Emerging art from the Netherlands

Emerging art from the Netherlands

Marijn Van Kreij

A painstaking reproduction of a doodled page pairs unfettered mark-making with careful mimesis (left). There's a vague resemblance here to the symmetries of a Rorschach test, but whereas the famous ink blob is used to plumb the unconscious, van Kreij's mirroring sets up a direct confrontation between apparent spontaneity and exacting reproduction.

Since one of these images is a labour-intensive copy of the other, does this, in a sense, make it less valid, even a type of fake?

The question of authenticity is one that van Kreij turns to again and again through various acts of doubling, appropriation or repetition.

An assemblage consisting of a mirror and fruit reflects the image of an orange back at the viewer. The mirror-image in itself possesses a philosophically questionable veracity, but from certain angles it coincides exactly with the form of a second orange - a piece of fake fruit positioned on the other side of the mirror (left).

This small work becomes a kind of Venn diagram of interlinked realities - fruit | reflection | fake fruit - and a truly complex conundrum.

The issue of creative originality becomes more pointed still through van Kreij's frequent use of text. While apparently self-penned, most of his annotations and aphorisms are extracted from songs.

The stockpile of ready-made commentary pop lyrics provide can be seen in various lights: as the valid 'voice' of successive youthful generations, or (to quote from just such a lyric!) "a second-hand emotion" which inevitably filters and dilutes self-expression.

Is dependence on the observation of others a sign of torpor, or simply the extension of a long and fruitful tradition of quotation in the arts?

Ultimately, van Kreij leaves us deliberately uncertain as to his stance, although his curious title for a recent show slyly throws the cat among the pigeons.

"A Thought the Size of a Pencil, a Brain the Size of an Eraser" is drawn from a scientific essay on brain transplants. If such a procedure were possible, whose thoughts would we be thinking? And could a creative impulse be deemed our own?

images © Marijn Van Kreij

 

Falke Pisano

Falke Pisano's rising international profile centres around a conceptual, performative approach to the creation of sculptural works.

Her complex forms of art production are not without challenges, and those who prefer their art relatively accessible are likely to baulk at notions such as "abstract concrete objects" (especially since Pisano's own critiques are notoriously obscure).

images © Falke Pisano

Nevertheless, she is clearly representative of a growing concern with art that engages in - and provokes - real depths of enquiry, whether philosophical in nature, or ignited by intricate associative imbrication. It's a tendency shared by several of the artists featured here, as well as many emerging French practitioners, including exhilarating newcomer Benoît Maire, with whom Pisano has frequently collaborated.

 

Hadassah Emmerich

Working in a variety of mediums including collage, painting and installation, much of Emmerich's work is underpinned by reference to her Indonesian roots and multi-ethnic background.

Adapting many of her motifs directly fromIndonesian culture, their presence underlines one of the artist's principal concerns: exoticism, or the representation of the Orient via Occidental culture, as well as the often subtle differences between ornamentation and abstraction.

Represented in several prestigious Dutch collections, Emmerich is starting to attract international attention, particularly in the US and Germany, where she is currently based.

images © Hadassah Emmerich

 

Joep van Liefland

Since 2002 Joep van Liefland's Video Palastrental service has provided a consistent, though ephemeral, addition to his adopted home town, Berlin.

Van Liefland is fascinated by video in all its lowliest manifestations - obscure B movies and kitsch exploitation genres, promotional tapes, travelogues, home movies and infomercials. Their low budget production values are reflected in the shabby, ramshackle nature of the Video Palast itself, which has made temporary appearances in locations ranging from disused buildings to art galleries and car parks.

images © Joep van Liefland

The Palast is not only an artwork in its own right; it doubles as a centre for quasi-commercial production. This takes the form of makeshift advertising that excitedly promotes the rental store's unalloyed pleasures, as well as a distribution centre for van Liefland's own video output.

Generally featuring the artist himself, titles such as Doggiedoggie, Splatter Orgasm, Men in Pain (left) and Donald Judd Faces of Death I make clear the kind of territories VP productions inhabit - spoof re-inventions of exactly the kind of archive material the Palast offers on its shelves.

