#3: Athens – Platforms Project 2017

May 21, 2017

This sunday was to be the longest day of the Fair: from 12.00 untill 23.00 h. Unfortunately it was also a day that some religious nameday was celebrated and that  important sportsevents took place. It was very quiet at the fair and it felt desencouraging to have so little people coming by, but everybody made the best of it. I visited some booths that I didn’t see yet as you can see here:

On the way to the Platforms we run into a Documenta project: Rasheed Araeen: Food for Thought: Thought for change – 2017 In this location refugees can have free meals every day. There’s a kitchen in the middle and  there are terraces all around.

The design is very efficiënt: recognisable from afar

Arriving at the Platforms the KRAATZ-artists appear to have liven up to their promise: the booth changes, here with added posters by Stéphan Guénau

Marian Wijnvoord and Isolde Nagel are stil in doubt about one wall

But this A-Trans wall is well done

Alexander Peev at Dadada Academy

Klitsa Antoniou: But at the End the Light was Shed on us and it got us to the shore – 2016.  A horrible video with a girl that tells about loving her father and how she likes to help him put shrapnel in bombs and how they flee to the west where she gets to know other children of her age

En Flo: Project Xouthou Street – a door from a house in the centre of Athens you can go through

after which you can write down what it brings about in you. Left under is my comment.

Extra Muros from Nantes was good again: they had subtle ceramic works by Cat Fenwick

It’s all about equilibrium

Guillaume Krick showed a very non-commercial installation with an old French flag

And Romain Rambaud was his usual elegant self with these sculptures

That I rather like

Diensgebäude is also present with work from Andreas Martí

and Chloe Cheuk

Elisabeth Wheeler

This work at Harrington Mills Studios was nice

I like the materiality of it

A sneak peak at the new unnoticed art exhibit featuring a small work by yours truly

Haïtian art at Kallio Kunsthalle, cut from car tires

Petri Saariko, the curator did well himself too

In the mean while our publicity was great: Ellen Rodenberg’s picture of her Malieveld piece was in a large national newspaper in an article about Platforms project

And I was interviewed by George Oreopoulos for Beton7 Art Radio (my favourite radiostation)

Our Dutch Globalist Willem Jan Smit made a round through the neighbourhood, created a sculpture

And projected it’s shadow on the wall by means of the dust he took off it

And of course some materials he used

One more view at Lo and Behold in the cellar

With work by Linda Weiss

Ed’s Video from Canada had surprisingly analogue art with him this time

End we ended up nearby in a restaurant during a blazing thunderstorm

Nico Parlevliet from Unnoticed Art joined us from Holland and everybody sang for me after midnight because of my birthday!

Platforms Project 2017

Gagarin – Rotterdam Contemporary 2017

9 februari 2017

Vandaag was ik eerst nog even op Art Rotterdam waar Wilfried Huet een lezing gaf over Gagarin, het tijdschrift dat hij uitgeeft en waarin beeldend kunstenaars worden uitgenodigd een tekstuele bijdrage te leveren. West heeft op dit moment in Huis Huguetan een  tentoonstelling die is samengesteld door het collectief  HELD, een groep van vier kunst-afficionados waaronder Huet. Daarnaast wordt in de ruimte van West aan het Groenewegje de tentoonstelling Gagarin, Slominsky, Beuys getoond waarin naast werk van Andreas Slominsky en Josepy Beuys ook alle edities van Gagarin te zien zijn. In zijn lezing vertelde Huet over de inspiratie voor het tijdschrift, de band met zijn eerdere beeldende werk en over het verloop van de geschiedenis van Gagarin en hoe de contacten met de diverse kunstenaars verliepen. Het is bijzonder interessant te zien en te horen hoe beeldend kunstenaars de vraag van de redacteur om een tekst te leveren opvatten en naast ingrepen in de vormgeving illustreert het geleverde werk in de meeste gevallen de attitude die de kunstenaar heeft.

Wilfried Huet naast een geprojecteerde lijst met medewerkers van Gagarin onder wie zeker niet de minsten

Met een overtuigende toon vertelde Huet over de wijze waarop hij kunstenaars er toe overhaalde een tekst te leveren waarna hij overtuigend de verrassing beschreef over het geleverde werk.

Een tekst van Alfredo jaar als voorbeeld

Hierna wilde ik toch nog de Rotterdam Contemporary zien waarvoor ik ook een aantal uitnodigingen kreeg van interessante kunstenaars. Bij deze een indruk:

Bijna als eerste werd ik verrassend aangesproken door Andreas Martí uit Zürich die ik al een aantal jaar in Athene heb meegemaakt. Zijn Initiatief Diensgebäude laat o.a. werk van hemzelf zien waaronder deze uit nood geboren lamp

en ook dit papier werk.

Jans Muskee heeft voor de gelegenheid een fraai groot werk getekend: Just what is it that makes today’s homes so differnt, so appealing?

Willem Stoop bij WTC-gallery

Galerie Ra was erg populair bij de dames met handige toontafels

Gryanne Stunnenberg

Mooi transparant werk van Klaas Gubbels

Prachtig werk van Jan van Munster

En nog een meester: werk van Mariëlle Buitendijk

Een wandsculptuur van Olaf Mooij bij Bob Smit

Babette Kleijn

Werk uit een solopresentatie van Lotte van Lieshout bij galerie Wit

Nico Parlevliet bij Pictura

Paul Bogaers

Het lijkt wel of ik Tobias Lengkeek tegenwoordig overal tegen kom!

