Categories: Exhibition
Katja Heitmann – Motus Mori RELIQUIEM
From October 5 to 10, Marres, Bureau Europa and de Nederlandse Dansdagen present the performance Motus Mori RELIQUIEM by German choreographer Katja Heitmann. Motus Mori RELIQUIEM is dedicated to human movement and will take place in the main hall of Bureau Europa in Maastricht.
What moves humankind? In Motus Mori RELIQUIEM, you experience other people’s motions in the most direct and touching way possible: through your body. You put yourself in the shoes of the archive’s many donors and incorporate their personal “movement relics” into your motion repertoire. Heitmann calls this “kinetic empathy”.
In the multi-year art project Motus Mori, Katja Heitmann collects and preserves human movement. Up to now more than 1900 people have already donated their personal movement to this embodied archive, an ever-growing foundation from which the choreographer creates new artworks. People from Maastricht and surrounding areas also donated their movement to Motus Mori in 2019. This year, the choreographer returns to the city with RELIQUIEM.
Katja Heitmann is fascinated by the human attempt to escape their own mortality. This paradox is the muse of the movement archive Motus Mori. As movement goes and vanishes, we are at the same time epi-central master of our own life and just a spark in eternity.
With RELIQUIEM, Katja Heitmann takes her archive research to the next level; creating a collective shared movement heritage to secure it for the future. The archive will be transferred to ‘everyone’. After all: doesn’t every human being want to keep moving, for eternity?
Dates and times
October 5 and 6, 2024:
10:30AM, 12:00PM, 2:30PM, and 4:00PM
October 7, 8, 9 and 10, 2024:
1:00PM and 7:00PM
Location
Bureau Europa
Boschstraat 9
6211 AS Maastricht
bureau-europa.nl
‘My mother died 12 years ago, my father last year. There is nothing left of them, no material belongings, no house, no will or farewell letter. Sometimes I manage to make a hand gesture that I recognize from my mother. Or my father’s shoulder-head-pupil-chin combination, a gesture that indicated he was struggling. Sometimes I see an older man walking down the street and suddenly I think it’s him. His tired body going on and on, back arched, shoulders hunched forward, while his head tried to look up. Often I wish I had observed them more closely, so I could keep their movement heritage alive.’
– Katja Heitmann
Background
For several years, Katja Heitmann has been working to create an archive for human movement. This is a question that is often raised in dance, since the discipline has no standardized notation. The body of a dancer, it is often said, is the archive of dance. But the same question also applies to the world outside dance. Our archives and museums collect portraits, objects, and writings but not the gestures and movements of important people. In our homes, we also save letters, objects, and photographs of our loved ones, but we lose the poses, movements, and reflexes that make them instantly recognizable. Katja Heitmann and her team make that loss tangible by collecting and preserving human movements.
In 2019, de Heitmann presented her project Museum Motus Mori at Marres. In this project, she created a museum of dying physical movement with ten dancers. For six weeks, five hours a day, the dancers and the choreographer took on the remarkable challenge of sensitizing visitors to the deep humanity hidden within the body. They developed a choreography for belly fat, a dance of the belly button and rib cage, the anatomy of a sigh…
Motion interviews
As a source, the choreographer used movement interviews. Every day people were invited to these interviews in which they told how they stood, sat or slept, whether they shared traits with family members, whether they had ever had an injury or accident that changed their physicality or movements. The dancers analyzed these traits and learned to embody them. Heitmann focused primarily on capturing involuntary human behaviors. She became fascinated by unconscious, sometimes transmitted movements, which are very awkward or make life difficult or arduous, but at the same time give a deep insight into human identity. The audience who witnessed this living archive saw a prolonged performance of human movements, including their own and those of their loved ones.
Biography Katja Heitmann
Katja Heitmann (1987, Germany) operates on the interface between dance and visual arts, performance and installation. In her visual-choreographic work, she investigates what moves people in the present era. In doing so, she always questions what it means to have a body, often in relation to rapidly advancing technology. In Homo Avatar (2016), she was inspired by the countless digital alter egos roaming the Internet. In Siri Loves Me (2017), a work she made with 50 young dancers, she wondered if technological advances and the surveillance that comes with them were going to hinder free movement. In Pandora’s DropBox (2018), she presented a disturbing image of the perfect man in a perfect world. Starting in 2019, Heitmann worked on various forms of her extensive Motus Mori project, an ode to the forgotten and even extinct movement. In 2016 Katja won the Prijs van de Nederlandse Dansdagen (Dutch Dance Days Award), in 2020 she was awarded the Gieskes-Strijbis Podiumprijs, the largest performing arts award in the Netherlands.
Press about Katja Heitmann
NRC
“In Museum Motus Mori, Heitmann collects, describes, archives and exhibits the minute movements we all make every day that immediately disappear again – the beauty and fragility of dance in one thoughtful concept.”
De Theaterkrant
‘Heitmann has a mission! Undeniably. In Motus Mori, she gives the body back to a society that is in danger of losing sight of its value. Art could not be more urgent. But beyond urgency, Reliquiem is also very moving. After all, the body is transient and confronts us with finiteness.”
De Standaard:
“It’s kinetic empathy at its best.”
De Volkskrant (Anette Embrechts)
“I recognized my ‘translated’ tics and gestures, whispers mixed with those of Pavel, Monika, Tosca and Herr Stamm. Highly original.”
The New York Times:
“Turning the gestures of everyday life into art.”
Museumtijdschrift (Edo Dijksterhuis):
“Museum Motus Mori is a kinetic portrait of all of us. And the way it takes shape, through the body rather than the mind, is more direct, effective and poignant than any video, photograph or text can ever be.”
For the press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact communicatie@marres.org.
Partners / thanks to
Motus Mori RELIQUIEM in Maastricht is a collaboration of Marres, Bureau Europa and De Nederlandse Dansdagen.
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
Rooms Performance Festival 2025
Aftermovie Rooms 2024
Music / Composer: Vanessa Lann, 9×13 Orange Drummer Beat!, performed by: NeoFanfare 9×13
cover photo: © Sanne Peper
Save the date for performance festival Rooms on 25 & 26 January 2025.
A weekend full of performance, music, dance, and film that will stay in your mind and body for a long time.
Keep an eye on this website and our socials for updates regarding Rooms. Follow @marres_maastricht
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact communicatie@marres.org
Alejandro Galván
Chronicle of Mexico
In November 2024, the artist Alejandro Galván (Mexico, 1990) will commence a painted chronicle of Mexico from the perspective of the largest slum in Mexico City. The artist resides in Nezahualcóyotl, at the outskirts of Mexico City, a place in which political neglect and violence issues have configured the social panorama. His often highly detailed paintings blend realism with mythology, narrating his experiences growing up in this environment, bidding farewell to his family, and depicting the corruption of the Mexican state and police. His style builds upon the great muralists, with a significant difference – his influences are drawn from television and heavy metal, sources that set him apart from the prevailing, more minimalist and conceptual style in Mexican contemporary art.
Lucid dream
The artist, holding Mexican politics and corruption responsible for the widespread violence and injustice in society, will paint the entire house of Marres in an attempt, as he writes, to outline a lucid dream of Mexican society. In doing so, he poses the following questions: How can we incorporate the most unique chapters of our history into a global narrative? How can we realize that our traumas and sufferings are shared, and that perhaps solving and overcoming global issues is a path that must be collectively trodden? With his work, Alejandro Galván aims to demonstrate that he and his fellow residents of Nezahualcóyotl are not ‘marginalized’ or ‘forgotten,’ but simply belong to a group of people with an unheard story. A story that shares fundamental similarities with the tales of people from other countries, cities, villages, or even times. The reason Galván paints is that he does not want any story to be lost.
Integral installation
To facilitate this monumental work, Marres invites the artist to begin working in November 2024, and the exhibition will be completed by June 2025. During the process, multiple openings will be organized for visitors, inviting them to participate in the creation of the integral installation. A publication will accompany the chronicle, featuring young writers suggested by the artist who grew up with him.
Keep an eye on this website and our socials for updates regarding this monumental project of Alejandro Galván at Marres. Follow us at @marres_maastricht
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact communicatie@marres.org
Currents 11
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
In 2024, Marres Maastricht and Jester in Genk (BE) jointly present the exhibition Currents 11. A young team will curate the exhibition, showcasing work by recently graduated artists from academies in Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia and the southern Netherlands.
With Currents, Marres, House for Contemporary Culture, acts as a platform for emerging artists and curators to contribute to an international infrastructure for talent development. Jester, house for contemporary art in Genk, also pursues this same objective.
The exhibition will be embedded in a broader guidance trajectory in which training, networking and professionalisation are central. After 10 editions, Currents is an established platform for young artists and curators. Over the past years, 150 artists from different academies have exhibited their work, have given presentations and participated in workshops. By participating in the project, 25 promising international curators have given their careers a firm boost.
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Introducing the curators for Currents 11
Marres (Maastricht, NL) and Jester (Genk, BE) have chosen Harriet Middleton Baker, Michał Grzegorzek, Nadim Choufi and Lucas Odahara as the curatorial team for the group exhibition Currents 11.
Coming from different cities – Berlin, London, Beirut, and Warsaw – and working in different fields, the members of this year’s curatorial team met at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Lucas Odahara (left), Harriet Middleton Baker (center left) and Nadim Choufi (center right) are visual artists. Their artistic practices show a common research interest in historical power structures and alternative futures. Writer and curator Michał Grzegorzek (right) focuses on queer theory in the visual and performative arts.
The curator team was selected through an open call.
Photo: Ugo Woatzi
Opening Currents 11
With great pleasure, Jester and Marres would like you to invite to the 11th edition of Currents.
Date
Saturday, 21 September 2024
Location & time
Marres
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
5:00PM
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact communicatie@marres.org
Limburg Biënnale 2024
It is with immense pride that Marres and Odapark present the third edition of the Limburg Biënnale, an exhibition that offers a cross-section of the visual arts in Limburg and its surroundings with 500 works by over 350 artists. The biennale is a true celebration of the arts in Limburg.
Open Call
Following the enormous success of the previous two editions, Marres and Odapark placed an open call for the third Limburg Biënnale in February of this year. 1,400 makers responded; together they submitted more than 3,000 works.
From February 19 to March 10, 2024, interested parties, young and old, established and unknown, from individual to collective, could register with a maximum of three existing artworks. This could be any type of work: painting, video, sculpture, audio, performance, etc.
Jury
The jury and curatorial team, consisting of 18 professional artists, will assess the submissions without knowing the applicants’ identities. They will then arrange their chosen selection in a space at Marres or Odapark, where the artworks will be shown alongside their own. The jury includes members from both Limburg and beyond.
The jury of the Limburg Biënnale 2024: Karina Beumer, Eugenie Boon, Katrein Breukers, Anne Büscher, Bonno van Doorn, Pablo Hannon, Jan Hoek, Birthe Leemeijer, Paul Kooiker, Maartje Korstanje, Marijn van Kreij, Anouk Kruithof, Fleur Pierets, Jan Rothuizen, Sanne Vaassen, Wessel Verrijt, Marenne Welten and Han van Wetering
Jury
Karina Beumer (Peize, 1988) maintains an interactive artistic practice that is sustained by engaging in dialogues with – or being captivated by – something or someone else. This results in videos, installations, and publications that emerge from drawings of observations, and unannounced performances. Beumer searches for an absurd and surreal relationship between the inner world (thoughts, miscommunication) and the physical world (language, networks). In a dreamlike universe, she connects banal issues with personal fantasies by using strategies from existing structures such as pop songs, blockbusters and live action role-playing games. Her work was previously shown at Het Vincent van GoghHuis (Zundert) and at various galleries in Antwerp, among others. Her film titled (…) is on show at 2doc.nl and Beumer is currently looking for a replacement for herself.
Eugenie Boon (Willemstad, 1995) is a Curaçaoan visual artist based in The Hague. She graduated cum laude from HKU in 2020, winning the award for Artistic Achievement. In her practice she combines storytelling and commentary, and translates these in her performances, paintings, and installation. Her works can be found in several collections amongst which that of Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, AMC.
Katrein Breukers (Tilburg, 1991) lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from FHK, Tilburg and did a master’s program in Fine Arts at AKV St. Joost Breda. In her work, Beukers engages with different techniques and materials, especially from the realm of ceramics and textile arts, in order to honour practices of decorative craftmanship that have historically been excluded from the category of fine arts. A primary example of this pursuit is the returning feature quilting in the majority of her recent works. Beukers’ has showed in numerous galleries and art spaces including KunstRAI in Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam, and NS16 Tilburg. She has been nominated for various prizes, and was awarded the AG-Kunstprijs 2017.
Anne Büscher (Stuttgart, 1991) bridges art, design, and science through artistic experiments wherein she expands the commonly perceived functions and identity of well-known materials such as glass, stone, photographic paper, air, light, and electricity. Büscher’s works evolve from her keen awareness of the inherent sensitivity of objects, and plays with the relationship between authenticity and imagination. They take the form of arrangements, artistic documentation, and objects that reach their full potential only when activated or used. Büscher has attended many residencies internationally and has shown at many venues, including PAD Paris, TOKAS Tokyo, Miriam Gallery New York, and Ludwig Forum Aachen.
Bonno van Doorn (Amsterdam, 1977) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2008, after which he gained notoriety for his paintings and sculptures that he incorporates into elaborate installations. His work has been shown at various venues, including C&H Galerie (Amsterdam), Greylight Projects (Brussels), Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm) and at Marres in Maastricht. Van Doorn moreover taught at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He is co-founder of ART BAR KIPPY.
Pablo Hannon (Santiago, 1973) Pablo Hannon (Santiago, 1973) explores many of expressions in his artistic practice. Rooted, or rather, restless in activism, be it due to his roots in Mapuche (Chile), or his awareness to other injustices elsewhere, he founded The School; a fluid, autonomous space and methodology that facilitates accessible, interdisciplinary collaborations with local and international participants. Hannon’s own artistic experiments rely on illustration and design, and play with the improvisational and performative interaction of the audience. He also shares his knowledge, skills and playfulness at various art schools, including Hoge School Zuyd.
Jan Hoek (1984) is always attracted to the beauty of outsiders worldwide, and is ever keen to collaborate with people who are normally overlooked. In Hoek’s universe, ‘normal’ people are strangers and the ‘outsiders’ rule. As such, Hoek has photographed a realm of superstars, like the taxi drivers of Nairobi, has created psychedelic zines about sex tourism capital Pattaya (Thailand), and made a series about the Maasai (Kenya & Tanzania) to defeat their stereotypical depictions. He has presented works at Foam (Amsterdam), Unseen Festival (Amsterdam), Photoville (New York), Fomu (Antwerp) and Lagos Photo (Lagos).
patricia kaersenhout (we/us) (Den Helder, 1966) is an Afro-Dutch visual artist and thinker. In her work, she explores the ever-present legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Dutch context and beyond. kaersenhout critically and radically engages with issues of race, sexuality and gender, and is recognized for her unbridled commitment to artistic and activist projects. She is known for her multifaceted projects in- and amongst society, whereby she asks her audience to reflect on their own possible involvement in the Dutch and European colonial history and its contemporary legacy. kersenhout’s works include, a monument commemorating the Trans Atlantic slavetrade, Unveiling Monument of Flight and Resistance, which was commissioned by the municipality of Utrecht,Acknowledge Rebuild: Wunderkammers of Rotterdam’s Colonial Past commisioned by the Kunsthal and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and a monograph Open-Ended Visons of Possibilities which was published by Japsam publishers and launched in 2023.
Paul Kooiker (Rotterdam, 1964) studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (1990-1992). Kooiker was awarded the Prix-de-Rome Photography in 1996 and the A. Roland Holst Award for his oeuvre in 2009. Kooiker’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, including at Museum Folkwang, Essen (2021/22, DE); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2020, NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2020, NL); FOMU Fotomuseum, Antwerp (2018, BE); Fotomuseum Den Haag (2014, NL) and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2009, NL). His work is in numerous international public and private collections.
Accordion content.
The artistic practice of Maartje Korstanje (Goes, 1982) is driven by a strong awareness of the finiteness of life and her engagement with this awareness. Korstanje’ s work focuses on the tension between growth and decay, both in the natural world and in the artificial, but mainly in the borderland where the two worlds meet. Intuition and imagination are significant motivators in this creative body of work. Although Korstanje works with a variety of materials, cardboard is a fixed base which she constantly seeks to re-explore. Korstanje studied at the Academy for Art and Design St. Joost (Breda) and the Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam). She was one of the winners of the Prix de Rome in 2007 and was nominated for the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize in 2014. She also participated in several residency programs and her work has been presented at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, ISCP New York and Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Korea, among others.
The artistic practice of MAARTJE KORSTANJE (Goes, 1982) is driven by a strong awareness of the finiteness of life and her engagement with this awareness. Korstanje’ s work focuses on the tension between growth and decay, both in the natural world and in the artificial, but mainly in the borderland where the two worlds meet. Intuition and imagination are significant motivators in this creative body of work. Although Korstanje works with a variety of materials, cardboard is a fixed base which she constantly seeks to re-explore. Korstanje studied at the Academy for Art and Design St. Joost (Breda) and the Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam). She was one of the winners of the Prix de Rome in 2007 and was nominated for the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize in 2014. She also participated in several residency programs and her work has been presented at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, ISCP New York and Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Korea, among others.
Marijn van Kreij (Middelrode, 1978) makes drawings, collages and mobiles which he brings together in carefully composed exhibitions. In his work he combines art-historical references with illustrations from children’s books, food packaging or found lines of poetry. The reuse of image and language, working with repetition, and a focus on the act of drawing and painting itself are at the core of his multifaceted practice. In 2024, his solo exhibition How to Look at a Spiral, will be on view at De Pont, Tilburg. Marijn van Kreij teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and collaborates with other artists in the field of art, theatre and music within the collective it is part of an ensemble.
Anouk Kruithof (Dordrecht, 1981) is a trans-disciplinarian who engages in various digital and analog practices. Her works depict the transience and the chaos of this world by addressing urgent social issues and speaking to these from personal experience. In doing so, Kruithof aims to lay bare the sensitivities of the current Zeitgeist. Kruithof has previously held solo exhibitions at Foam Amsterdam, Centro de la Imagen Mexico City and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Her work has also been included in the collections of SFMoMA (San Francisco), Museum Folkwang (Essen) and Museum Voorlinden (Wassenaar). Kruithof was selected for The Gallery of Honour of Dutch photography at Nederlands Fotomuseum in 2021, and her most renowned project Universal Tongue was exhibited at various museums internationally.
Birthe Leemeijer (Amsterdam, 1972) lives in Heemstede. She studied at the Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute and furthermore completed a training in horticulture. For her, working in open space is the ideal condition to question the meaning of art and its place in the world. In order to realize this, she enters into collaboration with different parties and stakeholders who help give the project content and form. The presence or absence of other life forms (plants, animals) and the value we ascribe to them plays an increasingly important role therein. Works that Leemeijer has realized include a Reserve for Loneliness in Almere, the IJsfontein in Dokkum, and L’Essence de Mastenbroek. The latter is a perfume, the result of a search for the essence of the polder Mastenbroek. The scent, a liquid landscape, finds its way to all kinds of exhibitions around the world through a secret pipe system, such as an installation in the Dutch pavilion at the World Expo in Dubai in 2021 and soon in the Museum Krona in Uden. In 1996, was awarded the Prix de Rome prize for Art in Public Space.
Fleur Pierets (Zelzate, 1973) is a Belgian performance artist, best-selling author and LGBTQ+ activist. Together with her wife Julian P. Boom, she founded Et Alors? Magazine and launched 22-The Project (2017), a performance artwork in which the couple planned to marry in every country that legalized same-sex marriage at the time. They married in four countries before Boom’s untimely death. This led to Pierets’ writing debut, her memoir Julian (2018), which is currently being adapted into film by Lukas Dhont’s production house. Pierets’ subsequently wrote a two-part children’s book Love Around the World (2019) and Love is Love (2020), and a new novel Heerlijk Monster (2022). She also speaks on the importance of LGBTQ+ rights at consulates, embassies and at companies such as Google worldwide. She is currently working on an opera, a new novel and a performance artwork that will premiere in October of 2024.
Jan Rothuizen (Amsterdam, 1968) is a contemporary visual artist with many publications to his name, some of which have been translated into English, Spanish and Chinese. His work is featured monthly in the Volkskrant, and has been exhibited at various renowned institutes internationally, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and at the International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. A new edition of his book “The soft atlas of Amsterdam” will be published this fall. He was previously a juror for the AFK Amsterdam Prize (2022) and is a member of several national art committees.
Sanne Vaassen (Heerlen, 1991) explores the fluid transition of matter and phenomena within her artistic practice, such as the cycle of water, the transformation of trees during the seasons, and the evolution of language. Central themes within her diverse works are hence time and processes of change. In doing so, Vaassen’s work shares an interface with other disciplines such as ecology, geography, history and anthropology. Her work has previously been shown in several group and solo exhibitions nationally and abroad, including the Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht), SALTS (Basel), Unit 1 Gallery (London), and 601Artspace (New York). She was also a resident at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in 2014-2015.
Wessel Verrijt (Lierop, 1992) makes sculptures, architectural vehicles, tactile mobiles and lively characters. These are both robust and fragile, chaotic and orderly. They appear to be living beings and suggest a ritual or a procession that has come to a halt. As such, Verrijt explores the idea of ‘living matter’; when body and matter merge and matter takes on human traits and emotions. In this way, the sculptures merge with the physical body in so-called ‘hybrid entities’. Materials considered forgotten and abandoned, driven by consumerism and industrialism, find themselves in the dead corners of our ecosystems. In Verrijt’s work, they awaken as a rebellion against their briefly planned lives. In 2021, Verrijt showed his first solo exhibition Das Leben am Haverkamp in The Hague. He also followed several residencies in The Netherlands and abroad, and will show a new series of sculptures at the H3H Biennale (Oosterhout) & CODA Museum (Apeldoorn) in 2023.
Marenne Welten (Valburg, 1959) lives and works in Middelburg. In her work, she investigates the way emotions, associations, and memories shape our perception and the way in which we ascribe meaning to things. She graduated from the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten St. Joost in Breda, after which she lived and worked in Antwerp for a few years. Since then, her paintings and collages have been exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad, including several showings in New York, Stedelijk Museum Breda, Albada Jelgersma Gallery Amsterdam and Kunsthalle Lingen. Her work is currently represented by galleries Harkawik (New York) en Tegenbosch van Vreden (Amsterdam), and is supported by the Mondriaan Fund.
Han van Wetering (Maastricht, 1948) is a visual artist who is known, among other things, for his famed sculptures that are permanently located in the center of Maastricht. Wetering’s work ‘t Zaat hermenieke (1993), his colorful ensemble of carnival people, is for instance home to the Vrijthof, and other works have previously been shown at various galleries within and outside of Limburg. To conceive of his sculptures, van Wetering works with various materials such as bronze and ceramics, but as a seasoned artist and renowned ‘rebel’ he is also skilled at many other art forms.
