

revealing fear's political dimensions as an exemplary instrument of 

oppression. Employing diverse media, these projects contest the logic of 

the politically repressive phobias and dare to formulate genuine and 

controversial positive alternatives to the contemporary culture of fear, based 

on rights. Through gestures of resistance or, in the contrary, insistance on 

the rights which are theoretically guaranteed but practically neglected, the 

artists document, enact and articulate rights, claiming them for themselves 

and for the others. 

RAOUL VANEIGEM (Belgium, 1934) is a writer and philosopher. He 

studied Romance philology at Université Libre de Bruxelles. From 1960 to 

1969 he was one of the principal theoreticians and participants of the 

Situationist International, and published in Banalités de base, the group's 

journal. His seminal book The Revolution of Everyday Life, published in 

1967, is related to the emergence of the more radical part of the 

Mouvement des Occupations of May 1968. He has written extensively on 

freedom of speech and human rights and his publications include: 

Déclaration des droits de l’ être Humain, Le Cherche midi, 2001; L’ Ère des 

créateurs, Complexe, 2002; Rien n'est sacré, tout peut se dire: Réflexions 

sur la liberté d'expression, La Découverte, 2003; Entre le deuil du monde et 

la joie de vivre, Verticale, 2008; Ni pardon ni talion - La question de 

l'impunité dans les crimes contre l'humanité, La Découverte, 2009; L’Etat 

n’est plus rien, soyons tout, Rue des Cascades, 2010. NEWTOPIA includes 

Vaneigem’s seminal text Towards a declaration of the rights of human 

beings (2001). 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ABSTRACT 

“If it remains necessary, the declaration of human rights has today become 

insufficient. We can no longer be satisfied with abstract rights, managed by 

an economic totalitarianism which abstracts human being and empties him 

and her of their vital substance. The rights of man are not vested rights but 

rights that have to be conquered. The Declaration of the Rights of the 

human being, the right to be a human being, marks the progress of 

consciousness and puts into motion the emergence of a society freed from 

barbarism.” (Raoul Vaneigem) 

In this text (originally published in 2001, translated into English by Liz Heron 

and published by Pluto Press in 2004), Vaneigem sets out quite literally to 

create a new declaration of human rights, by updating earlier classic 

declarations – from the French Revolution to the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights of 1948 – on the grounds that ‘we can no longer make do 

with the liberties derived from free exchange, while the free circulation of 

capital is establishing a tyranny that reduces humankind and the earth to a 

commodity’. Both playful, poetic and provocative, as well as idealistic and 

utopian, the text both critiques the way in which human rights have been 

eroded by globalization but also tries to imagine a situation where things 

might be different and where human and social relations are governed by 

humanistic and not capitalist values. Excerpt from French original text: “Si 

nécessaire qu’elle demeure, la déclaration des Droits de l'Homme est 

devenue aujourd’hui insuffisante. Nous ne pouvons plus nous satisfaire de 

droits abstraits, gérés par un totalitarisme économique qui abstrait l’homme 

de lui-même et le vide de sa substance vitale. Il s’agit maintenant 

d'accorder la primauté à l'individu concret plutôt qu'à l'Homme en soi. Les 

droits de l’être humain ne sont pas des droits acquis mais des droits à 

conquérir. La Déclaration des droits de l'être humain marque un progrès de 

la conscience et mise sur l’émergence.” (Raoul Vaneigem) 

2. ‘HUMAN RIGHTS HEROES’ SECTION 

This section will feature recent texts by what we term “human rights 

heroes”, key activists and human rights defenders effecting real change in 

the field of human rights and fighting actively for their advancement. For 

many people, especially those whose human rights are largely 

safeguarded, the concept of human rights is an abstraction. The violation of 

these rights often appears to happen to others, out of sight and out of mind. 

But for those engaged in the fight for human rights, the struggle often 

entails serious risk. Whether they are the individuals featured here, or the 

countless others fighting for the rights of humans all over the world, their 

selflessness and heroism cannot be doubted. Their actions have also 

undoubtedly helped to further the cause of human rights around the world. 

The twentieth century has seen the emergence of a new type of hero: 

fighters (without personal privilege and often in the face of enormous 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

obstacles) who defend and uphold human rights. These are people of 

integrity and courage who struggle against human rights abuses and seek 

to improve the lives of those who have been discriminated against. They 

are people who fight to promote the rights of others, promoting dignity, 

equal treatment and fairness. Some of them have written inspirational texts 

explaining the essence of their struggles and their motivations and have 

prevailed despite many attempts to silence or ignore them. We are very 

pleased to be able to include a handful of these seminal texts here. 

LIU XIABO (China, 1955) is an intellectual (writer, literary critic and human 

rights activist). He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner. He was 

arrested in December 2008, on the eve of the release of the radical 

declaration he co-authored, entitled Charter 08. The charter called for 

political reforms, greater human rights and an end to the one-party rule in 

China. For this document, Liu was formally charged with “inciting 

subversion of state power.” He was tried in a closed court in 2009, 

convicted of the charge and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Liu’s appeal 

was rejected. During his prison term, he was awarded the 2010 Nobel 

Peace Prize for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human 

rights in China". Text included in the publication: I have no Enemies 

(2009). 

