This Sunday, we welcome artist Christiaan Bastiaans at ROZENSTRAAT.

 

His video work Face to Face (1978) is currently on display as part of the Rosebud programme of the Sonic Acts biennial. During Salon #6, the closing event of the exhibition, Sjoerd Kloosterhuis and Madelon van Schie, curators of ROZENSTRAAT, will be in conversation with the artist about his work and practice.

 

Bastiaans’ oeuvre conveys a profound fascination with the human experience, in particular human vulnerability and resilience. In his photographs, illustrations, sculptures, and video works, the body recurs as a repository of identity, displacement, and exclusion. Bastiaans draws on his own family history and the stories of people he has met in conflict zones,  depicting human fragility at large. Face to Face (1978) is an early example of this theme, in which Bastiaans makes his own body disappear whilst simultaneously reflecting the world around him.

About the artist

Christiaan Bastiaans (1951) studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and at Kyoto City University of Arts. His work has been exhibited at institutions including De Pont, the Kröller-Müller Museum, the New Museum in New York, De Appel, and ROZENSTRAAT – a rose is a rose is a rose. He has also participated in major international exhibitions such as the 12th Biennale de Paris at the Musée d’Art de la Ville de Paris (1982) and Aperto at the Venice Biennale (1988). In 2015, he presented the solo exhibition Pharmacy Deux Mille at Looiergracht 60 in Amsterdam. His work is part of several museum collections, including the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 2022, he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize.