Kunst from a to a
3 juni 2022 tot 26 juni 2022
from A to A
The tutorgroup Art & Process of and with Hester Oerlemans from
BEAR Fine Art ArteZ University of the Arts Arnhem
You are another me… Open the door and there might be something unexpected. There is a pleasurable tension in knowing there is a pair of eyes on the other side of the street that is possibly looking. To take what’s mine, to miss what I miss and name them as mine. What is it supposed to be? It happens probably every day, little moments or large events. What if we don’t interact with a space, but use our voice to measure? I found another key. Cheers, we are open!
Starting with seventeen different practices, the challenge was to find a common ground in such a variety of work. In an art academy, everything is allowed, and experimentation led some of us to investigate microcosms in hair, film rolls, dreams; and others to wonder about birds, beaks, and wings. So many opportunities suddenly opened for us. We could transform the physical space of the Kunst Kan gallery into our own labyrinth, we could transform it into the street outside. We could choose to use all the same material or make the same work. Instead, we got tangled in a sea of possibilities. And we met again to find out what was already there.
Turns out what was there was enough. We share a big studio space on the 5th floor; therefore, we are always updated on what everyone is doing: we have talks when we get stuck, we comment on new work when we pass by, we have our own interests in the direction of what the others are taking. But it was something to put it all together in the same space and start arranging the puzzle pieces in a way that would make sense. It convinced all of us.
And as we move our things from A to A and settle down for our first group exhibition in Amsterdam, we bring that energy with us.
Wija de Boer
In the work ‘Het Duel’ Wija examines the beauty of the medium of photography versus representative content. She collected the ends of analog film rolls, in which there is no representative content – only colors and abstract shapes. The ends of the film rolls contain poetic landscapes, abstract forms and unexpected colors that never cease to surprise, whereas the representative content disappoints in the limited subject possibilities. The ends of film rolls leave room for imagination to the viewer and give the viewer insight to the material value of the medium, while the representative content shows a mimetic unimaginative image. For Wija, this is the reason why the ends of film rolls win the duel over and over again.
Hebe Diepenmaat
Âh jôh, vlieg op. It’s an easy prey. Let me preserve your flight by loading my gun. You might have broken your wing but I depict your form and pull the thread through my threader. Fly, fly, fly… Shoot, shoot, shoot! You can relive your former expeditions now, because my gun shot your plumes in their spot! I’ll tie you alongside the others and let my instrument cool down.
Now I present to you a flying little death.
Irene Donatini
The love triangle involves me, my room, and the multitude of people. From my window I can see the windows of the house across the street, which is quite a narrow street. I wonder what parts of my room my neighbors know as a piece of their everyday landscape, like their kitchen counter and the light of their TV is part of mine. Like me, my neighbors are also monsters, and they wish my window would not be there so that I could not peek into the intimacy of their rooms. But there is a pleasurable erotic tension in knowing that there is a pair of eyes in the darkness, on the other side of the street, that is possibly looking at you as you have dinner. It is a strange sort of power in the hands of someone you have no relation to.
Heidi Fitri
A soft spewing hot feeling for something.
Whether when it’s about my body or someone else’s, or about a little “fuck you” that gives a slight brain orgasm, how curvy shapes make you melt and how being a woman is such a blessing yet a curse.
A hard piercing rage for something.
Whether it was the place I was born in, or the addiction that ate his body, or the image I see in the Ikea mirror.
A longing.
An eruption and a tranquilizer.
A something.
A heavy feather and a weightless fat. A something.
Roona Kim
UmmO
Seeing
Looking
Hearing
Remembering
And Dreaming
Can you hear that?
Open the door and there might be something unexpected.
Rianne Gerritzen
CAPSLUCK
CHEERS, WE ARE OPEN!
Merel Hoogendijk
This work, about a man who wants to be a bird, was never intended for an exhibition. And yet, here it is. By presenting this I rediscovered the fun and freedom in making art. It even opened up the way to dive deeper into the human-bird relationship.
Some people barely pay attention to birds, and for others they can be a lifelong fascination. When I stare out of a window and spot a bird, it brightens my day a bit. For me, birds embody a sense of freedom and liveliness, something I’d also like to reflect in what I make.
Tico Geurtzen
Are there words to explain a space and its breath? What if we don’t use words, but our voice to measure, to talk, to listen, to interact and to be with a space?
Hester Oerlemans
For most of the last decade, Hester Oerlemans has been trying to fix air. Moved by the impossibility of finding form for the intangible and by a longstanding interest in the transformation of one medium to another, the artist has arrived at a series of quixotic yet critical sculptures.
Oerlemans’ Blobs (2020) out of the series Fixing Air are both bodily and abstract, an index of the invisible. The sculptures made out of balloons and air are highly individualized through color and shape, they bulge irregularly and suggest both containment and expansion, control and release. Their irreducible tension arises as much from the artist’s process as from her playful sense of paradox.
JungMin Park
How far or close do you see yourself?
Into what extent do you exist?
She’s struggling in the middle of her body.
In the moment if loss, they fall.
They were once part of herself,
but when they fall they became totally different selves.
Milou Pauls
Everywhair
Everywhere I go I leave something behind.
An impact, a trace,
This can be an impression or a thought but sometimes it’s only something physical, A hair.
During the entire day I leave a trail of hair be-hind, A path of my being.
To emphasize this thought I performed an everyday act, brushing my hair,
And collected my evidence, my hair, my DNA, my impact.
By recording it, I’m aware of my path, the places I’ve been and the traces I’ve left.
Circle of life
In life we follow a path, a visual circle,
Where we experience different events, people and emotions.
From happy to sad to being awkward and everything in between.
Awkwardness, and feeling discomfort,
It happens probably every day, little moments or large events. Maybe even now while you’re looking at this piece, trying to figure out how it’s made,
Lifting your head and standing in an uncomfortable position.
Do you feel the discomfort?
Daniela Rodiriguez
The mask makes the wearer show their true face. Or does the mask take over the face and become the wearer?
A thought about medication and one’s true self.
Yubin Lee
ANOTHER KEY
It was the first time when I truly became one with nature in my life. The heavy sound of water was heard as white noise and the stillness that only was fearful in the past felt like a cozy blanket at that moment.
Falling into ice-like water. Is it because of the fear of coldness?
Is it because of the overwhelming feeling of a new experience?
I didn’t know what it was but I definitely desired to fall into water.
I fell into water with a big step.
The moment when my whole body was paralyzed,
I found another key.
Siheyon Park
Armchair
What is it supposed to be or not supposed to be?
PUK TERSTAL
In an (ongoing) series, Puk relives experiences through drawing. There is a heavy focus on the concept of a body, its boundaries and its fluidity. The drawings document moments where the sense of self is lost and exists without the limitations of fixed form.
Ro Smit
Painfully caring
I need you, and you need me.
Victor Yoshino
in what ways do you give up of what is yours
to take what’s mine
to lose what I lost
to miss what I miss
to regret for the others
as if they made me
of the lack of them
if i saw where you were
what your feet laid on
how could I ever wear them
the same way you did
to sew them on the rest of my skin
and name them as mine