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…

Driftwood

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Back from a short stay elsewhere I found DeFKa-Research Magazine #6 in my mailbox. In this magazine essays and art on the theme Driftwood are published. I participated with a piece under the name Drijfhout (text in Dutch) with outtakes from my diaries from since I finished art school. The Illustrations are artworks that were based on these outtakes. I first wrote a thorough theoretical piece, but I changed my mind about that and I send in this text thinking it is better to show and not tell. Magazines can be ordered on the site of DeFKa Research.

An older text that I wrote for DeFKa Research, The Lying Poet, can now be read on my own site.

Cover of the magazine
The first pages

Jerusalem Diaries

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In 1997 I went to Jerusalem with my wife because she had to attend a congres. During the daytime, when my wife would be present at lectures and discussions on ancient languages, I made walks in the city. I walked along the ancient wall and visited some of the gates of Jerusalem. The thing that most impressed me was life in East-Jerusalem. The Israeli part of the city made me think of the US, the west coast. In the eastern part of the old city I felt I could experience life in the middle east. I made a series of drawings in my sketchbook. Looking forward to another visit to Israel, I thought it might be interesting to publish some from my 1997 sketchbook.

The text on the first sketch says:
This sketching book starts in Jerusalem on August 5, 1997.
It concerns only some small details that I noticed, that entered my eye and it mingles with what is already there.
The choice of subjects is probably decided by what preceded our journey.
I saw the eye in an advert in East Jerusalem, a nice start for a series of sketches.

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

DeFKa Research Magazine SC03

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Zojuist lag DeFKa Research Magazine SC03 in de bus waarvoor enige tijd geleden inzendingen werden gevraagd middels een open call. Het thema van het magazine is Humor, Ironie en Parodie. Zelf schreef ik een essay The Lying Poet dat geplaatst werd. De titel verwijst naar een tekst van de Joodse Mysticus Meshullam da Piera waarvan ik eerder teksten voor mijn beeldende werk heb gebruikt.
Het SC03 telt 178 pagina’s en is overal, in de reguliere boekhandel en online, verkrijgbaar met het nummer ISBN 9789464350470. Prijs is € 36,50. 

Een opmerking uit mijn essay:
Zelf moest ik in dit verband denken aan de gespletenheid van de contemporaine kunstenaar in de culturele wereld: de privépersoonlijkheid en de publieke persoonlijkheid, of zoals Marcel Proust het noemde “de schrijver en de man van de wereld”. Je kan je afvragen of de “man van de wereld” een leugen is die de schrijver/kunstenaar perverteert.

Hier een indruk van het magazine:

DeFKa Research

Black Mountain College

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Studies Building Black Mountain College

As a result of the research I did in the years 2014 – 2015 – 2016 about the influences I underwent when I studied at CCAC in Oakland Ca. in the years 1981-1982 I wrote an article about Black Mountain College and my visit to Ashville NC. The Dutch art-magazine Metropolis M was so kind to publish it on their site. You can read it here !