Marijn van Kreij
The Only Rule Is Work (Exhibition poster), 2012
Collage, silkscreen and gouache on paper, 65 x 50 cm

The work of American conceptual artist Douglas Huebler
(USA, 1924-1997) set the tone for the exhibition with a
work that was shown here in 1973 during one of the
exhibitions organised by the Amsterdam gallery
Art & Project. A work that directly addresses the viewer’s
position in the process of looking at and thinking about
art. Huebler began as a painter and, within a short time,
turned to making geometric Formica-like sculptures; in
the late 1960s, he became intrigued by conceptual art.
In 1969, he wrote: 'The world is full of objects, more or
less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.' [2] From
then on, Huebler produced works that primarily engaged
with the experience of time, space and our social
environment.

O (Monochrome with Assistant) by WJM Kok
(NL, 1959), which recalls the events of Fluxus, is
installed next to Huebler’s work to further explore the
position of the spectator. Kok’s oeuvre unfolds in series
and relates to both conceptual art and monochrome
painting. The piece adds both depth and a lightness of
touch to these ‘serious’ art forms. As the title suggests,
the bright red monochrome has a performative side to it.
A number of Kok’s Mix monochromes, each one
produced in collaboration with a different artist, can be
seen on the second floor. Here too the event connected
to the work is equally as important as the result. Each
occasion concerns the meeting of two artist’s practices
whereby navigating the multiplicity of choices that
comprise the creative process determines the
final result.

Douglas Huebler
The point represented above, exactly at the instant that it
is so perceived, establishes an authentic triangulation
between itself, the specific center of gravity of the
percipient, and the specific center of gravity of the artist;
it continues to do so for the entire time that these words
are being read but immediately thereafter returns to its
original essence as printed dot on a two dimensional
surface. 1971
Facsimile of original work on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm



WJM Kok
O (Monochrome with Assistant), 2006
Six parts, coloured fabric, wood, 70 x 70 cm

The spirit of Karl Pelgrom (NL, 1927 – 1994) permeats
the exhibition. Physically in the form of a drawing from
the 1960s. Pelgrom was one of the founders of the
Instituut voor Creatief Werk (lit. Institute for Creative
Work), of which the vitrine presented in the exhibition
is one of the few remaining objects. For Pelgrom, art
and life were one and, by extension, the artist was also
very politically involved. In conjunction with the
Instituut voor Creatief Werk, he refuted the concept of
authorship and the workings of the market mechanism
in art. The group worked together intensively; exactly
who made what was not of the slightest importance.
The vitrine on display originates from one of the
Interior Anonymous exhibitions organised by the group:
massive all-over installations created in cowsheds
and barns.

The provocative video Bodies of Society by Swedish
artist Klara Lidén (S, 1979) is at once aggressive,
melancholic and comedic, and defies any rational
clarification. Perfectly calm, Lidén cold-bloodedly
destroys a bicycle in her Stockholm apartment to
a mis-matched soundtrack that repeatedly cites
‘I don’t wanna talk about it’. Lidén’s work
undermines everyday life and all that is reasonable.
Within the exhibition, the music becomes the
background accompaniment, while the video images
called into question the presentation as a whole.

Instituut voor Creatief Werk (ICW)
Untitled, 1968–70
Vitrine with a collection of found objects (part of
Interieur Anoniem installation)

Karl Pelgrom
Untitled (Man with sun), undated (early 60s)
Ink on paper, 21.5 x 28 cm

Klara Lidén
Bodies of Society, 2006
Video (color, sound), 4.50 min.

Maarten Sleeuwits (NL, 1978) produced his work
Recording No. #3 especially for this exhibition, using
‘Groninger’ clay, dug out of the polders of De Dollard.
His sculptures often result from a study of the material
itself and attempt to use properties intrinsic to it. The
process of creation remains visible in the work and
therewith also strives to involve the viewer. His
autonomous objects thus introduce a kind of logic
of their own. Besides the traces of fingerprints and
other imperfections that reside in the body of the
material, the stack of clay blocks on view in the
gallery also played with gravity; the tower has
been carefully stacked to a height at which
it is able to remain perpendicular.

