Commissions
We are pleased to encourage commissioned works and regularly invite artists to respond to TMH’s historical space.
SYLVIE BONNOT
“In my work, the image is always at the core, but I feel the need to dissect it or pull it apart, towards sculpture, installation, or something else that might break the habit of a straight shot.”
This work, originating from Sylvie Bonnot’s study of the bridges of Amsterdam and placed directly onto the wall at TMH, is a mature example of her technique of repositioning the silver-gelatin surface of a print. Her oeuvre drives deeply into the territory of photography as a medium and its agency in relation to our sense of the surrounding world, conflating photographic printing and a mental imprint.
ARTIST
Sylvie Bonnot
EXHIBITION
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue I, 2017
BORIS CHOUVELLON
“All of Boris Chouvellon’s sculptures seem to present abandoned landscapes and machines. Mechanical fossils, baby carriages, carousels and amusement rides speak of the absence of man… From among his recurring objects…there emerges an ambiguity: that of the formal proximity of the hamster wheel of a cage and the Ferris wheel of a fair. It is the proximity between life approached from the standpoint of common pleasure and from the standpoint—equally futile—of the alienation brought on by everyday activities…” —Hubert Besacier
ARTIST
Boris Chouvellon
EXHIBITION
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue III, 2018
CHUCK CLOSE
To highlight the connection—and the contemporary leap—of Chuck Close’s work vis-à-vis the Dutch tradition of portraiture, our 2015 exhibition included a large-scale tapestry (arguably the first digitized medium in history and of Northern European origin). Close was best known for his large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings, but his practice extends beyond painting to encompass printmaking, photography, and, most recently, tapestries based on Polaroids.
ARTIST
Chuck Close
EXHIBITION
Chuck in Amsterdam, 2015
ANDRÉ DE JONG
“I enact a performance, grab a sketchbook, place photographs on the table, or I walk outside, pick a few butterburs and let them wilt… Drawing is very much part of this process.”
André de Jong’s performance-based drawings, photographs, and sculptured reliefs (the Folds) reflect his stages of conception—in the choice of paper, size, and subject matter. He offers a response to the postminimalist agenda through his minimal redeployment of expressive craft. His need to work serially, to see a series as one work, is fundamental to his search for meaning through his ultimate medium—drawing. Writing for the influential magazine De Gids, media theorist Arjen Mulder called De Jong the most important contemporary Dutch draftsman and pitted the “bodily power” of his “organic lines” against that of Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee.
ARTIST
André de Jong
EXHIBITIONS
Folds and Drawings, 2014 /
Revelations, 2019 /
Acts of Drawing, 2021
HILARIUS HOFSTEDE
Reach the Beach is part of Hilarius Hofstede’s monumental series of Pop-Frescos that include Ocean, River, Totem, Food for Thought, and Abendrot. They showcase his distinctive hands-off medium: LP-cover assemblage. This particular mural (en brunaille) washes in references to 12th-century stained glass, 17th-century painting techniques, and 20th-century pop art to bring us to the question of the 21st century’s slipping sands of physical and perceptual security.
ARTIST
Hilarius Hofstede
EXHIBITION
Matter of Masters: 5 Years of TMH, 2018-19
CRAIGIE HORSFIELD
“If we think about cities and the complex societies we inhabit as these vast entities on which we have very little discernible effect, then we are just replicating in our thought the disquiets of our fellow citizens who see little reason to vote, or believe that they can do nothing to change the world around them…”
Craigie Horsfield’s unique prints, frescos and tapestries represent his tour-de-force experimentation with color and digital technology and have an uncanny painterly effect in terms of composition and light. A portrait, a still life, or a scene at first glance, each of Horsfield’s works unfolds into an intimate epic as our senses give way to stories of our own lives. His large photographs were in Spotlights ’18 at Tate Britain, and 12 of these works from the collection of 10 Michael G. Wilson (of the James Bond franchise) were showcased at Photo London ’16.
ARTIST
Craigie Horsfield
EXHIBITION
Of the World We Share, 2019-20
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
The experiential body—not only her own—has been paramount in Schneemann’s revolutionary politics and idiosyncratic poetics. Focusing on the photographic series (2004) and video (2008) Infinity Kisses, our 2015 exhibition illuminated the radical role that the nonhuman, feline body plays in her late erotics by foregrounding the centrality of the cat in her life and art, as companion and as a symbol. The introduction of Schneemann’s interspecies “kisses” with this site-specific installation that evokes her home highlights the domestic themes of her poetics of intimacy.
ARTIST
Carolee Schneemann
EXHIBITION
Infinity Kisses, 2015
MARY SUE
“This character [of Mary Sue], naïve in appearance, somewhat unconsciously lays bare all the indignities that can befall a woman in our society…” —Hubert Besacier
In these sculptural and video works documenting a series of her alter-ego performances on the topic of servitude, Mary Sue uses material, color, and digital manipulation to a poignant uncanny effect. Each detail is thought through to such an extent that it ingeniously carries social meaning in and of itself, expanding on the work’s overall comic theatricality. In Mary Sue’s video presentations, technology is so seamlessly hidden and functionally simple that her pieces become a unique case of a painting on a screen, permeating the surrounding space with light and color when switched on.
ARTIST
Mary Sue / Videos on Vimeo
EXHIBITION
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue II, 2017-18
ELSA TOMKOWIAK
“C’est une peinture libre, déployée, affranchie de cadre qui a pour effet de provoquer une expérience sensorielle, véritablement physique, de la couleur. Ainsi, il s’agit bien plus d’une exposition à vivre que d’une exposition à voir.” —David Moinard
[This is a mode of painting that is free, unbounded, freed from the frame, with the effect of provoking a sensory, truly physical experience of color. As a result, Tomkowiak’s exhibitions are exhibitions to experience rather than simply to see.]
Bent on a dramatic entry and transgressing the cannons of working with paint, in our 2017-18 exhibition, Elsa Tomkowiak opened up our gallery space to the spirit of liberty and munificence. Sweeping through TMH’s walls, floors, windows, ceilings, and terraces with the exigency of her craft, she constructs a probing play of color as a cultural value.
ARTIST
Elsa Tomkowiak
EXHIBITION
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue II, 2017-18
MENGZHI ZHENG
“The work reflects my sense of lines and surfaces, observations of the interior and exterior spaces that define our cities and their lived architectures, and the necessity of keeping our eyes open to the world…”
Mengzhi Zheng’s virtuoso formations are wooden sculptures and paintings in space that reflect his ongoing urban observations and hover between the reality of an architectural model and nonutilitarian art. The works stretch the possibility of sculpture and image construction to reflect urban visual experiences.
ARTIST
Mengzhi Zheng
EXHIBITION
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue III, 2018
ZHU HONG
“Zhu Hong interroge notre perception : jusqu’à quel point ce qui parvient à notre regard diffère de ce qui est devant nous ? Perception versus observation.” —Bertrand Charles
[Zhu Hong questions our sense of perception: how does that which reaches our eyes compare to that which stands before us? Perception versus observation.]
These large-scale paintings are a technical feat and a prime example of Zhu Hong’s unmatched ultra-thin proprietary techniques. They test our sense perceptions as the delicate brushstrokes capture the sensation of light, most recently in her mural of the water of the Amstel river based on her photographic impressions and observations.
ARTIST
Zhu Hong
EXHIBITIONS
Making Things Happen: Young Artists in Dialogue I, 2017 /
Of Water, 2021