Of central importance to my work is an inquiry into the multi-layered co-existence of images, realities and emotional states. Exploring the use of streams of images to create an effect that is intense, direct and personal, my work deals with the duality of life’s many opposites. I aim to move from obscurity to clarity, allowing the work to grow towards its meaning. A condensing of past, present and future; both mine, and hopefully the viewer's. Although I use video and camera footage, gathering large image collections in which I like to get lost, the language and ideas of painting are important to me: Gustav Courbet, Hans Memling, 17th Century Dutch landscape paintings, or the perceived truth of realism. I also refer to the language of commercial media and TV. Music, pop songs, rhythm or drone, play an important role. The endless groove of psychedelic rock and guitar bands. The precision and freedom of improvisation. In many of the references there is the idea of myth functioning as memory and desire.
I literally want to film exactly as I look – intuitively choosing a particular scene in a city or landscape. Spending many hours in one place to capture its atmosphere, recording the passage of time, I shift between scanning and zooming in on details, between capturing the moment and registering the past. It’s as meditative as it is an active way of filming. The footage is often combined with sampled imagery, self-portraits and poses, or documents others in their everyday activities. In terms of an editing process, I treat everything as being equally important and valuable. Blending this material together into multiple projection installations, I create environments where the viewer wanders through layered compositions, exploring them from their own vantage points and from the visual cues I provide. I structure the two-dimensionality of the images onto the three-dimensionality of a space, and together with the placement of formal elements and the use of sound and music, I consider how my recordings can be shaped to influence the viewer’s encounters with emotional and filmic states, dreams and lived physical spaces. Scroll down for CV and more texts
Education/Residencies
Solo Exhibitions
2009 • Morgana Plains, from silver to gold, Arts Westchester, White Plains (NY)
2007 • Be Strong, Bytheway Foundation, Amsterdam
2005 • Drawings, IJssalon Aris Laan, Den Helder (NL)
2005 • Ueno Park, Disclosures IV, VRIZA, Amsterdam
2002 • Hit The Feeling, Hedah, Maastricht (NL)
2000 • Planets - Step into a World, The Bakery / Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
1999 • Installation Fin de Siècle, l’Institut Néerlandais, Paris
1998 • Poses Positives, Luxus, The Hague (NL)
Group Exhibitions & Projects
2010 • Fax, The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, Los Angeles CA (US), Plug In, Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg (C), and Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong
2010 • The Destroyed Room I & II, Whatspace, Perron 58, Tilburg (NL), and The Forgotten Bar / Galerie Im Regierungsviertel, Berlin
2010 • Sifres, Greylight Projects, Heerlen/Hoensbroek (NL)
2009 • Fax , The Drawing Center, New York
2009 • 3 artists selected by Dan Graham and a work by Dan Graham, 303 Gallery, New York
2007 • bigPOWERsmallWORKS, gallery Kathareze, Tilburg (NL)
2007 • Paulo Post Futurum, Lokaal 01, Breda’s Museum, Breda (NL)
2007 • Painting +, Approach Art Association, HattyúHáz Art Hall Pécs, Hongary
2007 • W139 / Basement, Amsterdam
2007 • Kommst du, ich kann nicht mehr, Gebouw F, Breda (NL)
2006 • Attitudes, De Veemvloer, Amsterdam
2006 • To Collect 1, Video Art, curated by Noa Sadka, Studio A, Tel Aviv, Israël
2006 • NH-3D, Noord-Holland biennale, KCB Bergen (NL)
2006 • World Unlimited, Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem (NL)
2006 • Three years IJssalon Aris Laan, curated by Emo Verkerk, Museum Waterland, Purmerend (NL)
2005 • Acces, Consortium, Amsterdam
2005 • GOTS, project in public space, Groningen (NL)
2005 • River Walk, Screens on 11, TPG Building / Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam
2003 • Maeda Studio’s, CCA Kitakyushu, Japan
2003 • CCA Night, galery Cafe Bar Enyen, Tokyo
2003 • Living Apart Together, VRIZA, Amsterdam
2002 • Encounters, Impakt Festival, Utrecht (NL)
2002 • She shows, Nominees, Mama Cash Art Price, Rotterdam