Yet despite the obvious irony in van Liefland's project, there's a serious dimension to his parody. Besides rescuing vintage footage from obscurity, his work charts the effects of what he terms 'media-entropy': the increasingly rapid decline of formerly cutting-edge mass-media technologies.

It's a concern shared by artists such as Gregor Hildebrand and Mathieu Mercier, but van Liefland's approach to framing nostalgia begins with materials which were probably never well-loved, but to which he brings a new and eccentric appeal.

 

Bas Louter

Bas Louter creates black and white drawings in charcoal and ink which are then used to build sprawling installations that "look like large-scale absurd theatres about to explode or crumble down".

His recent series of monumental portraits have attracted particular interest: images gleaned from an eclectic array of sources are rendered anew as if partially emptied of meaning by the effects of time and memory.

These works, like his earlier installations, are often modified via Louter's "constant shift from two to three dimensional". Frequent inclusion within a sprawling network of additional drawings gives them a performative and associative role beyond their function as portraiture.

 

Navid Nuur

images © Navid Nuur

(b.1976) Iranian-born Dutch national Navid Nuur's characteristic use of mundane materials belies the complexity of the conditions he teases from their use. Not that he necessarily aims for intricacy, but the impulses fuelling his practice are already unusual; a highly individual perception of the world and a questioning stance that lies somewhere between scientific enquiry and poetry.

It's unsurprising, therefore, that artworks arising from such observations as "The floor mirrors our private pressure" or "Black is actually an inside-out rainbow" possess a certain unorthodoxy simply in terms of their invitation to partake in Nuur's subjective, internal world.

His solution to the mapping of 'private pressure', for example, is to cover a floor with underlay tiles that retain the slight contour of footsteps (they additionally muffle a room's acoustics and change colour in sunlight, a source of further fascination for Nuur).

The suggestion that black is, indeed, an 'inside-out rainbow' is demonstrated by applying water to words drawn in black felt-tip pen, allowing the component tints to separate into arcs (above left).

In both these examples, Nuur's consistent theme of unexpected revelation comes to the fore, a topic he approaches not merely in terms of a viewer's insight (and his own), but also through exploitation of his materials' properties, particularly their propensities for transformation or movement.

Works that further exemplify these interests includeThresholded, a wall of florists' foam blocks that retain the impression of the artist's fingers left by the process of stacking ("... emotional marks on the rational block", left) and Vein of Venus (2008), which employs an overhead projector to frame the slow, real-time swirl of melting ice cream (below left).

If materials can perform subtle acts of transformation, words, too, have the power to align themselves into unexpected chords of nuance, to shift and reveal.

Unsurprisingly, the mysterious properties of language are also a salient feature of Nuur's work, exemplified through his use of word-play, visual puns and self-penned aphorism.

The hand-drawn words Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence are rinsed of colour as a test of their veracity; the phrase "Even a single spark of thought can turn into a lifetime memory" is stamped into a wall, its tiny lettering almost unnoticeable.

The 2008 work I am just an idea between the tape and the wall, consists of exactly the components its title suggests: a strip of yellow sticking tape, its titular phrase penned on the reverse and hidden from view - though ever-present - when affixed to a wall.

images © Navid Nuur

It's precisely this concern with liminal, metaphysical states that causes Nuur to speak of his works not as sculptures or installations, but 'interimodules' - structures that should not be seen as ends in themselves, but rather, facilitators of ephemeral experience.

As the phrase "Even a single spark of thought can turn into a lifetime memory" powerfully suggests, permanence in its usual sense is not Nuur's aim. Instead, he's interested in engineering exposure to fleeting ideas, then allowing these impressions to perhaps form gradual lives of their own. As he says, "If a work can only live for three seconds, OK. Those are the best seconds Ñ just as good as 300 years".

 

Germaine Kruip

Germaine Kruip's sculptural installations and interventions are marked by a lightness of touch that belies their affective power.

