The World Explained on show from 9 December 2011 to 11 March 2012

How do blind people experience colour? How can telling jokes help prevent wars? What is emotion? From 9 December 2011 to 11 March 2012, Tropenmuseum presents The World Explained, a project by Mexican artist Erick Beltrán in collaboration with the population of Amsterdam. In September 2011, Beltrán and a team of young anthropologists began interviewing people in the city, assembling the results in a contemporary encyclopaedia. The results are presented in the Tropenmuseum and visitors are invited to add their own theories to the growing collection at the museum. The encyclopaedia will be bound and published as a single volume together with earlier editions on São Paulo and Barcelona.

Erick Beltrán (b. 1974, Mexico City) drew his inspiration for his approach to The World Explained from micro-history, a genre in cultural history that focuses on personal stories and apparently minor events. These sketch a picture of a culture or mentality of a particular period. Beltrán is more interested in the everyday ideas of ordinary people than in what specialists know. ‘Our view of the world is determined not just by what we have learned about the world or even what we have actually experienced,’ he explains. ‘It consists to a large extent of suspicions, makeshift connections and personal interpretations.’ It is these personal theories that Beltrán gathers together in The World Explained. Together they create a chequered array of ideas, a portrait of the mentality and culture of Amsterdam.

Live print workshop

Beltrán accords personal theories the respect and value of established facts by presenting these in the form of a classic encyclopaedia. The design of his encyclopaedia is based on Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), which is generally considered the first English encyclopaedia. For the occasion, Tropenmuseum’s Park Hall has been refurnished as a live print workshop: here visitors are interviewed and selected stories are printed on three printers. A 32-page volume of the latest Amsterdam theories is available at the workshop, printed on RISO Benelux Digital Printers. These sustainable printers use a sustainable and eco-friendly Soya oil product.

Three editions: Amsterdam, São Paulo and Barcelona

Before this edition, Erick Beltrán produced volumes of The World Explained in São Paulo (2008) and Barcelona (2009). The personal theories he collected there can also be seen at the Tropenmuseum. Visitors can compare Amsterdam’s mentality with that of São Paulo and Barcelona. When the exhibition finishes, the three editions will be combined to form a single complete volume to be published together with Roma Publications.

About Tropenmuseum

Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum presents, researches and promotes knowledge about and exchange between cultures. It offers an experience to a wide and varied audience employing every tool available to museums: presentation, collection and expertise, publication, the historical building, educational and other activities. The museum of the Royal Tropical Institute maintains an international programme relating to culture and development.

The Tropenmuseum strives to present the many dimensions cultures have, each in their own right, by telling their story and giving a voice to different cultural positions. The museum is the perfect location for The World Explained. With its unique use of various media, the exhibition sketches a cultural world view expressed by the population of Amsterdam comprising many different layers. The Tropenmuseum is the ideal context for Beltrán’s Wunderkammer – as he calls his encyclopaedia of personal perspectives – given that the museum has been collecting knowledge about cultures since 1910. The World Explained is the third contemporary art exhibition in a series of four, made possible by the Mondrian Foundation.

With thanks to Mondrian Foundation (Amsterdam), Roma Publications (Amsterdam), RISO Benelux Digital Printers (Sassenheim) and MACBA/Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona.

Open

Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays: 10am - 5pm
Also open public and school holidays (except summer holidays) on Mondays: 10am - 5pm
Tropenmuseum is closed on 25 December, 1 January, 30 April and 5 May. On 24 and 31 December the museum opens until 3pm.

Tropenmuseum
Linnaeusstraat 2
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31 (0)20 5688200
info@tropenmuseum.nl
www.tropenmuseum.nl

Note to editors
For more information contact Nanja Ruiter at Tropenmuseum T. +31 (0)20 5688418, or e-mail: n.ruiter@kit.nl. Visual material is available at www.tropenmuseum.nl(under: press information).
Erick Betran is available for interviews on 9 and 10 December 2011.

Press photos

2011