Opening: 10 February 2018, 17.00 hrs
The exhibition will be opened by Kees Diepeveen, Deputy Mayor of Utrecht.

BAK new address: Pauwstraat 13A in Utrecht.
 
Prior to the opening on 10 February 2018, from 13.30–17.00 hrs: Propositions #3: Art as Commitment, talks and conversations on the role of art in social movements.

At BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht we are proud to announce the first exhibition in our new venue: Compromiso Político by artist Matthijs de Bruijne. The exhibition features works by De Bruijne as well as Jeremy Deller, Piero Gilardi, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. It takes place in a makeshift environment amid the renovation, so that we share the experience of the building’s transformation with the public. The exhibition will be opened by Kees Diepeveen, Deputy Mayor of Utrecht.
 
For more than fifteen years, De Bruijne has negotiated his artistic practice in a variety of social contexts, and engaged in long-term collaborations with social movements, groups, and organizations outside of the traditional art institutions, including the cleaners’ chapter of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV). A large portion of Compromiso Político is dedicated to this long-term cooperation (2011–ongoing), analyzing ways of bringing together art and social struggles, and searching for connections between artistic practice and grassroots political organizing in the underlying commonalities of precarity; forms of representation and protest; and desire for new images and imaginaries that work toward social justice.
 
A collection of texts by artist Graciela Carnevale, president of the cleaners’ chapter of the FNV Khadija Tahiri-Hyati, and research coordinator of the Beijing Migrant Workers Home Lin Zhibin is also part of the exhibition.
 
On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, a series of talks and conversations on the role of art in social movements takes place under the titlePropositions #3: Art as Commitment. It includes contributions by Matthijs de Bruijne, Graciela Carnevale, Femke Kaulingfreks, Sven Lütticken, Merijn Oudenampsen, and Cecilia Vallejos, as well as a screening of De Bruijne’s work Het Museum van de Straat (The Museum of the Street, 2013).
 
Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the cleaners’ union of the FNV will use the site for their gatherings.
 
The exhibition is curated by BAK’s curator Matteo Lucchetti.
 
BAK’s main partner in the field of education and research is HKU University of the Arts Utrecht.

For more information, please visit bakonline.org.