2002 • Being all things to all people, Nouvelles Images Galery, The Hague
2001 • Central Screening, Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL)
2000 • Buren, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL)
2000 • Leaving the Island - PICAF’, Pusan Biennal, curated by: M. Martinez, H. Hanru en Young Chul Lee, Pusan Metropolitan Museum of Art, South-Korea
2000 • Flowers in the New Time, Noordbrabants Museum, ’s Hertogenbosch (NL)
2000 • Pitch Fever, de Witte Zaal, Gent (B)
1999 • Kamerschatten, KW14, ’s Hertogenbosch (NL)
1999 • Filmic Images, Galery Ferdinand van Dieten d’Eendt, Amsterdam
1999 • International Photography Biennal México, Centro de la Imagen, México City
1999 • Unité des Habitants, Art-is, ’s Hertogenbosch (NL)
1999 • Archisx & Bdybldng, De Fabriek, curated by Koen Delaere, Eindhoven (NL)
1999 • Unlimited.nl-2, curated by Hou Hanru, Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam
1997 • Gang01, Lokaal 01, Breda (NL)
1996 • DeRetour, De Fabriek, Eindhoven (NL) and Shed im Eisenwerk, Frauenfeld (CH)
Cooperations /Screenings /Other Projects
2010 • ‘Forwards Backwards’, Temporary Land Art sculpture, Jofrahoeve, Esch (NL)
2010 • Residency at ZIN guest studio at modern cloister ZIN, Vught (NL)
2010 • Contribution at Symposium ‘Land en betekenis’, ZIN, Vught (NL)
2010 • ‘Forwards Backwards’, Trumpet Performance; Closure event, Jofrahoeve, Esch (NL)
2010 • Panel Discussion ‘Morgana Plains, from silver to gold’, with Livia Straus, Anna Gritz and Paul Clay. Artswestchester, White Plains (NY)
2009 • Camera for Dan Graham’s video: ‘Seurat, No Monet’.
2007 • Lecture Symposium Euro Land Art 2007, ’s-Hertogenbosch (NL)
2006 • Contribution video ‘Home’ to DVD 10 years Post St. Joost, Screenings: Blinde Muur, Chasse Theater, Breda and Urban Espresso Bar, Rotterdam
2005 • Audivideo IV, De Fabriek, Eindhoven (NL)
2002 • Text/photo contribution to Wanakio 2005 urban art exhibition, Naha, Okinawa, Japan
2002 • Installation at festival Kinetic North, The Stubnitz, Amsterdam
2001 • Live video/ slide Performances during the ‘Theater festival Boulevard’, Den Bosch
Commissions
2006 • Publication ‘Dear East ‘ commissioned by Paradiso and Stichting SKOR Amsterdam
2003 • Intstallation ‘Love me’, for the Ministry of Social Affairs, The Hague, commissioned by Rijksbouwmeester
2002 • Design of installation at appartement entrances of the University of Amsterdam, commissioned by the Amsterdam Foundation of the Art, in cooperation with VMX-architects
Professorships
‘06 > ongoing • Professor Fine Art, Avans St. Joost academy, Breda & ’s-Hertogenbosch (NL)
2009 • Guest examinator, art academy, AKI, Enschede (NL)
2008 & 2009 • Guest professor, ArtEz, art academy, Zwolle (NL)
2006 & 2007 • Guest professor examn students Fine Art St. Joost, ‘s-Hertogenbosch
2006 • Guest professor & lecture at the Masters Fine Art - Post St.Joost, Breda (NL)
2000 • Workshop and lecture, at The Academy of Architecture, Tilburg (NL)
2000 • Workshop Photography at the Faculty days 2000, University of Amsterdam
1999 • Guest professor, Workshop multi media, Art Academy ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL)
Stipends & Awards
2009 • Project Grand from the BKVB
2009 • Grand for contribution website, Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, Tijlfonds,
2007 • Nomination Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Noord-Brabant, Beeldende Kunstprijs
2005 Basis stipend Fonds voor Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst (BKVB)
2003-2004 • Travel stipend from he BKVB for one year residency at the CCA, Kitakyushu in Japan
2002 • Work stipend from the BKVB
2002 • Nomination Mama Cash Art Prize
2001 • Work stipend from the BKVB
Publications / Catalogues
• 'Disclosures', Publication Exhibition Project 2004-2013, VRIZA Amsterdam (2011)
• J. Adriaans,'Talisman', an exhibition on paper curated by Jan Adriaans, Peeping Tom Edition, Paris (2011)
• W. Gartz, ‘Forwards Backwards, een monument voor verandering en bezinning‘, Landbladkunstblad #01, Landkunst2010, BKKC, Tilburg (2010)
• ‘Voor Niks’, free magazine project, www.greylightprojects.org/inkijkexemplaar, Halle (D), Heerlen and Maastricht (NL) (2010)
• E. Dijksterhuis, ‘Global Contemporary artists for artists’, Catalogue Rijksakademie Endowment Fund /Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, June 2010
