Bright Young Things Art

Katrien Franken Wins 20th PANL Award!

2011-04-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

Katrien Franken has won the 20th PANL Award for her serie 'Les Filles'.

We dearly congratulate her with this much deserved prestigious recognition!

(Les Filles by Katrien Franken happens to be for sale with us, so hurry up and get some award winning photography into your collection while you can! ;)

Pepe Heykoop in Volkskrant Magazine

2011-04-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

Pepe Heykoop, two of who's chairs were on show at the temporary exhibition space we had in 2009, was featured in last weeks Volkskrant Magazine. He's been working on an amazing building project for his house.

RVDL at Brix sold out!

2011-03-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

Within a few weeks all paintings found new happy owners! This calls for a big solo show later this year!

Joost Vandebrug at International Film Festival Rotterdam

2011-02-08T03:43:00.000-08:00

www.joostvandebrug.com

www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com

www.manjaottenpm.com

www.cakefilm.com

www.brightyoungthings.nl

Photographer Joost Vandebrug, represented by Manja Otten PM and Cake Film is showing no less than 3 short films at the IFFR.

Congratulations Joost indeed!

Past years, Joost has made a polaroid serie for B.Y.T.'s inaugural exhibition and a special tryptich for Bright Young Thing's Dutch Glory exhibition. We're thrilled to have seen his star rising higher and higher since

RVDL at Brix

2011-02-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

Daily Bread

2011-01-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

Ashkan Honarvar - Persephone I

PETROVSKY & RAMONE FOR HUNKEMOLLER

2011-01-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

Elza Jo - The Age

2011-01-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

Changing of the guards

2010-10-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

Diederick van der Lee is the new Managing Partner of Bright Young Things. A founding partner, Diederick has since been deeply involved in all aspects of B.Y.T. As the new man in charge, he will be responsible for direction and international expansion of Bright Young Things over the next few years.

Next to his work at B.Y.T., he is studying for a degree in Chinese Languages and Culture, a degree in Japanese Language and Culture and an honours degree in Philosophy at the University of Leiden.

Anna Sophia van Zweden will be responsible for exhibitions as Head of the Curatorial Program. She will act as senior curator as well as set up the B.Y.T. Curatorial Program, a new initiative which will allow not only a platform for emerging artists, but also young, talented aspiring curators.

Educated at the Amsterdam School of the Arts Reinwardt Academie and the University of Amsterdam, Anna Sophia is a 2010 degree candidate at the Reinwardt Academy majoring in Cultural Heritage with a minor in Art History and Cultural History from the University of Amsterdam. She was a curatorial intern at two of the world’s most prestigeous institutes for modern and contemporary art, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Dallas Museum of Modern Art, where she worked on numerous large exhibitions.

Roderick van der Lee, who was both Managing Partnerand Curator of Bright Young Things since it’s foundation, has passed with great pleasure thesepositions to Diederick van der Lee and Anna Sophia van Zweden. Roderick ‘s focus is shifted towards the directionof a new project of Platform A, B.Y.T.’s parent company, of which he is a partner. In fall 2011 a largenew international Photography fair and festival will be launched in Amsterdamfeaturing galleries, museums and publishers.

Nextto that Roderick has been working with much enthusiasm at Foam, the PhotographyMuseum of Amsterdam. At Foam he is amongst other things responsible for thein-house gallery of the museum, Foam Editions, and the Paul Huf Award, theinternational photography prize for young talent, furthering his dedication tothe support of emerging talent. He also works on large collections,such as that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and lectures on collecting photography.

Frits Zanen will remain in charge of business affairs and finance for Bright Young Things. As a partner at Platform A he will also be on the board of the new international Photography fair and festival in Amsterdam whichwill be launched fall 2011.
Next to his partnership at Platform A, Frits is also an enthousiastic restaurateur as owner of van Beinum.

Invitation: Clemens & August at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam

2010-09-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Exploring a little bit outside of our regular groundsof art, photography and design, we venture into the world of fashion onoccasion of bright young AlexanderBrenninkmeijer. To celebrate his collection on his world tour we would love to invite you to hisexclusive sales show at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam

"The story of the talented offspring of a fashion enterprise, who learnedhis skills in his family's business just to come up with his own label aftersome years, isn't new at all. But when the mentioned talent isn't thedescendant of a famous couturier but a member of a little prestigious clotheschain dynasty, it's worth a closer look, particularly, when this descendant iseager to revolutionize the glutted market of sophisticated designer fashionwith his collection's concept. His name: Alexander Brenninkmeijer. His label:"Clemens en August".

His goods aren't offered at shops but only shown and sold twice a year at wellchosen and exclusive locations like galleries or museums. By now, this"selling tour" includes eleven cities, among them Berlin,Hamburg, Zurichand London. Thepresentations at the different locations are purist and reduced to theessentials, just like the pieces of clothes themselves. Without any trace of"selling show" the collection is hanging on simple cloth rails and ispresented to the small circle of fashion insiders. There is no advertising;that goes without saying. To purchase one of the precious pieces it is notenough just to know the tour dates. Speed is of even importance; after all onlythree pieces of each item are produced per city and per size". (INDIE -THE INDEPENDENT STYLE MAGAZINE, Summer 2006)

Clemens en August Autumn / Winter 2010

Fri.October 8th – Sun. October 10th from 11.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. at Stedelijk MuseumBureau Amsterdam, Rozenstraat 59, Amsterdam

Daily Bread

2010-09-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

Carmen Kemmink

Petrovsky & Ramone: Light shadows

2010-09-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Takashi Murakami at Versailles

2010-09-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

VERSAILLES, France—There was a striking abundance of smiles at the famed Château de Versailles for the opening of a show that detractors have denounced as speculative neo-vandalism, pornographic provocation, and a blight on France’s prized heritage. The sculpted manga-like resin characters smiled. The face-endowed flowers, peering across prints and carpets, smiled. Takashi Murakami, the guest of honor, smiled. As did Jean Jacques Aillagon, the embattled president of the Château de Versailles, assailed for inviting the provocative likes of Jeff Koons and French artist Xavier Veilhan into rooms formerly reserved for the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV, the ill-fated Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette.