Maarten Sleeuwits
Recording No. 3, 2012
Stacked blocks of Groninger clay, dimensions variable

 

For Survey, a work by Graham Hudson (UK, 1977),
rubble, rocks and debris gathered in the surroundings
of the gallery are used to keep his ‘readymade’ sculpture
upright. The work is based on instructions meticulously
formulated by the artist that simultaneously create
innumerable opportunities for happenstance. The artist
previously realised the piece in locations including
London and Rome. This time, the artist followed a route
in and around Finsterwolde to gather material for his
sculpture. Hudson often works with found materials
and rubbish that he playfully gives a new lease of life.
The work is raw and energetic yet at the same time
often unstable, temporary in nature and, therefore, also
vulnerable.

The work of Marijn van Kreij (NL, 1978) has been
produced on location as well. From small sketches,
executed rapidly and loosely in paint and based on
details from late Picasso paintings, the artist picked a
sketch that he then reproduced, over and over, on a
large sheet of paper. With this process of repetition
he explores differences and ‘flaws’, each act is
essentially unique, a one-off. Van Kreij concentrates
on the action itself and ‘the sensation of its own
realisation’, attempting to make this manifest for
the viewer.

Marijn van Kreij
Untitled (Picasso, Reclining Nude in an Interior, 1961,
Only a Pawn in their Game, Through the Keyhole, Fien’s
Hourglass), 2012
Gouache on paper, 258 x 184 cm

 

Graham Hudson
Survey (Finsterwolde, 9684CB, 010912), 2012
Wheelbarrow, rubble and survey, dimensions variable

Karin Hasselberg
Medium Grey with Darker Grey Table, 2012
Bronze, 36 x 21 x 2 cm

Dennis Oppenheim
Directed Seeding/Cancelled Crop, 1969
Original aerial documentation by Aerophoto Eelde,
variable dimensions


Photographs of a work by Dennis Oppenheim
(USA, 1938 – 2011) were installed on the first floor of the
gallery. Directed Seeding/Cancelled Crop (1969) is one
of the most well-known land art works connected with the
history of the gallery. The work consists of two
interventions Oppenheim created on a grain field owned
by Albert Waalkens. First, a line was ploughed into the
field, tracing the path the grain seeds did take from the
silos in Nieuweschans to Finsterwolde. In September, the
first grain was harvested in the X configuration shown;
this grain was withdrawn from a ‘product-orientated
system’ and not subjected to further processing. For
Oppenheim, this process was similar to stopping raw
pigment from becoming an ‘illusionistic force’ on
canvas. [3]

Jennifer West (USA, 1966) made a new film work
especially for the exhibition, loosely inspired by
Oppenheim’s earlier intervention of 1969. Los Angeles-
based Jennifer West works directly on celluloid film.
For this new piece, she sent the 16mm film to
Finsterwolde where it was immersed in cow dung and
trampled upon by Harm Evert Waalkens’ herd of dairy
cows. Next, it was smeared with weed butter and
sprinkled with rapeseed plants. In Los Angeles,
West continued to work on the film until she achieved
the result now on view in the gallery. Her films can be
considered a direct report of a series of ‘happenings’ in
which materiality, engagement and the social aspect
of the making process converge. This entire process is
reflected in the lengthy titles West chooses for her films:
Cancelled Crop Revealed Rapeseed Flowers,Weed
Butter and Hoof Marks (16mm film negative stuck in the
mud in a barn and walked on by dairy cows at
Harm Evert Waalkens farm in Finsterwolde, painted with
weed butter from the cows milk and “white widow” weed
from The Green Star in Winschoten, rapeseed flowers
collected from the side of the road nearby - cows,
rapeseed and weed butter production by
Karin Hasselberg, Wytske van Keulen, WJM Kok,
Marijn van Kreij, Boudewijn Rosman and Merel Waalkens
- via a set of instructions from Jwest - film washed in LA
and dried in the 100 degree wind, X’s painted by Jwest
using french fries and jalapeños from the garden with
green canola oil and biodiesel, rapeseed flowers and
stems taped to film by Jwest)

