Witte de With To Present Geoffrey Farmer
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, April 29, 2025


Witte de With To Present Geoffrey Farmer
Geoffrey Farmer, Airliner Open Studio, 2006, Variable dimensions and components. Installation view, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia. Courtesy Catriona Jeffries Gallery.



ROTTERDAM.- Witte de With presents the major solo exhibition in Europe of the work of Geoffrey Farmer, following his survey currently on display at Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain. Opening Wednesday 2 April, 6 p.m.

Geoffrey Farmer creates complex installations that consist of multiple elements distributed throughout the gallery space. These installations activate narratives, which are drawn from diverse sources including social history, popular culture, art history and literature. The exhibition at Witte de With will be a playful experiment that re-explores an existing work titled Airliner Open Studio (2006). It will feature elements of story-telling, writing, performance and process-based sculpture.

Airliner Open Studio is a work structured around a full-scale aircraft cabin, complete with seats, overhead lockers, emergency lighting and cabin windows. Composed of real and false components, this installation transforms the gallery into a stage-set, revealing the influence of the film industry (ever-present in Vancouver) on Farmer’s work, and his fascination with the theatrical: with staging, improvisation, role-play and self-disguise. The artist will use this interior as a rehearsal space, and as a starting point for a number of performances – some scripted, some improvised, alone and with others – performed live in the exhibition space or recorded on video and then presented in the gallery.

Farmer’s preoccupation with the theatrical is also evident in the form adopted by his exhibitions, which enact a real-time staging of change and evolution. Seeking to challenge the apparent timeless neutrality of the gallery and to render the processes of construction visible, he inverts the usual temporality of the exhibition format. Instead of the opening night marking the completion of an installation period, for Farmer it is merely the beginning. He often transforms his installations over the course of an exhibition, working through the night to create changes for visitors to discover each morning, with new elements appearing, others disappearing or being translated into new forms. In this way, his work is “actively worked out in front of the viewer over the duration of the exhibition” (artist’s statement, 2007).

Farmer will be at Witte de With throughout April, making frequent changes to his installation. For this reason, visitors in the first month of the exhibition will be given tickets that allow them to revisit the show, in order to highlight the importance of transformation and process in Farmer’s work. Curated by: Nicolaus Schafhausen, Zoë Gray.

Publication: Witte de With will publish a Source Book on Farmer’s work, edited by Nicolaus Schafhausen, Monika Szewczyk and Zoë Gray, featuring an introduction by Nicolaus Schafhausen, essays by Diedrich Diederichsen, Thierry Davila and Vanessa Desclaux, and an interview with the artist by Zoë Gray. ISBN: 978-90-73362-79-6. Price: 10 euros. Publication date: 30 May 2008.

The exhibition is supported by: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia. Gareth Moore’s solo exhibition also opens on Wednesday April 2 and runs until 4 May.










Today's News

March 9, 2008

There is Desire Left (Knock, Knock). 40 Years of Fine Arts from the Mondstudio Collection

Impressionist Master Pierre-Auguste Renoir to Highlight Modern & Contemporary Art Sale in May at Bonhams & Butterfields

Sotheby's London To Stage Its Most Important Greek Sale to Date

Examining Audubon at Northern Illinois University Art Museum

Art & Science of Brain Function is Focus of Collaborative Dialogue/Discussion

Witte de With To Present Geoffrey Farmer

Conrads Düsseldorf Presents Andreas Eriksson "Content is a Glimpse"

COSMIT Previews April 2008's I Saloni

Susan Fisher Sterling Named Director of National Museum of Women in the Arts

Galerie Sollertis Will Present Katia Bourdarel & Gilles Barbier




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
(52 8110667640)

Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful