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The Westerik Foundation was founded in 2018 at the request of Co to preserve and promote his work through a programme of exhibitions, loans and publications.

We are proud to be part of the exhibition The Holding Environment in the Bonner Kunstverein, curated by Fatima Hellberg.

The Holding Environment is an exhibition in two chapters. Between them, a short pause will allow for reflection, reconfiguring, and responding to the changing conditions in which the exhibition is held.

Chapter I
opens Friday, 9 April, 12–9 pm
10 April – 9 May 2021

Chapter II
opens Friday, 28 May, 12–9 pm
29 May – 01 August 2021

With Tolia Astakhishvili, Morgan Bassichis, Gregg Bordowitz, Sarah Davachi, Sara Deraedt, Jason Dodge, Martin Erhard, Annika Eriksson, Ada Frände, Michael Fullerton, Michael Kleine, John Knight, Marc Kokopeli, Pope.L, Carolyn Lazard, Rachel Reupke, James Richards, Marianna Simnett, Niklas Taleb, Co Westerik and Jiannan Wu.

The notion of the holding environment – the slippage between care, dependence, holding and that which fails to hold adequately – loops back in the show in newly conceived and existing works.

The exhibition and its associated events consider care in ways that encompass both its inherent tenderness and something infantilising, sinister or perverse that lies beyond the point where the authenticity of the care becomes unstable. Realised and developed during a pandemic that has intensified tensions of interpersonal dependency and structural fragility, the show speaks of both the urgency and the necessity of care, and of the slippery nature of good intentions in the age of mass individualism.

Formally, this is a show in which containers and thresholds – both actual and metaphoric – are integral to how the space is structured, to how it holds and behaves. That is, the exhibition is understood as having the capacity to embody and relate contradictions that structure psychological and institutional space. The oscillation between the holding environment treated as both physical space and metaphor was proposed by the psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott in works such as Holding and Interpretation (1986). His writings proceed from the figure of the child, not just as a little person under the tutelage of adults, but also as the submerged one, who is without power and must, by necessity, to negotiate states of dependency. Within Winnicott’s work, the child and the act of holding become a way of understanding a minor politics – a relation to be thought of across scales, from an intimate space to a structural and institutional consideration of dependency. Such a shift between the mundane and the structural carries the risk of losing sight of difference, nuance and attention, one reason why doubt and ambivalence coupled with commitment and empathy are all the more important to the notion of the holding environment. This is a show that aims to stay put in that space, engaging with the pitfalls of a corrupted notion of care, but also with paths for rehabilitation, restoration and restitution, negotiated through a non-selfish spirit of holding.

The Holding Environment is accompanied by a series of events, including a specifically conceived performance and composition by musician Sarah Davachi; Divine Drudgery, a publication edited with James Richards and Leslie Thornton, with contributions and work by Horst Ademeit, Rae Armantrout, Tolia Astakhishvili, Ed Atkins, Kirsty Bell, Adelhyd van Bender, Bruce Conner, Fatima Hellberg, Mason Leaver-Yap, Veit Loers, Terence McCormack, James Richards and Leslie Thornton; and talks and events with the writer and poet Fanny Howe the and filmmaker, artist and activist Gregg Bordowitz, amongst others.

Realised with the generous support of Kunststiftung NRW, Sparkasse KölnBonn, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland, Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Stiftung Kunstfonds and Knauber, Bonn.

*Important note for your visit to the exhibition:
For your visit, a verification of a negative Corona test result is required. All official Corona tests with certified verification of the test result will be accepted. This verification must not be older than 24 hours. The certificate must be presented once to the admission personnel. An overview of test stations in Bonn that also offer free tests can be found here: Test stations

Please make sure that you book an appointment in advance of your visit, and for the opening.
To book an appointment for your visit, please email:
kontakt@bonner-kunstverein.de
or call us on +49 (0)228 693936.

The Journals

The artist's journals will be published in print end 2021 in a multi-volume set, in conjunction with the launch of a web platform containing high-definition searchable scans of his entire archive of journals.

Forthcoming presentations include those at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Date to be determined), Fondazione Carriero, Milan (Date to be determined) and Galerie Mendes Wood, Brussels (Date to be determined).

Co Westerik, New works
16th november - 17th december 2017

Paintings and drawings in Galerie Fenna de Vries.
Eendrachtsplein 18
3112 LA Rotterdam
+31104114002

Potato eater, 2017
tempera, alkyd and oil on canvas
130 x 124 cm

Christine, 2017
tempera, alkyd and oil on canvas
60 x 78,5 cm

Open thursday to sunday from 13:00 to 17:00 en after appointment, 25-12 and 31-12 to 3-1 we are closed.

Sadie Coles, June/ a painting show
Elephant Art-magazine