Produced on the occasion of the exhibition De Afstand, at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, 1 September 1990–7 October 1990.

De Afstand investigated the relationship between photography and reality, by way of the concept of distance. The selected works focused on the representation of nature. Historically, the genre of the landscape painting had presupposed a specific viewing distance as well as the display of a changing continuity and unity in a tableau. The camera, however, cannot present such a unifying picture of nature. It cannot keep a distance. It functions rather as an analytical instrument, cutting like a scalpel into the continuity of the visible world.

Participating artists were: Jean-Marc Bustamante, Paul-Armand Gette, Andreas Gursky, Raoul Hausmann, Craigie Horsfield, Jean-Luc Moulène, Thomas Struth, Christopher Williams.

Stephen Willats has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the 1960s. His work has involved interdisciplinary processes and theory from sociology, systems analysis, cybernetics, semiotics and philosophy. This manifests in wall installations, project works, films & computer simulations, drawings & diagrams, bookworks and texts.

Poster produced on the occasion of Hanne Darboven’s exhibition Quartett ’88, at Portikus, Frankfurt, 17 March–16 April, 1990. The exhibition was dedicated to four outstanding women of the 20th century: Marie Curie, Rosa Luxemburg, Gertrude Stein, and Virginia Woolf. The significance of their work in the fields of science, politics/society, and art/literature in the context of historico-cultural events taking place at the same time is related to the present. The structure of the work is based on an aesthetic concept developed by Hanne Darboven in the past 20 years, consisting of writing down and writing out temporal sequences of events.

Publication produced on the occasion of the exhibtion Man Ray, to commemorate the centenary of the artist’s birth. Travelling to the following locations; Sezon Museum, 29 September–4 November, 1990; Tenjin Daimaru, Fukuoka 14 March–26 March, 1991; Yokohama Museum of Art, 6 April–8 May, 1991; Kyoto Daimaru Museum, Kyoto 15 August– 20 August, 1991.

2 softcover volumes, dedicated to the sculptural practice and photographic practice separately.

Ian Wilson has been exploring the aesthetic potential of spoken language since the late 1960s. His ongoing body of work—beginning with “oral communication” and eventually including his signature Discussions—began in 1968 with the spoken word “time”.

Over the course of the 1970s, his discussions took on a more formal character, and his interests shifted towards ‘The Known and Unknown’, based on Plato’s ‘The Parmenides’. In contrast to a ‘performance’, during a discussion the audience can actively take part in realising the concept of ‘oral communication’. Wilson does not want the discussion to be recorded either on film or audio. Wilson summarises the core of these discussions in a book series entitled ‘section’.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition John Knight: Some Works, 7 April–20 May, 1990 at Witte de With, Rotterdam. Text includes Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Knight’s Moves: Situating the Art/Object and Anne Rorimer, John Knight: Designating the Site.

Since 1969, American artist John Knight (1945) has concentrated on the relationship between architecture, design and art. He bases his work on the interplay between the material object and its contextual conditions, and comments on the meaning of cultural object and cultural space by employing strategies that invert the conventions of production and reception. See more on the show here.