Marcel van Eeden
27 Mar - 22 May 2010
© Marcel van Eeden
From the Series “A Cutlet Vaudeville Show: Kotteletenlied”, 2009
Nero and color pencil on paper
19 x 28 cn
From the Series “A Cutlet Vaudeville Show: Kotteletenlied”, 2009
Nero and color pencil on paper
19 x 28 cn
MARCEL VAN EEDEN
“A Cutlet Vaudeville Show”
27.3. – 22.5.2010
After a series of international exhibitions — the Hamburg Kunsthalle (2009), the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos (2008), the Heidelberg Kunstverein (2008) and the Draiocht Art Centre Dublin (2007) — the Dutch artist Marcel van Eeden (born 1965 in The Hague) presents for the second time a new series of works at Galerie Bob van Orsouw.
At the heart of Marcel van Eeden’s artistic production stands the ritualized and rigorous probing of the medium of drawing. For many years now, the artist has produced at least one drawing per day. He mostly uses the nero (or charcoal) pencil for his black-and-white pictures that recall the aesthetics of comics or old film stills and that he, in his more recent work, also combines with color. This, for the artist, constitutes his ongoing creation of a cohesive work cycle. All of which bears the overall title that refers to ephemerality, “The Encyclopedia of My Death”, dedicated to a strictly conceptual principle: Van Eeden draws on different precursors, whose text and image material, however, exclusively predate his birth year of 1965. His personal biographical absence points to the constant presence of (his) death and decline. The fragmentary narratives in the single series are set up around fictional protagonists, inspired by historical figures. For them Van Eeden has fabricated a biographical existence.
The work series A Cutlet Vaudeville Show is one that Van Eeden created specifically for the exhibition in our gallery. At the center stand the figures Oswald Sollmann, Matheus Boryna and Karl Wiegand, whose mysterious lives in changing roles had already crossed paths in former drawing series. In this way Van Eeden continues the complex, non-linear narration of earlier cycles. Thus the work series The Death of Matheus Boryna could already be seen at the Galerie Bob van Orsouw in 2007 and Sammlung Boryna within the framework of Art Basel Art Unlimited in 2009, in which the protagonist slipped into the role of the art collector.
In the Cutlet Vaudeville Show, the multiple characters meet up as actors in a cabaret performance in the style of vaudeville, all of whom repeatedly slip into the role of artist. This work, in the context of earlier series by Van Eeden, can best be understood as an entertaining, absurdist interlude, as is traditionally performed in different theatrical forms.
The three main characters, dressed as cutlets and in various roles, appear together on stage in several sequential humorist presentations. In the context of the entire cycle, the harmless showplace and the ironic plot obscure the possibly dubious intrigues incited by the characters’ multiple identities. The cabaret show, however, also points to a local context: the past presence of Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of Dadaism. As in his other series, a sideshow of 20th century history operates as a platform on which fiction and reality can be woven into a new fabrication. For the first time for this exhibition, Van Eeden carries over his drawings into moving pictures. In this way his drawings fashion a film that aligns different performances of the show and presents them on a miniature, scale-model stage. The series is likewise perpetuated in a wall painting and a sculptural object. The cutlet costume as the main prop turns into a bronze sculpture and thus from a fictional performative object into a real and relic-like one.
Judith Welter
Vernissage in the presence of the artist: Friday, 26 March 2010, 6 to 8 pm
“A Cutlet Vaudeville Show”
27.3. – 22.5.2010
After a series of international exhibitions — the Hamburg Kunsthalle (2009), the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos (2008), the Heidelberg Kunstverein (2008) and the Draiocht Art Centre Dublin (2007) — the Dutch artist Marcel van Eeden (born 1965 in The Hague) presents for the second time a new series of works at Galerie Bob van Orsouw.
At the heart of Marcel van Eeden’s artistic production stands the ritualized and rigorous probing of the medium of drawing. For many years now, the artist has produced at least one drawing per day. He mostly uses the nero (or charcoal) pencil for his black-and-white pictures that recall the aesthetics of comics or old film stills and that he, in his more recent work, also combines with color. This, for the artist, constitutes his ongoing creation of a cohesive work cycle. All of which bears the overall title that refers to ephemerality, “The Encyclopedia of My Death”, dedicated to a strictly conceptual principle: Van Eeden draws on different precursors, whose text and image material, however, exclusively predate his birth year of 1965. His personal biographical absence points to the constant presence of (his) death and decline. The fragmentary narratives in the single series are set up around fictional protagonists, inspired by historical figures. For them Van Eeden has fabricated a biographical existence.
The work series A Cutlet Vaudeville Show is one that Van Eeden created specifically for the exhibition in our gallery. At the center stand the figures Oswald Sollmann, Matheus Boryna and Karl Wiegand, whose mysterious lives in changing roles had already crossed paths in former drawing series. In this way Van Eeden continues the complex, non-linear narration of earlier cycles. Thus the work series The Death of Matheus Boryna could already be seen at the Galerie Bob van Orsouw in 2007 and Sammlung Boryna within the framework of Art Basel Art Unlimited in 2009, in which the protagonist slipped into the role of the art collector.
In the Cutlet Vaudeville Show, the multiple characters meet up as actors in a cabaret performance in the style of vaudeville, all of whom repeatedly slip into the role of artist. This work, in the context of earlier series by Van Eeden, can best be understood as an entertaining, absurdist interlude, as is traditionally performed in different theatrical forms.
The three main characters, dressed as cutlets and in various roles, appear together on stage in several sequential humorist presentations. In the context of the entire cycle, the harmless showplace and the ironic plot obscure the possibly dubious intrigues incited by the characters’ multiple identities. The cabaret show, however, also points to a local context: the past presence of Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of Dadaism. As in his other series, a sideshow of 20th century history operates as a platform on which fiction and reality can be woven into a new fabrication. For the first time for this exhibition, Van Eeden carries over his drawings into moving pictures. In this way his drawings fashion a film that aligns different performances of the show and presents them on a miniature, scale-model stage. The series is likewise perpetuated in a wall painting and a sculptural object. The cutlet costume as the main prop turns into a bronze sculpture and thus from a fictional performative object into a real and relic-like one.
Judith Welter
Vernissage in the presence of the artist: Friday, 26 March 2010, 6 to 8 pm