"Takashi Murakami’s works are joyous and Versailles is a palace destined for happiness, joy, and merriment," proclaimed Aillagon.

The Murakami exhibition officially opens September 14, but tourists already posed for pictures in front of the Japanese contemporary artist’s ‘Tongari-Kun’ in the Salon d’Hercule and milled around the ‘Flower Matango’ in the Galerie des Glaces. "I think we are not here for Takashi Murakami," urged one tour guide, reminding his group that the centuries-old French castle had other, more storied attractions. There were further hints that dissent over the Murakami show had permeated the gilded walls. "There are so many other places where they could exhibit this sort of thing," lamented another guide.

"All of this stems from misunderstanding," Murakami said of the opposition to the show. "Let’s take baseball or soccer. When one team scores, there are always people who are unhappy, get angry, and voice this. I respect that, but my task is entirely different. I wouldn’t make even the slightest change to my creations. This is not a time for bowing and trying to please everyone. Mine is a work of confrontation between the old and the new."

Aillagon found the parallels, noting that the much-loved Louis XIV can be found in the guise of Hercules, Apollo, or Alexander across the hallways at Versailles and that Pop and contemporary art have similarly seized cultural icons to explore and critique. "Artworks must not be locked into ghettos, or mutually exclusive categories," he mused.

Murakami revealed that, even in Japan, criticism had come to the point of "unabashed Murakami-bashing," mainly on social networking Web sites. "This is probably the most complicated show I’ve done, due to the location," the artist said.

Aillagon has mounted a strong defense of his reign at Versailles, dismissing criticism as right-wing and conservative ranting and suggesting that his successor would follow closely in his footsteps. He noted that controversy had also followed Marc Chagall’s commission to adorn the ceiling of the Paris Opera and the windows of the Reims Cathedral with his work.

"I find it very pleasant when an exhibition sparks debate, but not when it turns to controversy," Aillagon said. "Debate is grounded in intelligence and reason, controversy is grounded in excessive passion, prejudice, and contempt. I find it sad when you criticize a show before seeing it, even before the first artwork has arrived. It’s scandalous when people don’t like an artist or a show and therefore want to have it banned. That is unacceptable social censorship."

Murakami said he had made several visits to Versailles as the project advanced. "I discovered the Sun King’s emblematic presence everywhere, through the golden coloring. I wanted this to echo into my work, which is why certain pieces are covered in golden leaves, among them the 'Oval Buddha' in the garden." Murakami had wanted to install three outdoor sculptures but settled for one.

Notably (though unsurprisingly) absent from the Versailles show are Murakami’s most controversial works, "My Lonesome Cowboy" and "Hiropon," along with their novel depictions of semen and breast milk. The raunchiest piece is the long-legged "Miss Ko2," in the Salon de la guerre.

The artist referred to his two notorious works as "big breasts" and "big penis man." He said, "My main theme is that of the social monster. It so happens that this monster could take on an erotic appearance. But I don’t want my authorship of those works to lock me into an 'erotica' category. I’m just a very normal artist," Murakami said. "Lonesome Cowboy" could have caused some trouble, admitted Aillagon, adding that "it’s best not to unnecessarily provoke scandal or give fodder to those who say we deliberately put on shows for shock value."

Rest assured, there is still nudity in the show. "Sculptures such as 'Tongari-Kun' (with the tongue-in-cheek alias, 'Mr Pointy'), 'Oval Buddha,' and 'The Emperor’s New Clothes' are all male,” said Murakami. "Of course, the 'weenies' are so small that you would think they weren’t even there. But I invite you to take a closer look.”

"Takashi is a bit of a prude," joked the show’s curator, Laurent Le Bon, who is also director of the Centre Pompidou’s new venture in Metz. "This exhibition effectively holds the tiniest micro-penis in the world."

The Murakami show can be enjoyed at the Château de Versailles until December 12.