• W. Gartz, ‘Be Strong’, poem-copy book, own publication, dec. ‘07
• T. Karreman, J. Schulze, H. Haye van der Werf [red], Catalogue PRESENT, Kunst bij rijksgebouwen 2004-2006, Episode Publishers ‘07
• A. van der Kuijl, NH-3D, North Holland Biennale, Magazine (2006)
• O. Klijn, D. Murphy, L.Teunissen, Automonografie VMX Architects Agenda, 010 Publishers, ‘06
• W. Gartz, ‘Lief Oost/ Dear East’, Die Keure Brugge (2006)
• T. Tegelaers, ‘ode oost, Wineke Gartz’, Liefde in de Stad, Paradiso en SKOR, Aug‘06
• T. Tegelaers, ‘Sociale Werken, Art at The Ministery of Social Affairs, Rijksgebouwendienst, (2006)
• H. Hanru, C. Esche, R. Fleck e.a., ‘If walls had ears – international art 1984-2004, De Appel, Amsterdam, (2005)
• 'Ueno Park - Men become flowers', text Wineke Gartz. Publikation in the series "Disclosures" of VRIZA (february 2005)
• M. Conijn, 'Deventer',catalogue, 'Define Yourself - Defenitions of Space', Deventer (November 2004)
• Catalogue participants 2003-2004 at the CCA Center of Contemporary Art, Research Programm, Kitakyushu, Japan (March 2004)
• ‘Being all things to all people’ Catalogue, 7 young artists 2002’, Year 12 No. 1, Nouvelles Images Galery, Den Hague (2002)
• 'Living Apart Together, behind solid walls', catalogue VRIZA, Amsterdam (2003)
• B. Steevensz, ‘'Library of the museum Vol. 1,Museum of Contemporary African Art, Meshac Gaba’, Artimo, (2001)
• J.-P. Delarge, 'Dictionaire des arts plastiques moderne et contemporains', Paris: Grund (2001)
• J. Guldemond, ‘bericht uit Pusan’, e-interview, Catalogue ‘Buren/Neighbours’, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2000)
• H. Slager and A.W. Balkema, ‘Wineke Gartz’, ‘PICAF-Leaving the Island’, catalogue, Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival, South Korea (2000/01)
• A.W. Balkema en H. Slager, ‘Filmic Images’, in “Screen Based Art”, Lier en Boog, Series of Philosophy and Art Theory, Volume 15, Amsterdam/Atlanta (2000)
Reviews / blogs / TV
• M. van Eck, ‘Ode aan verdwenen platteland’, Brabants Dagblad, (12 July 2010) ‘Openingsweekend Landkunst 2010 ook in Liempde’, Brabants Dagblad, (14 June 2010)
• G. van den Hoven, 'Dertig kunstenaars in 'The Destroyed Room'', Brabants Dagblad, (17 Feb 2010)
• B. Genocchio, '400 Years Since Hudson, to a Pulsing Beat', New York Times, (8 Jan 2010)
• G. Gouveia, 'Artist Projects a New Image of White Plains', Westchester Eye, (9 Jan 2010)
• T.Dutton Ludwig, 'A tale of two cities', The Scarsdale Inquier, (31 Dec 2009)
• K. Rosenberg, New York Times, (8 May 2009)
• G. van den Hoven, 'Expositie met grote mond', Brabants Dagblad, ( 4 Dec 2007)
• AT-5 news, Amsterdam, television broadcast,Wineke Gartz about ‘Lief Oost en de Indische Buurt, (6 Oct 2006)
• E. Beets, NH-3D, Keuze, Palet 4, Year 62, (Aug/ Sept. 2006)
• M. Leij, ‘Geen balans betrokken en esthetische video’s’, NRC Handelsblad, (29 June ’06)
• 'Wineke Gartz, Ueno Park', Voorkeur Amsterdam, NRC Handelsblad, (24 Feb. '05)
• I. van der Spek, 'Kostbaar ego op het spel zetten’, De Humanist No.2, (April 2003)
• S. Spijkerman, 'Reageren op de chaos', Smaak, Tijdschrift van Rijksgebouwendienst, nr. 12, (2003)
• G. van der Linden, BC, Tijdschrift voor Kunst en Cultuur, nr. 7, Year 51, ‘Zwerfkatten, maanlicht en het Instituut Neerlandais - Wineke Gartz, beeldend kunstenaar’, (2002)
• A. Spaninks, ‘Wereldbeelden van Wineke Gartz’, Eindhovens Dagblad (14 Dec 2000)
• A. Demeester, 'Koorts en drang', Tijd Cultuur (B) (2 Feb 2000)
• L. Lambrecht, ‘Pitch fever’, De Morgen (B), (4 Feb 2000)
• Echos de la Presse (F), ‘Installation fin de siècle’, (No 43, hiver 99/2000)
• NPS. Ned.3, broadcast TV, ‘Middageditie’, ‘Kamerschatten’, (24 Nov 1999)
• A. van Driel, ‘Opgenomen in een schimmenrijk’, Couleur Locale, De Volkskrant, (20 Oct 1999)
• R. Schumacher, ‘Bevroren gejoel’, Galerie, Het Parool (14 Oct 1999)
• A. van den Burgt, ‘Terugkijken, stilstaan en vooruit kijken. Expositie van Wineke Gartz in Nederlands Instituut Parijs’, Eindhovens Dagblad (12 Oct 1999)
• J. van Elsberg, ‘Wineke Gartz’, Art house, Skrien filmmagazine (June-nr. 1999)
>For images: http://www.winekegartz.com/works/morgana-plains-new-york-city-ghosts-i/
Text by Annette W. Balkema & Henk Slager
Wineke Gartz' environmental intervenions confront human beings and their world view with the directness of their own physical existance, which appears to be both inviolable and vulnerable.
