25 october 2022, Flor Linckens
Jacqueline Peeters: playful criticism of the art world
Last week and the week before were marked by Frieze Week and Paris Art Week, during which the entire art world travels to London and Paris to see what is going on in the art world. There was a lot of buzz in particular surrounding the new Paris+ fair, which is being organized for the first time this year by the colossal organisation Art Basel — at the expense of the FIAC, incidentally. Often, these powerful art fairs act as a kind of microcosm of the art world.
In addition to the art world darlings of the moment and specific art world trends — for example, work that resembles pieces that are on display at this year's Venice Biennale, thematically or in terms of material — we also saw a critical note from artists here and there. Almost immediately after entering you are welcomed by Claire Fontaine's neon work "Someone is getting rich". And a bit further on, you see an iconic Lily van der Stokker sign with the text "Only yelling older women in here, nothing to sell". The art world tends to be a scene in which many artists are forced to maintain a side gig — and female art students regularly hear from their male teachers that they will not make it anyway because they'll have children, a problem that male artists with children will not encounter, of course.
Until 19 November, Galerie Gerhard Hofland in Amsterdam is presenting an exhibition by the Dutch artist Jacqueline Peeters, who had to deal with similar frustrations. Despite the fact that she won a Royal Prize for Modern Painting early in her career, she was unable to secure representation by a gallery. In the mid-1990s, Peeters moved to Belgium, where she still lives to this day. There, her works took a different, more conceptual direction. She painted over old canvases and gave them titles such as "Unsold painting no. 5". She painted price lists and refers to dimensions and names of fictitious gallery owners. In doing so, Peeters criticises the art world, its arbitrariness and the unwritten (economic) laws that apply there. Yet the works are intended to be ironic and humorous rather than sarcastic. They are in fact the starting point for a personal investigation.
Jacqueline Peeters, Unsold painting no.443, 2021, Galerie Gerhard Hofland
Peeters regularly exhibited her work in the 1990s, but could not make ends meet. After the turn of the millennium, she therefore let her part-time job as a media researcher grow into her full-time job. From 2017, Peeters once again started looked for the purpose that an artistic career can offer. A year later, she started posting her works on Instagram, where she was discovered by chance by gallery owner Gerhard Hofland. He now presents the 61-year-old artist's work in a solo exhibition, which is accompanied by a catalogue. This gives you the opportunity to view her work.
Peeters studied at the Tilburg Academy of Visual Arts, followed by a residency at Ateliers '63 in (then) Haarlem. Her work has been shown in the former Museum Fodor and in the Van Abbemuseum, which has included two of her works in the museum collection.
Jacqueline Peeters, Price list Edna Offenbach to Lee Le Gac, 2019, Galerie Gerhard Hofland
