Stretching reality, images, drawings and paint work
A duo show with Ellen Endhoven Dwight Marica from 16th to 25th September 2022
Opening photos by Dana LaMonda
Ellen Endhoven and Dwight Marica studied at the Willem de Koooning, having graduated in 1997. Dwight was the founder of Cucosa, Rotterdam (1998-2012). In 2012 Ellen started Portable Collective after years organising underground exhibitions. For nine years they have been sharing a studio and collaborating under the moniker Marica Endhoven. In Eigen beweging they show an overview of their artworks at both Quartair and Ruimtevaart.
Opening on Friday, 16 September at 20.00, doors open at 19:00
About the artists The city, people and society are an inexhaustible source of inquiry for Ellen Endhoven’s works. In her collages, drawings, paintings, murals, stickers, animations, 3D objects and installations one sees, at first glance, everyday things. Though if you look further, you will see a representation of our human shortcomings and unrealistic expectations. In 2019 she started to create intricate ink-drawings of waves. They evolved during the pandemic, with all debates, beliefs, and the rise of fake news, while the world had stopped. This context helped her develop more abstract works. Besides the social aspect in the work it also tackles environmental questions.
Dwight Marica explores new techniques and insights, in search of the most suitable expression, to arrive at new art forms. An important guiding principle in his work is the investigation of the absolutely abstract, through physics and psychology. “I want to continue to amaze the audience, but especially myself, by letting us experience performances that are written in a new, developing visual language. I try to scare reality, stretch its boundaries, activate the mind, to add something timeless to reality.”
During The Hague Contemporary Art Weekend we will present Back to Normal, an international collaborative exhibition & network event, initiated by the Alternative Art Guide and Artist-Run Network Europe (ARNE).
Back to Normal is loosely based on the recurring idea of “normality” after the pandemic, and more recently challenged by the emergence of the war. The exhibition runs from July 1st to 24th, involving twelve artistic initiatives: Quartair, Billytown, Hgtomi Rosa, Trixie, Artisterium, Flux Factory, U10, Sandwich Gallery, 16/16, C5cnm, MA Project, Uniarte.
Fri, 1 July – Opening | Collective walk tour route | 19:00 (all locations) Quartair + Trixie + Billytown
Sat, 2 July – Interview, performance, survey and network meeting (at Billytown) 14:00 – 18:00
Sun, 3 July – Informal talks with the artists (by venue) 13:30 Trixie | 15:00 Quartair | 16:30 Billytown
Artists at QUARTAIR: Elene Rakviashvili, Lehna Huie, Manuchar Okrostsvaridze, Dana LaMonda, Barney de Krijger, Jan Dirk Adams, Yukari Nakamichi, Quin Qu, Letizia Cassetta and Raily Stiven Yance
Raily Stiven Yance (Venezuela, 1989) likes to explore the edges of art with his oil paintings on paper, installations, and sculptures. Graduated in Plastic Arts from the University of Zulia, Venezuela. From an early age he has won awards and has participated in forty exhibitions and salons. In the past years Yance has given workshops and presented a solo show both in Curaçao and Aruba. He is now working on a new body of work whereby he makes studies of drawings of the nearby horizons and landscapes of Curaçao, Aruba, and between the Venezuelan coasts. His further references are also the characteristic architecture of the local heritage present on these islands. From this study, he makes unique syntheses through oil paintings on paper, exploring the ontological urgency he had since he was young.
