About 25 years ago, Louk Tilanus expressed the then current view of what a penny was: round, flat in shape, handy format, texted, executed in bronze. Piet Esser once said that an object was a penny if the maker claimed that it was a token. In his standard work on the Association of Penning art, Tilanus reconciled both views by giving it the title of Handzame Sculpture (Handy Sculpture). In recent times, many small figurines have been sold as medals.

An image is a form that follows the meaning. In my opinion, a medal is more than that. As soon as you could place the object as part of a model railway environment, it is no longer a penny in my opinion. The real penny tells a story: much like a novella disguised as a handy sculpture. The design, the text and the tension between the two sides together tell that story. The literal story is not fixed; it is a combination of the maker's intentions and the viewer's interpretation. I tell you my novella about one of the medals.

"Around 1950 little boy Bernd goes to school in an East German provincial town. His head is overflowing with poignant stories about three great infallible leaders: Marx, Lenin and Stalin, three demigods, brothers, at the Olympus of Communism. As Bernd grows up he decides to become a sculptor, and therefore does not make life easier. His transverse mind clashes regularly. Years later the Wall falls and the world opens up to him. He can suddenly travel without further obstacles, and therefor broaden his artistic and spiritual horizons.

Bernd Göbel is angry, angry over the many years spent in a proverbial straitjacket. To express his anger, he makes a medal in which he compresses all his anger. The medal shows the portraits of The Big Three. Of course the medal is not round, because the system was not that ideal. The front and the back are provisionally kept together by iron wires and split pins, because the system did not get anything of importance done either. The text on the coin was formerly used secretly: Wo wir waren war immer vorn und wenn wir hinten waren war hinten vorn. Freely translated: we were always right. On the back of the medal, this form of leadership is once again enforced with guns.

Soon, Göbel experienced that a straitjacket was not an exclusive communist privilege. Church leaders, politicians, municipal administrators, managers: many are inclined to abuse their power to impose their will on others. He therefore writes a wish on a piece of paper and hides it between the two halves of the coin. Only when the iron wires and the cotter pin have failed we will get to know the nature of his wish, and see if it has come true."

The tokens that I have chosen for the exhibition in the new showcase all tell a story with a cross element, like discomfort, resistance, irony or humor, or simply a very different form.

By far the most tokens (medals) have two sides, but in one case the maker found the misconduct that his medal refers to, or represent, of such serious content that he choses to create a medal without a second side.

Medals in a display case, it is something like displaying books in a shop window. You can only see the cover, and at most it'll invite you to buy the book and read it. Medals need to be held in ones hand regularly, to be able to look at it from all sides and perspectives. One should also gather information about it. This way it slowly reveals to you your own novella. I hope the exhibition invites you to make a start with that.

The Quist display contains works by:

Elly Baltus
Eric Claus
Guido Geelen
Bernd Göbel
Karl Götz
Karel Goudsblom
Jeroen Henneman
Jennifer Cover
Walter van der Horst
Pier of Leest
Marineke Leijenhorst
Willem Lenssinck
Riki Meyling
Mirjam Mieras
Lucie and Christien Nijland
Willem Noyons
Kees Reek
Jos Reniers
Cil from Ingen Schenau
Theo van de Vathorst
Linda Verkaaik
Miek Flamings
Sef Verschraelen