> Articles|
A Visual Wonderland
Athena Newton The King of Trash, Jan Henderikses Alltagmytheng Cathleen Haff Grand Opening, Catalog Gerhard Graulich Exhibition in the Waschhaus Germany Inspirations with Jan Henderikse Renate Wiehager Brooklyn in Potsdam - Jan Henderikse im Waschhaus Die Welt |
Inspirations with Jan Henderikse, by Renate Wiehager Jan Henderikse's work compromises its viewers with the magic and the inscrutability of the banal, with its comic and its tragic aspects. So his work lays both things and viewers 'bare', or, putting it more precisely, it lays bare, exposes - from a point of view of truly felt agreement, of curiosity and of disinterested goodwill - the sheer simplicity and naked reality of things ("Die Braut nackt, entbloesst sogar" - "The bride naked,indeed laid bare"), and it also exposes human beings' longing, enchantedand amused, to be liberated into a spirituality that is very much of this world. Jan Henderikse thinks that art is the most reliable medium for such 'compromising'. The Latin verb 'compromittere' suggests causing to emerge, holding out the prospect, promising - and in this sense Jan Henderikse's work is among the most radical, amusing and honest promises that contemporary art has to offer. French later made the original Latin word into 'compromettre' in the sense of 'putting someone in a critical position, exposing someone (by subjecting them to the judgement of a third person)'. So the above-mentioned 'compromised' observers are not being asked for their judgement - in terms of taste, art criticism, aesthetics etc. - in Jan Henderikse's case, but find both themselves and the artistic object subjected to the 'judgement' of a third authority. This creates nervousness, uneasiness, and may even produce an angrily defensive attitude, along the lines of: 'I don't want to be caught out in my simply little desires, certainly not by art, which is supposed to help me to higher insights'. Now, Henderikse's art certainly does that, it makes us sense the hand of a 'most high', who is decorating his house - in this case St. Georgen in Wismar - with a strikingly large number of Jesus Christs, paired with just as many Madonnas, to inspire the faithful. Something intended to bring a final scrap of kitsch piety into American children's bedrooms transforms the interior of the church in Wismar - or this is how we imagine it without having seen it - into a place of the most serene, indeed very earthly spirituality, see above. "Acheiropoieta" ("not made by human hand") was the name Henderikse gave to an exhibition of his ready-mades in 1996; in older art this was the concept used for builder that were created supernaturally. "Not made by hands" is program, concept and credo for Henderikse. In his work the holy protagonists, who seem to fall from the church sky like a miracle, are transformed into a case of art and a promise that a liberated, serene insight into the seriousness of the situation must be possible. Jan Henderikse, (b. 1937 in Delft, Holland, lives in New York, Berlin and Antwerp) studied at the Free Academy in The Hague. The first exhibition of "Informel Art" took place on his initiative in the refectory of Delft University in 1958, and it was from this that the "Dutch Informel Group" emerged. In 1959 Henderikse moved to Cologne, where the first assemblages using rubbish and objets trouves were made. He came into contact with the Zero artists and became a member of the Dutch "Nul" group. From 1963-1967 Henderikse settled in Curacao, continued to fill empty crates with rubbish and completed some serial works using photographs - some taken himself, some found by chance and used as ready-mades - money and number-plates. In 1968 the artist became a resident of New York, where he continued to work on assemblages using objets trouves, but turned mainly to photographic sequences, which also appeared in book form, and film. In 1987/88 Henderikse was invited to Berlin by DAAD, the German academic exchange service, and he has had a second studio there since then. Conceptually based photographic work (using objets trouvés or re-photographed material) and ready-mades have continued to be key features of his work. |