A worm cupboard, a hypnotic sea monster in an awkward glass aquarium and photos of Koos Buster's girlfriend in ceramic frames: a selection from The Big Everyone Works With Everyone Show. For this exhibition, befriended artists Anemoon Fokkinga, Koos Buster, Jan Hoek and Gert Wessels created new works of art together. They challenged each other to work in new media and to explore the boundaries between design and art. The result is a gesamtkunstwerk that immerses you in a world where the strange is celebrated and where the pleasure of making art can be felt.
The design objects of Gert Wessels (NL, 1994) make us look differently at everyday objects. He was the first artist to solve one of mankind's biggest problems: how to make a beautiful extension cord. His work explores the relationship between form and function in a process in which he allows himself to be led by chance. His typical forms are created in an ephemeral and reactive manner by cutting and sawing in polyurethane foam, after which he fixes the object in fibreglass and acrylic composite. Wessels has previously worked with artists such as Ben Becker and Jan Hoek. In this exhibition, he shows his freest work to date, and his objects become works of art.
Jan Hoek (NL, 1984) is always attracted to the beauty of outsiders worldwide and always keen to collaborate intensively with people that normally are overlooked and create together a new image. He photographed movie stars like Nairobi based motor taxi riders and the activists, fashion icons and proud trans sex workers Sistaaz of the Castle. He is the founder of the Captain Hoek foundation and Outsiderland, through which he aims to bring together the world of insider and outsider artists. In the universe of Hoek the ‘normal’ people are the strangers and the outsiders are the funky rulers of this planet.
Anemoon Fokkinga (NL, 2003) uses her inner demons, pain and limitations as inspiration for her fantastic ceramic objects in which the many eyes, tentacles, rows of horns and tongues fight for attention. Her artworks range from objects like appealing tea sets and jewellery to sculptures of monstrous creatures that come from the deepest depths of the sea and Anemoon's fantasy world. For this exhibition, she was inspired by the Fukushima disaster and the mutated marine life that resulted from it. She shows that nature always finds its way. When people are gone, animals take over.
Koos Buster (NL, 1991) catapulted himself onto the Dutch art world in 2018 with the presentation of his already legendary Grote Koos Buster Museum, his graduation presentation at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. It caused a ceramics renaissance in the Netherlands, Buster was appointed as The Minister Of Ceramic Affairs. In his work Buster is always looking for the perfect doltish perfection or something trivial that deserves to be celebrated. The 'clumsiness' of a quick sketch often has the lines he wants to see in the final work. Among his most well known work are a ceramic water cooler, Canta, scooter and the series Ornamental Plates Of Almost Everything Koos Buster Doesn't Like.
ART BAR KIPPY has taken over The One Man Show Gallery space and corridor with a series of exhibitions, events and an art bar. The bar is an ode to the German artist Martin Kippenberger. The initiative came about because the city of Amsterdam lacks a worthy art café where artists, curators, gallerists, art lovers and friends can come together in an informal way while enjoying art and beer.
In the second edition of their exhibition Strawberry Splash we once again see bad taste with a cream sauce meets low budget mysticism in a total installation of paintings and sculptures, balancing between the intangible and the tangible. Artists: Arthur Stokvis, Bonno van Doorn and Vincent Boschma.
About the Gallery
The aim of Galerie Fleur & Wouter is to bring young people into contact with art, to make them feel at home in the gallery and to motivate them to start collecting. This philosophy of an accessible and inclusive gallery is reflected in all our activities. We try to communicate in an accessible way and tell clear stories.
We present artists with a strong story, who create works of art that have an immediate appeal, but then turn out to have many other layers as well. Our artists work in different art forms and we are always looking for cross-links outside of the visual arts. For example by showing fashion designers like Lieselot Elzinga and Bas Kosters. The gallery gives them the opportunity to move in the direction of fine art. Artists who have been ignored by general art history, such as Outsider artists, are also given a platform in the gallery.
The majority of our artists are young and they will grow with the gallery in the coming years. But we also work together with mid-career artists like Jan Hoek and Mai van Oers. We see the gallery, its artists and supporters as a family that, in addition to making a profit, aims to help grow the artists' careers, and increase the appreciation of art in general.
Gallery owners: Fleur Feringa & Wouter van Herwaarden
Feel free to contact us for any questions.
e-mail: info@galeriefleurenwouter.com
telephone: +31 6 57748299
Van Ostadestraat 43A, Amsterdam
Thursday - Sunday 12.00 - 18.00 hrs