May 17, 2007
Atelier als Supermedium, Den Haag (NL)
Who is mêkh?
Mêkh started in 2006. Since then it consists of the visual artists Ellen Rodenberg, Kees Koomen, Maarten Schepers and Hans Ensink op Kemna. These artists worked in a project-space of DCR in Den Haag for a number of months. In this period the members considered concepts and possibilities which relate to the problem of giving context to the individual works. One of the possibilities at hand is exhibiting together in venues of a specific nature. Mêkh then shows work which is produced for the characteristics of this space. The venue, its architecture and the nature of the exhibition space in terms of history, public and environment determines the approach of mêkh. In this way we inspire each other and we challenge the public to take a fresh look at the way an exhibition comes to existence. In the exhibition designed for a specific venue one can admire individual artworks of the exhibitors. Mêkh combines this with art which evolves from collaborative activities.
Concept
For Atelier als Supermedium we chose for the concept solo versus group:
There are eight rooms.
Four times the visitor encounters a solo-space with a presentation of one of the artists.
Four times one visits a guest-room in which one of the artists invites the others to react to one of his artworks. In this concept a visual conversation between the artists will develop.
Atelier alsSupermedium
To understand this it is important to know that Atelier als Supermedium is a space which is devided in eight rectangular rooms of the same size. Each has an entrance so that one can walk through all the spaces. It was conceived as eight white cubes. The artists who do projects in a very fast sequence all have their own way of using the space. mêkh chose to leave it as it was and to not whitewash the walls. In the carousel under this you will find the solo-spaces of the four artists.
Guestrooms
The following carousel shows the guestrooms: each artist installed work for the others to respond to. Maarten Schepers filled a waste-bag with stuff from his studio. He invited the others to fill a bag too: Kees Koomen showed a video in it with four enacted emotions which he went trough in his studio. Hans Ensink op Kemna stacked art-magazines and other reading stuff in the bag. Ellen Rodenberg put some left over materials in it. Kees Koomen’s guestroom had drawings of cypress trees on the walls. At the base of some of these he put portraits of writers (Thomas Wolfe, Ezra Pound) and a painter (Francisco de Goya) who influenced him. Hans Ensink op Kemna installed a floor-sculpture in his guestroom and Ellen Rodenberg had a table on the floor, upside down.