Photo: © Fotomeulenhof
Marenne Welten is missing from the photograph
Participants Limburg Biënnale 2024
Corine Aalvanger, Ad van Aart, Agil Abdullayev, Eliot Allsop, Mario Sergio Alvarez Gonzalez, Dani Andres Ordoñez Muñoz & Lieve van den Bijgaart, Eric Arnal, Sarah Atzori De Bruin, Rob van Avesaath, Rachel Bacon, Stanislav Bagdia, Daria Baiocchi, Enny Beerden, Elise Berenstein, Mariëlle van den Bergh, Liesje van den Berk, Maya Berkhof, Ireen Bessems, Karina Beumer, Alex Bex, Adam Bialek, Rachel de Bie, Paula Biesmans & Klaas Kloosterhuis, Else Bijnens, Sjors Bindels, Florentijn de Boer, Annemie Bogaerts, Adriana Bogdanova, Noor Boiten, Eugenie Boon, Jaimary Boon, Boosten, Sabine Borgerhoff, Katia Borghesi, Melanie Bosboom, Geertje Brandenburg, Brénine Brénine, Katrein Breukers, Petra ten Brinke, Monique Broekman, Freija Broeren, Renée Bus, Anne Büscher, Jacqueline Caris, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Senna Castro, Bertrand Cavalier, Chantal CHALEM, Pao Chutijirawong, Rien Claessen, Jop Claessens, Livia Claesson, Ines Claus, COLETTE CLEEREN, Deniece Sami Juliana Clermonts, Adrienne Coenegracht, Monique Coppieters, Lennart Creutzburg, Amber Croonen, Yuxuan Cui, Nousjka Daniëls, Boris Deben, Tine Deboelpaep, Benjamin Deffner, Bram Dehouck, Nele Demeulemeester, Timo Demollin, Anne Devue, Caroline Diemel, Caroline Diepstraten, Mike Dings, Ridho Maulana Dirgantara, Nico Djavanshir, Erin C. Doherty, Bonno van Doorn, Dovski, Sindy Driessen, Jeroen Duijf, Femmie Duiven, duo Wonder, Veerle van Esser, Larissa Esvelt, Jeroen Evertz, Jordan Faber, Maxime Fauconnier, Diana Fedoriaka, Jean-Luc Feixa, Paul Fenner, Sterre Fermin, Maartje Folkeringa, Pui Yan Fong, Jan Franssen, Janina Frye, Arianne van der Gaag, Raquel Gandra, Yannick Ganseman, Barbara Gasparini di Gaetano, Truus Gelissen, Joost van Gennip, Loet Gescher, Johannes Gierlinger, Elena Giolo, Goldiie, Sebastián González de Gortari, Safae Gounane, Timo van Grinsven, Sarah Rose Guitian Nederlof, Carlos Guzman, Annemiek de Haan, Harrie Habets, Henk Haest, Sophie Hana, Pablo Hannon, Jacqueline Hanssen, Lotte Hauben, Atelier Haven, Katarina Head, Charmaine de Heij, Esther van der Heijden, Trees Heil, Johan Helder, Frank Helsloot, Marly Hendricks, Justine Hendrikx, Michel van Henten, Gaspard Emma Hers, Paul Heusinkveld, Diewke van den Heuvel, Kaan Hicyilmaz, Jan Hoek, Paulina Hoffmann, Lotte Holterman, Arielle Holtz, Mara Hop, Iris Houkes, Clara van den Hout, Niekie Houwen, Shanna Huijbregts, Audrey Huis, Teresa Hunyadi, Tycho Hupperets, Silvana Hurtado Dianderas, Angelo Iaia, Otto Iriks, Toon Jans, Petra C.T. de Jong, Conny Jongmans, Tamara Jungnickel, Hyungee Kang, Nikolay Karabinovych, Thalia Karpouzi, Corina Karstenberg, Wianda Keizer, Jaane Kentrop, Koen Kievits, Roona YJ Kim, Judith Maria Kleintjes, Maria Kley, Jenetta de Konink, Jelmer Konjo, Ina Kooper, Maartje Korstanje, Paula M Kowalski, Marijn van Kreij, Mirjam Kruisselbrink, Anouk Kruithof, Jelle van Kuilenburg, Polly Kunst, Zwaantje Kurpershoek, Mathias Kuypers, Henriëtte van der Laan, Mirte van Laarhoven,
Marjolein Labeeû, Ilse Lambrichts, Roderick Laperdrix & Caz Egelie & Jesse Strikwerda, Henny Laumen, Camie Laure, Chantal Le Doux, Birthe Leemeijer, Flora Lemmens, Marian Lesage, Didianne Leusink, Lichtelijk Creatief Design, Sarah Linde, Louis van der Linden, Aagje Linssen, Zhiyi Liu, Don Londi, Willy Looyen, Luciana Lopez Schütz, Los DQ, Chiel Lubbers, Wietske Lycklama à Nijeholt, erik van maarschalkerwaard, Roland Maas, MABA, Sandra Mackus, Linda Maissan, Aleksejs Mališevs, Keetje Mans, Eline Martin, Nacho Martín Encinas, Jochem Mestriner, Renieke Meyfroot, Jelle Annie Michiels, Hilde van Mileghem, Eline Mollema, Mike Moonen, Pleun Moons, Wim Moorman, Valantina Moraitaki, Yvonne Mostard, Indigo Musa, Nausikaä, Ava Nebulas, Anneke Nene, Remy Neumann, Darcy Neven, Joni van Niekerken, Femke Nijs, Kyra Nijskens, Elowyn Nikolov, NOMER, Anna Nunes, Oana Clitan, Ilse Oosterkamp, jo Op de Beeck, Melanie Ouwehand, Monica Overdijk, Anna-Bella Papp, Charles Park, Jean-Philippe Paumier, Madeleine Elisabeth Peccoux, Nikki Pelaez, Fleur Pierets, Lore Pilzecker, Ger Pirson, Nele Plessers, Engel Pluck, Urša Prek, Lilian Ptacek, Paula Punkstina, Fengdan Qin, Aran ra’dparsa, Roos Rademaker, Han Rameckers, Bastiaan Reijnen, Kim Rekkers, René Reynders, Niko Riedinger, Carlette Rijcken, Anja van Rijen, Maartje van Ringen, Roos Roberts, Rein Rodemeier, Hannes van Roosmalen, Jan Rothuizen, Amber Roucourt, Timia Rugenbrink, Ruimtevaarder, Atieh Salari, Geoff Salmon, Ria Sandbrink, Inderjeet Sandhu, Junya Sato, Carmen Schabracq, Stefanie Schaut, Andreas Schlesinger, Julie van de Schoor, Teun Schouren, Henk Schut, Ies Schute, Maarten Schuurman, Ehecatl Sevilla, Milo Sharafeddine, Gina Siliquini, Ruud Simons, Agata Siwek, Ian Skirvin, Bregje Sliepenbeek, Lisanne Sloots, Krista Smulders & Michiel Ubels, Paweł Sobczak, Joran van Soest, Olena Solodiannykova, Tonni van Sommeren, Ana Sous, Francisco Speicher, Saskia Spitz, Yip Stals, Hanna Steenbergen-Cockerton, Mai Stevens, Jelle Stiphout, Lonneke Stomphorst, Karlijn Surminski, Flore Tanghe, Frans van Tartwijk, Nele Tas, Fienke Teeken, André Terlingen, Sophie Teunissen, sjoerd tim, Jan Timmers, Su Tomesen, Sam Tromp, Katya Tsareva, Rexy Tseng, Ferren Uerlings, Ellen Urselmann, Sanne Vaassen, Niels Vaes, Joris Vaessen, Celine Vahsen, Filiz Van der Velpen, van Win, Inge van der Ven, Fee Veraghtert, Ans Verdijk, Marie Verdurmen, Louisa Vergozisi, Sep Verhoeven, Elisa Verkoelen, Wessel Verrijt, Katrijn Verstegen, Bram Verstraeten, Aline Verstraten, Martijn Verzijl, Dina Vos, Iris de Vries, Karin Vyncke, Jacqueline Wagemans, Rosalie Wammes, Jeroen de Wandel, Yuqi Wang, Shirley Welten, Marenne Welten, Esra Westerburgen, Han van Wetering, Heleen Wiemer, Esmée Willemsen, Katja Windau, Ruben Wit, Niek Wittebrood, Vincent Wolff, Kamila Wolszczak, WONNE, Sigrid van Woudenberg, Pippilotta Yerna, Yinzk, Yuliya Zadorozhnyuk, Jun Zhang, Zhao Zhou, Noa Zuidervaart
For Limburg Biënnale 2024 participants
25 August:
finissage and party!
Is your work part of the Limburg Biennale at Marres and would you like to share a special anecdote, a touching story, or the concept related to your artwork?
Marres warmly invites you to give a brief explanation of your work on Sunday, August 25, during the finissage of the Limburg Biënnale. Not only will we be celebrating the final day of this successful group exhibition, but it also marks the kick-off of a series of festivities celebrating Marres’ 25th anniversary. Admission is free that day, there will be cake, bubbles, and hopefully, you will be there too!
Everyone’s welcome, but if you would like to share your story on August 25, please let us know via info@marres.org.
Submission days
Limburg Biënnale 2024
De inleverdagen vonden plaats op 31 mei en 1 juni bij Odapark en op 7 & 8 juni bij Marres.
Opening Limburg Biënnale 2024 Odapark
De feestelijke opening van de Limburg Biënnale vond plaats op 29 juni bij zowel Odapark als Marres.
Overzicht Limburg Biënnale 2024 Marres
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Press about the
Limburg Biënnale 2024
For the press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact communicatie@marres.org.
Partners / thanks to
‘I’ Stick-sculptures of Martin Brandsma
The exhibition project This is the Border by Martin Brandsma (1972, Wolvega) deals with collaboration, behavior and boundaries in and around buitenplaats Kasteel Wijlre. This is the Border consists of an exhibition in the Koetshuis, presenting new and existing work by the artist, and a series of interventions in places around the buitenplaats and in the South Limburg region, including Marres’ public city garden.
Partly active as a behavioral biologist, Brandsma has spent the past 12 years studying the shrike: a mysterious songbird with raptor traits. Thus, the artist started making stick sculptures from various materials, which he calls “I” and places in the natural habitat of the shrike, and which were used by the birds as lookouts, among other things. In addition, in recent years Brandsma placed his stick sculptures in public spaces such as art museums – where they relate (sometimes uninvited) to the art on display.
I-58,I-74, I-49 will be on view at Marres until at least December 3, 2023. The city garden is freely accessible Tuesday through Sunday, from 12:00h.
In the fall of 2023, There’s No Place Called Home (Maastricht) by artist James Webb will also be on view at Kasteel Wijlre as a parallel intervention.
Arturo Kameya “Opaque Spirits”
“Why do we pretend to have a state?”
José Ignacio Cabrujas, 1987
The Venezuelan playwright Cabrujas once compared the nation to a hotel, a temporary place that doesn’t belong to its inhabitants and thus doesn’t require upkeep. In this hotel, the state plays the manager role but fails to cover even the most basic needs of its guests.
Peruvian artist Arturo Kameya has transformed Marres into a hotel where the ghosts of the failed Peruvian state have taken up residence. The building’s facade will feature massive paintings showing contemporary Messianic imagery. Inside, visitors can find various scenes, such as a tiled bathhouse that functions as a restaurant, a multi-armed beer fountain, and a large upstairs room with mechanical fish. The hotel’s interior is an allegory of the Peruvian state, reflecting a world of appearances in which truth is less important than what is evoked out of sheer necessity.
The exhibition is made in collaboration with the artist Claudia Martínez Garay.
Exhibition overview
Arturo Kameya
Bringing together a range of visual cultural languages, the multidisciplinary works of Arturo Kameya (Peru, 1984) connect diverse stories, popular myths, historical events of his native land. He currently lives and works in Amsterdam (NL).
Kameya attended the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima (PE) and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (NL) from 2019 through 2021. His work was presented at Memory is an Editing Station, the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil in São Paulo (BR) in 2023; We, on the Rising Wave, the Busan Biennale (SK) in 2022; and Soft Water Hard Stone, the fifth New Museum Triennial, New York (US) in 2021.
His solo exhibitons include, Los Ovnis, GRIMM, New York, NY (US); En esa pulga se mezcla nuestra sangre / In that flea, our blood mixes, GRIMM, New York, NY (US); Drylands, Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht (NL); Grandma’s Cooking Recipes, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Depósito de Sombras, Alliance Française, Lima (PE); Allá en el Caserío, Acá en el Matorral (with Claudia Martínez Garay) Ginsberg Galeria, Lima (PE); Ghosts Don’t Care if You Believe in Them, Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (NL); Ghost Stories, Alliance Française, Lima (PE); Ciencia Ficción, Wu Gallery, Lima (PE); and Land at the End of the Sea (with Claudia Martínez Garay), Galería del Centro Cultural Británico de San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima (PE).
His work is part of many collections including the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection (US), the ING Collection (NL), and the collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (US), Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI (PE), and the Saastamoinen Foundation (FI).
Arturo Kameya is represented by GRIMM, Amsterdam | London | New York.
Claudia Martínez Garay
Claudia Martínez Garay’s (Peru, 1983) practice encompasses painting, video, and installation. Her work references Peruvian history and socio-political memory, understanding the diverse Andean cultures through their material and immaterial remains, such as documents, artifacts, music, and testimonies. She studied printmaking at the PUCP (PE) and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (NL) from 2016 to 2017. She works and lives in Amsterdam (NL).
Recent solo exhibitions by Martínez Garay include Ghost Kingdom, GRIMM, New York, NY (US, 2022) and Ten Thousand Things, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (CN, 2020). Her previous group exhibitions include Echoes of Our Stories, Quinta do Quetzal, Vidigueira (PT); Who Tells a Tale Adds a Tail: Latin America and Contemporary Art, Denver Art Museum, CO (US); No Linear Fucking Time, B.A.K., basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (NL); Plural Domains, Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL (US); 1 Million Roses for Angela Davis, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden (DE); and The Faculty of Sensing: Anton Wilhelm Amo, Kunstverein, Braunschweig and SAVVY Contemporary (DE). Her work was shown at the 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo (BR); the 16th Istanbul Biennal, Istanbul (TR); the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg (RU); the Aichi Triennial, Aichi (JP); the 12th Shanghai Biennial; and the New Museum Triennial, New York, NY (US).
Martínez Garay’s work can be found in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, CO (US); Museum Arnhem (NL); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (CN); KADIST Collection, Paris (FR) and San Francisco, CA (US); Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI (PE); AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); AMC Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Fundación Studie e Richerche Benetton, Treviso (IT); Central Reserve Bank of Peru, Lima (PE); Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL (US); THE EKARD COLLECTION; KPMG Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); LAM museum, Lisse (NL); LOOP Collection, MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona (ES); Micromuseo al fondo hay sitio, Lima (PE); and Museu Olho Latino, Atibaia (BR) amongst others.
Claudia Martínez Garay is represented by GRIMM, Amsterdam | London | New York.
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Podcast ‘Sensing Art, Training the Body’
In the run-up to a new exhibition at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, director Valentijn Byvanck interviews participating artists, performers and curators.
For the exhibition ‘Opaque Spirits’ he sits down with Peruvian artists Arturo Kameya and Claudia Martínez Garay.
Kameya transformed Maastricht, House for Contemporary Culture, into a place where countless spirits haunt. Behind a curtain, a metal cabinet dances in red light; on a low coffee table, a tuna can pulled open circles around. ‘They come to collect the debts the Peruvian government has outstanding with its people,’ the artist says.
– De Volkskrant, door Marsha Bruinen
Press about Opaque Spirits
For the press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact communicatie@marres.org.
Partners / thanks to
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
Thanks to GRIMM, Amsterdam | London | New York
Rooms Performance Festival 2024
Music / Composer: Vanessa Lann, 9×13 Orange Drummer Beat!, performed by: NeoFanfare 9×13
cover photo: © Sanne Peper
Marres, VIA ZUID, de Brakke Grond, Dansateliers and FASHIONCLASH proudly present performance festival Rooms.
Young makers and established talents offered performance, theater, visual arts, dance, fashion and music. A weekend during which fragile dresses brought colorful stained glass to life, where conductor’s bodies turned into living scores, manuscripts got dictated and a shoe merchant brought you along into absurdist power relations.
Line up:
buren
Merette van Hijfte & Pleuni Veen
Kinga Jaczewska
Mauricio Limon
David Maroto
Genevieve Murphy
Ika Schwander in collaboration with Fran Hayes
27 & 28 January 2024
01 – 06 PM
Location: Marres, Maastricht
Regular: € 40,00
Student: € 20,00
Day passes are not available anymore.
A ticket provides full access to all performances on either of the two days. The program of Rooms remains the same on both Saturday and Sunday, with the exception of David Maroto’s performance, which will take place on Saturday. With a valid day pass, you get to see the entire line up. For a break, you can visit the Marres Kitchen restaurant or relax in our public city garden.
The next edition of Rooms is scheduled for January 25-26, 2025, we hope to see you again!
Line up
buren presents the prelude of their work shoe/farm, which will premiere in February of 2024. Departing from their respective backgrounds, a farm in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and a shoe store along the Belgian coast, Melissa Mabesoone and Oshin Albrecht merge the worlds ‘farm’ and ‘shoe’. They step into their ancestors’ shoes and play with the habits, customs, sayings and vocabulary connected to farm life and shoe sales. In doing so, they link their experiences to broader social issues surrounding production processes, working conditions and consumerism.
Mabesoone (Knokke, 1988) and Albrecht’s (Bruges, 1986) two-woman collective buren bring critical, absurdist sketches about community, domesticity, gender, (art) history and neoliberalism. Their work has been shown on many international stages, amongst which at Centrale Fies (Italy), Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Portugal), Szene (Salzburg) and within the discursive program Feminist School. The collective published a graphic novel titled STW, your favorite station! and became resident artist at Kaaitheater in 2023.
concept by buren (Oshin Albrecht & Melissa Mabesoone)
created with: Oshin Albrecht, Melissa Mabesoone, Benjamin Cools, Benne Dousselaere, Vera Martins, Famke Dhont, Margaux Janssens
produced by: au bureau
co-productie: Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum BUDA, workspacebrussels, C-takt, KAAP, de Brakke Grond, Theaterfestival Boulevard, Playground festival (STUK, Museum M), apap-FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Marres
Pleuni Veen and Merette van Hijfte present the visual poem PAL, which gives shape to the moment when we exchange freedom for safety. In doing so, they respond to the various meanings of the adverb, which refers to the original, Dutch expression “pal staan,” and its figurative meaning “to be immobile” or “to stand firm.”
As a mathematics student, Veen (1994, NL) is intrigued by the balance between the certain yet indeterminate nature of the world, and between the understandable and the intangible. Contact, friction and wonder are central to her work.
Van Hijfte (1994, NL) is a playful performer and energetic maker, who is not afraid to act from her intuition and impulses, making her work explosive and gritty. Following her graduation at the Mime School, she has been active as an actress, a filmmaker and member of the Collective BAMBAMBAM.
Credits camera: Samuel van Keeken
Muziek: Rint Mennes
Kinga Jaczewska (Poland, 1991) is a dancer and choreographer whose work focusses on what is often rendered invisible or commonly escapes our attention. Accordingly, her Rooms performance Raw and Tender, which she has made in collaboration with Agnese Forlani and composer Raphael Malfliet, looks at the functionality and corporality of motherhood – at the contradictions which it consists of. It comes as a response to Jaczewska’s earlier poem mothers.
Jaczewska’s previous works encompassed performance, video, installation, text and photography, and have been presented in theater spaces including Kunstcentrum Nona (Mechelen) and Magdalenazaal (Brugge), as well as at the Kunsthal Antwerp. In 2021, she was awarded de PrixFintroPrijs in the category of theater and dance.
Agnese Forlani (1997) is an Italian dancer and textile maker who is currently completing her Master’s degree in dance. In her artistic practice, she experiments with costume, scenography and materiality in dialogue with the dancing body.
Photo: Diego Franssens
In 2022, Mauricio Limón de León launched Les petits pois sont verts… Les petits poissons rouges; a collection of stained-glass haute couture dresses in collaboration with Adriana Gonzalez Hulshof. In Rooms, the collection is presented in the performance Flowing Sands Slogans. Here, the dresses are shown in a collaboration with Mahoalli Nassourou, Justine Olguín, Laia Vancells Pi and Manu Sol Mateo, performing a choreography of fluid geometries to music composed by Alejandro Contreras Pascual and Limón de León. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s short television play Quad (1981), Flowing Sand Slogans takes Beckett’s sequence of movements as its primary structure. A meeting between four characters culminates in a disjointed catwalk performance of mechanized movements.
Previous shows by Limón de León (Mexico City, 1979) presented include A gigantic broom to uncover compelling narratives (Rotterdam, 2020), El primero que ria (Paris, 2023) and his current exhibition Memoria ciega at Museo Cabañas (Guadalajara), curated by Victor Palacios. He is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects (Amsterdam), Pequod.CO (Mexico) and Wild- Palms (Düsseldorf).
Adriana Gonzalez Hulshof is Director of Museum Kranenburgh, a museum of modern and contemporary art in Bergen. She was founder and director of Amsterdam Art|Weekend, worked for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet, and has developed art programs for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Prince Claus Fund, ArtHub Asia and others.
Vancells Pi (Blanes, 1993) completed her formal dance training at Codarts Rotterdam, before joining the Tanz Luzerner Theater company, Habemus Corpus and the companies of Roberto G. Alonso and Mari Rovira Crea. She currently works freelance, performing with the Dutch National Opera & Ballet and at festivals across Europe.
Transdisciplinary artist Sol Mateo Rivas Álvarez (Mexico City, 1989) takes his own sexuality as a starting point for his artistic explorations of gender stereotypes, beauty and morality. His works have been shown internationally, most recently at Temporada Alta International Theater Festival (Peru) and at the Centre National du Costume et de la Scène (France).
Nassourou (Mexico City, 1983) works at the intersection of performance, theater, film and still photography. She directed and presented the monologue Medea Redux in 2013 and is a part of the international collective Entre Minas. As a performer, she has collaborated with Barbara Foulkes (Arg- Mex), Pablo Helguera (Mex-USA), and Maj Britsen (Germany) among others.
Lepke Olguin Oaxaca (Mexico City, 1999) attended Paul Valery University in Montpellier, studying Anthropology from 2019 to 2021. Interested in dance, performance, music and spectacle, she currently works freelance, performing in collaboration with cabaret collective Las Suculentas, Manu Sol Mateo, and Limón de León for his show Les petits pois sont verts… Les petits poissons rouges.
David Maroto’s performance is titled after his most recent novella Not All of Me Will Die. This novella exists as an original manuscript in which the author reflects on memory, writing and the desire for posterity. In the performance, Maroto publishes the novella by dictating its contents to a group of participants who each write their own copy by hand. In this way, Maroto distributes his ‘oral novella’ in handwritten unique copies.
Maroto (Spain, 1976) is a visual artist who obtained a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art for his research The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts. This is the first in-depth study into the artist’s novel as a phenomenon and follows from Maroto and Joanna Zielińska’s project The Book Lovers; a collection and bibliography of artists’ novels that they started in 2011. Maroto’s autonomous work has been shown at Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels), EFA Project Space (New York), and Vigil Gonzales Gallery (Buenos Aires) amongst others.
This performance will only take place on Saturday January 27, 2024.
An initiative of Technology Driven Art, a research group within the art schools Zuyd in collaboration with Out of Sight VZW and Marres.
technologydrivenart.org
out-of-sight.be
Genevieve Murphy’s Rooms performance Somewhere Someone Is Conducting Right Now views the body as a score. Four conductors, each in a room of their own, depend on fading music and memory as they orchestrate a self-chosen piece in partial silence. This not only draws attention to the individuality of each conductor, but also to music genre and environment. The spaces in between the rooms where different works merge become sonic spaces of their own. When all conduct together and all is heard in synchronicity, the house of Marres will sing.
Murphy (Scotland, 1988) graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Glasgow, the Birmingham Conservatoire for music and The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. In her work, she combines performance and visual art with contemporary classical music, to deal with subjects of psychology and disability. Her compositions have been performed in concert halls and art galleries, amongst which het Concertgebouw, het Muziekgebouw, W139, Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), La Fenice (Venice), Old Fruitmarket (Glasgow) and Theatre Spektakel (Zurich). Murphy was awarded an Honorary Membership of The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2019.
Ed Liebrecht graduated with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Fred Southall Prize for his final performance. He is committed to bringing ideological variety in his work that merges diverse influences. His upcoming projects include a jazz orchestra collaboration with Oxford University Orchestra, a return to the Haydn Chamber Orchestra for the Walton Violin Concerto.
Composer and conductor Ezequiel Menalled (Buoneos Aires, 1980) received his Bachelor and Master degrees in conducting from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. He works with various genres, with or without the use of electronics and other technological media, and ranging from solos to large ensembles. In 2003 he founded the Dutch Ensemble Modelo62, and has since served as its artistic director.
Libia Hernandez’ (Cuba, 1965) rejects the idea that classical music is predominantly for a small elite, and looks to cultivate new listeners and an ever-widening group of people to experience classical music as current, necessary and irreplaceable – an enduring force that bridges cultures and continents. In 2024 Hernandez will conduct a new opera written by Monique Krüs, Piratenkoningin at the Nederlandse Reisopera.
