Notes on an artist and his world
During Art Rotterdam 2020 Hectobar 4.0 took place in TENT, Rotterdam. This is a swap or buy fair for artists and collectors. It works a bit like Fitax used to do. I showed sketches for three pre-Trump portraits that I made in 2016 in the USA, in the period Obama was still president and Trump tried to take his place. I had a fine score with the works of Annique Weve, Niels Post and Jeroen Jongeleen changing their works for mine!
And on thursday January 9, at 9 PM sharp the change took place after which my version of the “Overschilderschilderij” was presented.
Voor een verslag, zie hier!
Since two weeks I have a canvas in my studio which was given to me by Daan den Houter. It is part of his project Het overschilderschilderij in which he asks artists time after time to make a painting on the same canvas each time. It now contains one hundred an forty paintings and Daan asked me to paint the one hundred and forty first over it. I painted it white over the previous painting which was done by Mai van Oers. I will start this afternoon to paint over it!
Uitnodiging
Donderdag 9 januari 2020.
Voor de presentatie van het 141e schilderij op ‘Het Overschilderschilderij’
geschilderd door Kees Koomen.
U bent van harte welkom bij de opening om 21.00 uur in Galerie de Aanschouw, (Witte de Withstraat 80b, Rotterdam). Het werk zal daar zichtbaar zijn t/m donderdag 16 januari.
‘Het Overschilderschilderij’ (olieverf, 50cm x 60 cm, 2002-heden)
Kunstenaar Daan den Houter nodigt sinds 24 mei 2002 kunstschilders uit om op hetzelfde canvas een olieverfschilderij te maken. Elk schilderij wordt 1 week getoond in de kleinste galerie van Rotterdam: De Aanschouw (Witte de Withstraat 80b, Rotterdam). Daarna gaat het canvas naar een volgende schilder voor een nieuwe laag. In 2012 werd dit werk genomineerd voor de
Koninklijke Nederlandse schildersprijs. In 2014 hing het ter ere van de 100ste laag, in een solo presentatie in museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Meer werk van Daan den Houter is hier te zien.
Following the performances on December 7th EX-MÊKH would install the exhibition PROBE on December 8. Installing the exhibition was presented as a performance in itself after which the opening would take place. My work, Sensitory Selfportrait was prepared in the studio, so all I had to do was to communicate with my colleagues about the location, which appeared to deliver little discussion. After three hours the exhibition looked like it needed nothing more, so it would stay in the Haus der Statistik the whole month of December.
For the Selfportrait I teared black painted paper to imagine my senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Feeling. I glued seasalt to it and wrote down on the paper what they were and what it does to the creative process.
I put two little canvasses on the ears on which I wrote words made out of plastic strap: I bended the straps into words and taped it together with narrow yellow tape: Haste, Anger, Inertia, Negligence, Unfocused (A collection of sentiments to avoid) en Ambition, Recognition, Perfection, Fear, Awareness (A collection of attitudes to dose)
A-Trans in Berlin invited EX-MÊKH for a weekend of performances. This would take place December 6, 7 and 8, 2019 in the Haus der Statistik in Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. For the occasion Yorgos Dimitriades and me decided to join forces: Yorgos played an improvisation on percussion and electronics and I would write the sounds he made. Here you can see a brief impression, shot by Marian Wijnvoord:
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 !
In the middle of August I was asked by Robert Broekhuis to open his exhibition at the Haagse Kunstkring. It is a very nice exhibition of someone with whom I have coorporated with great pleasure, he used to be chief-editor of De nieuwe for which I wrote a number of articles. On November 30 I spoke to the public in this artists society in Den Haag. You can see a small post of the exhibition here together with the text I used to open the exhibition (in Dutch).
Haus der Statistik, Berlin (D), December 8 until December 31, 2019
The exhibition and weekend of performances are featured by A TRANS at the Haus Statistik as part of the ‚Pioneer Uses‘ program organized by The Network of the independent Berlin Project Spaces and Initiatives in collaboration with Haus der Statistik.
In this exhibition EX-MÊKH will show their inspiration and working method, the themes that have always been important to the collective. The preceding acts together with the collective of KRAATZ during the performance weekend will be used as fertilizer for the process that will eventually result in an exhibition about the creating of an exhibition.
Saturday December 6
16.00 h- KRAATZ (Marian Wijnvoord and Forbes Morlock): Writing on Art
17.00 h – Kees Koomen: Tssssss K-BAM
In the context of writing The Diaries and writing down what enters my senses I will now try to visualize the sounds that I hear. Working together with improvising musician Yorgos Dimitriades who will improvise on percussion I will try to translate this sound into images.
17:30 Ellen Rodenberg and Yorgos Dimitriadis: Feed
In this “In between time”- space of the Haus der Statistiek I want to do a performance in which I will show a working attitude. It originates from a barrel full of experiences in my studio, daily life and education which I feel to be socially and constructively useful in my functioning as a human being.
18.00 h – Saturday December 6 – Maarten Schepers: Stelle
Can we live in any place on Earth and call it Home? What is home? Is it the stuff that keeps us warm? Is it our past we recognize in our surroundings? Is it in the place we act to keep on living? Schepers will try to elaborate on this question in the performance he proposes.
18:30 Yorgos Dimitriadis DUO: Das Sahnehäubchen
Sunday December 7 – EX-MÊKH: The Act
EX-MÊKH was invited to make an exhibition in the space on the invitation of A-Trans which will be shown during the month of December. We came together as a collective that wants to think about the nature and process of making exhibitions. For this occasion the opening of the exhibition will be a theatrical performance about our practice. We will start a process in front of the public culminating in an exhibition.
In this exhibition EX-MÊKH will show their inspiration and working method, the themes that have always been important to the collective. The preceding acts during the performance weekend will be used as fertilizer for the process that will eventually result in an exhibition about the creating of an exhibition.
Enige tijd geleden plaatste ik hier een post over een Kauwgompje dat ik voor Ieke Trinks heb benoemd en waarvoor ik een bedrag heb genoemd waarvoor het gekocht kon worden. Kort geleden stuurde ze me een mail met het bericht dat het in Stockholm verkocht werd met de volgende tekst van de enthousiaste koper:
“My son studied at KABK and I gave the Kauwgompje to him and he screamed and said its found at the same adress we have our workshop this spring!!! So it might have been some of his buddies who spit it out the 27th of january. Suddenly the walue was was all time high!
I now have it exposed side by side to a filterpostkart made of Joseph Beuys
LEL”.
Een erg mooi toeval voor iemand die Joseph Beuys les heeft zien geven, zelf aan de KABK gestudeerd heeft, en daar recent nog gastlessen gaf!
I am proud of the installation I did with my diary-texts over the period EX-MÊKH had the MÊKH-web exhibition at Quartair. Every day I would write the appropriate text on the wall with a high or low of the day with wool and push buddies. During opening days I would do this live for the public. Here you can see the final result, and here you can see the phases it went through.
