Flor Linckens

"British artist Anish Kapoor loves to play with light and depth perception. Sometimes he uses pigments that absorb all the light, leaving you unable to see whether you’re looking at a hole or a 3D object. Other times, he displays concave mirrors that are so clear that they render you a bit dizzy. When you look at a piece of Anish Kapoor, depth seems to become almost irrelevant: like you’re peering into an eternal void. Or, as the artist states, “to make a hole in the space (…) a piece of void, at once finite and infinite”. The impressive effects of his work are often difficult to capture on film."

"The abstract geometric works of Steven Aalders are rooted in both American minimal art and in the modernism of Piet Mondrian. They may seem simple at first sight, but his pieces are the result of a very careful process of gradually building up colour, layer by layer. His work is an attempt to embody the essence, to create light and space through paint. He strives for a universal beauty from which all noise is filtered. For Aalders, the clear, simple harmony that emerges from his abstract compositions offers an alternative to the violence and ugliness in our society. He also writes about art, and his practice and visual language are inspired by his own extensive image research and art historical and philosophical concepts such as time and place. In the summer of 2017, he had the opportunity to work and conduct research at Theo van Doesburg’s (founder of De Stijl) home in Meudon, near Paris. This work is also part of my private collection."

"When Sarah van Sonsbeeck lived in the city center of Amsterdam a few years ago, her noisy neighbours often drove her to despair. An interview with the famous American artist Bruce Nauman gave her some hope: Nauman believes that in theory, everything that happens in his studio has the potential to be art. As a result, Van Sonsbeeck decided to release the reins a little and to leave a little room for coincidence, accidents and miscommunications. The concept of silence fascinated her, as well as the Dutch saying "speaking is silver, silence is gold". In 2016, Van Sonsbeeck had the opportunity to exhibit her work in the bank safe of De Nederlandsche Bank. A solidified puddle of gold was shown on the stairs. It seemed like it had dripped down slowly before solidifying: as if a gold bar had melted and had surrendered to gravity. The artist was surprised to find out how differently this work was interpreted: some people read it as a symbol of the instability of the banking system, others saw only a stain, or the value that the material represents: a gold bar is worth half a million euros. Sarah van Sonsbeeck invites you to find your own interpretations."

Remy Jungerman's work is intriguing because he reinterprets the visual language of Modernism and De Stijl in a completely new and original style. He’s inspired by the geometric patterns and shapes of the Maroon in Suriname: enslaved West Africans who fled to the Surinamese rainforest during captivity. These are Jungerman's ancestors through his mother's side. He combines these designs and visual language with Western modernism and invites the viewer to look at modernism from a new and wider perspective. He also adds rituals of the Winti faith to his work by using white kaolin: a type of clay that is often used during a process of ritual purification. Through his practice, Jungerman connects different histories in a way that we have never seen before."

"The Israeli artist Itamar Gilboa is known for his "Food Chain Project": a "pop-up supermarket” in which the artist visualised everything that he ate in a year in the form of 8000 porcelain sculptures. Parts of the proceeds from his work go to a charity that is committed to food. The artist also observes a cycle in his practice: "What I ate, I turned into art, which in turn can be converted into food after the sale." As a viewer, you are forced to rethink your own consumption and eating habits (as well as the resulting implications on a global scale)."

"Rafaël Rozendaal's work is often inspired by the internet. He’s perhaps most famous for founding the BYOB concept (Bring Your Own Beamer) that was executed worldwide. In 2011, he curated the internet pavilion of the Venice Biennale. He also sells websites that include a clause that states that the work must remain accessible to the public at all times. Rozendaal also translates its digital art into analogue materials, for example in the form of wall tapestries (like this one) that depict a colourful abstractions of a website, such as Dropbox or Google Spreadsheets. That’s a completely new way of portraying abstract figurations!"

"What happens when you take two elements that are traditionally associated with the feminine and domestic spheres (such as cooking and embroidery) and subsequently combine them? Under Ulla Stina-Wikander’s care, typical household products, often symbolically loaded, become virtually unusable. That in itself is an interesting feminist statement. Even the campy patterns of the cross stitch embroidery are often a reference to the domestic life of the "ideal housewife" of the past. In this new context, these items seem to become artefacts from a distant past."

"Willem Hussem was a poet slash artist who started his career by creating still lifes and landscapes. In the 1910s and 1930s he lived in France, where he met Picasso and became acquainted with new art forms. That’s when he started his search of simplicity and purity: first in the form of calligraphic and expressionist paintings, later in constructivism and geometric abstraction. What is so special about his abstract compositions is that, unlike many other works within this tradition, the brush strokes of his colours, shapes and lines are clearly visible. In 1960 he was allowed to represent the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale."

"Dirk Salz is known for applying pigmented synthetic wax, layer by layer. In the result, which he considers a painting, you lose all your sense of depth - the work almost seems to move! But because of the highly reflective surface, you can also observe the work more superficially. In that case, you only see yourself and your environment in the glossy reflection. This way, his work has the potential to be both deep and superficial, depending on the person in front of it."

"Angus Fairhurst was part of the Young British Artists who dominated British art in the 90s. He was quite successful, but much more modest about his abilities than his group mates. Fairhurst was known for his self-deprecating humour and his work was also characterised by and absurd, melancholic and penetrating sense of humour. This included a series of bronze gorillas. In his work, we also see many references to art history and universal themes such as death and desire, but also the emptiness of the consumer society. Sadly, he committed suicide at the age of 41."