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Brief review of 2020: 5 works that last
The Dutch journalist Martin Bril once wrote that New Year's Eve is the perfect day to clean up your shed and chop wood for the fireplace. In other words: the perfect day for things you normally don't get around to. Feel free to make it the short week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. An interval in which the old year has come to an ended and the new has not yet begun. The perfect moment to look back on this strange year.
Due to the pandemic, many exhibitions were partially or completely canceled. Yet, between the lockdowns there was much to see that stayed with me, such as the new work by Ronald Ophuis about the Widows of Srebrenica or the exhibition on contemporary sound art Frits Bergsma curated at New Dakota. Below is a selection of works that stayed with me for various reasons, but that I have not written about before. Some works provided a tool for understanding a genre, others drew attention to a collective experience, and still others are funny or alienating.
Due to the pandemic, many exhibitions were partially or completely canceled. Yet, between the lockdowns there was much to see that stayed with me, such as the new work by Ronald Ophuis about the Widows of Srebrenica or the exhibition on contemporary sound art Frits Bergsma curated at New Dakota. Below is a selection of works that stayed with me for various reasons, but that I have not written about before. Some works provided a tool for understanding a genre, others drew attention to a collective experience, and still others are funny or alienating.
1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 8 Oeuvres disponibles
2 Spectacles ᛫ 2 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
In early March, just before the first lockdown, I visited New York to finally see Blinky Palermo's masterpiece To the People of New York City (1976) and visit Donald Judd's home. No matter how much you look forward to something, it is impossible to predict in advance which work will most impress you. Anyway, the Palermos were not on display and the deluge of Judds and Rymans was paralyzing rather than enlightening.
Just when I was about to leave the MoMa, I spend a good 15 minutes watching My% Desktop (2002) by the Dutch-Belgian duo JoDi (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans). Everyone will identify with the work. JoDi recorded the movements of their mouse cursor with a camcorder. On an immense wall-filling projection, a ballet of repetitive mouse movements, error messages and stacked new windows unfolds. From all these actions, a handwriting, a personality comes to life right before your eyes.
"The computer is a device to access someone's mind," said JoDi of My% Desktop, "we added our personality." It was precisely by emphasizing the user's handwriting that internet art became more accessible to me. My% Desktop gave me the tools to question the medium and genre.
(Gallery: Upstream Gallery)
Just when I was about to leave the MoMa, I spend a good 15 minutes watching My% Desktop (2002) by the Dutch-Belgian duo JoDi (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans). Everyone will identify with the work. JoDi recorded the movements of their mouse cursor with a camcorder. On an immense wall-filling projection, a ballet of repetitive mouse movements, error messages and stacked new windows unfolds. From all these actions, a handwriting, a personality comes to life right before your eyes.
"The computer is a device to access someone's mind," said JoDi of My% Desktop, "we added our personality." It was precisely by emphasizing the user's handwriting that internet art became more accessible to me. My% Desktop gave me the tools to question the medium and genre.
(Gallery: Upstream Gallery)
1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 20 Oeuvres disponibles
3 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
Bloomers in the Woods opened the day before the first lockdown, which meant that hardly anyone could see the first solo show of the Swedish Rijksakademie alumna Josefin Arnell. A shame, because Bloomers in the Woods was as alienating as it was a cheerful experience. The film Now the time of blossoming arrives (2018) lasts only two minutes, but both are guaranteed to stay with you. We see an elderly woman in a fur coat somewhere in a Swedish winter landscape. She is clearly tipsy, singing a cheerful nursery rhyme while aiming at beer cans with a shotgun (with a visor). The scene could have been lifted from Twin Peaks, were it not for the fact that the shotgun actually works. The combination of the nursery rhyme and an elderly woman with a shotgun is comical and terrifying at the same time. The image is so strong that the questions quickly come to mind. Who allows himself to be filmed in such a condition? But maybe even more: who would think to stand so close to an inebriated person with a shotgun? That is only possible if you know and trust that person through and through: it is Arnell's mother.
(Gallery: Stigter Van Doesburg)
(Gallery: Stigter Van Doesburg)
1 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 56 Oeuvres disponibles
12 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 1 Recommandations
When I first heard about French artist Anne-Lise Coste's new exhibition, my thoughts immediately went to the Dutch singer Spinvis. Three years ago he released the album Trein, Vuur, Dagenraad (Train, Fire, Daybreak). As an explanation of the cryptic title, he explained: "Two words are only two words, with three words a story is created. The reader connects them in thoughts and turns them into a story". Coste does exactly that with Poème - Pute - Police. Only where Spinvis' texts are fragmentary and casual, Coste's use of language is at the same time Dada-like and direct. With Coste there is no story in your head, it rather short circuits.
In addition to work on paper, Coste likes to use the spray can. The immediacy of graffiti forces her to work very concisely. She combines her moods with political criticism and literary concepts, making her work full of irony, rebellion and emotion.
This is not only reflected in the title of the exhibition, but also in Pute, for example.
Coste’s painting refers to Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and is about the position of women in society and the jargon that masks that position. Picasso's Cubist masterpiece features a brothel scene. The ladies on the canvas are prostitutes and not a group of mademoiselles, as the title euphemistically suggests. Coste cuts through this by simply adding the word pute (whore), making Pute not only a humorous work with a serious undertone, but above all very effective.
(Gallery: Ellen de Bruijne Projects)
In addition to work on paper, Coste likes to use the spray can. The immediacy of graffiti forces her to work very concisely. She combines her moods with political criticism and literary concepts, making her work full of irony, rebellion and emotion.
This is not only reflected in the title of the exhibition, but also in Pute, for example.
Coste’s painting refers to Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and is about the position of women in society and the jargon that masks that position. Picasso's Cubist masterpiece features a brothel scene. The ladies on the canvas are prostitutes and not a group of mademoiselles, as the title euphemistically suggests. Coste cuts through this by simply adding the word pute (whore), making Pute not only a humorous work with a serious undertone, but above all very effective.
(Gallery: Ellen de Bruijne Projects)