VERSAILLES

source: Nicolai Hartvig for Artinfo

Daily Bread

2010-09-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

Joost Vandebrug, Luca Smoking

With a Revolutionary White Chair, the Rijksmuseum Eases into 20th Century Design

2010-09-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

AMSTERDAM—Marking a sea change in its mission, the venerated Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, famed for its masterpieces by Vermeer and Rubens, has jumped to the 20th century with a major acquisition of Dutch-made design icon Gerrit Rietveld’s White Chair.Acquired for an undisclosed sum from Leigh Keno, the storied American furniture specialist (and familiar face on the Antiques Roadshow), the rare monochrome chair, designed in 1918 and hand-made by Rietveld in 1923 as a commission from avant-garde writer and De Stijl art-movement aficionado Til Brugman, is already on view at the museum (through October 4), along with another recent acquisition, a 1963 Zero Group abstract relief by Jan Schoonhoven.
Keno, an avid collector of European Modernist furniture, including works by Arne Jacobsen and Carlo Mollino, acquired the chair at Christie’s Amsterdam in May 2007, paying a record €264,000 ($355,724; est. €50-80,000), and kept it in his Manhattan apartment until the fall of last year, when the Rijksmuseum approached him.
"I saw it in an ad from Christie’s," said Keno in a phone interview, "and I just decided to buy it." In Keno’s view, the chair, with its rectilinear frame, which is as much a work of painted sculpture as a piece of furniture, "changed the way people think about furniture" and is "the quintessential 20th century chair."
What is most remarkable about the chair and its allure is the Brugman provenance, including the piece's appearance in a 1923 photograph of the writer’s music room in The Hague, which Vilmos Huszar, the de Stijl artist and co-founder of the movement, re-designed to form a striking "space-color composition" in gray, black, and white.
Brugman was a close friend of Piet Mondrian, the star of the de Stijl movement, and was close with other Dutch avant-garde artists and architects of the 1920s. She also had an affair with German Dada artist Hannah Hoch.When it was sold at Christie’s, the catalogue entry described the chair as a "White-lacquered Red-Blue Chair," referring to the decidedly more common and still mass-produced Rietveld chair painted in those primary colors.
"There is no such thing as a 'red-blue chair,'" said Ludo van Halem, the Rijksmuseum curator of 20th century art who initiated the acquisition. "The easy chair that Rietveld made could be ordered in different kinds of wood and any desired color." According to the curator, the use of the more familiar name for Rietveld’s creation came about because, "there is no other 'red-blue' easy-chair which has this well-documented link to the international avant-garde. It’s a chair many of the star artists of the 1920s sat upon."
In van Halem’s estimation, there are about 25 known and documented Rietveld chairs executed prior to 1940 and only three or four can be exactly dated. One resides in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, a second is in the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art, and the third is now in the Rijksmuseum.
"This is by far the best-documented chair I’ve ever come across of Rietveld’s," said Marcel Brouwer, a specialist at Amsterdam’s Gavelers auction house who handled the negotiations on behalf of the museum, and coincidentally took in the consignment of the White Chair when it sold in 2007 at Christie’s. "It embodies the de Stijl Movement."
Unlike its better-known, brightly painted cousin, the White Chair has a rather spartan and decidedly unadorned look to it. Leigh Keno joked that "anyone who would have come into my place to rob it, they would have taken the $10 stereo and stepped on the chair to get to it."
But Keno was dead serious about proving its importance. Before a group of Rijksmuseum curators and conservators came to Keno’s Manhattan gallery — now the new headquarters for Keno Auctions — last fall to inspect the chair (at the same time the museum’s famed Vermeer "Milkmaid" painting opened at the Metropolitan Museum in a rare loan), Keno already had the paint tested at Winterthur in Delaware by Jennifer Mass, its chief scientist. The tests confirmed its age and identified a second coat of paint had been applied in the 1940’s.
"Everything came out with flying colors," said Keno of the sophisticated testing.The dealer declined to say what price he sold the chair for, though he noted, "I didn’t get rich and that wasn’t the intention. I’m just happy it went to the museum because I’ve always felt this chair is a national treasure."By price comparison to other Rietveld chairs that have sold at auction, the White Chair reigns supreme. A Dutch oak ZigZag chair by Rietfield, dated 1932-40, sold at Christie’s Amsterdam in March for €43,000 ($58,122; est. €10-15,000).Asked if the museum would continue its acquisitions of 20th century design, van Halem said, "this is our first Rietveld chair, but certainly not the last."

source: Artinfo, article by Judd Tully

Daily Bread

2010-09-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

Thom van Rijckevorsel, Belgrado 1, 2008

Daily Bread

2010-09-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

RVDL, Status: Hunger, 2010

We like: They All Hung Out at Max's

2010-09-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Like the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent swallowing its own tail in an eternal circle of self-consumption, the cultural imagination of New York continues to feed on its chattier, noisier, messier, more creatively jostling past, the present being too priced out and tamped down. The Algonquin Round Table, the Stork Club, Cedar Tavern, Studio 54—each has been given its permanent wing in the memory museum, and now it’s Max’s Kansas City’s retrospective moment. A restaurant and nightclub on Park Avenue South whose name had little to do with Max and even less to do with Kansas City, this magnet for artists, actors, musicians, poets, and fame moochers was opened in 1965 by Mickey Ruskin, one of those beneficent fairy god-fathers with a light, guiding hand, who seeded a “scene” and then let it flower until a downtown hangout became a star-strewn house party. The mottled glory that was Max’s is a two-part saga. From the mid-60s to the early 70s, it was thronged with painters, sculptors, and Zeus-browed critics, its in-crowd back room becoming the banquet spot for Andy Warhol and his apostles from the Factory. (Warhol’s flagship band, the Velvet Underground, recorded a live album there.) This gave way to the thundering hooves of glitter-rockers such as the New York Dolls in their platform wedges and lipstick pouts, bringing down the curtain on Act I. Max’s closed in 1974 and reopened in 1975 under new management and became the North Pole of the punk/New Wave movement to CBGB’s southern pole on the Bowery. Complementing Max’s two-part story (the club closed in 1981) is a two-pronged commemorative celebration this fall of its legacy: a lavishly illustrated coffee-table keepsake published by Abrams Image (with words by, among others, Lou Reed and Danny Fields) and a corresponding art exhibition at New York’s Steven Kasher Gallery featuring vintage photos, paintings, and big-ass sculptures. Prepare to get Max-ed out!

