Hiding Goods

Group exhibition

A plea for ambivalence

Margriet Kemper

Anyone who enters a stranger's space will often feel a certain ambivalence: that of curiosity and that of reserve. You don't know the other person and yet you want to form an image of who he or she is. When the other person is present, your restraint is strongest, but when you are alone, you dare to study the books on the shelf and take a closer look at the photos with confidence. Cupboards and drawers are left closed. If you are really alone, sometimes they open too, perhaps just to take a look. You don't want to disturb the quiet order and leave evidence of so much insolence.

In the encounter with a stranger, the body can also be understood as the space he or she inhabits. When first 'entering' the view is global: height, physique, facial expression, sign language are observed. It is not appropriate to look too focused, although sometimes the senses operate independently of the observer and an encounter may leave behind a downy hair on an upper lip, a scar on the back of the hand, a whiff of body odor or an almost inaudible lisp. Why falling in love is so intense is because those strange cupboards are opened and drawers are pulled out in that body.

The ambivalence of entering is a precious thing, which is not exclusively the result of centuries of civilization, but which is also still determined by instinctive behavior, in which danger, hunger, aggression, drive and fear play a role.

Anyone who enters the 'Renaissance' house in Beugen will immediately recognize this ambiguity. The clear simplicity of the facade is in great contrast to what lies behind it. Certain parts of the shell and yard are accessible for the Hiding Goods exhibition. In previous exhibitions, the entire house was opened up and you sometimes felt like a burglar, because what did not belong to you was taken: images from the private lives of the residents. The fact that one of them is an artist plays an important role in this.

The artist is ambivalent par excellence. He or she wants to show and keep it secret, wants the work of art to be specific and general, personal and universal, contextual and autonomous. As much as he may disagree with Nan Goldin, those images of her private life do not belong in a police file but in the museum.

Not only the artist but of course the art itself is ambivalent. It is precisely in this tension that the power and meaning of the art lies, which almost seems to exist by the grace of a certain elusiveness. In the contemporary appropriation by art of almost every discipline conceivable, it is precisely that indefinability that gives it its power. The criticism that contemporary artists are bad filmmakers, actors, chefs, social workers or scientists in this appropriation only applies to bad artists. At the Documenta 2007, the Indian Amar Kanwar shows the installation 'The Lightning Testimonies', with video projections on four walls, between which the audience takes a seat. He tells the survival story of women who have been subjected to violence. It is precisely by being included in the complexity of this installation - and which does justice to that of reality - that the audience can feel connected to these women, not in the fixed setting of television or film, but one in which there is constant other positions are occupied by viewer and maker. The viewer is carried along in this interweaving of detail and overview, fact and story, evidence and suspicion, speed and slowness. He does not take knowledge, but experiences, he does not objectify, but identifies himself.

Ans Verdijk , resident of the house and curator of the exhibition, gave the artists something of the history of the house, which Dorus Verdijk built more than eighty years ago for him and his two unmarried sisters. Since that time, the house has always been occupied by family. House and yard possess a wealth of memories and meanings, everything has been touched by time. The hidden goods are the things that do not immediately reveal themselves, but that carry stories and meanings. They have been hidden not so much by anyone as by time itself. What they ask for is a careful eye.

In the Hiding Goods exhibition, the works are intertwined with house and yard. There is no neutral space within which the works can be completely 'themselves', or in which the meanings that attach to them take place exclusively in the minds of the viewers. They literally make connections with the daily living and working environment of the residents, they stand on tables that are used, lie under the trees or in the grass. The walls are not perfectly plastered and whitewashed, but show traces of past or recent activities. Some works even take forms that seem to blend in with the environment. There are works that relate directly to this place and its history and others for whom that connection is much less clear.

Marita Kratz transformed the utility room into an unreal space with her intervention. Although it remains recognizable and useful, the daily actions here are suddenly seen in a different light. She placed white crocheted roses in battle array on and over everything. These roses were and are made by women, working steadily towards a target number of ten thousand. The homeliness of this space is linked to that of women's homemaking and the result is a work that is absurd, cheerful and beautiful to see. However, the uselessness of this women's work is not so much ridiculed or criticized, but rather celebrated. A discrepancy becomes palpable between labor and product, between history and the present, between life and art.

