Bart Lodewijks Bochum Drawings Bobiennale Germany, 13 to 23 June 2019
This summer, I’m headed to Bochum, a former steel town in the Ruhr Valley, to make drawings with blackboard chalk. I’m doing one a day for ten days, with very brief written descriptions about what the drawing process has unearthed, as part of the Bobiennale.
22-06-2016 Three years ago I made a chalk drawing in the adhoc art space in Bochum.
22-06-2016 The drawing did not fit entirely within the four walls of the exhibition space.
23-06-2016 I drew myself toward the outside, into the city: the place my work belongs.
24-06-2016 The chalk drawings I produce on the street are a way of becoming acquainted with a world full of resistance and generosity.
24-06-2016 The drawing I did on the billboard under the railway viaduct in 2016 is the starting point for my drawing for the Bobiennale, as if no time has passed between then and now.
19-07-2016 After the exhibition it was a mammoth task to restore the walls to their original state; meanwhile, the drawing on the billboard washed away in the first rainstorm without leaving a trace.
13-02-2019 The city has so many suitable drawing locations that I’m bound to run out of time for it all during the Bobiennale.
13-02-2019 Never before have I encountered a house that seems built for the express purpose of being drawn on with chalk.
14-02-2019 The window frames are chalk white and resemble my drawings.
14-02-2019 My preference tends toward places marked by daily life (and there are a great many), places subject to intense use without necessarily drawing attention to themselves.
14-02-2019 If the town residents leave me to my own devices during the Bobiennale, then the city will disappear under a layer of chalk.
Colophon Bart Lodewijks – Bochum Drawings Drawings, text, photographs: Bart Lodewijks Editing Dutch: Danielle van Zuijlen Final Editing Dutch: Lucy de Boer Dutch-English translation: Nina Woodson Image processing: Huig Bartels Design: Roger Willems and Dongyoung Lee Publisher: Roma Publications This project is part of the bobiennale festival der freien szene bochum, at the invitation of adhoc, galerie januar, Kunstverein Bochum. Special thanks to Christian Gode, Hugo Koch, and Nika and Marco Genero. © Bart Lodewijks, 2019