source: Vanity Fair

We Like: Made in Heaven revisited

2010-09-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, NY.- When first shown at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the paintings, sculptures and installations of Jeff Koons’ “Made in Heaven” series captured the public's imagination to such an extent that a solo show of the works at Sonnabend Gallery in New York the following year generated lines around the block. With “Made in Heaven,” Koons celebrated, in explicit sexual terms, his union with wife Ilona Staller, the Italian porn star and politician known as La Cicciolina. Depicting the pair as a contemporary Adam and Eve, works with such titles as Dirty Ejaculation and Ilonaʼs Asshole generated immediate controversy that overshadowed their complex dialogue with the history of art and provocative, and Koons’ exploration of the established values of traditional painting and photography. To this day, “Made in Heaven” remains the most debated work in the career of this celebrated artist.

On October 6th, and in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the original Venice presentation of this landmark series, Luxembourg & Dayan will unveil “Jeff Koons: Made in Heaven Paintings,” an exhibition of nine major canvases and one glass sculpture from the artist’s most renowned body of work. The exhibition will remain on view at the gallery through January 21, 2011.

“Jeff Koons: Made in Heaven Paintings” will be accompanied by a new book featuring an essay from curator and critic Alison M. Gingeras, as well as an extensive interview by artist Francesco Vezzoli with Riccardo Schicchi, the Italian photographer and pornographic film producer who collaborated with Staller in the 1980s and is widely credited with shaping her signature Heidi-like persona of La Cicciolina.

If Jeff Koons’ work over the past four decades has been devoted to the aestheticization of contemporary desire, “Made in Heaven” represents a moment of apotheosis. The paintings of the series reference art from the Baroque and Rococo periods – Bernini’s expressions of physical ecstasy as portal to the realm of the sublime, and the carefully staged, allusive love scenes of Fragonard and Boucher that titillated audiences of the day – and also draw upon the breakthroughs of such early modern painters as Courbet and Manet.

Daily Bread

2010-08-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

Petrovsky & Ramone, Love

Daily Bread

2010-08-30T09:16:00.001-07:00

Katrien Franken, I am near

Daily Bread

2010-08-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Michel Willemsen, Be passionate, 2009

Daily Bread

2010-08-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

Sabrina van den Heuvel, Bedroom Diaries

We Like: Alexander Gronsky at Foam

2010-08-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

On 27 August Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam presents a new exhibition by Russian photographer Alexander Gronsky (b. Tallin, 1980). Gronsky is the winner of the 2010 Foam Paul Huf Award. This prize is organised by Foam and awarded each year to a young, promising international photographer under 35. Part of the prize is a show at Foam. Gronsky received the prize for his photographs of the post-Soviet landscape that he took between 2007 and 2010. The presentation features work from the series Less Than One and The Edge.Less than One is about regions in Russia’s vast hinterland where the average population density is less than one per square kilometre. The series looks at the evidence of human habitation in this oppressive, monotone Russian landscape. For The Edge, Gronsky looked closer to home. Here he examines the outskirts of Moscow. And while he explores the city’s periphery, Gronsky also tests the boundaries of photography. All the photos were taken during the long winter months and are dominated to a large extent by the whiteness of the snow, giving them an abstract, graphic appearance. Gronsky considers himself primarily a landscape photographer, although he manages to breathe new life into the genre in surprising ways. The Paul Huf Award jury hailed Gronsky as ‘a new docugraphic photographer who imbues his work with a narrative expressing an intimate distance; long off yet not far away, opening up a whole new world using an apparently traditional technique.’ In his photos of the immense Russian landscape, Gronsky investigates the impact of the surroundings on the emotions and behaviour of the individual. He comments that looking at his photography should evoke emotions similar to that of “thoughtless staring with a vague sense of unease at an undefined point somewhere in space”. Gronsky started photographing at the age of eighteen and has since won numerous prizes and honourable mentions. In 2003, he was chosen as finalist for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class. In 2006, he was nominated for the Ian Parry Award and in 2008 for the Kadinsky Award. In 2009 he won the Linhof Young Photographer Award and the Aperture Portfolio Prize. That year also saw Gronsky’s portfolio appear in the annual Talent edition of Foam Magazine. His work has been published in numerous international magazines. Gronsky has been attached to Photographer.ru agency since2005

Video editorial for MYKROMAG by Joost Vandebrug

2010-08-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

film for the VANABBE museum by Joost Vandebrug

2010-08-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

ADO LES SCENTS [RAIN] by Joost Vandebrug

2010-08-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

The Façade by Joost Vandebrug

2010-08-26T01:58:00.000-07:00

ASH STYMEST shot by Joost Vandebrug

2010-08-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

Petrovsky & Ramone for the Outlaw Freelancers

2010-08-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

Petrovsky & Ramone for Wrangler Blue Bell

2010-08-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Daily Bread

2010-08-25T02:04:00.000-07:00

Petrovsky & Ramone, Underwater

Vanitas: Duy Quoc Vo

2010-07-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

Quoc’s vanitas portrait is an allegory in a the most classical tradition of vanitas. The blonde youth with a flower wreath on his head is a classical symbol for spring, summer, youth and life itself. In summer, however, as in life, there is always the moment in which the sun has reached it’s peak and the seasons, or again life, move towards winter, or death. Quoc elegantly captures the moment in which youth realises it’s mortality. The portrait turns darker, the closer you come near it. The flowers are already starting to decay and the youthful blonde face is showing the first traces of a skull.
The sadness of the face in realising the approaching fall and winter also hints at a broader vanitas theme, both pagan and Christian, that we should not spend the summer (of our life) playing and giving into our senses, but that we should work (or be pious) to profit in winter (in death, the afterlife).

