Martijn in’t Veld
Happy Potatoes and Sad Silkscreens at Motto Books
On display until January 4th, 2020
Browse publications and prints here.
This book is published as part of Marianne Heier’s project or osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 2019-2024.
Marianne Heier performed her project And Their Spirits Live On, first at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and then at Oslo’s former Museum of Contemporary Art.
How can a centuries-old plaster cast of a two thousand-year-old sculpture speak to us today?Plaster copies of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures have formed the basis for much of the history of art. Right up until modern times artists in the western tradition learned to draw and shape works from such models. When the National Gallery was built, the central building housed a collection of these classical plaster casts. Marianne Heier has chosen to make a performance among the plaster copies at the Academy of Art in Milan where she herself studied, and later in the empty bank premises which until recently housed the Museum of Contemporary Art – drawing attention to the potential power in these figures. They are archetypes that we still refer to, although we are often unaware of this. Heier’s performance takes the form of a museum guided tour in which she takes the role of guide, situating the plaster sculptures in wider histories. Using texts taken from classical mythology and political resistance movements, she shows the potentially radical possibilities of the sculptures. The mythology from which these classical figures are taken is full of critiques of power, gender issues and identity politics that perhaps suggest a need for civil courage in the political climate of our own times.
The performance was co-curated by osloBIENNALEN curators and Alessandra Pioselli and was produced in collaboration with students and employees at the Project School in Oslo.
Happy Potatoes and Sad Silkscreens at Motto Books
As the Happy Potato Press, Martijn in’t Veld has been publishing books, prints and other printed matter since 2019. Please join us for a wintery-xmas-drink and the presentation of various potatoes on December 11th, 18:00h. Among the things on display will be a severed arm, the weather report from the day Richard Brautigan died, a young girl stealing fishes and the ever expanding city of New York.
Anne Neukamp Book Launch at Motto Berlin. December 13, 6-9pm
This monograph presents the first comprehensive survey of Anne Neukamp’s work. It embraces a vast
selection of the artist’s works from the past seven years alongside texts by Kassandra Nakas, Reinhard
Spieler and Johanna da Rocha Abreu, thereby offering the reader an immersive insight into the world of
Neukamp’s painting.
‘A stage is being set for us. Forms are blocked and angled into space, complete with consideration of the
need to bridge a distance and to draw the viewer in. As we approach the canvas, the beautiful execution,
the smooth surfaces painted by hand, the neutral yet lush bottom layer almost lulls us into complacency.
But then come the black and white strokes, like slashes, laid over or intersecting the crisp outlines of—
well, what is it? A face or a bifurcated B? It doesn’t matter. Assertions held about the symbols and image
being to shift. The flatness falls away and you find yourself eye-to-eye with the openings and gaps in the
canvas like tunnels, and you finally have to let go of any lingering inertia. The figurative associations, the
meaning both historical and implies, don’t ask for definition, they ask you to completely recondition the
means by which you seek definition.’ —Johanna da Rocha Abreu