If you really want to understand an artist, you should take a look at their studio. In some cases, artist studios are so intriguing that they are recreated, as is currently the case in an extensive exhibition on the artist studio in the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The studio of the Dutch artist Ossip was already recreated in 2009, in the project room of Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Visitors were able to immerse themselves in the mysterious world of the artist. The space was filled with his favourite objects, enigmatic wire constructions, countless photos and clippings and details like a seemingly lost shoe. Until 3 April, Galerie Ramakers in The Hague has programmed an exhibition with a selection from his oeuvre: recent assemblages as well as photographic works from the early 1990s.
The starting point for his associative objects and installations is usually a found photo of an anonymous person. Ossip usually finds these portraits in old (medical) books and magazines from the early twentieth century, which he sources in thrift shops. The final photo selection takes place on the basis of intuition and a certain gut feeling: a certain emotion must be released, independent of the original context of the image. Nevertheless, the images that were chosen often share a certain commonality.
Ossip: “They are always images taken from a scientific point of view. They are always photos that have a certain function. As a result, they are stripped of a certain focus on appearance, of the need to make a photo beautiful.”
The photos are subsequently isolated and manipulated, effectively making room for new meanings and contexts. The artist blows up the photos and adds constructions of iron wire and a surprising combination of everyday objects, from teacups and pieces of wallpaper to chains and brightly coloured balls. But as a whole, the artist's work contains surprisingly little colour.
The works radiate a certain fragility, but are at the same time they can be somewhat ominous and oppressive. Characters who appear to be tied down with ropes or chains, or a chair full of nails. But he also creates carefree characters that seem to come straight out of a historical circus. Some photos are deconstructed and reassembled, after which the puzzle pieces never seem to fit together as they did.
Ossip does not rely on a specific art-historical style and he seems to be allergic to an overly pompous explanation of his work, which should, above all, speak for itself. You can find Ossip's work in the collections of the Centraal Museum, Museum Voorlinden, Kunstmuseum Den haag, the Verbeke Foundation and the collection of ABN Amro.