Margriet Luyten already knew the house and its residents and she tried to capture the atmosphere of the house. She looked for a new, added element that could specify the elusiveness of this place and did so by inviting an acrobat. She had her perform movements and assume poses, of which she took photos. Against the materiality of things and the solidity of the house, the acrobat's body is like a rush of time, the passing of a human life In the light of history.

In the work in the exhibition , Helmie van de Riet also responds to the history of the house and she literally used images from old photos in collages. In an installation of a woman's clothing, bearing the initials MV, she literally refers to one of the unmarried sisters who lived in the house. She saw a certain closedness in the photographs that exist of this Marie Antoinette and she attempts to revive her, as it were, retroactively in the collages and the installation. This woman was once a child, absorbed in the moment, and later a young girl, who had expectations of life.

Keiko Sato 's glass soap bubbles dance over the grass and, unlike the real ones, they remain motionless. Here too, time is captured in the ordinary, the casual. While for a child the soap bubble is pure pleasure and makes his body dance, for adults it has become a metaphor of the temporality of existence, an image with emblematic power in the seventeenth century. He can laugh at the joy of the child who wants to catch bubbles, but also becomes aware of the forever gone not only of that moment but also of himself. However, the durability of the glass bubbles is apparent, they are just as vulnerable as the soap bubble in an extended sense of time, but they offer the opportunity to let its beauty penetrate us more deeply.

Nel Pak decided not to show drawings at this exhibition, but to build an igloo from newspapers. She was struck by the openness of the yard and wanted to connect it to the hidden histories of the house. She was also inspired by the title as such. Her igloo of newspapers can be understood as time compressed in space. Time and space are stored in information, information becomes matter, matter makes space. The archive already plays an explicit role in her artistry, but this transformation is taking place for the first time.

Anne-Marie van Sprang was struck by the richness of the house's history and present, something that is visible and tangible. It's readable in a way. She saw a contrast with the work of art, which can provide information and can be analyzed, but which in a certain sense always remains hidden. Motifs, history, work, all of that dissolves in the object, which has to do its work on its own. A small porcelain figure stands in the room. His legs are blue, a blue boat on his chest, and in his tiny hand he holds something that looks like a feather. Two threads are stretched between him and the viewer. Distance is required. Two worlds meet. Who enters whose world?

Peter Koene 's work has the most direct relationship with the title 'Hiding Goods', but in the inversion, which therefore contains just as much truth. His images show as well as they hide. If they were to only show, it would be pornography, in which visibility is the absolute condition. It is precisely this ambivalence that can hit home. Through their scale they lure the viewer towards them, their pose makes him feel timid. Anyone who does not feel or dare to admit this ambivalence will quickly make a judgement: that of pure aesthetics or that of obscenity - and the love that these images possess will escape him. Approaching a strange space, which can therefore also be the body of the other, is made explicit in his work.

The title Hiding goods presupposes an action: something is hidden, almost deliberately. In the works in the exhibition, the hider is conceived in two ways: as a human being and as a kind of personified time. In the expression 'the patina of time', time is a coverer. He covers things not only with dust, rust and earth, but also with himself. Sometimes things literally have to be uncovered, stripped of the soil. The archaeologist's excitement is not exclusively scientific, but sometimes almost physical in nature - again an ambivalence. This covering up of things by time itself also has its excavation form: that of bringing the past to life, revealing secrets, placing the thing in its time and in the present. And as for man, who hides, that may be clear. Body and mind (and soul and heart) already presuppose a separation between outer and inner. Anyone who knows the story of the crystal girl knows that she can only exist by the grace of unity between them. She shattered into a thousand pieces when she spoke her first lie.

Hiding Goods literally means smuggling. Someone is smuggling, something is being smuggled, from one room to another, something is being hidden, there is pretending, there is danger, there is excitement, there is fear, there is profiteering. Until an arrest takes place, bags are turned inside out, suitcases are broken open and the loot that was once rich turns out to be poor.

