about
I lost a lot after leaving Spain :
scrapbooks, films and many photos. What I found on some disks to fill up my
luggage is represented here; some random picks from a whole career of over 30
years. That happens if life takes a wrong turn. I didn’t foresee what was
coming when I moved to Europe’s most southern country almost eleven years ago
and couldn’t fore come that it would be almost impossible to live there -
especially for a foreigner - thanks to the economic circumstances. I don’t
regret. Spain
is a fantastic country, and if I had to make the decision again, I would...
Still from what is left, the
silent witnesses, I composed a website dedicated to a life of hard work and
achievements. I exhibited all over the world, started in my home country: the Netherlands , I was able to show my work as far
as the US , Brazil and Japan . I did gallery shows, but
exhibited also in museums, cultural centers and enterprises: often alone
(solo), but also many in group, invited by fellow artists or organizations. I
hope you enjoy this small contribution and let me know what you like or
don’t...
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| Achter de Toren Sambeek 1980 |
debut
The first invitation I got as a
teenager, 15 years old, to exhibit in my hometowns’ youth-center Telstar 65; an
adolescent show of immature work of which I show two examples here. I don’t
consider that opportunity as my debut however. It was just a side-kick and to
fill the basement bar of a society I was too young to enter.
My debut came more or less by
accident. I didn’t want to show my work, made my living as an illustrator when
Cor Borsje asked me to do a show in his gallery Achter de Toren in Sambeek. I
just returned from the US after a stay of
more then two years and Cor was also the PR manager of Rank Xerox Benelux. He
invited me to work in their showroom with the prototypes to develop computer
generated art, and I wanted to favor him when I said yes. Seen afterwards it
was one of those big decisions.
The show was a success, the
critics were fantastic, and so it tasted for more. That’s why I consider this
exhibition as the start of my professional independent artist career.
It brought my first representing
gallery: Adri in Nijmegen ,
owned by Richard Eichner. He represented me for over a year until the gallery
went bankrupt. In that year he organized a show with my work in his fathers’
gallery in Jerusalem and he got me in touch with
the Israel Linka gallery in Amsterdam
which also represented me for a while.
Even more important was a trip to
the Hague where
a fellow artist – Theo Bitter – introduced me to Henry de Brey, owner of
gallery Edison who showed my work till he died in 1991.
I did a lot of shows with Edison , every year, sometimes more then once, or was
invited in the group exhibitions Henry organized. It was a successful
association as he showed my work during fairs and manifestations. After his
death I never replaced Edison with another
representing gallery, mainly because I didn’t depend on art in making a living
anymore. My focus was more on what was going on in the computer world: experimenting with
multimedia and later with web-based developments.
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| Amber 1982 cultural center de Beejekurf Venray |
union
In those early years of artist
life I have to mention Chih-ling Tseng an entrepreneur who owned a restaurant
in the town I lived. Not only did he buy a lot of my work, he also allowed me
to turn his business into an art-gallery. I showed work myself and invited
colleagues to exhibit. It became a success, as well for the artist as for the
owner.
Due to my activity in resto Quick
In (as the restaurant was called) I got remarked as an artist by the community
and was visited by two colleagues who wanted to launch an art-council for the
area. I became involved as a board member of the Amber society with
responsibility for presentations like exhibits and fairs.
At that point I already was a
member of the BBK – the Dutch Artist Union – and with the experience I
developed in the Amber council I was able to contribute in the international
art-shows initiated by the union. Themes like Orwell in 1984, or Heinrich
Heine, the year after were shown in galleries and museums in the Netherlands , Belgium ,
Luxemburg , France
and Germany .
Thanks to the Orwell exhibition I
was discovered by Peter Küstermann who asked me to do a show in his Kunstverrein
Wolkenstein in Minden (Germany ). As
one of the leading mail-artists
of that time he dragged me into it, after which I participated in a lot of
projects.
It was when I moved to Amsterdam that union life
became more important. Living in the North quarter I was invited at the base of
the foundation of an art-council for the region, again with responsibility to
represent the artist members. That is how the Noordzij
association found and invited me to design an exhibition about the Amsterdam IJ-borders and
how I got involved in their plans for re-structuring, and designed exhibitions
around the subject for over three years.
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| cultural center De Weyer Boxmeer 1984 |
retrospective
My first show in “Achter de
Toren” was already a large one, especially for a debut. Over a hundred works
were exhibited.
The second and largest exhibit I
ever did was in 1984 when fellow artist Arno Arts – what’s in a name – asked me
to fill the entire cultural center of Boxmeer: “De Weyer”. Boxmeer is just a
small town but the impact was huge. Some 200 works I exposed and the critics
came from all over the Netherlands ,
the border areas of Germany
and Belgium .
