This fall ROZENSTRAAT presents a solo exhibition with works by Kinke Kooi (1961).
Join us for the festive opening on Friday, 20 November, from 5–7 pm, during Amsterdam Art Week.
For eromheen (being around), Kinke Kooi transforms the space of ROZENSTRAAT – a rose is a rose is a rose into a total installation where new and existing works come together. eromheen is a new understanding that Kinke wants to emancipate, like a ‘vase around water, decoration around a door, a supporter around a star, a setting around a stone, a womb around a baby and a wall around a room’.
The work of Kinke Kooi is explicitly feminine and feminist. In her refined drawings and photographic works, with flowing lines, curves, openings and brightly coloured rays, Kooi explores shame, sensuality, domesticity and hospitality. She approaches ‘the other’ with gentleness and compassion, directing our attention to what generally remains unnoticed, what is preferably left unseen, and what we feel ashamed of. She sees this as a political statement. Her lines and auras are less intent on drawing attention to a central point than on highlighting the space around it, showing that beauty and strength can be found precisely in what we overlook. In doing so, she challenges our ideas of beauty and social status: why are some things considered important and others dismissed? And why is the aesthetic of the feminine so often undervalued?
In eromheen the boundaries between inside and outside, body and environment begin to dissolve, giving rise to a sense of togetherness.