Vague

Unfortunately, the exhibition 'Documenta documents: Heyboer revisited' by Jasmina Fekovic at Outline is quite disappointing. Just one short film, and not a very interesting one too. It shows some vague shots of late Anton Heyboer's dog in the cropped house where the excentric artist used to live. There's a voice over by Heyboer himself, I'm not sure what he's mumbling about. I'm afraid it's all totally irrelevant. (Exhibition until April 4, 2009.)

Nice smelling slaughterhouse

Painter Rob van de Werdt (now in a group show at Arti) is also (together with Nienke Vijlbrief) running P/////AKT, an alternative space located at the Zeeburgerpad 53. It funcions as a platform for contemporary art, focusing on art's and the artist's autonomy. No relational estheticism here. Currently P/////AKT is running the exhibition 'In between and let's make things better', a solo by Rob van de Werdt himself. Why not, I guess. 

Again, he shows works that seem to be more about paint than they are about painting. Some more cut open paint cans, a Frieze Art Fair-bag on the floor filled with used-up paint tubes, and there's also a football laying around, made out of emptied paint tubes pressed together. The most spectacular work is hiding behind a sliding door with lots of finger prints on it: a build-in space which is completely drenched in oil paint. It's looks like some sort of a slaughterhouse, but it smells wonderful. (Exhibition until March 22, 2009)

For all you paint lovers

Arti et Amicitiae is actually hosting two shows at the moment. Next to the 'Contemporary Semantics Beta' show, there's also a very different exhibition going on, entitled 'Power to the Paint'. It shows works by the three painters Frank Ammerlaan, Joachim Grommek and Rob van de Werdt. All three work in different ways, but they share a conceptual approach towards the art of painting. 

Ammerlaan likes to struggle with paint, working in many layers and partly scraping them off again. Grommek is more subtile, investigating a variety of monochrome colorfield combinations. And Van de Werdt is cutting open used paint cans, to show what the left-over, dried up paint inside looks like. The show is pretty hardcore.

(Exhibition until March 22, 2009.)

Drug using Spidermen

Me & You on a Golden Avenue by Saskia Janssen at Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Rozengracht 207-A (until April 4, 2009). Central to the exhibition (opened last Saturday) is the publication Blaka Watra Spiders, in which Janssen (b. 1968) reports on her encounters in the Blaka Watra user's room in Amsterdam during the period 2006-2008. 

This book (Roma Publications 127) includes an intriguing series of drawings of spider webs. Inspired by a famous scientific experiment done in the fifties by Dr. Peter Witt, in which he gave drugs to spiders and observed their effects on web building, Janssen also asked the visitors of Blaka Watra to draw a spider web. Not because she wants to compare them with spiders, but because she was interested in the way that the drawings would display their individual characters.

A selection of the drawings (with words like 'coke' and 'heroin' written on them, referring to the drugs used while making them) are on display in the gallery. Next to several other works, all made with, by and for Blaka Watra's visitors (who share their roots in Surinam, which explains for instance a small bowl high in the air, almost touching the ceiling of the gallery, resting on a long wooden stick: a voudou-related object that should insure good fortune).

The press release states – almost defensively – that Janssen has no 'good intentions', it's not her goal to improve the situation of the users. She only wanted to become acquainted with them, and the works were produced as a result of this contact.

Beautiful – as usual

Some Surplus by Magali Reus at Plan B, Herengracht 32 (until March 15, 2009). Plan B is an independent Amsterdam based artist-run space founded by artist Tarja Szaraniec in september 2006. It does not work from a fixed theoretic view, but strongly believes that there is more in between the ironic and the iconic.

Recently Plan B has incorporated a multiple store under the management of artist Tomas Adolfs. With small and cheap multiples (prizes start from a few euro's) such as limited prints, small sculptures and records from some artist-run record labels. All from people Plan B work with or has worked with in the past. 

Also for sale is The Psychedelic Session, an experimental magazine by a group of artists (Tomas Adolfs, Staffan Björk, Experimental Jetset, Orpheu de Jong, Matthias Kreutzer, Kalle Mattson, Parra, Kalle Runeson, Jens Schildt, Tarja Szaraniec and Monica Tormell). Each issue another one of the artists is in charge of theme and form, so every issue looks completely different. Interesting stuff.

The six new works in the gallery space by Magali Reus look very beautiful – as usual. She also made a multiple for Plan B's new multiple shop: A renewed purpose, a sculpture with a can on a iron pole with a base of concrete (prize available on request). Go check it out while you still can.