Vooijsen, Bogaarts & McKellar; Haagse Kunstkring, The Hague

Riet Vooijs, Gerhard Frieder, San Francisco

John McKellar, Visit from Klein Klein

John McKellar, Lotty with farmers wife and cow

John McKellar, Green highrise (detail)

John McKellar, Cowboy on tv

Admittedly i’m not a frequent visitor of Haagse Kunstkring (HKK/ The Hague Art Circle), but

John McKellar, Red highrise (detail)

John McKellar, Visit

John McKellar, New York (detail)

John McKellar, New York

Nies Vooijs, no title (detail)

it’s hard to resist when four such distinctive Hague artists like the Vooijs sisters (painter Nies Vooijs and photographer Riet Vooijs),

Nies Vooijs, no title

Nies Vooijs, no title

Riet Vooijs, Isle of Skye

Nies Vooijs, no title

Nies Vooijs, no title

Bill Bogaarts and John McKellar exhibit their works, especially

Nies Vooijs, no title

Bill Bogaarts, Landscape (with fly) (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Aribert Reimann (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Matthijs Vermeulen (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Rocking horse (detail)

in this rare and wonderful combination.

Bill Bogaarts, Imploding city (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Stair well (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Twighlightzone (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Merry-go-round (detail)

Riet Vooijs, San Francisco 1987

Although each of the quartet works quite differently, in a different idiom, together

Riet Vooijs, Route 66

Nies Vooijs, no title, Riet Vooijs, San Francisco 1987

Riet Vooijs, Chicago 1986, The Hague 2016

Riet Vooijs, Oban, Aulay’s Bar, 2016

Nies Vooijs, no title (detail)

they look like a bunch of friends.

Nies Vooijs, no title

Nies Vooijs, no title

Riet Vooijs, Newcastle 2016

Riet Vooijs, Alabama 1992

John McKellar, Cows in France

I leave you with some impressions here, but of course it is much better to go and take a look for yourself.

John McKellar, France

John McKellar, The cats (detail)

John McKellar, The cats (detail)

Bill Bogaarts, Plateau

Bill Bogaarts, Horse and rider in thick air

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

 

Bertus Pieters

Nies Vooijs at Heden art centre, The Hague

To write a review for the Villa La Repubblica blog (read the full article here – in Dutch, and see some more pictures) about Nies Vooijs’ exhibition,

I visited Heden art centre where she presently has an exhibition at the centre’s gallery.

Vooijs obtained the Heden Oeuvre Award last year for an oeuvre spanning some thirty five years.

The prize is given to artists who have reached an age of (some kind of) wisdom and have created an inspiring and consistent body of work throughout their careers in The Hague.

There is certainly no lack of consistency or of inspiration in Vooijs’ works.

In the exhibition she shows a few oils from the 1980’s and more recent works.

Her works are particularly difficult to describe. They are neither figurative nor abstract, neither narrative nor conceptualist.

It sounds like a terrible cliché, but they are just themselves.

In the basement of the gallery is her big cash book with cuttings from newspapers and magazines and there are cuttings and small objects pinned to the wall as well. You could call it a room of inspiration.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus

Art The Hague 2015; Fokker Terminal, The Hague

Art fairs are usually not the places for great artistic surprises. If you regularly visit galleries, an art fair acts as a sum of what you have seen before.

Erik Buijs

Still art fairs are different in atmosphere and quality and Art The Hague positively seems to have found some stability in both. Indeed there are galleries who show a mixture of artists whose works they have or will have on offer currently, which is generally what art fairs are good for.

For instance Vonkel gallery of The Hague presents some interesting works by some of their very different young artists like Inge Aanstoot,

Maarten van Soest and

Romy Muijrers who graduated from the Royal Academy of The Hague only this year.

Helder gallery shows amongst others these attractive objects made by Eelke van Willegen specially for the five year anniversary of the gallery this fall.

Heden will open a solo exhibition of works by rarely exhibiting Nies Vooijs this Friday and already shows some works here at the fair.

Nouvelles Images presents this sculpture by Joost van den Toorn amongst many others.

Ramakers gallery has some nice works on show by Geert Baas and

by Joncquil.

Kers Gallery from Amsterdam presents amongst others these fine paintings by Thomas Rameckers.

The Rotterdam Aboriginal Art Gallery shows some interesting works by Australian aboriginal artists Summer Matthews and

by James Budiyalil.

Some galleries just present virtually the same kind of things as last year.

These are two of last year’s pictures of works by Stefan Gross at Bob Smit’s gallery from Rotterdam, but the same pictures could have been taken this year.

Some galleries organize a special event, like a solo presentation for an artist. For example Het Bouwhuis gallery from Deventer made a small solo show for painter Aart Houtman. The room is very small and has more or less turned into a kind of chapel with Houtman’s work.

Livingstone gallery of The Hague presents a new book about painter Simon Schrikker who currently has a show at the gallery, about which i reported here.

Here is Schrikker in conversation with my blogging colleague Kees Koomen.

A Gallery Named Sue, always good for something exceptional, has a very special event with A Print Factory, where you can choose your print and buy it for just less than 100 Euros.

The best features of Art The Hague however are usually in the offices next to the hangar. On the second floor some galleries show some extra works of their artists,

like Livingstone gallery with Simon Schrikker,

Helder with Alex de Witte amongst others,

(and where did we see this before?), and

Vonkel with Romy Muijrers and

Wim Warrink amongst others.

On the ground floor Kers gallery gives a very strong performance of some young artists with amongst many: Stig Steijner,

Thijs Linssen and

Mathieu Klomp who imitates with plastic the bombastic outlook of monumental sculpture with gestures of daily life.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Bertus Pieters