Foto: Jussi Puikkonen / KNAW Wendelien van Oldenborgh
Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam. Her work focuses on the dynamics of cultural identity in society by communicating the interactions between individuals, often working against the historical grain and in (public) locations, using the cinematic lens to investigate these intricacies, allowing for an alternative public discourse to take place.
She has been working on productions for If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, an Amsterdam based platform for the exploring of performance and performativity in contemporary art and SMBA, the project space of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The work La Javanaise (2012) that Wendelien van Oldenborgh made for the exhibition Hollandaise at SMBA. La Javanaisewas filmed in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam and explores the inextricable ties between colonialism and globalization, authenticity, imagination and performance, in the context of Dutch Wax and its origins (see video below).
Wendelien’s work is shown worldwide in museums and in biennials. Exhibitions include: Beauty and the Right to the Ugly, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2014); From Left to Night, The Showroom, London (2015); Cinema Olanda, Dutch Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, Venice (2017); Cinema Olanda: Platform, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2017); As for the Future, action gallery, Berlin (2017); Power and Other Things. Indonesia and Art (1835-now), Paleis voor Schone Kunsten Bozar, Brussel (2018), sonsbeek20->24, Arnhem
Wendelien van Oldenborgh is contributor and initiator of the book A Well Respected Man or Book of Echoes (2011). Van Oldenborgh received the Hendrik Chabot Prize (2011) and the Dr. AH. Heineken Prize for the Arts (2014).
