Edwin Stolk's Page

Website

www.edwinstolk.nl/

College / University

Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague, The Netherlands

Program

Arts

Graduation

21 June 2007

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Conceptual, Drawing, Installation, Performance, Sculpture, Video

I am...

a radical phenomenologist, a subjective terrorist.

About my artwork

As an artist I try to study perception and reality critically, reality which we seem to extract from our perception. I believe that creating borders eliminates the bounds with other constructions. I believe that life and existence is subjective and existential in it`s most natural form, so I have my doubts by 21st century objectivism. By the word objectivism I mean making objects out of living or non living 'things' by getting knowledge about those 'things' and separate these things from others by this knowledge.

Philosopher Merleau-Ponty said, we are not in or on the world, but we are available at the world, which means that we are a creating connection, this world we call our world is only an interpretation visualized by human words. Words which we also invented ourselves, so how true is this daily reality described by our words?

The process of creation starts from a pre- scientific point of view. Without certain knowledge that separates one aspect from the other. There is no in between 'things'. The product of creation is a temporary, ambiguous connection from a subjective order. For example; I make drawings on transparent plastics which create the possibility to watch the image from both sides. There is no front or backside, only connection. I never make rational studies or plans in front about what to create. The lines in a drawing come naturally by connecting. When it comes to my installations I connect to a certain space. My body is the receiver and my instrument of understanding. In my installations I prefer to work with materials available at the spot and combine these with materials from earlier works. The way of using materials you can call bricolage. The connection with the space is also realized by working with the materials which seem to belong there. The material from earlier work eliminates the possibility of objective thinking about the present and past work. Different meaning in perception arises by retrieving openness. I do not believe in absolute statements, but every Yes also has its no. It is always and, and. I try to show this in my work. I feel the need to show this because it looks like the more complex our 21th century has become, the more reduction in our perception has to take place to manage this complexity. What we think is our daily reality, is based on this reduction. That scares me. More often you see that knowledge based differences lead to violent acts and terror. We seem to forget that truth does not exist and we do not see our general connection in being available at the world. (text by Edwin Stolk)

Artists I like

Bruce Nauman, Kendell Geers, Danny Devos, Thomas Hirschhorn, Paul McCarty, Tracy Emin, Bas Jan Ader, Andrea Fraser, Dominic McGill, AES+F, Christian Holstad, Banks Violette etc.

Interests

General: Art, Artists, philosophy, politics, phenomenology, daily life, breathing, installations, museums, galleries, new media, internet, peaceful anarchism, etc. Music: to much to tell
Movies: documentaries, art movies etc.
Television: documentaries, news programs etc.
Books: Journey to the End of the Night,Louis Ferdinand Céline. Death on Credit,Louis Ferdinand Céline. Les Particules Élémentaires, Michel Houellebecq. different titles from Herman Brusselmans. Phenomenology of perception, Maurice Merleau Ponty. The Savage Mind, Claude Lévi Strauss, etc.

The centre of the artworld is

New York, Berlin, online

My artreview.com URL:
http://www.artreview.com/profile/EdwinStolk
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