Welcome to the Unveiling of Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson´s ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG (2019), tomorrow Fri. 8th Feb., 17.00 to 18.00, Keileweg 18, on the Silo of AVL-Mundo Foundation, during Rotterdam Art Week.

| tag: Rotterdam

A special edition of ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG (2019), from artist duo Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson has been commissioned by BKOR and has been acquired by the city collection of Art in Public Space in Rotterdam.

On the 7th of February 2019 during ART Rotterdam the monumental neon graffiti ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG by the artists duo will be permanently installed on the façade of the silo of AVL Mundo. The work was made available to the foundation with the support of BKOR and is a unique addition to the Rotterdam sculpture collection in the public space.

The official unveiling of the work will be celebrated with a toast on the 8th of February 2019, from 17.00 to 18.00 hrs at Keileweg 18 and is open to the public.

About the work
ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG is a work that Rotterdam and Berlin based artists Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson created for the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012): The Unexpected Guest exhibition. Since then the work has been shown in different venues and cities. For the Biennial the artists launched a project and campaign entitled ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG, with two iterations: a flashing monumental neon sign that illuminated the City from the south facade of St George’s Hall, a symbolic landmark of Liverpool; and a free newspaper made in collaboration with feminist writer and Philosopher Nina Power, distributed throughout the Biennial venues, in city libraries, cafes, bookshops, as an insert in the Liverpool Post and online.

ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG newspaper features an article commissioned to Nina Power written in dialogue with the artists. This text addresses the subject of ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG and current global political unrest in a critical manner. The newspaper also confronts us with the paradoxes of a document as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by presenting us with another collaborative critical and satirical text work from the artists with Power ‘The Partial Declaration of Human Wrongs’ inserted in the newspaper. Click here for the newspapers: https://www.cbkrotterdam.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Publication.pdf

Through this campaign, the artists assert that this fundamental right to right is the first step towards a real and communal socio-political emancipation: above and beyond the multitude of international conventions, declarations, protocols and constitutions that specify and regulate the rights that nation-states and transnational agencies have made available to, or withhold from, citizens.

The neon sign reads alternately ThE riGHt tO RighT and ThE riGHt tO WrOnG, and also introduces a new unspeakable word that blends RighT and WrOnG together, visualizing a conundrum. A provocative gesture that points among other at the painful paradoxes of law and justice.

ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG is a project-campaign that functions as a frame for other works, in which the fundamental “right to right” and the conundrum of “rights/wrongs” are further explored within specific cases.

About AVL - Mundo Foundation
The theorems addressed by this work of art fit the objectives of Foundation AVL Mundo. AVL Mundo was founded by artist Joep van Lieshout in 2008 to instigate wanted and unwanted art interventions and make art in the broadest sense of the world available to the public. The art supported by the foundation often dares the onlooker to rethink his or her own notion of society ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG will be revealed as part of the group exhibition BIG and PLENTY, held at AVL Mundo from the 7th till the 10th of February 2019 as part of Art Rotterdam Week.
The free newspapers from the eponymous project and campaign will be distributed during those days as well. In addition to ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG, the exhibition BIG and PLENTY features works by Wouter Paijmans, Neo Matloga and Atelier Van Lieshout. The show is open daily from 12.00hrs till 18.00hrs and can be visited free of charge.

About BKOR
In 2013 the artwork was part of the solo survey exhibition Asymmetry, by Castro & Ólafsson, curated by Adam Budak in TENT Rotterdam. BKOR then investigated the possibility of giving the neon work a place in the city. That is finally happening.AVL Mundo in the M4H area has offered to make its silo available as a carrier. ThE riGHt tO RighT / WrOnG is the first work of Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson in the public space of Rotterdam. According to BKOR, both the artwork and the artists belong in the city collection of Rotterdam.
https://www.cbkrotterdam.nl/the-right-to-right-wrong/
https://www.cbkrotterdam.nl/agenda/kunstwerk-van-libia-castro-olafur-olafsson-in-de-openbare-ruimte/

About Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson
Artists Libia Castro (b. Madrid, Spain) and Ólafur Ólafsson (b. Reykjavik, Iceland) are based in Rotterdam and Berlin and have been working together since 1997.  Previous solo exhibitions include Dein Land Existiert Nicht (BOX Freiraum, Berlin, 2018), “Su destrucción creativa se destruirá a si misma” (La Casa Invisible, Málaga 2018),
Asymmetry (TENT Art Center, Rotterdam, 2013), Tu Pais No Existe (CAAC Sevilla, 2012) and Under Deconstruction (54th Venice Biennale, Icelandic Pavilion, Venice, Italy, 2011). Previous groups shows include Kunsthalle for Music (Witte de With CAC Rotterdam, 2018), The Future of Borders, (1st Autostrada Biennial, Prizren, Kosovo, 2017), Bout (The Reykjavik Art Museum, 2017), Your Country Doesn´t Exist (Galeria Nova, Zagreb 2016), Welcome to The Jungle (KW-Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2015), Take Liberty! (The National Museum of Contemporary Art Oslo, 2014), You Imagine What You Desire (19th Biennial of Sydney, 2014).