Notes on an artist and his world
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!
EX-MÊKH will participate in the Hybrid Art Fair in Madrid from Februari 24 to 27. The fair is held in a hotel in the centre of the city and participants are expected to exhibit in hotelrooms. We will present work under the name Con alma trying to give the neutral and functional hotelroom a soul, the soul of EX-MÊKH!
In the mean while publicity for participants is starting as you can see on this page!
Last Sunday my personal Studio Playlist for the year 2021 was published on ART BBQ. Rotterdam sculptor Ron van der Ende publishes playlists of befriended artists every year since 2006. Its the music they hear during work in their studio. I have participated since the beginning and always found it a nice and reflective thing to do. He also asks for pictures concerning the art practice to illustrate the page the playlists are published on which give some very nice insights of the way artists do their work and what their studios look like.
EX-MÊKH has been working on a new site and today we migrated what’s ready to the domain www.ex-mekh.nl . Every exhibiton we did from 2014 is on it and the ones from 2006 will be in the coming time. Please visit and enjoy yourselves!
The artist magazine RUW! is an interesting initiative. Originally it started in Berlin because the Dutch editor, Hans Könings, lived in Berlin at the time. He asked a number of artists he knew to make an art-edition of 50 copies on A4 format and put those together in a cover especially designed for the issue at hand. The issue would be presented in an art-space with other work of contributing artists. Some years ago Könings moved back to Den Haag and he decided to start a Dutch edition of RUW! I have attended to three presentations of a new issue and I liked the idea. All the more, because I organised a similar project when studying in the US under the name Ysland – The Dutch American conspiracy.
Recently Hans asked me to contribute to RUW! #5 which already seemed very appealing to me. The theme would be Mud. So I agreed and used a performance I did in Berlin in 2014 and a text I wrote along with it as an inspiration for my page. The Text goes like this:
Ich grub in Berliner Boden
Im Antlitz spiegelt sich Berlin
Ich hab mich mit einer Staubmaske gesucht
Da fand ich ein Faden der zu mir führte
The presentation, which was scheduled on the 9th of January at HOK-gallery in Den Haag (NL), has unfortunately been postponed until further notice for obvious reasons. We’ll keep you posted.
Gisteren lag de nieuwe editie van het DeFKa REsearch magazine in de bus, 2021#4. In dat magazine staan een aantal pagina’s uit mijn Corona dagboek uit het begin van dit jaar waarin ik aantekeningen en schetsen plaatste over mensen die ik tijdens corona-wandelingen tegen kwam. Er werd gevraagd om bijdragen met als thema Souvenir & Residu. Mijn dagboeken pasten daar naar mijn mening naadloos in .
De schetsen en teksten heb ik later gebruikt om een aantal schilderijen te maken onder de naam Brief Encounters, die nu bij Het Bouwhuis in Deventer te zien zijn. De daaraan voorafgaande serie Berliner Porträte die de inspiratie was voor deze werken, is daar ook te zien zoals Gryanne van Het Bouwhuis hierboven toont!
On November 12 Pim Palsgraaf and Lucius Pax opened an exhibition at Keile Contemporary in the old harbour area in Rotterdam. At this occasion Lucius Pax published the first magazine handling about theme’s in his work. This issue is about memories from his German past about Krimi’s (german detective series on television) and nude in the media.. The artist asked me to write something about his paintings which I did with pleasure. This text (in Dutch) can be read here and an account of the opening of the exhibition can be found here. PAX International can be ordered on the website of the artist
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.
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.
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
Vanaf deze week zullen nieuwe schilderijen van mij te zien zijn in Deventer in het Bouwhuis. Het betreft de series ‘Berliner Porträte’ en een aantal portretten uit de serie ‘Brief Encounters’. Er worden wisselende groepstentoonstellingen gehouden en met enige regelmaat worden focusevents georganiseerd. Ik houd u op de hoogte!