@ 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

Teaser

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EX-MÊKH is preparing for the Hybrid Art Fair and experimenting with their materials. Here some try-outs by Kees Koomen who is looking for a interesting way to present his series of New Encounters The work is intended as an homage to the sketches Goya made in the streets of Madrid and elsewhere. Those drawings and etchings were my favourite artworks in art-school:

Francisco Goya: Este tiene muchos patientes y algunos racionales
I imagine them talking French inside
I imagine them talking French inside
Inti baladi…
Inti baladi…

Benefit auction De Aanschouw

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Auctionmaster Auke Triesschein hits the hammer, in this case for work of Toine “Dutch Bushman” Klaasen

De Aanschouw is the smallest gallery in The Netherlands. Until now it’s location is in the Witte de With straat in Rotterdam, better known for its terraces and art centres Melly and TENT. The gallery is a showcase across from where the NRC was once produced. Once the newspaper was ready for print the first newspaper to come out was shown in the showcase across the street, next to café De Schouw. The bar was famous for its clientèle amongst which artists, writers and editors of NRC. When De Aanschouw started it showed an art piece once a week. The initiators invited curators to present weekly art pieces. Daan den Houter, famous Rotterdam artist, started his project Overschilderschilderij here also. After painting a self-portrait he invited painters he knew to paint a new painting over it. Each new painter covered the preceding painting. This way the painting became a brick-like object , it has hundred forty-nine paintings covering it now. The new exhibitions of paintings and of the Overschilderschilderij always open at de wissel (the change), on Thursday night at 21.00 h.

Volunteers took care of the exhibitions and organisation of it and to get some working-capital they thought of an annual auction at the start of the season. This took place on the street in the Witte de Withstraat at the opening of the cultural season. Lately TENT invites De Aanschouw to do it in their space. Because of Corona the auction has been postponed for three years. This time it took place at the end of the season though, coinciding with the end of De Aanschouw at café De Schouw. The gallery-showcase will move to Café Ari at de Nieuwe Binnenweg in Rotterdam.

Auction assistent Maurice Meeuwisse showing my painting GREAT! which was sold at the auction

Because I had the honour to first show a painting in De Aanschouw and to paint a painting on the Overschilderschilderij . Later the organisation invited me to participate in the auction, which I did with pleasure.

EX-MÊKH in De Aanschouw 2015- Kees Koomen: Putin
Overschilderschilderij Kees Koomen: Malieveld – 2020

Wanderings

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Recently I took The Stone back to France. I decided that it ought to be in its natural surroundings after having travelled in Europe for some years. I was in France building terraces in a garden with similar stones last week . Before, I imagined that instead of standing in a living room in Den Haag The Stone is better off in a natural function, centrally in a useful construction. So here it is now, overlooking a village and a river, opposite a castle which is strategically placed on a wall next to the river. Underneath you will find a brief history of the stone.

The Stone as it was placed
You might see an cynical expression here
But eventually all is well!

Once there was a stone. It was quietly enjoying the place where it was, in a garden in Vaucluse in France. The owners of the garden also have a garden in Den Haag and, overcome by their imagination they thought it might be a good idea to take the stone to Holland together with some other stones. They gave them a place in their Dutch garden, to put some Provençal colour into their Dutch Eden.
As it happens, the artist’s studio of one of the owners looks out on the garden. Thinking about content for his Malieveld Project his eyes were caught by the sculptural qualities of the stone. So, he took it to the Malieveld and executed a short performance with it:

Kees Koomen: The weight, performance at Malieveld Den Haag – May 2, 2020

In september the female artist of EX-MÊKH was invited for the ‘FeMaler‘ exibition in Berlin. The two remaining male members of EX-MÊKH were invited as antagonists. The owner of the stone, collaborating in EX-MÊKH, decided to dedicate his contribution to the muse. He would make an installation which he opened with a performance using the stone again: He lay beside it and tapped on it to hear the voices of troubadours that it must have experienced, lying along the roads where these poets traveled from castle to castle in the middle ages. After hearing them sing he set up pedestals on which he put paintings of his muses.

Kees Koomen; Knocking on heaven’s door – Berlin, September 11, 2020
Kees Koomen; Knocking on heaven’s door – performance for A-Trans – Berlin, September 11, 2020

After the opening of the exhibition The Stone stayed in Berlin all winter, in the studio of Marian Wijnvoord, a friend of ours and also a member of KRAATZ, an interesting international artists’ collective we work with sometimes. In the early spring of 2021 Platforms Project in Athens stated it was impossible to do a regular fair because of the pandemic. Instead they asked participants to make video’s and pictures, they would open a page on the site of Platforms Project for each of the participants. EX-MÊKH decided to make a video and they also invited friends to contribute to the project which was called Stage Arousal . A-Trans and Kraatz from Berlin were invited to make a video for the website of the Greek Fair. When the KRAATZ-video was sent EX-MÊKH was surprised to see the Stone as protagonist of the video. The artists participating in KRAATZ decided to do little performances with it under the name Idioliths!

