Curatorial
11 - 18 juni 2020.‘Light do not erase’ | De Aanschouw No 977, Rotterdam.︎
From the serie ‘My aunts’, 1976-2020. Eggtempera on goldleaf on paper on panel.
Curator: Artbutchers
Photography: Jan de Bruin
2019 - 2020. Breathing Colour, Hella Jongerius | Nationalmuseum Stockholm, Sweden.︎
The rich collection of the Stockholm National Museum has a large section of portraits of kings, knights, court members and also portraits of the Swedish bourgeoisie and Industrials of the nineteenth century. The collection of paintings stops at 1900. In contrast to the Boymans exhibition Mathieu Meijers has chosen a small number of paintings. For each of the three colour themes, three portraits that might be nowadays people and one interior were selected. These art works are positioned between the colour work of Jongerius, as an exclusive and concentrated conversation. In doing so they enlighten the content of these colour research and they suggest human readability.
The rich collection of the Stockholm National Museum has a large section of portraits of kings, knights, court members and also portraits of the Swedish bourgeoisie and Industrials of the nineteenth century. The collection of paintings stops at 1900. In contrast to the Boymans exhibition Mathieu Meijers has chosen a small number of paintings. For each of the three colour themes, three portraits that might be nowadays people and one interior were selected. These art works are positioned between the colour work of Jongerius, as an exclusive and concentrated conversation. In doing so they enlighten the content of these colour research and they suggest human readability.
2018. Breathing Colour | Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, Netherlands. ︎
Together with artist Mathieu Meijes, designer Hella Jongerius presents, after fifteen years of colour research, a series of installations that deepen our understanding of colour and form. She shows a collection of specially designed objects that show how the experience of colour and shape is influenced by daylight, which changes during the morning, afternoon and evening. Mathieu Meijers selected works from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to enlighten Hella’s colour project. The works were selected focused on the following three themes: there is light, an evolution of the light during the day, there is fire, an associative story about the process of pottering and there is darkness, a cultural interpretation of the colour black and the absence of light.
2016. Fra Bartolommeo - de goddelijke renaissance | Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, Netherlands. ︎
During the exhibition 'Fra Bartolommeo - the divine renaissance', Museum Boijmans van Beuningen presented a selection of fifteenth and sixteenth-century drawings and prints. Here, Boijmans shows mainly Italian forerunners and contemporaries of Fra Bartolommeo and works related to the main exhibition, including his two portraits of Michelangelo. The colour concept of the exhibition was based on the idea to complete the selection of works with images of paintings that were not part of the exhibition. Therefore, these images were printend in strong monochrome colours on the walls. Mathieu Meijers developed a colour range, based on the interpretation of the dramatic scenery of the paintings. The walls were malachite, a functional heaven background grey, executed in either paint or printwork.
2016. Broken White | Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Netherlands. ︎
The blue tap is cold, the red one hot. Orange invokes feelings of excitement. And yellow draws attention to shop windows. Everybody relates to colours, often even emotionally, but how this works no one knows. This instills chromo-phobia in designers: the fear of colours which is suppressed by rules, fashion and style.
The digital revolution has changed everything. For centuries colour was thought of in terms of light falling onto an object and being reflected to a greater or lesser extent. Total reflection results in white, absolute absorption in black. But the screens that are ever present nowadays aren’t objects reflecting light. They radiate light themselves. The source of colour has changed and with it its appearance.
During his teaching career at the Design Academy Eindhoven artist Mathieu Meijers developed a concept that enables us to recalibrate our understanding of colour. The artworks and design objects in Broken White embody this.
On the one hand we have the light, reflective objects that appeal to eminent emotions, inform our identity and inspire systems, sometimes even dangerously so. On the other hand we have objects in dark, absorbent colours that invoke feelings of security, but also fear, that represent earthiness and intuition. Thanks to new technologies and materials the appearance of colours changes and so does their meaning.
Broken White shows how designers and artists deal with this and how the latter help shape that meaning.
The blue tap is cold, the red one hot. Orange invokes feelings of excitement. And yellow draws attention to shop windows. Everybody relates to colours, often even emotionally, but how this works no one knows. This instills chromo-phobia in designers: the fear of colours which is suppressed by rules, fashion and style.
The digital revolution has changed everything. For centuries colour was thought of in terms of light falling onto an object and being reflected to a greater or lesser extent. Total reflection results in white, absolute absorption in black. But the screens that are ever present nowadays aren’t objects reflecting light. They radiate light themselves. The source of colour has changed and with it its appearance.
During his teaching career at the Design Academy Eindhoven artist Mathieu Meijers developed a concept that enables us to recalibrate our understanding of colour. The artworks and design objects in Broken White embody this.
On the one hand we have the light, reflective objects that appeal to eminent emotions, inform our identity and inspire systems, sometimes even dangerously so. On the other hand we have objects in dark, absorbent colours that invoke feelings of security, but also fear, that represent earthiness and intuition. Thanks to new technologies and materials the appearance of colours changes and so does their meaning.
Broken White shows how designers and artists deal with this and how the latter help shape that meaning.
