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

Nour-Eddine Jarram, Push The Button; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

I visited Maurtis van de Laar’s gallery to write a review about Nour-Eddine Jarram’s solo show Push The Button for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review (in Dutch).

As i have written extensively about the exhibition on VLR i leave you here with a few details of the works on show.

Best of course is to visit the show as it is always better to see the real thing.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Nour-Eddine Jarram and Galerie Maurits van de Laar

 

Bertus Pieters

Track and Trace II; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

Urs Pfannenmüller

Erik Pape

Andrea Freckmann

Maurits van de Laar’s gallery has its 25th anniversary.

Marcel van Eeden

Martin Fenne

Heidi Linck

Robine Clignett

At the moment it shows its second edition of its jubilee exhibition and it is a real full house.

Elsbeth Ciesluk

Ingrid van der Hoeven

Ronald Versloot

Robbie Cornelissen

Herewith i give you a few examples of the more than 70 works of art by more than 30 artists presently on show in the gallery.

Stan Klamer

Elmar Trenkwalder

Nour Eddine Jarram

Jan Brokof

The finissage will be on Sunday.

Sebastiaan Schlicher

Marjolein van der Meij

Martin Assig

Diederik Gerlach

Of course i wish Maurits and his artists many fruitful years to come!

Tobias Gerber

Nare Eloyan

Zeger Reyers

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

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

Bertus Pieters

Passage; Maurits van de Laar gallery, The Hague

I visited Maurits van de Laar’s gallery to write a review for Villa La Repubblica about the present show, featuring works by Dieter Mammel, Hans de Wit and Nour-Eddine Jarram. Click here to read the full review and see some extra footage (in Dutch; review combined with shows in Pulchri and Nest).

Hans de Wit’s works on paper show an interesting mixture of wonder and aw.

Referring to the title of the show, one could think of the passage from the conscious to the unconscious or even from life to death, a process of drowning in a vast sea, or culture taken over by nature.

Nour-Eddine Jarram shows quite a number of water colours, dealing with the so-called clash of cultures, forced migration and protection against suffering.

He more or less translates existing photographs in a somewhat Rembrandtesque style mixed with Jarram’s almost calligraphic way of drawing human expressions.

Dieter Mammel shows two big ink drawings on canvas with boats full of migrating people in between the high waves, incorporating boats and waves in the structure of the canvas.

He also made a video of a project with refugee-children, interviewing them while they were making drawings.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Contents of the pictures courtesy the artists and Galerie Maurits van de Laar.

 

Bertus Pieters

Ria Pacquée & Henri Jacobs, Complete Collapse; Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague

In Complete Collapse at Maurits van de Laar’s gallery Ria Pacquée (1954) shows photographs and videos and

Henri Jacobs (1957) shows drawings.

Pacquée’s work with coins Complete collapse – referring to the fall of Lehmann Brothers in 2008 – is the basis of the show.

She also shows circles in daily life in different places in the world and

you can see circles in her videos.

In one of them she is running in circles around street rubbish in Antwerp.

Jacobs shows some of his so-called Journal Drawings, works based on subjects that keep him busy in his mind the moment he starts a drawing, usually subjects with a strong geometrical input.

Circles, the most perfect shapes in daily life, often occur in his works.

During the exhibition Jacobs is working on a monumental drawing, so there is a good opportunity to meet the artist.

Works of both artists are mixed, such that a wonderful combination of the outer and inner worlds make a complete world.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Contents of all pictures courtesy the artists and Galerie Maurits van de Laar

Bertus Pieters

Andrea Freckmann, Lilian Kreutzberger; Maurits van de Laar Gallery, The Hague

At Maurits van de Laar Gallery Andrea Freckmann shows paintings in combination with sculptures and Lilian Kreutzberger shows reliefs and drawings combined with installations.

Freckmann shows in her paintings different levels of reality often with a dog which seems the only creature that can really be present in all levels. Freckmann expands these different levels with sculptures in front of the paintings or in one case even with a small visual poem.

Kreutzberger has the frames run from her reliefs and drawings to form a kind of architectural environment in which two dimensionality and space play games.

Both artists combine good craftsmanship with a great amount of imagination which proves to be highly contagious (in a healthy way) when visiting the show.

 [Click on the pictures to enlarge]

 

Bertus Pieters

The Homestead Principle #4, Sebastiaan Schlicher at Maurits van de Laar Gallery, The Hague

There is something jazzy about Sebastiaan Schlicher’s drawings. Or rather something rocking, or even

more something punkish. Well, i guess i could go on mentioning musical styles. Too little

is known about the influence of music on the visual arts, which must have

been quite significant since the inventions of radio and gramophone, especially since the nineteen twenties

when records became more widely available. Where the mutual influence of vision, sound and

text can bring you today, is clearly visible in Schlicher’s work. Rythms, texts, stripes, lines,

hallucinatory visions and graffiti mix in an orgy of pencil, ink and improvisation. In

that way Schlicher stands in a musical-artistic tradition that has become more and more obvious

and explicit. His works seem to flow into music and vice versa without a

problem, so the real music might be something you may miss in his current exhibition

The Homestead Principle #4 at Maurits van de Laar Gallery. But i guess that

is just as well for Maurits van de Laar. Instead it is well worth seeing

the variety of rawness and virtuosity. Schlicher is not just a good draughtsman or

an endearing rough improviser; he knows how to make visions come alive. He knows both

their intimacy and their monumentality. He knows the secret life of the visual arts.

And if you don’t get it, there is always his Homestead to receive you.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

Bertus Pieters