Twice Upon A Time
Twice Upon A Time was part of the installation The Kiss of Life, on view at the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam in 2022. Filmmakers Arnoud Holleman and Batya Wolff sought new connections in the immense visual archive in Batya's family. How are photography and film connected to processing the Shoah? What were the motives for photography and filming before the war? And with what after? In Twice Upon a Time, Batya's oldest sister Jozee, first born after the war, is simultaneously filmed by both her father and her grandfather.
Broken Thinker
collaboration with Gert Jan KockenThe Thinker by Auguste Rodin is an iconic misunderstanding. Since its creation in 1881, it has been said that the sculpture expresses the activity of thinking, while it merely expresses the pose of thinking. Once you realize, the Thinker is an empty form on which anyone may project his or her thoughts. This has led to a range of ideas - and clichés - about man who reflects on his existence.
Introducing
animationThe multitude of fellow artists that I know, admire, loathe, slept with, read about, write about, follow on Instagram, underestimate, overestimate, avoid, talk to, stalk, ignore, study, am inspired by, steal from, ought to know more about, compare, compete, collaborate and blend in with.
The Trouble With Value
Onomatopee, EindhovenCurator Kris Dittel writes: What practices bring us closer to understanding the potential of art to represent different notions of value in the contemporary? How can we counter the certain apathy of the contemporary to engage with positions that resist this mood and present us with challenging perspectives on value? The project attempts to locate artistic and institutional practices that offer viewpoints beyond the strategy of blending-in and conforming to the rules.
My Dad Playing Piano
free CDWhen my dad died we found comfort in sorting out his belongings. The closet in his study kept the usual mix of essential and trivial: drawings from high school, student paraphernalia and tons of paper work from his job as a teacher. In an old shoebox we found a microphone and some old music cassettes. When he had retired, eight years before his death, he picked up playing the piano again, took lessons and studied every day. Sometimes he would make a recording of the pieces that he played, as a reality check.
Call me
immaterial artwork, city of ZwolleIt's either filthy thoughts or intellectual blah-blah, and nothing in between. Look closer. More closer. Look at me! You hear me?! If there's any reason for me to be ashamed, it's you. The only reason I'm standing in front of the town hall is because I happened to have been 'created' by a world-famous sculptor: Rodin, the genius of deep emotions and existential gestures. Yeah right. The way I'm standing here, Rodin is the only person who's never once laid a finger on me.
Artists Anonymous
Lowlands pop festivalFor the last couple of years in a row, artists had been invited who felt at home in a big show environment. This had thrown up a number of lively and playful installations, but this year the budding tradition was in jeopardy: for a variety of reasons there was next to no money for art projects. The only kitty in the budget that might be called upon had been set aside for the printing of the half a million paper napkins that were to be used during the festival.
10.000 lives
Gwangju Biennale, South KoreaAs an artist and writer, Arnoud Holleman's extraordinarily diverse output is connected by a strong thematic concern with the life and significance of images. Often this concern is manifested through acts of appropriation that transform an image's meaning through a shift in context, or a removal of contextual elements. This concern with the lives of images has also led him to create works that explore the historical prohibitions on image making.
Threshold
found objectFound in a container in Delft, by a fellow student at the academy. Swapped for an easel and a modeling stand. After the threshold was worn out on one side, it was turned around, after which the other side started to wear out as well. It remains unknown how long this process has been going on altogether. Maybe it once belonged to the house of Vermeer.
Lauren & Claudia
collage, double sidedInterview covergirl Lauren Hutton was photographed by Francesco Scavullo in 1973. She's wearing Galanos - from his exciting fall 1973 collection. Accessorized by Galanos, makeup by Way Bandy, hair by Rick Gilette. The photo was re-photographed by Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm in 2003, with model Uta Eichhorn posing as Re-Magazine covergirl Claudia. She's wearing a black dress by Hermès. Styling by Katja Rahlwes, makeup by Renata Mandic.
Monsieur Holleman is certainly not Andy Warhol
De Groene Amsterdammer MagazineBeeldconsumptie. Beeldproductie. Beelddistributie. In de afgelopen decennia zijn deze drie steeds meer met elkaar verweven geraakt. Overtreedt de hergebruikende kunstenaar de wet? Want wie is de eigenaar van beelden? De film Museum, te zien in het Frans Halsmuseum in Haarlem, biedt inzicht. Tekst en beeld Arnoud Holleman, Groene Amsterdammer 25 februari 2015 - verschenen in nr. 9
Radio Balzac
Van Abbemuseum, EindhovenDe Balzac van Auguste Rodin staat vanaf 1 februari in Het Oog in het van Abbemuseum, als special guest in een installatie van Arnoud Holleman. In deze tijdelijke opstelling draait het beeld langzaam rond. Bezoekers kunnen het beeld van alle kanten bekijken en de 19e eeuwse schrijver kijkt ondertussen rond, naar onze tijd. Via een online radiozender ? Radio Balzac ? worden meningen, discussies en andere inzichten over het beeld verzameld en uitgezonden.
Driving Miss Palmen
VPRO televisionI understand why you want to be a writer. It?s better to be mediocre and famous than just being mediocre. But the difference between you and me is that I?m able to create a character of myself in a story I choose to live in. And you, I?m sorry to say, are not. That makes me a writer and you just a character in someone elses plot. And as for my work: The big misunderstanding about my work is that critics keep comparing the fictious Connie Palmen with the real Connie Palmen, instead of comparing her to other great characters in litterature, like Madame Bovary, or Lolita...
Onkenhout
galvanized bronze, textStaring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she'd have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Not knowing as a norm
Artist contribution for OPEN MagazineWhen Zijlstra speaks, you hear the positive, neoliberal pep talk of Rutte, but also the anti-elitist, anti-globalist, populist talk of Wilders. Not only is radical change required, the existing structure must – as an end in itself – be torn down. In other words, creation and destruction go hand in hand and from Zijlstra’s mouth that sounds astonishingly unisono.
Untitled (Staphorst)
In this mediation between being and non-being we can do nothing else than continually behave as camera-genic as possible. See and be seen via the image has become a cultural and existential duty. This primacy of image and visibility however is no universal, natural condition: Islam?s interdict on images originally, according to the second commandment, also applied to Christendom.
Marcel
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, earth has disappeared. As we will not be able to crash, we will continue flying until we run out of fuel. Well so do something about it you?ve been wining about it for years. Well. Halfway. Everything?s fine. Stay calm. Come on guys what?s the big idea? You know, these days when somebody on the street says ?sorry? it?s a junky. You see you don?t get it. You?re just a character in someone elses plot.
Media Suicide
Masked newspapers, 2009The 38-year-old Karst T. from Huissen drove into spectators just before noon in a deliberate action to hit the royal family. The man himself was seriously injured and was in mortal danger last night. The man dodged two barriers on the Jachtlaan in Apeldoorn and drove his black Suzuki Swift into the crowd. The royal family saw from a few meters away how the man crashed into monument De Naald.