Marius Lut: Solo exhibition; Billytown, The Hague

I went to Marius Lut’s solo exhibition at Billytown to write an article for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the article (in Dutch).

I’ve written quite extensively on VLR so i just make a few remarks here. Further on i hope the pictures here will be an incentive to visit the show.

It is quite an atmospheric one in spite of the fact that Lut’s grammar here is just black and white and evidently based on modernism.

He also presents his new book Form no Form/The Black Series with pictures of his black variations of the last few years. The book is also a work of art itself, or a kind of exhibition, if you wish.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Content of all pictures courtesy top Marius Lut and Billytown.

 

Bertus Pieters

Marius Lut at Stroom, The Hague

In Stroom’s sympathetic Ondertussen (In the mean time) series Marius Lut shows three works that will be part of an artist’s book, called Form no Form/The Black Series

due to be published. Abstraction and minimalisation or reduction of shape
and redefining its structure and outlook are Lut’s trade. Black, dimness, gloss,

reflection, etc are all part of the game. It makes these particular works very difficult to photograph. But altogether it also shows that you have to see art in real. There

is very little time left to do so (only this weekend) as I was very late visiting this exhibition. Do take a look, if you can. It made me all the more eager to see the book.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus Pieters

Casting couch and Jordy van den Nieuwendijk at Billytown, The Hague

You may ask yourself who is being casted on the couches of Casting Couch, the present group show at Billytown, although

Julian Sirre

i’m sure there’ll be nobody around making any ominous proposal if you visit the exhibition.

Richard Aldrich (l), Robbin Heyker (r)

A pair of subdued paintings by Richard Aldrich and Robbin Heyker are

Klaas Kloosterboer

 

Klaas Kloosterboer

overseeing Klaas Kloosterboer’s big and colourful suit, fallen apart and filled with straw.

Klaas Kloosterboer

In a video you can see the same five parts of the suit, filled with hay being eaten by horses.

Over all it is a show with works in which the thinking and making – these two together – are stressed, while sentiments are being kept at bay.

That doesn’t mean the making and thinking are always easy to detect in the results, they may be obscured.

Marius Lut

Neither does it mean sentiments are not at the base of some of these works. For instance,

Robbin Heyker

who says there are no sentiments in this painting by Robbin Heyker? It refers to paintings by Daan van Golden which refer to Matisse. And

Iede Reckman

 

Iede Reckman

what about works by Iede Reckman in their diversity,

Iede Reckman, Marius Lut

or the

Marius Lut

works by Marius Lut whose

Marius Lut

paintings seem to cover as much as they show?

Florian et Michael Quistrebert

The whole atmosphere is completed by two monitor works, one double one by the versatile Quistrebert Brothers and

Joseph Montgomery

one by Joseph Montgomery (who is having a solo show of his own in The Hague at the moment, click here and here).

The couches in the show bind the works together with a kind of ambivalence, reinforced by the Quistrebert and Montgomery works. Any of your marzipan dreams you may have gathered while watching the exhibition or sitting on one of these couches

Julian Sirre

may be fulfilled by the attractive accompanying magazine designed by Billytown’s home designer Julian Sirre.

After this wonderful exhibition you

Jordy van den Nieuwendijk

may need some relief in Billytown’s kitchen where

Jordy van den Nieuwendijk

Jordy van den Nieuwendijk made an installation which

Jordy van den Nieuwendijk

is as simple as it is inventive.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus Pieters