SAVE THE DATE: Coalescence: Happenstance With All Due Intent
curated by Dr. Paul O’Neill
Join us for the first phase of the exhibition on Sunday 1 December 2024, 4pm - 8 pm.
Let us know if you’d like to stay for dinner by emailing us at shimmerrotterdam@gmail.com

For one year, Shimmer has invited Paul O'Neill to curate a new version of his Coalescence, which has been challenging the exhibition format since the early 2000s. We are thrilled to host O’Neill at Shimmer, where we will explore the potential of exhibitions by involving the artist and audience in an evolving process.

Coalescence: Happenstance With All Due Intent is a durational, accumulative and evolving exhibition-form featuring artists from all over the world to experiment with the exhibition format through collaboration, intervention, constellation and juxtaposition. Throughout the year, artists will respond to each other's works, creating new pieces inspired by or adapting existing ones. Such actions turn the exhibition space into a dynamic environment where artists' works merge into a collective assemblage. This exhibition challenges the boundaries of individuality and authorship, promoting a sense of cooperative and coalescent gathering.

ABOUT THE CURATOR
Dr. Paul O’Neill is an Irish curator, artist, writer, and educator. Paul is the Artistic Director of PUBLICS, since September 2017. PUBLICS is a curatorial agency, contemporary art commissioner and event space with a dedicated library and reading room in Helsinki. Between 2013-17, he was Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, New York.

Paul is author of the critically acclaimed book The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), (MIT Press, 2012), which has been translated into many languages. Paul has co-curated over 70 shows across the world, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost research-oriented curators, educators and scholar of curatorial practice, public art, and exhibition histories, and most has authored and co-edited numerous agenda-setting anthologies on curating. Most recent co-edited books are: Not Going it Alone: Collective Curatorial Curating (Apexart, New York, 2024), and CURIOUS (Open Editions, London, 2024).

This exhibition is supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Gemeente Rotterdam, Cultuurfonds, and Culture Ireland.