5 DUTCH DAYS 5 BOROUGHS OF NEW
YORK CITY
DUTCH DIRECTIONS
contemporary arts from the
a tribute to the historical connection between
November 6 to November 30, 2009
at
Opening November 6, 6-10 PM
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 13 6 - 10 PM SPECIAL RECEPTION
Live jazz by a line-up of well-known Dutch musicians:
Heleen Schuttevaêr (piano/vocals), Tineke Postma (alto saxophone) Joris Teepe (bass), Hans Braber (drums) and special guest New York's Ron Jackson (guitar)
on the occasion of Five Dutch Days
Marjolijn
van den Assem
Hendrik Kerstens
Paulien Lethen
Jos Looise
Jan van der Ploeg
195 Grand Street (between Bedford and Driggs)
Gallery Hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday from 1-7 PM
and by appointment (718) 302- 1021 or (917)
690-9119
www.artbreakgallery.com
www.hollandtunnelgallery.com
ABOUT HOLLAND TUNNEL AND ITS 5 ARTISTS IN DUTCH
DIRECTIONS
“Dutch Directions” is co-curated by
Dutchborn Paulien Lethen-Schuttevaêr, artist and director of Holland Tunnel
Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She lived in
Holland Tunnel Gallery has invited the following 5
Dutch artists for the exhibition Dutch Directions”:
MARJOLIJN VAN DEN ASSEM
Since 1979, Marjolijn van den Assem has been inspired by the work and life of
Friedrich Nietzsche. She regularly visits and documents the places where
Nietzsche stayed and studies publications written by, or about, Nietzsche. Van
den Assem wrote about her work in the book "Seelenbriefe" (2007): ”I travel the world on paper and canvas. My experiences
find repercussions in images. My hand follows my thinking
seismographically." Her work (drawings, paintings, sculptures) is represented in 10 Dutch Museums of Modern Art .
http://www.marjolijnvandenassem.nl
PAULIEN LETHEN
New York-based Dutch painter Paulien Lethen lived on the Greek
JOS LOOISE
Jos Looise is a versatile artist. Among his works are portraits, still lifes,
model drawings and 17th century genre paintings. He had decorated a
theatre hall and recently turned the windows of a monumental building in
JAN MULDER
Jan Mulder’s commitment to convey emotional and existential experiences through
memorized or invented landscapes results in vivid abstract oil paintings.
Abstract marks accumulate in balanced compositions that reflect changes of
light and space and the passage of time. Dutch publicist H.J.A.Hofland wrote:
“Mulder’s paintings (…) produce the sensation that comes with the discovery of
things which were thought to be lost.” Poems of Rilke and Celan are a source of
inspiration. Mulder spends part of the year on the Greek
JAN VAN DER PLOEG
The work of Jan van der Ploeg has it roots in Piet Mondriaan’s Neo-Plasticism
and De Stijl movement connected to Theo van Doesburg. The connection is
intensified by his concentration on the act of painting, anachronistic and
traditional in contemporary terminology. He has developed his own
colour-vocabulary, existing of black, white and contrasting tones such as pink,
purple and orange. Jan van der Ploeg’s wallpaintings and
canvasses connect painting, sculpture, system and serial production. They function as signs and ornaments.
Artbreak Gallery has invited the following Dutch artists for the exhibition Dutch Directions
HENDRIK KERSTENS
When Hendrik Kerstens decided to dedicate himself entirely to photography in 1995, he turned to a model very near at hand: his daughter Paula. Time and time again he uses his daughter as a model, immortalizing her, as if to stop time and oblivion. Not only does he picture her in relation to events in her own life, he also projects on her his fascination with the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century. A number of the portraits of Paula are very reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer. The austerity of the photograph, its clarity, the serene expression on the young girl’s face, and, not least, the characteristic ‘Dutch’ light, all combine to create this impression. Kerstens has photographed others beside his daughter. These ‘portraits’ and ‘tronies’ (the 17th century Dutch word for faces or heads) refer in their execution to both the Dutch masters and the portraits of the Italian Renaissance. www.hendrikkerstens.com
BERT TEUNISSEN
In 1996 Bert Teunissen started to photograph people in their kitchen, living room or bedroom, only using the available daylight. His ‘Domestic Landscapes’ have an atmosphere that he knew from his childhood, when he grew up in the east of Holland. He phographed people in their houses in Holland, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and Japan. By using only the available light, Teunissen captures a way of living that has been around for centuries and that is disappearing from society fast, due to architectural and economical changes but also because of new regulations in the EU and other parts of the world. The light in Teunissen’s works is the same light that was used by the great Dutch masters like Vermeer and Pieter de Hoogh in their paintings.The photographs of Bert Teunissen have been related to the works of these painters.
TEUN VOETEN
Teun Voeten was born in Holland, lives most of the time in Brussels, and has New York as a second base. He covered the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Haiti and Rwanda for Dutch, Belgian, German and American publications. He picked up his anthropological roots by studying a homeless community that was living in an old rail road tunnel in Manhattan by living 5 months among the tunnel people. It was praised as “a supreme example of participant observation”. Recently, Voeten has been working on the human rights violations in Colombia, the so called conflict diamonds in Angola, Congo and Sierra Leone, the ongoing war in Afghanistan and women trafficking and forced prostitution on the Balkan. www.teunvoeten.com
5 Dutch artists and 1 jazz musician, represented by Holland Tunnel Gallery in Dutch Directions: Heleen Schuttevaêr, Paulien Lethen, Marjolijn van den Assem, Jos Looise, Jan van der Ploeg, Jan Mulder