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"Square Lifes"
Sometimes one plus one makes more than two. When Marcel Hombergen (1962)
and Bauke Kortleven (1969) met each other in 1998, no one could suspect
that yet another artist duo had been born, which would lead to a fruitful
cooperation. Both had been active for some time already in the broad area
of visual art. Bauke made photographic collages and paintings. In his
work his fascination with surrealism, the underground and eroticism are
the main theme. He calls his photo collages ‘Porno-PLUS’.
And in many of his paintings he brings to life a shadow-reality of strange,
exotic animals: animal portraits. Marcel had his debut-one might also
say his coming out-as an artist some years ago during a solo exhibition
at the Villa. He exhibited wall-objects that showed his sense of humor
and attracted attention by the original way in which material was used.
He still works with velvet materials but has grown more contemplative.
He also works much more abstractly with a partly self-conceived material,
paper clay: sober forms in quiet earth tones are used to give shape to
his inner experiencing of love and religion. At the exhibition we will
also show their new individual work. From Bauke a series of collages will
be on view with the title ‘Suck it”, characterized by himself
as a surrealistic, erotic anecdote.
After they met they got to know each other better while sketching and
photographing, and they grew enthusiastic about each other and the other’s
work. Those first explorations very soon led to collective work and an
exhibition at the renowned Gallery Ploos van Amstel with the hardly original,
but fitting title: The Encounter. A series of photo collages was shown,
among others, which gave an overview of their exploring of each other.
One of these collages was selected for publication in the MM-agenda. From
these collages we will also present some at the exhibition in the Villa.
But the emphasis will be on their newest collaborative products.
‘Square Lifes’ is their second collaborative project, and
it will be presented for the first time in the Villa. The title is an
ironic reference to the fact that the new work has been forced into the
straightjacket of a certain format. While within that format a multitude
of meaning is given shape. This uniformity seems to represent the common
and prosaic, but with this wink in composition Bauke and Marcel underline
the kaleidoscope of images and ideas they have captured from their own
lives and caught into shape for us. Seize the day, seize the run-of-the-mill
day. Put them together and make them add up to more than the sum of their
parts.
Helm de Laat |
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