From 28 November museum Beelden aan Zee will exhibit works by Carel Blotkamp (1945), artist and emeritus professor of modern art of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

In Het Kabinet he will display both earlier and more recent works that relate to significant sculptures from the history of art. The material that Blotkamp uses is somewhat striking: brightly coloured sequins. His somewhat unusual choice of a medium that we generally associate with the decoration of clothing or clothing-related attributes can be described as ‘graceful gravity’. He often attaches the sequins to an existing image such as a postcard or an exhibition poster, either following that which is portrayed very closely or simply adding a few accents.

Blotkamp uses the small plastic sequins in order to furnish visual comments to works by artists that he admires such as Mondriaan, Barnett Newman, Dan Flavin and Giacometti. In doing so, he calls into question aspects relating to the status and reputation of both the artist and the work of art, for example, on the basis of his extensive knowledge and understanding of art history. In texts he makes use of statements made by artists who sometimes go into so much background detail that their meaning becomes clouded.

Although he retired from his professorship in 2007, Blotkamp is still exceptionally active. In addition to writing books and articles, he is also involved in setting up exhibitions, for example last year for the retrospective exhibition Carel Visser: Genesis, held in museum Beelden aan Zee.