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Marc-Jan van Laake
Love-hate relationships in art
In 2002, at the height of the economic crisis, Marc-Jan started as an independent art consultant together with fellow-student Joost Bergman. After humble beginnings, many successful years followed until Joost decided in 2018 that it was time for a new challenge as a curator at Beelden aan Zee. Marc-Jan continued the agency and has now entered a partnership with colleague consultant Margitte Verwoerdt. In 2021, he will organize a sales exhibition of erotic art with her. In addition to his external advisory role in the Allen & Overy corporate collection, Marc-Jan mentions the first-ever sales exhibition of activist-artist Abel Rodriguez, which he organized in 2018 as one of his achievements. In 2013, Marc-Jan was the only art consultant in the Benelux to be awarded membership of APAA, an international professional association for art consultants. Members are bound by very strict ethical rules.
This is a tricky story. Almost everyone who looks at art, buys art and regularly visits galleries knows the feeling, but only a few of us question to what extent their view of art is coloured by circumstances that should actually be ignored. This can be anything: a nice or less successful meeting with a gallery owner or artist, the so-called market value / market potential of a work of art, hearsay and gossip, and so on.
The biggest culprit in looking at and judging art is and remains money. From the 1980s onwards, "art critics" use prices and market value in their reviews as qualifications of an artist or work of art. In addition to descriptions regarding form and content, you could read that the paintings would yield loads of money; or that the asking prices were actually very reasonable, given the artist's museum status. Whereas an older generation of collectors turned away shaking of their heads in disbelief, a new buying public became interested in buying. Nowadays, it is completely normal to hear in a gallery that a work by the artist has been purchased by collector A or B and that the artist has already been shown in more than three provincial museums, characteristics that are regarded as raising the status. But is it really a qualification of the work of art or of the artistry?
I have also been guilty of bias with regard to whether or not to appreciate a work of art. After an unpleasant gallery experience in which expectations on my part were not met, I was a little less inclined queue up for the next opening. And I too have sometimes dropped out at a time when the rest of the world also dropped out, although I really try to avoid herd behaviour, or appreciate a certain artwork more when I know and like an artist personally. Maybe I too look extra carefully, or I give him or her the benefit of the doubt while a voice calls out that what is being offered is below average.
I like to tell potential clients about works of art that do not truly reveal themselves at first glance, but grow over time instead. I have often stood in front of a work of art irritated, fulminating internally and fighting my impatience. Funnily enough, it is often precisely those works of art that have stayed with me the longest and I ended up indulging myself completely in it.
This time around my choice for GalleryViewer concerns a number of art works that I fought with and against, which I avoided for a while, but which ultimately did not let me go.
Photo Marc-Jan van Laake: Neeltje de Vries Fotografie.
This is a tricky story. Almost everyone who looks at art, buys art and regularly visits galleries knows the feeling, but only a few of us question to what extent their view of art is coloured by circumstances that should actually be ignored. This can be anything: a nice or less successful meeting with a gallery owner or artist, the so-called market value / market potential of a work of art, hearsay and gossip, and so on.
The biggest culprit in looking at and judging art is and remains money. From the 1980s onwards, "art critics" use prices and market value in their reviews as qualifications of an artist or work of art. In addition to descriptions regarding form and content, you could read that the paintings would yield loads of money; or that the asking prices were actually very reasonable, given the artist's museum status. Whereas an older generation of collectors turned away shaking of their heads in disbelief, a new buying public became interested in buying. Nowadays, it is completely normal to hear in a gallery that a work by the artist has been purchased by collector A or B and that the artist has already been shown in more than three provincial museums, characteristics that are regarded as raising the status. But is it really a qualification of the work of art or of the artistry?
I have also been guilty of bias with regard to whether or not to appreciate a work of art. After an unpleasant gallery experience in which expectations on my part were not met, I was a little less inclined queue up for the next opening. And I too have sometimes dropped out at a time when the rest of the world also dropped out, although I really try to avoid herd behaviour, or appreciate a certain artwork more when I know and like an artist personally. Maybe I too look extra carefully, or I give him or her the benefit of the doubt while a voice calls out that what is being offered is below average.
I like to tell potential clients about works of art that do not truly reveal themselves at first glance, but grow over time instead. I have often stood in front of a work of art irritated, fulminating internally and fighting my impatience. Funnily enough, it is often precisely those works of art that have stayed with me the longest and I ended up indulging myself completely in it.
This time around my choice for GalleryViewer concerns a number of art works that I fought with and against, which I avoided for a while, but which ultimately did not let me go.
Photo Marc-Jan van Laake: Neeltje de Vries Fotografie.
4 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 9 Oeuvres disponibles
2 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
The first work of Michael Wolf that I saw, around 2008, was one of his infinite skyscraper photos. Instant claustrophobia took hold of me. More importantly, I immediately relegated him to the realm of photoshoppers. Large bloated colour photographs were at the peak of their popularity, in large part due to the students of the Düsseldorfer or Becherschule. Hardly an art fair or museum exhibition could be seen without whoppers of C-prints, Lambda-prints, Cibachrome prints and inkjet prints. Some artists know how to "paint" beautifully with Photoshop. I should mention a celebrity like Andreas Gursky here, b I also saw a lot of clearly artificial images created with the aid a computer and not with a well-timed press on the camera's shutter release.
Anyway, I closed my eyes to Wolf's beauty. Even his subtle voyeurism - if you look beyond the architecture and peek in at room level - was not for me. After his untimely death in 2019, quite a few articles appeared full of praise featuring many of his now iconic images. I was taken. Via the skyscrapers, which Wolf enjoyed for days by positioning himself in such a way on the other side of the building that he wanted to capture and patiently waiting for the right light, I came across his equally haunting metro photos. The portraits are of a classical beauty. By capturing the resignation with which the individual puts up with uncomfortable situations and positions, Wolf shows us a universal collective resignation that we all experience at one time or another. One that is sometimes our weakness, but perhaps also our salvation (saving our peace and energy for things that really matter).
Anyway, I closed my eyes to Wolf's beauty. Even his subtle voyeurism - if you look beyond the architecture and peek in at room level - was not for me. After his untimely death in 2019, quite a few articles appeared full of praise featuring many of his now iconic images. I was taken. Via the skyscrapers, which Wolf enjoyed for days by positioning himself in such a way on the other side of the building that he wanted to capture and patiently waiting for the right light, I came across his equally haunting metro photos. The portraits are of a classical beauty. By capturing the resignation with which the individual puts up with uncomfortable situations and positions, Wolf shows us a universal collective resignation that we all experience at one time or another. One that is sometimes our weakness, but perhaps also our salvation (saving our peace and energy for things that really matter).
1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 6 Oeuvres disponibles
4 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
I think I saw his work for the first time in 1998 at the Stedelijk Bureau Amsterdam, once a small hidden gem in Amsterdam’s Jordaan neighbourhood where the Stedelijk Museum had a project space. De Koning had a show there together with the artist Gladstone Thompson. I was a bit younger and less experienced as an art observer. The serene space with architectural interventions might have evoked to a different, more practiced eye, references to Gordon Matta-Clark who de- and reconstructed spaces and buildings. Or Daniel Buren, who typically produces site-specific work and uses colour bands to transform the most everyday places into art. For me it was mostly empty and I was quickly outside again. I had just finished with Krijn de Koning and the likes. Fast forward to 2019. Last year I was with a group of VIP guests from the Parisian art fair FIAC visiting Le Silo, a small private museum about 45 minutes north of Paris. The collector couple, Mr. and Mrs. Billarant, showed us around their life's work. I was pleasantly surprised by a blue-and-white geometric labyrinth-like structure that stood in the middle of the museum, a large old grain silo converted into an art temple. The work is not intimidated by the museum's compelling architecture, nor by the many Carl Andre's, Donald Judds and Richard Serras around it. But it is also playful. It was great to see adult visitors walk through it and feel like a child again. Since that visit, I have been looking at De Koning’s work with completely different pair of eyes, whether they are large installations or the small, model-like works of art, which De Koning calls Tumbling Works and which you can play at will.
