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lunes, 9 de septiembre de 2013

Atlantic Ocean Drive - Collectief Ondergrond // Vondelbunker, Amsterdam

Collectief Ondergrond is a project by three Amsterdam based artists (Nathalie Snel, Sebastian de Line and Michiel Hilbrink), it works as a platform to connect and make intersections between artists from different countries. Each exhibition project space and concept varies depending on the artists and it develops along the run.

Atlantic Ocean Drive is the latest project in which six artists based in Amsterdam, (Marcel Van Den Berg, Raphael Langmair, An Ngo, Ian de Ruiter, Sarah Verbeek,  Felicia Von Zweigbergk & Mylou Org). Ricardo Alzati, a Mexican artist based in San Francisco and Carlos Alfonso, a Colombian Artist who was doing a residency in The Stichting Flat at the time of the exhibition.

They all came together in a post war Bunker in the Vondelpark, right in the centre of Amsterdam, in which they all worked in an attempt of making an in-site collective exhibition, where the space set the parameters to work and at the end create an amalgam where the limits between the pieces and who made them starts to vanish, and where all that matters is the whole.

It also included a couple of artist talks, moderated by Vincent Van Velsen where each artist had the chance to share more of their own work, experience and discuss issues which derived from the dialogue.

The exhibition opened on August 23rd and went until the 25th.

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It was very interesting and exciting to be an spectator when the exhibition was cooking, also because this time it was almost a social experiment, of placing 8 artists in a space ( well not just a sapce, but A bunker), who didn't knew each other before they got there. With time some tensions rise but also connections, in both the artists and their works.

It's like they where getting to know each other through art and the way each one of them produced and left a mark or a leading path in some cases for the rest to follow, destroy or complement.
This exhibition had the particularity of not having the figure of a curator, which leaves the artists with total freedom to explore, make mistakes, edit or change everything at the last minute, which also leads to different results. That is why this exhibition didn't look like anything I've seen, which is both refreshing, contrasting and a bit weird.




Building up the exhibition


Left piece: Raphael Langmair
Right shelves: Carlos Alfonso

 
Ricardo Alzati

Carlos Alfonso

Carlos Alfonso


Painting on the right: Marcel Van Den Verg
Sculpture: Ian de Ruiter
 Sound piece: Carlos Alfonso


Wall painting: Marcel Van Den Verg
Hanging paintings: Sarah Verbeek
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Links:


About the Exhibition: 

http://www.gutmag.eu/blog/little-scary-things-in-a-fallout-shelter


Artists:


Marcel Van Den Berg
http://www.mvandenb.com

Raphael Langmair
http://www.raphaellangmair.eu

An Ngo

Ian de Ruiter
http://ianderuiter.blogspot.nl

Sarah Verbeek
http://www.sarahverbeek.com

Felicia Von Zweigbergk 
http://petshopdoorbell.org/fold/

Carlos Alfonso
http://carlosaalfonso.blogspot.nl

Ricardo Alzati
http://bbk-koeln.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Ricardo_Alzati.pdf








Boooom!!! Dijkstra and Dumas at the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)

The Rijksmuseum is definitely one of the best museums I have visited so far, it has an inmense collection, distributed in 4 stages, which goes from the 1100's until today, going through ancient asian and indian art, ceramics, javanese paintings, of course the dutch masters from the 1600 and 1700's, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Art Nouveau, Expressionism ... meaning it can take up to one week to see it all.

When I went in that room with its walls all covered in Dijkstra, it felt like when you go to a concert, or when you meet someone you really admired. She has been a huge inspiration for me for quite a while now.

Rineke Dijkstra (1959, Sittard) is a dutch photographer who lives and works in Amsterdam. since the 90's she has been working on portraits, mainly single portraits of young people. What is striking about her work is the purity and honesty transmitted through her photographs, there is no fiction and she manages to look through people's real self and snap a picture. she has also worked on video, exploring teenage anxieties in different social circles.







http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/4424
http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/rineke-dijkstra/



Marlene Dumas (1953, Cape Town) Is a South African artist  who also lives and works in Amsterdam. 
She uses the human body image as a metaphor for a lot of humanity's crisis, violence, racism, birth, death, apartheid, social identity. Always in a very critical and subtle manner.

Oil, canvas, ink and paper are her main materials, and her dark colours and watery, sometimes almost abstract figures with dark and strong face expressions demonstrate extreme confidence in  her labour, it is very simple yet very strong. 










http://www.marlenedumas.nl