Elene Rakviashvili (1966) multidisciplinary artist. Her practice utilizes all media and works with a conceptual approach. Her work is often site-specific and includes issues of identity, social status, gender, and ecology. Rakviashvili is interested in exploring the cultural differences, and present attitudes toward the social and environmental aspects in the relation to everyday life within the prism of history and cultural heritage. Graduated from the State Academy of Fine Arts, 1993, Painting. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Manuchar Okrostsvaridze (1974) multimedia artist. Field of activity includes painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. From the beginning of 2000th his art has been influenced by conceptualism and post-minimalism. His works vary from minimalist drawings to site-specific installations and public sculptures. Has been participating in exhibitions since 1996. Activities over the past decade include independent projects as well as co-operations with the art galleries and independent curators. Graduated from the State Academy of Arts, 1998 (MFA), Painting. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Black Moon II – Lehna Huie, 2020
Lehna Huie (1988) is a multi-disciplinary artist and cultural worker of Jamaican heritage. Her work concentrates on themes such as soul, migration, nonlinear time and remembrance. as a means to recover untold narratives of those whose lived experiences have been erased and distorted by the chronicles of colonialism. Huies works are reflected through weaving multiple visual art forms as cultural vignettes rooted in an archival practice. Varying in scale, medium and surface, Lehna draws together clusters of accumulated art pieces, personal and found objects by using unique approaches to representational portraiture. Huie lives and works in New York City, USA
Dana LaMonda is a photographer and artist who captures images that only she is able to find through her a personal and upright way of working. In recent years she has immersed herself into the social groups she is seeking to portray. This form of research is intensely participatory and involves a great deal of sympathy for the subjects. This allows for the creation of a natural atmosphere where her subjects and their respective environments are released of any reserve. It is her candid frankness and sincere curiosity in people which enables her through photography to reveal to the viewers a social environment that would otherwise remain closed. One example is in project The Velvet Zone, where she became part of the “family” of a brothel.
Barney de Krijger (1944) has a long career as multimedia artist and initiator of former artist initiative Stichting Archief. De Krijger uses the idiom of recycling, slow analogue media (cinematography, photography, stereo-photography) and their diverse processes form the main issue in drawings, objects and installations. His method consists of recordings, perception and intriguing objects which were merged together into one installation. This assemblages go primarily by way of the association. Re-use and copying are the key, because both the objects and ideas have already been in other contexts and proven their worth. De Krijger works and lives in Lamswaarde, Zeeland NL.
Needs Must is a piece of avant-garde theatre created and performed by Petra van Beuningen and Charlie Watkins. Petra’s theatre talent, recognised in numerous theatrical projects, combines with Charlie’s Shitcluster experience to create a quirky tale of sex and violence spread over 60 minutes. The piece will be performed four times with technical support from Rob Bothof.
Entry is free with no seat reservation. First come, first served basis, with maximum 50 visitors per performance. Once visitors are admitted, the doors will be closed and the performance will begin with no further admittance. Please come in plenty of time.
Friday 17 June doors open at 20.00 Saturday 18 June doors open at 15.00 Saturday 18 June doors open at 20.00 Sunday 19 June 22 doors open at 15.00
The bar will open after each performance with musical entertainment.
This year we proudly receive the second edition of The Other Book, the artists’ book fair with over 60 independent book makers alongside HOK and the Grafische Werkplaats Den Haag.
Fri 27 May 19.00-23.00 Opening Hoogtij Sat 28 May 13.00-19.00 Exhibition Sun 29 May 13.00-19.00 Exhibition followed by after party
The second edition of The Other Book, from May 27 to 29, is devoted to the underground: artists’ books and other printed matter ephemera of the counterculture; from the past and from the present. The exhibition opens in the occasion of Hoogtij #69, the Contemporary Art Tour of The Hague.
Photos by Dana LaMonda
The Other Book provides a platform for artists, publishers, print rooms, collectives, art libraries, collectors, and book enthusiasts from all secret corners of the world. Come and browse through a collection of underground artists’ books and artistic publications beyond your wildest imagination.
By creating a stage for both local and international artists and underground publishers, The Other Book serves as a place of exchange. The extensive program explores artistic practices, conceptual publications, and the seemingly endless possibilities of the self- or independently published artist’s book and artistic publications.
Jezus Cinco performing at the after part, May 29th
After Party Sunday, May 29, 20:30: performances by Jezus Cinco, Strict Nurse and Gökay Atabek, from Vølksamt!. Read more >
On Friday, March 4th, in the occasion of Hoogtij #68, we will function as open studio, with works, fragments, processes, music by artists from Quartair and guests.
