Opening PERFORMANCE on Saturday 04.02.2023 at 4 p.m. by Mel Chan and Davide Ghelli Santuliana
The Last Cigarette Before the End of the World
in the presence of the artists
For this exhibition, no text, no words. Images say more than enough.
For what words can you use for the destruction around us? From wars going on everywhere or threatening to start, from climate change and all those people who have been and will be affected by it. It seems like we are killing our beautiful planet. The world will keep turning, but at what price....
Patrick Bergsma
The work of Patrick Bergsma is mainly about man in relation to nature.
Man who sometimes forgets that he himself is part of nature is facing growing problems due to increasing overpopulation. But whatever mess we make of it, nature has a strong ability to adapt and always finds a way to survive under new circumstances.
Mel Chan
Her artistic research traces the complicated relationships between our dystopian situation and the legacy of colonialism and (neo)colonialism. Her work includes participatory performance, hypnotherapy, storytelling, painting and video, and not only guides people to live with the crisis, but is also an acknowledgement of historical causation and an exploration of remedies and hope in times of precarity.
Kim Habers
Kim Habers creates, layer by layer, a dizzying perspective that evokes associations with urban patterns such as maps of subway lines and infrastructural systems. The entirely unique universe she unfolds before us feels desolate. There is no trace of life. The work looks like there has been an earthquake, or landslides. The work is of breathtaking beauty, but even the thought of what might have happened makes one's breath stop.
Judy van Luyk
Judy van Luyk's approach to art seems to protest contemporary culture and its focus on market value and real estate. Her work is characterized by installations, wall objects, video, photography, performance and guerrilla actions, putting imperfections on a pedestal. She goes to work with a drill, or gun to pierce a wall, Just until the object begins to fall apart. Decay can also be seen in her videos, because for Judy it is important to allow imperfections; it is precisely these details that make life exciting and a city vibrant.
Leon van Opstal
Leon van Opstal's work is mainly about the casual way humanity treats insecticides. His work shows the emotions of an artist seeking solutions to the problems he encounters. Because if pollinators become extinct, then we as humanity really have a big problem. Then the food chain is broken and the global food supply is endangered. The solutions Leon comes up with are very fascinating to watch and technically very creative.
Pim Palsgraaf
It is the love-hate relationship with our industrial environment that forms the basis of Pim Palsgraaf's work. His "flat" works are based on the inner city. Empty spaces, old corridors and ceilings about to collapse show the fascination with decay. It depicts the erosion of the city, the 'natural' domain of man falling into oblivion.
Rob Regeer
The sacrifice, the cruelty that is inescapable before the sacrifice is made, it was the most important theme in Rob Regeer's paintings in the late 1980s -while graduating from the Willem De Kooning Academy. The tone was set; this artist's worldview is not very comfortable. In his latest works the rawness returns. In the seemingly attractive landscapes we see the ominous world we live in today.
Art van Triest
Central to Art van Triest's work is the human tendency to conjure our fundamental fear and uncertainty with an order, a system. He sees this as an attempt to get a grip on the world around us, stemming from a deep need for control, or the illusion of control. How fragile that illusion is, we experience when we see it being violently shattered. What remains when the order is broken? According to Art van Triest, beautiful things can also emerge from this, and destruction is not only negative.