FINISSAGE 29 October 3-6 pm
Riet van der Linden / Barney de Krijger
Rhizome (2-gether)
The exhibition was opened
23 September by
MIRJAM WESTEN
Art historian, ex-Arnhem Museum, curator, art critic
The exhibition Rhizome brings together paper-based and sculptural works by Riet van der Linden and Barney de Krijger, made between the 1980s and the present day. The concept of the Rhizome is a way of looking at reality—making connections, meanings and movement—about Becoming (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Milles Plateaux), and is a way of perceiving and experiencing the combination of the works in this dual exhibition. Riet van der Linden and Barney de Krijger have a long friendship and share a cross-disciplinary interest in the recycling and re-purposing of found materials—for Van der Linden, discarded cardboard packaging; for De Krijger, scavenged old paper, films and photos, instruments and cameras.
Riet van der Linden trained as an art historian, edited Ruimte, an influential feminist art magazine, worked as an art critic, and organised symposia and exhibitions on female artists. After extensive travels and a residence in Chicago, she moved in 1998 to the Bordeaux region of France. During long walks in the surrounding vineyards she was inspired to create sculptures from old broken vines and textile strips that had bound the vines before harvest—found materials. From 2013 to 2019 she lived in China, near Shenzhen, a huge industrial city of thirteen million people. There she encountered mountains of cardboard packaging dumped by the sides of rubbish bins and saw in this raw material a new creative stimulus for her art.
A discarded box would, when unfolded, offer latent possibilities to be teased out of its shapes, with colours and textures. Van der Linden draws attention to its origins as consumer packaging and then waste, with a banal title like IKEA, LIPTON, or VICTORIA’S SECRET, after the product the box once contained. The bold and geometric shapes she paints in gouache on each box derive directly from the functional structure of packaging and are a nod to early 20th century Modernist art movements like the Bauhaus, Constructivism and De Stijl.
For Barney de Krijger, the act of drawing is an essential and binding element in his work, and in the 1980’s and 1990’s he experimented with new ways of working with and on paper. Among his intriguing objects in our exhibition is his topical 3D paper sculpture “Terrortorium” (1996), composed of found materials, suggesting an enormous explosive device supporting the tiny figure of a soldier taking aim, a mockery of the futility of war. In later work, recycling of slow analogue media (cinematography, stereo-photography) and their varied processes forms the main thread in his drawings, objects and installations.
De Krijger has for decades been an important figure in the art world in The Hague, initiating artist-run spaces, organising exhibitions, and participating in international art events. In keeping with his love of experimental film and jazz, he rounds off our exhibition with his short audio/video film “Exploding Bebop”, which complements the paintings of Riet van der Linden with their association with the 1950s Modernist aesthetic.
23 September by
MIRJAM WESTEN
Art historian, ex-Arnhem Museum, curator, art critic
RHIZOME
The exhibition Rhizome brings together paper-based and sculptural works by Riet van der Linden and Barney de Krijger, made between the 1980s and the present day. The concept of the Rhizome is a way of looking at reality—making connections, meanings and movement—about Becoming (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Milles Plateaux), and is a way of perceiving and experiencing the combination of the works in this dual exhibition. Riet van der Linden and Barney de Krijger have a long friendship and share a cross-disciplinary interest in the recycling and re-purposing of found materials—for Van der Linden, discarded cardboard packaging; for De Krijger, scavenged old paper, films and photos, instruments and cameras.
Riet van der Linden trained as an art historian, edited Ruimte, an influential feminist art magazine, worked as an art critic, and organised symposia and exhibitions on female artists. After extensive travels and a residence in Chicago, she moved in 1998 to the Bordeaux region of France. During long walks in the surrounding vineyards she was inspired to create sculptures from old broken vines and textile strips that had bound the vines before harvest—found materials. From 2013 to 2019 she lived in China, near Shenzhen, a huge industrial city of thirteen million people. There she encountered mountains of cardboard packaging dumped by the sides of rubbish bins and saw in this raw material a new creative stimulus for her art.
A discarded box would, when unfolded, offer latent possibilities to be teased out of its shapes, with colours and textures. Van der Linden draws attention to its origins as consumer packaging and then waste, with a banal title like IKEA, LIPTON, or VICTORIA’S SECRET, after the product the box once contained. The bold and geometric shapes she paints in gouache on each box derive directly from the functional structure of packaging and are a nod to early 20th century Modernist art movements like the Bauhaus, Constructivism and De Stijl.
For Barney de Krijger, the act of drawing is an essential and binding element in his work, and in the 1980’s and 1990’s he experimented with new ways of working with and on paper. Among his intriguing objects in our exhibition is his topical 3D paper sculpture “Terrortorium” (1996), composed of found materials, suggesting an enormous explosive device supporting the tiny figure of a soldier taking aim, a mockery of the futility of war. In later work, recycling of slow analogue media (cinematography, stereo-photography) and their varied processes forms the main thread in his drawings, objects and installations.
De Krijger has for decades been an important figure in the art world in The Hague, initiating artist-run spaces, organising exhibitions, and participating in international art events. In keeping with his love of experimental film and jazz, he rounds off our exhibition with his short audio/video film “Exploding Bebop”, which complements the paintings of Riet van der Linden with their association with the 1950s Modernist aesthetic.