In October of 1990 Witte de With in Rotterdam held the first of their Voorwerk series, which featured works by Doriana Chiarini, Aernout Mik, Fiona Rae and Kay Rosen.
Voorwerk translates to "preliminary work" and the series featured then-younger and emerging artists, with the intention to provide "the first substantial presentation of works by relatively unknown artists".
Italian artist Doriana Chiarini presented elegant objects that combined design and art. Aernout Mik showed his Dummies series, which consists of cushions from photographic linen, loosely modeled after the human body, that are photographically printed with children’s portraits. Fiona Rae exhibited abstract works and Kay Rosen presented textual paintings rich with visual jokes, taken from everyday conversation, pulp novels and telephone directories.
$ 1,000