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Manuela Klerkx , Kunstagent, auteur & redacteur Gallery Viewer
Clarity in art
As an editor of GalleryViewer I was asked to compile my own collection around a theme of my choice and immediately I thought of "clarity". I think that there are relatively many Dutch artists whose work I would describe as "clear". In a typical Dutch way. On the other hand, foreign artists whose work can also be defined as "clear", but in a completely different way. By 'clear' I mean a certain directness, unaffectedness, simplicity, a feeling of 'it is what it is'. Yet, behind that cool surface can be a whole world, naturalness (found materials and objects), a small gesture, a colour or expression, e.g. a sound, that leaves a trace in your head.
I have selected 10 artworks that I associate with "clarity" for various reasons. With each work I will explain what I think that clarity is in. Don't pin me down. It is just a feeling I experience when I look at it. Maybe you experience it very differently. That does not matter. Everything clear?
I have selected 10 artworks that I associate with "clarity" for various reasons. With each work I will explain what I think that clarity is in. Don't pin me down. It is just a feeling I experience when I look at it. Maybe you experience it very differently. That does not matter. Everything clear?
0 Media items ᛫ 21 Available artworks
5 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
In his work, De Paula examines materials and objects in relation to existing structures, systems and spaces. How do objects and materials relate to each other when you change the space, context and structures in which they can be observed or function? His small interventions and surprising assemblages create new shapes and meanings.
4 Media items ᛫ 24 Available artworks
2 Shows ᛫ 3 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
In his practice, sculptor, painter, installation and video artist, draftsman and photographer Klaas Kloosterboer incorporates the abstraction of an artwork, an isolated art form or colour on the one hand, and the practice of doing, in which the action or the purpose of an action is central, on the other hand. Although the underlying meaning of a work may not always be clear, its execution is always playful, colourful and straightforward.
0 Media items ᛫ 8 Available artworks
7 Shows ᛫ 2 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Together with Ad Dekkers and Peter Struycken, Bob Bonies was one of the figureheads of Concrete Art. A group of artists that emerged around 1960 in response to the expressionist period of Cobra. These artists were not interested in emotions and expression, but in the mathematical ordering of shapes and colours. An interview in Museumjournaal with the legendary gallery owner Riekje Swart (1923-2008) mentioned: "To Swart Bonies was all about the shape, about the surface. How he compared surfaces in contrasting colours, always in simple geometric shapes, so that you could clearly observe their effect on each other. "
3 Media items ᛫ 8 Available artworks
6 Shows ᛫ 1 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
In an ingenious way Noor Nuyten shows the extent to which we are governed by rational systems - both natural and constructed arrangements over which we have little or no control. But what if we try break away from it? In the simple image "Measuring Space" from 2010, we see what happens when you try to measure time in centimeters. Due to the fading of the air from the balloon, the tape measure slowly goes down. In this way, the artist shows in a direct and effective manner how much certain processes - and their consequences – impact each other and us.
1 Media items ᛫ 24 Available artworks
9 Shows ᛫ 7 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
This work speaks for itself, but I think it is of great poetic beauty. We see a picture of a blue sky and the sea. The pool of water containing the photo suggests that the seawater flows out of the photo or that the photo sucks up the "seawater" in order to slowly disappear. Water is added every day so that the 'Reverse sea' can continue until the photo breaks down.
2 Media items ᛫ 6 Available artworks
4 Shows ᛫ 2 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
John Armleder's Furniture Sculptures, which he first produced in 1979, are the result of a combination of two realities: that of art and design, the flat surface (painting) and the object (can be anything). As an exponent of the Fluxus movement, he tried to break up the division between art objects and everyday objects by stretching the dividing line between decorative art and fine art, sculpture and ready-made, thus creating a new visual language.
Piet Dieleman
2 Media items ᛫ 13 Available artworks
4 Shows ᛫ 3 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
"If painting itself becomes the subject, as is the case with Dieleman, this requires a radical basic attitude. To achieve meaningful image production, an artist will have to challenge himself to the utmost. Dieleman finds that challenge in a strict self-imposed restriction. It is his choice to work with six colours in a fixed order. The artist himself speaks about "fantastic tools" that enable him to search for enough disturbance to justify the image, "said Willem Baars on GalleryViewer. Dieleman radically examines abstract painting on the basis of self-imposed rules and restrictions that are expressed in a direct manner, without detours. Dieleman is never about what the painting represents, but about what it is, without referring to anything outside itself.
1 Media items ᛫ 10 Available artworks
8 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Jeroen Henneman became known for his "standing drawings", his sculpture "The Scream" that he made in memory of Theo van Gogh, and the portrait of Queen Beatrix. In this particular work, consisting of no more than a glass and a shelf mounted at an angle, a "miraculous" game with gravity is played. The viewer sees only two objects but experiences the tension caused by the influence of imperceptible forces. The result is a "balancing act" that never ends. Simple but very effective. A very exciting work.
0 Media items ᛫ 15 Available artworks
1 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 2 Recommendations
For Yim Ja-hyuk, the world is a flat surface in which subjects are grouped and ordered to arrive at the meaning she wants to give to them. Without perspective, without layers, but through a combination of one or more elements that together form a pictorial image, without further meaning or narrative: a house in a green field, floating leaves landing against a fence, a balloon against a ceiling. Just as a written poem acquires meaning through a combination of words, rhythm and silence, Ja-hyuk’s painted poems derive meaning from the way in which figurative and abstract subjects are arranged. Nothing more and nothing less.
8 Media items ᛫ 11 Available artworks
1 Shows ᛫ 7 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
I don't think I know another artist like Marijke van Warmerdam who is able to create a kind of "vacuum" in time or in our perception in a mysterious yet clear way. She can unmistakably evoke those "what you see is what you get" associations that have an alienating effect on me. Whether it is a floating hat, a moving pouffe, a projection with a moving blossom branch, a parakeet doing its trick in a tulip field or a pancake that goes through the air. According to Warmerdam, she understands the art of creating 'scraped bare images’. Out of the blue. Just as there are, as she points out, "good and bad days." There is no continuity, there are no connections, there is no why. It is what it is.