Notes on an artist and his world
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!
For Platforms Project NET 2021 EX-MÊKH decided to make a video of the making of an installation. In it one could follow the decisions of each member on enriching the whole. Maarten Schepers built a booth like the ones we usually show our work in Athens in. During a cold week in February we came together daily to add to the installation. We decided the booth could also be seen as a stage on which performance could take place, so a number of actions were executed. We didn’t talk to each other about what each of us would do so we went through a series of surprises. My personal input was based on works of artists that inspired me. Here you can see my additions to the Stage Arousal as the video was called. I leave it to you to recognise the inspiration for the work!
Here are the three video’s EX-MÊKH presented at Platforms Project NET 2021:
On the 28th of may Jane Huldman retired from her work at STROOM in Den Haag. Everybody in the art-scene in Den Haag knows and loves her and her colleagues at STROOM asked all of us to send a memory or a thought about Jane. It resulted in a digital Liber Amicorum. In spite of a late start, it was a pleasure to make a personal portrait of Jane in the way I am working on my Brief Encounters series. You can see the result below!
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!
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.
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:
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.
Vorig jaar kwam van mij het essay A Secret Alliance uit in Issue #2, een magazine dat onregelmatig wordt uitgegeven door The faculty of In-humanities. Het blad is voor € 14,- , inclusief verzending, verkrijgbaar bij R.S.O.L, Room for the Study Of Loneliness
“Coming from a little village in a rural area with nobody around me with any intellectual or artistic ambition I felt a bit eccentric wanting to make paintings and swallowing everything about art I could find in any discipline I liked. All my information came from television, newspapers and magazines then. I studied and created for my own pleasure and felt a bit guilty about it. After finishing art-school and my studies in the USA I took jobs to earn enough money to live on, leaving enough time to continue my artistic practice anonymously. At this time I was greatly influenced by the poetry I had gotten to know. Since my first hitchhiking travels I wrote diaries and in the USA I continued to do so but now I would keep them in any discipline I could in order to gather material to work from.”
“So I started chmkoome’s blog which became quite popular. In the beginning it was rather personal with things I experienced: labels of the wine I drunk, atmospheres during a walk or an opinion on politics, but eventually I started to visit exhibitions and openings more and I posted that. The emphasis changed to art in my posts.”
“Looking back at it now I think this concept suits me as a viewer and as an artist. The attention is with the artwork and the viewer. The work is visible for who wants to see it and there’s no artistic persona in between who can influence the valuation. I want to work on my art and make it accessible in the most unstressed way possible. I want to have my ideas, my engagement with art and my own work touching and inspiring people Through collaboration I hope colleagues and I will both benefit from each-others art and interpretations. It is with an attitude of openness, respect and a certain generosity towards each other that the visibility of art and artists will grow.”