Alweer Olaf Mooij bij Buro Rotterdam

Joel Mpah Dooh bij Sanaa

Tamara Dees bij Twelve Twelve

Het zou me niet verwonderen als het deze Engelse galerie is die de prijs voor de beste presentatie heeft gewonnen: L’étrangère uit London

Dan hing er in de WTC galerieruimte ook nog een tentoonstelling met Rotterdamse meesters, uitgezocht door een selectiecommissie, mooi geheel met ik zeggen met enige omissies:

Weer Mariëlle Buitendijk, hors concours wat mij betreft!

Prachtige subtiele paneeltjes

Inge Aanstoot hoort er zeker bij

Evenals Eveline Visser

John van ’t Slot

Ad Schouten

Geert Baas hoort er ook bij! Hij heeft zich er stiekem tussen gewurmt met dit werk op de heren WC

en deze bij de dames.

en tot slot Anuli Croon

Art Rotterdam Reflections

Rotterdam Contemporary

Platform Project & Art Athina 2016

May 27, 2016

In spite of the crisis atmosphere in Athens and the refugee-problems that haunt the country the Athens artfair took place again this year. The Taekwondo Stadium had been occupied with refugees in winter during heavy rains which resulted in a lot of problems.  Nevertheless, the fair continued but the big galleries in Greece didn’t show up and the galleries that did show up were very conservative in their choice of artists. The Platform Project on the other hand was very interesting this year. It is always worth to visit but now the side show for non-commercial art platforms showed great art and awareness of the human and the political situation which in some cases led to  moving art works.

Look at the fair from the platforms

Derek Liddington at 8Eleven, a very interesting sculptor. these are studies after an Elsworth Kelly drawing

This video was shot by Liddington, having four actors making a pillar of clay and creating a tension between disciplines

 

This was an ongoing performance in 8eleven in which a dancer would reenact the choreography “Ode” which was executed by les Ballets Russes in 1913. The floor on which the dancer moved was a square meter of clay

I found this work very moving: in an inter-active work, Navine Khan Dossos tries to paint the 2000 people that have sought refuge in the Taekwondo Stadium last winter. Visitors and colleagues are invited to contribute as the artist will continue to paint until the end of the fair.

This beautiful Painting has been made by an icon-painter for Kallio Kunsthalle (FI), following the text that Petri Saariko had prepared.

Andreas Martí installed this drawing installation at Dienstgebäude

It is continuing to draw during the fair

This wall sculpture of Bettina Diel could also be seen at Diensgebäude

From Nantes (FR) came Extra Muros in which these wall sculptures by Romain Rimbaud were shown

Interesting painting at Foss (GR)

A short visit to the real fair: here a photograph by Sarah Lucas

Nice political drawings by Tasos Pavlopoulos

Collage by Maria Ikonomoupoulou

who also made beautiful embroideries on newspaper, shown at Mulier Mulier

Where also work of the painter Guy van Bossche was shown

I rather liked these collages because of the use of material. made by Nikos Varitymiadis

Taubert Contemporary showed an artist with over-all design: Lars Arrhenius

Curator of Platform Projects, the wonderful Artemis Potamianou, an artist also, showed at the floor of the fair

Kallio Kunsthalle showed performance “about the self-determination of women”

At MUU (F) the performance artist Helinä Hukkataival showed a very sensitive performance

resulting in a beautiful series of personae

From the Netherlands came Bcademie, a post-graduate training for artists (after A you have to say B). Here initiators Alex Jacobs and Daan den Houter talk with their students, of which six were doïng performances durig the fair. One for a Euro!

The students found props in Athens and used those to arrange their space

They proved quite popular, here Elsemarijn Bruijs working on chewing gum

The shift was together with Philippa Driest

Who showed pictures of urban places accompanied by sounds of airplanes

AKA artist run from Saskatchewanm, Canada with sculpture of Svea Ferguson

Super 8 video by Leslie Supnet

and Lori Blondeau who researches diverse persona’s

The Lo and Behold (GR) wants to fertilise the soil in “Bureau of Soil making” by Yiannis Hiridoglou

From Boston (USA) the Museum of Contemporary Cuts with heavy conceptual work with a direct approach

Which works rather good I think

Then an installation of Amiraly from Parking Gallery/New media Society from Iran, a presentation which is well worked out

Cut the Fence, a project of Copa & Sordes: the 657 meter long fence of a Swiss refugee camp is transformed in to the same length of African damask fabric with fence pattern: everybody who cuts a piece of it contributes to the destruction of the fence

Groupshow at SCI (UK) with very nice works, some fresh from the boats coming to Greece

Ed video: always interesting video-stuff, here by Iris Fraser and David Hanes

Foreign Affairs, A beautiful collaboration by Bella Easton, Tiny Dominguez and Julia Riddlough of resp. Beaston projects, Rosa Lux and A Brooks Art

The beauty of statistics, by Tiny Dominguez

In the mean while the Capacity-project of Navine Khan Dossos is a large succes

 

The refugee-camp is turning in a large field of flowers!

At A-Trans beautiful work on paper by Marian Wijnvoord

Who also burns down the Netherlands in her Photo-collages

The line in Andreas Martí’s installation is lengthening

Bcademy’s students don’t stop performing, here Maud van den Beuken moves sand

from stage to visitor

and Casper Braat plans a make-over for your humble reporter

Various Artists from Belgium, a research in shit which Belgians find interesting in general

Trying to find the pearls which are being digested by test-persons

And also the deterioration of Bonsai-trees under water is a process that results in esthetic pleasures under the name Agua con Gaz

The very big collective EN-FLO (GR) installed suit-cases with fillings

And then there is the very interesting Milena Principle, showing projects that relate to our own activities. Action in public space about silence and slowness.

In Venice

And Athens, we will hear more from them!

Last but certainly not least Kunstenaarsinitiatief Elders from Den Haag (NL), here an expanding painting by Lucius Pax

Painting by Liesbeth Bosch

And surprising ceramics by Corine Barendregt

Art Athina 2016