17 works – 10 artists – 3 stories
Visiting artist : Mikel Folgerts
Framed squares and squared frames. What’s within and when does something ‘jump out of the box’? This Salon shows the endavours of many to capture our time in well researched works. Research on materials, on compositions and on scenarios. Within those squared frames we see the evolution of digital canvesses, of blowing up negatives, lenticulars, tapestry, glass, wood and metal. It unites urban dynamics and cultural leisure. Step in and let us guide your curiosity ….
This brochure gives you an overview of all the works and stories shown during the Salon.
Below you can read the text. It refers to various works in the In4Art Open Collection.
Internet as an Open Studio
with tools and distribution
Everything is soooo serious now a days. How to find space to experiment and create new images? Rafäel Rozendaal decided that he wants to get rid of gatekeepers: he needs a space that is without compromise. The digital world, where he can freely hoard images and distribute with impact. Internet is noble, it can reach way beyond physical entities and places. Internet became his open studio and free accessible distribution channel. The computer his toolset.
His work is based on two pillars: randomness and infinity. Therefore he never repeats himself. To understand his moving website works, have a look at one of them: http://www.noifyes.com/ He attracts more than 60 million visitors per year on his website.
He is interested in what you can do within a browser that can’t be done in any other medium. Having it this way, he creates a flexible way of viewing: you only need a screen on your mobile, cinema screen or Times Square. But how to have this outing in the physical? Away from the screen?
A world free of text, just visuals. The information Super Highway without information. Internet has so much information – how do you keep it digestible? Rafäel Rozendaal created instead of add blockers a text blocker with his plugin http://www.abstractbrowsing.net/. The colour pallet was determined by creating as much contrast on a screen as possible. But how to bring it offline? Enter the Tapestry series as a reference to the first digital image format – the hype of the first digital evolution. And also referring to knitting tapestry, like Gobelins, showing the proud pictures of one’s era on a wall.
Our visiting artist, Mikel Folgerts, is also inspired by the internet and uses Instagram as his toolbox. The phone as an #instant camera leading to possibilities for #emerging image-making. It creates another #frame experience which makes us #navigate reality. We asked Mikel Folgerts to push the app’s rolling grid into a physical territory with his #minimal & #abstract focus
Research takes patience
it is a long way
Experimentation is a core freedom of artists. By doing so, they discover intended or unintended results. Some might have transformative potential, give a glimpse on progressive futures. Others manifestate a true makers attitude. All have an elaborated research. A quest in which you built upon assumptions, test possibilities and hope to achieve the imagined outcome. However, you don’t know the exact result upfront. It depends on the availability of resources/ time, behaviour of the material and the chosen process path.
Some paint takes hours to dry. The reaction and chemical conditions of the material influences the process. Donald Schenkel creates colour transitions that makes subtle gradients with oil paint. What is sought after is a smoothness in the colour that can lead the eye into the faraway. The faraway of images and screens. A faraway to dream and pose. It plays with the impact of blue light, a color of distance – we stare into the deep. We can get lost and discover from within. Shapes reoccur from one into the other. A moment to reflect in this fast changing world. And isn’t it nice that blue can lead to alertness, better memory and an improved cognitive function?
Sometimes you need to keep on searching to find the missing pieces that make the composition strong and solid. Four squared frames. A piece of a wall, of a building, of a city. In his constructive style Bram Braam is riding the wave of our circular economy. We have no waste, just resources. He hoards all kinds of objects, from the streets in Berlin, to give past functions a new live. Transforming them into abstract sculptural works, he makes us question coincidence and control. He is fascinated by the makeability of our daily surroundings and translates this into his concept of ‘hyperreality’: when reality and illusion overlap.
Something can only be seen in daylight and is principally hidden. Wait until the revelation…. Creating mixed-media images, Priscila Fernandes uses paint, perforations and scratches on negative prints. She remembers a specific painting – Arc en Ciel by Seurat- and wants to give it a nowadays relevance. Both in technique (neo-impressionist through divisionism and optics) and in narrative (tourism for all). Making us wonder on the work-life balance we seek. What is the impact of technology on our perception and expression of leisure?
Renewed Relevance
recycling history
When plotting the future, we learn from looking back. Reflecting on history, learning from the successes and faults. Reusing strong images. Picasso said “Good artists copy, great artists steal”. A new generation rises that stands on the shoulders of giants and builds upon previous discoveries. By doing so, they study, honour and give credits to their inspirators. But they also transform and remix images to give it renewed relevance. Their research and additions make it into something different. This helps to look further, beyond the status quo.…
Niek Hendrix always uses existing images, which leads to new compositions. He investigates their stories and creation process. Why were they made and what new stories can they tell? He sees his paintings as poems, which can be reordered, while enhancing the same visual language. In this one, we have a surreal twist. If a parrot can be taught to speak, if you can see your own back, if you can be duplicated…can anything be possible? Reproducing the work “La reproduction interdite” by René Magritte makes us play with everyday reality.
Another way of exploring history is to mix art and science. Sybren Renema draws on the first photography’s of mountaineers, romantic wanderers in previously unseen landscapes. Travelling through time and space creating visions and fantasies. He uses technology to let us see how confusing and disrupting these images ones were.
Or just make the future history. Ignacio Garcia Sanchez does this with his replicas of cultural products from future or parallel societies. He is focused at rewriting the 21st century by creating a mix of expectations, utopian wishes and fears leading towards possible developments. The fundamental intention is to question historical determinism and the ideological dogmas of our time: a metaphor and reflexion tool about the current system.
