08 october 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
ALLE-ANDEREN – the ultimate overview of Ossip's oeuvre
The Brutus Space in Rotterdam is now hosting a retrospective exhibition of the Hague-based artist Ossip. Never before has there been such an all-encompassing overview of his work. ALLE-ANDEREN features a selection of no fewer than 500 works created over the past 50 years and highlights all aspects of an oeuvre that is as gentle and poetic as it is raw and confrontational. "The ultimate retrospective," says curator Maarten Spruyt.
Career spanning five decades
The greatest compliment you can give Ossip (born Ossip Snoeck, 1952) is to say that his work resembles nothing else. And that is absolutely true. You could say that the work of this self-taught artist is linked to the surrealist tradition, but the mysterious works of steel wire and early 20th-century photographs from medical journals form a universe entirely of their own, one that really gets under your skin.
Ossip’s gallery owner Catalijn Ramakers had this very same experience when she first saw his work in the early '90s. “At that time, he was working with enlarged photographs of interiors and characters, often from medical books, which he then altered slightly,” Ramakers explains. “You really got the sense that something is wrong with these people.” This was followed by three-dimensional works in which he cut out and sawed figures and images, bringing them to the forefront and giving them a new sense of space.
What becomes clear at Brutus is how dramatically Ossip's work has changed over the decades. In the 1970s, Ossip debuted with minimal collages of text fragments arranged rhythmically, while in the 1980s, he created work that bordered on pop art, with cartoonish figures and images.
Ossip, ALLE-ANDEREN, Brutus. © Laura Siliquini
In the decade that followed, Ossip found the material he has worked with ever since: photographs from early 20th-century medical books and magazines, featuring otherwise anonymous people. This work was followed by pieces that could move using simple wire mechanisms, using weights, clay and lead. In his most recent work, he saws images into puzzle pieces, which he then reconnects with thin wires.
Curator Spruyt has divided the different phases and series of Ossip's career across three large rooms and several smaller cabinets. For example, one room showcases interiors, while another displays early works on newspaper. This layout also clearly highlights the various themes in Ossip's work.
From gentle to confrontational and raw
Spruyt has also worked with Ossip in the past, including last year when he included one of Ossip’s recent works in the group exhibition Through Bone and Marrow, also at Brutus. He described Ossip as “a very sensitive man, and that sensitivity is patently clear in his work. Not only is there a sense of bleakness in every piece, but this becomes even more pronounced when his work is part of an installation.” With ALLE-ANDEREN, Spruyt succeeds in stressing the psychological and emotional richness of Ossip's work. The exhibition progresses from gentle, poetic scenes to confrontational pieces that expose a raw reality.
The industrial setting of Brutus also fits well with Ossip's work, Ramakers notes. “The raw exhibition spaces, with occasional moisture stains, perfectly match Ossip's work. His sculptures are often unfinished, rough and not aesthetically refined. This is especially true in the back rooms, where his darkest works – relentless, oppressive and harsh – are displayed.”
Ossip, ALLE-ANDEREN, Brutus. © Laura Siliquini
Immersive soundscapes
Ossip’s work becomes even more immersive thanks to the soundscapes created by Dick Raaijmakers, a pioneer of electronic music in the Netherlands, for the different presentation rooms. Ossip’s kinetic objects all move at their own unique frequency and Raaijmakers’ compositions of rhythmic sounds make this rhythm a sensory experience. Anduo Lucia, who has made a documentary about Ossip, has also created an art film specifically for this exhibition that zooms in on the movement of the objects, making ALLE-ANDEREN a comprehensive experience.
ALLE-ANDEREN featuring work by Ossip is on display until 8 December at Brutus, Keileweg 10, 3029 BS, Rotterdam. Admission fee: €7.
Ossip, a book providing an overview of Ossip’s oeuvre, has been published on the occasion of this exhibition and is available for purchase at the gallery for €39.50.
