Categories for Art

Objects of Desire (2022)

An art and antiques fair is designed to seduce. In the catalogue, exhibitors present their showpieces: centuries-old objects, rare (and therefore valuable) because they are free of signs of wear and tear, as if they have somehow escaped time. A Persian carpet looks as if it has barely been walked on; 17th-century porcelain as if it were made yesterday. For this series, I cut up such a catalogue. By ‘stretching’, fusing, and warping the images, I have made these valuable objects my own.

When Memories Become Dreams (2019-2020)

‘When Memories Become Dreams’ is a series of darkroom prints of damaged lantern slides from the collection of the Zuid-Afrikahuis, Amsterdam. By manipulating the prints, I have attempted to explore the transforming effect of time. In the darkroom, the encyclopedic pictures have become abstract, estranging images.

 

The exhibition was part of the conservation, digitization and publication project Magic Visions, made possible by the support of the Gravin van Bylandt Foundation. The project received the Mervyn Heard Award 2020.

Schnittserie (2019)

A little while back, I came into possession of a peculiar inheritance: over twenty ring binders filled with hundreds of yellowed pictures of actresses and fashion models. They had belonged to an elderly lady whom I never got to meet. She had carefully cut them out of 1950s feel-good magazine De Lach (‘the smile’), kept them for decades and finally put them all in ring binders towards the end of her life. I was in luck: careful not to damage the pictures, she had used small pieces of double-sided tape to keep them in place. Great collage material. But as I started peeling off the pictures, they became more than just that. Fascinated by the singular system of her collection, I decided to dissect it, laying bare its meanings, contexts, and materiality.