Duende

BRAK is proud to present BRAK 4.1, a duo presentation of the artists Remco Torenbosch and Nickel van Duijvenboden.
The fourth BRAK theme Writisms revolves around the usage of text as artistic medium, whether as artobject or as reflective and analytical medium that is part of the artproduct.

About BRAK
BRAK is a Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAK’s programmatical approach focuses on giving space for the expression of individual artistic practices while building up an overview of current methodologies specifically focusing on the development of autonomous art.

About BRAK 4.1 Writisms
Remco Torenbosch presents a critical variety of situations and thoughts. The works that are presented are a reflection on the political and socio-economic changes to which Europe has recently been subjected. In this, Torenbosch investigates the language and manifestations through which a community and continent declares, represents and questions itself through the consciousness of contemporary and historical references.
Within this research, Torenbosch tries to distil the situation as a return to a more human scale and perspective by underlining the importance of care and action.
By exploring social conditions and focusing on relations and gestures in the public area within different cultural contexts Remco Torenbosch is contextualizing and recontextualizing them into physical and non-physical matter. With it’s humanistic orientation and formal qualities, Torenbosch’s work probes the scope and complexity of reality itself.

Remco Torenbosch (1982) studied at the Willem de Kooning Academie Rotterdam and at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. His work is recently been shown at GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bergamo, Italy (solo), De Vleeshal Middelburg (solo and group), W139 Amsterdam in collaboration with Casco Utrecht (group), Stroom Den Haag (group), Temporary Gallery Cologne (group). Represented in the public collections of De Vleeshal Middelburg and Fondazione Banca Popolare di Bergamo.

Nickel van Duijvenboden investigates ways of writing that border on the visual arts. His work is about perception in all its facets, notably solitude, silence, landscape, alienation and trauma. Photography, his discipline of origin, has served as an entry point, and still is an essential –yet largely invisible– tool within his process. He is currently preoccupied with the autobiographical record both in written, visual and aural form, and its position within the art and literary contexts.

Born in Amsterdam, 1981, Nickel van Duijvenboden has studied photography at the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. He graduated by presenting a collection of essays in lieu of images. The novella Plateau and a selection of adolescent texts called No mirror can guard you were published by Roma Publications in 2008 and 2011. His latest book, as yet unfinished, is a desert memoir. He occasionally exhibits visual work.

Nickel has engaged in longterm collaborations, presenting text as an equal pendant to the work of, among others, Gwenneth Boelens, Wytske van Keulen and Geert Goiris. His reflective writings include extensive interviews with artists and numerous articles for Endless Lowlands, an online initiative of which he is a founding member. Since 2008 he has been developing a writing curriculum at the photography department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy.

Exhibition’s opening hours
13-21 October, 2012 open 1-6pm
or on appointment by telephone +31(0)624542086
For more information http://duendestudios.nl/brak

Made possible with the generous support of city of Rotterdam Dienst Kunst en Cultuur

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BRAK cordially invites you to the opening of the exhibition BRAK 4
on Friday April 20, 2012 at 7pm at Duende Studios, Rotterdam

BRAK is proud to present BRAK 4, a duo presentation of the artists Thomas I’Anson and G.J. de Rook.

The fourth BRAK theme Writisms revolves around the usage of text as artistic medium, whether as artobject or as reflective and analytical medium that is part of the artproduct.

Thomas I’Anson’s (1983) practice contains traces of symbols and ideology, partly his own, partly from the world around us. With this mixture of ideology derived from texts and symbols comes pattern, repetition and reproduction through the medium of print, which allows for a crossover between installation and the use of publications in the gallery setting.
For this exhibition Thomas I’Anson has chosen to focus on four words he considers integral but not exclusive to the process of conceiving and executing a work of art, these being: presence; what is there physically and metaphysically, absence; what is not shown but is nonetheless integral to the work’s manifestation, intuition; what we know to be right but possibly beyond comprehension or simple justification and influence; from our own work and the environment we inhabit. These four words form four separate works in the exhibition that can also be read as one overall work; each piece deriving elements from another.
http://thomasianson.com

G.J. de Rook  The ‘verbal sculptures’ De Rook has been making since 2007 are site-specific. For BRAK he decided to make use of the windows as a symbolic relation to the world outside. In close co-operation with Thomas I’Anson they ­decided as an exhibition strategy to separate their works according to the logic of the spaces walls, each to their own. De Rook reacts both to the present political situation­ and to previous work. In his work he isolates over one ­hundred ‘words of comfort’ from a nearby graveyard and selected by chance sixteen words, from a Dutch right and a left wing newspaper. 
http://plaatjesblog.blogspot.com

Exhibition 20-29 April, 2012
Opening hours 1-6pm
or on appointment by telephone +31(0)624542086

About BRAK
BRAK is a Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAK’s programmatical approach focuses on giving space for the expression of individual artistic practices while building up an overview of current methodologies specifically focusing on the development of autonomous art.
Read more at http://duendestudios.nl/brak

BRAK is made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur

Thomas I'Anson, Sri Yantra (unravelled), cotton (2011)

G.J. de Rook, Kamer Laakkwartier, Den Haag (2009)

G.J. de Rook, Verbal Sculpture 8 (Krakeel) (2010)

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A spectacle of consequences a visual report of a four week working period at Duende’s project space by participants of the MFA AKV/St.Joost.

• Pim Kersten
• Theodora Kotsi
• Tanya Long
• Remy Habets
• Nelleke Schiere
• Elsbeth Ciesluk
• Raphael Langmair

Exhibition open Saturday February 25 and Sunday 26 from 1-5pm
Opening Friday, February 24, 2012 at 7pm

Pim Kersten 1980 (NL)
As a drummer who’s dealing with different properties of sound, Pim Kersten dynamically tries to compose the divers materials within his installations.
By showing an open score that moves within the field of tension between subject and object, he’s looking for the possible creation of relationships between them.

Theodora Kotsi 1978 (GR/NL)
In my artists’ practice I am fascinated by history and it’s meaning in our society, I emphasize on the historical changes that are usually neglected. By setting up interventions in public spaces I try to make people aware of the things that are often ignored. For the project “Het nieuwe warmoezeniersproject” I was inspired by the history of the greenhouses in the village Lent by Nijmegen. 

Tanya Long 1981 (USA)
Tanya Long’s practice is concerned with the making process and the time involved. This is conveyed through actions conducted on specific material. The result of these actions reveal a process in time and emphasizes the material’s unique capabilities and physical status.

Remy Habets 1975 (NL)
Remy Habets’ art practice deals with the (de)construction of and externally inflicted damage to the human body. He draws his ideas from various fictional and real life sources, such as horror movies, images and stories from the news, obscure sites on the Internet, books, video games etcetera. This input serves as a guideline for making works which depict the reinterpretation of violence and suffering, often taking the shape of mixed media installations / sculptures with a focus on both formalistic aspects and estranged narratives.

Nelleke Schiere 1984 (GT/NL)
I like to experience perspective, for example when I am moving through a landscape. Things that are close to me pass very fast and the further away they stand, the slower they pass by me.
I also like the notion of time and space and how I can fill or reconstruct this. By using the reflection of a mirror I can let space either collapse or open up. Another element that continues throughout my work is the use of colour.

Elsbeth Ciesluk 1986 (NL)
Somewhere between life and work, I am dancing. Endless movements of the body, of a pencil or with words. Trying to make my mind and the struggle of the process visible. With the endurance of a middle distance runner I will paint it white again.

Raphael Langmair 1985 (CH)
In short I can say about my work that I often combine an action with a material. I like to test physical conditions of matter by implying gestures/actions/movements/processes to it, which ideally lead to something else. Leaving the work in a raw state of flux and possibility.

Made possible with the generous support of dKC Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur and AKV/St.Joost

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Documentatie Brak, I (pdf 5,5 MB)
Brak 1, Brak 2, Braktalk 1

Documentatie Brak, II (pdf 5,7 MB)
Brak 2.5, Brak 2.7, Brak 3

Extra informatie, I (pdf 7,5 MB)
Brak 2.7 - 0868, Artists documentation & article Dieter Roelstraete

Extra informatie, II (pdf 8,4 MB)
Brak 1 - I show love, Ton Schuttelaar
Brak 2 - Painting beside itself, David Joselit
Braktalk 2 - On Mark Making, Sjoerd Westbroek

Videolecture Jason Coburn, Braktalk 1

The Etcetera Principle from Jason Coburn on Vimeo.

 

David Stamp

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BRAK is proud to present BRAK 2.7 ‘0868’, a duo exhibition with the artists gerlach en koop and Martijn in ’t Veld, opening on Thursday May 19, 2011 7pm at Duende Studios, Rotterdam

Opening Thursday 19/05 at 7pm
Exhibition 20/05-22/05 1-6pm
and until 05/06 on appointment +31(0)624542086
BRAK TALK 05/06 at 2.30pm (participants to be announced)

gerlach en koop is a collective of two artists from The Netherlands who gave up the habit of writing their proper name with capital letters eleven years ago, in order to be able to disappear as individual artists into one collective­ artist. In the beginning of the collaboration their work was shown mostly in The Netherlands but that has tilted in Belgium­ in recent years, and turned towards the abroad. gerlach en koop live and work in The Hague and are represented­ by Ellen de Bruijne Projects from Amsterdam.
The works of gerlach en koop are characterized by elegance and mystery. Their interventions, executed upon existing and familiar objects and sometimes upon or in the space itself, are nevertheless easy to follow. A lot of attention is directed towards the potential of the objects to transmit meaning, by revealing, for instance in their titles and descriptions, too much information, or rather too little. By focusing, with concentration and certain tenacity, on the ordinary and the obvious and not on the exceptional, they show how incomprehensible and unparalleled our daily surroundings can be, like the repetitive breathing against the same wall each time by someone else.

Martijn in ‘t Veld is interested in what a piece of gum under his shoe can tell him about the world, he wonders what is a vanitas painting, which talks about the transience of life, doing on a flea market or why a record looks like a black hole and runs in circles. Observations like these are the starting point for a playful journey into the literary and philosophical qualities of the everyday. A nomadic practice, in which small objects of daily use become protagonists in an often metaphysically orientated philosophy of time and space, which is both humorous and serious in character. Martijn in ’t Veld (1979) lives and works in Rotterdam. He received a BA from the Willem De Kooning Academie Rotterdam 2007 and is currently studying at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. Recent exhibition include: ‘the And’, ZINGERpresents, Amsterdam; ‘KFPC’, White Columns, New York, United States; “If you do know that “here is one hand”… CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania. Martijn in’t Veld is presented by Tulips & Roses, Brussels, Belgium.

About BRAK
BRAK is a new Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAK’s programmatical­ approach focuses on giving space for the expression of ­individual artistic practices while building up an overview of current methodologies specifically focusing on the development of autonomous art.

The second exhibition series, New Minimalism, focuses on possibilities and proposals for the continuation of Minimalism, one of the most important mainstreams within the tradition of modern art.

Read more at http://duendestudios.nl/brak

Made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur.

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BRAK cordially invites you to the BRAK3 events:

Frédéric Sanchez
With the participation of Hugo Pernet & Hugo Schüwer-Boss
A mural especially produced for the BRAK platform
Opening Friday 29/04 at 7pm

ADA | About Games and Being Serious
Public reading program running 4/04–1/05
(see website for details)

About BRAK
BRAK is a new Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAK’s programmatical­ approach focuses on giving space for the expression of individual artistic practices while building up an overview of current methodologies specifically focusing on the development of autonomous art.
Read more at http://duendestudios.nl/brak

The third BRAK presentation Contextualism’s deals with the context of the business and production of art as the subject of artistic research.

