We make poetry in word and image, at first as ANDart and later under the name ‘work#art’, and realize that for instance in installations, autonomous work and design. Our work is created in interaction and cooperation and responds to the environment where it comes to an end. So it is a current interference.
As a duo we often work with used, but for art unusual material. Our differences in approach create the specific character of the work in relation to time and space. When you look at the banner picture at the homepage of Weg van Kunst, you will immediately see how we investigated that relationship in 2003 via an installation in the front room of Huize Maria.
Since then, the building is increasingly tolerating how we react with our artwork on its interior and how we deal with the intentions within Weg van Kunst.
Because also Weg van Kunst aims at the relationship between art and private spaces; on the interaction between artist, work and location.
The carefully defined route helps to turn over the sparks of that interaction to the public’s enthusiasm.
The happening often takes place during the first springtime weekend of the year. People are scratching around a bit strangely in the sun, which also seeks grip on spring. So new curiosity makes people want to look inside the mainly old houses and buildings.
Besides a sneak preview on the website, the public usually does not know what to expect at each location. So it’s exciting to drop in with strangers.
A whole weekend seeing around 22 locations in Kampen!
Everyone has an particular moment when the meeting is that far-reaching, you want to stay a little bit longer to really get in touch with the impact of the interference, the work itself, the artist or the owner. Sometimes you can not stop that spring feeling and you keep on looking.
Once in love with the effect? Then you just buy the work and take it home.
The design of Weg van Kunst is inspired by ‘Chambres d’Amis’, an exhibition by Jan Hoet in 1986, in the Ghent city center.
This exhibition in private interiors was quite revolutionary at the time because he, as he said : “let the art burst out from the walls of the museum“.
The curator, who deceased in 2014, chose 51 artists who worked in private homes. Hoet said: “It is opening up the museum with the sky as a dome“.
Also here the visit to the exhibition was associated by a city walk. He picked up this idea in a US symposium.
And Weg van Kunst adopted his idea, with a club of volunteers as a curator. Bert participated until 2014.
It is not easy for a house-owner to let an artist into ones home and let him or her decide what will happen within your walls. As owners of Huize Maria we know that challenge very well. For example, inviting Frank Borst’s experimental work. Or to collaborate with a former resident who, at her turn, captured the original resident, like Brigitte Wolthuis did in which Douwe played a role. At the same time it is tensive and exciting for everyone. Because the artist also gets a learning experience. He enters the private character of a personally furnished home with his work. How do you make such a space accept your work?
And the contact with the public is even more interesting from such a common point of view.
Who receives whom actually? Who’s host and who’s quest and vice versa?
For Weg van Kunst it’s always a challenge to stay sharp on that original set-up. Because all these matters determine the quality of the Art Route. Not all combinations at Weg van Kunst are at the same cutting edge. Sometimes one is looking for an harmonic interaction or for a jointly concept. We, as a duo, are not up to that in the first place. With our exposure, we prefer to raise something that leads to further research. Not just for ourselves but also for the public. Sometimes we made work that could serve as a location for fellow artists. Like the wrecked guards at the main square in the center of the old Heutz Kazerne. Or the PTT tent over a self-digged hole in the middle of the street, just before the entrance to the former Municipal Museum. Or, for a weekend, we wrote a spiral lime track in an abandoned riding school in collaboration with an American artist: Linda K. Anderson NY. Thus we stretched up our boundaries.
You can watch all of that, when you see all our contributions in our jubilee photo-book.
Artworks of work#art are always connected to where we end up, it arises as a result of something new. Such an occasion can pop up from anywhere.
It does not have to be specific environment, it can also be time, on site found materials or an experienced energy.
Or found tools, like in Vietnam. Tensive and exciting and preferred unforeseen, we are looking for the coinciding of things.
Huize Maria at the IJsselkade has surrendered to our interventions in all those years. The house became entirely a sign of life as a work of art.
That cannot be said of any property in Kampen and, in our opinion, even in Ghent it did n’t occur.
Huize Maria, as well as our method, takes a unique place, not only in art offerings in Kampen.
During this Weg van Kunst, the house and our work interact with work that Marjo van den Bekerom shows in the showroom. It’s still a surprise what will happen because, as always, only after investigation it shows. However, it promises to be an intervention where ‘the jewelry’ first searches connection with the place and only then looks for a possible carrier. The appearance of her exhibition is the reason to go further into work as an ornament, look into the closets to see what she has at home. For our installation we are now also working on precious and base metals. We hope it inspires you in your exciting visit.
With this edition of a second full year Loos Alarm, we did keep in touch with you each month for two years.
In addition, work#art celebrates a lot more jubilees. Among other things, she participates for ten years in the Weg van Kunst. Often months of preparation and the public had a beautiful experience! For the lover, we publish a photo book with images of all ten installations from recent years.
Order that anniversary book of work#art to remind you all these twists.
And get wedded, in love and addicted again to the routes and roads we pave with art.
Who actually stimulates who in a life as a work of art?
