Duende

 

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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Featuring Jason Coburn, Daniël Dee, Bernd Krauß & Jay Tan
Moderated by Edward Clydesdale Thomson

BRAK TALK is the discursive arm of the new Rotterdam exhibition platform BRAK. The first BRAK TALK, on the 14th of November at 14:30 in Duende, brings together four divers voices in a dialogue around some of the themes, questions and positions raised by our current exhibition of Ton Schuttelaars’ and Evi Vingerlings’ work.

This first exhibition, 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 first BRAK TALK event will broadly address the consequences and possibilities opened up by a reductive strategy as primary operating method by traversing parallel practices within a wider field.

Jason Coburn will give a talk which takes E.H. Gombrich’s notion of the Etc Principle as a way of navigating pattern and decoration through a selection of images and non-sequiturs. The Etc Principle describes the point at which the detail of a mass become lost in an overall texture – the moment where we go from reading to ‘reading in’; “The blob may be a man or it may be a brush, but while we wonder, we tentatively transform it.”

Jay Tan will be presenting her thoughts on her notion of “pottering about”, and how this term can be re-claimed to provide an attitude to making within an art practice. Closely connected to pleasure and hobby, pottering describes time spent immersed in an activity full of care and play. During the BRAK TALK Jay will give examples of people who “potter” and occasions when this attitude of “serious play” can be found in other areas of production.

The poet Daniël Dee will read a number of his recent works. The frequent subject of his work is his own life within the daily tapestry that he scrutinizes in staccato poetry. He analyzes the naked existence that he comments upon without scruples, without sparing his own sensitivities. His work is raw and confronting.

And the idiosyncratic broadcasts of the RTLlocal channel will interject between speakers with transmissions from the everyday. Short video fragments from a seemingly unmanned TV channel, the clips appear as leftovers of unknown yet humanist authorship. Moments, situations and events minimally captured and displayed. Themes reoccur but their logic and structure escape categorization.

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BRAK cordially invites you to the opening of BRAK 1, a duo exhibition with the artists Ton Schuttelaar and Evi Vingerling running October 22-November 14, 2010 at Duende.

Opening
Friday October 22, 2010 at 8pm

Exhibition opening hours
October 23-24: 1pm-5pm
October 25-November 14: open on appointment +31(0)624542086

BRAK TALK
Sunday November 14, 2010 at 2.30pm
Participants to be announced

Evi Vingerling is a painter that refers to the often-overlooked material essence in the visual systems of the world around her. By combining her affinity for mathematical forms, the transcendentalism of Emerson and her personal memories she creates abstract marking on her canvases and walls, often geometrical in character. Vingerling takes forms from the world around her, which she then separates from their literal meaning. In an attempt to get to the bottom of where form and inherent knowledge meet, she creates a tangible space that addresses the viewer with a direct yet sensitive statement of how she thinks the world could be if systems of linear meaning were eradicated.

In 2006 she received the Buning Brongersprize for painting, in 2008 she was nominated for the Wolvecampprize. Recent exhibitions include ‘Parts’ in Xiamin, China; ‘l’Exposition Continué’, in Circuit in Lausanne; and two gallery exhibitions in New York: Kate Werble gallery and ‘I Love Benelux’, at Virgil de Voldere.
http://evingerling.com

Ton Schuttelaar‘s artistic research is concerned with the nature of exhibitions, the status of objects, the circumstances in which meaning takes shape and the relationship between space and program. Usually he starts by taking photographs that are transformed into installations and objects, mostly ready-mades. These transformations are done crudely and are minimalistic to the point of provocation. The artistic value does not lay in the objects themselves but in the surplus of the context which forces closer inspection. Schuttelaar is the initiator and organizer of ‘Atelier as Supermedium’, a project for which he converted his studio on the outskirts of The Hague into a museum-like space.
http://tonschuttelaar.com

BRAK is a new Rotterdam exhibition platform organizing four presentations annually within Duende. BRAKs’ 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 first exhibition, 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?

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)

Evi Vingerling, 'Feestverlichting' (2010), 145x215cm.

Ton Schuttelaar, 'Express' (2010)

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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.

This year’s program is divided into four loose themes that jointly suggest an image of the different strategies and approaches in which artists try to further the traditions of Modern Art.

The first two presentations refer to the theme of Minimalism; one of the guiding and propelling subjects and methods of Modern Art. Minimalism here is not intended as -ism, ideology or school but as the general endeavor for clarity of image as artimage. The method to unite content and form by means of reduction is one of the determining and pervasive essentials in the production of artworks.

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

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

• New Minimalism’s
• Old–New Minimalism’s
• Contextualism’s
• Write-ism’s

The exhibitions are duo-presentations with each artist relating differently to the theme. In this manner the differing approach and position of the respective artists become apparent. From these differences the possibility of disclosure, positioning and dialogue arises.

A panel discussions –BRAK TALK– will accompany each show and will address some of the questions, issues and positions raised by the participating artists and is intended to promote knowledge exchange within the visual arts. These discussions will take place on the final day of the exhibition.

The first BRAK exhibit features a presentation of Evi Vingerling and Ton Schuttelaar

Opening
Friday October 22, 2010 at 20pm

Exhibition opening hours
October 23-24: 1pm-5pm
October 25-November 14: open on appointment

BRAK TALK
Sunday November 14, 2010 at 2.30pm
Participants to be announced

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

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