The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam breathes new life into the former dance hall and cinema Monopole with art and opened with Silence & The Presence of Everything, an exhibition full of intriguing installations around natural phenomena.
Participating artists: Boris Acket, Carel Balth, David Bowen, Lily Clark, Tina Farifteh, Gordon Hempton, Sabine Marcelis, Lachlan Turczan and Guido van der Werve you will encounter scattered throughout the Monopole. Boris Acket is also guest curator of the exhibition, along with co-curator Sanneke Huisman.
The source of inspiration for this exhibition is acoustic ecologist and philosopher Gordon Hempton. He once placed a microphone on the world while putting on headphones. In his own words, it provided him with an unforgettable experience. Boris Acket and Sanneke Huisman: "We took that feeling as the starting point for this exhibition. You enter a world where you seem to experience everything for the first time, through the eyes and ears of the artists. We therefore derived the title of the exhibition from a quote by Hempton and sums it all up: 'Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything.'"
(Photos: Aad Hoogendoorn)
Still on view through May 31, 2026
More information: monopoleschiedam.nl
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