@ Hybrid Art Fair 2024

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I presented four portraits from my series New Encounters in the EX-MÊKH exhibition ¿De Donde?. They represent people I notice on weekly walks to the Malieveld in Den Haag. I write a description in my telephone and mail it home. Then, in my studio, I paint the portraits in oilpaint on stone paper. I also write words from the texts in the painting. It is a hommage to Francisco Goya whose drawings and comments I admire greatly.
In the Petit Palace Hotel I presented two portraits on a background of text, written on the wall with one wollen thread and two portraits without backgrounds. Also, above the bed in the room I wrote a text with one red woolen thread: Her spine moved like a snake . The wall was almost black there with blue in it which contrasted beautifully with the red of the text. Maarten Schepers placed sculpture on the bed underneath which in one blink could have been paws of animals, maybe pre-historic, which would have suggested fossiles. On the other hand the work could also have been seen as flowers on a grave or a monument. This would have turned the bed into a place of memory. The contrast with my text, which to me has an erotic connotation, placed above the bed as it was, opened a lot of associations to me. It enables me to eleborate on this way of working.

Her Spine Moved Like a Snake
Maarten Schepers: Flowerfeet
A Sudden Fit of Melancholia
It looks Like They Are Dissolving
left: I Imagine Them Speaking French Inside
right: You Are Right, You Have a Good Point There

Con alma

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Today we discovered a post of the Hybrid Art Fair in Madrid which will start in three weeks. It is coming near and I look forward to visiting the other fairs in the Madrid Art Week: ARCO, JUST MAD-Art Fair, Drawing Room and Art Madrid.
The title of EX-MÊKH’s exhibition will be Con Alma. We take the soul of the collaboration of Ellen Rodenberg, Maarten Schepers and me into the hotel room of the Petit Palace Hotel. We change it into a mirror for our public to reflect on!

Hybrid Art Fair

Les Idiolithes

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This past weekend the opening of ‘Les idiolithes’ took place in Paris. After the first performances with ‘Conversation with a Stone about Freud’s Correspondence about Stones’ executed by Forbes Morlock and ‘Sounding the Stone‘ by Yorgos Dimitriades the video’s ‘Les idiolithes’ by KRAATZ,  ‘Soma(2) – Moksha ‘by Sabine Bürger and ‘Stage Arousal‘ by EX MÊKH are shown for the first time on the sixteen screens on the front of the building.

Stage Arousal ( still)
For a report on the first day (in Dutch): click on the picture!

On the second day the ritual return of the stone is executed: the members of Kraatz pass the stone to the members of EX-MÊKH. After a break the performance ‘Sentiers d’été‘ is executed by Kees Koomen and after another break Ex-MÊKH’s Ellen Rodenberg gives a workshop.

Sentiers d’été
For a report on the second day (in Dutch): click on the picture!

FeMaler

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A-Trans in Berlin asked Ellen Rodenberg to make an installation in their Schaufenster exhibitions in Subwaystation Kleistpark. This season the theme of all A-Trans exhibitions is “A Femme City” dealing with the female gaze on urban developments. Ellen complied and decided to ask her male-EX-MÊKH companions Maarten Schepers and Kees Koomen to design a pendant of her installation focussing on the element of gender in EX-MÊKH.

The exhibition FeMaler will be visible from September 11 until Oktober 18 at Vitrine U – Kleistpark (U7) in 10783 Berlin.
The opening will take place with two performances on friday September 11 at 19.00 h.

“…When do we talk of a female gaze and of a female approach? What does it look like? I decided to engage the men of the EX-MÊKH-collective in this project in order to be able to hold the development of my work against the light of a male/female concept. Two shop windows next to each other, organized with work based on the male/female concept. I had discussions with Maarten Schepers and Kees Koomen about the difference in strategies, upbringing, social behavior and networking. When do we talk about expressing oneself with personal character and where do we observe the influence of gender?…”

(Ellen Rodenberg, 2020)

A-Trans

PROBE

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A trans featuring EX-MÊKH: PROBE

Haus der Statistik, Berlin (D), December 8 until December 31, 2019
The exhibition  and weekend of performances are featured by A TRANS at the Haus Statistik as part of the ‚Pioneer Uses‘ program organized by The Network of the independent Berlin Project Spaces and Initiatives in collaboration with Haus der Statistik.
In this exhibition EX-MÊKH will show their inspiration and working method, the themes that have always been important to the collective. The preceding acts together with the collective of KRAATZ during the performance weekend will be used as fertilizer for the process that will eventually result in an exhibition about the creating of an exhibition.

