In the exhibition Neo-beginners, artist Reinaart Vanhoe commented on the city that groans under an excess of imposed meanings.
The city is buried under advertising and marketing slogans (Rotterdam Durft, I amsterdam), and becomes the setting for festivals that are supposed to strengthen its economy and identity. Every square meter must be filled by a banner, a logo, a new complex, a ban or an urban development program. In all attempts to make the city more visible, it becomes invisible, masked by the abundance of images and symbols.
Neo-beginners offered a radical counterbalance to this. The presentation initially seemed like a typical group exhibition, in which a variety of artists, media and activities offered the visitor a promise of dynamic entertainment. And while TENT was indeed the stage for a large number of events, interventions and performances during the exhibition period, Vanhoe's project challenged current ideas about thematic exhibitions. Neo-beginners left TENT's space relatively empty and started anew, creating space for new perspectives on the urban condition, changing narratives and new meanings.
In Neo-beginners the artworks functioned as propositions. The Indonesian artist group Forum Lenteng (Jakarta) stayed in Rotterdam for a month, and reported on their explorations of the city by means of video reports. In the workshops of LAb[au] (Brussels) a fusion of music and visuals took place, creating a new 4D architecture. Sound artist Frans de Waard (Nijmegen), one of the key figures in Dutch experimental electronic music, composed a seven-hour soundtrack. The duo BAVO (Rotterdam) had their office in TENT and wrote the essay 'Plea for an uncreative city'. The video series Under Hypnosis by Matt Mullican (New York) showed the artist in search of a new logic.
In addition to the exhibition, workshops, spontaneous (inter)actions and screenings, the festival The World of Witte de With both inside and outside a program was realized in which the Witte de Withstraat was stretched by Taco Stolk to the end of the city limits.