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (Russia, 1958–2006) was a journalist and war 

reporter who chronicled the war in Chechnya, describing the atrocities 

committed by both sides. During one of her trips, she became the victim of 

what appeared to be an assassination attempt, but she continued her 

reporting from Chechnya. Her stories were critical of human rights violations 

and the political regime in Russia. On October 5 th , 2006, Politkovskaya 

gave a radio interview in which she announced an upcoming story for the 

Novaya Gazeta newspaper where she worked, an article on torture 

practices tolerated and controlled by Chechnya's Putin-friendly prime 

minister, Ramzan Kadyrov. She planned to finalise the story on Saturday, 

October 7 th , but was found shot to death in her apartment building in central 

Moscow just before. Text included in publication: Am I afraid? (2006). 

AUNG SAN SUU KYI (Myanmar, 1945) is an opposition leader in Myanmar 

(Burma), who has been leading the nonviolent struggle for democracy and 

human rights. She spent most of the last 20 years under the house arrest 

for opposing the military regime in Burma. In 1988, the mass slaughter of 

protesters against the brutal regime of the military led Aung San Suu Kyi to 

speak out against the junta and to begin a nonviolent struggle to bring 

democracy to her country. When under house arrest, she was offered 

freedom if she agreed to leave the country but she refused to do so until 

Burma was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

freed. Selfless and stoic, Aung San Suu Kyi became one of the world's 

most prominent prisoners of conscience. In 1991, she won the Nobel Prize 

for Peace. Released from the house arrest in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi, 

was elected to parliament in a historic victory in 2012, marking a major 

turning point in a nation still emerging from a cruel time of military rule. Text 

included in the publication: Freedom from Fear (1991). 

ASMAA MAHFOUZ (Egypt, 1985) is an activist and one of the founders of 

the "April 6 th Youth Movement". She is a prominent member of Egypt's 

Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution and one of the leaders of the 

Egyptian revolution. Mahfouz has been credited with having sparked the 

protests that began the uprising in January 2011 in Cairo. In a video blog 

posted on Facebook on 18th January, she called on Egyptians to claim their 

human rights and to express their disapproval of the regime of Hosni 

Mubarak. The video was uploaded on YouTube and went "viral" within 

days, rallying thousands of people to participate in protest. She was among 

the tens of thousand of protesters who ended the authoritarian rule of 

Mubarak. Later in 2011, Mahfouz was arrested on charges of defaming the 

Egyptian military rulers, notably, for calling them a "council of dogs". 

Mahfouz was released on bail, after the supreme council of Armed forces 

renounced the charge. In 2011, she was one of five recipients of the 

„Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought" awarded for contributions to 

"historic changes in the Arab World". Text included in publication: transcript 

of her address, posted to the Internet approximately one week prior to the 

massive Tahrir Square rally of the 25th of January (2011). 

SHIRIN EBADI (Iran, 1947) is a lawyer and activist, the first Iranian to 

have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her outspoken 

campains for human rights in her country. After having graduated from 

Tehran University, Ebadi became the first ever female judge in history of 

the Iranian justice, the job having been forbidden to women before. After the 

victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979, she was dismissed by 

the government and obtained a certificate enabling her to set up her own 

practice only in 1992. As a practicing lawyer, Ebadi took on a large number 

of politically and socially sensitive cases, including child abuse, she also 

agreed to represent the mother of Mrs Zahra Kazemi, a photojournalist 

killed in Iran. Shirin Ebadi has established two non-governmental 

organizations in Iran, the "Iranian Society for Protecting the Rights" of the 

"Child and the Centre for the Defence of Human Rights". Her promotion of 

human rights issues have led to clashes with the conservative Iranian 

judiciary; in 2000 she was given a suspended jail sentence. Text included 

in the publication: excerpt from her Nobel Prize address In the name of the 

God of Creation and Wisdom (2003). 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CARINA GOVAERT is in charge of Communications at Amnesty 

International Vlaanderen (Belgium). She studied Roman Literature in 

Louvain and obtained an MBA from Solvay Business School in Brussels. 

After working as a communications professional in several international ICT 

companies for more than 10 years, she became a lecturer in 

communications at Erasmushogeschool Brussels in 2004 before joining 

Amnesty International in 2007. 

Human Rights Heroes: Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, 

Colombia Text by Carina Govaert based on interviews with members of 

the Peace Community by Amnesty International activists Wendy Van Dyck 

and Sus Van Olmen. 

On March 23 rd , 1997, a group of small farmers coming from various hamlets 

of Apartadó established a Peace Community as a response to multiple and 

continued aggressions perpetrated by all actors involved in Colombia’s 

conflict. Tamera has accompanied the Peace Community on their journey 

for peace since 2005 after 4 years in getting to know each other. The peace 

community San José de Apartadó is a rural community of about 1500 

inhabitants living in the north of Colombia. They do not belong to any 

organisation, do not carry weapons and are bound together through an 

unswerving ethic of peace. Yet they are in the way of the government and 

multinationals who want to push forward globalisation and are therefore 

being brutally fought by the state. In the past thirteen years they have lost 

nearly 200 community members who were killed by the military, paramilitary 

and guerilla. What was it that gave the community members of San José 

the strength to persevere? It was the decision to set an example for peace 

under any circumstances and to create a model for the possibility of survival 

for all threatened peoples. Furthermore, a deeper friendship between them 

and the peace village Tamera in Portugal had developed. Members of San 

José say that through the community that lives in Portugal they have 

rediscovered their own vision of community. (Source: www.sossanjose.org/index.php?id=107) 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

8. Public Opening and Festivities 

PROFESSIONAL PREVIEW & OPENING OF THE EXHBITION 

4 pm – 9 pm: All exhbition venues open. Starting point of the 

parcours: Cultuurcentrum (Cultural centre) 

9 pm – 10.30 pm: Official inauguration and opening cocktail at 

Cultuurcentrum; speeches by the mayor of 

Mechelen, Bart Somers, and the curator of 

NEWTOPIA, Katerina Gregos. 

10 pm – 10.30 pm: Manifesto: A Real Time Cinematics Performance by 

The Erasers at Cultuurcentrum 

11 pm – 11.30 pm: Inauguration of Krzysztof Wodiczko’s public video 

installation The New Mechlinians at Stadhuis (City 

Hall) 

11.30 pm – open: Afterparty with DJ’s Heimwee Soundsystem and 

Agent Mo at Cultuurcentrum 

PUBLIC OPENING 

NEWTOPIA opens on Saturday 1 st September 2012 with a colourful 

event that focuses on solidarity and the things that connect us all. 

Mechelen Mondial is making a major contribution to the opening, showing 

how Mechelen development organisations are working in the South to 

achieve the Millennium Goals. At twilight the city will be transformed into 

an atmospheric setting full of colour and light for a mysterious fusion of 

performance, acrobatics and street theatre, presented in collaboration 

with Salto Humano, which bridges the world of the circus with that of 

psychology and sociology. The event is free for the public. 

From 4 pm on, you can enjoy a varied programme that will culminate in a 

breathtaking open-air show, Muare, never previously seen in Belgium! 

4 pm – 7 pm: Mechelen Mondial, from the age of 6 up 

7 pm – 9.30 pm: Mechelen Mondial, from the age of 16 up 

10 pm – 10.45 pm: Muare, acrobatic live performance 

on the Grote Markt 

83 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

9. Opening Performance: The Erasers 

MANIFESTO 

A real time cinematics performance by The Erasers 

August 31 st , 2012, 10 pm 

Mechelen Cultural Centre 

Duration: approximately 30 minutes 

Conceived especially for the opening of 


THE ERASERS is a group whose work is based on the integration of 

various seemingly diverse elements such as: live cinema, performance, 

actions, internet and installation. The combination of these diverse elements 

is based on The Erasers’ search for a new Audio Visual Alphabet. 

This new language, Audio Visual Alphabet does not impose the constraints 

of linearity on images and words but rather allows for irrationality and 

impulses through the multi-dimensionality of discourse. Not only do the 

images and words stand in their own right and by this create new images, 

words, worlds but also the audience obtains the right to independent, free 

interpretation. 

MANIFESTO is The Erasers' latest work, which uses manifestos and a 

series of live art actions and re-makes of films that are concerned with the 

theme of human rights as its raw material. A journey through civil and 

political rights, social, economic and cultural rights which highlights one of 

the most crucial themes of our days. Manifesto is a non-linear narrative of 

people, ideas and situations. The Erasers physically participate in the 

performance: they sit, run, carry objects around, play music, peel, sweat, 

record and play back. Some of them hold cameras in their hands. Real time 

cinematics is the tool towards the creation of an instant user manual. Live 

cameras watch over the separate areas of the performance space and 

orchestrate the creation of reality. Manifesto is re-enacted in real time in 

multiple synchronic pieces of action. 

Avoid trying to see EVERYTHING during Manifesto. 

Scripted, Directed & Broadcasted by The Erasers 

THE ERASERS is a group whose members/performers range from six to 

nine depending on the size of the project. 

84 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

85



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

10. Satellite Program 

K-LITERATURE 

Reports from NEWTOPIA 

Writers talk about human rights 

On Friday, November 16 th , 2012, the day after the Day of the Imprisoned 

Writer, the International Day of Tolerance will be celebrated worldwide. On 

that evening a number of celebrated writers, both Belgian and foreign, will 

take a closer look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are 

not coming to sing a chorus of praise but to think about what could be done 

differently. What is missing from it? What is wrong with it? What could be 

improved? The idea of Reports from NEWTOPIA is not to stage 

acrimonious debates, but to present major writers with a vision and literary 

work that provides food for thought. 

Friday, November 16 th , 2012, 8.15 pm 

15 !/ 10 ! (ABO) 

Tickets & Information: +32 (0) 15 29 40 00 

STADSSCHOUWBURG 

www.cultuurcentrummechelen.be 

With: Tahar Ben Jelloun, David Van Reybrouck, Naema Tahir, Chris De 

Stoop, In Koli Jean Bofane, Dejan Anastasijevic, and Fatena Al-Ghorra 

Music: Afonike 

Presentation: Ruth Joos 

Production: Passa Porta, PEN Flanders and the City of Mechelen 

ARTIST TALKS 

During the exhibition a number of Belgian and foreign artists will be invited 

to take part in a wide-ranging discussion of their work and their participation 

in NEWTOPIA. Dates, venues and names will be announced on the website 

www.NEWTOPIA.be, in September. 

The following artist talkes will take place: 

Monday, September 10th, 2012, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm with Sammy Baloji & 

Sven ’t Jolle 

Monday, October 01st, 2012, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm with Thomas Kilpper & 

Ninar Esber 

85 






10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Monday, November 5th, 2012, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm with Marina Naprushkina 

(tbc) & Nikita Kadan 

Monday, December 10th, 2012, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm with Kendell Geers and 

guests 

CULTUURCENTRUM MECHELEN 


MUSIC 

Alles van waarde: deze stad zijn wij! (Everything of value: This city is us!) 

A Jazz Oratorio (world premiere) 

To mark the opening of Kazerne Dossin, two Mechelen artists, Roger de 

Neef and Frank Vaganée, have written an oratorio with atmospheric poetic 

texts on the themes of the Holocaust and human rights. The second half of 

the concert "Alles van Waarde: deze stad zijn wij!" (Everything of value: this 

city is us!) will include performances – framed by slam poetry – of standards 

by jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, the singer Billie 

Holiday and Ornette Coleman, who were committed to the cause of civil and 

human rights in their lives and music. 

December 5 th , 2012, 8.15 pm, 17 ! 

Tickets & Information: +32 (0) 15 29 40 00 

STADSSCHOUWBURG 


FILM 

During the exhibition, Filmhuis Mechelen is reflecting on NEWTOPIA's four 

sections by screening four powerful films about human rights. The US artist 

Lynn Hershman Leeson will be present in person to introduce her most 

recent film, Women Art Revolution (2011), this will be followed by the 

Belgian premiere of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (Alison Klayman, 2011). 

There will also be an opportunity to see Mama Illegal (Ed Moschitz, 2011), 

the winner of the recent One World Film Festival in Prague and L'affaire 

Chebeya, un crime d'Etat? (Thierry Michel, 2012m the director will be 

present), which recently attracted the attention of the Congolese censors. 

Tuesday, September 25 th , October 30 th , November 27 th and December 4 th , 

2012, 8.30 pm 

AUDITORIUM of CULTUURCENTRUM MECHELEN 

www.filmhuismechelen.be 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

CIMIC – LESSIUS MECHELEN (THOMAS MORE) 

CIMIC (Centre for Intercultural Management and International 

Communication) is organising a project week on the theme of "As if it were 

over/The other kind of remembering, or how communities deal with violated 

human rights". CIMIC addresses the theme through a series of talks, 

discussions and performances that bring together philosophers, historians, 

anthropologists and artists. The programme for the week is part of the 

"banaba" (special course for holders of a bachelor's degree) Intercultural 

Management course and is open to the public. More information at the end 

of August on www.cimic.be. 

GEN2020 is a platform and process for promoting groundbreaking theatre, 

set up by 't ARSENAAL in Mechelen. The GEN2020 festival in late 

November and early December offers an opportunity to discover work by 

promising theatre people from around the world. One to watch out for: the 

opening production, 1979, a visually powerful, physical performance by 

Strange Fruit, a collective made up of performing artists who have fled Iraq. 

www.gen2020.be 

HUISKAMERWANDELINGEN (LIVING-ROOM WALKS) is a communitybuilding 

project developed by people from Mechelen for people of 

Mechelen. Every third Sunday of the month guided tours take place 

stopping off in the living rooms of Mechelen artists. The tours last a whole 

afternoon and include dance, music and visual art for all the family. 

In the context of NEWTOPIA, the tour on 16 September will have a special 

focus on human rights. www.huiskamerwandelingen.be 

YOUTHOPIA is a project of the Mechelen youth service (jeugddienst), Villa 

32, H30 and its partners; it is organising NEWTOPIA workshops for youth 

groups and young people. www.NEWTOPIA.be 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

11. City of Mechelen – Symbiosis of Past and Present 

HISTORICALLY AWARE, TREND-SETTING, MULTIFACETED 

Situated in the province of Antwerp, Mechelen was shaped by a rich and 

colourful history. It evolved into a city where tradition and modernity collide 

in a vibrant kaleidoscope of multi faceted elements. Mechelen is renowned 

as a city of artists and architects since the 16 th century. Today around 

85,000 people live there. Visitors discover a city where art flourishes, a city 

that has become internationally renowned in recent years. This is especially 

due to Contour: The Biennial of Moving Image, which has taken place in 

Mechelen since 2003 and attracts a lot of attention both within Belgium and 

abroad as well as Cultuurcentrum Mechelen and The Garage Centre for 

Contemporary Art, both of which have high quality contemporary exhibition 

programmes. Among the outstanding exhibitions that the city can also 

boast of were Stad in Vrouwenhanden (City in Woman’s Hand, 2005) and 

City Visions (2009) curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Anwerp 

(MuHKA). With NEWTOPIA, Mechelen will now present one of the five 

major cultural events planned for this year in Belgium which, under the title 

of Visual Arts Flanders 2012, will provide a brand new platform for 

contemporary art. The Flemish city is positioning itself as a dynamic and 

creative environment, aware of its historic and cultural attractions while also 

highly conscious of its great potential in the area of contemporary art. The 

most remarkable thing about Mechelen is, however, that it constantly 

cultivates its historical-cultural heritage with an eye to the contemporary as 

well as the future. In this way the city succeeds in combining tradition with 

modernity, classical foundations with contemporary trends and surprises its 

visitors with an unexpected multifariousness of the European history of 

ideas and art history. 

