Ben Middelkamp — In Between Thoughts and Nature.

Kultur in anderen Teilen der Erde: Davon hat sich der niederländische Künstler Ben Middelkamp in den zurückliegenden Jahren inspirieren lassen.

Dabei entstanden Bilder und Skulpturen, hergestellt aus Naturstoffen, Erinnerungen in Gold und Silber – die jetzt in Berlin ausgestellt werden.
Zur Finissage der Schau „Zwischen Gedanken und Natur“ laden wir Sie herzlich ein.

Wann?
Freitag, 28. August 2009, 19 Uhr
Wo?
Martinski Fine Arts
Gneisenaustraße 64, 10961 Berlin

Ben Middelkamp wurde 1957 in Wijhe/Niederlande geboren. Seit dem Besuch der Kunstschule Ubbo Emmius in Leeuwarden arbeitet er als bildender Künstler und Maler. Seine Kunst wird in zahlreichen Ausstellungen in den Niederlanden, Paris, Berlin und San Diego gezeigt.
Der Künstler ist zur Finissage der Schau anwesend und steht für Interviews zur Verfügung.

Mask (mixed media, 2009)

The exhibition opening to Ben Middelkamp's exhibition Zwischen Gedanken und Natur was on Thursday, 30 July 2007.

Ben Middelkamp on his Art:
The things I see and process — images, history and geography — have always been very important to me. Combined with my strong feeling for nature and old things, this inspires me to create my statues. By preference, my chosen materials are old and half-decayed. I have used old and thrown away materials since my days as a member of the artgroup DNA Funart Vactorie. However the materials being used have changed from man-made to nature-made.

I paint in a tradition of Art Brut and Jean Dubuffet. I see the world in images and colors, and use rich colors and gold and silver. The lineage of the latter two being clearly drawn from my catholic youth, from whence I was raised in a world with statues paintings and colors. Never afraid of using colors.

Although a lot of my work has to do with nature, humans are always present in my work. You will nearly always recognize human figures and faces. I have seen a lot of human suffering during my former work in a hospital, in the terminal ward. The strength and hopelessness I witnessed are, for me, strong reminders of “the real thing”: of human life.

I like these typical humans whom you sometimes meet, a farmer, a grocer or just a guy or woman with a characteristic face. I'm very much inspired by old cultures such as aboriginals, Native North Americans and other native races. Their figurative and non-figurative paintings inspire me most.


CV Ben Middelkamp:
1957
He is born in Wijhe, Netherlands.
1957-1975
He sees stained glass windows in parish church.
1974
He starts to feel like an artist.
He paints seascapes and sunsets, sells them in the local village.
1980
Land art projects in Thurso, Northern Scotland.
Land art projects island of Terschelling, Netherlands.
1982
He writes poems, travel stories and plays.
1983
Attends the art school Ubbo Emmius, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
1986
Founding Member of DNA Funart Vactorie (Members included: Ben Middelkamp, Jeroen Boschma, Paul Stolte and (as of 1990) Bryin Abraham).

