Art in corona times 102. The end of ‘Art in corona times’. What next?

Art in corona times 1. 2 May 2020, SinArts Gallery

From May 2^nd 2020 onwards i started categorising photo reports about exhibitions in Villa Next Door under the header Art in corona times.

Art in corona times 4, 15 May 2020, Topp & Dubio

Art in corona times 7a, 4 June 2020, A.R. Penck, Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Art in corona times 11, 23 June 2020, Mazen Ashkar, 1646

Art in corona times 18, 29 July 2020, Janice McNab, Stroom

Art in corona times 23, 19 August 2020, Caravaggio, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

By that time the corona restrictions were already intensely experienced by the arts sector. These days Covid-19 is still there but the heaviest lockdown measures have been lifted, so Art in corona times will be history for the time being. Art in corona times started with a visit to SinArts Gallery . I hadn’t seen Alex Lebbink, SinArts’ gallerist, for quite some time and he had organised time slots for individual visitors. The idea was that the corona measures would be very temporary and that i would use the label Art in corona times for a few postings, just to see how galleries and other art platforms were doing during the crisis and after that it would be more or less business as usual. However, that proved to be quite naive. Corona became a way of life in which the arts were not seen as an essential need in life. At first artists and other professionals were more or less empathetic to that idea, but as the crisis went on and on, the government’s sheer lack of interest for the arts became a thorn in the flesh of many an art professional, especially after the health minister’s remark that if you cannot go to the theatre you might as well stay at home and see a dvd, as if there was no difference between the two. Last week i posted Art in corona times 101 with some extra footage of the interesting exhibition about Aad de Haas at the Chabot Museum in Rotterdam and that was the last one under the corona banner.

Art in corona times 29, 17 September 2020, Steamboat, Trixie

Art in corona times 34, 28 September 2020, Jessica de Wolf, Artist Support Fair, Quartair

Art in corona times 37, 13 October 2020, Robbin Heyker’s Birding Club, featuring Arjan Dwarshuis

Art in corona times 43, 7 November 2020, Simphiwe Ndzube, Nest, The Hague

Art in corona times 48, 30 November 2020, Sjimmie Veenhuis, …ism

For those who want to have an idea of what was on show during the pandemic Art in corona times is easily locatable in Villa Next Door.

Art in corona times 52, 14 December 2020, Ellen Yiu, A Finger in Every Pie, Royal Academy students’ pre-graduation show

Lockdowns etc are over now but that doesn’t mean the worries about this or any other virus are gone.

Art in corona times 56, 20 February 2021, Ingrid Rollema, PIP Den Haag

Art in corona times 59, 14 March 2021, Paul van der Eerden, Romy Muijrers, Galerie Maurits van de Laar

Art in corona times 64, 9 April 2021, André Kruysen, Galerie Ramakers

Art in corona times 68, 30 April 2021, Zhang Shujian, PARTS Project

Art in corona times 75, 11 June 2021, Marion van Rooi, Jan Wattjes, Luuk Kuipers, Quartair

Covid-19 may return with a more dangerous version, and an altogether new and equally or more dangerous virus may come. The question is not if it will come, but when it will come. The bird flu virus being one of the most obvious contenders in the real viral world. Another worry in the aftermath of corona is the questionable urge of authorities to control everything and everybody, if possible with modern technology. This urge is understandable as authorities of any political colour try to influence social processes for the benefit of society as a whole. However, even before the Corona crisis it has already been proven that this urge to control has turned against citizens, as a holy faith in the objectivity of modern technology, market forces and a reduction of the state to a kind of control device has replaced a democracy in which different opinions in society play a role. Villa Next Door is not the place to make a deep analysis about society, politics, the free market, modern technology, the influence of debilitating conspiracy theories, and a considerable chunk of society that rather believes in so-called alternative facts than in real facts, that prefers evil tales to science. However this is the framework – as i see it – in which art is made, seen and presented today in this country, and i want to be clear about the context in which i give you my reports about exhibitions and art in this blog. After all, you don’t have to agree, but you should know. Another worry is the new situation with the war in Ukraine. One might suggest i should replace Art in corona times with Art in war times. However, the Netherlands are at the moment not at war with any other country. Also, it should be said that another devastating war is going on in Yemen for seven years now. Although this is principally a civil war, it has become internationalised, with other countries in the Middle East intervening. The conflict in Ukraine may have a global significance, or rather, it will have, even if the war itself remains physically limited to Ukraine. That, together with the devils unleashed during the Corona crisis, will bring us interesting but also ominous times. So, in the mean time, i repost some pictures here of some highlights of Art in corona times.

