CHRISTIAN VAN DER KAAP (live): Dichtbij

Thursday, February 23, 2012

C.I.N.V.U | Magazine about loneliness

C.I.N.V.U. [si ay ɛn vi yu]

CALL: There are many magazines focussed on niche markets. Yet there isn't one of them dedicated to loneliness. That's about to change. You can work together with artist Christian van der Kaap to create an artwork in the form of a magazine that wants to show the creative force of loneliness. Do you feel addressed? Visit the website (Dutch only) and send your contribution to: parfumisme@gmail.com and include [C.I.N.V.U] in the subject header.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Dichtbij.nl

Taken from a billboard in Russia, where neither word nor letter looked familiar, this striking but unidentifiable logo of a company seems to bear a universal language. The action portrayed by the stylized hands seems as though its promoting a symbolic but ambiguous gesture from a maker to a receiver. The receiver present in the logo seems to gladly acknowledge the wholehearted gesture. The viewer on the other hand, invited to witness this transaction, remains uncertain of its significance. I liberated this image from it's original context and delivered it to the dutch website www.dichtbij.nl [English: 'nearby'] a website directing its visitors to local news and advertisements by use of their given postal codes. The website agreed to place this logo for a short amount of time on every page regardless of the visitors present location. Exploring the notion of empathy between a sender vs. receiver and a local vs. universal context.

Artist statement

Christian van der Kaap (Enschede, NL 1989) likes to ask other people to make his work. But not to be seen as lazy, the artist invests in this precarious relationship by committing to their work, language, voice and handwriting. Meaning that every time we recognize his work we see the hand of someone else. By doing so he tries to implement himself and then dissolve into an existing production. It aims to show how we rely on others. Uncovering themes as loneliness (in his recent magazine about loneliness called C.I.N.V.U), independence, talent and uncertainty. The work is often described as a language between people who may not fully understand each other, but where an effort is made anyway. But while making use of other peoples words, the work remains close to his life and personal experience. This and things you do and don't understand empower the artist (inspiring others) to keep making.