Ten Haaf Projects is pleased to announce: “Dance of the Discontent”, a solo exhibition by Jim Mooijekind (b.1992). The title of the show captures Mooijekind’s dilemma: while celebrating a hedonistic lifestyle, there is an emptiness and loneliness in his generation. “What to believe in?” His struggle for understanding the chaos and complexity of the world makes it hard to freely celebrate life.
Matisse painted La Danse as a celebration of hedonism, being young and liberated. Mooijekind shows us his world, in which there is a desire to be young and carefree, but the reality of global problems makes this impossible. His way of dealing with the dilemma is to create an absurd world and visual language.
Mooijekind’s works are figurative and feature primary colours. They depict human figures in different situations, set in absurd landscapes. There are life-size paintings with strong colourful figures celebrating life, contrasting with a drawing of a figure in anexistential crisis. These two opposites return throughout his work, which shifts between happy and troubled while maintaining the absurd element. Mooijekind likes to challenge the seriousness of the art world with humour, playfulness and bad taste.
Mooijekind works in diverse media and with diverse materials. Works on view in the exhibition are paintings, drawings sculptures and scarfs. Mooijekind is Dutch and lives in Den Haag. He graduated from the KABK in Den Haag in 2017. This is his first solo exhibition.
“Dance of the Discontent” will be shown in our temporary location at Geldersekade 30, 1012 BJ Amsterdam. During the evening, Galerie Vriend van Bavink & Witteveen Visual Art Centre will also host their exhibition openings in the same building with works by Barbara Broekman, Tinkebell and Romy Muijers.

Opening : Friday December 1st, 5-8 pm

mpefm HOLLAND art press release