National Chain 2020 / Social Practices

National Chain 2020 / Social Practices
23 March - 2 May 2021

Among the projects initiated by De Pont during the Covid-19 period is the installation National Chain by the American artist Rita McBride (Des Moines, Iowa, 1960), several of whose works are in De Pont’s collection. This is a reinterpretation of her original work National Chain from 1997. Specially for De Pont she has now produced a version in collaboration with the German choreographer Alexandra Waierstall and students at Fontys Dance in Tilburg.

McBride’s installation extends across the entire central space of the former textile mill. At shoulder height the monumental grid is suspended throughout the space as a kind of modular ceiling. It divides the vast area into segments of equal size. Those who enter the structure can find their ways in a maze of interconnected squares. National Chain can, on the one hand, be seen as a playful intervention that challenges the viewer, but it also evokes the psychological tension of a period in which the individual’s freedom of movement is being seriously restricted. Waierstall adopts this opposition as the point of departure for her choreography, tailored specifically to these times and this space, to be performed by Fontys students in De Pont at various moments. An extraordinary collaboration between local and international artists from different disciplines and generations.

Rita McBride’s installation National Chain has been on show at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf in 2008.