Kim Bouvy

These are some images I took last April of an old weavers’ house in the small city of Assendelft in Noord-Holland. The house was in the process of being deconstructed, peeled as an onion, to possibly be reconstructed again at the Zaanse Schans: a peculiar time-capsule, where significant traditional wooden buildings from the area around Zaandam have been relocated to, mostly in the sixties and seventies. This collection of nomadic green wooden houses form a new constellation that has a certain Disney-like feeling about it - although different since many of the houses are inhabited by real people.

I was asked by Michiel van Iersel from Non-Fiction (how appropriate) to document the house in its ‘most original state’ at its plot of land, where a new villa would arise after the house had been deconstructed. While making the photos, construction workers were taking the house apart, bit bit by bit, some pieces were numbered, many pieces were not. The man in charge of the deconstruction, would also be building the new villa. The house would be transported into parts to a storage, where it probably still sits today.

The future will tell if this house will ever be reconstructed and presumably renovated, but to which authentic glory, I asked myself? What will be restored of the entropic but very characterstic state of the building, formed by many layers of use, before it went down? Who will decide how its real and original character will be revived?
I was fascinated by the way the layers and colors of paint had, together with the wooden skeleton of the structure, had a certain formal, abstract quality.

End of June, beginning of July, I was in Berlin to revisit some of the sites that I photographed in 2001/ 2002 for my book / project ‘Niemandsland - Berlin without the wall’. In 2009, my interest in the project was rekindled since the landscape had managed to transform itself again in such a way that it deserved some closer attention. It seemed as if more and more parts of the wall started to come back and reappear in the landscape - a remarkable seemingly retrograde movement.
Apart from ‘Niemandsland’, the Karl Marx Allee drew my attention because of its remarkable formal architectural beauty and urban structure. The image shows the back side of the Kino International.

About a year ago, I started working on a series of views, that would be placed in the waiting areas of a newly built hospital in Rotterdam. The Maasstad Hospital approached Gerco de Ruijter, Bas Princen and me to come up with a proposal for these spaces of transit and waiting. The series is called ‘Points of View’ and depicts remarkable points of views in the city. I wanted to simulate space in these spaces, to give the opportunity to wander off in your mind, while waiting for a treatment or doctors’ appointment. For the commission, I went to Barcelona and Valencia and added two images I took in Shanghai last summer. Now they are finally installed!

All images are 150×190 cm, mounted on dibond, framed in wooden frames with plexi glass.
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Shanghai, 2010
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Barcelona, 2011
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Barcelona, 2011
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Shanghai, 2010
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Barcelona, 2011

Barcelona 2011

My book ‘Phantom City’ is on the longlist of the Dutch Doc Award!

Order it HERE

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25 Feb 25 - 6 March
EXHIBITION ‘1 Maand Marxloh’, Het Wilde Weten
With works by Jetske de Boer, Christine Saalfeld, Eric Jan van der Geer, Kim Bouvy, Elian Somers, Ine Lamers and Sandro Setola. A project organized by Kim Zieschang and Arnoud Schuurman.

Opening: Friday Feb 25, 17h by Hugo Bongers, Director of the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture.

Guided tour by Jetske de Boer – Staatsorgaan voor Toekomst Organisatie en Planning (S.T.O.P.) during the opening and by appointment (jetskedeboer@gmail.com)

Open February 25 – March 6 Thursday – Sunday: 12:00 – 17:00 hrs and by appointment (tel. 0652-144001, eenmaandmarxloh@yahoo.de)

1 Maand Marxloh

Valencia (Spain) Jan / Feb 2011

End of last month, I went to Valencia and Barcelona to photograph ‘the urban’ and some places I had visit before and wanted to photograph again. The light was amazing, especially at the end of the day. I ended up photographing many scenes while the sun was setting, with a lower intensity of the sometimes harsh sunlight, creating more sublte colors and shadows.
I was fascinated by the way the city is developing, new buildings and big infrastructural works in preparation / on their way, with quite many left over spaces in between. Also the reappearing gypsies (we were covering ‘the fringes’ quite a lot..), dragging around shopping trollies filled with debris and metals, was remarkable and sometimes unsettling.

