Christiana’s sceptre (staff # 52) is on display at Contour gallery in Rotterdam until 18 July 2025
It was on show at photo London, Somerset House, Strand May 15- May 18 2025. Contour Gallery Booth D15
In 2014, I read an interview with Christiana Figueres, the president of the upcoming 2015 Paris Climate Conference. She spoke about the enormous responsibility she carried, despite having almost no real power. To help symbolically bridge that gap, I spontaneously decided to visit the UN office and offer her (or her assistant) a scepter. However, I was stopped by UN security and couldn’t deliver it. It was fascinating, though, to see the scepter on the X-ray scanner. Six years later, I met a woman who truly had both power and responsibility — and I took this photo.
During an extended stay in Georgia in 2018, I experienced the valiant fight against voter suppression led by Stacey Abrams. Back in the Netherlands, I dedicate a staff to her.
The picture shows a box decorated with a staff. It is the container of the staff entitled: I.M. Enrico Castellani (and numbered #81).
The painted container and the sculpture are my tributes to Enrico Castellani’s works of art; his formalist poems in silver and white. Most of all I like his paper stack. Spartito, 1969/2004.
It is also a tribute to Celleno where he lived until his death in December 2017. Celleno where I like to work in wintertime. Celleno reminds me of the village I grew up in. All people connected. Connectivity and reunion are my subjects in my art practice.
In the village I grew up in, there lived a painter at the time. His studio was located between kindergarten and home. At a friend’s house during primary school, I saw one of his gloomy but yet intriguing paintings of a swamp. Before I left the village to go to high-school, I tried to get up the nerve to interview him in his studio.
He answered my questions while he was working on a painting. At one point he pushed his brush in purple paint – I was afraid he was distracted or irritated because of my questions and would soon spoil the painting with this ugly purple. The opposite happened, the painting gained more meaning instead! It was an eye-opening event!
In Celleno I hoped for an equally inspiring meeting, but in fact I was a month too late; when I arrived in January 2018 Enrico Castellani had just passed away, aged 87.
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Some months later I made these ‘poems’ in black, white and gold dedicated to the artist Enrico Castellani and his direct environment.
Inspired by the medieval polychromatic wooden sculptures of mother and child, Frank Bezemer explores contemporary relationships between mother and child. ( Anneke with staf # 97, also known as maatstaf II, and Taeke with staf #14 )
When you possess guts combined with a talent to criticize, there is a constant threat of losing your friends, your job and your comfortable life, which tricks you into resignation. Staff #53 is a tribute to those who continue the fight to better the world. People like Miriam Makeba, Adriano Sofri, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Kamel Daoud ,Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Dom Phillips
Fai del bene e sii felice. La massima del filosofo olandese Baruch Spinoza è messa in pratica ogni giorno da Maria. Molto tempo fa i suoi antenati hanno abitato nella grotta alle sue spalle. Nel giardino crescono albicocchi e anche giovani ulivi. 7 febbraio 2020
Welkom op mijn studio op zaterdag 13 en zondag 14 april 2024
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Speciaal voor buurtbewoners is er de tentoonstelling P a s s a g e s georganiseerd met werk van mijn collega’s en mij.
U kunt op zaterdag 13 en zondag 14 april 2024 tussen 11.00u en 17.00u komen kijken naar de binnenkant van het gebouw en de kunstwerken die er gemaakt zijn. En desgewenst in gesprek gaan met de kunstenaar.
(meer informatie over de foto getiteld: Study! onderaan in cursief.)
Entree € 5,- Dobbelmannweg 5 6531KT Nijmegen.
Especially for local residents the exhibition P a s s a g e s has been organised with works by my colleagues and me. You can come on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April 2024 between 11am and 5pm to see the inside of the building and the artworks created there. And engage in conversation with the artist if you wish.
Entrance fee € 5 ,-
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About the photo titled Study! read more below
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The photo shows the door to my studio. From the left to the right: Two toddlers in memory of the former kindergarten, Emeritus Professor of Educational Studies at Radboud University Theo Bergen reenacting the statue on the frontside of the studio-building, and a delicate balancing staff # 31.
The building in which my studio is located has a statue of Johanna de Lestonnac on the front facade. She has a book in her hands, to emphasize the importance of education. Johanna de Lestonnac was a woman who began educating girls in Bordeaux in the 16th century.
The building was part of a large Roman Catholic complex, with a church, a rectory, a cemetery, a convent and a variety of schools. The building was originally built as a boarding school for girls. Then in 1931 it was transformed into a kindergarten. And in 1989, the building was converted into studios for artists.