Basque conductor and violinist Mirari Etxeberria Guerrero (Andoain, 1998) is the founder, artistic director and principal conductor of Pamplona’s Youth Orchestra. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Violin and a Master’s degree in Musical Investigation, and is currently finishing her formal training at the Amsterdam Conservatory. As assistant conductor, she has previously worked with Juanjo Mena, Martin Sieghart and Ryan Bancroft.
Composer: Vanessa Lann
Piece: 9×13 Orange Drummer Beat!
Performed by: NeoFanfare 9×13
Composer: Tan Dun
Piece: Circle with Four Trios, Conductor and Audience (1992)
Performed by: Nieuwe Ensemble
Composer: Beethoven
Piece: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 – “Choral”: 2. Molto vivace
Performed by: Royal Concertgebouw Orkest
Composer: Luciano Berio
Piece: Sinfonia for 8 Voices and Orchestra: III. in Ruhig Fließender Bewegung
Performed by: Electric Phoenix and Royal Concertgebouw Orkest
Ika Schwander and Fran Hayes present Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us. With references to the nymph Daphne and the poet Sappho, the work explores the transformation from human to tree and from life to death. It creates an environment where sensory stimuli are rare and the audience has room to breathe. In this space, questions surface that are normally lost. What might drive someone to trade human existence for something else?
Schwander (Luxembourg, 1999) graduated from the Toneelacademie Maastricht in 2023 with her work è vero, è vero, è vero; a co-production with VIA ZUID and Festival Cement. She makes visual performances and prefers to work in border areas where different mediums meet. Her work explores themes including trauma, care, religion, ecology and death.
Hayes (Dorchester, 1999) is a multimedia artist based in London whose practice explores the relationships that form in the spaces between the digital and the physical, Hayes’ practice mixes science-fiction influences with references to current issues such as ecological breakdown and the consequences of capitalism and to everyday occurrences. The works range from 3D modelling and animating to ceramics and writing.
Festival overview
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Partners/thanks to
Partners Rooms:
Marres, House for Contemporary Culture
Dansateliers
De Brakke Grond
FASHIONCLASH
VIA ZUID
Courtesy of Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
Rooms Performance festival
In the weekend of September 4 and 5 of 2021, Marres launched performance festival Rooms. Rooms presents new work by young makers and established talents. In the homely chambers of Marres, exiting theatre, dreamy films, intimate dance pieces and extraordinary visual arts alternate. Behind the doors of the rooms, ten makers take you on a two-day expedition to unexplored worlds.
Overview
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Program
Sa: 12.00 & 3 pm / Sun:3 pm (balzaal)
Kiem is a stream of thoughts, trying to catch up with itself in fits and starts. A failed reflection on scale, context, language and people.
Sa: 1.30 pm / Sun:1.30 & 4.30 pm (balzaal)
In GOT 2 4 GET, Koning tries to not divide herself and the world into one ‘I’ and millions ‘others’. She surrenders. In a ritual incantation with the audience on her side, she defies gravity and sings away thoughts with one goal: to be allowed to dissolve into a greater whole.
Sa: 12.45 & 3.45 pm / Sun:2.15 (schouwkamer)
Treat thy neighbour as thyself is a stream of consciousness exploring the discomfort of speaking your mind. A woman sits on a chair that for some reason has been put onto a platform. She has something to say and she will need to figure out how to do this. She might be addressing someone specifically. Sometimes the stage tries to highlight her words, other times it seems to contradict or even interrupt her.
Sa: 4.15 pm / Sun:12.00 pm (balzaal)
In this personal solo, in which Levi navigates in between dance and storytelling, memory and farewell are the central themes. She brings to life a multi-faceted and almost, but not quite, gossipy portrait of intimacy and distance within a family. She invites you to reflect on your own family history and the farewell of previous generations. The performance challenges you to open up to notions such as impermanence, memory and past.
Sun:12.00 & 3.00 pm (tuinkamer)
Two bodies in a perpetual embracement; skin to skin, bones entangle and muscles interweave each other in one persisting movement. Since the global pandemic outbreak in 2020, our approach to physical contact has changed radically. Embracing each other has become a scarce physical act, solely allowed in private. In presence of an embracement highlights the importance of the simple but vital act of an embracement.
Sa: every 15 minutes between 12.30 – 1.30 & 2.00 – 3.00 & 3.30 – 4.15 / Sun: every 15 minutes between 12.45 – 1.30 & 2.00 – 3.00 & 3.30 – 4.30 (filmkamer)
The photographic story Flipping The Bird takes you to the dunes; the starting point of a quest to make contact with flora and fauna. The film ends in an explosion; a plea to break free from your solid ground and to choose a new direction. Flipping The Bird is a beautiful and compact work of art, in which language and image constantly reinforce each other.
Sa: 2.15 / Sun:12.45 & 3.45 (schouwkamer)
In Ik ben gestolen, Schouten tries to share something about the subject she initially tried to avoid: the unconditional love of a child for his parent. This monologue is a letter to her father. She demands of him, longs for him, loves him and looks back on him. In a sober setting, her words and her presence on the floor, which she uses as an instrument, are central. By telling her personal story she hopes to touch the universal.
Sa: 1.30 & 4.30 pm / Sun: 12 pm (tuinkamer)
Ten of Swords is a slow pace exploration on the transitional moment from life to death. A space, scarcely decorated with sound, tools and creatures, invites you to inhabit and examine a last breath.
Sa + Sun: continuously 12 – 5 pm (voorkamer)
From his son in Lomé in Togo, Teeken (1944) received a photo depicting his son’s wife, mother-in-law, their two children and his family-in-law. The composition of the photo inspired him to create the motif for a painting: the tousled rhythm of their heads and limbs around the cluttered coffee table within the closed shape of the heavy sofa.
Sa: 12.00 & 1.30 & 3.00 & 4.15 pm / Sun: 12.00 & 1.30 & 3.00 & 4.30 pm (tussenkamer)
In these 24 gouaches, Teeken (1944) investigates the chaos and order of his kitchen table. Every day he sees this round table, often things piled on top of it. The visual poetry of circular objects, such as cups, plates and glasses. against other, almost shapeless, items like a transparent plastic bag: the complexity, disorder and at the same time a certain arrangement fascinate him.
Sa: continuously 12.30 – 13.30, 2 – 3 & 3.30 – 4.15 pm / Sun: continuously 12.30 – 1.30, 2 – 3 & 3.30 – 4.30 pm (room 7a)
Wilsons’s film is an inverted dream in which we disappear. She has been spinning around her own axis for too long and the earth, less and less solid, opens up. What happens at the ends of the circle? Wilsons’s work creates an open space for imagination and magic.
Sa + Sun: continuous 1.00 – 16.00 pm (garden)
Listen to stories about art works from all over the world with The Invisible Collection in the beautiful garden of Marres. Afterwards, together with your family and friends, you’ll learn how to imagine these beautiful stories in a workshop.
Katja Mater: What We See & What We Know
Art often begins with the desire to make something visible that otherwise would remain wholly or partly invisible — wondrous details, complex structures and aspects of reality that are beyond the reach of our natural perception.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
The latter is also an important starting point for Katja Mater. While she tries to capture the poetry of the moment, she unveils the beauty of basic laws of physics.
What We See And What We Know is the first retrospective of work by visual artist Katja Mater. She examines ways to capture possible realities. She blends and splits colours, explores the laws of perspective and space, and shows how one medium passes into the other. Mater layers, compresses, stretches and rotates images in time. This way she plays with our expectation that photography captures reality in one single moment. Maters images exist parallel tot this reality and invite us to redefine the relationship between what we see and what we know. In addition to four new works that Mater produced for the exhibition, a broad selection from her oeuvre was presented.
What We See And What We Know marks the beginning of the new exhibition programme of Marres under Valentijn Byvanck, who was appointed as the new director of Marres in March 2013.
Artist
Katja Mater (1979) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam in 2003 en completed her studies at De Ateliers in the same city. She was artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and The Mac Dowell Colony, both in the United States, and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Her work was shown in, among others, Galerie Martin van Zomeren (2013), Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2012), De Vleeshal, Middelburg (2012), Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2012) and, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genève (2011).
Exhibition Overview
PublicationMultiple Densities
The publication Multiple Densities is the result of a long collaboration between the artist and graphic designer Veronica Ditting. The book presents beautiful, mostly new, image material and an introduction by curator and critic Maxine Kopsa.
On November 13 2013 the launch of this unique artist book was celebrated during an intimate evening at Marres. On this occasion, Katja Mater gave an introduction to the book and a guided tour of the exhibition What We See And What We Know. Afterwards, visitors were invited to join the artist for a diner at Marres Kitchen.
Press about Katja Mater
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Winter Anti Depression Show
One in sixteen Dutch suffer from the winter. Some people don’t get out of bed or perform poorly at work.
Curators: Chris Kabel and Valentijn Byvanck
Others neglect family and friends. Many go looking for sunny destinations, subtropical islands or the solarium. Opinions on the causes of winter depression differ. What is certain is that our metabolism adjusts to when it’s cold outside and the days are shorter. We have a slower pace and our senses miss stimuli. It’s a state that harks back to hibernation. Science and industry view the lack of sunlight as the culprit and stress the importance of light therapy. Dutch hospitals have special rooms for this therapy. With the help of ingenious wake-up lamps, Philips ensures people can alleviate their winter blues at home as well.
The emphasis on light can make us forget that our other senses also fall short of stimulation in the winter. We miss the scent of flowers and plants, the feeling of bare feet in the sand, the sound of crickets in the summer.
For the Winter Anti Depression Show, Marres invited a team of designers and artists to create a house that immerses visitors in a variety of sensory experiences. They turned Marres temporarily into an Art Resort.
Participating artists
Chris Kabel, Katja Gruijters, Ludmila Rodrigues, Kaffe Matthews, FourceLabs, Alessandro Gualtieri, Thierry Mandon, Lisa Pacini and Christine Istad.
Exhibition Overview
Public program
Marres organised an extensive public program on Wednesday evenings. On these evenings, dinner included, there were speed tours through the exhibition, followed by a lecture, film, concert, theatre or dance performance.
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Thanks to
Stichting DOEN
THINKING (out of) THE BOX
In the Spring of 2014 Marres presented a selection of Vedute, a collection of three dimensional objects, each measuring 44 x 32 x 7 cm in closed form.
Curator: Daan Bakker
Unlike books, 3D-manuscripts reveal their content as visual statements. Some are directly accessible, others must be unfolded, and yet others need to be performed; the variety is endless. Marres exhibited a large selection of Vedute, including works by Peter Struycken, Marina Abramovic, JCJ VanderHeyden, Paul Panhuysen, 75B, Adriaan Geuze, Marlies Dekkers and Krijn de Koning.
The exhibition also featured a new series of Vedute objects that have been made in 2013 and 2014 at academies of fine arts, design and architecture throughout the Netherlands.
For this exhibition Marres opened its whole house, including the basement, attic, office and icehouse for this special, multi-coloured collection, with film, text, and touchable. The exhibition led to the secret corners of the Marres house.
The Vedute Foundation was established in 1991. In its 22 years, the collection has grown to more than 200 spatial manuscripts. The New Institute manages the collection. Visit www.vedute.nl for detailed information about the entire Vedute collection.
The opening of he exhibition took place on 17 April 2014. Find images of the opening here.
Exhibition Overview
Marres Talks
During the exhibition Marres organised the series MARRES TALKS. Participating artists were invited for a series of conversations on the role of practising within the maker’s artistic activities. The conversations followed after a speed tour through the exhibition by Valentijn Byvanck.
14 May: Peter Struycken, Krijn de Koning, Roy Villevoye en Pieter Vos (75B)
25 May: Paul Panhuysen, Marc & Nicole Maurer en Ben Zegers
11 June: Students Design Academy Eindhoven
Press
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Undertones
Secret sounds in Maastricht’s Undergrounds
Curators: Juha van ‘t Zelfde and Valentijn Byvanck
What do we actually hear of the landscape in which we live? The drone of cars, revving scooters, and rumbling trams. Shop doorbells, church bells, ringtones, and singing birds. Heels tapping on the pavement, children’s voices in the school, and cows in the countryside… We hear them, but rarely listen. With 11th-century liturgy and experimental music, ordinary sounds and electronic noise, soundtracks of sharks, web DJs, speech karaoke, radio, and voices, Marres opened a world of sound that had Maastricht buzzing during the summer.
In Marres, works were presented by Haroon Mirza, Ryan Gander, Sarah van Sonsbeeck, Lyndsey Housden, Chaim van Luit, Joseph Beuys, Anri Sala, Nishiko, and Paul Devens.
In addition to the group exhibition in Marres, Undertones took place at various locations in Maastricht: the marl caves in Sint Pieter, the Sint Servatius Basilica, the Kazematten, Intro in Situ and the Minderbroedersberg. On these locations, visitors could listen to sound installations and live performances by: Kaffe Matthews, Espen Sommer Eide, Grandelavoix, Rutger Zuydervelt and Mark Blain, Thomas Rutgers and Jitske Blom, and David Helbich.
Outside Marres, Kaffe Matthews composed an audio-visual installation inspired by sharks for the marl caves of Sint Pietersberg. In the cells of the Minderbroedersberg, Espen Sommer Eide surrounded visitors with scattered sounds of political unrest.
In the crypt of the Basilica of St. Servatius, the ensemble Graindelavoix developed from July 16 onwards a sound installation based on the holy Servaas liturgy. Rutger Zuydervelt and Mark Bain made work for the Marres ice cellar and the 18th century fortifications. At Intro in situ, works by Thomas Rutgers, Jitske Blom, and David Helbich were heard.
Exhibition Overview
Performances in Marres
Grandelavoix singer and choreographer/dancer David Hernandez, bass player Margarida Garcia and guitarist Manuel Mota met several nights in a row at Marres. They were brief but unique interventions, trying to grasp something of the resonance of a crypt, a space that is the marking and appropriation of a wandering body. These performances were open to the public.
Listen to the interview with curators Juha van ‘t Zelfde and Valentijn Byvanck in Nooit Meer Slapen. This interview was broadcasted on VPRO, Radio 1, on 28 June 2014.
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Thanks to
Fund 21, Stichting Elisabeth Strouven and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
The Unwritten
Concealed murder, suppressed love, tarnished innocence, and frustrated ideals inform the material for a series of profound, amusing, sad, and compelling histories by Adela Babanova, Zachary Formwalt, Annie Kevans, Gert Jan Kocken, Carlos Motta, Óscar Muñoz, Song Ta, Koki Tanaka and Günter K.‘s ‘Margret’ collection.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
Sometimes we wish that we had written history differently. Or had left it unwritten because the perspective was one-sided, unjust or brutal. We wish to undo that history because it provides a perspective that we no longer accept or that we even loathe. At other times, our new sensitivities uncover histories that have never been told because they were considered unimportant, forgotten, unfinished or overtaken by other perspectives.
The Unwritten was dedicated to these forgotten stories. Histories that strongly appeal to our imagination and empathy. We feel nostalgia for a lost world, anger at injustices, euphoria with the correction of those injustices, dismay at a wrong turn and relief at a right one. They are all emotional and sometimes even sensory experiences caused by the unexpected turn that history sometimes takes and the way it has erased other stories.
Exhibition Overview
Public program
During The Unwritten Marres organised extra activities. In October, during the History Month, visitors of the exhibition could take part in guided tours, given by Valentijn Byvanck, director of Marres and curator of the exhibition. These so-called weekend tours took place on 25 and 26 October. On 29 October and 12 November, Marres opened its doors in the evenings and hosted Marres Wednesdays. On this evenings, participating artists Gert Jan Kocken and Annie Kevans disclosed the sources from which their work originated.
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
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Adam, Eve & the Devil
The exhibition Adam, Eve & the Devil offered a resplendent commentary on the timeless quality of art.
Curator: Ardi Poels
Two late medieval Books of Hours formed the basis, showing the virtuous hand of the often unknown masters. Notwithstanding their strict schemata, these artists knew how to open the door to a new era, with a flourish of style, a coded letter, a small change to a pattern or the sensitive use of materials. Works by contemporary artists enter into a dialogue with these Books of Hours. Medieval aureoles echo in the performance of William Hunt. Droplets of sweat slowly falling to the floor in Oscar Santillan’s A Hymn recall Mary’s suffering. Artists looked for a forgotten soul, a safe refuge, a new relation to the body and the senses. In doing so, they showed surprising spiritual correspondences between early modern art and the art of today.
Participating Artists
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, stanley brouwn, David Claerbout, István Csákány, Dario D’Aronco, Thomas Grünfeld, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jean Haincelin (Dunois Meester), Rodrigo Hernández, Sofia Hultén, William Hunt, Alicja Kwade, Wolfgang Laib, Astrid Mingels, Carlo Mollino, Christopher Orr, Thomas Ruff, Stéphanie Saadé, Anri Sala, Oscar Santillan, Gregor Schneider, and Conrad van Toul (Master of the Munich Golden Legend).
Exhibition Overview
Public program
During the exhibition several Meet the Curator/Sunday Guided Tours were offered. During the weekend of May 23, 24 and 25 during Kunsttour Marres offered ongoing guided tours. The weekend ended with the performance ‘The National Anthem of the World’ by Sanne Vaassen. She let the garden snails reinterpret the musical arrangements of national anthems by eating the paper notation of the music and adding new notes by their excreta, their poo.
During TEFAF (13 – 22 March), Marres was open seven days a week from 12 to 7 pm with an exhibition programme full of lectures, films, a workshop and 60 Minute Dinners.
With Mihnea Mircan, curator and writer, Francesco Stocchi, curator of modern and contemporary art at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Lukas Stofferis, director of the Academy for Arts and Crafts in Utrecht, Heribert Tenschert of Antiquariat Bibermühle, Ige Verslype, restorer at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Timotheus Vermeulen is assistant professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Pádraic E. Moore is a writer, art historian and curator.
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Thanks to
Intimacy / Chambres d’Amis
Friendly attention from a stranger in a bar. The stroke of the cashier’s hand when giving change.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
The silent understanding with a loved one. Intimacy is a much sought after yet hard to find value. It is taken for granted and yet we cherish it as a rarity. We feel intimacy in the body’s safety, in spiritual anchoring, in the love, sex, and attention of those close to us. We experience it in a negative sense when accidentally interrupting a situation or conversation not meant for us, or the failed reproductions of intimacy on Facebook, in dating programs or the genre of reality TV.
Chambres d’Amis Weekends
Alongside the exhibition, Marres organised a Chambres d’Amis as a tribute to Jan Hoet, who made fame in 1986 by showing artworks in private homes in Ghent. Six artists created works for homes in the centre of Maastricht. The houses were open in the first month of the exhibition. The works of Chambres d’Amis moved into the exhibition at Marres.
Participating artists
Amie Dicke, Emily Jacir, Birthe Leemeijer, Keetje Mans, Nishiko, Petra Stavast, Sanne Vaassen and Roy Villevoye.
Meet the artists
In addition to the Chambres d’Amis weekends, Marres organised evenings alongside the exhibition. During these evenings the public could have a conversation with the artists. Valentijn Byvanck, director Marres and curator of the exhibitions, also gave an introduction and guided tour of the exhibition.
Meet the artists #1: With Sanne Vaassen, Nishiko, Keetje Mans and Petra Stavast.
Meet the artists #2: With Amie Dicke and Birthe Leemeijer. Interview by journalist Merel Bem.
Exhibition Overview
Work Nishiko in Gouvernement Maastricht
Japanese visual artist Nishiko donated a work to the Gouvernement Maastricht. Member of parliament Daan Prevoo, was presented with a repaired porcelain bowl by Nishiko. For the ‘Repairing Earth Quake Project’ in the Miyagi area affected by the earthquake and tsunami, Nishiko searched for pieces of porcelain, plastic parts, broken, everyday objects. She repaired them with the help of residents in order to give them a new home. Seven of these objects were exhibited at Marres during the exhibition Intimacy / Chambres d’Amis, among other places. Prevoo gets the bowl on loan and has to look after it until the real owner comes forward.
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Thanks to
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Limburg and the Cultuurparticipatiefonds Limburg.
Levi van Veluw: The Relativity of Matter
For an entire year, the artist Levi van Veluw has worked on The Relativity of Matter, an all-encompassing 350m2 installation for Marres.
Curators: Levi van Veluw and Valentijn Byvanck
After entering the space, the visitors found themselves in a maze of corridors, atmospheres and perspectives that challenged their senses. With The Relativity of Matter, Van Veluw presented an all-encompassing scenographic experience that immersed visitors in a world of disparate forms of expression.
Levi van Veluw’s installation at Marres Capucijnenstraat 98 Maastricht allows a limited number of visitors.
The Dutch television programme Kunstuur interviewed Levi van Veluw about The Relativity of Matter.
Levi van Veluw
Levi van Veluw was born in 1985 in Hoevelaken and studied at the ArtEZ Institute for the Arts in Arnhem. Since graduating in 2007, Levi van Veluw has created a variety of multidisciplinary works, including scenographic installations, photographs, films, sculptures, paintings and drawings.
Levi van Veluw’s work has already been exhibited in Europe and the United States and has been
nominated for the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunstprijs 2015, where it was elected as a public favourite.
Exhibition Overview
Crowdfunding campaign
Together with Voordekunst and Levi van Veluw, Marres organised a successful crowdfunding campaign for The Relativity of Matter to financial support and gain additional publicity. Over 25’000 euro was raised thanks to the generous support of over 141 people from all over Europe who contributed. We were told by our donors that they think The Relativity of Matter is a special project with an exciting theme. They praise the courage of Levi and Marres to make such a huge installation and are proud that the prestigious project is coming to Maastricht.
The Relativity of Matter in France
The immersive work The Relativity of Matter by the Dutch artist Levi van Veluw was on view at Domaine de Kerguehennec in France from 1 July until 4 November 2018.
Marres Dialogues: Levi van Veluw and the thinking body
Marres organised Dialogues event during the exhibition. The Relativity of Matter has a special sensory effect on visitors; it calls for a response of the body and can be better be experienced than contemplated. Dancers are trained to listen to their body. Through this training they often use a bodily approach of perception, which distinguishes itself from more cognitive ways we use to create meaning.
Valentijn Byvanck moderated a discussion between the artist Levi van Veluw and several well-known dancers affiliated with the Nederlandse Dansdagen: Christina Giannelia, Marc Maris, and Loïc Perela.
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Thanks to
Fonds 21, Mondriaan Fund and Creative Industries Fund NL. Film Company BIRD made a special atmospheric film about the installation The Relativity of Matter.
Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity
Olive oil caviar, asparagus beer, Parmesan foam, the soup fragrance spoon: these are only a handful of examples of the revolutionary creations by the world-renowned and widely celebrated Ferran Adrià of the legendary restaurant El Bulli.
Curators: Brett Littman and Valentijn Byvanck
The exhibition Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity is a homage to Adrià’s exploration of creativity and how this quest led to his revolutionary cuisine. It is filled with hundreds of colourful drawings and includes a film of the nearly two thousand dishes prepared by Adrià and his team in their more than twenty years at El Bulli. The epicentre of the exhibition was a specially designed hall of mirrors, with an infinite landscape of over one hundred floating, delectable objects: glass tumblers in every possible shape, metal ‘amuse’ dishes, spoons for smelling, plates of paper, slate and glass, Plasticine models indicating the size of a dish and cuttings showing how food should be cut.
Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity gave you a behind-the-scenes-view of Adrià’s search for ingredients and new ways to prepare and serve food. It was also a testament to how much thought he has always put into the history of cooking and taste. His method could be compared to the creative process of a scientist, designer or artist: exploratory, tireless, innovative and always surprising.
Accompanying the exhibition is the English publication Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity. Emphasizing the role of drawing in Adrià’s quest to understand creativity, the book features an interview between Ferran Adrià and Brett Littman, and also includes a reprint of the artist Richard Hamilton’s essay about the relationship of food to contemporary art. The publication is available in our online shop.
Ferran Adrià
Ferran Adrià (born 1962) was the world-famous head chef of the restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain which closed in 2011. In the late 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, El Bulli was legendary. It was awarded three Michelin stars and was given the accolade ‘best restaurant in the world’ by Restaurant Magazine five times in a row. Adrià was a pioneer of molecular gastronomy and developed nearly 2,000 new dishes with his staff, along with a huge amount of new table and kitchen ware and cutting, mixing, freezing and mixing methods. El Bulli can rightly be regarded as the founder of modern experimental cuisine.