3 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 18 Oeuvres disponibles
5 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 3 Recommandations
Sometimes I am just tired of an artist who has received too much attention or whose work I may have seen too many times. For me, this happened to the work of artist Erik van Lieshout. For years I enjoyed the work immensely. It started with his absurd paintings such as "Neger aan het spit" (Negro on a spit, 1994), collection Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam. I wonder how often would that one be on display these days? Or the wonderful 'Painting with balls' (1999), collection of the Fries Museum, a kind of bullying reference to Rene Daniels. I have seen most of the films that Van Lieshout made and if they didn't already make me laugh or move me, they certainly make me think.
In a film by Pieter Verhoeff, Van Lieshout gives a definition of an artist: someone who has something to say about society, but who is not in politics or science. I think that's a beautiful and true description, although I know many artists who don't care at all. Van Lieshout's drawings are provocative, wanton, impudent and violent, sometimes downright lazy, but more often virtuoso. As an art consultant, it was difficult to find something that the average client was enthusiastic about. Fortunately for me people fell for his raw, but striking lines. But at one point I was saturated. The inevitable wall with drawings and a video in a rickety booth at every fair. In addition, I was less fascinated by his later, often small collages of coloured and painted tape. They still came into their own on a large format, but as A4 and A3 works I kept looking at the technology instead of a work of art. To be clear, my gradual disinterest had little to do with the quality of Van Lieshout. I describe it because it is a process that I also see a lot around me. To put it plainly: the lazy feeling of “we know this, on to the next story”. For a few years I left it aside. Fortunately, and that is the power of an ADHD talent like Van Lieshout, an artist sometimes manages to really grab me after a few years. I do not need to see the video that accompanies this drawing, I give it my own interpretation. Personally, I feel like I am watching a t family member from Brabant, sitting next to the billiards table, contemplating his previous, miserably failed ball while his opponent now can finish the game. Nice if you can evoke something like that.
In a film by Pieter Verhoeff, Van Lieshout gives a definition of an artist: someone who has something to say about society, but who is not in politics or science. I think that's a beautiful and true description, although I know many artists who don't care at all. Van Lieshout's drawings are provocative, wanton, impudent and violent, sometimes downright lazy, but more often virtuoso. As an art consultant, it was difficult to find something that the average client was enthusiastic about. Fortunately for me people fell for his raw, but striking lines. But at one point I was saturated. The inevitable wall with drawings and a video in a rickety booth at every fair. In addition, I was less fascinated by his later, often small collages of coloured and painted tape. They still came into their own on a large format, but as A4 and A3 works I kept looking at the technology instead of a work of art. To be clear, my gradual disinterest had little to do with the quality of Van Lieshout. I describe it because it is a process that I also see a lot around me. To put it plainly: the lazy feeling of “we know this, on to the next story”. For a few years I left it aside. Fortunately, and that is the power of an ADHD talent like Van Lieshout, an artist sometimes manages to really grab me after a few years. I do not need to see the video that accompanies this drawing, I give it my own interpretation. Personally, I feel like I am watching a t family member from Brabant, sitting next to the billiards table, contemplating his previous, miserably failed ball while his opponent now can finish the game. Nice if you can evoke something like that.
2 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 17 Oeuvres disponibles
2 Spectacles ᛫ 15 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
Michael Kirkham is another artist which people either love or hate. I've been part of both camps. The first show I saw at the Hofland gallery made a big impression. Kirkham undeniably has his own recognizable style of painting. The straightforward images were bold and in-your-face. Something is brewing beneath the surface. The first thing that comes to mind is that most of Kirkham's characters could use a psychologist. Not necessarily because their imagined explicit needs or desires deviate from normality, but also because does not seem to be a real connection. Not between the characters themselves or between the characters and the world. The figures look away from the viewer and looking away seems to have little to do with shame, rather a kind of lacklustre resignation about their own behaviour. Sex in Kirkham's paintings is devoid of eroticism and has become an act. If you still get aroused by these actions, Kirkham will make sure that your lust dissipates through a carefully arranged gloomy setting.