VISIONS OF THE FUTURE AND COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST 

But not all legacies are born easily. During the Second World War an SS 

assembly camp was established in Mechelen from which 24,916 Jews and 

351 Roma and Sinti were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp. 

Prior to that and from 1835 onwards the city evolved into a major hub 

through the first rail connection to Brussels. In the wake of this 

development, it grew into a centre for the metal-processing industry, 

making it geographically significant for the Nazi regime later on. A 

deportation camp was set up halfway between Brussels and Antwerp 

(Kazerne Dossin) because most of the Jewish population lived in this 

region. This too is a chapter in Mechelen’s history and it is approached with 

a great deal of sensitivity. Mechelen looks both to the future and to the 

past. The new Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum, and 

Documentation Center of the Holocaust and Human Rights will be 

88 

International Contact: 

Tourism Mechelen 

Florie Wilberts 

Hallestraat 2-4-6 

2800 Mechelen 

Belgium 

T: +32 (0) 15 29 76 56 

F: +32 (0) 15 29 76 53 

florie.wilberts@mechelen.be



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

opened in November 2012 in memory of the victims of National Socialism 

and in support of the city’s unfailing commitment to respecting human 

rights. 

PALPABLE HISTORIC AND ART DISCOURSE 

One of the threads of the newest exhibition project NEWTOPIA: The State 

of Human Rights is the future-oriented discourse between history and art 

that characterizes Mechelen. The exhibition sees its role analogous to that 

of a compass pointing to past and current human rights movements, 

addressing them from the viewpoints of artists from all over the globe. 

Greek-born, Brussels-based Katerina Gregos is the curator of the project 

and also currently on the curatorial team for Manifesta 9 and the European 

Biennial. She is well-known in Mechelen because she was already curator 

of the 4 th edition of the Contour: Biennial of Moving Images in 2009. The 

city of Mechelen intended that the project would coincide with the opening 

of the Holocaust memorial. From September 1 st to December 10 th , 2012, 

over 70 artists will engage with the subject of human rights from manifold 

perspectives articulated with a great diversity of artistic media and aesthetic 

forms of expression. The unique combination of current human rights 

issues and contemporary art in Flanders continues a tradition that has 

already earned Mechelen international standing. Annually in autumn, 

numerous organizations plan various activities on location under the title of 

Mechelen Mondial, focusing on the Millennium Goals of the United Nations. 

In addition, the plenary meeting of the Taskforce for International 

Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research will be 

held in Mechelen in June 2012 as Belgium took over its chairmanship in 

March 2012. 

OPEN TO VISITORS: COME, SEE, STAY 

Hoping to inspire all our visitors who wish to experience the city and current 

exhibition highlights to additionally pursue the paths of our cultural history, 

Mechelen is offering a combined ticket for the exhibition venue of 

NEWTOPIA and the solo exhibition of Alfredo Jaar at ING Cultural Centre 

in Brussels (a NEWTOPIA Satellite Solo Exhibition in collaboration with 

NEWTOPIA’s main sponsor). A multilingual Human Rights Walk reveals the 

lesser-known aspects of Mechelen’s historic and cultural heritage with a 

focus on human rights. From September 2012 visitors can purchase the 

package deal of a combined ticket and one night’s accommodation. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

ROOTS IN THE CRADLE OF EUROPE 

Visitors who have seen the current attractions of the city and choose to 

remain, can additionally explore its past. Mechelen’s dynamic ambience 

can be largely attributed to its Renaissance history. For many decades it 

was a leading Flemish art centre besides Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent 

and Leuven. From 1506 to 1530 it was the capital of the Netherlands under 

Margaret of Austria and, until the late 16 th century, the religious centre of 

Belgium. In the city centre alone eight historical churches housing a wealth 

of artworks and paintings by Peter Paul Rubens as well as by Anthony van 

Dyck underscore this Flemish city’s influential and prosperous past. In St. 

John’s Church visitors can even find wall paintings from the 14th century – 

dating back further still than the works of the “Flemish primitives”. In 

general, hundreds of historical buildings recall Mechelen's rich past – 

among them three buildings that are classified as UNESCO World Heritage 

sites. One of them is the magnificent St. Rumbold’s Cathedral with its 

unfinished tower. From its “Skywalk,” a glass platform on the 97 metre-high 

tower, you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the city and surrounding 

countryside. On a clear day you can see not only the Brussels Atomium but 

also the harbour of Antwerp. 

FLANDERS AT ITS BEST 

A fascination for history and art are reasons enough to visit Mechelen, 

although our visitors expect even more. Mechelen is in the very heart of 

Flanders, halfway between Antwerp and Brussels. From the Brussels 

Airport you can reach the city in only 15 minutes by car. In the future – with 

the new high-speed rail link – you have the option of reaching Mechelen 

from Brussels Airport in just 8 minutes. It is also very easy to reach 

Belgium’s neighbouring countries either by train or by plane. Mechelen has 

great charm and welcomes its guests in the historical city centre with an 

abundance of boutiques, shops, restaurants and cafes that are in easy 

walking distance. If you enjoy shopping and are looking for something very 

special you will surely find it here! Mechelen has just about everything, 

ranging from the timeless to the trendy, from the vintage to the avant-garde. 

And don’t forget to crown a successful shopping spree by letting yourself be 

spoilt by typical Flemish culinary delights. The classic international hotels 

alternate with new design hotels that guarantee an exciting and stylish stay. 

