Developed with Hard Werken, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

…
There, everything is only orderliness and beauty,
Luxury, calm, and sensuousness.
…

Baudelaire’s poem frames an idyllic gaze for the then newly-formed European Economic Community as well as the conceptual framework for this exhibition of Dutch artists that toured the Benelux countries and beyond. Maps of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg were conflated, indications of land versus sea were abstracted—sometimes inverted; sailing knots and compass needles were drawn; small pots of tight grass in clay pots were grown and nurtured. All became props and signifiers to visually describe the location and proposition of this capital agreement. Water, a constant element in Holland’s history and culture became a leitmotif threading through the book.