Paul: een officieuze institutionele geschiedenis door de handen van Paul van Gennip = an unofficial institutional history through the hands of Paul van Gennip

Abstract

PAUL presents a personal history of Kunstinstituut Melly through the life, experience, and hands-on-work of its longest employee to date: Paul van Gennip. An indefatigable person, Paul worked at this contemporary art center from its foundation in 1990 until his retirement in 2024. One constant in a place committed to experimentation and change, Paul was part of numerous transformations, including the recent renaming from Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art to Kunstinstituut Melly. A visual catalog created by THE KOKRA FAMILY - the artist duo line kramer and marjolijn kok - forms the main component of this book. It pictures hundreds of objects that Paul accumulated and kept over the years. This inventory contains everything from tools to materials to remnants of exhibitions, which Paul stored throughout the building, whether in Melly?s cellar, archive, or the office areas upstairs. PAUL also includes new texts by Moosje M. Goosen, Roland Groenenboom, Reyn van der Lugt, Vivian Sky Rehberg, and Nathalie Zonnenberg. These contributions are conversation pieces that speak about the contemporary art and material culture of our times, as much as about the inseparable lives of Kunstinstituut Melly and Paul.