Art in corona times 81a, 12 July 2021, Joseph Palframan. Royal Academy, The Hague

Art in corona times 82b, 26 August 2021, Farkhondeh Shahroudi. Sonsbeek 20-24, Arnhem

Art in corona times 88, 27 September 2021, Yaïr Callender, Kadmium, Delft

Art in corona times 95, 17 December 2021, Casper Verborg, Galerie Helder

Art in corona times 97, 21 January 2022, Yesim Akdeniz, Dürst Britt & Mayhew

Hope to see you soon in real life or in this blog, stay healthy and sane, and keep your eyes open!

Art in corona times 101, 16 February 2022, Aad de Haas, Chabot Museum, Rotterdam

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to all artists, galleries, art platforms, museums and owners of the works.

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 101. Aad de Haas, In the Spirit of Resistance; Chabot Museum, Rotterdam

Some time ago i visited the Chabot Museum in Rotterdam to write a review about the Aad de Haas (1920-1972) retrospective show for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review in VLR (in Dutch).

As I’ve written quite extensively about the exhibition in VLR, I leave you here with some impressions of the show, but not without the strong recommendation to visit it yourself.

Click here to read the review in Villa La Repubblica (in Dutch)

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to the owners of the works, to the estate of Aad de Haas and to the Chabot Museum, Rotterdam

Bertus PietersVILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 100. Albrecht Genin, Ocean Stories; Various artists, By the Power of Omission; Livingstone Gallery, The Hague

French postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) famously paid attention to the importance of margins around texts and the space in between the words.

However, visual artists have always been aware of what is and is not in between the words and in the margins since medieval times.

Texts are not just words that can be embellished with illustrations; they are visual entities themselves that provoke visual reactions.

To Albrecht Genin (1945-2013) texts – not just in the shape of words, but also of music scores and even cash books – were an important source of inspiration.

As far as a book page or a letter are products of the human mind, Genin was one of those artists who take that a step further, as if one way of imagination calls for another.

Presently Genin’s drawings are on show at Livinstone Gallery in an astonishing abundance.

Every scribbled page has become a new story under Genin’s hands.

Indeed, each of his works is worth a close examination.

They are not just products of imagination, they also invite the viewer to use his/her own imagination.

The stories are not just his, they are yours if you take a close look at them yourself.

The gallery also shows a preview of its presentation at Art Rotterdam, which has been postponed to May because of this winter’s Corona lockdown.

There are works by the well known names of the gallery, amongst others Ruri Matsumoto (1981), Raquel Maulwurf (1975), Harry Markusse (1990) and Aaron van Erp (1978).

Amongst them are some recent surprising paintings by Van Erp he already showed in an exhibition last autumn at the gallery, which show ominous beach scenes that seem to echo the current era.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to the artists, the estate of Albrecht Genin and Livingstone Gallery, Den Haag

Bertus PietersVILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 99. Els Snijder, lichaam beeld woord (body image word); Kadmium, Delft

In life (and we really have nothing else but life), it is difficult to deny the transient.

Words, as soon as they are pronounced, are gone.

On the other hand their influence can be enormous and far reaching.

The same accounts for the images of the things around us; they change every hour of the day, they grow, they decay, but they leave an impression.

Let alone our own bodies: you hurt yourself and you feel that something has changed in your body.

