What happens when circumstances change suddenly, such that your usual working material instantly becomes common place in a different way?
This happened to Sjimmie Veenhuis (1984), when signal tape – a material he often used in an unusual way – all at once started to be applied as a way to make people keep five feet distance from each other.
He was used to using the tape in an aesthetic way, taking advantage of its colourful patterns and optically changing space with it.
Any use of signal tape now would impose an extra meaning of keeping distance and of the corona crisis in general, especially if you make an installation in a limited space, where it is not easy to keep distance. …ism invited Veenhuis to do just that.
The result has become both sturdy and delicate.
It was on show only last weekend, so, here are some pictures for those who missed it.
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Many artists whose works are allegedly based on “old techniques” suffer from a lack of inventiveness, or – worse – from a lack of talent.
That is explicitly not the case with Rik Buter who is a master draughtsman and graphic artist.
His search for invention seems to be compressed into the tiny alter ego of Albi, that Hyperborean little yellow hero, who is confronted with all kinds of strange situations (well, what is “strange.” looking at today’s world anyway?), gets involved in them, but never loses his inquisitiveness.
Buter combines the world of classical animated movies with a deep affinity with Renaissance and Baroque graphic techniques.
Lines and chiaroscuro manipulate Albi’s world and adventures.
In less than 119 square feet Buter presents Albi’s world, with in the centre the new edition: Wimpel om de toeter: de avonturen van Albi, het mannetje op de maan (“Ribbon around the horn: the adventures of Albi, the man on the moon”).
It has become a wonderful book in riso-print, where Albi’s adventures unfold almost without dialogue but with brilliant scenography.
The rest of the gallery shows brilliant originals and some exquisite giclée prints.
However you must hurry to see it all, as the show is in its last week and can still be seen on Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st of November.
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Our visual world doesn’t just exist of shapes and proportions.
Zaida Oenema
Zaida Oenema
There is an amazingly vast micro-world in between, of shapeless structures, snippets, changing light, whirling things, feelings and thoughts.
Zaida Oenema
The world of shapes and proportions is in fact torn apart by this micro-world.
Zaida Oenema
Stephan van den Burg
Artists like Stephan van den Burg (1974) and Zaida Oenema (1980), presently showing their works at Galerie Helder, are trying to get to grips with all this noise and jammer, in both a playful and a conjuring way.
Stephan van den Burg
Van den Burg is, of course, a master of the pencil, that almost seismographic artist’s and craftsman’s material, both precise and sensitive.
Stephan van den Burg
Stephan van den Burg
With each of his works he seems to give you a small insight of a cosmos which may expand almost infinitely in your mind.
Zaida Oenema
Oenema uses different materials.
Zaida Oenema
Zaida Oenema
In some recent works her materials are plywood, pigments and epoxy resin, but they look like whimsically blobbed pieces of shiny tiles.
Zaida Oenema
They show a kind of slow solidifying movement.
Zaida Oenema
Stephan van den Burg
The works of the two artists are an excellent match, which makes for an interesting exhibition.
Stephan van den Burg
The show has been prolonged because of the present situation, so there is no reason not to go and see these wonderful works.
Zaida Oenema
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Façade without doors, part of the Willibrordus House, Oude Molstraat, originally a monastic complex with a long building history.
A plaque says “Melchisedek, priest of the Highest, offered bread and wine. Gen. 14:18. In this building was a hidden church of the the parish of Saint James from the second half of the 17th century until 1878.” Originally The Hague’s Grote Kerk (Great Church) served St. James’s parish, but after the Dutch reformation it became a protestant church and openly being catholic was forbidden in the country.
The shape of the present façade is however of a much later date than the 17th century.
Of course i can’t agree more with the children, and i think it’s very moving.
In addition, the Children’s Council selected eleven favourite statues from the Sculpture Gallery in the city centre (the so-called Pedestal Project) and rearranged them in Grote Marktstraat in between Spui and Wagenstraat in cooperation with Stroom Den Haag.
The only conclusion can be that the kids did a good curatorial job.
It’s basic but sound, straight forward, lively and multicoloured.
Alderman Van Asten and The Hague Children’s Council and Berry Holslag’s ‘Observer’, being photographed by the press, 26 October 2020
Femmy Otten
When Stroom introduced Femmy Otten’s statue, it did so in a less crowded spot, anxious about the reactions of the public.
Femmy Otten
Femmy Otten
The children didn’t have such qualms and placed the sculpture right at the beginning of the commercial hub of Grote Marktstraat.
Ingrid Mol
Ingrid Mol
Ingrid Mol
Ingrid Mol’s sculpture is in fact itself a concoction by children given to the artist and so it couldn’t be missed in a choice made by children, also as a comment on consumership.
Berry Holslag
Berry Holslag
Berry Holslag’s sculpture is placed so as that it will look at you if you leave the cinema.
Rob Birza
Rob Birza
Rob Birza
Rob Birza’s sculpture was chosen because it combines Hindu and Dutch traditional cultures,
Famke van Wijk
Famke van Wijk
while Famke van Wijk’s work has a partly Christian content.