The taste of the food he served could not be predicted by the eye. The restaurant was only open six months a year. Adrià spent the rest of the year secluded in a lab in Barcelona devising new dishes. Guests were served up to thirty dishes a night and often enjoyed the culinary performance until well past midnight.
“Ferran Adrià’s quest for creativity is remarkable. His method connects haute cuisine, visual culture and scientific method: shaping taste is just as important as drawing diagrams and searching for the key to creativity”
– Director Valentijn Byvanck
Since the closure of El Bulli, the Catalan chef has been engaged in research on creativity. With the assistance of a team of researchers, designers and professionals from numerous other disciplines, he is trying to map out the creative process. For this research, he continually draws on his rich past at El Bulli. Adrià’s artistic attitude in the world of gastronomy brought him into contact with the art world from the beginning of his career. In 2007 he was invited by artistic director Roger Buergel to the prestigious art exhibition Dokumenta 12 in Kassel.
Exhibition Overview
Publication
This publication accompanies the first major museum exhibition in the world to focus on the visualization and drawing practices of master chef Ferran Adria, in The Drawing Center in New York. The exhibition traveled to Marres and was expanded with glass tumblers in every possible shape, metal ‘amuse’ dishes, spoons for smelling, plates of paper, slate and glass, Plasticine models indicating the size of a dish and cuttings showing how food should be cut.
Adrià’s complex body of work positions the drawing medium as a philosophical tool, used to organize and convey knowledge, meaning and signification. Emphasizing the role of drawing in Adria’s quest to understand creativity, the book features an interview between Ferran Adria and Brett Littman, director of The Drawing Center, and also includes a reprint of the artist Richard Hamilton’s essay about the relationship of food to contemporary art.
Dining with Ferran Adrià: Five Chefs, 9 Michelin Stars
Hans van Wolde (Beluga Loves You, Maastricht), Jonnie Boer (Librije, Zwolle), Margo Reuten (Da Vinci, Maasbracht), rising pastry star Marieke Harkema and Sergio Herman (The Jane, Antwerp). These five top chefs together account for 5 stars and 9 Michelin stars. They joined forces for a unique fundraising dinner, organized on the occasion of Ferran Adrià’s arrival in Maastricht.
The dinner took place on April 19, 2016 at Rebelle, in the Augustijnenkerk in the centre of Maastricht. Proceeds from the dinner benefited Marres’ education program Training the Senses: Drawing Flavors for primary and secondary schools in Maastricht.
Photos of the diner
Public program
As part of the current exhibition, Marres hosted an extensive series of public events and educational programmes aimed at raising awareness about taste, cooking and creativity through taste labs, cookouts and workshops.
Fundraising dinner in honour of Ferran Adrià
Five top chefs – who hold 9 Michelin stars between them – prepared an exclusive dinner for Ferran Adrià and all the guests in attendance. The event took place in the Augustijnenkerk in Maastricht.
Cook out with 90 children
The children that took part in the event came from all parts of Maastricht. The aim of the event was to emphasize the importance of healthy food. Led by the chefs of Kids Kokkerelli the children prepared a special three- course menu. The master chef gave some lastminute tips and tasted the food.
In dialogue with Ferran Adrià
In Centre Céramique the Catalonian master chef gave a talk about his current practice and answered questions from the audience, which largely consisted of students and talented young chefs.
Documentary ‘El Bulli: Cooking in progress’ screened in Lumière
The style of top chef Ferran Adrià is avant-garde and experimental. This 2010 documentary follows the intense preparations for a new season in his restaurant El Bulli. Filmhuis Lumiere screened the movie on June 21.
Meet & Greet with chefs from Limburg
The taste of El Bulli in Maastricht
Ten chefs from Limburg showed visitors of the city of Maastricht their interpretation of a dish from the Catalan chef Ferran Adrià. During a meet & greet with Adrià they presented the publication The taste of El Bulli in Maastricht. This special publication is made by Maastricht Culinair, a partnership of renowned restaurants, local producers and suppliers.
Signing session in Bookstore Dominicanen
The living cult legend Ferran Adrià was a guest at Bookstore Dominicanen for a signing session.
Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity was originally curated by Brett Littman for The Drawing Center (New York). It has been specially adapted and expanded for the presentation at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture.
Dom Pérignon is the presenting partner of Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity. Additional support was provided by the Institut Ramon Llull, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and Lavazza.
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Thanks to
Dom Pérignon is the presenting partner of Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity. Additional support was provided by the Institut Ramon Llull, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and Lavazza.
Marres was supported by Connect Limburg, the VSBfonds, the BankGiro Lottery Fund and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
The Measure of our Traveling Feet
The exhibition The Measure of our Traveling Feet focused on the social and cultural significance of migration.
Curators: Claire van Els and Laura Mudde
The exhibition The Measure of our Traveling Feet was curated by Laura Mudde and Claire van Els and focused on the social and cultural significance of migration. What does the world beyond the border have to offer? In which ways does travel change the past and alter identities? Paulien Oltheten documented her journey on current and historical routes from eastern and central Europe to the west. Shilpa Gupta immersed visitors in the confusion that is typical of arrival in an unfamiliar environment, while Mounira Al Solh intimately captured migrants’ stories.
Large numbers of migrants are risking their lives in order to enter Europe. We see images of small boats afloat at sea, men in helmets and a deluge of drowned refugees. We hear about illegal settlements, desperate families and ruthless smugglers. The journeys of these refugees stand in stark contrast to the free movement of inhabitants of the European Union. While the world seems within arm’s reach to Europeans because of the euro, the open borders and the cheap airline tickets, the continent is becoming a closed fortress from the outside. Discussions revolve around migration, social inequality and the moving of feet that has always been part and parcel of these issues.
The exhibition title was derived from a poem by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) about the changing rhythm of life in modern England during the Industrial Revolution. How does the flow of refugees accelerate today’s pace, and how does it relate to the routes we ourselves traverse?
Participating artists
Francis Alÿs, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, Tudor Bratu, Mircea Cantor, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Shilpa Gupta, Roza El-Hassan, Paulien Oltheten, Wouter Osterholt & Ingrid Hapke, Société Réaliste, Mounira Al Solh, Zsófia Szemző and World Service Authority®.
Curators
Laura Mudde (1985, NL) studied art history and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. As an independent curator and project coordinator she is active at the intersection of art and society. She works for Stichting Het Instituut, an organisation that guides artists and designers in thinking about spatial and social issues, ABN AMRO’s art collection and ArtEZ Hogeschool van de Kunsten. Previously she worked as an assistant curator on the art manifestations ‘Ja natuurlijk, hoe kunst de wereld redt’ (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 2013) and ‘Niet Normaal’ (Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, 2009/10).
Claire van Els (1986, NL) is an art historian and currently works as junior curator at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In recent years, Van Els has been active as an independent curator, working as an assistant curator on an exhibition by Melvin Moti as part of the ABN AMRO Art Prize 2015 in the Hermitage Amsterdam. In 2013, together with Hendrik Folkerts, she won the VBCN OPEN for young curators of the Dutch Association of Corporate Collections. Previously, she worked as assistant curator on the retrospective exhibition Mike Kelley (2012-2013) and the exhibition Jo Baer: In the Land of the Giants (2013) at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Educational program
In collaboration with Stichting de Vrolijkheid, the Tapijntuin and het Kunstfront, Marres presented an extensive educational program for young people between the ages of 14 and 20 as part of the exhibition The Measure of our Traveling Feet. In this program young people were challenged to actively think about the theme of the exhibition. On several occasions the group met. During these meetings they were supported by the educational team and artists.
Bruis festival
During Bruis Festival, Marres and the Toneelacademie Maastricht presented a workshop on body language and sign language for Maastricht residents, Limburgers, Dutch, foreigners, refugees and anyone who wants to know how to make someone happy, angry, caring, anxious, in love and young with a single gesture in different cultures.
The workshop was given on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 September 2016 following the theme of The Measure of our Traveling Feet.
Exhibition Overview
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Thanks to
The Art of Impact and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
The work of Mounira Al Sohl is supported by the Mondriaan Fund. The work of Tudor Bratu is made possible thanks to Mondriaan Fund and mister A.A. van der Helm. And the work of Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan and Tudor Bratu is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute in Brussels.
The work of Wouter Osterholt and Ingrid Hapke is made possible by Stichting Jezuïetenberg, FlexForm, Paleopixels, BeamSystems and Sjors Bindels.
Special thanks to ACAX, Agency for Contemporay Art Exchange in Budapest, Hungary.
Marres Tourist Office
Crowds of people take a yearly vacation to relax, go on an adventure, party, and get a breath of fresh air.
Curator: Yvonne Grootenboer
Way past a sunny day at the beach, the modern leisure industry offers space tours, Tinder trips, mindfulness cruises and ecology flights. Some vacationers take a short break from a stressful job. Incidentally, they reorganize their lives forever. Most return with fresh resolve to continue their daily life. Vacation has thus become an intricate part of our working routine and is characterized by the same desire for stability, physical comfort, and a lack of surprises.
The exhibition Marres Tourist Office offered new stimuli to the tourist in various forms: a walk through Maastricht with an audio guide about the life of a famous artist, a picknick in the backyard of Marres and an opportunity for visitors to build their own castle with LEGO stones. During the weekends, Marres organised a full programme consisting of lectures and performances by Hans Aarsman, Wiel Kusters, Doina Kraal, a DJ-set by Mike Moonen and live radio shows by Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee radio. The mix is still available via Radio Marres.
Participating artists
Hans Aarsman, Maarten Bel, Teresa Cos, Roger Cremers, Anna Frijstein and Nicola Godman, Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee radio, Krijn de Koning, Frank Koolen i.c.w. Dier In Bedrijf, Doina Kraal, Wiel Kusters, Mike Moonen, Claudia Sola, Derk Thijs and Anneke Walvoort.
Exhibition Overview
Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee Radio goes on holiday
During the weekends the online radio station Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee broadcasted live from Marres. Together with Mike Moonen and numerous guests. Can you travel to another place in sound for a while? What is the value of boredom? How does the summer sound?
During Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee goes on holiday, you hear artists, tourists and sounds – local to the other side of the world – who take you on a journey, not by looking, but by listening. The live broadcasts were attended by audiences. Listen to the shows online.
Der Raufbold Tour
For the exhibition Marres Tourist Office, artist Frank Koolen created in collaboration with the art collective Dier in Bedrijf Der Raufbold Tour, an audiotour about the life of the legendary Maastricht artist and bon vivant Luis C. Smeets. Luis was the inspiring reason for a city walk along important places in the life of one of the most controversial intellectuals in the region.
Win a vacation
In the run-up to the exhibition, Marres made an appeal to collect beautiful, strange, romantic, but above all unforgettable vacation memory. Four winners were selected, all of whom were given a weekend trip to Maastricht, with overnight stay. The competition was a collaboration with four Maastricht hotels: Kaboom Hotel, Trash Deluxe, The Dutch and the Kruisheren Hotel.
Family workshop
During the exhibition Marres Tourist Office offers workshops for the entire family. Join us on a journey and take on the role of both tourist and artist.
The scent of the forest in France, the sound of the Aegean Sea and how different does a pizza taste in Tuscany? During the workshop you will go back to your last holiday together with your parents. How different are your memories and what do you pay attention to during your holiday? How do you communicate if you can’t speak the language?
The family workshop starts with a guided tour through the exhibition. After this you will go on a voyage of discovery and take a closer look at the artists’ works.
Take part in the workshop together with your mum, dad, grandpa, grandma, carers, brothers and sisters.
The workshops will be given on the following days:
Wednesday: August 17th and 24th
Sunday: 21 and 28 August
Time: 3PM to 4PM
You can sign up by sending an email to: educatie@marres.org. Mention in your mail the date, how many people and the age of the participants.
Children (up to 16 years): 5 euro
Mom and dad: 10 euro (entrance ticket), MJK 5 euro
With the entrance ticket you can stay at Marres before or after the workshop to play with LEGO®, take a sensory walk or (in the weekends) watch performances. Look for the entire program on the website of Marres.
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Thanks to
Touche-à-Tout (2014-2016) by Doina Kraal is made possible by Het Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Het Mondriaan Fonds, Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and forte_forte and Lejan.
Poets of Beijing
Poets of Beijing showed the works of 14 artists working in China’s capital city. Beijing’s economic prosperity fuels a fast growing art market that is a magnet for young artists.
Curators: 策展人 LIU Chengrui — 刘成瑞 and Valentijn Byvanck — 瓦伦丁·拜凡克
This group is often viewed as a new generation of artists, the so-called post-80s generation. Instead of expressing their relationship to the west, as earlier Chinese artists have done, members of this post-80s generation search for an introspective and independent exploration of art and society. Within this framework, they produce a rich and varied body of works. Yan Bing’s wheat murals echo the yellow earth of the countryside of his home province Gansu. Chen Youtong, biologist and native of Guangzhou, transformed his studio into a factory-lab hybrid to study the life of microbes. Kun Niao is a magazine editor and a recognized poet, Lin Ke one of China’s most prolific internet artists.
Poets of Beijing was held in the Wiebengahal in Maastricht.
Participating artists
Liu Chengrui, Han Wuzhou, Zhao Yao, Bu Yunjun, Zhang Zhenyu, Yan Bing, Kun Niao, Wang Yuyang, Lin Ke, Chen Youtong, Wang Haiyang, Ha Nisi, Wang Liwei and Zhang Muchen.
Exhibition Overview
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Thanks to
The Painted Bird: Dreams and Nightmares of Europe
Europe 2017.
Are we dancing on a volcano?
Curators: Gijs Frieling and Valentijn Byvanck
Are renewed nationalism, xenophobia, the distrust of politics and democracy, the arrival of refugees, and economic insecurity preparing us for a terrible meltdown? It is well possible. This should give us hope for this project, since the best art is produced on the verge of despair, when civilizations crumble and we’re about to shift into a new world order.
Marres Maastricht produced a spectacular mural about Europe by nineteen artists who have painted all rooms, corridors, the stairwell, floors and ceilings of the historic Marres House. The Painted Bird depicted a series of beautiful and frightening environments. Like a high-tech clone supermarket, the last surviving piece of primeval forest, a Berlin love and hippie fest space, a spider portrait corridor, a new life festival in the year 2050. But also paintings of Charlemagne, the shisha girls, PJ Harvey and the Romanovs, the naked sages. A soundtrack led visitors from room to room, from dream to nightmare.
Participating artists
Marie Aly, Cian Yu Bai, Bonno van Doorn, Kim David Bots, Gijs Frieling, Natasja Kensmil, Klaas Kloosterboer, Mirthe Klück, Frank Koolen, Fiona Lutje House, Charlott Markus, Kalle Mattsson, Jan van de Pavert, Tanja Ritterbex, Sam Samiee, Charlotte Schleiffert, Derk Thijs, Sarah Verbeek, Helen Verhoeven, Evi Vingerling and Job Wouters.
Exhibition Overview
Training the Senses
Artists Gijs Frieling and Aukje Dekker gave a Training the Senses session on the intersection between painting and the sensory experience. Painting is such an obvious visual phenomenon that we rarely experience it as a call to sensory action. We don’t smell the paint, touch or lick it. We don’t allow our bodies to follow the brushstrokes. Paintings are thus radically emancipated from bodily movement or broad sensory perception. Why is that?
Soundtrack
The artists Frank Koolen and Kim David Bots developed a comprehensive soundtrack with personal commentary voice, music and sound effects. The soundtrack was part of the exhibition and can be listened to online.
Publication The Painted Bird
The Painted Bird, a book with beautiful and terrifying impressions of Europe. Based on letters between Gijs Frieling, the participating artists, and curator Valentijn Byvanck, this book provides insight into the ideas and considerations that underlie this collaborative work of art. The Painted Bird is available in the online shop.
Marres Movements
During the Summer Marres hosted the program Marres Movements, a series of performances created for, and building on, the ongoing exhibition The Painted Bird: Dreams and Nightmares of Europe. The program added moving bodies and musical performances to the landscape of wall paintings and a soundtrack, transforming them into a massive stage set for performance, dance and music. Find the full program and all the aftermovies via the link below.
WitWasDag
On the last day of the exhibition, Marres invited the public to help paint the colossal painting The Painted Bird white. The 12 rooms were opened to lusty money launderers, greasers, lovers of squat white, good friends and wrong fans of Marres. With absurd painting assignments, cold beer and snacks in the garden, a singing DJ and an in memoriam: The Painted Bird is no more.
Crowdfunding campagne
For the realization of the exhibition Marres organised a successful crowdfunding campaign together with platform Voordekunst. 148 people contributed and raised a total amount of 28,691 euros.
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Thanks to
Fonds 21 and the Bankgiro Loterij Fonds.
Marres Movements
During the summer of 2017, Marres invited a group of performers to interact with the exhibition The Painted Bird: Dreams and Nightmares of Europe.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
The program consisted of a series of performances that were called Marres Movements. The program added moving bodies and musical performances to the landscape of wall paintings. The exhibition transformed into a massive stage for performance, dance, music and art.
Performers and dancers entered the exhibition during opening hours with several improvised and scripted pieces and interventions as well as a musical tour through the city.
Performances
Exhibition Overview
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The Materiality of the Invisible
The Materiality of the Invisible approached contemporary art as an activity that shares several characteristics of archaeology.
Curators: Lex ter Braak and Huib Haye van der Werf
Many artists probe the underlying layers of our social and political reality. They expose what is concealed and penetrate to other times. Like archaeologists, they make the invisible visible.
The Materiality of the Invisible showed the results together with the work of 24 other artists. The exhibition spread out over the three locations, Marres, Van Eyck and Bureau Europa. Van Eyck was a partner in the multi-year EU project NEARCH – New scenarios for a community-involved archaeology. For this project, they selected six international artists who each collaborated with two archaeological partners.
The opening of the exhibition on Tuesday 29th of August coincided with the annual meeting of the EAA (European Association of Archaeologists), which took place in Maastricht in 2017.
Participating artists
Lida Abdul, Semâ Bekirovic, Rossella Biscotti, Marinus Boezem, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Joey Bryniarska & Martin Westwood, Leyla Cárdenas, Ruben Castro, Imran Channa, Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Mikhail Karikis & Uriel Orlow, Daniel Knorr, Jeroen Kooijmans, Irene Kopelman, Giuseppe Licari, Chaim van Luit, Mark Manders, Alice Miceli, RAAAF, Raewyn Martyn, Stéphanie Saadé, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Oscar Santillan, Daniel Silver, Studio Ossidiana, Marjan Teeuwen, Leonid Tsvetkov, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Roy Villevoye & Jan Dietvorst, Matthew C. Wilson
Exhibition Overview
Public program
During The Materiality of the Invisible an extensive public program was presented, consisting of lectures, presentations, film screenings and guided tours at the three locations.
Marres hosted and organised the event The Archaeologist, the Artist and the Curator, a walking conversation in the exhibition The Materiality of the Invisible at Marres, dedicated to all affinities between art and archaeology. With Miguel John Versluys (Professor of Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology, Leiden University), Matthew Wilson (artist, NEARCH), Martin Westwood (artist,NEARCH), Lex ter Braak and Huib Haye van der Werf (curators of the exhibition).
Michael Shanks – Archaeologist and Professor of Classics at Stanford University had a conversation with artists and archaeologists involved in the EU project NEARCH – New scenarios for a community-involved archaeology in the framework of the exhibition The Materiality of the Invisible, during an evening Talk.
One of the lectures was presented by Eyal Weizman – architect, professor of spatial and visual cultures and director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London – and Femke Snelting – artist/designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. They both spoke about topics related to the framework of the exhibition.
Education
Participating artist Giuseppe Licari played an active role in the educational program of The Materiality of the Invisible. Students from the United World College and IBBO (I Am Conscious Education) worked for six weeks together with artist.
As part of this program, Dion Nataraja, a student at the United World College, interviewed Licari about his art work The Promised Land: a photo series of a misty landscape full of craggy rocks formations in unusual shades. The landscape pictured in the photos has something extraterrestrial, however these pictures are taken in Luxembourg in a former mine. Watch the interview here.
“How do stones feel and what different types are there?” The students made several drawings as a result of these questions. They were then printed on lino in the print lab of the Van Eyck Academie.
During Het Parcours on Sunday 10 September, Marres, Bureau Europa and Van Eyck, opened its doors. The public could visit the exhibition free of charge that day. This year’s edition was named: Een grenzeloos Parcours.
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Thanks to
The European Commission and Mondriaan Fund.
Dreaming Awake
The Amazon wilderness, moist, damp, sticky, deafening, breathtaking, is the most invasive form in which a landscape forces itself upon us.
Curators: Luiza Mello en Valentijn Byvanck
Once you’re inside, there is no escape. The pressure of the environment is so powerful and hypnotic that it propels people into a dreamstate. The exhibition Dreaming Awake presented a tropical rainforest peeled back in layers. The exhibition was about the experience of touch caused by strong outside forces. Dreaming Awake aimed to bring that experience to the visitors of Marres.
The immersive project was developed by the Brazilian curator Luiza Mello and Marres director Valentijn Byvanck, in collaboration with the artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Luiz Zerbini.
Artists
Luiz Zerbini (São Paulo, 1959) employs a rich and vibrant palette for a diverse range of subjects such as landscapes, urban panoramas and domestic scenes, as well as more obscure or even abstract works. Zerbini has had a series of retrospective exhibitions at Galpão Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil (2015); Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro (2014); Instituto Inhotim, Minas Gerais (2013) and the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2012). He took part in the Biennials of São Paulo (2010; 1987), Mercosul (2001), Havana (2000) and Cuenca (1996). In 2017, Stephen Friedman Gallery showed his work in London.
Through site-specific installations and environments that immerse visitors in light and sound, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Strasbourg, 1965) examines how spaces prompt memories and affect our moods and perceptions. In recent years, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster had a series of solo exhibitions in, among others, the Pompidou Center, Paris (2015-2016), the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon (2015), the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (2014) and Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2008). She also participated in Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007) and Documenta XI, Kassel (2002).The artist’s most recent films are Otello 1887 (2015), Vera and Mr Hyde (2015) and Lola Montez in Berlin (2015).
For many years, Steegmann Mangrané (Barcelona, 1977) has studied the Brazilian jungle through works that are focused on the powerful contrast between human perception and the intense reality offered by the jungle. The artist had recent solo exhibitions at the Múrias Centeno, Lisbon (2015), Esther Schipper, Berlin (2015), Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2014), and Mendes Wood, São Paulo, Brazil (2013). He also participated in several Biennales including that of Cuenca, Ecuador (2014) , the Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre (2013); and the Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2012).
Exhibition Overview
Publication
Next to the exhibition Dreaming Awake, an eponymous publication was launched, edited by Luiza Mello, João Doria, and Valentijn Byvanck. Dreaming Awake describes the feeling of the rainforest and the effect the clammy, moist atmosphere can have on humans. It incorporates existing texts on the subject, as well as works on the jungle by artists such as Luiz Zerbini.
The publication was among the winners of the Best Dutch Book Designs 2018 and is available at the reception desk of Marres or through our online shop.
“The hypnotic power of the rainforest is evoked in dreamlike, monochrome images – lots of dark and green, against which the works of art from the Marres exhibition sometimes contrast colourfully.” – Jury Best Dutch Book Designs 2018
Education
For this exhibition, Marres developed an educational program aimed at nature and cultural experiences for and with young people from asylum seekers’ centres, secondary schools and international schools. The participants tried to find an answer to the question “what does my dream world look like? They were helped by artists, dancers and musicians. The final product was offered as teaching material to various schools in Limburg.
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Thanks to
BankGiroLoterij Fonds, the VSBfonds and the Mondriaan Fonds.
Marijn van Kreij: Nude in the Studio
In the summer of 1955, Picasso moved his studio to the Belle Époque villa ‘La Californie’, built in the early 20th century and located in the hills surrounding Cannes.
The large Jugendstil windows and the view on a garden with cactuses, eucalyptus and palm trees found their way into Picasso’s paintings. These interior landscapes, as Picasso called them, show unfinished paintings and sculptures, painters’ materials, musical instruments and other objects that he used as props in his work.