A night's accommodation at Martin's, for example, promises to be an 

extraordinary experience because you will find yourself in a historical 

church vault. Mechelen’s leisurely pace and vibrant atmosphere, its unique 

combination of tradition and modernity, history and art forms a relaxing and 

exciting atmosphere. This special Flemish insider tip invites visitors to enjoy 

art, culture and all kinds of delights with all their senses. 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

12. Sponsors and Media Partners 

ING BELGIUM 

Alfredo Jaar in the ING Cultural Centre 

10.10. – 10.12.2012 

Place Royale, 6 - 1000 Brussels 

The large-scale exhibition project in Mechelen, NEWTOPIA: The State of 

Human Rights, is a natural partner for ING. ING is pleased to lend its full 

support to the four art exhibitions, which focus on themes relevant to human 

rights. 

The collaboration between ING and NEWTOPIA is unique. In this 

partnership, traditional sponsoring is extended to include a satellite 

exhibition in Brussels. From October 10 th to December 10 th , 2012, ING will 

present an exhibition of contemporary art in ING’s Culture Centre on Place 

Royale/Koningsplein in Brussels. This exhibition is dedicated to Alfredo 

Jaar, one of the key players in NEWTOPIA (see separate press release). 

ING is hosting Alfredo Jaar’s exhibition in its Culture Centre in Brussels, in 

the heart of Europe, where the gaze of the European population is focused 

on the bodies that must formulate tomorrow’s answers to the major social, 

economic and political issues that affect the future of our children. Alfredo’s 

ideas also match well with the values endorsed by ING. As a financial 

service provider, ING plays a role in all economic sectors. We regard it as 

our responsibility to use this influence to effect changes in the social and 

environmental domains. Our high-quality products and services express our 

position on ethical, social and environmental issues. Assuming 

responsibility also means using our sphere of influence to promote positive 

changes in tomorrow’s society. 

Global partnerships give ING an opportunity to develop sustainable 

relationships within the communities in which we are active. Culture helps 

us to achieve this. Since time immemorial, art and culture have been 

important for ING customers and employees. We strive to make them 

accessible to the general public. In this way, ING expresses its respect for 

and belief in the social relevance of the Mechelen city project, which ING 

supports as a main sponsor. We also hope that this major initiative, linked 

to the exhibition of Alfredo Jaar’s work both in Mechelen and in Brussels, 

will exert a strong effect and will be the starting point for creating new forms 

of social engagement. 

www.ing.be/art 

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 

Human Rights Watch is pleased to be partner of NEWTOPIA: The State of 

Human Rights, to support an exploration into the intersection between 

contemporary art and the human rights movement through the launch of a 

grodndbreaking exhibition in the city of Mechelen. 

For more than 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked to document 

abuse, expose human rights violations to the world, and advocate for 

change. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, 

we aim to give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for 

their crimes. 

The NEWTOPIA exhibition in Mechelen will provide opportunities to explore 

the complexities of the human rights movement and the evolving discourse 

around this movement. Through art work by more than 60 internationally 

renowned artists, NEWTOPIA will consider the achievements, failures and 

future challenges of the human rights movement. 

As an organization, Human Rights Watch has witnessed many of these 

achievements and challenges over the past thirty years. More recently, we 

have worked to promote the rights of people throughout the Middle East 

and North Africa, who demand freedom from tyranny and oppressive 

human rights conditions; supported the efforts of women worldwide to 

demand their equal rights; spoken out against corporations that abuse 

worker rights; and worked tirelessly to ensure that those responsible for 

grave crimes on human rights will be held to account in a court of law and 

victims of atrocities be recognized. 

The NEWTOPIA exhibition sheds light on the state of human rights today by 

looking at the history of human rights and the human rights movement, and 

questioning the road ahead. Will it ever be possible to reach a human rights 

utopia? What are the barriers to effective human rights change? Art 

addresses these questions from new angles, confronting the viewer with 

powerful pieces that are both honest and challenging. 

Human Rights Watch looks forward to partnering with NEWTOPIA. As an 

organization, we believe in the importance of continuously revisiting and 

debating the context in which the human rights movement is situated, and 

we know that art can be a powerful tool to engage in this conversation. We 

are pleased to play a role in promoting a new dialogue about the state of 

human rights: examining how the movement was founded, exploring where 

it is today, and dreaming of where it can be tomorrow. 

www.hrw.org 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 

Human rights are the cornerstone of our society and the heart of Amnesty 

International. NEWTOPIA has taken up the challenge of turning the 

spotlight on human rights in a thoroughly contemporary and powerful way. 

The first international exhibition of contemporary art on the theme of human 

rights is based on an unshakeable belief in the universality and indivisibility 

of human rights. NEWTOPIA not only intends to denounce violations of 

human rights; it also intends to show the positive results and strength of the 

human rights movement. NEWTOPIA aims to inspire visitors and to 

persuade them that each one of us can make a contribution to a world in 

which everyone can fully enjoy all their rights. 

It is precisely this combination of indignation about violations of human 

rights and hope and conviction that you can do something as an individual 

to change things. That is the driving force of more than three million 

Amnesty sympathisers all over the world, which is why Amnesty 

International wholeheartedly supports this exhibition. 

Art is self-expression, a vehicle through which the artist shares his or her 

ideas or feelings with the viewer in a spirit of freedom. When that spirit is 

menaced and human rights are violated, the artist often takes on the role of 

critical accuser. Artists protest with their individual weapons – pen, camera, 

paintbrush etc. Many artists are active in struggling against violations of 

human rights. They become true Human Rights Heroes, heroic activists on 

behalf of human rights. A number of these artists have paid a high price for 

their activism: they are silenced by threats, house arrest or imprisonment. 

