For the first time, we are joining ART THE HAGUE this year with works from Daan den Houter, Jan ten Have, Midas Zwaan and Saminte Ekeland.
Frank Taal Gallery - Booth number 35
Daan den Houter (1977, Dordrecht, lives & works in Rotterdam)
Daan den Houter is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist. The visual language he uses to externalise his ideas varies from video, installation and sculpture to activities where he allows the public to become part of the artwork. Money, identity, art, its granted value and generally accepted perceptions of these themes is what Den Houter’s work evolves around.
Den Houter observes society as a participant, then takes a step aside, analyses it and touches a raw nerve by doing so.
ART The Hague 2019
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Jan ten Have (1957, Alkmaar)
The works of Jan ten Have consist of different materials, like the paintings done on porcelain, canvas or wood. All shapes and outlines of and within the paintings are askew, the colors familiar yet off balance at the same time. This forms only a small part of the vast oeuvre of conceptual artworks by Ten Have.
When viewing his works one starts to feel that there is a certain system at work but one cannot define this in words. And although the works are all meticulously planned before being made, it is exactly during the process of making that the medium starts to interact. By chance the color works out differently, the strokes go in ways unplanned and the porcelain follows it’s own rules. This is the paradox of Ten Have’s work: the contradiction between a calculated and systematic approach on the one hand and the role of contingency, change, and chance on the other. It is this that lends the work its authenticity and trueness.
“My paintings are the visual possibility of NON-Painting (and yet painting) for a new era. NON-Painting is the evacuated circle of zero. Similarly, NUL - L'UN transforms zero into one and vice versa.” – Jan ten Have
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Midas Zwaan (1983, Amsterdam, lives & works in Hoofddorp)
In the work of Midas Zwaan the boundaries between assembly, sculpture and installation are blurred. Midas Zwaan, for example, scans the city and country in various thrift stores in search of so-called "found" objects, selected on shape, material type and meaning.
Midas Zwaan constructs baroque, surrealistic, carnivalesque, unorthodox assemblies, sculptures and installations that abrade the concept of 'readymade'.
The individual second-hand utensils are assigned a new function and elevated to symbols that refer to the excess of the consumer society. In addition, memories and sentiments are an important thread in the work.
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Saminte Ekeland (1972, Rotterdam)
Saminte Ekeland draws with thread. Her works are in essence embroidery drawings. The many-layered artwork of Saminte Ekeland is characterised by its chemical marriage between material, style and content. The ‘canvas’, or carrier, is a transparent artificial fibre: polyester. She works with thick polyester quality material as a carrier for her embroidery drawings.