open studios 2023
22/08/2023
O P E N S T U D I O S & O P E N M O N U M E N T S
Sunday 10 september 2023
11.00 am – 5.00 pm
During the Open Monuments Days 2023, the premises of the HVK, the Huurders Vereniging Kunstenaars, will be open to the public on Sunday 10 September.
Five monumental buildings in Groningen city centre have housed studios for visual artists for about 40 years, realised at the time by the ‘Foundation Housing and Working Spaces for Artists’. Affordable studios in suitable buildings were co-facilitated by the municipality – and especially the then alderman Ypke Gietema. A construction that prevented heritage from speculation, kept visual artists for the city and would ensure a good art climate. Many more than the HVK’s 60 or so studios have not been added in Groningen since then, and unfortunately the survival of what is there has been threatened for some time.
Two of the HVK’s premises are national monuments and the other three are among Groningen’s iconic buildings. As part of the Open Monuments Days, the buildings and studios located in them can be viewed on Sunday 10 September.
In the premises, you will find a range of classical and contemporary visual arts: figurative and abstract painting, sculpture and drawing, woodworking, photography, conceptual art and design to name a few. Several studios also host regular courses, workshops and act as bases for art-related activities. For instance, several cultural foundations are active, music and theatre productions are initiated, there is a small gallery and one of the premises houses a small publishing house.
A leaflet with names and locations of participants is available throughout the city, for example at the Forum and at the Museum on the A, or can be found under leaflet (in Dutch).
You are most welcome!
Pelsterstraat 37
9711 KH Groningen
open studios CITY OF GRONINGEN 2022
26/03/2022
O P E N S T U D I O S city of Groningen
55 visual artists
Sunday 10 April 2022
1 – 5 pm
On Sunday 10 April, 55 artists from Groningen will be showing their work. If you missed 13 March, this is a new opportunity!
A folder with names and locations of participants is available throughout the city, for example at the Forum. You can recognise the folder by its soft green cover. A short film gives an impression of the folder.
You are most welcome!
Pelsterstraat 37
9711 KH Groningen
car park (1 minute walk)
open studios 2022
26/02/2022
O P E N S T U D I O S
5 studio buildings open to public
Sunday 13 March 2022
11 am – 5 pm
On Sunday March 13th more than 50 Groningen city based artists open their studios to the public. These studios are located in five buildings throughout town and function very well for over 30 years. Yet their very existence is threatened, as power and profit for a few at the expense of the many increasingly prevails.
We do everything in our power to preserve the scarce permanent workplaces for visual artists in Groningen. Because … once they leave, they never come back. Do you want to support us? Then sign our petition: ‘preserve studios groningen’: https://petities.nl/petitions/behoud-ateliers-groningen. You can also sign via a link on the website of the HVK – www.hvk-groningen.nl
A digital leaflet with the names of participants and the locations is available in Dutch.
You are most welcome!
Pelsterstraat 37
9711 KH Groningen
car park (1 minute walk)
open studio
05/09/2021
W A L L
16 & 17 October 2021 – open studio
11 am – 2 pm on reservation
2 pm – 5 pm free entrance
In the weekend of 16 & 17 October 2021 you are welcome in my studio between 11 am and 5 pm. Would you rather avoid a crowd or do you prefer a personal explanation? Then choose a time block between 11 am and 2 pm. Reservations for a block of 30 minutes can be made via info@gertvanoortmerssen.nl. After 2 pm entry is free.
You will find plenty of room to keep an appropriate distance.
There is old and new work to be seen. Would you like to see a particular (type of) work, or see a work again? Request it via info@gertvanoortmerssen.nl. The website allows you to select available works, but there is more work in the studio than there is on the website.
Be welcome!