The Iranian director Jafar Panahi, for example, the Chinese writer Liu 

Xiaobo, and the Burmese comic Zarganar – three artists on whose behalf 

Amnesty International campaigned in 2011. NEWTOPIA offers a platform to 

a number of contemporary artists and human rights heroes and gives them 

a voice in an open and positive atmosphere. An excellent initiative, from 

Amnesty's point of view. 

We are confident that the contemporary works of art chosen by curator 

Katerina Gregos for NEWTOPIA will both fascinate people and inspire them 

to give human rights the priority in society that they deserve. And will, above 

all, offer them a splendid series of works of art to enjoy. Enjoyment of art is 

a human right too! 

www.amnesty.org 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

NOVOTEL MECHELEN CENTRUM 

The Novotel Mechelen Centrum is a 3-star hotel located in the heart of 

Mechelen, in the trendy and lively fish market district just a stone's throw 

from the river Dijle. It has 122 spacious and comfortable rooms, a bar-grill 

(brasserie), and 5 conference rooms for meetings and seminars. The hotel 

is ideal for a city trip to Mechelen and is a keen supporter of various cultural 

events, such as City Visions in 2009 and now NEWTOPIA: The State of 

Human Rights. 

Novotel Mechelen is also an active member of the Accor Foundation, which 

strives to support and develop socially responsible activities initiated by the 

Group's employees. It sees its challenge as "Linking cultures and providing 

support for the development of individuals and their integration into their 

environment". This gives the Accor group's employees an opportunity to 

add social and human breadth and depth to their work. The Foundation 

offers support to projects that stimulate local know-how (e.g. by supporting 

socio-economic initiatives that focus on traditional crafts and techniques); 

projects that encourage professional and social integration (e.g. for young 

people in difficulties between the ages of 15 and 30); and projects that help 

populations in great difficulty and that respond to humanitarian disasters. 

Sharing these values and teaming up with various organisations on its 

projects for further solidarity is important for Novotel Mechelen, which looks 

forward to supporting the NEWTOPIA project. 

www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-3154-novotel-mechelen-centrum/index.shtml 

MO* and NEWTOPIA: art, human rights and information 

The core mission of MO* is to make globalisation comprehensible for a 

broad public in Flanders. The editorial staff, accordingly, must not try to 

paint an unrealistically rosy picture of the world: it must present a clear 

picture of the situation, so that people can see where the problems lie and 

what kind of challenges the present generation faces. MO* pursues its 

mission of information in a world in which – thanks to the communications 

revolution of the last twenty years – more information is being produced by 

even more people. "On the other hand, we can also see that control over 

the media is increasing," warned former Amnesty International Secretary 

General Irene Khan in an interview published by MO* in April 2010. "And I 

am not just talking about what governments do, but also about the 

concentration of media in the hands of a few commercial groups. That 

clearly threatens freedom of information and of expression. The pressure to 

make a profit, after all, helps to decide what is reported on and what is not." 

Reliable information and journalism driven by humanitarian concerns rather 

than by the whims of the day in profit-driven media: that is the primary and 

most important contribution that MO* makes to the struggle for human 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

rights. Those human rights are seen by the editorial staff as universal rights. 

"What counts in this world is not beauty and truth, but power: economic 

power, military power, and ideological power," observed the Iranian 

kamancheh-player Kayhan Kalhor in an interview published by MO* in July 

2006. "Whoever has money has the right to have their say, to propaganda 

and publicity. Whoever is poor goes unheard." In that context, art that 

concerns itself with the world is a key field of resistance to the dominance of 

any kind of dogma. 

Art and journalism play different roles in the world, but if they are sensitive 

to the rights of vulnerable people, they can indeed meet on common 

ground. We believe that NEWTOPIA is creating that kind of meeting place 

and for that reason we are happy to offer it our support as a media partner. 

www.MO.be 

COBRA.BE: focus on NEWTOPIA 

Obviously Cobra.be could not be indifferent to the NEWTOPIA exhibition. 

Contemporary art in all its aspects, as it will be on show in Mechelen 

(painting, sculpture, film and video, installation, photography, drawing, and 

illustration), belongs to the core business of Cobra.be. Cobra follows 

contemporary art closely: we have already taken a detailed look at some of 

the artists taking part in NEWTOPIA; we are looking forward to others in 

amazement. 

Cobra.be is not interested purely in "art for art's sake". Art can also be 

socially relevant; and if art can help advance the cause of human rights, 

then Cobra.be is delighted to welcome that and to do everything it can to 

draw attention to it. 

NEWTOPIA, moreover, aims to reach as broad a public as possible and to 

bring art closer to people – and in particular in this case the community and 

institutions in Mechelen. Broadening both what is on offer and the target 

public in this way is also one of Cobra.be's own objectives. 

www.cobra.be 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

KLARA: A SOFT SPOT FOR NEWTOPIA 

"Can art save the world?", was the call, years ago. (Antwerp, 1993) 

And while the answer has remained uncertain, that is no reason for people 

to throw in the towel. 

On the contrary, here at Klara we still believe in (artistic) fury. Even if it’s 

only in the spirit of Samuel Beckett's words: "Try again, fail again, fail 

better." 

It is no secret that Klara has a soft spot for the visual arts. We keep close 

track of artistic news; we offer extensive coverage of exhibitions, both at 

home and abroad; and both old masters and young Turks get the platform 

they are due from us. 