At Marres, van Kreij presented hundreds of drawings and gouache paintings, from monumental works on thick watercolor paper to loose series on sketchbook paper, advertising leaflets and other printed matter. He combined these works with sound sculptures made from collected and found materials and a series of stools from his studio. At the historical Marres house with its intimate rooms and beautiful city garden, an association with Picasso’s summery studio on the Mediterranean coast arisose almost instantly.
In the past years, Marijn van Kreij has worked on a series of drawings and paintings modeled after Picasso’s interior landscapes. Reproductions in books form the starting point of a new creation process, focused on the act of drawing and painting. Van Kreij: ‘I empty out the image, and at the same time it fills itself with new interpretations.’ The artist is alone in his studio when he appropriates the images and examines the possibility of endlessly applying differences. At some point, however, he wishes to involve others. He created the title work of the exhibition Marijn van Kreij: Nude in the Studio in collaboration with schoolchildren from the Japanese mountain village Kamiyama.
Artist
Marijn van Kreij’s (Middelrode, 1978) body of work consists of drawings and paintings on paper, collages, objects, slide projections, videos, and sound pieces that are brought together in carefully-composed exhibitions. He previously displayed his works in solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, Berlin, Haarlem, London, and Zurich. He was awarded the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting in 2013 and the ABN AMRO Art Award in 2016. Van Kreij lives and works in Amsterdam and teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie university of applied sciences for Fine Arts and Design.
Exhibition Overview
Postcards booklet
The exhibition Nude in the Studio will be accompanied by a booklet containing 24 postcards, designed by Akiko Wakabayashi. The postcards booklet is available in the online shop.
Het Parcours en Finnissage
Nude in the Studio was part of the twenty-third edition of ‘Het Parcours’ on Sunday, September 9, 2018. Together with 24 other cultural venues in Maastricht, Marres opened its doors to the public. Shows and performances were staged at various locations throughout the city. The theme of this edition was CULTURE, TASTES LIKE MORE. On the last day of the exhibition, Marijn van Kreij was present to explain his work.
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Thanks to
Superstition
When you spill salt, do you throw some over your shoulder?
Curator: Erich Weiss
Do you knock on wood when you want something good to happen or blow out birthday candles after making a wish? What about stepping on sidewalk cracks, killing spiders, shattering mirrors and opening an umbrella indoors?
Curator, artist and magic thinker Erich Weiss assembled a wonderful cast for this subject: Nina Beier & Simon Dybbroe Møller, Otto Berchem, Pierre Bismuth, Santiago Borja, Ulla von Brandenburg, Stefan Brüggemann, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Keren Cytter, Uri Geller, Joachim Koester, Germaine Kruip, Nils Nova, Joanna Piotrowska, John Stezaker and Mungo Thomson.
Artists have always had a fascination with phenomena that defy rational explanation. The surrealists were obsessed with the analysis and creative possibilities of dream states. Authors including Antonin Artaud, William S. Burroughs, and Alan Ginsberg explored (sometimes with help of drugs) the boundaries between reality and fiction. Directors Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovski captured the way superstition informed the imagination and consciousness.
Superstition was an exhibition about magic and illusion. Artists have always had a fascination with phenomena that defy rational explanation. The surrealists were obsessed with the analysis and creative possibilities of dream states. Authors including Antonin Artaud, William S. Burroughs, and Alan Ginsberg explored (sometimes with help of drugs) the boundaries between reality and fiction. Directors Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovski captured the way superstition informed the imagination and consciousness.
Exhibition Overview
Performance Mungo Thomson
The musical piece Crickets by Mungo Thomson was performed live during the opening of the exhibition by students of the Maastricht Academy of Music, conducted by Roderik Povel.
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Thanks to
The Danish Arts Foundation, Pro Helvetia and the Mondriaan Fonds, the public cultural funding organization focusing on visual arts and cultural heritage. The Mondriaan Fund contributed to the artists’ fees through the experimental regulations.
Museum Motus Mori
A choreography for belly fat, a dance of the belly button and rib cage, the anatomy of a sigh…
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
In the run-up to Museum Motus Mori, choreographer Katja Heitmann asked herself a simple question: can human movement be exhibited? This is a question that is often raised in dance, since the discipline has no standardized notation. The body of a dancer, it is often said, is the archive of dance. But the same question also applies to the world outside dance. Our archives and museums collect portraits, objects, and writings but not the gestures and movements of important people. In our homes, we also save letters, objects, and photographs of our loved ones, but we lose the poses, movements, and reflexes that make them instantly recognizable. To compensate for this loss, Katja Heitmann and ten dancers created Museum Motus Mori, a museum of dying physical movement, for Marres. To create the museum, the choreographer and her team spent two months in Marres.
For six weeks, five hours a day, the dancers and the choreographer took on the remarkable challenge of sensitizing visitors to the deep humanity hidden within the body. In choreographic sculptures, Museum Motus Mori revealed the details of human motricity to unravel it into patterns, specific sequences of structures, and seemingly eternal loops. The result was a choreography for the collarbone, a dance of the belly fat and rib cage, a phrase for the heartbeat and knee muscles. Body parts were isolated and mechanically brought into motion, the hips were tilted, the leg lifted and driven across the space in a meticulously technical manner whereby every movement was deliberate. The fragments were constantly repositioned in time and in relation to one another.
Visitors played an important role in the museum by sharing their own body history and movements. The exhibition included two spaces for ‘movement interviews’ where visitors could volunteer to be extensively interviewed by the dancers about their everyday gestures and movements. The score (notation) of those movements was displayed in the exhibition’s archive room, and the performances were embodied by the dancers. This created a full museum cycle of donation, notation, and presentation. The catalogue included an interview with Katja Heitmann in which she explains how the idea for Museum Motus Mori came into being and how it took shape over time.
Katja Heitmann and her dancers took part in a Training the Senses session in which she described the creative process of the continuously shifting exhibition. How can we preserve movements that are in danger of extinction?
Marres brought Museum Motus Mori to the first performance festival of Art Rotterdam that took place from 7 to 9 February 2020.
Artist
Katja Heitmann (1987, Germany) operates on the interface between dance and visual arts, performance and installation. Her choreographic work consists of emphatic aesthetics, in sharp contrast to human fallibility. In her work she investigates what moves man in the present era. In 2016 Katja won the Prijs van de Nederlandse Dansdagen (Dutch Dance Days Award). For her production and music Heitmann works with her partner Sander van der Schaaf.
Training the Senses
Katja Heitmann and her dancers took part of a Training the Senses session, in which she explained the creative process of the continuously moving exhibition. How can we capture dying movements in a body?
Art Rotterdam 2020
Marres bracht Museum Motus Mori naar de eerste editie van de performance show van Art Rotterdam, van 7 tot 9 februari 2020.
Exhibition Overview
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Thanks to
DansBrabant, the BankGiro Lottery Fund, Fund 21, Performing Arts Fund NL, the Province of North-Brabant and the Municipality of Tilburg.
The Floor is Lava
The Floor is Lava was a theatrical exhibition in which artist duo Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen populated Marres with sculptures and molded portraits of people in everyday environments.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
Made from different materials, clay, cloth, wood, the figures had expressive faces, but are otherwise sketchily composed with stick legs, half torso’s and loosely hanging pieces of cloth. The faces seemed mask-like, unrelated to the bodies that support them. They lean against a wall, sit on makeshift chairs, queue at a ticket office, or wait on a platform for a train to arrive at the station.They were actors in search of a play, as much as they were compositions of identity, that fictional moment of stasis in a world that is constantly on the move. The artists played with the idea that people always play a role, different in every situation, with specific character traits and body language.
The title derived from a children’s game in which on command the players immediately have to get their feet off the floor and freeze in a certain position, as if they have been turned into statues. The liquid floor in the game suggests the added meaning of a world that is beyond our control, of shared values that are dissipating, and a future that has become uncertain. The figures inhabit the stage that is left when all that is solid has melted into air. In the cahier all the works on display in the exhibition are further explained.
In a Training the Senses session that took place during the exhibition, the artist duo introduced the audience to the performance How can we know the dancer from the dance? they made earlier. The presentation provided a short training for participants to go outside and make their own detailed observations of theatrical events in everyday life.
Artists
Sander Breure en Witte van Hulzen both live and work in Amsterdam. Breure graduated from the Royal Conservatory, The Hague, and Van Hulzen graduated from ArtEZ in Arnhem. Their multidisciplinary work is based on research about body language and its interpretation. They are represented by tegenboschvanvreden, Amsterdam. An international jury selected Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen together with 3 other artists for the shortlist of Prix de Rome 2019. They received a working budget an were given the opportunity to create new work. The work was exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in the fall of 2019.
Exhibition Overview
Publication On Gestures of Doing Nothing
Next to the exhibition, the joined publication named On Gestures of Doing Nothing made by Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen came out on 4 August 2019. On Gestures of Doing Nothing documents a performance staged by Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen. The performance took place on April 15 and 16, 2019, in their exhibition The Floor is Lava in Marres. It consisted of eleven performers presenting a series of gestures. The performance – along with the exhibition itself – was photographed by Petra Stavast. This publication was conceived and developed in collaboration with art historian and curator Arnisa Zeqo. The book is published in English.
Crowdfunding Campagne
For the realization of the exhibition Marres organised a successful crowdfunding campaign together with platform Voordekunst. 122 donors raised an amount of 25,000 euros.
Prix de Rome
An international jury selected Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen together with 3 other artists for the shortlist of Prix de Rome 2019. They received a working budget an were given the opportunity to create new work. The work was exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in the fall of 2019.
Press about The Floor is Lava
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Fonds 21, the BankGiro Loterij Fonds and the Mondriaan Fonds.
The Waves
Norwegian composer Espen Sommer Eide recorded the year preceding the opening of The Waves, and during other exhibitions, a spatial music album for Marres.
Curator: Valentijn Byvanck
Together with singer Mari Kvien Brunvoll and tuba player Martin Taxt, he roamed the rooms of the house in search of forgotten voices, partly by making the walls and floors, doors and stairs resonate and partly by making compositions based on what the house produces.
The album, the composer says, was not so much ‘made for the house, but with the house’. The result was a wonderful spatial album that unfolded like a modern symphony, spread out in parts across the rooms. The tracks took visitors through the building, room by room, following the shadows of the nightly performances, the history of the respective areas explained in detail. They heard songs, melodies, and rhythms, with the voices and perspectives of the performers reproduced simultaneously from multiple angles as if the house was a mirrored palace of sound. The music transformed the building into a place where countless worlds are possible – completely free from the view or presence of a particular thing or subject. The source of inspiration, the famous novel The Waves (1931) by the British author Virginia Woolf, was found in the interweaving of different voices and times. Jochem Vanden Ecker was asked to document the entire process.
In recent years Espen Sommer Eide and Valentijn Byvanck, director of Marres and curator of this exhibition, conducted a series of discussions that eventually led to the exhibition The Waves. These conversations have been processed into an interview that has been published in the cahier.
Espen Sommer Eide, Mari Kvien Brunvoll and Martin Taxt gave a guided tour of the exhibition
during a Training the Senses session. They explained room by room how the pieces of music
were created.
Artists
Espen Sommer Eide (1972) is a composer and artist based in Bergen, Norway. Using music and sound as both method and medium, his artistic practice involves long term engagement with
specific landscapes, archives, languages, and rhythms, with an experimental approach to local and embodied knowledge. In addition to installation and performances, he has been a prominent representative of experimental electronic music from Norway, with main projects Alog and Phonophani, and a string of releases on the labels such as Rune Grammofon, FatCat and Hubro.
Martin Taxt (1981), born in Trondheim, Norway, finished his studies at the Academy of Music in Oslo and CNSMDP in Paris in 2006. Since then he has established himself in the international experimental music scene. He is releasing albums and touring with groups such as Koboku Senjû and Microtub. Since 2013 he has been a part of the awardwinning art collective Verdensteatret.
Mari Kvien Brunvoll (1984), is one of Norway’s leading improvisers in song and various eclectic instruments. A graduate of Grieg Academy in Bergen, Brunvoll has performed solo and in groups at some of Europe’s best jazz clubs and festivals and released twisted albums on labels like Jazzland Recordings and Hubro. Mari Kvien Brunvoll is also part of the trio Building Instrument.
Jochem Vanden Ecker (1976) studied photography at the Media and Design Academy, Genk and has lived in Antwerp for the last few years. Vanden Ecker’s work is process-oriented, with a hybrid documentary method often in dialogue with other artists, architectures, and situations. Vanden Ecker has released a string of artists books such as A skydog’s time. A skydog’s place (2015) and From Brown to Blue (2013).
Exhibition Overview
Vinyl album The Waves
If you’ve missed the exhibition, you can listen to the vinyl album that Marres released in
collaboration with SOFA Music, with tracks that refer to specific rooms in Marres such as:
‘poortkamer’, ‘slaapkamer’ and ‘wintertuin’. The LP is for sale in the online shop. The album The Waves is also available on Spotify.
Training the Senses
Espen Sommer Eide, Mari Kvien Brunvoll and Martin Taxt gave a tour of the exhibition during a Training the Senses session. They explained room by room how the pieces of music were created.
Press about The Waves
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Fonds 21, the BankGiro Loterij Fonds, the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Society of Composers, Bergen Municipality, Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, SOFA Music.
Yes, Please!
Over the past two years, Company New Heroes has researched the erotic fantasies of more than 300 Dutch and Flemish people.
Curators: Company New Heroes and Valentijn Byvanck
Bolleke, a caravan equipped with audio equipment, visited several festivals to collect erotic fantasies. Visitors of Yes, Please! could read and listen to these stories in several dreamlike spaces decorated with a gigantic pink womb, veils of shame, vibrating fluffy carpets and kinky objects in a kitchen. The spaces played with visitors shame and curiosity, who watched each other as they read and listened. Also, unlike conventional exhibitions, they were encouraged to “touch everything except the other visitors.”
Pascal Leboucq created the exhibition design, and sound artist Marc Alberto created the soundtracks. The dramaturgy of the exhibition, in which the research is also shared, was in the hands of Lucas De Man. The exhibition was part of the project Yes, Please!, a broad research to erotic fantasies.
Company New Heroes
Over the past two years, Company New Heroes has researched the erotic fantasies of more than 300 Dutch and Flemish people. Bolleke, a caravan equipped with audio equipment, visited several festivals to collect erotic fantasies. Pascal Leboucq is the designer of the exhibition, and sound artist Marc Alberto makes the soundtracks. The dramaturgy of the exhibition, in which the research is also shared, is in the hands of Lucas De Man. The exhibition is part of the project Yes, Please!, a broad research to erotic fantasies.
Exhibition Overview
Publication Yes, Please!
The exhibition Yes, Please! was accompanied by a publication, written by Lucas De Man and Mariëlle de Goede, with illustrations by Atelier Cambre. Using thematic categories, Yes, Please! presents a rich range of surprisingly frank, original and sometimes even moving stories. A must-read if you want to discover how erotic fantasies can enrich your life.
The book presentation took place on 7 March 2020 in Boekhandel Dominicanen in Maastricht, prior to the opening of the exhibition Yes, Please! And is currently available in our online shop.
Corona
Shortly after the opening of Yes, Please! on March 8, the exhibition had to be closed again on March 14. Because Marres was not allowed to open again until June 1, Yes, Please! originally scheduled to June 7, was extended through August 9. However, the reopening in the corona era also provided the exhibition with a renewed relevance: in a society of quarantine and a 1.5 meters distance, the topics of intimacy and personal contact became more significant.
Family workshop
Date: 14 July – 6 August, Tuesday & Thursday
Time: 10 – 11:30 AM
Price: €7.50 per person, including materials
Marres organizes a series of stimulating family workshops. Come and participate in the sensory treasure hunt in the exhibition Yes, Please!and listen to a beautiful selection of art stories in The Invisible Collection, on display in the especially designed ice cellar listening space.
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Rooms 02 Performance Festival
In the weekend of 10 and 11 June, the second edition of ROOMS Performance Festival took place.
In ROOMS young makers and established talents take you on an expedition to unexplored worlds with dazzling dance pieces, mysterious theater, experimental jazz and dreamy films.
Biographies
Led by Amsterdam-based choreographer and performer Miri Lee (South Korea, 1975), Collectief Imprography is an independent artist platform focusing on advanced levels of impromptu performance forms. Since 2018, Lee has been organizing the Co-Session Series, fostering a close collaborative scheme among its professional dancers and musicians from various artistic backgrounds.
Judith Engelen (Belgium, 1995) makes physical and associative performances in which she combines fast technology with slow literature. In addition, her work always has a strong connection to psychoanalysis and biology. Abel Enklaar (the Netherlands, 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of technology, identity and environment through performances and installations. Their work explores the impact of technology on our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Enklaar has presented their work at festivals and venues around the world.
Nina Marte Wilson (1998, the Netherlands) graduated as a performer and visual artist from the Institute of Performing Arts, Maastricht in 2022. During her studies, Wilson started to replace the stage with other landscapes and herself with objects and elements. Starting from a theatrical background she moves towards other media, including film, photography, animation, installation and food. In a playful and inventive way, Wilson creates a ritual in which the spectator is offered the silence and space to become absorbed in the moment. Everything shown, is born out of situations or landscapes she puts herself in. Working intuitively, she grounds, get bogged down, collects and listens, overwhelming and sincere, with the softest touch.
With a signature of rooted groove in combination with well-tempered outbursts, drummer Sun-Mi Hong (South Korea, 1990) has placed herself strongly in the Dutch jazz scene. By approaching the moment in a meditative fashion, Hong achieves the ability to bring something entirely original to the band stand. Known for his distinct trumpet tone, out-of-the-box creativity and diversity of projects, Alistair Payne (Scotland, 1995) is a prominent name amongst the new wave of Dutch jazz.
The work of Arno Schuitemaker (the Netherlands, 1976) arises from existential questions and is an ongoing quest for the mystery of our bodies and ourselves. Hyperphysical and immersive, they receive praise for the depth created at the crossroads of the intimate and the universal. In his performances, sensory experience is prioritized over narrative. Schuitemaker has shown his work at renowned venues and contemporary performing arts festivals in over 25 countries.
Alesya Dobysh (Russia, 1989) and Marina Pravkina (Russia, 1986) met 15 years ago being a part of the Moscow urban dance scene. During that period they mastered footwork oriented club styles, such as House dance and UK Jazz Fusion, self-studied fundamentals of contemporary dance and actively participated in a “battle” dance scene. In developing their choreographic material, they draw inspiration from the abstraction and deconstruction of footwork patterns. To explore their interdependence, performers construct rules and play obscure games, finding new ways to complement each other’s physicality and its limitations.
Overview
(Photo: © Sanne Peper)
Rooms 2024
Please save the date for the third edition of Rooms, scheduled for 27 and 28 January 2024, we hope to see you again then! Keep an eye on our website and social media.
Press about Rooms 02
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Limburg Biënnale #1
From September 5 to November 15 2020, Marres started a new tradition by launching the first Limburg Biënnale, which presented more than 250 artworks by over 150 participants from Limburg and the surrounding area.
Following the tradition of the annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in London, this exhibition brought together everyone who identifies as an artist in a festive celebration of the arts.
A cross-section of the visual arts was on display: from sculpture to dance performance, from textile installation to video art, from studying professional to retired amateur, from 7 to 87 years old and from Cobra painting to Bauhaus drawing.
Jury members & curators
With an open call in July 2020 Marres invited everyone in Limburg and the surrounding area to send in a maximum of three art works. A jury of 12 professional artists selected from over 1100 submitted artworks. They each curated a room in Marres with their selection and also exhibited their own works.
The jury members and curators were: Chaim van Luit, Charlotte Lagro, Esther Janssen, Hadassah Emmerich, Joan van Barneveld, Keetje Mans, Marta Volkova en Slava Shevelenko, Mike Moonen, Sidi El Karchi, Tanja Ritterbex en Vera Gulikers.
Corona
Two months after the opening on 5 and 6 September, the second wave of the coronavirus in the fall unfortunately brought the Limburg Biënnale to an early end. On November 4 instead of November 15, Marres closed its doors. Due to the corona measures, the public program for the exhibition was also canceled.
Marres had been considering starting a tradition like the London Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in Limburg for years. In the spring of 2020, a planned exhibition with international artists had to be canceled last minute due to the coronavirus. Supporting local talent combined with a revival of attention to the region, partly due to corona, was the motivation for realizing the Limburg Biënnale.
Artists
The selected artists for our first Limburg Biënnale were:
José Aerts, Julie Arphi, Olivier Arts, Sara Bachour, Stefanie De Bakker, Felix Baumsteiger, Gert van Beek, Akkie de Beer, Elise Berenstein, Suzanne Berkers, Joris Bochman, Hetty van Boekhout, Marianne van der Bolt, Ronald van den Boogaard, Jorden Boulet, Dirk Bours, Servé Braeken, Rina van den Brandt, Paddy de Bruijn, Anne Büscher, Joep Caenen, Mak Camps, Aga Cela, Hannelore Celen, Bryan Claessen, Mattanja Coehoorn, Pierre Coric, Roxanne Crals, Anne Linde Dejong, Les Deux Garçons, Cas Dingelstad, Talla Dirkzwager, Chantal Le Doux, Birgitta van Drie, Jeroen Duijf, Kaya Erdinç, Anneke Eussen, Jeroen Evertz, Ton Eyssen, Marjo Frische, Cathy Ganty, Truus Gelissen, Lena George, Moniek Gerrits, Eva Geutjes, Grapevine, Franck Gribling, Kim Gromoll, Norbert Grunschel, Joost van Haaften, Dirk den Haan, Annelies Habers, Femke Habets, Debora De Haes, Marte Hameleers, Joke Hansen, Johan Helder, Jolanda Helwig, Eugene Hennekens, Michel van Henten, Petra Herzog, Milous Heunks, Fran Hoebergen, Birgit Horsting, Wouter Huis, Anke Huntjens, Roger Huskens, Jeroen Jaenen, Willem Janssen, Mark Janssen, Tonnie Jongen, Joséphine Kaeppelin, Tineke Kambier, Eleni Kamma, Corina Karstenberg, Willem van Kempen, Laura Knipsael, Weronika Kocewiak, Brecht Koelman, Marie Claire Krell, Hannah Kuhlmann, Luuk Kuipers, Ton Laeven, Peter Lahaye, Amber Lalieu, Miyeon Lee, Pascale Leenders, Catharina van Leeuwen, Susan Leurs, Lino Lithium, LosDQ, Maurits Losse, Ien Lucas, Linda Maissan, Marika Meoli, Marjon Merckelbach, Jochem Mestriner, Robbie van Mierlo, Astrid Mingels, Ray Moon, Remy Neumann, Kyra Nijskens, Guusje van Noorden, Sylvie van Oosterhout, Anoek Oostermeijer, Desiree Palmen, Benyamin Perry, Marco Plinio Júnior, Dorine van der Ploeg, Branko Popovic, Han Rameckers, Jack Reubsaet, Helmie van de Riet, Roos Roberts, Johanna Roderburg, Astrid Rubie, Limmy Scheres, Sylvia Schols, Zoë Schoonbrood, Yvonne Schroeten, Simone Schuffelen, Rachel Simons – De Bie, Krista Smulders, Saskia Spitz, Risja Steeghs, Felix Stelten, Bram Tackenberg, Fienke Teeken, André Terlingen, Willy Thijs, Rebecca Treur, Michiel Ubels, Torsten Uerlings, Vanacruz, Tejo Verstappen, Aline Verstraten, Marianne Vestering, Ebba Vispad, Lukas Vonk, Marjan Vos, Joost Vrouenraets, Rob Walter, Bas de Weerd, Peter van Wegberg, Ron Weijtjens, John Weilacher, Jan Willms, Bas de Wit, Mickey Yang, Pippilotta Yerna, Marielle Yogi, Quinn Zeljak, Julia Zeltserman.
Exhibition Overview
Press about
Limburg Biënnale #1
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact communicatie@marres.org.
Thanks to
Limburg Biënnale #1 is made possible by Fonds21.
Currents #1: Wild Horses & Trojan Dreams
For Wild Horses & Trojan Dreams, curators Laura Herman and Pieter Vermeulen selected artists that offer new perspectives on current forms of authorship, subjectivity, knowledge and artistic research.
Curatoren: Laura Herman en Pieter Vermeulen
The participating artists challenge the boundaries of artistic freedom and explore the value of art today.