I will be processing the material the coming weeks, some images will follow soon. (Image: Valencia, snapshot taken with Canon S90)

Participating artists are Jan Adriaans, Marijke Appelman, Jetske de Boer, Jeroen Bosch, Kim Bouvy, Marielle Buitendijk, Anouk Griffioen, Sannetje van Haarst, Boris van Hoof, Marcha van den Hurk, Simon Kentgens, Esther Kokmeijer, Angel de la Rubia, Elian Somers, Aaike Stuart and Kim Zieschang.

Address:
Robert Fruinstraat 35, 3021 XB Rotterdam

On Saturday, you can also visit the WildeBoekenMarkt @ Het Wilde Weten between 14 and 19h (also open on Sunday).

Site Het Wilde Weten

On the correlation between image and identity

Sonia Jiménez Alvarez (D), Kim Bouvy (NL), Sabrina Jung (D), Dieuwertje Komen (NL), Anne Lass (D), Patricia Neligan (D), Antje Peters (D/NL), Elian Somers (NL)

Contemporary photography from Germany and the Netherlands, curated by Caroline von Courten

www.mkgalerie.de/exhibitions/current/index.php

BEHIND THE BILLBOARD
November 13 – December 18, 2010
opening: Friday, November 12th 2010 at 6 pm
MKgalerie - Berlin

On the correlation between image and identity
Contemporary photography from Germany and the Netherlands

Sonia Jiménez Alvarez (D), Kim Bouvy (NL), Sabrina Jung (D),
Dieuwertje Komen (NL), Anne Lass (D), Patricia Neligan (D), Antje Peters (D/NL), Elian Somers (NL) - curated by Caroline von Courten (D / NL)

(work on view: single-channel black and white slide installation ‘Phantom City’)

Point of departure of the group exhibition Behind the Bill Board with work of four Dutch and four German photographers, is the idea of malleability of an identity. This central idea of constructing an idea – of a city, a product or a person – manifests itself on different levels within this exhibition. Some of the artists investigate the photographic medium in relation to the reciprocity of image and identity. others show us a constructed or deconstructed ‘outside’, where the malleability of our society and environment as well as its limitations become visible.

In January 2010, the collaboration between these female German and Dutch photographers started off with a first show titled ‘NowHere’ at the CBK in Rotterdam with the intention to bring the show to the other city: Berlin. For this ’sequel’, we as photographers invited Caroline von Courten as a curator and producer.

MKgalerie - Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse 26 - 10969 Berlin
mk@mkgalerie.de / www.mkgalerie.de
open tue - sat 11.00 - 18.00 h

1 MAAND / MONTH / MONAT MARXLOH
Opening Saturday November 13, 17h
With a guided tour through Duisburg-Marxloh by Jetske de Boer
Weselerstrasse 113, Duisburg-Marxloh

With works by Jetske de Boer, Christine Saalfeld. Eric Jan van de Geer, Kim Bouvy, Elian Somers, Ine Lamers and Sandro Setola

From May till October 2010, 6 artists from Rotterdam each worked one month in the residency ‘1 maand Marxloh’, in Marxloh – Duisburg. The residency was founded by artists Kim Zieschang and Arnoud Schuurman,who invited the artists to relate with their works to the urban context of Marxloh in particular and the Ruhr area in general. The exhibition, housed in a beautiful vacant store, brings together different points of view on the region by means of photography, drawings and sculpture.
The exhibition will be opened in presence of the artists by Aslı Sevindim, Artistic Director of Stadt der Kulturen Ruhr.2010, Heiner Maschke, Geschäftsführer der Entwicklungsgesellschaft Duisburg, Felix Eich, Kulturreferent General Consulate of the Netherlands and Kim Zieschang und Arnoud Schuurman, initiators ‘1 maand Marxloh’.

Address: Weselerstrasse 113
47169 Duisburg-Marxloh
Exhibition: 14 – 28th of November 2010
Open: Tue-Sun 11-17h (and by appointment, tel.+49 (0)1578-8633135)

1 maand Marxloh was made possible with financial support Municipal Services for Art and Culture, Rotterdam, Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam; the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the framework of NL-RUHR; the Entwicklungsgesellschaft Duisburg [EG DU], the European Center for Creative Economy [ecce] and the Kulturhauptstadt Ruhr.2010. 1 maand Marxloh is a project from Modile e.V.

Directions:
A59 turn Röttgersbach/Fahrn, follow Warbruckstrasse direction of Marxloh to Weselerstrasse. Tram: from Duisburg Hauptbahnhof Tram 903 Direction Dinslaken, Stop Heckmann