Exhibition Preface
The exhibition Face2Face to be held in the Today Art museum in March 2013 is a contemporary show about one of the most traditional subjects in art history: portraits and interiors. Both are among the most intriguing subjects in the history of visual art and have a long tradition in Dutch as well as Chinese painting.
Cees Hendrikse who is a Dutch collector of both Dutch and Chinese contemporary art chooses the four painters in the exhibition. They all offer their unique contemporary perspective within this theme.
As a confrontation between two pairs of painters from two different countries and continents, the exhibition can also be of great value in the understanding between different cultures and art historical traditions.
The participating artists are:
Chen Danqing (1953, Chinese/Beijing) who is one of the most influential Chinese painters from his generation. He established his name almost overnight in the 1980s with his paintings portraying Tibetans. That decade saw oil-painting break from being propaganda medium and return to an art form. Chen’s art was part of this conversion. His present pictures of Chinese models echo the duality of traditional and contemporary China.
Jan Worst (1953, Dutch/Groningen) is an international well know painter who’s paintings give us an insight in the ambiguous desires that are in the mind of a Western spectator. His excessive interiors form the theatre for human agony. Interiors with tapestries and books form the main background in his paintings in which the human figure acts as a lonely figure. It also refers to the ancient tradition in painting and referrers to subjects used by the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age artists.
Mao Yan (1968, Chinese/Nanjing) is a very respectful artist in China. His paintings are entirely dedicated to portraiture. His portraits reflect his fascination for the human character through expression. The main subject of his portraits is a Caucasian model that for Mao Yan creates certain neutrality away from immediately being labelled as a Chinese artist.
Philip Akkerman (1957, Dutch/The Hague) explores in his paintings the possibilities of paint, of painting, of art and even, every now and then, he tries to figure out who he is, who we are and what it is, this existence of ours. Self-portraits have always been one of the most important subjects in Western art history. Philip Akkerman is instantly associated with this subject as this is his sole theme. His ever-changing self-portraits express that every man is always busy with his own identity. Philip Akkerman has attracted the attention of galleries and collectors from all over the world. He won several prizes and he participated in important group exhibitions.
The exhibition Face2Face offers an intriguing insight in the way contemporary artists explore the ever-fascinating subjects in painting such as portraits and interiors. It gives us an insight in the way gifted artists from different cultures look upon the human being from tradition to the modern times.
