Kim Hospers, Esse Est Percipi #whatever; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

According to the British philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1735) to be is to be perceived.

In our age of digital mass exposure this may have detrimental consequences as to how we are perceived, and so, following Berkeley, how and who we are.

This smells already like the trend of the last few decades or so of identity thinking, its blurring, its history, its morality and its blah-blah.

However, Kim Hospers (1982) escapes these preoccupations, by concentrating on deliberate visible destruction of the individual identity as a practical joke by pranksters on the internet.

Usually meant to be seen by a circle of friends and acquaintances of the victim, these pictures of ridiculed sleeping beauties can be found as trash circling on the internet.

In fact the general viewer doesn’t know the pranked persons and as such they become alternative individuals, clogged by what could be seen as caricatures or superlatives of the human condition.

Hospers has drawn an enormous collection of faces based on these pictures of fooled identities.

A series of twelve dozen same-sized drawings on show at Maurits van de Laar’s gallery gives the impression of a mass gathering of zombie-like people, whose dreams may be as weird as their appearances.

There are also bigger portraits and some sculptures on show.

Altogether it makes for another spectacular and very fine show to end a very strong pre-summer season at Van de Laar’s gallery.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all photographs courtesy to Kim Hospers and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

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Andrea Freckmann, Commedia, Get On Stage!; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Andrea Freckmann (1970) currently has a solo show at Galerie Maurits van de Laar.

It is rare for an artist to have a solo exhibition at Van de Laar’s gallery, but the subject clearly needs it and, what’s more, Freckmann’s work is worth it.

Freckmann clearly is both a painter and a narrator, though her stories don’t seem to have a beginning or an end.

As such they resemble the commedia dell’arte by which this show is inspired.

The figures of the commedia dell’arte have evolved in a tradition of about two centuries with characters like Pierrot, Arlecchino or Colombina who became part of West European culture.

As such they always played the hopes, pitfalls, sentiments and especially the morals of daily life as a caricature, masked and unmasked.

Freckmann adds her own figures and objects to the stories.

There is the ever-present silent dog, the sloppily feathered blackcap, a vase, a timber framed house or even the odd handsome prince on a white horse.

The great thing about Freckmann’s works is that she doesn’t just paint scenes, but that her painting, both technically and compositionally, becomes part of the narrative, or the other way round..

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all photographs courtesy to Andrea Freckmann and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

Turn Back Time; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Olphaert den Otter

Notoriously, composer Karlheinz Stockhausen said about the 9/11 Attacks: Well, what happened there is, of course (….) the biggest work of art there has ever been.

Marjolijn van der Meij

By that time – it was a few days after the traumatising acts of terror – this caused controversy.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

On the other hand the English are their cruel king Henry VIII still grateful for turning their gothic abbeys into romantic ruins.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

Destruction can be horrible and may be cruel, but undeniably it also produces visions of transformation, and that has its own aesthetics.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

Works by four artists who occupy themselves in one way or another with change and the passing of time are presently on show at Maurits van de Laar Gallery.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

Olphaert den Otter (1955) shows places of destruction in his series World Stress Paintings.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

The delicateness and smallness of his tempera paintings form a stark contrast to the manmade catastrophes he actually shows.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

Marjolijn van der Meij (1970) deforms her works by crumpling them and reworking them.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

Again, the cruelty of the act becomes a base for an extremely delicate way of sculpture that catches light and dark and gives new content to what is actually shown.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

Tobias Lengkeek (1991) is looking for the aesthetics of what you may call slow destruction, the decay you may meet with at any moment of the day in any place around you.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

These moments and places and the transition they represent are the base for his very painterly paintings.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

The slow but momentous visions of destruction inspire his aesthetics, even to the point where you can see the destruction in the paintings themselves.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

Martin Gabriel (1991) is probably the least destructive in his works.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

He combines painting, collage and the language of computer games in his works.

Tobias Lengkeek

Martin Gabriel

He digitises and de-digitises, dragging the venerable art of painting into the digital maelstrom of the contemporary and redefining real and digital time and space.

Olphaert den Otter

Marjolijn van der Meij

All four artists are trying to find a way of living with sometimes horrific, sometimes sneaking changes in our lives and to redefine aesthetics in the process.

Tobias Lengkeek

It makes for an interesting and fine show in which works by two ‘older’ artists are confronted with those of a younger generation.