The pain reminds you that you are alive; you are as ephemeral as the words you pronounce, but still you are as consequential as they are.

Els Snijder’s exhibition at Kadmium connects the body, images and words, and it shows their fragility and pain.

The exhibition is very lingual.

For the non-Dutch visitor that might be a problem, but that may not be insurmountable as the visual language of the exhibition is so clear.

Talking about the transient: this show has been barely visible because of the very strict Covid-19 lockdown this winter.

So Snijder’s exhibition had to be closed quite soon after its opening and it reopened only last week.

The finissage will be on Sunday January 30th.

If you missed it, take your chance on that last day!

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to Els Snijder and Kadmium, Delft

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 98. Reinoud Oudshoorn, sculptures; Galerie Ramakers, The Hague

Some things in life are as they are, but they don’t always seem what they are.

One of these things is the way we see.

Our stereo view gives us an idea of space helped by linear perspective.

We tend to take this linear perspective for granted as a tool to automatically measure the distance around us.

However, perspective can play tricks on us and as such it has been used in art since the Renaissance.

By the end of the 15^th century you can almost speak of a perspective-mania amongst painters; they all wanted their viewers to believe their paintings were three dimensional.

Architects have also known for centuries how to create space that isn’t really there by means of linear perspective.

There are many examples in architecture, one of the most famous is St. Peter’s Square in Rome which looks bigger than it really is as Bernini manipulated the height of the colonnades around it.

And that is the idea that clearly obsesses Reinoud Oudshoorn (1953): creating space that doesn’t exist.

Maybe that isn’t really the right description as space is already there; it can’t be created, whatever architects are trying to tell you.

Space can only be limited by walls and signs. In Oudshoorn’s work only these signs remain.

They are the signs of space that has never existed, they are the signs that create space in the mind of the viewer.

And it is real space in the sense that the signs are not two-dimensional, but it is not the space it pretends to be. Space, as anything in art, needs to be pretended.

Oudshoorn’s works look like carefully made and measured situations, but they are not just clever stuff; they invite you to look actively; it’s the art of seeing with its own playfulness and its own aesthetics.

Presently his works are on show at Galerie Ramakers.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to Reinoud Oudshoorn and Galerie Ramakers, Den Haag.

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 97. Yeşim Akdeniz, Marwan Bassiouni, Orienting Around; Pieter Paul Pothoven, TK15223; Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague

No, let’s not talk about corona; no let’s not, please let’s not.

There is actually art on show which will present other aspects of the world to you which are as elementary (or even more….) as any virus and all policies around it.

At the moment at Dürst Britt & Mayhew’s there is Orienting Around with works by Yeşim Akdeniz (1978) and Marwan Bassiouni (1985) which deal with subjects associated with what was once called the Orient, or the Near East – today called the Middle East, which is just as remarkable but has nothing to do with the movement of tectonic plates.

Akdeniz shows five works from her recent series of textile works called Self portrait as an orientalist carpet – four of which are quite big and monumental – and an installation, also with textile.

Usually self portraits are approached as a kind of revelatory documents, but taking into account that any personal work of art is a kind of self portrait, Akdeniz’ self portraits are as revelatory as any other work of art.

As such Bassiouni’s photographs are as much self portraits, and they are revealing that what cannot be revealed: a divine presence, just a “presence”, a metaphysical world, a parallel world, or whatever one might call it.

On show are five works from his much acclaimed series New Dutch Views, which present the Dutch urban landscape through the windows of mosques.

While Bassiouni catches both the inner and outer world in his photographs, Akdeniz shows the materiality of who she is or isn’t, might or might not be, is or isn’t presumed to be, but in the end her works are as mysterious as the unseen in Bassiouni’s photographs, and have fortunately very little to do with the lingering identity-and-self hype of our era.

There is also one work on show from Bassiouni’s Prayer Rug Selfies series (presented before at Dürst Britt & Mayhew’s and discussed in Villa La Repubblica here).