Jennifer West
Cancelled Crop Revealed Rapeseed Flowers,Weed Butter
and Hoof Marks(16mm film negative stuck in the mud in
a barn and walked on by dairy cows at Harm Evert
Waalkens farm in Finsterwolde, painted with weed butter
from the cows milk and 'white widow' weed from
The Green Star in Winschoten, rapeseed flowers collected
from the side of the road nearby - cows, rapeseed and
weed butter production by Karin Hasselberg,
Wytske van Keulen, WJM Kok, Marijn van Kreij,
Boudewijn Rosman and Merel Waalkens - via a set of
instructions from Jwest - film washed in LA and dried
in the 100 degree wind, X’s painted by Jwest using
french fries and jalapeños from the garden with green
canola oil and biodiesel, rapeseed flowers and stems
taped to film by Jwest), 2012
16mm film negative transferred to high-definition video,
1:24 min. looped

For the exhibition, Karin Hasselberg (S, 1980) dug
hole#17 in the gallery’s front garden. During her studies
at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, she began to
dig holes as a way of creating a purely physical
counterbalance to her brooding about art. In 2004,
she dug her first hole in a desolate place in the Bijlmer,
a suburb of Amsterdam where she was living at the time.
Since then, the work has evolved into a series that
explores the functioning of art ‘in the world’ parallel to
her development as an artist. Context and environment
are just as important to her work as the work itself.
This is also evident in her series of bronze sculptures
Medium Grey with Darker Grey Table that she describes
as any-site-specific-objects because they assimilate the
environment. The work is based on a photo of
Loulou (2004), a sculpture by Sherrie Levine, although
also in this instance, Hasselberg’s title does not refer to
the sculpture itself but to its background, the
residual shape that has once again become object.

On the second floor of the gallery a selection of
WJM Kok's Mix monochromes was shown and this
space served as a small documentation centre as well.
A video-fragment about Dennis Oppenheim’s project
and the television documentaries Groeten uit
Finsterwolde and Jong in Groningen could be viewed
there. Here you can find also a number of (artist’s)
books relating to the exhibition and the history of
Galerie Waalkens.

WJM Kok
Mix (Monochrome with ...), 2006–
Acrylic on canvas, series of monochromes each painted
together with another artist, from left to right:
Vincent Vulsma, Marijn van Kreij, Falke Pisano,
Evi Vingerling, Karin Hasselberg and Graham Hudson,
60 x 80 cm each

Karin Hasselberg
hole#17, 2012

[1] The exhibition title The Only Rule is Work is taken
from Sister Corita Kent's Some Rules for Students and
Teachers (1967–68). Read more
[2] Issued for the first time as part of the exhibition
January 5–31, 1969 organized by Seth Siegelaub,
New York, 1969
[3] The artist in 'Dennis Oppenheim', Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam, 1974

Read here Het werk nogmaals an introduction to the
exhibition by Steven ten Thije (in Dutch).

Text excerpts originally printed in a small exhibition
guide, produced by Marijn van Kreij, Merel Waalkens
and Boudewijn Rosman. Translation: Lisa Holden.
Photography: Wytske van Keulen

Thanks to all the participating artists;
Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; De Hallen, Haarlem;
Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam; Monitor, Rome;
Galerie Neu, Berlin; Vilma Gold, London;
Judith Pelgrom; Steven ten Thije; Wytske van Keulen;
Gert-Jan Vermeer; Steenfabriek Strating, Oude Pekela.

Made possible with the support of Mondriaan Fund.