Ilona Hakvoort
It seems that when one is trying to communicate something in a language that isn’t one’s own, the words are pared down to what is absolutely essential. Crafty banter is left out, and the resulting message is more like a plea or a recipe than an essay.
The very short statement by Dutch artists Ilona Hakvoort, Matthijs Hendriks, and Tanja Isbarn reads this way. It is simple, direct, and necessary to experiencing their show at SOIL the way they’re hoping you will:
“The show Undeclared Goods allows the viewer to see the works in the expanded domain of painting. Ordinarily painting is defined as an image on a flat surface. The third dimension, however, transforms painting into a total, physical experience. [The observer is invited] to perceive the whole gallery space as a landscape, which also applies to each individual work.”
I think if I hadn’t read this, I would have directed my attention to the rather modernist art objects and assumed it was some tribute to minimalism. Knowing their intent, though, I let myself fall into the individual “paintings” as though floating in a pool. Each of the paintings, drawings, and resin pieces has the effect of pulling you in and getting you lost, if you let them.
Tanja Isbarn {This is one drawing in a series that lies in a little cardboard box in the gallery. Visitors are invited to put on white gloves and pick up, handle, and put down each drawing, enabling an elaborate act of looking.}
While Hakvoort, Hendriks and Isbarn value the physical work they’ve made, equally important is the distance between the objects and their viewers. What process connects the two, and what methods are used? These artists want us to look at their work, and they want us to experience the act of looking at it. It is a complicated, quiet request, and they traveled across oceans and continents (and an active volcano) to make it. I’m grateful for it.
Matthijs Hendriks