During the conception of the exhibition, curators Laura Herman and Pieter Vermeulen kept a blog.
Participating Artists
Fabian Altenried, Nima Bahremand, Lou Benesch, John Bijnens, Christophe Clarijs, Rens Cools, Lisa Decavel, Sven Dehens, Kipras Dubauskas, Sibe Duijsters, Daan Gielis, Laetitia Jeurissen, Ekaterina Kaplunova, Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir, Saori Kuno, Astrid Mingels, Juan Pablo Plazas, Sanne Vaassen, Jelena Vanoverbeek, Charles-Henry Sommelette.
Participating academies
Academie voor Beeldende Kunst Maastricht, Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten Gent, KASKA Antwerpen, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, MAD-Faculty Hasselt, PXL Universiteit Hasselt, Sint-Joost Den Bosch, Sint-Lucas Antwerpen, Sint-Lukas Brussel, Sint-Lucas Gent, The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts Liège.
Exhibition Overview
Artist Pecha Kucha
The Artist Pecha Kucha took place on 18 December 2013 at Lumière Cinema Maastricht. The afternoon lasted from 10:30 – 17:00. After the presentations there will be an informal meeting with drinks and snacks at the atelier of Maastricht-based artists and designers Valentin Löllmann and Fabian von Spreckelsen and writer Guus van Engelshoven.
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Currents #2: Rumour Has It
Marres Currents #2: Rumour Has It is the second episode of the annual exhibition series titled Marres Currents.
Curators: Hélène Webers and Mels Evers
With this series, Marres presents recent graduates from art academies in the Southern Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. While offering emerging artists and curators a platform, Marres also aims to build an international infrastructure for talent development.
Rumour Has It was curated by Hélène Webers and Mels Evers and presented a selection of contemporary art practice, featuring the work of inspired, young artists from the regions around
Maastricht. It was an impressive selection, with works by nineteen emerging artists, who, after their time at the academy, were now exhibiting their work to a wider public. These works were statements, each with its own execution and themes, which challenged the audience to view the work not as an irrefutable end product, but as a layered means of expression. In relation to current tendencies in contemporary art, the selected artists’ works were both surprising and convincing. They’ve taken flight from the art academies, with their sights firmly set on crossingborders. At the time of this exhibition, their work saw the light of day, it represented a contemporary current within the visual arts.
Rumour Has It was a proposition for searching and finding, both for the artists and the visitor. Amidst environments brimming with stories, shapes, colours, and performances, both met somewhere in the middle.
Participating Artists
R’m Aharoni, Laura van Biervliet, Oliver Blumek, Polien Boons, Jerome Daly, Lydia Debeer, Thorben Eggers, Carolin Eidner, Timo van Grinsven, Hanne Haesevoets, Tom Hallet, Evelien Mattheij, Tessa van der Meeren, Mike Moonen, Griet Moors, Vincent Vreeke, Moritz Wegwerth, Simon Weins and Arnold Wittenberg.
Participating academies
Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht, Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten Ghent, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, MAD-Faculty Hasselt & Genk, AKV|St.Joost Den Bosch & Breda, Sint-Lucas Antwerp, Sint-Lukas Brussels, Sint-Lucas Ghent.
Curators
Hélène Webers (1987) graduated in Museology at the Reinwardt Academy and Art History at the University of Amsterdam. She is involved in artists’ collective SERVICEGARAGE in Amsterdam. She also works as an independent curator. Before, she was assistant curator at SMART Project Space in Amsterdam.
Mels Evers (1987) graduated as a museum curator at the University of Amsterdam and specialized in performance art. He conducted research for the performance program of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and worked as a guest curator for various galleries. He is now program associate for the Friday Evenings of the Van Gogh Museum.
Exhibition Overview
Video’s artists
Public program
MEET THE ARTIST
January 4, 2015
Tom Hallet & Polien Boons
February 1, 2015
Mike Moonen
February 8, 2015
Vincent Vreeke and Griet Moors
FINISSAGE
February 12, 2015
Press about Rumour Has It
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Currents #3: Sightseeing
Marres Currents #3 is the third edition of the annual exhibition series titled Marres Currents.
Curators: Agata Jaworska, Ina Hollmann, Eva Jäger and Guillemette Legrand
With this series, Marres presents recent graduates from art academies in the Southern Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. While offering emerging artists and curators a platform, Marres also aims to build an international infrastructure for talent development.
Agata Jaworska is invited as guest curator for this year.
Jaworska teaches at the Sandberg Instituut, the Design Academy Eindhoven and the ArtEZ Institute of the arts. As a curator she created several exhibitions. Her outstanding exhibition In No Particular Order during the Dutch Design Week last year showed work of young designers. For Marres Currents #3, Jaworska gathered a team of curators around her. Ina Hollmann, Eva Jäger and Guillemette Legrand, (former) students of the Design Academy Eindhoven.
“We are interested in the way young artists position themselves in society and in their ideas about what an art practice can be”, says Jaworska. “Marres Currents offers artists the opportunity to think about emerging trends in the region and in broader discussions with artists, teachers, collectors, curators and the public”.
Marres aan de Maas
Marres Currents #3 takes place at a different location. Address: De Griend 2 Maastricht. We are calling this location Marres on the Maas. The Marres Currents #3 exhibition is open from 17.12.2015 until 5.2.2016.
Participating artists
Carlos Alfonso, Darcey Bennett, Maud van den Beuken, Jan van den Bosch, Asieh Dehghani, Stef van den Dungen, Mirte van Duppen, Ivo van den Elzen, Bauke Evers, Alessandra Ghiringhelli, Mikaël Groc, Fanny Hagmeier, Anja Kempa, Eva L’Hoest, Denis Maksimov, Claudia Mann, Thomas Min, Roel Neuraij, Renan Schulze & Eline Kersten, Charlotte Smet, Skye Sun, Giuditta Vendrame en Gladys Zeevaarders.
Participating academies
AKV|St.Joost Den Bosch & Breda, Fine Arts Royal Academy Liege, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, La Cambre Brussels, Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design Maastricht, Media, Arts & Design Faculty Hasselt, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp & Ghent, Sint-Lucas Beeldende Kunst Ghent, Sint-Lukas Brussels, St Lucas School of Arts Antwerp.
Guest Academies
Design Academy Eindhoven, Royal College of Art London, Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam, The Bartlett School of Architecture London.
Exhibition Overview
Sightseeing in De Brakke Grond Amsterdam
Part of the exhibition Marres Currents #3: Sightseeing was shown in Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond in Amsterdam from 19.02.2016 – 1.04.2016.
Public program
During the exhibition Marres Currents #3: Sightseeing, Marres and De Brakke Grond organised two debates.
Marres Dialogues took place on 3 February 2016 in Marres. The subject was ‘The paradox of objective representation’. Philippine Hoegen (artist, professor at AKV|St Joost) moderated the dialogue between Paula van den Bosch (curator hedendaagse kunst Bonnefantenmuseum), Chris Keulemans (writer and journalist) and Agata Jaworska and Guillemette Legrand (curators Marres Currents #3: Sightseeing).
On August 3 2016, De Brakke Grond organised a debate about: The Fiction of Discovery: Curating academies. With Agata Jaworska and Guillemette Legrand (Curators Marres Currents #3: Sightseeing), Annelies de Vet (designer, initiator and curator based in Brussels), Karen Verschooren (contemporary art and design curator based in Belgium), Jeroen Boomgaard( art historian and art critic based in Amsterdam).
Education program
For the exhibition Marres Currents #3: Sightseeing Marres has developed a special education program. This program can be downloaded and used as lesson material at schools.
Press about Currents #3 Sightseeing
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Currents #5: I Spy, I Spy a little lie
We see, we hear, we read, we exchange, and we get lost.
Curators: Isabel van Bos and Evelyn Simons
I Spy, I spy a little lie arose in response to growing frustrations regarding access to information and the valuation of knowledge. Recent events such as the Brexit referendum, undemocratic constitutional referendums in Poland and Turkey, and the presidential election of Donald Trump (which sparked the widespread usage of the term “fake news”), as well as the chaotic reception of the Catalan independence movement, created political turmoil and left the Western world perplexed and polarised. We ask: is it still possible to protect the truth in our contemporary democratic society? And, for that matter, has it ever been possible?
By re-examining the tools we use to communicate with one another, the works in this exhibition addressed how information and knowledge are shared today. In this era of digitalisation, virtualisation, and hyper information, reality exists on levels which seem to surpass our immediate perception. In extent, cyberspace or what we might call the “virtual world” is characterised by a continuous flux of information, facilitating the transfer of our ideas as well as the production of knowledge. In this context, online communities not only access and create content but also assess and regulate its quality. Are we able to protect ourselves from echo chambers, filter bubbles, covert political propaganda, and fake news within this self evaluating system?
An allusion made to ‘I spy’ (a game in which children are given clues of colour or shape in order to guess objects and thus develop their ability to categorise information) introduced the concept of play to the exhibition. What might have seemed like an innocent title at first glance, I spy, I spy a little lie evoked the idea that mere recognition of a dominant discourse does not grant access to truth, since such information is manipulated according to political policies, racial biases and consumerist agendas. Both individual and collective agency must be encouraged in order to refuse a passive citizenship where we would be reduced to the role of apathetic spectators.
For this project, the notion of play was activated through a scenographic intervention by the Italian collective Parasite 2.0, the graphic design by Roxanne Maillet (ERG Brussels), and further mediated in an educational program by Aurélie d’Incau.
Participating artists
Henry Andersen (KASK Ghent), Felix Breidenbach (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf), Alejandro Cerón (Dutch Art Institute Arnhem), Nicholas Hoffman (Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule Frankfurt am Main), Aurélie d’Incau (MAFAD Maastricht), Jesuus, (AKV | St. Joost Den Bosch), Tim Löhde (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf), José Montealegre (Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule Frankfurt am Main), Ektor Ntourakos (AKV | St. Joost Den Bosch), Johanna Odersky (Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule Frankfurt am Main), OJAI (Gary Farrelly (Sint-Lukas Brussels) & Chris Dreier), Nadia Perlov (Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule Frankfurt am Main), Maria Gil Ulldemolins (PXL MAD School of Arts Hasselt), and Remko Van der Auwera (Sint-Lukas Brussels).
Exhibition Overview
Performances during opening
During the opening of the exhibition and on special performance evenings, there were special performances that were part of the exhibition: Colonial Cocktails by Alejandro Cerón, Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence (Gary Farrelly and Chris Dreier) and Word of Daucus, World of Doubt by Nicholas Hoffman
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Mondriaan Fund
Currents #6: Good Intentions
Good Intentions, brought together personal stories and political statements dealing with identity, youth and cultural traditions.
Curators: Marian Cousijn, Bertan Selim and Anne Ruygt
From twerking to vlogging children, from the French Revolution to drone warfare and from pickling chestnuts to selling your soul for an ice cream.
Many of the selected artists moved to the Euregion from different parts of the world. Through their work they reflected on society and contemplated belonging in today’s established socio-political order. The artists treated subjects ranging from happiness to alienation; from controversial histories to the perversity of the internet. Their works question morality and focus on the tension that occurs between cultural appropriation, conformism and individualism.
Good Intentions combined photography, video, installation, performance, print and sculpture. Centering on the artists’ personal perspectives and experiences, it illustrated the complexity of self-definition in today’s world.
The exhibition presented the work of 17 emerging artists who recently graduated from Belgian, Dutch and German academies, and is part of the annual Currents series, organised by Marres and Z33.
The works of Pavel Balta and Nasrin Tork consisted partly of performances. During the exhibition they were present a few times in Marres to perform. The audience could for example sell their soul to Balta for an ice cream made of ceramic.
Curators
Marian Cousijn (1987) studied art history at the University of Amsterdam, followed by a Master’s degree curating art and cultures and a traineeship at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. She worked as a gallery manager at Upstream Gallery, a project assistant at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and as an art editor for the Dutch online platform The Correspondent. Last year Marian worked as a Mondriaan Fund Curatorial Fellow at Tate Modern.
Bertan Selim (1980) is a manager, editor and consultant in the arts, specialized in international grant making, photography and visual arts. Bertan currently works as head of Grants and Collaborations at the Prince Claus Fund in Amsterdam.
Anne Ruygt (1988) is an art historian and curator. She was part of the curatorial team at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 2016 she published an anthology of Dutch photography criticism, in collaboration with Frits Gierstberg and nai010 publishers. Anne writes for art magazines including Metropolis M and EXTRA.
Exhibition Overview
Videos participating artists
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Thanks to
Grensverleggers – supports cultural collaborations between parties in Flanders, the Province of Noord-Brabant, the Province of Limburg and the Province of Zeeland, Mondriaan Fund – he public cultural funding organization focusing on visual arts and cultural heritage and FLACC, which offered a residency to four participating artists.
Currents #4: Running Time
Similar to cinema, where running time indicates the full length of a film, Currents #4: Running Time offered indispensable time to a generation of artists who are interested in storytelling, myth, fact and fiction.
Curators: Barbara Cueto and Bas Hendrikx
The participating artists shared an interest in unravelling stories, whether true or fictionalised, and their work referred to narrativity, and cinematic time. The exhibition played with the cycles of knowing and becoming, and Marres Currents #4: Running Time acted as a framework for their stories to be continued.
The title ‘Running Time’ referred to the moment before an idea solidifies – the occasion that ignites the creative process. In current times of information overload, creative time is scarce. Yet it is this spare time in which a thought becomes a valuable idea, where a gut-feel or an afterimage triggers our attention. Running time is needed for the mind to associate freely, to let latent ideas surface.
Marres Currents #4: Running Time was a group-exhibition with artists who recently graduated in Belgium, the Ruhrgebiet in Germany, and the south of the Netherlands.
Curators
Barbara Cueto (ES) is curator of Vesselroom Project in Berlin. Before that, she worked as a curatorial fellow of Bétonsalon in Paris and guest curator at Mönchengladbach Open House. Bas Hendrikx (NL) is associate curator at P//////AKT. His forthcoming projects include The Queer Series for Framer Framed and Skulptur Bredelar (DE). He has previously worked for Galeria Plan B in Berlin, and Hotel Maria Kapel in Hoorn. Cueto and Hendrikx worked before as a team for the project Your Time Is Not My Time at De Appel arts centre Amsterdam and the Impakt Festival 2016 in Utrecht (NL).
Participating artists
Caroline Bosc (La Cambre, Brussels), Tim Bruggeman (KASK Ghent), Ralph Collier (Sint Lucas Antwerp), Nathalie De Corte (Académie des Beaux-Arts Liège), Ties van Dijk (MAFAD Maastricht), Kiki Goossen (MAD-faculty Hasselt), Miriam Gossing & Lina Sieckmann (KHM, Cologne), Tessa Groenewoud (KASK Ghent), Romee van Oers (AKV St. Joost Breda), Camille Picquot (KASK Gent), Allan Rand (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf), Miriam Sentler (MAFAD Maastricht), Puck Vonk (Sint Lucas Antwerp), Reinier Vrancken (AKV St. Joost Den Bosch) and Thomas Wachholz (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf).
Exhibition Overview
Videos participating artists
Public program
During the opening, special evenings and the finissage of the exhibition participating artists did a number of performances. The film Oceans Hill Drive by Miriam Gossing & Lina Sieckmann was also screened. A recording was made of Puck Vonk’s performance The Neologism of the Female Voice. La Loba, a performance installation by Caroline Bosc was performed once in Marres. During the events Thomas Wachholz and Nathalie de Corte performed as well.
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Intimate Geographies
Under the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the notion of home has been completely disrupted: the office, the studio, the shops, the museum, the restaurants and the bars invited themselves inside our houses, either symbolically or virtually.
Home is no longer solely the attractive physical and mental space that it used to be; it has also become a space for endless waiting.
During Intimate Geographies two protagonists occupied Marres. This artist couple made sporadic appearances in the homely environment established within the art centre and could have been mistaken for visitors. The awkwardness of their actions and their behavior made their presence more salient. You might have caught them having lunch in the dining room, making phone calls, napping or working in their studios.
The exhibition presented different experiences and environments, including a landscaped garden full of plants that the couple had in their former house in Beirut, a living room where the two are having a mundane discussion on a couch overlooking a curiously undulating carpet, or a dining room where they had lunch surrounded with embroidered curtains from another time-space. As a visitor, you infiltrated their intimate and professional lives, little by little.
Charbel-Joseph H. Boutros and Stéphanie Saadé’s duo exhibition Intimate Geographies comprehended ever-rising parameters: it reflected on the complex agency of exhibition making, as well as the entanglement of the different elements that allow artworks and exhibitions to unfurl within a precarious and fragile art world. Lebanese artist Roy Samaha was invited by Saadé and Boutros to intervene in their exhibition Intimate Geographies with two of his video works.
Artists
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros (Lebanon, 1981) lives and works between Beirut and Paris. In his work invisibility is charged with intimate, geographical and historical layers: finding poetic lines that extend beyond the realm of existing speculations and realities. Being born amidst the Lebanese conflict, his work is not engaged in an explicit political and historical reflection, but is more accurately haunted by the said political and historical reflection.
Boutros was a resident at the Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo and a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy. He had a solo exhibition at S.M.A.K. Museum (Ghent), Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and Beirut Art Center. His work was included in exhibitions at venues such as the 12th International Istanbul Biennial, Punta Della Dogana (Venice), Centre Pompidou (Metz) and Home Works 8 (Beirut).
Stéphanie Saadé (Lebanon, 1983) lives between Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam. Her work develops a language of suggestion, playing with poetics and metaphor. She shares clues, signs, imageless and occasionally silent trails, which interact like the words of a single sentence. It is for the viewer to decipher them, as would an archaeologist faced with traces, fossils, and fragments. This enigmatic quality often stems from the artist’s own experience. In her oeuvre, personal experience is invoked exclusively as a universal subject.
Saadé was an artist in residence at Jan van Eyck Academy and the Cité Internationale des Arts. She had solo exhibitions in Museum Van Loon, Parc Saint Léger and Maison Salvan. Her work was included in exhibitions at venues such as the 13th Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates), Punta della Dogana (Venice), MOCA (Toronto).
Lebanese artist Roy Samaha was invited by Saadé and Boutros to intervene in their exhibition Intimate Geographies. Two of his video works are continuously screened in the projection room. Samaha explores the boundaries of filmic language, perception of reality and the memory of personal objects.
Exhibition Overview
Elements
This exhibition is part of the ELEMENTS partnership in which contemporary art and cultural institutions in Dutch Limburg, Belgian Limburg and Liège program around an ‘element’ associated with the region. For more information go to elements2021.eu.
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History’s Footnote
In History’s Footnote: on Love and Freedom 11 international artists from Afrika to Alaska unravel traumas of racial, gender, sexual, and cultural injustices.
This group exhibition by the South-African curator Khanyisile Mbongwa connects the stories of film makers, visual artists, singers and poets about decolonization, lost language, collective protest and forgotten history. A central theme in the exhibition is the quest for love and freedom to which history serves as a footnote.
‘Without freedom, no love is possible,’ says Mbongwa, ‘and without love there is no freedom.’ History’s Footnote gives space to the forgotten stories and offers sight to the emancipation and awareness necessary for the creation of a better future.
Artists
FELIPE CASTELBLANCO (Bogotá, Colombia 1985) is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher, working at the intersection of participatory, film, and media art. His work explores institutional forms, creates platforms for interepistemic dialogue, ventures out into new frontiers of publicness, and engages remote and unlikely audiences. Castelblanco holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and is currently completing a practice-based PhD in Basel, exploring avenues for biocultural peace-building, and territorial and epistemic justice in the Colombian Pan-Amazon region. He has been the recipient of several international awards, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (US 2019) and The Starr Fellowship at the Royal Academy Schools in London (UK, 2015). Recent shows include the 2019 Quebec Biennial and Seasons of Media Arts 2020 at ZKM in Karlsruhe (Germany).
NICHOLAS GALANIN’s (Sitka, Alaska, United States, 1979) work engages with contemporary culture from a perspective rooted in the land. His work departs from incisive observations and investigations into the intersections of culture and concept in form, image, and sound. Galanin’s works embody critical thought as vessels of knowledge, culture, and technology — inherently political, generous, unflinching, and poetic.
LUNGISWA GQUNTA (Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1990) is a visual artist working in performance, printmaking, sculpture, and installation. She deconstructs spatial modes of exclusion and oppression by addressing the access to and ownership of land, unravelling multisensory experiences that highlight persistent social imbalances — legacies of both patriarchal dominance and colonialism. She aims to disrupt this status quo with material references to guerrilla tactics and protest. Gqunta obtained her bachelor degree in fine Art at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2012 and a master’s degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2017. She has been in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2019–2021) and participated in the Manifesta 12 (Palermo, Italy, 2018) and the 15th Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 2017). She held solo exhibitions at, amongst others, ZOLLAMTMMK Museum of Modern Art (Frankfurt, 2021) and Apalazzo Gallery (Brescia, Italy, 2018) and was part of exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2021) and Mercusol Bienal Brasil (2020).
NONCEDO GXEKWA (Ladysmith, South Africa, 1981) lives and works in Cape Town. Her practice engages with collaborative forms of photography, individuals, and nature. She completed her studies at CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology) in 2010. She recently collaborated in the Moonsoon Project, a performative research project looking into decolonizing cultural practices emerging in South Africa. She participated in various group shows, such as Connecting Views at the National Museum of World Cultures (Leiden, NL, 2021), The SAME SAME Show at Gallery One11 (Cape Town, 2018) and Content at Quoin Rock Wine Estate (Cape Town, 2020).
HYMN_SELF aka SIYABONGA MHLELI MTHEMBU (South Africa, 1984) is a Johannesburg-based creative activist, performer and curator. He performs lead vocals as Hymn_ self in his band The Brother Moves On that, in its love for the esoteric and eccentric in what it is to be rhythmically South African, pays homage to South African jazz, rock, and funk. Mthembu is also the lead singer of Shabaka and the Ancestors, a South African super band led by UK-born saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings.
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1983) is a writer and visual artist. Words are the object of many of her artistic works. She adopted her name from her great-grandmother, who belonged to an indigenous pre-Columbian culture in the Amazon region. This Marajoara culture is revived as an ancestral memory in her body. Janaú is interested in different art languages such as installations, images, and printed texts, and also in sharing experiences through ritual actions. She seeks to elaborate individual and collective memory in Abya Yala* and reflects on possible cures for the colonial trauma. * Abya Yala is the name used by many Native American people to refer to the American continent.
EURIDICE ZAITUNA KALA (1987, Maputo, Mozambique) is a Mozambican artist based in Paris. She was trained as a photographer at the Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg. She is the current laureate of the ADAGP (Association for the Development of the Graphic and Visual Arts) / Villa Vassilieff fellowship, has been awarded several residencies on the African continent and performed at venues such as The Centre Pompidou (Paris), Galerie Saint-Séverin (Paris), and the Infecting the City Festival (Cape Town, 2017). Her work was included in exhibitions such as the Stellenbosch Triennial (2020), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Germany) and the 4th Triennial of Small-scale Sculpture in Fellbach (Germany, 2019).
ERIC MAGASSA (Gothenburg SE, 1972) is a multidisciplinary artist, combining mixed-media collage, painting, and photography. He explores issues of identity, its intermediary nature and its connection to memories and places. A recurring theme in his work is the mask, both as an object and as a boundary. Magassa studied at Central Saint Martins, London and The Art Students League of New York. Recent presentations include Passagen Konsthall (Linköping SE, 2020), Gibca (Gothenburg SE, 2019), Valongo Festival (Santos BR, 2019), Alingsa° s (Konsthall SE, 2019) and the Moderna Exhibition (Stockholm SE, 2018).
Angolan multimedia artist and elucidator NÁSTIO MOSQUITO is known for performances, videos, music, and poetry. His work shows an intense commitment to the openended potential of language. Easily misread as a kind of world weariness, it is the extraordinary expression of an urgent desire to engage with reality at all levels. Mosquito has performed at music festivals within the context of visual arts programs — Biennale of Bordeaux (2009), Tate Modern (2012), Berardo Collection (2013). He also has a lively online presence, including an app and an album Se Eu Fosse Angolano. Previous group exhibitions include Centre Pompidou (Brussels, 2021), Nest (The Hague, 2020) and Stellenbosch Triennale (2020).
