turning pages
In May 2016 Bart Drost spent four weeks as artist in residence at the Fondacion Obraz in Estremoz. He discovered an abandoned train station whose entrance was bricked up. This led to the project 'o teatro de passenger', in collaboration with fellow artists.
In May 2016 Bart Drost spent four weeks as an artist in residence at the
Foundation Obras, Estremoz, Portugal. Usual such periods are a source
of inspiration for him and they promote the work ethic. Although he
didn't experience this residence as much inspiring , he succeeded to realize a fantastic project.
Why it was so uninspiring? It is a beautiful location, nature glitters
and the property has a three-star level. That the weather was terrible
bad (in ten days fell as much rain as in the year 2015!) may not be a
reason, though this of course affects the general feeling of well being
negative.
No, the lack of inspiration was more the fact that he
experienced the residence as an isolated place, more or less as a
monastry. Of course, the area was gorgeous, with its rolling
countryside, the ringing ringing sheep, satisfied grunting black pigs,
storks and majestic meadows with plenty of colorful flowers. But where
were the Portuguese? Bart had not the feeling he was spending my time in
Portugal. Also the on IKEA inspired decor of the houses did not
contribute to an authentic Alentejo feeling.
That he still
looks back on this work period with a very good feeling is mainly due to
the fact that within fifteen minutes walk from the residence there was
an old abandoned train station. During a walk on the second day of my
stay he saw that half ruined, half bricked building and he knew
immediately that this would be the place where he had to do 'something'.
Since then he worked for three weeks continuously on the project that finally would be named 'o teatro de passagem'.
Everytime again it?s the same strange story: you go somewhere completely blank, no idea what to do and then suddenly 'you see the light. That iss what also this time happened to me on the second day of my residence at Obras. We walked along through those beautifull flowery meadow - no man to see - and suddenly at the left there was an old abonded railway station. Immdeiatly I fell in love with it?
And then right away, like a waterfall the ideas and images well in me, even a title shows up. In a way that is so strong that the project in my head is already finished. To realize it looks like a piece of cake.
As you see the station has five doors. Two of them are open, three are stone-bricked and plastered. In the left door you see a small hole: someone tried to look inside?
But when you can make a hole in it to look inside, why not breaking down the whole wall!
So I decided to re-open the train station and to give it a new function: let this old abandoned train station be a platform where the arts can grow and flourish. In fact I continued the project I started in my own studio in my hometown Nijmegen. In days where the arts are dismissed as unnecessary and superfluous ? because they are not of any commercial interest ? I initiated MAAS, a place where artists can develop and experiment their new ideas, show art works that no gallery or museum is
interested in.
Breaking down the brick walls in the doors of the railway station was just part one of the whole project. Of course one had his doubts: will and can he really do this? Because it takes a lot of energy and time.
Well, demolishing the doors took almost three hours each and a lot of powerfull blows with a sledgehammer. And of course a couple of days to clear away the debris and to clean everything that it looks like it was never been otherwise.
May 15th I started to build up again.
The four rooms of the station (the 4th and 5th door lead into one big space) had to be 'restyled'. I decided to make in each of them one mural that covered an entire wall.
After six days I had painted over 60.000 little blue 'wavelets' by hand on the walls and the work was finished.
The four rooms each have his own character: from the left to the right: room 1 has three layers of blue, room 2 two layers, room 3 one layer and in room 4 on the mural one small detail of the painting in room 4 is hugely enlarged.
On a wall in the fourth room I finally signed a kind of summary table, which showed how many wavelets I painted one certain wall in a day.
At the end of the residence and as a kind of tribute to the abandonded train station Bart Drost invited his collegue residence artists to contribute to a small show.
"We could make a beautiful late afternoon together,with spectacle, eat drink and ? who knows ? visitors. (At least there will beno art critics, gallery owners or other big ones from the art scene, so you canfeel free to do whatever you want!)."
With the theme in mind 'passagem' (everything is passing by) the artists made their own piece of art and shared it with each other.
Josef Kleindienst, who wrote special for this occasion the short play 'at the station' and forced me to be an actor for eight minutes.In May 2016 Bart Drost spent four weeks as an artist in residence at the Foundation Obras in Estremoz, Portugal. During a walk on the second day of his stay he discovered an old abandoned railway station, half ruined, half bricked and he knew immediately that this would be the place for his new project. Since then he worked for three weeks continuously on a place where you can travel in your mind, in your imagination and that finally would be named: 'o teatro de passagem'.
Drost
invited his fellow residents to participate in his project: "A theater
needs a program and artists who will do acts. Therefore I ask you all to
be willing to participate in the show. We could make a beautiful late
afternoon together, with spectacle, eat, drink and ? who knows ?
visitors. It would be great if you could give a tribute to the theater
show: maybe you can dance, read, make music, do a performance (There
will be no art critics, gallery owners or other big ones from the art
scene, so you can feel free to do whatever you want).
In this book
an overview of the works and the show, some fb-messages, e-mails to the
homefront, snapshots and a short history about the wavelets in Drosts artworks.
For a digital version klick here
edited in 2016
full collor digiprint
100 pages, glued
text in English
Euro 15.00
The special thing about the artists in an Artist Residencies is that there is often a wide variety of nationalities present. This occasionally causes some confusion in communication. Bart Drost asked the author Josef Kleindienst (from Vienna) to write a short story and then divide this story into five texts for five artists. They each read their text in their own language. To understand the entire story, the audience had to talk to each other after the reading.
