The Stedelijk Museum Bureau Presents New Works by Tala Madani

Written by Georginio Strootman Saturday, 10 December 2011 22:15

Amsterdam.- The  Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam is pleased to present " Tala Madani : The Jinn" on view from December 10th through February 5th 2012. "The Djinn" is a powerful and elaborately constructed new body of painted, drawn and animated work by Tala Madani. Arab folklore and Islamic teachings depict the jinn as mythological creatures with magical powers who occupy a world next to our own, in which they intervene without restraint. By tracing the potential intrigues of these demons, Madani scrutinizes human obsessive behaviour and then skilfully sketches her observations – distinctly peppered with a dose of fantasy – upon canvases and sheets of paper. Madani’s work is characterized by an illustrative stroke of the brush, moving back and forth across the borderline between the clear-cut line of comic strips and an expressionist use of color. Her energetic compositions situate her figures in absurd scenes touching upon the non-rational aspects of human behavior. Many of Madani’s compositions are constructed as if taken by surveillance mechanisms, or candid cameras, which the figures depicted are conscious of, but ignored.

Against the background of intimate, domestic or dreamlike environments, the unambiguously male figures expose themselves freely and easily to observers. Apparently obsessed, they are completely immersed in the demonic scope of their activities. And invite the observer to enjoy these activities, too. Through taking the idea of the demonic obsession as a point of departure for her works assembled in the SMBA, Madani has added a mythological element to her artistic practice. While a fascination for the non-rational has always driven her artistic production, the explicit involvement with Islamic tradition and Arab folklore enriches her practice in a fresh and intriguing way. Tala Madani (Iran, 1981) lives and works in Amsterdam and New York. After receiving her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2006, she was awarded the Kees Verwey Fellowship and was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam in 2007. Recent exhibitions of her work include ‘He Disappeared into Complete Silence’, De Hallen, Haarlem (2011), ‘Speech Matters’, Venice Biennale (2011), ‘Greater New York’, MoMA PS1 (2010), 4th Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennial (2009), ‘Younger than Jesus’, New Museum , New York (2009), ‘Dazzle Men’, Pilar Corrias Gallery , London (2009).


During a short period at the end of the 19th century three great cultural buildings arose around today's Museumplein, then an empty meadow: the Rijksmuseum (1885), the Concertgebouw (1888) and the Stedelijk Museum (1895). A.W. Weissman, Amsterdam's City Architect, designed the Stedelijk. With its gable end and small tower the exterior, built in red brick and with stone dressings, his design refers to 16th century Dutch Renaissance architecture. Over the course of the years the interior has been regularly modernised and adapted for the demands of the time. Under the leadership of directors David Roëll and Willem Sandberg the gallery walls were covered in lighter material. In the 1950s the auditorium with a coffee room (called the Appel Bar) next to it, the restaurant, the library and reading room, the museum shop and the print cabinet all came into being. There were not only renovations, but also extensions. In 1954 the New Wing, as conceived by Sandberg, arose along the Van Baerlestraat. Openness was his motto, and with the replacement of the heavy, closed front door with a glass entry, the last traces of 19th century exclusivity disappeared.In the period 1945-54, the total floor area was nearly doubled by the insertion of intermediate stories. About three- quarters of the new space was intended for offices, restoration and photographic studios (in 2002 about 200 staff are at work there) and depot space. The rest expanded the exhibition space; in 1945 that was 4550 m2, in 1954 6090 m2. The number of visitors also doubled in that period, from 100,000 to 200,000 per year. Presently the figure is about 400,000. Over a century after it opened, Weissman's building still appears to fulfil requirements surprisingly well with regard to, for instance, the dimensions of the galleries and the splendid natural lighting. Inadequate maintenance and the absence of climate control however mean that it had become sadly outdated. With the ambitious exhibition programme there is insufficient space to keep the most important works from the collection, which has grown enormously over a century, on permanent display. The depots and work spaces have also become much too small. In recent years, the old building has been renovated and all later additions removed. The Stedelijk is now using a new central storage facility in Amsterdam West. The Stedelijk Museum opened its doors in 1895, the same year as the first Venice Biënnale. Initially, the new Museum exhibited the legacy of the eccentric Sophia Augusta de Bruyn, Douairière Lopez Suasso: a heterogenous collection of antiques, coins, jewels, timepieces, silver knickknacks and other curiosa. Period rooms, from canal houses that had been demolished when Raadhuisstraat was driven through, helped create a presentable whole.