Frédéric Sanchez
Painting, mimicry, and bartering
Frédéric Sanchez conceives the practice of painting as something that resembles the Potlatch rituals. The object and the place are both in for the exchange, and at the same time they initiate a change. For a certain time Frédéric Sanchez’ paintings on stretchers deal with snares and camouflage (for the artist mimicry is a sort of strategy to adapt oneself to any situation, a guarantee of vitality and survival). His paintings take the form of wrapped packages with the adhesives accurately reproduced, so that they appear as an abstract pattern on a monochrome.
He then continues the series of monochromes in a brownish wrapping paper-like colour and a format reminding us of the boxes in which On Kawara placed his “date paintings”. Painting as a receptacle for painting; painting in turn becoming a mimetic object. Soon the studio will be filled up with volumes, piled up, leant against the wall, they are nothing but canvases that we confound with boxes waiting to be transported, ready for the move.

The artist is like a nomad, his work being constantly in transition. Painting has no place, it appears to be ‘the’ place. Painting is the place of these mixings; a place to meet, a place where one is wondering about ascendancies and references, a place to confront, to exchange between generations, cultures, and artists. But for Frédéric Sanchez it’s also a platform to invite and welcome others. So one work comes from the other, and the flux of inventions is constantly powered and reactivated by exchanges.

(Written by Hubert Besacier, Translated by Ursula Hurson)

ADA
About Games and Being Serious
As part of ADA’s investigation into collaborative and participatory practices, ADA initiates a short-term reading group for the duration of it’s work period at BRAK3 in Duende, in the month of April. During six-sessions, texts reflecting on artistic production, modes of communication, political positioning and the meaning produced, will be jointly and actively explored in a friendly and relaxed environment. This short-term exercise is intended to enable practical exploration of the collective endeavor to encounter each other through a collaborative working practice. The subject matter of the reading group acts as an introduction to ADA’s current inquiry, which it will continue reflecting on in the coming year through its public program.

Session 5 Thursday 21/04 | 7.30-10.30pm

Maybe it would be better if we worked in groups of three? Part 1 & 2 of The Discursive, by Liam Gillick
Session 6 Monday 25 April | 7.30-10.30pm


Tolerance as an Ideological Category, by Slavoj Žižek

Please note: read the text before attending the reading session. There will not be a full reading of the text during the session but a discussion on sections of the texts brought up by anyone who is taking part in the reading group. Texts can be downloaded from http://adarotterdam.nl

Made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur.

Sans titre, 2010 (on the wall), Acrylic on canvas Composition of 23 canvases, dimensions variable

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As part of ADA’s investigation into collaborative and participatory practices, ADA initiates a short-term reading group for the duration of its work period at BRAK 3 in Duende, in the month of April.

During six-sessions, texts reflecting on artistic production, modes of communication, political positioning and the meaning produced, will be jointly and actively explored in a friendly and relaxed environment. This short-term exercise is intended to enable practical exploration of the collective endeavor to encounter each other through a collaborative working practice. The subject matter of the reading group acts as an introduction to ADA’s current inquiry, which it will continue reflecting on in the coming year through its public program.

ADA and BRAK cordially invite you to join in the reading of the following texts:

Tuesday 5 April | 19:30-22:30
The Author as Producer, by Walter Benjamin. And in addition the short text The Artist as Producer in Times of Crisis by Okwui Enwezor.

Sunday 10 April | 15:00-18:00
The Emancipated Spectator, pp. 1-23, by Jacques Rancière.

Monday 11 April | 19:30-22:30
The Collaborative Turn, by Maria Lind.

Wednesday 13 April | 19:30-22:30
The Demands and Challenges of Committed Participation, by Mika Hannula.

Thursday 21 April | 19:30-22:30
Part 1 & 2 of The Discursive, by Liam Gillick.

Monday 25 April | 19:30-22:30
Tolerance as an Ideological Category, by Slavoj Žižek.

Please Note: read the text before attending the reading session. There will not be a full reading of the text during the session but a discussion on sections of the texts brought up by anyone who is taking part in the reading group. All texts can be downloaded from ADA’s website.

Additionally to the activity of exploring the texts together, a beautiful, brand new, state-of-the-art, ping-pong table is made available by ADA for all level of sporting and recreational fun. The studio is open to use daily for play and reading from 10:00-19:30.

http://www.adarotterdam.nl

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BRAK cordially invites you to the opening of BRAK 2.5 ‘The Which, The Where, The When, The How’, an exhibition by the artist David Stamp.

Opening
Friday March 11, 2011 at 7pm

Exhibition opening hours
March 11-20, 2011
12/03-13/03 open from 1pm till 6pm
14/03-20/03 on appointment by telephone +31(0)624542086

David Stamp’s practice is concerned with how cultural products such as movies, art and social customs are imperfect vessels for our projected ideologies. He is influenced by Giorgio Agamben’s notion of profanation –the reinstating of untouchable ideological objects into everyday use– and Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of carnival humor as something that mutually promotes and derides an ideological construct.  Taking onboard these influences his practice has become the creation of works that seek to challenge ideologies that they also embrace.  Sometimes this questioning happens within a singular work but Stamp is also interested in stretching it across many pieces.  In doing so, he establishes an initial understanding of a work and then unsettles it by encouraging subsequent, often disquieting, perceptions.

Stamp works are often created intuitively, at times he use common desires or impulses as a basis, at others a particular film, game or social custom could be an impetus.  He is particularly interested in geometric sculpture as they are an ideal means in which to create the dynamic he seeks.  Fundamentally, he’s interested in the relationship between the viewer and these objects–in that they are both aesthetic objects in their own right but also sites for imaginary and perceptual leaps on the part of the viewer.  On a simple level, his works asks “where should you (the viewer) place significance?”

About David Stamp’s installation
There is a structure, a ring-like archway, placed over a road on the south bank of the Oude Maas, just south of Rotterdam.  It is positioned on its own in a flat agricultural landscape.  It is made from curved prefabricated concrete panels and is lit by two TLs attached to its internal apex.  It is situated far enough from anything to make it a rare object. With further investigation of the area the purpose of this ring is obvious.  It ensures vehicles wanting to travel through the tunnel that goes beneath the Oude Maas are small enough to do so.  Even with this knowledge in hand it distracts little from the ambiguousness caused by its positioning and construction.  This unique object begs to be categorised, it’s a particular combination of modernist public art and gateway to somewhere/nowhere. It is an object worthy of aesthetic consideration but also a technologically primitive precursor to the Stargate (a device that creates wormholes to allow instantaneous interstellar travel).

BRAK is made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur.

Read more about BRAK

David Stamp, Father (2010) 30x45 cm.

Research image

David Stamp, The Hum (2010)

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Featuring Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Lee Welch & Sjoerd Westbroek moderated by Edward Clydesdale Thomson

BRAK TALK is the discursive arm of the new Rotterdam ­exhibition platform BRAK. The second BRAK TALK, on Sunday March 6 at 2.30pm in Duende, brings together three ­diverse voices in a dialogue around some of the themes, ­questions and positions raised by our current exhibition of ­Martijn Hendriks’ and Bas van den Hurk’s work.

The BRAK TALK discussion will focus on three aspects present in the exhibition: an inquiry into mark making, how to negotiate with the canon, and the appropriation of divergent historic voices. Each speakers practice being defined by one of these aspects; the BRAK TALK discussion aims to open up the reading of the exhibition and promote a ‘looking again’ at the works, by examining them through the lens of parallel practices and discourses.

The exhibition ‘Beside Itself’ is a collaboration between Martijn Hendriks and Bas van den Hurk reflecting on contem­porary relations to minimalism. The starting-point for their exhibition has been the article ‘Painting Beside Itself’ by David Joselit, in which he claims that within ­contemporary painting there is a way out of the cul-de-sac of fundamental artistic problems by conceiving painting in a broader sense and to include it in economic, media- and discursive networks.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy will present an artist talk in which he negotiates his position to the death of expressionism within painting and its redemption for him through dance. Lutz-Kinoy’s performative method of dealing with specific schools or dogmas expresses the potential of a personal reworking of the canon; while his practice exemplifies painting in the expanded field, promoted by Joselit’s essay, and used as the departure point for the exhibition.

Tangible in the work of Bas van den Hurk is the physical act of mark making and the joy and struggle with which he delicately marks the canvas. The core of Sjoerd Westbroek’s practice is a rigorous exploration of mark making; in a playful, yet critical manor he systematically examines what it means to make a drawing, what to draw, and most importantly why to draw. His lecture on mark making stems from these reflections, but expands them into a more general field.

Lee Welch will give a number of short performances in which he speaks through the words, images and actions of others. This ventriloquist position adopted by Welch is clearly situated in the present but composed completely­ for fragments and voices from the past, yet it is not historicizing.­ His sources become letters, signs and symbols in a new language which traverses or shortcuts multiple histories, in a mode akin to that of the referentiality in Hendriks’ practice.

Read more about BRAK

Made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur.

Download the invitation (pdf)

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BRAK cordially invites you to the opening
of the exhibition BRAK 2 ‘Beside Itself’
on Friday February 11, 2011 at 7pm
at Duende Studios, Rotterdam

Opening
Friday February 11, 2011 7pm

Exhibition opening hours
12/02-13/02 open from 1pm till 5pm
14/02-06/03 on appointment by telephone +31(0)624542086

BRAK TALK
Sunday March 6, 2011 at 2.30pm
Participants to be announced

Bas van den Hurk’s (1965) works are framed by the argument that both image-based and abstract painting have reached their ‘logical conclusion’, where image and abstraction can no longer support meaning. Van den Hurk explores the role and nature of this ‘living death’ by claiming that all painting today is, and can only be a representation and as such, what is left? Van den Hurk achieves his representational style by manipulating and re-working the clichés of contemporary techniques and approaches to painting. Van den Hurk explicitly lays bare the model of representation, not by demonstrating the ‘what’ of representation, but by showing representation itself.

Bas van den Hurk is represented internationally by Rod Barton Gallery, London en ZINGERpresents, Amsterdam. He is also a member of the Whatspace Collective.

Martijn Hendriks’s (1973) practice has its roots in painting yet encompasses a range of different media. His work appears to pull us in two opposite directions; on the one hand it draws on the art historical legacies of abstraction and the highly concentrated formal vocabulary of minimalism. On the other hand it brings these legacies into a process of continuous reconfiguration that explores them in relation to the destabilized state of contemporary images and objects. It unfolds as a state in which value, meaning and context are constantly shifting. Things are passed from one medium or form to another, are reconfigured, copied, reproduced, and appear in different versions that disperse and circulate. References come and go, sometimes leaving behind part of an image.

Martijn Hendriks’ work has been shown widely in Europe and the U.S. Recent exhibitions include Free at the New Museum, New York City; Smooth Structures at Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; All That is Solid at RSTR4, Munich.

BRAK is a new Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAK’s programmatical approach focuses on giving space for the expression of individual artistic practices while building up an overview of current methodologies specifically focusing on the development of autonomous art.

The second exhibition, ‘Beside Itself’ Old – New Minimalism, focuses on possibilities and proposals for the continuation of Minimalism, one of the most important mainstreams within the tradition of modern art. How can we construe a definition of art beyond and referring to Minimalism? The exhibition ‘Beside Itself’ is a collaboration between Martijn Hendriks and Bas van den Hurk reflecting on contemporary relations to minimalism. The starting-point for their exhibition has been the article ‘Painting Beside Itself’ by David Joselit, in which he claims that within contemporary painting there is a way out of the cul-de-sac of fundamental artistic problems by conceiving painting in a broader sense and to include it in economic, media- and discursive networks.

BRAK TALK, a panel discussions on the final day of the exhibition will attempt to expand upon the wider consequences of the positions raised by the artists.

BRAK is made possible with the generous support of Gemeente Rotterdam, dienst Kunst en Cultuur.

Download the invitation (.pdf)

Bas van den Hurk

Bas van den Hurk

Martijn Hendriks

Martijn Hendriks

Martijn Hendriks

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