GÉRALDINE TOBE’s (Kinshasa, Congo, 1992) creative process shows a willingness to break down aesthetic, artistic, societal, religious, and political barriers through freedom and free will. She expresses this in a provocative and arrogant way to let prejudices, formats, and stereotypes give way to innovation. This artistic practice allows Tobe to overturn aesthetic, cultural and societal boundaries and challenge stereotypical considerations based on appearances. She invites her audience to see the world differently — a world in full change. Tobe graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa. Recent presentations of her work include Institut Fran ais de Kinshasa (2018), Jinan International Biennial (China, 2020) and African Women Artists at Galerie ART-z (Paris, 2020).
KEMANG WA LEHULERE’s (Cape Town, South Africa, 1984) work not only revels in narratives featuring everyday objects, but it also unravels the potential in ordinary objects to relay multiple layers of narratives that are embedded in them. Having grown up in the working-class flats of Gugulethu, 15 km outside Cape Town, Wa Lehulere understands that objects never have a singular value or utility; their function is consistently in flux. He therefore doesn’t just attach abstract meanings to them but rather attempts to unearth, dig out, or investigate other narratives that are already inscribed in them. One can think about how porcelain dogs are not merely a commentary on black
Curator: Khanyisile Mbongwa
Khanyisile Mbongwa is a Cape Town based independent curator, award winning artist and sociologist. She works with public space in which interdisciplinary and performative practices unpack complexities such as the socio-political, economic, racial and gender-queer nuances of the everyday.
Mbongwa uses creativity to instigate spaces for emancipatory practices, joy and play. In the past, she has worked with Norval Foundation as Adjunct Curator for performative practices, Cape Town Carnival as curatorial and social development advisor and was the Chief Curator of the Stellenbosch Triennale 2020.
Exhibition Overview
Series
This exhibition is part of a series of Marres explorations of history and injustice. Previous projects in this series were: The Unwritten (2014) and The Measure of Our Travelling Feet (2016).
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Codex Subpartum
In the exhibition Codex Subpartum, a spectacular sound installation transformed eight visual artworks into eight sound pieces.
Marathon-edition
Unfortunately, the exhibition closed one day after its opening on December 18. Because of the lockdown, some of the sound pieces from the original planning were not accessible to the public. With the reopening of the cultural sector, Marres adapts the original concept. Instead of presenting each of the eight compositions successively for five days, visitors will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the entire cycle of the eight sound pieces daily between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Wall of sound
In Codex Subpartum, you walk along a wall of sound on the ground floor of Marres, while the original artwork from which the music was distilled is featured upstairs. The eight artworks are by, amongst others, Joseph Beuys, Suzanne Treister, and Bob Cobbing.
Line-up sound pieces
From Saturday 29 January through Sunday 6 February between 9 am and 5 pm, the eight sound pieces will play one after the other in the order listed below:
- 9 – 10 am: Wacław Szpakowski – From the series A: A 1, 1930 (microtonal tuba, trombone, voice)
- 10 – 11 am: Milan Grygar, Score, 1973 (microtonal tuba, trombone, French horn, voice, electronics, field recordings)
- 11 – 12 am: Alina Szapocznikow – Drawing 41, ca. 1970 (voice)
- 12 – 1 pm: Władysław Strzemiński – No title, from the series: Faces, 1942 (French horn)
- 1 – 2 pm: Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor – Rain [Ploaia], 2005 (microtonal tuba, trombone, French horn, field recordings)
- 2 – 3 pm: Joseph Beuys – Beuys by Warhol, 1980 (microtonal tuba, trombone, French horn)
- 3 – 4 pm: Suzanne Treister – HEXEN 2.0 / Diagrams / The Computer From the Antikythera Mechanism to Quantum Telepathology, 2009–2011 (microtonal tuba, trombone, French horn, stem, electronics, bomb, field recordings)
- 4 – 5 pm: Bob Cobbing – No title, 1976 (microtonal tuba, trombone, French horn)
Exhibition Overview
Artistic team
Michał Libera, Barbara Kinga Majewska and Konrad Smolénski. Codex Subpartum is a concept and initiative by Muzeum Sztuki.
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Currents #7: Birds of a Feather
In his ‘Mal d’Archives’ (1995), the French critic and philosopher Jacques Derrida describes the archive as an entity that absorbs, protects, conceals, but also reveals the things that connect us.
We alternatingly desire or fear the flood of information with which we are confronted daily. In the eye of this visual and textual storm, the physical, mental or digital archive appears to offer a moment of repose. The same goes for the artists who test their collection of images, symbols and stories against that mass culture. It is this shared exploration that connected their work in this exhibition. Or as the English proverb has it: birds of a feather flock together.
Curators: Melanie Deboutte & Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte
Participating artists
Birds of a Feather presents works by seven recent fine arts graduates: Myrthe Baptist (BE), Justine Court (FR), Jonathan De Maeyer (BE), Jonas Dehnen (DE), Leroy Meyer (BE) and Naama Roth (IL). Each of them attempts to grasp a strange and confusing reality. The result is a confrontation of seven separate but harmoniously interwoven stories in a cross-over of painting, installations, sculptures, ceramics, photography, film, and graphic design.
Exhibition Overview
Press
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Thanks to
FLACC, Grensverleggers and the Dutch Embassy in Belgium.
Currents #8: And Me, Streams of You
The eighth edition of Currents, titled And Me, Streams of You, brought together 14 young recently graduated artists from Belgium, Southwest Germany, and the Southeast Netherlands, in a network of stories, experiences, and viewpoints.
In a variety of forms, from installation to textile, and from video to performance, the selected artworks embodied the diverse streams between subjectivity and context.
Some of the artists were guided by lived experiences, some investigated historical tropes of cultural meaning or mythology through their relevance in a contemporary context and others proposed a highly personal take on systems of language.
For the first time since the start of Currents in 2013, due to the corona pandemic, a (targeted) open call was used to select artists. This gave graduating artists the opportunity to present their work to the curators, as many graduation shows had been canceled or postponed. The talent development process was also different from previous years. The training day, on which in previous years all artists gathered at Marres to present their work to each other and to network, took place online.
The exhibition was part of the long-running project Currents, which is a co-production by Marres and Z33.
Artists
Manon Clement (LUCA, Gent), Günbike Erdemir (KASK, Gent), Puck Kroon (St Joost, Breda), María Morales Arango (LUCA, Brussel), Anthony Ngoya (La Cambre, Brussel), Hilde Onis (KASK, Gent), Marios Pavlou (Kunsthochschule für Medien, Keulen), Hannah Sakai & Maria Smit (Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem), Wilf Speller & Nilz Källgren (Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem), Daniel Vorthuys (ArtEZ, Arnhem), Eugen Wist (Städelschule, Frankfurt), Karen Zimmermann (Kunsthochschule für Medien, Keulen).
Curators
Helena Julian (Belgium) is a curator and writer. She studied Art History and Critical Theory at the University of Antwerp. She writes for artists, institutions and magazines and teaches at the Sandberg Instituut. She was an assistant curator for If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and organized solo exhibitions for bologna.cc.
Tim Hollander (The Netherlands) is an artist, curator, scenographer and designer. He earned his Bachelor Fine Arts at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht in 2014 and in attended the residency program at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht 2016-2017. He works in a variety of media including installation, sculpture, drawing and self-published books.
Exhibition Overview
Artist’s video portraits
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Currents #9: Mother(Land)
Ten recent graduates focus on their own family tree.
Curators: Fenne Saedt (NL) and Lieneke Hulshof (NL).
In Mother(Land), the artists showed that your identity is shaped by your personal history and the places where that history took place. When we look at our parents, and their ancestors, the land they walked on, the cities they lived in, the work they did or the struggles they fought, we come across stories that still inhabit us somewhere deep within. Those stories are now lived; crawl through your skin, feed your taste and define your outlook. They form a family tree: an idea that permeated all the works in this group exhibition. Sometimes literally, sometimes in the form of religions that characterized their childhood, the country of origin that no longer exists or old friendships that have come to feel like a family. An exhibition showing an array of art forms. From sculptures to costumes, from photography to ceramics.
Participating artists
Anne Arndt (GDR), Sigurrós Björndóttir (IS), Emilia Chinwe Brys (BE), Lou Cocody-Valentino (MQ/FR), Doris Kolpa (NL), Telma Lemarchand (FR), Denys Shantar (UA/CH), Seppe Vancraywinkel (BE), Joppe Venema (NL) and Theresa Weber (DE).
Exhibition Overview
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Kolkata: Run in the Alley
The exhibition Kolkata: Run in the Alley offered a spectacular artistic period view of the metropolis of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in India.
The project grew out of the art in residence project CARF, which in recent years brought a series of artists living in the Netherlands to Kolkata, to explore the city under the guidance of local artists. During their working periods, the local and visiting artists became friends. At Marres, they created a joint exhibition in which their techniques, disciplines and perspectives melded into an intensely layered image of the metropolis. Cast bronze sculptures, cardboard furniture, harmonica books, posters, carpets and drawings were brought together in a scenography of bamboo scaffolding. Also on display were works by classical masters Sarbari Roy Choudhury, Ganesh Haloi, Somnath Hore and historical pieces by forgotten fashion designer Riten Mozumdar. None of the Indian artists’ work
had been seen in the Netherlands before.
Bios of participating artists & curators
Nilanjan Bhattacharya (Kolkata, India, 1968) is an independent Indian filmmaker, artist, and writer. He has produced and directed several acclaimed films and diverse media art works. Bhattacharya has a keen interest in biodiversity, food cultures, and indigenous knowledge systems in India and he has produced many films and art works around these themes. This filmmaker received the President’s Award of India twice for his documentaries, Under This Sun (2005), and Johar: Welcome to our World (2010). Other films include Bengalis in the World of Fish (2001), and Rain in the Mirror (2012).
Tim Breukers (Breda, the Netherlands, 1985) studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He followed residency programs at art centers in the Netherlands — International Artist-in- Residence and Center of Excellence for Ceramics (EKWC), and Hotel Maria Kapel — as well as at international art centers: Calcutta Art and Research Foundation, MMCA Seoul, and Bus Projects Melbourne. He has participated in various group exhibitions, including at the De Pont museum in Tilburg, W139 in Amsterdam, NEST in The Hague, and at the Korean Changwon Sculpture Biennale. His work can be found in collections at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Centraal Museum Utrecht and the Design Museum Den Bosch.
Saumik Chakraborty (Kolkata, India, 1975) is an interdisciplinary art practitioner from Kolkata. He has worked as an artistic director and scenographer in more than 150 theater productions and has created a great number of critically acclaimed designs for major theater productions of Kolkata. In his designs, his focus is against the power elite and for the suppressed minorities, who are constantly forced to move and can barely function at a subsistence level. His first solo exhibition was Of Lower Heavens, Vaporous Scars in A.M (Art Multi-disciplines) Studio, Kolkata, 2018. Group shows he participated in include Dark Side of the Moon in Gallery 1000A, New Delhi, 2022, Strides at Stake, A.M (Art Multi-disciplines) Studio, Kolkata, 2020, and Human Ecology & Art, Chattagram, Bangladesh, 2017. Chakraborty was a collaborator and co-participant for the show Moder Kono Desh Nai, Moder Kono Disha Nai at Forum Schlossplatz, Switzerland, 2014. He also participated in site-specific projects including Exploring the Making of Myths, in Sundarban, West Bengal, 2012.
Arunima Choudhury went to school at Santiniketan in the late seventies, where she encountered the concrete sculptures by Ramkinkar Baij, the epic mural titled Medieval Saints by Benode Behari Mukherjee at Hindi Bhavana, many original works by Rabindranath Tagore, and Nandalal Bose at Viswa Bharati’s museum collection. Under the guidance of teacher K. G. Subramanyan of the Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan, she explored new mediums while removing barriers between art and craft as well as form and content. Committed to an ethic of eco sensitivity and self sufficiency, Choudhury makes her drawings with vegetable pigments on acid free handmade paper and cotton fabric. Nature and women are her favorite themes
Gautam Choudhury’s figures and faces are made up of marks, scratches, lines, and rubbings followed by the shadows of the past, present, and future. At the same time, the specter of erasure and continuous defacement looms large. Touched deeply by the history of life as the conflict zone, Choudhury’s works are shaped by the continuum of time and refuse any selective representation. In this exhibition, his paintings and drawings speak for themselves in a breathtaking direct and naked way. Eschewing narrative tropes, issues, and concepts, they focus on a single human form.
Sarbari Roy Choudhury (Ulpur, East Bengal, India, 1933 – Kolkata, India, 2012) attended the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata, the University of Baroda and the Accademia de Belle Arti di Firenze, where he came into contact with Alberto Giacometti and Henry Moore. Combining influences from Ramkinkar Baij and Prodosh das gupta, with their counterparts from Western modern art, most of his work consist of cast bronze sculpture. Highly abstracted and profoundly inspired by Hindustani classical music, the human form often finds a dream-like quality in his work. Some describe it as objectified sensibility.
Bonno van Doorn strives to create images that are beyond accepted classification to counter the world of logic and efficiency. He weaves these images into personal col lections of form, color and visual associations, which he views as proposals for a taxonomy of a temporary order. In this environ ment everything speaks for something else. The shrine piles up copies of reproductions the artist found when wandering the streets of the city in a search for the order of things. Expressing his sense of wonder and estrange ment, it is an ode to the streets and people of the city.
Sanchayan Ghosh In the past decades, Ghosh has developed a site-specific art practice that invites community dialogues through workshops. The work form is inspired by the performative activities initiated by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan and the workshop games of Badal Sircar (a theater activist in Kolkata). In this room, Ghosh presents the practices of women roof makers from Bengal. The work is part of a larger project in which the artist makes memoirs of Kolkata dwellers. This memoir is devoted to the songs that were sung by the Bauri community of female Bengali artisans while breaking the bricks to make handmade roofs. The roofs belong to early architectural traditions that were passed on from an Islamic tradition to the European houses built in Kolkata until the 1960’s. Today this type of roof making is a lost tradition only remembered by the few living members of the last generation of roof makers, some of whom reside in Birbhum near Santiniketan.
Nobina Gupta’s work deals with the relationships between sociospatial realities, climate emergencies, and behavioral changes. She initiated and curated the Disappearing Dialogues Collectives that strives — with practitioners, youth from communities, and organizations — toward conservation and sustainability of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW). Located at the periphery of Kolkata, the wetlands boast of a unique natural waste management system. At the core of this system lies a set of sustainable practices involving pisciculture and agriculture whose affordable fresh produce and water are essential to the city’s economy and welfare. Patachitra — The story of East Kolkata Wetlands is a work created in collaboration with the folk artist Mamoni Chitrakar. Through a traditional format of storytelling accompanied by a folk song, this work highlights the unique elements of the EKW and the contributions of the wetland community. Regenerative Cycles: The Story of Wetland Ecology highlights the various invisible circles of symbiosis and sustainability underpinning the various elements of this thriving ecosystem.
Ganesh Haloi (Jamalpur, East Bengal, India, 1936) after attending the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata, Haloi joined the Archaeological Survey of India, where he was commissioned to document the world-renowned Ajanta cave paintings. He returned to Kolkata in 1964 to become a lecturer at the Art College, Kolkata. Like Hore and Roy Choudhury, Haloi fled from East Bengal to Kolkata, after the partition of Bengal created East Pakistan, later Bangladesh. His work often focused on his place of birth, which assumed mythical proportions perhaps in part because of his regret to be unable to return. His stylized and highly abstracted works capture the essence of subjective recollection.
Somnath Hore (Chittagong, East Bengal, India, 1921 – Santiniketan, India, 2006) studied at Government Art college, Kolkata and Santiniketan, where he later became head of the Graphics and Printmaking department. A printmaker by heart, Hore gained notoriety for his depiction of major historical events of twentieth century Bengal, starting with the documentation of the Bengal Famine in 1943 that claimed the lives of between 2 million and 4 million people. From the 1970s onwards, Hore integrated sculpture in his practice. Employing diverse artistic media, his work focused throughout his career on the scope and depth of human suffering and celebration.
Henri Jacobs’s visual work is characterized by a deep fascination with flatness and surface. Often, he uses the weaving technique of paper or linen in which old and new work are recycled into a surface that is both image and pattern. During a two-month residency in Kolkata in 2014, he photographed the battered Kolkata pavement patterns. The patterns from Kolkata evolved during a porcelain residency in Arita (2016, Japan) and ceramics residency in the European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) Oisterwijk (2018, the Netherlands). In Marres, the geometric concrete pavers from Kolkata are translated into ceramics and imitate the colliding patterns from the city.
Manuel Klappe (Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1982) studied Art History, Philosophy, and Economics at the University of Amsterdam, and received a Masters of Arts in 2011. After organizing exhibitions Beeld Hal Werk (2010) and Present Forever (2012) in the Kromhouthal and an abandoned parking garage in Amsterdam, he co-founded the artists initiative KAFANA. In 2014, he was the first participant of the CARF residency program, which reignited two earlier interests: first the history and workings of historical encounters between East and West with an emphasis on its artistic exponents in regional modernisms — and, second, the collecting of the same.
Maartje Korstanje’s artistic practice is driven by a strong awareness of the ephemeral nature of life. Her sculptures often show the transition between growth and decay, in the natural world as well as in the human made world. Usually, they are crude yet elegant shapes made out of simple materials including cardboard and glue. More recently she also started adding machine embroidery in her sculptural prac tice. For the exhibition in Marres, she creates sculptural furniture based on the banyan trees she observed in Kolkata.
Sachi Miyachi sculpts the here-andnow. She is inspired by the oppositions between nature, humans and technology, and the ways these play out in public space. She researches and artistically translates our collective efforts to handle this space: measuring, comparing, scaling, representing, and designing and altering bodies, architectural spaces, and landscape. Miyachi’s work offers a response to the world she finds herself consumed by. At the same time, it tracks her ambition to a ritualistic and obsessive crafting of her mental archive. Practising Structures: India offers a series of drawings she made during her residency in Kolkata as a daily exercise in observing Kantha embroidery and the ever-changing street scenery in Kolkata.
Riten Mozumdar (Kasur, Punjab, India, 1927 – Santiniketan, West Bengal, India, 2006) was one of the most significant artist-designers of the Indian modernist design renaissance. In the decades following India’s struggle for independence (the 1940s) and responding to the socioeconomic and cultural upheaval sweeping through the country, Mozumdar approached design as a complex nation-building idiom focusing on modernization and revivalism. This period witnessed exploratory arcs between India and the world in politics, art, culture, design, engineering, and architecture. Between the 1950s and 1980s, his celebrated and influential praxis heralded a new brand of aesthetics within India. Mozumdar’s work displays a diversity of range and materials. He worked with metal crafts, namdahs (felted wool rugs), wood carvings, hand-painted, block-printed, or silk-screened textiles (furnishings, dresses, sarees, scarves) wood blocks, and furniture. He also designed women’s fashion apparel that was exported to several countries, including Australia and the Middle East. In 1955–56, he worked as a textile designer with the Finnish design company Marimekko and made numerous original designs for their collection.
Benode Behari Mukherjee(Behala, India, 1904–1980) studied under Nandalal Bose at Tagore’s Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan. In 1925, he became a professor at the same school, where he taught many prominent Indian artists including K.G. Subramanyan, Somnath Hore, Riten Mazumdar and Satyajit Ray. In 1947, the year of India’s independence, he worked on his now famous murals at Hindi Bhavan in Santiniketan, generally viewed as one of the starting points of India’s post-independence modernism. Combining influences from the West as well as further East, Mukherjee created an individual style, often using silk as carrier, following the long ink wash traditions of China and Japan. Having had trouble with his sight from birth, Mukherjee turned completely blind in 1957 and continued his practice by way of collages.
Sumantra Mukherjee develops imagery for the public domain that reflects on contemporary Indian society. Following a tradition of agitprop posters and protest flyers, the colorful, and whimsical images speak out for local struggles and changes and draw out a dialogue with audiences not primarily interested in artistic practice. Overlapping and cohabiting ideas and techniques in Indian folk culture with the contemporary, Mukherjee’s murals show clay figurative idols of gods and demons washed away of their glory, showing hay tied to sticks, abstract structures with their human details withered away. Mukherjee designed the campaign image for this exhibition that shows Kali, goddess of destruction, with a bead necklace of souls, holding up a selfie. The goddess represents the darkness from which everything is created. Considered a beautiful feminine energy, in Sanskrit Her name means ‘force of time.’
Ruchama Noorda In performance, sculpture and installation works, Noorda recycles elements of the reform movement that both engage and challenge contemporary communitarian and counter cultural practices and beliefs. By highlighting the mysti cal and magical elements within the Reform tradition along with other undigested and ‘irrational’ materials, her works perform a séance function: excavating repressed and buried histories in ways that set out to complicate hard distinctions between progres sive and conservative social and artistic movements. During her Kolkata residence, she explored the theosophic roots of the reform movement. In her Newspaper Works, she uses clay, pigment and dirt that are ritually used for cleansing to frame profane and spiritual ideas. The brass dishes and antennae serve to amplify and broadcast esoteric ideas.
Srikanta Paul Trained as a printmaker, Paul uses lithography, etching, viscosity, and serigraphy. Currently, he builds on a rich Kolkatan popular tradition of woodcut printing. The still vibrant printers’ Chitpur area still shows traces of an earlier period in which Kolkata produced the indigenously styled advertisements, books, calendars, and posters rich in mythical characters and icons that were to be found in every household. To Paul, these icons and mythology offer a language to speak about contemporary society.
Ganesh Pyne (Kolkata, India, 1937–2013) began his artistic career as a book illustrator and animator of cartoons at the Madar Mullick film studio, before attending the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkata. Raised in the old and densely populated north part of Kolkata, he had an intimate knowledge of its streets and byways that were sometimes too narrow for sunlight to come in. Unable to afford colors, his early work consists mainly of black and white, pen and ink drawings. This sober palette, later enriched by hues of brown, red, and blue in tempera, would stay with him throughout his career. With the poetic surrealism of crumbling facades and old folktales, Pyne created a visual language uniquely his own. It is in high demand today. The title for this exhibition is taken from the work shown here.
Piyali Sadhukhan (Kolkata, India, 1979) graduated from Rabindra Bharati University in 2004 and Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University. Her engagement with layers of memory, knowledge and meaning takes her to everyday found objects and economical raw materials. Her new oeuvre turns to the individual, as she moves toward the intangible, weathered imaginations of form. Her chief shows are Moder Kono Desh Nai, Moder Kono Disha Nai at Forum Schlossplatz, Zwitserland (2015), A Room of Her Own at Gandhara art gallery, Kolkata (2015) and Urban narratives at Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo (2012). She made headlines with her huge Kaliya installation on the courtyard of the Indian museum, Kolkata (2014). In 2021, she had solo shows in the gallery of Akar Prakar, was participant in The Artissima Art Fair and in Classical Radical, a show organized in fondazione Torino Musei, Turin, Italy. Sadhukhan also works as an artistic director and scenographer. Together with Saumik Chakraborty she is a sought-after builder of temporary pavilions (pandals) for the yearly Hindu festival Durga Puja. The pandals are constructed from bamboo scaffolding and built to house the goddess Durga.
Ushmita Sahu (Kolkata, West Bengal, India, 1973) is the Director and Head Curator of Emami Art, Kolkata. With a background in fine arts from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, Sahu has worked for several years as an artist, curator, art writer and scholar and has numerous national and international projects to her credit. As a scholar, she is a leading authority on the practice of the modernist artist-designer Riten Mozumdar. She has curated IMPRINT: Riten Mozumdar, a compact survey retrospective about the designer at Emami Art, Kolkata, in 2022 and Chatterjee and Lal, Mumbai, in 2020. A recipient of the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) research grant for her research on Mozumdar, she has authored several pieces on the designer, which includes a monograph in Bengali. Sahu is currently working towards a publication on Mozumdar and Indian design history.
Amritah Sen’s work focuses on personal narratives that create alternative versions to the official history. Fear Books were a part of an almost five-year-long quest for stories that cross different social, mental, and geographical boundaries. It deals with one of the most basic emotions of life: ‘fear.’ Listening to the stories of many people in India’s neighboring states, Sen’s intention was to discover if this negative emotion also triggers positive traits in us including bonding and connecting to the past.