Vanitas: Isolde Woudstra

2010-06-09T04:44:00.001-07:00

Isolde’s works touch several sides of the Vanitas theme.
In a Polaroid picture we see a giant pile of discarded plastic and wrapping material in front of a large Gucci advertisement, which is persuading us that we need those products in order to have a full, happy life. The contrast with the garbage reminds us of the short lifecycle fashion has and therefore the utter uselessness of it all. In true spirit of the theme: shallow focus on appearance brings no happiness.
In another photo we see a cold slab of marble and ants removing the final remnants of something, reminding us that nature will leave absolutely nothing of us on this earth after we have shed our mortal coil, only the good we have done and what we have built.
The image of a woman with a curtain draped over her head is a nod to Magritte’s ‘L’invention de la vie’ from 1928 which showed the fragility of life visually by taking away someone’s identity by wrapping cloth over our heads, which is also a reference to death shrouds. This fragility of identity or being is very cleverly underlined by the girl blending or disappearing into the curtains because of her tattoos and the pattern of the fabric

Vanitas: Tove Everstijn

2010-06-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

Tove’s work for the Vanitas exhibition is a powerful comment on vanity, which in itself is literally derived from vanitas. It means that putting too much effort in something as shallow and superficial as appearance is completely ‘in vain’ , or in other words: wasted effort.
The classical point that was made, was that only the effort put into living virtuously would pay off (towards getting into heaven). The modern remnant thereof is of course that real beauty is on the inside, not the outside.
Tove’s portraits make this point in reference to the absurd amount of effort and suffering contemporary women put into their appearance, especially through plastic surgery. This form of self mutilation hardly ever makes someone look prettier and all to often leaves someone scarred and looking less beautiful and with less character and identity.

VANITAS

2010-05-13T07:58:00.001-07:00

An exhibition about vanity, life, death, the use(lesness) of it all, superficiality and many more contemporary and classic interpretations of this powerful theme in art

Petrovsky & Ramone win PANL Award!

2010-05-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

Bright Young Things of the first hour, Petrovsky & Ramone, have won the prestigious PANL (Photographers Association of the Netherlands) Award in the fashion commissioned category with their Earthling serie!

B.Y.T. Alumnus Rachel Nieborg - Girls & Guns

2010-05-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

Bright Young Things Alumnus Rachel Nieborg has an exciting solo exhibition coming up at galerie Rademakers at the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam.

The exhibition 'Girls and Guns' is an overview of work in collaboration with Ine Mulder, that was started at the Bright Young Things exhibition 'Dutch Glory'. Former B.Y.T. curator Roderick van der Lee asked Nieborg if she would consider photograqphing a contemporary interpretation of the famed Dutch Stillife for the exhibition, which featured young Dutch talent bringing hommage to the old Dutch master and their cultural heritage. Rachel's natural eye for texture and great talent for mixing and photographing it were the perfect link to these qualities in old master stillifes.

Together with Ine Mulder, Nieborg produced a series of exceptional quality. After being represented by the esteemed Rademakers galerie, Nieborg and Mulder continued their fruitful collaboration and have been making beautiful image after image, appropriating the best of classical stillifes in composition and capturing texture, but adding beautiful dynamic and contemporary grit.

These Gilrs with guns will be going far and we whole heartedly encourage you to go see this exhibition, between 30th may and 13th june at Galerie Rademakers on Prinsengracht570-572, and to buy one of these pieces if you can! Although prices have doubled since our 'Dutch Glory' exhibition, we're sure they'll go up after this serie will sell out, no doubt quickly.

enter: Space

2010-04-07T05:56:00.001-07:00

Katrien Franken, Sabrina van den Heuvel, Annika Keijser, Sandder Lanen and Karol Lasia will all show their vision of the space around us and man's relation to it. The exhibition is the second in this year's exhibition programming in collaboration with Streetlab_

Enter:Space portrais our surrounding, tangible or not, as the leading character in photo and video work.

How does man influence the landscape or atmosphere around him? How do surroundings influence man? What do surroundings or atmosphere, visible or not, reveal about human presence? All these questions centre around a non human subject that says everything about our humanity.

An ambitious theme, that was tackled with beauty and certainty by a younger generation.
You are cordially invited to the exhibition opening on friday 23/4 between 20.00 and 00.00 at Streetlab_Projectspace, Postjesweg 2 Amsterdam

EAT THIS!

2010-02-10T05:59:00.001-08:00

An exhibition about the subconscious power of imagery, the things we say by arranging them and the effects created by adding something to play to our natural instinct: Food

Elza Jo, RVDL, Ashkan Honarvar & Tove Eversteijn

A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.

