Opening speech from Gerrit Willems on 11th September 1999 for the exhibition ‘Lost in Dordrecht’ at the CBK, Centrum Beeldende Kunst (Centre for Visual Arts) in Dordrecht. Gerrit Willems is the director of the CBK.

Ladies and gentlemen,


Welcome to the opening of the exhibition ‘Lost in Dordrecht’ by Peter Spaans and Hans Eijkelboom.

In the invitation for this exhibition it was stated that I would make the opening speech, but, to be honest, that shouldn’t have been the case. Really Okwui Enwezor should be in my place, the Nigerian exhibition maker who is putting together the 11th Documenta of Kassel.
Okwui admires and has a great knowledge of the work of both artists, and was to, I mean last year, make an exhibition for them in New York. That didn’t happen due to a lack of time and understandably, due to his present commitments, he also does not have time to be here.

A second opener, the Chinese curator Hou Hanru, also couldn’t come because of a busy schedule. He was the arranger of the exhibition ‘Unlimited.nl/2’, last year in de Appel in Amsterdam, in which Peter Spaans took part. Hou Hanru also has a good knowledge of the work of Peter Spaans and Hans Eijkelboom


You may be wondering why I think it’s necessary to tell you who could not open the exhibition. That is not a question of name dropping. I want to indicate that the work of Spaans en Eijkelboom attracts just as much attention abroad as it does here. In the case of Peter Spaans even more.


Myself, I think it’s striking when you see which photos that these artists take. The photos are apparently of daily life and of the architecture in middle sized Dutch cities, and surely by international standards, quite small cities, such as Arnhem and Dordrecht ( and for the sake of convenience I’ll include Amsterdam) in the eyes of the aforementioned globetrotters more than photos that only take in the local picture. Evidently they are images, how unbelievably typical Dutch that can be, that go beyond the local.

The sometimes typically Dutch thing about a city and life in that city, evidently also says something about the appearance of and the life in the city everywhere in western society . Therefore the photos of Arnhem, Dordrecht and Amsterdam can be combined so effortlessly with those taken in New York. You see the difference- although you might have to look hard - but there is definitely something in common.

I don’t believe that the commonality between the pictures from New York and Dordrecht are meant as a direct comparison, so is it in Dordrecht and so is it in New York. It is more about a visual definition. of what a city is and of a visual definition of the daily life in that city. Peter Spaans is not looking for pictures of a particular city, but of pictures of ‘cityness’. Hans Eijkelboom brings in with his series not only the microcosmos of his own life in view, but lets us see something of the daily life of people.

The photos by Peter Spaans en Hans Eijkelboom show places, streets, buildings, people and signs that are from a specific location - a shop in Sterrenburg or the ferry to Zwijndrecht - but they work together as emblems for places, street images and people that you can come across anywhere in the world. I think that Okwui Enwezor and Hou Hanru understand that really well with their admiration for this work.


It won’t be a surprise for you that I love the photos by Hans Eijkelboom and Peter Spaans. And as is the case for everybody else: Why you love something is difficult to put into words.

I think the photos are beautiful, for example, because there is so much to read into them. Because they pull you into the city and life. And because they get you thinking about the environment where you live daily, the streets, through which you walk and de people that you meet. Sometimes the photos make me sad because of the desolate character of a street, or the uniformity of a certain sort of clothing or behaviour. Sometimes these photos reconcile me with life through their lovely view of the city and the people that live there.

Now I don’t believe that you are meant to think that the photos are beautiful. In any case, they are not taken with that intention. Both Hans Eijkelboom and Peter Spaans approach a concept. That concept or that idea is the core of their art. The photos are the visible result, but that result doesn’t have to be technically perfect and it can sometimes seem to be pronouncedly amateurish.

Luckily Ger van Elk, one of the fathers of conceptual art in Holland, decided recently in the NRC Handelsblad that you are allowed to enjoy conceptual art.

Hans Eijkelboom works the most conceptual of the two. The photos that he displays here are a part of a photographic diary the he began in 1992 and with which he wants to continue until 2007. Everyday he takes between 1 and 80 photos. With his photos he brings his own life in view. He photographs almost everything that affects him everyday. That is people going about their daily lives and above all the appearance of the people. Clothing and appearance, as pictures of a social stratification, have always played an important role in Eijkelboom’s projects. He photographs friends and family, he take photos at parties, receptions, openings and all sorts of public meetings. He photographs street scenes , squares, parks, the houses from a certain neighbourhood, shop interiors, adverts on television. Everything really. He collects his material like an anthropologist of modern life and presents that material in a series, provided with the date and place where it is found. In this way he makes his own small museum of cultural anthropology.

The concept, or if you like, starting point of Peter Spaans is the aimless roaming through the city. He is the excessive wanderer through the urban labyrinth. Whereas Eijkelboom knows precisely what he wants, Spaans doesn’t know where he’s going to. In that respect I believe he’s just as much a conceptual artist as an old fashioned romantic. He is driven through his curiosity for that strange system of streets, alleys, passages, enigmatic places, remains of the past and the banality of present day architecture. He looks at this with the bewilderment of an outsider. He presents his photos not in a series but in tableau’s, that form just such labyrinths like the cities through which he has walked. Everybody recognises the elements in the photos by Peter Spaans, writes Okwui Enwezor in the book ‘Cream - contemporary Art in Culture’, although it is not easy to say exactly what it is. His work has a documentary character, but the casual artlessness, says Okwui, undermines these documentaries, and asks the viewer to have a better look at the environment he thought he knew.
You could also say that about the photos by Hans Eijkelboom. And just as in the diary of Hans Eijkelboom the photos by Peter Spaans are a continuous report from a slightly eccentric flaneur.

It is therefore very understandable that Eijkelboom and Spaans work together . Although each of them has a completely different strategy, they supplement each other in a special way. They both do reports about life in the the city. One looks predominantly at the structure, the other at human behaviour within this structure.


I would finally like to draw your attention to the book that is published with this exhibition. The book is perhaps just as ordinary and unartistic as the photos themselves, but there is a good chance that this book will survive longer than many a glossy coffee table book. The edition is limited so be quick.


Gerrit Willems
Gerrit Willems in zijn openingswoord op 11 september 1999
bij de tentoonstelling 'Verdwaald in Dordrecht'
in het CBK, Centrum Beeldende Kunst te Dordrecht.
Gerrit Willems is de directeur van het CBK.





'VERDWAALD IN DORDRECHT' (lost in Dordrecht)
uitgever: Under Construction Art Projects, 11 september 1999.
Http://www.xs4all.nl/~unconart
Sponsor: CBK, Dordrecht.
editie: 200.



Text in Dutch
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