Sarbajit SenThe present work Rains is taken from Ramblings, an autobiographical graphic novel that tries to map an entire Bengali middle-class mindscape through a series of significant social political junctures in West Bengal. The background is built on memories and lived experiences, which include romanticizing the USSR model of socialism in the post-independence days to getting enmeshed in the trappings of power at the cost of many compromises. This includes procreating a basically complacent middle-class gentry as a corpulent, though corrosive, humongous body of voters. The story takes us back to apparently insignificant personal accounts of the people the artist lived with — accounts of love and treachery, greed and violence, defeatism and crudity. Its only disclaimer is that not a single character here is fictitious. Some of them are even still alive.
Paula Sengupta’s work addresses gender binaries, enforced migration, homelessness, heritage and environment, and a concern for the conservation of societies, communities, and ecologies. Hereby she uses methods and materials applied in feminist thought. Reconstructed from a story narrated by two Tibetan women in exile in India, The Monkey & the Dog throws light upon Sinicization of Tibet. It tells of how the small Himalayan trading village of Toe Yancho Tanga was visited by two soldiers in blue suits, who brought with them a caged monkey and a dog. The two animals were made to plow a field for the amusement of the villagers, who soon grew wary, suspecting it to be a bad omen. Sure enough, the blue soldiers soon came in hordes, changing life in the idyllic village forever. Using the mediums of etching and serigraphy, the scroll derives from the traditional thangkas of Tibet, some of which are linear paintings in gold on black backgrounds.
Praneet Soi (Kolkata, India, 1971) moved to the Netherlands in 2002 to attend the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. He currently divides his time between Amsterdam and Kolkata. This oscillatory movement impacts his practice. Soi identifies over time, patterns that emerge from an investigation of his extended social and economic landscape. Recent exhibitions include Berlin Biennale 2022, Positions 6: Bodywork at the VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven, 2020-21, Anamorphosis: Notes from Palestine, Winter in the Kashmir Valley at Mosaic Rooms, London, 2019 and Third Factory: From Kashmir to Lisbon via Caldas at the Gulbenkian Museum, 2018. In 2011 Soi was of of 4 artists representing India within the Indian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.
Arthur Stokvis Menacing neon camouflage made with soot flares forms a backdrop of doom and gloom to an eclectic collection of images: oak leaves and scorpions, carnival emblems and countryside graffiti, hammers and sickles, lotus flowers and phantoms. In Arthur Stokvis’s most recent paintings, rattle snakes and other ghostly figures come to the fore. They are pasted or hung, drawn and exorcised, captured in the layers of the painting. Innocent at first glance, these signs represent future catastrophes, poison clouds from a post apocalyptic fever dream. Reminiscent of the alleys in Kolkata, they add layer upon layer, from bamboo scaffolding to neon brush strokes, to a mud floor creeping from the floor up the walls.
Koen Taselaar makes skillful drawings that he translates into other techniques, for instance colorful ceramics or jacquard woven tapestries. In search of ways to process his diverse output, he draws puns, makes record sleeves (for imaginary albums), psychedelic paintings, publications, and large-scale drawings that function as flat exhibition spaces. The room dividers and tapestry shown here are produced by the same technique of weft weaving, the former with wood and wire, the latter with thread. The dividers function as movable exhibition walls for the works of the other participants in the show. The tapestry takes its inspiration from modernist Bauhaus as well as the traditional Bengali (Ikat) weaving. It is titled The Great March of Interpunction and offers a fictional narrative about the origin of interpunction.
Exhibition Overview
About the interview series
Here, you will find a series of interviews with the curators and artists of the exhibition Kolkata: Run in the Alley. These interviews were conducted by Lipika Bansal, who spoke to the artists about their artistic vision, their artistic process, as well as their experience and stories of working in interdisciplinary teams during the CARF residency in Kolkata.
About the author
Lipika Bansal is founder of Textiel Factorij. She is an artistic researcher and social designer. With her work she investigates art and craft cultures of India and the Netherlands, its heritage, origin and local significance. Lipika’s practice is based on theory, oral traditions, and fieldwork. She uses co-creation and artistic research methodologies, such as (digital) storytelling – and writing with a focus on design for empowerment and change. Lipika’s work is cross-disciplinary by nature: it involves experts from all disciplines, ranging from artists, designers, craftspeople, makers, starters, amateurs, biologists, scientists. Their expertise represents a way of looking at the world, which enriches the work, based on local knowledge, local materials and reciprocity.
Interviews
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Kolkata: Run in the Alley is made possible by Mondriaan Fonds.
Táctica Sintáctica
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Touching with your eyes,
seeing with your hands
The exhibition Táctica Sintáctica is curated by Mariano Mayer, in collaboration with artist Diego Bianchi, whose work is shown in the exhibition. Táctica Sintáctica goes against museum rules to give the body space. The artworks are scattered throughout the spaces, some partially hidden, others can only be viewed if you are willing to crouch, climb or kneel. Diego Bianchi takes every opportunity to awaken, surprise and touch visitors.
For this exhibition, he and poet and curator Mariano Mayer transform a selection of artworks from the Museo CA2M Collection and the ARCO Foundation Collection (Spain). The selection includes works by David Hockney, Julia Spínola, Dan Flavin, Dora García, Jimmie Durham, Günther Förg, Zoe Leonard, Bruce Talamon, Joachim Koester and many others. Combined with Bianchi’s work, it fits into a new strategy (táctica) of letting go (sintáctica). By placing the works in the collection in a new framework, they also disrupt the identity and sensuality of the bodies around them. In this way, Táctica Sintáctica incites movement and play and generates infinite new perspectives. The radical question is: What kind of movement and identities are hidden and reflected in art exhibitions? And what does the body itself want?
‘Táctica Sintáctica is full of good ideas. Bianchi brings physicality back into the museum by requiring the viewer to crawl under wooden scaffolding (and thus literally crawl for the art), wriggle along walls to see video work or crane their head to get a good look at works hung lopsidedly.”
– NRC
Exhibition overview
Diego Bianchi – My Internal Chair (middle) and Double Hole Object (right)
(Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij)
(Photo: Rob van Hoorn)
Diego Bianchi and Mariano Mayer:
“It all started as a game. We wanted to build a complete landscape of works in a museum. A landscape consisting of heterodox elements, stacked high on top of each other, that serve as a critique of the clinical and neutral way artworks are displayed. We wanted to take the time to imagine that works were again things of the world. In doing so, we began to see them as circulating particles, exposed to light or danger. Through the sensitive connection we restore with objects, we can rediscover our tangibility and memory. To prevent our tactile emotions from becoming a blur engulfing the works, we had to use materials that were unfinished, soft, warm, cold, hard, rough. The materials caress, massage, extend; find other forms in repetition, in touch and feel, in gestures. Sculptural objects embody a moment in time; they teach us to think with our hands. With our eyes we discover the distance that exists between our bodies and what we want to touch. They have nothing to do with our visual pleasure; they only measure how far or close is that which we want to touch.”
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Táctica Sintáctica is the second in a series of re-makes that Marres began in 2020 with the exhibition Codex Subpartum. Táctica Sintáctica began in 2022 as part of the series Dubbing the Voice at the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid. In the series, artists are invited to give a new perspective on the collection. This opens up the collections to a new discourse, as it were. The reframing and redesign of this exhibition at Marres marked the second phase of this discourse. Indeed, here the intervention did not offer the perspective of an entrenched collection, but rather showed a group exhibition that functioned independently of institutional ties.
Artist & curator
Diego Bianchi (Buenos Aires Argentina, 1969) studied graphic design at the University of Buenos Aires and has worked as a visual artist and teacher since 2003. Among his most notable exhibits include INFLATION, Liverpool Biennial (2021); Sauvetage Sauvage and Softrealism,
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris, 2020 & 2019); Museo Abandonado: Barrio Kronfus, Bienal Sur 2019 (Argentina); The Enchanting Now, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (2017); WasteAfterWaste, Perez Art Museum (Miami, 2015); Suspensión de la incredulidad, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2015); Under the Si, in collaboration with Luis Garay (Matadero, Madrid, 2018, Wienner Festwochen, Austria and Bienal de Performance, Buenos Aires, 2015); El trabajo en Exhibición, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris, 2015); Into the wild meaning, Visual Arts Center (Austin, 2013). His work is also been seen at the 13th Istanbul Biennial of Istanbul (2013); 11th Lyon Biennial (2011) and the 10th Havana Biennial (2009).
Mariano Mayer (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1971) is a poet and independent curator who has been living in Madrid since 2002. His most recent curatorial projects include Un lento venir viniendo, Cap I . Colección Oxenford (MAC Niterói, Brasil, 2022); Amplitud de contexto with Manuela Moscoso (ARCOmadrid 2023/2022); Tiempo produce pintura – pintura produce tiempo. Álex Marco (Espai d’Art Contemporani, Riba-Roja, 2022); Azucena Vieites. Playing Across Papers (Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid, 2020); En el ejercicio de las cosas, with Sonia Becce (Plataforma Argentina ARCOmadrid 2017); La música es mi casa: Gastón Pérsico (MALBA, Buenos Aires, 2017); Isla de Ediciones (arteBA, Buenos Aires, 2017/2016) and Plano, peso, punto y medida (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 2011).
Press about Táctica Sintáctica
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Plantiarchy
During the exhibition Plantiarchy, the house of Marres was transformed into a world where plants reign supreme.
In the exhibition, the world was literally turned into complete disorder, with an enormous forest that grew upside down throughout all of the rooms. The two floors of the house revealed the double life that plants lead (above and below ground). In an imaginative way, it is made experienceable that plants are at least as active and defining earth dwellers as humans.
Also on view was the (pseudo) scientific documentary The Plantiarchy, which reveals the history, present and future of a fictional, invasive plant species.
The exhibition was developed by the newly formed artist collective Sunflower Soup, which opposes the idea that humans dominate nature as independently functioning beings. The collective connects activism and levity by working with imaginative reversals. What would happen if plants were in charge? What would the world look like? What new forms of cooperation and consciousness would occur?
Plantiarchy combined utopian activism with fairy-tale reality. The exhibition communicates in a concrete, tangible, and playful way, welcoming you into a world in which plants call the shots and define the space.
About the participating artists
The Plantiarchy project is the first project of the artist collective Sunflower Soup, which was founded in 2021. The collective was born out of a shared activist interest and the need to explore what art practice can mean beyond the confines of the individual.
Inspired by nature, the Sunflower Soup collective considers itself a biotope, in which behaviors, ideas and feelings are so intertwined that they are barely distinguishable. Sunflower Soup consists of five members at its core, but the exhibition was created through the collaboration of a wide range of people: students, elders, climate activists, nature experts, people living in poverty, volunteers, hobbyists and refugees. More than 1,000 people collaborated on this newly created reality. Together they invite us to see the plant world in a different light. At the same time, they are a protest against the individualistic way the art world functions. In the Plantiarchy, everyone is a maker and no one is the boss.
Plantiarchy Finissage
Pick-up Day 3 September
Marres organised a Plantiarchy Pick-up Day on Sunday, September 3. At the finissage, creators and interested parties were invited to pick up papier maché plants, flowers or branches.
🌱 Plantiarchy finissage
Sunday, September 3
Makers: 03:00-04:00PM
Interested parties: 04:00-05:00PM
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Podcast ‘Sensing Art, Training the Body’
In the run-up to a new exhibition at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, director Valentijn Byvanck interviews participating artists, performers and curators.
He speaks with the members of Sunflower Soup about topics such as the creation of Plantiarchy, working together within a collective, (climate) activism and the plant world.
Dutch spoken.
‘A breathtaking exhibition that takes you into a wondrous world where plants reign. Plantiarchy is an enchanting installation that fills an entire building, combined with an immersive three-part film.
This exhibition is not only a visuel treat, but also an experience that inspires you to think about our relationship with the natural world.’
– Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds
Atelier room & workshops
Due to the success of the pulp workshops, you could still join Plantiarchy when visiting the exhibition. In a specially equipped studio room, anyone could use paper pulp to make their own leaf, flower or branch.
You could sign up a group for a workshop making plants out of paper pulp, intended for all kinds of groups and all ages. The workshops were held at Marres, but also at the community center, the allotment garden or at school. With an expert from Marres, plants around the site were viewed, explaining how they work together, with each other, with other creatures and with their environment. Then leaves and plants were shaped with paper pulp. During that process, questions were asked about plant life, nature and climate to further shape the idea behind Plantiarchy.
Exhibition Overview
Press about Plantiarchy
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Thanks to
Plantiarchy is made possible by Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, Iona Stichting and Stichting Stokroos.
Limburg Biënnale #2
In 2022, Marres organized the second edition of the Limburg Biënnale: a group exhibition that connects the professional with the amateur arts.
In doing so, Marres followed the tradition of the annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in London. The first edition, held in 2020, was a great success with over 250 artworks by more than 150 artists.
Open call
Marres invited everyone in Limburg and its surroundings to participate in the second edition of the Limburg Biënnale. Through an open call, which took place from March 2 through March 18, everybody could submit up to three works. A jury of 12 professional artists evaluated the submissions and selected the participants. They then set up a room in Marres with their selection, also showing their own work.
Jury en curatorial team
Kymani Ceder, Paul Drissen, Afra Eisma, Gijs Frieling, Norbert Grunschel, Susanne Khalil Yusef, Femmy Otten, Derk Thijs, Roy Villevoye & Fransje Killaars, Niña Weijers and Mickey Yang.
Participating artists
Johann Arens, Atelier Les Deux Garçons, Gegee Ayurzana, Marijke Bänziger, Felix Baumsteiger, Michael van den Besselaar, Maud van den Beuken, Nadie Borggreve, Dagmar Bosma, Milena Anna Bouma, Anne-Sophie Bourez, Mathieu Bruls, Greta Carlevaro, Senna Castro, Kymani Ceder, Hannelore Charlotte Celen, Johan Cloesen, Bas Coenegracht, Marie-Josée Comello, Karin Counet, Florentijn de Boer, Bob Demper, Jan Dietvorst, Adele Dipasquale, Yingda Dong, Michaela Drescher, Dina Dressen, Paul Drissen, Jeroen Duijf, Afra Eisma, Timo Ekhart, Koos van der Elsen, Frans Franciscus, Gijs Frieling, Truus Gelissen, Lena George, Jessie Georges, Norbert Grunschel, Vera Gulikers, Hilda Haafkens, Harrie Habets, Wilma Habraken, Paul Hanssen, Doris Hardeman, Nicole Hardy, Haya Yaseen, Toine Heemskerk, Josien Heesen, Trees Heil, Els Hendriks, Fransje Hendrikx, Vera Henning, Sonja Hillen, Ann van Hout, I The Observer, Tabor Idema, Lotte Jacobs, Toon Jans, Nora Jongen, Tonnie Jongen, Marlene Lydia Kapitza-Meyer, Fransje Killaars, Anastasia Kiseleva, Guna Klekers, Han de Kluijver, Luka Kluskens, Ludo de Kort, Le Cerff, Chan Le Doux, Mariet Leufkens, Thijs Linssen, Marian Litjens, Jonas Loellmann, Jeroen van Loon, Alejandra López, Ien Lucas, Maartje Maria, Linda Maissan, Steven Antonio Manes, Martens&Martens, Griet Moors, Marco Morittu, Esmeralda de Mosa, Yvonne Mostard, Martin Moulen, Susana Mulas Lastra, Christine Muris, Felix Nene, Remy Neumann, Annemarie Nibbering, Zoé Numan, Femmy Otten, Bea Otto, PHAE, Mariet Posthumus, Marjo Postma, Gerrit van Ratingen, Jürgen Reichert, René Reynders, Roos Roberts, Paul Rondags, Hannes van Roosmalen, Jamell Saman, Jan Samyn, Limmy Scheres, Alfons Schiffeleers, Ies Schute, Ika Schwander, Triana Segovia, Vera Sillen, Karin Smits, Nelly Snijders, Jiu Song, Henk Speth, Saskia Spitz, Christiane Steffens, Famke Storms, Studio Kuhlmann & Delphine Lejeune, Studio Tess, Fienke Teeken, Toon Teeken, Derk Thijs, Sabina Timmermans, Saar Trienes, Cassandra Troost, Frans Tummers, Ferren Uerlings, Kubilay Mert Ural, Marnix van Uum, Lizzie Veldkamp, Veerle Verschooren, Céline Villevoye, Roy Villevoye, Josine Vissers, Lotte Johhny Vrancken, Bas de Weerd, Niña Weijers, Trudie Westen, Ine van der Weyden, Heleen Wiemer, Vita Soul Wilmering, Indra Wouters, Suyoung Yang, Mickey Yang, Kwan Kit Ellen Yiu and Susanne Khalil Yusef.
Exhibition Overview
Press about Limburg Biënnale #2
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact communicatie@marres.org.
Goodbye to Love
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Goodbye to Love: Conversation of all those whose lips are sealed
Evening opening
On December 15th 2023, Marres will hold a special evening opening. Bring your date, because every 2nd ticket is free between 5:00-9:00PM!
Visit the heartwarming exhibition Goodbye to Love together and have your picture taken under the mistletoe.
Whether your love is international, queer, secret or platonic, everyone is welcome for a warm evening out.
Friday, December 15
Open from 12:00 to 9:00PM
Share your memorabilia and stories about love and join this extraordinary exhibition!
At Marres, you can hand in items and their related stories. They will be on (anonymous) display in the love archive Memorabilia of Broken Heart by Korean artist Hyesoo Park. That album that always makes you cry, your ex’s toothbrush, or a sweet note you’ve always kept. They will be registered so you can get your memorabilia back later.
Come in during the opening hours of Marres, House for Contemporary Culture
Tuesday until Sunday
12-5PM
Or visit the website goodbye2love.com to share your stories, memories or heart’s desires in a digital and anonymous way.
Hyesoo Park
Korean artist Hyesoo Park (Seoul, KR, 1974) has been exploring the complex contradiction Koreans feel between, on the one hand, the pressure to make a career and gain prestige and, on the other, having a fulfilling personal life, for years. Park’s work is often about emotions and especially about masking them. The exhibition features her work Our Joyful Young Days (2022) in which the artist interviews retired factory workers about their first loves.
For Marres, Hyesoo Park is currently preparing a new installation work consisting of stories, memorabilia and filmed interviews about love harvested in the Limburg region. For this, she developed the website goodbye2love.com where you can share your story or memorabilia.
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
[left] Mina Ham – A Wedding Cake, 2022, oil on canvas, 53 x 72,7 cm and Dream, 2022, oil on canvas, 53 x 72,7 cm
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Jinju Lee
Jinju Lee was born in Busan, Korea in 1980. She received a BA and MA in Eastern painting from Hongik University, where she is currently a professor of Eastern painting. She uses in-depth observations about life and our reality to create detailed images of memory fragments or everyday objects that have symbolic meaning. Lee employs the techniques of Eastern painting that are used to depict details to create scenes that feel intensely foreign, but are actually grounded in the real world. They feature encapsulated memories, floating islands, and introverted landscapes inhabited by solitary figures who are both poignant and unsettling.
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
James Webb
James Webb was born in Kimberley, South Africa, in 1975. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He is an artist known for site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the minimalist traditions. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces bind Webb’s academic background in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering poetic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.
Marres X Kasteel Wijlre
As a parallel intervention, the work ‘There’s No Place Called Home (Maastricht)’ by artist James Webb can be heard in the Marres garden as well as the garden of Kasteel Wijlre. The soft song of a Peruvian meadowlark is a peculiar sound to encounter outside of western South America.
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Exhibition Overview
Podcast ‘Sensing Art, Training the Body’
In the run-up to a new exhibition at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, director Valentijn Byvanck interviews participating artists, performers and curators.
in this episode he sits down with artist James Webb, an artist known for site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the minimalist traditions. Webb transforms objects, techniques, and forms by placing them in new settings, generating unique tensions. These tensions merge Webb’s diverse academic influences, encompassing religion, theatre, and advertising, to explore thought-provoking questions about belief systems and communication in today’s world.
Podcast ‘The Invisible Collection’
The 19-year-old Jada Posthuma is studying at the Vistacollege in Heerlen, pursuing a course in music. During her internship at Marres, she recorded a story describing the work ‘Between’ by Korean artist Jinju Lee. This work was exhibited at Marres during ‘Goodbye to Love’ in the fall of 2023: an exhibition dedicated to the ways in which people get lost in our world, drift with their memories, search for anchors, cope with loneliness, and long for comfort.
The Invisible Collection focuses on people’s stories about their favorite artwork. It is an online art collection that you cannot see but can hear. Marres harvests stories in which people of all ages and backgrounds share their art experiences.
Press about Goodbye to Love
For the press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Partners / thanks to
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
In addition, Marres wishes to thank the Dutch Embassy in Seoul and the Korean Embassy in The Hague.
Currents #10: Choose Your Own Story
On Dec. 18, 2022, the anniversary edition of the annual group exhibition Currents opened. A young trio of curators curated the exhibition, which showed work by recently graduated artists from academies in Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia and the southern Netherlands.
When it seems impossible to create an environment that can nurture our basic needs and social communities, we tend to do the opposite: constantly tinkering with the layers by which we build our identities. The sometimes hyperreal expectations of our society can overwhelm us, turning every experience into a staged reality. Somewhere between fiction and reality, individual and community, public and private, the artists in this exhibition turned the tables and wrote the script for their own narrative. From their different points of view, they showed us how they experience the world.
We often teach that there is always only one right answer for every situation, but for everything there is always more than one answer. Different routes represent different outcomes of the same story. For this exhibition, visitors were invited to wander, or to choose the next step by following one of the proposed storylines. In this way, the audience could discover a new generation of artists by choosing their own path to navigate in this plotted field at Marres.
(Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij)
About the curators
This year’s selected team of curators included three curators working in Brussels: Déborah Claire, Erell Hemmer and Zeynep Kubat. Claire and Hemmer, founders of Dis Mon Nom, are both photographers and curators. In addition, Hemmer is also a graphic designer. Dis Mon Nom is a nomadic curatorial platform, residency site and public forum for little-heard voices in photography, activism and art. They were assisted in their role as curators of Currents #10 by Zeynep Kubat. She is an art historian, works as an independent curator, writer and editor for a range of art journals.
Participating artists
Anna De Sutter, Johann Husser, Haevan Lee, Michal Luft, Luna Mahoux, Camille Poitevin, Loïs Soleil, Brahim Tall, Luca Tichelman, Tara-Eva Kuijpers Wentink en Loran van de Wier.
Exhibition Overview
Platform
Marres initiated this Euroregional talent development project in 2013, which offers participants not only a stage but also a broader mentoring path with training, networking and professionalization. In 2018, Z33, House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, in Hasselt, BE, joined this platform for professionalization as a co-producer. Jester is a partner. Marres and Z33 have been alternating annually as organizers ever since. In recent years, 140 artists from twelve academies participated and a much larger number of young artists benefited from workshops, fund days and activities. Also, 25 young curators gave with the compilation of Currents their careers a solid boost.
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Images from the Unconscious
In 1946, the Brazilian psychiatrist Nise da Silveira started the Occupational Therapy Ward at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional in Rio de Janeiro.
In a time when psychiatric treatment methods such as electroshock, lobotomy, and insulin coma were conventional, she believed that in order to help patients, they should be allowed to express their grief, not be numbed.
Her creative activities proved to be a powerful means both to calm schizophrenics and access their inner worlds. The drawings of circular forms they made —some complex, others showing harmonious structures – intrigued Da Silveira. She sent some samples to the famous psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. He saw in these mandalas a confirmation of his theory of the universal language of symbols. Art critics were also impressed by their quality. Over the years, the rare collection grew to approximately 400,000 works and is officially recognized as artistic Brazilian heritage.
The Images from the Unconscious exhibition displayed a selection of artworks from this extraordinary collection. Made by Adelina Gomes, Carlos Pertuis and Fernando Diniz, each of whom worked with Nise da Silveira for nearly half a century, the works on display included Neolithic sculptures, a series of painted flower transformations, sun paintings made with wax crayons and the mandala drawings praised by Jung.
Curators
Luiz Carlos Mello and Luiza Mello.
Participating artists
Adelina Gomes, Carlos Pertuis and Fernando Diniz, among others.
Exhibition Overview
Press about Images from the Unconscious
Press
For press requests, imagery and interview requests, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.