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Manuela Klerkx

Remembering Summer Vibes

My summer holiday is almost over, but the summer feeling will linger. To keep that feeling alive, I've selected a few works of art that, in one way or another, are related to the sun and summer. This way, I can prolong my memories — and perhaps yours too — of a long, hot summer, even if only in a virtual world, a solarium, a jungle, with fire extinguishers or against a setting sun. Whatever it takes to hold onto those 'summer vibes' just a little while longer.

Frederique Jonker

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A solarium is an outdoor space exposed to the sun that is intended for sunbathing, like a terrace in the sun. In Solarium, Frederique Jonker (1991) — who studied at HKU, the Franck Mohr Institute and the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam — interprets this phenomenon in her own way. She often uses a combination of materials and techniques like utility knives, tape and spray paint, giving her work a raw and enigmatic edge. In Solarium, we see a glowing sun seemingly setting behind a green-coloured surface — is it a lawn? — with orangey red rectangles. As if the sun has fragmented into its own, shattered reflection — or are they towels? And does it matter? What we are actually looking at is a painting in which form and colour suggest a sunset and solarium without sunbathers, a simultaneously familiar and unsettling figurative and abstract image.

Represented by Galerie van Gelder

Koos Buster

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The work of Koos Buster (1991), who graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2018 with the now legendary Great Koos Buster Museum, hardly needs an introduction. Rather than celebrating success and happiness, Buster celebrates the inconveniences, doom and pettiness of life. The more ordinary and recognisable the objects he creates, the more satisfied he is with the result. Who isn’t familiar with his ceramic cigarette butts smoked to the filter? Or his ‘decorative plates’? Buster knows how to literally elevate the banal, disastrous and petty to art in an unpretentious, natural way. No Biedermeier, Wedgewood or Gropius here. Give Buster a fallen scooter, a toothbrush or a natural disaster and he’ll make ‘chocolate’ out of it. Likewise with the sun. Naturally in the form of fire extinguishers. After all, why look at life on the sunny side if you can explore the other side?

Represented by Galerie Vriend van Bavink / Galerie Fleur & Wouter

Bertien van Manen

1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 23 Oeuvres disponibles

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The acclaimed, internationally renowned photographer Bertien van Manen (1935-2024), who recently passed away, had the ability to elevate small, seemingly insignificant scenes from life and people — often at the bottom of the social ladder — into a different light with great simplicity. Not by putting them on a pedestal or isolating them from their environment, but by 'lifting' an ordinary situation or a worried face, making the viewer pause at the emotions behind it. It was never about the perfect picture or the use of technique, but about that one moment when she translated something big and abstract like a human emotion into something small and concrete, like the lives of people in a trailer park, young people sleeping in the backseat of a car or a young woman lying in the grass in a red swimsuit, etc. That sense of wonder for the universal human condition in its purest form is present in all her work. The photo Iftsino, Masja is a good example of such a small, intimate moment filled with meaning: on a sultry summer day — possibly somewhere in the Eastern European countryside — we see two young people, a man and a woman, in an open field as they are warmed and illuminated by the surrounding sun rays. You get the feeling that the sultriness of the sunset suggests the tension between these two people, but we will never know for sure — and that’s okay. Our imagination will take care of the rest. We see a man sitting with his back to us and a woman looking down. There’s no conversation or touch, yet something seems to be brewing. Precisely because of that sultry atmosphere. The painting reminds me of Van Gogh's The Sower or Millet’s The Gleaners, in which the grandeur of nature and human emotion coincide with a moment of loneliness (Van Gogh) or solidarity (Millet).

Represented by Annet Gelink Gallery

Toon Boeckmans

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With humour, minimal interventions and playful elements, Toon Boeckmans (1993) references existential themes such as human insignificance versus the cosmos and the search for natural phenomena like our starry sky and the concept of time and space. Boeckmans removes objects from their context and gives them a twist, creating new meanings and connotations. As simple and playful as his objects may seem, they often refer to grand themes like the origin of the earth, the theory of evolution, questions from astronomy or heliocentrism. He manages to reduce complex, scientific topics into colourful monochrome and geometric elements. In Sulphur Sun, for example, he seems to be interpreting the sun as a sulphur crystal, an accumulation of a yellow non-metal (sulphur), which in mythology was often associated with hell. A greater contrast than between the sun and hell seems almost impossible. That’s why Boeckmans’ sun might be a sun of evil that one day will disappear and our insignificant, earthly existence will be shrouded in dark mist.

Represented by Art Gallery De Wael 15

Kubilay Mert Ural

1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 39 Oeuvres disponibles

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In the video Bad Seeds, we see two virtual toy figurines, a man and a woman, in the cargo bed of a truck. Their legs are dangling over the side. Perhaps they are a couple, but even though we see them against the backdrop of a setting sun, it doesn't seem to be a romantic scene. On the contrary. Are they on the run? What does 'bad seeds' mean? Does the title refer to this man and woman being seen as 'bad seeds' (villains, swindlers) simply because they are trying to flee their country in search of a better future? What’s 'bad' about that? Kubilay Mert Ural (1986, Istanbul), who earned his Bachelor’s in Management of Performing Arts and Master’s in Design from the Sandberg Institute and completed a residency at the Rijksacademie between 2017 and 2018, often focuses on social inequality, power structures and human injustice in his work. The insignificant citizen, with a desire for a new, better world and dreams of the future, often ends up disappointed. The reality of life in illegality, without any form of security, causes their dreams to go up in smoke. As the setting sun suggests, life is often less rosy than it seems. The man looks at the woman, who stares ahead with a worried expression. Like helpless dolls, they seem to endure the humiliation of a clandestine ride in the back of a truck until the last sunbeam and last spark of hope have faded.

Represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects