Duende Studios Rotterdam - BRAK 2: Bas van den Hurk and Martijn Hendriks

BRAK

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)