ruimteCAESUUR, Middelburg (NL), July 7 - August 25, 2018
'Small World: The Painter, The Work, and The Studio revisited'
Curator Giel Louws

This exhibition is related to a series of exhibitions by curator Giel Louws in the past 'The Painter, The Work, and The Studio' with artists Just Quist, Fabian Westphal, Machteld Solinger, Aimée Terburg, Niek Hendrix.
He extended his selection for this exhibition about the appreciation artists have for each other's work with more artists, and invited the group to send postcard-sized art. On the last day the postcard-art were swapped at random; participating artists receiving another work of art also highlights the non-commercial aspect of ruimteCaesuur.

Finissage speech by Giel Louws:
"In a digital age, this is a small celebration of presence. In the case of an exhibition about painting, this is actually essential. The works are present; the artist is present. That was the titel of the famous performance of Marina Abramovic; The Artist Is Present. In the case of her performance, Abramovic was also literally present, in person. In the case of a painting also applies; The artist is present, not literally of course, but the artist is present in his work. In an almost catholic phenomenon, the artist is present in an object that he is not physical. Paintings have a physical presence, they take up space. That is why you can meet a painting, you have to meet it to come to real contact. The artist is present; but there is space left; room for the viewer, room for interpretation. That is the wonder of a work of art; I recognize parts of myself in the other person’s space. I was only free in the face of the other, Levinas, the philosopher wrote. Perhaps we can also apply this to a painting. I understand something of freedom, and of the other, when I look at his work.

Actually, I would have a different story today. We are in the process of making a nice book of this exhibition. For this book I wrote a preface, and we found this very suitable as a word at this finissage. This morning, however, I suddenly came to a different insight. A card fell on my doormat, which is deceptively similar to the invitation card of this finissage. Soon, however, it appeared that the map has been edited with the image of Ritsart Gobyn. It has become a new work, based on a work from the exhibition. Ko de Jonge wrote on the back; ‘Sorry, I could not stay away from it‘.
This gesture, and the idea behind it, touched directly on a line from my foreword to appear; “As a painter you are on the shoulders of many other painters”. Ko did not only know that for a long time, but he literally put it into practice. This was the basic idea behind this entire exhibition; the hope that this process of sending work to each other is more than a nice idea. It is an encounter."

Giel 2018-08-25

In Dutch:
"In een digitaal tijdperk, is dit een kleine viering van presentie; aanwezigheid. Dit is in het geval van een tentoonstelling over schilderkunst eigenlijk essentieel. De werken zijn aanwezig; the artist is present. Zo heette de beroemde performance van Marina Abramovic; The Artist Is Present. In het geval van haar performance was Abramovic ook letterlijk aanwezig, in levende lijve. In het geval van een schilderij geldt ook; The artist is present, niet letterlijk natuurlijk, maar de kunstenaar is present in zijn werk. In een bijna katholiek fenomeen is de kunstenaar aanwezig in een object dat hij niet lijfelijk is. Schilderijen hebben een fysieke aanwezigheid, ze nemen ruimte in. Daarom kun je een schilderij ontmoeten, moet je het ontmoeten om tot werkelijk contact te komen. The artist is present; maar er is ruimte over; ruimte voor de kijker, ruimte voor interpretatie. Dat is het wonder van een kunstwerk; ik herken delen van mezelf in de ruimte van de ander. Ik ben pas vrij in het gelaat van de ander schreef Levinas, de filosoof. Misschien kunnen we dit ook toepassen op een schilderij. Ik begrijp iets van vrijheid, en van de ander, als ik naar zijn werk kijk.