De Rijke and De Rooij were invited to represent the Netherlands by Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, Director of Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, who is the curator of the Dutch contribution on behalf of the Mondriaan Foundation.

Since they started to collaborate in 1994, Jeroen de Rijke (b. 1970) and Willem de Rooij (b. 1969) have created a select corpus of 16 and 35 mm films as well as slide- and photoworks, objects and printed matter. Their artistic programme entails a detached and critical investigation of the context, rules and conventions governing the presentation and interpretation of images.

For their presentation in the Dutch Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale the artists have created the new filmwork Mandarin Ducks, in which they elaborate on aspects from their early artistic practice, such as a somewhat distorted use of narrative, combining these with approaches from their more recent works in which a single, steady shot is presented as a tableau containing a wealth of visual information that is gradually revealed to the viewer.

In the new film the tableau becomes a theatrical backdrop for a narrative with a highly stylized character. Through a set of characters the artists explore the tensions between people, in particular those areas where the personal mirrors social and political conflicts.

Mandarin Ducks has a duration of 36 minutes and will be shown at regular intervals in the Dutch Pavilion.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue containing a visual contribution by the artists, an introduction by Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen and essays by Dario Gamboni and Tom Holert.