When he started teaching by the end of the 1970s, there was a kind of split between traditional craftsmanship and (traditionilised) conceptualism at the Academy, and there was little room for individual artistic development.
Krijn GiezenKrijn Giezen
Both sides took themselves extremely seriously and Giezen, as a newcomer, didn’t seem to fit in very well.
Bram De JongheChaim van Luit
He appealed to the inventiveness and imagination of his students, which was quite unusual at the time (and which is still, or again, a sensitive point at the Royal Academy and in education in general).
Krijn GiezenKrijn Giezen
He didn’t care very much for technique or aesthetics, contrary to what we had learned so diligently.
Chaim van LuitChaim van Luit
“Make a chair!” he told us, for our first assignment.
Chaim van LuitKrijn Giezen
Students who were all thumbs, like me, were initially shocked, but soon it became clear that it was nowhere necessary at all to construct a piece of furniture.
Krijn GiezenBram De Jonghe
His ways of seeing and working didn’t influence me immediately, but later on they did so undeniably.
Semâ Bekirovic
As a teacher he was easy going, accessible, good humoured and never imposing himself as the master who knows all.
Semâ BekirovicKrijn Giezen
That is also how his work looks like.
Krijn GiezenKrijn Giezen
Giezen was very inquisitive about the playful en inventive aspects of humanity, again, not interested in technique or aesthetics, and extremely uninterested in financial and eternity values.
Otterness, who started his career with amongst others the questionable video Dog Shot Film in 1977, made this far more endearing small sculpture (2004) as part of a number of fairy tale figures along the coast next to the museum.
The small sculpture used to stand in front of the museum’s entrance, but was recently removed to stand more near his fellow sculptures, pointing towards the museum (as can be seen in the last pictures).
There is only one big purpose in nature: staying alive at all cost, even if the time span of life itself may vary from just a few hours to more than a millennium.
The main methods nature uses seem to be coincidence and chance. Everything around us happens to be as it is.
Mind you, if evolution had – again, by chance – taken another route, forced by circumstances, we might have looked and felt quite differently (or we might not have existed at all).
In fact nature’s toolbox gives almost infinite possibilities and variations of how we, living beings, look like and what attracts and repels us to make us mentally function in life.
As human beings we can even play a bit with that toolbox and with artificial materials. Peter Zwaan (1968) makes works that give you an idea of evolution-gone-wrong.
Paper becoming skin, beer cans growing skin with birthmarks and hair or the idea of fish fingers taken quite literally, Zwaan makes it all and shows it in a retrospective at HOK Gallery.
Especially on a hot summer day in the tiny gallery – of barely 120 square feet –, you may doubt if you smell your own sweat or that of Zwaan’s works.
Zwaan takes the fun quite seriously which makes his works both attractive and repulsive.
After seeing Zwaan’s work, drinking from a beer can won’t be the same experience anymore.
The show also proves that a retrospective doesn’t necessarily need a lot of space and hundreds of works.
Also in that respect HOK gallery and Zwaan have succeeded in making a good and imaginative show.
Zwei Formen übereinander (Two Forms on Each Other), 1952
I leave you here with this non-representative selection of works, as i’ve written already quite extensively about the show in VLR.
Tachismus 4 (Tachism 4), 1958Napoleon und Brigitte Bardot, 1961Selbstporträt als Astronautin (Self-portrait as an Astronaut), 1968-69Stilleben mit Apfelsäge (Still Life with Apple Saw), 1969The Murder of ML, 1973Selbstporträt mit Maulkorb (Self-portrait with Muzzle), 1973Self-portrait with Butterflies, 1975Die Atommütter (The Atomic Mothers), 1984Jungfrau mit Stier (Virgin with Bull), ca.1988Raketenbasis, Missiles I und II (Missile Base, Missiles I and II), 1989Wangen-, Stirn- und Kinnsensationen (Cheeks, Forehead and Chin Sensations), 1996Nasenfilter (Nose Filter), 1998Die Illusion von meiner Tierfamilie (The Illusion of my Animal Family), 1999Zwei Arten zu sein, Doppelselbstporträt (Two Ways of Being, Double Self-portrait), 2000Ideenfischer (Idea Anglers), 2001Die Trauer (The Mourning), 2003Die unschuldige Blick (The Innocent Gaze), 2008Vom Tode gezeichnet (Drawn by Death), 2011 (detail)
Through the Looking Glass is the first part of the two-year disOrders project by composer Petra Strahovnik and performed by members of the Ensemble Modelo62.