André van de Wijdeven
André van de Wijdeven’s elegant pink sculpture was chosen because if you’re looking at it from the restaurant on the second floor of the department store you will see the inscription with the title on top of it.
David Bade’s Calimero sculpture was placed in front of a chic department store as, according to the children, you shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself, and make the best of it.
Atelier Van Lieshout
Atelier Van Lieshout
Atelier Van Lieshout
To many Atelier Van Lieshout’s sculpture feels a bit awkward and scary but the children thought it was interesting that it looks at you from all sides.
When it was added to the collection some years ago it caused a stir amongst narrow minded politicians who objected to the girls wearing head scarves, but for the children they are just what they are: friends.
Tony van de Vorst
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Whatever your age, there are always worlds around you to discover.
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Not the world of consumer goods – they aren’t invented to be discovered, but to be bought, wasted and thrown away – but the worlds of nature and the mind.
At the moment at Kadmium, Warffemius shows sculptures and Van Leeuwen shows paintings.
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Van Leeuwen’s works seem to particularly fit in well with the present season, with its scattered leaves, spreading a layer of change in colour and structure over the streets and parks, and as such a change in mood and seeing.
Warffemius
Warffemius
Warffemius is fascinated by vegetal growing processes.
Warffemius
Warffemius
To him they seem to have become the alpha and omega of composing works.
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Hendrik van Leeuwen
Being on business in Delft i visited the exhibition the day before the present lockdown started.
Warffemius
Warffemius, Hendrik van Leeuwen
Kadmium is closed at the moment, but the show will be prolonged until the beginning of next year, so there is still time to visit the show.
Warffemius
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For the second time this year i report about an exhibition at Nest which is unfortunately temporarily closed because of a corona lockdown.
Müge Yilmaz
Müge Yilmaz
However after the two weeks lockdown (if not extended) it will be open to the public again.
Müge Yilmaz
The show is shared with CBK Zuidoost in Amsterdam.
Müge Yilmaz
I haven’t seen the exhibition at CBK Zuidoost and i don’t intend to.
Müge Yilmaz
As for the one at Nest i must say it’s a bit austere, as if something is missing.
Müge Yilmaz
As for the contents of the show: if you would be reincarnated, or rather reborn, somewhere in the near future, how would you think the world would look like?
Brook Andrew
And do you suppose that you will recognise in a positive way and with some pride the things you are fighting for in this life?
Brook Andrew
You may say you are not the fighting type.
Brook Andrew
That’s all right, don’t worry, but then you should realise that all your thoughts and actions now have consequences for the future, whether you intend it or not.
Brook Andrew
Will that future be paradise or hell, or will it be something in between?
Brook Andrew
Will you be reborn as yourself or as somebody else in another continent?
Brook Andrew
Raul Balai
Statistically there is a big chance you will be reborn poor and that you have to grab what you can from day one onwards not just to earn a living, but just to be alive, to live.
Raul Balai
Even if you are reborn as your own trusted self in the place where you are now, how will it look like?
Raul Balai
Recently people in this country applauded health workers for their epic role during the first wave of the present pandemic, but a structural and substantial recognition of their importance failed to materialise.
Simphiwe Ndzube
In fact many workers in our world are indispensable for our daily consumer requirements: the miners who dig for basic materials, the farm workers who pick our fruits, the truck drivers who bring products from one end of the continent to another, the deliverers who bring us the products to our front doors, like pizza couriers.
Simphiwe Ndzube
Maybe artist Raul Balai would love to liberate them from present-day slavery and serfdom.
Simphiwe Ndzube
In his work he succeeded to an extent: pizza couriers are honoured with shrines and candles in a chapel of cardboard boxes.
Simphiwe Ndzube
But does honouring somebody in that way really improve his/her life?
Simphiwe Ndzube
The show may give you some stuff for thought.
Simphiwe Ndzube
However, not all works are as eloquent as one might hope for.
Simphiwe Ndzube
Simphiwe Ndzube
Where for instance Müge Yilmaz’s work doesn’t really match its good intentions – in spite of its nice details –, the enormous blown up spirit by Brook Andrew and the lucid installation by Simphiwe Ndzube both have the power to immerse you in their worlds in only one blink of an eye.
Simphiwe Ndzube
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So little in fact, that their works seem to keep each other in balance at their present show at Maurits van de Laar’s gallery.
Peter Vos
Andrea Freckmann
While Freckmann’s way of painting constantly reminds you that it could all be but a dream, Vos’ works make you believe that the characters he paints are both real and abstract.
Andrea Freckmann
Andrea Freckmann
Freckmann changes her daily life, including herself, people and objects around her, into a theatre in which every element adds to the dream of wonder and remembrance.
Peter Vos
Peter Vos
In these theatres animals – dogs, birds – frequently act as a kind of messengers from a parallel world within the parallel worlds of her paintings.
Peter Vos
Peter Vos
Vos shows you the more or less monumental characters of his birds (and some moths too), i’d even say in their full humanity.
Andrea Freckmann
Peter Vos
In three recent paintings he added a lady to his birds, competing with each other in their enigmatic beauty.
Andrea Freckmann
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