01 september 2023, Pienk de Gaay Fortman
Opening art season in The Hague & Rotterdam
These galleries open their doors the first weekend of September in The Hague and Rotterdam. The choice of solo or duo exhibitions is noticeable, so that the artists are fully in the spotlight. They broach various themes, but mostly do so with their multidisciplinary approach. Galerie Maurits van de Laar, for instance, shows work by Fransje Killaars that is at the intersection of art, design, fashion and architecture. Galerie Ramakers creates an exciting dialogue between brand new work by Ton van Kints and a retrospective by Cor van Dijk. Dürst Britt & Mayhew bring in layered photography by Raúl Ortega Ayala and DJ The Social Lover. At Studio Seine, Carmen Schabracq holds various masks in front of us. Dagmar Baumann surprises with her colourful brushstrokes at NL=US Art. Frank Taal Galerie places the internationally celebrated Astrid Busch next to upcoming talent Tycho van Zomeren.
Fransje Killaars, Paravan, 2011, Galerie Maurits van de Laar
Fransje Killaars - 'The Intuition', Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague
Opens 3 September, on view until 8 October
Galerie Maurits van de Laar opens the season with the solo exhibition 'The Intuition' by Fransje Killaars (1959) featuring work on paper, folding screens, canvases and installations. Killaars creates spatial installations where art, design, architecture and fashion fuse. Because Killaars uses textiles, the viewer feels enveloped and immersed in the effect of colour. Her art has an autonomous quality but also touches on political themes subtly intertwined with it. Like Image of Power (2023) which is inspired by the theme of human rights and the right to freedom in particular.
Killaars graduated from the Rijksacademie van beeldende kunsten (1979-1984). Shortly afterwards, she won the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts. From 1984, Killaars was Sol LeWitt's assistant and worked with MVRDV architects on a proposal for the United Nations in New York. World-renowned designer Issey Miyake discovered Killaars' work in 2004 and invited her for several collaborations. In addition to the exhibition at Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Killaars will exhibit at Museum Rijswijk until 7 January 2024 and Museum Arnhem until 22 October 2023.
Ton van Kints & Cor van Dijk – ‘Deze tentoonstelling is fictie, gebaseerd op feiten’, Galerie Ramakers
Ton van Kints & Cor van Dijk - 'This exhibition is fiction, based on facts', Galerie Ramakers The Hague
Opens 3 September, on view until 22 October
Galerie Ramakers kicks off the art season with Ton van Kints' breezy wall sculptures and Cor van Dijk's sleek geometric sculptures. The image of the artist who must first destroy before being able to create literally takes shape in the case of artist Ton van Kints (1955). Van Kints saws wooden boards into simple, loose parts to reassemble these pieces into a single whole like a self-created puzzle. It involves fitting, measuring and rearranging. In 'This exhibition is fiction, based on facts', Van Kints brings to light his recent work: the series 1+1 and Packages (2023) consist of seductive, shiny, semi-transparent wall sculptures. The attentive viewer is challenged to distinguish between the 'originals' and their 'clones'. Van Kint's oeuvre is in the collections of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Caldic Collection.
From the hand of Cor van Dijk (1952), Galerie Ramakers looks back at his oeuvre. Van Dijk has been working with steel for almost half a century - and that may be seen and celebrated in this retrospective exhibition. There appear to be many constants in Van Dijk's work, rules from which he rarely deviates. There is the steel, but there are also the clear geometric basic elements, bars or strips, square or rectangular blocks that he welds or arranges in a certain way to create a balanced image. Thanks to this summation of mass, open space and the interrelationships of the two, Van Dijk's tranquil sculptures make a strong appeal to the viewer. Van Dijk's sculptures are represented in various public and private collections such as Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Museum de Lakenhal, Museum het Valkhof and CBK Rotterdam.
Raúl Ortega Ayala – ‘Montserrat (a phono-archaeology)’, Dürst Britt & Mayhew
Raúl Ortega Ayala - 'Montserrat (a phono-archaeology)', Dürst Britt & Mayhew The Hague
Opens 2 September, on view until 29 October
In the exhibition 'Montserrat (a phono-archaeology)', Dürst Britt & Mayhew presents an exciting mix of Raúl Ortega Ayala's photography with soundscapes by The Social Lover. The occasion is Ortega Ayala's artistic research on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. Between 1871 and 1958, Montserrat formed a British colony, after which it became a British holiday destination. Due to a hurricane and volcanic eruption in the late 20th century, large parts of the island were destroyed. These areas, uninhabitable to this day, are the starting point of Ortega Ayala's search for objects that have a history with sound. The artist discovered that George Martin, the producer of The Beatles, Eric Clapton and Elton John, among others, recorded as many as 70 albums on Montserrat. This musical buried history on the island is what Ortega Ayala brings to the surface in Dürst Britt & Mayhew.