2 Seconds (2000), installed at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, consisted of a platform beneath one of the gallery's windows, accessed by a simple staircase.

Providing, quite literally, a new and unexpected viewpoint from which to survey the museum space, it also served as a stage for its temporary inhabitants.

Inevitably viewed from the ground as a kind of performative exhibit, glimpses of those intrepid enough to mount the platform could also be seen outside the museum, with the window framing a continually changing human sculpture.

Wish, conceived for a 2003 exhibition at Beelden Op de Berg, Wageningen, was advertised in the local press with the words "Wish - 00:00 every night". As promised, at midnight for the duration of the show a rocket was fired into the night sky, its sparkling trajectory mimicking a falling star.

Both these early works reveal an interest in light and architecture, themes which take central roles in Kruip's acclaimed recent practice.

The use of the window as a bridge between interior and exterior worlds - as well as provider or withholder of light - is reprised in site-specific works that often necessitate physical restructuring of the gallery space.

Rotating blinds that both block and reveal daylight are a favourite device, sometimes coupled with coloured filters or mirror surfaces (top).

Further dramatic manipulation of light is achieved through Kruip's series of mirrored mobiles, their form based on paintings by De Stijl founder Theo Van Doesburg (left).

images © Germain Kruip

Designed to rotate mechanically, the movement of these works perpetually scatters luminosity through the exhibition space; an act echoed in reverse by static sculptures lit to cast soft grey shadow on white walls.

 

Koen Delaere

(b. 1970) As a painter, Koen Delaere lives dangerously: breaking rules and defying convention, his canvases emerge from chaos by the finest of margins.

Belgian-born Delaere's assault on aesthetic boundaries reflects the dynamism of his own actions as well as the energies of his medium. Rapid brushstrokes and a frequent mixing of different types of paint encourage an element of unpredictability. Thick swathes of pigment are worked and re-worked into tactile layers that attest to the extended process through which Delaere attempts to contain the problematic visuals he deliberately engenders.

Teetering on the brink of discordancy, Delaere's 'bad painting' is so nearly unsuccessful that his triumphs fascinate all the more; few would be able to paint this way and actually make it work.

images © Koen Delaere

 

Bas van den Hurk

What is a painting and what isn't? Bas van den Hurk's recent work poses exactly this question.

How, for example, should we categorise what's basically a wall-mounted assemblage with a couple of streaks of paint?

And if the piece consists of a sub-standard print of a previous work, or a decorative fabric stretched on canvas, what approach should we take to its identification?

Of course, artists from Blinky Palermo to Angela de la Cruz have already covered similar territory and, in a sense, provided enough answers (the consensus seeming to be that it's hardly a question that matters in the first place).

For this reason, if regarded in a spirit of probing critical enquiry van den Hurk's stance can seem forced and even somewhat irrelevant. If, however, his work is seen as a systematic exploration of the myriad self-referential forms wall-mounted art can - and has - taken before, van den Hurk's visual re-articulation is certainly fresh enough to support his increasing visibility on the contemporary circuit.

images © Bas van den Hurk

 

Semâ Bekirovic

(b.1977) Young artist Semâ Bekirovic uses photography, video and installation to explore the imposition of natural and man-made worlds, as well as the role of chance in both these realms of existence.

Koet (Coot), her best-known work to date (left), provides photographic documentation of a pair of coots as they go about building a nest.

Well known for their habit of utilising almost any material, Bekirovic provided the birds with various objects - photographs, drawings, small toys - which they duly incorporated into their sprawling construction.

In this way, as well as instigating an artwork beyond her control, the artist's personal world literally becomes intertwined with the natural habitat of the birds.

A similar confrontation is the subject of the 2008 video Birds of Prey (left), in which various predatory birds are set loose in a typical office environment.

Perched on computers or photocopiers, the discrepancy between their natural habitat and easy adaptation to unfamiliar territory is brought into relief (it's also tempting to assume that shots of rapine birds gathered around a boardroom table possess a certain irony).

In other works, Bekirovic allows the unpredictability of natural processes to provide captivating spectacle.

Rookobject (Smokeobject, left) consists, essentially, of a sculpture within a sculpture.

images © Semâ Bekirovic

A shaped glass case is slowly filled with smoke that takes on the form of its container. The restrictive nature of the glass walls contrasts with the protean properties of the smoke which, as Bekirovic points out, is capable of "endless possible shapes", and "Even when confined by the glass ... keeps on moving and shape-shifting."

Going Dutch, 

Established names

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Rezi van Lankveld

Rezi van Lankveld's abstract-seeming painting incorporates figurative elements which are hidden, or suggested, within the liquid swirls of paint that characterise her canvases.

Composed of (apparently) random dabs and drips, these readable forms are impressionistic in nature, a strange and unexpected counterpoint to the abstract backgrounds within which they merge.

Echoing this disparity, the vigour of van Lankveld's paintwork is offset by muted color schemes which, through their melancholic association, complicate our reading of these lively (and secretly life-filled) works.

images © Rezi van Lankveld

 

Ronald de Bloeme

Although now based in Berlin and considered a German national (we've consequently included his work in our survey of new German abstraction) de Bloeme's large, abstract works are clearly informed by his homeland's indigenous modernist movement De Stijl.

Appropriating the aesthetic clutter of the city in what he terms an act of 'visual piracy', de Bloeme distils its unkempt, overwhelming nature into works that are simultaneously ordered yet retain a frenetic urban edge.

In 2008 de Bloeme was the first non-German-born artist to win the country's national award for contemporary painting.

images © Ronald de Bloeme<

 

Lara Schnitger

Born in Haarlem, 1969, Lara Schnitger lives and works in both Los Angeles and Amsterdam.

Working mainly, though not exclusively, with textiles, Schnitger is best known for her large-scale sculptures created from knitted and sewn fabrics.

She uses these chosen materials to create unexpected, highly idiosyncratic forms often combined with appliqued texts.

Totemic in structure and scale with an absurdist edge, Schnitger's work literally brings new dimensions to the use of domestic fabrics.

images © Lara Schnitger

 

Maaike Schoorel

Maaike Schoorel's paintings require careful viewing; many of her works appear to consist of nothing but blank white canvases, smudged here and there with the palest patches of colour.

Nevertheless, her work is figurative, often portaiture; a series of traces that can, with concentration, eventually be conjured into a whole.

The delicacy of this approach is matched by the simple intimacy of the moments she depicts. Working from photographs, Schoorel's earliest work was inspired by old family snapshots, their fading hues an increasingly important element of her paintings.

Recent works have often depicted nude women, photographed within their homes and translated into the faintest of forms. Domestic tableaux constitute a growing part of Schoorel's ouevre: a table laid for breakfast; a glimpse of a garden.

The sum of Schoorel's painting is, of course, highly paradoxical. While minimal in detail and apparently effacing the people and situations she portrays, an unusually intense engagement is required to make out her images.

Through this act of concentration, we embody Schoorel's ghostly forms with the flesh and blood of careful viewing.

For all the artist's idiosyncracy, she maintains the traditions of classic Dutch art at its most characteristic: the informality of the domestic interior, the intensely intimate portrait.

images © Maaike Schoorel

 

Folkert de Jong

Amsterdam-based sculptor and performance artist Folkert de Jong is best known for his installations of life-size (or even larger) figures of painted polyurethane foam.

Owing allegiance to artists such as as George Grosz, Otto Dix and James Ensor, de Jong melds the perverse with the familiar, imbuing violence with a certain grim humour.

>His characters have included witch hunters, religious or political fanatics, militarists and serial killers, and are situated in a curious world of symbolic props such as industrial pallets, radiators and junk food detritus.

Moral malaise in de Jong's universe is implied in various ways. Many of his characters have limbs missing, or the foam from which they are constructed is allowed to ooze in lumpen, cancerous masses. These grotesque overtones are accentuated by his frequent use of sickly, candy colours.