Den Bosch, August 2007

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Search for hidden art treasures

Pierre Arts

Be surprised by art!
Wandering through spaces and environments and discovering in amazement the greatness in the small image and the insignificance in the larger work
Seven artists will show their work at the invitation of Artists' Initiative ALARM during the exhibition 'Hiding Goods'.
One great amazement and surprise in Huize Renaissance in Beugen; An exhibition that you should not miss if you allow yourself time to reflect in wonder.

Huize Renaissance, an ordinary house located on a spacious plot adjacent to the village center, is the stage for this exhibition where the seven artists have each chosen their own place - inside or outside - to create a work that makes the past visible or contrasts with that.
Just as a house can show the past and present in all its aspects, and this is the case in Huize Renaissance, the exhibition is also a reflection of the past and present.
Only the choice of location and space tells something about the artist and his art objects. Who is in the former laundry room, shed or outdoor area?
The visitor is invited to make the connection between everyday life and current art and therein undoubtedly lies the challenge, amazement and surprise during the walk through the house and its surroundings.
Initiator and artist Ans Verdijk invited seven colleagues who she is convinced will jointly and individually succeed in shaping the search for hidden art treasures - Hiding Goods - with a reference to the past or present. Ans Verdijk: 'The invisible is made visible'.
Although her work is not an explicit part of the exhibition, the visitor cannot fail to notice during the tour of the house and its surroundings that this house is permeated by the past and the contemporary presence of Ans Verdijk himself. A visitor once said in amazement: 'No interior designer can create a house like this and constantly change it!'
Amaze, amaze, surprise!

About the artists

Peter Koene makes sculptures, powerful human nude figures. For him, the modern lies in the movement, which is sometimes ironic and vulnerable.
Marita Kratz is, among other things, a performance artist. She moves in self-created skins, which she sheds during the performance but does not reveal herself afterwards.
Margriet Luyten makes gum prints that resemble images from the time when photography was just invented; grainy in structure and often with a chalky color.
Nel Pak designs three-dimensional drawings; installation work that involves drawing, writing and folding.
Helmie van de Riet makes collages that are recordings of strange human activities. These are converted into collages with contemporary words and images and with humor and an ironic tone.
Keiko Sato is an installation artist; she arranges everyday materials on a large scale, creating a new futuristic landscape.
Anne-Marie van Sprang makes images, small, sometimes transparent-looking figures that represent an enormous presence. These figures bear attributes that refer to other worlds

The official opening will be on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 3:00 PM.
Then storyteller Bram van der Wurff † will take visitors through the times that have passed and will come.

We would like to invite you as a journalist to this opening.

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Artists' initiative Alarm and Huize Renaissance in Beugen presents the exhibition: Hiding Goods

By Frank Bekkers

Alienation, associations and contrasts: after the summer, artist Ans Verdijk, with her initiative “Hiding Goods”, once again gives a group of artists the opportunity to interpret the history of the spaces and the people who lived in them as such in the arts. The interpretation of the artist in question as well as his or her creativity and the use of different materials leads in alchemical terms to a different bubbling nature. For example, there is an underground hut in which the layers of the past are made visible in newspaper articles. Another artist converts the family archives that are present into a cabinet of curiosities where truth and untruth intermingle. What is reality, or who can say whether something is actually the case. Images in gum print in which vague, shadowy figures are located in desolate, majestic spaces from around 1900. Verdijk: “By the way, time or its evaporation does not only emerge in images. Installations, images and even literature breathe the common thread that runs through the entire exhibition. I have sought out artists who share a bond with each other. The layering that goes deeper than what the visitor immediately sees and that binds them all together is clearly evident in their works. Shape or color, in short, everything you see on the surface is less important, sometimes literally pushed to the back. The invitation to the visitor is therefore to search further. The opening of contemporary worlds that have come to reality will take place on August 26 at 3 p.m. Just as a house can show life and the past in all aspects, the exhibition is also a reflection of this whole. Images that seem to have once lived but that could have come straight from the laboratory.” Initiator Verdijk surrounds herself with the past but does not get stuck in it, she creates a new reality. In her work, what has already been dismissed as past and present for others revives. In this way, the emergence of the new from the past or precisely the emergence of the new in response to the past becomes a symbol of strength, history becomes tangible again for those who open themselves to it.