When Mechelen makes a connection between art and human rights in 

NEWTOPIA and art looks at freedom and the "human condition", then Klara 

gives a heartfelt three cheers. 

Freedom of opinion, freedom of thought, and unrestrained artistic and 

intellectual expression are Klara's creed too. And if art cannot save the 

world, then it can certainly reconcile us to our fate. 

radio.klara.be 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

13. Visitor Information 

THE FASTEST WAY TO MECHELEN 

8 minutes from Brussels Airport (by high speed train) 

15-20 minutes from Brussels’ main train stations 

20 minutes from Antwerp 

1 ! hour from Paris (by Thalys) 

2 hours from London (by Eurostar) 

2 hours from Cologne (by train or car) 

OPENING HOURS / TICKETS 

01.09. – 10.12.2012 

Open: Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 

(closed on Wednesdays) from 10 am to 5 pm 

TICKETS 

Adults: 10 " / Seniors citizens (over 65): 8 " 

Youth under 26: 2 " / Children under 12: free entrance 

ING-card holders: 8 " / Teachers: 2 " 

GROUP VISITS 

Adults: 8 " / Seniors citizens (over 65): 8 " 

Youth under 26: 2 " / Children under 12: free entrance 

Schools: 1 " / Accompanying teachers: 2 " 

Guide (max. 25 pers.): 60 " / 2 hours 

* Entrance tickets to NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights are also valid 

for a visit to the ING exhibition in Brussels (from October 10 th onwards) until 

December 10 th , 2012 and vice versa: you will receive a Free Pass when you 

buy your ticket. 

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10969 Berlin 

Deutschland 

T: +49 (0) 30 259 357 0 

F: +49 (0) 30 259 357 29 



Netherlands 




1000 Brussels 

T: +32 (0) 475 47 98 69 

F: +32 (0) 2 219 30 27 




01.09. – 10.12.2012 

TICKETS & GROUP RESERVATIONS 

Uit in Mechelen 

Hallestraat 2-6 

+32(0)70 22 28 00 

uit@mechelen.be 

EXHIBITION SITES & VENUES 

NEWTOPIA is configured in the form of a parcours that will entail a rich 

combination of historical and cutting-edge art, all easily accessible by foot in 

the city centre. It is advisable to visit the exhibition in the numerical order of 

the individual chapters. 

PARCOURS 

5 

1 

4 

CULTURAL CENTRE MECHELEN 

Minderbroedersgang 5 

On map: 1 

http://www.cultuurcentrummechelen.be 

OUDE MECHELSE VLEESHALLE (OLD MEAT MARKET) 

Huidevetterstraat 7 

On map: 2 

http://www.oudemechelsevleeshalle.be/index_2.htm 

6 

7 

3 

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2



01.09. – 10.12.2012 

MUSEUM COURT VAN BUSLEYDEN 

Sint Janstraat / Frederik De Merodestraat 65 

On map: 3 

http://www.mechelen.be/stedelijkemusea 

LAMOT CONFERENCE AND HERITAGE CENTRE 

Haverwerf / Van Beethovenstraat 8-10 

On map: 4 

http://www.lamot-mechelen.be 

SPECIAL PROJECTS 

NEVAN LAHART 

Academy of Fine Arts Mechelen 

Minderbroedersgang 5 

On map: 1 

http://www.academiemechelen.be 

AMAR KANWAR 

Scheppersinstituut 

Melaan 16 

On map: 5 

http://www.scheppers-mechelen.be/ 

GANZEER 

Hof Van Busleyden 

Sint Janstraat 

On map: 6 

http://www.mechelen.be/stedelijkemusea 

KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO 

Grote Markt (Market Square) 

On map: 7 

http://toerisme.mechelen.be/content/8001 

NEWTOPIA IN BRUSSELS 

10.10. – 10.12.2012 

NEWTOPIA Satellite exhibition of Alfredo Jaar 

ING – Cultuurcentrum, Mont des Arts 

Place Royale 6, 1000 Brussels 

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01.09. – 10.12.2012 

THE “NEWTOPIA HUMAN RIGHTS“ HOTEL PACKAGE 

Visit NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights and take your time to explore 

the vivid city of Mechelen. 

Available on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from September 1st till 

December 9 th , we offer you the following Human Rights Hotel Package: 

. 1 night's accommodation with breakfast 

. 1 ticket for NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights 

. A delicious Mechelen surprise in your room 

Category: Comfort 

Hotels: Hotel Den Wolsack, Hotel 3 Paardekens, Brouwerij Hotel Het 

Anker, Holiday Inn Express Mechelen 

Rate: from 50 " per person in a double or twin room 

! 

Category: Superior 

Hotels: Novotel Mechelen Centrum, Hotel Mercure Mechelen Vé, BW 

Gulden Anker 

Rate: from 60 " per person, in a double or twin room 

! 

Categorie: Luxe 

Hotels: Martin’s Patershof 

Rate: from 85 " per person, in a double or twin room 

Bookable directly with the hotels. 

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Images and artworks from the exhibition NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights 

as shown in the exhibition catalogue can be provided for publication use on request. 

For requests on this behalf please contact servicebln@goldmannpr.de. 

Please note: 

All images are free for press release only within the coverage about 


and by mentioning the caption and copyright of the images. 

8. Picture Preview 

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