DNA Funart Vactorie CV
1986
KGB, West Berlin, AUGEN Performance Events 1-4
Front Kino, West Berlin, "Blutnacht" Performance Party
Front Kino, West Berlin, Beschaeftigungsrherapie 1-3
West Berlin, Augen Magazine 1-4
1987
Humanistisch Centrum Groningen, Exhibition
Galerie Paranorm, West Berlin, Exhibition
Open Air Festival, Paris, Performance
Spoekepolle, Leeuwarden, Exhibition
Luxor, Arnhem, Netherlands, Painting Performance
1988
SoToDo Galerie, West Berlin, "Sex Show", Exhibition
Galerie "das Fenster'", West Berlin, Exhibition
VSCD , Drachten, The Netherlands, Exhibition and Painting Performance
Galerie Paranorm, West Berlin, Exhibition
"noord/zuid campagne" Leeuwarden /Tilburg, Painting Performance
DNA Galerie, Arnhem, Exhibition and Performance
Luxor, Arnhem, Painting Performance
1989
SoToDo Galerie, West Berlin. Tea Time 1-4, Events
Galerie "das Fenster" West Berlin, Exhibition
Galerie Bichette, West Berlin, Installation
"Wallpaper the Wall", West Berlin, a wallpapering action
on the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz.
Pike, West Berlin, "A Happening", Performance Event
Galerie Paranorm, West Berlin, Façade Painting
Central Space Gallery, London, Exhibition and Performance
Pike, West Berlin, "Attack of the Killer Wigs".
Galerie Paranorm, West Berlin, Façade Painting 2
Freie Berliner Kunstausstellung, West Berlin, Exhibition
L'Heure Maxime, Paris, Exhibition
Galerie Cebo, Paris, Exhibition & Installation
Montreuill, Paris, Exhibition and Performance
"Greetings from Holland Tour", Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin
Galerie Henkeshuis, Rotterdam, Exhibition
Galerie Paradise Regained, Rotterdam, Exhibition
"Art Amsterdam" Art Fair
Tryater Leeuwarden, Stage Design
1990
"Blatt fur Blatt", West Berlin/East Berlin, A Postering Action at 14 Locations (7 West, 7 East)
Interglotz, West Berlin, Exhibition
Dunker Club, East Berlin, Go East, Exhibition
Galerie Paranorm, Wedding Dress, exhition
ACUD Galerie East Berlin, "DNA is Here" Painting, Performance and Exhibition
Galerie De Loch, East Berlin, "The Walls of the Gallery", Painting Performance
Galerie De Loch, East Berlin, "The Walls Must Go", Painting Performance
Futureclub, West Berlin, "Broken Hearts", Exhibition
Bargelb, West Berlin, Karo, Exhibition
Dunker Club, East Berlin, "A Night to Remember", Performance Party
Kanzlei Gutzman, West Berlin, "Title Pages", Exhibition
Frysk Festival, Holland, Creative Design, Banners and Billboards
Galerie Hoffman, Amsterdam, "The DNA Ego Exhibition"
Tryater Leeuwarden, Stage Design
Ruse Gallery, San Diego, Performance
Galerie De Loch, East Berlin, "Heute keine Kunst"
1993
Last exhibition of DNA Funart Vactorie at Gallery “De Lawei”,
Drachten, Netherlands

1994
He marries Marja.
1995
Exhibition ‘De lieve vrouw” Amersfoort, Netherlands.
1996
Paintings on trees and in caves on the island of Terschelling and
Schiermonnikoog (Netherlands) and Karpathos (Greece).
1996
Exhibition “Open Gallery” Groningen.
1998
Arte limitado, Den Haag, Netherlands.
2001
His son Tren is born.
2003
His daughter Eerin is born.
2009
Exhibition in Berlin: “In Between Thoughts and Nature”.

Lewis Forever & Joanna Seitz — Opening

Lewis Forever & Joanna Seitz
(USA/Berlin)

Friday, 25 July 2009
&
Saturday, 26 July 2009
@ 8 pm

LEWIS FOREVER is a performance collective of four siblings: three sisters and a brother, a director, two dancers and a musician. LF is a family living half in New York and half in Berlin, half Dominican and half Jewish-American, a performance collective and a bloodline. LF makes new performance work for both theatrical and non-theatrical spaces. LF also throws parties and creates other social situations that provide the opportunity to embody ideas and questions surrounding collective versus individual vision, emigration, post-American identity, transient identities, “transnationalism”, belonging, longing, and dislocation.
Taking on the configuration of a collective LF proposes a new model for the family structure reconfiguring traditional notions. Family being the first society we acclimate to and the way we begin to understand the organization of our communities, we are interested in the family structure as a site for recasting the molds that shape our understandings of the world. LF is the taproot from which stem the various incarnations of our work. LF is comprised of Ligia, George Jr., Isabel, and Sarah Lewis.
Together we create a magnetic charisma produced by four individuals whose united cultural and familial fabrics come together in an expression of LOVE towards one another to be shared with our audience. Can we realistically share this ’magic’ created by four siblings whose intricate cultural fabric is so deeply interwoven? We think so.
We embrace the spectator's gaze knowing the undeniable separateness of the LEWIS FOREVER. This separateness is not a static state however. LF believe in blurring the lines between the familial and alien, communicating in a reciprocal exchange between ourselves and the audience.
We propose situations that enable the audience to not only watch but join in on the Lewis's communing, gesticulating, eating, etc... We serve as agents working to achieve a united admiration for the magical present where truth lies in the off-the-cuff, in-the-moment fabrication of immediate circumstances. Everyone and everything is subject to the whims of now. LEWIS FOREVER host a space where logic subsides. We infect the space with our generosity and openness so identities can merge and LF becomes more than just a bloodline, but also a malleable familial and cultural fabric that can extend, embrace, wrap, unwrap, twirl, simply hang, or be hung onto. Bound by this fabric, we LF extend to you.