Pelsterstraat 37
9711 KH Groningen
(electrical) bicycles can be stored inside the building
car parking (1 minute walk)
exhibition
13/09/2019
TEKENKABINET – pop up
Tekenkabinet (Drawing Cabinet) presents a pop-up exhibition at IJburg, Amsterdam, from 13 – 29 september 2019. The works shown before at the Amstelpark will now be exhibited in a completely different environment. The setting is raw and industrial. It will evoke an entirely different experience.
Drawing Cabinet: grand drawing on a small scale
Drawing Cabinet: grand drawing on a small scale
Tekenkabinet – pop up
Pampuslaan 11
1087 HN Amsterdam
13 – 29 september 2019
friday, saturday, sunday from 13.00 – 17.00
tram 26
free parking on sundays
new images
22/07/2019
Four works with a comparable ‘language’. The earliest originated in 2003, the last one has been made this year. A fragment from a letter by Dutch painter Matthijs Maris entails an imporatant source of inspiration. Maris wrote it in 1901. By then, he already lived in England for a long time. The letter was a response to congratulations for his birthday, to which he reacted in a rather grumpy way. In addition to that, he muttered:
“I know you’ve got a little landscape, but to me it does not exist any longer, it was the frame which made the picture. The moment the frame is gone, the picture is gone. It was the frame which made me make it, it is not much but I saw this in it.”
This fragment has been occupying me since the discovery in 1987.
For a wider context of this fragment, please have a look under publications & press: beHANGEN / beSTAAN / @ / Gert van Oortmerssen, or choose directly the link: in het kader van de lijst. The text, as well as the entire catalogue, is in Dutch. To leave the catalogue and return to the Dutch version of the website, please select UIT.
exhibition
14/04/2019
ZOMERKABINET
grand drawing on a small scale:
the 7th edition of the Drawing Cabinet in the Amstelpark
Tekenkabinet
Amstelpark 13
1083HZ Amsterdam
opening
Sunday 5 May 15.00 – 17.00
Sunday 5 – Sunday 26 May 2019
Thursday – Sunday 13.00 – 17.00
highlighted
01/04/2019
Defriending my facebook was inspired by a message in the newspaper. A model looks at you… with an empty face. Tears in her eyes, shimmering like diamonds. The WAC logo ‘sparkles’ as well: accentuating the drama even stronger.
Have you been defriended yet? (dutch)
installation
01/07/2018
every time that you touch it, it’ll turn against you…
Portiersloge
Haddingestraat 26
9711KC Groningen (NL)
1 july – 28 august 2018
every time that you touch it, it’ll turn against you…when you open tombs. Like me. Because it is your job, because you consider it normal.
Normal?
That shriveled unity must be taken apart, disassembled! In between the fragments there is seeing … and knowing, and understanding, and of course truth. Yes, oh yes, truth! Truth is difficult, is erratic and fluid, slips out of your hands.
Truth?
Is being made, is made beautiful, will be explained, sold. And then?
A final resting place is a final resting place …
Do not touch me.
Please.
Now I just want to thank you, for going insane. Every second that you suffer, is a loss that I gain. Every breath is a drain down, down into a hole. And your mind is a shrinking thing – it was crushed by your skull. Now you feel time unfolding, deep in your chest. And your body’s expanding, now there’s none of you left. So I just want to thank you, for losing your mind. Yeah you burned just like joan of arc, purified by the flames. You’re alive! You’re alive! Now just want to thank you, for the light that you spread. And magnesium and sulphur, and the fear in your head. And I just want to tell you, you’re nothing so new. Every time that you touch it, it’ll turn against you. Now your future’s a cold thing, down in the damp ground. And your memory’s a lead room, containing this sound. So I just want to thank you, for killing your mind. All the life that you bleed out, well I steal it for mine. You’re alive! you’re alive!
SWANS | She lives | THE GREAT ANNIHILATOR (1995)
new images
05/06/2018
New images: an early, ‘classical’ work from the 1980’s (The art of history), a painting from 2015 (A tick of the times (WAC 2008)) and two WAC logos from 2016 (Transgesture #1 and Transgesture #2).