Opening: March 19, 2022, 5-10 pm
Duration: March 20 – May 08, 2022
Welcome: Sylvia Stille, Board NAK
Introduction: Maurice Funken, Director NAK

NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein is pleased to present Bleibt, ihr Engel, bleibt bei mir! the first institutional solo exhibition of the artist Ton Boelhouwer in Germany.

For the Dutch painter, his artistic practice is about a balanced engagement with space and emptiness. Instead of painting representationally and assigning things a name and thus a story, Boelhouwer paints around emptiness. The already simple motifs of earlier works-such as vases, tables, doors, chairs, floors, and walls-immediately became narrative symbols for a human story in the spotlight of an exhibition, but one that he felt he did not have to tell. A problem for Boelhouwer. So he radically and consistently reduced his painterly interest: only the walls and floors he painted survived an interpretation of the story, stripped of their form as well as symbolism, free of any narrative.

Boelhouwer places these painted aluminum sheets on the wall, lays them flat on the floor, positions them as objects in space. In the course of this, his expansive installations immediately raise several questions. When is something finished? How can the moment in which equilibrium is reached remain open and not close into an image? How can viewers become part of this moment?

The painter creates works that exist in a kind of rhythm without end, are never finished and must be walked through and experienced as a parcour. In this way, visitors can virtually shape the works themselves by stepping through the spatial structure free of any routing, thus entering the work, observing it from within and instinctively assembling the works mentally.

Boelhouwer’s work speaks itself free of any meaning; essentially, the only thing inherent in the work is a continuous exchange of closing and opening. His painting pulls space together and at the same time breaks it open again – for the artist as well as the viewer.

Ton Boelhouwer (1960 Den Haag, Netherlands) studied at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, the Croydon College of Art, London and the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht. As early as 1987, Boelhouwer participated in a group exhibition at Neue Galerie – Sammlung Ludwig in Aachen. At the turn of the year 2016/17, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht celebrated Boelhouwer’s work with the solo presentation floors & walls / from ground. The artist lives and works in Maastricht.

On the occasion of the exhibition, the artist is preparing a new publication, which will be presented at the Kunstverein when it is released. For details about the book presentation, please see the NAK homepage or our social media as soon as possible.

Kindly supported by: