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Les collections
Manuela Klerkx
Between art and nature
I don't know about you, but after a holiday in which nature, in the form of endless beach days, long forest walks and challenging climbs, is part of everyday life, it takes some getting used to sitting behind your laptop under a grey sky. Ok, we all take our daily walk an try to keep to the 10,000 recommended steps and the healing, mental effect of a brisk walk. Still, nature is increasingly 'presented' as a problem - think of (extremely) high temperatures, flooding, the forest fires and extreme drought that many countries had to deal with last summer - and less and less as a necessary source of life. And to think that this tendency is due to man himself; the increasingly loud cries of desperation about climate change and the growing need for a radically different relationship between man and nature threaten to drown out the experience of beauty and its essential meaning. In this collection, I discuss the work of a number of artists for whom nature is a source of inspiration. Their works of art offer comfort in places where the laptop rules supreme and where a freshly raked park is the closest thing to nature. Yet, in some cases you can take the art objects as a reminder that human behaviour, no matter how destructive, will never supersede the destructive effect of nature. Not even the art…
4 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 23 Oeuvres disponibles
3 Spectacles ᛫ 8 Points forts ᛫ 3 Recommandations
Life is a balancing act, but so is nature. It’s to eat or be eaten. Elspeth Diederix (1971) is fascinated by nature, which she observes and analyses down to the smallest details. We know Diederix not only from her analogue photos of flowers and plants, but also from her pictures of museum gardens, her folly garden in Utrecht and the unique flower garden she initiated and designed in the Erasmus Park in Amsterdam. With her camera she penetrates the essence of a flower bud, a leaf or a rose that has almost faded. Inspired by Calder, she made a mobile from the greatly enlarged and greyed leaf of the nasturtium. The different petals, large and small, balance each other. That natural balance is often difficult to achieve in art and in our daily lives. And even nature is in danger of losing its balance. Yet, there is beauty in that fragile balance that can be upset by the slightest breeze. And it is the same nature that also ensures that the balance always returns, since every storm is followed by a calm. That is a law of nature that is rock solid as long as we humans do not intervene. If the latter occurs nature also becomes a balancing act, like one of Calder's mobiles: beautiful and vulnerable at the same time. As long as the balance does not tip in the wrong direction.
Represented by Galerie Stigter Van Doesburg
Represented by Galerie Stigter Van Doesburg
1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 18 Oeuvres disponibles
7 Spectacles ᛫ 3 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
The Spanish artist Fernando Sánchez Castillo (1970) investigates the relationship between art and political and/or social power. In much of his work he shows that the power of art and nature is at least as great, but more subtle and often very cryptic. Take the work 'Amazon', a rectangular, bronze wall object on which two black dots are drawn as eyes and an arrow suggests a mouth with the corners hanging down. You can't get around the suggestion of an angry face. You could also see the arrow as a nose in the form of a vertical stripe - ending in a V-shape like a smiling mouth - that have been deliberately been ‘misplaced’ by the artist. You can understand the 'angry face' that arises when you read the title of the work 'Amazon' and you realise how devastating our rulers are dealing with this area. Bronze may be precious and often used as material for a work of art, the Amazon is the richest area in the world in terms of biodiversity and trees, plants and animal species on Earth and as such much more valuable than bronze. If you’d compare the economic value of bronze with the real value of the lungs of the Earth or compare the symbolic value of a work of art with the economic value linked to the exploitation of the Amazon region, for example, then it is clear where the real power lies.
Represented by tegenboschvanvreden
Represented by tegenboschvanvreden
0 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 11 Oeuvres disponibles
1 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
André Kruysen (1967) is gefascineerd door de moderne architectuur maar realiseert zich tegelijkertijd dat diezelfde architectuur een bedreiging vormt voor de natuur. Het rationalisme van de modernen met hun ‘Less is more’ en strenge regelgeving liet weinig of geen ruimte voor speelsheid, het onverwachte, de menselijke maat. Hoe esthetisch de strakke vormgeving, hun visie op functionaliteit en het afwijzen van overbodige details ook waren, ze gingen voorbij aan wat er al was en veronachtzaamd werd: de lege ruimte. Zoals het licht van een lege plek in het bos de schoonheid van bomen accentueert, zo tonen Kruysen’s beelden de kracht van leegte en licht in combinatie met vormgegeven materie. Verwacht van hem geen megalomane bouwwerken die de natuur lijken te willen wegdrukken, of tot de hemel willen rijken. Nee, voor Kruysen is beeldhouwkunst een poging om de open ruimte vorm te geven en er een geheel mee te vormen. Door in zijn kunst de leegte ruimte te omarmen zijn zijn installaties des te meer aanwezig, precies zoals een open plek de bomen zichtbaar maakt.
Vertegenwoordigd door NL=US Art
Vertegenwoordigd door NL=US Art