All images have subconscious values each of us have built up over the years through what we have been taught, what we have seen and the emotions attached to the experience with such a subject. When we rearrange these images to form a new image, we are also assembling the subconscious values attached to the used images. In creating these new images we can use these values to either strengthen themes or to create confusion.

In this exhibition the artists have gone one step further by adding an extra ingredient to the visual and subconscious soup: Food. Food and sweets have such a powerful biological programmed reaction in our mind and body, that they prove powerful tools in strengthening themes or in creating confusion. Either way, the viewer of the collages will feel their subconscious stirred by these surreal new images.

Bright Young Things x Streetlab

2010-01-28T03:15:00.000-08:00

After our beautiful gallery space falling casualty to the infamous NZ-lijn, we have been working hard on a fitting new space and we are extremely pleased to announce that we have found it in a collaboration with Streetlab! Our entire exhibition schedule until summer 2010 will be hosted at Streetlab’s Projectspace in ‘Meneer de Wit’

Up to summer we have at least 4 exhibitions programmed, of which an overview of the openings below:

Fr 19/2: EAT THIS!
An exhibition about the subconscious power of imagery, the things we say by arranging them and the effects created by adding something to play to our natural instinct: Food
Elza Jo, RVDL, Ashkan Honarvar & Tove Eversteijn (collages, photocollages & object)

Fr 23/4: ENTER: SPACE
An exhibition with space as the leading character: the space around us, the space between us, the way we shape the space around us, the way the space around us shapes us, the invisible but almost touchable space between people: so close, yet so far. In short: Enter space to the stage
Katrien Franken, Sandder and more to be confirmed (photography & video)

Fr 4/6: VANITAS
An exhibition about vanity, life, death, the use(lesness) of it all, superficiality, fleeting beauty and many more contemporary and classic interpretations of this powerful theme in art.
Artists to be confirmed (paintings, photography, mixed media & objects)

Put them down in your agenda and please join us in exploring and discussing these themes with us the coming months at Streetlab’s projectspace Meneer de Wit at Postjesweg 2 in Amsterdam!

Love,

Bright Young Things
&
Streetlab

Michel Willemsen at Brix

2010-01-16T05:51:00.000-08:00

We have three new abstract paintings by Michel Willemsen on show at Brix in the Wolvenstraat, Amsterdam. Go see!

Introducing Pepe Heykoop

2009-11-04T10:17:00.001-08:00

It is our distinct pleasure to introduce Pepe Heykoop, rising star in Dutch Design. His amazing designs have, immediately after his graduation from Design Academy Eindhoven, found a serious group of international admirers and buyers. His work was selected by Dutch Design icon Lidewij Edelkoort for a special auction at renowned design auction house Pierre Berge (which also did the infamous Yves Saint Laurent sale) and Pepe's chairs were sold at sky high prices. Bright Young Things is currently showing and selling two of his amazing chairs at the B.Y.T. gallery space. (see videos below)

Bright Young Things feature in Het Parool

2009-10-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

New temporary gallery space opening / Snar - End of an Era

2009-10-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

A stone-throw away from the Heinekenplein, we have a beautiful new 250 m2 space with a studio, three exhibition spaces and an installation room. One exhibition space will show a selection of some of the best work we have in stock and the other two spaces will be used as gallery rooms.

As our opening exhibition we proudly presented Snar's 'End of an Era', which will be on show until November 20th.

Snar's work, which he himself describes as 'graphic-abstract-expressionism' with a dab of street-art, has been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States with great success.
His work is a fierce mix of colours, abstract form, images (cut out, drawn, painted or stenciled) and scattered lines and fragments of poetry thrown onto the canvas to create colourful images that demand attention and capture the beholders gaze to draw it into Snar's world.
Snar is influenced by painters such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, but also a great deal by the literary beat generation, with Burroughs and Kerouac championing the concept of 'stream of consciousness', which is at the core of his paintings.

We have also been very busy the past summer with a new venture, which will kick off at 'Where The Bright Things Are'. Next to transforming walls, with exceptional paintings, photographs and collages, we will also be filling interiors with exceptional pieces! We will exhibit and sell contemporary design pieces as well as antique furniture of high quality. We don't particularly believe in periods and styles, but we do particularly believe in quality, craftsmanship, form, function and above all else: beauty.

Public Faces

2009-10-19T11:51:00.001-07:00

Public faces is a collection of photographs which frame faces seen on the weathered and decayed commercial outdoor advertising posters prolific on our city walls.

The faces of politicians, popstars, actors, sportsmen and artists; public people trying to seduce the unsuspecting consumer into action. To vote, to buy a cd. To take out a mortgage, to see a play or to attend a party. Behind each of these convincing images stands a team of photographers, stylists, designers and art-directors. Together they work towards getting the best possible result: A complete, well-composed image doing its duty in an urban setting.

Until decomposition strikes...

With the fading of the colours, the healthy bloom of our star disappears. The paper gets torn. New posters partially cover up the invincible kickboxer and the fresh-faced singer-songwriter. The context becomes unclear. Moisture trickles down behind the paper and turns the star into an ordinary tramp. Shredded eyes look scared instead of proud. The political leader who appeared confident and persuasive has become insecure and trivial. Beautiful women rot away into junkies. Little by little the stars become anonymous shadows, doomed to maintain their grimace until sun, wind, rain, glue, tearing hands and the passing-by of time liberates them from their agony.

