News — Oct 22, 2014

Amsterdam, October 22, 2014 — From the end of October, the highly-praised, popular exhibition BAD THOUGHTS – Collection Martijn and Jeannette Sanders will present new work, by Tjebbe Beekman, Gregory Crewdson, Günther Förg, Johan Grimonprez, Markus Lüpertz, Aernout Mik, Ronald Ophuis and Marijke van Warmerdam.

Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, curator of the exhibition: “These Amsterdam collectors have amassed one of the most important private art collections in the Netherlands. The collection is so vast that, even in our spacious lower-level galleries, we can only show part of it. By re-hanging the galleries with new work, visitors will be able to experience a substantial number of new groups from the collection. This new selection features work by Dutch painters and several significant video installations acquired by the Sanders in recent years.”

Three paintings by Tjebbe Beekman (Leiden, 1972) and a piece comprising 32 parts of work on paper are included. Key themes in Beekman’s work are decay and transience, as revealed in the colors and subject-matter, and his ‘destructive’ painting technique.

The American photographer Gregory Crewdson (New York, 1962) is renowned for his tightly-directed Twin Peaks-esque scenes imbued with anxieties, neuroses and longing. The selection includes five of his pieces, including the large-scale Untitled (Penitent Girl) of 2001/2.

Martijn and Jeannette Sanders have a considerable number of key pieces by
Ger van Elk, a core artist in their collection who passed away earlier this year. Among the new highlights of the installation will be Bouquet d’Anvers and Sketch for the Last Adieu.

The large architectural photos and three-dimensional relief by Günther Förg represent a cooler, more conceptual facet of the Sanders Collection. 

Another addition to the presentation is work by Johan Grimonprez (Roeselare 1962). The 80-minute film Double Take stars Ron Burrage, a professional Alfred Hitchcock look-alike, in the leading role. The film flirts with Hitchcock’s fascination for mistaken identity. With images of the Cold War and the War on Terror in the background, a deeper layer unfolds, exploring the mechanism of fear and paranoia in our society.

The video installation Cardboard Walls, created in 2013 by Aernout Mik (Groningen, 1962) is both highly topical, and one of the most recent works acquired by Martijn and Jeannette Sanders. The video installation confronts the viewer with the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan in 2011. In the video, real and imaginary situations alternate, creating a constant tension: what is real and what is staged? Trapped in a labyrinth of cardboard walls, the viewer becomes drawn into a vicious and unending cycle of construction and dissolution.

Ronald Ophuis (Hengelo, 1968) explores the area of tension between painting and social reality. What can the medium of painting mean in a world in which we are inundated by images of violence and human suffering? Ophuis carefully prepares his large-format canvases and drawings of executions, torture and other atrocities by visiting particular locations, and rehearsing scenes with actors in his studio, which he then renders in paint on huge canvases.
Ophuis’ art offers no moral standpoint of any kind, which makes his work both intriguing and painful to look at. The presentation includes Executie (1995), Jongen met geweer (1998), Miskraam (1998) and De zelfmoord van Mala Zimetbaum voor haar executie (2000).

Marijke van Warmerdam (Nieuwer-Amstel, 1959) achieved recognition in the 1990s with her film loops: everyday images of a man taking a shower or a girl performing a handstand against a wall are endlessly repeated without telling any story. In the video Rrrolle-red from the Sanders Collection, the movement of a parrot turning somersaults becomes almost trance-inducing, through repetition and the intensity of the colors.

The exhibition will be rehung between 20 and 30 October, during which time it remains open to the public.

The Sanders Collection contains many hundreds of paintings, sculptures, assemblages, photos, text-based work, films, videos and installations by primarily European and North American artists. In 42 years of collecting art, the Sanders have never before presented their collection on this scale.

The exhibition title, Bad Thoughts, refers to the Gilbert & George work of the same name, and is also a humorous comment on the adventure of collecting. At the same time, it also hints at the shadow side of the human psyche, which resounds throughout many works in the Sanders Collection.

The exhibition BAD THOUGHTS is dedicated to Adriaan van Ravesteijn and Geert van Beijeren of the Amsterdam gallery Art & Project (1968-2001).

BAD THOUGHTS is designed by Florian Idenburg of SO – IL Architects (NY).

About Martijn and Jeannette Sanders

Martijn Sanders was the director of the Concertgebouw for over 24 years, prior to which he led a national chain of movie theaters. Still actively involved in arts administration, his current positions include chair of the Holland Festival and the Vereniging Rembrandt. Jeannette Sanders worked for many years in social psychiatry. The relationship between the Sanders and the Stedelijk Museum, which stretches back decades, takes the form of advice, presentations and donations, among other things.

 

 

Note for editors: For the previous press release, click here. For more information, contact Marie-José Raven of the Stedelijk Museum Press Office on: tel. +31 (0)20 – 573 26 56 / 60 or at pressoffice@stedelijk.nl. For press photos: www.stedelijk.nl/pers