I once came into possession of a small drawing by Kirkham, or rather, I was allowed to pick one from a series. While making my choice, I remember considering which one would the most lustful or stimulating in my choice. I quickly let go of that thought. I am still very happy with the drawing, but it did not become a "bedroom piece". It would spoil the fun because as far as Kirkham's art would propagate eroticism it is certainly not my eroticism. Once this idea had taken hold of me, I didn't need to anymore. For a few years I stuck to this. Unfairly, of course, there are countless painters of unappetizing nudes, male or female, who are etched in my and our collective memory. The difference between attractiveness and beauty in the arts has been debated for centuries. Aristotle rightly argued that there is beauty without attraction. Now, a little older and a little more refined, I see great beauty in Kirkham’s paintings. The dark side also belongs to humans. Voyeurism and exhibitionistism is in us. One person displays it on social media, the other buys binoculars. Kirkham’s characters silently display their needs and Kirkham sublimely captures everything with his hidden brush. What his motive is for all this, I’d like to hear some time.
I once came into possession of a small drawing by Kirkham, or rather, I was allowed to pick one from a series. While making my choice, I remember considering which one would the most lustful or stimulating in my choice. I quickly let go of that thought. I am still very happy with the drawing, but it did not become a "bedroom piece". It would spoil the fun because as far as Kirkham's art would propagate eroticism it is certainly not my eroticism. Once this idea had taken hold of me, I didn't need to anymore. For a few years I stuck to this. Unfairly, of course, there are countless painters of unappetizing nudes, male or female, who are etched in my and our collective memory. The difference between attractiveness and beauty in the arts has been debated for centuries. Aristotle rightly argued that there is beauty without attraction. Now, a little older and a little more refined, I see great beauty in Kirkham’s paintings. The dark side also belongs to humans. Voyeurism and exhibitionistism is in us. One person displays it on social media, the other buys binoculars. Kirkham’s characters silently display their needs and Kirkham sublimely captures everything with his hidden brush. What his motive is for all this, I’d like to hear some time.
3 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 16 Oeuvres disponibles
3 Spectacles ᛫ 4 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
Above I wrote about the art market’s temporary darlings as a result of some sort of herd behaviour in the art market. Fortunately, it is not too bad in the Netherlands, but I have experienced harrowing moments on the international stage. When an artist is in favour, everyone is vying for it. Sometimes collectors are even willing to buy less popular names to get a foot in the door at a power gallery that ultimately determines who gets what and whether that person gets something at all. And whoever gets thrown a breadcrumb had better make a quick decision, or he or she will be at the back of the line in no time. I don't even know if it's gradual or sudden, but as an artist you wake up one day and the collective hunger for your work seems to have disappeared. This happened to Folkert de Jong. He stormed the world from 2000 with his unpolished PU foam sculptures. Suddenly the Netherlands had its own subversive image maker in the spirit of Paul McCarthy. Museum shows fell to him and there was great international interest. Gallery presentations quickly sold out and so-called waiting lists arose. It is not entirely clear to me where the great turnaround came about. There were some business troubles and overnight the prominent British collector Charles Saatchi dumped a lot of his speculative purchases from the younger segment , including a large installation by Folkert de Jong. The seven fat years were over.
De Jong has never really left my mind and while I previously used his artistic uniqueness to praise his work, now it suddenly was the relatively low price level. At auction viewing days, beautiful work of his were offered as if they were scrap metal, like a teddy bear once cherished and loved, but now left behind. In the meantime, Folkert de Jong seems to have reinvented himself and fortunately the low point is over. There are once again beautiful gallery and museum exhibitions and thanks to his roller-coaster career, a potential buyer can now talk to De Jong’s gallerist in peace. There are beautiful works from different periods available, certainly not breadcrumbs!
De Jong has never really left my mind and while I previously used his artistic uniqueness to praise his work, now it suddenly was the relatively low price level. At auction viewing days, beautiful work of his were offered as if they were scrap metal, like a teddy bear once cherished and loved, but now left behind. In the meantime, Folkert de Jong seems to have reinvented himself and fortunately the low point is over. There are once again beautiful gallery and museum exhibitions and thanks to his roller-coaster career, a potential buyer can now talk to De Jong’s gallerist in peace. There are beautiful works from different periods available, certainly not breadcrumbs!