There is however a difference between Prayer Rug Selfies and New Dutch Visions in that the Selfies – apart from being in black and white – are smaller, more intimate, more based on performance, while the Visions are more monumental and collage-like.

In their monumentality they are a very strong counterpart to Akdeniz’ Self portraits.

Her textiles are probably the biggest surprise of the show; in their monochrome monumentality they tend to absorb the viewer almost immediately, and sturdy as they look like, they are sensitive and mysterious at the same time.

In the front space of the gallery Pieter Paul Pothoven (1981), in his show TK15223, presents four jigsaw pieces of his lapis lazuli project, which he took up again after a long period of more intellectual work.

Once raw material for the most brilliant and colourfast blue in the art world, ultramarine, which had to be imported all the way from Afghanistan, and which was as such more valuable than gold, lapis lazuli is still mined in Afghanistan, as Pothoven saw when he was there in 2009.

He had some the raw lapis lazuli containing rocks transported back home and last year he grinded them and separated the costly blue material from the other components in different ways.

He retained the grinded structure of the different variants of the more and less pure ultramarine as well as dust of the stone from which the costly blue was extracted, and framed it with postal material and crates with which the stones had been shipped, which, in Pothoven’s work, has a more metaphorical meaning of history, value, hard labour and the different faces of power.

Hence both very fine shows tell something about “the Orient”, its historic and its present day perceptions, but, what’s more, they show works by three artists with great imaginative power, which we need in these dark days.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2022

Contents of all photographs courtesy to Yeşim Akdeniz, Marwan Bassiouni, Pieter Paul Pothoven and Dürst Britt & Mayhew, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 96. Onco Tattje, De Poort (The Gate); Lauwersoog, Groningen province

In 1969 the Lauwers Sea (Lauwerszee), a small sea, was shut off from the Wadden Sea by a dam.

Today it is called Lauwersmeer (Lake Lauwersmeer) and it is situated in between the two northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen.

It is a National Park and a good place for bird watching.

On the eastern side of the national park is the fishing village of Lauwersoog, also founded in 1969, with the ferry to the Isle of Schiermonnikoog.

Also east of the Lauwersmeer National Park is a military training ground.

This monument by Onco Tattje (1943-2017) is in a dike built just between the national park and the military area.

It is a monument for the whole Lauwersmeer project and the refurbishment of the whole area, which took quite a few years.

It is quite impressive as a land art monument. A densely populated country, the Netherlands is not a very obvious place for land art.

As such this is, although not very well known, a very successful example in the north.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

© Villa Next Door 2021

Contents of all photographs courtesy to the estate of Onco Tattje and Lauwersmeer NP, Het Hogeland, Groningen province

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 95. Bas Wiegmink & Casper Verborg, Resending Voice; Galerie Helder, The Hague

Painting is an ongoing tradition, full of wonder, space and colour.

As such it is still one of the most basic of artistic disciplines.

Presently Bas Wiegmink (1977) and Casper Verborg (1981) show their different visions on painting in Galerie Helder.

Wiegmink confronts three dimensional modern architecture and perspective with organic life, often creating a dreamlike unearthly atmosphere.

Verborg refers to, what one might call “the real world” with “real” persons. In a very big diptych he refers to two fragments by Monet in the Musée d’Orsay.

The impressionistic green has been replaced by a glowing red, while the open interpretation of Monet’s painting has been continued.

Verborg’s painting barely fits in the gallery.

The confrontation of the two painters is interesting as they show different interpretations of space; space in perspective, and space in colour.

Personally i greatly enjoyed the exhibition which brings a sense of wonder and warmth in these chilly times.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

Contents of all photographs courtesy to Bas Wiegmink, Casper Verborg and Galerie Helder, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 94. Isabel Reitemeyer, Animal Kingdom; HOK Gallery, The Hague

These days, during the Dutch rainy corona winter, we see reduced versions of ourselves, with thick coats, hoodies and, last but not least, with face masks.

