In the exhibition NEXT, Galerie Helder is presenting work by three recent alumni: Anthony Chiou, Florentien Stikkelorum and Kieke Kurstjens — a painter, a ceramicist and a photographer. We spoke with gallery owner Frey Feriyanto about the concept behind the exhibition and with photographer Kieke Kurstjens about her still lifes of dandelions and other weeds.
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In ‘Different Corners’, a group exhibition at Galerie Helder in The Hague, you can immerse yourself in the enigmatic work of Sabrina Charehbili until 22 March. In her earlier series “El Último Islote” Charehbili transformed plastic waste into dreamlike compositions — a subtle reflection on our relationship with nature — but in her latest series, the artist focuses on culture. The images reflect an aspect of her bicultural identity: Charehbili has roots in both the Netherlands and Morocco.
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Vincent van Gaalen travels to the last dark places found in Europe, areas that do not light up on the continent’s light pollution map. At night, he photographs nature. In his pictures, the landscape is barely visible yet palpable.
Eva Dijkstra is known for her artistic practice in which minimalism, abstraction and data converge in intriguing ways. Through data visualisation, Dijkstra creates works that are both abstract and conceptually layered. Her objects are defined by geometric, clean forms and monochrome colours, yet they also speak to the world we live in.
Read more at Galleryviewer
For his new series Views of Nature, Justus de Rode (NL, 1997) uses this technique for the opposite purpose. His work focuses on our relationship with nature, particularly the balance between emotion and reason.
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With their the combination of pronounced colour schemes, architecture and serene compositions, the canvases in Space Oddity, Wiegmink’s solo exhibition at Galerie Helder, seem to represent another dimension, one in which humans are entirely absent, placing the viewer at the centre.
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The intimate and poetic landscapes by Finnish photographer Svante Gullichsen explore the relationship between humanity and nature, addressing universal themes such as resilience and human suffering. These landscapes also act as powerful metaphors for his personal journey, in which Gullichsen employs his camera as a tool in his battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
read more about Svante Gullichsen on Gallery Viewer
What does the ideal studio look like? How much time does an artist spend in his studio? Is it a sacred place? This week in ‘The artist’s studio’ it’s Sjimmie Veenhuis, whose show ‘Interlaced’ is on display at Galerie Helder until 31 December. By Oscar van Gelderen
Learning and Unlearning with Taring Padi: Reflections on Documenta
By Michael Rothberg, July 2, 2022
9.7.2022 – SPEECH BY ADE DARMAWAN (RUANGRUPA) IN THE COMMITTEE ON CULTURE AND MEDIA GERMAN BUNDESTAG, JULY 6, 2022
Dear members of the Bundestag, my name is Ade Darmawan, and today I’m addressing you as part of ruangrupa. Let me start with a brief comment about history. In 1955, Arnold Bode established documenta in Kassel, Germany, to heal the wounds of the Second World War. A few months before, in that same year, a group of leaders collectively laid the ground for what would be known as the Non Aligned Movement, in Bandung, Indonesia, discussing a way forward independent from and built on the wounds of the colonial powers. I feel the need to retell these historical facts because histories can show us how the world imagined how to deal with atrocities and deep wounds at the same time but differently.
Ruangrupa: “We want to create a globally oriented, collaborative and interdisciplinary art and culture platform that will remain effective beyond the 100 days of documenta fifteen. Our curatorial approach strives for a different kind of collaborative model of resource use — in economic terms but also with regard to ideas, knowledge, programs and innovations.“
Documenta fifteen will take place from June 18 until September 25, 2022 in Kassel.
Whether she tackles the paper with a scalpel to create waves, or with a soldering iron to burn holes, her works invariably stem from an individual desire for silence: ‘not as pure abstractions, but rather as soundless musical scores.’
Chemistry at Helder Gallery is an exhibition about floating ideas, thoughts and visions. Images and words from the exhibition by Albertus Pieters
“The trick is to be open to change
without losing sight of the end goal.” Sanne Terweij
On Saturday 11 June, the ‘Chemistry’ exhibition, featuring work by David Engel, Sigrid van Woudenberg and Sanne Terweij, will open at Galerie Helder. Sanne Terweij, 38, creates compositions consisting of flat, metal elements that she arranges by colour: from light to dark and from warm to cold. The countless shades and nuances of brightness bring the square or elongated metal elements to life as it were. The energy radiated by her work can be compared to that of an abstract painting with colour use that is simultaneously stimulating and soothing. On the occasion of the exhibition, I asked Sanne a number of questions about her work on the interface between craft and art.
Over a career spanning more than three decades, Cecilia Vissers has experimented widely with abstract and conceptual art practices. Working variously in metal sculpture, photography and printing techniques, Vissers’ art references to the wild landscapes of Ireland and Scotland. Her employment of industrial materials and techniques, as well as her overarching approach to her art practice, have precedents in constructivism.
Municipal Bonds is delighted to announce Zaida Oenema’s debut exhibition in the United States, A Clear Day, on view February 19–April 16, 2022. The Dutch/Finnish artist’s work features abstractions of the natural world, cut and burned into reliefs on paper. Inspired by the environment’s temporal moments—moving shadows, rippling water, waving fields—Oenema’s work is a meditation on cultivating clarity, the resonance of quietude.
With a sensibility for distilling both mind and matter, Oenema tethers to monochrome and minimalism. Her approach appears as a concentrated structure, involving restrained color and reductive form. Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, Oenema explores a palette connected to the nearby North Sea coastline, in shades of blue and grey, pervasive white, warm yellow, and an occasional anchor of black. And her geometric shapes and patterns act as her own language, appearing in her work as familiar symbols derived from nature.
Using pen and pencil, scalpel and soldering iron, Oenema renders work on the border of two-dimensional and three-dimensional. With extreme eye-hand precision, she meticulously sculpts line and surface through the rhythmic action of incision and repetition. Working with recurrent forms—burned circles of suns, incised blades of grass, cut saw-tooth waves—her picture plane is at once orderly and dynamic. As such, the surface changes with the interplay of material, texture, and its response to light.
Oenema employs the grid as a foundational element of her work, for its formal restraint yet conversely for its inherent liberation, which allows for her free-hand drawing with blade and iron tip. Her technical rigor is less systematic or machine-like, more conductive and human. “I see my work not only as an abstraction, but as a kind of conversation or a musical score with a continuo, a harmonic structure, in it. The human hand provides the vibration to create its melody.
FEBRUARY 19 – APRIL 16, 2022
Municipal Bonds
Minnesota Street Project
1275 Minnesota Street, #204
San Francisco, CA 94107
917.450.0583
info@municipalbonds.art