In August Bright Young Things showed it's first solo exhibition with Public Faces by bright young Thom van Rijckevorsel

B.Y.T. curator feature in Blend

2009-05-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

In honour of the B.Y.T. founder and curator joining the ranks of the Blend new talent night masters in the photography section, Blend featured an interview.

Sabrina van den Heuvel - Bedroom Diaries

2009-04-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

Sabrina graduated from The Royal Academy of Art The Hague summer 2008. Although fresh out of the Academy, thanks to her talent, her work already has a 'form' that suggests many years of experience, both in quality and subject. Her 'Bedroom Diaries' work posseses a very passionate yet tender look into bedroom diaries... Her work is available through Bright Young Things

Dutch Glory & New Work

2009-03-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

With over 400 people on the opening evening and over 1000 in total the Dutch Glory and New Work double-exhibition in March was a gigantic succes. Next to a selection of fresh new work, the young Dutch masters brought an hommage to the old Dutch masters and the work was exhibited in the fitting location of the Posthoorn church. With contemporary interpretations of Dutch heritage masterpieces such as still-lifes, landscapes, glasswork, portaiture and allegories the exhibition attracted a lot af attention and press coverage from a.o. Elle magazine, the NRC and Vice magazine.

Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam

2008-11-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Late October, early November B.Y.T. had a stand at the A.A.F., the art fair for art priced between 100 and 5000 euro. A total amount of 13.500 visitors found their way to the fair which was held in the iconic old Amsterdam Gas factory. We were very excited to make people happy with the works they bought with us, very pleased with all the compliments we received and extremely proud of the fact that many people named us best stand.

Fall 2008 Exhibition

2008-10-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

Early october Bright Young Things held a private view exhibition in a beautiful 15th century foundation complex along the Singel canal. Under our joint motto 'only the best' our friends from LVMH catered to our guests with lots and lots of Moet champagne and delicious Belvedere cocktails. Again the place was packed and buzzing with atmosphere and some new found art collectors bought some great pieces!

Seven Tips for Beginning Art Collectors

2008-08-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK—Starting an art collection can be intimidating for a number of reasons: financial constraints, lack of a formal art background, or the attitude beginning collectors can be greeted with at certain galleries, a standard of customer service W.M. Hunt of the (friendly) Hasted Hunt Gallery describes as: “You could be set on fire and no one would give you a glass of water.” Last week, Hunt moderated a panel at Aperture Foundation’s gallery about the first steps to creating a photography collection. In principle, the advice applies to other sorts of art as well, though Hunt said, "Photography seems like a smaller field of dealers and auction houses. As overwhelming as it is, it's easier to negotiate and, at least in the past, the financial consequences weren't so huge." At the panel, Hunt talked to beginning collector Gael Zafrany, who works at Charles Schwartz Ltd., preserving and creating museum and personal collections; longtime collector David Kronn; Modern Art Obsession blogger Michael Hoeh; and designer Todd Oldham about their experiences as fledgling collectors. We gleaned the following pieces of advice on amassing pieces of art:

1. Focus on the future - Oldham forewent food for a week, he recounted, when he bought a pair of Cindy Sherman film stills from a Houston gallery before both either he or she was famous. “I knew that it would be worth it, and I had to have it,” he says, and was right: “In 1980 it was worth $500, and now it’s worth at least two—almost three—zeros more at the end of that.”

2. Be selfish - Hoeh, who works in finance in New York City, focused early in his collecting career on pieces that reflected his interests: industry and the city. Kronn amassed 11 photos by his “early obsession,” Irving Penn. The panelists agreed: A personal collection is for personal enjoyment, and collectors should buy what appeals to them, not what’s in fashion.

3. Do your homework - Although some collectors buy impulsively, Hoeh called purchasing “a methodical process,” especially for collectors with limited financial resources who need to be selective. Kronn said he has a collection of art books that rivals his collection of actual art; he also advised potential buyers to “look at as much work as possible.”

4. Have patience - Kronn suggested collectors develop a list of works and artists that interest them so they’ll be poised to acquire when opportunities present themselves. Oldham suggested to “show up wherever you can” (auctions, galleries, or anywhere else art is sold) and noted that the interesting works at Art Basel Miami Beach were not, in fact, in the convention center but at the satellite fairs.

5. Avoid the “gallerinas” - Those “glorified shopgirls,”, those snobby and stuck up ladies, as Oldham jokingly called them, are notoriously intimidating. Many of the panelists avoided them by buying their first pieces at benefit auctions, where, Zafrany said, museums donate works by under-the-radar artists to increase their exposure. Or buy from passionate and knowledgeable dealers.

6. Get bang for your buck - “I can’t collect what I really love because I can’t afford it,” Zafrany said, but her young collection is edgy and noteworthy nonetheless. She bought one of Thomas Allen’s pop-up pulp fiction pieces long before Aperture published a book about them. Another find was a New York City streetscape by Walker Evans that isn’t representative of his work but that Zafrany characterizes as a sweet, simple photo of the city she loves.

