1 Piet Mondriaan Mondrian and photography
Piet Mondrian liked to present himself as a deadly serious, visionary artist. In Mondrian and photography another side emerges. He was not the recluse as he liked to present himself, but rather an artist who spent his whole life busy networking and attending parties and opening exhibitions. And in his studio, which as a harbinger of the earthly paradise acquired a mythical status among artists, visitors came and went. Sometimes the visits turned into dance parties, with Mondrian performing as a DJ. And sometimes Mondrian would happily open a bottle of wine, as can be seen in a photograph André Kertész took in 1926, after he had previously captured him as a deadly serious artist.
Read the review here: His photographs show that Mondrian was not only a great artist, but also a poseur
2 Steve McQueen Sunshine State
During the IFFR film festival, video installations can be seen from Central Station to Depot Boijmans. In this walking exhibition, Steve McQueen’s immense ‘Sunshine State’ is the key work: heartbreaking, intimate, a story that draws a life. ‘Sunshine State’ is the nickname of the American state of Florida, where Steve McQueen’s father traveled from Grenada in the early 1950s to pick oranges. Sunshine State is also the title of this immense video work, which tells the story of his father who leaves the labor camp in which they were housed one night with two other black men to visit a bar, and what happens next.
Read the review here: It burns. It flickers. Steve McQueen’s installation at the IFFR is both an incantation and a curse
3Kees van Dongen The road to success
Raw, wild, graceful and with a mild look, that’s how you describe it NRC one of the Dutch audience favourites: Kees van Dongen (1877 – 1968). He was one of the first to paint portraits in bright electric light. He worked in a post-impressionist style, influenced by the analytical view of the Cubists and the bright use of color of the Fauvists. His Parisian landscapes caught the attention of dealers and art lovers. Just like his scenes from cafes and dance halls. In Singer Laren his development can be followed in 70 paintings, drawings, graphic work and ceramics.
Read the review here: Artist Kees van Dongen painted raw, wild, graceful and with a mild eye
4Nicole Eisenman & the Moderns
Nicole Eisenman is one of the best painters of the past quarter century. An overview of that work is now in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. The oeuvre expresses a flexibility, sensitivity and persuasiveness, which in terms of theme meanders through lazing with friends on the beach, self-determination for lesbian women and unvarnished eroticism. In portraits too, Eisenman, like a chronicler of our time, unmercifully but sometimes also wittily exposes metropolitan loneliness and boredom.
Read the review here: Painter Nicole Eisenman is a virtuoso chronicler of our time
5Rein Dool draftsman
The Dordrecht artist Rein Dool (1933) was in the news because of the commotion about a painting he made 45 years ago: the group portrait of the Executive Board of Leiden University, which at the time consisted of six smoking white gentlemen. Because of the riot, he threatens to become the painter of that one group portrait, while he has made much more and better work. A wide selection of these is currently exhibited in the Dordrechts Museum. His portraits (often of writers who were popular in the 1970s), landscapes and many drawings in charcoal, pencil and ink sometimes exude a 1970s atmosphere, but are also timeless.
Read the review here: Rein Dool’s drawing is calm and pleasant