In 1985 I exhibited again in “de
Weyer” with just a couple of works as one of the exposing artist over the past
year.
However I did large shows after
that, I never showed a so diverse collection of my work and styles. Almost
everything I did so far was represented: my work as an illustrator, artist,
copier and mail-artist.
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| Hammam Amsterdam 1988 |
city
In 1986 I moved to Amsterdam and became
actively involved in the capital cultural circle, but already before that I
exhibited in the city. I showed my work at several moments, mainly in group and
with special occasions like in the New
Church
In 1983 I had my first solo
exhibition in Amsterdam
in cultural center De Meervaart where I showed my series of “Rhythm Balls”,
works in black & white and mixed media inspired by a Native American music
instrument.
Almost immediately after I moved
I got involved in Gollem, a cultural café in the town center, where I was asked
to take over editing their monthly magazine and where I had a show, my works
screwed against the ceiling, at the end of that year.
Thanks to my decision to go to Amsterdam , times became busy as an active board member of
the BBK, ‘t KAN
(Amsterdam North Artist council) and later the Noordzij
association. I got a lot of opportunities; from exhibiting in galleries and
cultural centers to co-working at the decorations of the first Dutch Hammam and
organizing the opening exhibition for it. My show in the Shaffy Theater was
widely broadcasted on television thanks to a weekly cultural program which was
located there.
Not only in Amsterdam but also in the immediate surroundings
I used the opportunities to show my work, like in cultural center De
Drommedaris (Camel) in Enkhuizen where I dedicated a theme exhibition around
the animal the center was named after.
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| Crcifix, mixed media 1988 |
victims of power & violence
In 1988 I was invited by
Eurometaal, the national Dutch ammunition fabric. I accepted under the
condition that I had carte-blanches to react. I titled the exhibition “Victims
of Power & Violence” What did they expect when I asked?
The works weren’t even there for
24 hours, removed immediately as if blood shatter flooded the floors.
Newspapers wrote about it and even the Queens ’
cabinet got involved. I moved the exhibition to my gallery Edison in the Hague where it didn’t
got the attention I hoped for after all the fuzz. In fact the whole matter died
silently. Could a company of arms be that influentially?
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| Open Haven Museum 1992 |
doors of melancholy & desire
Anneke Peereboom and I worked
already together for a couple of years when I got the idea to bring a show
together. As location I found the Open
Haven Museum
Painting on doors – old and used
ones – was already a fact before I found the location. We collected them from
everywhere: old buildings which had to be demolished, or from people who had
just stored them in their basement.
We worked in my studio, together,
but not at the same door, to see if we would influence each other. Sometimes we
worked with a model, mostly inspired by the moment, and the installation grew.
It had to become a huge
construction: the doors really hung in their slots, and it was Anneke’s husband
who meant that we had to paint the whole installation black.
It was a brilliant idea; situated
in the large entrance hall of the museum. The colorful doors jumped immediately
in sight. The opening was a success and the show got a lot of press attention,
even a video release, but there were no continuing ambitions.
It was 1992, over two years after
I launched the idea and my interests were more and more in consulting,
organizing and the fast evolves in the computer world. Besides I was preparing
for the Biennale in Brusque St Catharina (Brazil ) were I was invited for the
year after.
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| preparation for Dubai, end 2011 |
today
As mentioned before: from the
early nineties my focus was more on computer developments that happened in
those days then on creating art, which didn’t mean that I wasn’t in any
exhibitions anymore. Those were mainly invitations for group-shows; however I
still had a couple of smaller solo-exhibits like in an NMB bank office in Amsterdam .
At the end of 1996 I moved to Antwerp where, together
with some fellow mail-artists,
we tried to establish a nation-wide network in order to organize shows and
performances. That we didn’t succeed is due to the nature of the beast:
mail-artist - however connected world-wide - are individuals in itself.
In 1997 I went back to college as
one of the chosen ones in the first course “Internet Developer Expert”, and
because of that the main focus glided to web-based development. Still I did
some minor shows where I lived; a big and monumental office-building in the
town center.
Also after I moved to Spain early
2002 I had some shows in the immediate surroundings with computer generated
art-work which was quit new, especially in the beginning. Those were prints or
environmental work shown in traditional places like galleries and cultural
centers. Because of my involvement in Internet and multimedia developments I
didn’t had much time to exhibit, and strangely enough web-based shows just
started after my return to the Netherlands
last year.
Today I’m looking for new challenges.
There is an upcoming show in Dubai
for the end of this year, and I’m experimenting with all kinds of opportunities
the Web has to offer.
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