Michel Hoogervorst, studio visit, The Hague

During his exhibition Guess Things Happen That Way at Galerie Ramakers (click here for some pictures of that show), Michel Hoogervorst (1961) has opened his studio over the weekends. So i visited him last Sunday.

The studio is in one of the many late 19^th century apartments in my own neighbourhood, so it was a visit just round the corner.

Apart from seeing his works in a studio setting, you can also admire a big wall painting which he changes almost completely every week.

Almost, as some details are maintained.

It is like the growing process he often shows in his paintings: there is an end to it and also the wall painting’s last version will disappear.

Happily some accurate photographs of the different versions have been made.

Things happen that way too.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Michel Hoogervorst

 

Bertus Pieters

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Studio visit: Saskia Tannemaat

Saskia Tannemaat happens to have a studio i once occupied myself, so it felt a bit like a homecoming to visit her place.

Saskia’s core business is drawing and painting in which the expression of black and white and colour lie in line with each other.

Her inspiration is mainly social city life, sometimes in places of society we tend to forget or deny. She does a lot of research for her work.

Her intentions are not in the first place to bring change to these places (although that would be a welcome side effect) but to show aspects of reality and to find the right expression to them. It makes her work not only expressive but also warm hearted.

In her studio are of course different works in progress, sketches, things that inspire her, utensils etc.

And there is also the wonderful vista of The Hague, both inspiring and relaxing, maybe even comforting.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

 

Bertus Pieters

 

Last studio visits: https://villanextdoor.wordpress.com/2016/02/13/topp-and-dubio-a_day_to_clay_a_bust/

and: https://villanextdoor.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/studio-visit-jan-hoogervorst/

Topp and Dubio: a_Day_to_Clay_a_Bust

After 20 years of being Topp & Dubio, the artists duo have tried to make something a bit more lasting in the shape of a sculpture.

They never modelled anything with clay before and they invited the public to see the process for three days in a studio.

I visited the second day and made some pictures on the third day.

One of their great inspirations of the past few years is Vitaly Komar’s and Alexander Melamid’s 1986 installation Emergency Telephone Booth with Bust of Stalin and Herring, originally made for the red light district in The Hague.

In an absurdist way it kept a fatherly eye on the visitors of the prostitutes, the ladies and their pimps, but these days Stalin is spending his disowned life more unseen and misunderstood than ever before, on the premises of the Gemeentemuseum.

I went to see it the same afternoon to make these pictures

Topp & Dubio tried to copy the Stalin bust.

Press button in case of fire

‘Mannen met snorren’ (Men with moustaches)

They made a studio exhibition in the mean time with Stalinalia, moustaches, sculpture and busts, relics of the red light district, tools for sculpture, video’s and anything that might have something to do with it.

In one video they make a graffiti on the wall of the sculpture department of the Royal Academy, saying FUCK BEELDHOUWERS (FUCK SCULPTORS), as an homage to a graffiti that was there once before.

Topp & Dubio’s works are always more or less absurdist, making you witness moments where you expect things and situations to have a meaning, but where these same things deny any meaning or suggest any other meaning but the one you had in mind. To be short, it is great fun.

Anyway, Joseph Stalin (or is it his gold uncle?) seems to be exceptionally amused about it.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus Pieters

Studio visit: Jan Hoogervorst

Last week I visited Jan Hoogervorst’s studio, where he has a modest presentation of works he made recently.

A studio presentation is usually less photogenic than a gallery presentation, so my camera had a bit of a bad time, but I was amazed by what I saw nevertheless.

Central to Hoogervorst’s present work is the idea that the human brain and will, let alone our other body functions, are not as free as we would like them to be.

As a consequence our choices and ideas are not as free as we pretend.

In his i-pad paintings, pencil drawings and woodcuts Hoogervorst is trying to make a kind of scans of that mechanism of un-freedom.

Technically they also seem to be inspired by that idea.

Hoogervorst uses all his technical skills as a draughtsman and graphic artist to improvise visions that could be revealing.

One might easily think the results would be sarcastic, but I don’t think they are, as Hoogervorst is obviously trying to steer clear of any moralizing.

The ideas become even more intricate in his interior drawings, where the human body reacts to its environment.

These works are multi-interpretable as you may see the perception of the protagonists of the space around them and the interpretation of the artist, as well as your own interpretation.

Jan Hoogervorst, i-pad painting, print

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus Pieters