A Weekend of Performance

Saturday December 6
16.00 h- KRAATZ (Marian Wijnvoord and Forbes Morlock): Writing on Art

17.00 h – Kees Koomen: Tssssss K-BAM
In the context of writing The Diaries and writing down what enters my senses I will now try to visualize the sounds that I hear. Working together with improvising musician Yorgos Dimitriades who will improvise on percussion I will try  to translate this sound into images.

17:30 Ellen Rodenberg and Yorgos Dimitriadis: Feed
In this “In between time”- space of the Haus der Statistiek I want to do a performance in which I will show a working attitude. It originates from a barrel full of experiences in my studio, daily life and education which I feel to be socially and constructively useful in my functioning as a human being.

18.00 h – Saturday December 6 – Maarten Schepers: Stelle

Can we live in any place on Earth and call it Home? What is home? Is it the stuff that keeps us warm? Is it our past we recognize in our surroundings? Is it in the place we act to keep on living? Schepers will try to elaborate on this question in the performance he proposes.

18:30 Yorgos Dimitriadis DUO: Das Sahnehäubchen

Sunday December 7 – EX-MÊKH: The Act

EX-MÊKH was invited to make an exhibition in the space on the invitation of A-Trans which will be shown during the month of December. We came together as a collective that wants to think about the nature and process of making exhibitions. For this occasion the opening of the exhibition will be a theatrical performance about our practice.  We will start a process in front of the public culminating in an exhibition.

In this exhibition EX-MÊKH will show their inspiration and working method, the themes that have always been important to the collective. The preceding acts during the performance weekend will be used as fertilizer for the process that will eventually result in an exhibition about the creating of an exhibition.

www.ex-mekh.nl

Marian Wijnvoord

www.yorgosdimitriadis.com

www.projektraeume-berlin.net

www.hausderstatistik.org/veranstaltungen

MÊKH-web opening

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Foto’s van de opening van de EX-MÊKH tentoonstelling MÊKH-web. Ik heb wat leentjebuur gespeeld met permissie…

Met Connie van Driel

Frans van Lent prepareert zijn performance en Niels Post is met maarten Schepers in gesprek

Mijn jongste zusje en mijn nicht, die overigens art-consultant is, waren zichtbaar gelukkig met de expositie.

Met Stijn Peeters, Cees van den Burg, Jeroen Olberts

Met Philip Akkerman

Frans van Lent continueert de performance: “Don’t touch! I’ll come and fix this as soon as possible” – ongoïng.

Gaatje boren….

Hangk

Maarten Schepers met Pim Piët

The Diaries (September 17 – October 6, 2019), een tijdens de tentoonstelling groeiende wandtekening! Elke dag krijgt een nieuwe aantekening.

In mijn dagboek beginnen zich mooie structuren te ontwikkelen!

MÊKH-web

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The shortest connection between two points is a straight line. When there are more points, a web will connect. Some connections will be used intensively, others find themselves on the edge of the web. In the exhibition MÊKH-web, Ellen Rodenberg, Kees Koomen and Maarten Schepers, will chart the network it has been developing in thirteen years.

MÊKH-web will take place from September 20 until October 6, 2019
The opening takes place September 20 from 19.00 until 23.00 h
Opening hours: September 21 and 23: 13-17h, September 27,28 and 29: 13-17 h, October 4,5, and 6 oktober 13-17 h
Venue: Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives
Toussaintkade 55, Den Haag, Netherlands
During Hoogtij #58 on September 27 the tracks of MÊKH-web can be followed from 19.00 until 23.00 h
The members of EX-MÊKH, Maarten Schepers, Ellen Rodenberg and Kees Koomen, have invited artists that had an influence on them. These artists are Marian Wijnvoord (Berlin), Frans van Lent (Dordrecht) and Niels Post (Rotterdam)

 

Live-web

During the last weekend, October 4,5 and 6, EX-MÊKH will organize a Live-web with a lot more artists from our network. No week will be the same, interweaving will take place by additions and shifts. The public and artists that have been following EX-MÊKH for some time now will know that it is advisable to keep an eye on social media all three weekends. Developments will be announced there.

EX-MÊKH is on Facebook, Kees en Ellen are on Instagram

http://www.ex-mekh.nl/

Kees Koomen

Ellen Rodenberg,

Maarten Schepers

Met dank aan Stroom, Den Haag
Ontwerp Affiche: Ben Faydherbe