Klára van de Ketterij at Trixie
Last weekend three-hour sessions were held by different instrumentalists each in one of five different locations, dealing each with one of five so-called mental disorders: ADHD, anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder and autism.
Whether it was percussionist Klára van de Ketterij (ADHD) running around a collection of drums and other percussive instruments, cellist Jan Willem Troost (anxiety disorder) grappling with his instrument and his environment, or electric guitarist Santiago Lascurain (depression) in his bathtub with dirt, they all showed an extremely meticulous dedication to what they were doing within the sheer unbreakable walls of their supposed conditions, for three whole hours.
The Grey Space
The performance by clarinettists Enric Sans Morera and Jorge López García (bipolar disorder) and the one by trumpeter Justin Christensen (autism) were even quite similar in ideas of expression: experiments with water and plastic in combination with the unexpected properties of their instruments.
Jan Willem Troost at The Grey Space
In the case of the depression performance, the expression was almost too literal, with the performer covering himself in black mud, and even while the guitar was only playing a slowly transforming sound by itself, one could call it a melodramatic performance.
Jan Willem Troost at The Grey Space
In the anxiety act the public was invited to use a triangle now and then, but what influence that had on the performance was hard to see.
Jan Willem Troost at The Grey Space
Was it an invitation to ease the tensions with the sound of the triangle or an invitation to be cruel to the performer with an unexpected sound?
Santiago Luscarain at Haagse Kunstkring
A confronting perspective is, of course, the fact that sufferers of these so-called disorders have to cope with it every day and night in all circumstances and not just for three hours.
Santiago Luscarain at Haagse Kunstkring
In the mean time one must be completely un-self-reflective or even narcissistic (!!) not to realise that we all have bits of these disorders in ourselves, in spite of the fact that most of us are thought to be ‘normal’.
Santiago Luscarain at Haagse Kunstkring.
They do not just confuse our brains, but may also make us cope with confusing or disturbing situations or stimulate dedication and creativity.
Santiago Luscarain at Haagse Kunstkring
The fact that autism can be most associated with all five acts, is maybe because art itself needs complete dedication both to the whole and to the detail and complete surrender to the performance, whether one is making music or a painting or whatever.
Enric Sans Morera & Jorge López García at PARTS Project
As for the five acts, as said they each lasted three hours which is quite a superhuman effort by the performers.
Jorge López García at PARTS Project
They performed for three hours for four days, and must have practiced and prepared for many hours.
Enric Sans Morera at PARTS Project
That in itself and the co-operation between the composer, the performers, the five art platforms and everybody technically and psychologically involved is a great job.
PARTS Project
In spite of that it should be said that none of the performances were artistically interesting enough to follow for three hours (or maybe that depends on one’s own disorder?).
Justin Christensen at Galerie Helder
Also the question asked by the composer “Can we find compassion in order to expand our concept as a society of what is ‘in order’?” may be a relevant question generally, but do these acts stimulate any answers or reflections on the subject?
Justin Christensen at Galerie Helder
And if they do, are they doing so implicitly or too explicitly?
Justin Christensen at Galerie Helder
Either the question may be too wide-ranging, or the performances need more (yes even more!) aesthetic reflection.
Block of three white plastered houses with apartments in eclectic style, designed by Johannes Petrus Christiaan Swijser (1809-1885), built around 1860, Kazernestraat corner Nieuwe Schoolstraat.
J.P.C. Swijser, who originally started out as a carpenter and a contractor, was a very active architect in The Hague, designing many apartment blocks, villas and schools and also co-designing the royal stables.
Many features of the façade of the block are original, including the doors.
Villa Next Door 2 