In 1895 the Vereeniging tot het Vormen van een Openbare Verzameling van Hedendaagsche Kunst (VvHK=Association for Forming a Public Collection of Contemporary Art) moved from the Rijksmuseum to the Stedelijk. There the association with the long name showed its contemporary French and Dutch masters. Very quickly the Museum filled up with a very diverse collection, ranging from banners of citizen's militia units to a apothecary's shop and lying-in room from the Medical/Pharmaceutical Museum. Between 1920 and 1940 the largest part of this collection moved on to other quarters. Only after the early 1970s, when the last period rooms also disappeared, was the Stedelijk exclusively a museum for modern art. Thanks to donations from the VvHK of 217 works in 1949 and another 101 in 1962, the Stedelijk possesses a collection of late 19th and early 20th century art. From 1910 on the Museum also acquired important long-term loans and gifts from private collectors such as P. Boendermaker, F. Koenigs and P.A. Regnault. From 1930 to 1972 the Vincent Van Gogh collection of V.W. van Gogh, supplemented with Vincent's contemporaries from the collection of Theo van Gogh, was one of the most important attractions of the Museum. In 1972 a large number of these works moved to the new Van Gogh Museum next door to the Stedelijk. In 1945, the curator and designer Willem Sandberg, who had been forced to go underground during the war, succeeded David Roëll, who became Director of the Rijksmuseum. In addition to an active and controversial exhibition programme, Sandberg began collecting CoBrA, and the collections of German and Dutch Expressionism grew. In addition Sandberg purchased countless paintings and sculptures by 'classic' moderns. Under his directorate photography, applied arts, industrial and graphic design also received a serious place in the acquisitions policy. In 1958 the Stedelijk acquired a unique collection of works by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, including 29 paintings. Together with the paintings of the Dutch Stijl artists Piet Mondrian , Van Doesburg, Van der Leck and Rietveld, these afford the visitor an outstanding picture of the genesis of abstract art. With his retirement, Sandberg presented the Museum 70 art works by Moore, Saura, Van Velde, Visser, Tajiri and Zadkine, among others, which had been given him by these artists as tokens of friendship and esteem. Director Edy de Wilde continued Sandberg's active exhibition programme from 1963 to 1985, but put his greatest emphasis on building the collection. In this he focused on art from the 1960s onward, with an accent on the work of artists like Jean Dubuffet , Tinguely, Dibbets, Van Elk, Ryman and Willem De Kooning , but also particularly on American Pop Art (Kienholz, etc.) and Colour Field painting (Newman, etc.). He also purchased important works from the 1950s by Henri Matisse , Newman and Robert Rauschenberg . Since 1980 there has been a special room in the Museum for video art, after various exhibitions in this field had been organised during the 1970s. The video collection (presently being digitised) contains work by Paik, Viola, Nauman and others. In the 1980s the Stedelijk acquired paintings and sculptures by Arte Povera artists such as Zorio, Paolini, Merz and Penone, as well as the then still Young Italians such as Cucchi and Chia. The German artists Anselm Kiefer , Georg Baselitz , Lüpertz and Penck are also well represented in the collection. After 1985 Director Beeren expanded the collection of Pop Art with work by Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg . By purchases of Andre, Donald Judd and De Maria, the Minimalists also became an accent in the collection. At the same time Beeren acquired recent works by Frank Stella , Kounellis, Kiefer and Sigmar Polke . Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.smba.nl

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~