Frank Taal Galerie proudly presents the introduction exhibition of Roderik Henderson

Grand opening 17 oktober 2020 – artist present
October 17th – November 21st

Grand opening op 17 oktober in vier tijdvakken. Met de performance Homo Fragilis door Jessica van Deursen in elk tijdvak. Met super sets van Dj’s NIXON, KAE L & DONNSTONE
Op de website kunt u gratis een timeslot reserveren voor de openingsdag op 17 oktober of op één van de andere openingsdagen. Reserveren is een vereiste in verband met de nieuwe COVID uitbraak met een maximum van 30 personen per tijdvak.

CHRONOLOGY

Roderik Henderson studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, awarded first prize World Press Photo portraits/stories and first prize World Photography Awards portraits/fine art, etc.
Most recently his project Pink Desert was nominated for the Somfy Photography Award/ Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam.
He lives and works in Chile and is co-founder of bunk.A.i.r. - a new, remote artist residency in Northern Chile.

CHRONOLOGY

Craving silence, and hungry for tranquility, my woman and I traveled the desert, 20 years ago, in search for absolute, sublime nothingness.
Instead, I found myself creating a photographic inventory of traces of violent human activity in the desert: encountering Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles being launched in New Mexico, stumbling upon Nuclear bomb craters and “downwinder” communities (due to radioactive fall out from the Test Site) in Nevada, etc. Then, my wife got pregnant. Our daughter was born in a scorpion infested, improvised hut, with snakes crawling under her crib, in a semi ghost town in the Great Basin Desert, inhabited by a handful of heavily armed misfits, hermits, drunks, veterans, rednecks and hippies. My son was born in the frozen wilderness of Canada, in a place without tv, electricity or internet, with bears and cougars for neighbors. We are raising our kids in the Atacama in Chile, world’s driest desert, planting crops in bone dry earth, while building a home in earthquake country.

Walter de Maria was right.

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Walter de Maria: On the Importance of Natural Disasters. (May 1960)

I think natural disasters have been looked upon in the wrong way.
Newspapers always say they are bad. a shame.
I like natural disasters and I think that they may be the highest form of art possible to experience.
For one thing they are impersonal.
I don't think art can stand up to nature.
Put the best object you know next to the grand canyon, niagra falls, the red woods.
The big things always win.
Now just think of a flood, forest fire, tornado, earthquake, Typhoon, sand storm.
Think of the breaking of the Ice jams. Crunch.
If all of the people who go to museums could just feel an earthquake.
Not to mention the sky and the ocean.
But it is in the unpredictable disasters that the highest forms are realized.
They are rare and we should be thankful for them.