A school, formerly?

Since the twentieth century, a number of contemporary art institutions have repurposed former school buildings for their exhibition spaces. A case in point is Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. 

Founded in 1990, Witte de With is housed in a nineteenth century building originally designed—and used for over a century—as a public school. At the relocation of the school, however, the art center didn’t fully cease the building’s intended design-goals of being a site of learning. Instead, Witte de With has offered new pedagogies and occasions for collective learning through the arts. 

Presented by the current director of Witte de With, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, this lecture tells the story of the institution’s changing program through its building renovations. The lecture is accompanied with visuals drawn from an ongoing research conducted in collaboration with Michiel Huijben, an artist with a background in architectural theory who lives and works in Rotterdam.

Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (MX) started her tenure as Director at the Witte de With in January 2018, after being the curator of contemporary art at Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in Caracas and New York from 2011 to 2017. In 2016-2017, she was also guest curator at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York. In 2013, Sofía was artistic director and chief curator of the 9a Bienal do Mercosul | Porto Alegre in Brazil, and before that, she was an agent of dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel. In the past, Sofía has been director of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and held curatorial positions in New York at Art in General and Americas Society. She is also a board member of Creative Time in New York.

Photo Credit: Witte de With Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, 2014 by Bob Goedewaagen