Wineke Gartz
When I was still painting a lot, I often did not start with the figure as such. Rather, I began with the black surrounding space, so that was already looming, as it were. However, that is an inverted way of paitning. Such an open space that lights up seems close to foreboding my current work which consists of alcehemist assemblages of video, slides, mirrors, time and space. The image I now have of most of my environmental installations is that of a landscape where one may roam, both literally and figuratively. Therefore, the relationship between what is painted, what moves and what stands still has to merge naturally. In a way, I am a collector of images. The collection runs through a filter and then, in a montage, I create a new image. In painting, I did something similar, but still held the opnion then that everything should be condensed into a unique, autonomous image. But the pictures, drawings and sketches in my studio were in fact more interesting to me than that one ultimate painting - which never was completed anyway. A moving-image projection is a fantastic avenue to connect all kinds of image dimensions by showing them in one format and adjusting the physical scale of the projections to the human beings roaming around them. So, I found a way to combine images, not only painterly images, but bare images from reality as well.
I like the straightforwardness of film, photography and video. Such straightforwardness shows what something is, things appear as they are. In painting, I always had the experience that if I wanted to show something as it is, it changed into something else because of my own signature in color and paint. Moreover, painting is very slow in processing all kind of images. In search of a way of handling images bombarding me from both the inner and outer world, I found that collecting them by video and photography at least allows to capture them.
Nonetheless, I am still attracted to the enormous impact painting has and to how painterly problems are solved. I am moved by painting simply because of its pure materiality. However, I work with a time-space dimension: images are scattered and rhythmically composed in an environment, but the installation as such is assembled with a painterly eye. It is a composition where space is the canvas, the slides are the colors and the forms, and there is chiaroscuro. But the height of the baseboard, the size of the walls with respect to the viewer, the placement of the door, and the position of the projector are equally important. Most of the time, I want my images to be lifelike or even bigger, so that one can relate physically to the projected images. It is my task to make the environment and the work fuse together. Just like painting, an installation should be well-balanced. My installations are arrangements in time and space where I regulate to a certain extent the stream of images in order to conduct the viewer. In fact, I throw all kinds of experienced images through my mind, as it were, back into the world from where they originated.
In my work, I strive for a sort of classic harmonious unity. At the same time a form of harmony invites the urge to resist and to be transformed into a specific sense of dissonance. One always has to take the edge off a certain model, one has to engage repeatedly in an investigation of the boundaries of images. In video, though, and cinema and theater as well, one can hardly speak of images since that concept is too static. In that respect, visual environment and space-body interactivity seem to be better terms, where images merge together with sound and a time span.
Whether or not the term art will survive, I do believe that in creating artworks, one relates to the world and to the people. That process is connected to taking part in the pleasure of observing and experiencing that which tends to go by unnoticed. An artwork directs spectators, but confronts them at the same time with something grander than themselves. A work of art opens up, liberates through and makes shifts in regular ways of seeing. It plays a role in one's capacity to love life and to understand why one is in the world. Therefore, it is important that the figure of the artist survives no matter how that figure manifests itself. I continue to trust people who as creative forces in society are involved in creating art in all possible freedom.
Amsterdam, 2000
This text is based on a conversation with the artist, originally written for the PICAF catalogue for the Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival 2000 in South Korea.
Wineke Gartz exhibits in the Netherlands and in various countries worldwide. Her site-specific installations consist of complex overlays of imagery and media, often with the use of music and multiple video and slides projections and with the integral use of the architectural space. Her parallel realities include mixing the ordinary with the heroic, creating an almost hallucinatory experience. Her subjects relate to psychology, beauty, death, illusions and perception, nature versus urban life, art and mass media. Gartz is interested in the combination of spirituality, art and science. Currently she is developing video lectures about her work and started to collaborate with musicians.