Christiaan Bastiaans

Christiaan Bastiaans (* 1951 in Amsterdam ) is a Dutch artist.

Life

Christiaan Bastiaans was born in Amsterdam to a Javanese-French-Dutch father and an Armenian-Sumatran mother; there he spent his childhood. From 1971 to 1976 he studied painting and graphics at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, from 1972 to 1976 at the “Pratt Graphic Center” in New York and from 1976 to 1978 at the Kyoto Municipal University of Art. Bastiaans started with videos work and was interested in the No Theater , as well as in contemporary Japanese theater, especially the Mickery Theater . He attended performances by Tenjo Sajiki , the Shuji Terayama theater company and Yoshi and Company . Bastiaans later immersed himself in Japan in today's performance arts and in the classical Nō theater .

He lived in Osaka and Tokyo . In Japan he was particularly influenced by his encounter with the artist Shoichi Ida (1941–2006), whose way of combining art and life left a lasting impression. Bastiaan's ethnic origin played an important role in his artistic career. Migration and the associated processes of adaptation and the development of survival strategies were part of his life from an early age. On his travels to crisis areas, he looks for situations in which life and death, beauty and horror collide. He deals intensively with the fragility of people, especially in emergency situations. Bastiaans not only uses the photographs taken on site in his work. With his sculptures , wrapped in the finest garments , he tries to underline the fragility of the essence of each individual. Bastiaans teaches at the Fine Art Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.

Works (selection)

• 2009 Club Mama Cozy

From October 30, 2010 to February 21, 2011, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo showed a solo exhibition, a total work of art, by Christiaan Bastiaans. This exhibition was designed by the artist himself and conceived as a cohesive installation, consisting of a hospital, a mission station and a night club. Overall, an improvised refuge in the no man's land of a conflict area. In addition to sculptures, video works and works on paper, a 28-minute short film, “Club Mama Gemütlich”, was the focus. This also gives the exhibition its name. The main character in the seven scenes is “La Vivre”, a role that was played by the film actress Mlle Jeanne Moreau and created especially for her. Two male characters - Cyto Kine and Molecular Scarlet - were represented by their votes only. The texts were spoken by the Dutch actor Rutger Hauer and the Japanese actor Yoshi Oida .

• 2007 Year Zero

From September 8 to October 28, 2007, Bastiaans showed his installation Year Zero, photographic works, textile sculptures, drawings and collages that he had completed between 1999 and 2007 at the Museum De Pont in Tilburg . The photographs taken by Bastiaans on site are often processed with different filigree materials, objects such as paper, silk or a network of threads, as well as with minerals and medicinal plants. It is precisely through the use of such fine materials that Bastiaans gives such serious issues a touch of fragility.

• 2005 Silent beauty and surreal horror

Committed work by Christiaan Bastiaans can be seen in the De Paviljoens Museum in Almere . His works show child soldiers, Thai transsexuals and motifs that concern the worldwide illegal organ trade. They are created on the basis of notes, drawings and photographs that Bastiaans takes on site in the war zones he has traveled to. His work shows us, in an almost poetic way, how closely connected “quiet beauty and surrealistic horror” can be.

Videos

• 1983 Jukai
• 1982 trauma asylum

Solo exhibitions

• “ Club Mama Gemütlich ” Kröller-Müller Museum / Otterlo, Netherlands 2009
• Year Zero De Pont Museum of contemporary art / Tilburg, Netherlands 2007
• Hurt Models - Madonnas of Humility (in the year of the plague) sculptures, photoworks, drawings, Dutch Textile Museum / Tilburg , Netherlands 2003
• Hurt Models (II) sculptures, photoworks, drawings and video / The Netherlands Media Art Institute Montevideo / TBA Amsterdam, Netherlands 2002
• Hurt Models (I) sculptures, photoworks and video / Galerie Lumen Travo Amsterdam, Netherlands 2001
• Real Lear a performance performed by psychiatric patients at de Willem Arntszhoeve in Den Dolder, Netherlands as part of the artist-inresidence program The Fifth Season 2001
• Year Zero Galeria Berini / Barcelona , Spain 1989
• Galerie Barbara Farber / Amsterdam, Netherlands 1988
• The Navigator's Encyclopedia The New Museum of Contemporary Art / New York, USA 1987
• Nara Tape Project De Appel , Amsterdam a symposium, publications, the video The Nara Tape Factor and the sculpture Shrine for Managers presented at the World Trade Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands 1985
• Video installation Kitano Circus Gallery / Kobe, Japan 1980

Group exhibitions (selection)

• State gallery at the Upper Austrian State Museum, Linz / Austria
• Rheinisches Industriemuseum , Euskirchen / Germany
• Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan
• Acquisitions (Straggling Installation), Kröller-Müller Museum , Otterlo / Netherlands 1997
• Mother's Kidney Dialysis Machine Unhooked / Nature vs Nature at the Glass Ceiling, an exhibition with the artist Michael Joo , Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam / Netherlands 1995
• Heart of Darkness , Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo / Netherlands 1995
• Imitation & Inspiration (Japanese influence on Dutch art) Rijksmuseum Amsterdam / NL 1992
• Imitation & Inspiration (Japanese influence on Dutch art) Suntori Museum of Art, Tokyo / Japan 1991
• Art meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy with the Japanese artist Shoichi Ida , Museum Fodor, Amsterdam / Netherlands 1990
• Palace Garden - Sculpture Garden Peace Palace, The Hague / Netherlands 1990
• Aspects of the Venice Biennale 1988 A 11 Art Forum Thomas, Munich / Germany 1988
• Aperto La Biennale Di Venezia , Venice / Italy 1988
• The Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo / Japan 1986
• As Far As Amsterdam Goes Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam / Netherlands 1985
• Narrative Video Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam / Netherlands 1984
• 8 Artists of the Netherlands (recent videoworks) Center D'Art Contemporain, Geneva / Kunstmuseum Bern / Kunsthaus Zürich / Switzerland
• 12e Biennale de Paris Manifestation internationale des jeunes artistes, Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris , Paris / France 1982

Publications

• Catalog Club Mama Gemütlich published in conjunction with the exhibition 'Christiaan Bastiaans Club Mama Gemütlich', October 30th 2009 to February 21st 2010, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Printed and published by Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany. 2009
• Book To Nirvana and Back
• Photo Album: Real Lear in Echigo-Tsumari , Conceived and Staged by Christiaan Bastiaans. Photographed by Daido MoriyamaCreative Direction by Daisuke Nakatsuka Publisher The Art front Gallery in Tokyo 2004.
• Book Hurt Models . Publisher Christiaan Bastiaans. 2003
• Catalog Christiaan Bastiaans. Year Zero published in conjunction with the exhibition 'Year Zero' March-April 1989. Publisher Galeria Berini in Barcelona. 2003

literature

• Flexible 4: Identities , fourth edition of the international European exhibition (Manchester, Tilburg, Odense, Linz, Euskirchen) of contemporary art, ISBN 3-902414-09-X

Web links

• Kiel art gallery

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kröller-Müller Museum
2. ^ De Pont foundation for contemporary art