The Future is Female; PARTS Project, The Hague

Aase Seidler Gernes

Surely “the future is female” may sound like a statement to which some people, notably males, might react with some fear.

Aase Seidler Gernes

However, whether one’s business is in seeds or in eggs, we all need a future and “the future is female” will certainly not imply a more peaceful future.

Sister Corita Kent

At best it would imply a bit of a more just future regarding the relationship between the sexes, and, let’s be fair, that is quite basic in life and society (as justice is always basic).

Katharina Grosse

Katharina Grosse

Does that have anything to do with the present exhibition at PARTS Project?

Karin Sander

Karin Sander

Not really, except that, apart from the text writer, the actors are an all female cast.

Sylvie Fleury

Sylvie Fleury

The texts (in Dutch) are by male artist Twan Janssen who regularly gives his thoughts about works of present day art on Facebook.

Yael Davids

Yael Davids

These thoughts are intuitive and personal, sometimes a bit poetic or philosophical.

Yael Davids

Rosemarie Trockel

Generally Janssen makes clear how the visual arts, this world of signs and meanings, can accompany human life and can have a personal impact on one’s ways of seeing.

Rosemarie Trockel

Lucia Tallova

In Janssen’s case it also means a lot of love for these signs and meanings, love he has in common with many an art collector.

Daniëlle Kwaaitaal

And that is how it is possible that for instance such sugar sweet works like Lily van der Stokker’s are in the same room as the once virgin canvasses that were sent into the world by Karin Sander to become stained and assaulted, as we all are, male or female.

Rose Wylie

Lily van der Stokker

The concept of intuitive and associative texts combined with works of art works very well.

AnneMarie van Splunter

Roos van Haaften

Text writer Janssen worked together closely with curator Francis Boeske and the result is this already 10^th of the PARTS projects of which i sincerely hope there will be more in future, female or not.

Roos van Haaften

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all photographs courtesy to the artists, the owners of the works and to PARTS Project, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

Shah Jahan, Personal Pop; PARTS Project, The Hague

I went to PARTS Project to write a review about the retrospective of Shah Jahan (1976-2015) for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review (in Dutch)

As i’ve written quite extensively about the show on VLR i leave you here with some pictures without much comment.

I took quite a number as this work is likely not to be seen much in public anymore after this show.

But it is best, of course, as always, to go and take a look yourself, which i highly recommend.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all pictures courtesy to the owners of the works and to PARTS Project, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

Jeroen Doorenweerd meets Gutai; PARTS Project, The Hague

To write an article about paintings in The Hague for Villa La Repubblica i visited amongst others PARTS Project where paintings by Jeroen Doorenweerd (1956) and documentation about Gutai are on show. Click here to read the article (in Dutch).

Gutai was a Japanese artists group in the 1950s and 60s which radically experimented with paint and other media.

Their work existed mainly of actions and performances.

They also worked with paint but without the usual tools, using alternatives like their bodies, their feet, machines and by smashing bottles with paint on the ground.

The aim was to find new terms of aesthetics and to exterminate the individual as much as possible to let the materials speak for themselves.

Doorenweerd only later heard about Gutai when he was already making paintings based on actions, and he immediately felt an affinity with the group.

His works presently on show were made by moving a hanging bucket with a hole and paint running and splashing through it over his canvasses.

His works, like those of the Gutai group, are far less about personal lyricism or philosophy than about action itself.

Which makes it more radical than the usual action painting.

[Click on the pictures top enlarge]

©Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all photographs courtesy to Jeroen Doorenweerd and PARTS Project, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Bij nader inzien (On closer inspection), Accents from the Cleveringa collection; Parts Project, The Hague

Leo Vroegindeweij, Carel Balth

Parts Project 6 shows works by three artists who were represented in the former Piet Cleveringa collection, Carel Balth (1939), Rob van Koningsbruggen (1948) and Leo Vroegindeweij (1955).

Leo Vroegindeweij

Carel Balth

Carel Balth

Leo Vroegindeweij

Piet Cleveringa (1917-2013) was a charismatic art collector and  lover, who tried with his collection and connections to interest people for contemporary art and amongst others organised exhibitions in the countryside.

Leo Vroegindeweij

Rob van Koningsbruggen

Leo Vroegindeweij

Carel Balth

Parts Project has chosen three artists whose works, in spite of their obviously great differences, communicate very well together.

Rob van Koningsbruggen

Leo Vroegindeweij

Rob van Koningsbruggen

Rob van Koningsbruggen

There are also more recent works of the artists on show.

Rob van Koningsbruggen

Rob van Koningsbruggen

Leo Vroegindeweij

Carel Balth

My personal favourites are especially amongst the works by Vroegindeweij and Van Koningsbruggen.