In the end of June 2021 KRAATZ invited EX-MÊKH to participate in the exhibition ‘Les Idiolithes’ in EP7 in Paris. It’s building has a facade with sixteen video-screens facing the Avenue de France. We were invited to show video on this wall for two weeks, alternating with KRAATZ and Sabine Bürger who was also invited. KRAATZ showed Idioliths with The Stone for their video:

Video Les Idiolithes by KRAATZ collective

In the opening weekend there was an opportunity to do performances, of which a ritual returning of The Stone from KRAATZ to EX-MÊKH was already planned. This Returning of The Stone was planned the second night and I proposed to do ‘The Weight’ again with the idea that The Stone had gained a soul, traveling from France to Den Haag, to Berlin, to Paris and back to Den Haag. All the more because it got more meaning each time and it would be a real responsibility to take care of it and maybe use it again. Thus it happened: the first evening two performances including the stone had been planned:

Interview with The Stone by Forbes Morlock (KRAATZ)
Improvisation on The Stone with percussion and electronics by Yorgos Dimitriadis

The second night the ritual returning of The Stone to EX-MÊKH was performed:

Kees Koomen – KRAATZ: Remise de la pierre – The Weight

EX-MÊKH also performed separately. Kees Koomen did another performance with The Stone under the title Sentiers d’été, rolling it around in a circle and making works on paper about his hikes in Vaucluse where The Stone originated from.

Kees Koomen: Sentiers d’été – 2021

After this weekend, The Stone was taken back to Den Haag where it was kept on a little table in the living room for one and a half year.

Research Platforms Project

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EX-MÊKH is going to participate in the coming Platforms Project. For my contribution I would like to use earlier material to add to our installation and video. I came upon this sketch that I made for the Cavalcanti project where the artist stands in awe in front of his newly painted work at night:

Kees Koomen: La figura, con paura storna -1987

EX-MÊKH

Madrid Diaries

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After EX-MÊKH‘s adventures at the Hybrid Art Fair in Madrid with in the background the war in Ukraine that started on the third day I decided to do a series of gouaches under the name Madrid Diaries. I didn’t finish them yet because of some unfortunate happenings, but this is a bit of a teaser:

Las almas que estan tan despojadas – Madrid Diaries, February 25, 2022

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!

Les Idiolithes

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in EP7 in Parijs van 3 september t/m 16 september
EP7, 133 avenue de France 75013 Paris

The exhibition on the facade of EP7 Paris (with invited artists Ex-Mêkh and Sabine Bürger) is accompanied by a weekend of performances, workshops, and an official curatorial ceremony around the opening.

According to a dictionary not yet written, an idiolith is a short—sometimes very short—film illustrating a compound word, phrase, or saying that includes a lithic element (such as, in English, “stone” or “rock”).

For EP7, artists’ collective KRAATZ has reimagined an anthology of its simple films as an architectural installation.

Two days of performances, workshops, and ceremonies has been organized around the opening of the exhibition on Friday September 3. For the full programme: scroll down.

KRAATZ is: Louise Crawford, Yorgos Dimitriadis, Stéphan Guéneau, Forbes Morlock, Isolde Nagel and Marian Wijnvoord. The members of KRAATZ share a desire to spur on their own work, to collaborate on each other’s work, and to engage in collective work.

EX-MÊKH is Ellen Rodenberg, Maarten Schepers and Kees Koomen. These artists all have their individual professional practices as an artist but next to that they show their works in their mutual contexts and they try to develop a relationship with the spaces in which exhibitions are held.

KRAATZ: www.kraatzonline.wordpress.com
About Idioliths: https://kraatzonline.wordpress.com/episode-3-idioliths-2/
EP7: www.ep7.paris
KRAATZ invites: Dutch artist collective Ex Mêkh: http://www.ex-mekh.nl
and visual artist Sabine Bürger: http://www.sabine-buerger.de

Program Opening Weekend

Friday September 3rd

19H                  Conversation with a Stone about Freud’s Correspondence about Stones

University professor Forbes Morlock discusses Freud’s journeys to the Dolomites, the Harz Mountains, Rome and Athens with the star of Les Idiolithes

1930H              Sounding the Stone

Experimental musician Yorgos Dimitriadis uses percussion, microphones and electronics to find the stone’s groove

20H                  Opening

Projections by the KRAATZ Collective and invited guests start on the facade of EP7

Saturday September 4th

16-17H &          Workshops

1715-1815H      A chance to work in small groups with members of KRAATZ to produce your own “idiolith.” The short films made in these workshops will appear on the big screens of EP7 later in the exhibition.

Maximum 10 people per workshop. Participants should bring a sense of play and, if possible, a smartphone, and clothes in solid dark colours (ideally black).

1930H              Cérémonie de la remise officielle du monolithe

The formal return by KRAATZ of the stone at the centre of the Les Idiolithes installation to the Dutch artists’ group EX-MÊKH.

to be followed by

20H                  Arousal—the Workshop

An interactive performance by EX-MÊKH’s Ellen Rodenberg, introducing the group’s intervention @ EP7

&  The Weight and Brief Encounters

Two performances by EX-MÊKH’s Kees Koomen, the first with the newly returned stone and the second mixing the myth of Sisyphus with the artist’s experiences in France this summer.

KRAATZ: www.kraatzonline.wordpress.com
About Idioliths: https://kraatzonline.wordpress.com/episode-3-idioliths-2/
EP7: www.ep7.paris
Ex Mêkh: http://www.ex-mekh.nl
Sabine Bürger: http://www.sabine-buerger.de