7. Haggle - While Hoeh said negotiating at galleries was uncommon even until the recent past, Oldham divulged that bargaining a sticker price down 10 percent is now “pretty standard.” Either way, there are other ways to manage price points: Kronn bought an Edward Weston on eBay; collectors can put down deposits over time; and it never hurts to have friends in the art world (and access to their insider discounts!). In the end, though, the most important thing to do when buying art is to "commit, commit, commit! Look at the hair on the back of your hands, listen to your heart, figure out if you can afford it, and then commit!"

source: Caroline Kinneberg, Artinfo.com

Ladies & Gentlemen: The Amazing Duy Quoc Vo at Brix

2008-07-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

The serie of selected work by Dutch rising star photographer Duy Quoc Vo, that was exhibited at the Bright Young Things opening, is now on display at Brix in the Wolvenstraat. The fashionable grachtengordel watering hole & restaurant in the 9 straatjes between the Herengracht and Keizersgracht and it's cosmopolitan New York Loft Chique interior form a fitting decor for Duy's celebrated photographs. B.Y.T. loves the vibe of the place, the fingerfood, the drinks and obviously: the spectacular new view.

The photographs are available via http://www.brightyoungthings.nl/

En Vogue: Fashion Photography

2008-07-14T01:35:00.000-07:00

From Richard Avedon and Horst P. Horst to Mario Testino - the image of fashion photography was continuously and often surprisingly redefined in the course of the past century. Now these pictures are emerging as coveted collectors' items

The American fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon (1923-2004) had a gift for staging his pictures in unusual settings: In 1955 he had an elegant young lady pose between two dancing circus elephants to offset an evening dress by Dior. The model seems to relate perfectly to the gentle giants. the Hamburg-based fashion photographer F.C. Gundlach, 81, who is now one of the world's leading collectors of fashion photographs, took a picture of two models in Open Art bathing caps against the background of the pyramids of Giza in 1966. However the times in which fashion photography served the purely illustrative purpose of capturing an elegant model in a breathtaking setting, completely void of any irony, are long since gone. Since the beginning of the 1990s, trendy glossy magazines have carried advertising campaigns aimed at transporting an image and an aura, of relating stories, making use of the wealth of material found in art history and popular culture. Photographers often work with codes that only insiders can understand, with the product appearing only on the sidelines if at all. The definition of Beauty has undergone radical changes too: Models are no longer perfectly made up. Instead they slide around on the floor looking bedraggled, are pictured as a reflection of life lived to the extreme or presented as surreal cyborgs.

SUPERFICIAL AND EVER-CHANGING

Being at the point where contractual work, commerce, marketing and artistic ambition meet, fashion photography has always had to live with the image as a superficial genre with an admittedly visual appeal but of extremely brief validity. Here today, gone tomorrow - nothing ages as fast as last season's fashion collection. But perhaps that's not always the case. for Oscar Wilde it was quite clear: "It's only the superficial qualities that last." From this point of view, the Versace campaign by the London-based German photographer Jurgen Teller, 43, can be seen as the perfect example of the subversive style of fashion photography, so typical of the 90's that brushed aside all conventions. In 1996 Teller photographed Kirsten McMenamy naked, seemingly having just got up, a lit cigarette in her mouth, her appendix scar clearly showing, and with a Versace heart badly drawn in lipstick on her breast. The aura of the Venus-like unblemished beauty, cultivated by the classic photographers of this genre has been replaced by the image of the authentic girl next door, warts and all. The expensive luxury product has been removed completely. As Teller explained:"Clothes don't interest me" The succes that he enjoyed as one of the most sought-after photographers in the 90's , who knew how to transport stories and images like no other, proves him to be right. The ascetic heroin chic a la Teller has longe since been replaced by a new preference for opulent stage setting. Elaborate set designs, bizarre backgrounds, symbolic props and the merging of seemingly incomparable poles typify modern day pictures taken by star photographers. One of the most highly revered Vogue photographers, the American Steven Meisel, has a penchant for settings inspired by rococo paintings and bars of dubious repute from the 1920s. His collegue David LaChapelle places his famous faces against dramatically over-the-top backgrounds, while British photographer TIm Walker creates absurddly humourous and ironic situations. And almost as an after-thought, items of clothing and accessories may also appear somewhere in the picture.

PORNOGRAPHY NOT POLITICS

The discussion as to whether fashion photography, with it's effects and superficial consumerism can be called art or not, is more topical than ever. From Jurgen Teller:"My pictures are namely photographs, and as such neither clearly fashion, nor clearly art. It has certainly become difficult to put them in any category." Fashion photography has always been labeled a practical work, a commission to serve the consumer world. Critical and content related statements take second place to an often brash hit-you-in-the-face aestetic form: Glamour or pornographic comments (as in the work of Mario Testino or Terry Richardson) Rather than political discussion.

A PLACE IN THE PANTHEON

Gradually however these borders are becoming indistinguishable. "For some time 'fashion' was like a four letter word in the art world, "Joshua Holdeman, director of the Photographs department at Christie's New York was quoted as saying. Yet today, as Holdeman went on to add, the time span to the earliest examples of this genre is big enough for us to recognise that these are valuable cultural objects that indeed belong in the pantheon of Art History.

Source: Nicole Busing & Heiko Klaas, ARTINVESTOR No.02/2008

Grand Opening

2008-07-14T01:06:00.000-07:00

On 4th July Bright Young Things merrily celebrated their opening exhibition with many crates of champagne and a tsunami of coctails. The place was packed with artists, photographers, designers, art collectors, art dealers, press, agency owners, publishers, fashionistas and ofcourse ... art lovers. A great coctail of people hugely enjoying the exhibited pieces and the setting of the evening. And ofcourse some great pieces went to some experienced and new found collectors! We wish to thank everyone who was there for a spectacular evening and a spectacular kick off!

B.Y.T.