One could say this gives away only our essentials: our movements and our eyes; but what is so essential about these?

Our personalities, the nuances of our movements, facial expressions and even our voices are hidden.

However, in art, and especially in collage art, one can reduce shapes to give them an essential character, either new or an essentialised reduction of the real thing.

That is what Isabel Reitemeyer (1966) is trying to do in her collages, presently on show at HOK Gallery. The works on show reflect on our bred versions of once free roaming animals.

Once proud hunting wolves have become lamentable misfits, and once fierce wild cats have become downy luxury cushions for our pleasure.

What have we done to these animals in our lust for decadence? Don’t hide behind your mask, this is what it is!

Reitemeyer’s collages, skillfully made, are both funny and distressing.

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

Contents of all photographs courtesy to Isabel Reitemeyer and HOK Gallery, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

Art in corona times 93. Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers?; Nest, The Hague

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

On the 25^th of April 1974 – i remember it well – the military and the people of Portugal expelled the dictator Marcello Caetano, who fled to Brazil.

Now the way was open for Portugal’s colonies to become independent and for the Portuguese state to wrestle itself from fascistoid military authoritarianism, a legacy of the Interwar period.

My father, a decent social-democrat, was delighted seeing it on TV and it was as if the revolutionary blood of his pre-war youth ran through his veins again in all its redness.

The revolution became known as the Carnation Revolution as red carnations were put in the muzzles of the soldiers’ guns by the people and by the soldiers themselves.

Red carnations – like red roses – are symbols of love and affection, and of socialism and as such of social justice.

For a flower with almost no fragrance (and with no thorns) this was quite something.

It also reminds me of how at my mother’s cremation the undertaker had changed the red roses we as a family had ordered, for white ones, to our despair.

White roses are bland, without any love or passion. They represent an icy kind of virginity.

Quite different from, for instance, the whiteness of magnolias.

Magnolias represent or symbolise nothing in western culture as far as i know.

That may be because its name was used only from the 18^th century onwards, a scientific name given by a Frenchman in Martinique.

It was named after the French botanist Magnol.

Magnolias had their native range in the Americas, and were later on spread over the world as a decorative plant, and so the name of Magnol and part the history of French colonialism became household, without most people knowing it.

But there is another *imperialist* story connected to magnolias.

They belong to the oldest groups of flowering plants, which conquered the world during the Cretaceous, the age of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and the likes.

Flowering plants became part of the ecosystem of the world that both cultivated such monsters as well as survived their demise.

Maybe magnolias would be a good symbol of survival.

They are not as intricate as orchids, not as passionate as red roses and it may prove difficult to put them in the muzzle of a gun, but they are simple, even a bit primitive. Isn’t that enough?

Can you be revolutionary and like flowers? That is the question.

Well, to many revolutionaries it was quite out of the question.

But still, flowers are silent witnesses, and as symbols of almost everything one could think of, they are indelible in the history of human thinking and imagination.

The wonderful exhibition Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers? at Nest is accompanied by a 78 page publication.

It has a good and comprehensive introduction by Laurie Cluitmans and some text by the artists about their favourite plants and flowers.

There is so much text in it, that it would be superfluous for me to write a long article about it in Villa La Repubblica, although it would deserve it.

Instead here are some impressions of the show and some private musings which may or may not give you an incentive to go and take a look at the show yourself (as long as corona measures permit).

Now that you’ve come here, you might as well subscribe to Villa Next Door (top right of the page)!

(Right click to enlarge pictures)

(All links open in new tabs)

Contents of all photographs courtesy to all artists and Nest, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

VILLA NEXT DOOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVERTISING ON THIS PAGE!!

	Robe bleu, fond roug… on Art in corona times 75. Robe b…
	Sonja on Façades of The Hague #144
	sonjavanderburg on Art in corona times 99. Els Sn…
	Bertus Pieters on Art in corona times 92. John N…
	M on Art in corona times 92. John N…