This will be an experimental place for works in progress or works that were never shown before. One wall will be reserved for an interactive action: visitors are invited to add drawings or statements with glow-in-the-dark painting. The results will be seen and experienced at the end of the evening.
With Sophia Boeschoten, Mekhlla Harrison, Zuza Zgierska, Louis Braddock Clarke, Blanka de Bruyne, Marlies Adriaanse, Thom Vink, Jessy Rahman, Dana LaMonda, Jessica de Wolf, Wieteke Heldens, Astrid Nobel, Geeske Harting, Pietertje van Splunter, Harold de Bree and Mike Rijnierse.
Astrid Nobel: Noordzee botten
HOOGTIJ is a cultural tour throughout the art spaces of The Hague, taking place four times a year, on Fridays from 7-11 PM. It includes various locations and exhibitions often with extra activities. Free entrance.
QUARTAIR opens this Friday, March 4th, at 19:00. The exhibition runs through the weekend, March 5th-6th, from 13:00 to 17:00.
Address: Toussaintkade 55, 2513 CL Den Haag
Support for Ukraine | This Friday Quartair sells postcards and posters made by Ukrainian artists capturing life in their homeland. The revenue is dedicated to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
How to bridge the digital realm with the physical experience? Rather than visualizing data on the screen, in this Tech Week we focused on interpreting information, social trends and ecological phenomena as alternative adventures, including visual, audible, olfactory and even gustative experience.
Having the internet as (real-time) input, six projects were conceived, designed and coded, translating bytes into dynamic installations and performative (inter)actions.
The Tech Week 2022 was hosted by Rob Bothof, Mike Rijnierse and Ludmila Rodrigues at Quartair, as an immersive and experimental workshop for the Non Linear Narrative masters of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), between February 7th and 11th, 2022.
Participants: Lisette Alberti, Coco Maier, Kateryna Gaidamaka, Paul Mielke; Shouyi He, Julija Panova, Alicja Konkol; Eszter Nagy, Karolina Uskakovych, Daan Veerman; Lode Dijkers & Daniel Gremme; Leonie Gores & Camille Noray; Niels Otterman, Akina López, Jeroen van den Bogaert.
Opening Saturday, Nov 6th at 17.00 Exhibition from Friday to Sunday, 13.00 to 18.00 Hoogtij #67 *Saturday, Nov 27th, 14.00 to 18.00 Last day: Sunday, Nov 28th,13.00 to 18.00
Photo: Dana LaMonda
With works by: Rinella Alfonso Vitaly Bezpalov Daniele Formica Bernhard Holaschke Myrofora Kachrimanidou Karin Kytokangas Nandi Loaf Narges Mohammadi + Bernie Autsema Christian Roncea Tommy Smits Suyoung Yang
Curated by Christian Roncea
Photo: Afra Eisma
Accompanying zine-publication by Ian Scheufler & Christian Roncea, including interviews and conversations with Mats Andersen (admin @afffirmations), Sanne Ten Brink (head curator at ING art collection), Arthur Cordier & Valentino Russo (founders The Balcony), Sanne Luteijn (gallery manager Billytown) and more to come.
Curatorial statement: “Case Study: The Corporate Stoner” is a research-based project which explores the spectrum of artistic autonomy. I invited along artists, whose working methods are distinct from each other, with the intent to let the works cross-pollinate meanings and points of views, diving in a web of multi-faceted narratives which question human condition. “The human element” present in this group show is multi-linear, deconstructed, and ghostlike. Irony, melancholia, ecstasy, banality and vulnerability come together in a disillusioned “recreational office area”. By entering in a multi-disciplinary environment, the selected works give shape to an alternative and fluid type of reading art, inviting the visitors to follow their own narrative when experiencing the show.
The phrase “Corporate Stoner” refers to a company employee who secretly uses cannabis. This employee, even if defying the rules of the company, keeps a professional look and maintains productivity. I would like to look at artists of our times from the same perspective while looking at the larger art-world as one big company. If using cannabis can be seen as a labor-related escapism, fiction and critique can be seen as coping mechanisms for a speculative and precarious art market.
