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

Platforms Project NET 2021

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This year also EX-MÊKH participates in the on-line Platforms Project again , it’s the art-fair in Athens for independent art-platforms all over the world. This time we decided to collaborate with the international Artist Collective KRAATZ and with the Berlin based independent art platform A TRANS, both of which we have worked with before.
KRAATZ shows the video Idioliths which I interpret as an inspired contemplation on elements in our exhibition FEMALER in Berlin last fall. We also collaborate with the independent Berlin based art-platform A-TRANS that compiled its activities in video. EX-MÊKH produced a video in which their working method is shown: Stage Arousal ! It shows how we have a place to exhibit and build up a show. We decided to include performance, because video is time-based, as is performance. Please click under the picture underneath to visit the EX-MÊKH page. Video’s can be seen from May 27!

EX-MÊKH – Stage Arousal

Hectobar

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Kees Koomen: Amore – 2019 (olieverf op doek – 26×30 cm)

Hectobar is an initiative that you can find regularly on Instagram. On this account artists and collectors can find works of art that can be swapped or bought during one night and the week thereafter. The unity-price for all artworks is € 100,-. Buying or swapping takes place by way of PM or in the commentaries. It is really an on-line FITAX (if you remember that one) without the drinks, the finger-food and the social interaction. It took place last friday May 7 at which occasion yours truly had this little canvas available for € 100,-. It can still be bought until May 14 through Instagram or a mail.

Hectobar

Platforms Project NET 2021 teaser

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On the 27th of May Platforms Project in Athens starts a 2021 edition of an on-line art-fair for independent artist initiatives. More than ninety participants shall contribute. On the 5th of April these initiatives start an online teaser on the Platforms Project-site in which they present themselves. Platforms Project invited EX-MÊKH so we decided to show our individual studio work by making a video about what our practice looks like. My contribution is Berliner Porträte, seven studies of portraits of people that have caught my eye. From the initial sketches in my little notebook to the sketches in oil-paint on stone-paper one can see how these portraits develop.

Geen bloem zonder wortel

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Tijdens Hoogtij op 25 september 2020 en het weekeinde daarna organiseert Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives een Artist Support Fair. Hierin zijn twee kleine doekjes van mij te koop voor € 150,- per stuk.

Circe – 2020 (olieverf en houtskool op doek – 15×20 cm)
Arethusa – 2019 (olieverf en houtskool op doek – 27×31 cm)

We welcome you among the many creatives participating in the support fair ‘Geen bloem zonder wortel’ (‘No flower without root’) this weekend, from Friday, September 25th – Hoogtij #62 – to Sunday 27th. We will operate with a limited indoor capacity, following the Public Health guidelines for a safe event.

To give everyone a chance to visit the show, please consider visiting in the weekend too, as Friday will be busy due to Hoogtij#62.

In this support fair, Quartair offers a stage for artists to be represented, to show and sell their works. The revenue of the sales goes 100% to each creator. The show includes over 160 artworks, live music and a human-size walking carrot – the symbol of the roots of any culture.

Quartair
Toussaintkade 55, Den Haag

opening Friday 25th September 2020
From 6 pm to midnight
exhibition continues on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th
from 1 pm to 6 pm

Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives