Tot vandaag was het werk van Jasper de Beijer (1973) vooral te zien op tentoonstellingen in Franse, Belgische en Nederlandse musea (Fotomuseum Den Haag, WIELS, Brussel, Centre Photographique Rouen, Frankrijk) en op prestigieuze groepstentoonstellingen als Art Brussel, PAN Amsterdam en Paris Photo. Met plezier toont FLATLAND vanaf zaterdag 13 februari dan ook voor het eerst in de galerie enkele werken van De Beijer uit ‘The Admiral’s Headache’.

Jasper de Beijer, The Admiral’s Headache – Bastion, 2020,180 x 84 cm, Pigment print (with frame 187,0 x 91,2 cm) Edition of 7 + 1 AP

Voormalige plantage op Curaçao (1880)

13 februari – 13 maart, 2021 
Capsule Presentation *

Until today, the work of Jasper de Beijer (1973) has mainly been shown at exhibitions in French, Belgian and Dutch museums (Fotomuseum The Hague, WIELS, Brussels, Center Photographique Rouen, France) and at prestigious group exhibitions such as Art Brussels, PAN Amsterdam and Paris Photo. From Saturday 13 February, FLATLAND is therefore pleased to show some works by De Beijer from "The Admiral's Headache" for the first time in the gallery.

Jasper de Beijer, The Admiral’s Headache – Bastion, 2020,180 x 84 cm, Pigment print (with frame 187,0 x 91,2 cm) Edition of 7 + 1 AP

Voormalige plantage op Curaçao (1880)

In De Beijer's photo collages he shows us emotionally charged, sensational and evocative images from the past or from faraway places. From apocalyptic situations (the Brazilian Suitcase) about expeditions in the Amazon in which the Indian people build a temple of straw with a trophy around a crashed expedition plane. Or images (Le Sacre du Printemps) to Diaghilev's ballet, in which horse and rider explode simultaneously, as one aesthetic rearrangement of mud, stone and iron. 

Jasper de Beijer, The Admiral’s Headache – Galjoen, 2018,110 x 110 cm,
c-print,  Edition of 7 + 1 AP

Up close one can see the handmade, simple models and self-built sets that De Beijer constructed with little more than ink, paper, adhesive tape, glue and nails. In its vulnerability, this imperfection betrays that we knowingly surrender to nostalgia and - this is one more tragic fate - that we allow ourselves to be manipulated unconsciously.

a work in progress, Jasper de Beijer

Curator Raphaëlle Stopin wrote in Jeu de Paume, Magazine about De Beijer: “Since graduating from the HKU, Jasper de Beijer has been involved with the a matter of representation, with imagery as an essential element in the structure of history and as a vector for mythology and cliché.” 

This also applies to De Beijer's latest works from The Admiral's Headache. 

sketch, a work in progress, Jasper de Beijer

The series The Admiral’s Headache was created as a result of De Beijers residency at the Instituto Buena Bista in Curaçao in 2017. Here he faced the gaudy, restaurated remains of the Dutch 17th-century architecture: canal houses in bright colors and decorated bunkers that are located at monumental locations and from where African people in slavery were ruled over. “Also the interior of these Curaçao mansions were a copy of typical Dutch farmhouses interiors; as if they had Dutch culture locked up inside their walls, like a Dutch cocoon ”, says De Beijer.

Jasper de Beijer, The Admiral’s Headache – Brigadier, 2019,134 x 110 cm, c-print
Edition of 7 + 1 AP

In The Admirals Headache, the settlers are present in their absence. As hidden players, they are only invisibly present behind their facades or in their empty uniforms. 

a work in progress, Jasper de Beijer

In the panoramic work "Bastion" from "The Admiral Headache", bright arcs of lights twinkle against a dark sky, fired from the Dutch fortresses at invisible ships of different European origins, crossing the slave houses overhead that lie scattered over the hills. In "De Brigadier" De Beijer depicts the expensive costume of power as a hard but empty shell, deflated on the bed. Here too, the human dimension is absent. And the bearers of the work "De Koets" are nowhere to be seen, like the classical door opening scenes from the spaceships in science fiction movies. For De Beijer these carriages are the symbol of the ultimate seclusion from the outside world, which is controlled and suppressed.

The Jasper de Beijer exhibition will be shown digitally up to and including 2 March and hereafter can be visited in real life, by appointment until March 13, 2021.

Jasper de Beijer, The Admiral’s Headache – Koets, 2019,134 x 110 cm, c-print
Edition of 7 + 1 AP

Since graduating from the School of the Arts in Utrecht in 1997 De Beijer has made many projects. In 2018, De Beijer completed a residency of six months at the WIELS Institute (Brussels) where did research at the Africa Museum in Tervuren. This project was completed in 2019 and presented in WIELS. Jasper de Beijer will have solo exhibition in 2021 in Museum Rijswijk which won the Agnes van den Brandeler Museum Prize 2020. This prize (50,000 euros) is awarded annually to a small or medium-sized Dutch museum with a special plan for a solo exhibition. The jury chose the exhibition proposal by curator Diana Wind.

* Capsule Presentations at FLATLAND are smaller and more condensed exhibitions that are shorter in period, following or partly overlapping the main gallery shows, with different art works presented.