The grand opening will take place on 2 September with a DJ performance by The Social Lover. The recordings of this soundscape, which will also take place on 22 September and 13 October, are an integral part of the exhibition. On 27 September, there will be a screening of his video artwork at Filmhuis Den Haag. Raúl Ortega Ayala (1973) lives and works in New Zealand and Mexico City. His work has been exhibited all over the world, including Great Britain, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Estonia, the Netherlands and China.
Carmen Schabracq – ‘Iemand, Niemand en Honderdduizend’, guest artist Studio Seine
Carmen Schabracq - 'Somebody, Nobody and Hundred Thousand', guest at Studio Seine Rotterdam
Opens 1 September, on view until 15 October
Can we know ourselves as others know us? In 'Somebody, Nobody and Hundred Thousand' at Studio Seine, Carmen Schabracq's exhibition focuses on this question. The title refers to the book of the same name by Italian writer Luigi Pirandello. In the book, the main character finds out that he has many faces through the eyes of others, that he can never see himself as others see him and that one person is therefore made up of a hundred thousand versions of himself. In Schabracq's self-portraits, the artist wears several masks: a young woman, maker, mother and female artist. Thus, within her self-portraits, she references male artists such as Pablo Picasso, James Ensor and Vincent van Gogh, questioning the role of the muse and taking her place as an artist. Cheerful, playful and with a social statement - Schabracq's powerful oeuvre covers them all. Be welcome and raise a glass to a sparkling season in the presence of the artist at Studio Seine.
Carmen Schabracq (born 1988) obtained her BA in visual arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2012. In 2015, she obtained her MA in theatre costume design from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Commissioned by De Nationale Opera & Ballet, Schabracq designed the masks and costumes for 'I Have Missed You Forever' during Opera Forward Festival 2022. Her work has a prominent place at the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Zuid Oost, Vincent van Gogh Huis and the Akzo Nobel Art foundation.
Dagmar Baumann, 'Until Here' (2020) Hilton Art Lab, Rotterdam
Dagmar Baumann - 'BEING THERE - Gesture of Presence', NL=US Art Rotterdam
Opens 2 September, on view until 1 October
NL=US Art opens this weekend with 'Gesture of Presence', a solo exhibition by Dagmar Baumann (1960). Although created with no more than two or three colourful brushstrokes, a complex painterly space emerges in Dagmar Baumann's work. The act of painting remains palpable in the image, the bold gesture whizzing across the surface of the canvas as if it were air that is then reinforced by the paint. Baumann: "My handwriting is the source of the painterly gesture. It represents the physical, unredeemable moment of action. Each pendulum represents a 'moment'. Layer by layer, the image from these moments merges into a whole." The painter creates her own brushes, resulting in an authentic visual language. Baumann completed her education at Fachhochschule Aachen in the early 1980s, followed by the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. She regularly exhibits in art spaces, galleries and museums at home and abroad.
Astrid Busch & Tycho van Zomeren – ‘Virgin Galactic’ & ‘Vortex’, Frank Taal Galerie
Astrid Busch & Tycho van Zomeren - 'Virgin Galactic' & 'Vortex', Frank Taal Galerie Rotterdam
Opens 2 September, on view until 7 October
Frank Taal Galerie surprises art lovers this weekend by juxtaposing established and emerging talent. In 'Virgin Galactic', Astrid Busch (1968) redefines the artistic boundaries of photography by combining installations, photographs, works on paper, objects and moving images. Her works are often based on architectural designs or places that she examines for their sensory perceptibility and impact on humans. By taking into account the conditions of the places in question (light, sound and noise), different media and time levels flow into each other. Her art is given a stage at numerous international solo and group exhibitions such as Städtische Galerie Dachau, Maison des Arts Solange-Baudoux and Museum of Modern Art Yerevan. Busch received the Cultural Exchange Grant Istanbul, the Paper Art Award at Silver Berlin and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant New York, among others.
The art of recent cum-laude graduate Tycho van Zomeren (1989) also captures the imagination. In 2020, Van Zomeren earned a spot in Galerie Ron Mandos' Best of Graduates. In his second exhibition at Galerie Frank Taal, this promising artist explores the visual frontiers of our perception. Initially, his works appear to be photo-realistic landscapes showing backlighting. However, closer inspection reveals crests of paint and nuanced transitions between rich, dark undertones and brighter hues. Van Zomeren's paintings are both recognisable and abstract at the same time, demonstrating an incisiveness in method. The artist challenges us to enter into a personal relationship with his paintings and explore the divide between meaning and perception.
