MOBILE Duo Presentation
ALEX BAAMS
BR A M BR AA M Project Space Tilburg Gust van Dijk
PREFACE
I treat an exhibition as an educational and social medium as well as an opportunity to encourage public participation and engagement with visual arts. I employ space at Project Space Tilburg and my knowledge to portray alternative experiences of exhibitions, including the array of conversations behind the artist practice and the creating of works of art as well as encourage the research needed. How can contemporary art connect with the public and demonstrate value and relevance in everyday life? According to Author Nina Simon in her book, The Participatory Museum, (2010), it can be done by inviting people to actively engage as cultural participants, not passive consumers. Simon states, “As more people enjoy and become accustomed to participatory learning and entertainment experiences, they want to do more than just “attend” cultural events. Visitors expect the ability to discuss, share, and remix what they consume. This exhibition is called ‘Mobile’ It connects two artists whom have never met before even thought they were educated, at the same School of Art in the Netherlands. My objective for this exhibition is to address the values of reality as well as abstraction and in the meantime excite and provoke thoughts and experiences on the pleasures of art today. Building further on the language of imaginary. ‘Mobile’ implores to take the generic images as products from the exhibition and use one’s own abilities to make a connection. Riet van Gerven, curator. February 2014
MOBILE Duo Presentation
ALEX BAA MS BR A M BR AA M
Superimposed I pour myself just one more cup of refreshing coffee I see, slurp, and unable to smell (such a cold cold cold) I greet a day, printed in bold letters at the top of my newspaper superimposed onto the day is the back of my head and what’s been made is imperfection yet satisfaction in the light of day zoom in and frame framing, zooming, zapping fanatically putting into place and exclaming what to see a brush drags back and forth back and forth a brush drags and I tell you about my garden with the little shed and rake (such detailed teeth) and we shall walk and tend the garden and when we are home we have experienced something (yes we have) and we’ll remember can I offer you some coffee? or do you rather have some tea?
Title: Transition Project: If paradise is half as nice, Leipzig. Photographs on dibond Year: 2013 Dimensions: width 50cm, height 75cm Site specific installation Leipzig, dimensions: width 300cm, height 500cm
Ricochet
a finite slice of infinite space god-given natural outer-space (outside of the head) terrestrial / celestial ever natural but cultured is being kept in place by walls there is no past only present passively kept in place by walls of traces (no one laments jericho ever-lasting jericho) tracing past from present and the other way around (into the future!) we are filling spaces mind-given natural inner-space resurrecting ruins in crumbling conditions into crackling castles and branching roots and branching roots writhing and whirling under weight of being real feeling bricks flicking leaves out of buds tasting weather vanes pointing ever outward since there is the world since there are compartments for slicing time and space in sections small as seconds and nanometers since nature bounces (ricochets!) and impacts culture since the artificial has been made real since worlds collide they breathe
Upon entering the exhibition space, Bram Braam and Alex Baams did not know each other and, from the start, the contrast between them could not be bigger: a figurative painter opposite a builder of architectonic installations. Materials are different, method is different, the choice of subject is different, the level of abstraction is different. Still, the surface needs to be barely scratched to discover common ground and kinship, as sharing the same exhibition space is not accidental. Both Baams and Braam play with the notion of recognisability by modelling this concept into a more common language of imagery. Baams taps into the viewer’s sense of recognisability by displaying in paint common objects and material while Braam reflects on architectural changes in city-scapes and re-uses this language of imagery. Both pour this notion of recognisability into an aesthetic mould and alienating context, thereby tightening (and re-affirming) the attention that was originally grabbed by the recognizable. By juxtaposing realistic depiction in a different manner, Baams disturbs common perception. Seemingly unrelated and independent objects suddenly gain a new connection. Or did this connection already exist? Ultimately the answer to this question does not matter, because, one could argue that, the act of viewing already forms a connection. Beside this, Baams also questions the art of painting itself, in both content and expression. Pure realism does not seem to be possible seeing the hesitance with which brush strokes are applied to the canvas; the lines are not perpendicular and details are not as infinite as they are in reality. The abstraction is hidden behind an inwards enticing as well as alluring common language of imagery.
Where Baams searches for “the recognizable” through choice of objects and their various relations, “the recognizable” in Braams work in particular is found in form. Expression, tactility and space dominate in the work of Braam. One could even remark that the object is barely present. This could be credited to a difference of abstraction as architecture refrains itself from the figurative and creates its own imagery. In this abstraction, architecture speaks to itself. But Braam is not an architect and his installations are no buildings, so what does this mean in terms of our perception? First of all, the nature of functionality common to architecture looses its validity; these forms of expression are not meant to live or work in. What remains is an uninhabited monument; a new type of ruin and the manner of expression is more striking than the original content and functionality. Other than the more figurative approach seen in the work of Baams, the work of Braam does not display a “representation of” but rather a creation of a new type of object. By no means Baams creates new objects in his figurative works. Here, the depicted exists outside of the work, while Braam creates the depicted on the spot through his work.
SEA Foundation (SEA) is a private, non-profit, artist-run initiative that initiates and coordinates events, residencies and exhibitions. SEA provides on-going space for production, presentation and research, including residency spaces and a presentation space. In all their activities the organization is fueled by visual arts. Transgressing the boundaries between cultures and disciplines, SEA Foundation always puts context and the idea before the medium. By working in different cultural contexts worldwide, the foundation generates discussion by exposing and intervening within, as well as being part of, cultural processes that concentrate on current (emerging) social, political and ecological issues. SEA supports these processes in becoming more productive and solid.
Artists Alex Baams www.alexbaams.com
Bram Braam www.brambraam.com
Curator Riet van Gerven Designer JinHee Kwon www.a-text-forms.com
Text and poems Robert Proost www.robertproost.nl
Curatorial assistant Kim Pattiruhu www.kimpattiruhu.nl
Translation Heleen Klomp Without our volunteers, who give their time and energy towards the support of visual arts, our activities could not be possible. Š 2014 SEA Foundation www.seafoundation.eu
Š 2014 SEA Foundation www.seafoundation.eu