18/3/2009
Two solo presentations
Tent, Rotterdam
The exhibition 268 Masterpieces in RGB by Villeroy & Boch places the emphasis on the role of artists and the position of painting in the world that they represent. The work of Rotterdam-based artist Olaf Mooij is rooted in the sculptural tradition. Mooij gained particular recognition for his car pieces in public spaces. In the solo presentation Before and After he returns to the exhibition space and the autonomy of the sculpture.
TENT. offers two solo presentations from 19 March to 3 May. The exhibition 268 Masterpieces in RGB by Villeroy & Boch places the emphasis on the role of artists and the position of painting in the world that they represent. The work of Rotterdam-based artist Olaf Mooij is rooted in the sculptural tradition. Mooij gained particular recognition for his car pieces in public spaces. In the solo presentation Before and After he returns to the exhibition space and the autonomy of the sculpture.
Villeroy & Boch - 268 Masterpieces in RGB
In their monumental, brightly coloured paintings, Villeroy and Boch regularly appear themselves as (anti) heroes who need to remain standing in an overly codified society. With this they join a larger group of young artists who are rediscovering painting as a medium with great personal power of expression. The painterly research of these artists deals with the role of art and the position of painting in the world that they represent.
Villeroy & Boch have only been working together since 2007, but are no strangers to the art scene in Rotterdam. Ellemieke Schoenmaker (1968) is part of the collective Kimberly Clark, together with Iris van Dongen and Josepha de Jong. Alex Jacobs (1973) makes installations, sculptures and paintings in which he regularly puts himself and art into perspective. Jacobs received the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst for these in 2008. Status, money and power – these are subjects that Villeroy & Boch often raise in their paintings. They assemble their images by staging a situation and photographing it, before manipulating or supplementing the images with others from the Internet on the computer. Recognizable objects flow into amorphousness, paint becomes material, and the spray can is used to conceal areas or create hip colour accents. And yet, behind the lively use of colour, the free references to the domain of art and the up-tempo struggle between form and content, there lies a critical view of the way in which mankind designs and uses its culture.
Olaf Mooij - Before and After
Olaf Mooij (1958) was already using the street as a podium for his work in the early nineteen-nineties. A characteristic of his generation, with artists such as Joep van Lieshout, is that they associated their work much more with the world outside the walls of the exhibition space. Almost everybody is familiar with the Braincar, a car with its roof remodelled into a giant brain. The car drives through a neighbourhood, city or street during the day, and in the evening it dreams about its day by means of video projections on the matt white surface of the brain. Olaf Mooij’s cars are no more than bodywork, but become transformed by him into a personality, into living material. The addition of exaggerated roofs, toupees or the enlargement of parts creates playful, caricatural images. The witty images put into perspective the contemporary relationship between man and the machines and devices that surround him. In his recent series of works, which are presented almost in their entirety in TENT., Mooij seems to wish to return to the total autonomy of the sculpture. His car pieces no longer have a practical function; they are now only reminiscent of the means of transport. The pieces stand, lie, hang and lean in the exhibition space. They are placed on the ground with no plinths and have a vulnerable appearance without their practical value. The skin, the surface of the car is the focus. In the interplay between form and meaning, between volume and surface, between symbolic function and practical function, Mooij seeks the exact point at which they converge.
Image: Villeroy & Boch, Pleasing panorama, 2oo9
Thursday 19 March at 20.00 hrs, the two solo presentations open in TENT.
TENT. Rotterdam
Witte de Withstraat 50 3012 BR Rotterdam
Open: Tuesday – Sunday from 11.00 – 18.00 hrs.
TENT. is open on Friday 10 April (Good Friday), Sunday 12 and Monday 13 April (Easter) and on 21 May (Ascension). TENT. is closed on the Queen’s birthday.