Rob van Koningsbruggen

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to the artists, Parts Project, Den Haag and the different collectors.

 

Bertus Pieters

Jaap van den Ende, In orde – Een rationele benadering (In Order – A Rational Approach); Parts Project, The Hague

Parts Project has an almost museum-like presentation of works by Jaap van den Ende (1944). It has become a kind of retrospective of Dutch painting since the late 1960s. It starts with works of the late 60s and the 1970s with a stark minimalism,

which transforms to works in which lush brush strokes and the structure of paint is combined with geometry in the late 70s and first half of the 1980s (to me his best known works).

The 2^nd half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s are represented by works in which there are overtones of painterly dedication and the suggestion of space.

The most spectacular transformation happened in the late 1990s when Van den Ende found his way of dealing with postmodernism.

It puts the whole show and the whole idea of abstraction in painting into perspective.

The careless viewer might think this is just a show of reverse evolution in painting, but it rather shows that the enlightened, modernist ideas of progress have become a myth, whether we like it or not.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Contents of all pictures courtesy to Jaap van den Ende and Parts Project, Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

Peter Bogers, Bodyscanning; Parts Project, The Hague

Bodyscanning, the show with works by Peter Bogers (1956), Parts Project’s fourth exhibition, is in its last week.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, you should go and take a look now, for it’s a great and intriguing show.

It is also a very physical show, both sensational and intimate.

Don’t be afraid, you won’t be touched physically, but Bogers gets as near to you as possible without touching.

All works are based on the physicality of the body and its subtle ways of communication, the body as a world of wonder.

Historically Bodyscanning is also interesting as it exhibits works from the late 1970s up to very recent and as such it also shows the development of reproducing moving pictures throughout the last decades.

Parts Project’s presentation of the works is again wonderful, giving full attention to each individual work, but also finding a way of dialogue between the works.

In a way the show almost becomes one big body including all the necessary equipment.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Peter Bogers and Parts Project

Bertus Pieters

Robert Holyhead, Open Ground; Parts Project, The Hague

Parts Project’s second show is a worthy successor to the first one in its sheer quality and uniqueness.

The gallery has turned into a kind of white cube and exhibits works by British painter Robert Holyhead (1974).

Holyhead’s first retrospective exhibition (yes, indeed! and right here, in The Hague!) shows him as a painter’s painter.

Any painter who knows the craft also knows about the thickness or fluidity of the material, knows about oil, water and pigments and how they behave and knows how to tame them while using their characters and properties.

Every painter also knows that this is a daily challenge.

Another daily challenge for the painter is the pureness of the idea expressed in the painting and the way individual aesthetics become part of it.

All these aspects come together in Holyhead’s paintings.

The way the paint is brushed on the canvass and the fluidity of the oil tell the story.

Shapes may remind you of windows or just lights in space.

Geometric shapes find themselves floating in monochrome paintings, or wrapped up in paint.

There are also water colours on show which more or less form the nucleus of Holyhead’s activities.

His works are sensitive, nuanced but also expressive and as such it is almost an insult to make photographs of them.

It is far better to go and see the real thing and take a very close look.

I recommend this show to every painter who reads this.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Contents of the pictures courtesy Robert Holyhead and Parts Project

 

Bertus Pieters

To the End of the World or to the Edge of the Paper; Bob Law and Jos van Merendonk, Parts Project, The Hague

Jos van Merendonk

I visited the new art venue Parts Project to write a review about its first exhibition for Villa La Repubblica.

Bob Law

Jos van Merendonk, Bob Law

Click here to read the full review (in Dutch) and see some additional footage (combined with works by Jan Wattjes which are presently on show at Livingstone gallery).

Bob Law

Jos van Merendonk

Bob Law

Jos van Merendonk

The space is run by former entrepreneur and art collector Cees van den Burg.

Bob Law

Bob Law

Bob Law, Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

The exhibitions will be based on or inspired by private collections, but they won’t be collection shows.

Bob Law

Bob Law

Bob Law

Jos van Merendonk

Bob Law

Van den Burg wants to show works by artists who are lesser known and whose works should be more accessible to a wider audience.

Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

Jos van Merendonk

The present show To the End of the World or to the Edge of the Paper is a combination of works by Bob Law (1932-2004), an artist hardly known in this country (and not known to me either until recently) and by Jos van Merendonk (1956), an artist whose work is also quite unknown (I remember his early works from the 1980’s).

Jos van Merendonk

Bob Law

Bob Law

Jos van Merendonk

Both artists being draftsmen in the first place, the combination makes for a good and inspiring show.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

 

Bertus Pieters