Out of Home was a pop-up exhibition at Noordwal 117 with works by Iliada Charalambous and Yair Callender (and in the evenings a dance performance by Styliana Apostolou, which i’m afraid i had to miss). Was, as it only lasted for three days.
Charalambous gives you a sense of place in that, as a native Cypriote, her ideas originate from the Mediterranean.
That may sound like a cliché, but it is far from that. Her works may evoke a feeling of remembrance, a faint recognition and both shattered and revived dreams, based as it is on ceramics.
Although her presentation looks less monumental than her intriguing graduation show at the Royal Academy The Hague last summer, i feel this one is more eloquent, probably also because of the interaction with works by Callender.
Callender has really come of age artistically and i’m eagerly hoping for a solo presentation in the neighbourhood somewhere in the near future.
His presentation is also less monumental than one may expect, but again with great eloquence.
His language is one of volumes, giving his works the outlook of building designs.
In this case he has combined the homeliness of furniture and decoration, their idea, meaning and the relationship between volume and detail.
Noordwal 117 will close next year like LocatieZ and Billytown leaving the artists desperate for a new place to work and present their art. Please The Hague, don’t make your artists a bunch of stray cats. Be proud of them and they’ll be proud of you! Art isn’t just about an expensive, prestigious, problematic building in the town centre. It’s about imagination and development, two things you dearly need next year and after.
[Click on the pictures to enlarge]
Content of all pictures courtesy to Iliada Charalambous and Yair Callender.
Bertus Pieters