Woody van Amen & Hidde van Schie - New Romantic Spirit

Beyond irony and cynicism, the two artists created a space for emotions, for sentiment, as a self-reflective striving or desire for something that transcends banal reality.

For 50 years, Woody van Amen‘s (Eindhoven, 1936) remarkable and multifaceted oeuvre has included painting, sculpture, installations, and film. In the mid-sixties, Amen participated in the exhibition ‘Nieuwe Realisten’ at the Haags Gemeentemuseum and subsequently broke through as a leading figure of an international art movement in the Netherlands. Just back from New York and working in a style that amassed appealing icons from consumerism and popular visual culture, he was suddenly the representative of Dutch Pop Art. In the seventies, he began extensively travelling in Asia and Indonesia. The manner in which he has, since then, brought together his interest in low culture – from advertising to film to comics – with notions of identity and spirituality is ground breaking.

Hidde van Schie (Rotterdam, 1978) makes music, writes, creates collages and installations, but is known primarily as a painter. He is also a versatile musician; on his album ‘The Mirror & The Razorblade / Dusty Diamond Eyes’ he sings and plays the guitar and organ. No difference emerges in Van Schie’s work between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art: both matter, ‘when it hits you,’ as he says. His compositions of jungles and birds are painted with a supple ease and virtuoso hand, often referring to famous motifs in art. In his sculptures and collages, he assembles all kinds of materials: magazine photos, texts or parts of musical instruments such as drums, guitars, and speakers.

The exhibition was accompanied by a publication with texts by Noor Mertens, curator Modern & Contemporary Art and City Collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and published by Nai010.