We’re you exposed to art while growing up?
My father was a misfit among his eleven brothers and two sisters. While everyone was studying to be a pastor – or working his way up to become a supermarket owner – my father was sick in bed with severe migraines. Due to the threat of employment in a traumatic war, he spent his childhood reading literature and poetry. In the years that followed, his interest in visual arts developed. We grew up between paintings and sculptures, and the weekends were filled from an early age with visits to museums and exhibitions all over the country. He also started collecting work by CoBrA artists and figurative art by Rudi Bierman, among others. Art was always talked about at home. My father loved being different. In the Christian, bourgeois environment we grew up in, contemporary art was rebellious and against prevailing morality by definition. Deep down he was a rebellious figure with a love for the obstinate.
How did you come into contact with the art world?
As a troublesome teenager, I loved everything my father had collected about Provo. I'm from 1959, so I was just too young for Provo, but their attitudes and actions struck me as revolutionaries, as if they were fundamentally changing the world, and I feasted on whatever was left over in print form.
Later, of course, we still had punk, but in my view that was always just a poor copy of Provo, although the music of Provo was of course a lot less enjoyable.
I went to the Rietveld academy when I was 21 and came into contact with like-minded, ignorant and talented people. It was a practical education concerning the art practice, and at the same time a playground that allowed me always talk about art and find my way in it.
I finished it, but soon found out that life as an artist was not for me. I didn’t make particularly bad art and enjoyed doing it, but something was missing. I then started studying Art History, a time I look back on with great fondness. Slowly but surely a vision and an understanding began to develop. My view, namely that art is subjective, and means something different to everyone. What matters is what it does to you, and what meaning it has for you. You can get the universality of art from books.
For me, figurative elements have always predominated. Art gives meaning to everything that is captured in images. Look at a Rembrandt, for example, which takes on a different meaning in every age. In his statue at Rembrandtplein his is depicted like a Columbus who has conquered the world. While as a child I remember that he was portrayed as a poor slob in an attic room at Madame Tussauds. What remains is that he was important in all times, but that the meaning of his work and the image we had of him is constantly changing. It shows not only how our thinking about art changes, but also how we look at that same art.
What was your first job in a gallery? Or did you immediately start a gallery yourself?
After my father’s death, I started a gallery from scratch. In the beginning I made a lot of shows with works by Günther Förg and Martin Kippenberger. I still remember the beautiful monumental canvas by Albert Oehlen that I showed the first time I participated at the Kunstrai. We are talking about 1998/1999. They were artists I loved dearly and I went to collect the works in Germany.
How would you describe your gallery’s profile?
Looking back, I always knew I would be working with artists. A gallery owner is like an artist, a cowboy; he is essentially free to do as he pleases. I recognize the obstinacy my father had when a visitors came by at our place who looked with horror at an abstract work by Eugène Brands. In 2000 I was introduced to Leo Lippold, who had started a gallery in Tetterode in 1981. It turned into a fantastic collaboration, in one of the most beautiful buildings in Amsterdam. In 2010 our collaboration came to an end and it became my gallery. Then I came into contact with some very loyal people in the art world of the Netherlands who helped me further. Ultimately, my gallery has grown into a painter's gallery of both abstract and figurative art. In the beginning this was quite confusing for the customers, but not anymore.
What has changed in the art world since you took your first steps?
There is so much going on with younger generations right now. Music, fashion, photography and art seem to merge more and more, and the boxes between high and low art – or between disciplines – are broken down with such ease. Liberating actions, which I feel very good about. I think the Jan Hoek exhibition at Vriend van Bavink is a good example of this.
Wat/wie verzamelt u zelf?
I have always collected Photo Brut – that is, photography of outsiders such as Gerard Fieret and Miroslav Tichy. Recently Type 42 (Anonymous), Horst Ademeit and John Kayser have been added, artists I have followed for a long time and of whom I now own substantial collections.
It is immensely satisfying to be dealing with a work of art that you feel was created out of a sense of urgency. That it was inevitable. This is certainly the case with outsiders. Their work is so unfiltered, and not made with a gallery, a museum, let alone an audience in mind. In addition, I also have work by Anton Henning, Andre Butzer, Tørbjorn Rødland and Rinus Van de Velde, and many works by artists that I show in the gallery.
Has the pandemic changed the way you see the artworld?
As a gallerist, I have not been bothered much by Corona. A lot has changed in the world since then. Banks seem to be becoming obsolete with the entire "DeFi" industry of cryptocurrency, and art is getting its place here too, in the shape of NFTs. Very exciting, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I think the pandemic has affected the whole world and that world will never look like it did before. I feel like security, and especially control, is a web we get caught up in. How art will respond to this remains to be seen. That's the beauty of art: it's elusive, fickle and unpredictable.