Martin Gabriel

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to the artists and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Scape, works on paper by Frank Van den Broeck, Robine Clignett, Stan Klamer; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Robine Clignett

Works of three artists, Robine Clignett (1948), Frank Van den Broeck (1950) and Stan Klamer (1952), are united in what might be called mindscape at the moment at Maurits van de Laar Gallery.

Stan Klamer

Robine Clignett

Stan Klamer

Frank Van den Broeck

Frank Van den Broeck

Frank Van den Broeck

Frank Van den Broeck

There is a great variety in abstraction and imagination.

Frank Van den Broeck

Frank Van den Broeck

Frank Van den Broeck

Robine Clignett

Robine Clignett

Robine Clignett

Robine Clignett

Frank Van den Broeck

In Clignett’s work the atmospheric qualities of colour and hue are fundamental, while Van den Broeck’s works seem to have been conceived in between the scenery flats of reality and the mind and Klamer’s works look like a kind of mind  maps or memory maps.

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

Stan Klamer

All three artists show exceptionally fine and exquisite works in this very intimate exhibition.

Stan Klamer

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

©Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all photographs courtesy to the artists and to Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag.

 

Bertus Pieters

Christie van der Haak, Elmar Trenkwalder; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Both artists in Maurits van de Laar’s gallery’s present exhibition, Elmar Trenkwalder (1959) and Christie van der Haak (1950), take ornamentation out of its generally presumed decorative context.

In Trenkwalder’s works ornaments become corporeal, especially in his more sculptural ceramics, whose uniformity in colour and material invites the viewer to look and scrutinise more closely.

It might have been a kind of a challenge to integrate Trenkwalder’s objects more with Van der Haak’s installation.

Now, although some of them are shown in the same space as Van der Haak’s, they still retain their full sovereignty, which is just as well.

Van der Haak’s installation contains wallpaper, paintings, ceramics, epoxy resin panels  and upholstered chairs.

Focusing may seem to be a bit puzzling but that is also part of the fun and charm as Van der Haak makes you look in different ways.

There is no difference in hierarchy between any object or its surroundings.

Some objects come out clearly, others seem to have a camouflage colour.

As always Van der Haak wonderfully combines a festive mood with the intimacy of the gaze.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

©Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all photographs courtesy to Elmar Trenkwalder, Christie van der Haak and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Everything We Could Not Keep, works by Eva Spierenburg and Elsbeth Ciesluk; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Eva Spierenburg

The title of the show has a bit of a melancholic undertone, but that is where the absurdism of both artists, Eva Spierenburg (1987) and Elsbeth Ciesluk (1986), leads to.

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Both artists in this very well conceived show at Maurits van de Laar gallery seem to be in search of things somewhere in between being materially not there, and lost from mind the moment you think of it.

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Spierenburg does so with paintings, drawings, videos and sculptural works and Ciesluk mainly with text works.

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Spierenburg’s works have a wide range of aspects, but usually the human body is central to it.

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Eva Spierenburg

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Ciesluk’s works are in between poetry and visual art.

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

One of her works was made on the wall of the gallery.

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Elsbeth Ciesluk

I was very late in visiting this show, the finissage will be next Sunday, so do hurry to see this fine exhibition.

Elsbeth Ciesluk

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

©Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all photographs courtesy to the artists and to Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Robbie Cornelissen, The New Room; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Robbie Cornelissen (1954) is probably one of the greatest Dutch draughtsmen.

His work is presently on show at Maurits van de Laar gallery.

You could say his practice is a constant dialogue between drawing and space.

Making big drawings has generally been a sort of artistic hype for quite some time, but Cornelissen’s work is quite a different story.

To the viewer it is also a constant challenge in taking a position in front of his drawings.

There are stop-motion videos on show too, in which you can see how Cornelissen is drawing, abstracting, adjusting, erasing, telling a story of space and non-space.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Robbie Cornelissen and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Erik Pape, Ronald Versloot, paintings; Maurits van de Laar gallery, The Hague

At the moment Maurits van de Laar gallery has a double exhibition with works by Erik Pape (1942) and Ronald Versloot (1964).

Place Stalingrad (Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad) in Paris is still part of Pape’s studio.

In this exhibition he shows some details that caught his eye, making the square a cosmos of different aspects of life.

Versloot shows a lot of pictures about sailing.

You might ponder who are the real masters, the people in the boats or the impressive, but also a bit ghost-like sails.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Erik Pape, Ronald Versloot and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters