Three Man High is the outcome of the summer residency by Søren Thilo Funder and Tina Helen at Kunsthuis SYB. A project not only visually very strong, but also in which the role of the ‘artist in residence’ and the relation between art and science are researched in an intelligent and critical manner. Imagine you’re […]
In Beetsterzwaag, young and old made their way to the streets on King’s Day to watch the village parade, an annual highlight. The village was taken over by people in chicken suits, hippies and witches, masterchefs and Tom Thumb who at the end of the tour fell out of the boots that were far too […]
Many people in Amsterdam sing on their bikes. In Beetsterzwaag too, the difference being that the song of a cyclist in Beetsterzwaag is brought about by a blissful feeling of simplicity, significance and regularity. A rare form of happiness that can be found in traversing one and the same pattern day in day out. In […]
Beetsterzwaag, 3 February 2014 – From 10 February, Domenico Mangano will spend six weeks in Kunsthuis SYB. With a group of clients from De Wissel, he will make a children’s book and a video about De Wissel. Mangano will go out with clients almost daily and the clients will actively participate in the process of […]
Upon entering Kunsthuis SYB you immediately find yourself eye-to-eye with a monumental wall featuring big black letters spelling ‘Arrivals’. The clean-cut white wall would be reminiscent of a museum ticket desk, were it not for a lady behind a tiny reception expressly requesting you to fill in an ‘arrivals form’. Sitting on one of the […]
A direct flight Majorca – Beetsterzwaag; a more ridiculous flight schedule is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, Beetsterzwaag will soon have an airport. Or rather: a flight base. Where most will see Beetsterzwaag as a natural point of departure, artist Laura Bolscher on the other hand sees this small village in Friesland as a place of […]
‘How do I deal with the artistic process, for instance with in between moments where nothing is fixed and there’s room for interaction and dialogue?’ It’s one of the questions concerning Daniela Apice during her stay in Beetsterzwaag. In 2009, Apice began showing work by young artists in the stairwell of the artists’ initiative space, […]
“How do I keep a gallery: 20 helpful tips for the contemporary practice” Alas: a manual like this isn’t available in the bookshop. Running a gallery is something you learn on the shop floor where scraping together to cover overheads quickly becomes at the expensive of the open, experimental attitude you initially had in mind. […]
According to farmer Geert Geerligs a cow is a “four-hoofed animal with udders under it”. Geert is convinced that a cow can be recognised from a significant distance. Something Tom Kok put to the test. In SYB he presents, among other things, a framed photograph of a field in which there are two white flags with […]
A scientific experiment is generally understood as a test of a certain hypothesis, informed by a desire for definitive answers to articulated questions. But to establish proof, a scientist hardly ever relies on a single experiment. As a rule, he does not deal with isolated tests in relation to a theory, but rather with a […]
What actually is knowledge and how does it come to be? The work of Tom Kok (NL, 1987) arises out of a discourse concerning these epistemological questions. They are questions that have occupied scientists and philosophers from the very outset. The result is a collection of theories: theories that have changed the face of science […]
Savage
Dry Cleaning Series № 7. Beetsterzwaag, Netherlands
It’s like an experiment: one artist, one week, one specific place. What happens if an artist who usually works on long-term projects has but one week to create? From the 30th of October until the 5th of November artists from the postgraduate program HISK in Ghent (ww.hisk.edu) will move their studio’s for seven days to […]
On Saturday the 19th of October, at 5 pm., the sixth Sybren Hellinga Art Prize will be presented in Kunsthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag. You are cordially invited to celebrate this moment with us! The Sybren Hellinga Art Prize is a jury prize, intended to encourage young artists. The prize is named after the former gallery owner […]
Vertaling uit het Engels: Hermien Lankhorst The pineal gland or ‘third eye’ is a small endocrine gland hidden deep within our brain. Anatomically it appears as the only section of our brain that is not half of an(other) entity. Looking at this curious compact nodule, Descartes thought that the pineal gland held the key to our […]
Invitation Join Sober & Lonely at Kunsthuis SYB on Saturday the 29th of June, anytime between 10am and 10pm. There will be real life and long-distance interactions and interventions with other artist-run spaces from near, far, and farther, covering a variety of subjects including asteroids, breakfast, critical pedagogy and dolphins. There will also be presentations […]
SLICA hosted the first series of 24 Hour Suburban Residencies in the summer of 2011 in Johannesburg, with projects including tree climbing, fiery horizons, shrimp cocktails & Frank Sinatra, a curatorial seminar, fridge recordings and other summery interventions. In the summer of 2012, the 24 Hour Suburban Residencies were held in the garden and outside […]
At eight o’clock in the morning Beetsterzwaag is in a state of frenzy: it’s Queen’s Day and that means the annual parade takes place in the village. This year it starts at quarter to nine, so that everyone can be in front of the TV in time to watch the live abdication of Beatrix and […]
What was taking place at Hoofdstraat 70 (70 High Street) before Kunsthuis SYB came into existence and before Sybren Hellinga and his idealistic gallery moved into the little house in Beetsterzwaag? When Kamila Szejnoch encountered Kunsthuis SYB, this must have been the first questions she asked herself; to the Polish artist, it is second nature […]
This text was written after exchanging our thoughts and texts and those of others through e-mail correspondence and Skype. I wasn’t present at Marnie’s public presentation on 16 March 2013, but with this text I hope to contribute to making my engagement with her research public. I can imagine Marnie in the house in Beetsterzwaag, […]
Marnie Slater, “Female Braen Gone Insane” 2013, cover.
The work of Marnie Slater is saturated in language and often focuses specifically on the spoken word. Pondering retreats, she wonders whether language might be contained in silence. After all, keeping silent urges the whole body to ‘speak.’ This silent body possesses a multitude of expressions that cannot be described as ‘without’ language, such as […]
