Art Gallery O-68 presents two artists with two themes, both as solo. Andrea Rádai: States of Exception and Maaike Kramer: States of Construction.
In 1983, the 15 year old Antillean boy Kerwin Duinmeijer was murdered in Amsterdam by a skinhead. Since, Duinmeijer’s death has become a symbol of racist violence in the Netherlands. The story has always struck Andrea Radai, not only because it provides an insight into glaring racism of Dutch society, but perhaps even more because of Kerwin’s backstory. After migrating to the Netherlands from Curaçao as a child, Kerwin (then still called Kerwin Lucas) had had a difficult relationship with his mother and moved in with the white Duinmeijer family, ultimately even taking on their name.
Years ago Radai stumbled upon holiday photographs of the Duinmeijers. In the snapshots we see Kerwin playing badminton and the family relaxing around their caravan. The images are mundane. Yet it is in their very banality that they offer a striking testimony of a struggle around identity, which in retrospect is radically complicated by Kerwin’s violent death.
In her work, Radai often focuses on the blurred boundaries of the private and the public, as well as on the (dis)comfort of voyeurism. The paintings of the Duinmeijer family form a new, urgent exploration of these themes as the holiday photographs offer an entry point to explore power dynamics in the intimate arena of the family.
Maaike Kramer is intrigued by the perception that, although we aren’t constantly aware of it, almost everything around us has been constructed, and we continue to construct. In the presentation at The Solo Project she will showcase works that focus on bringing underlying, systematic processes to light, showing that spaces are created by people, and that they are a form in which ideas are stored.
She incorporates different stages of the creating process into her work; from the monumentality of
the final work, to the materials and methods that lead up to it. During the creating process, the work goes through various phase transitions, dictated by the materials and methods. Sketches are given a sculptural translation, are photographed, printed, enlarged, cast, and copied.