pictures hang on walls - xiamen china - 2011
As
the Xiamen Tan Kah Kee College Bart Drost in 2011 invited to be a guest
teacher at the Art Department, they asked him also to do an exhibition
of his artwork. Mostly artists see such as a possibility to create new
works in a kind of artist in residence situation: making new things,
experimenting with new forms, getting inspired by the new invironment.
But in Drosts opinion it would make more sense to show artwork that he
made in his homeland, in his own studio in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Isn't it true that Chinese art students are curious to see 'western
art'? That they want to know how artistst in 'the western world' act and
survive? For the installation 'Pictures hang on walls' Drost enlarged a
vague black and white photograph that he took in his studio. At that
time - November 2010, it was the day of the open studio, so anybody
could come in and take a look - more than fifty drawings and paintings
were hanged on a wall.
But being in China Drost couldn't refuse the
new possibilities of copying one will find nowadays in nearly every
street corner, so he gave a new form at the images. Some of them he 'took from the wall' and re-created them into flat two-dimensional
objects, which he enriched with gold and a little red. The new works
became a sort of religious items, very easily to carry with you in a
procession. Sacrefying the arts, so to say!