Photo: Dana LaMonda
From a parodic standpoint, “The Corporate Stoner” is, metaphorically, an artist who challenges the status quo, but deals “professionally” with bureaucracy or capitalist structures. How does an artist reach autonomy today? Are we sacrificing financial stability in return of artistic freedom and/or the other way around?
Exhibition 2–17 October 2021 Ilona Senghore, Paul Donker-Duyvis, Rosh Abdelfatah & Rodi Khalil curated by Jessy Rahman & Blanka de Bruyne
Onder de Kerktoren / Under the Tower / تحت البرج Opening: Friday October 1st at 8pm Opening hours Friday, Saturday, Sunday 1–5pm
Extra event: Saturday, 09 Oct at 7pm Arab Film Festival Evening, presented by Rosh Abdelfatah
The church tower and the curfew
‘Onder de Kerktoren (Under the church tower)’ is a typical Flemish expression that means “small-scale” or “navel-gazing”. Universality and open-mindedness sit at the opposite end of the spectrum. These two extremes are diametrically opposed to one another. The concepts of local and global have a new ring to them. Western European citizens have experienced the reality of lockdowns for the first time since the Second World War. We were confronted, quite literally, with the perspective of our current location. How do we see things from such a position? Is there a difference between the digital and the physical experience?
Photos by Dana LaMonda
Artists:
Ilona Senghore: Dezelfde adem voor hetzelfde gevaar
Ilona Senghore – “I am getting a cold and think I am infected. On the day that the Netherlands locks down, the norovirus reigns in my department. In the event of an outbreak, the nursing staff continues to work with the appropriate measures. Other disciplines do not come to the ward in order to limit further spread in the nursing home. I belong to the group of well-being counselors and work in a ward with 32 residents with dementia, half of whom are relatively young. Fortunately, after a week, the norovirus is gone. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus is spreading further across the Netherlands and is breaking out in nursing homes as well.
“It is very quiet on the street. I cycle through the quiet streets sobbing to work because I feel strongly that I am a source of contamination and the last thing I want is to infect the residents. The use of face masks will soon be made mandatory. Visitors are no longer allowed. Family and friends are not allowed to visit. That has a huge impact on everyone. Emotional dramas take place. A family secretly rows over the ditch with an inflatable boat to be able to be with their mother. Face-time calling is introduced. I take hundreds of pictures to show the family that they are doing well. Convinced that being outside is the best remedy, I walk for hours with the residents through the paradise garden, which seems more beautiful than ever. The sky is clear blue, there is no noise, no planes.”
Ilona Senghore graduated in 1989 as Monumental Designer at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. In addition to being active as an artist, she teaches painting and has been working since 1995 as a well-being counselor in a nursing home. Ilona makes symbolic drawings, paintings and socially critical ceramics. She draws associatively to understand everyday life, which puzzles her often. From random lines and shapes, a story unfolds that becomes known during the drawing, or even the day after.
Thus the trace appears in her work, the symbol of time. The train comes roaring unstoppably. The trumpet with its bell is the attention that is demanded. The animals can be themselves, but more often symbolize human actions. The water and the sea is the subconscious, a movement and the source from which it all begins.
The Corona outbreak was only a few months through when metastatic tumors were discovered in Paul Donker Duyvis body. Immediately three muses took care of him and became Angels, Caregivers and Comforters. Donker Duyvis decided to use the illness as a vehicle for a staggering, undisguised and moving series of self-portraits, which portray the comforting and warm contact with the three women.
The understanding treating physicians quickly turned to life-prolonging treatments: radiation, hormone injection and chemotherapy, but they are all physical treatments. Psychological help was also offered, but much more important than words was the indispensable touch – which produced an immediate comforting and magical effect.
The touch, the skin, the direct contact, the production of Oxytocin (known as the cuddle hormone) is an neglected part of medical and terminal care in the eyes of the photographer, who is seriously ill. The moving series of straight black and white self-images Corona Cancer Comfort 2021 is a plea for the return of the loving, healing touch, which was missed by many during the Corona pandemic.
Rosh Abdelfatah is a Kurdish-Syrian artist, filmmaker, artistic director of the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam, who graduated at the St. Joost Academy in Breda, 2006. Currently he makes freelance productions for different Arabic TV stations and works as an independent artist in Netherlands and Middle East.
“As an individual you hardly have any control over the environment. Reality forms while you look at it helplessly. As an artist and filmmaker I search for images where I can get a grip of time. In my work I look for moments of support. They are anchors in a deteriorating, changing environment. The search for what is in disappearance forms visual benchmarks that, if well done, can convey both pain and comfort.” – Rosh Abdelfatah
Rodi Khalil was born in Tal Hedat, Syria, studied art and design at the University of Damascus. He worked as an stage designer at the Theatre of Damascus, as well as in different TV films broadcast in Syria. He has exhibited his paintings and sculptures in London, Rotterdam, Beirut, Turkey, Spain, New York, Sweden and Germany. In Germany he was also involved in set design and became a member of the National Association of Artists (BBK Bremen) and the International Association of Art (IGBK, IAA, AIAP).
“I come from a land of myths and repression. For me these myths are building a connection to the present. They offer topics which are fascinating and ageless. I want to build a bridge from past to present for all those people who are open or can be interested for that. My images are showing elements of manifold cultures: those of the Assyric, Meder, Marer, which I am a child of.“ – Rodi Khalil
Hard Times is a Dutch edition of the international project Onder de Kerktoren / Under the Tower (underthechurchtower.org). The project links a range of artists, curators and locations so far in Belgium, the Netherlands and Palestine, as a response to the Corona times and the lockdown.
The church tower and the curfew
‘Onder de kerktoren’ (‘under the church tower’) is a typical Flemish expression that means “small-scale” or “navel-gazing”. Universality and open-mindedness sit at the opposite end of the spectrum. These two extremes are diametrically opposed to one another. The concepts of local and global have a new ring to them. Western European citizens have experienced the reality of lockdowns for the first time since the Second World War. We were confronted, quite literally, with the perspective of our current location. How do we see things from such a position? Is there a difference between the digital and the physical experience?
Caring Communities for Radical Change August 24-28th, 2021
The 8th International Degrowth Conference, between 24th and 28th August, explores many approaches to degrowth. The conference includes artistic interventions, workshops and performances are organized both online and physically in various locations in The Hague: Utopie Café, the International Institute of Social Studies, the community garden Spinozahof, the Stadsklooster (City Monastery), NEST, and Quartair. In parallel, there will be a variety of online workshops and sessions. See program here.
What to experience at Quartair:
Church of the Hand, The Linen Project and Traveling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills are projects to be visited during the conference days. There will also be workshops at specific times (see below). To attend the workshops, please pre-register online.
Church of the Hand (with Harm Heye Coordes) Tuesday 24 Aug 10:30-12:00 & 19:00-20:00 Wednesday 25 Aug 9:00-10:30 & 14:30-16:00 Thursday 26 Aug 14:30-16:00 pre-registration required
The Linen Project – Engagement, Participation, Community and Joy (with Marieke van Mieghem, Ellen Rooijakkers, Carolien Evers, Henrike Gootjes & Pascale Gatzen) Tuesday 24 Aug 16:00-19:00 Thursday 26 Aug 10:00-13:00 pre-registration required Traveling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills (with Asia Komarova, Txell Blanco, Merel Zwarts, Leonardo Siqueira & Kyra Ruiten) Saturday 28 August 12:00-13:00 pre-registration required
Degrowth is a movement and a research field that proposes solutions confronting the roots of today’s crises. It explores these fundamental questions and many others: How do we confront the contradictions between endless economic growth and the ecological boundaries of our planet? What kind of society would ensure a good life for all, without wealth and power being hoarded by the few? How can we enable a just transition that halts over-extraction, over-production and over-consumption?
