FeMaler

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A-Trans in Berlin asked Ellen Rodenberg to make an installation in their Schaufenster exhibitions in Subwaystation Kleistpark. This season the theme of all A-Trans exhibitions is “A Femme City” dealing with the female gaze on urban developments. Ellen complied and decided to ask her male-EX-MÊKH companions Maarten Schepers and Kees Koomen to design a pendant of her installation focussing on the element of gender in EX-MÊKH.

The exhibition FeMaler will be visible from September 11 until Oktober 18 at Vitrine U – Kleistpark (U7) in 10783 Berlin.
The opening will take place with two performances on friday September 11 at 19.00 h.

“…When do we talk of a female gaze and of a female approach? What does it look like? I decided to engage the men of the EX-MÊKH-collective in this project in order to be able to hold the development of my work against the light of a male/female concept. Two shop windows next to each other, organized with work based on the male/female concept. I had discussions with Maarten Schepers and Kees Koomen about the difference in strategies, upbringing, social behavior and networking. When do we talk about expressing oneself with personal character and where do we observe the influence of gender?…”

(Ellen Rodenberg, 2020)

A-Trans

chmkoome’s blog

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I have been making an artblog since 2004. Initially it started as a digital diary but eventually my personal preoccupations about art I find inspiring and art I admire got the upper hand. I started the blog at XS4all, a Dutch provider which had been important and innovative from the start of internet in the Netherlands. They hosted an experimental blogservice that I have been using for eight years after which they stopped. After I downloaded the archive of this blog I restarted chmkoome’s blog on WordPress but I couldn’t get it done to migrate the archive to this blog. It had to be done by hand, day by day.
Now that the Coronavirus stops cultural life and the Conservatory where I work is only active online ànd anticipating on my retirement I think I will try and work on it on regular base. I will both post the oldest posts forward and the latest XS4all-posts backwarts, somewhere in the middle everything will be available sometime.

Here is one of my first posts:

15 juli 2004

Vandaag kreeg ik van mijn zwager een DVD met daarop een videotape die we in 1986 voor het oudjaarsfeest gemaakt hebben samen met een vriend van me. Daarop een samenraapsel van alles waarmee we tot dan toe bezig waren geweest: eigen filmpjes, goede kunstenaars, muziek, San Francisco andermans films etc. Ik was een en ander vergeten, maar een aantal van mijn eigen sentimenten herkende ik feilloos. Persoonlijke geschiedenis en tijdsdocument in een!

Shadowpainting – 1979 (still from a double-8 film)

Kees Koomen

Hectobar 4.0

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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!

Mijn bijdragen aan het gebeuren
Werk Niels Post
Werk Annique Weve
Het rechterwerk van Jeroen Jongeleen is aan de verzameling toegevoegd.

Hectobar 0.4

Overschilderschilderij

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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!

Overschilderschilderij prepared

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.

Overschilderschilderij

PROBE

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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)

Kees Koomen: Sensitory Selfportrait – 2019
Paper, Acrylic paint, glue, sea salt, oil pastel
Ohrenschmuck: A Collection of Attitudes to dose – 2019
Ohrenschmuck: A Collection of Sentiments to Avoid – 2019

EX-MÊKH

A weekend of performances

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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:

And this was the result on the outside

EX-MÊKH

At Art The Hague

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In the mean while this week Art The Hague, the art fair in my hometown, takes place. I was asked to contribute to the presentation of the Bcademie, a post academic course led by Alex Jacobs and Daan den Houter for which I was guest lecturer. Here you can see my contribution.

Selection of great intentions (Virtue, Alive, Perseverance, Authenticity) – 2019